Disclaimer: Refer to previous chapters.
Sorry this is short compared to my usual.
oOo
About a week after their conversation, and she still had no news on Vlad. She had seen him three times that week, and there had been no suspicious activity. She followed his signature into the laboratory that friday night, and found him haunched over a workbench with his back to her. Without looking up he said "Hang on a second."
As she started to move closer to see what he was working on, he seemed to quickly finish what he was doing and started putting everything away. He turned to face her and immediately said "We're going to the Ghost Zone."
"Again?" She groaned. "Because I think I've had enough of that place."
"You can't let one bad experience ward you off." He chided, ushering her further into his underground lair. "Besides, we're not going back to the garden."
"We're not?" She asked when they approached his portal. "Where are we going?"
When he was standing in front of the steel octagon that served as the doors to the portal, he turned smoothly on his heel and faced her with a mischievous grin. "It's a surprise." And with a flash of dark light, Plasmius stood before her, intimidating as ever, yet not imposing. "Please, assume your form."
"'Please'?" Isabelle repeated before her own rings changed her into Red. "I get a 'please' from you? What are you up to?"
"Nothing." He replied, his tone light. It should have worried her, but she wanted to know what he was planning. What he was hiding. Why were they going back? He had been wearing a slight but pleasant smile, but shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, then reached over to a panel with buttons and typed something into the console. Behind him, the steel doors slid apart with a quiet hiss, revealing a whirlpool of dark colors that was the Ghost Portal. Then, turning to back he held out his hand for her. "Shall we adjourn to another dimension?"
"Cute." She replied with a smirk, but took his proffered hand and they both stepped though the gate. Swirls of greens and black surrounded them as far as the eye could see. Purple doors littered the horizon in all directions. Once they were in the Ghost Zone, she slid her hand out of his grasp. "So, where is this surprise?"
Vlad held up his hand to show her the mapping device he had brought with them last time, after fiddling with it for a minute, turning in circles and mumbling to himself, he finally answered "This way." Then he placed his giant football in front of the entrance back to their world, and lead the way.
Being backs soon reminded her of the last time. Images that made her heart race in fear. She remembered something about him that made her curious. Shaking her head she said "So, I couldn't help but notice… you walk with this kind of.. practiced motion."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Well, last time, in the garden, when we were sneaking around from the Minotaur- we were walking, and your footfalls barely make any noise."
"Ah.. 'practiced motion', yes I see." He said, finally turning slightly to face her as they floated through emptiness.
"How long have you been coming here?" She asked.
He turned his back to her again and didn't answer at first. Just as soon as Isabelle thought that he was acting like a child at such an honest question, he said "I guess about… fifteen or twenty years. Jack, Maddie- Danny's parents- and myself, we built a sort of prototype in our youth… I designed and built the one I have now based on the one we built together."
"Was that how you received your powers?" It was a touchy subject for him, she remembered. But he had been crossing lines too.
"Been chatting with Daniel again?" He asked in a false light tone, though he did confirm her suspicions. "Yes. I spent the next few years in and out of the hospital while my body tried to stabilize the ghost DNA."
"You lost much of your life as a young adult." She concluded.
"I lost my youth to this curse." He corrected. This surprised her. Of all people, she would have thought Vlad would see his halfa status as a gift. An opportunity. Power.
"You think the ghost powers were a bad trade?" She asked timidly as they began to weave through and around purple doors.
"…No." He sighed finally, as if admitting it to himself too. "No, I like being half ghost. I just wish it hadn't come at such a cost, like for Danny."
"Like for me." Isabelle offered. When he gave her a sideways look she added "I was only in the infirmary for a few weeks after they… I don't know, injected me with the ghost gene?" She couldn't believe she'd just told him that. It wasn't any of his business! But to her surprise, she realized that he hadn't even asked. She'd given him the information because she had wanted too.
Vlad burst out laughing while she silently mused. "Ghost gene?" He repeated, but soon his laughing died and he had a serious look on his face. "I've never heard it put quite that way." He didn't press the subject any further.
She floated sideways with her hands behind her head as if lounging comfortably, though still following him though the Ghost Zone. "Are we almost there?"
"Almost." He replied after a quick glance at his Map-Maker.
She could see two small dots on the screen close together, moving toward another dot on the other side of the screen. "Is that us?" She asked, pointing to the two close together, the bracelet on her wrist seemed to grow heavier.
"Yes. And that-" He pointed to the third dot. "Is our destination."
"The surprise." She added.
"Precisely."
"Just so long as it's not an angry Guardian of some kind." He didn't reply, but she could see his smirk.
In the distance, a dark spherical cloud was approaching. Isabelle thought that they would go around it, but Vlad was heading straight toward it. When they got closer, she could see that it wasn't even a cloud at all. "It's an asteroid field." She realized.
"More or less." Vlad replied. "They're not asteroids though, just chunks of rock and plant, more like a hive really- well, you'll see in just a few moments."
As they approached the massive ball of islands, Isabelle began to understand what he'd meant. Each boulder was as large as a building or larger, and was covered in a variety of vegetation of many colors. It was like a kaleidoscope of tropical rain forests, islands and even deserts thrown in. They weaved through the blocks of dirt, dodging entire ecosystems as they bounced off or spun around each other in their zero gravity environment.
"Is there something in the center of this mass?" Isabelle asked noticing how the islands orbited lazily in rings around them. Becoming more and more dense as they approached the center.
"Yes." Vlad answered. "The surprise."
"Did I ever tell you that I don't like surprises?"
"You just did, but I think you'll be willing to make an exception for this when you see it."
When Isabelle began to lose sight of the light outside the sphere, she noticed another light coming from within. "What in the-"
"Red Spectre, may I present to you Pandora: The Inside-Out World." Vlad interrupted, as they rounded a rather large boulder.
"O-Oh my…" Was all she could say.
The sphere was hollow in the inside and there was an atmosphere. Miles of grass and trees were growing along the inner walls, the tops of the trees all pointing the the very center where- to her surprise- there was a small, but bright ball of light, that strangely resembled...
"It's a star!" She gasped in awe.
"It is." Vlad agreed. "A small one, but a star nonetheless."
There was a haze of clouds surrounding the star, scattering the light and bathing everything in a soft orange glow, with hints of pink and purple.
"The planet orbits the star," Vlad explained. "But at the same time, the star is the planet's core, and since there's no way for the sun to actually set or rise, it's constantly daylight here- or rather in here. I guess the outside would be night."
"It's beautiful." She breathed, feeling privileged to have seen something like this. Knowing that she was most likely only the second human to see this. Half human. She reminded herself, but she was too mesmerized by the scenery to let her mood sour.
"It is a strange phenomenon. I found this by accident- I mean, I usually do- but I was so lost when I stumbled across this, I should think I wouldn't have ever discovered it if I'd been using my Plas- I mean… my mapping device."
After s beat, Isabelle glanced at him with a knowing smirk. "Did you name another of your devices after yourself?"
He sighed, groaned lightly before saying a forced "Yes. I'm not the only one. Jack names nearly everything he makes 'Fenton Something-or-Other'. I think Skulker does too. Why shouldn't I have the same privilege?"
"I didn't say you couldn't." Isabelle said, surprised that she genuinely giggled saying it. Lately tensions had all but ceased between them. "But seriously, what's it called?"
"…Plasmius Atlas." He finally answered.
Isabelle nodded. "For a device used to map the ghost world, I'd say it's fittingly named."
"Well thank you." Vlad said as he sat down against one of the many trees.
Not wanting to seem out of place, but curious as to why there were there, Isabelle plopped down next to him, sitting cross-legged. "So Boss, what are we here for?"
He gave a small smile. "Direct as always." He mumbled, though she heard it. "Honestly, nothing."
"Wha- We came out here for nothing?"
"Well I wouldn't say that-" He started to say.
"You literally just did."
"Well yes, but I meant that I didn't come here to collect anything, if that's what you were asking." He elaborated. She only raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue. "I… I uh…"
His nervous actions sent red flags across her mind. A knot wound in her stomach and she tensed slightly, worrying about what he might say or ask.
He sighed and turned his gaze to the orange clouds floating lazily around the white star in a serene kind of dance. "Well for starters, this place is special for a few reasons. I thought you might appreciate it."
"I do." She admitted. "I've never seen anything like this. Actually, I've never seen anything like the things I've seen since coming to Amity Park."
"I don't doubt that." He replied after a moment, his attention returning to her. "I also… I wanted to remove that," he gestured to the wrist collar. " 'Wrist Collar' as you call it."
She didn't say anything, and for a moment he wondered if she even heard him. "You… what?"
"I wanted to remove the tagging device." He repeated. "The communicator, the tracker, the whatever you think of it as."
"The shock collar." She offered. His face darkened at that remark, and she swore she could see the other Vlad underneath his ghostly features. The human one. He sighed heavily.
"I'm sorry, Isabelle." He whispered. "I'm so sorry."
A.N.: And I'm sorry. For taking as long as I do to update. I personally hate when authors take forever to update, or just never do and you have to wonder "Did they abandon it? Are the characters going to be in some sort of fanfiction limbo forever? NOOO!" Spring Break gave me a much needed break, so I plan to use it to work on my stories. Next chapter should have a nice little cameo, or rather a return cameo.
