OKAY! CHAPTER 9! AS I HAVE STATED SO MANY TIME BEFORE, I DO NOT OWN DANNY PHANTOM OR THE CHARACTERS CONTAINED WITHIN THE SHOW, OR THE EPISODE "KINDRED SPIRITS"; THEY ALL BELONG TO BUTCH HARTMAN AND NICKELODEON AND ALL THAT. YADDA YADDA YADDA. YOU ALL KNOW THIS ALREADY. ANYHOW, ENJOY THE NEXT CHAPTER!

CHAPTER 9

There is a single difference between a ghost's self-generated duplicate and a clone like those created by Vlad. When a ghost duplicates his form, he is creating solid copies of his spectral body while simultaneously splitting his consciousness among them. Any proficient multi-tasker is easily capable of using each copy for a different purpose, thereby exponentially increasing the number of things he can do at one time.

Vlad, however, was not engaged in multiple tasks. "Both" of him were focused on a single goal: to make Danny suffer.

Danny stared at the Vlad in front of him for what felt like an hour, but it couldn't have been more than a second or two. And it didn't even take him that long to realize that Vlad wanted him dead. . . but not before making him suffer for the destruction he had sewn.

The Vlad in front of Danny clenched his right hand into a fist and summoned his distinctively pink energy. He grinned and commented, "This should be fun."

With a grunt, Danny jerked his body to the left, twisting his shoulders in an attempt to extricate himself from Vlad's grip, but the man held him fast. The duplicate, keeping his fist low, cocked his arm back and delivered a low-blow to Danny's midsection that immediately forced the air from his lungs and paralyzed his diaphragm. He couldn't breathe. He slumped forward as his knees went weak, but Vlad held him up.

Not to mention Danny's already-injured ribs. He knew that several of them were cracked; he had felt, and heard, the result of Michael's rage earlier. And there was no telling if any of them were broken. The pain was all the same to Danny; if anything was broken, he wouldn't know the difference.

The Vlad behind Danny gripped both of the teen's wrists in his left hand and looped his right arm around the boy's shoulders, pinning Danny's body against his own. The other Plasmius approached for a second strike.

Danny gulped in another breath of precious air and hopped, kicking his feet outward at the same time. He slammed the soles of his feet into the duplicate's chest and watched him stagger backward in an attempt to regain his poise. The Vlad behind was also thrown off-balance as a portion of the resistance from Danny's kick was transferred backward. He did not, however, trip or fall, as Danny had hoped he would.

Vlad widened his stance to steady himself and tightened his grip on Danny's wrists and shoulders. "I don't think so, Daniel. Your only hope for leaving this place alive just flew away, and I'm a little upset with you right now, so if you were hoping I would take it easy on you, too bad."

Danny knew that pain was coming his way. His body knew it, too. But he still couldn't stop himself from snapping back at Vlad, "I wouldn't want it any other way!" He twisted to the right, knowing the attempt was futile but unwilling to give up. "But please," he grunted, "don't keep talking. We have laws against cruel and unusual punishment."

"Cruel and unusual?" Vlad sneered. His voice dropped lower, taking on a sinister quality that Danny could almost feel. "Believe me; when I'm finished with you, the phrase will have an entirely new meaning."

Danny swallowed, trying to ignore the fresh wave of terror roiling through his stomach, but he hardly had time to process the emotion before Vlad's duplicate approached and again punched Danny in the gut, sending another wave of agony through his torso. All the teen could do was grunt in pain as the body-strike was closely followed by second and third which were, in turn followed by a blow to the face. The strike snapped Danny's head to the right with enough force to pop several vertebrae in his neck and caused him to black out for a few seconds.

Danny's head dropped to his chest, and then snapped up again as he recovered from his temporary unconsciousness. He resisted the urge to groan in agony, clenched his jaw and glared at the Vlad in front of him. A bruise was already forming on his left cheek bone.

"You call this 'cruel and unusual?'" He asked. "So far all you've done is slapped me around a little. My sister could do that."

Vlad chuckled. "You think this is the extent of my plan for you? I haven't even scratched the surface of what I plan on making you feel."

"'Scratched the surface?' Judging by what I've seen so far, you couldn't scratch your way out of a talc coffin!"

Vlad's eyes narrowed, but he maintained his smug grin. "'A talc coffin,' huh? So you do learn something in school after all. However, insulting me will gain you nothing."

"Wrong." Replied Danny. "Insulting you gives me personal satisfaction. But you obviously haven't 'learned' that for yourself, huh, Fruit Loop?"

Danny knew he had hit a nerve, the one connected to the older half-ghost's patience, when Vlad's duplicate disappeared and the real Plasmius pushed Danny forward, watching as the teen landed heavily on his chest on the floor. Danny rolled over and watched Vlad, waiting for the man to approach and continue beating him, but nothing happened. Plasmius simply stood there, glaring at Danny, fists clenched. For almost a full minute, nothing happened.

And then Danny blinked. His eyes closed on a snarling, angry, lonely man, and opened to Vlad's face hovering a mere inch from his own. Plasmius's expression was no longer tumultuous and uncontrolled, but placid and focused.

Danny gasped in alarm at the sudden closeness and began to scramble backward, but Vlad's hand darted forward and wrapped itself around his throat. With what seemed to be no effort at all, Vlad lifted Danny off of the floor and held him a good foot above the concrete surface. Danny knew was that he was in trouble, but he also knew that by making Vlad so angry, he had increased the man's potential to make a mistake. The only question was: Would Vlad make a mistake before Danny no longer had the strength to act?

The chance was very low, since Vlad's first move after picking up Danny was to squeeze his windpipe until he was nearly unconscious. Just when Danny thought he would suffocate to death, Vlad pulled him close and whispered in his ear.

"Don't worry, Daniel. I'm not going to kill you just yet. My only desire now is to bring you discomfort, not death."

With that, Vlad sent a blast of ectoplasmic energy into Danny's throat and throughout the rest of his body. Danny couldn't even scream; there was no oxygen left in his lungs, not to mention the viselike fingers that sealed his windpipe and prevented him from so much as gasping for air.

When Vlad finally stopped, he dropped Danny on the floor and watched him groan in pain for a moment before he planted a foot on the boy's chest and pinned him down. With a wave of his hand, he used his ghost power to create manacles on Danny's wrists and ankles so that the boy was chained to the floor. His arms were pinned in a 'T' fashion, his wrists immobilized by a subtle ruddy glow, while his feet were fettered together and pinned to the floor. As an afterthought, Vlad summoned additional bands of pink light above Danny's knees to keep his legs further restrained, so that they would not bend, and then placed another restraint over the teen's forehead.

Danny kept fighting, knowing that even if he were yet unrestrained by Vlad's ectoplasmic energy, his strength would still have been very ineffective. A few short seconds of struggling were enough to convince him that he was wasting his energy, and he gave up, albeit temporarily. He would find an opening later. If there was one.

Danny watched Vlad kneel on the floor next to him and wondered what was going to happen next. More punches? More kicks? A few more broken ribs or cracked bones?

Vlad placed his left hand on the boy's chest, and that's when Danny realized that all of those things were preferable compared to what was about to happen. With renewed vigor bred primarily of terror and partially of rage, Danny pulled against Vlad's energy and tried to move away, but there was nothing he could do. Vlad's hand phased through Danny's skin, through his sternum and ribcage.

Danny felt Plasmius's fingers wrap themselves around his heart.

He watched a grin spread over Vlad's face, and then everything ceased to exist as sheer agony bloomed like a twisted, malignant flower in his chest and vined outward through his nervous system. He couldn't feel anything but pain. He briefly realized that he was screaming, but then he couldn't breathe because there was no longer any air in his lungs. He couldn't move since his body arched upward from the floor and left his muscles locked in an unending mimicry of electrocution.

An so he remained, locked in a silent scream for what seemed ages until Vlad released his hold on Danny's heart and allowed the boy to recover. Danny's body relaxed and slumped to the floor as, within his chest, the perverse blossom died and withered away, leaving behind only the memory of its essence.

Danny wanted to shy away as Vlad leaned in to speak, but the energy band across his forehead prevented him from moving. "Do you want to know the best part?" Vlad asked. "That was five seconds of pure torment. Do you want to know what I can do with a minute? Or even an hour?"

Danny simply stared at the man in shock.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

And that's chapter 9! I hope it kept your interest! I don't normally like to get to gruesome with torturing the good guy, but this chapter was actually the entire reason behind this fan fiction. I had this idea in my head and it wouldn't leave! Anyway, I don't know when the next chapter will be posted, but hopefully my schedule allows me to upload it soon!

Keep it Surreal!

-Oreochema