POP QUIZ! What do you do when your best friend/crush hates you for no apparent reason, a dance is coming up, finals are about to start, and your former best friend's best friend/your worst enemy keeps flirting with you? The answer: I DON'T KNOW. HELP.

Sorry this is late. The above mentioned problems have been keeping me busy.

White Walls

UNTITLED

Clockwork's Castle:

Sam and Tucker wearily trudge through the doors, dropping some equipment onto the ground. They are soon followed by a stunned-looking Serenity, carrying the body of Valerie Gray.

She is dead.

Serenity lays her on the ground and walks over to a wall. She leans against it, still looking dazed.

"That...didn't...go...well..." she mutters softly. Sam whirls around, fire in her eyes.

"YOU THINK!?! VALERIE IS DEAD AND DANNY'S STILL TRAPPED!"

Tucker slowly backs away as Serenity looks up with actual fire ignited in her pupils. Surprisingly, she speaks calmly. "I am well aware of that. The hunter chick is dead and Danny is still locked up. Now recall that Lecter is gone, we have a cryrokinetic maniac following us everywhere, Lev is missing, most likely dead, and Nick is missing, most likely being tortured. Or dead. Consider that. I'm going to go do something unproductive."

With that, she turns on her heel and leaves the room.

The mentioned cyrokinetic maniac floats in through the door. "That lady took my fwiend..." Klemper mutters. "She took him. She's not really nice..."

"Cram it, Klemper," Tucker moans as he plops down on a chair and massages his temples.

Sam glances up at the screen on the wall. "I wonder..." she says softly, walking up to the screen. It activates when she comes close to it, and displays what she hopes to see.

Sort of.

She sees Lev lying on the ground, blood oozing from a hole in his head. Lecter walks to his body and kicks him over. "Waste of time..." she mutters, leaving. Sam turns away, terrified. The screen goes blank.

Lab 72B, The Institute:

Nick keeps his eyes closed as life slowly creeps back to him. If sharing a room (and on occasion a bed...cough) with Emma has taught him anything, it's that if you don't recognize where you are with your eyes closed, it's not good.

In this specific case, that does not apply the same way. It is mentioned because it seems to be implying that if you do recognize where you are, it is good.

That really doesn't work if you're in a cell at The Institute, especially if your hands are bound behind your back and there is another presence breathing deeply in the room.

Finally Nick grows bored and cracks his eyelids.Yup, he's in The Institute. But that person on the ground next to him...

'I hate irony...'

Is a specific black-haired blue-eyed half-ghost. As Nick watches, he sits up and yawns before wincing and grabbing his head his hands are not bound as tightly..

"Head rush..." he moans before turning around and noticing Nick. "Um...hi?"

Nick nods. "Hi."

After a few moments of awkward silence, nothing happens. Danny randomly recalls something that once happened at his school, and can't resist...Sam thought it was hilarious.

"I BROKE THE SILENCE!" he yells, tossing his hands into the air in a mock victory celebration.

Nick rolls his eyes. "Well, you know how to entertain yourself. Good skill for if you're here."

A bit of muttering floats through the door. On instinct, both Nick and Danny hurry to the wall (Nick feels very stupid about waddling like a penguin, as hid bound hands make it hard to walk on balance) to listen.

"He knew. He knew it would happen..." is all they hear, before the door slams open and Danny and Nick are thrown back. Lecter seems to be in a...rather...uhm...pissed mood. Nick doesn't help.

"HI MOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMY!" he screams, earning him a strange look from Danny.

Lecter sputters before grabbing him by the neck and dragging him out. He is still shouting "I'M BRINGING HOME A BABY BUMBLEBEE!"

Danny sits in a daze for a few moments before a ridiculously loud scream reaches his ears.

The Lab where Lecter Dragged Nick 'Cuz she Sucks, Where Do You Think It is?:

"... mommy be so proud of me?" Nick finishes in a question as he notices the sharp...pointy...needles...

Lecter smiles satisfactorily. "I killed your mom."

In a most likely memory-caused mood swing, Nick gets angry. "I still think you're a son of a bitch."

"I'm a girl."

"I know."

Lecter sighs, blowing a stray strand of hair out of the way. "You do know what I could do for you, you know. I could give you power. With a simple injection-" she gestures to a shelf row of different colored bottles resting on it, "-I could give you power near equal to 526's."

"Her name is Emma."

Lecter ignores him and walks over to the shelf. She reaches for an eerily glowing green bottle. "The one we used on you the first time was...glitchy. You came out wrong. But you had potential for restoration."

"You're bringing me back to life?"

"The sort of life 653 has. If you could call it life..."

"The boy? Danny?"

"Call it whatever you want. But yes. If we were able to unlock that untapped power, it'd be unstoppable. But we don't know it well enough, and something big could be happening. We know you. We know what...gets to you."

She picks up a syringe and pours the green liquid into it before holding it next to Nick's neck.

"This...this will hurt."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Someplace in Clockwork's Castle, the Ghost Zone:

Clockwork internally prepares himself as the girl he now knew was legally nineteen...which was weird, speaks up.

"You knew this would happen, didn't you?"

Clockwork starts to answer, but Serenity holds a hand up.

"You did. Stop looking at me like that. Pity. I haven't had it for seven years, and I don't want it now. You knew this would happen. Lev is dead. I know he is. Lecter has no use for him, as she's aware of the turned Ancients. She's preparing as well, as you know. Satan doesn't know. But you obviously know this all. So it's pointless to restate this all. I'm going to go do some research. I just thought you'd be interested in the fact that I don't trust you. At all."

She spins on her heel in midair and walks out, floating four inches above the ground.

'I'm sorry. But explaining now would be dangerous,' Clockwork thinks. 'At least I kept Valerie and Malevolence in communicating point.'

In a swirling green mass, two sets of eyes flare to life. One sparkles with the memories of a ghost hunter, the other is dim with the recollections of a mistreated child with no name.