Chapter 8 – Plasmius
On an Earth rotating in the ending days of spring, on an undisclosed mountaintop in North America, an enormous castle reflected lightning strikes in the night sky. The thunderstorm gigawatts frightened the wildlife, and the servants of the castle, but to the lord and owner of the castle, it was the petty background of an insignificant corner of the universe.
This mountaintop was as close to his previous estate in Wisconsin that he could find. He had to move when the mindless hordes of curiosity seekers and deluded wannabes descended upon his previous abode, after reporter Harriet Chin had made her ill fated report on his reunion party, then eventually the uh, little accident which just happened to totally destroy it to atoms.
Here, he would be insulated from those idiots. He could concentrate on trying to achieve the greatest concentration of his skill and power ever: to achieve the Breakthrough.
He knew from his research that there was a higher dimension that might be reached, if he could more finely tune his ghost phasing. But it was always out of reach. He had modified the spectral energy neutralizer to provide a window into this higher dimension, but he himself could not yet enter it. His Spectral Energy Monitor, or SE-Monitor as he now called it, was always on, collecting data like a microscope, for his future Breakthrough attempts.
Gazing now into his SE-Monitor with red eyes and a furrowed brow, he had watched the White Mountain with an exploitive desire: there was nothing else in this dimension but the Mountain, it must be significant. He could sense great power emanating from it. Great Power. The Power over Life and Death. This was the power that would help him remove the one wildcard that stood between him and his remaining conquest, Maddie Fenton: that wildcard was none other than Danny Phantom.
Such great power would help him to destroy Danny Phantom, and thus obtain Maddie, and though she would undoubtedly be sorrowed from the loss of her insolent son, she would never know the Earth bound alter ego, Vlad, was a half-ghost, and thus woo her.
Eliminating that clueless husband of hers, Jack, would be child's play. No wonder, that Danny had no idea years ago that his miniscule female friend was infatuated with him; clueless-ness was obviously hereditary. He chuckled at the thought, and then thought back to Maddie again. Ahhh, a voluptuous figure, lovelier than a sculptured Roman love goddess, quick intelligence and vitality, that provocative red hair, those hypnotic lavender eyes. A suitable consort for the future Ruler of the Universe! He made plans within plans…
