Author's note: I wasn't going to do a sequel, but then the idea of Plasimus doing a monologue hit me. And then while I was writing this, I got an idea for a third one. Oy. Though in reading this over, it's not a monologue so much as a character study. After the third one, my next foray into the world of Danny Phantom will be an actual fic. Promise.
Charles? Charles? Do wake up, Charles.
Ah, that's better. Yes. As you can see now that your glasses are on, I have your beloved wife in this sphere of Plasmic Energy and with but a thought, she will be wiped out with the ease of stepping on an ant.
Very good. A most intelligent response. But I would expect nothing else from the Chicago Tribune's former top investigative reporter. Five Pulitzers, wasn't it?
Six. My mistake. Now then, my name is Plasimus.
Ah, you've heard of me. From young Daniel Phantom no doubt. You're quite the champion of his nowadays. Column after column for the past six months. Always singing the young champion's praises. Heh heh. Such a fan.
Do forgive me, I stopped off at your office before I came here. Now take this pad and pen --oh, stop shaking, man! Nobody has to die tonight. You and I are going to have a talk. You see, now that Daniel has finally found a voice, I thought it might be best if the public were to hear from me; the villain of the piece, as it were. Except . . . I'm not a villain at all. Rather, I'm simply a man making the best of a disfigurement.
It began in my youth. I was a parapsychology major at Columbia University. Dr. Spengler--
Yes, Egon Spengler. That one. Dr. Spengler had assigned us to independent research projects on paradimensional intrusions. We all formed research teams and it was my utter misfortune to be teamed with a neanderthal named Jack Fenton. An utter brute, more suited to sitting in a bar aping his fellow cave men then the pure science of the lab.
But the third member of our team, Maddie. Oh, Maddie. Bright red hair like the morning sun, and her mind! Her mind, Charles! As vast as my intellect is, it's but a butcher's cleaver compared to the rapier that is hers. It took me very little time to decide that she would be mine.
And again, Charles, you prove your intelligence. Yes. She did spurn my amour. My love. REJECTED LIKE SO MUCH TRASH!
Oops. Dreadfully sorry about the wall. Those little fits of temper. Happens to the best of us.
Incidentally, Mrs. Matinock, my compliments on your roses. Are they Albas? Oh, Damasks. Really? Three times Best of Show at the State Fair? Amazing.
But there I go, I rambling again.
So, like Cyrano before me, I found myself by the wayside. Somehow, that gorilla wooed her heart and it wasn't long before they were rarely seen away from each other. The following semester, they took classes together. Can you believe that? A woman, a goddess like her debasing herself with Fenton like a commoner. It made me sick! ARRRRRRRRRGH!
Oh, my. There I go again and more damage to your wall results. Perhaps you can install a set of french doors and a small porch.
Where was I? Er . . . oh yes. Time marched on. I confess I was a tad obsessed in those days, chewing my own bile as I racked my brains for a way to claim my prize.
And then one night, that oaf, Maddie on his arm, knocks on my door and cheerfully informs me that the two of them are going to the Packards game.
I LOVE THE PACKARDS!
And just to make matters worse, he had box seats. BOX SEATS! Somehow, he'd managed to scam them. To this day, I can't imagine how he did it when I, so much more deserving, had been scheming FOR MONTHS to get them. Even cheap seats would have sufficed. But no, all sold out and yet somehow JACK FENTON MANAGED TO GET TWO BOX SEAT TICKETS!
My apologies. I didn't mean to start yelling. I came here to set the record straight, Charles. Not make myself look some deranged madman.
Me. Mad. Preposterous.
So we chatted for a few more minutes and it was all I could do not to take my bokken and beat Fenton until he was dead and the way was clear for Maddie to be mine. However, I was and am a gentleman, and so I refrained.
As they were leaving, Fenton casually mentioned that he'd completed an experiment for Spengler's project and would I mind checking on it in an hour or so.
I must confess, Charles, that I almost didn't bother. Indeed, I had every intention of letting whatever insane mockery he had constructed sit there until he returned from MY game with MY woman.
But the. Then, Charles, Maddie looked at me and said please, because Fenton had worked hard on it, and she knew I wanted our team to succeed.
I ask you, Charles, how could I say no? So an hour or so, I went down and checked on the experiment. It was a sort of projector, incredibly compact. I have to admit, in the same way an idiot savant can do incredibly complex math but not tie their shoes, Fenton can do wondrous things with machines, but remains an idiot.
And that is what saved my life.
While inspecting the machine, it went off and bathed me in strange energies. All I remember is pain and the feeling of my body being rearranged. Then darkness.
When I awoke, I had been changed. Altered. At first I was horrified, but then, my powers began to manifest and then I realized. Fenton, in his bestial cunning, had deliberately set that machine to go off. He knew I would eventually convince Maddie to see reason and then she would leave his side for mine.
He couldn't handle that, you see. So he tried to kill me to keep her by his side. The irony is delicious, Charles. He'd tried to kill me, but instead . . . oh, Charles, instead of trying to kill me, he'd made me a god.
I left school soon after. What did a god need with an education, right?
Ah, I still laugh when I think of it.
Back home in Wisconsin, I set about seizing my rights. As a god, I was above the laws of men and so I claimed what I wished. Some of it I sold, for I did adore money, some of it I kept. I built a fortune, Charles. The likes of which Wisconsin had never seen. All for me and my beloved Maddie.
But as I finished the house, I received a letter from her. SHE AND FENTON WERE GETTING MARRIED!
Now she was truly out of my reach. I will not lie, Charles, I disappeared. I lay there in my melancholy. What was my fortune without Maddie? What did I have left?
The answer was power. Power, Charles. Fenton had given me the keys to his destruction and I intended to do it. So I trained. I discovered more powers, powers I never knew I had.
I even stayed in touch with Maddie and Fenton. Every Christmas and on my birthday, a card. Fenton actually thought he and I were friends, THE FOOL!
And then, last year, I was ready. Fenton had built a larger version of the machine that had changed me. I still had the plans from his first version. I built my own and began calling forth ghosts to deal with Fenton once and for all.
But when they failed time after time, I realized that I would have to deal with him myself. So I invited them to my mansion.
Fenton had fathered two children on Maddie by then. Children that should have been mine. Oh, it burned me, Charles. I nearly broke down when I saw them. But I kept my composure.
Over dinner, Fenton went on and on about this ghost boy running around Amity Park and all the supernatural incidents. I was surprised, I had assumed that Fenton had somehow lucked his way out of the attacks, but if there was someone else . . . I resolved to attend to it after I had dealt with Jack Fenton once and for all
That night, I assumed my godhood and set out to end Fenton once and for all.
But I was stopped. Stopped by someone just like me. Another result of Jack Fenton's idiocy. A half ghost, half human.
Yes, Charles. Jack Fenton's son is Danny Phantom. The irony is even more delicious then what he had done to me. His own son, the very thing he hunted.
I offered the child my help. To help him be what he was meant to.
He refused me, Charles. Threw my offer back in my face and swore he'd die before he'd let me kill the fool who had sired him.
I was irate. Furious. We fought and I beat him, soundly. But he had the last laugh. The boy may bear his father's name, but he had Maddie's brain. I was outwitted, my friend. I won't bore you with the details, but he outwitted me.
So I let them go, and began to recast my plans. There was no reason I couldn't simply squash young Daniel Phantom . . . except . . . he had outwitted me. I came to realize that I craved a challenge. What was being a god worth if I could not match myself against another?
So I will wait. I've waited almost twenty years to destroy Jack Fenton, a few more years are irrelevant. Soon, Daniel will manifest his full powers, and then I will destroy him and his idiot father.
And then, Charles, and then Maddie will be what she was meant to be . . .
Mine.
Now then, why I don't we saunter down to your office? You can type this all up on that fancy computer of yours. Minus a few details of course. I'll tell you which ones. Come on now.
Just walk down the hall.
It'll be over soon.
