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For Zak, being able to join his parents on a mission was a privilege, so to be specifically asked to join a mission by another secret scientist was an inevitable right of passage. Unfortunately, it was Epsilon’s Agents who requested Zak’s presence in said mission – and Zak would rather be grounded than work with them again. The last time they helped out Epsilon, Zak discovered that the agent and his son Francis were responsible for upsetting migrating atmospheric jellyfish patterns and antagonizing the otherwise docile cryptids.
But this mission was one Zak couldn’t possibly refuse. Some ex-government organization was conducting illegal experiments on cryptids, and Zak’s role was to calm the animals down during the raid, using his cryptid-powers, so that they could be safely evacuated.
“Listen Zak, I don’t want to see you anywhere near the fights.” Mom told him. “Just to the cryptids, and then out. No detours. Fisk, make sure he stays safe,” Of course Mom and Dad were also coming along the mission, as manpower.
“I bet Francis is gonna join the fight,” Zak mumbled.
“I thought you don’t like Francis,” Dad said. “You sure you want to be fighting alongside him? Everyone will make you two fight together,”
Zak groaned.
It was nice to be wanted, but annoyed to be treated with kid gloves. Whatever, as long as he played a role in helping those poor cryptids escape and return to their natural habitats, he’d be happy.
The family boarded a small, sleek jet, and flew three hours, stopping just a few miles outside the coordinates of the base they were meant to raid. Zak spent the time reading the contextual files.
The GIW were an ex-government organization that would experiment on ghosts – apparently, Mom knew some of the secret scientists who used to be GIW employees. After losing their government funding, because of ethics violations, they still continued their experiments in secret. Since experimenting on animals would be noticed, the ex-GIW employees chose to experiment on cryptids – no one would report a creature’s disappearance if they didn’t even know or believe that the creature existed. Zak steeled himself for what he might see in there – cryptids that might be hurt, starving, scared, or even dead. And who knows how many there’d be. He gulped. He’d have to be mentally prepared to help them, or their emotions would overwhelm his cryptid-powers.
Zak, Fiskerton, and his parents met with Epsilon, Francis, and a few other agents from Epsilon’s organization – going over blueprints of the base, which rooms to tackle, and how many people to expect inside. They assigned one agent to accompany Zak – which he hated – but at least his parents would also be with him. Ugh, no, he’s not supposed to be happy about his parents not leaving him alone with a babysitter! He’s a whole eleven year old, he can help on missions by himself! Francis didn’t get a babysitter!
Maybe Zak can politely ask one of the cryptids to bite or scare the agents away.
The raid itself was textbook; people split off in formations of three or four, tackling branching hallways and armed guards with a practiced ease. Zak kept to his objective, going down the specific hallways he was told about earlier to where cryptids were being held in cells. Armed guards were already slumped against the wall, taken down by a strike team that went ahead and cleared the path for him.
The first thing that hits Zak when he entered the dungeon is the smell. These poor creatures were urinating and defecating in the cramped cells that lined the walls all across and around the room. Every cryptid had some type of metallic anklet or collar – presumably a shock collar for behavior control. They were mostly four legged tetrapods of some type, a strange dappled fur color that would have made it hard to spot in the woods.
Zak hesitantly reached out with his cryptid-powers, his claw opening in response. The eyes of one creature glow as a psychic connection is made, and Zak is assaulted with emotions and imagery of the creature’s experiences thus far: sedatives, electrocution, anger, pain from needles and knives, unknown green substances pumped into it through various orifices both organic and artificial. The dead ones were left to rot in their cages, only being removed when new specimen were brought in.It sent anger and resentment towards Zak, in powerful waves; the intensity of it caused Zak to sway at his feet.
Zak responded to the cryptid’s emotions with his own feelings of reassurance, sending imagery of the preparation they had done to rescue them, and how he and his family had rescued and resettled many animals like it in the past. The cryptid acceped his honesty, and sent images of humans in white suits that were holding a metallic device that ignited fear in his heart. Zak understood – their entire conversation was without words, after all – that their metallic restraints needed to be disabled before they could be freed.
Zak informed his parents and the accompanying agent of this, and it didn’t take them long to find controls in that room and the one next over that could unlock the cell doors and disable the shock devices. However, animals that were in captivity for an unknown amount of time were not going to exit in a single file line, or in an orderly fashion – that was where Zak came in. Sure, he could ‘control’ a few cryptids at a time. Maybe five on a good day.
But trying to control maybe fifty, was not easy. If he let them all roam free, they’d get lost inside the maze of hallways and never make it outside the base – or worse, get killed in the crossfire on the way out. He just needed to lead them to the exit – the cryptids could then escape into the neighboring forests and return to their own habitats independently.
He didn’t know where to split his attention and focus. He spread his mind out, and it felt like all at once, dozens of overlapping emotions, imagery, and desires assaulted his psyche all at once. He collapsed backwards, Fisk catching him before he hit the floor.
“Focus on the colony’s queen,” Dad knelt beside him. “If you can get her cooperation, the rest will follow without you needing to overexert yourself,” He found the one cryptid with a brighter spotting flowered on its back – the one that was obviously larger than the rest of the females, and he focused. His eyes grew a brighter orange with concentration, and he walked out with her.
Contrary to what Dad said, Zak didn’t concentrate on just the one cryptid; He concentrated on seven. It was stretching his psychic powers beyond what he was used to, but he could do it – seven conversations in parallel. He wasn’t giving orders to each cryptid, he wasn’t delivering a speech, but he was conversing with seven – no, eight? nine? – independent minds at once. It was like having multiple chat apps open at once, tabbing to each one instantly, or like watching tiktok videos of subway surfers gameplay with text-to-speech read aloud audio of reddit posts.
Dad led them out the way they came, with Zak focusing on guiding the cryptids behind him. As soon as some cryptids calmed down, Zak dropped the connection and linked with a few more – it got easier with time, since they all began to calm each other down too.
At the junction of a specific hallway, a few of the cryptids jolt in surprise, breaking away from the pack for a few paces. Zak runs behind them, psychically sending them calming imagery of the forests outside to direct them back in line, but they respond with images of needles and men in lab coats. That must’ve been where the experiments on them were actually conducted.
Zak sent back a questioning are there more of you that way? to which he received flashes of a boy drenched with green slime screaming. The cryptids were worried for the boy. Maybe one of the scientists brought their kid along? Or some kid from the nearby town broke in?
“Mom, Dad, there’s more that way! Someone or something that’s got them all riled up!” Zak yelled.
He broke from the line, following the three cryptids down the wrong fork in the hallway.
“Zak!”
He could hear his Dad’s voice from behind, yelling for him. He could feel Fisk also running towards him. He could feel the cryptids left behind questioning, but the outdoor breeze brushed their skin and the exit was within their line of sight, so they didn’t falter from the evacuation line. Zak let go of the psychic connection. So why did these three–?
They passed by halls and rooms with slumped guards and scientists, and Agents going through filing cabinets and computers. The three cryptids stop in front of a nook in the hallway, clawing at the wall in distress. stuck stuck hurt friend stuck, they tell Zak.
Dad yelled his name and caught up to him.
“Dad, I think there’s a room behind this wall!” Dad observed the cryptids’ behavior, then put his ear against the wall and tapped with the side of his fist.
“I think you’re right,” Dad ran his side against the wall. “There must be a control panel or sliding mechanism to open –” Fisk got a desk from one of the rooms nearby and smashed it into the wall. It cracks open, to show the room on the other side.
Francis was across the hall with another Agent, sorting through files taken out of the drawers before Fisk had stolen the desk.
“That room was not in the blue prints,” Francis said.
“I don’t think they wanted this room to be found,” Zak retorted.
Dad powered up his battle glove and pulled the rest of the wall out – it was a really thin, sliding door. He walked in and froze.
“Fisk! Don’t let the two kids see!” He turned around and held his hands against the door. “No one should have to see this.”
Zak tried to peek from underneath Dad’s hand; there was a table, a foot resting on it, but he couldn’t see the rest.
“Let me see what’s in there first.”
Zak gulped and nodded.
—
There were the remains of a boy cuffed to the table – a dissection table. Doc covered his mouth and swallowed his bile before taking a closer look, clinically. The boy was maybe a few years older than Zak, but still clearly young enough to have been his own son. His hair was fully white – it could be genetics, like Drew’s hair, or a symptom of what the boy had been through.
And what he had been through… Doc didn’t want his son to see. A Y-shaped incision had been made across his chest, the flaps of skin held back by metal tongs. The organs all had a green tint to them, but were otherwise in place. He imagined that the cryptids held up here were undergoing similar experimentation. A human test subject? Doc was glad they accepted this mission, even if Epsilon’s people were unpleasant to work with.
Perhaps this child was left cut open because the doctors operating on him were interrupted by their raid, Doc thought with a chill. There was no rise and fall from the chest. At best, maybe he could cover the body with a sheet and offer it a dignified burial; possibly sew the body back up if possible.
Doc walked up to the head – the half-lidded eyes were tracking him, and widened in shock.
“...Dad?”
Doc startled. Not only was the boy still alive, but he was conscious.
“Y-Yes?” A distant part of him wonders how much time the boy has left. A hopeful part of him wonders if the boy can be saved.
“How’d you…get here?” The boy painfully pronounces each word with a raspy voice, as if he hadn’t spoken in a while.
“We raided this base. We shut it down,” Doc considered his words carefully.
“I’m – Dad, I’m sorry, I sh-should have I–”
“Hey hey, it’s fine, it’s okay,” Doc cut the boy off. “We’ll get you out of here,”
He’s not about to correct the boy’s delusions of being his father, when Doc is, in fact, old enough to be his father. The tray nearby has medical supplies, and in it he finds plenty of needle and surgical thread.
“I’m gonna sew.. your wounds, shut. I can’t carry you out without doing that.” Doc told the boy. “But there’s no anesthetic, so it’ll hurt.”
“‘s fine,” the boy said. “Jus’ kee’ me awake,”
–
Danny lost track of the experiments they used him for a long time ago. He knew that they wanted to use him to make ghost animals.
That was painful enough – ghosts didn't feel pain so they didn't need any anesthetic – but Danny lost hold of his secret identity soon enough, accidentally transforming into his human half in front of the researchers. That inspired a new set of experiments – they transplanted his organs into other animals, watched his body regenerate his missing organs, and pushed his pain tolerance to the limit.
Danny wished he could apologize to the animals for the pain they were going through at the hands of humans because of him, but every ounce of awareness was going towards keeping himself awake.
His powers stemmed the bleeding and blunted the pain from the incisions and such. If he passed out, he couldn't maintain his ghost powers, and the pain would suddenly hit him in full force, waking him up again. It was a vicious cycle.
He’s not sure when Dad got here, but he could recognize that build and orange jumpsuit anywhere. Dad mentioned suturing him shut, which surprised Danny because Mom was the one with the MD, not Dad, but he didn’t have the energy to question it.
He feels ants crawl up his stomach.
And then Mom came, holding his hand and saying some soothing words he couldn’t hear. Her suit was orange just like Dad’s and her hair was white – was she old? Danny wondered how long he’d been held captive.
If he died here, at least he’d know his parents were trying to save him.
His eyes accidentally slip shut for a second too long, and his ghost powers begin to short out. The pain sharpened his mind, temporarily waking him again. He slapped the rings close, keeping his ghost powers active yet again.
Now it felt like a lion mauled his chest.
Danny tried to scream but he wheezed. His eyes darted around, taking in the concerned faces.
That wasn’t Mom or Dad.
“W-Who?”
“You’re awake?! Thank goodness but also, how? Nevermind kid, we’re getting you out,”
They slip his arms back into his suit and zip him shut, and the Not-Dad picks him up. Danny groaned as his position shifted, and Not-Mom hushed at him apologetically.
This was it. He was escaping.
Was he?
He was. Right?
His stomach and chest was closed and clothed for the first time in a long long time, and Danny decided that if he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t mind detransforming in front of Not-Mom and Not-Dad. He wouldn’t mind not waking up at all.
—
Danny did in fact, wake up later. Thankfully, it wasn't a white ceiling. He was in a bedroom. Danny thought if he held his hand up, he could maybe touch the ceiling, but he saw the IV taped to his elbow, and realized that the absence of pain and his wacky depth perception was probably the work of strong drugs. He felt high.
A kid who looked a couple years younger than him.
“Danny, you’re awake! No way! Mom and Dad thought you’d be asleep longer! Maybe it’s your powers giving you some sort of super recovery? Hey I have powers too! We’re like, power-brothers or something. Oh yeah, you’re probably gonna stay with us for a while! This is your room! Dad said you might not like waking up in a medical setting. Oh I have to introduce you to Fisk, Komodo, and Zon later!”
Danny blinked slowly, taking in the stranger. He was wearing the same orange as Not-Mom and Not-Dad.
“W-Who–?” Danny managed to ask before coughing.
“Oh, right,” The boy grinned sheepishly. “I’m Zak Saturday. Nice to meet you. Dad wouldn’t let us see you when he helped patch you up. I wanted to, but I’m not sure I would have been that helpful anyway. You were in a room that wasn’t in the blueprints, and the cryptids were the ones who showed me where you were. If it weren’t for them, Epsilon's Agents would have never found you either.”
Half of those words didn’t make sense to Danny, and his eyes began to slip close again. Something about Not-Mom and Not-Dad rescuing him? That didn’t sound right. Mom and Dad were the reason he got caught in the first place.
He felt like the GIW scooped out his entire insides and watched every part of him regrow. Like, he was no longer the same Danny, materially, that he was when he came in. The Old-Danny had an Old-Mom and an Old-Dad. He supposed he could live with New-Mom and New-Dad much better.