Cliché
Chapter 2: Against all Instincts
A/N: Well thank you very much to TheAntisocialYouth, magpie8spook, Fairly Odd Phanom fan, Grimly Dandy, Strix Moonwing, lar lindor, the midnight phantomess, several anonymous and 2wingo for reviewing. Your thoughts really do help encourage me to write this. I swear, nothing is more motivating than when someone says they really enjoyed this and would love to see more. thank you.
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon do.
It wasn't the perfect way to start what seemed to be a pleasant evening, but Danny trudged his way up the stairs up to his room. Why so unpleasant you may ask? Perfectly normal question, it was a beautiful evening, and nature fanatics would surely be passing out from the exhilaration they experienced from being outside. Danny always loved being in the presence of beauty, and he always seemed to be a little disappointed leaving that beauty. Having something taken away from you after being accustomed to it was never a 'fun' experience. There were definitely some sort of morals or life lessons to be learned from having things taken away from you, but Danny wasn't in the mood to care about that at the moment.
Several moments ago, just after the he had safely landed outside his home and transformed back into his human half, something happened that put him in a bad mood for the time being. Danny strolled out of the side alley and casually made his way to the front door. That's when it happened… he tripped… and skinned his elbow.
That wasn't why Danny wasn't in a good mood though. He was far too excited for the movie to be bothered by a small little scrape like this. It was what was waiting inside the door for him, which made him uneasy.
"Daniel! What a pleasant surprise, what are you doing here?" A mellow and aged voice cackled.
Danny shifted his gaze towards the source of the voice, immediately regretting doing so. He blinked. He blinked twice, but that would do nothing to remove the sight of Mayor Vlad Masters comfortably sitting on his family's sofa.
"What am I doing here? What kind of question is that? I live here." Danny said in a rather annoyed tone, attempting to keep his cool. He wanted to avoid any and all conflict to preserve a fun-filled evening with his friends, and since he could easily hear the unwieldy footsteps of his father, shadowed by the dainty ones of his mother, kept his temper as mature as a teenager could have.
"Now, now my dear boy, what do you mean your house? As of a few minutes ago, your parents signed the deed off to me." Danny's face fell, and his jaw fell further as he glared at Vlad's smug grin. "Everything in this house, personal possessions included, now belong to me… your parents are in the kitchen now signing the rest of the papers."
Danny wasted no time and rushed to the kitchen, the screech of his sneakers proving so. What he found were his parents sitting down preparing some snacks.
"I swear to god that it was the best fudge I'd ever devoured in my entire li- Danny! How are you son?" Jack said in his bold, booming voice.
"Dad? What's going on? Vlad's here and he said we're selling our house." Danny said, worried and confused.
"Oh Danny, don't be silly, Vlad's just here to visit." Maddie chimed in with bitterness in her voice.
"I know! Isn't that great? Now that he's mayor of Amity Park, we will get to see him all the time now!" Jack continued, oblivious to everyone's concern about Vlad's presence. On a somewhat lighter note, Danny quickly realized where his naivety came from, and yet wasn't surprised in the least.
Danny, not bothering to listen to his parent's explanation…or quickly losing that battle called 'Do you have a 30-second attention span?' left the kitchen to interview Vlad on his purposes here.
"We're not selling the house, so why are you here?"
"Oh Daniel I know that, I just love to watch you get all paranoid." Vlad answered in a remarkably relaxed tone.
"Answer my question, why are you here?" Danny said, quickly losing his patience.
"Oh my dear boy-"
"I'm not your boy so stop calling me that" Danny interrupted.
"If you say so Daniel…" Vlad said in a voice that just smelt like lies "But I assure you I am not here to kill you at the moment. I did in fact wish to visit, as I heard your mother say. Being mayor of this town isn't as easy as being elected. Passing laws all day to make the town turn against you… oh my, it's exhausting work Daniel."
Danny was less that pleased about Vlad's explanation, and wasn't about ready to let his guard down. It didn't seem like Vlad wished to kill him at the moment. Danny looked down at his shoes, as if to think through something greatly, and rubbed his chin (as if to make him think better). Jazz could defend herself. Jazz was home, which Danny was sure of, seeing her car parked out in the street when walking inside. Jazz could at least give some comfort to Danny and let him breathe a little easier for tonight. He didn't want to ditch his friends just to enact revenge against his rival. Against his instincts, he trudged up the stairs to his room.
It was already nearing 8:30 before Danny finally plopped down onto his messy bed. With his sheets as far from being straight as could be, and the pillows no longer even near the bed. How he even managed to make it the seven feet from the door to his mattress without tripping and breaking his neck was a miracle within itself.
Danny considered taking an invigorating power-nap to regain some energy for the late-night movie planned. The thought of leaving the conscience realm to escape to a land of pure imagination sounded relaxing. He could ignore Vlad's presence for the time being, and can enjoy mystical forests with cute little mystical creatures. Danny could escape the stench of his dirty clothes scattered haphazardly on his floor and take a nice swim through a chocolate river and much on some candy flowers. He could drift asleep and no longer gaze upon his spackled dry-wall ceiling and stare into the depths of the infinite rainbows of la-la land.
Boy that sounded fun. Taking a nap. Nothing quite more relaxing than that. The only thing stopping him was a light tapping of his door.
"KNOCK KNOCK Danny! Are you in there?" A high-pitched voice squealed through the walls.
"Ugh… what do you want Jazz?" Danny asked, moaning as he lifted himself up off the bed and once again miraculously made it across the minefield he calls his bedroom floor.
Before Danny could touch the doorknob, Jazz's impatience flung the door open and for purposes of this story, Danny conjured up his intangibility act as the swinging door passed through him and nearly flew off its hinges.
Jazz rushed in, and ran past…or literally through Danny before returning back into his tangible state.
"Danny! What's Vlad doing here?" Jazz said, turning around, slipping on some random piece of clothing…or book… well it could be a spaceship model, and falling face first into her brother's carpet. All through this comical act of tomfoolery, Jazz somehow managed to keep her seriousness and worry in her words.
"…and would it kill you to at least make a pathway in here? Sheesh, it's like trying to walk through a minefield in here." Jazz added, pushing herself up and dusting off her knees while raising an eyebrow to Danny's rolling of the eyes.
"Look, I'll do it this weekend, and I don't know why Vlad is here." Danny said.
"Yeah, well you said that last week, and it's even worse. So what do you think he's up to?" Jazz asked.
"I just said that I-"
"Up to no good shenanigans I bet."
"Shenanigans?" Danny said, cocking his head to the side like a bewildered puppy.
"Of course, why else would he be here… well besides Mom?" Jazz answered.
"Who says shenanigans?" Danny asked, rhetorically now that he thought about it, because he now knows that Jazz does indeed say shenanigans.
"There's nothing wrong with having a colorful vocabulary Danny, and if you paid more attention in school you wouldn't be wasting your breath with me right now."
"Hey, I actually overhear conversations in the hallway. You'd be surprised how many different ways I could express anger." Danny defended.
"Curse words don't count Danny…" Jazz said in a maternal tone…similar to how her mom would say it.
"Why couldn't have you just said 'trouble'? Why couldn't you just have said, 'Up to trouble'?"
"Danny, every second you waste arguing pointlessly against my intellect is a second that Vlad can use to enact whatever evil plan he might have schemed." Jazz explained.
"Whatever, but I know I have to take a nap, I have a movie planned with Tucker and Sam for later and I don't want to fall asleep in the theater." Danny said.
Jazz couldn't help but smirk at this situation. Dark theater. Movie. Sam. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up. So once again, she thought she'd have some fun once more in life and go ahead and tease him.
"Ooh you're right Danny, wouldn't want to fall asleep next to Sam in a dark romantic movie theater. You'd make Tucker uncomfortable, that's being really considerate… caring for your best friend like that." Jazz snickered in a clearly obnoxious sarcastic voice.
"…are you implying something?" Danny said, irritated.
"What do you think Danny? Do you think I'm trying to say something about you and the dark privacy of the movie theater… with Sam." said Jazz.
Danny paused for several seconds until the brunt force of Jazz's implication hit him head on.
"Hey! Sam and I aren't going to do anything. We're just friends…and we'll always be just friends." Said the puberty stricken teen. "We've been okay with being friends when we were little, and we'll be friends for a long time" Danny finished off with a nice crack of the voice at 'long', which destroyed any serious point he may have been trying to make.
"Whatever you say bro," Jazz managed to say between giggles, "just try not crack your voice when you say 'I love you Sam'." Jazz continued by squeaking her voice for comedic emphasis for that last bit. Danny bowed his head and shook it, trying to rid the redness on his face. Jazz, in the meantime had left the room to try to see what Vlad was up to.
Danny, in the meantime having wasted 5 minutes already, decided it was time to catch up on some wasted energy used arguing with his sister. It was time to take a nap, dream some pleasant dreams… think of some good sarcastic comments for the movie, stuff like that. Danny once again plopped himself on his bed. He took his shoes off and threw them among the mess of other items on the floor.
He didn't bother grabbing a pillow from the floor and just went ahead and laid his head on the stiff mattress. Hearing that sleeping without a pillow improves posture (which he could use do to all the slouching he does during school hours) being the main reason for not grabbing one…he was also very lazy.
Pleasant thoughts began to overtake bad ones. Visions of Vlad's presence were soon slipping away and soon he could easily forget about him for the time being. Visions of a land where he didn't have to worry about ghosts or fighting were being put forth in his mind. He soon drifted into a sleep were he could have fun all time, and he did just that.
Jazz, now back in the kitchen where the three adults were talking, decided to casually stop by and try to decipher Vlad's reason for being here.
"Vladdy! So glad you could stop by from you're busy schedule to hang with your old college buddy." Jazz's father boomed.
"Oh Jack, it's nothing! Don't worry about it; my job is much easier than you might think. In fact, you could say being mayor of Amity Park is nothing more than a…hobby. It's rather easy my friend, just boss a few people around, go around town to make guest appearances, plot my revenge against your son…"
"BWAHAHAHAHA" Bellowed Jack and his 'friend'.
"Oh Vlad, you were always such the comedian, haha… plot revenge…" Jack said.
"Vlad, as funny as I think you are, I would appreciate you not mention anything threatening about my son, there really is no need to bring him up." Maddie said, less than enthusiastic about Vlad's jokes.
"Oh my dear Maddie-"
"Please don't call me 'dear' Vlad…"
"Oh Maddie, you know I'm just kidding right? I would never want to hurt your son. Daniel is such a wonderful boy, full of energy and excitement."
Jazz rolled her eyes and laid her cheek against her palm as she placed her elbow up on the table. She did find Vlad's choice of words ironic, seeing as how Danny was in the middle of trying to fall asleep when she went to see him.
"How long has Vlad been here? I hadn't even noticed him come in…" Jazz thought to herself mulling over Vlad's obvious plot to enact revenge. Obvious you say? Well he just said not more than 10 seconds ago "…plotting revenge against your son…" What he was going to do exactly Jazz hadn't a clue, but she was sure it wasn't going to be good.
A/N: Not too much happening here, i'm sorry. Though i am building up to later events which should be quite entertaining. What could Vlad's revenge include? For the first time in a while... i actually know.. i actually have a plan for this story... so updates should by rather frequent, given i have free time and have inspiration on how to word my thoughts nicely.
Please tell me what you think, reviews are most appreciated!
KITHN
