Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Get some rest everybody!” Jack crowed as he flopped down onto his sleeping bag. The RV shook a bit with the impact. “I want the entire Fenton clan bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when we meet Masters tomorrow.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jazz shot up from her own bag, “Your friend Vlad’s last name is Masters? As in Vlad Masters? Who was named Affluence Magazine’s ‘Billionaire of the year’?”

“That’s the guy! In college, he was my best friend. We were very popular guys,” he declared even as his wife rolled her eyes and attempted to fall asleep next to him, “Roommates, lab partners, we did everything together. Until the thick fingers of fate stuck themselves right in Vlad’s eyes.” He stabbed at the air with his own fingers demonstratively.

“What happened,” Jazz asked, eyes bright as she leaned forward.

“He was hospitalized with a horrible case of ectoacne.” Danny startled slightly at the word. He’d heard that before somewhere, but the memory slipped away when he tried to grasp it. “It devastated him and killed his social life. We haven’t spoken since that day. But the good news is, I think after all these years, he’s finally forgiven me.” Danny turned in his sleeping bag and frowned. The guy forgave him after twenty years without any contact? That didn’t sound right, but, he shrugged, his dad probably knew the guy better than Danny did.

——

The morning started early with gas station sausage biscuits and bottle orange juice as everyone but Jack rubbed sleep from their eyes. He was practically vibrating the whole time they ate and got ready for the day. An almost constant stream of random Vlad Masters facts flowed out like water from a sieve, though most of them had to do with Mr. Masters’ contributions to their research into ghosts. Every so often, their mom would offer up a correction, but, honestly, neither Danny or Jazz were paying all that much attention. 

Danny was back asleep almost the moment the RV started and didn’t wake again until almost noon. ‘If there was one good thing about the trip so far,’ Danny thought as he stretched out, ‘it was that I’ve been able to catch up on my sleep.’ When he looked out the window, it was easy to tell that they were somewhere far off the main road. Everything on his side was unending forest looming darkly while a glance out of Jazz’s revealed miles and miles of field stretching off into the distance with a few bunches of black, white, and brown cows dotting the otherwise green pastures.

“Are we almost there?” He asked as he rubbed at his eyes.

“Almost!” his dad trilled, “Just gotta get to the end of this road.”

“Ugh, he’s been saying that for the past half hour,” Jazz grumbled.

“It looks like we’re actually almost there,” Danny said in a vague attempt at comfort as he craned his head to look at the long, empty road ahead of them. In the distance, he could just barely make out a large white and yellow building, though the bulk of it blended in with the clouds behind it. As they got closer and the details became easier to make out, however, Danny couldn’t help but gape.

The building wasn’t just some rich guy mansion, it was a full on castle. He could see at least five towers and the main roof was only a bit lower than the shortest one. Who was this guy? Who built a castle in Wisconsin?

When they finally made it to the castle, Danny nudged Jazz. “How many floors do you think this place has?”

“Too many,” she snarked back with a hint of a smirk as she forgot, for a moment, that she was suppose to be mad at him. The RV rounded the fountain and slowed to a stop in front of massive wooden doors.

“Alright kids,” their mom said as she turned in her seat, “we’re here.” Their dad was practically bouncing in his seat as she put the RV into park. As soon as he could open his door, Danny slid out of the RV with a groan, stretching his sore muscles and listening to his joints crackle and pop after being immobile for so long.

As they moved towards the castle, Danny could see that one of the large front doors had already been thrown wide open, casting shadows over the figure standing on the porch. The man that stepped forward was about their dad’s height, though nowhere near his girth, with long silver and white hair tied back into a ponytail and piercing blue eyes. “Jack…” he said cooly before his eyes landed on their mom and visibly brightened, “and Maddie. You’ve never looked better my dear.” He gestured towards the open door with a polite smile, “please, please come in.”

Almost as soon as he stepped into the foyer, Danny felt a familiar chill creep through his chest and out of his mouth in a blue mist. “Oh no,” he muttered almost silently to himself as his eyes darted all over in search of the specter. Between the various glass cases filled with Packers merchandise and, oddly enough, statues of an old man with a cheese hat and ice cream staff, the seemingly endless row of doors he could see down the hall, and the staircases leading further up the castle, the ghost could be literally anywhere or in anything.

“Oh, who is this?” he heard his mom coo. Danny snapped to attention. Was it the ghost?

He didn’t see anything at first until Mr. Masters gestured down and said, “Ah, this is my cat, Rose. She’s a fairly new addition. She followed me home a couple months back.” At his feet, a ridiculously fluffy, bright white cat with large brown eyes and a bright green collar was staring at them, ears perked forward and tail held high. Almost as soon as he looked at it, the cat’s eyes seemed to snap straight to his and, with a shiver, he was suddenly reminded of Sam saying that cats could sense ghosts. Maybe they could sense half ghosts too…

“Enough of the cat,” Jazz called out with her nose scrunched and gesturing at the front hall, “what’s with all the green and gold. You’re a billionaire, surely you could afford an interior decorator?”

“Come on Jazz,” he commented, forcing himself to sound casual as he tore his eyes away from the cat, “Football helmets, jerseys, cheese heads? He’s a Packers fanatic.”

“Ah,” Mr. Masters said, stepping closer and ruffling Danny’s hair, “’fanatic’ is such a harsh word, but yes.” His cat crept closer as well, ‘murp’ing softly up at Danny. It’s wide brown eyes felt like they were staring into his soul. Danny glanced between the cat and Mr. Masters, but the man was too distracted by Jazz’s next question to notice.

“If you like the Packer so much, then why don’t you just buy the team?”

“Because the Packers are owned by the city of Green Bay and they won’t sell them to me,” Masters complained loudly, ending the mini-rant with a childish pout. Danny couldn’t help but give a sigh of relief as the outburst finally got the cat to turn and run over to Masters with a ‘meow’.

Whatever the man had been about to say next was derailed when the cat stretched up, putting a paw on his leg for balance, and ‘murrp’ed. “Yes,” he cooed, pout quickly traded for an indulgent smile, “I see you.” The cat meowed back, purring loudly when Masters started petting its head.

The cat was still purring when it dropped back to the ground a moment later and twined itself around Masters’ ankles. “So, Maddie,” Masters practically purred himself as he turned to Danny’s mom, “you must tell me what you’ve been up to. I do so love hearing about your research.”

“Is he hitting on mom?” Danny asked quietly Jazz as his mom gave Masters an awkward smile.

Their mom deflected with a quick and almost nervous, “let me go grab Jack— you know how much he loves talking about our research,” before darting back towards the front door where they could just barely hear their dad knocking and asking to be let in through the thick wooden door. Actually, Danny thought, glancing back towards said door, he hadn’t even noticed that their dad had been locked out. Oops.

“As long as he has working bathrooms and she says no? I don’t care,” Jazz said flippantly, grabbing his attention once more, before wandering down the hall to look into the nearest rooms. 

Danny stared awkwardly after her for a moment as she slipped into one of the doors before finally glancing around at all the Packers memorabilia. He hadn’t noticed anything overtly ghostly yet, though wether that was a good thing or not was hard to decide. As he was looking over everything again, a football caught his eye and, when he got closer, he could see a curly signature on the side. “Woah, cool,” he gasped as he attempted to decipher the name.

“Indeed,” Masters said as he picked up the ball and passed it to Danny. Then pointing out the signature, “this ball was autographed by the legendary Ray Nitschke himself. It’s one of my most prized possessions.”

The cat chirped behind him. Masters straightened up and turned to respond to her when it happened.

“Heads up V-man!”

Danny watched, horrified, as his dad snatched the football from his hands and tackled Mr. Masters to the floor. To make matters worse, a feline howl immediately erupted from beneath the two men. 

“Get off!” Masters yelled, frantically shoving at Danny’s dad. As soon as it had the space, Masters’ cat bolted down the hall as a blur of white. The man struggled to his feet, his hair in disarray and looking pissed as hell. “You! Give me that,” he snatched his prized football out of Jack’s hands and set it roughly back on the pedestal. Mr. Masters breathed heavily for a moment, not looking at any of them. “I’m going to look for Rose and make sure she wasn’t injured,” he said finally, turning and straightening his suit jacket roughly but still not looking in their direction, “make yourselves at home.” With that, he turned on his heel and stalked down the hall the cat had run down.

Danny and Jazz shared wide eyed looks, frozen. Their mom, however, had no such issue. She marched straight up to their dad, grabbed his arm and said, “Jack. RV. Now.” Danny winced at the look his mom was giving his dad. His dad hung his head dejectedly and walked slowly out the door beneath his wife’s glare. “Jazz, Danny, your father and I are going to have a little talk. Why don’t you two help Vlad look for his cat?” Danny and Jazz shared a look before both of them nodded rapidly.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Of course mom.” With that, their mom stalked out of the house, leaving them standing awkwardly in the middle of the foyer. 

“Soooo,” Danny started, pointing down the hall where their host had disappeared, “are we….?” Jazz sighed and rolled her eyes. 

“If we try to help, we’re just going to get lost or get in the way. We should just find a sitting room or something and stay put.”

Danny looked down the hall, a bit guilty but realizing that Jazz had a point. It wasn’t like they had a map. But… he also couldn’t look for the ghost while Jazz was around. Danny turned back to her, eyes widened theatrically and hands clasped in front of him.

She stared at him with one eyebrow raised before sighing. “Danny, if you want to go help him find his cat, I’m not going to stop you.” Yes! He resisted the urge to cheer. Danny gave her a grateful look instead and jogged away.

He kept going until he knew he was out of sight before ducking into one of the open rooms “Okay, find the ghost then find the cat. Easy. I’m going ghost.” White rings of light spread from his core and raced across his body, transforming him from human to ghost. “Now, if I was haunting a huge football themed castle,” he mused aloud as he shifted into invisibility and floated out of the room, “where would I go?” Well they hadn’t been in the front or everyone would have seen them. So, he’d start in the back!

Danger! Danger! Run! Run! Hide! Rose bolted down the hall, sure that the attacker was right on her tail. She had to keep going, had to hide. She could feel the ‘Anger! Worry! Danger!’ from her swarm-mate, but the instincts to run and hide were too strong. The only reason she was still on four legs and not floating was the reminder around her neck. Shifting means Danger. 

Danger.

Danger! She redoubled her efforts to scurry down the hall as quickly as her legs would take her. Run! Hide! A cracked door had her hurrying into the dark room. Inside, the laundry machines were the perfect guardians and she quickly squeezed beneath the closest one. Hide! Hide! Quiet!

‘Worry! Anger! Worry!’ her swarm-mate projected. She could feel him getting closer.

‘Hide! Quiet! Dark!’ she projected back.

‘Worry! False Calm! Worry Curious!’

‘Quiet. Dark.’

‘Worry Curious! Dark?’

‘Dark. Quiet. Safe’

‘Safe? Safe! Relax! Calm!’ Rose practically melted into the floor as the anxiety and stress were dissipated under the force of her swarm-mate’s relief. Purring softly, Rose slowly crawled out from under the washing machine. Knowing that he was looking for her, Rose be-lined for the open door and settled on the threshold of the laundry room to wait for him.

The castle was quiet save the ever present sound of heated air traveling through the ducts. Rose could feel her swarm-mate getting closer and was practically wiggling in their shared anticipation. Then, a cold spark zipped down her spine. The fur on her back stood up straight in an attempt to make her look bigger even as she lowered herself to the ground

‘Quiet.’ She warned, as her eyes cast around for the source of the energy she had sensed.

‘Confusion? Safe?’

‘Quiet. Something…Familiar-No-Yes’ The suddenness of its appearance was like a cheese grater to the nerves. Where had it come from? Was there another of her swarm-mate’s kind? The sudden spark felt just like when her swarm-mate brought his core forward, but without the familiar buzzing warmth. This one was cold, very very cold— like needles stabbing into her skin.

“Hey! There you are!” Rose lept to her feet with a screech of surprise as the unfamiliar-vaguely-familiar ghost dashed through the wall and sped straight for her with a yell. She bolted.

‘Danger! Danger! Run! Run! Hide!’

“No! Wait! Here kitty! Come Back!”

Maddie stared her husband down as he sat slumped in the passenger seat. Like this, he looked his whole forty years in a way that he usually didn’t— tired and subdued where he usually had a wellspring of energy. Maddie frowned. She knew how excited Jack had been to see Vlad again and for it to go this wrong so quickly was upsetting. She didn’t know what she had expected. 

The best case scenario, the boys inseparable with an arm thrown casually over each other’s shoulder while they reminisced about their time in college, was a pipe dream and she had known that. The worse case scenario, Vlad being replaced by some disgusting ghost that was piloting his corpse like a meat puppet and hellbent on destroying ghost hunters, was also, thankfully, debunked. No, most likely something would happen and Vlad would cut them off for good this time— including the rather lucrative contracts they had received from his companies— and it, hopefully, hadn’t come to that yet, but, “Jack, you can’t just tackle people.”

“But me and Vladdy use to do it all the time,” he protested.

“Jack,” she sighed, “it doesn’t matter if you use to tackle each other in collage, he didn’t appreciate it Now and you two landed on his cat. What are you going to say if his cat is actually hurt? And right after he was asking about our research…”

“But I didn’t mean to!” Jack burst out as if the added emphasis would magically undo the harm he had possibly caused, “I just wanted to relive the ole college days. You know, back when we were best buds. I haven’t seen him in so long…I just. Got excited”

“Jack. You need to apologize. And… maybe it would be better if we offer to get a hotel and go home in the morning.” Jack grimaced, turning to stare out the front of the RV, when something caught his eye.

“Maddie, look! The radar’s picking signatures up in the castle!” Jack turned to stare at his wife with wide eyed excitement thrumming through his veins— the previous discussion all but forgotten in his mind,” We have to go make sure Vladdy and the kids are alright!” Maddie’s eyes narrowed dangerously at the two dots pinging the radar. 

“I’ll get the Fenton ectopistols!” 

The ghost hunters leapt from the RV, guns at the ready. Jack had the Fenton Portable Ghost Scanner in one hand and a ectoblaster in the other while Maddie held her staff and wore the two pistols in the holsters on either hip. They charged back into the castle. “Oh and Jack,” Maddie said almost sweetly as they crossed the threshold, “don’t think this gets you out of apologizing to Vlad later.” 

Jack pouted.

Vlad grimaced as soon as he was away from the Fentons. He could feel Rose’s fear and panic being projected straight to his core and it was becoming increasingly difficult to suppress the urge to hide under one of the many beds like a small child. He needed to find her. What if the Buffoon had gotten her with some ectoplasmic weapon tucked into his jumpsuit?

“If that man has harmed My blob ghost, he is going to suffer,” Vlad promised himself darkly. He knew he should have gone to destroy Jack’s invitation himself, back to back business meetings or not. That was what clones were for, after all.

Vlad clicked his tongue as each door he looked in had no Rose behind it. “Where are you?” he asked the air, hoping that his core would project the sentiment to the smaller ghost. Despite having a core-bond for months, he still didn’t quite know how it worked. It had manifested when he had experimented with transferring his power to her instead of her to him and his attempts at studying it had met similar road blocks to his attempts at getting information on blobs.

Since the bond was still rather new, it mostly just projected their emotions at each other, though Vlad found that small amounts of energy could also be passed between them over short distances. The sensation of feelings being projected straight to his core could be intense and his assistant was starting to give him odd looks over his changed demeanor, but they were usually positive and he had slowly been getting use to it. Or, at least, he thought he had.

He didn’t regret the bond, but—Vlad grimaced as the urge to hide spiked, followed quickly by his jaw clicking shut almost of its own accord as if any sound would bring death upon his head—ancients, he hated feeling like he was being hunted in his own home. If he could just find Rose, then it wouldn’t be a problem. The only bit that was helpful was the impression of darkness that came on the heels of the other two. At the very least, she was inside and not in one of the outer rooms with windows, but that didn’t narrow it down by much.

He really needed to keep working on adding a tracker to her collar after the reunion was over. His range was so reduced in his human form that he had to be within a couple rooms of her  to pick up her ectosignature even with the core-bond. Not to mention that, outside of the times he had to go into more dangerous parts of the Ghost Zone, she was usually glued to his side and having her so far away felt like he was missing a vital piece of himself. Vlad leaned against the wall and let out a harsh breath. He just needed to keep looking. He was going to find Rose. She was going to be okay. She just got a bit spooked. He repeated the phrases to himself a couple times before pushing away from the wall. Calm. He. Was. Calm.

Vlad let out a long hissing breath as he started moving again, tossing doors open haphazardly. Ancients, he just wanted to find her and be done with this. If he was a small cat sized ghost where would he hide? This would be so much easier if he was in his own ghost form— at least then he would probably be able to sense her ectosignature by now. Where was she?

This time, the impression of somewhere quiet and dark was less abrupt, more of an insistent nudge than the deluge from earlier. Unfortunately, it didn’t narrow down his search in the slightest. ‘Help me find you,’ he urged, ‘dark and what else?’ The same impression returned again, more insistent, but this time layered with another emotion. It felt…Safe?

She was safe? That didn’t narrow anything down, but he latched onto that bit of emotion like a lifeline. If she felt safe just hiding, then she must not be hurt. He breathed out a loud sigh of relief. Thank the Ancients. The stupid oaf must have just scared her then. Vlad could feel his tense muscles unclenching as his brisk almost-jog slowed to and easy stride. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was fine. There was no reason to be upset, he just had to find Rose and then get back to the Fentons so he could continue to try and lure his darling Maddie away from the brutish idiot that she had mistakenly married.

He could feel Rose waiting patiently for him. Good. He wanted her with him, where she belonged. As he made his way towards the old servant’s quarters in the back of the castle, he could finally feel flickers of her ectosignature on the edge of his range. Now that he wasn’t trying to open every door in his path, Vlad was making quick work of the distance between them. It was only a matter of time before—

Vlad froze in place as the relaxed anticipation thrumming through his bond with Rose was suddenly replaced by a wary concern. Rose had sensed something. There was something—someone— else in his home. Perhaps his great uncle had come down from the Southern tower? He had been increasingly distant as of late, unwilling to stick around for more than brief conversations before absconding to his cheese making. Perhaps he had finally finished whatever new project had been taking all of his attention recently?

Rose quickly rid him of that notion, however. There was only the faintest recognition there, as if remembering something she had only gotten a passing glance of at the time. Vlad started forward once more. Perhaps the Fentons had brought something with them and it had gotten loose. The fool’s doing, surely. Ugh, perhaps he shouldn’t have slammed the door on the man, no matter what twisted delight it had given him at the time. It wasn’t worth having some random ghost sneaking around his haunt. Or the scare he had given Rose.

Vlad was getting closer, Rose’s core a steady beacon leading him forward, when he finally got a glimpse of the new ectosignature. It was cold, icy even, and fairly stable, but weak. It was about as strong as Rose had been a month or two back— so likely very new or very hurt.

A shiver went down his spine. A hurt ghost, even weak, could be very dangerous and an ice core against a plasma core that was only slightly stronger? Vlad picked up the pace. For not the first time, Vlad cursed his uncle’s poor architectural sense as he was forced to turn corner after corner in the winding servant’s area. This would be so much easier if he didn’t have to worry about the Fentons picking up his ectosignature on one of their scanners. Rose, at least, he could find excuses for. Himself? That was not a conversation he was willing to have just yet, or maybe ever, with the daughter of the GIW’s greatest scientist and the son of one of the most notorious supernatural hunting families in the Americas.

A loud yowl had him dashing forward as terror poured afresh down his spine. “Rose!” he yelled. He only barely caught a flash of white dipping around the corner and she was gone again. He could feel his eyes flash red and his teeth sharpen to fangs as he looked for what had attacked her. A low growl rumbled in his chest when he couldn’t find them in the open laundry room. It looked like the ghost was declaring itself a threat after all. Once he got ahold of them, they were going to regret ever stepping foot in his haunt.

-x-X-x-X-x-

Jazz settled herself in one of the sitting rooms on the second floor with a sigh. Despite the green and gold color scheme, the room was pretty nice. It was smaller than some of the other rooms on the floor, more cozy. There were a few football jerseys and photos surrounding the entrance, but the rest was her favorite kind of decor—books. 

The other three walls of the room were basically invisible beneath shelves upon shelves of books. The only opening was the large picture window on the far side of the room showcasing the large, pristine lawn surrounded by dark, dense forest. 

A three seat couch sat in the middle of the room and was surrounded by fancy wooden end tables and a large coffee table while large fuzzy recliners were scattered around the rest of the room, each with their own table. The top of the shelf beneath the window had even been turned into a rather plush looking bench. 

Jazz eagerly perused the offerings. Based on the pristine looking bindings, a good half of them hadn’t ever been touched. She couldn’t quite figure out the sorting method, but there were a couple college level biology books tucked in one of the lower shelves that she had found interesting enough to pull out and skim through.

Setting her finds on the end table, Jazz settled in one of the plush recliners with a happy sigh. She had just barely managed to open the first of the books when a bright white blur streaked into the room and buried itself under the couch. Jazz froze for a moment, an unfortunately automatic reaction to living with trigger happy parents, before slowly putting her book back down and rising from the chair. 

‘Please be the cat. Please don’t be some giant castle rat. Please be the cat,’ she prayed as she got down on her knees and looked under the couch. She was greeted by large orangish-brown eyes and a pitiful ‘meow’. Jazz let out a sigh of relief. The relief didnt last long, however, when she realized that she had no clue how to interact with a cat, let alone one that was probably injured and terrified. “Um, here kitty kitty?” she tried, reaching out with her hand until the cat started shifting away. 

Jazz froze in that position, waiting. The cat turned its head, pointing straight for the clear exit route, before glancing back at her from the corner of its eye. Then, with soft sigh, the cat turned back fully towards her and inched forward slowly. Jazz held as still as possible as the cat delicately sniffed at her fingertips. She let out a sigh of relief as the cat scooted forward and pushed its head into her hand. 

“Alright, time to come out kitty,” Jazz ordered softly, scratching at the cat’s head for a moment before drawing her hand back a bit. The cat made a noise somewhere between a meow and a whine at her, but slowly scooted after Jazz’s hand. Jazz made sure to dispense head pats each time the cat scooted closer and was soon rewarded by a lap full of skittish fur. Jazz could feel the cat shaking softly as it glanced around the room.

Suddenly, it went still, head whipping towards the door. A moment later, Jazz heard it too— the uncomfortably familiar sound of her parent’s war cries. “Oh no,” she groaned, tightening her grip on the cat, “please don’t—”

Her parents burst into the room, weapons raised. 

“Eat ecto-goo ghost scum!” Jack yelled. The cat hissed and launched itself out of Jazz’s grasp.

Jazz yelped as the cat’s claws caught her across the arm only to quickly start spitting when her parents shot her with smelly green goo and a large glob managed to land right in her still-open mouth. She just barely saw the cat darting around her parents and out of the room before jumping to her feet and yelling, “What. Is. Wrong with you!”

“Oops, sorry Sweety,” her mom sang as her eyes darted to and fro across the room, “we just tracked a ghost into here. Did you happen to see anything?”

“Are you serious! I’m completely covered in slime! Again! Not to mention you’re making a horrible impression on Mr. Masters. First you tackle this guy to the ground and now you’re running around and shooting his stuff? What! In what world is that okay!”

Danny winced as he heard his sister explode at his parents. He’d seen them charging this way earlier and had followed at a safe distance in hopes they’d lead him to the ghost. Now he kind of regretted not drawing them away. At least he’d seen the cat darting back towards the stairs. Then, a head of silver hair popped up on his peripheral and he immediately went invisible as none other than Vlad Masters walked up to the room and threw the door wide. “What is going on here,” he asked, voice cold. Danny took his cue and bolted.

“What is going on here?” Vlad practically growled as he threw open the door to the room Rose had been leading him to just a moment before. Once the door was open, however, he stopped short and blinked at the sight before him. The oaf and Maddie were quick to hide their ghost hunting weaponry behind their backs and give him fake smiles. He would get to that later, he promised himself, but their daughter was covered in ectoplasmic slime. “Are you okay?” he asked her seriously as his skin crawled with the phantom sensations of burst skin and warm wet goo inching down his body to pool beneath him. ‘Not the time,’ he mentally hissed to himself as he shoved the memories back.

“I would be much better if I wasn’t covered in goo,” was the sullen responce.

“How about I show you to the rooms I have set up for your family so you can shower it off,” Vlad offered, stepping out of the doorway and gesturing for her to follow him, “they’re just up the stairs and we should hopefully be able to get there before the burning sets in.” If there was one thing he would never forget, it was how much ectoplasm burned. Even now that his body could process ectoplasm without pain, he couldn’t forget. Not when it felt like his eyes— No. Not Now. He shoved the memories and emotions they ignited as far away as he could.

“Burning? Hah! Jazzy-pants hasn't complained about ectoplasm burns since she was little,” Jack announced proudly, “she’s a real trooper.” 

“Yes, well. Better safe than sorry,” Vlad responded with a strained smile. The buffoon better hope she just had a large pain tolerance. The alternative was, given what he knew of Maddie’s mother— a rather nasty woman known as the “Butcher in White”—, potentially very dangerous for the girl if the GIW caught wind of it. “Jack, why don’t you go grab her clothes from your RV?” For a moment, it looked like the man might protest, but Vlad and Maddie both shot him a look.

“Yes sir, right away,” he said instead before barreling from the room. That taken care of, Vlad quickly led the other two up to the third floor and the rooms down the hall from the Master bedroom. 

“The bathroom is on the door to the right. Towels are under the sink and the soaps are in the shower,” he said, ushering Jazz into the room. 

He turned to Maddie, but before he could say anything, she said a quick, “I’m going to stay with Jazz, could you show Jack the way up here?” Vlad suppressed a grimace. He had been hoping to go back to searching for Rose and the infiltrator or to at least spend a bit more time alone with Maddie.

“Of course my dear,” he answered instead, “anything for you.” Then, suppressing a sigh, he went to go find Jack. Hopefully the buffoon hadn’t released anything else in his short time away from responsible adults. (And, given the way his hands still shook when not clenched in the small of his back, perhaps a bit of alone time was not unnecessary.)

-x-X-x-X-x-

Rose settled in under the sink of the kitchen with a sort of wary hope. Her internal clock was telling her that her swarm-mate would be starting dinner at any moment. So, as long as that other ghost didn’t try to attack her again, her swarm would be back together before long. His distraction and annoyance was apparent and Rose hoped that he was taking care of the other ghost or the giant that had infiltrated their home. The extra panic he had shoved her way earlier was spooled carefully away into ‘no time for this’ storage to be un-spooled slowly enough for him to work through later. Preferably when this whole mess was over.

Rose sank to the bottom of the cupboard with a miserable ‘mrow’. Her swarm-mate had been so excited to invite the woman and her children into their home and yet this was worse than the time those nosy reporter-burglars had broken in while she had been left alone to guard the castle while her swarm-mate went hunting in the ‘Ghost Zone’. At least the nosy weirdos had been easily scared off by her taking the form of a large snake. With these, she had been told to take her cat form and stay in her cat form. She hadn’t understood at the time, but after meeting the giant…

’Ghost scum,’ he’d said. It made her skin itch. Or maybe that was her swarm-mate’s emotions bleeding out of containment. Either way! At least she wasn’t barging into someone else’s home and trying to hunt them down. 

Rose grumbled to herself and flopped onto her side. ‘Next time,’ she promised herself as her glowing orange eyes practically lit up the cabinet space, ‘I stand my ground.’ If her swarm-mate could fight, then she could figure it out too! She had claws and teeth! She could totally—

A newly-familiar zip of cold shot down her spine.

‘Next time. Next time I stand my ground. Not this time,” she told herself as the fire from a moment before turned to stone in her gut. Her legs shook as she lifted herself from the cabinet floor.

“Here kitty kitty,” the icy ghost called, teasing her. “I know I saw you run in here. Where’d you go? What did Masters call it? Something with an ‘R’. Rain? Rain! Come here kitty kitty.”

Rose bristled. That was not her name. She could hear the ghost muttering to themself once more, followed by the sound of cabinet doors opening and closing. She waited, tense, with one shoulder braced against the cabinet door as the sounds slowly moved away. ‘Three. Two.”

Rose shoved against the door and bolted from the room once more. “Hey! Kitty. Come back dang it!” Maybe it was time to hide in the big bedroom, she decided frantically as she be-lined for the stairs once more.

Vlad stared at Jack out of the corner of his eye. The man had gone suspiciously silent. Normally, that would be a blessing, but, given that he had apparently unleashed an uninvited ghost into Vlad’s haunt earlier, Vlad was wondering what else the buffoon had released. Vlad hesitated, unwilling to start up any conversation with the man who had left him for dead, but he hadn’t gotten as far as he had in life by avoiding unpleasant tasks. “So Jack, did you happen to bring something with you in that RV of yours?”

Jack squirmed, “You mean our weapons?”

Vlad raised an eyebrow at him. “I already saw the ones you attempted to hide behind your back earlier. I was asking if you brought anything else.”

“Well…” Vlad could feel a headache building as Jack immediately started listing off every weapon in their RV. “Then there’s the freeze ray. I think that’s it. Oh! And the prototype Ectoconverter, but that isn’t really a weapon.”

“Ectoconverter?” Vlad asked curious despite himself. Jack beamed at Vlad, all traces of discomfort gone. Vlad just barely resisted the urge to hiss at him. Jacks discomfort was the only thing that had made the conversation so far bearable. Discomfort was the least the man deserved for what he’d done.

“The Ectocoverter is the backup power source for our RV! It converts a ghost’s ectoplasm into a clean energy source. We just shove the ghosts into a holding tank and the Ectoconverter draws the energy out of ‘em.”

“…interesting. How do you keep them from breaking out?”

“We use the Fenton anti-ghost cube! Every inch is made of anti-ghost materials that causes pain if the ghosts try to touch it.”

“Wouldn't they destabilize after a while and reduce your total energy output? I can’t imagine that they remain stable for very long being drained without rest.”

“Yep! We might get a lower overall output over time, but they stop screaming a lot faster if they have to concentrate on not touching any of the surfaces.”

“I see.” He was adding an ectosignature suppressor to the list of things to add to Rose’s collar. Maybe he should add a shield too. If he changed the design, he might be able to add a couple, more violent, defense mechanisms to it as well. Something to think about later, Vlad decided as he suppressed the mental images of Rose being shoved in some containment device and tortured like that. 

For now, he had Rose to find, a ghost to destroy, and guests to entertain. Unless the idiot still rambling on about the math behind their energy calculations had decided to sabotage their way home, which he wouldn’t entirely put past the man given the sugar incident back in collage, the interloper must have escaped containment somehow. Just one more thing to check after the Fentons went to sleep for the night. Thankfully, he was able to tune out most of Jack’s ramblings after that by prodding at Rose to ask her where she was. 

The jumble of impressions indicated that she was traveling and he attempted to mentally direct her to the lab. Dinner needed to be started soon and he could hopefully distract the Fentons with food long enough for Rose to get past and avoid their ghost scanners. The lab was protected against detection, so she could hide down there until the Fentons went to bed and Vlad could get a suppressor added to her collar. The only issue would be the interloper. Vlad grit his teeth. Hopefully, should the ghost follow her down, they would decide that access to the ghost zone was a greater prize than a single blob ghost.

Danny groaned, rubbing at the back of his neck, as he glanced around at the twisting hallways around him. He’d lost sight of the cat, again, and the ghost he’d sensed earlier was still nowhere to be seen. A growl from his stomach reminded him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Sighing, he returned to his human form and started back towards where he knew the kitchen was.

“Danno! There you are!” Danny jumped as his parents and Masters appeared in one of the side corridors, “V-man was just showing us where the kitchen was.”

“Oh, uh. Cool. Is dinner soon?”

“Yes,” Masters answered before his dad could, “I was planning on making steak and seasoned potatoes for dinner.” 

“And we’re going to help him,” his dad cheered, slinging an arm over Masters’ shoulder. The man grimaced and quickly slid out from under his dad’s arm. Danny caught his dad’s smile falter for a moment before it came back.

“You really don’t need—”

“You should come too Danno!” Danny glanced between his dad’s grin, his mom’s concerned look and their obviously annoyed host. 

“Uh…” Just as he was about to refuse, his stomach decided to throw its two cents in. Danny could feel his cheeks going pink as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “I don’t want to get in the way…”

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Masters declared, stepping forward and ruffling Danny’s hair seemingly automatically, “I’m sure we can find something for you to snack on while you wait as well.”

“So Danno, what have you been up to?” Jack asked, slinging an arm around his shoulders as they walked. 

“Um,” Danny glanced Masters’ way before refocusing on his dad, “I’ve actually been trying to look for the cat, but I haven’t managed to find it.” He felt his dad tense up a bit and, when he looked up, his dad was scratching at the back of his neck with his free hand and looking off to the side.

“Her,” Masters corrected quickly before sighing, “and don’t worry. She’ll turn up eventually.”

“You haven’t found her yet?” His mom asked, frowning. Danny winced a bit, trying not to feel guilty for not having caught the cat yet. At least he’d seen it— her, while he was going around. 

“Unfortunately not. The castle is rather large, even with the upper floors blocked off. She’s actually very social normally, so this is rather strange behavior for her.”

His mom put her hand on his arm and, smiling comfortingly up at him, said, “Well I’m sure you’ll find her.”Masters smiled brightly back at her. He seemed way too pleased to have someone trying to comfort him over a missing cat. Danny eyed him, guilt falling to the wayside, as he remembered his suspicions from earlier. This dude seriously better not be faking losing his cat just to have an excuse to try to flirt with Danny’s mom.

“Well,” Vlad thought, eye twitching as he stared at the disaster zone that had previously been his kitchen, “at least they were distracted.” Daniel, at least, seemed similarly horrified by the foot high flames that were consuming the steaks that he had been marinating for the past several hours specifically for dinner. Thankfully, the potatoes had been saved from the same fate by Daniel’s poor cutting speed and he still had other food in the fridge that could be prepared instead— even if several of his spices were strewn across the floor instead of in the now very broken spice rack. “Jackson. Madeline,” Vlad said almost sweetly as he stepped forward and carefully slid a lid over the flame before it could spread, “OUT.” The two practically bolted from the room, likely remembering how touchy he’d been about wasting food back in collage. He wasn't nearly as bad now that he had enough money to get whatever whenever he wanted, but he wasn’t going to enlighten them. Especially not when Rose was in the lab and they no longer needed to be distracted. (His poor steaks. They were going to be delicious and now they might as well be dog food.)

“Uh, do you want me to leave too?” Daniel asked, eyes darting between Vlad and the door as he rubbed at the back of his neck.

“Not unless you intend to set the potatoes on fire as well,” Vlad said dryly as he set the overly hot pan out of the way and started searching the fridge for a good substitute. “I swear, those two weren’t nearly this bad at cooking while we were in collage,” he muttered under his breath.

Apparently he hadn’t been quiet enough, because Daniel quickly answered with, “Mom usually cooks fine at home,” before glancing at the still flaming-hot pan and adding, “Dad doesn’t usually cook unless it’s on the grill.”

Vlad stared at the boy, aghast. “Then why did he insist on trying to help?” Daniel shrugged, popping some cashews in his mouth from the mixed nuts Vlad had offered him as a pre-dinner snack. Had the idiot figured out that he was trying to impress Maddie? Well his sabotage wouldn’t work, because Vlad was an excellent cook thank you very much. Vlad grumbled under his breath, eyeing each of the potential steak-replacements carefully. He hadn’t seen Maddie in so long, her tastes may have changed from what he remembered. Maybe her son could give him some insight to what she might like…“What are your thoughts on baked salmon?” Daniel shrugged again and Vlad turned back to the fridge to hide an eye roll. 

Teenagers. 

Well, the Maddie he remembered would never turn down fish, so it should be a safe choice. It also helped that the oven was already warmed for the potatoes. It would be simple to just season the fish, wrap it up in foil and put it in the oven for a bit. The potatoes would have to go in first though, and he could add the fish to the oven when he went to stir them around. The real question was if he would have enough for everyone.

As he was contemplating the contents of his fridge— perhaps he could boil some of the old hotdogs that had been languishing in the back of the fridge for Jack and hope they gave him food poisoning while the rest of them had the salmon—, Daniel jumped from his chair and announced that he was going to use the restroom. “Take a right and it’s five doors down,” Vlad directed absentmindedly as Rose announced that she was on her way back to the kitchen because she didn’t want to be in the lab anymore. Not that she needed to, since he felt her ectosignature pop back into existence as soon as she left the ghost shielding around the lower lab and entered the cellar.

“Go back to the lab,” he hissed into the empty kitchen. “Being bored is better than being attacked.” He could feel her complaining about being stuck down there and not being allowed to be with him. “I am not encouraging this.” He realized that she was use to being with him as he was with her, but now was not the time. He refused to feel fond about her risking her neck to return to his side. No. He was just going to pretend he hadn’t sacrificed his good steak for nothing. No, Rose, that was not permission. Go back to the lab before you get hurt.

Rose was more than a bit upset at his continued insistence that she not return to his side, but he refused to budge. The impression of wide teary eyes was weirdly— No. He was ignoring that. Now, what to season the salmon with— the sensation of icy needles down his spine followed quickly by Rose’s panic made him flinch at the sudden influx of sensation. “Lab,” he reminded her sharply as the urge to hide in the cupboard started creeping up on him. Somehow, the ghost missed her ducking back into the cellar because, while Rose’s ectosignature quickly disapeared, the other lingered nearby. Vlad resisted the urge to hunt them down himself, all too aware that Daniel could return at any moment. He was further justified as the hall was suddenly filled with Jack and Maddie’s war cries.

Vlad grabbed the potatoes from the island and quickly prepared them as he kept his other senses trained on the interloper’s ectosignature and the raucous sounds of the two ghost hunters as the ghost led them on a merry chase around the halls. He was just putting the food in the oven, hoping to finish in time to be able to see Maddie in action, when the ghost’s ectosignature disappeared from his senses once more. “Oh Butter biscuits,” he grumbled to himself. First the ghost chased Rose off at every opportunity and now they refused to at least stick around long enough for Vlad to admire Maddie fighting in her form-fitting jumpsuit? This ghost was really getting on his last nerve. He was going to enjoy hunting them down later.

By the time night had fallen, Rose was exhausted. She just wanted to be with her swarm, not stuck in the lab. Not even sneaking out during dinner time had given her a break from being chased as coming close to the kitchen had immediately alerted the familiar-but-not ghost into chasing her again. She was tired and hungry. Her swarm-mate was distracted, stressed, and split into several pieces looking for the other ghost, so she was stuck looking for attention from the humans in the castle. Thankfully, her trek up from the lab was icy-ghost free and she managed to get to the third floor bedrooms unmolested.

The girl had been nice enough, if nervous, but peaking into her room revealed that she was long asleep. Rose scooted silently into the room, but once she got about half-way to the bed, the girl’s face scrunched up. “D’ny?” She mumbled, “go back to your room. ‘m trying to sleep.” Rose glanced back towards the door, wondering if she had missed someone else slipping in, but no. Just the empty room. Rose shifted from side to side for a moment before taking another step forward.

“Out,” the girl growled, loud and clear. Rose took the hint and scrambled back out of the room. The door to the next room was practically rattling on the frame from the thunderous snores within. It sounded like the giant was in there, but that meant that her swarm-mate’s lady friend would be there too. She had yet to get a good look at the woman…

After another moment of indecision, Rose slipped into the room and jumped up onto the dresser to get a better look at the two in the bed. Almost as soon as she sat down, the giant popped up in bed and said, “Bathroom.” Rose held very, very still as the giant waddled out of the room and into the hall. Rose watched, listening for his footsteps to fade away, before she finally felt comfortable moving. She glanced at the door to the attached bathroom, shrugged, and jumped down onto the bed. Not her problem. Besides, she still needed to meet the woman her swarm-mate called a ‘violet eyed goddess’. Surely the woman her swarm-mate liked would be nicer than the giant!

  She slowly crawled forward, meowing quietly, but the woman didn’t respond. The woman was pretty enough, she guessed. The orange hair was nice and Rose knew, intellectually, that her face shape was generally considered attractive. Not really her thing, but then again she didn’t really have a thing. In any case, the real question was, ‘Is she nice?’

No way to find out without waking her! Sitting next to her head, Rose let out another soft meow and, when that continued to not wake her up, reached a paw out to touch the woman’s face. As soon as her paw made contact, the woman’s violet eyes snapped open and she chose violence. The woman grabbed Rose by the scruff and threw her across the room. 

Rose hit the wall with a thump and a loud yelp. More surprised than truly hurt, Rose bolted from the room before the woman could get up and attack again. Not Nice! Not Nice! Yowling loudly, she bolted down the hall to where one of her swarm-mate’s copies was searching the library for signs of the other like-him ghost. She didn’t care that it might be dangerous at this point, she was done with these guests. She just wanted back with her swarm.

Between not being able to catch the cat and not being able to catch even a glimpse of the ghost that seemed to be following the cat (or maybe the cat was following it? But it had come by while Masters was cooking without the cat?), Danny was too wound up to really sleep despite his exhaustion. The bed was nice, really really nice, but no matter how many times he changed position he just couldn’t sleep. It was almost a relief when he heard the cat running past his room, screaming it’s head off, as the cool sensation of his ghost sense slipped past his lips. The ghost must be terrorizing the cat now that everyone was asleep.

Danny slipped awkwardly out of the too large bed. “I’m going—” he yawned widely, “—ghost.” With that, the rings of light slid sluggishly from his core and across his body as he slipped back into his ghost form. He felt a bit more awake after, the familiar cold burn of his powers running through his veins working better than any caffeine he’d ever had.

He flew out of the room quickly, just barely catching sight of the cat slipping around a corner and into one of the larger rooms with double doors. Danny zipped in after her, turning himself invisible and pausing to take in the sight of the ghost that had been bothering them all day. He had blue skin and black hair styled into horns. He was wearing a white tunic with a a collar that went partway up his neck and a black triangle on the front that was partially hidden beneath the clasps of a white and red cape. White pants tucked into knee high black boots while his hands were covered by pointed black gloves that gave the impression of sharp claws hiding beneath. Honestly, Danny thought as he watched as the ghost’s cape whipped behind him when he turned towards where the cat was cowering between two bookshelves, he almost looked more like some old timey Vampire than a ghost.

“Hey,” the ghost cooed menacingly as he leaned over the poor cat, “Come here kitty kitty.” Her fur was puffing up and she was glancing around all over the place as the other ghost started reaching for her. He managed to catch her eyes, which looked orange from the glow of the other ghost, and couldn’t help but throw himself forward.

“Hey! Leave the cat alone!” Danny called. The other ghost startled before straightening out of their crouch and turning to glare at him. The vampire ghost was a lot bigger than Danny, but that didn’t frighten him (much). “So you’re the one whose been terrorizing Mr. Masters’ cat all day,” Danny accused, shoving himself between the large ghost and the poor traumatized cat.

The ghost’s bright red eyes went wide and he sputtered, “terrorizing. I. Me? What! If anyone’s been terrorizing Rose, it’s you!”

“I have not!” Danny shot back, offended. “I’ve been trying to get her back to her owner all day!”

“By chasing her off every time he got close?” The ghost asked, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised accusingly.

It was Danny’s turn to sputter this time, “wha- Hey! no! I did not! Stop lying.” The ghost’s eyes narrowed at the accusation. 

“What are you even doing in my haunt?” The ghost growled, uncrossing his arms as his hands charged with bright pink ectoenergy, “you’re that little brat from Amity who uses his powers for ‘good’. What are you doing in Wisconsin?”

“I. Uh. I mean—”. Danny could feel the other ghost’s energy pressing in from all sides as he just seemed to get angrier with every word from Danny’s mouth. He clamped his mouth shut as he frantically tried to come up with a reason that wouldn’t get him or his family hurt. 

The cat made a low sound behind him as the other ghost’s patience seemed to run out. He snarled, “Well I guess the reason doesn’t matter as long as you leave.” 

Danny jerked towards where his family was sleeping— he couldn’t leave. He had to protect his family! Not to mention there was no way they wouldn’t notice that he’d disappeared. What if the ghost went after his family!? “No,” he gasped before he could help himself.

“No?” The larger ghost hissed, “then I guess I’ll just have to make you leave.”

“I…I don’t want to fight you,” Danny stammered, pressing back against the wall. The cat let out another low noise as she attempted to push around him.

“No,” the larger ghost growled, “you don’t.” Danny yelped as he was hit in the side by a blast and knocked into one of the bookcases. Hissing, he jumped back up and readied ectoblasts in each hand. When he looked, though, there were two of the ghost floating there. The ghost had a twin⁈

Panicking, Danny shot at the closer one, “Get away!”

Seemingly without effort, the ghost formed a rectangular shield to absorb the blast. “Ah, an ectoplasmic energy blast.” 

Danny went to shoot a couple more when the other one darted forward and lashed out with some kind of ectoplasmic whip that curled around him like a snake and snapped his arms to his sides. “How….year one,” the second ghost teased almost playfully.

Danny grunted as he tried breaking free, but the bindings only got tighter the more he struggled. “Two on one isn’t very fair,” he grunted out. The two ghosts laughed in unison.

“Perhaps you’re right,” the one with the shield said. Then, that one floated up to the other, put his arm around his shoulders, and then melted into his side. The ghost laughed at the look on Danny’s face.

“Never seen a doppelgänger before, boy?”  

“No! How are you doing all this?”

“Years of practice, which you—” 

“M’oooooow,” the cat cried patting at the ghost’s foot. The ghost looked down at her, brow furrowed, before looking back at him with a sigh.

“Lets just finish this quickly.” Danny tensed up, waiting to be punched, when his bindings started sparking wildly. Danny screamed as fire lit up his nerves. 

Vlad watched the ghost boy writhe in the ectoplasmic construct with detached interest. The pest had been getting on his nerves all day, but any satisfaction he could get from finally getting hands on the ghost was tempered by Rose’s own emotions on the matter. She was apparently in a forgiving mood even if Vlad wasn’t.

In fact, she was in such a forgiving mood that she went to jump on the sparking ectoplasmic construct. Vlad dismissed it before she could get close, letting her fall quietly back to the floor. The ghost boy fell to the ground behind her with a thump, groaning for a moment before going limp. Vlad ignored him in favor of glaring down into the bright orange eyes of Rose’s completely unrepentant face, “That was incredibly—” 

The ghost’s form lit up with familiar rings of light. 

Vlad jerked attention as the black jumpsuit peeled away to reveal pajamas, tanned skin went pale, and white hair went black. He could feel his eyes widening in surprise as a familiar child, as Daniel, laid where the ghost boy had been a moment ago. “The ghost boy… is Jack’s son?” Vlad stared down at Daniel— another ghost hybrid, another being like him, someone who could understand— as something close to awe filled his chest. This was a sign. It had to be. Maddie was meant to be his wife. Why else would one of her children be like him? 

Vlad lifted the boy into his arm, marveling quietly at the slight weight and the idea of it all—a wife and children who would love him, a son just like him to raise, a daughter who was all but guarantied to become a ghost— and craving it more than anything. A ‘meow’ brought him back out of his musings and he shot Rose a happy, if a bit guilty, smile. Maybe he didn’t quite know how she’d fit into the dynamic he imagined, but she was His. He would never leave her behind.

Rose purred smugly as she stared up at him. She had been so insistent that he should forgive—

Wait a minute. 

“Did you know?” Her purring racketed up another decible. 

“You know if you would just talk, you could have told me before I electrocuted him.” Rose stuck her tongue out at him in a very un-cat like manner before turning and striding from the room with both her tail and nose in the air.

Vlad followed, rolling his eyes even if he couldn’t stop the fond smile on his lips.They moved down the hall together, for once enjoying the silence. Rose pushed Daniel’s bedroom door open and Vlad tucked the boy back in. For a moment, he lingered, imagining that the situation was just slightly different— that he was tucking in his son instead of Jack’s— but Rose’s insistent tapping against his leg quickly reminded him that he couldn’t linger there forever.

He had a rather large amount of tasks to get done before he turned in, unfortunately. Daniel may not have escaped from the Ectoconverter Jack had been telling him about, but that didn’t mean others couldn’t. So that would need to be examined. Then Rose needed, at the least, some kind of ectosignature suppressor so Jack and Maddie couldn’t pick her up on their scanners tomorrow. He grimaced at the thought. It was going to be rather uncomfortable to not be able to feel her while she was right next to him. He would also need to alter his plans for Jack’s humiliation— Daniel would need to be removed from the area at the very least. He had hoped to have the whole family getting a front row seat to Jack’s downfall, but he’d rather not chance Daniel getting caught in the crossfire or attempting to stop him. Perhaps one of the boxes Skulker kept trying to use on him would be able to hold the boy. He would also need to clean up the books Daniel had crashed into at some point.

The books were easy enough to solve— a quick copy and the task was as good as done. He contemplated sending a second to check the Ectoconverter as well, but he wasn’t sure that the machine wouldn’t just absorb the copy as soon as it got close. It should be rather quick, so he would do that task first. Looking down at his companion, Vlad noticed that Rose’s eyes were starting to dim back to their usual brown, so he picked her up and allowed her to curl around his neck. Given the excitement of the day, it wasn’t surprising that she would regress again as soon as the danger was gone. He could feel her exhaustion like a distant weight nagging at his core.

Humming softly to himself, Vlad let gravity’s effects fall from him and flew straight out of the exterior wall of the castle. Barely taking a moment to orient himself, Vlad quickly brought himself down to the RV and started systematically checking each hatch from front to back for the Ectoconverter. After several close calls with weapons attempting to shoot as soon as they were uncovered, he finally found it on the back where the trunk should be.

Staring at it, Vlad had to admit that ‘prototype’ was rather generous. There was more duct tape than metal attaching it to the RV and the machine itself was a sort of mishmash of different parts, some of which looked like they had been taken straight from a toaster. The tank it was attached to at least looked more professionally made. The sides were all clear, glass-like material that did actually sting when he touched it, but it wasn’t nearly strong enough to hold more than the small lizard ghost he could see floating inside. “I think we can deal with that getting out,” he told Rose with a snort and a pat on her head. Rose purred softly.

That taken care of, Vlad returned to the castle and started off towards his sub-basement lab. Having been effectively trapped in there for hours, Rose was not particularly pleased to be back. Vlad winced as her claws dug into his suit as soon as he moved to remove her from his shoulders. “Fine,” he conceded easily as he made his way towards where he kept his spare inventions, “but don’t come crying to me when you fall off.”

Suppressors were often useful, though he tended to prefer ones that completely shut down a ghost’s abilities over one that merely hid them from view. Thankfully, he did have one he used when he had to deal with the GIW directly that should work for Rose. It was even already on a clip because he had to attach it to the ribbon that held his hair back in order to get past the ‘random’ body check they did every time he was forced to go to their facility in person.

Adjusting the frequency didn’t take long. Or, at least, he didn’t think it took too long, but when he went to attach it to Rose’s collar, he found her face down on the counter in her blob form. “What time is it,” he asked his AI, blinking at Rose. 

“12:37 a.m.” his AI answered promptly as Vlad attached the suppressor to Rose’s collar. He grimaced as the familiar ectosignature disappeared from his senses. 

‘Stupid necessary evils,’ he grumbled to himself before turning and prodding at Rose, “Come on. We just need to go visit Skulker and then we’re done for the night.” Rose made a grumbling noise, but lifted from the counter and curled around his neck. 

Vlad reached up and pet her carefully— partially to reassure himself that she was actually there and partially to try and reduce some of the grumpy annoyance being projected his way. “Let’s get this over with.”

The trip to Skulker’s island was unfortunately long. The hunting grounds that the island orbited was on the farthest point of its own orbit. Usually he wouldn’t bring Rose with him on such a long trip, but between his own ectosignature, the suppressor, and her clinginess any hungry ghosts would be hard pressed to even notice she even existed. Still, he kept one hand on her the entire time just to make sure she wouldn’t slip away while he was distracted. It also had the added benefit of keeping her content, a sharp contrast to his own prickling nerves because Skulker had known. They had to. They always took the time to follow new prey around and gage their strength before starting the actual hunt. Vlad didn’t know how he’d handle betrayal from someone he’d trusted for almost a decade at this point— especially not after spending the day with Jack in his home.

Vlad was torn between relief and dread when the island finally came into sight. Aiming for the tacky skull mountain, Vlad landed just in front of the jagged gap that acted as their door and knocked just in case they were working on their suit and hadn’t seen him coming on their scanner. Rose chirped softly under his hand and then disappeared. Vlad smothered his initial panic as best he could with logic— she went invisible and intangible every time he brought her to meet with Skulker. Given that her first exposure to Skulker had been the two of them sparring it wasn’t odd. It was just a little more nerve racking when he couldn’t sense her and had spent several hours before under the impression she was going to be attacked. (When he could use the extra assurances that someone still cared for him.) Still, he didn’t have long to linger on it before Skulker was floating out of their home wearing a sleep cap on top of their suit’s head.

“What are you doing here so late,” Skulker grumbled, “it’s almost 16 into hibernation by the Fae-Limital Axis.”

“I need to borrow one of your hybrid cubes. A certain ‘ghost whelp’ from Amity decided to visit.”

“Hybrid cube, you say?” Skulker said, suddenly very awake as their eyes widened into circles. They quickly turned and beat a hasty retreat, “I’m sure I can find one around here somewhere.”

“You know,” Vlad drawled as he followed them in, “I never could figure out how a newborn ghost could catch your attention so throughly. Now that i’ve met him…I couldn’t help but notice that in all your stories of the ‘ghost whelp’ that you never mentioned one very important fact.”

“And what’s that,” Skulker asked, sweat-like ectoplasm condensing on the back of their suit’s neck as they practically ran to their workshop.

“I couldn’t help but notice that Daniel is a human-ghost hybrid Just. Like. Me.” Skulker Flinched. “I know you wouldn’t just keep that information from me. Especially after—”

“I wanted to catch him first, alright!” Skulker exploded as they threw the door to their workshop open and stomped inside, “how could I continue to call myself the Ghost Zone’s Greatest Hunter if I can’t catch both hybrids? I knew as soon as you got wind of the new Whelp that you’d go after him yourself and interfere in my hunts.” Vlad felt the ball of dread sitting in his stomach dissipate at the admission. It wasn’t a betrayal— or at least not an intentional one. It was just Skulker’s obsession getting the better of them once again. Normal, if annoying. Vlad resisted the urge to laugh. He probably should have expected that.

Skulker relaxed as well as the edge leeched out of Vlad’s aura. Their motions became smoother as they moved from their work bench and sorted through the various traps and hunting gear littered across the room. Skulker spoke up again after a movement, clearing their throat before saying more softly, “Besides, when I did manage to catch him I was going to deliver him right to you. I do remember the extents you went to to find another of your kind. I wouldn’t keep him from you. You’re my Apprentice in all but bond, we’re basically family.”

“Yes, well… just tell me right away next time,” Vlad coughed into his hand and averted his eyes as his cheeks went warm. No matter how many times it happened, Vlad was always thrown by Skulker declaring them family. It wasn’t bad per say, just. Unexpected. Every time. His cheeks went a bit darker as he could feel Rose cooing at him.

Skulker laughed, but promised, “If there’s a next time, I’ll tell you.” For a while, the two of them silently combed through the machinery.

“You know,” Vlad started, breaking the comfortable silence, “I wouldn’t call what you did with me catching, per se.” Vlad had to smother a grin as Skulker’s face immediately fell into a pout.

“Close enough,” they declared sullenly, tossing a bear trap back to the floor a bit more roughly than intended.

“You were trying to get rid of me barely an hour later,” Vlad prodded, smirking at the memory of Skulker pre-suit trying to shove him out of their house while Vlad continued to ask rapid fire questions about how the Ghost Zone worked and it’s history and factions.

“Yes, well obviously it didn’t work,” Skulker grumbled good naturedly. They suddenly gave a cry of success as they pulled out a familiar black cube with a button on the side. “Found it. Now here. Leave so I can go back to resting.”

“Wow, not even ten minutes,” Vlad couldn’t help but poke, “Must be a new record.”

“Shoo Whelp. And don’t forget. If you can’t hold onto him the other Whelp’s pelt is free game.”

“Please don’t strip a minor. What would your girlfriend say?”

“Not Like That!” Vlad cackled as Skulker grabbed the nearest tool and lobbed it at his head. “Get out of here, Brat.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” he sang, “Colorado trip next month?” Skulker brightened.

“Yes, I’ll start collecting the prey!”

Vlad left the island in much higher spirits than before. He had his trap for Daniel, Rose had popped back into being around his neck and was purring happily, and after tomorrow Maddie would almost certainly be his!

The clock said 3:26 when he finally made it back to his lab. Rose had long since gone silent and her emotions muted as she slept. Vlad could feel his own eyes starting to droop as his feet hit the lab floor and he shifted back to his human form. Rose moved, letting out a questioning hum. “We’re home,” Vlad hummed back as he set the hybrid cube on the counter. Then he pulled Rose from his shoulders and set her down as well. Rose gave a disgruntled noise and formed a nose specifically to wrinkle at him. “None of that,” Vlad chided, “you need to turn back into a cat before we go up.” Rose complained loudly, but did what she was told. As soon as she finished shifting, Vlad picked up the disgruntled blob-cat and she quickly went back to dozing. Yawning, he started his trek up to the third floor.

He’d barely made it onto the first, however when he noticed Rose’s disguise falling away once more as her fur melted back into skin. Was she sick? Should he go back to the lab and get a scan of her? “Rose?” he asked. The blob startled awake with a chirp, looking around wildly before catching sight of Vlad staring down at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to—”

“Vladdie!” The two jumped. Rose’s fur shot back into being, leaving her looking more than a little disheveled as Jack ran out of one of the darkened corridors. “What are you doing up so late?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Vlad shot back, more than a little ruffled himself. If Jack had stayed quiet for a moment longer…

Jack rubbed at the back of his neck with a laugh, “I went looking for the bathroom and… got a little lost.”

Vlad stared at him incredulously, “…there was a bathroom attached to your bedroom.”

“Really? Huh. Well I managed to find one eventually. I’m just looking for my room now. I could have sworn it was around here somewhere.” Somehow, Jack managed to look wide awake and peppy at, Vlad checked the grandfather clock not far from them, 4 in the morning. Ugh. The man always had been a night owl. Vlad only resisted rubbing at the bridge of his nose because of the cat-blob in his arms.

“Jack. We’re on the first floor. The bedrooms are on the third.”

“Oh. Well now that I’ve found you you can show me the way there!” Vlad sighed, loudly.

“Follow me,” he grumbled. He could feel his bed calling for him. Or maybe that was Rose, silent and tense in his arms, trying to urge him into getting away from Jack as fast as possible— not that he was opposed, because the man was like a cheese grater to the nerves.

There was a little voice in the back of his head, nagging at him to just take Jack back to his lab and throw him to the feral specters that lived in the caverns around his portal, but it was easily dismissed. He didnt want Jack dead (yet), he wanted Jack to suffer —to be left alone in the world with no one to turn to— just like he had left Vlad all those years ago. He wanted Jack to feel what he’d done to Vlad and more. The only thing he wouldn’t do was sick Spectra on him— no one deserved that creature feasting on them and she certainly didn’t deserve a free meal.

Somehow Jack managed to keep his mouth shut for the whole walk. Nonetheless, Rose remained tense and uncomfortable the whole time. She also showed no signs of loosing her shape again. Perhaps earlier she had just relaxed too much after the stress of the day?

“See ya in the morning, V-man,” Jack sang before shutting himself back in his room. Vlad just grunted and slunk into the master bedroom. He didn’t even bother pulling out his pajamas, instead just phasing himself out of his suit and flopping onto the bed. Rose barely reacted at all, just shoving her face into his chest once he was horizontal and falling back to sleep. Vlad sighed. Tomorrow was going to be better, he could feel it.

Despite his optimism three hours earlier, Vlad’s 7am alarm found him groaning and attempting to shove a pillow over his head. Rose, who was usually up and about right as the alarm went off, tried to shove herself under the pillow as well with her own higher pitched groan. Turning his head towards her intending to tease her about getting more sleep than him, Vlad couldn’t help but notice that she had fallen out of her cat disguise once more. 

“Rose, you need to get up,” he prodded, pulling the pillow off and dropping it to the side. Rose whined and attempted to bury herself under his head instead. Vlad groaned and pushed himself up. “At least switch back to your cat form.” Rose groaned, but did so before shoving herself under the blankets and going back to sleep. Vlad rolled his eyes, then slid out of bed and stretched. He could already hear showers going in the other rooms and was thanking his past self for splurging on such a large water heater for the third floor. He almost never got anywhere close to using all of it in one go without a flashback or science experiment involved, but several people taking showers of varying length could occasionally come close— especially if Jack hadn’t learned from his time in collage and continued to insist on at least an hour, if not longer., of mostly just soaking.

Well, at least if he was in the shower he couldn’t bother Vlad.

The act of getting ready for the day managed to wake him up a bit, so by the time Maddie knocked on his door with a quick, “What are we doing for breakfast?”, he was as ready for the day as one could be on three hours of sleep. Practically bouncing to the bed with thoughts of impressing Maddie once more with his culinary skills, he ripped the blankets away and practically tossed Rose over his shoulders like a scarf. Rose responded with barely a grunt before burying her face into his cheek. Tossing his door open, he found not only Maddie, but the two children waiting as well.

“I was thinking perhaps you’d like French Toast?” he offered brightly, delighted by the sight of his future family, “I don't believe Jack hit my cinnamon last night.”

“Sounds good to me! What about you two?” Jazz and Daniel nodded eagerly. 

“Right this way,” Vlad gestured before leading them towards the stairs.

“Oh, hey you found your cat,” Jazz noticed, reaching up and petting Rose’s head when the cat-blob turned her way.

“Yes, she ended up coming out of hiding after everyone went to bed,” Vlad lied smoothly. “Thankfully I had a couple things that needed to be done before I turned in or I might have missed her.”

“Is she going to be okay with the party later?” Maddie asked.

“She should be fine,” Vlad assured her, “this isn’t the first time she’s been around large numbers of strangers.”

“If you’re sure,” Maddie said, eyeing Rose doubtfully. Rose turned her face just enough to eye Maddie back, pupils narrowing into slits at the sight of the female hunter. Vlad couldn’t help but look down curiously as he was suddenly bombarded with a strong dislike for Maddie. Was Rose jealous? As far as he was aware, the two hadn’t truly interacted long enough for her to form an opinion so radically different from his own. When he prodded back at her with his own curiosity, however, she just tucked her face back into his neck. Something to investigate later, then.

The chatter as they walked down to the kitchen was pleasant, mostly consisting of the children asking him about things he had bought over the years and the various toys he had laying around collecting dust. They were, of course, welcome to use any of them at their leisure while Vlad worked on getting the party set up. Once they got to the kitchen, it was easy enough to divvy up tasks between everyone, turning making breakfast into a family activity. The reappearance of Jack just as all the ingredients had been pulled out was jarring, but, unfortunately, expected.

Maddie had thankfully learned from the experience the night before and set the buffoon to cutting fruit on the other side of the kitchen far, Far away from any fire or heat. Vlad, on the other hand, was working on making French Toast from scratch while directing Daniel on making scrambled eggs next to him and Jazz, Jasmine since he had finally gotten her full name during their walk down, set the table and got the drinks and condiments out for everyone.

He had gotten some odd looks for cooking with Rose sleeping curled over his shoulders, but he ignored them with ease of experience. If he had any say in it, she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Besides, she was a ghost, it wasn't like she shed. Vlad hummed softly under his breath as he flipped the French Toast and glanced over Daniel’s work. “That should be done,” he told the boy, pleased, “there should be a serving plate just in the cabinet— Thank you Jasmine. Now just turn the heat off and— there you go. The French toast are almost done, so that can just go right into the dining room and you can start eating if you want.” Glancing behind him, he could see that Jack and Maddie had already finished cutting the fruit and were following the children to the table. 

Humming, Vlad flipped the last of the French toast onto the plate next to him and walked those out himself. With the food done and his guests seated, Vlad returned to the kitchen for Rose’s meal. All of his usual ectoplasm-laced food had been moved to the fourth floor kitchen. The gravy that he usually used for Rose when company was over was the only thing that remained. The greenish brown liquid was thankfully very thick, because when Vlad turned around he just about splashed himself with it in surprise when he found Daniel staring at him from only inches away. 

“What’s that?” the boy asked, his eyes glued to the pitcher.

“Cat food,” Vlad answered, dumbfounded for a moment before it all clicked. Ah, the boy’s core must be hungry from healing him and whatever else he had done yesterday— Vlad had only been giving them human food, after all.

“Must be pretty fancy cat food,” Daniel snarked even as he kept his eyes glued to it, “it smells really good.”

“Only the best for Rose,” he agreed absentmindedly as he attempted to figure out if he wanted to feed Daniel’s core now or wait until after the Reunion. The cube should still work even if he was fed surely? Wait—

“Can I have some?” Oh butter biscuits, he left the cube in his ghost lab. Now how was he going to get Daniel out of the way— it’s not like he could just ask the boy to go grab the thing out of the secret lab with an entrance that required prior knowledge of to find. Well, feeding the boy probably wouldn’t matter at this point. He should probably give Daniel something more substantial than beef gravy though.

“I’m not sure your parents would approve,” Vlad said, hoping that would stall the boy long enough for him to figure out how to bring down food from his other kitchen without the others noticing.

“Please? I won’t tell them, I swear!” The caterers would be at the door in a couple hours, which gave him a bit of a gap where he could disappear. He was going to use that time to secure his various trinkets, but there were a couple ugly pieces he could deal with loosing if necessary, He would have to be quick though, since the fourth floor only had one stairwell up and there was no way he was going to leave the entrance to the stairs open while there were strangers in his home. The Fentons were bad enough. Using his ghost powers was also out of the question unless he wanted a repeat of yesterday.

“I don’t—” Rose shoved her own hunger at him insistently before rising up from her position on his shoulders with a yawn. Then, before Vlad could react, she threw herself at Daniel. The boy, thankfully, had quick reflexes and managed to catch her, if awkwardly. She twisted in his grip and then he had two hungry ghosts staring up at him with wide eyes.

“Pleeeease,” Danny asked again, this time echoed by Rose meowing.

Vlad gave a sigh that was much less theatrical than it was suppose to be. “If you really want to try it, I’m sure I can find a mug. Just don’t tell your parents.” ‘For more reasons than one,’ he added silently. Daniel nodded fervently and Rose meowed. Vlad turned and set the pitcher on the counter before pulling a cat bowl, Packers mug, and a small saucepan. 

“What’s that for?” Daniel asked, inching closer once more. Rose seemed perfectly comfortable sitting in his arms. Vlad’s eyes narrowed. She was so comfortable, in fact, that she seemed to be nodding off again.

“Rose prefers her food warm,” Vlad answered, tearing his eyes away from his blob, “and it’s a bit thinner warm so you won’t have to use a spoon.” Given that his own food was waiting or, more likely, quickly getting devoured in the other room, Vlad chanced using his own energy to speed up the heating process a bit. It also had the added benefit of energizing the ectoplasm within and making the effects a bit more potent. (It had nothing to do with getting his blob ghost away from Daniel faster. Nothing at all)

“Can you pass me a serving spoon from the drawer over there,” he asked once the gravy was almost ready. “You can put Rose down if you need to,” he added when he saw Daniel glance awkwardly between her sleeping form and the drawer.

The thump of Rose’s reunion with the floor had a distinctly disgruntled sound to it. Or maybe it was just Rose grumbling at him as she twined around his legs and hoped he tripped. Her chittering had a rather accusatory edge, but just Vlad smiled at her, unrepentant. Before she could retaliate in some way, Daniel brought Vlad a serving spoon and Vlad quickly filled the mug with the ectoplasm laced gravy before shooing Daniel to the other room. The rest was poured into Rose’s bowl and the blob ghost was scooped from the floor before she could actually attempt to trip him.

“Time for breakfast my dear.”

While breakfast was a rather lively and pleasant affair, Jack’s presence notwithstanding, Vlad couldn’t enjoy it for long. While the Fentons were directed to some of the various toys he had collected over the years, Vlad himself had to go through the lower floors and start locking away some of his more valuable trinkets including most of the foyer display. (He had long since learned his lesson after the first time someone had tried to steal his favorite jersey, thank you very much.) Once that was complete, he headed out to talk to the gardener about where parking could be set up and where extras could be put should there be more guests than expected— an unfortunately common situation when one was one of the richest men on earth and one of the reasons for his prior activity. 

By the time they were done laying everything out, it was already almost noon and Vlad had just barely managed to snag a sandwich from the pile someone had made in the dining room before he was dragged back to the door by the caterers arriving. With the kitchen completely taken over and the ballroom food stations being set up by the hired help, Vlad managed to slip into one of the rooms and take a quick nap before the DJ arrived while Rose, his ever present companion, stood guard. She woke him once more exactly ten minutes early so Vlad could make his way down to the foyer. 

By the time Vlad had made it to 2:30, he was fully exhausted despite his nap and wishing he could just hide up in his bedroom on the fifth floor. He wasn’t alone either. While Rose had been able to keep up her charade for most of the day, the second wind she had gotten from breakfast had turned to barely a gust at this point. Had Daniel not eaten the other half of her pre-made food, he would have given her the rest. He had thought that she’d be fine with him passing her some of his own energy through their bond, but she rebuffed his every attempt. Obviously something was wrong— more so than he had previously suspected. What’s more, he wasn't the only one to notice.

Several of his guests were people he had been in contact with over the years as either specialists contracted for his various companies, connections at the collage, or even, as in the case of one Harriet Chin, interviewers. Many, if not all of them, were at least peripherally aware of Rose and her usual demeanor and more than one early arrival had commented already.

Of course, seeing the next guest to arrive, Vlad had to hold back a groan. Harriet had been Maddie’s roommate in collage and one of the many people who had tried to use their ‘past connection’ to gain his favor in one way or another over the years. Unfortunately, she was also necessary for his plan tonight or he would have never invited her. “Aww, what’s wrong with little Rose,” Harriet asked, a greedy gleam in her eye. Ancients, this woman was like a shark— always looking for something to bite.

“Just a rough night,” Vlad answered smoothly, petting Rose mindlessly as she tucked her face into his chin. “Oh and Harriet,” he called as she moved past him to enter the ballroom and ‘mingle with the other early arrivals’ (sneak off to try and find dirt on him), “do stay out of my bedroom this time.”

Harriet snorted and waved in acknowledgment, but distinctly did not agree to anything. Vlad resisted the urge to sigh. All of his important documents were on the fifth floor and the stairs to any floor above the third were hidden behind secret doors and the like, but it was still rather vexing to have to spend hours after his parties searching for stragglers— especially when he was planning on comforting Maddie after the buffoon made a fool of himself.

Despite being in the castle already, the Fentons made themselves scarce until the actual party time. Jasmine had shown up just long enough to ask what was playing in the theater before disappearing once more. The other three finally showed up once the party was in full swing. Jack was, as always, still wearing his jumpsuit, but now with an ugly blue and yellow tie. It was something of a disappointment to see that Maddie had done the same, sans the tie. Not that the jumpsuit was bad, per se, but he was sure she would look stunning in just about anything and it felt a bit like a wasted opportunity. Daniel, at least, had worn a nice charcoal grey suit.

Now that all the pieces were together, he only had to wait. Jack would have some of the obviously spiked punch and then Vlad would overshadow him and make him lash out at the people around him, cementing his reputation in the eyes of their classmates as a violent drunkard. Then Maddie, distraught and dismayed, would be in the perfect position for Vlad to woo her away from that bumbling oaf. The only road bump would be Daniel. He was sure to notice the overshadowing, hence the hybrid cube he had borrowed from Skulker. Perhaps he could direct the boy his sister’s way instead?

Around his neck, Rose was tense and uncomfortable, disapproving even, souring some of his glee at ruining Jack’s reputation and stealing his family from right under his cartoonishly large nose. “Is that what’s got you so sluggish,” he asked quietly, hopefully. If she was just angry with him, he could fix it. She just sighed heavily against his neck, the disapproval fading to the same quiet exhaustion that had been dogging her all day. With a frown, Vlad gave up his pretense of hosting and slipped from the party to go down to the cellar. 

The Fentons had been told to leave their ghost hunting equipment in their room —not that he truly believed that they actually did after his brief conversation with Jasmine— so he chanced letting loose a doppelgänger to invisibly stalk Jack until the time was right. His doppelgänger would keep him appraised of any issue. He had all night for his plan and this was much more important right now. Perhaps he could figure out what was wrong using the scanner in his ghost lab? (He could grab the hybrid cube while he was down there as well…) 

“Open scanner,” Vlad ordered his AI as soon as he crossed the threshold of his lab. The glass slid silently open. Rose, on the other hand, started digging her claws into his suit preemptively. Vlad just went intangible and she fell to the floor with a thump and a whine.

“Alright, into the scanner,” Vlad ordered, pointing. Rose whined, seemingly sure that he was just going to leave her down here again. “No, I’m not leaving you down here.” Rose chattered at him, her doubt evident. “Stop. You are not getting out of this. In.” He waved her towards the open tube again. Rose whined louder. “Don't make me put you in there myself.”

“Are you seriously yelling at your cat?” Vlad whirled around towards the entrance as Daniel’s voice cut through the lab. The boy was glancing around curiously.

“Daniel! What are you doing down here?”

“I uh, got bored at the party and I saw you leave so I figured I’d follow you?” Vlad resisted the urge to facepalm. Well, that made one part of his plan easier. Actually, if he could get Daniel on his side early…

“Well, since you’re here, do me a favor and grab that box from the counter?” Then, turning back from Daniel, Vlad stared Rose down and jabbed towards the scanner once more.

“This one—Oh!” Rose grumbled back at him before slinking into the tube of her own accord. “Hey what is this! Let me out!”

“Close scanner. Computer, start scan 0-0-5.”

“Hey! Stop ignoring me!” Vlad ignored the struggling child, instead pulling up the live results from the scans on terminal 2. Hmm. Her energy levels were much lower than her most recent baseline. Had she not recovered from all the running around yesterday even after breakfast? He had been trying to give her some of his own energy— except, it seemed like she was already holding onto a kernel of his energy, but not absorbing it. Was that what was tiring her out? Odd. Why would she do that? Perhaps—

“Wait, is that a ghost portal? Hey Masters, did you know you have a ghost hanging around your castle. Big, blue, red eyes, looks like a vampire? I mean with hair that stupid it’d be hard to miss him.” That caught his attention.

“My hair is not stupid,” he snapped. It wasn’t his fault that what Spectra had done to him had left some impressions on his ghost form. Daniel gave him a confused look.

“What? I was talking about the ghost?”

“Oh, you haven’t figured it out yet?” Vlad asked, raising an eyebrow, “I thought for sure Rose’s behavior would give it away.” Though, he supposed, the boy had been unconscious or otherwise distracted for the majority of the time his ghost form had been interacting with her in Daniel’s presence.

“Give what away,” the boy asked warily, eyes narrowed into something he obviously thought made him look more dangerous. Instead of answering verbally, Vlad let his transformation wash over him. Daniel’s eyes went wide. “What! How?”

“Oh, your father didn’t tell you? He blasted me in the face with his little prototype portal and then left me for dead. Imagine my surprise then, when I find out that not only did he repeat his experiment, killing someone in the process again, he created a second ghost hybrid out of his own son,” Vlad attempted to make his voice more comforting, knowing that his anger at the way he had been treated was bleeding through, “It must have hurt, I know my transformation did. Did he even notice? Or did he just ignore you after too— letting you suffer for his mistakes?” 

“No! I mean—It wasn’t his fault,” Daniel protested seemingly automatically, eyes wide and panicked as Vlad’s blood began to boil. Of course the buffoon would push responsibility for his own mistake onto his child. “It was mine. I—” 

“Analysis complete,” the computer interrupted. Vlad turned his back to Daniel and took a deep breath as Rose immediately started tapping on the glass and yowling like a banshee. He needed to calm down. Behind him, he could hear Daniel attempting to compose himself as well, muttering about staying calm. Given that it would likely make their conversation easier if he wasn’t panicking about every little thing, Vlad left him to it as he strode over to the scanner. Besides, there was nothing to panic about. It wasn't like Vlad had threatened to eat him or something— he was just trying to free Daniel from his obviously unfit father.

“Open scanner,” Vlad ordered. The glass slid away and Rose strutted out like she hadn’t just been yelling her head off. “Was that necessary?” Rose meowed a resounding ‘yes’ and twinned herself around his legs. With a sigh, Vlad picked her back up and started petting her as he turned back to Daniel. “I wasn’t going to leave you in there you silly thing,” he chided affectionately as Rose purred at him.

“Wow,” Danny snarked, eyeing Rose pointedly, “the only other halfa and he’s a crazy cat lady.” Vlad resisted the urge to sigh. Teenagers. Of course Daniel’s version of calm meant trying to provoke what he was frightened by. At least Rose thought it was funny.

“I am not a crazy cat lady,” Vlad snapped flatly, “and don’t call me a halfa. You might be fine being called a slur but I most certainly am not.” Daniel, who had looked fully prepared to throw out another undoubtably un-witty comment, paused.

“What?” 

“In any case,” Vlad continued because this conversation was going nowhere fast and he needed to return to the party—Jack just pulled out the ectoscanner to show off to Harriet, “I want to offer you a deal, Daniel.”

“What kind of deal?”

“I want to teach you all you need to know about your powers, about what we are. No more stumbling around blindly, no more fighting every minute of the day, and somewhere safe where you can be whoever and do whatever you want whenever. I have twenty years of experience wielding these powers and extensive knowledge of the Ghost Zone. Anything you could ever want, human or ghostly in nature, I could get for you.”

“Yeah? And what do you want in return?” Daniel shot back, “I know something too good to be true when I see it.”

“All I ask,” Vlad said, each word slow and weighted to make sure he couldn’t be misunderstood, “is that you disavow your buffoon of a father. Cut ties with him and be my son instead.”

“You’re one seriously crazed up Fruitloop if you think I’m going to betray my dad for you,” Daniel hissed. Vlad scowled.

“Either you agree willingly or. Well. Your father can just be removed from the equation. One way or another. Your decision.” His head tilted to the side as he watched Jack shooting his gun seemingly randomly around the party as their classmates screamed and ducked behind overturned tables— well, seemingly randomly to them. The invisible copy whose eyes he was looking through was carefully placing himself in the spots guaranteed to sow the most chaos. “Or maybe not. Your father does seem to be making a rather large nuisance of himself even without my direct interference. How long do you think it would take to get CPS involved after Harriet publishes an article painting your father as the reckless lunatic he is? And it’s so very easy to bribe case workers these days— they’re rather overworked you see. Or perhaps your mother will simply divorce him and I’ll be able to bring her to my side as well.” 

“Your not going to get away with this,” Daniel hissed, bristling like a spooked badger.

“I already am, little badger. Guard him for me, won’t you dear?” Vlad asked, depositing his cat on the cube next to Danny’s head. Rose meowed, butting her head against Danny’s. “Good girl,” Vlad praised, scratching at her head and causing the cat to purr loudly. Danny tried to wiggle away. Purring sounded so weird when he had his head pressed to her side.

“Stupid crazy cat lady Fruitloop,” Danny growled as Vlad shut the lab door behind him. To think, he’d actually kind of liked the guy before he went and pulled this crazy stunt. “I’m going ghost!” The energy sparked weakly in his core before going dormant once more. Danny’s eyes went wide. “I’m— I’m going ghost!” 

Nothing.

“Why can’t I go ghost,” he hissed, pushing against the inner walls of the cube. The cat meowed at him. “Leave me alone,” Danny growled at her, “if you hadn't run away in the first place I wouldn’t be in this mess.” The cat sniffed audibly before wrapping herself around his head and licking at the point where his hair met skin. Her rough tongue was scratchy and almost painful after a couple passes over the same spot.

“Hey!” Danny complained, trying to tilt his head away from her, “I’m not a chew toy.” In response, Rose just scooted closer and resumed ‘grooming’ on the back of his head. She was still gnawing on a particularly large chunk of hair when a burst of cold air filled Danny’s lungs and escaped from his mouth. “Oh great, another ghost.” 

“Well gosh and golly, it looks like you could use a speck of help there, doncha know?” The ghost popped into existence in front of him. Beyond the green skins and red eyes, the ghost basically human. He was pretty short and stocky wearing a red robe lined with white fur with black speckles here and there. He had a pretty wide grey mustache  and longish grey hair poking out from beneath a large cheese-head style hat with a crown on top. He was also holding a staff with a strawberry ice cream cone on top. He looked weirdly familiar, like — “Hey, you’re that guy that there’s statues and pictures of everywhere! Who even are you?”

“Well I’m the Dairy King, of course. This was my castle back when I was alive, doncha know!”

“Dairy King? Oh great, what are you gonna do? Suffocate me with Limburger? Strangle me with Swiss? Or—” Vlad’s cat meowed softly, tapping at his face with her paw, but thankfully not starting to lick him again. Danny shut his mouth quickly before said paw ended up in there.

“Now why would I do a thing like that? Not all ghosts are evil, doncha know? Some of us just want to be left alone. Now why don’t I let you out of there?” The ghost floated closer to the cube, but as soon as he got near the button to let Danny out, Rose whirled towards the ghost and lashed out at him with her claws extended. “Now now, none of that, you,” the ghost warned with a narrow eyed look. Danny tensed up, the man suddenly seeming much more dangerous than a moment ago. The ghost reached for the button again.

The cat growled. The sound made Danny shiver and stare at her with wide eyes. That was new. Where was the cat that had been running away from him all of yesterday? 

The Dairy King ‘tsk’ed and batted the cat away with his scepter. She hit one of the lab tables with a loud thump and a wail of pain as glass smashed to the floor. “Hey,” Danny shouted even as the ghost let him free, “don’t hurt her. She’s just a cat.”

“Oh, that’s not Just a cat, doncha know?” The ghost backed away, eyeing Danny as ectoblasts charged in his hands. Danny glared, but waited to see what the ghost had to say for himself. “That’s Plasmius’s pet. Really crafty one, ya see. You might want to get away before it calls its master back.”

“It’s just a cat,” Danny snapped, “now get out of here.” As soon as the ghost flew off he floated over to the cat. She watched him with wide eyes, but didn’t run this time. Danny was torn, he needed to stop Vlad, but he couldn’t just leave the man’s cat here if she was hurt. But maybe…

Danny scooped her up carefully. “Time for a little hostage exchange,” he told her. Rose’s ears flicked back, but she didn’t struggle as Danny flew her up and out of the lab.

Vlad stood outside of the door for a moment after closing it, shifting back to his human form and listening. He rolled his eyes at Daniel’s childish insult, but waited. He just needed to know… “I’m going ghost!” The boy paused and Vlad had to resist the urge to snicker audibly at the boy’s ridiculous catchphrase. “I’m— I’m going ghost!” Vlad’s mouth turned up into a wicked grin. “Why can’t I go ghost?” Good, it looked like the boy really wasn’t strong enough to break through Skulker’s suppression technology quite yet. With him out of the way and Rose safely distracted watching him, he was free to return to the party and continue his plan.

Humming happily, Vlad made his way up from the cellar and back to the first floor. He could hear the screaming and sound of an ectoblaster even before opening the final door. Vlad allowed himself one final wicked grin before schooling his face into something more concerned. As expected, almost as soon as he came out, he was accosted by frantic caterers bursting out of the kitchen a few doors down trying to figure out what was going on. A short conversation revealed that they hadn’t called the cops quite yet and Vlad was quick to convince them that it would be unnecessary—it was just a stunt show and the guests would have obviously called by now if it was truly serious. Vlad had, of course, already thought of that potential outcome and had  set up a signal jammer to turn on once the party started just in case. It wouldn’t do for the police to interrupt too early— at the very least not before he could give Jack a piece of his mind. Still, he recommended that the caterers stay in the kitchen just in case while he went to make sure everything was alright.

Honestly, he was surprised there wasn’t more screaming. However, when he peaked his head into the theater to make sure Jasmine was where he expected, he found a good number of his guests enjoying the Packer’s Greatest Highlights reel he had put on seeming unconcerned about the rest of the party. Humanity at its finest, he supposed. Jasmine, at least, looked over when she noticed him there. He just gave her a smile and gestured back to the screen before ducking back out. 

With that taken care of, Vlad allowed himself to peak through his copy’s eyes once more. The buffoon was still yelling and shooting, though he was at least being a bit more careful with it now and waiting until his copy paused in one place for a bit. Had Vlad not been able to teleport at a moment’s notice, Jack might have almost gotten a hit off at this point. Still, his copy was being exceptionally diligent about not letting any of their terrified classmates make it anywhere close to the doors. After all, the landline still worked and it would be so disappointing if they gave up the game too early.

Once he made it just outside the ballroom, he had his copy rush Jack and, just like he expected, Jack started shooting away from the door just long enough for Vlad to slide inside and behind the closest table. Vlad had to suppress a grin when he found exactly the person he was looking for— one Miss. Harriet Chin scribbling frantically into the her ever present note pad. She was the only one behind this particular barricade, surprisingly, though she was likely too engrossed in her writing to really pay attention to how close Jack was shooting to her hiding place. Still, “What happened?” Vlad asked, pitching his voice low and urgent.

“What happened? Jack Fenton is insane is what happened,” she scoffed, “I always knew he was crazy and once I get this story published, everyone will know.”

“Surely there was some kind of trigger?” Vlad pushed, more so for his own amusement than his alibi. His doppelgänger had, of course, seen everything. “He’s not the kind of man to go on a rampage for no reason, surely?” 

Vlad resisted the urge to smirk as Harriet’s shoulders went stiff. Given that she believed that she had caused the problem, he was incredibly interested to see how Harriet would swing the story. “Oh, you know, one of those business types that haven’t really interacted with him before decided to ask what he does for a living. How stupid, am I right?” 

“Yes, very stupid,” Vlad agreed easily as he peaked above the table to avoid her catching the twitching of his lips, “he talks about ghosts to just about anyone who asks and many of those who don’t. Only a complete idiot would need to ask what the man does for a living.” Harriet scowled at him as he lowered himself back down and it took everything had to not lose his serious facade. She just made it entirely too easy sometimes. Once he was done toying with her, though, he should really move on to the main event. After all, it wouldn’t do for Jack to get tired and stop on his own. No, Vlad wanted to be the one to put him in his place, to force him to realize the damage he did to everyone around him as easily as breathing.

“Yes, well. Then he pulled out that stupid scanner thing,” she gestured with her hand to the ghost scanner in Jack’s off hand which he was staring at with single minded intent, “and started yelling about ghosts. Then he pulled out that gun and started shooting and then Maddie ran off to who knows where.”

Maddie ran off? That was disappointing. He had hoped for the whole family to get a front row seat to Jack’s shame, but Maddie was the one he really needed to convince. Perhaps she had seen the error of choosing Jack already? That seemed a tad quick, but maybe there were already cracks in their marriage? Well, the show should have to end soon whether she was here or not. It was odd though, she had seemed rather enthused about… hunting…ghosts—Vlad’s eyes went wide. Oh no.

“Did she say where she was going,” he asked with quickly rising dread.

“She said something about an RV.” Butter biscuits. 

Vlad could have slapped himself. He should have seen this coming as soon as Jack had caught his copy on the scanner. They had been hunting down Daniel yesterday while he’d been cooking, of course Jack yelling about ghosts wouldn’t chase her off. How could he be so stupid. She hadn’t run off to leave Jack, she was off grabbing her weapons.

Almost as if the realization had summoned her, Maddie burst back into the room guns blazing. He didn’t even have to allow his clone to return to visibility before she took aim and shot his copy right in the chest not far from where his core would sit. It was only by shoving more spectral energy into the doppelgänger that he was able to prevent it from dissolving away completely— a move he quickly regretted when Jack turned and shot straight at the table he and Harriet were hiding behind.

The table rattled under the force of the blast, making Harriet shriek. Before he could blast again, Vlad’s doppelgänger made himself visible and lunged at Jack, knocking him down with a dark laugh, “You idiot. You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn without your wife doing your dirty work for you.” The whir of an ecto-gun charging up was the only warning he had as Maddie attempted to protect her worthless husband. Vlad’s copy teleported behind her with a grin, grabbing her by the wrists and forcing her to release her grip on the weapon. Then, raising into the air where she wouldn’t have the leverage to escape, he taunted Jack once more, “You obviously don’t deserve her. Maybe I should just take her from you, make her my—”

“Put her down, Plasmius,” Daniel snarled, flying into the room with Rose tucked into his arm. She looked was looking, and feeling, just as upset as Vlad was at the moment.

Beside him, Harriet gasped, “Ghosts. Are real?” Oh, this disaster was just the gift that kept on giving. Could anything else go wrong? 

It was at that moment that Maddie twisted in the copy’s grip, managing to hit him just hard enough to startle his copy into letting go. Jack took aim and shot straight at Daniel and Rose. Maddie dropped to the floor, rolling to disperse the energy of the impact, and lunged for her weapon once more while Daniel, thankfully, managed to dodge out of the way of Jack’s shot, but Vlad was Done. “Harriet, leave,” he practically shoved her towards the door. The woman stumbled and gave him a wide eyed stare before another shot at Daniel went wide and slammed into the table once more. Harriet yelped again and bolted out of the room.

Vlad, finally alone and well out of eyesight of anyone else, shifted to his ghost form with a snarl. It was one thing for Daniel to throw himself into this mess, it was quite another for him to endanger Rose as well. His doppelgänger was just barely evading Maddie by teleporting before her shots could land and taunting her with complements on her stance and accuracy— most of which he actually meant but were no doubt frustrating coming from what should be her prey. Vlad took advantage of the confusion to dismiss the clone and teleport himself closer to Daniel.

“Daniel,” he growled lowly, jerking the three of them out of the way of another pair of blasts from the hunters, “give me Rose.”

Daniel glared and held Rose just that much tighter. “Not unless you promise not to hurt my dad,” he demanded seemingly unaware of the situation at large even as they were both forced to dodge several shots and threats from the duo below.

  Vlad resisted the urge to hiss at him. They were well past hurting Jack at the moment— both of the ghost hunters were likely to be arrested at this rate, even with he and Daniel showing their ghost forms to all of the guests, unless they wrapped this up quickly. While he didn’t care if Jack was arrested— had been planning on it really—, Maddie was another matter altogether. 

He wanted to marry her, not throw her in jail. Not to mention that, as much as he had threatened Daniel with CPS earlier, the chances of the GIW interfering and dragging Jasmine and Daniel into their labs was too high for him to chance without a plan and several redundancies in place. No, it was better if he just conceded at this point and tried again later.

“Fine,” he growled, “as long as Rose is safe, your father is safe from me until you all leave.” Daniel opened his mouth and looked like he was about to argue when Vlad summoned a shield to absorb another pair of blasts from the ghost hunters. “Now either give her to me or put her down before you get her shot,” Vlad demanded as Rose’s fear spiked. Daniel looked down at Rose’s wide eyed and panicked form before wincing and looking guilty. At least he finally realized what a bad idea dragging her into this mess was, Vlad conceded grumpily, but the boy really should know better if he was going to try playing ‘hero’.

Daniel went invisible and darted away, leaving Vlad to track him only by Jack’s shooting and his own ghost sense. Screaming started up once more as the shots came down on people’s hiding places. As much as he would like to do the same, he had a part to play. He told the boy his father was safe, but he hadn’t said anything about his toys. Electricity sparked in his hands.

“Are you even trying?” Vlad asked, flashing his fangs with a wild grin, “I know blind people with better aim than you.” Jack frowned and Maddie snarled.

“Says the one too scared to stand still,” she shot back, punctuating her statement with another blast from her gun. Vlad grinned at her, teleporting at the last moment to land right in front of Jack. The man startled, giving Vlad the opening he needed to grab the scanner from Jack’s grip and fry the electronics within. 

“Maybe you’ll do better without the distraction,” Vlad mocked faux sweetly, patting Jack on the cheek and going intangible when the man attempted to punch him on reflex. For a moment, he paused there as the little voice in the back of head whispered how easy it would be to just end Jack then and there— just reach in and grab and pull and tear—, but before he could act on the sudden impulse Maddie slammed into his gut with her staff, knocking him away from her husband. Vlad let out an ‘oof’ as the air was knocked from his lungs and he was thrown back into one of the tables nearby. “Good hit, my dear,” he complemented reflexively as he launched into the air once more and mentally shoved the little voice back down. Now was not the time to be entertaining such things when he had already offered Jack’s safety in exchange for Rose’s. No, he had a better idea…

Danny watched anxiously from behind the table closest to the door as Vlad darted around his parents taunting them as he slowly destroyed their weapons one by one until they were down to a hand pistol sized blaster each. He itched to be out there too, but every time he moved to rejoin the fight, the cat in his lap acted like she was going to lunge out into the fray too. He didn’t even want to imagine what Vlad would do if he let the cat get hurt (more hurt), so he sat there stiffly with only Vlad’s word that he wouldn’t kill his Dad as long as the cat was safe.

Rose chittered as Vlad got close to his Dad again, her claws digging through his jumpsuit. Danny looked down at her only to wince when he realized that the reaction wasn’t to Vlad, but to Danny’s white knuckled grip in her fur. He eased off with a muttered, “sorry” before turning back to the fight just in time to see both of his parents nail Vlad right in the chest. Danny flinched reflexively as Vlad plummeted to the ground not far from where Danny was hiding and his parents converged on the fallen half-ghost like vultures.

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to call this a draw,” Vlad asked, smiling nervously as Danny’s parents loomed above him.

“Not a chance,” his mom hissed. Then, together, they both shot at Vlad’s head from almost point blank range. The man’s body dissolved into bright green ectoplasm and Danny felt like his heart stopped in his chest.

“Oh god,” he was going to be sick. Had they just—

“Oh good, you’re right here.” Danny jumped and twisted to find Vlad crouched behind him looking completely fine if slightly singed in the spot where he’d been hit before falling. There was no sign he’d even been hit in the head at all. “Give me Rose,” he demanded. Danny let his numb fingers fall from the cat’s fur and she lunged at Vlad’s chest.

“How?” Danny forced out as the cat purred up a storm and Vlad switched back to his human form. Danny switched back too, now that the fight was over.

“Doppelgänger,” Vlad answered absentmindedly as he ran his fingers through the cat’s fur like he was checking for any injury. Seemingly satisfied with what he’d found, Vlad urged the cat up his shoulder and back around his neck before turning back to Danny with a smirk, “Now, play along.”

With that, the man jumped to his feet and strode towards Danny’s parents as if they hadn’t just practically murdered him less than a minute ago, singing their praises loud enough to echo through the room. Danny stayed down a bit longer so he had a minute to just breathe and watch. Vlad really was a Fruitloop. He seemed completely un-phased, laughing and joking with Danny’ parents. Even the cat seemed more upset than him, her fur puffing up when his dad got closer and tried to drag Vlad into a hug. What he was doing was working though, as the people who’d been trapped behind the tables came out and didn’t just start forming an angry mob. (It wouldn’t have been the first time.) Some of them actually clapped a bit, but most seemed more interested in leaving as fast as possible.

Danny stood slowly from his spot, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The adrenaline in his veins was making his hands shake and scenarios run through his head. Maybe his parents would see through Vlad’s act and try to kill him again. Maybe the people would turn on his parents and try to run them out of town for trapping everyone in here and potentially harming someone. Maybe Vlad would try to kill his dad right here now that Danny didn’t have his cat as collateral. But as he walked up to the trio standing in the middle of the ballroom next to what should be Vlad’s melted corpse, none of that happened, leaving Danny wrung out and excited to just go home where he could talk to Sam and Tucker and try to make sense of this whole trip.

“You did such a marvelous job keeping the specter contained. Who knows what would have happened had that dastardly creature gotten away.” The words came easily, Vlad well use to using insincere flattery to get his way. Well, insincere to Jack. Maddie was amazing— perhaps an even better hunter than he had expected. Maybe next time he could be on the other side of the hunt, though.

“It’s too bad couldn’t get the other spook. We’ve been trying to get our hands on him for a while now,”Jack said with a frown much too close to a pout for a grown man before he brightened up, eyes twinkling with unrestrained enthusiasm as he flexed his arms, “But don’t worry, when we catch him, we’ll tear him apart molecule by molecule. Maybe you can even come watch!”

“Oh? You know that other ghost?” Vlad asked, glancing at Daniel where he was standing stiff and pale behind his parents. For a moment, Vlad was thrown. Had Jack just invited him to the destruction of his son? For what was really a trivial (at least to him) amount of property damage that Daniel hadn’t even participated in? But then it clicked. Either Jack had either gotten better at lying in the past 20 years, or he really Didn’t Know that Daniel had been changed into a hybrid. Given that they’d been hunting Daniel yesterday, he had assumed the boy had just been invisible at the time or that Maddie was unaware and Jack was lying to her, but…

Had his change been less noticeable, then? Or was Jack really that blind to the world around him? Either way, it was still Jack’s fault— lack of intent or understanding did not mean lack of harm, after all. He still killed his son (and his ‘best friend’). The boy really would be safer here, with his own kind, and far, far away from Jack’s bloodthirsty idiocity. The worried glance did not escape Daniel’s notice, the boy’s eyes narrowing into what was becoming a very familiar glare.

“He’s usually menacing Amity Park,” Maddie explained, dragging Vlad’s attention back to the conversation at hand, “so we run into Inviso-Bill pretty often. I do wonder what he was doing out in Wisconsin though.”

“Who knows how those creatures think. Perhaps he was trying to make a deal with the other ghost to get away from Amity,” Vlad commented, glancing back at Daniel with one eyebrow quirked. The boy had been rather shaken at the lengths his parents would go against ghosts and, with them hunting his ghost form in particular, perhaps he had changed his mind about Vlad’s offer earlier? The boy visibly straightened, practically snarling at him. Jack and Maddie laughed.

“Well, no chance of that happening now,” Jack declared proudly, kicking at the puddle of ectoplasm on the floor.

“None at all,” Daniel agreed, eyes flashing green for a moment. Ah, apparently not. Vlad tried not to be too disappointed—there was always next time. And there Would be a next time if Vlad had any say in it. They were the only two of their kind, after all. 

“Danno!” Jack cheered, turning and slinging an arm over his shoulders. “What’d ya think of the fight? Your old man knows a thing or two huh?”

“Uh, yeah! It was really cool how you just took that ghost down and. Uh. Killed him. It. Yeah,” Daniel smiled not quite convincingly. Vlad smirked, about to point that out when a commotion from the hall caught his attention. The police had finally arrived.

“Ah. Duty calls. If you’ll excuse me.” Vlad made his way over to the doors and into the hall quickly, one hand coming up to bury itself into Rose’s fur automatically as she continued to swing between wanting to bite him and wanting to bite the Fentons. Vlad winced as pointed fangs scraped pointed-ly against his fingers. Well, if she hadn’t been mad at him earlier, she was now. Rose grumbled in his ear before butting her head against his cheek and Vlad got the impression that he’d be in for a lecture if Rose had been willing to actually talk. Faking his death had been a bit spur of the moment, but honestly he thought he’d put on a good show. Rose grumbled at him again.

Her swarm-mate was an idiot, Rose decided, a suicidal idiot. Why he would be interested in such a vicious woman was beyond her, but still being interested after the woman attempted to kill him??? He wasn’t a preying mantis, damnit. Rose grumbled again as she dug her face into his cheek. She had known he wasn’t dead the whole time, of course, but he had scared the kid just about shitless. (Though knowing didn’t make seeing any easier)

And now he was just letting their potential new swarm-mate go home with those maniacs! After the giant threatened to hurt him! Oh, she wanted to go claw their eyes out, but as the cheese man had demonstrated earlier, she wasn’t exactly scary or even particularly dangerous. One hit and she’d frozen up like a deer in headlights! It hadn’t even hurt— well no, that was a lie, that one had hurt. Her side still kind of ached from it, like a bruise.

While her swarm-mate dealt with the police, she stewed in her annoyance. She couldn’t do anything to the hunters, she couldn’t help the kid get away from the hunters, she couldn’t do anything about her swarm-mate’s bad taste, and she couldn’t do anything to help her swarm-mate with the mess that he’d made of the party. Honestly, she just wanted all of this to be over so both of them could get some sleep and she could give him back his ball of panic, but… maybe there was something she could do about the cheese ghost in the meantime. She had noticed the flies he liked keeping around when her swarm-mate had taken her to meet the ghost and lizards loved eating bugs…

Decision made, Rose purred, butting her head against her swarm-mate’s cheek to reassure him that she wasn’t leaving because she was angry, before pushing herself up and jumping down from his shoulders. The curiosity he sent buzzing her way did a very poor job of masking his worry, but she sent back reassurances that she just wanted to go do something real quick. With the police there, the guests weren’t suppose to be leaving, but that hadn’t stopped anyone from trying, leaving the front door propped open for her to slide out of.

Thankfully, the RV the hunter-guests came in was sitting almost right next the front door, boxed between the fountain and several cop cars. The police belonging to those cars were spread out amongst clumps of other guests, none of which seemed particularly pleased to be there. Rose skittered quickly around them, darting over to the RV before someone could try to stop or pet her. In the darkness of the shadows beneath the RV, Rose chittered nervously as she drew closer to the box her swarm-mate had shown her the night before. She could practically feel it snapping at the air around it even from beneath the RV.  Using the energy as a guide, Rose placed herself just behind the box and jumped through the metal floor of the RV. 

There, just as she remembered, was the tiny lizard ghost floating in the box. Just getting near the container had her hissing preemptively. She could feel it trying to lash out at her even stronger now. Still, she let her cat form fall away and floated up above the box until she could see the metal latch to open the box. Forming a tendril, she reached out for the metal, wincing as it immediately started burning her. Thankfully, it just took a jerk of the tendril to unlatch and toss the metal disc away. At the first sign of freedom, the lizard screamed and bolted out of the box. 

Hissing, Rose lashed out, grabbed the lizard, and reeled it into her ‘stomach’ as the smaller ghost squealed. Rose grimaced at the feeling of something moving inside of her as she phased back out of the bottom of the RV and shifted back into a cat. Her paw stung as the piece of her that had been the tendril automatically formed into her ‘hand’. Glancing down, it looked looked a bit grey, as if burned. Rose’s ears flicked back and she forced that part to shift up onto her trunk where it would be hidden by longer fur.

Mission accomplished, Rose darted back for the front door and her swarm-mate. He’d been joined by the hunters again and Rose could feel her fur rising even as she stalked right up to her swarm-mate and demanded to be picked up again. He obliged immediately, fingers sinking into her fur automatically. Rose resisted the urge to cringe as his fingers jabbed straight into the middle of her ‘bruise’ and instead turned her focus to glaring at the hunters.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay another night?” Vlad cajoled, finally relaxing a bit with Rose back in his arms, “you could get some sleep and just leave in the morning.

“Well…” Jack trailed off, looking towards Maddie with pleading eyes. Maddie glared at Jack until he cowed under her gaze before turning back to Vlad.

“No, we were already planning to leave after the party. I don’t want the kids to miss school in the morning so we were just going to make the drive overnight. Danny’s been having a hard time in high school and I don’t want to make it worse by making him miss a day.” 

“Of course,” Vlad nodded, “high school is very important. Very well. Perhaps we could meet up again some time? This was…,” ‘highly stressful’ he said mentally even as the word that came out of his mouth was, “nice.” Jack beamed at him and Vlad resisted the urge to cringe by tightening his grip on Rose when she twitched towards the man with violent intent. He appreciated that they were on the same page, but now really wasn’t the time for it.

“Don’t worry Vladdie, we’ll be in touch,” Jack cheered. “You can always visit Fentonworks anytime!”

“Jack’s right,” Maddie agreed, “we’d love to have you over sometime.”

“Perhaps we could exchange phone numbers,” Vlad offered, urging Rose back up onto his shoulders so he could get to his cellphone. Rose meowed at him, still angry with him and them, but obliged. They were still swapping phone numbers when the two children came over with their luggage. Funnily enough, while Daniel was glaring at him, Jasmine seemed to be glaring at her parents. Something he could use later perhaps.

“Danno, Jazzy, ready to go?” Jack asked, slinging an arm around each of their shoulders.

“Yeah, we’ve got all of our stuff,” Danny answered, dropping his suitcase to the floor. Jasmine quickly followed suit, panting, as the bags hit the floor with oddly loud thuds. Vlad idly wondered if the suitcases were weaponized the same way many of the Fenton’s seemingly innocuous creations tended to be before dismissing it. The couldn't be that paranoid, surely.

“Jack, do you mind taking their suitcases to the RV?”

“On it babe!” Vlad just barely resisted giving out a sigh of relief as the man grabbed the suitcases, charged out of the castle and was, once again, fair game for maiming. Idly, Vlad wondered if any of the guests trying to leave would be blind enough to miss the great orange bulk and run into him. It would be a good excuse for them to stay a bit longer while Jack was in the hospital. The odds weren’t high, but hope springs eternal, as they say.

“Well, I guess we’ll see you later. Don’t be a stranger Vlad,” Maddie smiled. Vlad was a bit disappointed when Maddie just held out her hand to shake, but given Rose’s position and mood it was probably better she hadn’t tried hugging him.

“I’ll be in touch,” Vlad agreed, smiling brightly despite how much he wanted her to stay. Well, at least he had gotten her cellphone number, he consoled himself. He would have plenty of chances to win her over.

“It was nice meeting you Mr. Masters,” Jasmine said, stepping forward and smiling politely with her hand outstretched. 

Vlad shook her hand saying simply, “It was good to meet you as well.” With that, Maddie and Jasmine turned and followed after the buffoon, leaving only the two hybrids behind. Rather than following them out, however, Daniel stepped towards him. Vlad raised an eyebrow wondering what he wanted.

“Vlad,” Daniel said stiffly, not quite glaring yet.

“Daniel,” Vlad echoed, amused. Daniel seemed to steel himself, straightening to make himself bigger. For a brief moment, Vlad wondered if he was about to be threatened.

“You might want to get your cat looked at. That Dairy King guy threw her into a table when she tried to stop him from letting me out of that stupid cube,” The boy let out in a rush, apparently nervous but covering it with bravado. Vlad felt something in his core clench as the words registered. He didn’t know what face he was making, but Daniel dropped his almost glare for something that looked almost concerned. Rose was projecting reassurances, but underneath he could feel something close to guilt or worry.

“…I will look into it. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.” Daniel nodded before running off towards the RV idling just outside the door and disappearing into the metal death trap. As the Fentons sped away, Vlad carefully tangled his fingers in Rose’s fur while she purred softly. She wasn’t acting hurt, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t. With her energy low from holding onto that energy kernel, she wouldn’t have healed yet. However, the middle of the foyer wasn’t the place to check. Especially not when guests and workers alike were still leaving. At least he had managed to convince the police that it was just a stunt show gone a bit haywire and nothing to worry about, though he would likely have to check their reports later tonight or tomorrow to make sure there was nothing particularly incriminating from the guest statements. He didn’t want a hint of this getting back to the GIW. If worst came to worst, the police chief was always open to bribes.

Focusing on what he had to do kept the sour feeling in his gut from growing as he slipped into the back halls where there shouldn’t be any guests hanging around. From there he headed into one of the small bedrooms that sat in the “servant’s quarters”. He pulled Rose from his shoulders and checked over her much more thoroughly than earlier. Careful fingers slipped over her her head and down her shoulders to check her front paws before returning to her torso. This time, when Vlad’s fingers hit her ‘bruise’ he didn’t miss the way she stiffened up. Vlad felt his heart drop. Sugar lumps.

For a moment, he wanted to deny it. Perhaps Daniel had done it and was trying to cover himself, but common sense won out. He’d never told the boy about the Dairy King— had never mentioned his great uncle at all during the Fenton’s visit. The sour feeling from earlier bloomed into a gaping void as his core spasmed painfully at the betrayal. He couldn’t understand it. His uncle knew Rose. He’d introduced the two not long after she’d followed him home. Why would he do something like this? (Vlad had trusted him.)

Rose meowed, bumping his face with her head as her concern rang loudly over their bond. Vlad leaned into the touch gratefully with a sigh. He… couldn’t deal with this right now. Later. Not now. He needed to sleep first. Then in the morning he could check the cameras in the lab. There had to be a reason. Perhaps there was something Daniel hadn't mentioned. Some kind of possession or artifact or something.  

Shaking his head, Vlad forced himself back to the matter at hand. Rose was hurt. She wouldn’t accept his energy through the bond, so he’d have to get her some ghost food instead. That was an easy fix. He could do that. Carefully pulling her into his arms once more, Vlad let himself shift into his ghost form since he no longer had the Fentons to worry about. The fourth floor kitchen had all of his ectoplasm laden food, so he turned them both invisible and intangible and flew upstairs. 

The fourth floor kitchen was smaller and cozier than the one downstairs since he mostly used it for storage when he had guests or when he didn’t feel like flying down three floors for some pretzels. He set Rose on the table, petting carefully over her face for a moment before turning to the fridge and pulling out food for both of them. He had a few ghost apples in the crisper that he had been planning to use in an apple tart or sauce at some point, but Rose needed them more now. Since they were an actual ectoplasm-based plant rather than just food-grade ectoplasm, they’d be a lot stronger than anything he had mixed into human food. 

He cut them open and carefully removed the seeds to replant later before handing off the rest to Rose. She crunched noisily into them with a relish and delight that went a long way towards calming Vlad’s own stress as they bled through the bond. Vlad yawned as the adrenaline from earlier faded and his exhaustion crept back in. The day was starting to look like another late night, so he returned to the fridge and pulled out a can of spray cheese and a container of pure food-grade ectoplasm. Pulling a bowl out of the cupboard, he sprayed cheese straight into the bowl, covered it in ectoplasm, and then grabbed a bag of pretzel sticks out of the cupboard to dunk in the mixture. 

Spray cheese was one of his guilty pleasures, but, after how badly today had gone, he felt rather justified in pulling it out. Maddie un-woo’d, Jack un-humiliated, Daniel was still under his father’s thumb,  and his uncle had apparently betrayed him. Plus there were probably gobs of random people crawling around his home and touching his stuff that he was going to have to find and kick out soon. Ugh. It was enough to make his skin crawl. Rose chirped and shoved herself into his lap, the arm he wasn’t using to eat curling around her.

“Well, at least I still have you,” Vlad conceded with a soft smile as she purred loudly and kneaded at his arm. After a couple minutes she settled down, sprawling across his lap and humming a pop song he had made the mistake of listening to on the way to work the other day. Vlad could feel his energy slowly returning as he enjoyed the easy affection and his snack. His fingers tangled into long fur as he forced himself to focus on the present instead of all the things he needed to do or the implications of the events of the day.

Unfortunately, the moment couldn't last forever. Once his food was gone, Vlad forced himself to set Rose back on the table and get up with a groan. “Well, time to get rid of the stragglers,” he groaned, forming several copies and sending them off to scour the lower floors. “Coming my dear?” Rose chirped and leapt up onto his shoulders before settling into her usual spot around his neck.

With the castle scoured and would-be thieves removed, Vlad finally let himself fall into bed and really consider what his plans were after this point. In the short term, he needed to check the police station sometime later tonight or early tomorrow morning so he could remove any incriminating evidence from their records. He would also need to check the cameras in his lab at some point after work to find out exactly what happened after he left. Until then, he wouldn’t let Rose out of his sight in case it wasn’t a one off event. He also needed to make Rose her new collar— preferably one that would allow him to feel her ectosignature while still preventing scanners from picking it up. Perhaps a scrambler rather than a true suppressor? Or maybe something he could tune to be sensed only by hybrids?

In the long term… he was still going to pursue Maddie. Getting their phone numbers had been spur of the moment, but getting back in regular contact with her was a must. At this point, he may need to wait for the next opportunity to arrive on its own, or at least until he had another idea, and calling regularly would give him a better idea of what would or wouldn’t work. He still needed to figure out why Rose didn’t like her as well— partially because he wanted his two favorite people to actually get along and partially because Rose’s dislike projected straight to his core and could muddle his own emotions if he wasn’t careful.

Daniel would need to be watched carefully. He was still very young and ghosts with frost and ice cores were known to come into their powers very quickly relative to other core types. There was a good chance he could become overwhelmed or bring the wrong sort of attention his way. Setting up some kind of surveillance would take time, but for now he may be able to ask the vulture trio where a good vantage point could be. He might as well make use of the several hours they spent flying all over Amity. Perhaps he could also get Soner’s assistance with creating Rose’s collar. The blind vulture was the best sensor her knew, after all.

It may also behoove him to get on Jasmine’s good side as well. She wasn’t far from adulthood, but she may be able to sway the others, or at least Daniel, over to his side. She seemed to have a positive view of him, which would be invaluable for getting insight into the family dynamic and a less bright view of her father, which would make getting her on his side easier. She was also rather intelligent, like her mother, and depending on what field she decided to go into she could be a valuable asset in one of his companies in the future.

As for Jack, well. His ruin would come at the fruition of Vlad’s other goals. For now Vlad could bide his time and wait for the next opportunity. From what he had gotten from Amity public records, the man made a fool of himself in public fairly often. It wouldn’t be too hard to deepen the cracks such things would cause in his relationship with his family.

Speaking of cracks, Vlad’s great uncle was another matter entirely. Vlad could never imagine the man attacking, well, anything honestly. Even when he had been alive his uncle had been a rather passive old man, preferring to spend the day making cheese and ‘playing’ hide and seek with Vlad and his sister than anything even remotely aggressive. The man hadn’t even liked football for goodness sake! He’d always said it was too violent! So where did this this sudden urge to hurt Vlad’s companion come from? Vlad honestly hoped he was right and that there was some kind of magic item or something, anything, that he could use to explain the behavior away. His uncle certainly couldn’t stay if there wasn’t.

With a groan, Vlad flipped over and buried his face in the mattress. Technically, he could just go down to the lab, watch the tapes, and confront his uncle tonight, but after running the whole day on three hours of sleep plus his nap in the afternoon, he really just wanted to rest and pretend the problem didn’t exist for a while longer. “What a mess,” he groaned. Rose seemed to agree as she planted herself right between his shoulder blades and started kneading at his back.

“They’re not here anymore, you don’t have to stay a cat,” he reminded her after a couple minutes, the comment punctuated by a large yawn as his eyes started to droop. Rose meowed and kept doing what she was doing. It wasn’t as nice as a massage or anything, but the rhythmic motion was soothing and, coupled with soft purring and ‘Comfort! Happy! Content!’ being projected straight to his core, it didn’t take long before Vlad was out like a light.

Rose purred contentedly as her swarm-mate finally drifted off to sleep and stopped projecting “Sad. Disappointed. Worried!”. The soft sleepy comfort was much nicer. She yawned widely, wishing she could follow him to sleep, but unfortunately she still had a lizard sitting in her stomach that would need to be deposited in the cheese man’s tower before she forgot. Dropping her cat form, Rose rose front he bed and floated out of the castle. Then, locating the tower cheese ghost stayed in, she flew over and phased into his rooms. 

At first she stayed invisible, looking to see if he was near, but she could neither see nor sense him. Rose slowly floated towards where the ghost’s cheese fly hatchery was kept as she listened carefully in case he came back. The room was hot and humid and full of carefully sealed bins of cheese that were just crawling with maggots. To the far side of the room was the case of adult flies. Rose floated between the two options a moment before floating between the bins on the shelf. Even if the lizard wasn’t peckish, it might be able to do some damage before the cheese ghost came back by knocking things down.

Releasing the lizard was simple, the smaller ghost plopping to the wood shelf when she moved the ‘stomach’ it was sitting in to her outside and inverted it. The lizard hit the wood with barely a tap. It’s eyes flicked around the area. Despite all the food around, the smaller ghost seemed perfectly content to just….stand there. Even when she formed a nub-arm and waved it in front of one of its eyes, the lizard didn’t seem to care. It was oddly docile considering how quick it had tried to run from her earlier, but it was probably just happy to get away from the pain-box the hunters had been keeping it in. Probably.

Maybe.

She poked it in the side to be sure she hadn’t grabbed a toy on accident. The lizard twitched to the side and went still again. Rose frowned. Well that wasn’t going to work. How was she going to get it to move? The panic her swarm-mate had given her the day before seemed to be able to sense her unease and started reaching its sticky tendrils out to tug at her. Vague ‘what if’s attempted to breed in her mind and send her spiraling. She grumbled, shoving it back down as best she could, when she got an idea. Since her swarm-mate didn’t want the panic and she didn’t want the panic, maybe she could just… give it to someone else. Specifically, the lizard.

Because she had never tried transferring energy to another ghost besides her swarm-mate, it took a moment for her to figure out the mechanics of drawing the energy out. But, soon enough, she was holding a bright ball of familiar magenta energy at the end of her nubby arms. Unlike the ectoblasts she had seen her swarm-mate form, this ball was more hazy and indistinct. It was also warping in her arms, trying to drift back towards her core the longer she held it. Despite the sudden increase in light, the lizard didn’t even seem to notice, still standing there like a statue. That was alright though— it made dropping the ball of energy onto it much simpler.

The energy fell right in the middle of the lizard’s back and sat there for a moment before slowly sinking in. With each millimeter, the lizard slowly started growing until it was almost half the size of Rose’s cat form.

Rose eyed the lizard as its eyes went wide, iris almost completely consumed by the pupil, and it started chirping and then screaming. The newly grown lizard was smaller than she had hoped, but it would do. Besides, it seemed perfectly happy to sow chaos as it lunged at the bins and knocked several to the floor, scattering jumping fly larvae everywhere. Rose yawned widely as she let herself out and escaped into the cool fall night. She was tired, her swarm-mate was already sleeping, and her revenge was placed. It was time for a well deserved rest.

When she returned to the bedroom, her swarm-mate had flipped onto his back and buried himself under a large pile of blankets— regardless of the three separate space heaters running at full strength in the corners of the room. Rose was a bit surprised when he didn’t even twitch at her coming back through the wall and even more so when she floated down onto the bed and planted herself near his arm seemingly without him noticing. 

She stared at him in confusion for a moment before she remembered the little device he’d clipped onto her collar to prevent the kid and the hunters from sensing her. It must be blocking his sense of her too! She squished her body down just smaller than the ring of the collar and let it slip off onto the bed. Without the hunters, she shouldn’t need it any—

Rose could have put a dog toy to shame with the squeak she let loose as her swarm-mate’s hand darted out to snatch her from the bed and dragged her into the blanket pile with a mumbled, “mine”. She found herself squished into his chest like a cuddle toy as both arms came up to wrap around her. Rose melted into the grip, almost literally, with a happy sigh. She was safe and warm. Her swarm was here. She could hear his heart beat and, after a moment, the sound of his core purring softly. Purring back, Rose let herself slowly fall asleep, content.