Vlad Masters was reclining in his imported leather desk chair clicking through the maze of files on his computer when Danny fazed through his roof, hovering barely an inch from the ground on the other side of the desk.

"Ah Daniel, I was wondering when you would show up" he said simply, not taking his eyes off his work, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"As if you don't already know."

Vlad stopped skimming though his files and turned his gaze to the young hero, a satisfied smile taking over his formerly neutral expression. "If you are referring to the field trip that you and your class went on then I think you should be visiting the former city council member who authorized it in the first place."

Danny's green eyes narrowed, "You know as well as I do that's just a cover, how much did you have to pay to sweep this one under the rug Plasmius? A couple thousand? Maybe a million?"

The billionaire chuckled quietly, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desk, "Chump change my boy, just chump change. You would think so too if you would only drop that loser father of yours and join me…"

"Not happening" the teen said, "I don't know what your game is sending us into the Zone like that but I can tell you right now that it's not going to work."

Vlad tisked at the ghost hero almost mockingly, "Now, now, Daniel you should know that nothing you do can stop me. Whatever my 'game' is it's already in motion, who's to say I haven't completed my objective already? Who's to say there even was an objective in the first place?"

Danny snorted, "You wouldn't have gone to all that trouble if you didn't have something in mind."

The evil halfa didn't flinch but was mildly impressed at the astute assumption however false it was.

In truth Vlad had concocted the idea a long time ago. It started out as a fleeting thought and he'd bribed one of the city council members to pitch it at one of their meetings in an effort to plant a seed should he ever decide to water the plant. Honestly it was a whim on his part, not exactly something that he ever planned on using, but when he'd found himself debating how best to make the young hero squirm the thought once again surfaced.

Granted that he also wanted Daniel and his nosy friends out of the way while he transferred a few truckloads of DALV tech from one – formerly – secret storage center to another. Honestly the billionaire was beginning to question Skulkers usefulness, particularly after his last confrontation with the ghost boy, which had ended in the aforementioned – formerly – secret storage center. Nothing had been severely damaged but some of the crates had been cracked open in plain view of the teens.

They were too preoccupied containing the hunter to notice and ended up leaving just as clueless as they'd entered but Vlad still didn't like their knowledge of the place. He would never admit it out loud but that Tucker Foley had become quite an accomplished hacker, managing to devastate more than one computer mainframe over the years. Vlad Masters hadn't gotten to where he was in life without a little caution so while he doubted that the boy would be able to crack his firewalls he'd decided to play it safe and move the tech to a more secure location while the trio were conveniently busy.

Though the latter reason was more of a bonus. The main purpose for instigating the trip was to cause that meddling ghost boy to sweat. There were also a few…unexpected bonuses for his efforts.

But of course Daniel didn't know this.

Allowing his smile to widen into a grin Vlad sat back in his seat and palmed the mouse again, clicking through the camera feed that had been playing on his screen. He'd already seen the footage a thousand times in the past two days and the initial shock factor had long worn off, only curiosity remained. His gaze moved to the white-haired teen floating on the other side of his desk. What better place to get information than from the source?

Scooting his chair closer to the desk Vlad grabbed the computer screen and turned it around to face Danny, who visibly stiffened when he saw what was displayed there. He managed to school his features into a more neutral expression but the evil halfa had already taken note of his initial reaction, his grin growing into something just short of a sneer.

"It looks as if you were quite busy during your little field trip weren't you Daniel?" Vlad asked, tilting the screen back so that both of them could watch.

The video was muted but that did little to dim the impact considering that the audio was of poor quality in comparison to the picture. Illuminated on the tiny screen both halfa's watched as the flame-haired specter put up a fire shield and melted the ice shards that Danny had hurled at him less than a moment before. He sent the shield flying toward the unprotected ghost boy, who hastened to cover himself in an icy coat of protection that melted under the heat of the flames but allowed him to come out unscathed.

Unfortunately the evil specter managed to cover the distance between them and twist his arm behind his back. There was a short conversation before the larger of the two spun and heaved the ghost boy into the distance, taking off after him.

Vlad turned the computer screen back around just before static overtook the picture, leading to the assumption that the DALV bug he'd used to track the field trips progress had been destroyed. If he were more welcome in the Far Frozen the evil halfa may have gone out to try and retrieve the bug to confirm this conclusion but as it stood he was in no position to do so. It was probably buried under debris from the battle anyway.

"This is quite an interesting development I must say" Vlad drawled, once more relaxing into imported leather cushions.

"Whatever your planning Plasmius it would be a mistake to involve him" Danny said, "he's not the kind of guy someone like you could take on."

"Think what you like Daniel but I have my methods" the evil halfa replied.

The halfa teen slammed both hands on his desk, making it quiver under the force. "I don't care how powerful you think you are Vlad" Danny hissed, eyes glowing brighter than Vlad had ever seen them, "but trust me when I tell you that you can't win this one. It will blow up in your face and if, somehow, you make it out of that catastrophe alive I'll see to it that your locked up somewhere so impossibly, unbelievably, escape-proof that it will take an act of God to get you out."

Surprisingly the boy's words rang true. He was actually threatening in earnest. Not that he hadn't before. Danny had shouted about shoving Vlad into the abyss more than once during their banter but never with this amount of conviction. The billionaire found himself suppressing the shiver that threatened to travel up his spine.

Seemingly satisfied that Vlad had taken his words to heart Danny gave him one more narrow-eyed glare before floating up and through the ceiling. He didn't even glance back.

The evil halfa sat in silence for a few moments until his white Persian ambled out from behind the sofa and meowed loudly before hopping into her master's lap. His hand automatically came up to stroke her fur and she gazed at him with her huge yellow eyes in apparent question.

"I'm alright Maddie…just thinking is all" he replied to her look, scratching her under the chin and effectively distracting her.

Vlad wasn't really planning on going out to look for the mystery specter that the video had shown Daniel fighting. Aside from his apparently overwhelming strength there was also the matter of the distinctly familiar DP symbol emblazoned across his chest, that alone was enough of an unknown to deter Vlad Masters. Not that he was afraid of Daniel Fenton, oh no, he could bat that boy back and forth any day of the week. But Daniel was easy to manipulate, very young, very naïve, the perfect pawn on a chess board.

This new personage however, appeared to not be that same sort. He had no apparent allies so Vlad couldn't attempt to pull the same trick he had on Pariah – using a pair of teenage pawns and a knight to topple a king. He was also clearly too strong to defeat head on. Not that the evil halfa claimed to be an expert but he certainly knew a losing battle when he saw one. He preferred not to get his hands dirty, but would do so if the need called for it. Facing this force of nature though, that would undoubtedly lead to severe injury or worse.

But the way that Daniel had reacted to the video…perhaps that could be useful.

Lord knows that plenty of the other data he'd collected would be added to the information he kept on Daniel and his friends. The only thing that Vlad truly bemoaned was that he'd only sent one DALV fly on the wall to keep track of the trip. It had followed Daniels group, leaving Sam and Tucker unsupervised. He'd managed to get a general idea of their movements based on the conversations they'd had with Daniel via the Fenton Phones and the short conversation in the Far Frozen infirmary after they'd met up – the latter being much shorter and less distinct given the need to keep the camera bug hidden from anyone who may decide to either squish it or recognize it for what it actually was.

Vlad relaxed into the imported leather chair, the tension from his conversation with the ghost boy finally leaving his body.

'And to think that I was actually considering arranging the crash myself so that I'd have an excuse to bring a team in and show Maddie how much more capable I am than her oaf of a husband' the billionaire thought idly, referring to the idea that had struck him shortly after the speeder had entered the Ghost Zone.

He had actually been reaching for the phone to contact Skulker and see if he could make that reality when Desiree had saved him the trouble. While it would have been satisfying to see that plan through he still got plenty of good publicity when he'd announced that he was putting together a specialized team with his own personal funds to go into the Ghost Zone after the field trippers.

Of course he refrained from announcing this until late Tuesday afternoon and stated that it would take another day to get everything up and running. Everyone returned before his 'preparations' were complete but he still got points for the effort, especially when he'd faked concern for his 'dear friends' the Fenton's and the 'poor children' and announced that he would be leading the expedition into the Zone.

His announcement on the revision of the city council also helped to bolster his public image, though there were a few skeptics who believed that the mayor was partially responsible given the influence he has in the city council. Naturally those that were on his side argued back, saying that the current city council had been chosen by the former mayor and it was the outlandish action of one individual that caused this catastrophe, thus blame shouldn't be spread among those that weren't even involved.

This debate had taken up a considerable amount of news time already and was still ongoing. But the skeptics could say what they wanted Vlad's approval ratings had already gone up almost 5% from the whole fiasco, not bad for one whimsical scheme, not bad at all.

Now fully relaxed Vlad perused through the videos again and rang for his secretary to bring him a cup of coffee, which she did promptly and efficiently before scurrying off to manage some paperwork he'd given her. While he sipped from the steaming mug the evil halfa brainstormed about how best to use the footage against the young Daniel Fenton.

'Should I show it live to the entire town to reinforce the Public Enemy #1 image?'

'Perhaps I could present it to the Fenton's and claim that it was submitted anonymously…even if they were in the Ghost Zone with Daniel while this was going on I doubt he let them get close enough to see anything too incriminating…"

Oh there were just so many possibilities.

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Okay so first off I decided to just make this a bonus chapter rather than a One-shot simply because I feel like more people would find it this way. Who the heck is gonna check my profile every few days to see if I've actually posted this am I right?

Now I know that a few people were concerned about Vlad's involvement in all this, well I actually shoved in pretty much every reason I could think of that he might benefit from this into the bonus chapter above. I hope that it doesn't come off as too cramped together but it's the best I've got, I think that I did a good job showing his evil overconfidence and pride.

Honestly he's a really messed up dude and this is how I picture him thinking. I also know that he underestimates Danny and his friends a lot so I made sure to throw some of that in there too without it being too overdone, he is an evil narcissist who believes that the worlds are his own personal game of chess after all, he's not stupid, you kinda' expect him to be just a bit prepared for what Danny and the others might throw at him.

Of course as you can see he's focusing on entirely the wrong things. I would imagine that Danny has learned to keep a closer eye on Vlad in the past few years, maybe had Tucker bug a few of his servers or something, but with everything that he has on his plate how is he going to notice Vlad moving all that DALV tech from warehouse A to warehouse B?

But there's always the chance that word could get back to him no matter how slim it is so why not right?

Meanwhile Vlad doesn't even consider the possibility that they found his bug or that Danny's parents are in on the big secret. He could easily have probed Danny for more information there but trying to rattle him with that video of Dan was probably how he planned to loosen his tongue a little bit, once you get someone flustered enough it's easy to get them to talk.

Vlad doubtlessly had a bunch of questions too considering that the bug was watching Danny from the moment the trip began to half-way through his fight with Dan. There's no evidence in the series of Vlad having any idea about Danny's ghostly allies (or if he does no one knows if he CARES) so I would assume that would be the type of info he would love to get his hands on if only to have it, especially considering that Vlad doesn't really have any ghostly allies (he pays Skulker so that doesn't count, more of a business transaction really. Don't even get me started on the Fright Knight he basically paid him off too).

If he followed Danny then he should only know about Wulf and the inhabitants of the Far Frozen, the latter he already knew about and the former he's probably not too concerned over. May or may not know about Pandora and Dora depending on how bad the audio function on that bug was (who knows, maybe it was damaged in the crash).

Either way I'm satisfied with this and damn proud of myself for coming up with what I believe are convincing reasons for his involvement.

The last loose end I want to tie up is why didn't Jazz report about his apparent press boost in her report when they came back? Well she was mostly hanging out in the lab during that time with a book propped up in her lap, both waiting for them to return and making sure that no ghosts got through while she kept the portal open. Not to mention that she had to try and control the chaos when they got a warrant and stormed the basement, leaving no time to watch TV and figure out what their 'esteemed' mayors take on all this was.

Tucker probably mentioned it in the brief he gave Danny the morning after but it was mostly overshadowed by the whole city council crisis. Danny didn't see it while he was flipping channels because…well when do you hear anything but the title of whatever news stuff is playing when flipping channels?

THECASTORBEAN

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