---
There was a mason outside of Amity Park that no one knew much about. In fact if one where to ask around, they would find that most people would say that it didn't exist. That old man who runs the antique shop on the corner might whisper that it was haunted after he had fully checked to make sure the Fentons were no where near by.
It was a day like today that started the rumors. A ghostly racket could be heard all the way to the main road. The little old lady who was walking by walking by it walked a little faster.
What they didn't know was that the mason really was hunted by ghosts, well sort of anyway. The owner of this magnificent place was angry; it was he that was making the racket.
"I told you to make sure those rotten monsters stayed away! Now I have two suspicious pawns." Vlad paced in front of the fire place. From the outside, the mason was covered in vines and looked as if no one had been there in years. The inside on the other hand was far finer than even the president had.
A red a haired elf reclined in a lazy boy chair across the room. "It wasn't my fault. I wasn't on duty. Ember was."
"Well then it was Damn good thing that I had a secondary defense. If we lose Daniel, it is game over for us."
"I am aware." The red head leaned back, "I am a lot older than you, and I have learned a thing or two about how the world works." He closed his eyes.
"You sure do not act like it." Vlad growled out, his eyes blazing red.
"Of coarse not. Life gets to be boring if you do. You'll find out if you live longer than last time."
"I am not alive now!"
"Are you sure about that?"
That stopped Vlad in his tracks. Was he alive or dead? A ghost trying to fit in with humans, like so many of his clients, or a human with all of the powers of a ghost. Just thinking about it gave him a headache. Unable to think of a good comeback or even a decent answer, huffed, "Did you at least finish the equipment I asked you to?"
A smile crossed this relaxed elf's lips. He knew he had won. He would pay for the jib later but it was well worth it. Humans never changed, however, they could most certainly be entertaining. Vlad was one of those few humans he liked. "Yes I did."
"Good. I have a delivery to make. If Daniel gets any more unwanted visits it will be your head. Understand?"
"Yes milord." the elf rolled his eyes under their lids as Vlad left.
---
The castle was huge. Everything looked as if it jumped out of a fairy tale. Dragons flew over head, wagons were pulled by horses, and ladies in silken robes waved at him as he passed. Danny smiled and waved back. He felt confident that he passed they giggled and talked about him. For some reason, he was used to their affections, they were acting like Paulina does around Phantom. But these women were far more beautiful and elegant than the love stuck teen.
He wanted to run off and explore the green land in which he walked, but his legs wouldn't respond to his brain. That was ok though, they were taking him to the castle. A red dragon dropped out of the sky landing like a feather on the ground. He was bearing a rider clad in orange midevil clothes that, when he looked twice, looked like his father.
"Would you like a ride milord?" The man said in his dad's voice with respect.
Instead of asking what his dad meant, he swung up behind him. They launched into the air and soon they were higher than Danny had ever gotten on his own power. The castle suddenly started getting a lot closer. The land beneath them was being tilled at the hands of strong men and oxen.
A blast of fire rushed in front of his eyes and his father was no longer sitting in front of him. Instead of the red dragon he was now sitting on a silver one. The earth below was dry and the fields were on fire. The skies were full of blazing balls of flame.
A scraggly dragon wit holes in its wings flew up to grapple with the dragon below him. A hideous creature straddled upon its, no her back. She was pregnant and underfed. Time slowed down as the creature pulled an arrow out of her side and attempted to stab him with it.
A shrill beeping cut through the air and Danny's hand shot out and his alarm clock was no more. He sat up and blinked at the sun. He groaned, "What time is it? I think it's Saturday."
He was about to lie down and go back to sleep when someone pounded on his door, vibrating into his skull. "Danny, are you awake? I want to show you the new ghost grabber." His dad yelled though the door.
There was no hope of more sleep now. Blearily, he tried to remember why his alarm clock was set as he rolled out of bed. Maybe he forgot to turn it off. "I'm awake now, how about after breakfast."
"Sure thing. Hurry up, V-man is coming over late today."
Ah, now he remembered. When Danny got home last night his parents kindly told him his arch nemesis was coming over today. Apparently he had business in the area and decided to drop by.
'Ha more like he has some evil plan to kill my dad, marry my mom, and somehow make me his son, not necessarily in that order.' he thought as he slid out of bed. "Cheese head should just get a cat." Danny grumbled to himself as he pulled on a clean shirt. "It would be cheaper and have better maintenance."
Danny didn't bother wasting the extra effort to open his door and he walked through it and bumped into Jazz.
"Danny!" His sister glared at him.
"Morning Jazz. I'm planning on having my arch nemesis over for tea and cookies. What are your plans for today?"
Jazz's look softened into concern. "I can take you out to the mall with me."
"No thanks, I need to protect the castle, I mean house. Besides he is probably planning some kind of mischief, and I will be more likely to be graced with his evil plot rant if I'm here."
"Oh, ok, so… When you die, can I have you computer?" Jazz smiled, winking at him.
"No!"
---
The door bell rang. "Danny," Maddie called from the kitchen, "can you get that? I'm working on dinner."
"Sure mom." Danny opened the door a crack. Outside he saw Vlad Masters, just the person he wanted to see.
"Good afternoon Daniel."
"Oh, it's just you." Danny slammed the door in his face.
Vlad twitched. "I suppose I set my self up for that. I should have excepted him to be hostile towards me." With a sigh he rang the doorbell again.
On the other side of the door Maddie called to Danny, "Who was it sweetie?"
"Oh, just a telemarketer." Danny grinned and walked upstairs humming to himself.
Maddie frowned. Jack had scared away all of the telemarketers who had attempted to talk to them. After four hours of him blathering on about ghosts, they stopped bugging them. That was one of the ups of Jack's excitable personality. The door bell rung again.
Wiping her hands off with a towel she walked into the living room. With a flick though the air, said towel fluttered neatly onto the back of the couch as she opened the door.
"Ah, hello my dear Maddie."
Maddie blushed with shame for Danny's behavior. "I apologize for Danny. He doesn't seem to like you much."
"He is a teenager, Maddie. I remember when we were his age. You my dear, are still as beautiful as back then."
Maddie frowned. That odd suspicion crept up her back, the same one that she got around Vlad every time she had seen him in the past fifteen years. She shook her head, "Come in Dinner will be ready in a few hours. We are having rib eye steak."
Vlad smiled, he loved Maddie's cooking, when she wasn't experimenting. He walked in and made himself comfortable on the Fenton's couch. Yes, this would make things much harder for the Twilight Order. They won't be able to cause him trouble without risk of exposure.
He was playing a close game with all of the Fenton's ghost equipment around. 'Ah, well, sometimes in life, risks are required.'
Suddenly he found himself on the floor halfway across the room. "Good to see you V-man.' The infamous Jack Fenton cried from on top of him.
"Good, gasp to grown see you cough too." He felt one of his vertebra shift. Sometimes life required sacrifices too.
---
Dinner was one long staring contest. Vlad attempted to ignite pleasant conversation with Danny by asking about friends, games and grades. Everything he tried was rebuked by a grunt and green eyed glares when Jack and Maddie weren't looking.
After dinner Danny demanding to know why he was there. Vlad had to smile at the boy's ignorance. 'He really expects an explanation.' Maddie was in the kitchen and Jack was hunting something down somewhere upstairs. Jazz was on the coach, pretending to read. He could trust her to keep he moth shut.
"Actually, I'm here to protect you."
"I don't need protection. I,.. wait," Danny turned to look at him in the eyes. "you're keeping me from finding something out. Something big."
"You," Vlad laughed a little, "are not ready to know. You aren't even old enough to drive and are not in college yet. Right now you are just a loose cannon."
"Teasing me is not going to get me to join you." Danny's eyes narrowed.
"I would hope that you are not that stupid. If you were then I would think that hard work was for nothing."
"And what work would that be."
"Daniel, do you really think I'm going to tell you?" Vlad stared down at the boy, giving of the appearance of superiority.
"I thought that bad guys liked to rant out their evil plots."
"See, it is exactly that kind of mind set that prevents me from telling you. However, you should know that…"
"I found it!" Jack's bellow echoed tough out the entire house. He burst into the room. "Look! Our old charter sheets." Jack held up a large stack of papers and books.
As much as Vlad loved the old games, he didn't like the interruption. Unfortunately he needed to keep his cover.
"Why Jack, I did not know you still had those. Do you happen to have Hunters in the Darkness books in that pile?"
"Yes, and I have something better, the new book set. I've been dying to try out the new system but it would be no fun without my best player."
'If I'm going to be stuck in this place I might as well have fun. Take that elf boy.' he made every effort to hide his excitement as he asked, "Furies or blood suckers?"
Jack didn't bother. "I'm going fury. I'll go tell Maddie." Jack bounced into the kitchen.
Vlad stated to follow, but remembered what he was going to say. He looked over his shoulder to the dumbfounded Danny, "The Twilight Order is a group you should stay away from. They are dangerous." That out of the way he walked into the kitchen.
---
"He's down stairs, in my living room!" Danny complained into the computer.
Both Sam and Tucker were on line. "So, what is he doing?" Tucker asked oh so sympathetically.
"I think it's some kind of dice game. Dad called it killers in the dark or something. They keep laughing and it's are scaring me."
"It's Hunters in the Darkness…" Sam said.
"What?"
"It's an RPG."
"Sam I told you they were playing with dice, not video games."
Sam rolled her eyes, "Role playing Games came long before video games. Hunters in the Darkness is a game with mostly werewolves and Vampires. I'm a Goth, I know these things."
Both Tucker and Danny laughed. "Only nerds play those games." Danny choked out.
"I play them too." Both boys stared at their screens. Then Tucker disappeared from view as Danny phased though his Keyboard.
"Are you done yet?" Her reply was only more laughter.
After his fit died down Danny Sat up, "Thanks Sam I needed that. I can't believe you play the same game that my arch nemesis plays."
"I didn't know he played it either. I wonder if he plays as a blood sucker or a furry."
"I didn't stick around long enough to find out."
Tucker rejoined them. "So what did he snicker want?"
"It's what he doesn't want. He doesn't want me to know something, and he doesn't want me near this Twilight Order. Tucker, what do you got on them?"
"I'll have to research it. I'll need a few days."
"I'll check out some books. Are they ghosts?" Sam asked.
"I don't know. My dad interrupted us before I could get anything more than that."
"Do you think that is has anything to do with that ghost from the other day?" Sam asked.
"I don't know. I'll keep you guys posted. See you in the morning."
"Good luck sleeping" Tucker commented.
"Sleep? What's that?"
"Good Night Danny."
---
Bodies burned outside of his window as he sat and watched. He couldn't save them. People, elven, Dwarven, human, littered the battle torn earth. The massive forms of dragons lay amongst the carnage. Those hideous goblin like monsters still twitched, their acid blood burning the ground they laid on. They would be no harvest next year.
His ribs hurt and he was tire in body and at heart. Bandages covered his bear chest, his legs and his arms, many bleeding though, especially one on his thigh.
The door opened and a young servant women stood in the door way. "My lord, you need to eat."
"I'm not hungry," Danny heard himself say. "Besides, the soldiers need it more than I do."
"The injured have already been taken care of. Your father wants you to eat."
"I feel that soon it will not matter. You are dismissed."
"Yes milord."
Danny stood and walked over to the desk against the wall. Books, documents, and quills were scattered across it and the red dye carpet beneath it. He picked up a map that showed how much land they had lost.
"I hear you are not eating." a said voice he recognized.
"We have already lost."
"Your father does not think so."
Danny looked over his shoulder at his visitor. 'Clockwork?' His robes were long and deep purple and he was alive. The only things that made him recognizable were the scar on his face and his time staff.
"What do you think?"
The Clockwork, look a like, frowned, "The future is foggy. I cannot see past its mist. Nothing is yet set in stone."
"In other words, you don't know." Danny laughed, but it was bitter sweet. "What were those things, do you at least know that?"
"They were the bodies of the dead. Wizards' failed attempts to breath the life back into their bodies."
"Zombies then."
"Yes, I suppose you could call them that."
"I didn't know that zombies could have souls."
"They don't."
Danny turned around to face the time keeper. "Then what did I feel?"
"Good morning Danny! Time to get up and embrace the day." Jazz cheerfully cut in over whatever was said next as she pulled Danny's sheets off on him.
"Ghosts are nocturnal Jazz." Danny groaned as he tried to grab his covers back. He was not successful due to his overly perky sister whom happened to be a morning person.
"Then so is Vlad."
It took a few moments for what Jazz was suggesting to sink in though the morning haze. "He's still here?"
"Yep. Seems that they were up all night. They were still playing when I got up."
"What time is it?"
"Ten."
"Where is the cheese head now?"
"In the guest bedroom."
"Cover me, I'm going in." Danny got up. "Hey! What are you doing?"
Jazz looked down at the model rocket in her hand, "Throwing you stuff away. In a few minutes, you won't need it."
"Fine, I'll wait till after I get dressed."
---
Danny wasn't being evil, he was getting revenge. Vlad had played him everywhere else, but invading his home was the last straw. It wasn't a master plan, but it was what he did best.
Being part ghost gave him many advantages like flight, invisibility, and intangibility. There were even a few that he didn't often think about like being able to drop water temperature to almost freezing. The gallon bucket full of water in his hand would do the trick.
Instead of opening the door, Danny phased though. It was like swimming in a cold lake. 'I guess the stress hasn't worn off yet. This will be worth the cold though.'
He float walked over the bed in which the prone billionaire laid. First he checked to make sure that Vlad was really asleep. Then he got ready to run.
In the next moment, two things happened. First Vlad woke up cold and sputtering. Second, Danny dropped the bucket on Vlad's head and ran like hell's hounds were on his heels.
Silence echoed throughout the house before… "Daniel, get back here!" Vlad nearly transformed right then and there. As it was, his eyes reflected with dragon's fire and his hands burned with ectoplasma. The shear volume of energy he gave off made every ghost detector in the building go off.
"Ghost alert. You would have to be a complete and total idiot not to notice the ghost in the building."
The front door slammed shut. His query had already escaped. Now he had to deal with the consequences of losing his temper.
"Where's the ghost?" Jack burst into the room geared up to fight, Fenton bazooka in hand.
Vlad managed to calm himself in time. "I did not see a ghost, but I did the Daniel's back as he ran out."
---
"Still with us I see." Sam commented as Danny ran up. ""What are you running from, a demon?"
"No." Danny panted out. "Close though, Vlad."
Tucker laughed. "So that's what took you so long. What did you do to him?"
"I just woke him up. He didn't have to go ballistic on me."
Sam didn't believe one bit of the innocent act. "How did you wake him up?"
Danny grinned, "Oh, with a little ice water."
"Classic!" Tucker high-fived Danny.
Sam crossed her arms. "Oh real mature. Tucker, you shouldn't encourage him. Danny you know he is going to kill you when he gets his hands on you."
"Yeah, but it was worth it." Danny grinned.
Sam rolled her eyes. There were days when she wanted to let them fend for themselves. Then she would remember the trouble they would get into without her saving their butts. She still thought Danny would be flying around with his dad's face on his chest no matter how much he tried to deny it.
"Seriously though," Danny regathered himself. "What do we got?"
If they were anyone else, it might have been weird. On moment they were joking like normal teenagers would, they next, they were the towns only defense against ghosts. To the adults walking down the street, they still looked normal and acted normal, but if only they knew that children were their silent warriors. Speaking about battle tactics along side sports and the next dance. A video game was all it sounded like to the passerby. It kept them safe, and yet at the same time, it kept them sane.
Tucker smiled. "A really cool new anime to watch called Dot. Hack. Seems that it uses the word twilight in it, a lot."
"I'm with Tucker on this one. I've looked up everything I thought might help and all I got was new reading material. We will keep trying though. Maybe that girl you just met has something to do with it."
Danny nodded, "Oh, I have something else, what do you know about zombies, wizards, and raising the dead?'
"Why?" Sam asked.
"I'm just curious. You know, for incase."
"Danny, is there something you want to tell us?" Concern colored her voice.
He knew there was but, "Nothing."
"Well I'll get you a few books." Sam sighted. She wanted him to just tell her. Was it something Vlad said?
"Thanks Sam." He's going to read? It must be bad.
Tucker suddenly yelled out, "Who's up for bowling at Sam's house!"
"I'm all for that." Danny said.
"Alright, alright you can come over." 'Then again,' Sam thought, 'it can't be that bad.'
"Yes!" Tucker shouted.
---
"The target is outside of the enemy leader's sight."
"Is there anyone with our young prince?"
"Companions 1 and 2 are with the target."
"Where is the guard?"
The blond looked over his shoulder. Behind him was a young musician tied up, her guitar in pieces beside her. "The guard is out of commission."
"Good. Page me if the Ghost king shows up. I'm going to give the prince another visit."
---
They were halfway through their second game and Danny was up. Sam had four spares and a strike while Tucker had a 35. Danny had a 26 and was last one the screen. He took his first step and let the bowling ball drop, his second and third steps as it swung forward in his best swing all night. Then a chill ran down his back.
"Gutter Ball!" laughed Tucker. Now you're never going to catch up."
Ignoring Tucker, Danny straitened up and closed his eyes. There were a few servants in Sam's mansion, her grandma was in her room, and the ghost was on the third floor, near the room Tucker and he had bunked a few weekends ago.
"Danny, your ball came back." said Tucker, trying to get his attention.
"There is a ghost." Danny growled out, irritated that at the other boy for breaking his concentration.
"In my house? Oh no, my parents are going to freak when they find out. And we just got that restraining order off of you."
"You mean if they find out." said Danny.
Tucker joined in, "Yeah if is good."
"You do remember that if can be 18 years later, right?" Sam said as she frowned at their immaturity.
"Yeah, but what will it matter then?" the dark skinned boy asked cheerfully.
"Danny, get the ghost out of my house."
"Yes madam." Danny saluted and transformed. Suddenly he wished he didn't. Everything went that icy prickle numb. He couldn't feel his fingers yet at the same time, all of the energy around him was painful. For a brief moment he thought he was going to die. Voices from far away started to invade his conciseness.
"I told you it was a stupid idea."
"He never listens. He is the prince after all. He knows everything."
"Um, should we go get someone, he isn't moving."
Danny felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Go get his father; he will know what to do. Hurry."
And then he knew no more.
When Danny went down, Tucker panicked. "It's happening again Sam."
"You mean what happened at the mall?"
"Yes, it's getting colder too. The pins are shaking. Um, should we go get someone, he isn't moving."
Sam placed a hand on Danny's shoulder, "No, no that will only make things worst. Go get something hot, hurry."
As Danny slumped into her hand, she could feel her fingers going numb.