READ THE A/N AT THE END OF THIS CHAP!
I had to do a Vlad scene. I hadn't been giving the guy enough credit and he wasn't seeing much action. And I know he can be a total jerk most of the time and he's pretty much overly possessive but, well, it's not like he doesn't care. He just never got the chance to…
Nineteen: Like Father to Son
Something cold touched Vlad's shoulder and he shot straight up in his seat to meet the dulled red eye of Dan Phantom. It took the millionaire a moment to realize that the ghost's other eye, while healing, had swollen shut. Dan looked ragged.
"You're turn, Plasmius…" Danny's future self sighed in a whisper, "I can't keep it up out there; too exhausted from my fight with Phantom. You take guard duty…"
"What!? But I—!" But it was too late, Dan had already slouched into his seat, closed his eyes, and was asleep in seconds.
Vlad's eyes flashed red and a black light swept over his body, changing him into his ghostly form. With a grunt of dissatisfaction, Plasmius rocketed through the ceiling and perched himself on the roof of the RV. It was still pouring rain and a sudden clap of thunder made him jump.
"Great…" The halfa growled, feeling the ends of his usually spiked black hair droop, sodden with water, "I'll have to leave the driving to Jasmine after this."
"Verifying: Vlad 'Plasmius' Masters, Halfa, close relations with Daniel Fenton and Danny Phantom. Capture and Detain." Vlad swiveled around and groaned. At least thirteen of the Observants' guards were hovering in the air around the side of the RV, "Verifying: Fenton Assault Vehicle. Verifying: Passengers Jasmine Fenton, Capture and Detain, Samantha Manson, Capture and Detain, Tucker Foley, Capture and Detain, Dan Phantom, Capture an—."
"Shut up!" Vlad swung out a fist coated in ectoplasm and caught the guard in the face, knocking the ghost back into the others behind him. Before they could recover, Vlad split himself into four copies, each growling and spitting rain water. Lightning flashed. Almost simultaneously, the guards pulled out long staffs that were wreathed in green electricity.
Vlad and his copies shot up into the sky, taking the enemy away from the RV and the sleeping occupants within. Then he whipped around and fired thick beams of energy at the oncoming guards, his copies mimicking the movement. Several of the guards dodged and turned invisible while the others continued straight forward. Vlad swung a leg out, catching one guard in the side and knocking him away while bringing a fist down on the head of another.
"Daniel's faster than you lot!" He snarled and then hissed as one of his copies disappeared in a puff of smoke, "Rotten luck!" And he clawed outward with one hand, charging the other with a swirl of pink ectoplasm. In a blaze of light that was countered by a flash of lightning, one of the guards disappeared in an explosion of green mist.
An electrified staff suddenly shot through the air, launched by one of the guards, and Vlad turned intangible just in time. It passed right through him, sizzling as the rain struck it, but one of his copies was not as luck and it met the same fate as the first. Vlad drew his last copy back into himself and grabbed two guards by the backs of their heads, smashing them together with such a force that their helmets collapsed and they tumbled, dazed back to earth.
Something grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides, and he cursed when he realized that one of the invisible guards had snuck up on him. Another guard advanced with a sparking staff and Vlad struggled and kicked, unable to phase through the guards arms. The end of the staff jammed into his stomach and he doubled over, screaming in agony as ecto-electricity coursed through him. His limbs jerked in a frenzy, block spots crept over his vision, and he felt like he was being burned from the inside out.
The pain stopped and Vlad felt himself falling with the rain but there he couldn't tell up from down and the black spots in his eyes were making it impossible to see. He landed on something cold and metallic with a sickening crunch and felt his breath cut short. Something wasn't right. It felt like something had snapped. With a choked groan of agony, the halfa pushed himself upright, feeling his chest and back. Everything appeared to be in working order. Then he realized there was an antenna sticking through his chest, piercing right through his right lung. Well, that was bothersome.
"Verifying: Vlad 'Plasmius' Masters. Current State, extremely injured, no longer a threat. Continue on to detainment." The remaining guards had formed a circle around him, starring with blank, glowing eyes. A rumble of thunder drowned out their next words as a flash of lightning sparkled off their armor, "—trial by Observant Court. Laws of the Ghost Zone state that you must attended said trial or face—."
"The Ghost Zone has no laws!" Vlad shouted, yanking the antenna out with a cry of agony and firing a shivering beam of ectoplasm at the talking guard so that it reeled backwards. Then he gasped, sinking back against the roof of the RV where he'd landed, hand over his chest which was slowly being stained with green blood, "Curse…this…I can't…I can't…" He fought to draw in a wheezing breath, struggling to maintain his ghost form. If he reverted back now, he'd surely die.
The guards moved closer and Vlad grinned, raising the hand that had been over the hole in his chest and setting off an explosion of ectoplasm so bright it seemed like the sun had risen with a pink hue for the smallest fraction of a second. Vlad rubbed his eyes as he sat up and flexed his fingers. He'd been working on that attack for quite a while and it gladdened him to see that it had done its job. A haze of green hung in the air around the RV but it was quickly being washed away by the still falling rain.
The halfa peered down at the hole in his chest. Or rather, where the hole had been. Vlad's healing abilities had increased greatly over time. He paused for a moment, wondering why Dan's abilities had not increased in the same way. Then again, Dan had been stuck inside a metal can for almost three years so it seemed to reason that he wouldn't have gotten that much stronger.
Pushing his sopping and no longer spiked hair from his face, the halfa crossed his legs, cracked his neck, and settled back, on the roof of the RV. His sharp ears caught the sound of the door opening and closing below him and he leaned forward to meet the dulled, pale blue eyes of Danny. The boy had dug up a hooded jacket from the back of the RV that had probably once been his dad's; the sleeves were rolled up several times and still almost trailed to the ground, the bottom of the jacket nearly reached his ankles, and the only reason the hood wasn't completely obscuring his face was because he was holding it.
"What do you want, Daniel?"
"I heard you screaming." The boy replied cheekily, pushing Plasmius' buttons, "Observants getting the better of you or just reliving college years?"
"Glad to see your witty banter has returned." Vlad replied dryly, dropping to the ground, "But shouldn't you be asleep?"
Danny's expression was immediately blank, "I don't sleep much anymore. Nightmares. They've sort of let up since I came to terms with the fact I could d-die if I don't become Danny Phantom again but they're still terrifying."
There was silence between the two. The rain didn't seem to be letting up but the thunder and lightning were distant now. Danny scuffed his sneaker in the mushy mix of dead leaves, grass, mud, and rain water.
"Remember…remember when I was in the Inbetween?" He asked suddenly and Plasmius nodded, "Well, remember how I asked you if you were afraid you were never going to wake up?" Another nod, this one slow, wondering where the boy was taking this, "You never answered me."
Vlad sighed, "I don't think about the what if's, Daniel. If I want something, I'll do whatever it takes to obtain it."
"So I've noticed." Danny muttered, pushing his hood back as the rain soaking into the fabric made it heavier.
"When I end up in the Inbetween," The older halfa continued as though he hadn't heard, "I concentrate on what drives me to stay alive at all. What I live for. What ca—want." Vlad turned his red eyes on Danny, "What do you want Daniel?"
"I…um…I…I want…I want things to go back to the way they were." Danny confessed in a hushed voice, "I want them to be normal, well, as normal as they were. The normal that it was before Zodiac."
"Then make it so you ungrateful child." Vlad stated flatly and turned invisible to float over the top of the RV before Danny could get another word in. With a grunt of dissatisfaction, the Fenton boy hopped back into the vehicle and pushed the hood back, casting his weary, blue eyes around the sleeping occupants.
Jazz at the front curled animal-like in her seat, head propped on the arm rest, completely still and silent, Dan Phantom with his head tossed back and legs stretched out so that his ankles were crossed on the head rest of the driver's seat in front of him, Phantom, though technically not asleep, looking harmless slumped in his bonds, Tucker, scrunched into a tiny ball in his seat with his fingers wrapped protectively around his precious PDA, and Sam, his, dear, dear Sam, with her head on one arm rest and her knees draped over the other, arms folded over her stomach. Danny stared at her for a long time.
What if he had never walked into the Fenton Ghost portal?
He'd considered that so many times. What if he'd just flat out told Sam he didn't want to? Would the ghost problem in Amity Park have gotten worse or would it have been better without a Danny Phantom for the ghosts to hold a vendetta to?
"Everything is as it should be…" The voice was so faint, so muffled that Danny wasn't sure he'd even heard it, "Well, this is not how it should be!"
"Clockwork?" Danny crouched down on the floor of the RV and peered under Tucker's seat, "Way to go Tucker, drop the thermos under the seat!" He reached under and tugged the bruised Fenton Thermos out from under the seat.
"Danny?" The muffled voice came again and there was a number of loud hammerings, "Get me out of here!"
"Phantom smashed the controls," Danny said as he plopped into the seat in the back of the RV, drawing his knees up to his chin and holding the thermos to his chest, "Tucker's been trying to hack it but we can't get it open." Silence was his answer, "Clockwork, I…I came to my senses, okay, and I just wanted you to know that I…I'm really sorry for the crap I've been giving you all these years, even though I know you were trying to help."
"Unforeseen events, Danny, that got completely out of hand." Came the faint answer from inside the device, "But we can solve this."
"I'm waiting for you to say "I think"."
"Hmph, not likely. I may be neutral in my views but I am not quite the pessimist that the Observants are."
"Right. Look, we can try some more in the morning. Or we can have Vlad try, I think Jazz is going to drive. Right now, I need to sleep." Danny dropped back onto the seat, stretched his legs out so they touched the other side of the vehicle, and closed his eyes, tucking the thermos between his bandaged right arm and his chest. Within seconds, he was softly snoring away.
Oh my gosh! Where has this been!? Ugh, seriously, I'm falling behind on my work and I'm really sorry about it! I bet you wonderful peoples have stopped reading this because you've figured I'm not going to update. I'm really sorry!
Aaaaannnyyyway, I've got a super awesome idea! If you guys leave me enough reviews, let's say if I hit twenty by chapter twenty one maybe, I'll slip in something extra special! Like…a little bit of the sequel to Melody in Black. That's right! It's not the end! I can't let it be the end! So If I get twenty reviews at least by chapter twenty one, a reasonable request, I think, then I'll give you guys all a sneak preview!
Thanks for reading, please leave me a review, and good-bye!