This chapter turned out differently than I had planned it, but I hope you all like it just as much.

I knew that we had to find Jack but a part of me wanted to let him be killed by my insane ghost half. I almost smiled sadly. If you had told me in college that I was going to be a half ghost, cold blooded murderer I would have told you to go choke on backwash. I probably would have laughed myself into a coma if you had told me that I would end up ripped away from said ghost half and then forced to hunt for it in order to save someone I hate.

But the future is often stranger than it appears. So here I was walking behind a flying teenager in a race to find Jack before my evil half did.

Daniel flew above me, in his ghost form, but he kept glancing down at me as if he was expecting me to vanish. After the tenth time I finally spoke. "Daniel, you can stop looking at me like that. It is my ghost half after all. I want it back." He seemed surprised that I had noticed his glances.

We searched slowly and carefully, Daniel had to become invisible several times. I began to wonder why he was sticking with me instead of flying off on his own. He could certainly fly faster than I could walk. Finally I asked him.

"When I was split by the Fenton Ghost Catcher I was able to get my other half to work with me and defeat Technus 2.0." He frowned. "I'm hoping that your ghost half will listen to you."

"I doubt that." I said. But Daniel either didn't hear me or didn't want to hear, because he said nothing.

I was certain that we were going to fail anyways. Jack was stupid, and with his large bulk and ridiculous orange suit he would not be hard to miss. I said none of this to Daniel. That might cause him to give up the search altogether. It was possible that I wanted to see the look on his face when he saw Jack dead.

At least that was what I wanted myself to think. Lying to myself was something I had become quite good at, but for once I couldn't stop the truth. It was like trying to hold water with your fingers.

The truth was I actually cared about Daniel.

It struck me as almost funny, that I cared how my archenemy felt, but I did. For some reason I wanted to make sure that everything would be alright, that this child would still have a father. I wanted to pinch myself to make sure that this wasn't some absurd dream, and I was just about to when I felt a searing pain sink into my back.

Nope, not a dream, I decided as I turned around to face my attacker. That hurt, and weren't you supposed to be invincible in a dream?

These distracted thoughts disappeared as I saw the face of my attacker. Hatred, disgust, determination, rage, and something close to fear were written on it. I was almost glad that the eyes were shielded and red, or else I probably would have looked into them and froze like a deer in the headlights while my attacker destroyed me.

Maddie said nothing as she charged up her gun again. She wasn't going to hold back. She was going to kill me. Dear sweet Maddie Fenton was going to murder me. She had gone temporarily insane with rage.

She would have been a challenge to me when I had my ghost half but now that that was gone… I tried not to read to much more into that subject. Daniel floated down besides me and was looking almost as scared as I felt.

Finally Maddie spoke, and her voice was low and dangerous. The kind of voice that mercenaries used. It sent shivers down my spine. "I warned you Vlad." She half growled. "I told you never to mess with the Fenton family. I had warned you about using your ghostly friends."

My throat was dry. Had my evil half gotten to Jack when he came home? Had Daniel and I searched in vain while Jack had simply strolled into his house and been murdered? "There was a ghost attack?" I asked hoarsely.

Maddie became furious and almost hysterical. "Don't you dare play innocent with me Vlad Masters! You know as well as I that you had one of your ghosts overshadow me and put me to sleep while you kidnapped Danny."

Daniel tried to speak. "Listen mom- I mean ma'am, Vlad-"

"And you Phantom!" Maddie interrupted, "You're a disgrace. All of that time you had tried to convince Amity that you were a hero, and here you are siding with a kidnapper."

She grinned, and it was a terrifyingly deadly grin that would never look scarier even if it was done with pointed teeth. "Now it doesn't matter, because soon there will be one more ghost roaming Amity Park." It was then I realized that she had been charging her blast the whole time we had been talking, and I noticed that a little dial on the side was set to a picture of a skull.

Maddie fired, and the blast was aimed straight for my chest. I put my hands up, begging for any possible amount of ghost energy left in me just big enough to create a shield, but there was none. I watched transfixed as the brilliant blue light came closer.

The blast hit my hands and started to burn the skin off them. It felt like I had stuck my hands in flaming acid, you could try and put it out with water, but it would still burn on and on and on…

Just as I thought that I was going to die, and that that was a rather obvious last thought, I felt a cold feeling spread through me and felt the pain leave. At first I had just assumed that I was dead, and wondered what would happen if I became a ghost and there were two Vlad Plasmius' roaming the city.

Then I saw Maddie's furious face glaring at me, and realized that if I had been dead then she wouldn't be looking at me that way. That meant that I wasn't dead. That thought was greeted with mixed feelings. It meant that I was alive, but it also meant that I would have to try and survive Maddie's next attempt at killing me.

It was turning out that my new life as a full human was much more life threatening than my previous life as a halfa.

"Hang on." Daniel said to me. That was the point where I realized that Daniel had saved my life. He had turned me intangible and had saved me from a gruesome and painful death. Suddenly Daniel was flying away from Maddie.

We turned tangible again and I gasped as the pain in my hands kicked in. They throbbed and screamed out in pain. I looked down at the bright read skin and saw that they were covered in blisters and there were still more forming. The pain was intense, and I couldn't even move my fingers without sending a chain reaction of pain coursing up my arm.

We had almost made it out of ear shot when Maddie yelled, "You're extremely lucky, but the chase isn't over till the possessed lady shrieks" Daniel stopped, and I turned my head and felt myself freeze.

Maddie had lifted off of the ground and was flying after us.

Daniel didn't move, and I suspected that he was frozen in shock to see his mother start to fly. "Go!" I yelled desperately. He seemed to wake up, as if out of a trance, and flew as fast as he could.

But Maddie, or whatever she was, was faster. She was flying right next to us and could easily pass us, but I assumed that she was planning on killing us first. Maddie flew like she was going no more than two miles per hour, and I watched as she pulled a hand up and yanked her hood off her head.

I stared into her eyes, and wished that I hadn't. Instead of her usual purple ones, these were red and pupilless. They weren't human eyes. They were eyes of a ghost. My ghost half's eyes.

He spoke in his own voice instead of the one he had stolen from Daniel's mother. "I told you I'd be back Vladdie."

Oh no!