There was a phone call, that one simple night.
The light rain bounced off those stained glass windows, as he walked toward that simple device. A brief flash of lightning sounded from the background, the curtains giving way to eerie, tiny shadows, all of which were watching him carefully. The evening chimes from midnight resounded below, echoing throughout the lonely halls of the castle, reminding him of his constant solitude. His own footsteps joined the almost human choir, his own reflection coming back to his stony, cold silence. Then, without thinking, he leaned in, the pain already settling in the pit of his stomach, as he read the collar ID.
Maddie Fenton.
He can't particularly recall what she told him that night. Though he was ecstatic to hear her voice again, it hurt to hear how much she gushed over Jack, how she kept praising her children, both of whom, she might add, were, in her opinion, geniuses. He tuned out the rest of the parts that concerned Jack of course, and by the time she was done, almost ten full minutes had passed. It was when her voice suddenly became serious, her abnormally cheerful tone instantly vanishing, did he manage to ignore the envious stabs burning through his stomach. He pushed the thoughts of what could have, and forced himself to look at the present. But by then, he had almost completely deserted the conversation altogether, and the only thing he remembered was saying goodnight to her, and hanging up the phone. He remembered looking back into the bathroom mirror after a few hours, and simply asking him where everything went wrong, aside from letting Jack Fenton into his life.
The next morning, he got a call from someone. An agent, who claimed he was from the GIW. The man asked Vlad a few questions, particularly on the Fentons. Their college days, the research they've conducted, how Vlad felt about his former colleagues; though it was the government, Vlad knew full well he had the influence to keep them from searching him. He gave general answers, not wanting to hurt Maddie; he complimented them both begrudgingly, left out everything on the success they had with ghosts, flat out refused the results the agent was asking. After a few minutes, the man hung up, and that was that.
Thinking back on it now, he probably should've asked the agent what the interrogation was about. He should've asked why the man kept asking about the Fentons, why they wee so infatuated with research that supposedly yielded no results; Vlad should know, since he was the one that destroyed those results. He should've called Maddie back that night, and ask her why an organization dubbed the GIW was asking about she and her very wonderful family. He should've paid more attention, as to what she was saying that very night.
Perhaps then, he wouldn't be standing here.
Perhaps he wouldn't be holding a small, crying girl, whimpering the names of her brother and sister, over and over again. He wouldn't be shielding her from the demanding reporters and their followers, doing whatever it took to pry the information away from the broken family. He wouldn't be searching through the crowds, trying to see where that reporter named Jeremy was, only to find him being trampled over by the crowds. His own, weary face, wouldn't have had to gaze down at the graves of his two children, both of whom carried powers that he would've been able to teach them how to handle them. He wouldn't have to stand in the pouring rain, holding an umbrella tightly in the grip of one hand, all the while endeavoring to protect their faces from the flashing cameras.
And yet, in the end, all he could do was close his eyes.
He leaned his cheek against Jazz's hair, and in that same moment, wept.
As Vlad suspected, what happened that fateful day was, indeed, a public execution.
Their bodies were plastered all over the world, in every major news station in the country. He knew, not from Jazz, since she was too pained to even bother following the gossip, but rather, from his business partners, some of his closest allies, and even a few of the elites, some of whom were still gloating over their unexpected betrayal.
New rumors kept circulating the streets because of it. Some thought the Masters children were being pressured too much, and that this was the result of some unfortunate, cruel breakdown. Others thought Danny and Sam were apart of some illegal spy training program for the United States, and that they were bribed into betraying their country by some other enemy far, far away, countries that hadn't even known about the terrorist attack until later that day. And even still, some thought the entire thing was just a crude hoax, and that in due time, the two teens would come out, with a huge smile on their faces, as they laughed at a world who thought they were dead. They were the Masters; they couldn't have died that easily! And as for the whole superpower thing; it must've been some lighting issue. Or some really good visual effects. Or they were all just seeing things.
But in the end, everyone, and especially Vlad, knew better. How could anyone explain the man-eating plants lodged onto the buildings, just waiting for federal agents and the entire National Guard to come in to destroy them? How could they describe the very real corpses littered across the streets, most of whom were from the GIW? How could they describe the fact that Vlad Incorporations was no longer standing there? How could they describe the state of emergency the entire country was put under? If anyone replayed those clips again, and even the most skeptical couldn't argue with the fact that the acting was much too real. The bombs were all too real. Everyone, and everything had come crashing down, from the moment the two teenagers made their move.
But perhaps what shocked Vlad the most, as well as his entire audience, was how after the incident, the GIW tried playing the whole incident off, as nothing but a bad dream.
No, it was just a gas that they released; a gas, which made them think they had the bombs. How'd the Masters get them? The branch had absolutely no idea; they made sure their labs could withstand against everything, even teenagers. What? Ghost powers? What ghost powers? No, the skeptics were right; it was probably just a lighting issue.
Fortunately, it seems the excuses weren't enough. The president had ordered them to shut down that obscure branch; as of this point, not even the richest sponsors could save it now.
And yet, Vlad remembered Danny's plea.
Remember us.
It took a while, but eventually, Vlad managed to buy out that branch. Using the money Danny made from his own business deals, as well as the settlements Sam won in court, Vlad employed his own special force of investigators, and ordered them to find out just what'd happened that fateful day, why the GIW was acting the way it did. The federal government, much to his discomfort, reimbursed half his payments, meaning he'll have no choice but to allow them to intervene, should anything controversial pop up. It took a while, but eventually, Vlad accepted their somewhat forced help.
And so, the two parties turned their attention to the enigma known as the GIW. They dug through the remains, the ruins, piles of data sheets and results, if only to understand the meaning behind the attack. Even now, everyone was still reluctant to call the two teenagers "terrorists", and it was something Vlad was grateful for. He didn't allow Jazz to help, knowing full well she'd yet to control herself around the crowds. No, he'd rather her be studying, doing something else, even if he knew she had the right to see what exactly had happened, to her former home, her old family. Not even a day had passed, before he finally found what he was looking for.
And it was horrifying.
Almost fourteen years ago, the GIW formed, in response to the numerous ghost sightings situated around the northeast, as well as the paranoia based on the recent massacres in the Middle East. The branch's goal was to eradicate the enemy by any means. They took a particular interest in the Fentons, simply because Jack and Maddie were ghost hunters, and the Mansons, who privately funded the military through their more ostentatious means. The organization found out that Amity Park was a pool of paranormal activity, benign and demonic alike, and along with the extremist protests taking place in the city, the GIW decided to cease the whole town. They enslaved it, put it to use, if only for the sake of cultivating warriors, heartless soldiers who had no conscious, no morality, only an undying loyalty for a country that won't even last through the brief epoch known as eternity.
The adults were ranked based on their usefulness. Those that could assist the GIW through wealth, intelligence, strength, were all spared, put to work in one of the many underground factories. Everyone else was simply eliminated, as shown by the red x marked on each of their photographs. The Fentons and the Mansons were a priority, not surprisingly. In other words, for the adults, it was a simple act of whether or not they agreed with what the GIW was doing. Whoever refused to work with the organization were killed. And as such, none of the adults even survived.
The children, on the other hand, didn't get that mercy. They forced to deal with a series of tests that determined whether or not they would live or die. The first test was whether or not the children could be obedient. Anyone who dared speak out against their commanding officers would immediately be shot. The "successes" were then put into cells, boys in one, girls in the other. They were trapped there for three weeks, with no food, no water. Periodically, the agents would check to see if those children were still alive, and if they were, they'd get to advance to the next test. For those who'd died, their bodies would merely be flung back into the cells, where the surviving children would be locked in for the next week. If they survived the diseases, the maggots, the anguish, the solitude, they were ready to advance. These tests made up only the preliminary rounds, and by then, nearly 90% of those children have already died.
The experiments began, right after that. The survivors were subjected to cruel treatments, which consisted of embedding them with what appeared to be toxic ectoplasm. They replaced human organs with dead ones, removed the immune system, wove together the fibers which were supposed to harness ghostly abilities. And by the end of the procedures, only three children were left, the other being a child named Tucker Foley.
He was frail, this child. Embedded with the powers of an Egyptian mummy, he could barely cling to his own life, to the point where the GIW locked him in a different containment unit, if only to keep him from going out of control. It was clear that from the observations, Danny and Sam came to see him everyday. Though his health kept declining, the child must've put on a brave face for the two, if only to see them again, to make sure they didn't worry. About two months later, he finally gave out; somehow, even with his immune system removed, his body rejected his ghost powers. Coupled with malnutrition and thirst, it was a miracle that Foley lasted as long as he did.
Vlad remembered sitting at his desk, going through those files. He remembered how angry he was, fighting the urge to scream in rage, to throw those files at the corner of his room. He remembered how much he wanted to kill the head of the GIW, and how unsatisfied he felt when he published those files, only to have the police haul the GIW away, the surviving members still struggling, still trying to accuse Vlad of a massacre he'd only now become aware of.
He remembered how pained those agents were, on the day of the trial, when Vlad stood before the judge, and presented to her the evidence he found against them, with the same fire his daughter had, just before she died in front of him, before she'd completely been erased from existence, the very people who robbed her of her own life now standing here, without remorse, without guilt. He remembered the frustration eating at his core, when he realized how quickly their death sentences would be, how easily they'd escape the public eye from just a simplistic, private execution, especially since his own children were refused even that lonely kindness. He remembered how angry Jazz looked, how her white knuckles gripped the iron railings, as she screamed and shouted, hurling back the insults they did to Vlad, not even bothering to keep up disappearances now.
In fact, it was Jazz's behavior that prompted Vlad's response, towards the end of the trial.
The cameras were all there, ready and waiting for the prosecution to issue the damning verdict. The reporters were on the edge of their seats, as well as nearly half the other politicians, all of which were still deeply shocked that the"scandal." The defense kept saying that while what the GIW did was cruel, in the end, they were still trying to benefit the country. "Well-intentioned extremists," was what their lawyers called them. And rather than focus on the actions of those extremists, they instead turned their attention to the Masters, to Daniel and Samantha, both of whom were the sole benefactors to the GIW. They repeated this statement continuously, even as Vlad strolled dangerously close to one of the agents, a seething look in his eyes.
Vlad stared at the man in the face. He merely smirked, before hanging his head in false shame.
"Go on," he said. "You know we were right."
The next thing Vlad knew, that man was underneath him, gasping for breath, the whites in his eyes already showing.
By the time they pried Vlad away from him, the paramedics were already dragging the half-dead corpse away from the court room.
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
Sam used to say that all the time, after every single trial, after every successful investigation; to this day, Vlad kept thinking about her words, about how she's managed to keep herself aloft, despite her young age. Vlad's seen Danny utilize that strategy too, keeping their assets beneath his watchful eye, all the while distancing himself emotionally when ruining yet another business. There wasn't a single detail that got by them, not one mistake without them catching it. Jazz was more than naive, and although he often times wished that they'd be a bit like her, he'd be lying if he said the strategy didn't serve them.
It was probably why they even bothered sponsoring the GIW.
Throughout the months that led up to the incident, the latest technologies kept disappearing from the GIW's laboratories. Missing weapons reappeared in the reports, some harmless, others with the potential to destroy entire nations. The ones that caught the public's eye were the Tsarina bombas; that the United States could recreate humanity's biggest nuclear warhead was a bit of an understatement. But to be using what was practically stolen technology from Russia, was an even greater offense; already deals were being made, the barely kept negotiations clinging desperately to life.
And yet, despite that, what got Vlad's attention were the bloodstream nanobots.
The insidious machines were geared towards biological warfare, aimed to disarm the enemy by injecting them with potentially fatal toxins if breathed in. They could also be used to poison water supplies, food rations; it was a jack-of-all-trades, when it came to assassinations too. Then of course, since they weren't fully operational by the time of the attack, Vlad would've just overlooked them completely. He would've forgotten about the robots; perhaps he'd tell his secretary to sell them to some medical company, where they, at the very least, could find a way to turn the robots' destructive programming into something more… acceptable. Maybe he'd even use them as spy cameras, if only to keep an eye on his nosy neighbors; after all, it seems Sam did that, though more often than not than to keep an eye around the manor. Yes, he would've forgotten them.
If they weren't inside his children's bodies.
When the autopsy reports came back, before the findings were published, Vlad took a look. Apparently, the nanobots had been in their bloodstreams for a while now, monitoring ectoplasmic levels, keeping a constant watch on their immune systems, their records set to what'd happened that fateful day. The nanobots recorded the time their bodies were being broken down, the rate at which they were decaying. The results were so astonishing, so gruesome, that Vlad had to stay there, for a few hours, to try and calm himself down.
Even as he announced the results to the public, the shock still pulsing throughout the crowds, he felt…so far away. He couldn't help but smirk emptily to himself then.
The records on the nanobots were so clear, so concise, that for an instant, Vlad wondered if the two knew about their impending deaths. He wondered if they knew what was going to happen to them. And if they had, they probably weren't content, with just dying silently like this. They probably didn't want their story to end this way, without anyone knowing whose fault it was that they became like this. They wanted justice, or what was as close as they could get to it, even if they had to damn themselves to do it.
From the moment Vlad looked out at the crowds, he simply closed his weary, old eyes, and turned away.
It seems they've gotten their wish.
Then of course, Vlad wasn't content with this ending.
As of this point, he didn't care what Danny or Sam wanted.
He needed to see them again.