Follows Motives (chapter 21 in the Shorts). An alternate character interpretation.

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Vlad paced back and forth.

Two days. He'd given Jack two days. Two days to decide before he came for the both of them and took what he wanted, their wants and needs be damned.

Two days. Vlad knew why Jack would need two days. He wanted to make sure Jasmine's future was assured, to give Daniel some sort of chance, in case...

In case it didn't work.

Vlad shook the thought from his head. No, it wouldn't end like that. He couldn't even entertain the notion that he might have come so close, come so far, done so much, gotten them to surrender so totally only for it to fail. He had to focus on the positives, on why it would work, on Jack's strength of will making damned sure it worked. On how it would be for them, for all of them, once it worked.

He'd have a family again. A brother, a lover, and a son. Everything he wanted. Everything he almost had, everything he'd worked toward. Everything.

A chime in the distance pricked one ear. Vlad transformed and flew up through the layers of bedrock to the foyer. Plasmius smiled darkly at the two figures who stood there. His cape flew dramatically behind him as he drank in their wonder.

He smirked, one-upping his own entrance. He took human form a few inches above the floor and dropped down, landing easily and silently.

"It's true," Maddie whispered.

"It is, my dear," Vlad purred. "Come, both of you. Before we discuss what's to happen next... There's something I'd like to show you."

Jack and Maddie glanced at each other. Both were insanely nervous, fear gnawing at their insides. There would be no escape if they went with him. There was no escape now, not anymore. Not since the reunion. But they hadn't known it then, hadn't had the slightest idea. Now...

Knowledge was a curse. They were cursed, they knew too much. Far too much. More than any mortal should ever be forced to know.

Although if Vlad was successful in his scheme... that wouldn't be a problem for long. Not long at all.

Jack took a deep breath and followed his friend. A long moment of silence passed before he heard Maddie follow behind.

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The lab was familiar and alien. Jack recognized the layout, the half-finished inventions, the ghost portal on one wall. Maddie craned her head, looking into every nook and cranny at his improvements, his security, his additions. She poked at a net-type thing and felt her finger phase through one of the parts. A green goo stuck to the tip of her glove like the web of a lazy spider. She pulled away, the strand of ectoplasm stretching long and thin before it finally broke and dissolved from her hand.

"That's not finished yet," Vlad said. "But you're not here to view my half-finished inventions."

"I know," she whispered. "You brought us here to kill us."

Vlad smiled. "Eventually," he agreed. "Don't think of it as death, my dear. Think of it as... a continuation. I certainly do. But for now you're here to see something else."

Vlad sauntered over to a glass containment tube, more than large enough to hold a person. A cloth was draped over it, hiding its contents from view. "I offered you proof," he said. "Proof that I wasn't the only one. That you could come back as yourselves, your minds intact." He grabbed the sheet but paused before pulling it off. "This ghost died a few years ago. He still doesn't think he's dead. He honestly believes he's some sort of 'human with ghost powers' or some such nonsense."

"But that's impossible," Maddie said.

"I know," Vlad said. "Yet he persists in this delusion because he doesn't want to believe his own death, even to the point of insisting that I am alive, a 'half-ghost' or some such impossibility. He thinks if he accepts his state then his parents will hate him and everyone he knows will fear him."

"That's horrible," Jack whispered.

Vlad nodded in agreement. "It is," he said. "It's a wonder he's still sane through it all." He drew the sheet away.

Jack and Maddie gasped. Bound and gagged in the glass tube was Danny Phantom. Phantom's bright green eyes glared daggers at Vlad, occasionally turning to deep dread as they darted to the Fentons.

Vlad popped the seal of the tube. The plate pulled back, leaving the prisoner to Vlad's tender mercies. He held up a device. "This will force him into his human disguise," he explained. "Once I zap him with this he won't be able to take his proper form for three hours."

"Wait, he disguises himself as a human?" Maddie asked.

"Same as I do," Vlad said. "He's kept this hidden from so many people for a very long time. Of course he can take human form. He'd have to in order to pass in society."

Jack nodded. He glanced at Maddie. She looked like she dreaded something, something that he just didn't sense. Still, she nodded as well. "Do it," Jack said.

Phantom squirmed and shrieked under his bindings as he tried desperately to escape the biting jolt of the Plasmius Maximus. But it still stabbed into him, stripping him of his powers and tearing an ear-splitting scream from his throat.

The bindings dissolved as white rings appeared around Danny's waist, laying his secret bare.

Jack and Maddie gasped. They pulled away for an instant before they rushed forward to run their hands over their son, comfort his screaming, hold him, ensure this wasn't an illusion. To convince themselves that this was real.

"As you can see," Vlad purred. "No one need know. If your own son can keep news of his death from you..."

"Mom, Dad, no," Danny rasped. "He's going to do something horrible, I just know it! I-I heard you talking about it, he's going to try to kill Dad again, Mom, Dad, please get out of here."

Jack looked at Maddie before running a big black-gloved hand through his son's thick hair. "We know, Son," he said. "That's why we're here."

Danny turned shocked, dismayed eyes to his father. "No... Dad, no..."

Jack hugged his son, wondering if this was the last time he'd be able to. "I'll go first," he said, locking eyes with Maddie. "That way if it doesn't work... If I don't come back I want you to run. Take Danny and Jazz and run as far and as fast as you can."

Maddie nodded.

Danny clutched his father, not wanting to let go. Tears flowed freely as he felt the evil red eyes of his archnemesis gloating in the corner.

Jack pulled away. He wrapped Maddie in his arms and kissed her goodbye. "I love you," he whispered.

"I love you too, Jack," she said. "Please come back."

"I will," he promised. He held her, gathering his nerves to break away and follow the calm, triumphant glow of his best friend's eyes.

"If this doesn't work, Jack, I won't force Maddie to try it," Vlad said. "I promise... I'll take good care of her..." Red eyes locked with Danny's as the boy curled up in his mother's arms.

And then they were gone.

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To be continued...