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lonely-bored-writer · 5 years

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Casper High Ch. 4

Danny Fenton spends a lot of time in his room, according to his parents- yet in all honesty he often flies out the window to attend to other ghostly matters. If he wasn't busy fighting ghosts, he was busy catching up with school work, or talking to his best friends over the phone or computer. Nonetheless, this past week consisted of Danny spending smaller amounts of time doing his normal everyday routine, and instead spending time with a certain Winchester.

It reminded Danny of all things he missed about having his friends around to physically interact with. He had gotten so used to eating lunch alone, and spending all of his time consumed with other things, it was nice to have new things to do. To have someone spend hours doing absolutely nothing with but enjoying each others company nonetheless was a refreshing break from his usually chaotic life.

"Wait, so Sam believes in Phantom even if he hasn't seen him?"

'Maybe Sam has added a bit of complication to his life,' Danny thought, it was odd but not totally unwelcomed.'

"I don't know, maybe, Tuck. Something Mikey said to him a few days ago brought this interest out." Danny sighed, running a hand through his unruly hair. "He's spent some time doing research in the library."

"But every piece of evidence is gone right?" Manson asked, her attention being pulled from the black makeup she was applying, her back facing her computer screen so that the boys could see her face in the reflection of the large mirror in front of her. "I mean, everything with backing, damning evidence that could prove that Phantom isn't much more than a fable now."

"Well yeah, but we already know that some people believe the fairy tale stories still in the library." Tucker cut in before his raven-haired friend could respond. "We've got nothing to worry about Danny, it's like bigfoot, no one has hard proof- and any 'proof' is easily debunked."

"I guess you guys are right." Danny nodded, not able to shake the looming feeling that things wouldn't be that easy- nothing in his life ever truly was. "Anyways, how about we focus on the fact our Sammy has gotten a date."

"Ooooooh, that's what the make up is about? Must be a lucky girl." Tucker grinned, placing his chin on one palm, "Spill the beans, who is this chick."

"You're so lucky I'm hours away and you're safe from my boots right now." Sam glared, before continuing. "Her names Aino, and she transferred here a few months back. She's the one from the super glue incident in art class."

"I like her." Tucker stated, matter-of-fact. "You have my blessing."

"Well thank you dad, not that I asked." Sam rolled her amethyst eyes, leaning out of frame to fix her eyeliner, using a smaller mirror to help with precision.

"I like her name." Danny added, smiling at the groan it got from Sam, "Besides, anyone who can somehow sneak thirty pounds of super glue into a school is perfect for you in my book."

"She's actually planning to do something similar with pudding in a few weeks actually."

"Nooooooo!" Tucker dragged, pressing a hand to his chest. "Sam you have got to marry this girl, or I will."

"I'm sorry Tuck, but she's not into guys who have already been married to their PDAs." Sam shot back in a heartbeat, pulling a laugh from her friends. Moving back, she turned to the computer. "How'd I look?" Sam had changed some since she left Amity, if only to become more… Sam- that was the best way to explain it. Her short black hair only got shorter, before the left sided became shaved down to spite her parents, a few new piercing decorated her left ear lobe, and a brow piercing rested on her right brow. Her outfit was a simple black tank top, grey shorts, fishnets and an oversize army green jacket over it all, finished off with none other than her favorite pair of chained combat boots.

"Perfect."

"Goth, and intimidating."

"Just what I wanted." Sam grinned, running a hand through her hair.

"So, when do we meet this lucky lady?" Danny laughed at the glare Sam flashed the camera.

"This is our first date." Sam deadpanned, unblinking, already done with her friends shenanigans.

"Dude, that's not the right question." Tucker chastised, tapping the camera. "What you meant was when is the wedding."

"I'm gonna go now." Sam hissed, her camera going black before signing off.

"How much do you want to bet we meet Aino in a week." Tucker laughed along with Danny.

"I bet in three days." Danny grinned, glancing over at the time before sighing. "I have to go on patrol soon."

"Don't fret dude." Tucker sighed. "I've got to finish a last minute robotics paper. It's a pain."

"Good Luck." Danny smiled, before the two bid their goodbyes. With a sigh, the halfa pulled himself out of his computer chair and made his way to his window. Time for another night filled with flying around the town for hours.

It was two in the morning when Danny found himself wandering around the park as Fenton. He did this occasionally when he couldn't sleep even if it served best to try to sleep anyways. By this time the park was often completely deserted so it was interesting to find someone swinging nonchalantly on the swings bathed only in the moonlight... and their own glow.

The shiver that raked down his spine, and puff of soft blue air was enough to confirm this was a spirit. Based on the softness of the glow and the much more human-like skin was also a large indicator that this spirit had yet to fully manifest.

"Hey?" Danny called out softly, making his way over to the swings. His only response was a glance. Danny was able to make out the light pink eyes, and scarred cheek. "Wanna tell me why your here at this time of night in a park?" Danny asked, settling himself next to the spirit.

"Where else will I go?" The ghost asked, kicking his legs softly.

"Maybe to the Zone." Danny offered softly, swinging slightly as well. The confused look he got confirmed his suspicions. "You don't know what that is, do you?"

"Is it like Heaven?" The voice wavered and echoed softly, like it wasn't all there, which matched the ghost's appearance perfectly in an eerie way.

"Not quite. You can make your own little paradise though in the Zone." Danny smiled, looking up to the moon. "A hunter has his own hunting grounds, a scientist his own lab, a singer her own studio, whatever you want. Your imagination is your limit."

"What's your name?" The ghost whispered, staring at their feet.

"Danny, though most ghosts know me as Phantom or the 'Ghost Child'."

"Wait, you're Phantom?!" The spirit looked over shocked. "You aren't as mean as I heard you would be."

"Depends who you talk to." Danny chuckled. "But for the most part, I just try to keep the peace."

"What's your name?" Danny asked after a lull in the conversation.

"Ekon." The ghost, now identified, responded. "I'm not sure how long I've been a ghost if I'm being honest."

"It happens." Danny explained calmly. This ghost used to be a human and it was obviously nervous and unsure- being harsh would do nothing except possibly permanently scar the ghost for the rest of their eternity in the afterlife. "Some ghosts could be dead for years before their consciousness manifests."

"How can I go to the Zone?" Ekon asked suddenly, turning coral pink eyes to Danny.

"Just have to go through a portal." Danny offered a smile. "Lucky for you, I happen to have one in my basement."

"You're a lot nicer then I expected." Ekon spoke, a twinkle in his eyes. "When can you take me?"

Danny paused, running a quick mental check over how he was feeling. He was all caught up on his homework, and he doesn't feel tired…

"I can take you now." The spark of hope that filled the spirits face was worth missing sleep tonight.

Danny needs to stop missing sleep. After so many all-nighters, and the caffeine filled drinks that he often times consumed allowed his body to grow a tolerance against the heavenly beverages, not allowing him to take advantage of their effects anymore. The plus side was he forgot it was a weekend, and was able to sleep an extra two hours before his internal clock woke him. That and the smell of bacon.

"Morning honey, how did you sleep?" Maddie greeted her son with a kiss to the top of his hair, setting down a plate of waffles and bacon in front of him.

"Thanks mom." Danny smiled, just now realizing how hungry he was. That most likely had to do with the hours he spent in ghost form inside the Zone, settling Ekon in and creating an amiable friendship between the new ghost and Klemper. "I slept alright, you?"

"Not very much." Maddie admitted, sipping on a cup of coffee. "Your father's catching up on sleep, but we're one step away from a giant break through."

"Really? What about?" Danny stifled a yawn, popping a piece of bacon into his mouth and dousing a heaping serving of syrup on top of his waffles.

"Your father and I think we narrowed down to the exact component in ectoplasm that give ghosts their abilities." Maddie explained. "If we can separate that component, we could very well apply those abilities to absolutely anything."

"That would explain the ecto-dogs in the fridge." Danny supplied around a mouthful of waffle, pulling a laugh from his mother.

"Swallow first, then speak." Maddie reminded, getting a sheepish smile in response. "And yes, it even opens the possibility of humans being able to use such abilities."

"What-" Danny choked, coughing slightly before continuing. "Wouldn't that turn them into a ghost?"

"Not quite." Maddie shook her head, pausing slightly to put her thoughts in order. "The healing factors found in these specters can do wonders in medical advancement if we can place the exact component."

"Ah..." Danny trailed, eyes trained on his half eaten waffles. His mind mulling over the information he learned and wondering if it was a threat or not.

"Well, I'm off to join your dad in his nap." Maddie stood, dropping her mug in the sink. She continued after dropping another peck on her son. "I left a bit of cash on the coffee table in case you plan on going out."

"Sleep well mom, love you." Danny waited until he heard the faint 'I love you' before standing to leave. He did plan to meet with Sam Winchester at the nasty burger in a few hours. It didn't mean he had to stay in his house until then- he could walk around Amity for a bit before making his way over.

"Hey Sam." Danny greeted with a smile, sliding into the booth across from the taller teen. "Sorry I'm late, my dad dragged me into one of his experiments." Danny offered an apologetic smile. In reality Danny felt bad for lying to Sam, on his way there he was stopped by Cujo who was dragging around a scared Ghostwriter. That had been quite a chase.

"You're good, I actually hadn't noticed." Sam returned with a sheepish smile, closing his laptop.

"What's the distraction this time?" Danny asked, settling in his seat and stealing a fry from Sam's tray.

"Creative writing." Sam sighed, laying a hand on top of his computer. "Mr. Leedee comes back from leave tomorrow, and I complete forgot about his project. Given we are just coming up with an idea list, we get partners tomorrow."

"Ouch, projects are never fun. Throwing in partners? That just makes it worse." Danny responded. "What's the topic?"

"We're supposed to write a story based on a fable, or fairy-tale, or urban legend we know about."

"That shouldn't be too hard. There's tons to choose from." Danny offered, receiving a sheepish smile back.

"That's the point, there are so many." Danny couldn't help the chuckle that escaped him.

"What are your choices?" Danny asked, accepting the laptop as it was slid over to him. The raven haired teen's eyebrows furrowed at the list; the Winchester had only listened one fairy-tale while the rest seemed to be urban legends. "I'd say Hansel and Gretel. Less morbid then the rest." Danny deduced, sliding the laptop close.

"Well, let's hope my partner is fine with that." Sam offered back, before relaxing. A small silence passed between the two, the two teens taking in the food before them before conversation rose again. "Anything new?"

"Not really, I'm still waiting to hear about Sam's date with Aino."

"Sam had a date?" The youngest Winchester looked shocked.

"I didn't tell you?!"

"I never thought Sam would find someone to date in high school, especially with how you described her- nothing against her though anyways."

"Honestly, neither did Tuck and I." Danny laughed along with Sam, happy to see his new friend take an interest in his best friends. "So get this, Aino was the girl from this incident..."

#supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #Supernatural fanfic #supernatural writing prompts #superphantom #superphantom au #fanfiction #fandom #fanfiction.net #fanfic #Fandoms #danny #Danny Phantom #danny fenton #danny phantom fanfiction #Casper High

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dannyphantomrpg · 7 years

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Analysis: Ten Years Later

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Ten Years Later videos lately, and this analysis post just sort of happened~

To be fair, I did need to work it all out since I mildly referenced it in my Foley Fest drabble.

If I get any comic book info wrong, I'm so sorry. I don't know anything about Marvel aside what my husband knows about the 90's Spiderman cartoon.

Let's start off with Sam and Tucker, cause honestly? There's not much to go over with them.

Sam is sort of basic. Sort of dull. Butch says "leather" trench, but it's most likely pleather, or something more animal-friendly. Even (especially) ten years later, I don't see Sam giving up the good fight.

Her crop top, tho, seems to be a constant. I don't know if that's really her aesthetic, or if Butch just thinks all women like to show off their stomachs. Either way, the DP logo is something Sam would definitely sport.

Something I wanted to point out: in her first TYL sketch, Butch compares her to Black Widow. A quick Wiki skim later gives a bit more depth to the comic book ignorant like me. Black Widow's origin story is that of an orphan child being raised by the Russian government as a sort of Anti-Capitan America. She met up with Tony Stark by trying to assassinate someone in his company.

Sort of interesting to compare Sam with Black Widow, and then give her all those huge anti-ghost guns, hm~?

Tucker, I have a few issues with. Not his design (aside how he only got one sketch and then his final design - show your own characters some love, Butch!), but how Butch talks about him.

Specifically, that he's running for president. Quoting from Wikipedia:

“Article Two, Section 1 of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

Tucker would only be twenty-four in TYL. He's still got 11 years to go before he can even think about running for president. So, like...

What happened to that little bit of legality?

Also of note, Tucker is the only redesign without the DP logo. Most likely, this is because he was the first and therefore before Butch had the idea, but he did give the majority of Sam's the logo.

Moving right along, we get into the meat of TYL. The Fentons.

A moment of silence for my baby Jazz.

How did "I want to go into psychology to help troubled teens" turn into "I'm essentially Tucker now"? Yes, she's the only one we've seen use the Fenton Peeler, but that doesn't really equate to getting "into the tech side of things."

Even in her sketch of just being in a jumpsuit with a "Maddie" haircut, Butch specifically gives her a piece of technology. He has her in a lab, leaning against a circuitry panel. Not a book in sight - not even one on ghost hunting!

And her final design? Oh, my sweet, smart child. There's just something so inhuman and terrifying about this image. Physically wired into Fenton Works? She "helps run all the gadgets"? She has control over traffic lights and automatic doors? Somehow, I feel like Tucker being up close and personal with his iPhone would be way more helpful than Jazz in a building on the other side of the city would be.

What happens the moment she runs into Technus? Heck, just send someone in to cut the power physically and she's completely vulnerable.

I guess Jack would be happy to be half robot? I mean, it seems like half his brain would be gone, so he can probably just be programmed to be excited about it anyway. I've never really seen Jack as the kind of guy to be upset about hygiene. If anything, I see him as a really clean person (until he gets completely distracted with an invention or something).

His second sketch is the one I really prefer - older, but still Jack. He’s big and buff and still a big old teddy bear. I can see this as a man who saw his son save the world and think "I'm slapping that logo on everything to show how proud of him I am".

Jack's finalized sketch is what really gave me pause in the first place. He's missing an eye. He's missing a leg. He has a prosthetic that, according to Butch, runs on ectoplasm. And, ok, I can see that happening. For God's sake, he turned his son and college best friend into halfas on accident because he wasn't paying attention - this man is not someone you really want in a lab setting.

But that's not what happened.

According to Butch, there is a possibility that people did this. That flesh and blood humans went after the Fentons and did them personal harm simply because of their connection to Danny. Jack lost a limb because a person decided to a) take out ghost-hunting competition, or b) cause Danny some kind of psychological harm, i.e. "If we can't get to you, we can get to your family".

And Maddie?

She was first and foremost a mother. Despite all the angst and family drama this fandom produces, Maddie loves her son above anything else. I feel, personally, if there was a choice between continuing her research and her children, she would give it all up in a heartbeat to make sure they're safe and happy.

That's all gone in her sketches.

Her very first image, she has a buzz cut, she has a huge weapon that's creating some sort of unmerciful death-ray, her goggles are down and she means business. There's nothing matronly about her in that image, no remnants of the mother that would look fondly on her son. No, she's murdering the F out of some ghost and does not care.

Again, in he second sketch, her hair is cut off and the goggles are down. There is something out there and she is going to destroy it. There is something out there that made Maddie leap "out of some sort of an airborne vehicle" with the ghost equivalent of the Little Boy and the Fat Man.

And, again, Butch is not helping.

"Well, I think maybe the Ghost Zone is in turmoil. I think that the ghosts need to live somewhere, and they’re trying to come here. So that’s why the Fentons get involved and that’s why there are so many weapons and why they’re up night and day, fighting off the ghosts."

First off - it's been established that the Ghost Zone and the Human World are connected. Anything that happens to one, will affect the other. So if the Ghost Zone has become so uninhabitable that the ghosts are coming here? How bad off is our world?

Second, Butch didn't say the ghosts were attacking. He said they wanted to live here. Yes, there are some ghost jerks out there *cough*Skulker*cough* but what about peaceful ones like Dora and Poindexter? The people of the Far Frozen? Shouldn't the Fentons know by now that not all ghosts are hostile? (Plus, this would have been an amazing use of Jazz's psychology to talk to some of these ghosts, to calm them down and learn from them.)

Maddie's final version manages to paint an even more bleak image for her. Butch mentions Mad Max and, a quick Wiki read later, that's, like, not good. Civilization is gone, lawlessness runs rampant, murder seems to be the only way to protect yourself. And Maddie is supposed to call forth that image?

Her hair is now essentially the shortest length Butch can give her without shaving her head. She's still wearing those goggles. We have yet to see this woman's eyes, she keeps them so hidden from the world. She has no guns to defend herself, only an ectoplasm-charged bat. She doesn't care about keeping her distance - oh no, she wants to be in the middle of the action.

And those BDSM ghosts? She keeps them on leashes short enough that they could touch her. She keeps them around to "help her sense other ghosts", nevermind the fact that, from what I recall, Danny is the only one with an actual ghost sense. Those ghosts look angry and not at all subdued.

And she's still wearing the DP logo. Somehow, even knowing her son is part ghost, she still has enough detachment/hatred of ghosts to demean them down to an animalistic level.

Vlad's designs are, whoo boy... Unique? Different? Each one portrays a completely different vision of the future that don't really mesh together. His first sketch is rather, uh, let's be completely honest here, Satanic. But other than that apparent dive into absolute evil, he looks more or less the same. Like no time has passed. I guess Clockwork could have yanked him out of space before too long?

By now everybody knows about the second sketch with fat!Vlad, tiger!Maddie, and perfect clone!Daniel. Heck, I knew about Daniel before I even knew there was a Ten Years Later video.

And let me just say this real quick: I love that, as soon as the words "He’s finally got himself a cloned child." were said we all, individually, came to the conclusion that: his name is Daniel Masters, he can be a spoiled jerk but isn't really evil, and he just wants someone to be friends with and play video games with. Like, I've yet to even see him in a TYL setting, he's more of a "Season 4" character.

My other thing I love about this image? Fat!Vlad. For a middle-aged man who kept in perfect shape, who fights with ghost teenagers every day, to suddenly put on weight? To me, in my experience, that means he's happy. He's found a way to be calm and relax and, yes, be settled enough to put on a few pounds. That's what happened to my husband. Before we got together she was an anxious, angry (precious) emo chick. And now she's calm, she's happy, she's adorably chubby~ (don't tell her I said this lol). Like, Vlad's so chill in this sketch that, whenever he finds out Daniel's been hanging out with Danny, he's not even mad! He's just like, "Be home by curfew, love you!" (My TYL Vlad is -absolutely- Maes Hughes. There isn't a single employee at Dalv Corp that hasn't seen a fold out wallet full of Daniel's pictures.)

(And just think, when Daniel brings home his boyfriend/girlfriend, Vlad brings out the baby book and Daniel's S/O is just like, "Why were your first steps when you were fourteen???")

Tiger!Maddie is great, if a little odd. Then again, Vlad's just living the dream of every five year old that just went to the zoo for the first time: "I wanna bring home the big kitty!"

And we get back to crazytown with the third sketch. Vlad wants to be king, what? When? Butch do you... do you know who Vlad is? You were so close with perfect clone!Daniel, and then you pull this. The only thing I can see this working as is some kind of Medieval AU with Dora and Aragon/pre-Sarcophagus Pariah Dark. Other than that, I can't see this sketch fitting in anywhere in DP.

But Vlad's final sketch returns us to the nightmare that is TYL. Vlad was abandoned in space, all human contact cut off, the only person that willingly called him a friend turned his back on him. He's probably ready to curl up and die at that point and then aliens come and kidnap him, forcing him to be a miner and then a coliseum fighter. I can't imagine the blow to his pride all that did.

I can accept that he would keep enough presence of mind to escape. Heck, I can almost believe that he would willingly keep the chain on his arm (though as less of a "reminder of where he came from" and more of a "I'm going to make these guys pay!"). But what really gets me is Butch saying, "he really, really wants to get Danny now".

That's not at all ominous. Not at all.

Like, what is that supposed to mean? I'm sure we're supposed to infer he's coming after Danny, but, would he? After all that time alone, after being broken down by some crazy Criminal Minds aliens? I'm sure that, in all that time Vlad was captured, he must have let it slip that he wasn't the only halfa. That this boy on Earth was more powerful that he had been in his prime. Could he be coming to warn Danny? Maybe the reason he escaped was because the aliens have their eye on a new "champion"?

Danielle is absolutely precious to me. My sweet little girl who only wants to live her own life. I love that her first sketch gives her a bit more of the Vlad influence (especially since I headcanon that she has his fire core and not Danny's ice core). The opposing black and white outfit, though, just looks like a bad Harley Quinn to me.

The second sketch is kind of cutsie, kind of bleh. There's something about Butch's femme designs that just... don't really hit the mark.

I'm adoring her third sketch. The overall feel of "ghost" really comes through with this design (and she finally has matching boots and gloves) and it feels really right with her. I've always loved the idea that she's more ghost than human, and this images hits it just right.

Her final design is ok. We go back to the alternating colors, which I don't like, but she also looks more like Danny, which I do like. Butch says she "likes to party" which I can kind of see. She's full of spunk, she has an adventurous side, she'd love to go out and see everything and get involved with as much as she can. The fact that she can shape ectoplasm into words seems like something she'd be into. Just imagine her floating outside of Vlad's window, cussing him out with floaty green writing.

Now, we finally get to Danny. His first sketch isn't too bad. He has a dedicated place for the Thermos - good idea on his part. A little simple, little plain. Loving the cargo pants, tho.

His second design looks a little more like a plain upgrade form his usual hazmat, but with more armor. Makes me think Sam and Tucker went to a sporting goods store and slapped all the knee/elbow pads they could on him to keep him from hurting himself so much.

I like the idea of the third design. When he embraces his ghost side, he gets more Dan-like qualities. I think something like this would take him a while to adjust to, but he would be better for it. This design feels like it would be the strongest one - delving into his ghost half and pulling power from it instead of fighting to keep it balanced with his human half.

Danny's final design, however, make me think. His hazmat has been replaced, or most likely upgraded, to include more Fenton gadgets - specifically trading the Thermos for a Glove. But the Glove, instead of just being a catch/release system, actually uses the caught ghost to power his suit. The green isn't just for design, it's the power he's taken from other ghosts he's captured. Does this mean he's just taking whatever the captured ghost's power is (like weather-control, or even power over boxes)? Or is it like the rest of Fenton tech where he's actually taking the ectoplasm from the captured ghost to power himself? How much is that hurting the other ghost?

As strong as Danny is, as strong as he keeps getting, why does he need to power a suit to keep fighting?

I've been thinking about this final design, thinking about the designs for all the other characters, especially the Fentons. I thought about how Danny would fight until his last breath to protect Amity Park, and, like...

Did he?

Did Danny die at some point prior to Ten Years Later?

Only once is Danny referred to as Danny Fenton, and that's during the sketch for Jack's original design. He's not even called Fenton in his own redesigns. He's had several sketches, but all of them were for Phantom. Heck, Vlad got a human drawing, even if it wasn't for his final design.

And the more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense.

Jazz gave up on psychology when her little brother died. She probably became depressed and couldn't leave the house. Wiring herself into Fenton Works seemed like the next logical step - at least this way she could help without having to face his friends who could go on without him.

Jack was probably grieving when he was attacked. He lost his son, his eye, and his leg.

Without having to reconcile her son's humanity with his ghostlyness, Maddie was free to revert back to a lifetime of thinking that all ghosts were nonsentient. She probably didn't get enough of a chance to being to change her views permanently, so she sees nothing wrong with how she's treating the leashed ghosts.

And Danny himself would even have an excuse for his suit. I've seen in the fandom that the reason Danny is such a strong ghost is because he's young, and he's still growing. That the more he ages, the stronger he becomes. When Danny died, he would have stopped growing in power. Heck, he might have even started -losing- power, and trying to revert to how strong he was when he first "died" in the accident. Having a suit that runs on other ghosts, using their power to replace his own, would actually make sense, especially if Maddie helped make it.

#Danny Phantom #Ten Years LAter #analysis post #danny fenton #sam manson #Tucker Foley #jazz fenton #Maddie Fenton #jack fenton #Vlad Masters #vlad plasmius #dani #perfect clone!daniel #tiger!maddie #honestly i kinda want to see a part three #just to see how far this trainwreck can go

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vladxmaddie · 7 years

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Takes place before Phantom Planet ///Jack Fenton comes up dead. Maddie and Danny Fenton zero in on a suspect and plan on the confrontation of a lifetime! However Maddie finds herself confronting more than just Vlad... She’ll have to confront her past... and fate. There had been a lot of unresolved feelings between Maddie and Vlad leading up to this. \\\ Romance/Suspense (VladxMaddie pairing) My husband wrote this and it is sooooo good!! If you are a shipper you’ll love it. It is very deep and intelligent and the characters are well written. -------------------------------------- Wars have been started over lesser heroines. Helen of Troy was a mere fairy tale by long dead warriors. Juliet was a mere silhouette in romance poetry when compared to the light of my long lost Lenore. Joan of Arc became a Pop Tart for a shred of my conviction. For me, there is only one name on the Marque -- Maddie.

Please allow me to introduce myself; I am Vlad Masters, also known as an ectoplasmic superhuman, the Plasmius. With an army of both wealth and manifested supernatural underlings, I command an empire... but such a lonely kingdom it is without her. An accident has forever bound the fate of Maddie, and I -- and ... him, and made me what I am today. He is the one I have loathed for longer than a human mind can conceive of time; he is the sole reason why I command a legion of lowly ghosts, hopelessly scrambling to win back Maddie's affections. Jack... Our lives our forever linked by tragedy.

We knew only one of us would come out truly alive... and truly loved. Jack Fenton is dead. You must understand that this is a day I never really imagined would happen.

You must understand what this means... Maddie...

Though you may think of me as the villain of our previous affairs, know that I have my reasons for my crimes. Oh, sure, I've had my fair share of dasdardly doings, malicious schemes, and underhanded dealings towards Jack and his family, but what I've dealt and done, I did for love. Even my minions know this. They often times tire of every tear that shrivels up in my ecto-eyes whenever a cheesy 80's love song blares throughout the castle walls. They tell me that I call her name out in my sleep... and that my snoring sounds like buzz saws cutting through jagged metal. They call it, "Maddie's Song" or, "The Cheese King's Lament" (-- I prefer the former).

They say I also say, "Kill Jack" at least three times a night (four on weekends).

Life has not been easy for this half-ghost super-villain, let me tell you. I have years of occult training under my belt, and a skillset to match that belt with shiny sequins... but nothing can shine like the glow of Maddie's eyes... though often times my glances at her were while she glanzed, doe-eyed and stupidly at Jack. However... in my newfound understanding, I almost sympathize with my rival, and know that our intentions were more similar in heart than in their eventual actions. We were two primal beasts beating our chests for the affections of a girl.... but not just any girl. Maddie... the girl he stole from me!

Forgive me, however -- I am getting far ahead of myself; she will be at this castle again in one hour.

My eyes dance in otherworldly flames that twist around the hands of the clock. My devious smirk twists from space and time in the mirror's reflection. Tonight, all the doors are open for my love and I. Tonight, a brave new world has opened itself up to us with loving arms.

Tonight there is a song playing on the radio so oddly reminicent of our plight...

"Take these broken wings and learn to fly again."

Maddie... let me teach you to fly. Let me show you a better world -- a world without Jack Fenton -- a world without Ecno-acne or the obnoxious fundraisers on the TV to cure it (we only raised $200 -- mainly because no one knew what the hell we were talking about--) a world where you and I are finally King and Queen...

Tonight, my minions are restless... Maddie's Song is going viral. Fifty-eight minutes, now... and I'm getting nervous. Tick tock, Maddie...

Words cannot describe the oceans of time that crash from our last true moment together as rightful heirs to this ghost kingdom. The blast of blinding light that overtook my vision as I thought I was surely dead -- the screaming crash that resolved the brooding tension of hearts -- it feels like forever ago, and yet every heart beat now. Jack Fenton had robbed me of my humanity on this day -- an infamous day -- but what no one really understands is that it was one of many days -- lonely days... without Maddie. Had I died that day at the lab, Maddie would have been the last thought on my mind, as she has often been the first, since then. Every wretched morning, I awake in a grave of a bed, and see my ghosts, bedside by her altar. Her face haunts me worse than they ever could.

So many pictures...

You could call me a collector.

For so long, for so many fights, in so many blasts of ectoplasmic energy, and for so many of those lonely nights and mornings, there has been only one thing standing in our way: Jack Fenton. Could a world without such a man even exist?

Well, it does... tonight.

Thirty minutes, Maddie...

With the aforementioned skillset I've boasted, these minutes are able to whip up quite the hardy dinner date, complete with everything from the freshest steaks from the almost freshest cows, their freshest milk and cheese, and the most aged and locked away wine, festering in at least three of my dungeons for at least two decades. The table is set, the finest (and freshest) silverware is laid out. The mirrors are all slightly tilted, so as not to distract my love with too many a horrible scene of my minions ready to kill her son if need be, in case of a backup plan.

The doorbell rings... "Maddie!" my voice confidently addresses, forgetting social cues. "You look so lovely... given such terrible circumstances."

Her eyes tear through me like ghost-obliterating lasers, and her face is pale and puzzled.

"Vlad..."

The moment is stolen by a snot-nosed little shit named Danny. His stare instantly becomes a threat of violence alone. There is a tension between us all that festers like an ever-expanding elephant in the rooms of my castle. I have to tell the truth, instantly.

"I didn't kill your father, Daniel. But please, come in! -- And Maddie, I will have your coat lined up on the finest of coathangers, and--"

"Vlad--" she intercepts like Brett Farve to score a touchdown in my heart. "I--"

"You must be so tired!" I desperately try to persuade her into security of my smile. "Have you ever felt the material of a six hundred thousand dollar expandable bed on your legs before? It's... really quite divine."

"It sounds lovely, Vlad," Maddie admits, delighting me, but likewise she toys with my heart with her every word. "But I really don't know if it's appropriate to be meeting like this so soon.."

"Oh, Maddie," I say, my voice cracking in genuine concern, "Even as a grieving widow, your eyes are still no more nor less haunting than before."

"Cut the shit, Vlad!" her misfit child barks at me. "I know you had something to do with this!"

"Oh, hush, boy," I say, undettered. "As I've been telling your mother for... exactly three hours and twenty eight minutes straight of text messages and Skype calls -- I'm here to help."

"I... want to believe that, Vlad" Maddie whimpers. Such delicate pain -- pain I know all too well, somehow, in longing for her. I have something for her tonight that will change everything we have ever known... my last chance at winning her heart.

"Please come in."

Touchdown, Packers.

The evening dinner goes smoothly enough, with the obvious passive aggression between me and the boy. Maddie even eats like an angel. I hope she doesn't mind me staring, in between the usual condolences and small talk about our favorite wines and cheeses. It's a touchy subject -- the Jack thing, as you can imagine, and she is in a state of grief. I am doing my best to prepare her for this truth that Jack never saw coming.

(Frankly, neither did I!)

What I had not ever truly known in all these years was there was a ghost among the presence of my castle that was not only strong enough to merely kill Jack or Danny -- but one that might resolve the pieces of my heart to repair -- repair in Maddie's arms at last! It was a freak accident that changed my life, but as such, I was not Jack's only mistake in the world of ghostly mischief. Allow me to ellaborate. A chance encounter with another immortal showed me what I really became on the day that ripped me away from her, and drove her into Fenton's arms. A keeper of time and potential fate, Clockwork, had mumbled to me about ghosts not always being what we think of them to be. Sometimes feelings can be ghosts, too.

(Then he tried to kill me; go figure.)

"Daniel, could you excuse me and your mother for a moment?"

"No way, dude. I am NOT leaving you alone with my mom after what you--"

"Danny, please!" Maddie's voice interrupts us, heavenly and reserved as she is stern, and so the true conversation can begin. Danny slips out of the room, watching me in his every step as he goes to what I hope is the last possible bathroom on the furthest end of the castle.

Minutes tick by, and the conversations do rightfully shift to talk of Jack and Danny, and the wheels of fate that turn for us all now.

"I know your secret, Vlad," Maddie declares. "I know about your life as Plasmius, your countless attempts on Jack's life -- what you've done on your expensive beds -- everything!"

I gasp. "Maddie! How could you accuse me of such awful and atrocious things? Surely you would not have come all the way out here just to toss around such hurtful accusations!"

"Danny always told me I shouldn't trust you, Vlad..."

"Danny is a fool, Maddie. He has grown up being overshadowed by that big, lumbering wall of a husband of yours. Both of you have been restraining your true potential -- potential that I can--"

"Enough!" she interrupts, glaring at me with hellish eyes that I know are serious... but something behind the fire beckons me still.

"How did you find out?" I prod.

She looks into my eyes and begins our psychological game of musical chairs. Both of us are refusing to stand, now, deadlocked into cemented stance, waiting for each other's move.

"I have my ways, Vlad. I have been onto your true motives for quite some time." "My 'true motives?'" I question. "Why did you come out here if you think I killed him?" Maddie says nothing, her lips devoid of a twitch, and her eyes too vigilant to fall off of me with more than a blink.

"Do you also know about Danny's powers?"

She nods.

This is all going so much better than I had anticipated...

The music has long since died. "Are you and Danny going to try to kill me?" I ask, smirking. "If you're going to take advice from him, you should ask him how many times I've died. It's honestly not many, Maddie... and never for as long as Jack."

Maddie hesitates for a moment, a bit of blood rushing to her head as she lets the wine settle in her stomach.

"I need to know what happened to him. I know that you know... Vlad Plasmius."

Hearing her call me by that name sends a quiver down my spine with the force of ten thousand Fenton-patented spiritual spine beams. I try to maintain my composure, and disicpline.

"If you knew what I knew," I respond, "you'd know I didn't kill him. Jack killed himself... in a way."

"How dare you!" she screeches. "Are you saying that--"

"Maddie -- what I'm saying is, we are on the cusp of something that no one could have truly understood before."

"What are you talking about?" Maddie demands.

"-- What killed Jack -- what gave me and Danny our powers -- what compelled you here, if not to avenge him -- it's all part of the same thing, Maddie. We are all summoning a great supernatural energy -- here, and now. You and I are the rightful owners of this energy -- not you and Jack!"

A part of the truth leaks from my lips like cosmic sludge. I wipe my mouth and wait for her to catch an interest in my information. It's a very curious game.

"You're... not making any sense... " she mumbles. "At least... not much sense. A little, I think."

"Yes," I confirm. "You know it in your heart, don't you? -- On the day of the accident, a terrible crime was committed against fate... a crime that robbed me of my humanity -- and of you! Yet, one was many in a list of crimes that begin and end with the Fenton name! I should be the one taking care of you -- the one honing your crafts with my own. Jack ensured that all I would ever have was a bucket full of extra crispy for a head!"

"And there you go on again," she shoots down, "always the same stories, always the same people to blame. Have you ever EVEN ONCE considered that I chose Jack over you because I genuinely loved him, and NOT because your face was fried chicken?"

"Yes, Maddie," I concede. "I have considered all possible fates since that day, and all foods in which to compare my face to -- hopelessly wandering through space and time to reconcile this matter -- why I feel so alone without you. Why the ghosts around us all are conspiring in such anger; why you ended up with such a ... a bafoon! They say opposites attract, but my--"

"Stop talking about him like that!" she warns. "How can you say such things about my husband -- your former friend -- if you were not the one who killed him! He loved me -- and he loved you! You were like a brother to him!"

"HA!" I deflect. "That oafish fence post couldn't calibrate a calculator! He never truly cared about my talents -- or yours! It was always US, Maddie -- the brains of the team -- the true Masters of the unseen! Jacky-boy was just along for the ride!"

"You're insane," Maddie spits.

"I know," I acknowledge, sipping the wine and building a rather impressive statue to myself out of toothpicks on my dinner plate as we talk (one of my many hidden talents). "You always said that the 'mad scientist' thing was a turn on, didn't you?" I smile.

"Vlad..." Maddie blushes, "That ... was years ago."

"Eternities," I correct. "Each of them spent in my own personal hell without you."

"Me...?"

"You, Maddie..." I call out, declaring my undying devotion. "For all of these days and nights and years and crimes -- it has always been the pain of really losing you that has driven me to these low frequences..."

Maddie looks to the ground, for a second, slightly lost and assessing her thoughts.

"We did have some good times together, didn't we...?"

An unexpected wall has come down in her temperment. I catch her lost in reflections of a life that should have continued on with us together -- days and nights of lab partners and friends and potentially so much more -- Vlad... and Maddie. Unfortunately, connecting the dots reveals that our love story has always been, indeed, a tragedy.

... Until tonight? "Remember when I won those tickets for that Packers game, for the stadium near our old lab?"

Finally -- a smile comes to the sweet widow's lips and she almost trips into a slight chuckle.

"Of course!" she beams. "That was crazy!"

"Yes," I agree -- "more than you know, for more reasons than you understand."

Maddie shakes her head.

"'You're looking sharp!'" she quotes herself from the day in question, giggling in slight self-deprecation. "I was such a dork back then!"

"No... you weren't," I reassure her. "You were beautiful then, and you're beautiful now.

"Vlad..." Maddie blushes. She tries to steer my mind towards the events of that fateful day. "You were so excited! You ran to tell me, as I was--"

"You were wearing your labcoat," I begin to effortlessly recall, finishing her thought, "hiding a blue halter top, a studded belt, and a purple skirt with flowing fabric, like ribbons. You were working on an experiment..."

"The Spectral Emotional Ecto Sludge," she correctly remembers. "I forgot all about that nasty, brown goop. It was so ugly... so sticky and slimy, so--"

"So like HIM!" I shout at her, startling even myself, a bit. Maddie is taken off her guard by my conviction, but that is okay. I have my reasons for making an enemy of the Sludge I met on that day, and they are the same as my vendetta against her late, great Jack: it cost me yet another chance with her!"

-- "Hey Vlad! You're looking sharp!" Maddie called from afar, deep within a memory forcing its way through my powerful brain. "Whatcha' so excited for?"

My eyes soon caught the aforementioned ribbon-like fabric of her unforgettable purple skirt. It flew through the air like angel wings. Those eyes very quickly went to hers, though, as I tried not to stare.

(I may be a villain, but I'm not a creeper.)

Mainly I remember this occurance because it felt like a gust of wind had taken up toward me as I entered the lab through the creaky door, tickets outstretched in excitement with my flailing hands trying to reach for Maddie. It was as if I was having a premonition before I actually had the ability to have them (a prepremonition).

I was so happy. This was finally my chance to win her over -- to ask her out on a date to one of the biggest games in history!

(Okay, it actually wasn't an important game, but free tickets are free tickets, and boy, did I need an excuse to work up the nerve.) "Maddie!" I gleefully called out as a mere mortal man. Up until a certain point, I'd consider these the simpler days. "I have some amazing news!"

"I can tell!" she boasted with a surprised smile. "Your emotions are radiating throughout the Sludge -- which, of course, means the experiment was a resounding success!"

Delighted with her own information first, she beamed.

"What is that?" I asked, puzzled and broken away, too, from my own cause of success. Like a supermodel posing with a product, her hand held a meager tupperware container among the land of test tubes. In it was a sight that scars my eyes to this day.

"Well!" Maddie grinned, seemingly waiting for hours just to be asked -- "This little baby is the magical -- the fantasical -- the -- Spectral Emotional Ecto Sludge!"

I tilted my head slightly to the left, thinking to myself how deeply I was falling in love with her every graceful gesture. I had to keep these feelings to myself, so I resigned to looking rightfully puzzled by her experiment. "Spectral... Emotional ... Sludge?"

"Sort of!" she laughed, and true to its name, there was an emotional reaction to match her own within the brown, toxic slime. It danced to the sound of her voice, highly reactive.

"What does it do?" I pondered to her, intrigued. "Well," -- and Maddie hesitated with a flush upon her face that made my heart skip, here -- "I'm not exactly sure?"

Both Maddie and the slime coyly shrugged.

"It's supposed to read the emotions of the people it comes into contact with," she continued, "and what I was hoping for was that it could help communicate emotional resonance in the supernatiral realms, too... but..."

"But it's dancing." I smiled. "Maddie, you're a genius!"

She took a quick bow, drinking in my admiration, before finally acknowledging what I was holding.

"What are those?" she asked, the slime still hypnotically clinging to her voice in a dance.

"Well!" -- and I tried to use the same inflection as her, to make her laugh (and it worked; yes!). "Do you remember the call-in show from a week ago?"

"Yeah--?"

-- "MADDIE!" -- -- Just then, a second gust of wind generated -- a huge one -- the wind generated by a man wearing tights one-fourths his size, and incredible amount of hot air coming from his own bullshit. Imagine as gorrilla had mated with an ostrich at a superhero convention, and that would only cover his mother's genes -- but I digress. The oafish, walking fencepost returned.

"Jack!"

And as if compelled by the hands of fate, as Maddie's voice rang out in confusion of the three of us all in a state of excitement at once, the slime hopped up from its container, hurling itself in the air like a sentient pile of flying vomit.

(About that premonition...)

"OH NO!" screamed Maddie.

"NO!" Jack screamed like a mentally stunted chimpanzee. "Maddie! Vlad is projectile vomiting -- QUICK! -- FIND SOMETHING ABSORBANT BEFORE IT STAINS THE LAB!"

"WHAT?!" I tried to scream out in confusion, but it was too late. Like an obliviously charging rhino, Jack began hurling towards me. "JACK, NO!"

"Jack!" Maddie cried out in sincere panic -- "It's -- NO! -- IT'S -- "

The tickets were ripped from my hand before I could say anything else, and I went hurling in the other direction of Jack, and the "puke" for about five feet, before landing on the ground, horrified.

"PAPER SHOULD DO THE JOB! WAY TO ALWAYS BE RESOURSEFUL, VLADDIE! -- EVEN WHEN YOU'RE SICK!"

The sentient Ecto Sludge ate the tickets in the air in an instant, controlled by the will of its stupid and unrightful wielder. It then grew exponentially in size until it covered the walls of the lab... but in an instant, it was gone. In one twist of fate to add to the list of all the ways Jack had robbed me of Maddie -- even in freak accidents no one could have forseen -- another notch was added in the belt. As I told you before, I have begun to better understand Jack in wake of his passing. This day, though I had no true way of knowing, up until tonight, sealed his fate. But I'm getting ahead of myself again. The food is eaten. The drinks are drank. -- "You didn't tell us that those were tickets for weeks!" Maddie recalls, laughing with a snort and reflecting back much differently than me on the memory. " -- Even up until the day of the game, you just kept sulking and sulking! You didn't even show up for the next couple--"

"-- It's his fault!" I scream, rageful. "It's always been! That should have been OUR game!" "Vlad..." "Maddie -- you don't understand," I plead. "Can you not see that I've waited lifetimes just for a moment like this alone with you again?

"Alone... with me?"

"You're laughing again, Maddie," I remark. "Do you know how long I've waited to hear you laugh or smile and think of me?"

"You..."

Finally, I begin to read a shred sympathy in the voice of my beloved -- one that she has denied for so long, just like Jack has. She has such an innocent coyness to her... behind the makeup, behind the tears. She has spent all of this time untamed. Her powers could have even rivaled mine, in terms of sheer intellect. But like the dulling of a blade, her thoughts and memories and dreams fade away into memories of Jack. "You talk about him like he was just something in your way," she moans, saddened.

I want to blurt out, "he was" -- to sink back into sheer hatred and revenge -- but the game has changed, and I want to return her lowered guard with genuine affection. Both of us are grieving in very different ways. "Maddie," I concede, "Perhaps I was misguided in seeking revenge in the ways I have before. Perhaps, if you were happy with him, I can be happy for you. The main thing that I wanted you to see tonight is that you would have been -- and could still be -- much happier with me." "Vlad..." she sinks, almost recoiling into her seat. "Why have you always been so... interested in me? With all your power and money, you could have anyone in the world -- or ANY world. Why ME?"

"You..." and my voice and heart both skip in tune.

"Think about it," she suggests, like the hushing of the words that I cannot yet follow with. "Get back to me... after you tell me how you killed my husband."

"I -- I ... didn't kill him," I assure her -- and to me, this is still the truth.

"Can you prove that to me tonight?" she sternly asks in the tone of an almost threat or warning.

"If I can..." I begin to bargain " ... will you stay with me tonight?"

"Vlad... I... " -- she turns her head and fades in and out of racing thoughts and priorities, confused about her true feelings. I anticipated this moment. I have been waiting restless eternities -- as I've rambled on about. "Think about it," I smirk.

Maddie is not impressed... just still very lost.

My hands wish to touch her cheek.

My long, expensive overcoats long to keep her body warm.

"I love him, Vlad, living or dead, killed by you or ten thousand grisly ghosts -- I love Jack."

"But you love me, too... don't you, Maddie?"

"I..."

"Isn't that why you came here, Maddie...? Do you not remember the good times with me -- times where Jack would never cease to screw up, and yet you never stopped forgiving him? Why? Why, Maddie?"

She cannot reply, her breath and eyes stolen by an oncoming emotion. Her breath smells of Merlot, and her words are from the heart.

"It wasn't ... exactly a grisly," I begin, drawing her to stay on her guard. She takes the bait, and gives me an angered look. "What was it, Vlad? What happened? What do you know?"

"Maddie," I begin to unravel a bit, again, with the truth. "All I have ever wanted to know in life was your love... not a world of grisly ghosts."

" What kind of ghost have you been hiding from me, Vlad?"

My brow lowers. My body stiffens. One more drink of wine... is drank.

"I know of a ghost more powerful and brutal than those you and your family have struggled to understand," I begin, -- "one that feeds on anger, hate, and pain... and of that pain, I know a pit so deep and eternal that it could never contain said ghost. It longs forever, wishing to belong to something -- to attach to someone -- and it waits, and festers and and goes insane... like me. With that pain and insanity, festering under the surface of my power and your marriage, we have likewise birthed a rival to Jack much like me, as well."

"This is pointless." Maddie retorts, catching me off my guard. "You're still just rattling off nonsense. Do you still think you are the only one who is in pain, Vlad? Do you have any idea how you and your powers have hurt other people? If there is such a ghost -- such a creature -- such a MONSTER -- how is it not you, yourself -- your ego, your plans -- YOUR cause?"

Now it is my turn to hesitate.

"There are far worse monsters than simply me, Maddie," I begin to my love, still overtaken with the weight of all my devious decisions visa vis her attempted guilt trip. "Likewise, there are many causes to fight for -- 'the Ecno Acne Supercure Fundraising Agogo-plex,' for one -- but I digress. With absolute power, corruption is absolutely essential, is it not? With all of this power, the temptation to rule the galaxy would be strong for anyone -- even your son -- and even you, Maddie."

"I'm not like you, Vlad," she dismisses. "I don't desire power. I want to make the world a better place -- for me -- for Danny, for everyone--"

"Young Danny has yet to fully grow into his powers," I remind her " -- to realize the potential laid out before us, as demigods. I only wish now to guide him to understand the worlds beyond our own, and yet still -- you -- and he deny me -- empowering a father that has no clue how to handle him, this power, or ... you."

"Yeah?" Maddie shrugs, seeming to tire of the conversation reaching a vague stalemate. "Well, it's too late for that, now," she laments. "Jack's dead... and you're going to tell me what happened to him, and... where's Danny?!"

Oh, great. Now even Jack Fenton's sperm has to interfere with my life in his absence.

"I'm sure he's fine -- probably 'going ghost' or something uninteresting such as --" A large amount of thudding and banging interrupts me -- followed by a voice I wish would dissipate into the brick walls.

"MOM! GET OUT! GET OUT OF HERE! IT'S A--"

"DANNY!"

Maddie topples the wine glass off of the table, and begins to take out of the castle room before I can even stand up. More loud noises echo out of our reach. Something is causing a great havoc all of a sudden... and I know exactly what it is. Damn it. I was expecting showtime to not be so early...

The thudding and banging continue as I chase after her, calling her name in genuine concern, because I know what she is racing towards. She, of course, ignores my pleas, as any mother would, and tries to find her son (whom I assume is righteously getting his ass kicked, as he so often tends to do in my castle).

I knew it was only a matter of time before the boy discovered what truly killed his father. I figured I'd see if I could get a two-for-one kind of deal before I moved in for Maddie. I suppose it's too late now... but no matter.

Let the show begin.

As I chase after her, I remember how long I've been chasing... how long I've been longing. More flashbacks ceaslessly pound against my mind like ping pong, remembering the older days between Maddie and I. I wonder as I follow her racing footsteps if my own seemingly endless corridor is a metaphor of some kind. I've been chasing her for so long, always being pulled away, always being hurled up into the big, stupid arms of the hero. Tonight, she will know her hero isn't dead.

He's me. I feel like my mind is a straight, thin line, like every hallway... an arrow to Maddie's heart.

As she finally opens the door, she gasps loudly enough to count as an explosion. She sees her boy knocked unconscious on the floor, bruised and beaten, as I had anticipated. He is buried underneath dust and rubble, but so far, there is no sign of his attacker. She rushes to his side, and from her position to check his status, she gives me a scowl.

"You!" she screams. "I knew I couldn't trust you! What have you done?!"

"Maddie--" I plead, now realizing that our former game of musical chairs has ended, and both of us are scrambling to find a proper seat in the room, before we get taken out. "This is actually the one time when you NEED to trust me -- or your son, and you, and I -- will --"

Just then, a terribly familiar brown, sluggish goop begins to form all over the walls...

Maddie's expression has turned to shock and panic to horror, and something familiar. It's almost as if the memory has summoned an old foe to the scene, and it reacts with matched hysterics. The walls begin to crumble and tear apart, sinking into the readings of everyone's panic. It's a vicious cycle, as the more Maddie and I become unhinged, so too, does the world around us... literally. The Sludge is rageful... wrathful. It will not stop until the paradox of our emotions is resolved. What Clockwork had revealed to me, after I bested him in battle, was that the Spectral Emotional Ecto Sludge, was in itself, now like a ghost. It had been feeding on all of our collective misery since that day... at least, mine. The tickets were not made of a very absorbant material, to say the least... but when I held them with the intention of winning Maddie over, that intention resonated. Eating the tickets fed the Sludge knowledge of our curious triangle. It had been festering for far too long.

It wanted Fenton.

Perhaps the whole time, fate was trying to rectify what I never could.

Needless to say, I had been attempting to track it down for quite some time since learning of its intention... but it had always eluded me... just like Maddie... until tonight -- also just like Maddie -- it showed up at my door... exactly one hour before she did.

But now, Maddie has finally returned to see the weight of her own grief and mine combined and threatening to kill us both. Now, she is in danger.

I have to show my true form; no need to hide it from her anymore.

("Going Ghost!" is still such a stupid catch phrase, by the way.)

Once transformed again into my Plasmius ways, I try my best to shield her from the oncoming debris, generated by the Sludge. My powers shine in kinetic lightning, phasering rocks and expensive items from other rooms that the monster is summoning with its rampage to fly at us. I shoot many a blast at every slimy, oozing piece of matter I see... but it seems completely unaffected.

"VLAD!" she screams, "GET US OUT OF HERE!"

"I can't!" I shout back, trying to talk over the rumbling bricks and pillars.

"What the hell do you mean you CAN'T?!"

A few more useless blasts at the Sludge dishearten me. I have to admit something to Maddie that normally a man of my status would not let his pride allow... but again, it is the truth.

"Even with all my power," I concede, "I know of no way to stop this thing!"

Maddie is cradling Danny, holed up in storage of the room's corner now that seems shadowed away from the Sludge. I can see in her eyes that even admist the panic, her mind is racing to assess new information. The look she gives me almost continues our conversation in the other room without us having to.

"The... Sludge...!" Maddie calls. "The Sludge killed Jack?!"

The room stabilizes now slightly as if our goopy enemy wants to answer. My hands tire from wielding my powers.

"Do you remember?" I ask her in the becoming calm of the Sludge's storm. "Do you remember how you felt on that day you say me, before the accident -- before the madness?"

"What?" -- Again, Maddie is confused.

"I was 'looking sharp' -- remember?"

"Vlad -- what --"

"Maddie! You -- me, Jack -- we've all been feeding this thing for years. All of the battles -- all of the madness -- all of the scorn and jealousy and all of your research -- it can wield it all against us! This is more powerful than all of us combined... and we can't all combine anymore!"

"It's..."

-- "It's just you and me now, Maddie..." I finish for her.

"Vlad... what have we done...?"

Maddie's resignation to her fear, like the starting of an engine, roars again the Sludge to rear its ugly head, in its true form, this time, as well. A goop that pours from the walls piles into the corner adjacent to Maddie and Danny. It begins to grow bigger, and bigger. Ominously, it assembles itself like a creature looking far too big for a human, and far too... solid, for a ghost or goop. It's changing its properties fast, drinking in Maddie's fear and my yearning. The Sludge has grown up into a villainous, vile dasdardly, worthy of my army...

But I would never command anything to hurt Maddie! -- (the boy -- sure -- and often -- but --)

"VLAD!" Remembering that day I first encountered the sludge, I reach into my pocket for my only real idea as to how to combat this perdicament. In my suit pocket, now slightly stained with wine, is a long, yellow envelope.

"What... what is that?" Maddie trembles as the monster moves towards her.

"Well!" I gleefully say, recalling our old life, "it's an 'ace in the hole' -- a secret weapon I've been saving to wield for a few days, wrestling with this decision. Every tragic love story needs a sacrifice -- right, Maddie?"

"What are you TALKING about?!" she screeches. "Are you going to... mail a letter while this thing kills me?!"

I grimmace. Carefully, my powerful hand opens the envelope, and pulls out an obnoxiously long piece of paper.

"Maddie," I decree, while savoring the mere seconds before the monster finds her. "They finally sold me the team."

"... What?!"

"-- The Packers, Maddie -- they made me an offer. All I have to do is sign it and--"

"VLAD!" Maddie screams, now visibly in tears, "HOW CAN YOU BE SO SELFISH RIGHT NOW?! DO YOU WANT ME TO--" "I WANT YOU TO SEE THIS!" I scream.

"See WHAT!?"

With time running out, I make my move.

"None of this, Maddie -- NONE OF THIS means anything to me anymore -- not the Packers, not this world or the world unseen -- absolutely NOTHING -- if I do not have you. Why you? -- Why YOU? -- I'll tell you why -- because you make me want to be GOOD, Maddie. These ghosts have been restless for so long -- all because of our tragic romance. You know in your heart that I could have given you more than he ever could, and YOU KNOW IT, TOO -- YOU UGLY, BIG PILE OF SHIT!"

Without a single flinch of hesitation, I fling the unsigned contract into the monster.

It sinks like a fish into Jello into its back. The sacrifice has been made.

Maddie screams.

Silence holds for a few seconds now in her echo. The monster stands still.

The monster roars.

"SHIT!"

My mind is racing for a way to kill this thing. If none of the Fentons could do it, it's up to me.

Wait...

None of the Fentons...

"Maddie!"

As the room is engulfed in an ominous gold glow, and the Sludge creature inches towards Maddie, who is too tired to try and fight, time almost stops as it did in all of my terrible encounters with Jack that changed my life. Now it all is starting to make sense.

Maddie hangs her head down, accepting her fate, and Danny's.

"Goodbye, Vlad... I..."

"You..."

The final puzzle piece of the Sludge mystery fits, and as it raises a hand that has hardened from goo to solid stone to crush the love of my life, I cry out to her.

"SAY YOU LOVE ME, MADDIE!"

"What--?"

"SAY YOU LOVE ME!"

"But I --"

"Jack always knew it, Maddie -- he knew that we had something that he could never have with you -- never did. He was his own worst enemy. It was only a matter of time before his own mistakes caught up with him... but you... you're so brilliant, Maddie -- so wonderful and truly good! You don't deserve this! He wouldn't have wanted things to end this way! And it can only end this way if you refuse to see what you and I have been running from for YEARS--"

-- "VLAD! I LOVE YOU!" --

What...?

Hell freezes over.

The monster crumbles into dust.

As the castle starts to further rip itself apart in resolution of the monster's feelings (and ours) I use all of my strength to create a shield around me and Maddie (and begrudgingly, the boy as well). In flashes of light so bright that death itself would lose focus, I nearly pass out from the toll of the ecto-shield.

(Thanks for helping, Danny. Little shit.)

I swear I must be dead. I swear I must be.

Is this Heaven?

Maddie is resting in my arms now as her son had been resting in hers. The castle walls around us have crumbled... and she loves me. "The... experiment..." Maddie groans, groggily struggling to stay awake. "It... was... my fault."

"There is no such thing as fault, my love," I whisper in her ear as I dry her cheeks, "only fate, now."

"... Fate..." Maddie whispers. "Could you... really have been mine... all along?"

Exhausted, she fades away into a sleep that weighs lovingly on me. I am overjoyed.

Wars have been started over lessser heroines. Helen of Troy was a mere fairytale by long dead warriors. Juliet was a mere sillouette in romance poetry when compared to the light of my long lost Lenore. Joan of Arc became a Pop Tart for a shred of my conviction. For me, there is only one name on the Marque -- Maddie.

I had known for far too long that we had a fire of chemestry. It ignited a passion that Jack wouldn't stand for. Like beasts, we both beat our chests, performing for Maddie's approval. Jack's least impressive stunt, it seems, had finally cost him his life... But I think MY life is finally starting to turn around.

Jack Fenton is dead.

Maddie Fenton is safe, where she belongs... Sometimes, emotions can be ghosts, too -- unresolved feelings so powerful that they may just resolve themselves.

"Take these broken wings and learn to fly again."

Let's fly, Maddie.

#danny phantom #fanfic #dpfanfic #fanfiction #vlad masters #maddie fenton #vlad plasmius

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impudentmiscengenation · 7 years

Text

Broadcast

Danny fiddled with the microphone pinned to his shirt, biting his lips nervously. He should never have agreed to go on ‘Paranormal Press’ to talk about his ghost half. Never. This was dumb, so dumb. Why was he so dumb? He glanced off to the side to see his parents giving him a thumbs-up from where they were, talking to some big-shot GIW scientist that the ‘news’ had also been interviewing. Of course they’d be grinning and excited; why not? They aren’t the ones that have to go on live television and talk about what were the most intimate parts of themselves.

Danny scowled to himself and tried to get comfortable in the black leather seat that he’d been given. Seated across from him was the reporter who would be asking the questions. The reporter, a gentleman in his early forties named Rich, gave the boy a small, crinkly-eyed smile. The brown-eyed man gently moved the teen’s hand from the microphone. Danny went stiff and dropped his twitching hand onto his knee.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s like camera’s not even there, if you don’t think too much about it. I was nervous my first time on live T.V., too, so I know how it feels.” Rich gave the boy a reassuring nod. Danny tilted his head to acknowledge that he’d been spoken to but remained rigid. Rich stroked his freshly-shaven chin before grinning.

“Y’know, the first time I did a live show, I was so nervous I got really bad gas.” Rich found his cheeks tinting at the not-so-fond memory of his late teens. Danny looked at the man and allowed himself a small, amused smile.

“Really?” He asked, intrigued and a bit more relieved. Rich grinned, glad to see that his confession had produced the desired effect on the teen. There it is. The reporter nodded.

“Mmhmm. Totally. It was foul, too. My co-workers wouldn’t stop calling me ‘Rich the Ripper’ for months.” Danny chuckled quietly, behind his hand out of respect, and looked at the plush violet carpet, mirth dancing in his blue eyes.

“That sounds… awful.” Rich laughed quietly as well.

“Yeah, it was pretty bad. This stays between us, okay? I really don’t want that nickname coming back.” Danny laughed and the two shook hands.

“Deal.” Suddenly a voice offstage called their attention.

“We’re live in thirty!”

Danny gulped. She didn’t mean thirty minutes. Rich cleared his throat and Danny glanced over, relaxing slightly at the older man’s calming gaze.

“Just breathe, you’ll do great. You saved the world from a glowing green asteroid; how hard could a little interview be?” Danny grinned and looked down a bit, pink staining his cheeks. Rich chuckled and straightened his notes, crossing one leg over another. “Just focus on me,” the seasoned reporter advised coolly, “I promise you that this’ll be over before you know it.” “Fifteen seconds!”

Danny took a deep, steadying breath and made himself comfortable in the seat that he’d been provided with. Focus on the questions, Fenton. Just relax. You’ve stuffed countless ghosts back into the ghost zone, faced your evil future self, and generally gone through Hell and came back unscathed! This is just a dumb interview! You can do this! “Five! Four! Three!...”

Danny snapped up to a decent posture and forced himself into a collected countenance. Even Rich found himself impressed at the boy’s sudden shift before he gave a dazzling smile to the camera. “Good evening, everyone. Today is a special day; I’m Richard Rossum of Paranormal Press here with Daniel Fenton who, up until just a few months ago, was avowed as a normal high school student in the not-so-normal town of Amity Park in Michigan; however, the Disasteroid debacle of several months prior is what forced a change, so to speak. I don’t suppose I have to tell you that I am not only speaking to Amity Park resident Daniel Fenton, but will also have the pleasure of addressing proclaimed hero, Danny Phantom.” Rich adjusted his focus and beamed at the halfa, who, in turn, responded with a slight quirk of the lips. It wasn’t necessarily awkward, just a bit unnatural. He was still fraught with nerves.

“So, Danny, what part of all this has been the most difficult to get used to?” Danny swallowed and looked at the space between Rich’s eyebrows. “Well, I guess not having to dodge into a porta-potty to switch forms is pretty neat.” Rich chuckled and Danny grinned, gaining a bit of confidence from his jest. “Out of everything? … I have to say that it’s a bit odd to, well, not be ignored. I mean, before all of this, I could just kinda do my own thing and nobody would really pick up on it but now it’s like I can’t do anything without at least someone noticing.” Rich nodded.

“I suppose that would be taxing after a while. Now, from the Disasteroid incident we were informed that not only do ghosts exist but half-ghosts as well; can you elaborate on this?” Danny blinked and tilted his head to the side a bit. “Well, I’m not really a scientist like my parents but I have picked up some things from wandering the ‘Zone.” Before Rich could think to ask about the Ghost World, Danny continued. “So, ghosts are… formed when a human dies and their emotions leave a strong enough imprint behind into ectoplasm-which is the stuff that ghosts are made out of. Usually, the stronger the emotions a person leaves behind when they die, the stronger their ghost is when it materializes in the Ghost Zone.” Jack wiped a tear from his eye backstage; he knew his son would follow in his footsteps! And the way he went about it, he sounded just as smart as his mother, who was also beaming. The boy had a far-off look in his eyes and Rich could tell not to interrupt him, the boy was deep in thought.

“A halfa… Well, we’re… I’m different,” Danny adjusted his statement, looking towards the floor. “Obviously there’s not a lot of, y’know, science behind this but… I guess I’m the product of a half-death. Like, I started to die but because there was a lot of ectoplasm, my ghost formed immediately and, as a defense mechanism, I switched forms before it was over which preserved my human half.” Rich heard murmurs and other forms of quiet exclamation from the studio; Danny either didn’t notice or didn’t care. The boy looked back up from the floor and nodded to Rich, who took the hint and looked at his notepad before frowning and looking back at the boy. He cleared his throat.

“You say that you, in a sense, died. How did you die, then?” A chill swept through the room. Those watching on the television could feel it and saw the shiver that ascended Rich’s spine. Danny’s black hair covered his face and he had a hard frown set on his lips. Rich was about to open his mouth to take back the question, obviously he’d set his interviewee off somehow, when Danny let out a small noise, a laugh almost.

“Yeah, I sometimes forget that the human world isn’t really… acquainted with weird ghost formalities.” Danny looked up and brushed the hair from his face, calming his expression and taking back the chill from the room. Rich frowned.

“What do you mean?” Danny shrugged his shoulders. “To be honest, if you asked anyone in the ‘Zone that question, you’d probably get your lights punched out. It’s… really rude to ask a ghost how they died. It’s the sort of thing that you’d have to gain a certain level of trust before even really broaching the subject…”

Silence as Rich kicked himself mentally. The murmuring hadn’t stopped and Danny let his smile drop, facing toward the back of the room. As Rich was about to ask another, more safe, question, Danny interrupted his thoughts with an answer. “I was electrocuted.” The boy’s eyes closed. “I… Wandered into my parent’s lab one afternoon with my friends. I kinda told them about this invention that my parents made but that it fell just short of working so we were gonna check it out… I went inside and… Turned it on while I was still in it… And the rest is history.” The teenager now looked slightly sick and completely miserable, the hands in his lap were trembling. Rich felt a stab of guilt that was nothing compared to what the boy’s parents were feeling just offstage. The reporter cleared his throat with a small smile. “Alright then, next question! So, having parents with lots of paranormal knowledge; how do you think you were able to keep your secret under wraps for so long?” Danny’s attitude changed and he rubbed the back of his neck with a crooked grin.

“Heh, luck? … To be honest, I’m surprised myself. I guess those of us who knew were just real careful; I don’t really think that there’s much else to it. Luck and caution.” Danny shrugged his shoulders and Rich nodded.

“Fair answer. So, being half-ghost yourself, what is your opinion overall of ghosts?” The boy frowned in thought.

“Well, that’s kinda like asking what I think of humans as a whole. I mean, it’s a pretty broad spectrum that you’re referring to. Some ghosts want nothing but power and will do anything to get it, some humans are the same way. Some ghosts want to help others any way they can, some humans feel the same… Most ghosts kinda just want to be let alone, which I can respect as long as their ‘being alone’ doesn’t, y’know, cause issues. I think what I’m trying to say is that you can’t base your perspective of ghosts because of one nasty encounter; it’s bound to happen, just like going about your life and meeting terrible humans. In fact, I know a whole lot of ghosts who are absolutely terrified at the idea of humans.” Danny paused to grin, as if thinking of a fond memory. “So… Yeah.” He looked at Rich with his boyish smile. The reporter nodded and adjusted his leg.

“Alright, then. What is the most powerful enemy you have faced thus far?” The boy pursed his lips and went quiet. “Hmm, that’s tough, actually. I guess… hm. I guess I should say Pariah Dark was the hardest ghost I’ve ever had to fight. Especially considering I couldn’t have done it on my own.” He mused aloud and Rich tilted his head to the side.

“Could you give us a bit… More on this ghost?” Danny made a noncommittal sound before nodding his head and continuing.

“Well, Pariah Dark was a really ancient ruler of the Ghost Zone. The proclaimed ‘King of All Ghosts’. As you can imagine, he was pretty… difficult to deal with.” Danny rubbed the back of his neck nervously and Rich got the hint to begin to stray away from the topic. A woman cleared her throat and pointedly looked at the clock to remind him that he was on a bit of a time-crunch here. He needed to be quick with the five minutes he had left. “Alright, how about we start to wrap this up, then. What do you think is the most powerful ability that you have currently?” “My Ghostly Wail, for sure.” He said without hesitation, nodding to affirm himself. Rich grinned and continued along with this train of thought.

“Can you tell me about it? What does it do? How do you do it?” Danny looked even more uncomfortable and Rich started doubting himself. Was he asking all the wrong questions? The boy cleared his throat and adjusted himself in his seat.

“Well, it’s… It’s a bit tough to understand, really…” He mumbled before biting his lip. Maddie and Jack Fenton were just as confused from where they sat on the sidelines. Usually Danny was pretty ecstatic when demonstrating what he could do. Not once had he tried to perform a ‘Ghostly Wail’ for them, let alone have such a strong adverse reaction to it. Rich told himself not to interrupt the boy. He was obviously going to answer the question; the teen was looking for a way to articulate himself. Seemingly having found an answer to an internal question, Danny swallowed hard and continued to face the carpet. The teen’s face was more hardened than it had been (and much more distant than it usually looked, Maddie noticed).

“You remember when I told you that ghosts form out of strong human emotions bound to ectoplasm, right?” Rich nodded and Danny continued, speaking softly. The producers turned up his microphone to catch his words, which they hung onto like a lifeline. “Well, sometimes it’s not just emotions that get left behind. Sometimes there are… traces of certain memories or experiences that also go into forming a ghost. Sometimes these traces turn into abilities unique to the ghost that possesses them. Most of the time, these traces are what fuels ‘obsession’ in ghosts. Like, hunting, for example.” Danny grinned for a moment before regaining his somber expression. He sighed quietly and plucked at his shirt. “... When I went through the portal it… It really hurt. It was… awful. The worst thing I can think of, really. And… As I was, well, practically dying, I screamed.” He paused and the boy almost looked ready to vomit. Maddie was horrified into silence, covering her face with gloved hands while her husband was uncharacteristically stoic, frowning with his brows drawn together in concern. Rich leaned forward whilst Danny continued.

“A while after I became a halfa, I fought a really bad ghost. He was winning and I panicked. I yelled at him, screamed at him, and found out that I could project that sound so that it’s unbearable to those who hear it. It, very literally, blows them away.” Danny picked at the hem of his shirt again before finishing up with his answer. “I found out myself that my Ghostly Wail is unique to me in that… Well. When I tap into that power, I’m releasing… My dying screams.” His voice faltered for a moment and he heard his mother let out a choked sob at the mention of her child, her baby boy, going through that amount of pain. Danny steeled himself and forced a grin at the reporter. “But it’s pretty powerful. It’s really only a last resort attack because it just drains me, but it gets the job done, in most cases.” He shrugged to play off the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Next question?” Rich smiled.

“Actually, we’re just about out of time. Thank you so much for your time, Danny. Just the few answers you’ve given us today will undoubtedly shake things up in the paranormal scientific community!” Rich chuckled before facing camera #1 again to give his conclusion speech.

Danny waited in his chair until a woman’s voice echoed “We’re clear!”; the boy stood and-before he could be enveloped in his parents’ hugs-flew through the studio’s ceiling and into the crisp evening air.

I would rather take a beating from Skulker in my human form than do that again. Danny mused to himself as he twirled in the breeze, allowing the air currents to drift him further into the stratosphere and away from the studio, where plenty of baffled people were chattering away below him.

#danny phantom #fanfic #Danny got an interview #but he don't like it #poor smol bab #sorry not really sorry #ImpudentMiscengenation

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