Oh. my. god. I cannot even begin to explain to you guys in words how horribly sorry I am. I won't even try giving excuses. All I have to say is that, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, I was having trouble thinking of plot ideas. I kinda have one now, though I haven't worked out the details (if you guys have any ideas, feel free to throw them out there!), but still... I feel awful. flajhrelj. I hadn't expected it to take me this long to think of what to write, and honestly, I'm ashamed. But I hope you guys still read the chapter anyway and forgive me! No matter how long it takes me to get up chapters, I promise I won't leave this story unfinished!
A dark figure was hard at work in the confines of his secret laboratory. He was calculating, formulating, working out the ticks of an ingenious plan. Of course, his plan could not fail. He had made sure of that from the start. It was all very simple. Have the girl kill Daniel, then he's out of the way. Have his new son take Daniel's place, then have Daniel 2.0 kill Jack Fenton. Then Maddie would come crawling to him, with her "son" in tow, crying to him, Vlad Plasmius, of how the evil ghost boy had terminated the poor Jack Fenton.
Granted, he wished he would not have to deal with that part of his master plan, but then… no plan could be singularly perfect. Once she was done grieving, however, she would quickly realize the affections she had for him, and then… Then! He would finally have the family he always wanted. He would have the perfect and obedient son, he would have the most beautiful and loving wife… he would have everything. It was all set in motion. One step was done, and another? It was currently being fulfilled. Or… so the older half-ghost thought.
Just as he had finally found a solution to all the possible flaws with his plan – which were rare in occurrence – his son flew straight through the walls, looking troubled in appearance. This put Vlad on edge from the start of their now budding conversation. "Daniel… what brings you back here so soon, my boy?" he asked neutrally. As was the norm with Vlad, he composed his expression to one of complete calm, taking care to make it sound as if he believed nothing could be wrong.
Daniel 2.0 scratched the back of his neck in nervousness, wondering just how he should mention the sudden problem to his father. "Well, uh…"
"There wasn't a problem, was there, hmm?" asked Vlad, giving his signature smirk, accompanied by the raising of an eyebrow as if challenging the teenager to disagree.
"Well, uh… father… it seems as though…"
Vlad's smirk was lost as well as his raised eyebrows. Instead, they now scrunched together in a condescending sort of expression. Oh no, this couldn't be good news. Though he tried his best not to explode on Daniel 2.0 – look how well it turned out the last time he yelled at a clone – it was difficult not to still be seething underneath. That showed very well as he grit out as calmly as possible, "I'm sorry, Daniel. I'm afraid I didn't catch that. It sounds as though something went wrong?"
Daniel 2.0 nodded, but he did not speak beyond that.
Vlad was becoming impatient. Why couldn't the boy just speak up already? "Will you spit it out, then?" he said in a louder, more commanding tone.
Daniel picked up on that straight away, his nervousness betraying him as he nearly stuttered towards the beginning of his explanation. "Well, it seems as though Danny… I mean the… original," he spoke the last word with distaste – he was the original as far as anyone else was concerned! "He's… not dead."
Vlad didn't know what to think at first. The first thought to cross his mind was that surely, his son was trying out some new joke. He couldn't possibly be serious. But then… he found that the boy seemed to be telling the truth. That's why he was suddenly so nervous. Vlad's eyes narrowed to slits as he mulled over his options. Curses! Out of all the possible flaws, he had never foreseen this one. What a fool he'd been to overlook the fact that Valerie might not have had the guts to kill Daniel Fenton after all. Stupid girl.
"How can this be?" he asked, angry yet trying to remain calm despite the rising insanity he felt licking at his mind.
Daniel 2.0 floated as close as he dared to his father as he explained, "I heard the humans talking. They said something about how the hunter girl had killed him, but he came back. He wasn't the same, though."
Ignoring a certain fact for the moment, Vlad decided to target the main point of Daniel's explanation before scolding him about this little incident. "Not the same? How do you mean, boy?"
"He mentioned something about how he couldn't change back. His ghost half was separated from his human one."
"And?" urged Vlad.
Daniel looked away for a moment before replying, "They started talking about merging back his two halves. After that, though, they left. I don't know what happened."
Vlad didn't look at Daniel and instead took an interest in the floor, calculating just exactly what was going on here- Aha! He grinned savagely, the fangs of his ghost half becoming all too visible. "My my, how fascinating. It seems we just can't purge Daniel Fenton from our realm after all…"
Daniel 2.0 tilted his head, replying, "Father, what do you mean?"
"Quiet, Daniel!" Daniel 2.0 jolted at his father's voice and sighed, still floating for fear that if he came down, Vlad might do something worse than just yell at him. Even so, Vlad proceeded to answer Daniel's question anyway – if only in mutters to himself. "It seems as though Valerie has done her job… Daniel died, however came back as a ghost. This is a setback, yes. By now he'll surely have attempted to merge back with his human half. That could only work, however, if his human body not only was healed of its wounds but still had remnants of his ghost side within it. Tough coincidences, in the very least…" He turned back towards his son, who waited patiently for his father's next words.
"Don't think I have forgotten that you failed in your task, Daniel." Daniel 2.0's shoulders sagged in defeat, remembering all too well. Vlad continued, ignoring this. "Not only have you failed in killing Jack Fenton, but you were thwarted by whom? Phantom and his accomplices? And you did not fight?"
"But father, I did fight! I-"
"Enough! Excuses, excuses, Daniel." Daniel 2.0 shut up as soon as Vlad had cut him off, floating down the floor and reverting back to his human half. Somehow, his hair had gotten worse. The gray roots had become more prominent, and the whites of his eyes flared a nearly red color – to the point where it made his irises seem almost brackish-blue. A teal shade. It looked as if he was falling apart.
"We will discuss this later. Now, there is work to be done. If Daniel Fenton succeeds, then we need something to counteract him. Permanently."
"B-but, how are you going to do that, father? If you kill him again, won't he be able to just do the same thing as before?" Daniel 2.0 asked hesitantly. He knew he was walking on thin ice at the moment. He didn't want to push his luck and make it crack.
"Oh, that's doubtful, but good speculation nonetheless." Vlad turned towards the ghost portal and said with a grin, "No. I have something better in mind. We aren't going to kill the boy. We're going to trap him."
"Trap him?"
The grin became wider, as if it were some crevice that had been through an earthquake recently. The individual rocks crumbling down until there was nothing but a gaping hole – or in this case, smile. "In his nightmares. For all eternity." Vlad reverted back to his human form, that evil grin shrinking to just a smirk now as he raised his cuff to his face. He spoke into it with an authority-like tone, but it also seemed happy… or as happy as a fruit loop can be, one could suppose.
"You know what to do," he breathed into his communicator, and suddenly the doors opened, revealing an unrealistically tall figure, clad in black. A whinny resounded through the lab walls, sounding more like a screech than something a natural horse would utter. But then, the horse was dead, a ghost. How could it ever sound natural? It's teeth were purged out like fangs, making it look almost as frightening as its rider.
The ghost mounted atop the horse bowed, confirming he did indeed know what to do. Huge bat-shaped wings, comparable to that of a demon's spread out to cover nearly the whole of the wall as the horse knelt down towards the ground, then sprung to take off. Both equine and rider drove through the walls using intangibility, and with that, Vlad's laughter could be heard echoing across the lab.
"Oh, Daniel… you're through. You can't possibly win now."
