“It's been exactly 2 years since the explosion at Amity Parks own Nasty Burger, which resulted in the death of five individuals and the disappearance of 15 year old Daniel Fenton. Police have recently asked the public to stop looking for the missing teen, declaring him dead. A funeral service will be held for the teen tonight, as well as a memorial for those who died in the explosion, at Casper High School where young Daniel and his two friends, Tucker Foley and Samantha Manson, would have graduated this upcoming year.”
Danny tuned out the rest of the news report, staring dully at the screen before him. He had heard these reports every night since the accident, his captures forcing him to relive the worst day of his life, over and over again.
The teen's glowing eyes were horrifically dry, small hooks embedded into his eyelids to force him to focus on the screen. Danny vaguely registered the screen changing to the weather report, which only played for a second before still images took over the screen.
Photos of his family and friends' mutilated bodies cycled on the screen, a disturbing sight Danny had become used to over the past few years. He had stopped reacting openly to the sight of them after month 3, but that didn't stop them from showing him them. They knew it hurt him, even if they refused to admit that Ghosts could, in fact, still feel pain.
Danny's core wrenched at the sight of his loved ones' corpses.
His mothers beautiful violet eyes, only a shade or two darker than his girlfriends, staring blankly into nothingness. His Fathers kind and jovial face, now covered in blood and dust. His lips, that were usually sporting a goofy grin, now slack and torn. His best friend, who always joked with him and made him laugh, was pinned beneath a piece of concrete, his glasses lay shattered beside him.
And Sam. His beautiful, amazing, smart girlfriend. Danny couldn't even see her face, the only thing visible being one of her legs sticking out from a mass of rubble, only recognizable as hers because of the boots she always wore.
There was no photo of Jazz. They said she was so close to the explosion that there was nothing left to take a photo of.
And all of it was his fault.
They had been after him, and they got caught in the crossfire.
He should have known that the GIW, or the AGA as they now called themselves, would stop at nothing to get their hands on him. He should have taken them down when he had the chance, but he was naive. He thought that after he had helped save the world from the Asteroid that they would stop coming after him. Why he thought that way, he had no idea. He was obviously wrong.
And now the GIW had killed his family, locked him in a cage, and cut him up whenever they got the chance.
He was only grateful that they had lost their government funding after the asteroid incident, as the American government had found out that they had been working under the table for Vlad. They were only able to do so much with their now limited resources.
They were so focused on keeping him contained, that they had been unable to capture any other Ghosts, leaving them and the Zone safe from the wannabe scientists.
Danny unfocused his gaze, attempting to block out the images since he wasn't able to close his eyes. He had a few hours before the Agents were due to start up their t̶o̶r̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ experiments again.
Or so he thought.
The halfa was pulled from his thoughts as the automatic door to his left slid open, the sound of heavy duty boots moving quietly across the green stained tile.
A tanned man appeared in front of Danny, decked in the typical all while garb that gave the formerly known Ghost Investigation Ward their nickname. Danny couldn't see anything past the dark sunglasses that covered the man's eyes, but he could still recognize the man as Agent Z, the Agent that took the most pleasure in torturing the Ghostly teen.
Danny tried his best to smirk at the man, ignoring the metallic sour taste of the blood that beaded up in his split lip.
“Missed me so much that you couldn't wait the few hours before torture time, eh Z,” Danny rasped, his vocal cords still shot from when they had cut them. Trying to Wail himself out of the lab last year probably wasn't the best idea.
“Only you would be able to come up with a snarky remark in this kind of a situation, Billy,” Agent Z deadpanned in a voice that definitely didn't belong to him.
Danny's eyes would have widened if they weren't as wide as they could go. There was only one person, or Ghost, that called him Billy.
“Amorpho,” Danny mouthed, not sure who could be listening.
The bald man nodded, pulling his shades down just enough so that Danny could see his ruby red eyes, a cocky smirk settling on his lips.
“I'm here to get you out. I'll answer your questions later, we only have so much time,” The shapeshifter explained as he gently pulled the hooks from the teens eyelids, before rushing behind him and placing a hand on the scanner at Danny's back. The restraints that had been holding the Halfa in an X formation in the center of the lab released with a hiss, dropping him less than gracefully to the floor.
The white haired teen grunted as he stiffly pushed himself up, already feeling small amounts of ectoplasm entering his body and replenishing his core. The restraints had cut off his ability to absorb any ectoplasm from the air, which was the reason why Danny was unable to recover from his injuries as fast as he normally would have. He was only able to keep enough ectoplasm in his system to keep him from fading, making it impossible to escape on his own.
Amorpho quickly rushed back to the teen, picking him up and placing him on his back as the building was rocked by an explosion.
“That's our que,” Amorpho hummed as sirens and red flashing lights came to life within the room. Danny could faintly hear the agents rushing around down the hall, his enhanced hearing one of the first of his powers to begin coming back.
“You guys staged a rescue mission,” Danny muttered tiredly into the man's ear. The tone made it hard to decipher if it was a question or observation.
“Yes, well Frostbite, Wulf, and Pandora did. They have been planning this since they found out the Feds had taken you, but it took a while to find out where you were, and longer to get a plan together since these guys are trained to find ghosts and all,” The older ghost stated quickly as he opened the door manually, all electricity having been screwed up by the explosion. Red eyes scanned the hallway before stepping out and running to the right when no Agents could be seen.
“Why aren't you flying,” Danny slurred, fighting to stay awake, the warm energy flowing into him making him feel groggy.
“Can’t use my ghost powers or their equipment will go off. We may have taken down their main power grid but their hand held stuff works just fine. I can hide my energy in this form as long as I only don't do anything that would leave an ectoplasmic trail.”
After that the pair remained quiet, listening out for the humans in order to avoid being caught. Fortunately, all of the Agents seemed to be moving to the lower floors in order to escape through their service tunnels, leaving the top entrance open for them to use.
It was only a few flights of stairs later that the pair made it to the elevator that led to the surface. The only problem was that without any power, or back up power because the explosion also happened to take out the generators, the elevator would be unable to move. There also weren't any stairs, for safety reasons as the elevator could only be accessed by hand print.
“What now?”
“We should be far enough away from them that I can fly us out of here. even if their equipment picks us up, we will be long gone before they get here,” Amorpho stated, adjusting Danny on his back before he became intangible, phasing through the door of the elevator and flying up the shaft. The pair quickly made it into the abandoned building that was being used as a decoy to hide the entrance to the lab.
The place was surrounded by tall evergreens, and the night was humid, being as it was the middle of July. Danny had no idea what state they were in, or if they were even still in America. That didn't matter though as Danny's eyes were pulled to the green glow of a portal that had just opened within the tree line.
A large, furry head stuck out of the swirling green vortex. All green eyes found Danny and amorpho in an instant, a look of relief coloring the Canine Ghosts face. Wulf's large paw gestured for them to come over to him. Danny was pulled into the animals arms as soon as Amorpho was close enough, a wet snout burying itself in the teens matted hair.
“Estas bone vidi vin, mia amiko. Ni tiom maltrankviliĝis (it is good to see you, my friend. We have been so worried.),” Wulf's deep voice rumbled through the teens body, making the boy feel safer then he had been in the last 2 years.
“Vi ankaŭ mankis al mi, Wulf (i missed you too, wulf),” Danny whispered, burying his own face into Wulf's neck.
“We should get out of here before those eggheads find us,” Amorpho said as he watched the doors of the building, Agents Z's form melting away to show a gray scale noir detective looking Ghost.
Danny tensed as a thought came to him. He focused his hearing as best he could, trying to locate the Agents. The teen could just barely hear the group, the sound getting quieter as the second ticked away. Eventually all sound ceased.
“They're gone,” The boy told them, stepping away from Wulf's warm fur,” I have something to do first.”
“What? You need to get back to the Zone, Billy,” Amorpho practiaclly yelped,” You're still way too low on ectoplasm.”
Danny ignored the Grey Ghost, taking a cautious step away from the pair. his knees were wobbly and weak. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he had stood on his own two feet.
“They'll come back, and they'll just keep running those damn experiments. I can't just sit by and let that happen. I won't run the risk of them capturing any of us any time soon,” he growled as he spread his legs slightly, bending his knees and bracing himself.
“I suggest you cover your ears and stay behind me.”
The pair's eyes widened quickly as Danny took a deep breath, shoving their hands over their ears.
Danny could feel his lungs bubble up, likely still holding some blood from the last time he had been placed on the dissection table. The haphazard stitches on his chest pulled and ripped, small rivlets of glowing green blood dripping down under his torn suit and dampening the “fabric”. The teen pulled in as much air and ectoplasm as he could from the portal behind him, before letting it all loose with a scream.
The halfa fell to the floor with a thump as soon as his lungs had been emptied. A small smile graced his lips as his eyes slid shut, the last thing in his sight before he fell unconscious was the still falling rubble of the lab.
He made sure there was nothing left.