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"I can feel your rage from here, Danny," Jazz, as usual, was sounding annoyingly calm as she sorted out piles of wrinkled clothes into neatly folded, color coded piles. Danny had been fighting the urge for the past hour to kick them over. "Having to clean the attic isn't that bad."

"Speak for yourself. We've already taken out five trash bags full of junk and trash and I'm pretty sure some of it was glowing." Danny kicked his foot out at one of the boxes he had been sorting through, pleased when there was the sound of something inside breaking. He didn't worry much about it being important - if it was in the attic, it was either useless or too old to function. "I think I'd rather be grounded for missing curfew."

"From their perspective, it seems grounding is a punishment that has yet to work on you since you always have to sneak out for more ghost fighting." Jazz held up a wrinkled, orange dress that looked like it had come straight from one of his parents' old eighties movies. Jazz seemed to be trying to decide what pile to put in it. "Cleaning the attic, however, is a punishment that works on everyone."

"Yeah, well, you don't even have to be here." Danny grabbed their most recent trash bag, holding it open and giving it a little shake to get Jazz's attention. Once she looked over, Danny opened it wider, nodding at the dress that was still being held up. "You could have just told them you came out before curfew to drag me back in."

"Hey, big sisters are supposed to watch out for their stupid little brothers." Jazz wadded up the dress into a ball and threw it at the trash bag, nailing it right in the center. Danny had to work at not laughing when Jazz threw her arms up with a cheer. "Besides, this isn't so bad."

"Of course you think it isn't that bad. You organize stuff for fun," Danny laughed, dropping the bag and going back to moving the boxes around. "You know, this is really Technus' fault. We should do something to get back at him. I mean, who honestly wants to take over the world? That's so much work! My sleep schedule is suffering here, you know!"

"I have a feeling some of that suffering comes from your constant late nights that have nothing to do with ghosts." Did Jazz really have to be so mean to him when he was already suffering?

"I beat that game fair and square and the sleepless nights were worth it. Can we get back to the real subject, here? I mean- We have to do something. He keeps trying to take over the world!"

"I don't think there's much you can do to get back at a ghost like Technus, Danny." Jazz went back to her clothes folding, humming and cooing at whatever she was finding. Danny decided to just focus on his own task - or at least try to. "I wonder why Mom stopped wearing all of these. Some of these dresses are cute!"

"When was the last time you saw Mom outside of a hazmat suit or lab coat?" Danny counted out five seconds of silence before he heard Jazz make that irritated little humming noise that proved he was right, but she didn't want to admit to it. "Face the facts, Jazz, everything in here is either useless or some leftover experiment."

"Do you think forcing Technus to work at a call help center for the day would be enough of a punishment?" Jazz sounded as if she was honestly considering it, Danny stifling his laughter as he pulled over a decaying box that was messily taped and started going through it. "Maybe we should consider getting things together to donate them."

"Pretty sure that'd be a health hazard considering where we live. You know, all that radiation." Digging through the book, Danny found himself mildly curious when he saw it seemed to all date back to his parents' college years. "Hey, think there are any embarrassing college photos in here?"

"They would have to have the ability to feel embarrassment in order for their college photos to be embarrassing." Jazz was vicious when she wasn't trying to 'be the adult.' Sometimes, Danny loved his sister. "Alright, move over. Let's see what we can find."

"You're just as nosy as I am." Laughing and sitting down, Danny upended the box, photo albums, textbooks, and a million other little things scattering across the wooden floors. Danny wouldn't be surprised if the floor broke from how much was in that box.

"How heavy was that box?" Jazz dropped down to sit beside Danny, stacking the various textbooks and albums into separate piles.

"Dunno, the weight of regret in here probably added a few pounds, though." Grinning at Jazz's little snort of laughter, Danny picked out the newspapers articles that were ragged and faded at the edges. Some of them still seemed in pretty good shape since the picture of his parents and Vlad was still crisp and clear in the one he was looking at. Wait.

Carefully smoothing out the article that looked as if it had been cut out from a school newspaper, Danny glanced over the words quickly. It was a piece on the new ghost hunting club that had been formed by Maddie Walker, Jack Fenton, and Vlad Masters. The three were standing in front of a table in what looked like a science lab, the picture in black and white. All three were wearing lab coats and were… smiling.

Danny knew that Vlad had been changed into a half ghost due to an accident that happened when he was a college student alongside with his parents, but he supposed he hadn't realized they were really friends. Maddie was smiling and looking like a proper scientist while Jack and Vlad had their arms around each other's shoulders and were beaming.

"Is that… Vlad?" Jazz leaned against Danny's shoulder, Danny tilting the paper so Jazz could see what he couldn't believe. "They look happy."

"I mean… I knew they were friends, but I guess I never really believed it, you know? I mean, he's always trying to kill Dad and marry Mom and stuff!"

"Evil is never really born, Danny." Jazz took the clipping from him carefully, studying it with a calm, almost blank expression. "What really happened between the three of them? I mean, they don't know Vlad is half-ghost, right?"

"No, they don't. That's how I won our first fight at the reunion, I threatened to expose us both." Just the thought of exposing himself to his parents terrified him. It wasn't a surprise that Vlad, who had been hiding the secret for twenty years, felt even worse about it. "I think he said something about how they abandoned him?"

"I can't believe that." Really? Their parents weren't the most conscious of people, sometimes. "Look at some of these photo albums."

"What about them?" Danny jolted as one was dropped in his lap, staring at it before sighing and opening it to a random page. He almost wished he hadn't. "Oh."

Every picture had some mix of their parents and Vlad, all of them looking happy and like they were having the time of their lives. There was one picture, however, that made him feel as if ice had been poured down his shirt.

The picture was warped a little at the edges, but the bottom corner had part of Maddie's grinning, laughing face. The cause of her laughter was the center of the picture where Jack and Vlad were curled up on a picnic blanket under a tree, textbooks and notebooks scattered around them as they slept curled up to each other.

It was almost a perfect copy for a picture Sam had of him and Tucker after they had fallen asleep near each other.

"They were like us." The words were quiet, but the realization was deafening. "Mom and Dad and Vlad? They were like me, Sam, and Tuck." Right down to the fact that Sam had been the cause of his ghost powers, in a way.

"That doesn't mean the same thing will happen to you." Jazz was quick to go into her reassuring parent voice, Danny almost laughing at the quick change.

"I wasn't thinking that it would." No, it was more the fact that now he understood. "Something had to have happened so that they never visited him in the hospital."

Because if they were that close, they wouldn't have left without an act from God or something equally as worse. Danny hadn't ended up in the hospital, but if he had, he was certain that Sam and Tucker would have been curled up on either side of his hospital bed with him.

"What did happen though?" Jazz shook her head, looking frustrated that this was a puzzle she couldn't figure out. "I mean, why didn't they show up?"

"I don't know, but Vlad makes a lot more sense." It made perfect sense. Danny had never understood Vlad, but now he did perfectly. If Tucker and Sam hadn't been there after he had become Phantom… And then if he was still crushing on Sam and Tucker ended up getting together with her while he suffered through ghost powers alone? Vlad made a hell of a lot more sense.

"Hey, uh, Jazz." Danny closed the album, giving Jazz his best sad eyes. "So, you know you're my favorite sister in the whole wide world, and that I really love you-"

"Don't bother," Jazz said, standing up with a dramatic, heavy sigh that Danny had stolen from her years ago. "Go on ahead, then. I'll finish up here." Letting his powers wash over him, Danny blinked away a few spots of light as he floated into the air, clutching onto the photo album.

"You really are the best big sister. You know that, right?" Because this all had been a lot harder when he didn't have Jazz by his side. Shit. He'd have to admit Ghostwriter was right about the whole fighting alongside your sibling thing next time he saw him. "I just… I think he needs someone to talk to who actually gets what he's going through."

"Someone who understands and who he'll listen to," Jazz nodded, pulling Danny over into a, thankfully, brief hug. "Be safe."

"I'll be back before you know it." Ghostwriter had been right those few weeks ago in the library. He did fondly believe in second chances.

::

"Oh, jeez… Have you never heard of a spring cleaning?" Danny had gone through the Ghost Zone to get to Vlad's lab, but he was starting to regret it considering what a wreck the place was. It looked like the Fenton lab during the whole Pariah Dark mess. Actually, Danny was almost sure that this was worse.

"Right. Focus, Fenton." Danny took a breath, floating through the lab. It was bigger than their own, but it was also so much creepier when the lights were off, and the only light source was the ghost portal behind him. The fact there were thick power cables and glowing substances in the distance did not help.

"Keep calm. You're a Fenton and half-ghost. You're fine. You're not allowed to be scared about this." It was bad enough that his friends still mocked him for being so scared of horror movies. "Just… gotta find Vlad."

Besides the hum of the portal and electricity through the cords, it was rather quiet, though. It was possible Vlad was at one of his businesses, since he was technically CEO of a lot of different places. Hard to remember, though, when he was so petty over some things.

Jeez, what was Vlad even working on? The whole place was a mess of torn apart machinery and wires and Danny would have thought some monster had torn the lab apart if it wasn't for the precision of where everything was placed. The weirdest part, though, were the large vats around the room - except they weren't quite vats. A closer look made Danny think of those sensory deprivation tubs, but honestly, they looked like those body jars in every sci-fi movie ever.

"Whatever you're doing must be big," Danny muttered, bending over some exposed wires. He wasn't exactly a science genius, but he knew enough to know that didn't look quite right. Prodding it with his foot, Danny startled as a wall of transparent pink was separating him from the sudden arc of static that looked more like lightning. "Uh, heh, hey, Vlad. Um, thanks for the save, there."

Vlad's shield flickered out and Danny looked to where Vlad was lurking in the shadows like the vampire he claimed he wasn't. It was creepy. "Daniel… What are you doing here." It wasn't much of a question, and it wasn't until after he asked that Danny realized Vlad had just kept him from getting hurt.

"Oh, uh, well, I actually kind of wanted to talk to you about something, I guess." Danny dug his fingers into the edges of the photo album, taking a steady breath. Vlad was talking before he could work up the courage to continue, though.

"Whatever inane problem of the week you've managed to wrap yourself up in, I want nothing to do with it. Your misplaced blame can leave, as well, since my plans have no concern towards you." Ah, right… Vlad had a more pretentious way of talking than even Ghostwriter.

"Oh, no, I, uh, I didn't want to fight or argue or blame you for anything. It's actually sort of good news, I guess?" Danny tried for a smile, hoping Vlad was in a good enough mood to hear him out.

"Leave, Daniel." Vlad's order was more of a hissing snarl, Danny trying not to show his flinch. While there were a few times where he saw Vlad wanting to get better, there were moments like this where the other man felt… dangerous. "You've made it quite clear that you have no business with me."

"Well, not business, no." Right. Phantom. Cocky hero. He could do that. "Come on, Fruitloop, I'm trying not to start a fight, this time. At least hear me out before you go all doom and gloom mad scientist, here."

Instead of Vlad throwing back with his own sass, Danny heard a low, menacing growl. Before he could figure out what the hell horror movie monster was about to kill him, he grunted as a sudden force slammed into him, the photo album dropping out of his hands as he scrambled to stop whatever was pushing at him.

When he righted himself and grabbed at his power to form an ectoblast, Danny could only blink as he saw that he was back in the Ghost Zone, Vlad's ghost portal gone from in front of him. It took a long moment for Danny to realize that he had just been shoved out of Vlad's lab before the man had shut down his portal. It was the same thing as pushing him out the door and then slamming it shut in his face.

"Right. Not a good day for talking, then." He had lost the album, too. He had been planning to use it to show how close Vlad and his parents had been, though, so maybe Vlad would find it and realize it on his own. It could even end up jogging some happy memories, so this was for the best, kind of! "Right. Okay."

Trying to gather his thoughts, Danny could only stare at where the portal had been because that really had been weird. Vlad was always kind of a douche, but he had never been so aggressive before. Loud, and forceful, and not afraid to get what he wanted, but Vlad had never been outright aggressive like… a ghost.

As he flew back home, Danny couldn't help but have a bad feeling about whatever it was Vlad was planning next.