Dan was thrown off his feet and fell in view of Sam, Lilith, Tucker, Valerie and Jazz. They smiled until the saw it wasn't Danny fighting Dan anymore. They were shocked to see Vlad Plasmius fighting Dan. Vlad hadn't been seen in thirty years and yet here he was and even more surprisingly, fighting on their side. Vlad's duplicates appeared and scattered around Dan, encircling him. One duplicate spotted the audience and glided over to them. The other Vlads started to fire plasma and ghost rays at Dan. However Dan was recovering quickly from the surprise of fighting Vlad and was fighting back and dodging the attacks as well.
"What are you doing here? Where's Danny?" Jazz demanded fiercely. Vlad smiled sadly. "I'm fighting this Dan Phantom. If it weren't for me Daniel would be dead. I'm afraid he's unconscious over in that direction. He was weakened from using his Ghostly Wail. It was quite an impressive wail though, I must say. I would suggest that you get to safety but I know that you'll not leave. So I'll ask that you keep as far from the fighting as possible," Vlad answered calmly, gesturing vaguely to where the number of ghosts, Danielle and Danny lay defeated. He had a lot more experience of multi-tasking, especially when he had duplicated his form.
Vlad turned to leave. "Wait! Why are you helping Danny? Aren't you arch enemies?" Valerie called after Vlad before he could leave. "You wouldn't believe what I have to say Valerie. But I'm helping Daniel because I know that it is the right thing to do. Well, there's that and Dan attacked me in the Ghost Zone earlier," Vlad replied and then floated away to join the fight. Valerie sat staring after Vlad, stunned by his reply. Vlad had manipulated her, tried to kill Jack Fenton, created and then manipulated Danielle, attempted to steal Maddie from Jack, attacked and fought Danny numerous times and not to mention tried to take over the world. Valerie considered all the Fentons as friends, especially since Danny's secret came out. However Vlad had seemed genuine. After all what other reason could Vlad have for fighting Dan? However then again there had been the whole Ghost King incident so maybe it was a little too early to start believing that Vlad had turned over a new leaf.
Dan fired a powerful ghost ray at one of Vlad's duplicates and it vanished. Encouraged by this small victory, Dan fired more ghost rays at the other duplicates and they each vanished one by one. Dan fired ghost rays until there was only one Vlad left. The original Vlad. The real Vlad. Vlad narrowed his eyes at Dan. "Ha, you've lost your touch old man," Dan heckled. Vlad snarled at Dan and lunged at him. Dan smirked and fired a powerful and concentrated beam right through Vlad's heart. Vlad collapsed to the ground and stared at his chest. The wound was filled with green ectoplasm and singed flesh. Sam covered Lilith's eyes and Tucker looked away feeling nauseous. Dan cackled and stood over Vlad.
Danny slowly came to. Danielle was holding her head across from him, also coming around. They shared one look and instantly realised that Dan wasn't near them. They leapt to the feet and transformed into the ghost forms as two rings passed over their bodies. They floated over to each other and hovered back to back and scanned the area. Then they saw a flash of green and recognised the light as a ghost ray. They sped off towards it and saw Dan standing over a badly injured Vlad. Together they shot a ghost ray at Dan. Danny landed in front of Dan and prepared to fight and Danielle flew out of the danger zone with Vlad. She tried to tend to Vlad's injury with shaky hands. She had mixed feelings when it came to Vlad. Vlad had attacked and threatened Danny too many times for her to think of. He had manipulated her in to doing his dirty work. He had tried to melt her down but even with all that, he had created her. He was inescapably the closest thing she had to a father.
Sorry to stop there but the chapter is getting a little long. I wanted the sight of Vlad hurt to completely throw Danielle off guard, because their relationship is complicated and complex. Vlad created her and although she turned her back on him, she can't escape that fact. Anyway I'm going to say it right now, I'm not going to resolve Danielle's feelings in this story. I'll leave that to your imaginations.
Anyway, until the next chapter…