Danny was cold.

He was cold and cramped.

The cold didn't bother him much though, it was mainly the cramped space he was squished into that he hated. Not to mention the fact he was captured AGAIN!

He knew what the thermos did, after all, they did test almost all of their ghost weapons on him. He was terrified.

He just got back, he was still healing, why did he have to get captured again?! At least Sam and Tucker were safe, at least, he thought they were safe. The GIW wouldn't go after them right? He hoped not, but the GIW were experts at crushing hopes.

Danny refused to cry. Crying didn't do anything but show fear and weakness. Weakness the GIW would exploit.

But he couldn't help the few tears that slipped down his face, why couldn't the GIW leave him alone? Why couldn't they go after some other halfa?! Danny immediately regretted the thought, he wouldn't wish this fate on anyone. Except for maybe the GIW.

His body was sore, it was always sore when he was squished into the confines of the thermos. He yelped as the thermos was rattled around, no doubt on purpose by the agent holding his small prison. His metal leg was uncomfortably large in the small space, making the room for the rest of his body smaller than ever.

But for some reason he was always able to breathe, even in the trapped space where he should have run out of air long ago. He hated the thermos, always cramped, all the walls closing in around him. Forcing him smaller and smaller until he was released.

Danny began to hyperventilate, too small, much too small.

There was no room, no room at all for his quick breaths, his back was already against the wall, his legs drawn up because that was the only way he'd fit. His legs made his chest area smaller, then his arms were above them, also against the wall. His head was curled downward but the top still hit the wall, much too small. Too small.

The cold feeling in the pit of his stomach grew, he barely noticed it as his panicky breathes continued. He was going back, back again to be dissected and cut and stabbed. He didn't want to go back, but as always, there was nothing he could do about it.

'Nothing you can do?'

Danny paused at the voice, it was familiar. His wide green eyes flickered this way and that, trying to find the source in the small space. Then he realized it wasn't coming from outside, it was coming from inside him.

'We both know you can do something, it's just a question of what.' The voice continued.

Danny squeezed his eyes shut as he was pulled into his brain.

Danny fell with a scream onto the black ground. Just like last time it was dark, but Danny knew now not to be scared. Danny let out a cold breath, he knew he was there anyway though.

Danny walked forward with his odd limp, coming to meet the large helpful ghost in his brain. He wondered if he could help him, help him escape or do something cool to get him out of the thermos.

The large black and white ghost smiled as he approached, although it seemed more sinister than welcoming. The older ghost didn't say anything about his new appendage, Danny was actually grateful he didn't. Behind the ghost was a box over the red and black fog form of Nightmare.

"You're in quite the pickle." The large ghost commented. "While I do keep a lid on Nightmare, I must admit helping you with your newest problems has become very tempting."

"I don't know your name.." Danny said as he came closer, this ghost always seemed to talk in riddles, worse than Clockwork. Less like riddles and more like randomly, it took Danny a moment to figure out what he was talking about most of the time.

"Dan." The ghost said. "And you are stuck."

Danny nodded, glancing past Dan to see Nightmare hissing in his cage. The cage was more like a box, a green shield of some type but was laced with red, almost pulsing. Nightmare kept ramming the walls but he was always bounced backwards with a cry of outrage.

"How about this.." Dan started, "I can't help you in the real world but I can help you here. Remember that time you got really cold? You made ice on your face and got rid of the heat."

Danny frowned with furrowed brows as he thought. Yeah, he did do that once. He nodded.

"Good." Dan lifted a hand, his eyes sparking blue as a crystallized shard of ice grew in his hand. "Because if you wish for escape, were going to need get cold."

Danny watched in awe as Dan threw the ice-spear into the air and faded into the darkness above. "Teach me?" Danny asked, unsure if that was the goal.

"Yes, ice expands, it doesn't do well in small spaces." Dan said with a smirk.

Danny 'Oh'ed, that made sense. He was going to teach him how to escape!

Then a thought crossed Danny's mind.

"Why can't you help in real world?"

"Because we made a deal."

Danny remembered, but he didn't remember exactly what he agreed to. "What deal?"

"The deal where I stayed in here to keep your Nightmare in check."

"But how does that help you?"

"It doesn't, call it a... friendly gesture." Dan said with another toothy grin. Danny didn't like that he couldn't see ghost cores, something about the way he said that made him suspicious, but he couldn't confirm the lie without the purple flare.

But he had no reason to be suspicious, the only thing the ghost had been doing since they met was help him. So Danny dismissed the instinctual fear, he really had no choice but to trust him at this point.

"Now do you want to get out of the tin can or not?" Dan asked with hands on his hips in an oddly friendly manor.

Danny nodded excitedly, he always knew he liked the cold, now he knew why.

Dan cupped his hands together and bent a little for Danny to see. Danny came up quickly with fascination as the older ghost began to make snow in his hands.

It swirled around like a mini tornado in his large hands, an odd wind rushing around and throwing the snow onto Danny's face. Danny yelped and shook off the snow, a small laugh escaping him.

"Yes, it is fun, but it's also dangerous." Dan said, he slammed his hand on the ground and ice erupted from his palm. The ground shook as ice spread over it, spires of crooked ice rising in a large circle around them. Danny floated off the ground, filled with sudden fear.

The ground stoped shaking and the ice stilled, Dan stood and his eyes returned to their bloody red. Dan looked around and folded his arms, "This will do." He muttered to himself.

Danny landed, he liked the cold atmosphere all the ice created, he would love to do something like that. He realized they were in the middle of the circle, the icy ground padded with frost that made it easier to walk.

"Now before we start you need to learn a few things first." Dan said. "You know ghosts have cores right?"

Danny nodded.

"Well within each core there's usually an element. Ours is ice." Dan continued, pointing to his chest.

Danny cocked his head to the side. "How do you know what mine is?"

"You like the cold right? And you hate being hot. Cores matter, they influence body conditions. Like if a ghost has a fire core they hate being cold and can withstand extremely hot temperatures." Dan said, "I have an ice core and so do you, they're rather rare but not rare enough."

Danny nodded, letting the information sink in.

"Now I want you to close your eyes and search for that coldness inside of you."

The halfa complied, his face contorted in consentration.

"Now grab it, don't be afraid of it, and pull it out. Extend your hands and let the cold flow through your body from your core into your hands. It's going to feel weird the first time but don't back out."

Danny felt the cold, he pulled at it, he flinched but kept a hold of it. He let the feeling spread, from his chest to his hands, he panicked as it spread to his face as well.

"It's ok, just let it move, don't freeze it." Dan instructed.

Danny relaxed but was still apprehensive as the cold crawled onto his face and into his eyes, it was also in his hands. He heard a crackle and opened his icy blue eyes to see his hands glowing a cold blue, ice sparkling at its tips.

"Whoa..." Danny breathed out, he turned his hands and the icy aura followed. A giggle escaped him as some icy flakes burst from his hands and into the air.

"Don't get too excited, ice is rather unpredictable." Dan said in warning, his fiery white hair looking odd in the cold setting.

Danny nodded, then flinched as Nightmare made a rather loud escape attempt. The ice in his hands shot off to the side as he flinched, sending jagged ice darts into the ground and rose like a wave that hardened into an arched form.

Danny took a step back, surprised and a little scared of what he just did.

"Like I said, ice is unpredictable and dangerous if the user is unbalanced." Dan said with half lidded eyes, as if rather annoyed.

Danny agreed silently with an imperceptible nod, ice could be scary.

"Try just snow, make a snowball." Dan said.

Danny mimicked Dan as the older ghost cupped his hands together in a different way, on top of each other like a ball. Dan fed ice into the hole he made, snow forming in his hands all ready in a ball. Danny copied, frowning with concentration as he tried to get the snow to form. Instead he got a lump of ice that looked more like an ameba, it grew out of the cracks between his fingers.

When it didn't stop growing Danny yelped and dropped it, the coldness slipping from his face as his eyes faded to green. The ice thumped onto the floor, it looked like a mace head, spiked and round.

"To make snow you have to relax, form it softly, don't pressure it." Dan said. Danny bit his lip and let the coldness creep into his body once more.

He put his hands together and let his eyes close. He felt the cold gather in his hands, he forced himself to relax as a phantom wind blew at his face. He cracked open an eye in fear, then opened both as his hands held a snowball instead of an ice ameba.

He stood triumphantly with a smile, lifting his hands to show Dan his success.

Dan chuckled, the innocence of the child was amusing. "Now practice controlling the snow, think of where you want it to go and it'll go there."

Dan demonstrated with a wave of his hand, he was slow to show each action. He extended his glowing hand, snow and bits of ice accumulated under it, moving in a rather pretty arch where the hand moved. Then he quickly jabbed the arm to the side, in one fluid motion the snow arch became a deadly ice arrow, sinking into one of the arches he made earlier.

"Then once you can control it you can make it a weapon." Dan said with a smirk at the impaled column.

Danny wasn't sure he liked it as that type of weapon, couldn't he just freeze his enemies instead of impale them? Impaling is not... healthy...

"What about freezing and unfreezeing?" Danny asked, shouldn't he be able to control the ice before throwing it at people?

"I already taught you that." Dan said simply, at Danny's confused expression he elaborated. "Ice of course is frozen, it's colder than snow and more solid. Snow is harder to make as it's not exactly ice, I already taught you how to make snow, you should be able to form ice from snow and snow from ice. You learned the hard part, the rest should be easy."

Danny looked down in thought, snow was hard, but he did it. He smiled, he was more talented than he thought, if he could make snow he could make anything!

Danny made his hands glow and moved his arms in the fashion that Dan had. Snow sparkled as it crystallized in the air, Danny wore an excited grin as he shifted his position. He made the snow go up, he made the snow go down, he twisted around and the snow followed. He collected more and more snow then Danny yelped as he was overtaken by a thick blanket of snow.

He dug himself out and his head popped from the sudden snow bank, he grunted as he got out, shaking the snow from his clothes. He looked to Dan, wondering if his achievement was an achievement at all.

"Try making something solid, it helps to make it out of snow first since it's more malleable than ice." Dan said.

Danny nodded but his now green eyes lit with excitement as he planned to do something he's always wanted to do.

Danny laughed as he fell backwards onto the snow, moving his legs and arms to make a snow-angel. He missed Dan's annoyed roll of eyes but when he stood from his finished angel he saw Dan with a half smile. Danny surveyed his snowangel and realized it was a little skewed, his metal leg had sunk deeper than his other and didn't quite reach as far. The little halfa shook off his sudden disappointment and returned to Dan's lesson.

Danny pulled at his ice core again, putting his hands in the snow. He rose his hands, the snow to each side of him rising as well. He made a wall, but Danny struggled to raise it, he huffed as it climbed higher. He then froze the wall, making it almost see through.

"Good." Dan said, "can it take a hit though?" Dan formed some ice darts and sent them in Danny's direction.

Danny yelped and ducked and the ice wall he made shattered. Danny looked up a little scared, he hadn't aimed at him but it sorta felt like it.

"Can you make a ice wall faster?" Dan asked, forming another ice dart in his hand.

Danny yelped again and rose the snow from the ground into a haphazard wall, some parts ice and some still snow.

Shhink

Danny gasped as his breathing quickened.

He opened his eyes to see the ice dart stuck through his wall, had the wall not been there the dart would have harmlessly missed him.

Danny sighed in relief, he was starting to get second thoughts on this ghosts teaching methods, they seemed rather... deadly.

"Good reflexes, can you keep up?" Dan asked, Danny got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach when he heard ice forming again.

Danny peaked behind his wall and saw Dan forming multiple ice darts. Danny paled (or got more pale in his case) and quickly reinforced his wall.

More shinks sounded as the darts sunk into his wall. Danny froze the entire wall, then added some frost so Dan wouldn't be able to see where he was. He kept one part see through, right where his eyes were so he could see Dan coming.

Danny made his own ice dart, the hardened water surprisingly not slippery in his hand. When he looked back to see Dan, Dan was gone.

Danny thrusted his hands into the snowy ground and created more walls around him, solidifying them into ice as they crawled upwards.

"Careful now, if you loose concentration the snow becomes ice." Dan's voice said somewhere above him.

Danny threw some ice into the air above him, creating a roof for his impromptu igloo. Danny gulped, his second thoughts were becoming first thoughts, was this guy trying to kill him?

It didn't make much sense but Danny was open to quick distrust, trust was easy to break. His trust with this guy was cracking.

Danny jumped and yelped as there was a massive thud against his wall. He heard a laugh, a deep throaty laugh that reminded him of the GIW agents. Which snapped his perspective, he was still in the thermos, he was still caught, he was still going to be tortured.

"Good fort. Now try one of your own attacks, I'll stand still for you." Dan's voice said. Danny was very much apprehensive now, this guy was attacking him a few seconds ago, was he crazy?

"You might need to make a door." The voice commented, it sounded amused. Was it all a game to him?

A smirk crawled onto Danny's face. You need two players to play a game.

Danny focused and grabbed part of the wall, it became mush in his hands, he patted it a little and threw it through the hole. He heard a 'splat' and Dans laughter.

"Good! Very good! Although you might want to take into account not everyone plays by the rules."

Danny didn't like the sound of that so he fixed the hole and made more snowballs from the ground. Danny couldn't help the smile on his face.

Suddenly three of his walls came down, the roof crumbled away as well. Danny yelped and threw the snowballs he had at the large mass of the other ghost. Danny let out a laugh as he saw Dan with snow all over his blue face.

He then scrambled to his feet as Dan grew a giant snowball from his walls and tossed it onto him. The ball landed right on top of him, stoping him in his tracks.

If one listens carefully they'd hear muddled laughter from the snow.

He popped his head out, white hair blending into the snow, the rest of his body contained by the snowball that retained its shape.

Danny giggled as Dan came forward, Dan pushed the snow-Danny-ball over and Danny screamed with delight as he was rolled to the side. Danny clenched his fists inside the ball, eyes sparkling with icy power. The ball burst and a replica of Dan appeared, made of snow, with Danny posing as his head.

Dan blinked in surprise. Danny giggled and made his giant Snow-Dan try to crush the real Dan.

"Playing rough are we?" Dan said with a smirk as he floated out of the way. He dodged the other leg and flew upwards, shooting ice daggers as he went. Danny was prepared though, a solid ice shield on the Snow-Dan's arm (a solid foot thick ice sheet) stoped the blades in their tracks.

"Don't always play by the rules." Danny countered with his own smirk.

This was fun.

Snow-Dan made snowballs that made the real Dan fall to the ground with audible "oomph"'s. Dan made his own more spherical igloo when Danny made his Snow-Dan shoot giant ice arrows that were more like pillars.

Then Dan tackled Danny, the Snow-Dan fell into a heap of snow and the two ghosts were buried under it. The rather silent play-fight was riddled with Danny's laughter, forgetting his terror for a moment to just have fun in the snow.

~Many snowball fights later~

Danny tried to cover his heavy breathing, eyes wide with mischief as he tried to be sneaky. One would think a ghost would be able to sneak up on another ghost but Danny was having too much fun to use his other ghost abilities. The snow crunched under his feet and he ducked as a snowball flew past him.

He threw his own snowball and dodged to the side as more snow was thrown his way. He giggled as he created his own ice shield, the action easy with how many times he's done it in the past hour.

That made Danny pause.

How long has he been here?

Danny giggled again as another mountain of snow was dumped on him. He rose unsteadily, a little dizzy because of his heavy breathing, he was having too much fun.

"...Time...out." Danny said breathlessly once he climbed out, putting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath.

He yelped as Dan tackled him again. Danny was sprawled on the floor and Dan stood above him, ice-spear in hand, ready to deliver the final blow.

Danny laughed as Dan taped his chest with the blunted point. "That's one more point for me." Dan said with his own smile and he helped Danny up. "Since when did you follow the 'time out' rule?"

Danny shrugged, "right now." Dan planted his ice staff into the ground, ice forming at its base like a stand.

"You did good kid, 33 out of 73 isn't bad." Dan said, "especially against a pro such as myself."

"Pro?" Danny asked with a smile, "I thought you a penguin,