Confrontation
Vladimir Masters considered himself a patient man, one had to be to deal with the constant hassles of running a company, being mayor, planning the death of his arch nemesis, and leading a double life as a half-ghost.
This, however, was a little more than he could bear.
"Valerie," he said sternly as he cowered, "put the ectogun down."
"Puh-lease, these do jack against humans," she snorted before leveling the weapon at his head, "you are human? Aren't you Plasmius?"
"So that's what this is all about?" he asked, dropping the cowardly act and standing straight once more, "very well child, you caught me."
Onyx rings appeared around his waist and split, traveling towards his head and feet to reveal a new form. That of a vampiric ghost in white garb.
"I am Vlad Plasmius! The first, oldest, and most powerful halfa in the world!"
"Halfa? Like Danielle?" she asked, keeping him in the crosshairs the whole time.
"Oh? So you're close to that little blunder of mine then?" he asked, seemingly unworried about the armored girl with the pistol to his head, "I'll assume you spoke with Daniel then?"
"Phantom?"
"Phan- you mean-?"
He couldn't help himself, he laughed at the child's foolishness.
"You still haven't figured it out? Oh this is just too rich! Almost half as much as me! Well, maybe a third."
"Figured out what!?"
"Danielle isn't Phantom's cousin, you ungrateful brat," he snapped, "she's his clone. A mistake of my own making."
"A clone!?" she gasped.
"Precisely. A near-perfect replica of Daniel himself I used to retrieve what I needed to create my perfect half-ghost son."
"A half-ghost son?" she asked, "that's impossible! How many more of you are there!?"
"Just one," he replied with a shrug, "you've been pining for his snow-white scalp for some time now."
"Snow-white scalp? You mean Phantom's a half-ghost too!?"
"I did say Danielle was a clone didn't I?" replied Vlad with a smirk, "I needed three samples of the same DNA to create a perfect half-ghost child. A human sample, a ghost sample, and a mid-morph sample."
He turned back to his human form.
"Taken from the transformation rings that all halfas use to switch forms."
He turned back.
"It's a shame really, Danielle was almost perfect," he said mournfully before his eyes turned cold, "but almost isn't good enough!"
"She's just a kid," she told him, "she could've been your kid!"
"I don't tolerate imperfections," he snapped, "I sought out to create a perfect, stable, and powerful half-ghost son and will settle for nothing less!"
Valerie glared at her former mentor.
"You are one crazy fruit loop," she snarled at the madman.
"Oh great, another one!" he growled, waving his hand at her in exasperation.
Confusing the motion for an attack, Valerie fired at the blue-skinned specter, only for the blast to be easily deflected with a casual slap.
"Put that away before you hurt yourself," he snapped at her, "playtime is over. I don't have time to watch you pretend to be a huntress."
"I am a ghost huntress," she spat at him, "I'm THE huntress!"
"You are a fool," he growled, "no, even worse, you are a TOOL! Why do you think I gave you your first suit? Why do you think you got the second one? You have been nothing but a tool since you picked up an ecto-gun!"
"That's a lie!"
"Is it?" said a voice behind her, before pink ectoplasm burst against her back, "Let's recap, shall we?"
The Red Huntress fired again, but her opponent dodged and destroyed her ecto-gun with a single blast.
"I needed to keep Daniel busy, so I gave you your first suit," he told her before he blasted her board to pieces, "it was easy. Your misguided rage made it easy. What makes it even funnier is that he could've been your greatest ally."
She fared from various cube drones, each of which was easily destroyed.
"Then I had you hold an item of immense power, to keep Pariah from finding it on me," he continued as he deflected a blast back to Valerie, slamming her against the wall in the process, "a ring passed down from ghost-hunter to ghost-hunter. I honestly didn't think that one would work. I figured no one is that gullible, yet here we are."
She threw a multitude of knives, each of which was shot out of the air.
"Then Technus came in and took over your old suit," he drawled as he snatched a star out of the air and threw it back, burying it into her visor a millimeter away from her forehead, "Daniel, knowing you weren't in it, opted to finally destroy it. I'm sure he hoped you'd finally quit, now that you knew what he could've done to you from day one, yet you continued to disappoint him."
She ripped the knife out of her visor and drew out a sword made of solid ectoplasm. With a scream of rage, she swung at him, only for him to catch her wrists.
"I still chuckle when I remember that Technus had to play matchmaker to keep young Phantom distracted," he chuckled, "you do owe him for some lovely dates."
"I was dating Danny you wackjob!" she screamed at him as she struggled to break his steel grip on her wrists.
"Oh for the love of-! How can a girl as intelligent as yourself be so stupid!?" he snapped before he drove his knee into her gut, shattering the armor and knocking the wind out of her.
He let go of her wrists and let the wheezing girl crawl a few feet away before calmly strolling towards her. He grabbed her chin and forced him to look at her.
"Think Valerie. For once in your wretched life, think through the blind rage," he snarled, "Think of Phantom's face. Turn the white hair black, turn the green eyes blue. Who do you see?"
She tried not to listen. It was a trick, she knew.
And yet…
White to black.
Green to blue.
If you made him a shade paler he'd look just like…
"No," she whimpered.
"That's right," he said with a smirk as he roughly released her chin, "Technus needed to keep young Daniel distracted for his own means, so he used a readily available tool. You."
He pulled her up by the collar and glared into her visor, pumping pink ectoplasm into the suit.
"You are not a heroine, huntress, and at this point you are not even a tool!" he snarled as hot pink cracks spread through the suit, "You. ARE. NOTHING!"
The suit burst into a million pieces, exposing he girl to her fate.
"But you could be something," he admitted, "a dangerous something."
Pink energy gathered on his hands.
Valerie stared as he turned the deadly energy towards her.
"And that will not do."
She shut her eyes as the blast left his fingertips, waiting for the end.
And yet…
Nothing.
She slowly opened her eyes, fully expecting another trick.
She saw black cloth.
White hair.
Green eyes.
"Phantom?"
"I'm getting you out of here," he told her, before launching at the other ghost.
An hour later, they were flying back to the suburbs. Valerie was thinking. How had she not seen it!? Not only did they look like palate-swapped versions of each other, but they had the same voice, the same attitude, the same quirks, even the same sarcasm.
"I'm such a fool."
"Um, Val? You feeling okay?" asked Pha-. No, Danny, "I mean, not that it's not nice, but we've been flying for twenty minutes and you haven't tried to kill me yet."
"Can we talk?" she asked, "On the ground I mean."
"Uh, sure! Just give me a moment."
It didn't take them long to find themselves in a park. It wasn't even that far from her house from what she could tell.
"What did you want to talk-?"
"Cut the crap Fenton," she snapped, "I know it's you."
Valerie, in spite of herself, couldn't help but grin at the deer-in-the-headlight look Danny developed.
"Wh-what are you talking-?"
"Please don't make me dump a bucket of black paint on your hair just to prove a point," she scoffed, "I know that's you."
"He told you?"
"Might as well have," she admitted.
They stood awkwardly for a few seconds.
"Is your suit okay?"
"it'll grow back," she replied, "it'll take a while, but it'll return."
"You sure you're not half ghost too?" he joked.
Valerie smiled, "hope not!"
She scowled at the ground, "Can- can I see it?"
Danny seemed confused at the request before his eyes widened. With a nod, he let the white rings surge around his waist and turned back into his human self.
Valerie tackled him to the ground immediately.
"I'm sorry!" she sobbed into his shoulder, "I'm so sorry Danny!"