A/N

I wanted to get this chapter out faster than what I would normally do since I thought I owed it to you all who wrote reviews.

A word of advice, don't expect the next chapter to come out this week. It's gonna be a tough one to write, and so will the ones after it.

Xenophobia

Chapter One

Vlad Masters achieved many things in his life after the accident that he thought would ruin his life for good. He grew to hate that big blundering oaf who sabotaged Maddie's wonderful experiment by pouring a weird liquid into the machine and then turning it on when he, Vlad Masters, sat in front of it, not even five feet away.

He was then, rushed to the hospital, where he was understandably crying like a baby, but nobody needed to know about that.

The doctors tried everything they knew, and when that failed, Vlad used the money he saved up to pay for his last year of college, and he paid doctors from all over the United States to come and have a crack at the weird case of 'ecto acne', as they dubbed it.

Needless to say, Vlad spent years sitting around in a hospital bed. He never dared go outside in broad daylight with his condition, so he went out at night, where everything was peaceful. Thankfully, the hospital had a courtyard-like area hidden from the main visitors to allow the doctors to come out there and smoke, so it was almost always deserted.

Vlad loved the stars. All of those blinking lights up above reminding him of the little plastic glow-in-the-dark stars he put up in his room when his parents were still alive…

The doctors were stumped at his condition. Of course, they didn't tell that to Vlad's face directly, but Vlad began to experience something… weird. Vlad learned quickly that focusing on the past was always a better medicine than what the doctors gave him every day, hoping for an improvement.

But this was something different entirely.

The disease seemed to start disappearing rapidly, and the doctors claimed that they finally found the cure, but Vlad saw through their lies and realized that something he did must have triggered it to disappear. When it first started, he felt weak and clammy, but as time went on, he started to gain strength and he felt as if he could lift a car over his head. He honestly couldn't remember a time where he felt like this.

The doctors were useful only for putting on cream on the boils and pimples covering his face, and as they went down on their own accord, the cream kept them from scabbing. That was their so-called cure.

Eventually, Vlad was released from the hospital. He thanked the doctors for all of their hard work and for their ability to 'cure' his disease. The surge of strength he felt soon disappeared and Vlad was back to feeling weak, but as healthy as he was before the accident.

Vlad had no money to his name, and after spending all that he had in the vain hope of finding a real cure, he had no choice but to live on the streets.

Throughout all of that time living in a hospital room, he was in no way prepared to deal with life on the streets. For the first couple of days, he was fine. But after that? He was almost constantly starving, and thirsty, and weak.

He lived like that for months. Until the one day where something weird happened again.

It all started when Vlad got mugged. He didn't want to get ganged up on. He didn't want to make things difficult, but you try living on the streets with no food and only the clothes on your back.

Vlad felt like he was going to pass out. The cold was so intense and it made everything feel numb. It wasn't always that way. When he was first let out of the hospital, it was the middle of summer.

Honestly, Vlad didn't know how he survived so long. The town he was in wasn't big, but it was big enough that it confused the man on where he was at every turn.

He was reduced to digging out food in trash cans behind restaurants and digging through the lost and found at various stores to gain clothes.

Nobody wanted to hire him. He was dismissed before he could even offer his talents.

Vlad knew there were gangs of people consisting of mostly old teens and young adults, and even though Vlad was always older than any of them, he still feared them. That was the reason he kept moving. If he stayed in one spot for too long, there was a chance they would find him. He couldn't risk everything he had earned.

And that's why he was where he was when it happened. Shivering through his thin clothes, Vlad lifted the lid to the trash bin outside a Chinese place somewhere he would guess would be downtown.

Lifting the lid, Vlad was surprised by an emanating warmth, and steam rushed into his face. Spirits soaring, Vlad hurriedly dug through the trash until he found what was the source. There were multiple takeout boxes, obviously planned for a family of easily five people who didn't pick up their order. Vlad silently sent a thank you to the family.

As he was pulling the boxes out, he heard a can roll across the alley… as if it had been kicked. It was cold outside since the sun was almost gone from the sky, but there was no wind, or animal, or even a person who could have kicked it.

Vlad stiffened.

"Alright, dude." Something metal made a shlink noise. "Just hand over whatever you got there and you can walk away with everything attached."

Vlad didn't dare turn around and face them, as there were more sets of footsteps joining the person who just threatened him. Maybe that was the reason everything went south.

"I think he's deaf." Called a gruff, but squeaky voice- if a voice can somehow be called both.

The others laughed, and Vlad guessed that there was roughly at least six thugs, which was including the two who had already talked.

"I said-," Vlad felt a rough hand grasp his shoulder and push him forward. He fell into the trash can, and the contents tipped as he fell on top of it. "-hand over whatever you were just digging out of there, old man."

All of them laughed this time. He was not an old man! Vlad spit out his saliva and tried to stand up, but another person's boot kicked him in the side, sending his sprawling and his back hit the brick wall of the Chinese restaurant hard.

"Oops." A third thug said. The tone of his voice suggested he was not at all sorry.

Vlad was now a little disoriented from the pain in his ribs where the kick connected, but he used the brick wall to prop himself up and he finally got a good look at the men for the first time.

Each and every one of them had an evil sneer on their face, as if they were the predator and he was the prey, which Vlad thought was a pretty accurate description of the situation.

They varied in age, style, and race, but the only thing that registered in his mind was that only one of them seemed to be armed. That didn't mean he was the only one, but he couldn't see any obvious signs of any of the other ones having a knife and a gun.

The leader, as Vlad guessed he was, spoke in the voice of the first one to threaten him.

"You just had to make things difficult, huh? We could have done it the easy way. Youcould've walked away with all of your limbs, but you had to just stand there like an idiot." The man started walking towards Vlad slowly. He braced himself for what the man would do to him. The leader reached out a hand and ripped the fabric of his shirt, almost yanking his shoulder out of socket in the process. He then kicked him again, sending Vlad's head towards the concrete where it made a resounding crack.

Vlad didn't move.

"What did you do?"

"Yeah, man! We were just supposed to rough him up a bit! Not kill him!"

"What's the Boss gonna say now?"

"Shut up! All of you!" The leader spun on his heels. He pulled out his gun and pointed it at each person, pointing at random. "I'm not taking the blame for this and if you idiots want to yell and scream about how we just killed a guy, then be my guest! I hope you rot!"

The men were quiet. The leader let a small smirk play on his face at their looks of fear, but it quickly dropped when he realized they were staring at something over his shoulder. He slowly turned around.

The guy they just beat up was somehow roughly half a foot taller than what he was originally, towering over them all. His eyes were closed, and the guy really wished he didn't open them.

"You should've run when you had the chance." Vlad opened his eyes, but they weren't their normal blue color. They were now a glowing, ghostly red.

The leader looked down and saw that the guy was floating off of the ground. He did the only reasonable thing to do. He screamed.

And his other gang members followed his lead.

Vlad wasn't happy with what he did, but rage filled him and all he could see was red. When he finally came to, the damage was already done and the weird, freakish powers he used had disappeared.

He only could remember bits and pieces but he was pretty sure he got shot multiple times, but when he checked himself for injuries, there were no bullet holes. In fact, the only injuries he had were because of the kicks and slamming into a brick wall.

Vlad then proceeded to steal their warm clothes, and whatever else they had, and ran, having no more appetite after what he just did.

He managed to steal a couple hundred bucks, and that night, he rented a hotel room and managed to sleep in a real bed. The last time he felt that comfortable and got a good night's sleep was when his parents were still alive.

Occasionally, Vlad would experience strange things happening. His hand would literally go through something, or turn completely invisible. It was hard to control at first when he realized that he wasn't imagining it, and it took even longer to master the weird black lights that would appear around his midriff and split into two to travel up and down his body, changing his clothes completely to resemble a weird, Dracula-like character.

It took him a while to realize what he could do with his new powers, but when he finally did manage to get them to work at his command, he started to use them.

At first, it was small stores that he stole from, managing to turn himself completely invisible to pull off the heists. When the news covered the stories, Vlad learned that they still had no leads, and he used that to his advantage.

He started planning out the big heists, and of course, it was easy to do considering the places he robbed had nothing to stop him. He became a mastermind. Vlad used the strategies from his favorite board game, chess, that he would play with his father. He was almost unstoppable, and he quickly moved up the stakes to robbing banks.

Overshadowing was a new trick he was working on mastering, but as soon as he had mastered it, he used it to his advantage. He overshadowed men who had power, and forced them to sign over their companies to the new entrepreneur, but he never stopped robbing.

That was his mistake. If only he would've stopped while he was ahead. Maybe if he did, he wouldn't have actually gotten shot.

Ever since that day in the alley, Vlad learned that he couldn't be hurt with any normal weapon if he was paying attention, but if he was caught completely off guard, he would be momentarily stunned with a dull ache afterwards for a few days.

After he had a couple robberies under his belt, a weird organization started showing up trying to stop him. Of course, nothing they tried worked, but Vlad knew he could never be too careful. Men and women in white suits brandishing weird, metal guns that would shoot beams that were a different color than his own that came from his hands and eyes, would always try to intercept and stop him from getting away. He loved playing around with them, but he got too cocky.

One event lead to another and a women hit her mark dead on.

Vlad was surprised to say the least, but imagine his shock when he actually started to feel pain. His eyes that once looked menacing were full of fear, and he dropped the bags and flew as quickly as he could to his home, barely managing to escape from the government agents who he just learned could use a mean bite and that they weren't all bark.

As soon as his feet hit the ground, he collapsed. His body was spazzemed with pain. The entry wound was sending wave after wave through his aching ghostly body. Soon, he became too weak from the pain, and was forced to transform back to his everyday appearance- a small blessing- which now included a business suit that he never seemed to take off, but even though the pain lessened enough that he was able to think, the dull ache was still there.

He stood shakily on his feet, and slowly shuffled down to a lab that he built in the basement of his house, where he ran test after test to find a cure.

He never found one.

At least, not a permanent one. He did manage to find a temporary cure that could take away most of the pain from his human half, but whenever he tried to turn to his ghost form, he would be essentially zapped back.

Vlad continued to test his abilities without his ghostly half being as active as it once was, and discovered that he still had his quick healing, a weak ecto blast, weak intangibility, and an extremely weak invisibility.
Without the access to his other persona, Vlad gave up the heists and instead focused on the companies he was now in charge of. He renamed them DALV and created a new course for them that still stuck to their original purposes for the most part, but it would better suit his needs.

Years past and Vlad learned to live with what he had, but he was never satisfied. He felt restless, and without any particular goal in mind, he felt like he would start to go crazy. He tried developing hobbies, and he eventually fell back on the interests he had in college that led to the accident that gave him what he had achieved.

Then the impossible happened.

Vlad received the news that Maddie Fenton and her husband, Jack Fenton, died in a lab accident. They left behind two young children, who Vlad quickly learned looked exactly like their parents. The young daughter took after Maddie, and the toddler took after his father, but without the bulk, and with more baby fat.

It wasn't common knowledge what happened to them, but Vlad got to know all of the details the police collected since he was signed the godfather of their children.

Vlad didn't know what surprised him the most, the death of Maddie Fenton, or the idea that he was signed as the children's godfather.

Even with all of the turmoil his mind was going through, Vlad quickly took possession of the remaining Fenton family.

The young girl, Jazz, seemed mostly uninjured and completely healthy, but the other child? The youngest Fenton, Danny, was unresponsive. He had a Lichtenberg figure (lightning scar) that spread from his left hand, up his arm, up his neck, and was even visible on his cheek.

It blazed like a beacon on his unnaturally pale skin, and Vlad immediately spent his money on the best medical care the child could receive, but because of Jazz's young age and distraught mind, he decided to stay in their hometown.

He purchased a mansion in one of the richer neighborhoods, next to a mansion that was owned by the Mansons, and tried to make the responsive Fenton feel at home. The young girl was only two years older than her brother, making her five, and could only understand the basics of the situation.

Imagine a young girl asking you when mommy would come back up to play with her, or when her daddy would help her ride around the house in a spaceship, while taking turns with her brother.

Imagine a young girl asking where her brother was.

Imagine if that young girl, who was smart for her age, asked you if they were dead.

Imagine how many tears that same young girl would cry every night, and would spring into your warm embrace, begging for some kind of comfort.

It had been almost seven years since Vlad first took the Fenton children into his care.

Jazz grew into a fine young women who was extraordinarily smart for the age of only twelve. She found a hobby in psychology and Vlad quickly helped her in her studies. She would attend school at the only elementary, middle, and high school in the town of Amity Park since it was such a small town. She was hardworking, witty, and overall a decent person. Vlad couldn't believe how much she reminded him of Maddie, and she hoped that he made her proud.

Danny on the other hand… he had no idea what to do to help the boy. He was completely unresponsive. Test after test was taken, but even though he wasn't brain dead, he didn't seem to have the ability to wake up. If Vlad still had his powers, he could have tried to overshadow the boy and help him wake, but he still felt the pain of that dreadful gun. The boy aged at a regular speed, but the boy was incredibly thin, but considering he lived off of hospital food, it was expected, but the thought put Vlad's mind in unease.

Vlad decided to do his own tests, and when he tried blood tests, Vlad was surprised at what he found. He compared it to his own blood sample he took when he first got shot since any recent blood test showed that the ectoplasmic level in his bloodstream was slowly cooroading.

The boy seemed to have a bit of ectoplasm in his blood. Most of it lay dormant, but some of it was attacking the blood cells and trying to destroy the boy's body.

Of course, it was common knowledge in the scientific community (yes, he found the late Fenton's published work, and was surprised at how correct it was) that ectoplasm and blood never mixed. They were opposites that attack each other. They would theoretically need a compound that would stabilize both ectoplasm and blood, and make them work mostly together instead of against each other and be a health hazard to the host.

It took a year to perfect the syrome. In theory, it was supposed to make Danny wake up, and if not….well…. There was too much science-y words to get into to explain exactly how the syrome would work to wake the boy.

He had to do his research secretly, but since Jazz was gone most of the day because of school and her love for books, and the ability to run his company from his living room, Vlad did it in relative ease.

When the day finally came that he finished the syrome, he was anxious to give it to the boy, but the doctors would be suspicious and delay the delivery, and the longer it took to deliver, the less of a chance it would work.

He entered the hospital late at night after Jazz went to bed after studying for her big test, which she asked Vlad's help for, and he entered under the pretense of a late night visitor.

The doctors didn't try to stop him since he was the sole reason that most of them got a pay raise because of his generous donations.

Vlad sat in the hospital chair across from the boy, and watched him for a bit. The steady beep, beep, beep of the heart rate monitor was the only sign that it wasn't a corpse sitting in front of him.

He looked so much like Jack. Every time Vlad looked at the boy, he was reminded of the one sole person who ruined his life, and most likely because of his actions, he ruined his own children's lives.

Eventually, Vlad closed the blinds to the hospital room and leaned over the boy and took out a needle that glowed a ghostly green. He flicked the side of it to clear it of air bubbles, and inserted it in a vein that showed in his neck.

As he pumped the syrome through the needle, it traveled through the body, lighting up the way it chose by still glowing until it eventually faded.

Vlad stood like that, peering at the boy in hopes of seeing any changes, and since his vitals didn't seem to go awry, Vlad took it as the syrome was working. The results would take some time to show, but no matter how long it would take, the boy will wake up.

And so Vlad left the boy. He walked out of the hospital with his heart feeling a bit lighter than what it was before.

The steady hum of machinery and the sounds of the boy's vitals were the only sounds that filled the room after the man left. Everything was peaceful for hours afterwards.

When the clock struck two in the morning, something changed.

The boy's toes wiggled. His face scrunched up, and when he opened up his eyes, they glowed a ghostly neon green.

A/N

Was that a cliffhanger? Oops?

So as I mentioned before, the next chapter will take way longer to write and make slightly more perfect than a rushed job would take, so please, stick with me through it.

And THANK YOU to all of you who reviewed, followed, and liked this story so far.

As I'm posting this, I'm writing the first paragraph of the next chapter...