Disclaimer: Danny Phantom and even the original storyline does not belong to me.

Aragon sniffed in disdain at Kwan's unconscious form before turning to face Danny, who was still pinned beneath his claws.

"Now," Aragon growled, "you have something that doesn't belong to you." The dragon began to press down on Danny's chest to make his point with his next words. "If it is not to be in its owner's hands, then it should be mine!"

Danny started gagging with the sudden pressure to his chest, before closing his eyes and gritting his teeth against the pain.

"What …" he gasped, trying to summon enough breath to finish his question. "What … are you … talking about? I don't …" Danny stopped speaking for a moment as his ghost sense again flowed out of his mouth before regaining his breath somewhat. "I don't … understand," he finally finished.

Oh? Is that so?

Danny's eyes widened in shock. That voice was not Aragon's. The one that had just spoken, it sounded like … His thought was cut off as Danny realized what he was looking at. Instead of Aragon's massive claws crushing his chest, he saw a rather blurry, humanoid shape, skeletally thin and dressed in dark grey armor and leather crouching over his chest. A hand with what resembled blades for fingers as pressed against his throat. This figure. If Danny had been able to sleep at all over the last eleven years, this would have been the one to haunt his nightmares. This was the being who had … who had …

Danny felt the terror brought on by his hallucinations begin to build up in his chest, triggered by old painful memories. This being, this thing, was not something he wanted to remember. He didn't want to think about it. See it.

No! Don't make me see it! Don't let me remember what happened!

Well, half-dead one, the figure spoke in a disturbingly smooth, rich voice that contrasted with its appearance. I don't think you're telling the truth. LIAR!

The bladed fingers, for lack of a better word, tightened around his neck, and Danny lost his ability to distinguish the hallucination from reality. The scream that had been forming in his throat ripped itself free.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Aragon blinked at the half-ghost's sudden hysteria. He'd barely crushed the hybrid at all, yet he was already screaming as if in agony. Aragon's confusion vanished however, and the dragon let a toothy smile roll over his face.

"Such a weakling. Ha!" the dragon prince snickered. He bent closer to the struggling hybrid, who turned his head away as much as he could.

"NO! I-I didn't- No! NO! Stay away from me!" Danny yelled, trying in vain to get away. Aragon's sadistic grin just grew wider.

"Your screams are pointless, Half-Ghost. Begging will do you no good-"

Aragon's sentence was cut short due to Danny's foot meeting his jaw in a very unexpected kick.

"STAY AWAY FROM ME!" Danny cried out again.

Aragon roared in anger and pain, releasing Danny as he reared back. The ghost dragon stumbled back a bit on his hind feet and clutched at his bruised snout.

"By-by node! You liddle-" It was almost comedic how much Aragon suddenly sounded like he had a cold.

Danny rolled over and managed to get to his knees, gasping from both fear and lack of air. His face contorted into an expression somewhere between horror and confusion and he lifted his head to stare at the ceiling. Another wisp of his ghost sense drifted out of his mouth. "B-but I saw … It was just Aragon?"

I thought I saw … I thought he was … But it wasn't.

Danny suddenly realized that there was a patch of light unblocked by Aragon's bulk in the doorway. He looked up and saw a space in the door that he just might fit through, provided he was willing to jump over the dragon's tail. It was a crazy idea. But then again, so was he.

Danny quickly got to his feet and dashed towards the door, hopping over Aragon's tail as he carefully as one could with their arms out of commission. His foot still brushed against the scales ever so slightly, causing Aragon to instantly raise his head in surprise. Danny landed gently right outside the door to his cell. As he stood up, he noticed Kwan laying slumped against the wall, blood dripping down his face.

Is that Kwan? Danny thought, a pang of uneasiness forming in his chest from what was left of his old hero complex. Before he could do anything more, Aragon roared in anger.

"Oh no, don't you dare to think that you might get away from me!" the ghost dragon yelled, while attempting to turn himself around in the restricted space of the cell.

"Uh oh," Danny gulped and decided to worry about Kwan later. He spun on his feet and ran as fast as he could down the hall just as Aragon crashed through the already torn and misshapen doorway.

"You little thief! I'll burn you to ashes!" he snarled, throwing back his head and began to inhaled deeply, inflating his chest. Danny glanced back over his shoulder as he ran, a look of panic forming on his face.

"Wait, he's not gonna- Oh man, he is!" Danny stopped running suddenly, skidding a few feet. He turned on his feet to face Aragon, teeth gritted in nervousness.

At that moment, Aragon threw his head forward as a giant blast of blue-green ecto-fire burst from his mouth. The ecto-fire seared through the air of the hallway towards Danny who made no attempt to move. Instead, he allowed a wide and more than slightly insane grin to spread over hi face before inhaling as deeply as he could, despite the straitjacket restricting his chest. As he exhaled, a cloud of icy, blue-white mist blew from inside Danny's mouth in a much larger version of his normal ghost sense.

The arctic cloud collided with the blast of fire from Aragon and the freezing and burning ectoplasms spun around one another for a moment before exploding outward into a huge cloud of light. Aragon wrapped his wings around his face and neck to protect himself from the reaching tendrils of ectoplasm. He growled as the explosion faded and glanced up.

The walls and floor in front of Aragon were covered in a layer of dripping extoplasmic ice, with small blue-green fires burning here and there. The one thing that was no longer in the hallway was Danny Phantom. He had taken the opportunity to escape. The look of shock on Aragon's scaly face morphed into one of rage. His amulet began to glow brighter and he practically screamed.

"Alright then, Phantom! You can run and hide, but you won't escape!"

…

"Phew."

Danny panted slightly, glancing over his shoulder. He sat with his back against the wall in a small side corridor off the main hall where the various ghost's cells were located. After a moment, he relaxed and slouched slightly, drawing his knees up to his chest.

"I hate this," he grumbled unhappily. "All I can really do is run."

Not like he had a choice or anything. If he'd stayed and fought, the sad truth was that he would have lost. Badly. The straitjacket-like restraint he unwillingly wore did more than just prevented him from using his arms or hands. It sucked his energy away. The more he moved, the more it drained him of his power and the weaker he became. Danny probably couldn't pull off another attack if his life depended on it. And chances were, that his life would in the very near future.

Danny curled up into a ball, face hidden in his knees. If Aragon hadn't already been setting off his ghost sense and giving him material to work with …

"This really, really sucks," Danny complained, voice muffled.

An image of when he'd seen Kwan bleeding and unconscious flashed through Danny's broken mind and a pang of guilt flashed through him. It felt like a total betrayal of his personal nature to leave an injured person in harms way, especially if he was partially to blame for it.

"What was I supposed to do about it though?" Danny asked himself in a vain attempt to make himself feel better. He closed his eyes.

You should have tried to help him!

The non-existent 'voice' was familiar, nagging, and insistent. One he'd grown up with. And he didn't want to hear what he knew it had to say right now.

"Shut up. It doesn't matter anymore," he said angrily, choosing not to open his eyes to look at the hallucination he knew would be there the moment he did. Danny could see in his mind the gritted teeth, the flowing chestnut-orange hair held in a turquoise headband, and the black turtleneck of the angry twenty-one year-old woman.

You should have tried! If you had, you wouldn't feel so guilty!

"Stop nagging me!" Danny said loudly, practically whining. He sat back against the wall again and waited a moment before opening one eye cautiously.

The hallway in from of him was empty. No upset imaginary sisters waiting to point their fingers and lecture him.

Danny snorted. "Hmph. And don't come back."

A wide smile spread over his face as a sudden thought struck him. "Wait a sec … Heh … Heh heh … Hey! Heh. I'm out! Ha ha! I'M OUT OF MY CELL!"

Danny broke out into completely hysterical laughter at that moment, almost yelling at his success at escape.

"HA! Look at me! Ha ha! I'm not in my cell anymore. Ha! Heh heh .."

There was a rather familiar clicking noise and Danny felt something metallic press against the side of his head. His laughter faded immediately and he looked up startled.

"Huh?"

A GIW trooper an agent with a goatee and mustached stood before the half ghost, both pointing ecto-weapons at his head. Danny felt a tickle of sweat slip down the back of his neck.

"Aw, crap."

…

Vlad Masters glared at nothing, his chin resting on his hand. He couldn't believe this.

Being confined to a stupid lab room was not part of my plans! he thought angrily.

Because that was where he was, seated at the desk in some small side room where minor research was done. Computers and machinery completely coated the walls, except for a single window to the hallway currently covered by a shade. The desk was covered in a special magnifying glass for working with circuitry, a few empty petri dishes, various packets of paperwork, and Vlad's hat, which he had discarded there the moment he had sat down. A single trooper armed with the standard ecto-gun stood next to the door, which had been locked from the outside.

Which meant Vlad was currently stuck inside the room.

Vlad and Supervisor Marshall had been heading back to the ground floor when the Supervisor had received an alert on the communicator. It had reported an unknown and apparently dangerous ghost had invaded the Facility. Vlad had no doubt this was Aragon, fulfilling his part of the plan. Unfortunately, Vlad had not been counting on Supervisor Marshall to practically shove him into the nearest lab, grab a large ecto-blaster and toss in a single idiot trooper to guard him, stating that "Civilians should stay where it's safe. You, trooper, protect him."

Vlad glared at the offending trooper, who for the last half an hour had been doing pretty much nothing except standing there and looking uncomfortable. After glowering at the trooper for a few minutes (the poor man had begun to fidget and wonder why Vlad was staring at him, as it was kind of creepy), Vlad sighed. There were still ways out of this situation. First up, the diplomatic approach.

Vlad gripped his cane and stood up with a bit of effort before walking over to the trooper.

"You are sure I cannot simply leave to return to the ground floor? Surely it'd be just as safe."

"Sorry, sir. My orders are very clear. For your own safety, you are not to leave this room."

Vlad said nothing in response to the trooper, instead turning to look at the window. So much for the diplomatic approach. Time for the sneaky approach.

Vlad lifted the shade slightly, peering outside. He stared out for a moment before giving a loud gasp. He immediately dropped the shade and stumbled back a fake expression of horror on his face.

"Aaahh! Oh no!" He said loudly, pretending to be utterly terrified. The trooper quickly rushed over to the window to look outside himself.

"Sir, what was it?" the trooper asked. "What's wrong?"

Vlad suddenly gripped the trooper's shoulder. The man barely had time to look back to Vlad before volts of purple and red extoplasmic lightning jolted though his body from Vlad's hand. The trooper spasmed for a moment, his skeleton almost visible through both skin and armor. Then Vlad released him, and the man collapsed, unconscious and still twitching slightly.

Vlad stepped over the fallen GIW soldier, smiling slightly.

"I'm afraid those orders of yours have been … 'revoked,'" the old hybrid joked. He kneeled carefully next to the trooper, leaning on his can for support. He reached down to the small case attached to the trooper's belt and pulled out a small flat device similar to a key card. It was, in fact, more or less just that, a special electronic access key that could be programmed to remember the security codes for multiple doors and containers and as such was able to open them.

Vlad shook his head in mock disapproval as he stood back up. "Supervisor Marshall really should be pickier as to who he gives access keys to. A foot solider, honestly!"

He turned and walked over to the wall behind the desk where he'd been previously sitting, eyes focused on a particular case embedded in the wall.

"But then, if he was more careful, I suppose this would be a great deal more difficult," Vlad said smugly, inserting the access key into the small slot below the case. The doors of the case slid open immediately, revealing a glowing blue cylinder. Curious as the cylinder was, it was the device inside this cylinder that interested Vlad. He removed it carefully, hiding it in the pocket of the vest he wore beneath his Armani suit.

When he was done, Vlad turned and walked back past the desk toward the trooper. The man wasn't going to die from the damage Vlad had dealt him, but he would probably have little to no memory of the last hour or so, which was exactly what Vlad wanted. And that meant Vlad could gloat as much as he wished.

"I'm sure your superiors are very proud of having successfully coated the outside of the lab doors and hallway walls with a substance that prevents ghosts from phasing through them. But a word from the wise," Vlad grabbed his hat off the table and stuck it on his head with a wide grin.

"That's only really effective if ghosts can't phase out either," he crowed. Vlad then turned and promptly phased through the door, topping only to turn and wave at the trooper.

"Ta," he said lightly and vanished into the hallway.