Gravitational Phantoms: After the Storm

Chapter Eighteen: Ectofire (Part Six)

You really should read Burning Brands and Rose Thorns before this. It will really help.

Now, the battle that you've all been waiting for...

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Danny lay on the cold ground of the cell, shivering. His cold core wasn't helping him at the moment-had the Plasmius Maximus done something to that too as a part of removing his powers?

Mabel was shivering too. Her sweater was still being used as bandages, and her shirt was thin. But she didn't want to complain. Her friend was going to be experimented on, and she was too cold. It wasn't a very nice thing to say to someone in this situation.

The door opened, and Maddie strode in with purpose. She grabbed Danny and hauled him to his feet, inspecting the shreds of sweater tied around the wounds. Too late, Mabel realized that she had forgotten to hide the fact that she had picked the lock.

Maddie sighed and shook her head at Mabel. "Sweetie, why did you help him? It's just a ghost-it doesn't feel any pain."

Mabel had to physically restrain herself from punching the older woman in the face. Instead, the girl bit the inside of her cheek and thought every swear word that she knew directly at her.

The ghost hunter frowned and shook her son severely. Danny's body was limp, and his head lolled as his mother jolted him and sent fiery bolts of pain slicing through his wounds.

Mabel bit her cheek harder and tasted the metallic tang of blood.

Maddie smiled at Mabel even as she injured her friend even further. It made the girl feel sick to her stomach.

"Goodbye, Mabel," she said kindly. "I'm very sorry for anything that might happen to you."

"Wait, wha-" Mabel began, springing to her feet with a cry of dismay and fear. But Maddie was already gone, and she had taken Danny away with her.

The ghost boy started to thrash and kick, trying to bite at the blue hazmat-covered hand that held him. It was no use, however, and the woman reacted to his efforts with a powerful blow to his ribs that left him gasping for breath.

She dragged him off down the hallway and then threw him into a side room. And it wasn't one that he had ever been in before.

Like all of the others, it was pure white. There was a metal table in the center (no no no no no please) with the familiar (awful awful awful pain) restraints. But there were none of the tools that he knew were used for the vivisections on any of the side tables.

Just ominous looking needles and something that looked like a gun.

No no no no no no please please please I'm your son you can't p l e a s e.

An Agent-H-pinned him down to the table and restrained him face down on the table. Danny tried to move and found that one of the belts was now wrapped around his waist.

What were they going to do to him?

There was a buzzing sound, and Danny's fear spiked.

"Begin," Maddie said in a monotone voice.

That was when the pain started, and Danny screamed himself hoarse.

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A large shape of bright red dropped down from the sky outside of an unmarked white and grey building. A blur of multicolored light and motion that sounded like a thousand hummingbirds followed it into a bush. Another blob-this one blue and not red-dropped down from the clouds to land in a grove of maple and oak trees.