Chapter 7: In which Vlab the sneak boi enters.

Danny was in a decidedly chipper mood Friday morning. His week, like his life, had been a thrilling yo-yo of ups and downs. The school had been closed for three days, however the teachers had been lightning fast in assigning extra homework via e-mail. His parents had been consumed with their work on the new sample and adapting the ghost-sucker to fumigation, so they kept to themselves in the lab for the most part, and out of Danny's trajectory. Although now they were on the look out for ghosts to test on, and to tear apart molecule by molecule. And it didn't take a very long stretch of the imagination to guess which of the regular ghosts they were on the look out for especially. He'd been out with Sam and Tucker patrolling and looking for their newest ghost enemy every night, which was fine when they didn't have classes in the morning, but they still hadn't found him by the end of the week, and he wasn't the type they could let slip through the cracks.

Dash still wasn't back in school, and... Dash still wasn't back in school.

But Friday was shaping up to be an excellent day. Sam and Tucker hadn't been suspicious of Danny in the least, or at least they hadn't shown it if they were. There hadn't been a single ghost incident all day, not even one of the little ones. And in addition to the weekend being only a few hours away, Danny would get to see Dash again, something that he was looking forward to more than expected.

So of course, by law of Danny's yo-yo life, a good day had to come down hard and fast, this time in the form of a food fight. He might've been able to simply phase from the food, but of course the A-listers had made a special point of targeting Danny, 'for their fallen comrade'. So instead Danny did what the majority of suspicious-looking-goo covered teens did, changed in to his gym clothes and raced home home for a clean shift as soon as the final bell rung.

And this of course meant that he had the delight of meeting the guest of his parents.

If asked, Danny would of course say that he loved his Mom and Dad, because he did. But he'd also be the first to admit that they were extremely odd. And for any child growing up even a little odd is too much. Both their occupation and less than small personalities considered, it wasn't really all the unexpected that they had very few friends. None, in fact. Which naturally made guests at their house few and far between.

So when Danny entered his front door and made to go upstairs, only to be interrupted by his mother calling "Danny dear? Is that you? Come to the kitchen, we have company." his first thought went to-

"V-Man! Danny-boy's grown so tall! He'll be just like his ol' man one day!"

Three adults sat at the kitchen table with three cups of coffee in front of them, not that one could actually see much of the table itself. Of course in the Fenton household a strange motley of probably dangerous green ooze, tools, and whatever invention wasn't working that week spread over the common spaces was perfectly normal. Today however it seemed his parents had made a lovely centerpiece of some strange gas mask looking prototype, framed by filters, cylinders of bizzare looking liquid an de ectoplasm, and a whole family o for odd shaped pipes and toobs.

Vlad shifted in his chair, far too close to Danny's mother, who seemed to be mid explanation of the gas mask thing, to look the teenager in the eyes. "Yes Jack I can see that. Getting stronger by the day I imagine." As always, there was something horribly feral is his smile that only Danny ever seemed to notice. Perhaps it was in the way his lip lifted just enough for a hint of contempt to shine through a thin veil of amicability.

Danny scowled at Vlad, knowing full well he couldn't intimidate the man and still trying anyway. That was, after all, how things always went between them. "Strong enough to take you on."

"Danny," his Mom admonished "be polite to our guest."

Without looking away from his arch enemy Danny said "I'm going to my room." and turned on his heel.

In his wake, sounds of chairs being pushed back and voices followed him up the stairs. "Oh dear Maddie, I wonder if I said anything to upset the boy."

"He's just being a teenager Vlad, no need to get up. I'll check on him later."

"All the same I think I'll go talk with him. No no, I insist, it would be my pleasure."

Depending on how one might choose to look at the smartly dressed interruption of Danny's yo-yo life, one could conclude that it was, in all actuality, a rather fortunate chance meeting. For it gave the the young hero some warning that Vlad might be planning something, because he was always planning something when he made the effort to visits the Fenton household, as was always advantageous when involved with Plasmius. That said, a talk with Plasmius was very, very rarely just a talk with Plasmius.

Danny raced to his room, hearing footsteps climbing the stairs after him, unwilling to let himself be caught by his parents halfway to the second floor in ghost form. Just as his doorknob turned, Danny transformed and assumed a fighting stance facing the entrance, ready for whatever the elder halfa might do.

"Why Daniel my boy, no need for such hostility. I'm sure you heard me say I just wanted to talk." Vlad said as he walked in, closing the door behind him.

"What do you want Plasmius." Though phrased like a question, it sounded like a demand.

Vlad put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the door. Danny's eyes narrowed at the overly casual motion, something so fundamentally un-Vlad. He had to be up to something. Vlad smirked "Oh the same things I always want little badger. I don't suppose you've considered renouncing your father any more since our last meeting?"

"You mean when you tried to infect my class, my teachers and my friends with some weird ghost virus? Because no, no I haven't." Danny remembered the incident well, everyone had started exhibiting ghostly qualities, not unlike the time when Spectra tried to fashion herself a new body, or when Vlad had infected his friends with ecto-acne.

Vlad busied himself with picking a stray piece of lint from his suit. "Yes it was so lucky that those friends of yours had the the cure. What are they called again? The Far Frozen I think?"

"None of your business! Why are you here Plasmius?" Danny yelled.

"And speaking of ghosts," Vlad continued as if the outburst had never happened "Your wonderful mother has been telling me all about a new ghost that entered your school earlier this week. Apparently you were found unconscious, we're all ever so worried about you. Do tell your Uncle Vlad what happened." Vlad pushed himself off the wall and Danny fought the urge to take a step back, his fists glowed faintly green. "Now Daniel put those away. You're almost eighteen, I would have hoped you'd grown beyond this childishness by now."

Danny growled "Don't come any closer! My parents are right downstairs and they'll be here in second if they hear a fight."

Vlad smirked "Exactly. And what, little badger, do you think they will find, hmm? Their dear old friend, and mayor of their town lest we forget, being attacked by none other than Amity Park's notorious and dangerous Ghost Boy? I suggest you transform back."

Danny's eyes flickered to the floor, under which was the kitchen and presumably his parents still. Danny loathed to admit it, but Vlad was perhaps right. He, with visible reluctancy, called back his ghost powers, leaving his human half behind. "Alright Vlad," Danny said, making no effort to hide the aggression in his voice "tell me what you're doing here, in my house, talking with my parents. What game are you playing this time."

"Game? No game Daniel." Vlad said off handedly, moving across the room to Danny's desk. He picked the left wing of a model spaceship Danny had been working on the other day with idle curiosity. As the man moved, Danny stepped aside tensely, ready to jump in to action the moment Vlad tried anything, if the man attacked first, the threat of his parents finding them could be damned. "Is it really so surprising that I should want to check in on you? After all, you did lose consciousness in a fight, and a weed like that should have been a breeze considering how many other ghosts you've bested through the years."

Danny's ego didn't miss the jibe. "Like you could've done any better! It had poisonous gas!"

Neither did Danny miss the smirk and the way the man's eyes shone brightly with an interest that had nothing to do with the wing he flipped this way and that in his fingers. "Daniel do we really need to re-establish which of us is the more capable ghost? Although I suppose I can admit defeat if we were to ask which is the better hero. I certainly wouldn't have stopped to save any civilians."

"That's because you're an evil, lonely old man!" Danny all but yelled, frustration starting to get the better of him. Normally by now Vlad and he would have started fighting in earnest, and Danny would be able to expend his anger trying to get a hit in. But how could he now? Between his parents in the room below and Plasmius' insufferably casual attitude Danny couldn't really do a thing.

"Little badger you wound me." Vlad put a hand to his chest, the motion hurt, yet that did little to hide the snide mockery lacing his voice. "Do you really think I'm that lonely, I only just recently made a new friend. Oh wait," he finally put the wing down and fully faced Danny "that would be you."

Danny's ghost powers flared around his tightly fisted hands anew, his eyes burning in tandem "How do you know about Dash?" he growled.

"Daniel, surely you're not so daft as to be unaware of how juvenile your attempts at secrecy are? I know everything I need to know about young Mr. Baxter."

"Don't you dare try to do anything to him or I'll-"

"You'll what Daniel? Give me the scary eyes?"

"You just keep him out of this! He has nothing to do with ghosts!"

"Keep him out of this? Are you afraid he'll get hurt, hmm?" Vlad towered over him. True that Danny had experienced certain growth spurts since fourteen, but even then the man was still a loathfull half-head taller.

"He doesn't know about anything!" Danny felt as if he was backed in to a corner, desperately trying to find something to make Dash uninteresting to Vlad, not worth the effort. The last thing he wanted was someone new getting dragged in to his world and get hurt. Or in Dash's case even more hurt. "He doesn't know about me or you or anything so you can't use him."

"You haven't told him?" Vlad asked, something in his face and posture that Danny didn't like and couldn't identify. "Well, I suppose that-"

Vlad was interrupted by a knock on the door. Danny quickly dispelled his ectoenergy just as Maddie stuck her head in and said "I know you boys are in the middle of talking but dinner's ready, Vlad you're welcome to stay and eat with us if you'd like."

Vlad smiled something hideous and feral "Madeline I would love to."

Danny pushed past both Vlad and his mother, tossing a gruff "I'm not hungry." over his shoulder. The sentence was punctuated by a comically well timed stomach growl, but he ignored it along with his father at the bottom of the staircase. Without looking back at the three adults Danny exited the house as fast as possible. Angry and frustrated, Vlad was last person he wanted to underhandedly exchange insults with during a meal that was probably poisonous to his ghost half anyway. Subtlety was Vlad's suit and Danny couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't punch the smug bastard right in the kisser. Hard.

A second after rounding a corner in to an alley his phone was out and a message sent to his best friends, asking to meet him at their favorite fast food joint. One second more brought the teen flying through the clouds in a vain effort to clear his mind. His ghost sense and the subsequent ectopi brought Danny a much needed vent for a little excess energy.

Danny flew over the park, in hot pursuit of the ghosts. He didn't bother to look down, didn't want to see Dash at the moment, if the jock was even still there. He was angry and frustrated and very not in the mood to play happy friends with his bully.

"What happened?" Sam exclaimed once Danny roughly shoved in to the opposite couch of the booth his friend sat at. It being after school on a Friday, The Nast Burger was packed full of teenagers, and the only seats Sam could score were two tables down from the bathrooms. If the three trays of food was an indication, Sam had arrived first and already gotten each of them their usual orders.

"Vlad." Danny said sullenly, as if the singular name told the whole story.

In a sense, it must have, because Sam leaned back in her seat with a small "Ah."

Last to arrive, with his nose in his PDA, Tucker asked "What's up man? Seemed sorta' desperate."

"Vlad." Sam and Danny answered in chorus.

"Yay, new poisonous ghost, end of year exams and now Vlad. This is the start of an awesome summer you guys." Tucker put away his device and slid in next to Danny. "Aw sweet! Food's already here. Wait," he prodded his burger suspiciously and lifted its bun "this isn't one of those veggie burgers, is it?"

Sam threw her hands up "I try to get you to eat a vegetable one time and you act like I broke a law!"

"You maybe didn't break a law," Tucker said dramatically "but you did break my heart." He sniffled for good measure.

"Guys!" Danny cut in "Focus!"

Sam roller her eyes "One, that's meat Tucker, so congratulations, four cows were probably slaughtered in the making of that paddy. Two, Danny what did Vlad do this time?"

Danny leaned back, tucked in to his own burger and explained "Nothing much, yet, but he's definitely planning something. I came home today and there he was, in the kitchen talking with Mom and Dad about some invention. And then-"

"What invention?"

Danny thought back "I dunno', I didn't get a very good look. The machine they used to fumigate the school was there, and a couple guns and tracking devices I think. A little bit of everything I guess. Anyway, Vlad's there, and he's acting like he normally does and I got angry, so I go upstairs and then Vlad follows me because he, and I quote 'just want's to talk'."

"Since when does Vlad ever just want to talk?" Tucker asked around his food.

"That's what I thought! But like I said, he's definitely planning something, because as soon as he gets upstairs he started asking about that new ghost and-" Danny stopped himself, before he said Dash.

"... And?" Sam prompted.

But Sam and Tucker never got to hear the end of that sentence, they were cut off by a bang loud enough to make all the Nasty Burger patrons stop and turn to the entrance. There they found none other than Dash Baxter, sporting a particularly foul expression. He stood in the doorway, one hand holding the heavy glass door against the wall, presumably the slamming of which having made the noise. A small parade of jocks, Kwan curiously absent, walked in. A trio, one of which a cheerleader, went for the counter while the remaining four followed their quarterback as he waded through the tables.

They stopped at a large table by a window, staring down the group sitting there until they moved. Once cleared Dash sank heavily in to the nearest chair, followed by the others. Soon they were joined by those with the food, having pushed by the lines to get served promptly.

Dash lifted a hand to his chest, using the other one to brace himself against the table. Danny doubted that many, if any at all, in his company noticed how he slouched to one side, the slight wince as he sat down, or the fact that even after settling in his chair he kept his hand on his chest tensely. One jock laughed at something and roughly elbowed Dash in the arm. His eyes bulged for a second before he saved face and laughed along with them. No, Danny didn't think that they noticed. Or if they did they didn't care.

Dash's eyes swept the room then, meeting Danny's for a brief moment. Ha sneered and turned away quickly, leaving Danny still staring at the side of his blond head. There were remnants of brusing there, but it looked like they had more or less cleared up. However the bandage over the side of his jaw, underwhich was the stitched cut, was still in place.

"Yo, Earth to Danny. You're not an astronaut yet." A dark hand waved in front of his face, and he turned back to see his friends looking on with concern. "Yo ok man?"

Danny shook his head "Ugh, yeah I'm fine. Just, y'know, tired and stuff. Mom and Dad have been going on about that weed ghost and we still haven't caught it yet and I guess I'm just tired." He rubbed a hand over his face. Danny didn't miss the looks Sam and Tucker shot each other, but he couldn't be bothered to decipher them.

"Well," Sam started "we've looked pretty much everywhere there's plants. The park, the woods to the south of town, the lake. Even the zoo. D'you think it might be moving around and that's why we haven't found it yet?"

Tucker, with some effort, managed to talk around stuffing the last of his burger in his mouth and chewing "We 'ould ty spli'ing up."

Sam frowned "We could try chewing finished before speaking."

Tucker rolled his eyes but complied nonetheless. "You cool with that Danny?"

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "But what if you guys run into it and I'm not there? I don't want you getting hurt because I couldn't protect you."

It was Sam's turn to roll her eyes "Danny we've been fighting alongside you since we were fourteen and you say that literal exact sentence every time some new creep shows up. I think you can maybe trust us now. And besides, if we wear the Specter deflectors we'll be fine."

"Yeah but, it still has that gas, and you heard my parents, it's toxic to humans. I don't want you guys fighting it when I'm not there and dying." His hand found his neck again "Maybe I can go back to trying to clone myself. I did manage it a couple of times. Sorta'."

Sam frowned "It's still toxic to you though."

"Half toxic."

"We don't know that. And besides half toxic is still toxic so we're all in danger so we might as well help each other out, like we always have."

That seamed to be then end of the matter, as far as Sam was concerned, and considering that someone had just exited the bathroom leaving a particularly putrid smell behind Danny thought it might be his cue to leave. "Fine." he said and stood "but I'm taking the lake, it's the biggest hotspot besides town."

"Whatever floats your boat." Sam waved him off, standing as well. "But I call dibs on the zoo."

"No way I'm taking the woods. There's too little light and too much nature to run away quickly." Tucker added, falling in step behind his friends as they wove their way around the tables to the door.

"Of course running away is your first priority."

"I like to think of it more as enthusiastically protecting my babies." Tucker patted a loving hand on his pocket, PDA safely tucked away inside. "So what do we do now? I'm kinda' feeling the arcade."

Sam smirked "Or we can test run the new speaker upgrade in our cinema that Grandma wanted."

"Niiice."

"Danny?"

Danny started. "Hmm? What?" Danny turned from where he'd been watching the popular table. They were getting overly loud and people were shooting them dirty looks.

Sam pursed her lips and sighed. "You, me, Tuck, movie. My place. New speakers, hello!" They had stopped by the entrance so Sam could look her friend properly in the face. "You've been really spacey lately, Danny. What's up with you? You're even worse than Tucker."

"Hey!"

Danny rubbed the back of his neck "Sorry guys, just been really busy lately, y'know?"

"No, actually we don't know. Care to share with your best friends?" She gave him a sharp questioning look. She hadn't really noticed anything had she? Surely he hadn't been that bad at hiding?

"Uuuh,"

"To be fair," Tucker cut in "I haven't noticed Danny acting strange."

"You spend half your waking hours with your nose in your PDA, your opinion is invalid." Sam chided. She turned again to Danny, raising her eye brows in a silent 'Well?'

Again, Danny resorted to a drawn out "Uuuh..."

"Whatever" Sam threw her hands up in exasperation. "Keep your little secret, you're a terrible liar anyway so we'll figure it out at some point." And with that she pushed though doors leaving the boys to follow after.

Danny, knowing Sam as well as he and Tucker did, knew for a fact that was certainly not the last he had heard on the matter.


Hi! Good to be back after the summer! Also good night to be back on regular updating scedual so look forward to that!

And thanks again for all the amazing reviews, I love love love hearing from you so please keep writing them! As always criticism is appreciated!

Also side note, it's so much fun writing Vlad oh my god I love it.