The Water's Reflection

A/N: Hello, and welcome to the sequel of "The Snow Turned into Rain!" Yeah, this is the twist I decided to make in this story before I trashed the original beginning. For those who wanted to check this out, thanks, as always. Once again, I hope that you'll enjoy this story, and that you'll leave a review during its progress (flames still not allowed). And of course, the first story is a prerequisite - don't read this story until you've read the first.

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, its characters, or anything else that Butch Hartman has created. Once again, the storyline is my own.

And...here we go...

Chapter 1 - Misery Motivated

It was just about to turn midnight. The full moon was like a ghostly specter that haunted the night sky with the greyish clouds surrounding it. The cold air circulating around the sky was cold enough to send a shiver down one's spine, as if there was something inhabiting the rush of air as it flowed by. Sounds of wuthering through the dead bushes gave off that same haunting feeling, sending the sounds of what seemed like wailing through the cold breeze.

And yet...one was crazy enough to take it all.

The old mansion seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, and absolutely random in its placings. After seeing miles of twisted and very tall trees, it suddenly turned into grounds of neatly trimmed lawns and hedges were trimmed and shaped into sculptures of grandeur proportions. Stone paths and walls rounded out the details placed around the old chalet.

Surrounding the whole place was all forested mountainside, as the rays of the moon created long, dark shadows casting their presence on the building, nearly covering the whole place in shadow.

It was here that one particular person lived...a person with blinding scars of the past.

A man with a grudge...

He was pretty much doing nothing at the moment. Seated in his comfortably large living room furnished with random animals from hunting trips, he was reading a book while resting next to a roaring fireplace.

He was alone, of course, but then again, he was always alone. How he could have ever lived this long without having some type of accompaniment was beyind belief, as he was in his forties. Then again, he seemed to almost prefer it that way at times.

Tonight was basically how he was used to it as he casually glanced out the window, except it seemed to be a bit colder. The wind rattled against it as it forced its way through small cracks along its interface, sending random gusts of breeze into the house. The same gusts threatened to blow out the aforementioned fire, something he obviously was not enjoying, especially because it was a colder night.

His eyes shifting back to the fire, they flashed anger for a quick moment when he saw that the fire was getting smaller and smaller with every passing breeze. Grumbling, and mumbling to himself that he had to get the window fixed, he got up from his chair to put another long on the fire before it burned out.

Crossing over to the pile of wood, he grabbed a big piece and went back to try and restore the dying flames.

But before he could, there was suddenly a really strong draft that filled the entire room, blowing out not only the lighted candle next to the book he was reading but also the fireplace itself. In basically a blink of an eye, the dancing flames were quickly extinguished

With no light source, the room was suddenly thrown into total darkness. With no time for his eyes to adjust to the abrupt change in light, he suddenly stumbled over the coffee table in the middle of the room, the log falling out of his hand as it clonked across the wooden floor in an unknown direction.

Cursing, he brought himself up as he blindly felt around for the wall and the light switch. Perhaps a fireplace on a particularly windy night wasn't a good thing, after all.

As his eyes slowly started adjusting to the moonlight coming in through the window, he could barely make outlines of his furniture and was slowly able to avoid them as he took small steps.

His hand suddenly hit the wall he was looking for as he then started groping for the light switch.

But in doing so, a strange sensation came through him. A feeling that he should be aware. A sensation that felt a colder presence somewhere in the room, as if he wasn't the only one after all.

A wisp of smoke emanating from his mouth confirmed his suspicions.

His eyes narrowing, thinking that anyone would dare enter his property, he forgot all about trying to find the light. All he wanted to do was to find the intruder and get them out.

The man called Vlad Masters quickly turned into a ghost and became a vampirish Vlad Plasmius. If it was a ghost that he was dealing with, he might as well become part of the whole thing. The quickly turned around to find whoever it was inside of his house.

Only to immediately find himself staring at a pair of bright red eyes piercing through the darkness.

Even for a vampire, this wasn't something that he was expecting so soon. Caught off guard, he gave a yelp of fear and toppled backwards, not losing eye contact with the bright red eyes.

"Who are you?" he sputtered out, trying to maintain his fear and throwing in as much authority in his voice as possible.

The figure chuckled, as he watched the faint outlines of the feminine-looking body getting clearer and clearer.

She sounded vaguely familiar...

"Don't worry," said the female voice. "The door happened to be open, so I decided to take the liberty of telling you with that rush of wind that it was. But then again, perhaps leaving you in the dark wasn't such a good idea."

His eyes narrowed, his anger slowly building up inside of him as if someone could dare to break in and then laugh at his misfortune.

"Besides," she said, her voice changing a bit in tone. "I have a proposition for you, should you let me shed a light light on the situation that I'm currently in."

"I would like to shed a little light on the situation myself," he said, shooting a ghost ray at the candle and setting it ablaze. The light source immediately gave some sight for the specter to see the faint outline of a woman that was completely camouflaged with her surrounding background. Her ragged outlines gave her an ever-spooky appearance.

"Spectra?" asked Plasmius, brushing himself off and bringing himself into the air. "What are you doing here? What do you want with me?"

She floated next to him, speaking in almost seductive-like tones. "I'm just here to speak to the ever-famous Vlad Masters, wondering if he could help a poor, defenseless spirit such as I..."

He wasn't buying into it. "You break into my mansion and expect me to help you with something? I'm sorry, but you're asking the wrong person. Vlad Masters never does the biddings for any other human, or ghost, being. I want you to leave immediately before I force you out."

"Try me," she said, daring him to do so. "Besides, I know something you don't know..." her last words were spoken in a singsong voice that irritated his eardrums to all ends of the earth.

He was always one who wanted to know whatever news there was out there, she herself knew that. She could tell from his furrowed brows that he was struggling with himself to try and not get involved.

But then saw that after much shaking, he lost the battle. "What are you talking about?" he asked giving in to his curiosity.

"It's about the one you call Danny Phantom," she said, trailing off her voice as if the rest of the message was scandalous.

"Daniel?" he asked, lost. "What are you getting at?"

"He robbed me of all my powers and I would like for you to get him for me," she said. "But of course, I'm not asking you to do it for free. You can name your price, and I'll be able to deliver whatever you desire."

She was asking what?

Get the target that he himself was after? The one that he wanted to crush with his bare hands after what he had done to his prized clones?

"This is absurd!" he screamed out. "I've been after that boy myself for almost two years myself, and I won't need a person like you suddenly begging me on bended knee to do your dirty work. I have my own issues to deal with, thank you very much. Now..." he said, turning away from her and pointing to the door, "...as you were."

He watched as her shoulders slightly droop and her smile vanish slightly from the corners as she turned around.

"OK," she said. "Then I guess you'll never know about your associate, Valerie."

Although his arms were folded across his chest, the name of the girl echoed throughout his head.

"Valerie?" he asked, turning around and watching the female specter about to exit. "What about my pawn - I mean, associate?"

"Oh...nothing..." she said, waiting for the explosion as she continued floating towards the door.

"What's wrong?" he said, floating behind her. "What happened to Valerie?"

"Oh, something I know you'll just adore hearing!"

"What happened?" he asked, anger rising in his voice and his own eyes flashing bright red. "Is she hurt? Did something happen to her? Has she been exposed?"

"Oh, worse than that," said Spectra.

A fear of fear backed up his voice as he then asked. "Is she dead?"

"No...but a lot better than that...she's decided to join forces with that brat!"

It took a while to sink in that information, and he was left in astonished silence. But a few seconds later, it was as if the climate surrounding him suddenly turned into heat. His seething rage boiled up inside him with every second that seemed to pass by.

His voice was sotto. "Is this true?" he asked, a bit of danger behind his voice.

"Yes it is," she said. "I'm not lying."

It was unheard of...she loathed ghosts...he always knew her to be homicidal whenever someone mentioned the word "ghost" in front of her.

But then he thought of something else. She trusted his other side...the Danny Fenton half.

And it was like everything fell into place for him. Once she found about who he really was, she must have had some sort of change of heart. Deep down, there really was a trust in her that he somehow failed to see.

How he overlooked it, he did not know...all he was using her for was to keep him occupied, and to monitor his powers.

Not like that would help him anymore...

His fists started clenching into even tighter fists as the rage continued to grow inside of him. But he knew that at any moment, he would reaching breaking point...

And soon enough, he let it all free. A scream that seemed to shake not only the mansion but part of the forest as well emanated from his mouth, as a ghost ray involuntarily shot out from his left palm.

But the scream wasn't enough. Soon he took it out on the coffee table by blasting it to bits. Spectra watched as he then took a vase and hurled it out the window, sending shards of glass everywhere.

"Well," said Spectra, watching him with a smile on her face. "What do you think?"

He was breathing heavily, but he maintained the anger he was currently feeling. "That insolent little...teaming up with that...why would she...ohh, they'll both pay dearly for this..."

She felt it was as good a time as any, now that he was all riled up. "So you'll help me?" she asked, floating up to him.

"No," he said, shoving her aside. "I take care of matters like this personally. I will need no help from a stranger such as yourself."

"But you wouldn't have known about any of this if I hadn't told you!" she yelled.

"I would have found out eventually," he said. "I know how I'll take care of Valerie, and as for Daniel, I have little invention that I just upgraded that will make things a lot easier. Besides, how could you help me? You don't know anything about me."

"Au contraire, my vampire friend, but I do know a certain something that you are always trying to find..."

"And what would that be?" he asked.

She smirked again. "You're a lonely single man in your forties; you've never married, never had any children, let's face it...you're all alone."

"How could she possibly know that?" he asked himself in his head, but trying to keep the truth hidden with his mask of indifference.

"How would I know?" she asked, as if she was reading his mind. "C'mon, I was a therapist when I was alive. I would know these kinds of things. I'm asking you for my help, and you've always been after a bit of companionship. If I could sweeten the pot a little more, I believe that I can arrange a little solution for your problem..."

"Incredulous!" he yelled, turning away from her and folding his arms across his chest. "Never in any kind of life or afterlife would I ever find you attractive!"

She was taken aback for a quick second. But after the dust cleared, she started shrieking with laughter.

Vlad's eyebrow raised as he turned to see her almost rolling upon the ground in hysterics.

"Oh, what is it now?" he asked. "You can't possibly be crying over this!"

"Me?" she blurted out among her laughter. "You thought...Me?" she continued laughing. "Oh, no, I would never think something like that!" Her laughter died back down as she then brought herself up from the ground.

"No," she said. "Danny's lost a certain someone in his life after she tried to help him...but instead, she ended up sacrificing herself."

Vlad's ears perked up at the thought of the word "her"...

"Maddie?" he said, hopefully.

"No," she said. "Jazz was the one..."

He was a bit disappointed, but somehow, not by much.

"Jasmine?" he asked. "You're telling me that in an act of heroism in order to help her brother, she ended up sacrificing herself?"

"Precisely. And believe me, she hasn't developed her powers that quickly yet."

His eyebrow raised again. "What are you saying?"

"This is the deal, Vlad," she said. "Because of Jazz's passing, Danny, is, shall we say, still trying to heal himself from that incident. So in a matter of terms, he's still a bit weak. My plan is..."

"Are you joking?" interrupted Vlad once again. "Jazz would never join forces with me! I'm going to stick with my original plan and duke this out alone."

"You can at least let me help you fight," said Spectra. "Danny and Valerie, along with Sam and Tucker all fight as a team together. You're going to be heavily outnumbered. From what I hear, Valerie's been teaching them all a bit of her black-belt prowess..."

Vlad had forgotten all about that. It did seem that simply cloning himself wasn't going to help this time.

"Besides," she said. "After the fight, and you get rid of Danny, that'll give me the chance to go after Jazz..."

"What makes you so confident that we'll become the victors?"

"Don't worry," she said, going back to her seductive tones. "Jazz has touched every single one of those teenagers. And I extract misery, after all..."

"And about Jazz?" he asked. "I'm quite sure that she won't come crying to me immediately. She wouldn't betray so quickly..."

"I already told you - I have my ways," she said. "Now, for the last time, will you help me, and not just yourself?"

Vlad took a while to think. After all, she was the one who told him all of this information...how could it hurt?"

"All right," he said, shaking her hand. "You've got a deal. But the minute I find out you're double-crossing me, it's all off!"

"No problem," she said. "I believe you've made an excellent decision for the both of us..."

"But I make the rules, Spectra," he said. "We will strike on my orders. We have to get him when they're surprised, when they're least expecting it."

"Fine, fine," she said. "Don't worry - together, we'll get rid of that Phantom for good!"

He smiled, but made it vanish as soon as he formed it.

"See you later, Vlad," she said. And turning herself intangible, she flew out of the house and into the cold night."

"Foolish," he said to himself when he was sure she was out of earshot. He still had reasons to believe that she was withholding something...something that he didn't want him to know. Even though they shook on it, he still did not trust her.

Either way, it did not matter. As he stood by himself in the moonlit hallway, he could only think of one thing.

Betrayal...

Valerie...after all that he had done for her...she decided to suddenly switch sides with the one that she was forever trying to destroy...

She would pay...he would pay...

Floating back down into his secret lab, he turned on the lights and looked upon the newly-upgraded invention sitting on a table. He picked it up and pocketed it. He knew that he was going to need it.

Then, looking down at the ground, another simmering fury came back into his body as he could only think of revenge.

And he yelled out one last line into the air that seemed to shake the foundations of the building itself, as it rattled and echoed through the walls.

"DANNY!"

A/N: Tell me what you think, please. Not just reviews, of course, but constructive criticisms are always welcome to me.