...hello again. *offers a small smile* I am not sure if the angst was missed here or if the love for Vlad and Danny has left, but I offer yet another piece of fan fiction glory for some of you to read. Like many of my other DP pieces, this does have character deaths in it. Yes, death(s). As in, more than one. This is an alternate take on what could have happened in Kindred Spirits, in which Plasmius yearns for a daughter he doesn't get and nearly goes off the deep end. Well, in this one… it is very safe to say he does.

Owning Danny Phantom isn't my dream, but I'd love to have it.

Acid Energy

Petrified, they stood there as he glared at them with a sort of unknown hatred. Phantom didn't know whether he was going to strike or merely stand there with the glow of mortality in his eyes or strike with the strength of a raging lion. All the same, it was nerve-wracking to watch him stand there in the limelight with his cape covering his body like some sort of vampire about to strike at night. Danielle gave her maker narrowed eyes and allowed her hands to glow gently. "I can do this," she spoke softly, ignoring the pain surging through her body.

"You don't have to," he told her calmly. "Cover your ears and get…"

FZZZZ. Out of nowhere, a beam of pink light shot forward, slamming right into the clone's chest. Phantom didn't even have time to blink- in a nanosecond, Plasmius was above him, hands alight with a red hue and fangs bared in a hellish grin. The hands shot a ghost ray in his direction, but he turned intangible right before it hit his head and fell through the floor. Phantom shook himself out of his shock and stared at the floor above him from under the ground.

Never once in his life had he seen his archenemy go this crazy about a plan gone wrong. It was typical, and yet it wasn't. This new one he had cooked up was completely out of control and one plan he couldn't even comprehend. A clone of himself? Was Vlad this desperate to have a child prodigy and make sure he had someone to pass down the inheritance of all his wealth? He rubbed his head. Fruit loop couldn't even begin to describe…

"DANNY!" Danielle screamed from above.

Breaking free of his thoughts, Phantom gritted his teeth and braced himself for a long fight to protect the girl from the tyrant and launched himself towards the surface. He phased through the floor and landed, his hands emitting a green energy. The girl was on the floor, struggling to rise to her feet, and her father towered over her with his hand flaming. "This pain, Danielle," he snarled softly, eyes blazing. "You were waiting for this, weren't you?"

She refused to answer, staring down at the floor and shaking her head. Angry tears flowed down her face, his voice choked with emotion. "You going to kill me?"

He kept his hand at her height. "Clones can't be killed. They can only melt."

"The only thing melting today is going to be your heart!" Phantom spat from behind, pointing his left hand at the older man. "Get a grip, Plasmius! Jeez, can't you use your banter or something to lighten this situation right now? I'll take any crack about my family over you murdering my cousin any day!" His eyes were nearly slits, glaring at the older man in front of him. "Or can't you because you can't think up anything good to say?"

Plasmius whirled around, the cape whipping behind him. Phantom froze.

The bachelor looked like a killer in the night, preparing to make his next move upon a victim. The hand that was aimed at the girl was now aimed at the teenager, who took a pose of self-defense. His voice rasped, breathing slowing steadily and becoming harsher. "Stay out of this, boy. I will deal with you later."

"You're going to deal with me now!" Phantom snarled. "Danielle is going to stay alive!"

An eerie sort of grin unfurled upon the man's face. "You willing to take her place in death?"

He knew he was way beyond the reaches of sanity. Plasmius had completely toppled over the brim of crazy, jumped over the deep edge, and had now drowned himself in his own fantasy of perfection. He yearned it- craved it like a wild beast that hasn't eaten in days. Phantom had thought that people could be just plain nuts, but Plasmius had achieved the level of twisted reality gone wrong. Deep down, he realized that the old hybrid billionaire was gone, erased from memory.

Any thought of going back to the days of banter and jealousy were long gone.

Clenching his fists and swallowing, he shook his head in response to his question. "You're not killing her. The only person who's getting wounded is going to be you!"

"Hah! I'd love to see you try, dear boy!" he laughed, drunk in his own rage. "Do you hope to give me the joy of battle?"

'Now I know he's gone out the window,' Phantom thought as he shook his head in despair. 'What in the hell have I done this time?'

Nothing moved for four seconds.

It was in the fifth second of time that he cracked his fingers and fired a ghost ray at his enemy, gritting his teeth and pouring all his energy into the one shot. The attack didn't catch Plasmius off-guard, unfortunately, but the attack hit him in the stomach, and he was knocked off his feet. He landed on his back with a grunt and sat up, propping himself on his arm and allowing his eyes to flash to a grayish hue suddenly. "Boy, I told you to not toy with me!"

Phantom wasn't impressed. He turned intangible and flew towards the frightened clone, grabbing her by the arm and phasing out the wall. He heard an inarticulate scream from inside, and he kept the girl close to his body. She moaned, glancing down at her hands. "D-Danny… I'm melting…"

"Don't move!" he shushed quietly, holding her close to his chest and taking deep breaths. "You need to save your strength for later. Who knows when Vlad could find us?"

She sniffled. "You're scared too, aren't you?"

Truth was, the teen was about to hurl into the dirt with what had just occurred. He had lost it completely and he knew that…

"DANIEL PHANTOM, GET BACK HERE!"

Shit.

Phantom whirled around and shook his head in shock and fear. The man had phased through the wall and was diving towards them with a feral look on his face. The teenager gritted his teeth while the man grinned evilly and fired an ectoblast towards him. He braced himself for the impact of energy to flesh…

…but it never hit him.

A gasp escaped the girl's lips as Phantom looked down in horror at the sight before him. Her head tilted towards her upper torso, where a rather large hole in her bosom now resided. Her mouth dropped open, trying to scream in pain and horror, but she couldn't. Her vocal chords would allow no such deed to be performed. She writhed in Phantom's arms, her meting hands clutching to his jumpsuit and attempting to stay as solid as possible. Her hair dripped onto the dirt, her legs becoming nothing but goo and slipping through his fingers. She could offer no noise as her eyes finally disappeared into the back of her head.

Phantom's eyes bore tears unlike anything ever shed. He dropped to his knees and stared at the ectoplasmic blood now stained on his clothing. He was supposed to take the punishing shot, and Danielle ended up allowing the deadly ghost ray to hit her in his arms. She could have phased out of his grasp, but she didn't. Instead, she decided to sacrifice her life for his- at least, from his point of view. What she was thinking before the fatal strike occurred would never be said. And he could not help but blame himself entirely for her melting demise.

There was a cracking of fingers from in front of him and a rough laugh. "That bitch deserved it."

A sort of odd feeling began to piece itself together inside of Phantom, one of hate, anger, despair, and grief. He couldn't place an exact name on it, but he knew the feeling was something he had never really experienced in his life. He clenched his fists slowly, shaking his head. "No…"

"She was practically dead! She wasn't even a human being. You think you could have saved her? Nothing could have saved her from her fate. The girl was doomed from the start- even I knew that." He was smug beyond all reasoning. "Face it, Daniel. You couldn't have saved her."

The teenager growled and glowered at the billionaire in front of him, a walking time bomb. "You're wrong!" he howled, anger clouding him. "I could have! You just don't think she was worthy because she had a guilt complex!" He stood up, his hands blazing. "I could have protected her from you, and none of this would have happened! You killed your own daughter, and you don't even give a damn at what happened!"

Something also snapped within the bachelor right then. His hands flared, eyes hued with another gray color tinge. "How dare you speak to me in such a voice, your brat! I wonder if it ever occurred to you that no one probably gives a damn about you as well!" He readied his hands, clenching his fists and snarling. "If I were your parents, I would have killed you ages ago after discovering what you really are!"

Phantom's tears blurred his vision, but it didn't stop him from blindly lashing out against the once-more crazed half ghost creature. His fist was caught, and his body was flung towards the inner part of the woods outside of the cabin. His thoughts swam in disoriented words of "Danielle… dead… Vlad… fault…" All he could think about was the girl's horrified look on her face before she completely dissolved into nothingness. He clenched his fists again and braced himself for another ghost ray, putting up a shield around himself and grunting. 'Have to… beat Vlad,' he thought blearily.

"Not this time!"

He looked up and nearly screamed in fear. Plasmius going to land right on top of the shield and slam his fists into the barrier to try and break it. Swallowing and squeezing his eyes shut, he readied for the landing and prepared for a brutal war of wits and combat. He knew the bachelor wouldn't give up now- not after all the pain he suffered.

Down came two hundred fifty pounds of muscled half-ghost, colliding with the shield and shattering it like glass dropped upon the floor. Man met boy as the rest of the weight landed on his back, crushing Phantom into the earth like a boulder upon a sheet of paper- it was no contest to know that Plasmius now had the upper hand. Phantom snarled and tried to become intangible, tried to fight back… but it was a fruitless effort.

"You… bastard," he uttered through clenched teeth, trying to kick Plasmius in the back while still on his stomach. "I'm going to…"

The man, still on top of his back, grabbed him by the throat and began to clutch his windpipe. Phantom's eyes expanded with disbelief and terror as Plasmius's soft, poisonous voice whispered in his ear. "You're going to do nothing."

He floated upwards, still keeping a firm grasp on the boy's neck, his eyes alight with insanity. His fingers slowly manipulated his fingers around his neck, allowing him to twist him around and have the teen face him. Red bore into green.

Phantom could have sworn for a moment Lucifer possessed him.

In an instant, Plasmius let go of his neck. He gasped for air, immediately throwing himself into vertigo from the sudden intake of oxygen. He coughed a little, massaging his neck and staring at his foe with hateful eyes. "You took a life so easily. Now I want to hurt yours forever."

"It won't do you any good, boy," the forty year old sneered. "All my pain has embraced me for what I am worth. Nothing can stop me now from destroying you." He slowly got into a battle stance and offered a dark smile. "Come, Daniel- let me watch the light in your eyes fade as I kill you with one single strike to your heart."

Phantom's hands were ready in front of him, prepared to shoot ghost rays. "I'd love to see you try that, Vlad."

The truth was, he was petrified beyond conception.

It was now that Plasmius ripped the cape off his shoulders and bolted towards Phantom with crazed velocity. His hand went back for a split moment before ramming forward and slamming into Phantom's face. The teen could feel the bones breaking in his nose, blood suddenly exploding inside his mouth. He cried out in agony, spittle of the green liquid flying forth with slower momentum. He reached up to touch his nose and looked at his hand. It was already soaked in ghostly blood.

"Are you sure you want to see that again, Daniel? Hmmm?!"

Fueled by guilt to save Danielle, Phantom fired a ghost ray with as much power as he could muster before getting punched in the stomach. The red ectoplasmic fist hit straight and true, colliding with the center of his torso. All sense of oxygen was knocked out of his body, and he didn't even hear the inarticulate cry of battle from his foe in those moments. Dimly, his legs kicked out and connected with a thigh of Plasmius's. "K-k-killing D-Dani… you made a… big mistake doing that, V-"

"I didn't kill her at all," he smirked, seeing the boy's body float uselessly in the air. "It was simple what I did, in reality."

Phantom's hands flared dimly. He had to… hurt…

"I merely broke her down into nothingness. Just as I am about to do to you."

His mouth opened.

Plasmius's hands glowed, his eyes turning dark gray. His voice dropped three octaves. "You destroyed my life. Now I can finally destroy yours!"

A ghost ray of hellfire came forth from his hands. Phantom gazed at the light, holding up his hands as well, trying in a futile effort to stop the blaze from coming. The energy burned through his hands and connected with the skin, plunging through the body and slicing right through the heart. He cocked his head for a split second before it jerked forward, his body falling and crunching into the ground.

Plasmius landed right beside him and clenched his fists once more. The ectoplasmic energy was replaced by fire- literally. "Isn't it wonderful? To die by acid energy, my boy- that must be one hell of a treat for you."

Phantom didn't respond. Blood gushed under his body.

He was too busy being dead to notice the crazed laugh next to his broken and torn remains.

…do you know how much fun I had doing that? I think I had a bit too much. Ah well. That was actually really nice. I might do that again some time. Plasmius with the power of hellfire- that's epic. That is simply too epic to not go unnoticed, eh?