A/N: So, this hasn't been updated for a while.

That's kind of crazy.

I would like to thank you all for your continued support on this story! Hopefully the net neutrality thing doesn't affect fanfiction. It would be an absolute shame if I couldn't finish this.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, my dude.

The mansion was usually quiet. That, of course, was exactly what Vlad had wanted to happen – he had expected that the teen would eventually give up. After all, the older halfa had made it virtually impossible for the young halfa to escape from his situation. The only miscalculation was putting the device in his arm instead of the teen's back – he had never postulated that the head-strong boy would be so dead-set on fleeing from him.

Naturally, Danny would submit to him and become his son and apprentice in due time. The teen would accept the role that he was meant to play – whose side he was meant to be by. However, even when the mansion was eerily quiet, Vlad knew better than to suspect that nothing was wrong.

Even when the raven haired teen was quiet, he was scheming.

Knocking on the door to the teen's tower, the older halfa waited a few seconds. Vlad could certainly feel the scathing glare coming from the other side of the door. If the teen was anything, he was definitely predictable.

"…What?" Danny asked in an exhausted voice, signaling whoever it was on the other side of the door to come in – even if the welcoming seemed to be annoyed and the visitor unwanted.

Not thinking twice about the teen's behavior, the older halfa opened the door slowly, walking into the room.

It had changed after the wedding ceremony. The exact replica of the teen's room back in Amity Park had been replaced and upgraded to better fit what Vlad had imagined his son's room appearing like. There were numerous bookshelves along the wall, all filled with business books. The bottom row was aligned with physics and engineering topics, and naturally, to make sure he appeased the teen's hobbies, a small corner appeared to be pamphlets on space.

Vlad hadn't cared about the topic himself – yet found a special dark humor in taunting the teen with the one thing that he would never be able to reach any longer. The dream of him becoming an astronaut was ripped from the seams the moment that the older halfa had taken control of the world.

The future dream that the boy had, his clothes, his room – everything that tied him to being Fenton was erased. To Vlad, this was to ensure that he would accept his position as his son more easily. Not being tied to the past any longer, Danny would be able to move on to more important things.

The teen looked at the man with a glare before throwing the book that he was holding on the table in front of him. Danny was sure to show the man is complete and utter irritation toward his visitor. It seemed that he wasn't even allowed to be alone for more than a few hours at a time. He leaned back in his chair, placing his arm around the back of it while placing his feet on the ground.

Vlad noticed this was a stance that showed that before he had entered the room, the teen was most likely studying diligently. Now, he was giving off a defensive position, ready to dodge in case the older halfa had decided to attack him out of the blue. The man rolled his eyes at this, walking further into the room while shutting the door behind him with his hands behind his back.

He might lose his temper far more quicker than before, but that didn't mean that he would suddenly attack the boy out of nowhere.

Danny eyed him cautiously, the glare never leaving his face.

"Studying?" Vlad asked, glancing down at the thick, hard cover macroeconomics book on the table.

"I was…" The teen answered curtly. His glare lessened as his eyes trailed to the book on the table as well. Despite not wanting to have a conversation with the dictator in his life, he did have a longing question every time he picked up the book. "Why bother studying this when there's not even an economy left to analyze?"

Vlad let out a smirk this time, bringing his arms to the front and folding them across his chest. "It keeps you busy, does it not?" He asked rhetorically, his smirk becoming more snug when the teen glared over at him darkly. "Where's your planning sheet?"

Danny was silent, but his hand that was around the back of his chair tightened nervously at the mention of what Vlad was inquiring about. His eyes glanced over to the camera that had a good coverage of his room – he was sure that when he wrote out his plans of defeating Vlad that the camera hadn't detected it from the angle he was sitting at. He decided to be ignorant of the topic.

"What's that?"

"Don't play dumb, Daniel, it doesn't become you…" Vlad trailed, walking over to the table and beginning to scavenge through the multiple sheets of paper that were under the book. Every once in a while he would look at the teen's face to see any hint of emotion. However, the boy was becoming quite skilled in hiding his fear from the man. Danny held a facial expression that was blank - Vlad was certainly proud that he hadn't buckled under the pressure.

Yet.

After a few moments of not finding it, the man let out a sigh and stood directly in front of the teen in mock disappointment. He tossed the collection of papers that he had accumulated from the search back onto the table in front of him. A few of the papers from the table almost flew off the table completely from the man's slight aggravation of not finding what he was looking for. "It is not wise to bet a losing game against me. Where did you place it?" He stated, although Danny knew it was a threat and a demand.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Vlad stayed silent for a few more seconds. "Will another human worker need to be sacrificed before you answer me honestly? Or perhaps I'll need to track down one of your pathetic, useless friends and use them as leverage against you. Which will it be?" Vlad asked, his tone becoming more hostile by the second. "Unless, of course, you prefer to tell me where you've hid it?"

Danny forced himself to relax.

The teen knew it was a dangerous battle when he was faced against Vlad. Yet, Danny needed to prove to himself that he wasn't completely useless – that somehow he could win against Vlad, even if it were something as simple as a piece of paper with his multiple escape plans on it.

And by multiple – Danny meant the one thing he wrote down.

Escape

That was the one thing on his mind – but he had no ideas on how to do it. Maybe it would have been easier if it were just him, but he had his mother to think about. Then, his dad that was in an undisclosed location. This was bigger than him, and without anyone contributing helpful methods on how to exactly find a reasonable plan to escape – he was stuck exactly where he was.

Danny knew that the man wouldn't find the paper – he had already burnt it with his ghost powers in the blind spot of the camera. He was thankful that Tucker had showed him a few things before the world had went to hell. If Vlad couldn't find the paper then he couldn't kill anyone.

At this point, it was Schrödinger's paper – did it exist, or not?

Still, that didn't make the unease of the threat any different than all the other times that the man had used to get the teen to do or say things. The weight of human life wasn't something that could easily be thrown side to side, much like how Vlad was treating it.

The fact of the matter remained – Vlad could kill anyone and it would affect Danny.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Danny repeated, just to bother the man. Vlad merely let out a mocking sigh of disappointment – as if he had expected better from the teen. Danny didn't know if he did it to mess with him, or to annoy him. It had worked for both cases. Danny was on edge – Vlad was about to either do something drastic, or be dramatic.

The man was a ticking time bomb of unreadable emotions, and the teen didn't know which one he would be dealing with.

"I suppose I'll need to hire an entire new kitchen staff. It appears as though the recent one came down with the flu. All fifteen of them, it would seem…" Vlad trailed, making his way over to the door, not looking back at the teen once. "A shame – most of them have families in the town over. I would hate it if the sickness were to spread."

Danny's eyes went wide with what the older halfa was saying. The man opened the door and took one step out of the room with his normal pace. He wouldn't let the teen have much time to make a decision.

Before Vlad closed the door behind him, the teen stood up abruptly, knowing back the chair behind him. Vlad looked over to notice that Danny had slammed his shaking hands on the table in defeat. Slowly, the man opened the door back up to observe the selfless teenager in front of him.

Vlad held a smirk on his face – the teen was by far - too predictable. However, he hadn't faltered when the older halfa had threatened humanity the first time. At the mentions of families, though, the teen had given into him immediately.

"It's disintegrated on the floor," Danny muttered out, hating that he couldn't win a single victory over the man without outside help. His eyes glared into the table, ashamed of looking anywhere else. Skulker had given him the video of Danielle, but Vlad hadn't found out about it because it came from Skulker. The maid, Naomi, from before was able to help Jazz escape because she just wasn't him.

How do you fight against someone who knows your weaknesses?

Who knows you better than you know yourself?

Vlad walked over to the smudge mark on the floor with a frown. Bending down, he examined the soot as he put his fingers into the black substance and rubbed them together. "You had thought that you'd be able to win a small victory over me, hadn't you?" He asked, standing up to look at the teen, who was more disappointed with himself than anyone else.

Danny clenched his trembling hands together in his own anger.

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you."

The teen closed his eyes tightly before opening them quickly and darting them over to the man before he threatened more lives because of his disobedience.

"I'm impressed that you've taken a calculated risk, Daniel. As a leader, it is pertinent that you make decisions. However, it is rather unfortunate that you are still terrible at math…"

Danny wanted to be a million miles away from Vlad at that instant. To be lectured – admonished – by the man that you hate with every inch of your soul was terrible. It was worse than being electrocuted by the ghost portal twice in a row.

"I had thought that you'd be able to formulate a more tangible plan than writing 'escape' on a piece of paper…" Vlad trailed, letting the small amount of soot collected on his fingers to harmlessly fall to the ground. Danny wasn't surprised at the fact that the man had known exactly what was written on it. Vlad was always seven steps ahead of him. "Am I getting into your head that much? Or could it be that you can't do things without the aid and guidance of your human friends?"

The teen looked away from him in anger. He was seething in rage – but he needed to compose his emotions. He wouldn't let Vlad get to him. It wouldn't do him any good to get into a fight with an overpowered, overconfident older halfa. Especially since he was dealing with Danny Fenton and not Danny Phantom. Not that his ghost half would do him any good in a fight against Plasmius.

"I do appreciate the lack of teen wit coming from you. You are becoming better in that department, I must admit. Has the hero finally fallen? Have you finally accepted your role yet?"

Vlad was taunting the teen to attack him.

The older halfa wasn't disappointed when a well-aimed punch was hurdling towards him. Effortlessly he blocked it with a pink ecto-shield, causing the teen's fist to collide with solid ecto-energy. Danny let out a small hiss, drawing his wrist back and shaking it out quickly.

"I haven't fallen and I haven't accepted whatever creepy role you have in mind for me!" Danny yelled out in fury. He charged up his free hand with ecto-energy and blasted four or five time mercilessly at the man, hoping it would at least cause a bruise or a scratch against him. It created a smoke-screen, and Danny took a few steps back, still having his one good hand raised to be used again if needed.

The younger halfa had failed to see the pink blast emerging from the smoke and pummeling quickly into his mid-section, forcing him to slide backwards a few feet before the ecto-blast disappeared suddenly. The teen fell to his knees, cradling an arm around his body, and keeping mind of his more than likely broken wrist.

Danny let out a few small huffs, dealing with the pain and having the wind knocked out of him. Regaining his composure, he looked around the room to see the smoke finally clearing. Vlad walked patiently towards him, not bothered in the least that the teen had attacked him at all.

"Do you feel better now?" Vlad asked, stopping in front of the injured teen. Danny didn't dignify himself to respond to that question. It was mostly directed as sarcastic and meant to injure his pride. "By the way I see it, Daniel, you have fallen. You have relied on your worthless friends for too many things. They have made you weak – weak to the extent that fighting you is worth a minuscule amount of energy from me."

"My friends will come."

"Will they?" Mocked Vlad, placing his arms across his chest. "They haven't yet. It would make me wonder if they cared about you the same way you care about them. Either it's the lack of not caring or perhaps…"

Danny looked up at the man with a pained expression on his face. "No."

Vlad shrugged emotionlessly. "It could be an option. It is a dangerous place outside of those schools I have built. Have you known your friends to idly sit by while the world as they knew it ended? They could have escaped and ended up on those violent, horrible streets. To put it bluntly they could very well be…"

"Stop!" Danny yelled, shaking his head. He didn't want to hear it. The last thing that he had heard from Sam and Tucker was a few weeks ago when Jazz had escaped. He hadn't heard anything since. Danny wanted to hang onto the belief that they were still alive and planning a way to get to him…There was no way that they could be…

Danny sat where he was, his eyes slowly falling to the ground in front of him. "Please…If you even hold a sliver of care for me…" He trailed, looking up at the older halfa with pleading eyes. "You won't say that."

Vlad bent down in front of the teen with a soft smile on his face. "It's because I care for you that I have to…" He trailed dramatically. The younger halfa quickly stood up and backed away from the man as far as he could. It didn't help when the man could teleport in a blink of an eye.

"Let this be a wakeup call for you, Daniel," the man spoke harshly, snatching a death grip onto the teen's broken wrist. Danny let out a flinch but knew better than to pull away. Pulling would tear the ligaments in his arm, and then he would be in even worse pain than before. "Your friends? Are dead. Your sister? Dead. And your idiotic father in another few days? Also dead. What will you do when everyone that tied you down to your old, worthless life are dead?"

Danny tried his best to narrow his eyes and remain strong.

He was only fourteen, why did he have to deal with this?

"It will only be a matter of time before I have conquered the Ghost Zone as well. Your allies in there will be annihilated by the time I'm done. With no one left, who will you turn to? Who will be the only one that you will be able to confide in and unwillingly trust in this bleak, yet beautiful new world?"

Danny looked away, already knowing the answer. He scrunched up his face in distaste, and the consistent tightening on his already broken wrist was a silent command from Vlad to verbally tell his answer. Looking back over at Vlad the teen knew that he must have looked the most pathetic and broken than any time in his life.

"You…" Danny whispered, his voice wavering from the shakiness of his voice. "I don't want to hear anymore…Please let me go."

Vlad let go of the teen's wrist and took a few steps back.

"I am not sorry for what I did, or what I'm going to do to. We were meant to fight together, to rise above and take our place as rightful rulers of this god forsaken planet," Vlad finished his monologue, turning around and walking away.

"I never wanted that."

Vlad stopped walking and then turned to look at the teen who was cradling his abused wrist. "You never had a choice. From the moment I met you, you never had any say in the matter."

"I wish I had never met you…" Danny sulked, sliding his body against the wall while holding his wrist closer to his chest.

"It's far too late for wishes, little badger…Not even Desiree can stop what's in motion now."

Danny didn't need to look up to know that Vlad had left the room.

Vlad was right about one thing – those books definitely seemed to keep him busy. At least reading what the world used to be like would keep his mind off of more depressing matters; if his friends were still alive or not.

Valerie walked into the conference room with a new hairstyle. Sam and Tucker both let out a startled gasp underneath their breath. The girl's once long and curly hair was replaced with a hair length that went down to her neck. The two teens couldn't help but feel that she was more leaning towards the Valerie that was from the Dark Dan timeline. At the very least, it hadn't come to that option yet, the girl hadn't buzzed off most of her hair.

"The daily report from this morning signifies that the ghost guards are on the move. My sources say that they have been searching for Sam, Tucker, Jazz and myself."

GIW Operative Z placed his elbows on the table with a frown. "You haven't fought any of the guards in this area, have you?"

Valerie shook her head. "Not at all, sir. I wouldn't want to give away our location, or let Plasmius know where we are. Obviously, he wants us to most likely break Danny's mind even further than he already has. Either by death or torture, I would guess."

Tucker subconsciously rubbed his multiple scars that had aligned his body underneath his clothes. He was fully aware of how painful the frootloop's torture was – and how everyone would give in past a certain point. That was only after the older halfa had done a few rounds with his jagged ecto-weapon. Tucker wouldn't wish that fate on his worst enemy, it was far too cruel.

"Are you okay, Tuck?" Sam whispered, leaning in to her best friend's space.

"Fine," Tucker replied emotionlessly with a nod. He placed his hand down in his lap and looked at the head of the table to where Operative Z was sitting. "I wouldn't expect Jazz to be tortured or killed," Tucker announced, drawing the table filled with people to look at the teen. "Vlad has a warped sense of family values – he wouldn't kill Jazz like he would the rest of us."

Operative Z did a small nod. "We need to set up a defense and start taking the city back. I have no doubt in my mind that will cause Plasmius to be known to our position. Still, if we don't start to fight back, then we will never be able to restore the planet and rid it of that monster."

"What about Danny?" Sam asked suddenly.

The man at the head of the table simply looked at the raven haired girl before he let out a small sigh. "That is not our top priority at the moment –

"How can you say that!?" Sam yelled, standing up in anger. "He's the only one who can actually take Plasmius in a fight!" She argued, slamming her hand on the table. "We would just be wasting lives on a pointless battle if we send humans to try and kill him!"

"Enough, Sam!" Tucker yelled, startling the girl beside him. Sam looked at her friend in disbelief that he would give up on Danny so easily. After all the three of them had been through together, and Tucker would just not fight for him? To give up on their best friend?

"I miss him too. But Operative Z is right. We need to gather resources and try to take back the city. If we have a stronghold, then we can gather more people to the cause…" Tucker explained, causing Sam to glare over at him. "I want to get him back and away from Vlad just as much as you do, but we need a stronger military before we can do that."

Sam frowned at him and then looked at everyone in the room with a scathing glare. At their silence, she was beginning to think that she was the only one who wanted to rescue him. "He needs us just as much as we need him. I can't believe you people…" She muttered, sharply turning away from the long table and walking out of the door.

Tears started to trail down her face as she walked down the hallway.

"Sam, wait!" Valerie yelled, running up to Sam with a concerned expression. "We will rescue Danny. I know that Phantom is the only one who had a fighting chance against Plasmius despite what everyone else may think."

"Then why didn't you say anything back there?" Sam snapped, turning her head to look at her. "You should know that although Danny puts on a strong façade, he needs us. Without us…" She trailed, covering herself by folding her arms tightly across her chest. "Without us he'll fall apart."

Valerie placed a hand on Sam's shoulder.

"I know that. Then what do we propose we do? Go out and storm Vlad's mansion in a desperate attempt to recuse him?" Valerie asked rhetorically with a shake of her head. "We can't help Danny if we're dead, Sam. We need to think about this and formulate a plan."

"Any luck on the search for Danielle?" Sam asked, already knowing that any resistance against Plasmius was looking more and more bleak every day.

"No," Valerie responded. "But she's a strong halfa, I know that much. If she's not here in the human world, then she could be safe in the ghost zone. I want to believe that she's still alive and that Plasmius hasn't gotten to her yet."

Sam nodded.

There was a brief period of silence between the two of them.

"I don't want to wait. I can't even imagine the horrible things that Vlad is saying to him, or making him do…" Sam lowered her voice.

"I know…But we will rescue him. We need to gather our military and provide them with weapons. Once we establish a strong point we can charge in."

Sam listened to Valerie speak and noticed how much she had changed since this whole situation had happened. If anything positive came out of this – it was that Valerie no longer thought of Phantom as an enemy.

"How's your dad?"

Valerie let out a small sigh. "Still not happy that I'm out on the front lines, but he'll get used to it. What about your parents? I can't imagine that they want you in any part of the resistance."

"They don't. But like you said, they'll get used to it. They could be in a much worse situation and they know it. Right now, I guess we need to take it day by day and hope for the best."

"Our troops will become stronger. It's only a matter of time before we fight…" Valerie commented, crossing her arms. And alarm went off on the girl's wrist and she let out a frown when examining the watch made out of high tech materials. "I have to go and train the soldiers. We'll talk later, okay Sam?"

Valerie didn't wait for the goth to respond and instead turned on her feet and walked quickly down the hall. Sam stood there and let out a breath to calm her nerves as well as herself.

"Just hold on, Danny."

To be continued…