Chapter Text
Jazz was running out of time. It had been 2 weeks since Danny was taken, and she was still no closer to rescuing him. The problem wasn’t that Danny was missing. In fact, Jazz knew exactly where he was being kept. The true problem lay in the fact that he was being held by their “parents”, with the full backing of the GIW and Anti-Ecto Laws behind them. No one would listen to Poor Jazz’s pleas about her brother being locked up in the basement. Not the police, Danny’s school, or the other adults in town. That’s what drove her to this point. Contacting the Omega Protection Agency, an organization recently put in place to enforce omegan laws and ensure no omegas were mistreated or abused by their caregivers. Jazz could only hope that they took her seriously, because if they didn’t, then there truly would be no hope left for her baby brother. Jazz took a deep breath and dialed the agency’s number.
Riiiiing. Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing.
“...Hello.”
—-----
Detective Sawyer had never seen a report as concerning as the one that lay on her desk today. She had worked many omega abuse cases since the agency was instituted 2 years ago, and worked even more during her time as an FBI agent before. Whether it was trafficking or murder, she had thought she’d seen it all, but something about this report rubbed her the wrong way. It was filed just the day before by the omega’s sister in a small remote town. The kind that seems peaceful and the perfect place to retire or to raise young children. The sister explained how the omega, Danny’s parents, had become convinced he was possessed and had locked him up to torture and experiment on him. Sawyer’s stomach dropped at the idea of a young omega being treated with such cruelty, but unfortunately it was a common sight in her line of work. If everything in this report was true, then Danny only had a limited amount of time left before something horrible happened.
The alpha detective quickly gathered the files together before rushing off to prepare everything needed to rescue Danny. Despite all her rushing, she had a sinking fear that it might already be too late to save the omega.
—------
Maddie Fenton and her husband had always considered themselves good parents. While they may get overly absorbed in their work, they have always done the best to provide for their pups. They weren’t foolish, they had seen the looks the town would throw at the 2 alphas for their strange line of work. Regardless of all that, they continued to move on with their studies, because at the end of the day only one thing mattered to them, protecting their children. Because of this they would never stop researching the supernatural so that their pups may be safe from ghosts and their evil plots.
Maddie had always had a special, protective spot in her heart when it came to Jazz. Her darling beta daughter who was always so intelligent and caring for her peers despite her strange upbringing. This instinct only grew when she found that precious pup, wounded and scared in the woods all those years before. She had taken one look at the boy and his wide teary blue eyes, and knew she was meant to protect him from all the horrors of the world, and all the horrors that lay beyond it. She took the omega into her arms and raised him as her very own blood.
That’s why when she'd discovered what happened to that darling baby, she took such drastic measures. When she had seen Phantom phase into a gross impersonation of her son, she felt a part of herself die. How long had Danny been dead? And how long had this monster been parading around as her son? How could she have not noticed? As Danny’s alpha guardian she had a duty to protect him, and yet she failed so horribly.
While it may be too late for Danny, she knew it wasn't too late to save the rest of her family and this ungrateful town from ghost scum. She and Jack planned for weeks how to capture that dreaded villain and finally stop him once and for all. There was only one problem. Despite all their research into ectoplasm and the Ghost Zone, Maddie and Jack Fenton still had no idea how to kill a ghost. After all, how do you kill something that is already dead? All their research showed how ghosts would continue to regenerate and heal as long as there was ectoplasm present, and unfortunately, Amity was in no short supply of ectoplasm. Maddie was not going to let that stop her, though. She owed it to her son to stop at nothing in her mission to avenge that precious omega pup.
Her husband helped her strap down that awful phantom to the table in the basement. She quickly got to work, quickly cutting off the beast’s shirt so that she may have access to his chest, and hopefully find out what really makes a ghost tick. Jack handed her a scalpel, and she got to work carving into the ghost's chest. Its screams and cries quickly filled the room, and all Maddie could think about was how much her son must have done the same when this monster killed him. She pressed the blade harder into its flesh, as green oozed up around the wound, feeling pleasure in making her son’s murderer suffer. Her husband stood as a silent sentinel behind her, watching the beast with a strange hollow look in his eyes. He quickly handed Maddie her tools as she avenged their son. The beast continued to wail, only getting louder the further into its chest she got. With a blinding light, the beast changed, once again assuming the image of her dead baby. Jack’s body froze and his eyes teared up at the sight of their son on the table. Maddie knew this was all a pathetic ploy and only drove on with her mission.
“Please! Please, M-mom… It's me!” the creature mocked her. “St-Stop!”
“Shut up!” She demanded. “How dare you try to trick me! How dare you tarnish my son’s memory like this!”
It made a pathetic attempt at a hiccuping sob followed by a wheeze. As Maddie moved to continue, it cried out once again.
“Da-dad p-please…” it turned to her husband. “It h-hurts…”
Jack turned away from the beast strapped to the table, and, unknown to Maddie, shed a tear under his hazmat suit at the sight before them both.
—-----
Danny didn’t know how much more he could take. Days blended together in a hazy miasma of pain and fear, under his parents' hands. All Danny had wanted to do was protect his town as phantom, and later to protect the ghost, only seeking to feed their obsessions from the human threats stationed around his small town. Despite the townspeople's scorn, he knew he was doing good. He could see it in his ghost rogues' thankful faces each time he safely rescued them from the GIW and delivered them safely back to the infinite realms. He had a duty to them as their ghostly prince, to keep them safe until he took the throne with his official death and entry to the ghostly realms.
How had things gone so wrong for him though? He had just finished talking to Ember when a horrible pain so similar to the portal all those years ago overcame him and brought him to his knees. Almost as quickly as he was defeated, he was brought to Fentonworks and strapped down in that hated, ominous basement. His parents loomed over him, the overhead light reflecting off their helmets, obscuring their faces, giving them the appearance of nameless Harbingers of cruelty. Danny could only watch in horror as Maddie cut into him with icy precision, not caring for the child under her blade. In a fit of desperation, he had revealed his human form to his parents, hoping for some sign of mercy. If anything, this only encouraged the two standing over him in their mission to hurt him. Danny was in so much pain and didn’t truly understand what drove the anger festering beneath the two alphas' eyes. Being a ghost was damnation enough in the Fentons’ opinion, but there was something bigger driving the brutality of their actions.
Begging brought him nowhere, so he quickly hid away in his mind. His mind swirled in a blur of pain as memories from long ago rose to the surface. Simpler memories of a childhood taken too quickly. Danny remembered the strong alpha brother who always stood by his side, serving as a quiet reserve of strength whenever he needed it. Danny’s upbringing with the league was hard, but he was spared many of his brother's hardships due to his status as an omega. While he was also trained in combat and stealth, it was to a lesser degree, and the majority of his studies were to prepare him for a mate in the future. While Damien was to inherit the league as well as Batman's legacy, Danyul was to pave new allyships through marriage, to support the league’s purpose and his brother’s future. Things had quickly fallen apart, though, when Grandfather grew displeased with his alpha grandson’s dependence on the omega, viewing it as weakness. Deciding to dispose of the liability, he had ordered Talia to kill Danyul. It was only through a miracle that Mother took mercy on him and abandoned him somewhere in northern America. While Danny originally viewed his adoption by the strange American family as a blessing in disguise, it quickly proved to be anything but. They showed themselves to be incompetent in caring for any children, let alone an omega pup. Regardless of this, he believed he was safe in the care, far away from the league’s watchful eyes. This no longer became true after his accident, evidently leading to Danny’s current entrapment by his parents' hands.
Long since frustrated by their lack of progress, the Fentons had left the house to blow off some steam and hopefully catch more “ghost scum”. Danny felt his consciousness sway in and out of reach as he bled out on that cursed table. The glaring light above blinded his sensitive eyes and prevented any true rest to escape from the pain. The buzzing hum from assorted devices around the lab felt like mocking hissing laughs at Danny’s tragic fate. Just as he was about to pass out, Danny heard a loud bang followed by loud steps and orders coming from above. If Danny had any more energy, he would have flinched and cringed away from the thunderous noise, but he was so weak from his torture all he could do was wince his eyes slightly. Before he had time to react, the lab doors banged open, and the noise quickly moved down the steps to surround him. Hazy shapes surrounded him, and hands hesitantly touched his body. Before Danny finally faded to black, he caught a whiff of comforting Alphan scent that reminded him so much of his brother.
'I miss you akhi…'
—----
Detective Sawyer was in shock over the sight that greeted her in the Fentons’ basement. The OPA had waited until all Fentons were out of the house before moving in for their rescue. The squad swiftly broke down the door and moved to the basement, the reported location of the captive omega. The dread that had been building in Sawyer ever since she read that report only grew the closer she got to the basement. As she entered, a horrible scent of acrid Omegan fear, blood, and harsh chemicals assaulted her nose. She continued down the steps holding her gun in front of her, ready for any threat. Once she reached the bottom, she finally saw what she’d been dreading all along. The omega was tied so tight to the bloodstained table that she could see the torn and stripped skin from here. His chest was gruesomely cut in a Y formation, so like what you might see on a dissected corpse, with the skin pinned back so you could see the organs inside him. If it weren't for the sluggishly beating heart and the hazy, desperate eyes of the omega, she might have thought they were already too late. Quickly, her team got to work examining the boy and ensuring he was stable. She walked closer and gently released some comforting pheromones to let him know he was finally safe. She briefly squeezed her eyes shut and sent a prayer up above.
'Oh god… What have I gotten myself involved in?'