Chapter Text
Danny Fenton's alarm clock blared, jolting him out of his dream. Danny rubbed his eyes and groaned, staring at the ceiling plastered with glow-in-the-dark stars and constellations. The room around him was a shrine to his passion for space: posters of astronauts and far-off galaxies adorned every wall, and stacks of NASA magazines sat dog-eared on his desk—a recent poster of the Ares III. Watching the launch on TV had been a fun time. His only regret was he was too busy to fly out and watch it in person.
"Five more minutes," he mumbled, reaching for the snooze button, but accidentally phased his hand through the clock instead. He sighed.
"Rise and shine, Danny boy!" his dad called from downstairs.
"Coming!" Danny yelled back, attempting to sound more cheerful than he felt. As he swung his legs out of bed, he couldn't help but glance at the newspaper article he had pinned to his corkboard: A detailed interview with the Ares III crew, all about the launch and their mission. One day, he dreamed of going to space, just like them.
Balancing high school and teenage life was already a challenge for Danny, but ever since he gained ghost powers from an accident in his parents' lab, his whole world had been turned upside down.
He could barely keep his eyes open in class. Not that math was ever intriguing.
It wasn't easy being a teenager with ghost powers, especially when there were organizations like the GIW who would do anything to get their hands on him. Things had gotten harder with the GIW; they had been cracking down on ghost activity and trying to capture his ghost half. It didn’t help that the GIW had labeled all ghosts as a threat that needed to be neutralized, and since they were labeled as dead, in the GIW's eyes and the government's eyes, they were doing nothing wrong. It was all fine since the dead could not be hurt.
Tucker had discovered that the GIW had also been blocking any social media posts and news from Amity regarding ghosts. So, to the outside world, they were just a backwater town with a fun tourist trap attraction. It didn’t help that Vlad was backing the GIW and encouraging them to censor Amity Park.
"Earth to Danny!" his sister Jazz teased as she poked her head into his room. "Seriously, what's with you lately?"
"Nothing," he lied, forcing a smile. "Just tired."
"Alright," she replied skeptically. "Just remember, I'm here if you need to talk."
"Thanks, Jazz." He appreciated her concern.
Danny reluctantly got ready for the day; he looked at his bed with longing. He barely got any sleep last night. Skulker was giving him problems most of the night.
With a sigh, Danny leaves for school. He hopes that Dash will take it easy on him. If he gets shoved into one more locker today, he might just snap.
******
Danny's eyes snapped open as a bright light flooded the small room. He squinted against the harsh glare, trying to determine where he was. The last thing he remembered was flying home from school when everything went black. Now he found himself strapped to a cold metal table, his arms and legs bound by thick leather anit-ghost straps.
Danny struggled against the glowing green restraints binding him to the cold metal table, but it was no use. The anti-ghost cuffs sapped his strength, leaving him weak and helpless.
"Subject is regaining consciousness," a voice droned from somewhere in the shadows.
Danny's heart pounded in his chest. The Guys in White had captured him. He struggled against the restraints, but he was still too groggy from whatever drug they had used to knock him out.
A man in a pristine white suit loomed over Danny, peering down at him through dark sunglasses. "Let's see what makes this ghost boy tick," he sneered.
Danny screamed in agony as the ecto-shocker sent searing pain through his body. The green electricity crackled over his skin, burning into his flesh. He could smell the sickly stench of his own ectoplasm as it bubbled from the wounds.
"Please, stop!" Danny begged, thrashing against the restraints that held him to the cold metal table. But the white-clad GIW agent standing over him just laughed cruelly and turned up the dial, increasing the voltage.
"Subject is displaying enhanced strength," one of the expressionless agents in white hazmat suits muttered into a recorder. "Increasing power output."
Pain erupted through Danny's body as the restraints glowed brighter, crackling with electricity. He cried out, thrashing against them.
"Please, stop!" Danny begged.
Danny's screams turned to whimpers as the agent finally powered down the ecto-shocker. His small body trembled uncontrollably, his jumpsuit charred and smoking.
He had no idea how long he had been imprisoned here. The agents kept him drugged and disoriented. Time blurred between sessions on the table as they poked, prodded, cut, and shocked him. They were obsessed with learning his secrets, tearing him apart molecule by molecule.
Just as the agent prepared to make another incision, a glowing green vortex suddenly erupted in the room. It swirled violently, like a miniature tornado, and its eerie light cast flickering shadows across the walls.
The agent stumbled back in surprise, the scalpel falling from his hand. Danny watched with wide eyes as the portal stabilized into an oval shape, its center shimmering with supernatural energy. The portal crackled with unstable energy, starting to swirl and pulling things from the room into it, including the table Danny was strapped to.
The moment he passed through its threshold, gravity disappeared. Danny floated weightlessly in a haze of green, the light searing his eyes. This portal was more violent than the one he was used to. It tossed him around, tearing him from his restraints.
Exhaustion crept over him. The torture, the portal - it was too much. Danny's eyes fluttered closed as he lost consciousness, tumbling through the green void. He was unaware as the portal spit him back out.
When he came to, the first thing he noticed was the quiet. Gone were the harsh lights and sounds of the lab. He lay sprawled on rough, red soil, a faint breeze stirring his white hair. This didn’t feel like earth, it was too cold, and he felt how hard it was to breath here, he was better off not breathing and letting his core do the work. Even though his core burned with pain from the torture he undertook. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the unfamiliar night sky.
Danny’s core sang with happiness. He could feel the difference in gravity. *Am I on Mars? * He thought to himself.
Groaning, Danny pushed himself up on his hands and knees, wincing as pain lanced through him. His hazmat suit was tattered and burnt, green-red ectoplasm staining the fabric. The GIW had done a number on him.
Shielding his eyes from the harsh sunlight, Danny scanned his new surroundings. The dusty Martian landscape stretched as far as he could see. In the distance, a cluster of habitats and rovers marked what had to be the Ares III site.
Danny had avidly followed the mission back on Earth. He knew the crew: Commander Lewis, Pilot Martinez, Dr. Beck, Johanssen, Vogel, and the botanist Mark Watney.
Danny shivered; they were his only chance of survival, stranded and injured as he was.
Holding his side, Danny began stumbling toward the habitats, his jumpsuit boots leaving prints in the rust-colored soil. He had to make it there before his strength gave out completely. Just a little farther...
Suddenly, his legs buckled, sending him sprawling face-first onto the hard ground. The last of his energy spent, Danny's glowing green eyes slid closed. He lay motionless as his blood pooled beneath him, staining the Martian soil a vivid emerald.
*This is it. At least I got to go to another planet...*