A Danny Phantom fanfic exploring one of the darker concepts of the series: What would happen if Jack and Maddie caught Danny while he was in ghost form?
It can be read here
, and it has a sequel called Wasteland.
Lab Rat contains examples of:
- Big Sister Instinct: Jazz spends the last half of the fic taking care of Danny after the traumatic attempted vivisection, and trying to get him and their parents to talk about what happened.
- Bittersweet Ending: One that really emphasizes the "bitter" part; Maddie and Jack find out the truth and Danny survives. However, the Fenton family is understandably traumatized by the incident; Danny's relationship with his parents is broken possibly beyond repair, Maddie and Jack have to deal with the guilt and regret and Jazz is a nervous wreck.
- Cue the Flying Pigs: Danny thinks that asking his parents to let him go would work, but his bad cop thoughts say that he has the chance of Plasmius freeing him than them believing him. He tries appealing to them anyway, but gets shocked for it, causing his bad cop thoughts to say "I Told You So."
- Fantastic Racism: Danny's parents' blind hatred of ghosts is what prevents them from realizing that Phantom is telling the truth about not being evil, and its implied that they can't accept what Danny is because of that fear/hatred, with his mother even accidentally saying that they can "fix" him.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Jack plays the Bad cop to Maddie's Good cop when interrogating Danny in his phantom form. Maddie expresses sympathy when Danny lies that he died. Internally, Danny's own thoughts are a version of Good cop, bad cop. Outside of parentheses, Danny tries to be rational and calm, while inside parentheses, Danny's other side starts freaking out and chastizing him.
- Electric Torture: Danny's parents do this to him every so often, to make him sit still. It causes him to scream in pain, even in ghost form.
- First-Person Perspective: The fic is portrayed in Danny's point of view.
- I'm Not Hungry: Danny becomes so messed up that he is given a bowl of soup and doesn't eat it, saying as much to Jazz, who notices when it becomes cold.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The realization of what they did to Danny hits Maddie and Jack hard. Jazz blames herself when she tries to make Danny go downstairs to talk to their parents about what had happened and he sees that they hadn't cleaned up the basement at all.
- Playing with Syringes: The general guise of the plot revolves around vivisection.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Narratively and in dialogue, Danny swears every now and then (mainly hell, damn, and Christ).
- Strapped to an Operating Table: Danny ends up the one on the operation table.
- That Was Not a Dream: Danny passes out at the end of chapter two. When he wakes up he wonders if it was a nightmare, until he sees the bandages on his chest.
- They Would Cut You Up: Danny's worst fears throughout the canon show were of this happening to him as a result of his ghost half. Here, those fears are realized... with his own parents being the ones to attempt it.
- Tranquilizer Dart: Maddie hits Danny with one in Chapter 1. It knocks him out completely until he wakes up to the trope below.
- Title Drop: In the Narrative, Danny says in Chapter one: "I, the enigmatic ghost kid, was here to play 'lab rat.'"
- Wham Line: Right as Maddie is about to deliver a sedative to Danny's system.Danny: "Mom, Dad, no!"
