.

Hyde

He woke to a sharp pain in his chest. His still-focusing eyes could only make out a dark shape standing over him, its two upper limbs stretched out towards him. As his eyes adjusted more, he realized the source of his discomfort: the huge freaking claws attached to the shadowy black blur in front of him, suspending him in the air.

His first thought was of Wulf. Why would his ally betray him like this?

He shook his head to make sense of the situation, and he quickly wished he hadn't. Reason one being the jolt of pain that smashed through his skull like a mallet. The second reason was quite the surprise, as his vision finally cleared completely. His mental alarms went on full alert when he realized that the claws did not belong to his furry friend. Instead, they were attached to the fingers of some metallic gloves wielded by none other than-

I should have known, he chided himself internally. Only he would try to torture me like this.

He had already hated the man, but now, a burning anger as he had never felt before flared up within him as he instinctively pulled the claws out of his own abdomen, sending their previous owner crashing loudly to the ground. He was focused fully on the man in front of him, unaware of the human teenager behind himself.

What was that noise? Probably Mom and Dad accidentally making something explode again. Don't they know I'm trying to sleep here?

... Wait. Where exactly is here? That sounded way too close...

He opened his eyes, and was thoroughly confused. He recalled promising his friends that he would never use the Ghost Catcher again, so why was Phantom floating above him? He certainly didn't feel like he had gone through the net-shaped spectral separator.

Danny sat up, glancing around him. He appeared to be sitting on a stainless steel examination table in Vlad's secret lab. How in the worlds did I get here?

After racking his brain for clues, he was about to give up when suddenly, he remembered everything. He gasped, unable to prevent tears from springing to his eyes.

My family... My friends...

I'm so sorry...

But... Hadn't the procedure been meant to remove the sadness? The depression? The anger?

The anger. I can't feel- Oh.

... Oh, no!

His head jerked towards Phantom again, and he quickly scrambled backwards off the table. Abruptly overcome with an instinctive fear, he huddled into a corner as the teenage specter retrieved the fallen claws and stalked towards the older - now the only - hybrid.

He lunged at the billionaire, both sets of claws sinking into flesh with a squelch that would have sickened him if he weren't so consumed by hatred for his victim.

Some part of his mind tried to tell him that he would never have killed before, but the rage at his enemy consumed him, driving him onward. With his new toys, it would be so easy to rip the evil man in half for his crimes...

Before Phantom even knew it himself, the job was done... in an unexpected way. Instead of one Vlad, two lay on the ground before him: the human Masters on the left, and the ghostly Plasmius on the right.

For a moment, all was still as the young ghost stared uncomprehendingly back and forth between the two Vlads. Then, as if a switch was flipped, Phantom's expression changed from a mixture of anger and surprise, to pure blankness.

He wondered why he hadn't noticed it before... The emptiness... As if something was missing...

He turned his head slowly toward Plasmius, who was just as dazed as his newly separated human counterpart. Phantom and Plasmius were both powerful, yet unstable halves of separate whole beings, but perhaps...

Instinctively, he rushed towards Plasmius in an effort to fill the void. They met in a swirl of ectoplasm...

"Jack, these calculations aren't right!"

What? What's going on?

"BANZAI!"

"AAAGGH! BOGUS!"

These aren't my memories!

"I've been stuck here for days! Are they ever going to visit me?"

I wasn't even in the hospital! Vlad was!

"He left me here to rot! I'm going to kill him!"

No! I don't want to! These feelings don't belong to me! They aren't mine!

... Besides, he's gone anyway...

Kill Jack, kill, kill, kill killkillkillkillkill...

I said, he's already gone! They're all gone... What's the point...?

...

Kill...

The raven-haired boy trembled in fear of the monster that now stood before him. He had seen what Phantom did to Vlad, and he knew he was in no state to deal with any ghost, never mind this one. Its blue-white hair flickered softly, like a calm autumn bonfire. Slowly, it turned towards the teen, no longer paying attention to Vlad's human half, who was beginning to awaken. The new Phantom walked towards the human Danny...

He looks so afraid... So sad... But I know a way to fix it...

The Phantom knelt down on one knee, gazing at his human self with an expression that was almost loving, his smile almost reassuring - except for those horrible fangs.

Fangs which were now at the boy's throat. The Phantom tugged...

Vlad had awakened as the Phantom approached the black-haired teen. Still, his mind was hazy as he dimly observed what he initially thought was a corrupted Phantom... Kissing...?

The man was sharply brought to full awareness as a fountain of red spattered against the floor and wall. He gasped.

No! That's impossible! He can't be...

It had started as an act of mercy. Phantom had recognized the pain of his human counterpart, and he had wanted to end it for him. They had recently been one, after all. He knew what it was like.

However, Plasmius's murderous thoughts had merged with his, so he did the first thing he could think of...

Then, he saw it. The confused look in the boy's eyes as the life was slowly drained from them. The way the struggling limbs weakened over time. The peaceful look on the human boy's face when it was all over.

He found the whole spectacle oddly... addicting...

He began to chuckle, and it quickly escalated into a bout of mad cackling.

The old Danny Phantom had saved lives. But now, as he realized this unexpected source of glee, it was time for the new Phantom to rise - the Hyde to Danny's Jekyll.

Phantom had found a new obsession.