Hello! Happy Friday, everyone. I got a couple of questions about when I update this fic. For the foreseeable future, I'm going to update once a week, on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Most often Friday. Hopefully, when I'm less distracted by other stuff (for example, real life and the phic phight), the rate will pick up again. This fic is not, and will not be abandoned. It's just going a little slowly.
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Chapter 129:
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Smith climbed out of the purifying bath, donned his clothing, and walked out into his forge. The sharp but cloying scent of smoke and hot metal floated on the air, drowning out the subtler odor of hot ectoplasm.
On a pedestal in the center of the room rested the mold, the Ring of Rage, and the sample of Phantom's ectoplasm. Smith paused to regard the first two. It had been so long. So long since he had seen these two prime exemplars of his handiwork. So long since he had been called upon to ply his trade at this level, with these tools and materials.
Few would have been able to tell, but he was excited. Terribly so.
He took a tiny silver spoon, purified, of course, from the table and dipped it into the bowl containing Phantom's green-blue ectoplasm. He removed a minuscule spoonful, that was all that was needed at the moment, moved it to hover over the mold with rock-steady hands, and then inverted it, letting the luminous substance drip onto the mold.
The mold's surface rippled, and absorbed the glowing drop. The patterns on the surface slowly began to change. It would take some time before it had thoroughly processed Phantom's ectoplasm, before it had completely assumed its new configuration, with its new instructions writ upon its surface.
In the meantime... He flicked his fingers, summoning a crucible from across the room. He put the Ring of Rage into the crucible, lip curling slightly. He had been so young when he had made it. Still incomprehensibly ancient, but so young. So easily impressed by Pariah Dark's majesty. The Ring of Rage looked crude now, much like Pariah Dark himself, the skull motif overdone and obvious, the color, garish. He would do better this time, he told himself, even if the mold would do most of the work.
Phantom, he had observed, had a tendency towards the understated... Understated from a ghostly perspective, in any case. The Ring of Rage was a bright, neon green. That, too, was an understated color from a ghostly perspective. It blended right into the typical background color of the Infinite Realms. But it was understated in the wrong direction.
After a moment of thought, Smith added a small, finger-sized, bar of white electrum to the crucible. Some metal was always lost to heat and other processes, not to mention the channels of the mold. The metal was less important than the power it contained, and that power had to be respected, had to be managed carefully.
Later, once the mold had finished in its analysis, he would add other items, other reagents. He would be very surprised to not add mithril, uumechifi, and other, even more fantastic, more rare, materials by the end.
Yes, this would be fun.
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"Okay, so does anyone else think that it's weird that both of those two think that Mayor Masters is their Dad?" asked Sarah.
"I don't know," said Hannah, shrugging. "Who cares?"
"Uh, you do? Because it might be a clue to figure out their secret?"
Hannah gave Sarah a strange sort of half smile. "No..? It doesn't really matter to me what secrets they have, as long as we get home?"
"Who are you and what have you done with my friend?"
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"Who are you and what have you done with my friend?" asked Star.
Paulina raised an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure we're not friends, Star, so..." She ran a hand through her hair, and made a face. She might not care as much about appearances as some people she could name, but she really wanted a shower.
"Since when?"
"Uh, since forever? And since when do you wear glasses?"
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"So, why are you guys here?" asked Nathan.
"What do you mean?" asked Ricky.
"We moved out of Amity Park ages ago," explained Lester. "We're only here because Phantom dropped through our living room in Dimsdale, and then the Guys in White zapped him with a weird gun thing. He'd been on the run from them for a while."
"Except," Nathan, "that can't be what really happened, because you're here."
Ricky and Mikey exchanged glances. Had the twins become smarter, too?
"Fentons with an experimental gun thing at a safety assembly," said Mikey.
"'Safety,' huh?"
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Daniel stirred. He didn't want to wake up, exactly, he was more comfortable here, on the couch, than he had been since he'd broken his ankle, but something had roused him, and he wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep until he figured out what it was. He eased his eyes open against the light, his other senses slowly coming back online.
He felt his heart jump as he realized that he was completely covered in ghosts. Buried might have been a better descriptor. He was something like two or three ghosts deep, as far as the wisps went, and Danielle, his probably-sister, had somehow migrated to his other side. Her face was tucked into the bend of his neck, and her spectral tail was wrapped securely around his good leg. The ghost dog, Cujo, seemed to still be by his hip, under his hand. Purring happily. It was strange to think of a dog purring, even though the phenomenon was common, ubiquitous, really, among ghosts.
All of the ghosts were purring.
The ghosts must have sensed his discomfort, because they, all of them, nuzzled closer to Daniel, and made soft, melodious sounds. He pushed himself desperately into the cushions of the couch, and cast about for Vlad.
The humans, and a number of ghosts, were draped over the various bits of furniture in the room. He didn't see Vlad. Maybe he was behind the couch somewhere? Yes, now that he focused, he could hear Vlad's voice from somewhere behind him.
He swallowed. "Dad?" he called, softly.
Vlad stopped talking, another voice, one Daniel hadn't really registered, trailed into silence. There came the sound of footsteps, closer and closer, and Vlad came into view. His suit looked like it had been newly-pressed, and the rest of him looked similarly immaculate. Daniel relaxed incrementally. Vlad was always like that, even when they had been traveling for days. Daniel didn't know how he did it, but it was comforting.
"Help," he squeaked. He blushed. He hadn't meant to get so high-pitched.
"You've made yourself some friends, I see," he said, corners of his mouth turned up, one eyebrow raised.
"Dad..."
"You'll be fine," said Vlad. "Wisps aren't known for being violent, and you need to stay still." His smile faded. "Daniel, there's something we should talk about, as long as everyone else is asleep."
Any residual sleepiness Daniel had was banished. The throb in his ankle became more urgent. "What?"
Vlad licked his lips, hesitant. That was unlike him. He was never hesitant.
"Dad? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Daniel, are you a hybrid?"
Daniel tilted his head. "You mean half-ghost?" he asked, voice as low as he could make it. "Yes. Um. I am not in, um, your universe?" He hated himself for the 'ums.' He half-expected Vlad to scold him for it. Vlad always impressed on him the need for proper diction. Not to mention the inaccuracy of the term 'your universe.'
Instead, all Vlad said was, "No. You aren't."
"Is that a bad thing?" asked Daniel. He himself wasn't sure how he felt about that. It could be difficult, sometimes, being what he was, but it was what he was, and it was a connection to his father. It could be fun, sometimes, too.
"... No," said Vlad, after a pause. "I just need some time to adjust to the idea. Or perhaps not. Things will go back to normal once we leave."
Vlad didn't sound too sure of that.
"Dad?" asked Daniel. "What are we going to do?"
"I don't know. I'm still trying to... understand the situation we find ourselves in." He grimaced, an unfamiliar expression. "I came here alone," he continued, "without being waylaid by any battle. Any significant battle, in any case." He sighed, and rubbed his nose.
Daniel was becoming increasingly unnerved by how much weakness Vlad was showing. He never acted like this. Never. Not even when they had been in the Bends before.
"Daniel, do you happen to know anyone named Jack or Madeline Fenton?"
Daniel blinked slowly. The names sounded familiar. "Aren't those the people you don't like? From when you were in college?"
Vlad's eyebrows went up. "Explain."
"They're the people who cause the lab accident that gave you ecto-acne," said Daniel, with a little more confidence. "I don't really know anything else about them. You don't like talking about it. I only know about them because you had that recurrence a couple years ago." He would have shrugged, but, well. He was still covered in ghosts.
Vlad had gone very still. "I see," he said, finally, face and voice both carefully blank.
"Dad?"
Vlad shook his head, and patted Daniel on the cheek. "Go back to sleep, Daniel."
"Like this?" said Daniel, aggrieved.
Vlad's smile was anemic, but present and genuine. "Why not, little badger? With all the energy will-o-the-wisps put off, they'll help you heal."
"I'm buried here," said Daniel.
"Go to sleep," said Vlad, more forcefully. "Please. You need the rest, and I need to figure out what's going on with all of... this, so we can make a plan."
Daniel exhaled slowly. "Fine."
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Daniel didn't know how much what he'd said about Jack and Maddie affected Vlad. He couldn't have.
Vlad was on the edge of a breakdown.
What could possibly have happened in Daniel's timeline, to make him think that he was Vlad's son while Jack and Maddie were still alive and estranged from Vlad? What choices had been changed, to cause such a large ripple, such a large difference between his timeline and Vlad's? When had those choices occurred? And which had more resemblance to the true timeline?
Most importantly: What had Vlad done? He couldn't countenance a universe where he was a kidnapper, but that's what Daniel's timeline looked like. And how old would Daniel have been? Young enough for him not to remember Vlad at all. An infant, or near to it. Vlad had kidnapped an infant. And why? Why in the world would he do that? He might not be the richest man in the world, but he was wealthy enough that he could adopt without any trouble.
Revenge? Against Jack and Maddie?
No. Ridiculous. Except... He could be somewhat vindictive, on occasion. Not to Jack and Maddie, though! Except on April Fool's Day, then, well...
But that didn't hold a candle to stealing a baby!
Stealing a baby... And turning that baby into a half-ghost, a liminal spirit.
Bile rose in his throat. Vlad's counterpart was a monster. There was no doubt.
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Valerie didn't know what a 'hybrid,' or a 'half-ghost' was. She barely knew Danny Fenton, and she hadn't ever had a significant interaction with Vlad Masters before walking into the Tower. She did, however, remember previous floors, ones where she had a suit like a superhero, and could summon guns to her hands with a thought, and she still nursed a grudge against the ghosts who had destroyed her life.
Between those ghosts, and the cruelty of the average high schooler, Valerie had learned to listen, to lie in wait, to plan.
She would file away this piece of information.
