Vlad Masters always drove himself to work.
But now more than ever did he wish he had requested a carpool to get to townhall. A migraine lumped against his head like a wiggling parasite. His reflection in a sun visor mirror was blinking with puffy red eyes and a grim, slouched expression.
As with most things, Vlad chose to do things himself – for he was his own best employee. Working with other people was simply too inconvenient after years of employing ghosts.
But his breathing had grown slow that morning onward – not even a sip of ginger tincture had been a fix for stuffed sinuses. With every breath a puff of hot air left his nostrils, fogging up his dashboard with the smell of sick.
Vlad's forehead was slick with sweat, tinted pink from an unhealthy aura – his nose comically red was a sneeze away from spewing fire.
One bad sneeze, and it would be powerful enough to eject Vlad from his driver's seat like a stunt pilot; so he remained perfectly still, scarcely breathing, as if to not tempt any overdue karma bottled up inside.
The morning was dark, richly cloudy, and his head leaned dangerously close against a blissfully cold windshield. Vlad felt as if he was seconds away from spiraling out of control, as if the wheel was about to split beneath his clammy fingertips.
His head was throbbing, a needling pain like a wiggling worm had settled beneath his skin.
Digging harder and harder.
With every breath.
Deeper.
To anyone that looked him over he was obviously sick, but Vlad Masters nor Amity's Mayor would dare tarnish his reputation by not showing up to a televised city hall meeting, especially on such short notice; besides, perhaps his disheveled appearance would endear him to Amity's increasingly distressed populace – that he was working hard and doing everything he could – that billionaire-entrepreneur Vlad Masters was no slacker.
Yet.
More and more families moved away from Amity each day, replaced by criminals and low-income government workers; soon there would be no Amity Park left but a series of empty buildings.
Of course, it was merely an issue to be addressed by Future-Vlad, a part of him hoping he would simply choose to pack up and retire instead. Vlad didn't really care about Amity and expected to cut his losses right after he'd first become mayor.
But still, he was a "mayor."
That title used to mean something, when Vladimir had been a child.
He held his reputation close to heart, and if Vlad was being honest with himself there was no backing out from his mayorly duties.
Vlad's short town-limo slotted into its reserved parking space and he took a moment to catch his breath.
He slicked his white hair back to perfection and he waited a moment as he stared at a sign stating "Mayor's Parking Only." He felt his tired eyes glaze over, but with a shaky huff he stumbled into the parking lot.
He had a job to do.
The steps of city hall were stained with its signature coating of cigarette buds and chewed bubble gum. The first day he'd been mayor he'd ordered the steps cleaned and for the first time since the city hall's construction, its steps had glistened white.
But only in a weeks time did the steps become filthy again, and no one nor him had ordered them clean again.
There was no point.
Amity Park was crumbling more and more each day.
And taxpayer money was slim.
With every ghost attack, there was always a piece never repaired nor recovered.
No matter how much he paid construction workers, most simply ran away at the first sign of a ghost, their contracts rendered useless.
Soon there'd be nothing left for Vlad to be mayor over and he would be embarrassed by the matter further.
Maybe he really should retire.
Before Amity rotted away completely.
Before it smudged across his reputation.
Vlad was struck with a terribly lucidity at he stared at a crack in the city hall's ceiling.
No doubt his sickness had spit up an uncharacteristic bitter-melancholy, a sour curdle towards his manners and excellent façade of personhood.
Vladimir hoped the cameras would still capture his charismatic features.
Suddenly, hands clapped in front of his face, and only his exhaustion and pride kept himself from stumbling backwards in surprise.
Who dared?! – Oh, it was just the front-desk secretary.
What was her name again?
Vlad could never remember; she wasn't particularly pleasing to the eyes.
He let himself be waved forward dodging stacks of paper and cackling reporters. In the growing crowd of working people he spotted GIW agents on the sidelines and he corrected his posture, not wanting to draw any suspicious looks. The GIW had grown a reputation of harassing pedestrians in the hopes of finding a rare one possessed.
Idiots. Useful. But idiots.
Eventually he came to his office, and the space has been prepared for a presentation via projector – a standard debriefing was held after every ghost attack even if said incident was a cat tipping over a trash can – the scene was as normal as a morning coffee.
Someone offered him a steaming cup, but he wordlessly pushed it away, too exhausted to handle anything hot.
The "Nasty Burger" incident was still fresh in Vlad's mind, only a few days old. With the way his office had flooded with people, it was easy to deduce that this ghost attack was considered a major one.
To have another major ghost attack on the town so soon after the last was concerning, personally to Vlad. Ever since he became mayor he'd requested to the resident ghosts of the Ghost Zone to keep their attacks separated by at least a week from the other, so as to give the people of Amity time to recover and to not disrupt his free-time and financial responsibilities more than necessary.
He had a life to enjoy afterall.
But getting the resident ghosts to obey his generous wishes (after all he didn't have to let them near Amity) was like herding swans in a gigantic pond – perhaps he could do it with an expensive sky-sized net, or by sucking the pond dry.
But was it worth it?
The effort to keep them in line?
No, most ghosts weren't worth the ectoplasm they were caked in.
Still he regarded every ghost as a potential reluctant servant, whether they knew it or not; especially that badgering-brat Daniel Fenton.
A hand waved in front of his face, catching his attention; and to his horror he'd noticed his fingertips had firmed up into dark claws, slicing the leather of his office armchair.
Thankfully the room had already been darkened for the debriefing, and the only light shown was from a projector screen emitting in front of him.
He pursed his lips, curious, as the women who had waved her hand was none other than Madeline Fenton, his one and only true love in the whole wide world. Quickly he licked his lips, checking to see if any of his sharp teeth had manifested.
Unlike other women, Madeline-Maddie couldn't be bought…nor bribed.
Unlike other women, Maddie didn't mindlessly fling herself at him because he had money…and the handsome looks of a silver fox.
No.
If Vlad had a heart it would've frozen over from her beauty.
A lump grew in his throat and words he found simple slipped away with his heavy breathing.
Such a shame that she was married.
That she refused to be his.
He could give her whatever she wanted.
She was talking to him, apparently, but he couldn't understand a thing.
He tried to reply, to manifest his speech, but he found himself tongue-tied.
She needed to talk slower.
To repeat things.
Sweet sultry things.
But all Vladimir heard were boring things about "ghosts," "explosions," and "payment costs," sweet Maddie said, which slipped from one ear and out of the other, slick as water falling along the women's hips. To maintain a veneer of professionalism, Maddie saw fit to wear her "ghost-hunting outfit" as she called it – a teal blue vinyl suit with glossy red goggles, faceted like a beetle's.
Vlad would've found such a ridiculous outfit hilarious, and temptful, if he already didn't love her.
The outfit was a tragedy – hiding her voluminous red hair behind a rubbery swim cap – and her purple-sky eyes morphed into a hideous bug-stare.
Vladimir wanted to vomit, and he tried to wave her away, like a fly as she was, with those eyes.
Whatever the issue was, he paid other people to deal with such things.
Whatever she was talking about.
Wasn't his job to deal with.
And he was much too distracted with rubbing his sharp claws back into human fingertips, desperately sawing nubs against the inside of his velvet jacket pockets.
Perhaps his sickly breathing had cut off oxygen to his brain .
The darkened room gave Vlad the illusion of privacy, as he wanted nothing more but to lean forward and to kiss Maddie, to stop the noise, the words, the clicking of the projector, the everything.
Anything to stop the chattering from her lips.
That he couldn't help her with.
Fortunately, sick as he was, he still was a man with manners; no longer was Vladimir Masters a bright-eyed, naïve college student hoping to find a wife.
His dream of marriage died the same day he had become undead, and twenty years later it was still hard to accept.
He was dead.
He had no heart to pleasure a women with.
Suddenly he felt Maddie pull him up by his shoulder from his chair, the action was so forward and lucid, so uncharacteristic of Maddie that he simply followed after her like a dog, dumbfounded.
They both left his office, and instinctively Vlad waved his hand towards a secretary, signaling to her to quell the scandalous wave of people calling after him.
Maddie dragged him into a maintenance closest, one step above a janitor's closest, and shut the door behind them.
"Thanks Vlad, really. I couldn't exactly tell Jack about this. You know how he gets," she said.
Vlad's eyes grew wide, his palms sweaty. He bit his tongue, unable to say a word.
He didn't remember agreeing to anything!
What was happening?! What had Maddie been talking about again? He should've been listening…
"Now I know the closet isn't the most professional place for this, but it's for your eyes only."
Was she going to kiss him!?
Is that why they were somewhere private, locked in a closet?!
"And it's a spot away from all those microphones and cameras."
Really? Now? At work?! Vlad couldn't believe it.
His jaw went slack with disbelief and he almost gasped when she stepped closer – breathless.
And then Maddie Fenton took out an obnoxious orange phone, shaped like a brick. It had her husband Jack's face stamped on the back like a cattle brand. Whatever romantic-passion Vlad was prepared to spring on Maddie withered and died like a flower on fire at the sight of that fat orange avocado, Jack.
One day he would kill Jack.
And then Maddie would cry.
It would be a good day, he concluded.
"You…want to show…s-show me ssssomething?" he asked carefully, biting his sudden flickering viper's tongue, unsure of how much Maddie could see with her beetle-goggles.
She pressed a button on her phone and a video began to play, as she politely held it out for Vladimir to watch.
It was security footage of the other day, from a camera installed in a parking lot to dissuade shoplifters…was the video dated yesterday or two days before? Vlad couldn't remember, too taken in by his fever and what he was watching.
A second later Amity Mall's parking lot was destroyed, totaled into a crater, and at minimum would cost thousands and thousands of dollars to address…due to all those broken cars…with tax payer's money…
Daniel Fenton was the star of the video.
The boy was fighting one of Vlad's loyal vulture servants…one called Tuff if he knew his bird-trio correctly.
But where were the other two?
And why wasn't Daniel fighting in his Phantom persona?
Such a fight between ghosts would've been normal; except it was anything but. To everyone else but Vlad, everyone saw (especially his mother) a normal school boy fending off an especially brutal unprovoked ghost attack.
He gasped and Maddie nodded her head meekly, at what he saw next.
The boy was using new fighting tactics that Vlad had never seen before…
But.
He was using ice powers.
Ghost powers.
Without his ghost form.
Without a transformation.
Did the boy think that made him any less suspicious!?
Considering how much Daniel took after Jack Fenton, it wasn't a stretch to think the boy was trying to be sneaky.
But despite the brat's past efforts…
Daniel had revealed his secret.
All over fighting a single bird?
Given himself away to the entire town. ..
For no reason?!
Vlad couldn't wrap his mind around it, and with a fever already chambered inside his skull, it was easy to get furious, only holding back a growling sneer because Maddie was right there – besides him, easy to burn if anger got to him.
The video played, yet a disorienting flurry of snow rendered the footage useless in most parts. Daniel conjured ice armor across his chest and legs, bounding across the parking lot with an uncanny gymnastics' flare that Vlad didn't remember the boy ever having.
Then Daniel manifested…massive icicle-ice-sickles?
A windshield had broken after Daniel had been thrown through a car – both Vlad and Maddie watched with baited breath as Daniel grabbed shards of glass (much to Maddie's displeasure) and used the shard-surfaces as a lattice for the ice to crawl into blades, which was as horrifying as it was genius.
Giant blades engulfed Daniel's arms, almost down to his torso and legs as ice and snow consumed his human form completely.
He towered over the parking lot like a horrendous preying-mantis.
Danny Phantom had transformed himself into a monstrosity of ice!
It wouldn't stop screaming!
No, he, Daniel wouldn't stop screaming.
The ice rattled like bones.
It was amazing Amity Mall was still standing!
The screaming had been aimed at the parking lot and every parked car crumpled apart like tissue paper.
Why was Daniel being so aggressive towards just a single bird?! And one he knew to be basically harmless?!
It was all-so absurd…
Tuff didn't even have Ruff and Buff to help him?
Why was Daniel freaking out over nothing?
Why was he throwing cars around?!
Why all that screaming?!
Did…he eat a tire?!
Nothing could've prepared Vlad for what happened next…
It was…hard to describe…the footage was corrupted in sections..from the snow…by Daniel's intense core-radiation…it was amazing the camera survived at all, really.
It was a good thing he had upped Amity's budget for supernatural surveillance.
Vlad shouted, and Maddie pulled the phone away as he tried to rudely wrestle it from her hands.
He. Ate. Tuff.
Daniel. Ate. Tuff.
The brat ate Tuff!
A disgusting slimy rat-bird.
His servant.
A loyal one.
A fellow ghost.
Daniel would never…
That wasn't Daniel.
It couldn't be.
That horrible thing.
Wasn't Daniel.
The boy had gone completely insane.
Deranged.
There were tentacles…claws…fangs…extra mouths?!
He was eating cars.
Cars.
The boy was eating cars.
Everything.
He ate the parking lot.
It was a miracle the camera footage had remained intact…every person there was lucky to be alive…
There was nothing left.
Vlad shook his head, and the last few seconds of the clip left him further dumbfounded.
Danny melted off his ice-transformation back into Fenton without the slightest hesitation nor cover to hide his secret…a ghost turned human, right in front of a gaggle of remarkably still-alive bystanders…
He…
He was going to kill Daniel!
He would strangle that boy for being so foolish…for being s-so so moronic, unhinged, and deranged.
He. Ate. Tuff.
Once again, Maddie got his attention. She seemed to take his gasping silence as confirmation of some sort as she stared at the finished video.
She fumbled with her phone…
Then she burst into tears!
It was so sudden that Vlad could do nothing but scramble awkwardly backwards, his brewing screams swallowed.
"W-what's wrong?" he stammered. It was a stupid question, Vlad knew, as Maddie had just found out her son was a ghost, and like any rational mother, began crying.
"Clearly, Danny has been possessed! A-and and I need your help Vlad, Jack wouldn't understand. " Vladimir pursed his lips, now this was territory he could navigate. He supposed it was more natural for people to assume poor Daniel got possessed by a ghost, rather than being the ghost.
A perfectly natural conclusion…of course…
Much more simple to think the boy was possessed than dead.
But then Maddie surprised him again.
She replayed the last moments of the clip and pointed, and Vlad noticed what he had missed in the last closing seconds.
A little baby ghost had started giggling and swirling around Daniel's head once he had detransformed from a giant preying-mantis, as if the baby ghost and Daniel had been simply playing the entire fight. Then Daniel took off into the woods with a nervous smile, the baby perched atop his head…
Had that baby…possessed Daniel?!
Now, everything started making sense.
Daniel had been possessed by a baby ghost!
A baby of all things!
But how? The damage done to the parking lot had been off the charts! On the level of an elemental manifestation like Vortex.
Babies weren't exactly known for being powerful…
Then again, he'd never seen a baby ghost…they were particularly rare…dead babies must've been…different…
It was a grim thought.
Maddie took out another orange phone and handed it to Vlad, a desperate gleam in her precious purple-blue eyes as she removed her red bug-stare goggles.
Vlad felt himself swoon under those misty eyes. She clasped a hand around his hand, and her palm was oddly cold, reminding Vlad of a business handshake when a deal went sour.
Maddie was so beautiful, even when reduced to her worst.
"I can count on you to help me with this, right Vlad? And to keep this quiet, just between us? No GIW?"
"Of course, anything for you Maddie," he said quickly. Vlad half-expected a peck on the lips for his agreement, but instead, again Maddie held his hand, fumbling with his palm as if it was a stress-ball.
Tears ran down Maddie's pristine face, and Vlad was afraid to say a word, least he accidently caused her to breakdown entirely – the love of his life.
Too bad he was dead.
"Call me, if you find out anything please. We'll make a plan later. Just keep this hush-hush between us, please, please don't let this get out, else Danny will get hurt. The GIW…they'd bring him in for questioning."
Vlad nodded, his mind already raced for solutions.
"Daniel's safety is my priority too Madeline. No one else ever has to know, I promise you," and for the first time in a while, Vlad found himself being genuine. "You can count on me…we'll unravel this ghost-baby mystery…together." He smiled, the first time in forever, but in the enduring darkness of the maintenance closet he did not see Maddie return it.
"We'll get that strange little ghost."
Vlad noticed how Maddie avoid the word "baby" or "infant," as the ghost clearly was one.
Did Maddie care to make that connection?
Did the idea make her uncomfortable?
Or did ghost-hunting scramble her brains since their college days?
It was a thought Vladimir mulled over often, as he watched her slip on those wretched beetle-goggles, hiding her tender royal-silver eyes.
"I promise you that, Madeline," and with Maddie's hand already firm in his grasp, it was easy to shake on it as smoothly as any business transaction.
Her hand pulled away from his and she proceeded to wipe away her tears, composing herself. Maddie closed the door behind her, leaving him in the dark. He looked at his hand – he did not need light to see a claw hooked around a note – Maddie had left him her phone number on a scrap of paper.
It was ironic then, that something Vladimir had wanted for so so long, caused him nothing but frustration, borderline hatred.
She was a married women.
She offered nothing but rejection.
Maddie was just using him.
He knew that.
To help her son.
That pesky little badger.
He rubbed his forehead, his fever heated like a boil, making a mental note to find a glass of water.
He had a quarter-day at most before news of "Daniel's possession," spread across the internet like wildfire. No doubt the bystanders from the parking lot had been recording their own video footage.
Luckily, a ghost named Technus had helped him suppress and remove such delicate information in the past, especially from the GIW's incompetent eyes.
He just needed to make a phone call and make a "rush delivery" sort of deal.
Perhaps he'd get Skulker and the vultures involved.
It would be easy since Tuff had gotten eaten on camera – they'd want revenge – would work for free, and it was unlikely he'd have to prepare a bribe – how convenient.
Vlad sighed, hearing people frantically shout for him in the hallways.
Deciding to give himself a few more precious minutes before returning to work, he gingerly pocketed Maddie's number and turned the obnoxious orange phone over. With his claws he began to therapeutically scratch out Jack Fenton's eyes.
In hindsight, it hadn't been a good idea for Danny to share his energy drinks with his friends last night. His precious stash had been plundered, and cans littered the couch like pilfered aluminum treasure.
Danny slowly rose from dirty living room carpet, clutching his head from caffeine dehydration. Tension bloomed down his neck and spine from sleeping in a crooked position.
He had gotten little sleep, his head left swimming with the fragments of nightmares he'd soon forget about. Danny would've sworn the ghost Nocturne was involved, if the sleepover had not consisted of binge-watching horror movie after horror movie.
'Maybe I should stop watching those,' he thought bitterly, with no real commitment nor intention. His friends Sam and Tucker liked gore and horror too much to stop…but considering Danny was half-dead already, the movies hit a bit too close to home…
"You done moping sleepyhead?" Sam jeered from the kitchen table.
Sam had already served herself a bowl of cereal, a strange one she'd brought over shaped like leaves. His sister Jazz was at the table too, a half-eaten plain toast between her fingers, along with a book. She smiled in his direction, but didn't look up.
"Morning Danny. You better go ahead and wake up Tucker if you guys want time to eat something. I can't drive you guys to school since today is my early class." Then a watch on her wrist rang, and she bounced up, snapping her book shut.
"See you Sam, nice talking to you." Sam lazily raised a silver spoon, waving goodbye through a mouthful of cereal. Danny decided that his sister gave good advice for once and with his foot nudged Tucker awake.
"Gross dude, get your stinky coldness out of my face!" Tucker got up so fast that he almost fell over. Danny laughed, until he saw what Tucker had fallen asleep on.
Crink
A dozen empty energy drinks crumpled across the carpet.
"Crap, Tucker help me clean up, my mom can't see any of these!" Tucker stretched, making a show of lazily scratching his ass while Danny grumbled and cleaned behind him. "Nah dude, whatever, I'm gonna have some cereal first."
A moment later Tucker and Danny had their own bowls of cereal, while Sam droopy-eyed, scrolled through her phone.
Clap
Jack Fenton slapped a hand hard against Danny's shoulder, in jest, but he frowned when he saw Danny's arms full of empty cans. "You know Danno all that caffeine is stunting your growth, don't you wanna be as tall as your old man?"
Danny was exhausted but he looked up at his dad with eyes as wide as dinner plates. His dad had no idea how close to home his comment had been. It wasn't like Danny could grow any taller, not past fourteen, not since the accident…not since dying – but of course his parents didn't know that. He dreaded the day his parents noticed he wasn't growing up…and if his oblivious father Jack was noticing the jig was soon up…
Sam and Tucker knew it too and they grimaced, looking back at Danny with sympathetic clinking spoons.
Danny himself couldn't say a word, too busy fighting off the dreadful thoughts of his reality that would keep him in a bitter mood the rest of the day.
Fortunately, Jack took Danny's uncomfortable silence to mean he was taking his advice seriously.
Jack smiled his approval, giving Danny a firm pat on the shoulder. "Now go throw out those cans, bury em' deep in the trash under some paper towels, else your mother will notice."
Danny snorted as he followed his dad's sage advice, and it was the levity he needed to break out of his morning funk. His friends finished off their bowls and waited by the door. Danny sulked that he didn't have time to prepare bacon and eggs, making do with a skinny granola bar with the texture of sawdust.
Perhaps he'd take Dani out to breakfast again…the thought of a hot meal made his mouth water.
"Now as much as I like having you kids around I'm gonna have to ask you all to skedaddle. I have an appointment with Mister Damon Grey – he's determined to get into ghost hunting!"
Danny smiled, his dad almost never got appointments about hunting ghosts – weirdly, Amity didn't have a demand for it.
People were just too afraid of ghosts to fight them, he concluded. "It's nice to see you making friends dad," something about the name "Mister Gray" was familiar but he couldn't be bothered to think about it.
He grabbed another granola bar as he walked out the door.