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Danny tried really hard to not think about the whole cloning thing directly after it happened. That experience had been traumatizing, painful, and terrifying so he obviously didn’t want to dwell on it. So he suppressed it, refusing to deal with any of his feelings about this time until after Danielle showed up the second time. They had managed to stabilize her but it had been really close. Danny had thought for a few seconds that he had lost her and that had nearly crushed him. After that, she left to travel the world but agreed to try and come back every month or so. Danny used some of his meager allowance to buy her a cheap prepaid phone and got her to promise to call him every week. But he still worried.
He stared at the ceiling sometimes, hoping that she was safe, that she was actually eating and sleeping, that she didn’t do something stupid and reckless and get herself hurt. Man, was this how Jazz felt when he was off fighting ghosts who knows where?
Danny suddenly sat up at that thought. Somehow, throughout the weeks of worrying about and growing closer to Dani, he had become an older brother. An older brother whose little sister was off somewhere on her own doing who knows what. He could definitely sympathize with Jazz’s over protective tendencies now.
After that, Danny made a point of introducing Dani to all his ghostly allies. While he couldn’t offer her a permanent home with him (he wasn’t ready to tell his parents yet and they still were not the most…supportive of Phantom), he could at least offer her that. Frostbite, Pandora, Dora, and Clockwork all meet Dani and offered to let her stay with them whenever she needed or wanted to. With that arrangement, plus Jazz and his friends helping provide monetary support to buy Dani clothes and food more often, Danny’s worries (and conscience) were eased somewhat.
But that didn’t last though. With the revelation and acknowledgement that Dani was his little sister, he couldn’t help but think about the other clones, the ones who had destabilized when he meet Danielle. They had been real beings, that he had meet and fought. He had seen them suffer and fall apart, dripping into green viscous piles of ectoplasm like Dani almost had. And he had done nothing; he’d let them die. Quickly he tried to push those thoughts away but they relentlessly came back, especially in his dreams.
The skeletal clone falling apart when Danny shoot an ectoblast at him.
The big muscular one splatting into a pile of goo.
The tiny one melting with a distressed cry after he overshadowed Danny
And the prime clone, mouth opens in a silent scream. His eyes bore into Danny’s, begging to be saved, for help that would never come.
Danny sat up quickly, right after the last images passed through his mind. His heart was pounding. He flopped back onto his bed with a huff. These images had been torturing him for weeks. He shook his head. There was no point in even thinking about them, right? They hadn’t been thinking like Dani, they had been mindless, like Vlad’s animal ghosts lackeys. It didn’t matter. What happened wasn’t his fault and he couldn’t do anything about it.
Those thoughts didn’t actually make him feel any less guilty.
The next day had been difficult. He missed lunch and Lancer’s test because of ghost attacks. He’d gotten badly bruised and dislocated his shoulder while fighting. Then he’s gotten detention for skipping class, resulting in a phone call home and getting grounded. Then Danny had to sneak out because a ghost was wrecking the park.
Danny paused when he saw the ghost, feeling anxiety flare in his gut. It was a skeleton, like Vlad’s clone of him. No this one was neon green with empty eye sockets. His clone had been jet black with ruby red eyes. He shook his head, dislodging the thought. He shot a neon green blast at the ghost and it quickly fell apart. Danny’s heart sank- just like his clone. He then raised his eyebrow at the sight in front of him; the ghost drew itself back together, reforming into an upright figure. It growled at Danny who rolled his eyes and wiped out the thermos. He sucked the ghost into the thermos with a sigh and headed home, still trying to shake the residual guilt.
Exhausted, Danny flopped onto his bed after turning back into his human form. He quickly fell asleep though it was anything but restful.
Danny floats in front of a glowing green portal. This…isn’t his parent’s lab? The room is in disarray, covered in broken glass and twisted metal. Danny’s stomach turns. On the floor are foaming puddles of viscous ectoplasm. The bile rose in his throat. Oh God. These aren’t just puddles; these are corpses. Half-melted skeletons and disembodied eyes. Patches of pale skin and bloodied black and white hair. Red human blood swirling on top of the ectoplasm in little ringlets.
Danny’s stomach heaved as he spun around and he vomits. No no no. This is Vlad’s lab. He can’t be back here! The smell assaults his nose and Danny heaves again, hands on his knees. This….this isn’t… this can’t can’t. Tears prickle in his eyes.
“Really Danny? You’re just going to ignore me.”
Danny flinches at the sudden voice but quickly turns around. Floating above the carnage is…himself?
The white haired, green eyed figure crosses his arms. “Then again, you’ve been ignoring me for months.” The ghost’s hands then go to his side and lit with neon green energy. “You killed me and you don’t even care!”
In the blink of an eye, Danny crashes into the wall as the ghost body-slams him. Eyes blazing and teeth bared, the ghost punches Danny with lite fists. “I’m dead and It’s your fault!”
Danny turns his head, trying to dodge. “I didn’t….” He’s silenced with a punch to the gut.
“You could have saved me! But you didn’t even try! You just watched me die!”
With a massive ectoblast to the gut, Danny pulls the ghost away from him and sends him flying. He shouts blazing eyes, though his voice quivers. “That wasn’t my fault!”
The ghost hits the floor with a thud, landing on his back but he quickly shoots up. He sends an ectoblast at Danny. “Yes it was! You wouldn’t just give him your DNA! You destroyed my chamber with your wail!” The ghost flies at Danny, who slammed into the wall again when the blast hit him. He punches Danny in the face. “You made me destabilize!”
Danny’s eyes widen, realizing exactly who this is. His lip quivers. “That…that was an accident. I…I was scared.”
Danny’s clone grabs his wrists. He spins Danny away from the wall. “I don’t care!” He shoves Danny onto the floor and presses him down with his knees. “I’m still dead because of you!”
The clone starts punching Danny who squirms trying to get away. Danny begs. “No please” Tears are starting to stream down his face. “I though Vlad was going to kill me. I didn’t want to die!”
“I didn’t want to die either!”
At that, the clone stops punching him. In a flash of light, he turns into his human form- shaggy black hair, blue eyes, and a suit like the one Danny wore to the reunion. Identical to Danny.
Danny stares and stops squirming. He hadn’t noticed earlier but the other boy had started crying too at some point during the fight. At the same time, the clone moves off of Danny. He’s kneeling beside him and his chest is starting to heave with sobs. “I wanted to live! I wanted to get to feel the sun on my face, to taste food, to see the stars. I wanted to hug Danielle! I wanted to make jokes and laugh! I wanted to learn about everything! I wanted to be alive!”
Danny slowly sits up, dumb founded at the speech. He feels like his heart stops when the other boy looks at his face. “I wanted to meet you.” The clone clinched his fist. “But you don’t even care. You won’t even acknowledge I ever existed.”
Danny’s mouth finally caught up with his thoughts. He stuttered. “That’s…that’s not true.”
The clone narrows his eyes at Danny. “Yes it is. My entire existence disgusts you. I would have been your brother and you won’t even think my name.”
Danny looks down, feeling the tears well again as the sorrow mounts. Because he’s right. His clone…no Daniel, Because Danny knows that is what Vlad had named him. Daniel is right.
Danny says the only thing he can. “I’m sorry.”
Daniel looks at him with identical sorrow in his eyes. He places his hand on Danny’s. “I know you are. But it won’t bring me back.”
Danny jolted awake. That…that had been a dream? None of it had been real but his chest still aches with sorrow. His mind replayed the images from his dream and from the death of Daniel and the other clones in real life. He turned onto his side, hugging his knees to his chest. All he could do was weep.
At some point later, Danny heard the door to his room creek open. In the darkness and with his tear-filled vision, he could barely see Jazz’s face in front of him. She kneeled by the bed, gently taking his hand and rubbing her thumb across his fingers. She coaxed him to talk though, he could barely make out the words. Before he could even think to stop himself, the words were pouring out of his mouth. All of the pain and guilt he’d suppressed since Vlad cloned him came out because he finally acknowledged the truth.
Because yes, even though they had not lived very long, all of the clones had still been real. The three that he fought, they had been mindless. Danny had felt that when the tiny clone had overshadowed him. He had been barely more intellect than an animal, just obeying Vlad out of fear of punishment. But Danny had felt his pain and his fear as the little clone desperately tried to overshadow him but felt that he was dying.
But the prime clone, Vlad’s ‘perfect’ son, Daniel, he would have been different. He would have been like Danielle and like Danny himself. He would have been a real, living breathing person. He would have loved, and laughed and hoped and dreamed.
He, and all of the clones, really would have been Danny’s brothers. Because if Dani was his sister and he choose to acknowledge her, he had to, need to acknowledge them. They deserved that at least, even if they had worked with Vlad against Danny. Daniel deserved that at least. He deserved a chance to live. But now he never would and it was Danny’s fault because he had killed him.
Jazz’s soft voice cut through Danny’s ramble. “That’s not true. That was not your fault. It was Vlad’s. He used those clones against you. He tried to hurt you and made you fear for your life. What happened to Daniel was an accident. You shouldn’t blame yourself. Danielle doesn’t blame you.” She paused, as if debating if she should say that. “I don’t think Daniel would blame you either.”
Chocking back a new wave of tears, Danny stammered. “But…you don’t…you can’t know that.”
Jazz rubbed his hand again. “You can’t know either. You don’t know who Daniel would have grown into. He could have stayed loyal to Vlad and fought you. But he also could have turned against him like Dani did and grown to care about you. The point is you don’t know.”
Unfortunately, that just made Danny cry more. Jazz frowned and rubbed his back. “There, there. Let it out.”
She stayed with him until the tears stopped and he fell asleep.