Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danny Phantom, I'm a big fan and was feeling nostalgic.

Note (01/25/2018): Thanks for your encouragement "frozenightmare," and yeah it's true, the views I get do show that people are reading this. But I guess what I mean by discouraging is its mostly when I ask my readers for feedback or suggestions that I get nada even though I really want to get you guys involved. It's the same on the tumblr I made for this story, I get likes but no replies or comments when I ask people for their thoughts..I know they're not inclined to answer but, it's nice to get some kind of reaction to know they've even looked at the post or in this case the notes. Though, I suppose it's true that we're shy as readers because I do the same thing as far as reviewing stories so I'm one to talk. Depending on the story I do try to leave nice long ones since I in turn love getting those myself. Anyway, as a disclaimer, one scene from here is inspired by some fanart I saw of Vlad, Maddie, and Jack from their college days. There's not nearly enough of that imo. Whoever did the art I'm talking about, you rock! Also, I gave up on a nap so here, have two chapters on the house for today!

~Chapter 17~

From Shadow To Shadowmancy

Owen was surprised at the sheer amount of negative memories and feelings that had helped created this miasma. But everything had a light and a dark side so while he waded through these memories looking for the core of this darkness, Owen hoped his power helped Vlad's light side manifest itself too while the man faced his lesser demon. It was a risky move, exposing himself like that willingly, but it was for Vlad's own good and Owen firmly believed that even at his worse, Vlad would never step over the line and do something completely unforgivable. After all, he stopped seriously trying to kill Jack Fenton ages ago and even then while Vlad said that's what he wanted because he never seriously went through with it.

It would have been all too easy to kill Jack any number of ways, and Owen winced when he witnessed just how many ways Vlad had imagined it. There were a few quick and merciful ways to make it look like natural causes but obviously Vlad didn't like those options because they seemed to be letting the man off much too easily. Things like turning his heart intangible and pulling it out before Jack could blink, slipping poison into any number of the unhealthy foods he ate that was long gone before anyone in the house could touch it, placing a killing device directly into Jack's small brain, the list went on from freakishly creative to cruel and unusual deaths that while they didn't work in cartoons would have disasterous results in real life on a living person.

Through the visions Azrael showed him of the past in hopes of preparing Owen for the horrors he would face later in life, Owen was able to stomach some of the things Vlad envisioned doing as revenge against his former best friend. There were a few however that really shook Owen either because they were over the top even for Vlad or in the past HE has been killed that way by a ghost before.

That's right, while Owen couldn't remember all of his past lives he knew a few who had left this world prematurely. Thanks to his 'curse' of being reborn soon after his death, if and when Owen ever experienced being a ghost or more accurately a spirit it didn't last long and regardless of how he died he sort of entered a state of blissful blankness once his memories were sealed to prepare him for the next life. Still, once he was reborn Owen could access those memories eventually and yeah, he found out the hard way exactly how a few of his past lives died so he could avoid a similar fate...

One of Vlad's memories that caught his attention was the one about his accident. If any of these memories housed the dark core it was most likely this one. It was funny how since these were also effected by Vlad's feelings parts of the memory were blurred if he hadn't been paying that much attention to it. And honestly, more then the death scenes he envisioned for Jack, Owen was a bit creeped out by the way Danny's mom looked in Vlad's eyes. She sort of glowed from the inside and had a dreamy appearance like the filters they used in old TV shows and films to make the female stars look more attractive. He really must have idolized her, that's for sure...

Jack wasn't as blurred out in Vlad's older memories. Really, most of the time when he was blurred out was when Maddie was there. Owen couldn't help but smile despite the bittersweet feelings Vlad had towards these memories.

One memory showed the three of them playing D & D and Vlad was losing, badly, while Jack on the other hand by some miracle survived the deadly swamp and made it to the other side unscathed by a lucky roll of the dice. Vlad looked pretty upset since he was certain his plan to freeze the water with his magic and walk across would have worked flawlessly whereas Jack decided to cross the rickety troll bridge instead. In another one, the three of them were sitting on the edge of their seats at a drive in movie watching Dracula -oh the irony made Owen laugh- and when he came to kidnap the main heroine, Maddie squealed and clung to Jack while at the same time accidentally knocking Vlad's popcorn over. Of course Vlad blamed Jack for it and not Maddie since by the time he looked up Jack was making fists at the Vampire saying he'd beat it up with special gloves made of silver or some such nonsense.

There were a lot of memories like that one that fueled a lot of Vlad's resentment and rage but it wasn't until Owen got to the ones revolving the accident that Owen really felt how cold and cruel Vlad eventually became before they met. When Vlad got hit in the face with a full blast of contaminated ectoplasmic energy, his face broke out in hives and he barely managed to stagger out into the hallway before his vision began to blur as his eyes grew hot and a weak beam shot out of them. Alarmed, he shut his eyes and fell to his knees, covering his face. A mixture of emotions radiated from Vlad's younger self that made Owen wish he could comfort him somehow. He was scared to death of all these strange sensations, mortified that his lovely Maddie had to see such hideousness, and most of all, angry at Jack for not listening to them when both Maddie and himself urged him to wait a little longer before they tested the beta portal to make absolutely sure they'd worked out all the kinks. After all they didn't want to create another black hole on school grounds, it nearly got all three of them expelled!

His ears were still ringing too so whoever was shouting Vlad's name went unheard, especially when the opposite happened and it was like he could hear everything. Girls laughing at some stupid pick up line one of the guys made to them, the professors strictly teaching their lectures, the shuffle of feet as the bell rang and the evening classes let out for the day, and oddly enough, Vlad heard something else underneath it all, a sort of...moaning. Could that have been him moaning because he was in so much pain? Or was he hearing an echo of the ghosts on the other side of that portal groaning and lamenting their unfulfilled earthly desires. Either way, somehow he'd been moved to a hospital where the doctors and nurses tried and most often times failed to figure out what was wrong with this young man.

Owen sat close to Vlad's hospital bed, remembering when he held his hand in the ambulance and when he had that second panic attack and the doctor rushed back in. Now Owen understood why it was so easy for Vlad to put his 'evil' plots aside once he realized he'd pushed him too far and recalled exactly what it was like to feel scared and alone, forsaken...

After that Vlad's days of seemingly unending confusion and bitterness began. And just like Vlad told him before once his vision became unclouded as far as what actually happened, Jack and Maddie did try to visit him a few times. In his early hospital days though Vlad was suffering from a high fever and chills, though the latter was more of a shock that rippled up his spine when a ghost was near though he didn't figure this out til later. The other times, either Vlad himself turned them away or a doctor did. Mostly the doctors though who really should have listened when Maddie tried to explain that most of his symptoms were caused by the ectoplasmic energy that invaded his body and they were sure they could figure out how to help Vlad better then any normal doctor. Unfortunately that only offended the doctor and got them banned from the hospital altogether which didn't help when Vlad gradually got better and asked for them only to be told they weren't there anymore. That's when Vlad started to believe they abandoned him.

Years passed and when the doctor all but gave up on getting to the root of the problem their examines became almost routine and Vlad used his alone time to practice a few of his new found powers. Because yes, he discovered early on that these weren't just side effects of the accident, they were actual changes to his human anatomy. Thankfully he already had a degree in human biology so Vlad put that knowledge to good use along with what he knew about ghost anatomy though they had yet to see anything more then a lowly specter they caught at a haunted house in a very Ghost-Buster fashion, though that movie hadn't been made yet.

Owen watched all this with a sort of innocent fascination since this was a good way to really get to know Vlad as more then just the half-ghost he met over a month ago, he was also a man who had suffered all on his own and had no one to turn to for help or advice, forced to rely on himself. He knew the feeling, although for a little while at least Owen had Azrael until he blocked their connection. Vlad never had anyone like that. Not even friends anymore once he found out they were engaged soon after he left the hospital.

At first Vlad tried to put a positive spin on having ghost powers and designed what would be his 'hero' outfit though since it drew a lot of inspiration from Dracula more people were afraid of him then they were thankful. When it became all to clear everyone saw him as a monster, in anger and frustration he snarled that if they wanted a monster, they would have one. Vlad started off with a few harmless pranks, haunting a few of the fools who had teased him and Jack in college, some of them to the point of needing therapy afterwards, before he gave up on being good or even just naughty and started going for the bigger prize. Especially to make Jack and Maddie regret not staying friends with him.

Again Vlad started off small and subtle so he wouldn't get caught and they couldn't connect him to what was later dubbed 'The Wisconsin Ghost' much to his delight when his reputation as a fearful figure became widespread. Then once Vlad was confident in his powers and cunning he went for the bigger scores by overshadowing the right people and stealing from certain banks and blaming it on others to get ahead and or just not getting caught at all. Vlad barely even noticed when he stopped feeling guilty when these rich snobs lost everything in the blink of an eye. Most of them didn't deserve their success, not like Vlad did because when he acquired a business he didn't just bask in the existing wealth it brought with it, no, Vlad used his intelligence to increase those profits and products to make them a million times better then before. Vlad involved himself in the entire process, never settling for anything less then perfection unlike the previous owners who would only work the kinks out later not unlike a certain ghost hunter he knew.

Vlad did make note of how his ghost half had changed over the years, keeping record of the when and how of it for future reference. For one thing, his hair darkened to black not long after he stopped playing hero or harmless prankster, once his skin had healed Vlad didn't want to be reminded of how hideous he looked as a human so it changed to blue, then lastly, his eyes faded from misty blue, to pink, and finally to red because when Vlad thought of Jack red was all he could see...

And that's how Vlad went from a broken college student to the successful half-ghost billionaire he was today. Once Owen reached the end of his early memories, Vlad's life slipped into a boring routine where most of his plotting against Jack Fenton began. Owen already knew all of that, since those feelings were fresher, so he sighed and wondered about how the real Vlad outside and his two reflections were doing when he froze. He didn't freeze because of a feeling or anything he could think of really, but Owen simply couldn't move!

"What's-! I can't move! Vlad, what are you doing out there?" Owen wondered, trying to exert his power now to wake up even though he hadn't found the core of the miasma yet.

That's when a hallow laugh reached his ears and a pair of arms snaked their way around his shoulders. And as the memory Vlad stood in his lab trying to convince Jack's son to join his side instead played out, Owen stood there, frozen, as one of the shadow's hands came to rest over his eyes and they breathed in his ear, "I FoUNd yOU..."

Gritting his teeth, Owen growled, "I knew it. I knew there had to be something else hiding under all of that miasma. So, just how long have you been leeching off of Vlad?"

"LEecHinG? You INsuLt mE, I Am mERelY enJOying ThE fRUitS oF My lAboR," the shadow replied. "I CaMe tO hIM, BeCAme His ShADOw, AlL sO thAT YoU WoulD ComE seeKiNg mE willINglY WhEn tHe MiaSMa tHicKENeD. NoW I wilL beCOMe youR ShaDoW, So ThaT I maY BrinG YoU tO My MiSTreSS..."