Big Shot

Even through the torrential rain, Vlad could see it perfectly: the unmistakable figure of a distressed, teal-clad mother dropping to her knees and cradling her son's head as he neared his final breath. Every nerve in Vlad's mind and body was numb, save for the distant tingling sensation in his palms that incriminated him. The single sense registering to him was the sight of blood, ectoplasm, and a charred body resting along equally charred asphalt. It was only the cold-blooded glare of the mother that made him aware he had even closed the distance between them at all, making him stop dead in his tracks as her tears of anger and grief made his heart break in half.

Vlad had hurt the one person he vowed never to harm, the one human he ever loved, Maddie Fenton. All he wanted to do now was comfort her, but the expression on Maddie's face told him he was the last person she wanted to see. The hate became too much for Vlad to bear, and with one last sigh of dread and regret, he floated into the air in the direction of his home, his own tears threatening to betray his smoldering red eyes.

Vladimir Masters did not cry. Did his eyes turn watery? Yes. But he did not outright cry. He had a reputation, both as a wealthy mayor and a tough formidable ghost, to uphold. Still, the thought of Daniel's death, literally by his own hands, coupled with that last glare from Maddie, was too heavy a burden for Vlad to bear.

It was these circumstances that found Vlad within the confines of his underground lab later that night, the rain still beating ever harder on his mansion that it was audible at his current level. There was a strew of brandy and whiskey bottles lined up along a side table, normally reserved for beakers and test tubes that now lay shattered on the steel ground. Unable to cry, Vlad's pain and sorrow manifested into raw anger and self-hatred.

He was angry at what he had done. He was frustrated that he had lost control of the powers he had reined in decades ago. Heartbroken that he had made Maddie cry, and upset that she had witnessed the fatal blow. Irate that Daniel had pushed his tolerance levels past their minimum thresholds.

In fact, had the end result been different, it would have been the boy's fault that he had been hit. As much as Vlad hated to admit it, the younger half-ghost had improved in both speed and resiliency. Had he not dodged the shot, he would have bounced back into the air with a renewed sense of vigor and wit, characteristic of his heroic personality.

But he hadn't. Vlad's patience had worn thin very quickly under Danny's sharp, taunting comebacks and failure to comply, inciting a furious outburst deep within his core that burned up inside him until it had nowhere else to go but out. The plasma had easily found its target, releasing enough energy comparable to that needed for a rocket launch, one he had overheard Daniel chatter about longingly. That dream was no longer a possibility now, having been run out of thin air into the ground in three decisive seconds.

By the time Vlad slumped against the lab's main computer unit, physically and mentally exhausted from the day, all the bottles of brandy and whiskey were indistinguishable from the shards of beakers and test tubes littering the floor.

It was a doorbell ring two days later that finally pulled Vlad out of his lab and, for a fleeting minute, the torturous hell that was his memory. The past forty-eight hours had left him a frustrated shell of a man. No matter how much he drank or destroyed, he could not stop replaying how Daniel's body had careened out of the rain into the street below, the force of the plasma blast so impactful that the boy had transformed back into his human half by the time the dust settled.

Flying up through the ground floor straight to the front door, Vlad took a moment to change from Plasmius to Masters and take a deep breath to just keep himself from taking any more anger out on whoever was disturbing him. In one swift motion, he opened the door to see an empty porch. Convinced it was a prank, he let out a huff and began to shut the door, but not before a wave of white surrendered to his vision. Leaning down, Vlad snatched the envelope that was sticking out of his doormat. It must have been the mailman who had rang the bell.

Vlad had a pretty good idea as to what the envelope contained. He wished it was anything else, yet the weight of it nearly drove his conscience insane. Wanting to stall the inevitable, he set it down in his parlor before pouring his umpteenth drink of the weekend. A sip. Another sip. A larger one to occupy his mind with the burn left in the back of his throat.

Ready as he would ever be, Vlad sat down in the chair next to the end table he had put the envelope on and picked it up almost against his will. In that moment, everything else seemed so normal that it was almost out of place. Birds should not have been chirping their songs outside. The sun should not have been shining over his shoulder. It felt like a contradiction.

As he finally started to open the envelope, Vlad tried to distract himself by fixating on just how square it was, succeeding in the attempt if only for a second. With nothing else to do, he slowly pulled the contents out, wincing at the black paper and somber printed lettering.

Vlad caught himself before he started to read what was a one-sided card. He didn't want to be here when he read it. The autumn sunlight gleaming in almost seemed disrespectful of the moment. Returning to his lab and taking rest against a table, he breathed in once more before finally taking stock of the card.

Daniel Fenton, 16, was in a fatal accident this past Friday, October 15th. He will always live on in our thoughts and hearts every day as a loving and courageous son, brother, and friend. A short funeral service will be held this Tuesday, October 19th at 3:00 pm at Amity Park Cemetary.

A strange mixture of disbelief and sharp reality began to set in for Vlad. There it was in his hand, Danny's funeral notice, further proof of what he had caused. A notice for the irreparable heartbreak looming in Maddie. Another twist in the dagger she had pierced into his own heart.

For the first time he could remember in recent memory, Vlad felt lost. It felt like he was in a nightmare, one he had created but had zero control over. He wasn't sure how to carry on, or even if he should proceed at all.

By the time Tuesday came around, Vlad's emotions had become an intangible blur of pent-up anger and hopelessness to the point that he appeared as a glazed-over shell of a man externally. He had barely slept, and when he did, he dreamt only of pitch black darkness, fully aware of it but unable to sense anything. When awake, he either wandered around his lab or sat by the portal, looking absently between the floor and the wall.

At 11 am, the phone echoed through the underground lair. It took nearly all of Vlad's energy to count the five rings before the machine began to record the message.

"Hey Vladdie, it's Jack. I'm not sure if you got the notice we sent out, but…there was an accident…with Danny, and well, we're…having a service for him today. At three. Don't know if you can make it, but I'm sure Maddie would appreciate the extra support. Anyway, we hope you can make it."

There it was. The pure grief in Jack's voice that told Vlad once and for all that he had indeed actually killed the boy. It took all of one second for Vlad to send the message machine sprawling to the floor before falling to his knees and, for the first time since he caused all of this, finally crying over Daniel's death. He missed him, his Little Badger. Despite all the taunting and the failed attempts at winning him over to his side, he still saw him as the closest thing he would ever have to a son, especially considering their shared situation, and now he was truly mourning the loss as if it was his own son.

And Maddie. Vlad now truly understood what she must have been going through. He wanted to go to the funeral to support her, but after the way he saw her look at Plasmius, at himself, and knowing that the reason she was going to be looking at her son in a casket today was all his fault, there was no way he could face her, even if she didn't know who Plasmius really was. It would break him completely. There was nothing he could do to alleviate the situation of the pain, the heartbreak, the tears. Nothing except…

That was it! The Infi-Map! Vlad had regained possession of it over the summer, and now it caught the corner of his eye on a nearby table as he was repositioning himself to sit fully on the floor. With the Infi-Map, he could fix this. He could have the map bring him back in time, and…and what? Vlad had learned his lesson in meddling with time after multiple mishaps, so stopping the fatal hit himself seemed to have too many consequences. He needed a simpler solution. He just needed to prevent the outburst, no matter how much the younger half-ghost got under his skin. Perhaps if a younger version of himself knew what would happen if he lost control of his emotions…

Vlad knew exactly where he needed to go. After a quick change of clothes and a slip of the funeral notice into his left jacket pocket, he opened the door to his portal and transformed into Plasmius. With a final glance at the message machine still lying on the ground, he opened up the Infi-Map and stated in a clear, resolute tone, "Take me to University of Wisconsin Hospital, 1981."

The first thing Vlad noticed when he arrived outside the hospital was that it was relatively dark, with a waning crescent moon hanging above the campus buildings. Regardless of the late hour, the Infi-Map had fortunately brought him through a portal within a scattering of trees towards the back of the hospital. Vlad could still remember exactly which floor and room number he had been in, which made it easy for him to fly into the air and enter the building invisibly.

The floor was eerily quiet, and the lights had been dimmed for night hours. Turning to his right, Vlad saw he was at Room 832, which meant his room was just around the corner. As he floated down the hallway, he started to gather in his mind what he was going to say to his younger college self. He had to keep in mind that he was in the hospital because he had just been infected with ecto-acne, and therefore, had just obtained his ghost powers.

A turn to the right and a few more yards, Vlad found himself outside Room 817. Without another thought he phased through the door, keeping silent and staying unseen as his eyes swept the room for his past self. He found his target standing in front of the full-length mirror in the corner, changing form between Masters and Plasmius as he checked out his new ghostly half. Vlad had almost forgotten how small he used to be.

Amused, the older ghost positioned himself behind the other's back before turning visible in the mirror's reflection. "For the record, you'll grow into the cape and fangs."

The younger Vlad practically knocked over the mirror as he jumped in surprise. "What in the world?! How…what are you doing? Who in hell are you?"

"You have to believe me when I say this, but…I'm you. From your future," Vlad said as he switched back into his human half, realizing he had to explain himself before he got to his main point.

"But there's no way…I have to be dreaming. I must be," the college student replied in a daze, sitting down on his hospital bed.

"I know this must seem strange to you, but I assure you, you're not dreaming. I don't have much time, but I need to talk to you, in confidence. Hopefully, things may make more sense to you then. Just…please trust me, and take what I say to heart."

The two looked at each other for a long, contemplative moment, before the younger man nodded his head. "Alright, I believe you. But I still find this weird."

Vlad took this as an opportunity to join himself on the bed. "I sort of do too, to be honest, but please listen to me. Look, in the future, you're going to be very wealthy, and powerful as both a human and a ghost. You're going to have nearly everything you've ever wanted." He almost considered mentioning the exception of the Green Bay Packers, but decided then that he didn't need to further stress out his other self. "You're also going to still be in close contact with Maddie and Jack."

"Really?" The hope in the single word silently asked exactly how much contact he would have with Maddie.

"Yes, but unfortunately, they will marry each other." The younger Vlad's face fell at this news. "They'll have two children, a girl, Jasmine, and a boy, Daniel. Jazz and Danny, for short. Now, Daniel's going to acquire ghost powers, in a similar fashion to how you did, but at a slightly younger age. You two will be mostly rivals, partly because you're still going to want to have Maddie to yourself and 'remove' Jack from the picture. But there's another reason…"

"Yes?" his listener urged on.

"You're going to want Danny to be your son."

This newest statement earned him a wide-eyed look. "M-my son?"

"I know it seems off-putting when you're young, but the idea of having a family with Maddie and Danny will become a fixture of your goals. I'm not telling you to not pursue it at all, but it is going to push you to some extremes, such as making a Maddie hologram and…cloning Daniel."

"What?!" Disbelief clouded his face. "No…no, you must be joking."

"I'm not. You will be able to make some clones, but they will all be too unstable to survive. You're going to need a DNA sample from Daniel, and there's going to come a day when you try to get it from him directly. But he's going to resist and taunt you to no end as he watches you fail repeatedly, and it's going to test your tolerance levels. And that is why I came here, to tell you that no matter how much the boy gets under your skin, do not, I repeat, do not lose control of your temper."

"Why?"

"Because of this." With that, Vlad reached into his pocket and pulled out the funeral notice for the other man to see, his expression becoming crestfallen as he began to read it. "I lost control of my emotions, and…I ended up putting too much force into a plasma blast. It killed him on impact. What makes it even worse is that Maddie saw the entire thing, and the look she gave me was just too heartbreaking. I never wanted to cause her any pain. And despite Daniel's ways, I never had any intention of killing him."

The younger Vlad seemed to be in deep thought as he continued to stare at the notice in his hands, before he finally spoke up, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because no matter what you do, you have to prevent this from happening. Even if it gets to the point that you lose control again, you have to keep yourself from hitting Daniel. Aim into the sky or straight into the ground if you must to release your anger, but please, do not fatally harm him. The DNA sample is not worth it, and it just hurts in too many ways."

It was a long time before he got a response. He had shared a lot of information to process in a short amount of time, but finally he got an answer. "Okay. This still seems strange to me, but I know I don't want to hurt Maddie, or…Daniel. I'll do what I can to avoid hitting him like that."

"Good. I have to go now, but I trust you that you'll do better than me." The older Vlad stood up and took the funeral notice before transforming back into Plasmius and heading towards the door.

"Oh, and when the time comes, don't bother making a Jack hologram. Even in digital form, he's still a pain." With a final reassuring smile to his younger self, Vlad phased through the door and returned to the Infi-Map's portal outside, commanding it to take him home.

Within minutes Vlad's feet were firmly planted on his lab's floor. He rolled up the Infi-Map and returned it securely to its case, before hesitantly turning around to see if his talk with his past self had made an impact on the present. A peek at the far table sent his heart pounding. The message machine he had knocked over earlier was no longer on the floor, but instead resting firmly in its normal spot on the table.

Daring to press his luck, Vlad walked over to the machine and pushed the play button. A robotic "no messages" followed by a resounding beep met his ears. He couldn't believe it. Had the talk worked? Was Daniel still alive?

He was almost afraid to jinx it, but there was one more thing to check that would give him the answer he wanted. Vlad changed back into Masters and with a nervous hand, reached into his left pocket, patting down the inner fabric until he reached the bottom seam. Nothing. He checked the right pocket and inner hidden pocket for good measure.

The funeral notice was gone, having slipped from existence during the return trip to the present. A huge wave of relief washed over Vlad, practically bringing him to his knees. Daniel was alive. There was no notice, no message, and no funeral. Everything was back to normal, and everyone was safe.

Physically and emotionally spent from the events of the past few days, Vlad phased through the ceiling of the lab up to ground level. Now that everything was fixed, he was determined to get a proper night's rest and began to trek up the stairs to his bedroom.

Bang.

"VLAD!" At the sound of his name, Vlad turned around in surprise to see Jack standing in his doorway, the door itself clearly having been kicked in. To his further astonishment, Jack was dressed in black formal, sending Vlad's heart racing. The funeral notice was nonexistent now, he had made sure of that. Daniel was supposed to be alive and well, yet worry and uneasiness quickly bubbled up in his chest.

In the blink of an eye, Vlad's head hit the back of the wall, his feet unable to find the stairs he had just been climbing. Jack had a death grip on his collar and a look of fury in his eyes behind a mask of tears.

"Danny just told me everything," the larger man bellowed, shaking his captive for answers Vlad didn't possess. The mention of Danny's name however abated his nerves to a small extent. "How could you even shoot at her, huh? How could you kill Maddie?"

Vlad's body started to go numb again.

Dun dun dun! This is probably my longest fic thus far, and definitely one of my favorites.

Cliffhangers are fun. ;)