Author's Note: For anyone who's been anxious to see how a certain fruitloop fits into all of this – keep waiting! I'm kidding. This chapter should give a minor hint at what our pal Vlad may or may not be planning. *Cue dramatic music as the author strokes the black-and-white cat on her lap, all while laughing evilly from an oversized armchair…*

Author's Note Part Deux: Mandatory Disclaimer Edition: This chapter contains mild mentions of burns and disfigurement. If that's triggering for you in any way, then please avoid this chapter. I'll summarize all the important parts that happen at the start of the next one.

(Also…did I say that these next chapters would be, like, a lot longer? I did? Whoops. Did I also say I'd post every week-ish? Does this count? Sort of? Not really? Oof, okay…)

Chapter Six: Burns

Danny was stunned. He'd just seen a person – or a person-like creature – merge entirely with the surrounding darkness, transforming completely into wispy shadows. If he hadn't witnessed it with his own eyes, he'd have thought he'd watched something computer-generated.

"Whoa," Danny exhaled. "So you can actually travel during the day, sometimes? And what does the sun do to you when there aren't, like, any shadows for coverage? And sorry, but have you ever even heard of Twilight?" Danny abandoned any semblance of a filter as question after question fell hurriedly from his lips – except for that last one, which quickly dissolved into self-conscious mumbling.

He was embarrassed to ask, sure, but morbid curiosity – Heh, Danny snickered mentally – ended up winning out. He just needed to assess just how much he'd humiliated himself earlier with any Meyer-adjacent references… for research purposes. Yup.

Nat, Cal, and Dora exchanged a loaded look before Nat inhaled sharply, starting with what she must've categorized as the easiest thing to answer. "Some of us can travel during the day, for a period, but only those who are trained in shadow-bending," the woman with the reddish-brown braid replied. "Dora, as you saw, is one such individual." Nat then hesitated, and Danny – clueless though he was – still picked up on her reluctance to tackle the second question.

"If there are no shadows in the area, or if one of us fails in our bending during the daytime… well, we burn, Danny," Cal explained.

"Like, with a fever?" Danny asked with misplaced optimism.

"No, literally. A full vampire disintegrates, turning to ash," Dora deadpanned. Nat snorted, and Cal looked both amused yet exasperated. Danny recognized the look well: his mom directed it toward his dad constantly.

"Dora is humoring you with one of her 'jokes,'" Cal ventured a tentative smile while looking at Danny. The teen then noticed the Cal's fangs extending toward his bottom lip in all of their glinting glory, and Danny had to stop himself from wincing. I better get used to those things, especially if I'm also… Nope, still can't even think it, Danny swallowed hard, as if physically trying to shove the unsavory thought down.

Although Danny was still struggling with the whole 'vampires-are-real' concept, he was actually (strangely) making strides in that department. But accepting that he himself was now maybe-possibly-probably also a mythical – and not to mention, widely-despised – creature… well, that was a much harder pill to swallow. Instead, he was having a wonderful time swimming in denial – Or, da Nile, Danny chuckled internally.

Afraid of where his inner monologue would take him next – poorly-executed puns aside – Danny decided to pipe up. If deflecting was an Olympic sport, he could've gone for the gold.

"So, let me get this straight: 'yes' to going out during the day, sometimes, but only if you're really good at turning yourself into a shadow." Nat opened her mouth as if to correct him, but noticing that Danny was barreling on regardless, she decided to wait.

"But then, if you mess up with the whole shadow deal, or just aren't that good at it to begin with, you, quote-on-quote 'burn.' But it's not the fever kind of burning, and it's not the stereotypical turning-into-ash vampire thing either. So then… what is it?" Danny waited.

"Worse," Dora declared in a hushed tone. Danny half-expected an ominous 'dun-dun-dun' musical sting to follow her assertion. Seriously, Danny wondered, could she be any more dramatic?

"Okay, I'll bite," Danny sighed, as one corner of his mouth twitched up into a wry half-smile when he realized what he'd just said. I should've saved that one for later, he lamented. Oh well. "What's worse?" Danny finished, with earnest curiosity.

Silence. Danny couldn't even hear any of them breathing.

With their stillness, the previously-subdued background noises jumped to the forefront again: flapping wings met with little resistance, indistinct chatter from people in stone enclosures further out from where he rested. Danny's senses picked up on even more this time, too – beings crowding around towering statues while humming, and people touching olden carvings on stone slabs and structures far beyond Danny's removed location.

Then Cal – who struck Danny as someone serious, authoritative, but most of all, strong – bore into Danny's eyes with an expression that plainly read, 'This is something you don't want to know.'

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

-xxx-

As Danny contemplated what could be worse than turning into ash, a part of his mind was still focused on one word: 'burn.'

It's not like I don't know about burns, he thought sardonically, and a deeply-buried memory shot to the forefront of his mind. He tried to ignore it as much as he could – to downplay what had happened years ago – but sometimes, when something related popped up, he just couldn't help remembering.

Occasionally, Danny liked to kid himself that it was an "little" accident: simply an insignificant and easily-forgotten mishap. Deep down inside, though, he knew better.

Though he disliked how his mom fussed over him sometimes, especially around Fenton weaponry, a part of him did understand that what had happened when he was eight was serious, and could've ended up far, far worse.

Danny clenched his teeth – which was an odd experience in and of itself, considering he wasn't used to his canines being so, well, long. It felt a bit like his mouth was full of marbles in a way: some large, foreign objects were all of a sudden taking up residence there.

Despite Danny's best efforts to brace himself for what was coming, it still shocked him all the same, like being dunked in ice-cold water. The memory washed over him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

-xxx-

Danny loved the summer, and not just because he was off from school. He couldn't stand the bitter cold: that bone-chilling sensation that infected him every dark New Hampshire winter. And he hated the lack of daylight most of all. When it was literally pitch-black outside by 4:15 p.m., Danny felt personally affronted.

In contrast, in the summertime the days were long, the sun shone, and his parents tended to take more breaks from inventing.

According to them, those "evil bloodsuckers" were less active in the warmer months, typically. Even at eight years old, Danny questioned the legitimacy of his parents' profession, but he tried not to outwardly display his doubt. He didn't want to hurt his mom and dad's feelings, after all.

On one nearly-perfect August afternoon, Danny was anxious to explore the woodland bordering his parents' backyard. He had no clue what sort of cool, possibly-supernatural things existed beyond the edge of his backyard, deep in the mountainous forest. But he was dying to find out.

The humidity still got to him, though, so Danny found himself wearing simple swim trunks – complete with a repeating rocket ship pattern – and flip-flops. Nothing else. It probably wasn't his best outfit choice.

At this point in his life, although his parents' chosen profession confused him, Danny still looked up to his dad with an incredibly pure mixture of acceptance and reverence. So, when his dad offered to take him into the Fenton Family Backyard to demonstrate his latest anti-vamp prototype, Danny viewed it as an opportunity to bond with his father. Hey, it wasn't exactly a classic father-son fishing trip, but it had all the same elements, basically. Venturing farther into the woods to explore what may or may not be hidden beyond: well, that could wait.

His dad's prototype was christened the Fenton Charcoal Corpse Griller, and it was an ungodly cross between a commercial portable grill and a drone. Similar to a charcoal grill, it was designed to run on a scarce amount of lighter fluid. Unlike a charcoal grill, however, it could fly, was meant to trap vamps when they were at their most vulnerable (in the light), and was allegedly lethal to the undead. (Allegedly.) It was also remote-controlled, of course.

"Dann-o!" Jack Fenton bellowed. "I bet you're just dying to try out your old man's latest breakthrough in catching vamps!"

"Yeah, daddy, sure," Danny's cheeks colored as he felt just the slightest bit juvenile. He was straddling that fine line between childhood and adolescence – and so, he decided that he was still going to call Jack 'daddy' – for now, anyway.

"Now, son," Jack intoned seriously, "This invention is important for many reasons. And not just because it has the word 'Fenton' in front of it! We have some info that vamps can go outside at times…" Jack's voice dipped a bit softer, almost conspiratorially. "Those stinking, rotten bloodsuckers," Jack snarled, shaking his head, seemingly distracted by his own intel.

"Daddy… sorry, but, uh, what do you mean?" Danny blinked up at Jack. Danny long ago realized that Jack didn't censor himself for anyone or anything, not even his children, but at least it was a good way to learn his dad's unfiltered feelings on most subjects.

"We need to stop them from going outside, Danny-boy," Jack expressed somberly. "We can't let them have the upper hand any longer," Danny's dad confessed angrily. "So, after a lot of deliberation, Maddie and I made this device! It locks onto any revenant who might be outside in the daylight – which they freakin' shouldn't be – and immobilizes 'em," Jack Fenton declared sincerely, heatedly. "It traps them and shocks 'em, forcing them to feel the full effects of the sun. Then it blasts them from here to nighttime!"

"Uh… what's a revenant, daddy?" Danny asked his father, unclear what the word meant.

"A revenant is a dead thing, son. Something that tries to be something it's not – to exist where it shouldn't." Jack looked away from his son, and upward at the imposing, white-tipped mountains. "We gotta make them fear the sun again," Jack Fenton remarked, mostly to himself, a bit distractedly.

"Jack, the gasoline is missing from the garage – tell me you didn't use that, right?" Maddie's voice screamed from the house, deceptively saccharine, yet tinged with the slightest bit of fear.

"Of course not, Mads! Gasoline would be way too powerful! Oh…" Jack scratched his head, his face betraying him as it shifted from dismissive to panicked.

Ironically, at that, the Fenton Charcoal Corpse Griller (operated via an advanced, remote controller), suddenly shuddered. Danny gazed at his dad searchingly, trying to decipher what could be happening with his beloved prototype.

There was a distant screech from the self-dubbed Fenton Family Hunting House: it was Maddie again. "Jack!" Maddie Fenton yelled, considerably closer this time. She was running toward them both frantically, but was still a good fifteen feet away.

"Don't tell me you're testing a new invention with our baby boy outside!" Maddie huffed, before resuming her rant, "Jack, I'm not messing around! And really: don't make me throw out the fudge – or the Sour Cream and Onion chips!" Maddie's tone was unflinching.

"Son, maybe we should wait to—," Jack started to admit, admonished. There was the strangest expression of uncertainty on his normally fearless face.

As Jack spoke, a small fireball erupted from the Fenton Charcoal Corpse Griller, hurtling toward Danny. The boy's instincts took over, and his arms covered his face, which twisted away – upwards, practically airborne – from the approaching onset of flames. His uncovered torso was exposed, though.

The pain wasn't something that Danny could articulate, especially not at his age. Patches of skin on his upper abdomen were now raw, blistering… plainly, simply burnt. Part of him thought that he could smell something cooking for a brief second, before the agony resumed tenfold. The excruciating heat on his poor skin screamed – tears filled his eyes, and he could no longer stay present, mentally. Instead, he pictured himself in space, floating amongst the nothingness and the stars. At least in space, it didn't hurt anymore.

-xxx-

In a secluded manor in the Green Mountains, deep within a hidden office (complete with a sprawling, personal library), a man rapped his sharp fingernails atop an expensive mahogany desk. The décor encircling him was trimmed in green and gold: the official colors of the University of Vermont.

The platinum-haired man forcefully closed his eyes, frustrated with the state of his affairs, the world… the whole nine yards, honestly. He'd been waiting for news of an extremely critical mission for hours at this point. Everything had been perfectly arranged: the anonymous distress call to Maddie, his black widow spy, his most skilled shadow fighters. And yet, still no update.

If he didn't know better, he would've considered the possibility that something had gone… wrong. But it couldn't have, which left him annoyed at the clear delay in this much-needed briefing. He scowled, softly echoing a pop culture phrase he'd heard before. "I am truly surrounded by idiots," the man drawled.

A harsh knock outside his office door piqued the man's interest; it had to be his butler, Ivor. No one else knew the location of his concealed study.

"Sir," Ivor rasped. "Aragon has his report for you, sir," Ivor announced in a thick Scottish accent through the heavy wooden doors. "Would you be willing to hear him out, sir?" Ivor growled with the slightest hint of a warning.

The man, Vladimir Masters, groaned audibly. Ivor used the word "sir" far too often, and yet, Vladimir admittedly admired his butler's respect for authority. Ivor was an extremely devoted servant.

Vladimir was also exasperated, though – if his plan had gone off without a hitch, Ivor would've phrased that final question differently.

Sighing, Vladimir reluctantly opened his top, left-hand desk drawer, grasping for the mask that he so often wore. Shaking his head in annoyance, he arranged the mask on his face, draping it expertly over skin that was once severely disfigured.

He didn't even want his most trusted employees to know what now lay underneath.

"Fine. Let him in, Ivor," Vladimir, also known simply as 'Vlad,' conceded with narrowed eyes. "This better be good news," Vlad muttered to himself, irritated.

As a series of advanced locks untangled themselves, preparing for Aragon's entrance, Vlad considered what Aragon's update would be. Of course, if it wasn't overwhelmingly positive, Vlad would likely kill Aragon.

It wasn't personal; it was simply business.

-xxx-

Author's Note: Fin: Now featuring Chapter 6 with an updated flashback scene. Nothing changed plot-wise, I just added a bit more detail and tweaked a few things.