*AN: Didya miss me? Sorry about that short hiatus, irl stuff got crazy and I lost motivation for a while. Moving forward, I'm most likely making a permanent switch to one update every two weeks, but making up for it by trying to make double the word count for longer chapters. Just so you're all aware going into this, this is a close-canon au. That means not everything that happened in the show went the same here, particularly on the subject of Danielle and the clones. Anyway, on with the show!

"Sir Masters," Felix greeted Daniel as he approached. The former was doing breakfast dishes, currently scrubbing a plate.

"Hey Felix!" Daniel leaned against the counter. "How was your date?" He wiggled his eyebrows up and down teasingly

Felix's hand slowed in its circular motion. "What do you mean?" He glanced up curiously.

"Oh come on, don't tell me you canceled it! I was really rooting for you, man!" Daniel pouted at Felix, exaggerating his disappointment playfully.

"What are you... wait, you mean the one on Thursday?"

"Yeah! What else?"

"Oh..." Felix stared at the plate as he scrubbed it more than necessary. "No, I didn't cancel, it actually went well. Just..." he looked at Daniel, then at his work. "Never mind."

"What!?" Daniel scoffed. "You said you'd tell me everything. What's wrong?"

"No, the date was fine," came Felix's insistence. "I'm sorry, Sir, I shouldn't be conversing this much during work."

Daniel bit his lip. He'd come here in the first place so he could ask for help clearing a few things up, but this worried him. Why was Felix acting so strange? He inhaled slowly, steeling his nerves before looking Felix in the eye. "Okay, spill. What's going on here that everyone's being so secretive about?" He asked harshly. "First there was that not-me in the ghost zone, then my dream, and so far everyone here is avoiding my questions!" He hadn't meant to ramble, but something drove him on. He was desperate to have proof that this wasn't all in his head.

Felix moved to the next dish, placing a plate on the rack. "I don't know about any dream or what happens in the ghost zone, but..." his hands slowed on the plate, gaze growing distant slightly. "None of this is fair to you, Sir, I'm well aware." Wait, had he been right? Was there really something more to his situation than he was being told? "Lord Masters has made it quite clear that as long as we work for his household, we're not to say anything." He placed a cup face-down on a rack.

"Wait, you mean there's actually something to all of this?" Daniel grinned in pride, but quickly realized the further implications of him being right. "Dad's KEEPING things from me?"

"Hold on," Felix frowned and turned off the water. He held up a finger, motioning for Daniel to wait, and went deeper into the kitchen. A moment later he returned and led Daniel out into the main room. "I'm not good at multitasking, so now you have my full attention."

Daniel nodded. "You're technically not allowed to answer, but... I gotta ask. What is happening?"

"You don't know what you're asking, but I have to make sure anyways. Are you sure you want to be asking this? I can't promise you the full story, only what I know."

Daniel nodded.

"From what I can tell, it started a couple months ago, when I got this job. Lord Masters was replacing his entire staff, which was convenient for me, but not so much for the former workers. The unspoken condition of my being hired, as well as the rest of us, was that we were not to discuss any strange happenings or the ghosty side of life here.

"It wasn't long before I became aquainted with you. You seemed honest, if a bit odd, so when I was off duty and you weren't with Vlad, we became friends. Unfortunately, it only lasted two days before you disappeared. you were gone and no explanation came from Lord Masters. Three days later, you just... were there again. Only you didn't remember anything. This wasn't a one time thing. It happened too many times, you disappearing for a couple days, coming back with no memories, and the process repeating. I think the longest you've gone without that is nine days. I obviously thought it was weird, but we weren't allowed to talk about it, so I just kept introducing myself to you for the first time and doing my job like Lord Masters wished. It was just... how it is. But that isn't what happened this time, is it? I mean, you came up to me and said 'hey Felix!' And you remember about my date... I just don't get it."

"So he wasn't lying when he said I had an injury that fudged up my memories. He just... didn't mention that it happened more than once?" Daniel asked hopefully. That was better than Vlad actually lying to him.

"Maybe..." Felix shrugged. "I told you everything I know."

"And Vlad never thought to explain this to any of his staff? That seems irresponsible for him of all people."

"Well, he can easily ruin our lives if we think about things too hard. He's rich and a political influence, and he made sure we know it."

Daniel paled. "You mean he threatened you?"

"Not... not outright. Let's just say he made sure we know the potential consiquences."

"So you don't know anything about why this is happening." He looked at Felix. "And you're still telling me all this knowing that it could ruin your life?"

"I was wrong to keep quiet all this time, regardless of Lord Masters' threats. I thought if I just kept my head down this would fix itself, but you don't deserve to stay in the dark. I'll do what I can to explain things from here on out."

"I just... wow. I can't believe I didn't know any of this was going on. How much did I forget this time?"

"Just a day, I think. I wasn't there, but there was talk about a small fight involving you and Lord Masters yesterday. That probably has something to do with this. If you want, there's one place in the mansion no one but Lord Masters goes into. It's almost guaranteed to have some sort of answers. Come on, I'll show you where and you can use your ghost powers to get us in."

~••~

Daniel slapped his hand against his mouth to quiet the scream that came out. He stared in disbelief, eyes not shifting away for a moment as his ghost powers pushed his floating form further upwards.

"What is it?" Felix panicked from across the room. Daniel barely registered his footsteps approaching. "What happened, are you... o... kay..." Felix found what Daniel was staring at and went slack-jawed. "That's... wow, that's something." He looked at Daniel, who was still staring. "Do you know... what... this is?"

He didn't. How could he? Sure, he'd suspected his dream might be more than that and he knew what he saw in the ghost zone, but this was beyond what Daniel thought possible.

Eight identical copies of him in heavy machines filled with glowing translucent green liquid. Eight identical faces with eyes wide and distant, mouths hung agape. Some looked like they were half melted in the liquid they were suspended in. Some were missing limbs or had too many. One was even completely green, and he was one of the more normal ones. At the very end was one with nothing unusual, an exact replica of Daniel. No explanation was able to worm its way into Daniel's thoughts. There was only an ice cold shock that held him in place.

"Sir? Are you okay?" Felix tugged Daniel downwards so his feet barely touched the ground. "Sir--Daniel--breathe."

Had he not been breathing? He hadn't noticed. What was happening? Why was he horrified? What were these... things? They couldn't be people. Vlad wouldn't keep actual people in his basement! He couldn't. Why were they identical to him? Why were they here? This felt so wrong, and yet he couldn't drag his eyes away as his thoughts chugged on faster and faster.

"DANIEL!" Felix grabbed his jaw and forced the boy to look at him with uncharacteristic force. "I don't know what's going on here, but you need to breathe. With me."

Felix took a slow, deliberate breath and Daniel attempted to follow. It came too fast, his lungs begging for all of the oxygen at once. He ended up holding in as Felix finished his inhale undeterred by Daniel's failure to slow down. By the time Felix was breathing out, he'd been holding his breath too long and let out a strangled attempt to keep it under control. Felix led him through the exercise a few more times, but by the end, Daniel was already staring at the eight... pods. There were foundations for another in the process of being built.

"What... what does this mean? Why are they all so..." Daniel stared at the one closest to him, black hair billowing formless in the liquid and a wide-eyed face staring at nothing. "Lifeless." He shivered at the word. He knew he was part ghost, but he'd never felt any less alive. To him, it was just another fact of life/afterlife. But these looked... wrong.

"I don't know. Are... are you sure you want to keep going?" Felix swallowed harshly as he looked around the place with a newfound worry.

"More than ever now," Daniel said decidedly. "I have to know, there's no turning back now." Unless something messed with his memories again-no, he couldn't think about that right now. That wasn't an option.

Felix gave Daniel a silent nod, looking around the place. Creepy was an understatement, even though the room was well-lit.

Vlad, in all places where people could view him or his workspace, was a needlessly tidy person. This place was the one physical sign Daniel or Felix had that hinted the man wasn't as put-together as he seemed. If the basement had seemed like a mad scientist's lab before, now it seemed fit for royalty. This was a mess.

Tools, beakers, and other objects expected of a scientist to have on hand were strewn about tables or discarded on the floor or shelves. An examination table with thick, hard leather straps glowed with an ectoplasmic defense. Papers, scribbled notes, and pictures could be found in clusters of information around the room, and all this wasn't even mentioning the machines there. The eight vertical tubes that loomed over Daniel seemed to be tucked away in a corner as far away from other items or projects as possible. It all looked unreal, so far detached from the pristine and orderly life that prevailed in Vlad's mansion.

"There has to be some sort of explanation here." Daniel whispered, mostly trying to direct his own thoughts to the task at hand. He forced himself not to look at the pods, but he knew they were there. He was all too aware of how close he was to them, to the... things... inside.

"I'll start on some of these notes," Felix told him, heading to a table to sort through a messy stack of papers. "I think that's our best bet to getting clues on all this."

"Can-" Daniel rubbed the back of his neck. "Can I just follow you for now?" He wasn't scared. He just wanted to be there if Felix found anything. He was totally not scared; a halfa like him had no reason to be.

Felix gave him a sympathetic look. "Yeah, we can go through these stacks one by one." As Daniel approached the opposite end of the table of Felix, he was handed a paper. "We'll go through this mess together.

Felix started talking about whatever it was he was reading, but Daniel could only half-listen. He could barely look at the paper in front of him while the lost deformed images of himself floated behind his back. He could practically feel their aimless gazes slowly fixing on him, whispering in broken half-words that echoed after him.

*AN: thank you all for your patience this chapter! I know it can be frustrating when a change like this happens without a warning from the author, but I have a surprise to make up for it! Next chapter is going to be a bonus with content I had half-finished by the time I realized wouldn't make it into the final cut of the story. I'll be posting it anytime between a few hours from now and a few days from now. In the meantime, thank you all for reading and I'll see you soon for bonus content!