Uh, hi.

I've pretty recently joined the Phandom (given that three months ago counts as recent), and fallen pretty heavily for Badger Cereal. But (as the general consensus seems to be) I have MAJOR problems with Vlad's character arc. That being said, I'm fic-ing a remake of the Vlad/Danny arc.

As you read, please keep in mind that this is not Pompous Pep, and very not ship-centric. Also, my writing is extremely headcanon-heavy, and I won't come out in the captions to list them all, because that's a total bore. Feel free to confirm or ask after anything you think might be a headcanon, though!

You can also find this fic on deviantART under spectral-zura and on AO3 under flickly. If you'd like to get a look at my redesigns, those are also on DA, but my art blog is bluebarely, and has a higher overall concentration of DP art to other stuff.

Enjoy!

"He'd taken his friends down to the lab while we were running errands. Jazz said she heard a scream, and when she got to the basement, he was…you can imagine how he was."

Crack.

"Apparently he was messing around with his friends, and they dared him to go inside it. He must've told them that it wasn't working."

Crack.

"Luckily, he didn't sustain the same effects that you did. We've perfected the ectoplasm concentration in the filtration system since then. But Jazz just wouldn't let up until we took him to the hospital."

Crack.

"He's there right now. We rushed him there as soon as could."

CRACK.

Vlad lowered his finger, the magenta ectoplasm at his fingertip fading. A collection of empty wine bottles he'd just had fetched was now a mess of glass shards, scattered explosively across the tarp on the floor. The sight was nothing too strange—he'd gained the habit of doing this whenever he had a particularly arduous call.

He looked toward the receiver for the first time in seven minutes.

"Is your son's condition stable, at least?" he asked, putting on the voice he used for sob-story charities.

"Danny," Maddie corrected. "And for now, yes. From what the doctors tell us. They're treating him for burns right now, but there's more to his condition. They aren't going to know the full effects of ectoplasm exposure like that."

Vlad didn't need to see Maddie's face—she was fuming, no matter how much she tried to keep it out of her voice. "Maddie, my dear, I'm sure the doctors are competent enough to at least treat the burns Daniel sustained." He conjured up some ectoplasm to stir with his finger as he talked. "Just contact me when he's out and I'll take care of the rest."

Maddie stuttered rather adorably as she picked up on what he was talking about. "That's… very sweet of you, but I'm just not-"

"Oh, Maddie, I insist. You and your children don't need any hospital bills causing distress," the man cooed. " In fact, I know of a couple names that are known to reduce scarring brilliantly. Let me refer them to you."

"Vlad, we didn't call you to ask for money."

"Of course not, of course not, Maddie dear. But a godfather should help his godchildren any way he can, hm? I have been in the same boat as Daniel, after all." He smiled honeyedly. "If you could at least keep it in mind…"

"I'll do that, but I've got a lot to think about right now," Maddie countered quickly. She started to say something else, but a couple other voices interrupted with words Vlad couldn't make out. After a few heartbeats, Maddie was back. "Vlad, Danny's doctor wants to talk to us."

"Good luck to you and your son, my dear. Call again soon?"

"Goodbye, Vlad."

Vlad stared at the receiver for a good thirty seconds afterwards, before alerting someone on the help to come for the wine bottles-turned-targets. He was in his private study before anyone could come and ask questions.

Oh, the stupidity of a child. It was the same stupidity that had led Vlad to believe leaning in front of an unstable ectoplasmic prototype was a safe idea, back when he was twenty, but it was stupidity nonetheless. Had Jack not told that boy that the things in the Fenton lab were dangerous? Were Daniel and his friends underinformed on the subject? Vlad's eyes glittered with evil delight; oh he would bet they were! Another thing to blame on Jack: not keeping his family safe. Wonderful!

Hmm.

When one had a net worth in the early hundred billions, they could most certainly get away with bribing some exhausted cops. Vlad had it on good account that Jack had run into the Amity Park Police Department more than once, always on account of neighborhood disturbances. There hadn't been much hoopla about FentonWorks in the past few years, since Amity had apparently grown used to the Fenton family business. But… what would happen if they got a tipoff about child mistreatment?

Vlad had paused mid-turn, curious, but he waved the thought away and resumed pacing. He'd argued similar notions with himself more than once—it was too hairy a business to get into; too many mouths to keep shut. Vladimir Masters was so much more than a man with money, anyhow, and money would not make his revenge against Jack absolute. He huffed irritably.

So what would?

Vlad's pacing circle widened to accustom to his irritated speed.

Absolute revenge...it would have to involve more people than just Jack. He and Vlad had not spoken more than a few words in years; he knew Jack still considered him a friend somehow, but it wasn't enough! His family, however…yes, it would have to involve his family. They were too precious to Jack to go unscathed. Everything Jack had, Vlad would happily destroy, or else take for himself. Maddie would be in the "take" category, obviously, but Jack's children—Jasmine, the prodigy, and Daniel-

The billionaire gasped as the gears in his mind came to a grinding halt, having already churned out something wonderful…something utterly, awfully wonderful. He found himself horrified, unsure...

But if the magnitude idea scares you, then it's perfect, is it not! He would leave for Amity Park on the morrow. Young Daniel wasn't going anywhere, after all.

He wouldn't be going anywhere ever again.

"No, Pamela, he's in the hospital."

"Oh, you're kidding."

Maddie sighed noiselessly, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Across the table from her, Jazz glowered weakly, reddened eyes narrowing a smidge.

"I'm afraid not," the ghost hunter disagreed. "We decided it was best he be looked at by medical doctors."
"Well, of course, Maddie. Who else are you going to get tending to him, a stunt double?" Pamela Manson clucked her tongue, prompting an even harder glare from the other line.

"Maybe a spectrobiologist," Maddie mouthed. Jazz's glare moved from Maddie's phone to Maddie's eyes. Maddie rolled her eyes brusquely.

Jazz and Pam Manson were a lot for her to take at once.

"Well, y'know, my little Sammykins is so broken up about this," Pam pouted. "She won't talk to us, and when she does she just yells her head off and stomps back to her room."

"Isn't that what always happens?" Jazz croaked quietly. Maddie put a finger to quirked lips.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, Pam. Thank you for calling, but I'd really like to keep this matter in the family."

"Mmm. I can see why."

Maddie glared death into the receiver, faintly wondering if banshee screams were also lethal when done over phone lines. It wasn't a secret that Social Services had looked into the Fenton children's welfare before—at least, not anymore it wasn't; Danny had told Sam who had told a maid who had told Pam. But that did not give Pam the right to make commentary about how the Fentons worked.

She could feel herself shifting into a predatory crouch over the table, prompting Jazz to lift her head up to make room.

"Pam." She snapped. "Tell Sam that we won't be allowing visitors until after Danny's out of the hospital, alright? It should only be a couple of days."

Maddie sneered victoriously to hear Pam turn cold. "Maddie, you know I'm just trying to help, dear."

"Yeah, you—"

Jazz whipped the phone from her mother and hung up without a word. Maddie stared, anger morphing into guilt as the teenager wiped at her eyes with a palm.

"Mom, I don't think any of us need that right now," Jazz began shakily. "Okay?"

Maddie awkwardly patted her hand. "Okay, baby."

They sat in silence. Jazz's copious amounts of freckles were almost camouflaged by the blood that rose in her face, her brown eyes ringed with red. Aside from the fact that she'd been crying off-and-on for hours, she looked so much like Maddie when Maddie was her age.

After a few minutes, Jazz sighed. "I know you didn't want to take Danny to the hospital, but thank you for doing it anyway."

"It's okay, Jazz." Not that she would've let them do anything less. Jasmine was just a little bit used to getting her way, but that was usually because she was at least a little bit right. It was a precarious position for a parent to be in for sure.

Darn that adolescent genius, Maddie remarked in her head. She'd pulled the exact same tricks as Jazz had on her own parents when she was her age. It just ran in the…

Family. Maddie's heart sank like a balloon filled with ice. Family.

Right.

Maddie licked her lips, before patting Jazz's hand again and announcing that she was going to check on her father.

The device was an oldie-but-goodie, something Vlad had cooked up back in his thieving days. He hadn't had much reason to use it now—most of the people he commissioned for dirty work were ghosts, and they had their own means of stealth—but for just this once, he was excited to pull the old, mechanical little friend from his tech cupboard.

He immediately located the camera in the teen's room, situated at a familiar place in the far corner. A press of the device against the black metal sent an electrical impulse through the camera, looping whatever footage it had found. His job secured, Vlad smirked, floating over to the bedside.

He had never seen Daniel in person, but he knew for certain this was not a very favorable impression. Behind the flushed, mottled Lichtenberg figures on his cheeks, and the purple-veined eyelids, and the tubing snaking into Daniel's nostrils, lay what must have been a very charming-looking young man. He looked like Jack, but not nearly enough to disgust Vlad—oh, there was the sweetest shadow of Maddie in the boy, lurking in his lithe form and the shape of his face.

Vlad stroked some of Daniel's hair out of his eyes. "Oh, dear boy, I must apologize in advance. It's not you who I'm after, I've got much fatter fish to fry." He snickered darkly. "I know Maddie will be crushed to find her son dead…but you're the ungifted second-born, aren't you? Jack's stupidity had to go to one of you children. And when you're stupid enough to tempt fate like you did with the portal, well, Maddie just can't sympathize with that. She will eventually leave you to history, along with your father."

He grinned at the imagery. Why hadn't he thought of this earlier? Rid Maddie of the deadweight son, claim her and her prodigious daughter for himself in their solemn hour, then come back and kill Jack when the oaf had been forgotten! It was perfect.

Vlad presented a hand to himself, watching it go intangible before hovering it over the injured teen's chest.

"This really is a very simple procedure, Daniel," he reassured the prone form below him. His only response was the rhythmic beep. beep. beep. of Daniel's heart monitor. "Much like disrupting machinery, actually. I'll just root around inside your heart until it stops. It shouldn't take very long at all and oh, you might feel a smidge of pain, but…" Vlad smiled in mock-apology down at the child. "…cruel to be kind, dear boy. You'd thank me if you knew why."

For a moment, he held his gaze. Challenged Daniel to wake up and protest his fate.

beep. beep. beep.

Vlad's smile turned ugly.

"Very well, then," he chirped. He sank his hand low, lower, past the dermis, and—

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Vlad let out a cry of surprise at the sudden noise, yanking his hand back as if Daniel had bitten him. What?! His heart wasn't supposed to stop yet! Vlad hadn't even brushed the stupid thing!

What was happening…? There was no sign that Daniel's heart had given out. One second, he had been just fine; then the next he was dead? Just like that?

Pointed ears pricked. There were nurses coming.

Ohh, no. He was not about to deal with this, not now. He wanted answers.

Vlad had already duplicated himself thrice before they bolted through the door, and if the nurses even saw him, they made little sign. He overshadowed them with the ease of a child sticking his hand into a puppet. The three women stiffened, suddenly as still and constant as the flatline.

The hybrid glared over at the heart monitor, turning it off irritably, before snapping at the overshadowed nurses to leave and not come back. They did as they were told, pulling the door shut behind them.

Vlad ran a hand through his hair in agitation.

"And you, Daniel," he said aloud, making to look back down. "What exactly has become of y—"

He never finished his sentence, because Daniel's face suddenly looked very different, as if some sort of white light was shining under his skin. Vlad stooped down, brow furrowing, as the light glowed brighter.

And brighter.

And brighter.

Vlad had to blink and turn away quickly, before the light became too blinding to stand. He stepped back from the offending display and screwed his eyes shut, but soon that too was useless. He grimaced, shielding himself with his cape, brain pounding to keep up-

But then the glow warped, flattening into a solid white halo at Daniel's thin waist. Vlad opened his eyes again and gaped as the halo split, forming two rings that flowed up and down the teen's body in a way that was eerily familiar.

The hybrid dropped his cape, shell-shocked.

Jack was in the lab, goggles pulled down, absentmindedly fiddling with some wiring on one of their old projects.

"I forgot we were working on that one," Maddie commented avertedly, tidying up around Jack's workspace. The burly man made an affirmative noise, the corners of his mouth twitching southward. Maddie stared up at him.

"Jack…"

Jack wedged the teal-lensed goggles up to his forehead, revealing grey-brown eyes that were cloudy with discomfort. Maddie looked away, realizing Danny had stopped midway through his chores, and decided to do the rest in his absence. It was best not to press Jack when he had something on his mind.

She was halfway through gathering up beakers when Jack spoke up. "I can't help but feel like I could've done something. Baby, I—I showed him the portal yesterday, and he knew it was a bust." Jack rubbed the graying back of his head. "I feel like I should've told him that just because it wasn't working didn't mean it was safe."

"He should've known that already, though." Maddie shook her head, frustration threatening to rear its ugly head again. "His friends should have known, too. We've told them all hundreds of times, the lab is not their playground. They dared him to go in, and he took the dare." She lifted her hands. "Aggravating as it is, that's all there is to it."

"Yeah, but Mads—c'mon, don't you think I did something wrong there?" Jack wrung his gloved hands, head hung low. Maddie knew that body language like the back of her hand—he wanted something to blame, but he felt that thing was himself. It was the same look he got whenever Social Services came by because a paranoid parent had freaked. When Jack got that look, it didn't really matter if Maddie told him that it wasn't his fault; that the kids were just screwing around, or that the neighbors just weren't very understanding. He'd believe what he believed.

"We'll just have to be more careful, Jack. Okay?" Maddie stepped closer, bringing Jack's face back into the light. He stared down at her in worry. "We'll have to talk to Danny about lab equipment regulations and when to use the tech. His friends are not coming back down here for a long, long time, either. But then the lesson's learned, and we'll be back to normal. We all will. Okay, Jack…?"

The two stayed rooted for a few stuck, arduous moments. They knew that this wasn't the end of it, not by a long shot, but Maddie was confident things would be okay. Looking at Jack, she knew he didn't presently feel the same—not with his child in a hospital bed.

"Okay?"

Jack sighed heavily, grasping the hand Maddie held on his face. "Okay."

Maddie let go to hug him, a little comforted when he returned the motion genuinely. They held each other like that for a little bit, standing numbly a few feet away from the Portal that had caused their current problem.

"Things won't change when Danny gets back, Jack. I promise they won't."

He reached out, fingers quivering as they glanced against Daniel's cheek.

The boy was floating, a good foot and a half over the gurney, body still thrumming out a frigid glow. His skin was perfect, with none of the Lichtenberg figures he'd sported earlier, but it was now a rich hypothermic blue instead of ocher. Dull black hair had blanched to a perfect frosty white. In place of a pale hospital gown, Daniel now wore a black-and-white FentonWorks hazmat suit. His eyes were still closed, but they glowed so obviously under his eyelids—pupilless white irises surrounded by aqua-blue sclera, like circlets of ice in the Arctic Sea.

Vlad's mouth had long since gone dry when he tried to push Daniel back down onto the gurney, feeling an urge to correct at least something about the surreal picture before him.

"Dani…el…Daniel, what's become of you…"

He staggered back and half-fell, half-sank into the chair behind him. Bloodred eyes boggled, owl-like, as he tried to kick-start his brain to work again.

The…the…come on. The temperature in the room and the glow around Daniel could only suggest spectral biology. So he was a ghost. But this, Vlad reasoned, was not how ghosts formed naturally. If Daniel really had died, then his corpse and his ghost would not be one.

Vlad felt his core give a jump, ectoplasm jolting with steadily-increasing energy. Maddie's words came surging back, much clearer now:

"Jazz said he went into the portal and—and turned it on."

A portal accident. A spirit that hadn't left its corpse. A transformation from living human into a spirit. All things Vlad knew the relationship between, all too well.

Oh, god in Heaven.

As of this writing, chapter 2 and multiple snippets of future chapters are well underway. Also, a review wouldn't hurt!