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"Wake up, Little Badger..."
Danny was in Vlad's lab.
He was in his big metal chair with the ecto-restraints, because of course he was, and the man was standing in front of him, labcoat and all, because of course he was.
"What do you want this time, asshole," he spat, unamused, and Vlad only smiled. These tests were annoying and sometimes painful, but he always got out mostly unscathed.
And then, beyond Vlad, in the darkness past the blinding spotlight he was under, he noticed...shapes, shapes that looked like tables, with bodies on top. He could barely make them out, but they all had white hair and dark jumpsuits and his face, each contorted into a frozen scream, his innards spilling out onto the floor, glowing dully.
Whatever this was, it wasn't a normal experiment. Heart racing, he started struggling. "No, please," he pleaded, "you don't have to do this."
The man only smiled again, and gestured to Danny's other side. He turned his head, and there was another clone, similarly seated and restrained, but with blank eyes and a dumb smile on its face.
Vlad advances on him with a large needle filled with something metallic - nanobots, if he had to guess - and somehow Danny knows that Vlad's going to transfer his personhood to the clone, and the clone will become him, and he'll become the next clone, the next one stretched open and bleeding on a dissection table, wailing and wailing but nothing will come out-
"Please, he begs, thrashing even harder, useless under the restraints. Vlad holds his arm down. "Please don't." He pushes down on the plunger while Danny writhes. "I'll be your son," he tries desperately. "I'll be good, I promise."
The man retracts the needle, goes to stand in front of the two bound boys. He pulls out a small remote, and Danny goes rigid.
"No, stop, please, I'll do what you say, just, please-" Vlad's thumb presses down.
"No!" he screams, sitting straight up in bed.