Vlad Masters is dead alive. He is.

He's also alone sick powerless dead left to fend for himself after the proto-portal accident, unsure of what's happening to him.

Twenty years are a long time to try to heal and reconstruct his life.


tags: Vlad Masters & Original Characters, Vlad Masters/Original Female Character, Vlad Masters & Maddie Fenton & Jack Fenton, Vlad Masters, Original Characters, Jack Fenton (mentioned), Maddie Fenton (mentioned), post-college years, post-accident, proto-portal accident, pre-canon, PTSD, intrusive thoughts, loneliness, abandonment issues, body horror, character death, powerlessness, descent into madness, character deconstruction, supernatural illnesses


Basically, in twenty years Vlad didn't just wait in the hospital, learn to control his powers, and build a controversial fortune. I want to explore those twenty years, the friends he tried to make, the difficulties he went through, the choices he made - the scars he gained. With no friends to rely on, no instant powers.

How you go from a generally normal guy to Vlad Masters/Plasmius.

Because if Danny had a difficult time adjusting to his powers with an instant transformation and support from Sam and Tucker, Vlad had none of that, and perhaps - perhaps he is too far gone in canon, but perhaps it's the result of twenty years of character deconstruction and not some inherent evilness that I honestly can't see in the canon flashbacks showing him in college.

BTW, I'm taking a slightly more realistic approach to the story than canon - not because canon is bad, but because it's a child/teen cartoon written for a certain audience, with an episodic format, and of course most secondary characters don't actually have character development. So that means I'll push in certain directions that aren't addressed in canon, because if we give deeper meanings to one character's life story... we should do the same for all characters. If Danny should have PTSD from his transformation, Vlad should get the same considerations, etc.

Honestly, read the tags if you haven't, because this isn't going to be funny, at all. If you think I should add a tag, you can suggest it in the comments and I'll consider it (no promise).


Chapter 1: I did not know and I could not see

He was aware.

Aware – of nothing, because there was nothing to be aware of. No sight, no sound. No light, no wound. Nothing to hear, nothing to see, nothing to feel.

But he was aware – awake – here.

Alive a flash of green pain hurts hurts burns at least?

He could...

Vlad could think. He knew he existed, that he was here, but he couldn't can't move can't breathe can't hurts please feel himself at all. His eyes were closed, and he couldn't feel his eyelids, couldn't even try and open them, he was stuck in a vast expanse of shapeless dark, with only pain and the memories of...

"Jack these calculations aren't right" "banzai!" a flash of green pain hurts can't breathe something burns please what happened please help

He'd...

He'd been looking at the proto-portal before they actually tested it. He'd been unsure that they'd manage to open it with the artificial ectoplasm they'd developed – based on the actual but limited ectoplasm sample they'd found in Minnesota – but Jack and Maddie still wanted to try, so...

He hadn't realized they'd gone for the remote while he was checking the welding one last time.

Then...

He'd heard Maddie's voice, something about Jack's calculations.

One second later...

"banzai!"

green what burns can't breath

Something heavy settled in the stomach he couldn't quite feel – maybe it wasn't heavy, not really, but he had no idea how else to describe it.

He'd been looking – he'd been looking, and for a second, the proto-portal had stabilized right in front of him – green, swirling, otherworldly.

Vlad hadn't been prepared for that – he hadn't expected Jack and Maddie to turn the portal on yet, he hadn't expected it to work today, he hadn't expected to look the afterlife in its swirling, pitiless eyes – and he hadn't been prepared when the proto-portal exploded outwards.

If he had been able to feel his body – to move, to act – his breath might have caught, then.

Jack's voice "banzai!" resonated in his mind, and Vlad – Vlad couldn't bite his lip to make it go away. The green swirls of death remained before him, and he couldn't close his eyes.

He didn't know what was happening to him the burn of cold toxic green eating at his skin the screech in his ears the looks on Jack and Maddie's faces when he'd looked back at them but he couldn't move and he couldn't feel the outside world.

Maybe he was unconscious. Maybe he'd been brought to a hospital – he'd run, eyesight filtered in odd lights and skin burning cold, taken by a complete and ever-growing fear, but he hadn't run far before collapsing to the ground help can't breathe please unable to breathe and passing out.

Maybe he wasn't conscious enough to be able to move his corpse body, to feel anything past a vague awareness of pain and burns cold.

He'd wake up a flash of green and a doctor would explain that they'd have a hard time treating the effect of "banzai!" the blast of ectoplasm but he'd make it through and everything would be alr...

a flash of green pain hurts

Vlad had no idea what it felt like to be dead – if it felt like anything at all. He'd never found a ghost to ask, and those who didn't become ghosts couldn't answer either.

Was...

He tried not to think, to simply feel – a body, something of his that wouldn't be his lone, unexplained consciousness.

He had, maybe, a sense of presence – of being present, occupying a space, having a body that belonged to his consciousness – even if a faint, ever-present and dull pain was the only sensation he could feel from it. He was – unable to do anything, but he was.

dead

He was aware.

A cold, cold dead thought lodged itself inside his mind, and Vlad – Vlad couldn't say it made no sense at all.

Was that what death felt like? Trapped in a body unfit for life – for action, for sensation – but aware, forever? Aware of the pain, of the memories of death banzai!, of time as it went on without you?

He'd been blasted in the face with ectoplasm what made the bodies of ghosts what came from both death and continued consciousness. In the following moments, his whole face had been hurting, and the pain had spread to the rest of his body – until he'd passed out, unable to even breathe.

was he even alive anymore maybe he couldn't move because his corpse was dead unfit for anything except rotting away or

Was that what death felt like?

Was he going to remain aware until his corpse body was destroyed – would he feel it all, the fire of cremation eating green pain hurts at what was left of him?

Would it even end at all?

Were all non-ghost deads powerless consciousnesses tied to the scattered molecules of their remains, alone and empty until the ends of time, forever and ever damned to remain – and nothing more? Was that what he'd become blasted in the face with the afterlife itself, now?

All that because he hadn't expected... "Jack these calculations aren't right" "banzai!" a flash of green pain burns help hurts can't breath

Vlad couldn't close his eyes, he couldn't scream and he couldn't cry – and he thought, maybe he was in the hospital, after all. All Hospitals had a morgue, and that was where you put corpses corpses.


Also, I'll be following a chapters format I'm not used to at all, with chapters of uneven lengths, because I'd have wanted an overly long one-shot but even that would have become over-overly long at the point I've reached.

No idea how often I'll post on this particular story.

Chapter titles will all be taken from the lyrics of "By the rivers dark" and "You want it darker" by Leonard Cohen, single words to longer sentences, with possibly repeating titles.