Avoiding Past And Future

12

It was only a few weeks after his 13th birthday. No matter what he did or tried, he kept feeling like he was going to freeze to death. Medical staff had checked him over and found that his internal temperature was way past hypothermic. With what limited equipment they had, they did all the tests they could. None of them helped them to figure out what was going on.

Danny suffered in silence mostly. He couldn't keep warm and would regularly black out for a little. He knew what it felt like when his powers were overloaded. Even with the collars syphoning off quite a lot of it, it wasn't enough. With no way for him to actually release the excess energy, it started eating through his body in an attempt to be used up. This turned into a torturous cycle as his own powers were eating him from the inside, while they were also responsible for attempting to heal the damage it did. No amount of eating helped him keep his weight up as he burned more than he could reasonably be given by the staff.

Cujo had come by from his trip to the outside world. The pup stayed with him quite a lot, but he was and would forever be a free soul that enjoyed wandering around from time to time. Danny could barely respond as he was too cold and weak to do more than a small smile to his friend. Cujo had taken one sniff and had taken off again. Truthfully, it had hurt a bit. He didn't know what was going on and could really use some company.

Miss Waller had come to check on him as he seemed to be getting worse by the day. If her reputation as the stone cold warden wasn't at stake, she would have openly showed her concern for him. There wasn't much she could do except for keep him company. On a daily schedule she would come over and work on some paperwork. Half of the time she was there, Danny would be passed out under a pile of blankets. His already skinny frame was steadily shrinking as it had become harder and harder for him to even eat.

During one of those visits, Cujo had returned. And he had brought company. A giant yeti like creature stood with the pup. It had minimal clothes on, but what stood out were the horns and left arm made out of ice. The yeti, who introduced himself as Frostbite, had requested to take Danny with him. There was a whole bunch of ghost mumbo jumbo that she didn't understand. What she did understand was that it was for Danny's own safety. She had reluctantly agreed and had turned off his collars. Within a fraction of a second, Danny's unconscious body forced itself into his ghost form. Ice had spiked around him and covered the entirety of his cell. Danny's own body had visibly started to freeze over before Frostbite managed to pick him up. With a promise of returning soon, both the yeti and the pup had disappeared again. Leaving Waller even more confused than before, hoping she made the right choice.

It had ended up being very much the right choice. As Danny had only been turned into half a ghost, his core had taken longer to start maturing than it would have for a full ghost. Apparently his timing was all wrong. That damned Stopwatch had meddled yet again and conveniently dropped hints to Frostbite about the possibility of his core being ice. Thus Frostbite had somebody monitor Danny so they would be able to keep up with his powers and have an estimate on how to train him. Of course, it being Danny's luck we are talking about, his powers manifested too early. But also too late in a way? Because of his half ghost status, it wasn't instant, but they had thought it would have come during puberty, around 15 or so, not 13. The whole mess with Dan and having the wail years too early, plus Danny doing his best to seal away his powers set his core into overdrive. This in turn caused it to have something like a sudden growth spurt to put it simply.

A core is akin to a heart in some ways. It both powers the existence of the ghost and their basic powers, but it also can grant them special powers. The lesser ghosts like the ectopusses didn't possess a special core. They simply had neutral cores as their being was too unstable for anything stronger. Amber, however, was a prime example of a fire core. Just like Technus was one for the electric cores.