Like blood and sharks, the ghosts could smell the free-flowing ectoplasm in the Ghost Zone for miles. Ember smirked as she floated on a rock. "This just might be a new record for how quick Baby Pop kicked anyone's butt," she thought to herself as she flew off to see which sucker got on Phantom's bad side. "Don't normally smell this much ectoplasm after a fight with him, he must have been pissed," she said as she approached the infamous Fenton Portal opening.

Ember saw her boyfriend, Skulker, slowly floating while ectoplasm trailed behind him. "Wow babe, what did Baby Pop do to you, you left like five minutes ago," she teased. She grew uneasy when Skulker looked at her with concern in his eyes.

"Get, get someone," Skulker said softly as he lifted the mangled form of Danny Phantom. His stomach had been ripped opened and was missing organs. Red blood mixing with green ectoplasm pooling in the cavity, his chest shakily rising and falling.

"What did you do to him?" Ember yelled in confusion, she knew Skulker wanted to skin the kid and that was mostly banter, but he'd never been this brutal before.

"I didn't, his parents did," Skulker admitted.

Vlad was relaxing in his lounge, a fire crackling as he sipped an aged cognac while he read through the latest R&D reports. He frowned when he heard one of his maids shriek in fright. "Ugh, if it's that dunderhead Skulker, I'm going to shove him in a jar and," he threatened as he closed the folder.

Instead of the ghostly hunter, the dead rock star Ember flew right up to him and grabbed his hand. "Help, Phantom, come quick," she said as she began to tug on his expensive suit.

Normally he'd blast any ghost who got overly handsy with him, but something about the concern in Ember's tone told him this might actually be serious. When he passed through his own portal and chased after Ember. Finally finding Ember and her boyfriend Skulker on one of the many floating rocks in the ghost zone. "Now what is so dire that you had to, to," Vlad trailed off as he saw the state that Daniel was in.

"We don't know what to do," Ember whined.

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

Danny's eyes flickered open, "Ugh, what, no mom, please, stop," he slowly began to panic as he recalled his last memories.

"His blood pressure is spiking, he'll go into cardiac arrest, I need some," a small voice said.

"Nonsense, Desiree, I wish Daniel would calm down," Vlad said.

"Wait, Vlad, what?" Danny thought through the fog in his mind.

"So you have wished it, so it shall be," Desiree said.

A feeling of calm washed over Danny as his vision cleared up. The teenager looked around the room and saw that he was no longer trapped in his parent's basement lab, "strapped to a metal slab while his parents."

*BeepBeepBeepBeepBeepBeep*

"I thought you made him calm," Ember yelled at the wishing ghost.

"I did, my powers are not absolute, especially when it comes to free will," Desiree shouted back. "Whatever he suffered must have been traumatic to already burn through the calm I instilled in him."

"Well I wish he was calm again," Vlad roared over the two bickering women.

"So you have wished it, so it shall be," Desiree said. "And do not yell at me. You requested my help, not the other way around."

Danny's heartbeat slowed down again as the wish took hold. "Daniel," Vlad said calmly. "Daniel, you're safe," he added as he rested his hand on the teen's arm.

"Where, I'm not, they," Danny stammered as he tried to sit up. When he moved his abdomen, sharp pain shot through his body.

"Don't try to move Little Badger, you are," Vlad said as he moved the blanket covering Danny's stomach. Revealing a gaping hole in his gut where tubes were pushed into his body. Expensive medical equipment encircled the bed he lay in, the sounds of pumping and whirring as they acted as artificial organs for his lost body parts.

Tears streamed down his cheeks as he recalled how his parents made him suffer. The sound of Danny's wails began filling the room. "They tried to, to," he sobbed as everyone watched the strongest kid they knew breakdown.

The others in the room patiently waited for Daniel to cry himself to sleep. Desiree had been wished to calm Daniel should he wake up and panic again, so she floated in the room watching his sleeping form. Vlad stepped out into the hallway with Ember who had brought Desiree at Vlad's request, hoping the wishing ghost could just heal up the injured half-ghost.

"I would if I could, Plasmius, but this damage," Desiree said as she tried not to look at Danny's mangled form. Even the harshest punishment she was witness to in her time alive in the much more barbaric age she had been born into, did not compare to the shear surgical precision of carnage that the young teen had suffered. "Was done surgically, with I don't know what, but I am unable to fix this amount of damage," she admitted.

Growling Vlad had surgeons flown in to work on the dying teen, all under threat of ruin should they even think about telling anyone what they see here. They hooked up Danny to ventilators, tubes to simulate his missing organs. A drip of raw ectoplasm was slowly feeding into a line of O- to substitute his missing blood.

After 35 hours of straight surgery where the doctors worked being wished back to energy and sharpening their wits, they were able to stabilize Danny. Now it was just a waiting game for him to begin regenerating on his own, the slow growth of his skin showed positive signs of his physical recovery.

Vlad stood firmly while he aimed a harsh glare at Ember. "What has Skulker been able to find out," he demanded.

Ember floated nervously. "Well Skulker couldn't get in on his own, so he had to pull some favors, so you owe a few ghosts now," she told him.

"Fine, fine, I need to know what's been going on in that house," Vlad waved her off.

"Well with some help, he was able to get in and," Ember shivered. "It was awful, they'd been dissecting," she started to say.

"Vivisect, Daniel is still alive," he cut her off.

"Yeah, but how much longer is up for debate," she shot at him.

Vlad snarled in anger at her crass remark. "Don't test me, Daniel will survive this," he stated.

"Fine, fine, I'm sorry that was in poor taste," Ember apologized. "But they seemed to have caught him a few days ago and," she passed a pda with the information. "Technus is demanding a therapist for what he downloaded into himself."

"After Daniel receives the care he needs," Vlad said dismissively. "So why did his disappearance go unnoticed, if they caught Phantom how did nobody report Fenton was gone?"

"His sister," Ember explained. "She's off to college remember," she poked him in the chest. He was the one who gave her a very generous scholarship so she could attend a premier school that fit her high academic standards and goals, far away from Amity. Where she wouldn't be as able to arrive and help Daniel in his fights to stop Vlad's schemes.

"Right," Vlad nodded, going on his third day with no sleep. "But his two sidekicks," he said as his face turned green as he read through the meticulous notes that Jack was capable of producing.

"Yeah Goth Twerp and Geek Nerd," Ember continued. "That was," she trailed off.

"Well…" Vlad said with irritation.

"With how we've been quiet on our end, they haven't had to come out to help Baby Pop," Ember shrugged. "So I ended up tracking them down to a broom closet, being teenagers," Ember blushed at how she ended up floating in on them.

"Hormones," Vlad rolled his eyes. "But there's no way that a peaceful time and the two bumping uglies is enough for them to have forgotten their friend."

"You'd have to talk to them," Ember said. "I was pretty young when I died, but I still remember school, seems odd that no one at the grand old public education system wouldn't have noticed his disappearance."

"Yes, while the local schools are abysmal," Vlad concurred. "They still would have had to call about his absences," he paused. "Unless," Vlad thought. "Dammit Maddie," he growled and punched a wall next to him.

"What?" Ember asked in confusion.

"They didn't even notice Danny was gone because they got sucked into their work, again" he stomped around like an angry child. "It's just like when I had my accident in college, they didn't come see me once," he slammed his hand into the wall, cracking the darkened mahogany.

"So, that means?" Ember asked again not following along.

"It means that Daniel has been the subject of neglect likely his entire life," Vlad said as he pulled out his phone and hit a number on speed dial. After a few minutes the ringing stopped, and the line connected. "Yes, I need the entire team, drop any clients you have, settle whatever cases you have pending, I need your firm to observe whatever family law possible, especially regarding custody, and I don't care how obscure it is either." He ended the call and hit another number. "Yes, Agent Devirou, Vlad Masters, I need the FBI to do a discrete investigation into two people, Maddie and Jack Fenton, yes I know that the FBI already has a file on them, start from scratch, from when Jasmine Fenton was born," he finished his call.

"Wow you even have the feds on speed dial," Ember whistled in amazement.

"Yes, one of the benefits of being a billionaire," Vlad said as he loosened his tie. "I will not be making a bad decision to leave Daniel in Desiree's care for the night, will I?" he asked.

Ember shook her head. "We may not be his friends, but aside from a few of us, we don't really want to kill Baby Pop," Ember shrugged. "Desiree actually kind of has a thing for him," Ember whispered.

Vlad must have been more tired than he thought because that actually sounded interesting to him. "Really?" he questioned.

Ember nodded. "Yeah, he's one of the few guys she's met over her like five thousand years that hasn't used her powers for personal gain or to take advantage of her or others. So she's got a bit of a crush on him," Ember explained as she floated alongside Vlad who was shuffling towards his bedroom.

"Utterly fascinating," Vlad yawned. "And if I wasn't so tired and the Little Badger wasn't so," he shuddered as he pictured the state Daniel was in. "I would love nothing more than to tease him senselessly about that." Vlad departed to his bedroom where he quickly fell into a deep sleep as his mind tried to process everything that had been going on the last few days.

Author's Notes: This is a bit more brutal than the other story. But I wrote this up a few days ago and felt like dropping it now.