Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Did you hear? Phantom and Plasmius have some kind of truce now.”

“No way. You’re lying— those two? They’re always at each other’s throats!”

“Not only that— Bernard was even saying that they were sharing a haunt!”

“No! Shit, if Bernard’s saying it… I mean, I just can’t imagine it. Plasmius and Phantom, getting along.”

Hissing under her breath, Dani snatched the branch of small, staticky fruit from the edge of the market stall as the seller continued gossiping with their friend. Then, before either noticed her, she darted off into the crowd. Even as she flew ‘home’, slowly working through her meal, Dani couldn’t get their words out of her mind. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard rumors about the two hybrids working together— it had started up after that whole deadly asteroid scare on Earth a few months back. She’d assumed, at the time, that they’d just temporarily teamed up to save the world (or, more likely, Danny forced Vlad to help him somehow), but the longer the rumors went on and the more she heard… Dani was really starting to worry.

It was one thing to say that they worked together, but living together? (Danny wouldn’t betray her like that, wouldn’t just be Vlad’s son after everything, right?) There was something wrong. Something really really wrong. She could feel it in her gut like a lead weight that only seemed to grow the more she thought about it. She’d been hiding in the Ghost Zone for a while, so everything she heard was at least second hand, but usually more like third or fourth hand. Maybe… maybe it was time to head back to the human world. Just to see what was really going on. To help Danny escape, if it came to it—even if the thought of facing her dad Vlad again made her want to curl up in her hideaway and forget she’d ever heard anything. She couldn’t do that though. She couldn’t just leave Danny trapped if there was something, anything, she could do to help. She owed him that much, at least. (Owed him her life, really.)

Of course, actually getting there wouldn’t be easy. When she’d fled to the Ghost Zone, she hadn’t exactly… kept track of how to get back. There were temporary portals, of course, but since the asteroid they had been even more volatile than before, throwing ghosts into all sorts of different times and places. Still, it was her best bet and, for that reason, Dani spent every minute she could for the next week or so chasing down any and every rumor she heard to no avail.

On the seventh ‘day’, Dani had all but given up and was starting to work up the nerve to start asking around about how to get to the permanent portals when, suddenly, the air around her flooded with energy. Dani went still. The air sparked with bright white and green light, like electricity bouncing between invisible points. Then, just as Dani started inching backwards, the sparks brightened, connecting all the points at one in a sort of circle, followed by a loud ripping noise  as the very fabric of the world tore itself open in front of her. Dani gaped at the swirling green and white portal in front of her, hesitating. This was it, she could feel it in her core. It would take her right where she needed to go. Still, she. she wasn’t sure. She didn’t know if she was ready. As soon as she considered, just, not, she couldn’t help but picture Danny, trapped and in trouble, as Vlad forced Danny to work for him. 

Closing her eyes, Dani darted forward. She could feel the world around her warping and twisting until, finally, it all stopped. She slowly opened her eyes and found herself staring down at a large town from a couple miles in the air. Dani took a deep breath, went invisible and darted down towards the town below. Thankfully, she managed to find a quiet alleyway pretty quick. As soon as she touched down on the ground, Dani switched back to her human form. She had maybe an hour, max, of ghost powers for the day before she was going to start having problems— better save it for later when she really needed it. 

Tracking down her location didn’t take long— the workers in the nearby grocery store were nice enough to answer when she asked and just gullible enough to believe her when she said her mom was a couple isles over without asking any follow up questions. Of course, the store also had the answer to her other questions as well. There, in the magazine racks next to the checkout, was magazine after magazine with stories about ‘Vlad Master’s new adopted son’ advertised on front. Grabbing one at random, Dani flipped to the article and started reading through it for any scrap of information she could gleam. The phrases “terrible accident”, “mute from trauma”, and “homeschooling” jumped out at her, making her hands shake and the ball of dread in her stomach grow as terrible, horrible scenarios played out in her head. Her hands shook as she put the now crinkled magazine back in its place.

She. She had to do something. To save Danny. She already knew where she was— a small town in Wisconsin not far from where the article had mentioned Vlad’s Wisconsin home was located. Even as the thought solidified in her mind, though, she found herself wavering. She was only a few miles from Vlad’s castle— barely even a few minutes of flight at her top speed, but… She could only handle using her powers for another hour today— less than that if she got into a fight using ectoblasts or used her other powers. If she waited, rested for a day or two, then she might be able to do more, maybe. But Danny had already been in Vlad’s grasp for months while she’d just been ignoring the problem. Who knew what Vlad was putting him through— what if a day or two was too long? What if she ended up getting there too late?

Dani bit her cheek, trying to resist the urge to cry. If Danny was making the decision, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Not to mention he’d already saved her once— twice, even, though she’d repayed him for the first one already. She owed him. Maybe. Maybe he had more of that energy stuff he’d had last time. It hadn’t fixed her, but it had given her a whole heck of a lot more time than she’d had before. And if he didn’t… well. She’d cross that bridge when she got there. Mind made, Dani rubbed the moisture from her eyes, switched back to her ghost form, and started flying.

The castle she found waiting for her wasn’t familiar, for multiple reasons. She had been born and lived in Colorado until the whole… mid morph thing. It also didn’t look anything like the couple of pictures she’d seen of it. The bright white and yellow castle had been replaced by a (slightly) smaller mansion with pale brown walls and a dark green roof. At first she wasn’t sure she was in the right place, but as she got closer she could feel it— Vlad’s ectosignature. She’d recognize it anywhere (it was the first thing she’d ever known).

Taking a deep breath, Dani flew straight for where she could feel him—right to the source of the problem (and because she couldn’t feel Danny which she was Not Thinking About). She had to be fast, so she cut straight through the building, phasing through the walls and speeding past room after empty room. She found Vlad in his ghost form in a large room on the first floor filled with all kinds of ghost and human training stuff. He was throwing ectoblasts at moving targets when she burst in, too distracted by the multicolor high speed discs to even notice she’d come in. 

Perfect.

Dani’s first ectoblast was aimed right at his stupid head followed by two more aimed at his chest. After all, he’d always told her, ‘it’s better to aim for the center of mass and hit than to go for a smaller delicate target and miss completely.’ As she’d expected, Vlad immediately turned at the sound of an ectoblast that wasn’t his own. With how close they were, he only had just enough time to block the one coming for his face with a small shield before the other two hit him straight in the chest, one after the other. Vlad wheezed, the wind knocked out of him and Dani took the chance to throw another, hoping to hit him again while he was stunned, but he stepped to the side and it slammed into the wall instead. Dani tensed, preparing for retaliation, but he was just… staring at her. 

He looked confused to see her. Even as she glared back at him, she didn’t see any of the malice or anger she expected. Maybe he hadn’t realized she was there to stop him yet? “Danielle,“ he said voice soft in a way that immediately had her hackles going up. He was trying to manipulate her! “What are you—“

Dani didn’t let him finish. She charged at him with a yell, saving her power for later in favor of using her fists and hybrid strength. Vlad stepped back and, once Dani got close, grabbed her and tossed her away from him. Dani landed on some mats with an ‘oof’ before growling and rolling back to feet. This time, as she charged forward she tried throwing an ectoblast to distract him. Vlad put up a shield again, blocking the blast and giving her a brief opening to punch him in the side. He hissed and Dani pulled an arm back to hit him again only to find herself thrown back again, landing on the hard, uncovered floor. Dani yelped at the impact, but jumped up again and threw herself at him once more.

Again and again, Dani tried to attack and each time Vlad just threw her away— not gently, but not nearly as strong as she knew he could. Each time was more frustrating than the last as her assault seemed to be going nowhere. He wasn’t even really fighting back!  It didn’t help that somewhere around the sixth time she’d been thrown he’d gotten a familiar look on his face— like he was trying not to smile at her. It was so Frustrating! She was suppose to be fighting him, he shouldn’t be acting like they were just playing around. It reminded Dani of when she’d been newly ‘born’ and he’d had to show her how to do everything, the same not-quite smile as he’d shown her how to use her powers, how to read and write, how human and ghost food worked— back when Vlad had still acted like he loved her and called her his daughter. If she didn’t think about what had happened after, it was almost— No! Dani mentally shook herself. Focus! He wasn’t her dad anymore! She hated him. He was hurting Danny.

Gritting her teeth as she got to her feet again, Dani was forced to concede that trying to conserve her energy wasn’t getting her anywhere. She jumped into the air and started flying loops around Vlad, throwing ectoblasts from different angles, trying anything and everything she could think of to try and knock him down or out. Every time he seemed like he was going to open his mouth, she aimed right for his stupid face. Most of her attacks didn’t hit, but some of them did! She even managed to knock him into one of the weight lifting machines at one point. Still, it didn’t take long for that familiar burning to start up in her hands and feet. Panting from exertion as her latest attack was blocked once more, Dani dropped to the ground. She had to keep fighting, to save Danny, but her strength was flagging and she was having a hard time feeling the bottoms of her feet as the burning slowly crawled into her bones and towards her ankles. Closing her eyes, Dani tried to block out the pain and the familiar alarm bells clamoring in the back of her head screaming that she was pushing herself too far.

Of course, as soon as she was distracted, Vlad charged at her. Dani’s eyes snapped open at the sound of footsteps and, with a yelp, she tried jumping into the air. Her foot, partially melted at the bottom, stuck fast to the floor and kept her grounded as Vlad barreled towards her. It only took a second for her foot to solidify enough to unstick, but it was too late. Vlad grabbed her arm in a vice grip. “Enough,” he barked, his face hard and angry as he stared down at her. This was what she’d been expecting when she’d come in, but she couldn’t stop herself from going pale and shrink under the force of his sudden ire.

Suddenly, the hard look was gone— replaced by something she didn’t recognize. Then, his hand was gone and Vlad took several steps back. Dani rubbed at the sore spot on her arm, watching him with wide eyes as she waited him to attack or yell or do something to hurt her. Instead, she saw red eyes glance down towards her feet and, in a voice that brooked no argument, said, “you’re melting. Turn back.” The demand was familiar (too familiar) and Dani hesitated. She… wasn’t sure what was going on, what he was planning. She didn’t feel safe. When she didn’t turn back, Vlad sighed. Dani winced, tensing up further, but then he just.

Turned back to human form.

Dani stared. It was a trap, right? He was just pretending to let his guard down. He could still use his powers in both forms. He had to just be waiting for her to put her own guard down, but… the burning was still making its way deeper into her body. Her time was ticking away, millimeter by millimeter. Every second her body breaking down just that little bit more.

Dani turned back.

“No thanks to you,” she spit out a moment later— probably awkwardly late, but she didn’t care. She just wanted him to hurt. She wanted him to be reminded that it was his fault for her melting, his fault for making her and the other clones like this in the first place. She wanted his failure to burn. He flinched and she gave a sharp, vicious smile at the spark of red in his eyes that accompanied it. Of course, then Vlad had to go and ruin it. He took a deep breath, schooling his face into something more impassive and tucked his arms behind his back.

“Yes, yes. Remind me again that I sacrificed the others for nothing. What do you want Danielle.” He said it lightly, easily, as if he was just talking about the weather or something, except Dani could see the red sparking in his pupils again and the way his arms tensed up. She didn’t flinch— she refused to feel guilty for not listening to him, for not trying to overshadow Danny, for not dying—, but it was a near thing.

“What do I want?” Dani snapped, “I want you to let Danny go. I know you have him!” Vlad stared at her. His brow furrowed as he squinted at her, pretending to be confused. Like he thought she was stupid. Dani glared, not buying the innocent act for a moment.

“Daniel isn’t here,” Vlad said slowly, “last I was aware, he was at home with his family. Did something happen?”

“You’re lying,” she hissed, “I saw the news, Vlad. I know he’s here. Don’t lie to me.” Recognition flooded his face. Then, with a sigh, Vlad pulled his hands out from behind his back and started massaging his temples.

“That’s— he’s not—“ Vlad started and stopped, his lips thinned. He took another breath before trying again, “Danielle—“ The door to the gym opened and Vlad’s mouth snapped shut again. Dani turned to see and froze.

It was Danny. He had turned almost right away to look at the new scorch marks all over the walls, but she’d recognize him anywhere—even with his hair brushed back and wearing a fancy blue button up and slacks instead of his usual t-shirt and jeans. He looked… fine? Dressed up like a doll, but other than that… he didn’t even look a little beat up. Her eyes flicked over him looking for some kind of device or something as he slowly turned back to them only to pause as her eyes met his. He wasn’t Danny.

Danny’s eyes weren’t red.

“You made another clone?” Dani shrieked as she threw herself towards Vlad again. Green-white transformation rings formed around her waist as she lunged, too caught up in her anger to remember that she’d already gone over her power use cap for the day. Of course, it didn’t really matter because one of Vlad’s stupid duplicates grabbed her around the waist, pulled her into its stupid chest and, with a pulse of energy, forced her back into her human form. Dani screamed again, louder and angrier, and started to do everything she could to hurt the duplicate holding her. Biting, kicking, scratching— anything. The duplicate might not be Vlad himself, but she knew he could still feel things through it. 

“Danielle, calm down. Please,” Vlad sighed more than asked, obviously not expecting her to listen to him. She bit the duplicate harder.

“Who’s that,” the other clone asked. His voice was much deeper than Danny’s— just another sign that the clone really wasn’t him. And what did he mean ‘who’s that’! Had Vlad seriously not even bothered to mention her at all? Growling, Dani shoved her elbow into the duplicate’s side as hard as she could with what little leverage. Vlad grimaced, but he didn’t look at her at all— too busy with his newest clone son.

“This is Danielle. She is…” he paused seemingly looking for words, “one of the few semi-stable, functional clones of Daniel and the only one to actually survive longer than six weeks with her mind intact.” Dani kicked at the duplicate’s legs, trying to aim for the same spot in hopes of making him bruise so it would hurt even more. How dare he! Phrasing his explanation like that— trying to make it seem like the red-eyed clone wasn’t a clone. What, was he fully stable then, since it seemed like he’d been around for a few months according to the article she’d read? So Vlad wouldn’t have to explain? Or was this one just the latest in a line of clones that Vlad was growing, one after the other, and replacing once they melted? The other clone probably didn’t even know he was a clone.

She was so distracted trying to hurt the duplicate that she startled when she noticed the red-eyed clone staring at her and moving closer. She stared back, picking out all the little differences between him and Danny. It wasn’t just the clothes and the eyes, he had a slightly thicker build, paler skin, and  dark bags under his eyes. It also seemed like he was a bit taller than Danny was, though, considering she hadn’t seen actual Danny in a while, she could be wrong. He didn’t seem mean, at least. He wasn’t really saying anything and he looked more curious than anything, but then he turned back to Vlad and asked, “You… named her after your dead sister?” 

For a moment she was just kind of confused, not quite registering what he’d said or why Vlad was sputtering. Then, it sank in and she couldn’t help but give a humorless laugh. “No,” she corrected the other clone, “he named me after Danny. Daniel, Danielle? Duh.”

Vlad made a face like a kicked dog and tried to use that stupid, manipulative soft voice again, “Danielle—“

“Don’t,” she snapped— it was just another stupid lie to get on the other clone’s good side, that was all—, “don’t pretend I meant something to you after you tried to kill me.”

Vlad reared back, that red spark returning to his eyes again as he lost that stupid look on his face in favor of something sharper. “You were already dying,” he snapped, “Even if I hadn’t done anything you would have melted to nothing in a week at most. I’ve seen enough clones die to know when one is reaching the end of their lifespan.” Dani flinched. Then she glared.

“So what, you just decided that I needed to die faster?” Dani snarled.

“You saw what happened to the others.” Vlad snapped, throwing his hands out, “they were physically moving but their minds were gone and their bodies were continuing to fall apart even when I had them in the stasis chambers. There was no chance of recovery. A quick death would have been a mercy.” 

She remembered. Of course she remembered. She’d watched two of the three of them get to that point. It still didn’t change the absolute betrayal she’d felt— that she still felt— when she thought about what had happened the last time she’d been anywhere near him. “Mercy?! You could have done something to help— Danny managed to! You weren’t even trying!”

“The servers will all the information I had about you and the other clones were destroyed, Danielle. Even if I had thought you would live as long as you did and had been working on a cure, I most likely wouldn’t have had one to give you— I still don’t have a solution that doesn’t involve Daniel’s mid morph DNA. And speaking of Daniel— he may have extended your lifespan, but he didn’t actually cure anything,” Vlad spit. “May I remind you that you were just melting again not five minutes ago. All he did was delay the problem that would have been solved if he’d just let me take a mid-morph sample from him in the first place!”

“Well maybe if you’d just asked, he would have helped you,” Dani spit back. Vlad huffed a short, humorless laugh.

“Daniel is not, and has never been, as pure and virtuous as you seem to think he is,” he said, voice sharp and bitter, “and even if he was, do you really think he would have assisted me in cloning him?” Dani didn’t answer and Vlad sighed before continuing firmly, but a bit less aggressively, “There is no way on earth that Daniel would have given me his mid-morph sample even if I had asked.”

“Danny’s a good person. He would have helped if you’d asked— he helped me!” Dani tried again. She believed it, she did! She had to. She had to believe that Danny would have saved her no matter what— that he’d seen something special in her.

“Have you asked for his mid morph sample, then?” Vlad asked and, though she didn’t actually say anything, she was sure that he knew the answer by the way her shoulders slumped. “You’ve been allied with him for, what? Almost a year now? You went looking for him to help you last time, has he ever brought it up?” Dani was silent, just hunched down a little further into the duplicate’s arms. Vlad’s voice softened again, back to that manipulative tone, but this time Dani couldn’t bring herself to be angry about it as he said, “If you truly believe that he’ll help you, then why not go ask him right now? I could recreate the machines we need in the next couple of days and we could solve this issue once and for all.” 

Dani… she wanted to prove him wrong. She really truly did. She believed in Danny. She believed he was a good person. She did! But she’d thought the same thing about Vlad too. She wasn’t sure what to do if Danny decided it was a step too far, if he decided she wasn’t good. “I’m scared,” she admitted quietly. Too quietly for Vlad to hear across the room, but not for the red eyed clone standing next to her. His eyes snapped to hers and she flinched at the sudden scrutiny. 

“What was that,” Vlad asked, taking a step closer.

“I’m scared, okay!” she shouted at him. Then, eyes burning with tears she refused to let them see, Dani turned into the duplicate’s chest and, ironically, took comfort in the familiar ectosignature.

“Why are you scared?” the red eyed clone asked, hand hovering awkwardly over her shoulder and face some mix of confused and concerned when she peeked out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t want to tell him— it was stupid. She was stupid. Danny was a good guy so she shouldn’t be scared, but she was.

The other clone had asked, but she knew she shouldn’t drag him into it. It wouldn’t, hopefully, affect him. But…she wanted to tell someone, wanted to be able to hear someone else tell her it was dumb and that she should just get over it. As soon as she admitted that to herself, the words just seemed to fall out of her. “Danny, he… he said the other clones, the ones made in the same group as me, were mindless and that I was different,” she muttered lowly, “but I’m not. I’m melting the same way they did. I still need his mid morph sample. I’m not different at all— I just got lucky. What if he finds out and decides that I’m not worth it— that I’m not good or good enough?” Dani sniffed, wiping at her wet eyes, “…I don’t want to end up like the others.”

“What happened to the others?” he asked, but Dani— she didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to think about it. She buried her face back into the duplicate’s chest.

“I used them to goad Daniel into a position where Danielle could gain his trust,” Vlad answered, voice flat and empty, clinical even, in the way it always got when he talked about the others. “They were already in the final stages of destabilization, so when Daniel fought them, their bodies fell apart.” Fell apart. That was one way to describe it. The way bones and flesh had just liquified, leaving nothing of her fellow clones— her brothers, in a way— behind. She couldn’t forget, not with how many nightmares she’d had, not with the way she’d helped. Because of Vlad— who didn’t even care. He didn’t even use their names— hadn’t since they got stuck in their ghost forms. She wasn’t sure he even remembered them as anything besides ‘the failed clones’.

“They had names, “ Dani said as sharply as she was able with a stuffy, sniffling nose as she turned in the duplicate’s grip so she could look at him “don’t you remember? Or did you just forget them?”

“Of course I remember their names,” Vlad defended, frowning sharply. “Who do you think named them in the first place?”

“So why don’t you use them, huh?“ Dani snapped, getting louder with each word, ”Because they were failures? All you ever cared about was your stupid perfect clone! You never cared about the rest of us!” Vlad flinched and then glared. 

“Danielle—“

“Okay, that’s enough,” the red eyed clone finally snapped, louder than both of them put together. Vlad’s mouth snapped shut and he straightened. Dani sneered at him.

“Ha—“ she started before an arm wrapped around her waist and lifted her out of the duplicate’s arms. “Hey!” She struggled as she was held like luggage under the other clone’s arm.

“Vlad, fuck off for a while. Danielle, you’re coming with me.”

Digging though the absolutely unnecessarily large pile of games and consoles scattered throughout his room, Dan could only sigh as shoved yet another set of games to the side. It was hard to find anything he remembered playing before he was ‘Dan’ instead of his composite parts. Ten years fighting his way through the Infinite Realms hadn’t done him any favors in the whole video games department, unfortunately. There were a couple he was pretty sure he had watched Vlad play recently, but he didn’t know if it would be better to pick one of those or to try grabbing one he didn’t recognize at all. 

Picking up one at random, Dan just found himself staring down at the little cartoon animals dancing on the box with wide blank eyes. Reading the back of it, something about a happy island and designing a home, Dan found his shoulders slumping and, with a groan, he tossed it back into the mass. This was stupid. It wasn’t his fault the Fruitloop got so upset about a little melting. So what if he couldn’t use his full powers without the body he was inhabiting breaking down? He hadn’t needed all of it to give Vlad a few good bruises. Besides, Dan had to do something to get Vlad to stop bothering Dan all the time. Of course now, almost three weeks later, he could admit that he… might have gone a bit overboard. 

He wasn’t guilty of course. Vlad needed to stop hovering all the time! Even the Vlad from his original timeline hadn’t wanted to spend so much time with him! This one always wanted to talk about random stuff or play board games or ask Dan what he was doing or giving Dan piles of toys and games and, just, stuff he had no clue what to do with. It was too much! Things were better now, without him pestering Dan at every chance he got! Even if he only saw Vlad at meals and in passing in the halls when Dan wasn’t busy with his tutor or homework. So Vlad wasn’t seeking him out anymore and was maybe using ‘working on a solution’ for the whole melting thing as an excuse to avoid him— it was fine! Really! He didn’t miss the Fruitloop trying to ‘hang out’ or talking at him at all. It was just what Dan wanted!

 The fact that he was digging through his pile of games trying to find one he could trick Vlad into playing for him meant nothing. It was just…he hadn’t gotten the chance to watch Vlad playing video games at all since he’d started hiding in his lab. It had been one of the few activities that he hadn’t minded doing with Vlad since he’d mostly been focused on playing instead of Dan. It had been… fun to watch him almost-swear at the screen and cheer like a weirdo. But it was just because it was entertaining, nothing else. He certainly wasn’t taking a extra time parsing through the games to delay having to go ask Vlad to spend time with him because he was nervous or guilty or something. He was just… trying to find the best game. It was hard to pick one out of all the options. That was all.

Five minutes later found Dan still in the same place, staring at two different colorful boxes and wishing quietly to himself that he hadn’t started the fight that had led to his current circumstance. It was a relief, then, when his intense concentration was interrupted by the appearance of an ectosignature he didn’t recognize— a neutral core with a slight skew towards electricity— flying towards the mansion at high speeds. “Oh thank the ancients,” he muttered, dropping the cases in his hands onto the floor. A distraction was just what he needed. 

Despite Vlad having connections in the Infinite Realms, he didn’t usually get visitors and this one was the first that had come by without Vlad warning him first. His first impulse, honed over the past decade, was to switch forms and go after the ghost encroaching on his territory, but, as soon as the thought crossed his mind, so did the memory of Vlad’s frantic, horrified face as his feet started melting into bright green goo. Dan grimaced. Considering his current problems, maybe it was better if he figured out whether the ghost was a threat or not before trying to fight them.

The ectosignature seemed like it was heading straight for where Vlad was messing around down in the gym anyway— he probably didn’t need to chase it down in ghost form. Probably didn’t need to chase them down at all since, according to the way that Vlad’s ectosignature sparked for a moment, threatening and dangerous, before smoothing back out into it’s normal pulse barely a moment later, Vlad apparently knew the ghost. Huffing, Dan picked up the games he’d dropped and shoved them back onto the pile. For a moment he considered going back to looking through them. He probably could just ignore the ghost, but… it wasn’t often he ran into one he didn’t recognize. Walking downstairs couldn’t hurt at least. Probably.

Even as he walked down to the gym and the ghost’s ectosignature got even more staticky, Dan wasn’t worried. At least not until Vlad’s ectosignature suddenly faded from his senses. Dan started moving faster, not sure if he’d been forced back to his human form or had done it willingly. He wasn’t worried of course. Vlad could handle himself. It was just that whatever was happening was probably interesting. He didn’t think he’d seen Vlad interact with a ghost in human form besides the whole… Clockwork situation.

Then the other ectosignature faded in the same way and Dan had to grab the stairs’ handrail before he fell down the rest of the stairs in his surprise. There was another hybrid in this timeline? Danny certainly hadn’t mentioned one for the two whole minutes they’d spoken since he’d gotten his new body. Vlad had (vaguely) mentioned earlier versions of the clone body he was inhabiting. Dan hadn’t bothered prying since it hadn’t really mattered at first. And then Vlad had gotten all freaked out over the melting thing and he hadn’t really been in the mood to ask questions. He was starting to regret that, now, because it was looking like one of those clones was still around.

Dan practically ran the rest of the way to the gym, slowing down only once the door was in his sight. He could hear Vlad saying something inside, so he was still awake, then. Rolling his shoulders, Dan shoved the door open and walked in. The first thing he noticed was the new scorch marks all over the walls and even up on the ceiling. Turning, he even found one right next to the door. When he looked more closely at it, though, the mark was almost… gooey. He poked at it and then grimaced as the sooty, sticky gunk stuck to his finger. He wiped it back on the wall— that was going to be a bitch to clean.

Good thing he didn’t have to do it.

Turning around again, the first thing he saw was Vlad, pinching the bridge of his nose and looking like he was mentally cursing every deity there was. Then Dan looked down and down and then caught the bright blue eyes of their intruder. The intruder was a little girl. Emphasis on little. Like tiny. And pissed. “You made another clone,” she shrieked as she started charging towards Vlad, fists raised and transformation rings forming around her waist. A duplicate caught her about three steps in, doing something with his energy that forced the rings to disappear and left the little girl human. Dan winced as she screamed louder and somehow even higher pitched than before. Then she started kicking and biting and doing everything she could to inflict harm on the duplicate.

Vlad winced, looking more embarrassed or ashamed than in any kind of pain. Dan looked between them, wondered if he should maybe say something— she wasn’t quite right about him, but she would be right about those creepy core-less husks in the basement lab—, and then watched Vlad slowly deflate further and decided to just let things play out. It would be entertaining, if nothing else, but he was also pretty curious to see what they were going to talk about. “Danielle, calm down. Please,” Vlad sighed more than asked, seemingly resigned to the tiny girl’s feral behavior. She ignored him, but Dan just stared at him. He’d misheard that, right? There was no way— right?

Dan swallowed, paused, then asked, “Who’s that?” Vlad grimaced at him. Whether he knew Dan knew or not, he didn’t seem all that excited to share.

Still, he answered, “This is Danielle. She is… one of the few semi-stable, functional clones of Daniel and the only one to actually survive longer than six weeks with her mind intact.” Dan turned to stare at the small feral child as she alternated between doing her best impression of a wild animal and pouting at Vlad. He hadn’t misheard or misunderstood, then.

Danielle. The name was familiar and not just because he had Plasmius’s memories kicking around in the back of his head. It, she, was one of the things his timeline’s Vlad had tried bonding with him over— losing his sister when he was a kid. He turned to Vlad and asked, just to make sure, “You… named her after your dead sister?”  Dan hadn’t known about her before he’d gone to live with Vlad in his original timeline. He’d never been able to find out if he, or at least the Danny part of him, had been named after her by his dad on purpose or if his mom had done it on accident and his dad had just gone along with it. (He could ask now, theoretically. He probably wouldn’t. Maybe this Danny knew but Dan was fine with it remaining in the dark.) But… for Vlad to actually name her that. Well, it was a big surprise he hadn’t seen her around or even heard of her before now. 

Vlad coughed into his fist, his face going red. “ Well. I mean— it’s…I. Uh—“ Danielle cut him off with a sharp, angry laugh.

“No,” she said matter of factly, “he named me after Danny. Daniel, Danielle? Duh.” Vlad winced, his face falling and looking pained. Dan just stared. Did. Did she not know? Had Vlad not told her the same way his-Danny’s parents hadn’t told him? 

“Danielle—“ Vlad tried, but Danielle was having none of it. She glared at him as viciously as she was capable which was, frankly, not at all. She looked more like a kitten trying to puff herself up than anything. Of course, Dan had also spent ten years razing the Infinite Realms and all of its various masters and monsters so he could concede that he might be just a little bit biased against the itty bitty child that looked even smaller compared to the duplicate-Plasmius holding her. 

Of course, just looking small and cute didn’t stop her voice from being as sharp as a razor when she interrupted Vlad saying, “Don’t. Don’t pretend I meant something to you after you tried to kill me.” Dan stared, wide eyed, first at her and then Vlad. What? Why? He didn’t have any leg to stand on when it came to murder, but at least killing his own family and friends had been an accident.

Vlad’s eyes sparked with red and he looked as stiff as a statue when he spit back, “You were already dying. Even if I hadn’t done anything you would have melted to nothing in a week at most. I’ve seen enough clones die to know the signs of one reaching the end of their lifespan.” Dan could see Danielle flinch out of the corner of his eye, but Dan found himself stuck on the little ‘melting’ tidbit. Like, he’d known that it was an issue just from Vlad’s dramatics alone, but he’d never really thought about the other clones. The only ones he’d even seen before never left the tanks in the basement.

It… well it put Vlad’s whole hovering problem in a new light, for one. Had he known that Dan would start melting too? Or had he just been scared of it happening? It definitely hadn’t seemed like he’d expected it when Dan had started to fall apart mid-fight. He’d seemed terrified, if anything. Either way, Dan was really starting to regret not digging a little deeper into the whole clone thing. At least he was getting some of it now. sort of. 

Danielle bared her bitty baby teeth at Vlad and snarled, “So what, you decided I needed to die faster?” 

“You saw what happed to the others,” Vlad shot back immediately,  throwing his hands out for emphasis. He didn’t look angry, per se, but he was definitely getting upset, “they were physically moving but their minds were gone and their bodies were continuing to fall apart even when I had them in the stasis chambers. There was no chance of recovery. A quick death would have been a mercy.” …this whole melting thing was sounding worse and worse the more he heard about it. That being said, Dan wasn’t sure if he wanted to agree with Vlad about mercy killing— he had killed his human half for a reason, after all— or slap him upside the head for saying it out loud. None of the ghosts he’d offered to mercy kill over the years had ever been pleased to get the offer even if he had ended up ending the majority of them anyway.

“Mercy?!” Dani shrieked, just as impressed with Vlad’s thought process as Dan figured she’d be, “You could have done something to help— Danny managed to! You weren’t even trying!”

“The servers will all the information I had about you and the other clones were destroyed, Danielle. Even if I had thought you would live as long as you did and had been working on a cure, I most likely wouldn’t have had one to give you— I still don’t have a solution that doesn’t involve Daniel’s mid morph DNA. And speaking of Daniel— he may have extended your lifespan, but he didn’t actually cure anything,” Vlad spit. “May I remind you that you were just melting again not five minutes ago. All he did was delay the problem that would have been solved if he’d just let me take a mid-morph sample from him in the first place!”

“Well maybe if you’d just asked, he would have helped you,” Dani spit back. Vlad huffed a short, humorless laugh and it took everything Dan had not to laugh too. Like fuck would he have helped his own Vlad clone him back when he’d been just Danny. Hell, even if all Vlad had asked for was a blood sample or whatever the fuck a mid-morph sample was, he probably would have told him where he could shove that request. 

Dan could only nod along as Vlad verbalized that to Danielle— not that she seemed to believe it. She was… really earnest about it, too. Like awkwardly, just-a-bit-too earnest. And of course Vlad had to pick up on it and start poking at that poorly hidden sore spot. “Have you asked for his mid morph sample, then?” Danielle opened her mouth, and then closed it again without a word as her shoulders slumped. He continued, “You’ve been allied with him for, what? Almost a year now? You went looking for him to help you last time, has he ever brought it up?” Danielle was silent, just hunched down a little further into the duplicate’s arms, refusing to look at them. Dan sent Vlad a glare and, wincing, Vlad tried to soften his tone as he finished with, “If you truly believe that he’ll help you, then why not go ask him right now? I could recreate the machines we need in the next couple of days and we could solve this issue once and for all.” It was an olive branch, at least as far as Dan could tell, but the way she deflated was a silent ‘no’ if Dan had ever seen one.

Dan pursed his lips. If she wouldn’t ask Danny, then Dan would because like hell was he going to put up with this whole melting business any longer than he had to now that he knew how bad it really was. And if Danny wasn’t currently willing, Dan was perfectly happy to make him willing. He turned to tell Vlad just that when Danielle whispered, “I’m scared.” Dan’s attention snapped towards her, though he regretted moving so fast when the sudden scrutiny made her flinch. 

“What was that?” Vlad asked like an idiot— as if she wasn’t literally in his duplicate’s arms and he couldn’t hear exactly what she’d said.

“I’m scared, okay,” Danielle burst out, finally looking up from her arms, her eyes wet and miserable looking— like she was one mean comment away from crying. Dan frowned.

“Why are you scared?” Dan asked, trying to sound comforting and probably missing by a mile based on the way she tried to hide herself in the duplicate’s chest.

“Danny, he… he said the other clones, the ones made in the same group as me, were mindless and that I was different,” she muttered lowly, “but I’m not— I’m melting the same way they did. I still need his mid morph sample. I’m not different at all. I just got lucky. What if he finds out and decides that I’m not worth it— that I’m not good or good enough?” Dani sniffed, wiping at her wet eyes, “…I don’t want to end up like the others.”

“What happened to the others?” he asked, eyes glancing Vlad’s way when she just shook her head and buried her face back into the duplicate’s chest..

“I used them to goad Daniel into a position where Danielle could gain his trust,” Vlad answered, looking almost as hollow as the bodies in the basement,“They were already in the final stages of destabilization, so when Daniel fought them, their bodies fell apart.”

“They had names, “ Danielle said, sounding miserable and stuffy as she turned in the duplicate’s grip and stared over at Vlad, “don’t you remember? Or did you just forget them?”

“Of course I remember their names,” Vlad defended, frowning sharply. “Who do you think named them in the first place?”

“So why don’t you use them, huh?“ Danielle snapped, getting louder with each word, ”Because they were failures? All you ever cared about was your stupid perfect clone! You never cared about the rest of us!” Vlad flinched and then glared. 

“Danielle—“

“Okay, that’s enough,” Dan finally snapped, louder than both of them put together. Vlad’s mouth snapped shut and he straightened, looking away from both of them as his body went tense as steel. Danielle sneered at Vlad. They were both getting too worked up. Nothing was going to get done with both of them like this. Dan picked up Danielle with ease— that stupid pile of video games in his bedroom probably weighed more than her. “Vlad fuck off for a while. Danielle, you’re coming with me.”

Unlike the cats that seemed to appear and disappear at random and hated him with every fiber of their beings, she didn’t try scratching or biting him as he wandered out of the room and down the hall. yet. He saw how she got with Vlad and he was pretty sure he’d get the same treatment if she decided she didn’t like him after all. Thankfully, besides the return of the quiet sniffling from before, Danielle seemed perfectly willing to just let him haul her around like a potato sack. It was almost soothing, in a way. This close, he could feel the ectosignature just under her skin, much calmer than it had been earlier even if that odd edge of static still prickled against his senses.

He wasn’t sure where he was going besides away, but he wasn’t completely surprised when he found himself walking into the game room on the first floor. It was a nice enough room, with three couches arranged in a U around the wall sized TV and a whole snack and drink stash covering the back wall. Moving over to the softest of the couches, Dan hesitated a moment, not sure if she would bolt as soon as he put her down, before setting her carefully in the seat. Thankfully, all she did was was wipe at her eyes. He hovered awkwardly for a moment, not quite sure what to do— his Danny half had always been the little sibling receiving comfort in these situations and Plasmius’s memories of Vlad’s sister were too worn and faded to really glean anything from. 

Then his eye caught on the snack stash and he asked, “do you… want something to eat?” She didn’t quite perk up, but she was definitely interested based on the frantic nodding and wide eyes. “Okay, uh…” he wandered over to the shelves and cabinets, stared, and then just grabbed whatever was closest that he didn’t have to put in the microwave. Dropping them onto the seat next to her, Dan retreated to his own seat on the next chair over with a small bag of Cheetos and just… stared as Danielle started ripping into the packages and shoving things into her mouth at mach speed. Then, he tossed the Cheetos back into her pile and went to grab some drinks from the mini fridge too.

By the time he came back, most of the food had either disappeared or smeared itself all over the couch in colorful streaks. Danielle had slowed way down, popping a chip on her mouth after a second or so instead of just shoving handfuls into her mouth, and seemed more interested in watching him now that her hunger had been (partially) satiated. She took the soda he handed her with a small ‘thanks’ before returning to staring at him as he settled back in his seat with his own drink. He stared back. 

Neither of them said anything.

As the silence stretched on, Dan was starting to regret putting himself in this situation. He didn’t know how to interact with normal kids, let alone a traumatized clone child. He didn’t even know where to start. Should he bring up the whole Danny mid-morph conversation now, or would it be better to bring it up later when she had more time to calm down? He didn’t want to chase her off or anything. “…so, uh. Did you…like the food?” he asked finally as she polished off the last of what he’d given her. “Do you, uh, want more? Or like, something else? Vlad has a bit of just about everything in the kitchen.” She blinked. 

“No, uh, I’m good.” They lapsed into silence again for another couple of awkward seconds before her brow furrowed and she finally burst out, asking, “you don’t call him dad?” Dan immediately snorted, he couldn’t help it.  Just the very idea of it was ridiculous. 

“ ‘course not. The Fruitloop couldn’t get me to call him that if he tried.” Vlad had never been his dad— neither version of him. Dan honestly just. couldn’t imagine it. The quiet depressed version from his original timeline had been, like, a distant uncle figure at best. This version… he wasn’t even sure what to call whatever was going on with them. It was… better in more ways than it was worse, but everything was mostly just different. Whatever it was, though, Vlad still wasn’t his Dad. That spot was taken by one Jack Fenton or, when he woke up particularly disoriented, vague memories of Adrian Masters. 

“But… you’re a clone, right?” she asked, sounding lost. “You’re like me?” Dan frowned. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her— wasn’t sure how she’d take, well, any of it. She’d already been upset about him being a clone, would she take it any better knowing that he had basically permanently overshadowed one? Still, she was going to find out eventually, better now than later.

“No,” he said slowly, carefully, “I’m— well. I’m not a clone but my body is.“ Based on her face, that cleared up just about nothing, but he wasn’t sure how to explain it better than that without getting into all the little details. 

“What? What’s that suppose to mean? You either are a clone or you aren’t. You look like a clone.” Dan pursed his lips. The best way to explain it would probably be to just show her. He hadn’t used his ghost side all day, so he wasn’t too worried about melting. He just. He didn’t want to scare her off. Oddly enough, he kind of liked this tiny, angry, feral, child. He wanted her to stick around. Maybe it was his Plasmius side missing his little sister or his Danny side missing Jazz or even just Dan wanting to experience having a baby sister for himself instead of memories— maybe even a mix of all three, he wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, he couldn’t lie to her if he wanted her to like him for him.

Taking a deep breath, Dan switched forms. His ghost side was so much bigger than his new human body and it had never felt so stark as when he found himself staring down at Danielle’s wide (scared?) eyes. He tried reclining in his seat a bit, trying to make himself look less threatening. It… really wasn’t something he had a lot of experience doing— he had never really wanted to before. It was a relief, then, when Danielle leaned towards him instead of away and even reached a hand out to hover over his arm. He wondered if she could feel it— the parts of him that were Danny and Plasmius and the parts that were him. “It’s… complicated,” he answered finally, “I guess the short version would be that I’m a mix of Danny Phantom and Plasmius from another timeline stuffed in a clone body.” Dani’s eyes got even wider.

“What? How?” And wasn’t that the question? Dan wasn’t sure how to explain— he’d never really had to. Most of the people who he’d interacted (fought) with over the years hadn’t really cared about his “tragic backstory” and the one who did weren’t asking him about it. At least until now. 

“I…” Dan sighed, running a hand through his flaming hair, “The best place to start with is probably…. Have you heard about a place called Nasty Burger?” The name felt like poison on his lips, but Danielle just smiled brightly and nodded.

“Yeah! Danny took me there once. I really liked the fries!” Dan took another deep breath. Then, he started telling her the story— not all of it, there were plenty of details she didn’t need to hear or that he didn’t know himself and he glossed over most of the death and murder he’d had a hand in (most of it had all blurred together after a while anyway), but most of the important bits were as clear as he could make them. Including, of course, the mess with Clockwork that, temporally, had never happened and about the clone body that he’d taken over. She’d listened to it all, asking questions here and there, but not interrupting until, finally, he got to where they were now. 

They sat in silence for a while as she chewed over what he’d told her. Dan switched back to his human form, already missing the size and strength of the only body he’d had for the past decade. Sometimes being in this human body felt like a cage, just another, if more lenient, prison. A prison he had to take care of, he was suddenly reminded of as his stomach growled. “Oh!” Danielle jumped, surprised, “uh sorry. It’s probably getting late, huh? I should probably get going…”

“No!” Dan said, jumping to his feet and wincing when she flinched back, “Sorry, I mean, you don’t have to leave. You can stay for, like, dinner or whatever.”

“Oh, I mean, uh,” she shifted in her seat, “I don’t know… I really shouldn’t stay that long.” Dan’s shoulders slumped. She must have someone to get back to— some family took her in or something. She probably already had a sibling or something and she probably wasn’t planning to stay as long as she had already for whatever she had come by for in the first place.

“Sorry, your guardian is probably worried about you,” he apologized, disappointed and trying not to show it.

“Guardian?” she asked, blinking. …or maybe someone hadn’t taken her in. 

“You know,” he tried anyway, “the person who takes care of you?”

“Oh! Uh. Yeah. Guardian…I totally have one of those.” Dan was surprised Vlad hadn’t taught her to lie better. It was something Dan would have to work on with her later, but for right now he was grateful for her lack of experience.

“How about I go home with you, then, so I can explain why you were gone so long,” Dan ‘offered’.

“No, you don’t have to do that,” Danielle giggled nervously, refusing to look in his direction. “I mean I can do it. It’s fine.” 

“No no, I insist,” Dan pushed, “where do you live? Is it far? I can steal one of Vlad’s cars or something— I know he mentioned you melting earlier, so I’d feel a lot better going with you and making sure you got home alright.” Especially since it would give him the chance to scope her place out and make sure it was actually safe.

“I live, uh. You know…around,” she answered waving a hand in the air. Dan stared at her, eyes narrowing, and she gave another nervous laugh. Alarm bells were going off in his head. That was not an answer, not one that meant anything good. No, she was not leaving—not when it was sounding a bit too much like she was homeless. Who knew if he’d ever be able to find her again if she left. He’d never know if she was avoiding him or if she’d just melted away in some alley. No. Just no.

“You don’t have a home, do you,” Dan said bluntly, not even bothering to make it sound like a question. Danielle deflated immediately.

“No…”

“Then you can stay here,” he said with a nod. When she still didn’t seem convinced, he added, “I want you to stay here.”

“But Vlad?” she tried to counter, but Dan shook his head.

“Don’t worry about him. If he has a problem with it, I’ll deal with him.” 

She stared at him with her big, watery doe eyes and just said, “okay.” Dan couldn’t help it. He pulled her into a hug. There was just something right about having a little sister again. He’d only had her for less than a day and already he knew that he’d do anything to make sure that she stuck around. (Now he just had to talk to Vlad. …At least he knew exactly where the eldest hybrid liked to hide.)