Long ago, Maddie had told her son that Hope was one of the three most important things in the world, the others being Faith and Love. It was said that Love was the greatest, but greatest and most important aren't always the same thing. After all, if there is nothing to hope for, then how can one have faith? And how can one love if one is hopeless? She had gone on to tell of a fairy tale that Danny no longer remembered clearly. It was said that a tiny amount of hope could arouse hope in others. And with that hope, a tiny boy had defeated the most evil ghost ever. True, it was just a fairly tell, but Danny remembered its message well.

A small Spark of Hope grew to a burning Ember. And that Ember became a Flare. And the Flare gave the boy and amazing power that he could use to conquer the evil ghost.

Ironic that, though just an imaginary construct his mother had used to demonstrate important concepts to his young mind, this fairly tale was coming true in his life.But it would take a lot more than a spark of Hope to defeat him. It would take more than an Ember. It would take more than a Flare. But could Danny generate that kind of hope by himself? He'd have to. Because unlike Sizzle, Vlad was an enemy his rage alone couldn't over come. He'd need the hope of others to support him. Just like in the fairy tell.

After all, there was no ghost more evil than Vlad Plasmius.

Master's Castle, Wisconsin, April 5, 2015, 3:23 AM

The sky was dark above Vlad's compound. He had always called it Master's castle. But to the rest of the world it was just The Palace. Everybody knew what it meant; with Las Vegas destroyed it couldn't mean the casino and/or hotel by the same name, if indeed there was one, as Vlad assumed there was. So it was just the Palace. A symbol of the corruption of Emperess Valerie.

He laughed. People tend to do that over nothing at all when they've gone insane. All the people still thought some super-powered young African woman was responsible for the ghost invasion. They believed it was indeed Valerie Gray. It was Vlad's ingenious plot of course. He would eventually 'defeat' Valerie and become the ruler of this empire and both name and deed. And with the fame he'd recieve for defeating the scourge Valerie represented, he'd own all of America... And then, he could hunt down the two things that his wealth, his power, and his evil had still as of yet been unable to grant him.

Daniel and Maddie Fenton. What had happened to them? He'd heard that Maddie was the leader of a small band of ghosts fighters on the rim of his territory. But she'd eventually cave. He was going to save the world soon, after all...

But Dany.. He didn't know where Danny was. Or when he was. A scout he'd sent had reported that he had gotten into a flying car with a strange man ten years ago, and that the car had exploded shortly after take off. But there was no wreckage. And not nearly enough energy had been produced for the whole car to have been converted to energy in the explosion. It was as if the car had defied the laws of physics. This had puzzled Vlad for years...

But recently, he'd found the answer. Or rather, the answer had stumbled upon him. If Daniel ever returned, Vlad had always expected it to be to Amity Park. So he had monitered that town closely for years and it had finally payed off. A time macine. Made out of a car. Very interesting indeed. Vlad surveyed the sleek paintless exterior of the DeLorean. It had been just over 10 years since it's designers, John and Emmet, had died. Soon, Vlad thought, they will join my army. And if Daniel were to ever return, then Vlad would destroy him utterly as well.

Maddie writhed in his arms. Of course, it wasn't the real Maddie, but a ghost he'd overshadowed into dressing like Maddie and acting the part of his concubine. She was really a worthless ghost, but hidden under that blue hazmat suit, she looked the part, save for the pale transparent skin and green hair. Vlad could always pretend. If for no other reason than to keep what sanity he had left. He held up a ghost charm familiar to the audience. It is a repaired version of the one Jinx used in the flashback! How did Vlad get it? And repair it? The answers to those questions are lost in time.

Present Tense. Why? I just think it works better with this scene.

"No, no, dear," Vlad calms the ghost. Her head falls back, and then she looks forward. She's not wearing Maddie's traditional Ectoplasm detecting goggles, so we can see her eyes. The eyes glow red at the same time as Vlad's charm, indicating she is being put back under his control. Vlad smiles his trademark Wicked Grin (TM)...

"Of course, Lord Plasmius." The voice may be familiar, but perhaps not. It sounds far too drugged to recognize. But of course, it isn't drugs affecting her.

End Present Tense. Yeah, that was short.

In the hands of a young sorceress like Jinx of the Troika, a trio of criminals who operated out of Jump City, the amulet would only charm those under extreme duress, much in the same way the Amulet of Aragon worked. But in the hands of A halfa, it would do more. And with Danny gone, Vlad was not just any halfa. He was something more...

In Vlad's hands the amulet can charm armies. He didn't know where it came from, but he had thanked Jinx personally by making her second in command to his amry. Only Fox Rommel was above her. He'd siphoned the battle strategies of a hundred loyal ex-soldiers that had been honorably discharged with a bullet. They were his too now, but without their strategies, they were mindless brutes. Perfect soldiers though. Vlad understood that with the charm he was unstoppable. He could control the very essence of ectoplasm. And if Jack's son ever did show up, he would perish easily. In away, the amulet was almost better than the power that Danny Phantom had stolen from him.

(Writer's Note: Just in case you're confused, this happened in Danny's Inferno. I would tell you to go read it now, but since it would probably make you like my story less, I insist that you finish Time Phantom first. If you really want to know, though, the URL is in Chapter 4, or just search for Legend (underscore) Maker)

Vlad returned to his throne room and chuckled. All this time and he'd never encountered Jack's ghost. Perhaps Jack had wised up and stayed away. After all, coming close enough to fight Vlad would only mean falling under his control. But the most amusing part of it all was that it was ultimately Jack's fault. After all, it was he who forgot to carry that 2...

A forested area, somewhere in Colorado

Danny followed Dora, as she led the way through the trees. Danny had been here before. This was the same area that Vlad's cabin had been in when he'd tried to divert Danny and his mother in order to kill Jack. That plan had failed because Jack had been prepared. But he couldn't have prepared himself for an imposion device buried five inches under the ground prior to the fair. He couldn't have anticipated having his world cave in around him, and his body going with it... Best not to think about what monsters do, lest I become one. Danny didn't know where the wording had come from. It sounded like something Noel would say, he thought. The guy had an extreme quote fetish at times.

The woods around them were over grown, as they had been ten years prior. But now they were even less traveled to to half the population evacuating and a third of those who remained dying. Dora didn't talk much. Danny asked her things, though; she mostly ignored them or told him his mom would explain everything.

Marty was carried on her hovering platform. It wasn't rocket-powered like Valerie's had been, but rather used something more like the magnetic repulsors on Marty's future car. Every now and then they seemed to reach and impasse, when four huge mechanical limbs extened from Dora's backpack and lifted her up. Eventually, they ran into a clearing, where the grass and tree's were a little shorter. And Danny saw Vlad's hunting cabin in the distance.

"Full circle," he whispered to himself.

The three (Four? Danny didn't know if the computerized backpack was sentient or not) made their way to a hill above Vlad's cabin with a smaller clearing. There Dora stopped.

"Backpack," Dora said. "I need a map."

"Can do," a childlike voice came from the machine. It was far from cheerful though. Three prongs jutted out suddenly from the sides and top of the backpace, over Dora's head and to her sides. They worked together to project a threedimensional hologram of the immediate area. An arrow showed them which way they were facing, and a flashing dot pinpointed their destination.

"We're about three miles away now," she told Danny. "You think you can make it or should we rest at that cabin back there? We've stocked it with supplies incase of an emergency. For some reason, though your mother refuses to go in it."

"I don't blame her," Danny said. Still, he'd made his best retort ever in that cabin. But that small bit of nostolgia couldn't make him forget who Vlad ultimately was. His arch enemy. "We should keep going."

Maddie, I feel personally repsonisble for the way Jack acted at our college reuinion... Vlad's face didn't even hint that his words were dishonesty incarnate. If the devil was the father of all lies, then Vlad must have been his first born.

Danny had been miffed by that. But he knew what to say to make Vlad seeth a bit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't dad possessed by some filthy. Putrid. Lonely. Single. Ghost.

Vlad had been so furious he shot danny with an ecto-beam, but he betrayed none of it to Danny's mother...

It was about an hour and a half later when they'd arrived. Danny had cut some of the time off by allowing them to fly through a sheer wall with his intangibility. But keeping both humans and the gear intangible, as well as himself, left him a bit drained. Marty still hadn't awoken from the concussion he'd received in Ghost Slade's attack. Danny didn't know it, but Marty was pretty used to that sort of thing.

The area was like a cemetary. Fitting, Danny thought, for a ghost-hunting operation. Nothing stood out as the headquarters of a paramilitary group, though. But Dora led the group to a grave. Nothing about the grave seemed special. Except the name on the headstone.

Hailey Ann Roxx

That was strange for two reasons. First of all, Hailey, also known as Sizzle the fire demon, didn't have a grave. She had been killed atop Titans Tower and her body had been destroyed when the self-proclaimed god, Lord of the Night had leveled the tower in Jump City. And that had been more than two years ago.

The second reason was that there were only about four people on earth who knew the name, Samantha Manson, Tucker Foley, and Noel Collins, the Teen Titan known as Savior. Perhaps the one with the pretentious name had told the rest of the Titans at some point, but that didn't change the fact that the grave was strange. As far as Danny knew, Roxx wasn't a very common surname.

Dora walked over to the grave and touched the H, then several other letters and designs around the side that looked like letters, until she had spelled out "Hail Sizzle"..

Danny cringed at that, but saw the security benefits it could provide. A whole area about 20 square feet around the grave slid downwards, going under on what seemed to be a hydraulic lift. When they got to the bottom, Dora stepped off and walked down a long corridor and through a familiar green barrier that made him stop in his tracks. He pushed Marty through, and upon not noticing Danny's absense Dora stuck her head back through.

"You coming on?"

"I can't. This thing.. It's the Fenton Ghost Catcher."

"Yeah. It keeps the ghosts out. But you're not in ghost form right now."

"It doesn't matter. It will seperate me from my ghost form if I walk through it."

"And you chose this life anyway?" Dora looked surprised. "You have more cajones than myself, then."

That struck Danny even has he turned off the catcher and let Danny in. He had chosen to keep going. At the time, he'd been more concerned with Tucker and catching Desiree than anything, and hadn't even considered giving up his powers. There were a lot of times you could have given up and didtn't, Danny. A voice in his head reminded him. Oddly, it sounded like Raven. And Noel. And Cyborg. And Starfire. All of them. Danny agreed though. He'd guessed there was no turning back now for a long time now. Perhaps ever since he'd caught the Lunch Lady. And definietly since Vlad discovered his identity. That was the sacrifice a superhero had to make, though. Was it really worth it? He wasn't exactly sure yet. Noel had warned him of this, though. It was a hard life, and Noel was bitter and cynical living proof of it...

The whole time he'd been pondering these things, he'd been following Dora as well. She stopped outside a metal door that just said Maddie on it. So this was it. He'd finally meet this terrible future version of his mom. He didn't know that he'd like what he'd see, but he had to know what was going on in this crazy underground base.

"Well, Danny." Dora said. "My cousin Paulina will take care of your friend. I can only show you the door. You have to open it," she said, stepping out of Danny's path to the door.

"Isn't a little post-apocolyptic to be quoting movies so lightly?" Danny asked.

"I'm not quoting a movie. I've never even seen a movie. I just mean I can't open the door! It only responds to Fenton DNA," she said, pointing to a small thumb panel to the side of the door.

"Oh," Danny chuckled, embarrassed. "I knew that." He pressed his thumb onto the door, and entered. The room was fairly baren, just a few cots on the walls, and a chair at the other end of the room. Containing a female figure in a blue hazmat suit.

"Mom?" Danny asked... The chair spun around, and the figure in it looked up from her tea.

"Danny." She smiled. There was something profound in her eyes. Something that hadn't been there in a long time.

It was hope.