In Casper High, the testing room, Lancer was now sitting at the desk at the front of the room, and Disguised Dark Danny was still copying answers from the answer sheet to his test. He looked up at the door and saw Khione frowning at him through the glass. He looked around quickly, then a transparent copy of his adult self peels off and dove into the floor as he scowled back at her. Out in the hall, the copy slipped up behind her and zapped her as she pulled the Fenton Peeler. She screamed then collapsed, unconscious, back in Kurai's form, to the floor. He dragged her offscreen by the ankles.

xxx

Back in the Ghost Zone...

"Well, that's Vlad for ya." Danny was looking at a gigantic purple football. "Subtle as a flying mallet." He pushed the football aside to reveal a swirling portal. He jumped through into a dim cave packed with equipment.

"Come to kick a defenseless old man while he's down?" Old Human Vlad, with a beard, was sitting in the ruins of his mansion, having given up on protecting Amity Park.

"Defenseless? Old?" Danny said.

Danny approached Vlad's large, V-emblazoned chair from behind; he was sitting at a bank of consoles, chemistry glassware to the side. Vlad spun about abruptly. He was still wearing a suit, but it was torn and stained and he was barefoot. His hair and beard had grown long and there were dark rings under his eyes.

"Man. What happened to you?" Danny said.

"I could ask you the very same question, my boy. Although perhaps—" Vlad stood with the aid of a cane. "I should ask what "hasn't" happened to you. Yet."

"If it's any consolation, they went so quickly. They felt no pain." Vlad said.

xxx

As Vlad spoke a newspaper spun out of the darkness, the Amity Park Angle. The headline story read NASTY ACCIDENTS FOR FENTONS AND FRIENDS, with a picture of the crater where the Nasty Burger once stood. The other frontpage stories read THE SOLE SURVIVOR, over a picture of Danny, and "Fentons and Friends", with a photo of all the Fentons with Tucker.

"Unfortunately the same could not be said of you, Daniel."

In the past, A car pulled up in front of Vlad's mansion.

"With nowhere else to go, you came to me-"

Danny stood sadly in the driveway with his luggage.

"-the only person on the planet who could possibly hope to understand your situation."

Vlad put a hand on Danny's shoulder and smiled, but after glancing at him Danny just looked dully down at the photo of the Fentons and his friends in front of the FentonWorks.

"All you wanted was to make the hurt go away."

Vlad's face saddened.

Vlad was wearing a medical apron and facemask, and Danny was unconscious in a large machine, hooked up to a breathing apparatus and a beeping heart monitor.

"I honored your wishes."

Vlad, wearing the Ghost Gauntlets, raised both hands and the Gauntlets glowed purple.

"No more painful human emotions to drag you down."

Razor claws sprang out of the Gauntlets. He stuck both Gauntlets into Danny's torso, closing his eyes and turning his face away, sweating with effort. Finally he pulled out a smoking, transparent form of Danny Phantom, and stared up at it, wide-eyed. Phantom's eyes went wide and he ripped the Gauntlets out, leaving green gashes in his chest and throwing Vlad into the wall, the Gauntlets falling off. He looked up to see a furious Phantom with both fists glowing.

"Sadly, that freed you up to rip the ghost out of me."

Grinning maniacally, Phantom donned the Gauntlets, picked up Vlad by the shirt, and ripped his ghost and human halves apart, flinging the respective sides into opposite walls. Dropping the Gauntlets and going intangible, Phantom flew into Plasmius, who opened blazing green eyes and crackled with energy, then took Phantom's form.

"And when my evil ghost half mixed with yours, and my evil side overwhelmed you..."

Phantom's eyes opened, glowing solid green. He screamed as his face began to crack, skin turning light blue and white hair blazing into fire. Rings of energy rippled out around him. Below, Vlad cowered in terror.

Xxx

"What happened to my human self?" Danny asked.

Vlad closed his eyes and turned away, putting up a staying hand.

"Some things, my boy, are better left unsaid." Vlad said.

"How did Kurai get involved?" Danny asked.

"Your Evil Self made his way to her immediately after transforming." Vlad said. "He proposed to her, wanted to make her his Evil Queen. Khione refused him. He took out the rejection on the world, every day destroying something she loved, and then coming back to propose to her all over again."

"Poor Kurai." Danny said. "I really messed up her life."

"If any good came out of this, it's that ten years without ghost powers—" He picked up a photo of himself with Jack and Maddie in college. "—have given me a chance to see what a fool I'd been."

"Maybe that's all anybody needs...a second chance. You still have those Ghost Gauntlets?" Danny said.

Vlad's eyes went wide.

Xxx

Disguised Dark Danny slapped his C.A.T. answer sheet down on Lancer's desk, smirking challengingly.

"Finished already, Mr. Fenton?" Lancer said flatly.

Dark Danny leaned on the desk. "Is that a "problem"?"

"How should I know? I don't have all the answers." They faced off over the desk. "Do you?"

Smirking, Disguised Dark Danny stepped away, tossing one last challenging glance over his shoulder at the door. Sighing, Lancer reached for his cell phone and dialed for FentonWorks. It rang once.

Lancer spoke on the phone. "Mrs. Fenton? It's Mr. Lancer. Could you meet me at the Nasty Burger at say, 5 o'clock?" He looked out the window and saw Danny walking across the school lawn. "And bring Danny."

Xxx

"So you're saying there's a medallion lodged within you, keeping you rooted in this time period?" Vlad pulled on the Gauntlets.

"Yes. And I can't reach it. But I'm guessing if you could reach into me and rip out my humanity - which, by the way, sounds totally gross - you can get the medallion out too!Then I'll pop back to my present like Tucker and Kurai did." Danny said.

Vlad raised the gauntlets. "Or I could just destroy you now and prevent this future. Didn't think of that, did you?"

He hauled back and brought the claws down. Danny screamed and see green light blazed out of Vlad's Lair.