Hey everyone! I've finally gotten around to posting something that's been in the works for years now. If anyone is familiar with one of my other fanfics If Vlad Wasn't a Fruitloop, this is essentially a rewrite of it with some phandom lore/ideas and my own personal spin thrown in!
IMPORTANT: Content Warning for the whole fic! I plan to include pretty dark and real things like Danny and other ghosts having a form of PTSD, many characters having mental health struggles, canon/fandom typical violence and gore, and things like that. I think these things are fairly typical in this fandom, but if you need the warning there it is. If I include anything especially bad in future chapters, I'll add a specific CW to that chapter.
ALSO IMPORTANT: I am not a medical professional and honestly I'm way too lazy to do extensive research on things like biology, injuries, and mental health things like panic attacks and PTSD. So I may write inaccurate things in that regard and I acknowledge that now. However, I plan on writing pretty general descriptions to avoid going too in depth with those.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
Danny Fenton closed his eyes and listened to the music blaring in his ears. Around him, the Fenton RV and its contents rattled as it sped down the highway. He could vaguely hear his father ranting about something over the noise. It had been a long four hours, and still more to go.
He hadn't really wanted to go to his parents' college reunion in the first place, but he wasn't exactly given a choice in the matter. His family was currently making the trip from Amity Park, Illinois to somewhere in rural Wisconsin, supposedly to a huge mansion owned by one of the richest guys in the world. Said guy somehow happened to be friends with his parents in college, which would have been hard to believe, but Danny was used to the unusual by now.
He was literally some sort of human-ghost hybrid, after all.
It all started a few months before, in the August before ninth grade. He and his friends, Sam and Tucker, had made the mistake of snooping around in Jack and Maddie Fenton's lab full of dangerous ghost-related technology. Sam had dared him to go into the "broken" ghost portal, and despite knowing on some level that it was dangerous, he did it anyway. And look at how that turned out.
A shudder traveled down Danny's spine at the thought of it. How billions of volts of electricity had fried his body, reducing his entire existence to pain. How dangerously high levels of ectoplasm had fused into his DNA at the same time. How all he knew was extreme pain for what felt like hours, and not remembering at what point he had passed out.
After that, things had been hard. He had started randomly becoming invisible, falling through the floor by accident, and dropping anything he tried to hold. He was a mess, to put it plainly. That, on top of living in a house full of ghost hunters and a very inquisitive sister, made the whole situation a nightmare.
Then, barely a week after the accident, ghosts started coming out of the ghost portal he had somehow "fixed." First it was the lunch lady, a former cafeteria worker from Casper High who was quite angry at any changes to the menu. Then there was the fiasco with the ghost lady's dragon amulet that ruined the fall dance. And then it was Skulker, a robotic hunter ghost who had a strange fascination with acquiring Danny's pelt, whatever that meant. Then Technus, then Poindexter, then Desiree. And if dealing with all of them wasn't bad enough, animalistic ghosts appeared practically daily to terrorize the town.
After a while of this, Danny realized that maybe his parents were right; ghosts were nothing but monsters who wanted to harm people. He and his two friends became an impromptu ghost hunters, using a ghost-trapping thermos invention the Fentons had created to capture the ghosts and send them back where they came from. His friends were beside him every step of the way, helping him to handle the ghosts and figure out his newfound abilities. He honestly didn't know where he would be without them.
He was startled out of his thoughts by the RV pulling to a stop. Danny looked out the window to see a huge white mansion, surrounded with beautifully trimmed bushes and a brick walkway. All around them in the distance was a forest; there were no other buildings in sight. He had to admit that it was beautiful out here. And it couldn't have been a bad spot for stargazing, either.
"All right, kids! We're here!" His mother said excitedly and unbuckled her seatbelt. The family of four stepped out of the vehicle and stretched their legs for a minute, Jack and Maddie excitedly talking about seeing their old friend again. Danny hid his wince as the semi-fresh burn on his side stung with the movement. It was in the process of healing from being hit by one of Skulker's guns the previous night. But getting injured quickly turned into a pretty typical thing for him after encountering ghosts so often, plus being a target of inventions in his own house.
"So, Danny, are you ready to explore this huge mansion?" Danny jumped a little when Jazz asked, a joking tone in her voice. Then her eyes widened with realization. "Wait, what if there's a library?"
"You're such a nerd." Danny teased and shoved his sister gently. "I'm finding the theater room and hanging out there all weekend. It's way less lame than a library." His sister glared good-naturedly and shoved him back, but before they could continue their quarrel they were interrupted by their mother.
"Jazz, Danny, remember to be on your best behavior around Vlad." She advised. "And stop your bickering."
"I can't wait for you kids to meet my best friend Vladdie!" Jack bellowed, patting the two teenagers forcefully on the back. "Oh, we go way back! In college we were roommates, you see, and-"
"Jack, honey, we can reminisce once we're inside. Come on!" The woman led the way down the walkway, with her husband right behind. Danny lagged behind his sister, looking around at the perfectly maintained yard and the rows of yellow flowers beside the walkway.
He looked up as the door opened to reveal a slim man in a suit and tie. Automatically a weird chill went down Danny's spine. There was something... off.
"Ah, Maddie and Jack. Welcome." The gray-haired man said, smiling at the woman in front of him. "Come on in." The family stepped into a huge green and gold room with a high ceiling and a chandelier.
"It's so nice to see you again, Vlad!" Maddie greeted. "It's been too long!"
"Yes, it has-" the billionaire was interrupted by Jack barreling into him.
"VLADDIE!" The large man yelled, hugging his old friend and even lifting him off the ground a few inches.
"Yes, hello, Jack." The gray-haired man wheezed, a hint of hostility coming through his tone and expression, which made Danny's eyes widen slightly. "Please put me down."
"Sorry, V-Man!" Jack reluctantly returned to his wife's side, still practically shaking excitement. "How have you been?!"
"I've been fine, thank you..." The other man replied, trailing off when he saw Jazz and Danny. "And you two must be Jasmine and Daniel." Danny felt the man's deep blue eyes land on him and felt the weird chill again. He smiled uneasily at the attention. Vlad's face stayed impassive, back to neutrality after escaping his dad's grasp. Danny couldn't exactly blame him for being annoyed at that.
"Yes, this is our daughter Jazz and our son Danny." His mom interrupted his thoughts. "Jazz is a junior in high school this year, and Danny's a freshman."
"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Masters." Jazz said politely with a nod.
"Hello..." Danny said simply, still on edge.
Luckily, Vlad's eyes soon left him as he led his guests further into the house.
"I hope you don't mind coming a day early. I figured we could... catch up, before the event tomorrow."
"We're glad to be here, Vlad!" Maddie replied warmly, causing the man to smile politely back at her. "It was quite a long drive, but we made it in one piece!"
"Hey Vladdie!" Jack interrupted, making the other two adults turn to him. "Are you still as interested in ghosts as we are? We could go hunting like the old times!"
Danny stiffened at the statement, and he didn't miss how Vlad did slightly, too, though the man otherwise managed to keep his composure.
"You know, Jack," Vlad said with a tone Danny couldn't decipher, "the previous owner of this mansion did say it was haunted."
"Really?!" Jack almost jumped in excitement. "I'll go get the-!"
"Dear, there will be plenty of time for that later. Let's just relax for a bit after that long drive." Maddie said smoothly, smiling at her old friend once again. "I hope you don't mind, Vlad."
"Not at all." The billionaire's eyes traced over Danny again. The boy shivered and grimaced internally; this was going to be a long weekend.
That night, Danny pulled his luggage into the room he would be staying in. It was a fairly large bedroom, probably twice as big as his room at home. Even with the stress of being around Vlad Masters, he had to admit this place was a nice change from his family's chaotic residence.
Dinner a few hours before had been amazing. The dude must have had like a dozen personal chefs, at least. Vlad and the four guests had sat at a huge, comically long dining room table on the main floor. Despite the occasional odd look from the billionaire, it had been a good experience.
Danny gently sat down on the bed and drifted off into thought. For the whole day since arriving, he kept getting weird vibes around Vlad, and he couldn't figure out why. It wasn't his ghost sense, exactly, but it was something.
Maybe the mansion really was haunted. But there had been no obvious sign of a ghost, at least not an aggressive one... Maybe his parents could handle it this time.
Or maybe they couldn't...
Even if the possible ghost haunting the mansion wasn't planning on causing trouble, maybe he should hunt it down anyway. And if there wasn't one, it couldn't hurt to explore a little, right?
He locked the door and closed the curtains over the window for good measure before focusing on the cold feeling in his stomach and embracing it. The walls lit up from the flash of light that spread across his body. The usual scattering of stars clustered around him, twinkling and occasionally connecting into little constellations. He felt the room drop in temperature like it always did. His jet black hair faded into a snow white, and once blue eyes now glowed a striking neon green. The lights slowly flickered out as the transformation completed, and the familiar weightless feeling lifted his feet gently off the carpet. He smiled all the while, just watching the lights do their thing. Even after a few months of seeing it several times a day, it never got old to watch.
With only a moment's hesitation, he turned invisible and flew through the wall, emerging into the hallway. It was quiet minus the muffled, boisterous sound of his father talking about something a few rooms down.
He floated around for a while, making sure to stay hidden and unnoticeable even though the mansion was all but abandoned. With his luck, Vlad Masters would appear around the nearest corner any second and find him somehow, he thought dryly.
Soon enough he emerged into what looked like a good sized living room. Bookcases lined the walls, and a few leather couches were arranged around the room along with a huge TV. He couldn't help but think that Jazz would love it.
Suddenly, a breath icy air escaped his throat and he heard movement behind him.
"Who are you and why are you here?" A echoey voice filled with static accused, making him flinch in surprise and become visible. Usually he had at least a few seconds after his ghost sense to react, but not this time.
He turned around to see an intimidating looking ghost clad in white and red with a fluttering cape to match. The ghost had unnatural light blue skin, long pointy ears, menacing red eyes, and black hair that puffed back into two spikes as if he had just gotten shocked. A bright glow surrounded him, signifying great power.
"Woah... Are you the ghost that haunts this mansion?" Danny asked in a mix of curiosity and fear. He could somehow tell this ghost was powerful, more powerful than any he had encountered before. Getting into a fight would not be a good move, he admitted to himself begrudgingly. And the ache in his side further reminded him that he was at a disadvantage.
The ghost's eyes narrowed. "Get out."
"Why?" Phantom asked, flinching when the ghost let out a deep growl, and his pointy ears flattened expressively. Gathering up his last bit of courage, he tried his luck. "Okay, okay, I'll leave, j-just promise that you won't hurt the people that are staying here." He cringed at the voice crack. Dang puberty.
The ghost looked at him for a few seconds before glaring. "And why should I do what you say?"
"Uh... because it's a nice thing to do?" The boy squeaked.
"Get. OUT." The ghost's hands lit with bright, sparking pink energy, and that was Danny's cue to leave.
He turned invisible and flew through the closest wall, taking a detour back to his room. Hopefully the ghost wouldn't cause any trouble... he should have brought a thermos on his exploration of the mansion, but it had completely slipped his mind. And of course it actually was haunted by a super powerful and scary vampire ghost. Joy.
Sighing in relief at the close call, he let himself drop back to the ground in his room. It was getting late, or more accurately it was getting early, so he might as well get some sleep. Maybe being in human form for the rest of the stay would trick the ghost enough to think he left... hopefully.
And if (inevitably when) his parents ran into him, that would be a problem for future Danny.
Plasmius watched the unfamiliar ghost kid leave in annoyance. Why the other ghost had thought it was a good idea to trespass in his haunt, he had no idea.
He hadn't had many surprise ghostly visitors lately, with his status as a relatively powerful ghost, and a half-ghost at that. That fact alone made him pretty infamous among ghosts, anyway.
Twenty years ago, Vlad Masters had been just a college kid interested in engineering and the paranormal. Everything had been fine until Jack Fenton's stupidity and Maddie Walker's smarts ruined his life. He had been bombarded with raw, ectoplasm-infused energy from a makeshift ghost portal, which gave him a rare skin condition his two former friends deemed "ecto-acne." After months and months in the hospital with the doctors as confused as he was, the residual ghost energy had permanently manifested into him and made him into some sort of a human-ghost hybrid.
In that moment, his "ecto-acne" had disappeared completely, and it was deemed his "remarkable recovery." But no, it had actually gotten much worse. He was suddenly some kind of freak, something between dead and alive, something between ghost and human. A monster. Many of the ghosts certainly thought so, and the humans would have, too, if they had known. If they knew.
With his new ghostliness came weird powers. Turning invisible, moving intangibly through objects, floating, and summoning glowing pink energy were some of the first abilities that he gained. But with time (and lots of mental breakdowns) came control. Once he was presentable enough for the public eye, he enrolled in more college classes and finished his degree. From there, he started investing and created his first company. In reality he couldn't take all the credit for his success; his father, who had passed several years before, had left behind a great fortune. Luckily, it took off the burden of needing to work for long enough for him to get his life, or lack thereof, together.
With so much time on his hands, since his only two friends had left him to go get married, he worked to grow his company. Years passed, and his work paid off. Plus his rather unique position gave him an edge in the field of ghost-related technology, which he couldn't complain about. New ghost powers emerged, and he made a name for himself in the Infinite Realms. He even made some ghostly friends and allies, including a group of butler and maid ghosts that resided under his protection in exchange for labor, though they also had pretty close friendships after so many years together.
The bitterness didn't go away, though, even if he managed to forget about it at times. He realized at some point that he had stopped physically aging sometime in his twenties, but with everything else going on, dealing with that knowledge became less of a priority. It was just something else his former friends had ruined about him. And the list was getting very long at this point.
As much as his logical and human side wanted to forget about them and move on to more important things, his ghostly side wouldn't let him. So it continued to stew. He hated Jack and Maddie Fenton, so much that at times he was tempted to make them pay by any means necessary. Once, he had almost gone through with it. He had tracked the Fentons down to a town in Illinois called Amity Park. He had entered their home, ready to make them suffer like Vlad had years ago and regret leaving him to die, literally, but then he saw them with a young daughter and son. Smiling. Laughing. A happy family.
He couldn't bring himself to do it. That caused some anguish and self-loathing for a while afterwards, but eventually his mentality towards the whole thing seemed to shift. He guessed parts of his ghostly obsession did too, because it became easier to focus on other things after that. But the urges never fully left, not really. Hence the present situation, with the Fentons in his house, extremely vulnerable and clueless about anything. This was his chance to get revenge. The opportunity he had fantasized about for years. To finally make them pay.
If he was strong enough to do it...
He sighed as his train of thought brought him to Jazz and Danny Fenton, who were kids stuck as victims of circumstance. Children of ghost fanatics. He felt sorry for them in more ways than one.
The teenage boy's ice blue eyes appeared in his memory. There was something off about him, that was for sure. First of all, it almost felt like he had a ghost signature, indicating that he was liminal on some level. Of course that could be a product of living around experiments and ectoplasmic radiation on an everyday basis. But his older sister and parents were nowhere near that level of liminality as far as Vlad could tell. That, combined with the uncomfortable looks the kid wore around Vlad, was pretty incriminating. Even his older sister, who he could tell was intelligent beyond her age, didn't give the slightest impression of knowing anything, but for some reason Danny did. Something was up, and Vlad would get to the bottom of it, if only for his own secret's sake.
Sighing, Plasmius shook himself out of his musing and turned invisible. He flew in the direction of the other ghost, his strong and accurate ghost sense helping to track the other spirit down.
Vlad phased through countless walls before he realized where the ghost kid was heading: towards where the Fenton's were staying.
The man's eyes narrowed. What was that ghost doing, going anywhere near ghost hunters? Well, he shrugged, natural selection was running it's course. Even though the boy was technically already dead.
He followed the ghost to the room of the Maddie and Jack's son, Danny. What on earth was the ghost doing in there?
Weighing his options, he decided to go in. He vowed to leave immediately if there was nothing out of the ordinary, but he had an odd urge to make sure Danny was all right.
He slowly phased in to see the white-haired ghost lower to the ground, muttering to himself. There was no Danny in sight.
Suddenly, a flash of light sparked to life and a splattering of twinkling white dots spread out around him, almost looking like stars. The lights greedily washed over the ghost boy and dotted across the open space around him, soon revealing a different form underneath. An almost-human-looking form. Vlad audibly gasped, loud enough that the boy jumped and whipped around towards the noise, the light quickly retracting and sputtering out.
"Who's there?!" The ghost boy asked, wide green eyes seeming to look right at Plasmius. There was complete and utter silence for a few seconds except for the boy's panicked breathing. Vlad unconsciously shifted a few feet over out of the ghost's line of sight as he processed what had just happened.
"I know someone's there!" He said again, grabbing some sort of thermos device from the nightstand and pointing it around wildly. "Um... hello? Mister... vampire ghost guy?" Despite himself, Vlad barely held back a huff of amusement. A few more seconds passed before the boy sighed, setting down the thermos with a clunk. "I think I'm going crazy. That, or the lack of sleep is getting to me." He muttered to himself as the lights blinked back to life, and twinkling stars surrounded him once more. After a few seconds it revealed the white T-shirt and jeans that Danny had been wearing earlier. Vlad's dread and horror steadily grew to a peak as he saw a familiar mop of black hair and blue eyes once the lights disappeared. The man somehow managed to hold in his reaction this time as his suspicions were confirmed. Jack and Maddie's son. A half ghost, like him.
Numbly, he flew backwards out of the room, feeling sick and guilty for intruding. The boy couldn't be older than fourteen, and he had suffered the same fate as Vlad had twenty years ago. On the bright side, the reason behind his level of liminality was no longer a mystery. But at what cost?
A few minutes later, the man found himself in his study. The pieces were slowly coming together in his mind. He couldn't believe it. Jack and Maddie... had killed their own son? He was suddenly aware that no matter how much he hated them for ruining his life and abandoning him, their kids had nothing to do with it. And even worse, one of their kids was dead because of them. Because of their stupid obsession with ghosts and lack of self awareness. The temptation to end them arose with a newfound strength, but he soon realized that he couldn't do that to their kids. It would only make things worse.
The billionaire started brewing some coffee, knowing he was too riled up to sleep any time soon.
It was going to be a long night.
Thanks for reading and more to come soon! :)