THREE

Jumping Dimensions….again

"You're weak, Daniel." the three Vlads sneered, landing next to the fallen boy. "Just like your idiot father."

The younger ghost raised his upper body from the ground with unstable arms. He was panting and shaking, but he had enough strength to spit out;

"My dad isn't an idiot!"
"Oh really? Then tell me, little badger, what he is. What was he, when he miscalculated the formula for the proto-portal in college? What was he, when he placed the 'on' switch /inside/ the portal, hmm? Tell me!"

Vlad leaned into the boy's face with a maniac gleam in his eyes.

Daniel looked up to meet Vlad's eyes and said simply; "He was my dad."
One of Vlad's eyes twitched.

Daniel smirked weakly at this, knowing that he had hit a nerve.

"Fine, Daniel." Vlad spit out, straitening up, "Fine. You want to be stubborn? Want to let your emotions take over your actions? Fine." He then rose to his full height.

"You leave me no choice."

Then, Vlad absorbed his two duplicates, and with a whirl of his cape, disappeared in a puff of pink smoke.

Surprised with the sudden departure, Daniel slowly raised himself to his feet. Unable to think of a witty comeback to the last remark, he stood there for a few more minutes. Finally, he got one.

"And stay away!" he bellowed to nothing in particular, still looking bemused.
"No, I don't think I will"

Alarmed, Daniel whisked around to see Vlad.

Again.

Daniel mentally groaned.

"Why am I surprised?"

"Why indeed. Did you really think I left, Daniel? If so, you must have more of your father's genes in you than I had originally thought."

Daniel slowly backed off from the vampiric ghost, eyes darting left and right.

"Of course, I should have expected nothing else," Vlad continued, not moving from his original spot, "you are Jack's son after all."

Daniel continued his slow trip backwards, until his back hit something, and that something grabbed his arms and pinned them to his back. He twisted to look behind him and saw another Vlad, leering at him.

"Wha-"

"Duplication and decoys, my boy." The Vlad behind him said, smirking.

"One of the oldest tricks in the book." The other Vlad said, just as smug.

"What do you want from me?" Daniel exclaimed, then added "well, except for the usual 'Marry my mom, kill my dad, and make me your son' thing."

"Me? I want some logic from you, little badger." Vlad-in-front said, "Non-emotional, cool-headed logic. Just think of what I might teach you. Put away that irrational anger directed towards me, and think! I can make you great, son. I can make you the strongest ghost in all of the Ghost Zone and the Human World! I can-"

"Thanks, but really, no thanks." Vlad's rants were cut off by a disgusted Daniel. "I might have a lot of dreams, but being tutored by a crazy old lonely fruitloop isn't one of them."

Vlad growled, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Daniel struggled against his captor Vlad's grip, but couldn't get free. Suddenly, Vlad re-opened his eyes, which was now shining with determination.

"Fine, Daniel," He said, "As I said before, you leave me no choice." Then, he reached behind him to a backpack, which wasn't there when he first attacked the younger ghost, and pulled out two metallic gloves.

The Ghost Gauntlets, Plasmius style.

Seeing this, Daniel's eyes widened, and he started to struggle wildly.

"NO-Vlad, you, you don't know what you're doing! I-"

"Of course I know what I'm doing." Vlad snapped at him, pulling on the gloves. "I'm going to separate your human emotions from your ghostly body so you'll have some time to think straight."

Vlad touched a button on the side of the Gauntlets, and ten five-inch long claws shot out of each of its fingertips, each glowing a vivid crimson. What color he had left in Daniel's face drained away at this.

"N-no, you're wrong! Those human emotions are what neutralizes my, our, ghostly instincts! W-without them, the world will be destroyed! If this goes wrong-"

Daniel twisted and managed to get one of his arms out of the death grip, but it quickly got caught again. Vlad frowned, and let electricity surge through his captive, making the boy shout with pain, then hang limp, panting.

"This will not go wrong." Vlad said, checking the tips of his claws and completely oblivious to the child's yells of pain. "Do not speak as if you know what's going to happen."

"But… I do know…what will happen." Daniel gasped out, desperate now. "This will end badly, I just know it. Clockwork! Clockwork, help! I-ARGHH!"

His words were cut off when Vlad plunged the claws into the teen's chest. Vlad's duplicate quickly let go of the ghostly teen and got absorbed back to the original. The greed hands of the boy snapped forwards to clutch at the gauntlets.

Ignoring the hands, Vlad forced his arms to separate, ripping Daniel's human half from his ghost half. The human half slid off the claws and fell to the ground, clutching a gigantic gash on his chest that was bleeding profusely. His ghost half remained on the claws, spectral tail thrashing and his whole body convulsing, screaming with pain.

A/N right. This one is a preview to a story I'm starting to write, called Jumping Dimensions! So, er, yeah. This one is an excerpt from chapter one, and the actual story should come out sometime later this year. I still need to work the kinks out of writing in Danny's POV, the way Clockwork talks, and Vlad.

So, constructive criticism at this level would be nice :D

~Jads, out