Yuki: Meep!
Anika: God, shut up!
Yuki: *tied up in chains*
Disclaimer: Butch Hartman would projectile vomit out of every orifice if he would read this misshapen horror of a story.
Warning: Trauma, Oedipus complex, witchcraft, Vlad being awesome!!!!!
To the reviewer who wrote under the name Freak:
I actually didn't do research for this. My first fluent language is English, my family is Mexican and tries to make me talk Spanish, I learn Japanese from various animes and books my mommy buys me, and French, I am learning at school.
My mom is a nurse and she had to take Psychiatric Nursing, so I took her book without her knowing and memorized quite a bit of stuff. I'm actually making this story up while building on the basic plot line I have.
In reference to the Full Metal Alchemist thing about Envy's... homunculus?, I am not taking any of the Seven Demons of the Seven Sins from FMA. I'm taking it from Umineko no Naku Koro ni, from the creators of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.
As in reference to Danny's personality, it's mostly based off of me, books and movies that I've read, and what someone has told me.
The someone, I owe a lot to. I say no more.
Books, there are just too many books that I take stuff from. I disclaim stuff that I can't remember everything. I do disclaim Taken. And Silence of The Lambs. And whole ton of other stuff.
I... Well, my friend and her mother call me crazy. I prefer 'Psycho'. It just sounds cooler. I am Catholic, yet I am all for homosexuality. I talk like an eight-year-old at times, yet I like to burn stuff (Burning stuff is fun.) and imagine how I can kill all the motherf*ckers that make my life a f*cking annoyance and burden.
When my parents talk about imaginative divorce and say how they would find me a new mommy or daddy, I imagine shoving a knife through imaginary Step-Mommy/Daddy's brain until they decide that it won't work out. If Mom and Dad know what's good for their social life, they will not talk about separating in front of me.
Much like how Danny freaks out in "Prisoners of Love" when he hears his Mommy say the word divorce. Yeah... My brain is messed up and Danny is the outlet for this.
Thank you for reviewing.
To Renee-chan:
When I first thought of the spark that set this story off in... well... I think maybe... 2006, I had no idea where I was going to go with the story. All I had was Danny and Phantom revealing a strange relationship during Christmas. As I got older, I added more onto the idea.
Anime, movies, and a LOT of books helped in the process of developing the plot line. GO HIGURASHI!!!! (I also recommend Umineko no Naku Koro ni, a spin-off anime, but just amazing!)
As for Danny, he gets peeved VERY easily, as you will see later in the story. He has gone through so much, but has tried to maintain his innocence. By innocence, I don't mean being a virgin-minded, clueless idiot; I think the last chapter with his 'Uncle' destroyed that. Danny is NOT clueless. And Sam and Tucker, he has a platonic/parental relationship with them. Again, this is revealed more in depth as the story progresses.
I love you for reviewing!!!
Edit: 6 Feb '10 : I took a quiz on Facebook for Danny, "What's your Japanese name?". I took it three times for him, just to make sure. The first two times it came up as 'Takehiko' (warrior boy), the last time it came up 'Ryou' (reality). I think that both describe him pretty well.
Edit: 27 Feb '10 : My friend and I set up a website. Go there for some stories that we write. Please? We have Vlad x Danny there! ----- 2half-asleepzombiez. webs. com.
Chapter 7: Bitter Reunions (Prepare for Vlad and Danny bonding!!!)
10,000 years ago
"Papa!"
"My princess!" Dahlia jumped into her father's arms, admiring his white hair and navy blue eyes. She loved her father and mother so much. But... Mother was dead.
"Mama!" Dahlia pointed to the sky.
"Yes, my little one," her father said, sadness filling his throat. "Your mother is watching over you. Always."
He laid a kiss to his daughter's forehead. His daughter who was the living incarnation of his wife.
Back when I was a child, before life removed all the innocence
My father would lift me high and dance with my mother and me and then
Present Day
"Finally. One day where I get home on time without any ghosts detours making me miss my 10 o'clock cerfew."
Danny rode down the road on his motorized scooter, just three minutes to 10:00 P.M. Suddenly his ghost sense went off.
The boy stopped his scooter and looked to the sky. Three ghost vultures flew overhead.
Said birds began to go intangible and go from house to house, not heeding any screams that arose from their actions.
"Or not."
-SKIPPING CUZ I'M LAZEE!-
"Danny, this is becoming a problem. You're constantly late coming home..."
"You're shirking from your chores."
Shut up.
"Your grades are slipping."
Like you would know.
"Shirking from your chores."
Danny finally took time off of his interest of the floor to look over at his father. "You already said chores."
"I know, but when you don't do them, I get stuck with them."
"Look," Danny began, "I'm under a lot of pressure. You two have no idea what it's like to be a kid today."
"Come on, Danny," Maddie said. "That's the oldest excuse in the book.
"There's nothing you're going through-" Danny almost yelped as Phantom stirred in their mind and his arm went intangible. "-that your father and I didn't go through when we were your age."
"Yeah? Well, I beg to differ." The boy slouched mentally cast his own brand of magic... To quiet the woman in front of him.
Uuu... Uuu... Let me be happy.
Rid me of the cause of my misfortune.
Kill it, silence her.
Jazz, sitting cross-legged in a chair, closed her book and answered Danny's wish.
"The reason Danny thinks you can't relate to him is that you never take time to tell him about your childhood."
"Jazz."
"Have you told him how you met? About your first date?"
"Jazz!"
"Where you went to college?"
And the ride to Wisconsin began the next day.
Spin me around 'til I fell asleep
Then up the stairs he would carry me
Vlad Masters...
Danny had remembered seeing and hearing that name somewhere, he thought as he sneaked out of the Assault Vehicle.
He looked at the stars, looking for Dahlia's star. The one that Gretel had taught him.
Flashback
"Mama? What star is that?"
"That is our ancestor's star, your namesake."
"Namesake?"
"Dahlia's other name was Danyel." Gretel wrote the name on a paper for Danny to see the difference.
"Like my name is Daniel, but with an 'i', not a 'y'."
"Yes, my star... My little wishing star."
She kissed his forehead. He kissed her neck. Their lips met in a mutual kiss.
End Flashback
If Vlad Masters was who Danny thought he was, he owed it to Gretel, his mother, to see him...
Even if he was angry at the man...
If Danny was right...
The next morning was bright as Jack Fenton drove crazily to a green, white, and gold castle, lavish and wonderful. On the outside...
As the Fenton family began to climb out of the RV, a man walked out of the doorway. When the Fentons got closer, he stepped out of the shadows.
Danny was told by his mother that the man he was searching for would be attractive. Vlad indeed was, in a mysterious way.
And I knew for sure I was loved
If I could get another chance, another walk, another dance with him
Vlad Masters, age 46, stood, his silver hair in a low ponytail. His clothes were neat, a black suit and red tie.
Danny smiled; the man and Vlad matched perfectly.
"Jack," Vlad said, one eyebrow cocking in acknowledgment. "And Maddie, you've never looked lovelier, my dear."
He put his arm around Maddie, Jazz, and Danny, ushering them inside. Danny felt an air of home, lonely and desolate.
His favorite.
"Please come in."
Vlad made sure to leave Jack outside. If he had come in, well, his happiness would've been ruined.
I'd play a song that would never, ever end
How I'd love, love, love
Danny awoke later that night, Phantom sensing a ghost nearby. "Oh, great. Just what I need. A working vacation."
Phantom took control and took off.
--TIME LAPSE--
"Okay, that was almost too easy." Phantom wondered why the birds flew and disappeared.
"Ah. Bright boy." He turned to see another ghost, almost looking like-
'Dracula! See if you can get his autograph!'
--Master, not now.--
The ghost had pointed black hair, a flowing white and red cape, a white tunic, and black boots. His fangs gleamed dimly in the darkness of the hallway.
"Oh, whatever. I was aiming for the birds, but you'll do." Phantom charged at him, throwing a punch and ending up against the wall.
"Whoa, fast." Phantom held his head, waiting for the small concussion to fade. "Alright, better stop fooling around."
Danny sat in his Soul Room, looking through his Looking Glass, watching Phantom fight the other ghost. The air of nostalgia with the ghost filled his Soul Room to the brim.
Where had Danny met the man?
-beaut-----------sn't h----Grete----ove you.----
---y son-------y--ishing---ar----
Danny's eyes opened in pain as his body took four ectoblasts from the ghost. More punches came head-on and he felt his body go intangible through a door and back into the hallway where the fight began.
The pain came on fully and Danny went unconscious.
Vlad sat in his study, contemplating what he had seen.
To dance with my father again
When I and my mother would disagree
He was sure that Phantom had gained his own body since he had seen him last. Apparently, he had thought wrong.
He uploaded a picture of himself... and his family.
His wife was twenty-five at the time, holding their newborn son in her arms. Their other son, two years old, smiled at the camera. Vlad held the older child, one arm around his wife, who was tired from labor.
She died two hours after her son was born.
2:08 A.M.
July 14th, 1993.
To get my way, I would run from her to him
He'd make me laugh just to comfort me
Danny smiled as he was introduced to one of his father's college buddies, then felt mortified as he tried to crack a joke about Harriet 'Harry' Chin. He watched in horror as his father dragged Maddie off to pogo-dance.
"Okay, I'm officially mortified." Ms. Chin walked up to him.
"What took so long?"
Later, Danny had gotten some punch. A couple came up to him. He looked up to see their faces.
"Oh, sorry," the woman said, her curly red hair matching the pink blush that was spreading across her cheeks. "We mistook you from someone else."
"Danny Martin?" Danny knew the name of the person they had been looking for, he looked just like her.
"Yes, do you know if he's here?" The blond haired-man did not notice the slight surge of hurt that Danny felt.
"She was a friend of my mother's. She passed away the year I was born." Not to mention the very day.
"She... isn't here?"
"...She died." Danny walked away after that, ignoring the whispers that arose about Danny Martin, the name Gretel took up to go to college.
But not before hearing something that made no sense at all.
"Really? Vlad said she'd be here."
Danny sat, slumped on a table, watching a man pogo across in front of him.
Then finally make me do just what my mama said
Later that night when I was asleep
"Well, son." Danny perked up when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Vlad stood above him. "You're looking much better. I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor?"
"Oh, sure, Mr. Masters, but call me Danny. Son is what my dad calls me."
"Oh, yes, yes, of course." Vlad leaned in as the volume of the music went up slightly. "Now, could you go to my lab, second door on the right upstairs? There's a present in there for your father that I'd like you to bring down."
"Okay," Danny said, as he walked off.
Vlad turned to where Jack was dancing and where Maddie stood awkwardly.
"Maddie, that lab accident made me lose my chance at you, but that's all about to change."
Ghosts form around obsessions. Vlad had two, as did Danny and Phantom. His wife and magic.
He left a dollar under my sheet
Never dreamed that he would be gone from me
Danny saw the picture piece that the birds had dropped two nights before match the picture in the stand.
Vlad Masters was trying to kill his father.
"Oh, no. No way." Disbelief flooded his system, then rationalization came in.
If I could steal one final glance, one final step, one final dance with him
I'd play a song that would never, ever end
His mother's description of the man.
The way Vlad looked at his mother.
Danny's attraction towards Vlad.
The friendship that his father felt.
Vlad Masters was trying to-
Danny saw his breath and let Phantom take over. Phantom gasped as he was pulled up by two ectopusses, which he beat quickly.
"Those ghosts, they were two of the first ghosts I fought."
"They're not alone, punk." The ghost boy turned to see a net fly at him. He broke out of the net to see...
"Skulker? How did you get back in your ectoskeleton? What are you doing here?"
Skulker was on the ground, rolling a black box in Danny's direction. "All excellent questions."
Danny was freaking out slightly by the time that Skulker had unleashed his blade. He couldn't even move away because of the box he was trapped in
"Whoa! The glowing blade in new."
"You like it? I've had some upgrades!" He grinned menacingly. "Now..."
"Enough! I didn't free you to kill the boy, Skulker!" Vlad Masters came out of the shadows, obviously displeased. "Your work is done."
Skulker flew away as Tucker's PDA launched him to check out a book about the Purple-Back Gorilla.
"Skulker? The Ecto-Pusses?"
Danny's eyes opened in realization.
"You're a sorcerer."
"Of course. You really are Maddie's child."
'Cause I'd love, love, love
To dance with my father again
"Not really. I'm just ahead of the game."
"Not really. You're, what, fourteen?! Too young to drive and not in college yet?" Vlad had walked towards Danny and began to walk around the box he was trapped in. "I sent those ghosts, and others, to test your father's skill. Imagine my surprise when I find you. The second ghost hybrid his foolishness created."
"Second?"
Vlad Masters had a black ring appear around his waist, which separated and the two rings went around him, turning him into the ghost that Phantom had fought last night.
Vlad Plasmius.
"What do you want with Maddie?"
"Your mother allows you to call her by her first name?"
"She's not my mother. She's my aunt."
Sometimes I'd listen outside her door
And I'd hear how my mother cried for him
"Really?"
"Yeah, my mother was Gretel. I think you knew her as Danny Martin." Danny saw the pain flash in his eyes.
Vlad was taken aback. Danny Fenton... was his son? Of course, the eyes, his hair, he was reincarnation of his mother, Gretel of her mother, of her mother, of her mother, and so on... Back and back and back... All the way to the first witch Dahlia and her mother.
He returned his attention to the boy, who was trying to summon his ghost form... with a battle cry no less.
"You have a battle cry, hilarious."
"It's not a battle cry, it's a rude awakening."
"Awakening?"
"Remember the ghost you summoned to watch over me? Yeah, that's Phantom."
"I see." Vlad should've known that the ghost child that he had summoned would've had the gall to merge with his son. "You have your battle cry-"
"Not a battle cry."
"-and I have this." The man patted the box that his son was inside of.
I pray for her even more than me
I pray for her even more than me
"A spectral energy neutralizer designed by Skulker, paid for by me. And as long you're contained within that box, you're as human as Jack."
"Let me out of here!"
"Why? So you can go back to stumbling through your adolescence, desperately trying to control Phantom's powers? Powers, by the way, that I have had for twenty years."
Vlad proceeded to show off his abilities to his child; an ectoplasmic shield, duplication, and invisibility. "I have experience, my child, and the power and money attained through using those powers for personal gain. I could train you two, teach you everything I know, and all you'd have to do is renounce your idiot adoptive father."
Danny was fuming. "You think I'm some stupid teenager?!"
"You may have powerful witch blood, but you are still a child."
"Why do I have to give up living with the Fentons anyway?"
"Jack is the only thing stopping me from getting Maddie. Renounce him."
"..." Danny stared at his father. "Dude, you are one seriously, crazed-up fruitloop. That is never going to happen."
"Well, once Jack is out of the way, we'll see how you feel."
"Why do you care?! You gave me and my brother away! Does it even matter?" Danny had tears in his eyes, but not enough modesty to let the tears flow.
Vlad's gaze softened. He floated over to his child and laid a tender kiss on his forehead.
I know I'm praying for much too much
But could you send back the only man she loved
"Don't worry, my child. Soon all your dreams will be happy. The witch will never scare you again and your mother will read you books, make you snacks, and pat you on the head like you always wanted."
I know you don't do it usually
But dear Lord she's dying
Danny and Vlad stood fighting, both in their ghost forms.
"Daniel, Phantom," Vlad said to both boys, "stop. Think about the things I can show you, the doors I can open for you."
Danny appeared in a spectral form beside Phantom's solid one.
"You, Danny, New Witch of Miracles; you, Phantom; and I, Vlad Plasmius. Together, we could rule."
"Forget it, Daddy!" Danny snapped back at him. He faded back into his body and continued to speak. "Your money can't buy Maddie, it can't buy the Packers, and it can't buy me!"
He shot an ectoplasmic ray at his father, in open defiance that he had never done before.
"Besides, Daddy, I wouldn't like sharing a crown."
Danny rushed to get his things into his suitcase. His breath became cold.
"Hello, Daddy."
"You are trying to stop me from making us both happy?"
"I don't want people to get hurt in the process."
"I can see through you, my child. You despise Madelyn Fenton with every fiber of your being."
Danny turned to face Vlad, who floated in front of the doorway. "My mother loved her half-sister. If she could love Maddie, I want to try as well."
"My best wishes to you, then."
Danny had walked to face his father up close.
"My best wishes to you, Papa." Danny looked at his father's dark blue eyes and kissed his lips, feeling that attraction surge.
Vlad was told of this attraction. He had been told by Gretel, his Danyel, that children in her family suffered from Oedipus complex, the loving of their parents.
Danny broke the kiss and left his father, looking back only once to wave him good-bye.
Jack Fenton carried his son inside Fenton Works and up to his room.
"Danny? Wake up."
"Hmm?"
"Get into your pajamas. I want to talk to you."
After doing so, Danny climbed into bed and looked at his father, who sat on the edge of the bed.
"I know you're probably too old for this, but Vlad..." Jack held up a book. Grimm's Fairy Tales.
Danny smiled. "Can you read me a story?"
Jack smiled. "Of course, son. Ahem. Story number one: The Frog King or Iron Heinrich..."
To dance with my father again
Every night I fall asleep and this is all I ever dream
Song: Dance with my Father Again by Luther Vandross
1) Danny is Maddie's nephew as Gretel is Maddie's half-sister. Gretel's English name was Danyel 'Danny' Martin. She and Vlad met at college. Gretel was also there during the Protoportal incident. Danny was born on July 14th, 1993 at 12:08. (I was born on July 19th, 1994 at 12:08 and I have two friends born on the 14th.)
2) I was reading Neoyi's comic and saw how close Prince Daniel was to King Vlad. I wanted my Danny to have open affection for his father, so there we go.
3) That little spell that Danny does in the beginning of the chapter, the 'uuu...', is a happiness spell from Umineko no Naku Koro ni.
Leave any questions, comments, concerns (no flames) through the comments link, please.