King, Queen and Masters
Interrupt chapter: Fire and Ice
Hi, everyone! Sorry for my absence…..gomen nasai. Anyhoo, please take care for awhile. I accidentally lost the next chapter (Curls into ball and
cries) so I hope you don't mind reading this segment for now. I don't like leaving a tale alone for far too long…..
Two more chapters left! ^^
Be well.
Disclaimer: No one owns Danny Phantom forever. (No offense, Mr. Hartman. ^^) I have a feeling that not even the billionaire can hold it up much
longer before the bottle breaks…..and I doubt this is how the tale will end.
….or Jazz and the others make a breakthrough. Who knows-maybe they should ask Frostbite for help. Couldn't hurt.
And now I'm rambling. Ah, well. Onto the next chapter…
Quote:
"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of love
And hate
Ice
Is also great
And would suffice."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ugh.
Seemed to surmise the billionaire's current thoughts perfectly as the man lowered the phone with a sigh, tucking the now much hated device back
inside one of his inside pockets before resuming his brief browsal of the files Stephanie had recently categorized into his network's hard drive.
Giving it a brief nod of approval, he quietly closed the laptop's monitor to greet the keyboard, and stood, stretching slightly as he turned to face
the window, and then glanced at his watch.
A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as, under his breath, he began to count the seconds down.
"Three…..
Two…..
One….."
He didn't have long to wait.
A bolt of raven and silver was racing from a nearby tower into the distance. Vlad managed a quiet chuckle under his breath.
Probably quite safe to assume Daniel's daily lessons had concluded today-if not a little earlier than usual, due to his more recent examinations.
For some reason or another, testing seemed to make Daniel perhaps a bit nervous-though he usually fell through with satisfactory results. It
baffled the man at times.
He managed a small shrug, and, with a small sigh, withdrew back to his chair.
It wasn't as if he knew half the reasons the teen had altered so dramatically in his home.
Not for the first time, Vlad found himself bleakly staring at his laptop, unwilling to open the wretched thing again. It seemed a bit much for the
poor woman, but maybe, just this once, he could let her reestablish some of the links. His head was spinning enough as it were from two and a
half added hours of work.
Thinking about the boy was generally a bad idea. It simply made him baffled, which made him frustrated….and then made him in a more passive
mood then was needed to finish daily work.
If only he could read the younger hybrid's mind….though, even then, the man doubted he could really understand his reasoning.
He glanced at the monitor again-and his eyebrows creased.
What the…..?
A bemused expression made its way to his face as he clicked on some of Stephanie's works on her portfolio.
Ah.
She had already finished it. With another satisfactory nod, the computer was quietly tucked away in his desk. Glad to see it go, the man leaned
back just slightly in his seat, staring at the ceiling with a small frown on her face.
Clever woman.
If, not perhaps, too clever….
Perhaps he didn't give Stephanie enough credit. She had gotten three days ahead of her normal, already high work template by completing the
latest stock charts and whatnot onto the data grid by working on her days off.
But….perhaps it would be wiser to steer clear of her for a good while. If just a little more than usual, because she made the man….uneasy.
Yes, uneasy was a good word. If he had learned anything while leaving with Daniel, was that once things were too good to be true,
Well….
It usually meant something was going to come crashing down, soon enough.
Vlad scowled. He loathed feeling paranoid. In a way, it felt awful for him to be uncertain of anything in the empire he had built singlehandedly.
And the term "uncertain" was getting a little too common for his liking these days. What wasn't there to be uncertain about around here?
After Daniel had submitted to him-the boy had been nothing short of a walking corpse.
The man shuddered at the memory, groaning slightly.
When Jasmine and the other little brats had interceded, well…
If the boy had been bad off before…
~*~
Things had gotten all the more worse after Danny's breakdown when he had properly woken from the aftermath of Walker's attack.
And then, well….
Things were better than the man had ever dreamed possible in his home now. Which was why he was wary of Stephanie.
She had her own suspicions, he was sure-but one thing had been quite obvious: She hadn't bought Vlad's story.
And that could make things very difficult for the man, if she decided to take a peek into this. What if she tried to find a governmental match from
Daniel…..
…..and discovered an all too proactive link the Fentons had made, all still too likely to be in desperate pursuit of the boy, in Amity Park…..?
------------------------------------------
The boy was still bound to him. Daniel only loved Jasmine too much-even when he'd been forced to deny such a thing to her face weeks earlier.
The billionaire winced as a throbbing pang of guilt struck him once again. He managed a bitter smile as he sighed, and glanced at his watch.
Almost lunchtime. He was certain Daniel was aware of such-especially seeing as he could easily tell the passing hours with a glance at the sun's
cuardents.
He had never met anyone quite like the boy-even removing the fact he was one of the only three hybrids in existence.
One of only three......an odd thought, though he gave Danielle little thought.
Vlad's eyelids flickered, and suppressed a small yawn.
He had stayed up far too late last night.....
~*~
He wasn't exactly sure how it happened. It was all over so fast.
A mesh of color, a desperate gagging and endless struggling-!
That was, of course, until a definite SNAP had echoed in the darkness.
Jack's eyelids had flickered, mouth moving wordlessly.
And, in a matter of seconds, stopped so forever.
It had taken a long time.
But, in the end, he had stood silently over the limp body of his once best friend, staring at the limp, motionless man on the ground, face quite
devoid of his goofy grin the oaf had so often trademarked.....
Now, it was expressionless.
Plasmius had done it.
He had slaughtered him.
So, where was the joy?
The satisfaction?
Where had it all gone after twenty years of dreaming....?
Vlad slowly turned his hand over in the deathly silence.
The one that had broke Jack Fenton's neck.
And, as if reacting to a robotic response, the man had slowly turned.
.......to see a stunned Danny Fenton step out of the shadows.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The boy did not seem to see Jack's body at all. Vlad doubted the younger hybrid strictly could without falling to despairing hysterics, at the very
least.
But his eyes.....
Daniel's baby blue orbs were either burning or freezing-the man could not tell.
But, seeing as the billionaire's mind had tuned to a complete and total oblivion, it was unlikely he could have guessed in any case.
~*~
No.
The fact that Daniel was standing beside Jack's dead body did not bother him.
No....
His heart was thudding wildly beneath his ribcage.
No....
It was still and silent as a tomb-or would be, if Daniel said what the older hybrid had heard him speak before and somewhat accepted; after all,
the boy had more then a right to-but he still begged inwardly in the deathly silencesilencesilence, pleaded as he had never done so before, even
when not a sound came to fruition:
Don't. Don't say it. Don't, don't-not again, not forev-
Even as the tears slipped down Daniel's own broken figure, he managed three, rasping words, one that turned such benign eyes to that of frosty-
"I hate you."
But that wasn't enough. The tears began to fall, albeit with greater gusto. The younger hybrid twisted his face away, features contorted with
agony.
"I hate you so, so much-!"
Something snapped.
.......
Everything was disjointed, everything in an absentminded flurry-Daniel hadn't said that.
He hadn't really meant it. Surely the younger hybrid hadn't.
Not again.
But all though his mind was a blank, what was steadily burning a hole from his insides was the realization that was making his knees violently
shake.
The boy despised him again.
So what? He had lived with such knowledge for such a long time....and it had only been recently the man had actually begun to wonder about said
hatred....
But Daniel, much to his horror, was speaking again.
"You should have done us all a favor."
What? Was he going to call the billionaire a fruit loop or something of that sort, even now? As if such childish a-
Danny's orbs were unmistakeably frigid now. The sky blue flames were gone.
"You shouldn't have saved me from Walker's troops. If you wanted to do something good for once in your miserable life, you could've put me out of my
misery.
"I wish you had."
~*~*~
And the billionaire's eyes snapped open once again, breathing ragged.
~*~*~*~*~*~
For heaven's sakes, would these dreams never cease plaguing him?
Vlad sighed as he took a sip of tea, lowering the porcelain to his desk with a slight chink.
Not for the first time, he wondered how terrible a nightmare Daniel had to have had the night he finally shattered.
The billionaire winced in remembrance of Skulker's words. As if. The little badger was far from such.
Still......he did wonder.
All the same, he slowly shook his head.
As if he was going to ask. He certainly wasn't going to brew up any unnecessary bad memories-not when things were going so well.
Getting some token of Daniel's cooperation had been an amazing feat by itself! He never dreamed he could even hope for what relationship he
had with the boy now.
Like he had pondered before....Daniel actually accepting Vlad as his father was enough for bolts of wild catharsis to strike the man dead, but that
was never going to occur.
Greedy though it was, it was a somewhat depressing thought. What did Jack had that he didn't....besides a revolting mind, weight, and fami-
Vlad scowled at the last thought.
That was all going to cease once Jack was finally out of the picture.....and Maddie was his wife.
Still, he had to admit, the dream had brought upon another disturbing thought to the man...one he had pushed aside for quite some time now in
his discomfort:
How could he ever win Madeline and live with the knowledge that the little hybrid would be validated then to not only hate him....
...but despise him throughout eternity?