Yay! 100 reviews at last! (is booed by her angry readers) Sorry for being so late on the update, but I've been busy with my other story Count Vladimir. (tomatoes are thrown) Okay, Okay! I had writers block too.
Anyway, I can't thank you guys enough for finally pushing the review counter over into the hundreds. It made my year I think. This is the first story to make it up past 99 that I've been able to comment on, because the only other one that made it made it after I was finished with the story. As a special reward you get this long chapter! Well, it's short by FF's standards, but it's seven pages on Microsoft Word, and almost three thousand words!
Enough thanking and apologizing. This chapter is dedicated to HiddenAuthor and Grumbles, who both suggested this character to me.
Sam glanced back at Danny, who was sleeping, and then at Skulker who was apparently watching the last date over again. She turned her attention back to the computer screen, trying very hard not to laugh. It was just too good a chance to pass up. She sent an email with Vlad's address and name to Zehcnas Aniluap, whose profile claimed she was "A pretty, young lady, interested in affluent older men." and decided to go to bed.
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Vlad had finally gotten all of the dye out of his costume and was glad that there hadn't been anymore people at his door for a while. He was just about to relax in his study when the doorbell rang again. Then he heard his front door open and close. He stood angrily and stormed out to the front door.
A young girl stood staring at him with her hands on her hips. Vlad decided she was about fourteen or fifteen. "So when are you going to learn some manners when you're around someone as beautiful and popular as me?" She said with a strong Latino accent.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Vlad said angrily. He was not going to be nice to some brat who thought she could barge into his house and start bossing him around. He was the adult around here, and he was not going to listen to a prissy teen's demands.
"Well you know me from my screen name as Zehc-nas… um, well, just call me Paulina ok?" She had trouble pronouncing whatever the word that started with a Z was, and Vlad assumed that this girl cared more about her looks than her grades. He had absolutely no clue what she meant by 'screen name' though.
"What are you doing in my house?" he demanded. Paulina flipped her hair and acted offended.
"I had to beg my papa to buy me a plane ticket to fly all the way here just to meet you, and you can't remember why I'm here?" She frowned. "At least you're rich, or else this would have been a waste of my time."
Vlad was having a very hard time remaining calm. After all of the women he had encountered recently, he was in no mood to be insulted by a minor. He took a deep breath and counted to ten. "Look Paulina, I don't know how you got this address, or why you seem to think I asked you to come here, but I didn't. I will buy you a ticket back to wherever it is you came from and even give you a refund for your trip here."
Paulina glared at Vlad like he was a lower life form at school who dared to speak in her presence. "I came here to get rich, and I won't let un anciano stand in my way." Vlad just barely managed to keep his eyes from glowing red. Paulina had just called him an old man, and Vlad took Spanish in high school.
"I'm only in my early forties." he said, for lack of anything better to say. Paulina blinked in surprise. It was rare that anyone knew what she was saying to them in Spanish. That didn't faze her too much though.
"Then why is your hair white?"
Vlad sighed. He had often wondered how he would explain to people why his hair was white even though he was forty. Usually no one would dare to ask. "That doesn't matter." He said. "Now I will ask you again, and maybe you can answer me this time. What are you doing in my house?"
"Waiting for you to take me on a date and eventually marry me so I can get your money of course!" Vlad just stared at her in shock. "A man desperate enough to say that he is a multimillionaire to thousands of strangers can't be too picky, and as long as I get free access to all of your money and you still let me flirt with Danny Phantom then I will agree to marry you."
Vlad felt his eyes blaze red at the mention of Daniel's name. That, and the fact that Paulina presumed he was a desperate man. Well, maybe he was kind of desperate... "How do you know Danny Phantom?" he said, ignoring her other insults for a moment. "Did he send you here?"
Paulina didn't notice Vlad's eyes suddenly change color, and said, "Of course he didn't send me here! He's only the most handsome guy in the world, and if I wasn't marrying you then he would be my marido." She paused, thinking. "Is it illegal to have more than one husband in Wisconsin?"
"We're not getting married!" Vlad yelled. "I don't plan on getting married anytime soon and if I was, I certainly wouldn't get married to you. Now get out of my house!" He grabbed her wrist and pulled her out the front door. Vlad released her and she stood there looking shocked.
"No one turns down Paulina Sanchez!" she screamed at him as he went back into his house. "You'll be sorry I ever graced you with my presence you-" Vlad slammed the door and locked it. He heard her stomp away and let out a sigh. Finally he was rid of that girl. That would be the last he would ever see of her.
Yeah right.
A few hours later Vlad heard a knock at the door. He groaned and ignored it, hoping that whoever it was would go away. They knocked a few more times before he heard someone yell, "Open up, it's the police!" Vlad gasped and hurried to open the door.
The person who yelled was a short fat man in a blue police uniform. He looked at Vlad like he was a hideous insect. Vlad noticed this and almost glared at the policeman, but managed not to. He cleared his throat and said, "Are you Mr. Vlad Masters?" Vlad nodded and extended his hand to shake the officer's, but the officer stared at it as if he was suspicious of where it had been.
"Mr. Masters, it has come to our department's attention that you are a lonely bachelor in your forties, and you have often been seen with… questionable company. Pedophilia is a very serious crime Mr. Masters."
"What!?" Vlad said, both shocked and on the verge of laughing. How could anyone think he was a pedophile? That was absurd!
"Being a pedophile means that you have desire to have sex with children, or you already have." The policeman said. "Like Michael Jackson."
"I know what it means." Vlad said. "But why-" before he could finish saying, 'But why are you accusing me of that?' he was interrupted by the policeman.
"So you admit that you tried to have sexual intercourse with a minor?" Vlad raised one eyebrow and stared at the policeman. This had to be a joke.
"No, I haven't. Nor have I ever wanted to."
"Are you gay then?" Vlad's eyes widened and he felt like he had just been hit with a large wet noodle. In other words he felt like the officer had just asked, 'have you danced on the moon today?' This officer was either incredibly stupid or incredibly frank.
"I am not gay, I am not a pedophile, and I demand to know why you seem to think that I committed any crime at all!" The man shrugged and pulled something out of his pocket.
The officer held up a newspaper and showed it to Vlad. Across the top it said, "IS MASTERS THAT DESPERATE?" Underneath that was a picture of Vlad sitting at the restaurant he had been to with Abby Klik, at the moment when she was tucking the tablecloth down the front of his suit. The article read as follows:
Mr. Vladimir Masters was reported to be seen recently with a woman of a much younger age than he was. As shown by the picture taken by an eye witness, he can be seen taking this teenager on a date to an expensive restaurant. Mr. Masters has no family relations, and no close friends, so the girl is not in his family. "He came in looking very pleased with himself." a waiter commented. "In fact, he bragged that she was a prostitute and that she was much cheaper than some of the others he had hired." This comment shocked our reporters. Other witnesses to the scene claim that Masters' was very defensive and even ran out of the restaurant after the poor girl began to question his intentions. "I just asked him if he was going to take me home after our date, and he spilled food all over me and ran!" said poor Abby Klik, the girl whom Masters' had been on a date with. Clearly there is still much more to this than we first believed, and it requires more research. The age difference between the two is jaw-dropping. We asked the girl, who said she was eighteen, and although Masters' age is undetermined, he is probably in his late sixties.
"I am not!" Vlad said, reading the last sentence. He read the name of the newspaper, and then started laughing. It was the National Enquirer. He looked at the officer, who was watching him closely. "You're joking right? This is a tabloid article, and not a very good one. What next? Are you going to arrest Big-Foot for not being a registered citizen?"
The other man's face turned red and he ripped the paper out of Vlad's hands, muttering something that sounded like "Big-Foot already is registered" Then he cleared his throat again. "Our department would not base such a serious claim on just one piece of evidence." He said. "In fact, I wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for a complaint we received from a young teenager."
Vlad felt the color drain from his face. Paulina was serious when she said he would be sorry for kicking her out of his house. Unfortunately the officer took it as a sign that Vlad was guilty, and said, "Ah ha! The truth is free at last! Mr. Masters, I need you to come with me." He handcuffed Vlad and walked him over to a parked police car.
"I'm not guilty." Vlad said, keeping his voice calm. How dare this man arrest him? He was Vlad Masters!
"Sir, this is the first arrest I've ever made. Please don't make it hard for me okay?" Vlad allowed himself to be shoved into the car, and waited as the officer climbed into the driver's seat.
When they arrived at the police station Vlad slowly phased his hands out of the cuffs. Just as the officer was about to get out of the car, Vlad turned intangible and overshadowed the policeman. "I hope this guy is new to the force, or else they might wonder why his voice is different."
He climbed out of the car and walked towards the station. Vlad had been thinking about his plan the moment the officer had handcuffed him. He easily could have knocked him out, but then there would be more policemen at his door wanting to arrest him. So he would act like he was innocent until he got to the police station, and then overshadow the officer.
Unfortunately that was all that he had thought up so far.
Vlad entered the station and looked around. Someone grabbed his shoulder and said, "There you are Rick! The chief wants to see you about the Masters' case. He has that crazy chick in his office, and she's demanding to see that poor guy." The other man smiled. "Old Vladdie must have been desperate to even let that girl in his house."
Vlad said nothing and started walking away in the direction the man pointed towards, hoping that it was the chief's office. The stranger stopped him again and said, "Hey, where is Mr. Masters anyway?"
"I-er-um…" Vlad's stutters were answered by the man's sympathetic look.
"You couldn't get him huh? Don't worry about it, the chief knows how slippery he can be. Sometimes I think he can turn invisible or something." He laughed and left Vlad alone again.
Even if he hadn't been given directions Vlad could have easily found the chief's office with his eyes closed. "If you don't bring him here now I will have my papa sue your station for everything it's worth!" He heard someone scream. "I told him I would have my venganza, and I will!"
Vlad forced himself to enter the office, wondering if the chief knew that venganza meant revenge.
"Rick!" the man who Vlad assumed was the police chief said. "Thank God you're back!" Paulina glared at the chief, and he said, "Um, I mean, it's about time. Where's Masters? Please tell me you have him with you right?"
"Mr. Masters is innocent… sir." Vlad said. "He couldn't have committed the crime, because…" Vlad's mind went blank. There really was no plausible excuse.
"He's guilty!" Paulina said. "He made me fly all of the way here from Amity Park and then acted like he didn't even know me!" The police chief's eyes widened and he stared at Paulina.
"That's not the story you told us earlier Miss Sanchez. You said that Masters kidnapped you and tried to rape you but you escaped at the last minute. You also told us that you wanted to sue him for the trauma."
"I what!?" Vlad demanded, receiving confused looks from the two other people in the room. "I mean, I had to go to his castle and interrogate him for nothing?"
The chief nodded. "Paulina, I'm afraid we're going to have to call your parents. Until then, you may wait outside my office." She was dragged away, looking more surprised than Vlad would have imagined she could look.
"How dare you do this to me! My papa will make sure you all get fired when he hears how you've been treating me. I will not let you-" The door closed and Vlad turned to leave. Too bad the chief had one more question to ask.
"By the way, what was the reason Masters couldn't be guilty?"
Vlad turned around and began to speak. "He, um, he's…" he blurted the first thing that came to mind. "He's engaged!" Vlad wanted to slap a hand over his mouth, but he had to continue. "And his fiancée was with him the whole time."
"Engaged?" the chief asked. "Really? You actually saw his wife to be?" Vlad could do nothing but nod. "Well I never would have guessed. I'll have to have someone check in on him later to make sure he didn't just pay someone to stage as his wife."
Vlad left the office feeling dazed. He had escaped being arrested, but now he had to find someone to pretend to be his future wife if the police happened to show up. He phased out of Rick, leaving him to collapse on the ground, and flew away to his castle.
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"I have got to change my password." Danny said, glaring at Sam who was laughing helplessly. "Sam, how could you send Vlad's address to Paulina!? Vlad is dangerous, there was no telling what he might have done to her is she got him mad enough."
"And how is that any different than what you are doing?" she said, recovering from her laughing fit long enough to be angry with Danny. "Vlad's not that dense Danny, he's going to find out soon enough that we're the ones behind this. 'Vlad is dangerous'" she said, mimicking him. "We can mess with his life and get him into all sorts of trouble but we can't send a shallow brat to meet him."
Skulker watched silently, not sure whether to be amused or worried. If Plasmius found out that he was also in on this, then things would go from funny to horrible in less than a second. The two children had followed Paulina to the police station while Skulker video taped Vlad being interrogated by the policeman.
"Come on Danny, how can you not admit that the look on Paulina's face when they dragged her out of there was hilarious? Besides, it was probably the first time she's had that huge ego of hers deflate a bit."
"No Sam, it was not hilarious. From now on, I will be the one setting up the dates."
"Fine Mr. Grouch, but when Plasmius comes to beat you up don't forget to tell him that I warned you." He said nothing and turned around to look at one of the Specter Speeder's monitors that was playing Vlad being arrested.
Okay, I have to apologize for my lack of knowledge regarding police, so just pretend that they actually work like that. :-)