Disclaimer: Fan-based material; no ownership implied

Vlad Lied

TheColorsofSand

You always were smarter than I gave you credit for.

Chp 1: Outside of time

Daniel James Fenton was getting used to the idea of 'laying low'. It wasn't his first choice, but upon his escape he realized his first choice had gone out the window more than a year ago. Or maybe that was nine years ago, or it could be eleven years to come… he suddenly regretted not taking more math classes as a youth. However many years ago (or to come) he realized with a crushing blow that he was not going to get what he wanted. His life as he knew it was no longer a possibility.

So he ground his teeth just a little bit, and he set about doing what came disturbingly natural to him; he subsisted. He squashed the part of his brain and his black, black heart that wanted revenge for his defeat and subsequent imprisonment and with a shudder in his cold soul moved on.

Honestly, he should have been less content with hiding, and more content at the thought of strangling the younger, more irritating version of himself until he was Phantom full-time. He also shouldn't have been able to hide as he was hiding, or even thinking of himself by his proper, given name.

He had the sneaking suspicion Clockwork had something to do with all of this; and therefore, there was virtually nothing that he could do about it.

"It's Dan, right?" A young woman asked. She paced briskly after him, attempting to match his long stride across the campus brick-work sidewalk. Her long brown hair hung in a flawless ponytail down her back, her short- shorts in the hot afternoon teased passers-by. She flashed him a winning smile. Her tanned skin was uniformly glowing in all the places that showed. She was no more than twenty. Dan had always had a 'thing' for brunettes. He instantly hated everything about her. He took a moment to school his face into an expressionless mask and imagine what an irritating, pretentious, agonizing bitch she would certainly turn out to be.

"That's right." He said, slowing to a stop. Her smile brightened and she held out a hand.

"I'm Katrina." She said. He shook her hand, a little reluctantly; her grip was firm and confident. "We're in that new class together."

"That's right." He said again slowly. She was smiling and looking him up and down covertly, and Dan realized with a frown that she was checking him out.

"Well since we're going to be spending the quarter together I thought we should get to know each other. Mind if I walk with you?" He shrugged and continued on his way, the girl following closely.

"So, what do you like to read?" She asked. Dan shrugged again.

"I don't usually." He replied shortly. His legs were long, but the young woman was quite athletic, and she matched his stride despite being considerably shorter than himself.

"I always loved philosophy, can't get enough of it. What's your major?" He shrugged again, already approaching the end of his tolerance for human interaction. "Oh, one of those artsy-types; going back to school trying to find yourself?" She said.

"Nope." He said with a sigh, trying to hide a growl. She filled the silence with constant words until they had passed from one side of the campus to the other. Dan kept his hands inside his pockets clenched into fists. Finally, blissfully, she backed off when he showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. She made some excuse, waved a polite good bye and walked off looking rather proud of herself.

If he were a normal man, a normal human, he may have walked away with the same feeling. But he was not. The human visage he wore was a fabrication, left from what few fibers of humanity had not been shredded away over the years. Though it was a painful learning curve, he learned to cultivate it until he could change his attributes just as he had when he was young.

His escape from that ridiculous Fenton Thermos, Clockwork's tower, and then the ghost zone took enough out of him that he had no desire to encounter his younger self anytime soon, and parading around in the form that said younger self had come to recognize and despise was asking for more trouble than he was willing to deal with at the time. It took him nearly six days to get it right, and another three before he was confident he wasn't going to ruin everything the moment he got startled or angry. It was one thing to imitate a form he knew well for 24 hours; another to fabricate a new visage and hold it for weeks at a time.

Dan had been a bit startled to see the world in the years after the accident in his own past. By his own timeline he should be in Wisconsin with his dear old 'mentor' verbally clobbering frustrated grief counselors. In a month or two he would be at the end of his proverbial rope. The rest, as they say, is history.

Except it wasn't.

Right now Daniel Fenton- the present Daniel Fenton- was still in Amity Park, keeping an eye on the hometown. When he was sure the young Phantom was well occupied elsewhere, he paid an invisible visit to 'good ole Amity Park' just to check up on the way things were progressing. The town looked very much as he remembered leaving it the first time, with at least one more building in tact than he remembered. He learned his 'sister' Jazz still returned on weekends and holidays, already well into her coursework. Jack and Maddie Fenton were alive and well, a few more patents under their belt padding their bank account. He was most surprised at the new addition to the family; a young girl they called 'Catherine'. Dan had never imagined a younger sister may have been in the works.

As far as he could tell his two 'friends' were also well, still following his younger form on his exploits and getting more resilient. Time had official diverged from his own memory, launching him into unknown territory. He had once entertained the idea of getting back to 'his own' time, but that course had long been deleted.

He was stranded in enemy territory.

And he was angry.

The Fenton's weren't the only past reminders he went to check up on. His old mentor/archenemy was another personality he wasn't too keen on encountering just yet. So he took a short trip to the badger state to sneak a peek. Only Vlad wasn't in Wisconsin. Oh no- he was right back where it all began as the beloved mayor of Amity Park. And he'd been busy. Plasmius had his finger right on the pulse of the Fenton's and was using his considerable wealth and power to keep Phantom at arm's length of his various schemes.

Until the day came that he needed him, they hadn't been friendly, himself and Vlad. But when the cause was mutually beneficial; they were able to work together. Had Dan been feeling himself Plasmius' resources and irritating tendencies would be the first thing he would set out to eliminate. As the biggest threat, he had to go. No doubt little Danny would have thought of that. If all that money and obsessive one-track mind could be turned to looking for him- hiding could get complicated. So he took steps to keep the element of surprise, should he need it.

Flying was so much faster than walking, and considerably easier. His 'human' form allowed him to blend in well with the current population, and avoid unwanted attention. But it wasn't natural, and it wasn't really human. The human part of him was... well, gone in any case. However, he discovered over the years that a few shreds of human consciousness still clung to him even after that unsavory part of him had been discarded. It was not enough to get him through a ghost shield, which infuriated him to no end, but it was enough to imitate his younger visage when they encountered one another that fateful day. He used it now to give himself a more age appropriate look. It was enough to fool normal humans, so long as his younger half and Plasmius stayed far enough away and he kept a vigilant eye, he was just another face in the crowd. Unfortunately that face took considerable energy to gain and once he changed back, to gain again. So even though taking invisibly to the sky was awfully tempting, he walked.

He turned down the hill when the sensation struck him again. Like his ghost sense, which did not go off, he felt it crawl up his spine and through his chest like a flash of frost. The paranoid sensation of being watched hit him between the shoulder blades hard enough he turned suddenly to survey his surroundings. The desire to change back and take to the sky to see his environment better washed over him. He squashed it with great effort- he was hiding. Anger followed the sensation immediately afterwards. Nothing he'd encountered in the last decade caused him this kind of fear, this kind of paranoia. The rage threatened to boil over; he would not allow this thing to dictate any longer what he did and how he did it. He stamped down on that rage before it destroyed his visage.

Something was wrong. His hair tried to stand on end, and nausea rose in his gut. Something was very wrong. He sucked in a calming breath and forced himself to turn around and start down the hill. The sensation faded a few minutes later, leaving him worse for the wear. The feeling of being watched had begun almost immediately after his escape. At first he thought it was Clockwork, closing the distance. But he wasn't afraid of Clockwork. He was afraid of this thing. Dan went straight for Amity Park after his escape and the fight with the Master of Time, with every intention of bringing his unique brand of chaos back to his hometown. There were a lot of people he felt like visiting. He opened a portal out of the ghost zone and it practically whacked him in the back of the head, that sensation. He'd fled without thinking, a reaction attesting to how long he'd been inactive in that stupid thermos. In his ghost form he could feel it descend on him, like he was putting out a beacon. For the first time in a very long time, the rage took a back seat. Until he could maintain a form that fooled that ever-open eye, he moved whenever it found him again. He no longer felt it zeroing in on him. Dan had the feeling that as long as he stayed hidden- he stayed safe. So even though he'd every intention of getting his in when he could, he couldn't afford to operate openly.

He continued down the hill watching the passing traffic; compact cars with single passengers, minivans full of screaming children, city buses full of college students. He passed a gay couple coming up the hill. The man closest to him waved as they passed. He ignored them solidly. No running and ducking, no screeching of brakes or the firing of weapons as he went by. For the past month he'd been living in an apartment, he went out of his way to get a job. The other day he walked to a grocery store to buy paper towels and the sickening normalcy of his current lifestyle made him physically gag.

Honestly, he missed the screaming.

The fear that he so loathed seemed unwilling to drain from him; and it only renewed the rage that got him through his day to day life. It was humiliating, hiding among the throngs at a university just to subsist. He resolved again that he would not be put off from his goal- he would regain the fear of every eye that fell upon him, including the watcher that seemed to harass him with his gaze. He would gain an even greater power and strike fear into that heart. He just needed some time to return to his full power.

And therein lay the problem.