"Shall I call you Vladimir?"
Clockwork had a guest in his clock tower.
Clockwork's metal staff rung like melted mercury against the bricks of his fortress. It was quiet in the no-air and the staff dripped from his hands as the liquid substance settled between the cracks before his drifting cloak and feet.
He walked confidently forward. The bricks of his clock tower shining in silver splendor with every step he took, but it faded away just as quickly as it came as he stepped further and further from his fortress.
There was a silhouette in the green-tinted darkness, shining just as brilliantly with two beady cat's gold eyes.
"I suppose, if you must call me something." The silhouette moved, a mist of smoky purple. Its breath was a rattling death, a voice forever parched by a fire flickering against its needle-tick teeth. "Why have you called me and my Other here Time-Guard? You've said before but I must be sure."
Clockwork bowed his head, his eyes flickering like a pale rust as he looked away, thinking.
"Of course, I understand how disorienting the journey must be and you have my condolences, but I assure you you are in the right place and time. "
The silhouette smiled, but its maw remained a hellish gold-smolder. It was a lion of dragon scales, its destructive patience flowed as a dusty river. Clockwork held his nerve, determined to speak his piece before his guest inevitably grew bored and slipped away.
"Down on the planet I inhabit and oversee, known as Earth, a little girl of the peoples is to make a wish that my apprentice and I find vital to grant."
"And this pertains to me and my Other, how?" There was an edge to that great voice, a warbling frustration – a grave, burning impatience, seated in ego.
"This little girl I speak of is the same kind of creature as you and I. She needs direction, guidance, if she is to survive – to one day, find a place amongst us; it is a task I have selected you and your Other for."
There was no need to ask "why," as the answer was long known, before spoken, but Clockwork's guest still seemed distressed.
Displeased.
There was a silence in the no-air. Neither ghost moved as the green of the Infinite Realms bristled, a spooling sick wind halted by the ethereal movement of Clockwork's approaching guest.
The silhouette grew thicker still, weaving a path between the realms. A black abomination carefully peeled back the Zone's slimy veil. A small yet intimidating claw reached towards Clockwork as if scrapping a surface, carefully done as if excavating a gem from a relic of glass.
Clockwork found his nerve, assured in the future. He moved slowly as to not upset his guest further. His summoned a metal table and two chairs, the same color and sheen as his melted staff.
A pearl-white orb, cloudy with power, was held at the center of the table. Clockwork sat down, and motioned for his guest to follow.
There was hesitation.
Anger.
"I resent that, a mere wish awoke me from my slumber."
"I resent this, a flesh body to chain me – to a planet so small."
"So. Insignificant."
A bare foot stepped from the misty silhouette, an unhealthy bruised hue with gnarled fingernails like wicker slivers.
"Shall I call you Vladimir?" Clockwork repeated the question once more.
"I suppose, if you must call me something."
Vladimir sat down at his chair; the metal hissing as it bent away from his still-cooling form. His face was of a stern man, a face Clockwork well recognized as belonging to one Vladimir Masters, but the same person his guest was not. His guest had clothed his bodily copy of the man in a robe, the material consisting of white-grey animal furs from all sorts – the appearance set in deliberate contrast to Mister Masters's signature, pristine black jacket. A long coiled beard graced with silver spooled down his chin, a great smoking mane decorated his head. His cat's gold eyes were half closed, tired and languid from his journey through the veil.
He had traveled far to answer Clockwork's request.
"What is the wish to be spoken?" It was not often his kind helped the unfolding of a wish – such habit and skill beneath his people.
But he came perhaps, for the sake of something other than slumber.
Vladimir Masters he would mimic, a creature of material wealth and flesh, reluctantly.
Such small creatures provided stories he'd found worn and tired, with little to pilfer.
But then Clockwork had requested that he be a Father.
To that little girl, on that smaller planet.
It was an odd request.
He was a destroyer, a consumer, a star forger.
An artist amongst his kind.
It was to ask an impoverished leper to hug the wealthy with no animosity between.
It was to ask honesty from a person shielded by the convenience of lies.
But he would try.
He had the time.
The little girl wanted a father, and this was her seen-vision of him – a man named Vlad Masters, whom had forged her from a vat of acid and wounds courtesy of a teenage boy.
A teenage boy – whom was to become the mother.
Strange and unconventional in appearance, but his Other would be a female-woman all the same.
His Other would play the part brilliantly, like always, like forever.
It was decided then.
Clockwork tapped the orb at the center, and the surface began to steam and simmer, a ripe pustule of materialism.
A green and blue planet was revealed beneath the orb's mists – a place called Earth, home to the wish.
"I wish for real parents: a mom and dad, ghosts close to me."
The words were bitter on the tongue, though neither had spoken. The voice was of a little girl, tucked away on that green-blue hue.
"I give you one lifetime, then no more." Vlad spoke sternly. "I go free , I do as I please!"
"What of your Other?"
Vlad rolled his man-eyes at Clockwork's question. "I don't speak for Dear-Other, but if I had to guess…" There was a pause.
"Dear-Other always seeks the role of mother, unlike I, the father. One lifetime is often not enough – but I shall leave, eventually – when my single man-life is up."
Clockwork bowed his head, those terms acceptable; especially when fulfilling a wish tied-so-direly to his planet Earth.
There was considerable risk in inviting two eldritch-mimics to participate as lifeforms in the same time and space Clockwork occupied, and oversaw.
They could eat him.
If they were rude, and thus inclined.
But the little girl Danielle would get her wish.
It was a simple request.
The mimic of Vladimir Masters was standing atop the planet Earth's moon – each rotating mass a divergent copy , of the original Earth and Moon. The Earth before him was a dead, dry husk of the life it once was – the surface reduced to a hollow desert of bone.
But if you asked his opinion, he still found the planet cozy and accommodating.
He'd been the one to start the fires, after all – smiling as he remembered his past splendor as Earth's brief tyrant.
Clockwork had fashioned him and his Other a timeline to craft and to carve as their own – like actors were wont to do – they had to understand all the characters in the play of Danielle's timeline.
It was important to obtain the correct props, to follow the intended, original script.
But in the end, each had been tempted not to.
For what was the point of mimicry, if not to invite mockery and change?
It's what him and his Other were best at, enjoyed with an unhealthy vigor.
They had lived the lives of their strange characters: Danny and Vlad, twisting the personas to their liking, generating slight changes to the original timeline which surprised even creatures as old as them.
There were acute alterations, a significant divergence between the timelines.
But despite it all, a new Danny and Vlad had been crafted, who could properly act as Danielle's parents.
New Daniel Fenton Phantom ran hotter, eyes red, tense from an overwhelming stream of paranoia and fear. She would teach the futility of self-preservation.
New Vladimir Masters Plasmius was a cold breeze in comparison, preferring the solitude of trees over the lives of people. He would teach the futility of distance, power, and ambition, how limits-confined grew precious amongst his people.
He was a man named Vladimir Masters, though his last name was in question.
Vlad.
A name.
It was a strange thought, a stranger concept.
A creature such as him was content to exist, loosely with no set identity.
To observe, not to act – were the expertise of his people – to learn, but to not act.
But he'd been assigned to be Vlad, a man of ego.
And so he was.
An ego he would nurture, a parasitic creature nestled amongst his heart and harvest.
His Dear-Other was below him on the planet Earth, matching his thoughts on the curiosities pertaining to a name.
Though ego came to her more briskly, grounded by her toes. She interfered with reality's tricks often, when he in turn, was content to watch her play.
His Other was now called Danica Fenton, the Banshee, a female Daniel Fenton Phantom – the mother the little girl Danielle had secretly envisioned.
It was strange, but then again, Danny had been the first person to be kind to her.
But Danielle's Wish had not been spoken aloud yet.
And Clockwork would stall them no longer.
"I wish for real parents: a mom and dad, ghosts like me."
Danielle's Wish rang out into the spacey gloom, cutting through the dimensions and into Vladimir's perception.
It was time for Vladimir to begin his part as an actor.
Clockwork gave his signal – a flickering cascade of green particles washed over the visible spectrum, tinting stars brown, blue-yellow, red.
Moving across the Moon's surface he found a stone-carved chair and settled down, closing his eyes he dreamed himself into his second life as Vlad Masters.
He would forget his extended self, how grand and star-full his true-body was.
He was to be a simple man, for but another lifetime.
He would think, feel, and above all breath: strange, unnecessary alien functions to his people.
He became catatonic.
He became Vladimir.
A mortal man.
And he welcomed his ego-death.