CHAPTER 33: THE NATIVITY, PART 2

Becoming the first human on Earth to become a half-ghost, to be able to change between a physical and ethereal form at will, Vlad Masters has had all the reason and excuse in the world to see himself as superior to others. Being one of the first to venture into the world beyond human understanding of the universe, and the first to change as a result of it, he has been left unopposed to make his fortune from his newfound powers.

That began to change when he met another who had powers like him, stumbling into the same powers through an accident involving a Ghost Portal:

Danny Fenton, reborn through the portal as Danny Phantom.

What began as a simple coincidence between two individuals, connected only by Vlad's own history with the Fenton family, eventually turned to fate with the two becoming life-long enemies throughout their lives. For every scheme for power or profit that Vlad would make for himself, Danny would be present to thwart it.

Such was the game for many years, until a meteor comprised of Ectoranium began to fly towards the Earth, bringing with it the promise of doomsday for every form of life on the planet. Vlad, once keeping a veneer of respectability and friendliness to the world and the Fentons, abandoned all pretense of benevolence, demanding that the world turn itself over to him for him alone to control as its sole dictator.

When his plan to avert the meteor had failed, Vlad had lost all respect and welcome on Earth, becoming a persona non grata to his entire homeworld and living in exile. His self-imposed exile was soon cut short by another meteor striking him while his guard was left down, landing him a more permanent exile on an alien prison planet named Carcerem, belonging to the Irken Empire.

Years later, his return to Earth was facilitated by a being named Demon Phantom, along with 3 other ghosts accompanying him on a mission of revenge against Danny Phantom and the Fentons. Amnesia had settled in long during his stay on the planet, but, regaining his memories with the help of the new ghost, Vlad gladly agreed to assist his new ally, returning to Earth to battle with the Fentons.

Gaining his chance of revenge against Danny Phantom, Vlad had at last done battle with the famous superhero for the first time after a decade; a dream that had laid itself deep in his subconscious that had found its resolution achieved. The battle had ultimately ended with the sad end of Vlad facing defeat at Danny's hands once again...

...but he soon found the chance he had at revenge had come with more than he had bargained for. Demon Phantom, allowing his subordinates to weaken the fight out of the Fentons, single-handedly murdered the entire family, though unknowingly sparing Danny Fenton after tearing out and destroying his ghost half.

Nonetheless, the action is but one of many that had made Vlad question his allegiance with the ghost; carrying a past so intertwined with the Fentons that to imagine his life without them would seem less, especially after watching them be brutally killed in the way they were, was a sight that did not sit well on his conscience.

What settled even less on his conscience was the origin of Demon Phantom, revealed to him by the mysterious ghost himself. Already having shaky allegiance with his newfound ally, the origin shared by him had unsettled him even further, being told tales of apocalyptic destruction of the Earth and the extinction of the human race.

And all of it was caused by him, and his attempt to help save a poor boy from the pain of losing his family. Let it be said that no good deed goes unpunished.

Now, in his self-imposed isolation in the Ghost Zone, he hopes to find a way to make sense of the sequence of events he has become caught up in, trying to see how it all comes into his favor. But his Machiavellian attempts at control over his life had come to an end when he encountered another ghost with more power than he could ever hope to achieve or usurp, and set all of the events of his life into place.

For the first time in his life, he stands before the ghost named Clockwork, the master of all time.

"Oh, yeah? And what are you? Some kind of time-themed ghost? Not impressed. I've fought all kinds of ghosts up and down the entire 'Zone and even Danny Phantom himself, and I'm not scared of you." Vlad said.

"Fear of time is only fear of the unknown. No one is meant to know their fates in life. It is my privilege to know these fates, and alter the course of history if need be." Clockwork said.

"Is that so? Well, then, if I believed that, then that means you're to blame for all that's gone wrong with the world, including the deaths of people I once considered friends. What's to stop me from blasting you out of the cosmos right now?"

"You were ready to end the lives of every man, woman, and child on Earth until the one calling himself Demon Phantom had revealed his origins to you, and your place in them. What difference did it make to your conscience to know you had brought about such a fate to Earth once upon another time?"

Expecting some manner of defensive quip from the ghost, Vlad was instead given a surprise from Clockwork, unaware of how he would know of the aforementioned event.

"Okay. I don't know how you know that, but it's not going to help you. Tell me, if you're some kind of time-controlling ghost, can you see this coming?" Vlad asked.

Vlad extended his hand forward to fire an ectoplasmic blast of energy, aiming it straight for Clockwork. In response, Clockwork pressed the scepter in his hand, putting time to a standstill in the instant of his hand's movement. Leisurely moving behind Vlad and far out of the way of the blast, he pressed it once again to set time back in motion.

Watching his shot fly across the Ghost Zone, Vlad widened his eyes in confusion to see his target gone, only to turn around in shock as he heard his voice behind him.

"Yes. I can. I also know that you will not be wasting your time or energy with any more attacks, and you will listen to what I have to tell you. I have arranged our meeting to discuss your place in the life of Danny Phantom, and, subsequently, the universe as a whole." Clockwork said.

Floating past Vlad with a nonchalant, detached response to his attack, Clockwork left him stunned and uncertain on how to proceed, putting his attacks to an end and fulfilling his prediction. Lowering his fists, Vlad stepped forward to listen to the ghost, finding his interest raised from the information shared thus far.

"So, you have some control over time? How does that work? You can make people do anything you want them to do?" Vlad asked.

"No. People make their own actions. I merely set the stage and influence what probabilities will influence their decision." Clockwork said.

"How is that any different?"

"By a matter of perspective. You have agency and control over what actions you take, but they are still preordained in the way the universe unfolds itself."

"Then what am I to you exactly? Just a puppet on a string that you can do whatever you want with?"

"No one is a puppet to the universe. A puppet requires the presence of a puppeteer. I am no puppeteer. I am not even a writer of a grand script. I merely read the scripture as it is written, and tweak around the edges if need be."

"Then once again, that's really no different. If that's the case, I should have you know that I'm not a man who likes to be anybody's puppet, so you should get that straight right now before you try anything on me."

"You will not do anything that you have no intention of doing, Vlad Masters. What you do from here on out will be of your own volition and choice, just as it has been since before this meeting."

"Oh, yeah? Then what if I just decide to sit here and do nothing, or fly away? What happens to your predeterminations then?"

"Nothing. You have no plans of doing such a thing. You will stay here on this speck of land, and we will have our discussion. It is here that you will realize that you must change your ways and atone for your actions during your days of life."

Skepticism was at the forefront of Vlad's mind with every word that came forth from Clockwork's mouth, but his final sentence spoken now brought him confusion.

"What do you mean? Are you trying to say that I'm dead?" Vlad asked.

"You are dead. You have been for quite some time. You will realize this in but a few moments, I will provide you the reasoning why this has occurred for you, and you will listen to me further for another direction for your life." Clockwork said.

"Are you talking about my ghost form? You don't think I can just change back to being human anytime I want?"

Vlad reached into an old mental command to change back to his human form, expecting a pair of rings of black light to materialize from his midriff and travel across both ends of his body to reveal his human form. His effort to do so, however, was met with an unspectacular display of failure; his form still remaining as a ghost.

A presumption laid over him that correct command was simply forgotten over time, but such a belief was not strong enough to hold, leading Vlad to further confusion.

"What-?! Why can't I change back?" Vlad thought aloud.

"As I said, you have been dead for a long time, Vlad Masters. Allow me to show you the proof to why this is." Clockwork said.

Clockwork waved his staff into the air, materializing a small window to provide a glimpse throughout anywhere the timestream he pleased. His chronological voyeurism was put towards the end of the Disasteroid event, during the last known whereabouts of Vlad Masters in Earth's solar system.

"You had tried to justify the loss over all you had worked for, attempting to retain a sense of control over your misfortunes." Clockwork said.

In his spectral form of Vlad Plasmius, he sat atop a small patch of rock floating in outer space, sulking in contemplation over his massive and pathetic loss on Earth.

"Actually, being a free-roaming space nomad isn't half-bad. At least it's quiet and I-" Vlad began to say.

Before he could justify his failures any further, the Disasteroid, the massive chunk of Ectoranium that the planet Earth luckily evaded, rammed directly into him without warning or chance to flee. Feeling the deadly substance collide with his ethereal body, the experience is a painful one that does not allow for any chance or room for clever machinations to escape, leaving him along the ride in its flight through space.

"When the Disasteroid came for you, you were sent far out into space, out of sight of the planet you once called home." Clockwork said.

The unintentional galactic hitchhike is brief in its duration, even in the near-timeless void of space, but it is more than enough to send him flying along the path to his next destination. Hurdling throughout space non-stop, the lack of gravity or any other law of physics to hold his ghost form back, his uncontrollable flight sent him far out of the reaches of the Milky Way galaxy.

His landing on the planet Carcerem made with a loud and terrible blast, not unlike the collision that the Disasteroid itself would have made with Earth, but was made with an impact far less destructive with his significantly smaller mass. Nonetheless, leaving a large crater in the frozen, barren planet, the event caught the attention of its inhabitants, coming to the crash site to find the spectral being resting in the ice.

"You landed on your prison planet at last, left to the hands of the artificial creatures who repurposed it to house any threats to their empire." Clockwork said.

When they found Vlad at last, he had long since changed into his human form, changing back during his period of unconsciousness. Nonetheless, the aliens occupying the planet, digging him out of the crater, dragged him back to their main prison complex, indiscriminately throwing him into a cell like all their other prisoners.

Coming to consciousness again only partially during the journey, Vlad finally came to his full senses once again when in his cell. Opening his eyes, he immediately huddled against himself with a shiver; the planet's harsh and cold environment forcing him to try to stay warm.

"Your human self was too weak to stay alive on the planet's harsh surface, requiring you to stay in ghost form in order to survive." Clockwork said.

Grabbing a small tarp that was offered as a blanket and wrapping it around himself, he found it was not enough, necessitating another means of survival. Changing back into his ghost form, he was at last free from the pain of the cold; his ghost form, without a physical form to speak of, was unaffected by the cold, leaving him feeling nothing physical that could harm him.

The retrospective vision continued to play out throughout several years, seeming to pass into decades.

"And so many years passed since your arrival, turning to decades, then to centuries." Clockwork said.

The confusion Vlad felt now raised itself to complete disbelief, finding the apparently obvious logical flaw in his narration.

"What?! Centuries?! That's impossible! It was only 10 years back on Earth!" Vlad protested.

"On Earth, yes. But do not forget, I am the master of time. And I understand that time does not flow the same throughout the universe. You, a scientist, understand that as well. Observe." Clockwork said.

The vision moved to Carcerem's solar system, pointing out the presence of an astronomical anomaly within it.

"Do you know what that is?" Clockwork asked.

Looking on the anomaly, Vlad looked on it with a strong disbelief, soon turning to certain acceptance when realizing what it was, identifying it as something never before seen throughout known human science, but nonetheless proven true and real as he spoke out its name as...

"A white hole. The opposite of a black hole." Vlad said.

"Yes. And what effect does a black hole have on time?" Clockwork asked.

"It slows time down around you, leaving the rest of the world continuing on as normal. So, if a white hole is the opposite, then... time would speed up around you, making you get older as the rest of the universe goes on like normal."

"Correct. This is why the planet was chosen by this race; to condemn any who are sent upon it to be flung so far into the future that, if they manage to leave the planet, the empire they once threatened will be long gone and run its course. This is why the ghosts who freed you had returned to Earth late enough to allow the Fentons time to fight, the minutes they spent on the planet turned to hours with ease. See what has become of you during that time."

The vision returned to Vlad on the planet Carcerem once again, remaining in his cell for most of his time, and leaving to interact with other prisoners occasionally. Most of the viewing showed Vlad turning his time in his cell, choosing to sit in a corner and keep to himself.

As the years passed, however, there was finally an event unique to the monotony: During one night of sleep, his ghost form had apparently began to change into his human form again, showing two black rings rising and lowering across his body and changing his ethereal form to flesh and blood again.

But the flesh and blood was no longer carrying any life within it. Instead, the human form of Vlad Masters showed no life whatsoever, having perished at a very old age, with all the shows of wrinkles and decay that came with it. Collapsing to the ground, the ghost form of Vlad Plasmius exited the perished mortal shell, seeming to have no understanding of what happened to it.

And in time, the event is long since ignored and forgotten. The dead body of Vlad Masters, left to rot and decay over time in the cell, was taken away by the guards as waste, caring not for how it came to be in his cell. Soon decaying to mere bones, there was nothing left to the moral form of Vlad Masters, leaving only his ghost.

Leaving only Vlad Plasmius.

The discovery of what became of his body had left a look of shock and horror on Vlad's face, unable to believe such a fate could have overcome him during his time on the planet, and sending him into a deep despair. Indifferent to his reaction and emotions, Clockwork ended the playback of time, returning back to the conversation they once held.

"I don't believe it... I've really been dead all this time... and I never knew..." Vlad pondered.

"And you know that you are dead, as I said you would. Time had passed so long for you on the planet that you had forgotten the event of your own death, and so many of the moments of your life, until the one calling himself Demon Phantom restored your memories to you. Now, I have your full attention, and you require direction now that your life is over." Clockwork said.

"But...but what good is any direction to me now? All my life, it's... It's been for nothing. My life... was nothing."

"Life is only a blink in the cosmos. Death is the true beginning. You are unique in the manner that you have experienced both at once during your days on Earth, and what you had experienced then will carry with you here and now."

"What good is all that? What I did with my life, what I spent it on, what did I do? I used my powers to get everything I ever wanted, tried to get my revenge on Danny Phantom, got his entire family killed, and for what?! To die on some rock of ice?! I wasted my life!"

"You do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your place in the life of Danny Phantom."

"No, I know enough about my place in his life. I sided with a monster that I created, and I killed his entire family! I killed his wife, I killed his unborn child, I killed his sister, I killed his mother, and I killed his father!"

"No. You are his father."

The first shock received with the end of his life was news that he could never hope to expect or prepare for, but could be managed with enough time. However, the next revelation that came out from Clockwork is one that no amount of time that could prepare him for the news, or manage it on his own. Instead, all it brings him is a significant amount of grief, adding to the guilt he felt over his misspent life.

As always, first with grief, comes denial.

"No. That's not true! That's impossible!" Vlad shouted.

"Is it? The Fentons, the people who you had known for most of your life, had a son who passed through the Ghost Portal unharmed, instead coming out a half-ghost, half-human, with all the powers of the undead. No one else in the world had survived such a trial, save for you. Of all the people in the world to also carry such abilities, only he, the lone son of the Fentons, the people you had known for most of your adult life, shared what you had. Do you think of that as mere coincidence?" Clockwork asked.

Next, comes bargaining.

"But I had never seen Maddie for years since college! I didn't see her until years after Danny was born and already a teenager!" Vlad said.

"Nonetheless, the interest you took in her was still well-founded and made all the stronger from your jealousy. Furthermore, you had recently found you had the power to fly anywhere on the planet you pleased, walk through walls, and turn invisible to the human eye. For a man jealously in love with a woman, these factors would bring with them a temptation to have your way with her as you saw fit." Clockwork said.

Next, comes anger.

"So... You're saying... What? I raped her?! You'd dare accuse me of doing... that to Maddie?!" Vlad shouted.

"The past does not make accusations. It simply is, and it always will be. It cannot be changed or altered, only looked back at in retrospect." Clockwork said.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I never did such a thing to her. I'd definitely know if I did something like that to her, and I'd never forgive myself for it."

"Then what explanation do you give to that recurring dream that began on Carcerem, where you laid with her in the form of her husband, your romantic rival?"

Fervently denying the statement put forth by Clockwork, the next question put Vlad's defenses to a stop, leading him to turn inward to think over the dream once again. Having no other explanation why he had remembered this dream, nor even a way to reason that it was a dream and not reality, the impossible accusation soon began to make itself a case.

Nonetheless, Vlad still kept his skepticism, even without voicing his thoughts to Clockwork.

"I know you will demand proof. I have what you wish to see here, and I know you will regret your decision very shortly." Clockwork said.

The vision of the past once again moves to a prior event in the life of Vlad Masters, this time moving far past his own end on the planet Carcerem. Instead, the time moves to long before his rivalry with Danny Phantom, and far before he had began to take full control over his powers.

But the initial sight of the dream as reality is enough to make Vlad grow nervous, watching the vision with fear and dread.

Busy are the lives of the Fentons in their lives of rigorous and relentless research; working tirelessly and thanklessly in their pursuits to discover the unknown and undiscovered continents of the supernatural. Barely a year out of college, they put all the knowledge they have acquired through their hard work to obtain more, hoping to finally break new ground in their discoveries and findings.

Restless and excitable in his work is Jack Fenton, hoping to tread new scientific ground with each passing second of his life. Maddie Fenton, loving of science just as much as her husband, does not share his lack of interest in sleep and apparent lack of need for it.

Tired after long hours of work on paranormal research and work, she prepared to head to the master bedroom of the house, trying to bring her husband along to bed.

"C'mon, Jack, dear. We've been working all day now, and I could use a rest. You could, too." Maddie said.

"Maddie, honey, how can you think of sleep at a time like this? I'm getting closer and closer to expanding the ghost portal for human exploration of the afterlife! Hope Vladdie's not still mad about the prank with the first one, you know how he gets." Jack said.

Interested in bringing Jack to bed for marital reasons more than his own good, Maddie further insisted he join her, running a seductive finger down his chest.

"Jack, sweetie... I really would like you to come to bed with me... It does get lonely sleeping by myself sometimes." Maddie said.

"Oh, don't worry about that. You've got our lovely little Jasmine to keep you company! You know how much a new baby needs her mommy. Got to go now, science calls!" Jack said.

Rushing off to continue whatever work beckoned him at that particular moment, Jack left Maddie to head to bed alone, leaving his wife to stand annoyed and frustrated emotionally and sexually. Without a husband to see her needs fulfilled, Maddie headed to the master bedroom alone, changing out from her traditional blue jumpsuit to her nightly wear.

Stepping to the crib by her bed, she laid a loving hand on the head of the infant Jasmine Fenton sleeping in it to feel one last human contact before she slept herself.

"Sorry, sweetie. Looks like it'll be a little bit before you get any new brother or sister just yet. Goodnight, Jazz." Maddie said.

Placing herself in the covers of her bed, she tucked herself into the sheets and blanket, covering herself with warm blankets to apply the pressure to her body needed to induce feelings of security and tiredness. Soon, the intended effect takes hold, and Maddie Fenton soon slips out of her conscious state into the healing meditation of sleep.

But her sleep does not last very long. Coming to interrupt her is a hand pulling off her covers, and another groping at her breast. Feeling a gentle touch come to her sensitive anatomy, she is awakened with a gasp, opening her eyes to the one who had brought her the sense of touch and brought her out of her sleep.

The touch had left her with a startle of fear from its lack of expectation, but that fear is subsided away when the one she sees in her eyes is Jack, her husband. The sight combined with the touch bring a smile from the once-unconscious Maddie, staving off her sleep to see her needs fulfilled at last.

"Mmm... Finally came to your senses?" Maddie asked.

"So it would seem, Maddie. You know how to make a man go to any lengths to get you." Jack said.

"Including finally getting you to give science a rest for once."

"Like I said, so it would seem."

Leaning into give Maddie a kiss, Jack began removing his own clothing, removing all obstacles from bringing their act to its full consummation. Laying his hands on her, he invoked pleasured and joyful moans from her lips, feeling her body in all its soft and wet offerings.

So it would seem that Maddie had began engaging in intimate acts with her husbands, having finally swayed him to come to bed with her and be as one...

"Yes, Jack... Yes..." Maddie moaned.

"Yes, Maddie, yes..." Jack said.

...but things are not what they seem. As Maddie closed her eyes, feeling them roll back in her head in pleasure, the form of Jack changed into someone far different from the joyful, portly man that she had married. In his place stood a specter swearing himself as his sworn enemy; his coveted prize of Maddie stolen from him forever following an incident involving a prototype Ghost Portal.

But through that same incident, he has found a way to take her back, even if the event was just for this one night for the man named Vlad Plasmius.

"...yes." Vlad said.

What played out next on the vision was an act of adultery and deceptive rape between Vlad and Maddie, leaving the Vlad of the present time to watch in absolute horror as he witnessed himself taking the woman of his love under false pretenses, unable to believe that he would allow himself to do such a thing to her.

Horrible as the sight is to watch, it is brought to even higher levels of depravity as the show continued. Opening her eyes to look back on her lover, Maddie's sight was not given a look of lust by Jack Fenton, but instead Vlad Plasmius looking back at her. She does not recognize the ghost as her old college classmate, but the information of seeing him is more than enough to turn her pleasure into fear.

Her mouth had opened to let out a scream, but Vlad had stopped it by covering her mouth with his hand, muffling her cries for help.

"No, Maddie. Don't ruin it now. I've been waiting for this moment for years now. All the time I've had these powers, I can't believe I never thought about trying this until now." Vlad said.

The voice and the context shared by the ghost having its way with her had at last given her enough information to know who her rapist was, speaking his name aloud.

"Vlad?!" Maddie muffled.

"Yes, Maddie. Please, by all means, say my name again, I love to hear it from your mouth." Vlad said.

Watching himself now turn to force onto the woman he lusted after during the many years he knew her, Vlad dropped to his knees in shock and horror, planting his head into the ground in tears. Crying aloud over his own misdeeds, he covered his ears in attempt to spare himself the sight of the usurping of her innocense any further, keeping his head down to spare himself the sight as well.

The actions are not enough to spare him from Clockwork, who urged him to continue watching.

"Take a good look at your past, Vlad Masters. See what your new powers had given you, what temptations they had given you in your years as a young man." Clockwork said.

The vision had continued to the end of the unholy matrimony, moving onto the aftermath of the crime. Complete in his climax, Vlad leaned back in satisfaction, allowing himself a satisfied sigh between labored pants. Looking back to Maddie, he saw that he emotional state was far different from his own, showing no signs of enjoyment.

Instead, her reaction was one of horror and fear, leaning back against her bed and clinging to a pillow as she looked to Vlad in tears. The look of friendly affection that she once gave him was now long gone and over, only able to look back on him as if he were a monster.

And, looking back on himself for what he had done, Vlad, both in present and past, shared the feeling.

The pride and confidence he once took in the act now turned to shock and fear, leading him to attempt to undo what he had done in the only way he could. Moving back to Maddie, Vlad reached his hand towards her head; his approach to her making her scream once again.

Rather than try to muffle her screams, Vlad phased his hand into her brain, reaching into the neurons inside and the electrical activity between them. Reaching his hand into the most recent development of memory and experiences, he plucked out the activity focusing around the past few minutes, erasing all of Maddie's memory of her own violation.

Feeling her brain rearranged in a forceful way, the loss of memory caused her to pass out instantly, falling onto her bed and falling back into sleep again. Accomplishing his goal and erasing all traces of his presence in the room, Vlad flew out of the Fentons' home, rushing back to his own home in Wisconsin.

Hearing the scream of his wife from the laboratory, Jack Fenton rushed inside with an experimental anti-ghost weapon, standing at the ready to defend his wife.

"Maddie?! What's going on?! Is it that damn noise in the closet?! I told you that was a ghost, I told you!" Jack shouted.

Rudely awakened by her husband's act of bravado, Maddie rose from her bed, opening her eyes to find Jack in the doorway with his weapon raised. Having no memory of the past event, she felt no emotions that were connected to it, rising from the bed as if the event were normal as could be to the Fentons.

"Huh...? Jack, what's going on?" Maddie moaned.

"What? Honey, I heard you screaming, did something happen?" Jack asked.

Unable to explain away the scream she let out before, Maddie dismissed her cries for help without a thought, believing them to be nothing but the results of a bad dream.

"I... I don't remember screaming. I must've had a bad dream." Maddie asked.

"Oh, just a bad dream? What happened?" Jack asked.

"I... I don't know. I can't remember anything. It must've been nothing, I'm sorry, Jack."

The vision had concluded its play of the Fentons, leaving Vlad to sit back and reflect on the horrible misdeed he had committed in the past. Forced to watch himself act out the most unspeakable crime on Maddie Fenton, Vlad stood in a still and motionless state of emotional destruction, put in a state of grief that he never fathomed he could feel for himself.

"You had stolen the memory of the copulation with Maddie, but you had still left behind its aftermath. She was ovulating when you had your way with her, and she had conceived a son from you, one who had inherited the mutation you obtained from the Ghost Portal which allowed his future survival through another. This is the moment in which Danny Fenton was conceived." Clockwork said.

Yet still, he does not fully believe, as if trying to hold onto the one piece of absolution he still could to rid himself of any guilt.

"How... How come I don't remember any of this? I wasn't trapped on any planet long enough to forget about this, I would've remembered what I did." Vlad said.

"You had tried to undo the damage of your own actions in the same way you had undone it from Maddie Fenton. Observe." Clockwork said.

The vision continued to move on to Vlad, following his departure back to his own home in attempt to remove himself from his own crime as quickly as possible. Immediately reaching his laboratory, Vlad began to throw a tantrum against whatever was in his sight, smashing scientific equipment and throwing research notes all about in attempt to let out his own self-hatred.

The actions he took were not enough to rid himself of the anger and pain, nor enough to allow himself to feel forgiven for his sins. After destroying whatever he could in his sight, he fell to his knees and charged up his hand with ectoplasmic energy, preparing the largest blast that he could muster with his powers.

Such a blast would be most effective against any ghost that would dare attack him, but he opted to use it on the one ghost he felt deserved it:

Himself.

Shooting himself in the head with the ectoplasmic blast, the release of energy was sent with the intent of committing suicide, ending both his life and afterlife all in one fell swoop. The blast was very nearly successful in carrying out its purpose, but it was not enough to reach the end goal he desired.

Instead, he dropped to the ground unconscious following the self-imposed strike, changing back to his human form in the process.

"Your attempt to take your own life had not done as you had hoped, but it had effectively wiped your memory clean of your mistake. I have allowed you to recall this memory only partially so it may be recalled in full in this moment, where it will have made its full change on you that I require." Clockwork said.

The explanation is mostly lost on Vlad, who still continued to sulk in self-loathing over the wrong he had brought about Maddie.

Next, comes depression.

"I... I am a monster... I have committed an unforgivable sin..." Vlad lamented.

"You are what time makes you. As of now, time has allowed you an afterlife, and a chance to correct many of your mistakes." Clockwork said.

"But how? There's nothing I can do for Danny... for... for my son. I let him die. He's gone now."

"No. He is still alive."

The loathing and pity that Vlad put upon himself began turning upwards with a glimmer of hope again, looking up to inquire for more information.

"What?" Vlad asked.

"His death had not come at the hands of Demon Phantom. He still has his place in time to fill out, and you will have your chance to help him."

Learning that Danny was still alive, the depression he held began to turn to anger again, looking at Clockwork with hatred and fury more intense than he ever felt before.

"You won't tell him. You won't tell him what I did. Do you hear me? You won't tell him a thing. If you do, I'll kill you myself. DO YOU HEAR ME?! I'LL RIP YOU APART LIMB FROM LIMB! I'LL LEAVE NOTHING OF YOU THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE! I'LL ERASE YOU FROM EXISTENCE! THEY'LL BE NOTHING LEFT OF YOU WHEN I'M FINISHED! YOU WILL BE NOTHING! YOU WILL BE NOTHING!" Vlad screamed.

Quickly realizing his mistake of threatening a seemingly all-powerful being, Vlad dropped to his knees, crawling towards him in attempts to give an apology.

"No, no, no, no, no, sir, I didn't mean that. Sir? Please, I didn't mean that. Forgive me, sir. I'll do nothing that you don't want me to do. Just please don't tell Danny, sir. Please, sir, I'll do anything you want. Do you want me to be your pet? I'll be your pet! I'll do it! I'll be your slave! I'll clean your clocks for all eternity if you want! I'll do anything! Please! I'll do anything you want! I'll give you anything!" Vlad begged.

Impartial and uninterested in his emotional reactions even to this point in time, Clockwork did not heed to any of them, instead kicking Vlad off with his foot.

"Enough. Do not make me empty promises that you can never hope to fulfill. That is what a child does. I have no use for a child for the job I require of you. I will tell you what is required of you, you will listen, and you will do it." Clockwork said.

Gaining nothing out of his emotional outbursts, Vlad instead rose to his feet, standing with dignity before Clockwork. The rage, sorrow, fury, mania, and lunacy that he had put himself through had been washed away now by Clockwork's lack of interest in any of his reactions, bringing out from instead focus and humility.

Now, there is acceptance.

"Alright. Speak. I'm listening." Vlad said.