Chapter 3

In all of his excitement, Danny seemed to have forgotten exactly what his parents did, and the feeling welling up in his stomach was reminding him that he didn’t just gain powers.

He probably gained enemies as well, possibly his parents. With worry cascading his face Danny skims through the books in the lab, already on his fifth one. It’s not that he bothered to actually read through them all, he was just scanning through. Many of these books were written by his parents, and Danny finds himself uncomfortable with what he’s reading.

More than just a few of these books were more like lab reports, or experiment logs. Experiments done by his parents. On ghosts. There were pictures as well, depicting dissections and showcasing the beginning and end of multiple ghosts. Make that many ghosts. Most seem like monsters, glowing green ectopi, some spectral birds that looked like skeletal vultures. Another picture of a large wolf that was chained down. It looked like it easily outsized his parents, but there was a note next to the picture. ‘Escaped.’

So his parents could catch, and detain ghosts long enough to dissect them to death. “Awesome.” Danny grumbled.

So they could also, in theory, hunt him down and experiment on him as well. He thought these powers made him more free, they were superpowers after all, but these powers seemed to have come to the wrong person. He was now a human-ghost thing, and he couldn’t keep it out of his head how fanatic he’d seen his parents go off to hunt ghosts down. That could be him that they chase. That they hunt.

Danny opens another book, one titled ‘Ecto-Anatomy’. Danny pauses, fear and concern flashing across his face before he growls and opens it with determination. That angry scowl quickly turns meek, and his already pale skin dips even further. The first ghost, a glowing green skeleton, similar to a human but with four arms. It was strapped to a table, glowing shackles keeping it restrained. The next page has another picture, along with familiar handwritten notes on a post-it note, his mother's handwriting. Danny read the note in a quiet whisper: “Subject SG-12 has similar reactions to what pain would be expected from a human. However, When the two left arms were removed, they quickly melted into ectoplasm. This further adds evidence to the theory that ghosts are made entirely of energy, thus unable to feel pain.” Danny shuddered, imagining himself strapped to a table and getting taken apart. He shakes his head, ‘They’re my parents.’

The picture depicted the same skeleton with two of its arms removed, with a new chest shackle in place to keep it still. There was a fire in it’s eye sockets, literally, and they burned with hate towards his parents. Danny turned the page and read through it. He turned it again, and again and again, before he slammed it shut. He was only halfway through.

With heavy breathing heavily and wide eyes Danny puts the book back in its original place. More and more pictures showing dissections on multiple ghosts; an iguana ghost split down the middle in vivisection, the ectoplasm was pooling in the chest cavity and spilling out onto the floor. The final result was a canister of ectoplasm, one he can see in this very room. There’s weapons effects on certain types of ghosts, and so much more...

Danny packs up everything he took out, placing everything where it was before he started searching. He nods with a strained smile, and heads up the stairs to his room. While those lab reports were disturbing and made Danny worry about his future, he did get some tips from a few of them.

In hindsight, it probably wasn’t a great idea to try shooting ecto-energy; a sizzling scorch mark on the wall next to his desk. An easy problem to fix by moving the desk over. Still, Danny didn’t think he would get it so quick. The books said that not all ghosts are powerful enough to use ecto-energy attacks. It’s surprising how easy it is. Even now, two hours in, Danny was playing with the ectoplasmic energy dancing across his hands. The energy was crackling and bubbling around back and forth from his two hands, forming very distorted shapes. The looks of glee and amazement on Danny's face is more than enough to get his amusement across.

Jazz will be getting back soon, so now is better to stop than later. Assuming these powers are permanent. Turning back to his normal form was easy enough: with a thought, the cloak is gone. Easy.

Turning back wasn’t as easy, it took a few minutes and it didn’t last very long. Trying for a third time was a waste of thirty minutes.

Danny went back to the kitchen, doing one final check to see if anything was out of place. Any ectoplasm or blood? Or both? The kitchen is clean, the lab is next.

Danny checked all the books he touched, the portal and the floor and equipment. All clean! All that’s left to do was watch tv; Jazz will be back soon and they can order dinner then. It feels like a pizza night.

It was strange, coming home. She hadn’t been gone long, but something felt different. Nothing seemed out of place; Danny was lazing around and watching TV, that’s nothing unusual though he was… still. Upon further realization, Jazz realized how cold it was in here. Checking the AC says that it’s set to seventy, but… it’s at sixty?

“Hey Danny, what’s with the AC?” Jazz asks.

Danny turns around from the couch and giving her a confused stare. “What do you mean? It feels fine to me.”

‘Fine?’ “Danny it’s 60° in here, it’s set to seventy, and I know that it’s at least 90° outside.” Jazz pauses for a moment, to look at her brother again. After a moment she walks over to him, and he shrugs and turns back to the TV.

‘Is it really that cold in here?’ It certainly didn’t feel like it, if anything it felt comfortable. ‘Oh shit.’ When he was… incapacitated, earlier. The whole kitchen was flash frozen to ice. It was just the kitchen right? It went away too quickly to actually know if it was the whole house or just the kitchen.

Suddenly Danny feels a hand on his forehead, “Ahh!” Startled he pulls away and shoots a confused glare at his sister.

Jazz stares at her hand for a brief moment, “Danny, you’re freezing!” before she quickly goes to the closet and grabs a blanket and throws it on top of him “Wha-”. She eyes her little brother while he corrects his position and proceeds to give her a dirty look. “How are you feeling, Danny? Do you want some soup?”

Although momentarily startled by his sisters caring attitude, Danny still smiles. “Jazz, really, I feel fine. If you’re insisting though, I’ll have some.” Jazz doesn’t look convinced, and feels his forehead again. He’s just as cold as it was a moment ago, “I don’t buy it little brother. Stay here and I’ll go make you something. Don’t move got it?”

There’s no room for argument here. “Alright, alright. I won’t move, happy?” If she is, Jazz doesn’t show it “You better.” She mumbles, and continues toward the kitchen. When Jazz enters the kitchen she can instantly tell it’s even worse in here. If it’s sixty in the living room, it has to be fifty or below. She can see her own breath, this isn’t normal. With concern maring her face, Jazz looks back to the living room, before continuing with her original goal.

It isn’t until the soups almost done does she notice something on the floor. To be more specific, Jazz notices what looks like… claw marks? On the tile. Jazz walks closer to the center of the kitchen and crouches down. The marks come in a pair, about two feet away from each other. Have these always been here?

Before she can make any more observations, the timer for the soup goes off, making Jazz jump a little. She gets up, pours it into a bowl, and goes to one of the utility drawers to grab a thermometer from it. She takes the bowl of soup and thermometer, places it on a tray, and brings to her brother who looks the same as before: completely unfazed by the temperature in the room.

Jazz takes the thermometer, “Here, say ‘Ahh’”. “Say Ahh-Ahk?!” and shoves it into Danny's mouth while he’s turning his head to her. “Don’t take it out.” Danny was going to argue, but the look on his sisters face makes him meek. She hands him the tray and waits a minute for the thermometer to adjust.

Danny looks at her with confusion and concern. Confusion for why she’s doing this, then concern when he remembers that all the ice from earlier did in fact come from him. The minute passes painfully slow, with Danny slowly losing his cool.

On the mark Jazz takes the thermometer out, which prompts Danny to move. “I’m gonna eat this my room, Thanks!” Jazz steps back in surprise and before she can say anything he’s already up the stairs. She eyes the area she last saw him and then returns her attention to the thermometer. Her eyes widen, “Seventy-five?” Really? Seventy-five degrees? The human body has an average body temperature of ninety-eight point six, seventy-five would make him a corpse in the cold.

An incredulous look appears on her face, washing away confusion. “This thing has to be broken. I’ll have to pick up another one later.” She can’t help but to send one more glance back towards her little brothers room.

Unfortunately, Danny didn’t get to enjoy that soup. When he picked up the bowl and spoon, his hand holding the bowl turned intangible, along with the bowl, and the hot soup spilled all over his lap. Why couldn't they have just gotten pizza?

Although it’s been an eventful day, Danny already knows what he’s doing tomorrow, and the excitement was definitely getting to him. There’s also the spasms of pain that shoots through his body every once in a while, but if Danny was being honest, he was starting to get used to them. It just didn’t hurt as much anymore.

Danny had an eye to do one thing tomorrow: train his powers. There was a forest outside of town, a perfect place to get a hand on this new part of his life. Or maybe afterlife was a better term. Danny wasn’t really sure what he was. A quick check gave him confirmation that he did indeed have a heartbeat. It was slow though, and there was a second pulsing in his chest as well. It calmed him down to feel it, there was a cool energy that he could feel coursing through his veins.

Danny smiled, the feeling in his chest soothed his mind and soon he was off to sleep.

Danny felt cold sweat going down his back and arms. His palms felt clammy, and his breathing was picking up in pace. His face was pale and he was biting his lips.

‘How did I miss this?’ Actually, a lot has been going on recently so it’s not too hard to explain that. The sight in the mirror though, that wasn’t something Danny was expecting to see. Nor did he want to see this. Lichtenberg Figures danced across his back, emanating from the center of his back. It seemed the scars emerged from where the pulsing in his chest was, and they reached down to his lower back, stopping at his tailbone. They spread up towards the base of his neck, and almost reached his sides, stopping before they became visible from the front. A few stray strands reached his shoulders.

Danny shuddered. They weren’t terribly noticeable, as long as he never took a shirt off. Oh, who was he kidding? One look at his back and it would be easy to tell.

Well, Danny did get electro-portaled, and it stands to reason all that pain he felt had to have some… physical repercussions. He groaned, there was no way he could ever change in the locker room again. It was going to be a while till he could go swimming in public. Or around his family. Or his frie- “How do I explain this?”

That was another issue entirely. His research into the lab turned him off from the idea of telling his parents. Jazz was out as well, and although she’s a great sister, there’s no way she wouldn’t tell his parents. What about Sam and Tucker? There weren’t many secrets they kept from each other, and this would be a pretty damn big secret to keep. Since he, well, died. Kind of; the heartbeat sort of contradicted that he’s dead, but the ectoplasm in his blood said otherwise.

To tell or not to tell.

They wouldn’t be back for a few days, so he had time, but was it enough time to figure this out? He just had to think this through. Would they still accept him? Tucker… would probably keep his secret, but he also didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut around a pretty girl. ‘You know, my best friend has awesome superpowers, how about a double date with you and your pretty friend?’ He could just imagine it. Sam, well she’s a lot of things, and much more volatile. Sam’s very emotional, smart, headstrong, and possessive. It’s hard to convince her, putting it lightly. If she was really dead set in her ways, then there would be no convincing her. There was no guarantee that she would be okay with it, and convincing her would be a tall order even for a politician. It’s debatable whe-

“Danny! Food is done!” Danny jumps, breaking his thoughts back into the present. That’s in the future, not the now. Danny rubs his face in his hands, sighing through his fingers.

“Got it!” Danny puts a grey shirt on and heads downstairs for breakfast. Rolling his shoulder, he takes note of the slight pain from the scars on his back. He didn’t notice it yesterday, but then again this wasn’t that noticeable compared to the attacks of pain he’s dealing with. He can honestly say it’s just a slight discomfort, but them just being there was perturbing.

“Morning.”

Jazz looks over her shoulder, spotting her brother come into the kitchen. “What’s for breakfast?”

She refocuses her attention back towards her cooking, “Eggs, bacon and toast.” It was almost done, just a couple more minutes for the eggs.

“How are you feeling Danny?” Danny pauses, looking at his sister. “I’m fine Jazz. Really. It was just cold in the room.” Danny tries to make it clear that he wants to change topics.

… and it flies right over her head. “Are you sure? You were freezing Danny, you could have gotten sick.” Jazz puts the pan down, and walks over to her brother. Danny glares at her, clearly tired of the topic. “I said I’m fine Jazz. Stop pestering this.” Jazz stops before her hand touches him, then she smiles and ruffles his hair. “I’m just worried for you little brother. I can see that you’re fine, and I’m sorry for overreacting.” She takes note that he’s not cold like yesterday.

Danny waves his hands at her, getting her hand away so he can fix his hair. A sheepish grin was on his face and a small blush tinged his cheeks. “Alright, I got it, just try not to blow things out of the water anymore.”

Jazz gives him an even wider smile, “No promises.” She turns back to finish breakfast. Danny smiles, his parents tend to be absent from their lives most of the time, but at least Jazz was here with him. Even if she was a little too overbearing and overprotective at times.

She finishes soon after and hands Danny a plate. Before he starts he gets up to grab a drink from the fridge. Danny clears his throat while as he walks back to the table. “So I’ll be going out after we eat.”

Jazz looks up, giving him a pointed look. “What time are you going to be back?”

Danny puts his hand to his chin, giving it a quick thought, then shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know. Whenever I’m done I guess.” Jazz stops and raises an eyebrow at her brother, then puts her fork full of eggs down, “Okay… then where are you going?”

Danny doesn’t stop eating and continues to talk, food still in his mouth. “The library probably.” Jazz flinches slightly, before sighing. “Danny, please don’t talk with food in your mouth. That’s a horrible habit to pick up from dad.” He was the only one in the house that actually spoke with food in his mouth.

Danny smirks. Plan successful. Jazz has always been worried that our parents would rub off on me the wrong way, and even though she’s studying psychology he can still use that to distract her. Danny swallows his food, and gives a mock salute with his fork. “Roger that.” Jazz rolls her eyes before continuing to eat her breakfast. “Just make sure you’re back by six alright?”

It didn’t take Danny long to find a more private place outside of his house to ‘transform’ but getting the hang of flying wasn’t easy. Actually, he didn’t really get the hang of it, he had problems flying the whole time. Danny would suddenly lose altitude and almost fall to his death, or he would have random bursts of speed in any direction. Any direction.

At least he can now say that he knows what it feels like to slam into a billboard. He had a feeling he might get to know that feeling in the future.

When Danny finally reached the woods on the outskirts of the city he transformed back and took out his phone. “Ten on the dot.” It took about an hour of shaky and unsteady flying to get here, a little quicker than a car ride, and definitely better than walking!

His budding excitement from last night was coming back in droves, and Danny quickly began setting up to practice. He had brought along a bag of cans and bottles, courtesy of one of the alleys he landed in. He also had his sketchbook and a notebook. He was the son of scientists after all, he wanted to record and go over everything later, and the first order on the agenda? Practicing with ectoplasm!

It doesn’t take long to set up some targets, about twenty cans and six or seven bottles. Danny sets the bottles up high on some tree branches and puts the cans down low on the ground and a fallen tree.

Danny floats back over toward his stuff, about thirty feet away. He pauses for a moment, searching for that feeling, the one in his chest. The pulsing. “There.”

Suddenly Danny’s hands begin to glow green, a thin layer of ectoplasm covers his hands, slowly gaining mass. Taking a deep breath Danny points his hands towards the first target. “Here goes nothing.”

It was immediate. A green blast of ectoplasm, about the size of a softball flew out of Danny's hand down range, taking less than two seconds to hit. Although he misses by what seems like a generous three feet, the ectoplasmic projectile has a concussive force, and it blasts the immediate surroundings away and scorches the ground. Danny flinches, clearly unprepared for his attack to do that much damage.

“WOAH! That was awesome!” Danny grabs his notebook and cellphone, then he floats over toward the area of impact and hovers from left to right in quick rotations. He bobs up and down, clearly excited at the prospect of his newfound power, while taking pictures and notes of the result.

‘Type: Blast, Effect: Concussive, light burns on ground indicating high heat. Accuracy: Needs refinement, off by three feet seven inches.

Power: More than expected. Speed: Very fast, possibly only 1 or 2 seconds. Requires more testing.’

After resetting the cans that got knocked over, Danny heads back and continues his practice. The second blast was a miss, but contained more power. The third shot was also a miss, but it did hit a different can, just not the one he was aiming for. It was becoming easier to use these. The power output was increasing along with the ease of use and aim. Although technically he hasn’t actually hit anything he was aiming for.

The maniacal grin on his face was all someone needed to know to see that Danny was having the time of his life. ‘Oh, yeah, this definitely requires more testing.’

Danny definitely got carried away. The once peaceful forest landscaped looked more akin to a battlefield. Scorch marks marred the area, ground and trees alike, and all his targets were destroyed, along with a few new toppled trees. The cans were melted and the glass bottles were blasted apart, glass littering the area. A few of the glass bottles lay in puddle of hardened glowing slag, tinged green by the paranormal energy that melted them to a pool of molten glass.

Danny lays by his backpack, panting and exhausted in his human form. He practically radiated excitement and joy, despite the drain he felt. He had been here well over eight hours. Taking a quick glance at his phone he notices that its about six-forty. He groaned, Jazz was going to chew him out when he got home. Danny sends her a text, an appeasement to quell the oncoming lecture.

Jazz[Sent]: Hey, omw home now. Sry I kinda lost track of time. And sent.

Danny hoped that would be enough, but he knew he was still going to get an earful later. His tests had gone marvelously. The area around a testament to what he could do. His grin split his face ear to ear as he went over his training.

He could shoot balls of ectoplasm that blew up! He fired lasers from his hands, and if he concentrated on it, from his fingers as well! The last one had zero accuracy though, his first attempt ended with him shooting himself in the face. It was clear his ‘finger gun’ had less power than the ecto-ray and ecto-blast. The ecto-ray had even bisected a few trees along with his glass targets.

He tried shaping the ectoplasm on one of his breaks, but he was only mildly successful. He could stretch it out to make it longer, or compress it into a ball, but a square? A triangle? Too much strain. Danny also noted he had superhuman strength, easily able to lift a tree in one hand. His grip was also something else: off to the side, one of the larger trees had a hand sized hole in it, groves maring the inside, making it obvious that someone dug their fingers into it to cause the damage.

Intangibility and invisibility were mostly the same, though he noted that it was easier than last time. He tried making ice, cryokinesis, like what had happened in the kitchen but his efforts were for naught. Not an ounce of frost or cold graced the area. Zero progress.

That was fine though, he got more than enough practice with flight to make up for it. The trees proved to be an excellent obstacle course, and while he crashed more times than he could count it didn’t matter. Flying was probably the funnest thing he’s ever done, hands down. More fun, he dares to think, than the junior astronaut training.

When Danny attempts to get up he immediately falls back down and his hands rush up to his mouth, groaning in agony. He flops onto his back again and holds his mouth with one hand while the other grips his chest, fingers attempting to dig into his chest through his shirt. His teeth were burning, his head was thumping painfully, and his chest felt like it was being melted from the inside. A dull glow radiated from his body, green ecto-energy clearly flowing through his veins under his skin, all the while making its course through his system. It was spreading, oh go- “AAAARRRGH!” He could feel it in his spine!

A dull cracking reverberates through his body, his bones felt like they were breaking and he couldn’t stop himself from screaming. It’s a good thing this happened out in the middle of nowhere, and not in his house. His sister would definitely freak out and make this worse. Actually, it felt like he was melting, it might not get worse than this.

Danny spits out a mouthful of ectoplasm stained blood, and dully notices something white in there. His aching fingers shakily make their way to the blood, and pick out something that makes him grow cold, despite the burn he currently feels. His teeth. Two of them. He briefly fishes his tongue around his teeth, his canines. Those were the ones he spit out, and the ones in his mouth felt longer. Before Danny can reach for his phone he feels another spark of pain.

Looking down, he can see green electricity, eerily similar to portal, literally sparking up and down his body. The emergence point is the center of his chest, it was leaving burns on his body and the ground. His shirt was smoldering where the electricity danced along, further adding to the mouthing pain. Suddenly, the energy explodes and his hair flashes from black to white. Danny’s eyes dart back and forth, all the while changing colors from a glowing blue, to a radioactive green.

The pain is too much, Danny’s voice becomes hoarse and scratchy from the scream. He painfully turns on his side and chokes on his own blood, gurgling and spitting more out onto the already stained grass. The ground shakes from the raw power, several nearby trees shift from the explosive release of energy. Small rocks and twigs float up, inches off the ground.

Blood pooled under Danny's head, pouring from his mouth and eyes along with tears of pain. He could feel the energy coming out of every pore in his body, the energy that killed him not only days ago, and it felt like it was coming out about as well as it did when it went in.

The old saying, how did it go? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Danny, in his pain addled hysteria couldn’t help but wonder in his mind. ‘Am I actually in pain, if no one was around to hear it?’ Another shock from his core branched off of his burned and charred skin to slice further along his chest, and then into a nearby tree, quickly answers the stray thought. Yes, he was, in fact, still in pain. A lot of pain.

Why won't this end?