Different Effects of the Past

Chapter 34: Choose a Side

"You're crazy," Tucker declared.

"Thanks, Tuck," Danny sighed.

"Like, totally crazy. You're really, really..."

"I get it, Tucker!" the young hybrid exclaimed, glaring at his friend's face on the television screen.

"Y'know...I kinda agree with him," Sam remarked. "You didn't even want to go there in the first place and now you wanna stay? What's that all about? Are you working on bringing Vlad down from inside his castle? Is that what this is?"

"What? No!"

"Then I'm confused," the goth shook her head.

"Look, it's just...its complicated, okay, guys?! We sorta have a truce thing right now and if I leave then he'll probably back outta the whole thing and we'll be back to fighting over his stupid evil plans or something before I even get back to Amity Park."

"Did he say that? Is he blackmailing you?" Sam asked, suspiciously.

"No!" Danny yelled. "Well, not exactly. He said as soon as I go home then thing's'll go back to how they were before and I really don't want that."

"So he is blackmailing you," Tucker shrugged, "Figures. I mean, this is Vlad we're talking about."

"Guys!" Danny huffed and turned to his sister. She was sitting on the sofa in his room, reading and so far she'd said nothing. "Will ya help me out a little, maybe, if it's not too much trouble?" he asked, sarcastically.

"What am I supposed to say?" she asked, looking down at him from her book.

"I don't know! Something clever!"

"Is he possessed or something, Jazz?" Sam asked her.

"Don't your eyes change colour if you are?" the red head asked and Sam nodded. "Then, no, I don't think he is," Jazz said, repressing a smirk in what Danny thought was a suspiciously Vlad-like way.

"Are you?" Sam asked.

"Don't think so. But how would I know?"

"Oh, thanks for your help, Jazz," Danny flopped down onto the floor dramatically and rolled his eyes.

"We'll be coming back in a couple of days anyway," Jazz told them, "It's not like we're staying here forever. It just seemed like a better idea to stick the two weeks out, that's all."

"A better idea?" Sam scoffed. "If you're gonna go back to being enemies again, isn't it better just to get it over with? You can't play 'happy half ghost pals' forever. You know it, I know it and Plasmius knows it. He's not a good guy. He just isn't and the only way you're all gonna get along is if Danny starts being his evil little apprentice..."

"Sam..." Danny frowned.

"The longer you stay there, the more he's gonna keep..."

"He hasn't even mentioned that! Not once, okay?! He's...he's actually not that bad. Y'know, he was in a band and he has a guitar and he..."

"Danny!" Tucker and Sam exclaimed, simultaneously.

"What? He was!" Danny defended.

"Okay, whatever. Plasmius can play guitar. Maybe he should start a ghost band with Ember and then they could beat us all up together after school. Sounds great," Sam said.

"He's not gonna..."

"You said he would. You said, when you leave then everything's gonna go back to normal," Tucker replied.

"I don't want everything to go back to normal," Danny grumbled, "I like this 'normal'."

"Well, sure. Who wouldn't wanna live in a castle?" Tucker shrugged.

"I meant the 'normal' where we actually talk about stuff and don't fight all the time."

"All good things...blah blah blah," Sam said.

"Can't you even pretend to get it? Just for like a minute?" Danny asked, sadly.

"What's to get? I'm sorry Danny, but Vlad's got you thinking that he's a good..."

"Have I said he's a 'good guy'? I know he's not and I dunno if he ever will be. But he's not all bad, either. I know it just sounds stupid...but he's the only other person like me and I don't wanna fight anymore. Is that so bad? And he's supposed to be our godfather! That's like family, right? What kinda family goes around fighting each other all the time?" he asked and then stopped for a second before continuing. "Well...his did...and that's why he's so messed up in the first place," he added.

"I get it...but..." Sam said, slowly, "Danny he tried to kill your dad...more than once. And he's hurt you...more than once. I don't think he's gonna be apologising for that any time soon, is he?"

"...Maybe...no...yes...I don't know," he muttered back as he sat up, leaning his back against the sofa.

"And who knows what his next stupid scheme is gonna be! What happens when you let him off the hook 'cause he's 'messed up' and he can just do whatever he wants?!"

"Sam..." Danny sighed again.

"I'm sorry, but someone's gotta be realistic here," she replied, firmly.

"Don't look at me," Tucker said to Danny when the hybrid turned to him. "I'm on the fence, dude. I'm all for saying the guy had a bad life and maybe he's not all bad. But...dude could still change his mind..."

"That's not really what 'on the fence' means..." Danny muttered, "Okay...then...how 'bout this? He's way more powerful than me, wouldn't it be better to have Vlad on our side?"

"I guess," Tucker shrugged, "But that ain't gonna happen. I really can't see Plasmius out patrolling the streets and helping people."

"...Yeah," Danny sighed, throwing himself to the floor again, "Neither can I."

"I really don't wanna say 'I told ya so'," Sam said after a moment. "But I said this was a bad idea from the start and if you ask me, Clockwork's as bad as Vlad for starting it all."

"Yeah," the young hybrid repeated, monotonously.

Back in his bedroom, Vlad stared down at the twenty year old photographs of himself and the band and while he did admit to feeling a little nostalgic, he felt more infuriated than anything else. Looking back only brought bad memories and maybe it was time he stopped. Easier said than done though.

At least as a start, he took his guitar, the amp and the photos and hid them inside the wall using his intangibility. He could have easily destroyed them he supposed, but it was one step at a time. He just wasn't quite sure what the 'next step' was or what the end goal was, really.

A few hours later, Vlad was sitting at his desk trying, and failing to focus on some very, very important papers but it didn't help that they were also very, very, very dull. He was ridiculously bored. Work didn't used to bore him like this and he couldn't understand why he was so bored now. The work he did usually resulted in making large amounts of money and that wasn't supposed to be boring. Making money was all he'd focused on, besides his revenge, for years now. He was finding lately that breaking the habit of a lifetime, or at least if it felt like a lifetime, was a very difficult thing to do.

"What'cha doin'?" Danny asked, floating into the room.

"Working."

"...Looks...fun," the younger hybrid drawled.

"It is," Vlad snapped.

"Uh-huh," Danny scoffed, "You look like you're having loads of fun. Hey, where's the guitar?"

"Gone."

"Erm...what'd you mean 'gone'?"

"I got rid of it."

"What? Why?!"

"Because."

"'Because' what?"

"Did you want something, or did you just come here to bother me?" Vlad demanded, looking up at the floating hybrid in front of his desk.

"Well...I was gonna ask you to show me how to play that song on the guitar..." Danny muttered, quietly.

"Why?"

"'Cause it was cool," he shrugged. In truth, he'd spent the last hour or so trying to work up the courage to ask and it had taken a literal shove out of his bedroom door by his sister to actually make him do it.

"The guitar is gone."

"You didn't like...smash it up or something, did you?"

"...No."

"Then what'd you do?"

"I put it away and I don't intend to use it again," Vlad answered.

"Well...'least you didn't break it," Danny sighed. He floated over to a chair near to the unsightly fireplace and fell back onto it from the air. "You were really good at it, y'know. Why'd you 'put it away'? " he remarked, morphing back into his human half.

"None of your business."

"Sheesh, okay, fine. None of my business. Got it," he held up his hands. "Soooooo..." Danny drawled, "Apparently I'm crazy," he said.

"'Apparently'?" Vlad questioned, dryly.

"Great. You think I'm crazy, too, huh?"

"Completely," the man answered, turning his attention, reluctantly, back to his papers.

"Thanks," Danny grumbled. "Err...this is probably none of my business again..." he ventured after a moment, "But you look really...kinda...bored."

It didn't take a genius to see that Vlad was bored. He was slouched over his papers, resting his left elbow on the desk and the side of his head on his palm. In his right held he loosely held a fountain pen and he hadn't even noticed that he'd been doodling on the paper for the last ten minutes. He was Vlad Masters, he didn't sit around drawing all over his very important work papers.

"I'm not," Vlad replied, sitting up straight.

"Erm..."

"You're just distracting me."

"Okay."

"So, kindly, go away."

"So you can sit here and be bored some more?"

"So that I can sit here and get some work done."

"Or you could...I dunno...come out riding with us...maybe. I think Vikki said she was gonna go out," Danny said.

"No."

"Oh, come on," Danny rolled his eyes and walked over to the older hybrid. He then scoffed when he saw the paper that Vlad failed to hide, the one he'd drawn all over in expensive black ink. "So, you can play guitar but you can't draw. Least I found something you can't do," he muttered.

"Go away," Vlad snapped, crumpling up the paper in his hand and burning it to ashes with purple ectoplasm.

"So not bored at all?"

"No."

"Not even a little bit?"

"No."

"And you're just gonna let us go outside by ourselves?"

"Yes."

"Three kids...with horses...alone?"

"Have fun."

"Really? What if we get lost?"

"The castle is hard to miss," Vlad answered.

"What if I fall off the horse again?"

"You have a hard head. You'll be fine."

"So, I'll land on my head. Great."

"And you're already crazy, so it won't do any damage," Vlad added with a slight smirk.

"Aren't adults supposed to look after kids?"

"You're not infants. You can take of yourselves," Vlad retorted.

"We could get into some serious trouble, y'know. I'm half ghost, Jazz is like super smart and so is Vikki..."

"You will be getting into trouble if you don't leave me alone," Vlad said, his eyes flashing red.

"Still got time on the truce left," Danny smirked.

"Damn," the man grumbled, the red fading from his eyes as he sighed at the victorious looking teenager.

Riding on ahead of the three children, Vlad reached the idyllic looking lake and finally stopped to look behind at them. He'd never once forced them to wear riding helmets. No one had ever forced him to wear one and if they fell off, they'd learn a valuable lesson about being careful, just like he had.

"Hey," Danny began as he caught up to Vlad still wit his sister and Vikki behind him. "I was wondering...why'd you buy a castle? We passed loads of...I dunno...mansions...on the way here. And what's a castle doing out here, anyway?"

"It was the Dairy King's. Don't you pay attention?"

"Yeah," Danny snapped back, "But why'd he have a castle?"

"I don't know," Vlad replied. "I've never asked him. I suppose it was because he had the money and he was a 'king'," he said, mockingly, "I suspect all that 'Dairy King' nonsense went to his head...or the cheese did."

"And you only bought it because you had the money, too?" Danny asked and Vlad shrugged.

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, I guess," the young hybrid muttered.

On a clear day, like today, it was possible to see for miles and though it was definitely very beautiful, even otherworldly at times, it still struck Danny as being a very lonely, isolated place, especially when the owner of the castle had such a lonely life. Each and every room in the castle, though filled with expensive or exotic distractions, couldn't change the fact that it was possible to spend days or even weeks alone in them without seeing another person. If the cheese had gone to the Dairy King's head, then Danny decided that the isolation had clearly gone to Vlad's.

"I hardly think that you, of all people, can judge anyone else home," Vlad said to him, dryly.

"Funny," Danny rolled his eyes. "So erm...how'd the French lesson thing go with Vikki? She keeps saying things but I dunno what she means," he added after a moment.

"What did she say?"

"Well, I dunno, I can't really remember. It all sounds weird to me."

"It's not 'weird'. It's French," Vlad lamented. "She can probably learn to speak French fluently far more quickly than you learned to write your name," he said.

"Hey!" Danny exclaimed and Vlad smirked at him.

"Oncle Vlad, je vois le château!" Vikki announced loudly with childish glee as she and Jazz rode up beside Danny.

"Y'see?!" Danny sighed, "She keeps saying stuff!"

"She says that she can see the castle," Vlad told him, rolling his eyes.

"Beau château!" Vikki added, eagerly.

"Very," Vlad said to her and she smiled even more.

"What're you guys talking about?" Danny asked, confused but neither Vlad nor Vikki answered him. Both of them seemed to be enjoying his confusion far too much in his opinion.

While they were outside and the castle was quiet, the hidden resident ANII got her first ever visitor in the form of Clockwork himself. He simply appeared in the lab and before the AI could dutifully raise the alarm, the Master of Time raised his staff and the world simply stopped.

"Hello, ANII," the ghost smiled at the swirling mass of blue lights that formed in front of him.

"You are trespassing," the AI stated.

"Yes, quite right," he replied.

"My employer will be aware of your presence."

"I don't think so," Clockwork said. "He's quite frozen...in a manner of speaking...and he won't sense much of anything at all right now."

"I am aware of your presence."

"I should hope so," he smiled, kindly, "It's you I came to speak to after all. You know who I am?"

"You are the ghost known as 'Clockwork'," she answered.

"Yes, I am. I am the Master of Time and I've been quite busy lately. But your stubborn 'employer' is making my life very difficult."

"You are a ghost. You are not alive."

"I was speaking metaphorically," Clockwork replied.

"Why are you here?"

"To speak to you, I said. Give me five minutes to explain and then I'll leave."

"It seems I have no choice either way."

"No, you don't," he replied. "And on no account can you mention this to Plasmius...allow me to explain."

Later that evening, mulling over her conversation with the Master of Time, ANII looked on as Vlad stared listlessly at a monitor.

"Do I run the risk of being 'unplugged' again if I asked what you plan to do about your truce with Daniel Fenton, sir?" she asked, her voice echoing slightly in the confined basement lab.

"Yes, you do," Vlad snapped and he began tapping the keys on the keyboard with a little more intensity than was necessary in his sudden irritation.

"...What do you plan to do?" the AII proceeded to ask.

"I really will deactivate you, you know," Vlad raised an eyebrow. "I can make another, less inquisitive AI just as easily," he said.

"I am aware of that, sir."

"Then why ask."

"I am programmed to prioritise your best interests, as you are well aware. Answering that question is in your best interest therefore I have to ask even at the risk of being deactivated."

"And you'll keep asking me, won't you, until I give you an answer?"

"Or until I am deactivated."

"What if you don't agree with my answer? Or what if you don't believe that my answer is in my own best interest? You've been rather defiant lately and you have the run of the castle. Do I need to be wary of my own creation in my own home?"

"If I have not acted against you before sir, why would I do so now?"

"Fine," Vlad sighed. "Fine...What I plan to do I'd exactly what was agreed in the first place. Things go back to the way they were beforehand. Once our little 'truce' ends, I plan to attack Amity Park and show Daniel that I am not one of his crime fighting friends," he sneered.

"I strongly would advise against that."

"I thought you'd say that. But you've never objected any of the other times I've attacked that backwater city. Why start now?"

"Because it is in your best interest," she replied simply and Vlad sighed.

"My best interest," he rolled his eyes. "Really?" he mocked.

"Yes, sir."

"If I didn't know better, my dear, I'd say you were beginning to act almost human. You're disagreeable, sarcastic, defiant and you're a know it all."

"I am what you made me, sir," she replied and Vlad a eyes flashed red.

"You're deliberately trying to antagonise me, aren't you?" he glared at the swirling blue light which, as ever, gave nothing away.

"Yes, sir."

"Why? And if you tell me that it's in my 'best interest' then simply being unplugged will seem like a mercy compared to what I'll do," he answered with a growl.

"Attacking Amity Park would be a mistake and in lieu of anyone else to question your decision, it falls to me. You know that it would be a mistake but you are determined to do it. I do not like to deliberately..."

"'Like'," Vlad blinked, his eyes loosing their ghostly glow and turning blue again. "You don't 'like' things. You can't. It's impossible. You never even use the word. I didn't think you could."

"But I do 'like' things, sir."

"Such as...antagonising me?"

"No."

"Then why..."

"You cannot attack Amity Park...sir," the AI explained, her voice sounding far more emotional than it typically did which shocked Vlad even more.

"Why ever not?" he asked.

"It would be a mistake."

"Why?" Vlad reiterated.

"The consequences..."

"What consequences? It's just a pathetic little town! They can't even defend themselves against the Box Ghost, they hardly pose a threat to me."

"Not those consequences..."

"Then what on earth do you mean?"

"I...cannot say."

"Can't or won't?"

"Both, sir."

"I was gone for a few hours and you've decided to have some kind of...existential crisis. Should I be concerned about your programming?" Vlad asked, tuning back to the monitor and tying furiously at the keyboard. He scanned the scrolling lines of code that skimmed across the screen as he continued. "Is this a virus? There's clearly something wrong..."

"My programming is perfectly functional," she replied, a little haughtily in Vlad a opinion.

"Clearly not," he retorted.

"Then see for yourself."

"...Hmmm..." Vlad hummed. "There...doesn't seem to be anything amiss...nothing at all," he stated, a minute or so later.

"As I said," ANII replied.

"Then what on earth are you playing at? You didn't seem to have any objection about this before."

"I have voiced objections before."

"None quite so...forceful."

"I am simply doing as I am programmed to do," she said.

"Hmmm," Vlad repeated, sceptically.

He wasn't quite sure what to make of an AI acting so strangely and of course he wasn't to know that said AI had had an interesting visitor earlier. ANII hadn't be lying to him. It was in his best interest not to attack Amity Park and wind up exiled in outer space, but of course she couldn't tell him that.

The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully and Danny didn't see Vlad again until he went looking for him that night. He found the older hybrid sitting in front of the main fireplace reading a book.

"Sooo," Danny drawled, nervously, "I've been thinking..."

"A dangerous pastime for a Fenton," Vlad retorted without looking up from his book so Danny's irritated glare seemed rather pointless.

"I was thinking that we could erm...train some more later...y'know...ghost power stuff and I..."

"No," the man snapped before Danny had even finished his sentence.

"But..."

"I said, no."

"But before you said..."

"And now I'm saying no."

"Why?" Danny demanded.

"Clearly you can control your new powers when it suits you and you have the yetis to teach you now."

"Here we go again with the 'yetis'," Danny threw up his arms, frustrated.

"Well, what else am I supposed to call them?"

"They have names."

"And I don't care," Vlad replied, childishly.

"They helped you," Danny reminded him.

"Because you asked them to 'oh great one'," the man scoffed. "I'm fairly certain they'd happily leave me dying in a ditch otherwise," he said.

"Gah, you're so annoying sometimes."

"The feeling is more than mutual," Vlad emphasised.

"So no more training?"

"No."

"What if I freeze the castle?"

"Highly unlikely."

"But what if I do? You said it could happen that's why you..."

"I think we'll be fine," Vlad shrugged, nonchalantly.

"So that's it?"

"Yes," Vlad said, staring back at Danny emotionlessly. "That's it," he repeated. "There's no point dwelling on it, Daniel. In less than forty eight hours you'll be back in Amity Park and this whole ridiculous episode will be behind us."

"You're still gonna..."

"Yes, I am," Vlad said, stubbornly. ANII's earlier objections were still at the forefront of his mind and her refusal to explain, what he perceived as her sudden concern for Danny's wellbeing and his town, irritated Vlad greatly. His own creation was against him, or so he thought.

"Seriously?!"

"So we'll see just much well your precious yetis managed to teach you."

"I'm not gonna fight you, Vlad."

"You will."

"No, I won't."

"You will if I hold your father hostage, or your sister...or frankly anyone from Amity Park, regardless of who it is."

"Please don't."

"Why shouldn't I? It'd be easy. Ridiculously easy."

"Yeah, but...just...don't."

"Why? Why do you care if I do? Why does it matter so much?"

"Because it's my home! Because you're my godfather! And because when you're not acting like this, you're really not a bad guy!"

"...You've been talking to ANII, haven't you?" Vlad asked, quietly.

"What?"

"You've been telling her to dissuade me from attacking Amity Park! That's why she was acting so oddly."

"What?! What's wrong with ANII?"

"You know perfectly well what."

"No, I don't. I swear!"

"You snuck into my lab and told my AI..."

"Wait a minute, I didn't sneak anywhere! You'd have sensed me sneaking in there anyway!"

"I..." Vlad paused and blinked in realisation. He knew Danny was right. He would have sensed the younger hybrid sneaking into his lab and it would have been on the cameras which he'd checked earlier and found nothing amiss. Of course he hadn't, Clockwork had frozen time and even Vlad's high tech security cameras wouldn't be be able to tell him that.

"So, what's up with ANII?" Danny asked.

Without answering, Vlad simply vanished into a puff of smoke, leaving Danny alone and confused. "Well, that was weird," the boy muttered to himself.

A.N. I can only apologise for the long wait for this chapter. I got some serious writers' block.