Chapter Eight - Truth

Vlad stormed up the stairs and found Maddie in the kitchen as she made dinner for the family and their guests, he went up to her and spun her around. His eyes gleaming with anger. The lady hunter trembled under his heated and scruntinizing viciousness.

"It. Was. You. " He snarled in her face.

"W-what are you talking about, Vlad ?" She asked back with defiance and hesitation.

"You. Shot Jasmine... Not Daniel."

"THAT'S NOT DANNY! AND THAT'S NOT TRUE! " She hollered. "I KNOW MY SON! HE WOULD'VE TOLD US THE TRUTH! "

"I reiterate, not if he feared he'd be turned into Mommy's little experiment! You shot Jasmine but made it look as if Daniel had shot her! You used your own daughter as bait, shot her and drove your son to insanity! What kind of mother does that make you?! You harmed your own children for the sake of your science! "

"Well, you're one to talk! With all your little schemes to get me into your bed and kill my husband. Who else was fighting him that day when this mess started? I can hide my lies but yours are right out in the open after today. "

"Not if your daughter is listening in. " Vlad and Maddie turned around only to find Jasmine in the kitchen doorway, tears streaming down her face.

"How could you? "

"Jazz."

"HOW. COULD YOU? " Jazz stormed over to Maddie and confronted her. "You're our mother, how could you sacrifice us for the sake of some stupid experiment?!"

"I had to be su~!"

"I WAS IN A COMA!" Jazz raged. "And for all we know it could've been worse. I could've died! You used me to lure your own son into a trap and that coma could've lasted days, weeks, months! And for all you dammit care maybe even a damn decade." At this everyone in the house— minus Tucker— came into the kitchen and the argument got heated to inferno proportions.

Meanwhile, Tucker had been researching transcendence for all its worth. It was hectic but he had found that transcendence was truly achieved through two ways natural ascension or intense conditions. He went over what had happened that week that had caused his homie to lose control and transcend: he got beat up by the jocks to the point where they had to go the hospital, Lancer grilled him out knowing good and damn well that the jocks had beat Danny to a pulp again which was why he was late to class, the principle had even taken up for the jocks and gave Danny detention for their mishaps, his parents and Valerie had taken up hunting Phantom again and were heavy on his tail plus Plasmius had betrayed him after all he's been through.

"Damn." After musing he finally took notice of the chaos that was going down upstairs, he ran up and headed to the kitchen. "HOL~LD UP! " Everyone quieted down at his cry, he motioned for all of them to sit down and then leaned against the counter.

"What the hell is going on? " At this Sam went in on Vlad, who targeted Maddie, Jazz helped him out while trashing Sam then, Jack went after Vlad. "SHUT THE HELL UP! " They all quieted again in simmering anger and angst. "Vlad."

"Madeleine, shot Jasmine to trap Danny."

"WHAT?" Everybody.

"Maddie? " Jack tentatively asked.

"SHUT UP!" Maddie raged. "I ADMIT IT! I SHOT JAZZ! I HAD A BREAKTHROUGH IN MY RESEARCH! I HAD A SHOT AT PHANTOM BUT HE DODGED! "

"Look y'all. We on borrowed time and all these secrets and shit ain't gonna help us get anything done. Danny running around kidnapping deejays, y'all shooting and hurting each other. We gotta a Armageddon to stop plus an ice god. So speak now or HOLD YO GOTDAMN LIES AND FAKE PEACE. AGREED? Jazz, go."

"I'm worried about Danny. What he's doing, has he hurt anyone? Where he~!"

"PHANTOM IS NOT YOUR BROTHER!" Jack. "He's an insane and power-hungry ghost bent on world destruction."

"So says the idiot behind both our transformations."

"Only you would make this about YOU, Plasmius." Sam.

"Sam, you know good and damn well, neither of us can talk so get that get damn stick out yo self-righteous ass. "

"EXCUSE ME?! "

"He's right, Sam. " Jazz added while crossing her arms. "Danny told me everything after he nearly cheated on his CATs. " Maddie got back in it.

"What is she talking about?"

"Oh, you don't know?" Vlad taunted while leaning in his chair. "Everyone's favorite goth talked Danny into messing with the portal on his birthday. " Jack and Maddie descended on Sam who shrunk in her seat.

"I'm sorry, w-we just messing around being crazy ass kids! I didn't think it would ACTIVATE the second we messed with it. It was a~!"

"A dare, it turned on, which brings me to this... Why in the fudge sundae hell would you put the 'ON' button INSIDE the portal?" The tables turned as Vlad manipulated everyone and made them turn on Jack. "Not the first time, your bumbling has resulted in a half-dead entity. " Jack cringed at that and hung his head.

"What did it feel like? "

"Hot lava mixed with lightening plus the sun's forever heat. "

"I'm sorry, Vlad. If I hadn't been so damn trigger-happy ~!"

"Whatever. Just repay me by approving me having your son's hand in marriage."

Maddie could only glare but nonetheless the two men shook hands as the tension died down.

"Ouch. " Jazz. "I wonder how Danny felt. If I ever see him again, I'm going to apologize."

"For what? " Tucker. "You didn't do anything I could think of. "

"For making him my shadow." Jazz mused. "Everyday at school, I see him run down and taunted. The teachers throw him 'stank eyes' because when they see Fenton they expect geniuses and scientists which Danny is but ghosts and ~" She glanced at Vlad. "Villains get in his way and he can't shine like he's supposed to and it doesn't help they throw my name at him like 'Why you can't be like her?' "

"You're not the only one, Jasmine. " Vlad murmured. "I gave the boy the final shove in the wrong direction and everytime I see him, I just have to dig at him and mock him but I realize now that... All I was doing was giving him incentive to rage, I was jealous. Do you all have any idea how powerful and miraculous, beautiful even? Daniel is? Everything about him drives me insane, I can't help the jealousy I feel towards you Sam when he gives you a smile and me a grimace. I've done unspeakable things unto him to which I want to do nothing but hold him in my arms and beg for a thousand pardons. All those unshed tears he's holding back... I want to be there when he sheds them and I want him and we got to stop him. "

"The air is cleared, we cool now? We Gucci? " Everyone nodded in which Tucker took as a move to speak. "Good. Because, all these things are kinda the reason Danny flipped. SOME of them actually."

"What do you mean?"

"Tension. "Tucker pointed at the adults for this. "Bullies as in Dash and his idiot squad. Plus pressure, teachers being fake, framing Danny for Dash's crimes. Along with under-appreciation equals Intense Conditioning for Transcendence."

"What?!" Vlad stood up in haste as the facts hit.

"Look, bruh. According to the homework I DID. Transcendence is gained through two ways. The first way is Natural Ascension which is when a ghost moves on peacefully but the spirit energy of their core takes on a new state of prominence. Not a clue what happened those words mean~!"

"They naturally transform via earning it. " Maddie and Jazz supplied.

"The other way is Intense Conditioning which is when~!"

"A ghost's mental and spiritual health is placed on the line and other worldly pressures weigh on them till the point of pure psychological combustion better known as a psychotic break."

"Soooo... Danny's like a diamond? An evil diamond? " Sam asked to which Vlad nodded. "We're dead. Doomed. Shoot me now. "

"Gladly." Vlad teased with a faint glow in his eyes. "But now we don't have time for such things because I have an idea despite the fact it's a long shot."

"Long or short, V-man. A shot is a shot. " Jack chimed. Vlad smirked in endearment at the nickname even after all he had done, Jack still considered him mildly a friend. It was going to take a lot but soon things would return to normal... Starting with capturing a certain ice prince.

"The plan appears simple but it's going to take a bit to get it into action. " Vlad had everybody down in the lab seated around a presentation he had makeshift-ly put together last minute to prove his point. Sam was sceptic, Maddie and Jack were confused, Jazz was worried and Tucker more or less approved when he helped put it all together.

"Let me get this straight." Sam chimed. "You wanna put together a 'Suicide Squad ' of Danny's worst enemies – including yourself to go take him on while he's like this? You said yourself, he's a GOD! AN ICE GOD AT THAT!"

"Even the great gods of lore had vices. And Daniel's is the worst or all... Revenge."

"Which begs the same question?" Maddie interjected. "Danny's worst enemies? I've seen some of the ghosts, he fights and I gotta say ~! Who are you going to get to help fight him?!" As if to answer her question... BLAR! BLAR! BLAR! The 'Ecto- exodus ' alarm rang out! Jack dashed to the computers and checked them over for the portal to bust open at the seams releasing all manner of ghostly entities. Vlad could only gape as ghosts fled the Ghost Zone but what caught his attention was... Their wounds, the fleeing spirits were literally covered in ice or helping those afflicted. He saw two ghosts man-handle Jazz and several more take down Maddie, Sam and Tucker, a hefty one took down Jack while... SPLAT! SPLAT! Vlad was bound with ecto-rope to the wall while everyone else was tied with soundwaves. The billionaire looked to his captor and smirked— not the first time all week he'd been bound to a wall.

"Skulker, what a surprise." The mecha ghost hunter growled at Plasmius and put a ghost-ray to his head.

"What did you do, hell- raiser?"

"What ever do you mean? "

"Don't play mind games, dickhead!" Ember appeared in front of Plasmius in a Hades- like flame. "Copies of Dipstick are running around the Ghost Zone freezing every gotdamn thing in sight and installing speakers every damn where! It's so damn cold now that we all had to flee before our ectoplasm froze solid."

"Ya know what's worse? " Spectra tensed while checking over the injured. "They're being led by two of his henchmen. ONE. OF WHICH Looked like you! The entire Ghost Zone. GONE! "

"Fair enough." Vlad confessed. "I may have~... Pushed him into Transcendence."

Ember's eyes flashed turquoise with anger as did the other flame cores that had arrived. Spectra and Bertrand growled as they healed ghosts who got caught in Danny's blizzard, Fright Knight released the Fenton's and company but honed in on Plasmius.

"Do you. Have any idea. What you've done?" Fright Knight seethed.

"Yes, I've unleashed hell on earth." Vlad mused. "Daniel is now an evil, destruction -bent ice god. Don't remind me. "

"I had to leave my KING, because of you! The Ghost Zone is now frozen over in permafrost! You'd better have a plan to fix this. "

"I DO AND IT'S NOT GONNA BE EASY!"