Chapter Forty-Seven: The Other Dan

"School?" Dan looked startled by the question. The following Monday, when Valerie was back in Amity Park, Vlad had proposed the suggestion. "Uhm…I guess…considering the situation…" He glanced away. "It'd have to be a ghost."

"Oh? Anyone in mind?" Vlad asked.

"No one who doesn't hate my guts and will find any excuse to punish me." Dan cringed. "I'm gonna….ask the other Dan who he went to after he…lost it. I mean, he spent ten tears growing more powerful, I'm sure he did some studying."

"I don't like you going to the other Dan." Vlad frowned.

"Clockwork keeps him in line." Dan said, nodding. "It won't hurt to just talk."

"Plasmius will be watching outside." He glanced at the other man, who nodded. "I'd like him to go inside, honestly, but you'll have to ask Clockwork if that's alright."

"I'll talk to him about it." Dan stood up. "So, can I go now?"

Vlad looked at his empty plate and sighed. "Alright, you may go."

Plasmius got up from his own plate and wrapped his cape around the teen as he walked away with him. Vlad could swear he was shot a smug smirk as his ghost-brother led away the object of both their affections.

"You seem to be adapting to the news alright. You seem in a better state than when you last came here." Clockwork commented, going into the shadows and pulling out the beat up thermos – apparently the other Dan had been trying to get out before finally resigning to his fate. "You do realize, of course, the risks involved with this?"

"I just want to talk to him. It can't be that bad." Dan sighed.

"That's not the problem. It's that you haven't asked for me to allow Plasmius in, and you have requested to talk to him alone." Clockwork went into a door that appeared. "Come this way, young Phantom."

Dan nodded, following him in through the doorway. This room was much like the other one, with gears everywhere, but when Clockwork set down the thermos and went through again, the door vanished.

"I guess…it's up to me to let him out. He'll know when I'm done." Dan shrugged, walking over and pushing the release button on the thermos. Then he took several quick steps back before flying up to a horizontal gear and sitting on it.

He was no less tall and buff than he was when Danny put him IN that thing, and he was looking like he was going to strangle him for that. "Phantom? Get down here." He called. "I'm not talking to you up there."

Against his better judgment, Dan flew down and hovered in front of him. "Okay. I'm down. Let's ta—aalk!" He cried out as the other Dan grabbed his leg and slammed him to the floor.

"On the ground, Phantom." He said, looking down at him.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Cringing, he slowly got up and rubbed his sore rump. "Okay, fine. I'm on the ground. Now, can I trust you to not slug me and just talk?"

The other Dan kicked the thermos off into the abyss somewhere and raised an eyebrow. "Alright, talk. What do you need to know so badly that you let me out of my cage finally?"

Dan sighed; so much for getting him back in it later. Hopefully his goal to destroy the world wasn't a thing anymore, and he just wanted to kick Dan's butt. "Did you know?"

"You risked your life to ask that?" The other Dan rolled his eyes. "No, I didn't know. Does it change my feelings about my own Danny? No. He was weak, pathetic, and held me back with his precious morals. I was glad when I finally escaped him, and I made sure I wouldn't be going back in."

"…What DID you do to him?" Dan asked.

"My, aren't we full of morbid curiosity today?" The older ghost smirked. "What do you THINK I did to him?"

"Did you…kill him?" Dan breathed.

"If that's what you think." He smirked. "No, I just beat him half to death, took him away with me, tortured him for a while until he went into a coma and then left him in a random apartment for him to eventually wake up in. Ten years later and he still hadn't woken up, so he's as good as dead. Especially since I can't give him water anymore." He grinned. "Whose fault is that?"

"You're lying. You're just using my emotions to make me feel guilty and you actually killed him in front of Vlad!" Dan snapped.

"Is that what Masters told you? Then why even ask?" The other Dan lifted into the air. Dan lifted into the air a bit as well, not wanting to be on the ground if he wasn't. "I could tell you that he's alive and well hiding away from the destruction I caused and you wouldn't believe it! I could tell you I spared him because I had other intentions for him, and you would still think I killed him in front of the old man!"

"What DID you do?!" Dan demanded. He gasped as the other Dan grabbed his arm and pulled him close, spinning him around to pin him against him with his arm held between them. "Ow, this hurts!"

"What did the old man say, exactly?" The older ghost asked; his voice malicious in Dan's ear.

"T-That some things were better left unsaid." Dan answered.

"So, basically, he only saw when I dove at the boy and doesn't know beyond that!" The other Dan laughed. "He assumed, just as you did, that I killed him!" His long tongue snaked out and caressed Dan's face. "But, why would I kill him when he gave such nice screams? He was a good punching bag when I was angry and when I wanted something else—" His free hand roamed down Dan's body. "Well, you get it."

"S-So, he's still alive?" Dan asked, squirming away from his touches.

"Alive? Yes. Terrified of my next visit? Definitely." He grinned. "Thanks to someone, though, I most likely won't be visiting him again. He'll come out of the shadows, shielding his eyes from the light, and wonder where I went."

Dan squirmed again, then cried out as he was suddenly released. "W-Whoa!" He flew forward a ways and then turned to face him. "Okay, so one mystery is solved. Now the next one. After the merging, how did you spend those ten years?"

"When I wasn't beating or fucking young Daniel Fenton, I was tormenting the people of the world and experimenting with women. Just for fun." He grinned. "Some of them screamed real good. And when I wasn't doing that, I was visiting Ghostwriter for teachings. He's the best teacher in the Ghost Zone, with all of knowledge literally at his fingertips."

"Yeah, well, newsflash: He hates me." Dan grumbled.

"Well, that's your own fault, isn't it?" The other Dan shrugged. "Unless you want a human teacher finding out the truth of your ghostliness or Plasmius to be your sole tutor, you have to make up with Ghostwriter."

"But I ruined his book." Dan cringed. "I didn't let him have his way. He won't like me."

"Well, if the images are any indication, you seem to have picked up a few…skills of persuasion." The other Dan smirked, eyeing him up and down.

Dan stared blankly, then jerked back. "What?! With Ghostwriter?!"

"Could be worse, you could do it with Skulker." The other ghost grinned. "Wouldn't that be just unappealing? He's such a creepy little thing, after all."

"No, no. I'm not gonna screw Ghostwriter. Or let him screw me. Whatever. No." Dan shook his head, completely ignoring the other possibility.

"Then you'll never be good enough to beat Jack Fenton." The other Dan flew over to Dan, grabbing his arm roughly again and pulling him close against his body. "Are you giving up on your precious revenge so easily? What happened to corrupting yourself so you would be willing to do the unspeakable acts HE did?"

"Ow, ow, ow! Let go!" Dan tried to hit him to get free, but the other Dan grabbed his wrist tightly and leaned his face in close to Dan's, dangling him in the air.

"I knew it. Your resolve is weak, you could never beat him. That's also why you lost to Skulker, and why you'll lose in every battle against Plasmius!" He threw Dan suddenly, watching as he hit a gear and went down with a cry of pain. He then flew down and grabbed the teen's hair roughly, his other hand landing on Dan's back to pin him down. "All the promises, all the cries for revenge, they'll be nothing unless you actually go through with what you decide to do! And if moving towards your goal involves sleeping with Ghostwriter to get on his good side, you go there, drop your pants and stick out your ass for him!"

Dan was silently sobbing in pain, listening to the older ghost yell at him. When he was finally let up, he rubbed at his eyes with his arm and looked towards where the door should be. It wasn't time yet; they weren't scheduled to be done now. He frowned, trying to think of what else he had to say to the older ghost.

A hand on his chest broke him from his thoughts and then he was slammed onto his back, the older Dan looking down at him with a lecherous grin. Oh, hell no. He was not going to sleep with the other Dan, he was NOT! "Get off!" Dan cried, blasting an ecto-blast at him. The other Dan blocked it with a shield and then moved forward, slamming his lips onto the teen's. He struggled, beating on his shoulders, but the other Dan grabbed his wrists and pinned them down before he broke the kiss.

"You can't even beat Plasmius off. Don't presume you can beat ME off of you." He smirked, looking at the green-tinted face beneath his, toxic-green glaring into ruby-red.

"Get. Off." Dan repeated, trying to pull his wrists free. He swung up a leg, but Dan moved quickly and pinned it with his own knee. Another try and the other leg was pinned by the other knee. He was trapped.

"You know, it has been a while since I fucked anyone." The older ghost smirked. "And since you seemed so eager to destroy your innocence before, I may as well help you along in a way that benefits both of us. Since you CLEARLY aren't going to kill anyone like I did; promises, after all, are binding."

Dan didn't reply, just stared up at him defiantly. 'The moment he lets me go to change position or remove my outfit, I'm going to blast him!' He thought.

The other Dan forced Dan's hands together and pinned them down with one hand above his head, his other hands moving down to Dan's hazmat suit. He toyed with the zipper for a bit, then slashed at the outfit with his claws, ripping away the material from his collarbone to his pelvis.

"Hey! You know, the zipper works just fine!" Dan protested.

"Oh, it'll recover." The other man smirked and then moved off him, forcing him to roll onto his stomach and pinning him again as he slashed at the back of his outfit, exposing his body.

"Okay, okay! I-I'll do it willingly, just let me up!" Dan cried, growing frantic. He wasn't going to be raped by this guy, no way!

The other Dan grinned. "When will you learn?" He stroked down the teen's trembling back. "For me, there is no 'willingly'." He roughly pinned him down with one hand, the other unzipping his own suit.

"Stop it!" Dan tried to attack him, but the hand pinning him moved and grabbed one arm and then the other, slamming them down behind his back and holding them there. "Ow! Stop it, Dan!"

"No, little Phantom." The other Dan grinned, his other hand gripping his hips and pulling them up. "Call this my payback for your putting me in that damn thermos for months." He pushed in, hard and fast, and grinned when the teen let out screams of agony. "Oh, I missed those." He murmured, moving in and out of him at an agonizingly slow pace, ramming in hard each time. He licked his lips, watching as the teen tried to squirm away, to attack him – to do ANYTHING.

It hurt! It really hurt, even worse than when Plasmius did it! He squirmed and tried to pull free, but the other Dan was having none of it and thrust in and out of him brutally, red-green blood slipping from the abused hole. Green tears slipped from Dan's eyes and he let out a soft sob, frustrated that he couldn't escape this.

It felt like forever before he was finally filled and the older ghost released him, zipping up his outfit. "Well, that was fun." He smirked. "Though, I bet Ghostwriter will want less of the crying and screaming."

"You bastard, I was going to do it willingly!" Dan cried, wincing as he sat up.

"And I told you, no one does anything with me willingly. I don't give them the chance to." The other Dan walked over and looked down at the abyss. "Yep, that thermos is gone."

"Are you going to escape and cause havoc, then?" Dan asked.

"No." The other Dan shrugged. "Might ask Clockwork's permission to go and visit my dear, sweet Danny though." He smirked.

"You're a bastard." Dan spat.

"Good, take that anger and use it to fuel your resolve." The other Dan turned to him. "Because the way you are now, if you go after Jack Fenton, you will end up on his lab table again."

Dan was silent, looking away from his rapist sullenly. He felt his hands on him again and stiffened up before his eyes widened as he felt the man kneel behind him. Was he…being nice?

"You may hate me for it, and that's fine." The other ghost said calmly. "But you'll be thanking me when you realize that I'm right. You can try to beat him now, you can try, but you'll be beaten and forced into that box again, or something else. Right now, unlike me, you can be easily overpowered by his weapons. You'll lose, and end up in a lab for the rest of your afterlife."

He leaned in and kissed Dan's cheek. "And remember," He reminded him. "I tried to kill Jack Fenton for you. You stopped me."

"You had no idea what he was!" Dan snapped, glaring at him.

"No, but I knew that he would never accept his son's half-ghost nature. I never told them before they died in that accident." He replied. "Now I'm grateful they never knew. They died thinking I was still a good boy." He smirked. "If only they could see us now."

"By 'us' you mean you and your Danny?" Dan asked.

"Yeah." The other Dan smiled and wrapped his arms around him, his clawed hands resting on Dan's chest. "Shame what happened to yours. A father's love is supposed to surpass all else, but apparently Jack Fenton missed that chapter in Fatherhood 101."

"Were you…ever a father?" Dan asked.

"Yeah. I fathered a kid with Valerie Gray, but she never lets me see him." He grinned. "Paulina almost did, but she decided she would rather have an abortion than give birth to 'the child of a monster'."

"You really are a monster." Dan sighed softly. "I should…go back home."

The other Dan nodded and released him. "Alright, then. You should try absorbing ecto-energy to repair your clothes before you go."

"How do I do that? Without meditating, I mean." Dan looked at him.

The other Dan raised an eyebrow. "Who the fuck has been telling you that meditating helps? The old man?"

"Well…"

"The best way to absorb ecto-energy is this." He stood up, held out his hands, and formed ecto-blasts in his hands. Instead of blasting them, though, he held his hands together and formed a ball that was gradually getting bigger. "See how it's getting bigger? That's not my power doing that. I'm just holding the ball."

Dan got up and tried to duplicate what he was doing, forming ecto-blasts in his hands and putting them together to form a ball. "Like this?"

"Yeah, now just wait. Y'see, ecto-energy is attracted to active energy." Dan explained. "Think like moths to a flame." He chuckled. "One thing you need to learn, Phantom, is that all ghosts are different. You and Plasmius have similar powers, but not quite the same. He doesn't have the Ghostly Wail, and he has some abilities you don't have – such as his creepy vampire-like abilities."

"Yeah, I noticed that." Dan nodded.

"Well, most ghosts have to learn all their tricks on their own. You got lucky though; I may be a merging of Plasmius and Phantom, but most of my abilities are from the Phantom part. I can train you."

Dan stared blankly, dumbfounded. Had he really heard what he just heard? Was his psychotic future-self offering to TRAIN him? "Uh…what?"

"I just said that I can train you. It's a lot better than whatever crap Plasmius is having you do." The other Dan replied. "Alright, your ball is big enough. Now, bring your ball to your chest like this." He moved his ecto-ball to his chest and it disappeared as he glowed brighter before his glow went back to normal. "Try it."

"Okay." Dan nodded, bringing the ball to his chest. It felt warm, so warm, and he gasped sharply as it entered his body. He glowed brighter and when he returned to normal he looked down and found his outfit and wounds recovered. His body didn't even hurt from earlier. "Whoa. That's cool."

"Isn't it?" The other Dan grinned, then turned to see the door opening. "Looks like that's your cue, Phantom. See you next lesson, and I hope you will have screwed Ghostwriter by then."

"Wait, when is the next lesson?" Dan asked.

The other Dan smirked. "Who knows? Just don't be late to it or I'm gonna have to punish you."

Dan blushed green and ran out of the door.

Clockwork was waiting when he came out, and the door closed behind him. "Did you learn all you wanted to?" He asked calmly.

"All that and more, but I bet you already knew that." Dan grinned, then ran out to where Plasmius was waiting.