Hi everyone. New story- I hope you like it. It's a oneshot. Please remember to review when you're done. I'd love to know what you thought!

"Enough already, you foolish child. I am not here to fight you." Red eyes burned bright against pale blue-grey skin, and Vlad's fangs gleamed as he snarled into the night. "If you would just listen for a damned minute, you wouldn't be so hurt."

A forced laugh came from Danny's wheezing lungs, and the boy tried to hide the flinching caused by his bruised ribs. With a weak smile to mask the pain, Phantom called back, "You think you hurt me? You're crazier than I thought! This is nothing, Fruitloop."

Vlad sighed, his face tired, and dismissed the taunt with a flick of his hand. "I should have known better than to try and reason with a child. Fine." The man turned. "I'll leave."

Danny blinked, his mouth parting in shock. "Wha...really?" He pressed his hand gingerly against his ribcage, scowling at the hot pain that shot up his side. Though he didn't want to admit it, he had been the one who had started the fight. And Vlad had been telling him to stop...

"Yes, really. I'll go. Unless you've finally decided that you want to hear what I have to say?"

The younger halfa's eyes narrowed. "Speak."

Vlad huffed, his upper lip raised. "I visited your parents' basement a few nights ago."

Danny's eyebrows shot up. "Your mom kick you out of hers?"

Vlad's fists clenched and in an instant he had closed the distance between them, leaving little more than an inch of space. "Silence." His eyebrows furrowed, and Danny could see the other man's jaw begin to grind. "I have no more patience for this childish behavior. Already you have wasted an hour of my time. I came here for your sake, not mine, and if you will not watch your tongue, I will depart without telling you anything. Am I understood?"

"Crystal clear, captain." Danny floated backwards, his arms crossed. He watched as Vlad collected himself by taking a deep breath. "Well?" Phantom pressed, annoyed. "If you're so busy, get on with it."

The red light in Vlad's eyes gleamed again in anger, but the man kept his calm and repeated, "I visited your parents' basement a few nights ago." When Danny did not interrupt, Vlad went on. "I was looking into the blueprints for their ghost portal. I was having a curious problem with my own and wanted to compare notes, you see. However, I found more than just the specs for the parts I was interested in." Vlad's voice grew grim. "I also found some data that was...unnerving. Disturbing, to be frank."

Despite his hesitance to trust the older man, Danny felt a nervous lump form in his throat. "What did you find?"

"There's a lot of science behind the figures I saw that you wouldn't understand, and I don't have the years it would take to explain it to you." Danny felt his anxious fear subside into irritation. "However," Vlad continued, "I will say this. There were a lot of specifications built into your parents' ghost portal that are not included in my own. That is because these specifications are not necessary for creating contact between the two worlds. Requirements such as inter-plate capacitance and ambient ecto-flow would not need to be held to a precise level if the only goal was to create a portal to the Ghost Zone."

Danny snorted, rolling his eyes dramatically. "So my parents build in some extra features. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal, Daniel, is that while these extra feature play no role in creating a portal, they do play a very important role in the creation of a halfa."

Danny froze, his breathing coming to a halt. "What?" he asked as his eyebrows furrowed.

"It's simple, my boy. When your parents made their first portal, they created me. The odds of your bumbling idiot father creating the perfect environment for the creation of a halfa are one in a hundred million. Slight, but real. But, to create these circumstances unintentionally twice... Impossible."

Danny swallowed hard. Though he knew he didn't want to hear Vlad's answer, the boy couldn't help but to mutter, "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that your little portal accident... was no accident."

And Vlad's face deadpanned, his smug arrogance gone. With a tight lipped grimace on his face, the older man turned and took his leave.

And for the first time, Danny had no witty comeback.

What'd you think? Also, if you'd like to use this idea in a story of your own, please do! Just let me know so I can read it! Thanks!