Avoiding Past And Future

11

It had been little over a year since Danny had checked himself into Belle Rêve. In that time, quite a lot had changed for him.

Initially the plan had been to roam for a while, find a place he and Cujo could stay. The guilt and fear over what happened to his town though, made him paranoid. The thought that he could, would, turn into that monster. It utterly destroyed him mentally. The blame for everything that happened, all on him. He caused it all. Even if part was technically Dan, he is Dan in the making. Who knows what could happen in the 10 years that could still turn him into that? How many people he could hurt?

It wasn't a chance he was willing to take.

His first option would have been to go to Walker. The ghostly warden already wanted him locked up simply for existing so it wouldn't have been too much of a mess. But he would constantly be surrounded by his favorite ghosts, note the sarcasm. It would almost for sure lead to some form of Dan in the future.

Most prisons in the human world weren't even made to hold anybody 'special'. Those that did, had no idea how to hold ghosts. But at least he wouldn't have to deal with Skulker trying to skin him alive.

Getting into a meeting with Miss Waller wasn't easy. Step 1 was to get her to understand he was, in fact, NOT his brother. Damned be his public persona. He did hide the fact they were twins, for both their sake. He didn't need any special treatment because of his family ties.

Convincing her he was a mass murderer and a danger to the world even less convenient. She had been tempted to send him to Black Gate or Arkham, but with a bit of a display of his powers and pulling up some articles about him, she allowed him to stay. Of course they had quite a complicated deal but at least he knew that there was somebody that wouldn't hesitate to put an end to it when the time came. They had several points in their deal, almost none were too big of a hassle to agree too.

#1: Danny would be allowed to modify the control collars so it would cancel out his specific ones. Since the originals were made to inhibit meta powers, they would need an upgrade to handle ghost powers. He had made 5 different ones in total, each with a few spares in case of a malfunction. The one around his neck was mainly to block his transformation, ecto-signature and his ghostly wail. On his left wrist was the one to block out the entirety of his ecto-energy manipulation. This included, but was not limited to his shields and blasts. The right one had been to block out his enhanced senses but that didn't work so well. Later on it was converted to blocking off his ice powers. On his left ankle was the restriction to his flying and invisibility. Lastly, on the right one was intangibility and cloning. They were admittedly a mess to get functional as the main obstacle was that his powers were hardwired into him. Eventually, he figured out that if he got the collars to be powered by his own energy, his body wouldn't fight it. A nice bonus was that it also helped to keep his energy levels in check.

In return, Miss Waller got a personal remote for his collars and his collars only. She was the only one except for Danny that even knew of its existence. She was also given the thermos. Danny didn't really like giving it away but he knew she was responsible enough to keep it safe and use it.

#2: Danny was allowed to keep Cujo, but he was his responsibility. Anything and everything that went wrong was Danny's to fix or be punished for.

Miss Waller would never admit this was mostly because she likes how cute the puppy was. Never. It also didn't help that Cujo did not take kindly to being told to leave. He had grown into his hound form and stood between Waller and Danny when she first tried to deny it. Knowing they wouldn't be able to do much to keep him out, she agreed to let him stay.

#3: Danny's existence here in the prison would be kept a secret from every file possible. If he had to be referenced, he would henceforth be called by his cell number.

In return, he would be the inside eyes and ears for Waller. Anything shady being talked about between the inmates would be reported to her immediately.

#4: If and when necessary, Danny will do whatever it takes, including giving up his life, to protect Belle Rêve. That counted for both inside and outside threats of any kind.

In return, Danny got a bit more leeway than other prisoners when it came to personal belongings in their cells. Because that is a perfectly fair trade off for his life.

Danny didn't mind that much in all honesty. Upon his personal request he had been given his own cell in the isolation ward. Partially so he wouldn't get attached to somebody, or get recognized. Because the chances of that were just sooo incredibly high, right? To at least kind of hide his face, as he would still be kept under watch of the guards, he had been given a modified suit. They were pretty much identical to the standard issued prison orange, except his had an extended collar on his undershirt. It fit somewhat loosely as to not give away too much of the shape of his face, but still tight enough to remain in place. He left it off most of the time when he was alone, but the white fabric would cover the bottom half of his face when the guards or anybody else came close by. Which wasn't all that often as his cell was all the way at the end of the block.

The main reason he had requested an isolated cell was because he didn't trust his powers not to act up. The collars did a lot, but at times they could not keep up with the amount of energy he had. As the months passed, he could tell that his powers were still growing. It was at one of those times, where his powers acted up, that he made a new friend.