Day Eight: Clones

Genre: Suspense

Words: 3678

Running with a camera around his neck was a pain. The weight pulled at the back of his head, and the camera bumped into his chest every time he took a step forward. It wasn't exactly ideal, but given the current circumstances, he didn't exactly have a choice.

Often when he snuck out of class to observe a ghost fight, the ghosts only targeted Danny. From there, Wes would watch from the bushes, completely safe and sound and not in the line of fire. However, today – for some Godforsaken reason – was different.

And Wes didn't like it.

It had started out as a normal day, really. He would focus most of his attention on his schoolwork, while keeping a keen eye on Danny Fenton when he wasn't looking. Over time, Wes had learned to recognize the blue mist that Danny exhaled as a sign of an impending attack, so he always made sure to observe him. After all, Danny wasn't exactly subtle, per se...

Honestly, it wasn't that hard to figure out that 'weak' Danny Fenton, who looked exactly like Danny Phantom (save for his hair, eyes, and costume), was the same ghost-boy who disappeared right before an attack to go fight invading ghosts. Wes's real difficulty was getting the people of Amity Park to see the truth – they were all inherently blind to Danny's dual nature, despite how much evidence was presented to them! And so, Wes embarked to collectively compile information about Danny and to expose his secret to the entire world. Because, seriously, it was so obvious!

So when Wes noticed Danny visibly tense when he breathed out that blue mist, Wes smirked and followed Danny after he begged Mr. Lancer to let him leave the classroom. (It had become a routine dance: Danny quietly freaks out, asks to leave, Mr. Lancer denies, Danny pleads, Lancer complies, and Wes follows him whether Lancer adheres or not.)

Wes found himself outside quickly and scanned the air for Danny. He always arrived before him, which was expected given his powers and considering the fact that the ghosts tended to target him. Once he saw Danny hovering opposite a leathery trio of ghost vultures, Wes took refuge in his usual bush, positioning his camera up at the sky, and sketching a few words in his notepad.

Wes paid close attention to Danny's witty banter, because that was usually when he revealed his relationship to his opponents or accidentally revealed minor details about his species. From what he could hear from the current conversation, the three vultures were the minions of Danny's nemesis, 'Plasmius'. Apparently there were sent to collect a hostage for Plasmius, which Danny took as an affront. From there, that provocation developed into a true fight. Wes watched Danny's every move with keen observation.

Punch – punch – kick – dodge – punch – intangible – throw – kick – ectoblast – punch – dodge – intangible – punch – shield.

Once it was made clear that this fight was nothing out of the ordinary, Wes opted to take some pictures instead. And that, was where everything went wrong.

As soon as Wes took the picture, the flash from the camera caught the attention of all four ghosts, causing them to momentarily pause and glance towards Wes's bushes. Danny, who had grown painstakingly familiar with Wes's presence during his fights, didn't react much. The three vultures though, shared a dangerous look.

"Well, how about that," one of the vultures said. "The one boss wanted us to fetch is right here! What're the odds!"

"Very fortunate!" another vulture cried.

"Wait," Danny interrupted. "Vlad wants Wes? Vlad... wants Wes? What for?"

"None of your concern," said the third vulture.

"S-stay away from me," Wes said quickly, unnerved at the sudden turn of events. Vlad Plasmius sent his minions after him? Why? He was just the silent watcher? Why did Danny's nemesis need him? And why did he have to be some sort of hostage? More importantly, why wasn't he running away?

'Curiosity and shock can numb the senses to the true severity of a situation', something in the back of his mind whispered. 'Tantalizing, isn't it?'

And then, swiftly, the fight resumed it's rapid pace. One of the vultures flew straight towards Wes while the other two defended against Danny. Wes stood still in transfixion.

"Wes, run!" Danny cried, unable to impede the vulture flying in Wes's direction.

And then, Wes broke from his trance and stumbled to his feet, nearly falling backwards from the momentary lack of balance. He turned in the opposite direction, running in a zig-zag pattern to throw off his pursuer. He didn't dare look back.

As he ran, his heart hammered within him, dangerously notifying him of his recent lack of exercise; after all, basketball season wasn't for another two months. It was hard to keep his head up, because of the camera's strain against his neck. But he had to keep going, he had to.

Something told him, if he was captured by this ghost, the aftermath would not be pretty.

Despite his efforts, Wes thrashed forwards when an icy claw dug into the back of his shoulder. Panic increased in his already extreme anxious state of being, as the claw pulled him off the ground, leaving him helplessly dangling in the vulture's grip.

Danny was somewhere far behind him, occupied with the two other foes (at least he hoped; he wouldn't put it past Danny to let him be kidnapped). But this didn't prevent Wes from fearfully crying out for rescue. Albeit, as the vulture pulled him higher up into the air, the less Wes's pleas were audible to Danny and the less Wes struggled against the vulture's grip – he was smart enough to realize that if he fell from this altitude, he had a one way ticket to the pavement.

He was going too high into the atmosphere, way too quickly.

It probably wasn't even safe for humans to fly this high, how can he think?

He could feel the air constricting in his lungs, tighter.

Making it more difficult to take breath after breath.

Breathing was so hard to think, it was easier-

With the clouds below him he wondered-

Why was the sun so bright-

When all he could see-

Was darkness...

Black.

When Wes awoke, he was welcomed with more darkness, the uncomfortable feeling of lying on a cold surface, and a horribly familiar voice.

"-be so foolish, Daniel. After all, like you, I strive to understand more about what we are, and without your cooperation, I'm forced to take certain measures."

That could only be one man: Vlad Masters, his Dad's boss and Mayor of Amity Park.

That only furthered Wes's overwhelming whirlwind of questions as his sensory input gradually slipped into overdrive. He could feel some sort of blindfold around his head, preventing him from seeing anything, and when he tried to remove it, he found that both his arms and legs were bound to some elevated platform or table. He also noted the apparent lack of a shirt, socks, and shoes. The air was tinged with the bitter smell of chemicals, reminiscent of the times Wes had snuck into the Fenton's laboratory.

Wherever he was, it was dangerous.

From where Wes was lying face-up, he heard another familiar voice somewhere to his right. "Y – you're sick, Vlad. You've gone too far! After the Danielle incident, you couldn't seriously think this could be a good idea?"

Danny was here (wherever that is) too. Either he'd followed Wes, or also gotten himself captured. He couldn't tell at the moment.

What had Vlad done? Was he responsible for those ghost vultures? Did he tie Wes up? And who was Danielle?

Stubbornly, Wes pretended to still be unconscious so he could listen and hopefully understand more about his current situation.

Vlad scoffed. "I don't have 'good ideas', Daniel. I have effective ideas, and this one has lost it's convenience. Therefore, it shall be terminated."

"By termination, do you mean murder?" Danny's voice lowered dangerously.

Vlad's voice was alarmingly unaffected. "If you'd like to put it that way, then yes."

At that, Wes lost it. "W – what the hell is going on?"

They were talking about murder, and Vlad was sounding more and more like some heartless villain. He'd always known there was something off about him, but this – this was crazy! Then it occurred to Wes. Was Vlad planning to kill him? Was that why he was blindfolded and bound to a table? Immediately, his heart-rate spiked as he resumed his panic.

"Ah, young Wesley, you're finally awake," Vlad drawled. Since he couldn't see, the iciness of his voice sent shivers down Wes's spine.

"What do you want with me, Vlad?" Wes spat, probably looking very pathetic due to the fact that he was strapped to a table. "And why the hell am I blindfolded and tied up?"

Vlad sighed, "Ah, you truly know nothing, do you? I suppose he does take after you, Daniel."

"Shut up!" Danny protested. Wes was still unsure what Danny's role in this was, but it was clear that Vlad was the person behind this.

"I am nothing like Danny," Wes hissed.

"On the contrary," Vlad insisted.

"You know nothing about me!" Wes told him. "You're just some creep – and apparently not a stranger to murder – who my Dad works for!"

Instead of another evasive retort from Vlad, Danny spoke in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. "Vlad. Stop this. Tell him the truth. Or I will."

"Do you intend to anger him, Daniel? Is this a part of your weak escape plan? You know that you're not getting out of that upgraded power-draining cube alone, don't you?"

So apparently Danny had been captured. And apparently... from the sound of it, Vlad also knew Danny's secret. This was just getting more and more complex. And what was the truth Danny mentioned?

"I think you underestimate me," Danny replied, a contained fury evident in his voice.

"I know exactly what you're capable of," Vlad said. "But, I suppose it is fair to tell the boy the truth."

Suddenly, Wes felt a cold hand brush his ear, and suddenly there wasn't a blindfold obscuring his vision anymore.

There was ghost looking down at him. It was one he recognized as one of Phantom's really powerful enemies. He had pale blue skin, black hair styled into horns, red-eyes, fangs, and what appeared to be a cheap vampire outfit. He saw Danny (as Fenton) irritably trapped in a giant black cube so that only his head was visible. Wes glanced around to look for Vlad, until the ghost in front of him spoke...

"Hello Wesley."

The ghost spoke in Vlad's voice... meaning that he was the same as Danny. How had he missed that?

"I – oh..." Wes accidentally stuttered, before composing himself. "So you're actually evil, huh, Vlad? That makes a lot of sense."

Vlad dramatically grinned, exposing his giant canines. "So you finally figured it out... congratulations, boy."

"Uh... yeah, but that still doesn't explain why you've captured me," Wes said.

"Well, it's less than simple," Vlad floated backwards. "But to cut to the point, I've brought you here to kill you, and I've detained Daniel so he doesn't interfere. However, he does insist that you know why, after all, I suppose that's a courtesy that can be extended even to something like you."

"Uh... what?" Wes's head was spinning. He had already guessed that Vlad was trying to kill him, but to have his fears confirmed was paralyzing.

"I also insist that you don't kill him at all," Danny seethed.

"Hush," Vlad said. "Now... where was I? Yes, well to begin, your identity as Wesley Weston are all false memories created by me. You've only existed as you do now for about the last seven months, when you started at Casper High as a tuition student. Everything before then: not real. Your father, Walter, isn't even your own father, he's just one of my employees that I've tasked with the job of monitoring you."

"That's not true," Wes said. "I mean, I've known who I am my whole life! And my Dad loves me, he can't just be... pretending."

"As I said, everything you know to be true about your past is simply an illusion. The faster you can accept that, the easier the rest of this will be to understand."

"You're a crazed up fruit-loop!" Wes jerked his wrists against his bonds.

Vlad gave no response, but instead glared at him as if he were being ridiculous. "I'll continue, when you stop acting like a ludicrous child."

Eventually, Wes gave in and stopped resisting his handcuffs. He couldn't believe Vlad, but if he were to learn more, he had no choice but to listen to him. Even if he was some psycho-villainous half-ghost. Wes ignored Danny's look of guilt in the corner of his eye, and stared directly as Vlad, pressing him to continue.

"Since I've learned about Daniel and I's shared existence, I've yearned for a clearer understanding of what we are. However, he makes it difficult since he refuses to yield to me-"

"Oh, like you haven't given me plenty of reasons-"

"This isn't the time, Daniel!" Vlad snapped, before immediately returning to Wes. "So, since he refused to become my son and assist me with my scientific endeavors, I was forced to create substitutes. Identical clones of the perfect half-human, half-ghost son."

"Wait, wait, wait," Wes interrupted. "Cloning? That's not possible."

"Please," Vlad rolled his eyes. "It's plenty possible if you're not afraid to cross some ethical barriers. Modern scientists would be capable of so much more if they were not bound to society's rules of 'right' and 'wrong'. Anyway, the first batch of Daniel's clones was a mess. They only had ghost forms and most failed to resemble him at all, so they were disposed of. I had more luck with the second group: they were all imperfect, but a few were able to switch forms, which was an improvement. It allowed me to realize that what I needed was some of his mid-morph DNA. So I sent one of my failures, Danielle, to lure Daniel to me so I could collect that particular part of his DNA so I could use it for my new clone. However, she was more flawed than I initially thought, and turned against me.

"After that, I reevaluated my priorities. Rather than cloning the perfect son, I could focus on spying on Daniel so I can further understand our species and learn ways to persuade him to come to me himself. At first, I used cameras and bugs, but he would find those too easily and destroy them – even the ones that I gave directly to Jack!"

"When you give something to Dad out of the goodness of your heart, it's a dead give away," Danny commented.

"Of course, I could have spied on him myself, but I'm constantly busy with my own life and mayoral duties, and he would automatically detect my presence with his ghost sense. So I needed someone that I could insert in his daily life, someone motivated, someone who didn't even know they were under my control... You, Wesley."

Wes choked, "What? I – I don't work for you!"

"Your orders are subliminal. Your mission was to collect information and observe Daniel, that way I could review your findings in a later date without having to get directly involved. In fact, much of it has been of use to me. However, you exceeded your purpose when you began to attempt to expose Daniel. He and I may be mortal enemies, but we have... a pact. When one of us loses our secret, so does the other. For weeks, I've tried to debilitate your interest, but it's been for nil. So, therefore, you have to meet your end."

"B – but that doesn't make any sense! You'd kill a kid, a human being just because I tried to prove to others that Danny is a ghost?" Wes cried in incredulity.

"No," Vlad's apathetic gaze bore into him, "I'm killing you because you have no purpose anymore, and you're much more a hindrance than a benefit. Not to mention, you're a pain."

"I still don't understand! How does this have anything to do w – with me having false memories a – and you making clones? You're just talking yourself in circles."

"You mean you really don't get it, do you?" Vlad groaned. "I thought it was really quite obvious, but I stand beside myself. You are a clone, Wesley. That's why you look so much like Daniel, except you only have his human side. When I created you, I did make a few alterations, such as the red-hair. That was part of my attempt to make you look more like Maddie than Jack, but as a result, you inherited more of Jack's brutish height than he did. But all in all, you're his copy, which is why you must be eliminated. You're not even a true life form, which is why I have no guilt killing you."

Every word slammed into Wes's chest like a freight train, "No... no. No no no no no!"

"Yes, Wesley," Vlad whispered. "You see, don't you? You've never been real. You're just a form of artificial life that I crafted in this very lab... you were just my tool."

"Don't say that!"

"But you still know it's true. Can you even remember a time when you weren't subliminally drawn to Danny? Can you remember the first time you looked in a mirror and felt as if something was wrong with your reflection, that the colors were all wrong?"

"Just s – shut up!"

Vlad smiled, with a sick satisfaction. "The few times you've been in proximity of Jazz, Maddie, or Jack, how you felt a blind trust in them? How you've yearned for some further connection to them, despite the fact that Walter's your family? It's the truth within your DNA. You've known along about your true nature, you've just been too scared to admit it."

"This isn't true!"

"And the flaw, that I previously failed to realize... you only wanted to expose Danny's secret because you were jealous of his powers. The powers that I stole from you, that should've been yours as his clone."

"Please... stop," a tear trailed down Wes's face.

Vlad loomed over him and whispered, "Because all you were capable of being was a failure."

From behind him, something shifted, and neither of them had any time to react when an ectoblast came in contact with the back of Vlad's head, causing him to stumble onto the floor. Vlad must have been so disoriented that he didn't move when Danny turned into his ghost form and unleashed his wail directly onto Vlad, causing both of them to simultaneously revert into their human forms, and causing Vlad to pass out.

Danny stood over the fallen hybrid with a stoic expression. "I told him he underestimated me."

Wes stared at his savior in shock.

Danny turned to look towards Wes, and laughed a little, "I guess it was good I was carrying the Fenton Energy-Extractor, huh? It basically shut down all the energy powering the cube and let me escape. Thankfully, I grabbed it from my backpack right before I realized I was about to be captured; Vlad's too predicable."

He walked forward and started untying Wes's bonds. "We should probably get out of here as quickly as possible. Vlad won't stay passed out for very long, probably thirty minutes at max, and after that he'll be looking for you. And since you're fully human, he won't be able to track you, which means the two of us should separate."

Danny finished untying Wes, allowing him to sit up from the metal table he'd been lying on. He nodded numbly. Danny sat next to him on the table.

"Hey," Danny said, softly. "Are you alright? Well, that's a standard question. I know all of this is a lot to take in."

"Did you know?" Wes asked, too afraid to look Danny in the eye. "Did you know that I was your..."

"No," Danny said honestly. "I didn't know until Vlad told me when he put me in that cube. Sure, I suspected that there was something about you that allowed you to easily see through my secret, but... I would've never imagined..."

The two of them sat on the table in uncomfortable silence. The room was heavy with melancholic recognition of their new reality.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Wes wondered, hopelessly. "This – this isn't fair! I don't even feel like I'm real anymore!"

"I know," Danny comforted. "But... don't be too hard on yourself. Keep in mind, this is all Vlad's fault. Just because he made you in his lab, doesn't mean that you're a less of a human being. You can live whatever life you want."

"But what if Vlad was right? What if I'm just jealous of your life?" He felt as if it was true. When Vlad had mentioned that, he really did recognize his own feelings within that statement; he only wanted to reveal Danny's secret because he felt like he ached for his own ghost powers. Not to mention, Danny's friends and family always seemed more preferable to his own. It was just more confirmation that Wes had never been his own person, that he was only just a carbon copy.

"I don't... know," Danny replied, solemnly. "But we don't have time to spare. We'll have to figure something out in the meantime, but we need to get you out of Amity Park ASAP. We can keep in touch with email and work from there. Since I can't fly right now, we can buy you a bus ticket, it's our only option."

"I – I wish it wasn't," Wes admitted. "But I agree."