Vlad Gets a Cat

By JadeRabbyt

A/N: Let's just say that I don't subscribe to the 'dignified' version of Vlad depicted in most stories around here. Let's also say that I don't own Vlad or Danny or yadda yadda yadda... Don't sue!

Vlad Masters, through an unfortunate series of misadventures involving a cabbie, a large angry thug, and an overabundance of available witnesses, found himself ducking into a pet store in New York City to ask for directions. It killed him to do it, of course. Vlad was on his way to a VERY IMPORTANT MEETING, but the streets were packed with homicidal cabbies and it was either the pet store, the liquor store, or Nails R Us, and the liquor store was way too tempting. So Vlad chose the pet store.

He pushed open the glass door to be greeted by the infuriatingly nonchalant tinkle of a bell. At the counter, a pizza-faced kid looked up from a magazine. "Hello, sir! Let me know if I can help you."

"Actually, I just--"

A litter of puppies in a cage at Vlad's elbow started yapping insanely. The teen at the counter shrugged his deafness. After a moment, Vlad managed to unclench his fists long enough to approach the little twerp.

"Do you know the Cray Building?" he asked, sparing an ugly glance at some brightly colored jingle-ball dog toys.

"Oh, you mean the big gray one on sixth and fifth?"

"Sure." To Vlad's knowledge, they were all big and grey, and every street was a mess. "Can you tell me how to get there?"

Pizza-face stifled a laugh. "Not really. The building was condemned and knocked down a couple weeks ago." He laughed at Vlad's wide-eyed stare of horror, having a little amusement at expense of the stupid tourist. Vlad caught the joke after a second and glared daggers at the kid. He hoped this place had a good medical plan.

"Just kidding," the kid chuckled. "You can walk to it from here."

Pizza-face gave him the necessary instructions, which, in spite of his stupidity, seemed clear enough. Still, Vlad added a mental note to come back and destroy him later. No sense in letting this kind of thing go unpunished. As he walked out the door, awakening the little bell once again, he called good-day to the kid and went skulking out into the chill winter air in search of the Cray.

Walking was not fun.

In principle, Vlad was exactly the sort of guy who would love New York. There was a busy, selfish air to the jerks who shoved each other along on the sidewalks. People walked against the traffic light, nearly getting run over by maniacal taxies, and the general populace, save for the sheepish tourists, didn't care one way or the other for each other's well being. Subways, packed to the brim with sweat and fatigue, ran beneath museums and art exhibits where the pretentious upper class might strut its artificial sophistication, while wide-eyed students in the insomniatic city glimpsed hopeless ideals that would inevitably be tempered and compromised by harsh reality.

In the abstract, Vlad loved all that great stuff. He'd taken several vacations in New York and enjoyed them immensely. The problem was that, this time, he was not in a limo cruising around Times Square with a martini and an expensive agenda. He was dragging his feet through muck-slick sidewalks, getting bumped up against by every lowly cretin and pickpocket in the entire infernal city. If not for the one-hundred-percent likelihood of being photographed by a civilian or caught by Jernigan, he would have leaped into the air like a gasping fish into water.

Some little kid and his mother, tourists, most likely, came down the sidewalk amid the general flood of people. Vlad flashed his eyes red and scowled at the urchin, who cried and grabbed his mother's skirt.

Vlad continued on his way, feeling a little better.

XXX

The receptionist at the Cray Building was a young, dark-haired woman named Mary who was sick and tired of rich, pompous jerks and loved to prove it, especially since her father-in-law owned the building. She was trying to make a Cat's Cradle out of a long rubber band when an angry looking moron in a black suit with silver hair and a pear-shaped head stormed through the revolving doors, tracking the street filth onto the newly cleaned carpets. Mary grinned inwardly.

"I'm here for an appointment with Dr. Jernigan," he snapped.

Mary groaned loudly and sat up in her little stool. She blinked leisurely, hardly keeping a triumphant smile off her face as the man growled slightly in his throat. "D'ya have an appoin'ment?" Rich jerks just hated stupid receptionists, Mary happened to know.

"Yes," he hissed. "Yes I do. Can you tell me what floor he's on?"

"Hmm." Mary rolled her eyes up to stare at the ceiling. "Floor?" She dug the directory sheet out from a drawer in her desk and glanced over it, finding the name almost immediately. "I don't see it. Can you spell it for me?"

She could hear his teeth grinding. "J-E-R-N-I-G-A-N. Jernigan."

"Nope, I'm still not seeing… Uh… Oh yeah! Here it is." She smiled a well-practiced 'ah-ha!' "Floor twenty five."

"Thank you," he growled. Mary waited until Mr. Grumpy was safely stowed in the elevator before breaking out in laughter.

XXX

Vlad strode over to the elevators and punched the up button. It being the middle of the afternoon, the elevator—already on the ground floor—dinged immediately and welcomed him happily into its scarlet-carpeted interior. The cool lighting and professional interior gave him some time to collect himself for the meeting. It was New York, after all; hopefully this kind of tardiness happened all the time. Besides, the products provided by his own company were unique. Nobody else came close to D.A.L.V., Inc. in the spectral department, mostly because nobody else had contacts in the Ghost Zone.

And yet, any way he sliced it, this wouldn't look good. Vlad frowned. He would definitely have to go beat up that pet store clerk after this, and that incompetent cabbie, if he could find him.

The elevator opened and let him out into a professional hallway. Vlad wandered up and down the halls for a moment before finding the meeting room. He pushed the door open to see Jernigan, legs crossed leisurely on the conference table.

"You're late," he muttered, looking up sharply from a folder.

"I know. My apologies. This city can be unpleasant if you're unfamiliar with it."

Jernigan laughed. "Indeed it can."

They exchanged some more mandatory small talk. Vlad kept his guard up. This part was where the sharks merely circled. Eye the victim, look for the weak points in their wallets.

After a polite amount of strategic small-talk, Jernigan went in for the first strike. "Where are my products, Mr. Masters."

Vlad didn't miss a beat. "A momentary disruption in our suppliers. That's all. You'll have them next week."

"Your company has had quite a few of these 'disruptions' lately."

Vlad's mouth tightened. "When one works off the grid, certain unplanned accidents are inevitable."

"Well they'd better become less inevitable, or my company is going to find itself another supplier for ectoplasmic controllers."

"Don't kid me," Vlad scoffed. "There are no other suppliers."

Jernigan raised an amused eyebrow. "Then you haven't heard of the Fentons."

Amazement, anger, and shock flew through him at once. Good thing Vlad was familiar with flexible honesty. "You don't want the Fentons. They're strictly research."

"That's not what I've been hearing." Jernigan stood up, adjusting his sport-jacket. "Amity uses their gadgets frequently enough. Get me my products or I'm hiring them."

Just keep smiling, Vlad thought. "You won't be disappointed."

XXX

He grumbled to himself as he left the Cray Building. He couldn't believe this. Here he was, Vlad Plasmius, notorious supervillain, and he was being held accountable to the petty whims of the free market. It just wasn't fair. People were out to get him; that was the problem. If the city wasn't so filthy he wouldn't have been late, and if that adolescent demon spawn of Jack's hadn't thrown him off-schedule, there wouldn't have been a meeting to be late to in the first place.

Vlad shook himself, making a feeble attempt to loosen up in the open, noisy, gas-polluted air of New York. Maybe it would do him some good to wreak some good old-fashioned spectral havoc.

XXX

Pizza-face shouted frantically on the phone. "No, sir, I'm telling you, stuff is just flying all over the place and I don't know what to do! Arrgh!" The kid ducked as a hamster cage flew by his head.

"No!" he shouted after it. "Wallace and Candy, my poor Russian dwarf hamsters!" He winced as the cage hit the wall behind him, the phone snapping irritably at him all the while. Pizza-face sought refuge behind the counter. "No no, sir, I think they're fine, but—gah!" A squawking bird cage clipped his shoulder. "I think the store is haunted! What? … No I'm not an idiot, but I'm telling you—" The teen gasped as the other end clicked silent.

Vlad knew what he was doing was juvenile and petty. But he also knew it was extremely funny to watch a lanky, dopey, zit-faced seventeen-year-old cower behind a cheap store counter. He kept himself invisible and chucked a bag of bird food at the poor slob.

"Aaargh! Hey! Look, I don't know what's happening, but I'm sorry! Geez, I don't know what's going on and…"
Vlad materialized in front of the kid and gave him the full evil-cackle, glowing-eyed, plasma-handed routine. Much better. The kid shrieked.

"No! Please! Here, I'll give you money, or… or anything, just don't hurt me."

"Sorry, kid, but—"

"I have pizza!"

"I— What?" Vlad stopped the act long enough for the kid to explain.

"I just got a pizza… it was going to be my lunch, but you could have a piece."

Pizza-face had pizza? "What kind of pizza?"

The kid looked like he was about to pass out from shock. "Uh… Pepperoni, I think."

Vlad didn't usually get offered free pizza on his little spook trips. He hadn't eaten that particular lower-class food in several months, actually. But then again, he did like pepperoni pizza, and New York pizzas were supposed to be among the best… "Is it good pizza?"

The kid nodded eagerly. "From my favorite place!" He pulled the box from under the counter. "See? It's Uno's original." He opened the lid to let the ghost smell it. Hopefully its meaty, cheesy aroma would prove irresistible and the ghost would take it and leave him alone.

Vlad rubbed his chin. "Hmm…" He pulled off a slice, the mozzarella coming off in strings from the rest of it. It smelled delicious. "Alright." The kid blinked, hardly believing his luck. "I'm still going to have to let all your animals go, just to round things off nicely."

"Wait, what? No!" Pizza-face dropped the carton on the counter and dashed after the animals, which Vlad had released with a flick of his wrist. They bounded everywhere, howling, screeching, bawling… The birds flew all over the place, and the cats and dogs set up an unholy racket. Several began scrapping with one another Vlad smiled and bit into his pizza. Mmmm…. It was good. The sauce tasted home-made, and the crust might stand as a pastry by itself. He heard a soft purr at his elbow, near where the kid—who was still running around in a desperate frenzy—had dropped the pizza box.

A small, calico cat crouched over the box, its pink tongue flicking daintily over the cheese.

"You like pizza, kitty?" Vlad leaned back against the counter, picking off a piece of pepperoni for Kitty's enjoyment. "Me too."

The clerk bounded up, gasping, to the counter and snatched at the kitty. Vlad's eyes widened, but he didn't move to help one organism or the other. He watched the ensuing drama with interest.

The Evil Clerk reaches for Kitty, who is still obliviously licking the succulent grease from the pizza. Kitty feels herself being picked up and immediately understands that she is being separated from her lunch. Kitty shreds Evil Clerk's face. Evil Clerk drops wise-ass Kitty and shrieks, clutching desperately at his eyes.

Kitty resumes licking succulent grease.

Vlad chuckled, letting Kitty settle herself before reaching out to stroke her back. Kitty turned around suspiciously, giving his glove a soft warning nip, but when it was obvious that no more attempts would be made to remove her from her food, she began to purr quiescently.

"How much for this cat?" asked Vlad. He had never liked pets much, but he was getting good vibes from Kitty.

"AAAAAARRGH! My fricken' EYES!" screamed the clerk.

"Hm. Alright. Well, I'll leave forty bucks on the counter for you." Vlad finished off his own slice and tucked Kitty one arm and the pizza box under the other, making sure Kitty could still reach her food.

He phased out of sight and passed into the street, leaving that repulsive teenager to deal with the unholy mess. Vlad would fly home. It would be extra work for him, but it was well worth it to avoid the seething mass of humanity below. And he wasn't planning on sticking Kitty in a luggage compartment. Vlad checked his watch. He should be fine. Might even be able to catch a poker tournament on the television.

"Do you like poker, Kitty?"

Kitty resettled herself in his arms, turning away from the cold wind blowing past them, bundling up to the pizza and purring contentedly in the warmth of Vlad's body heat.

All things considered, Vlad decided that his horrible day in that horrible, grungy city hadn't turned out to be quite so bad after all.