Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom copyrights, characters, etc. This fanfiction is for entertainment purposes only and makes no profits. I only own OC's and original plot devices.

Nyaa.

Welcome to Dan V. Masters, the sequel to my K+ rated fanfiction, Vlad's Son! If you have not read Vlad's Son, you might want to, since there's a lot of information there that also applies here, and I'm going to be a pain in the ass by not telling you what that information is. Also, note the T rating! This is mostly because of language and violence, as this fanfiction focuses on Dan Phantom, Danny's potential, evil future self.

Enjoy!

Nyaa!

=^-.-^=

Chapter 1

Amity Park was still in the wee morning hour of 3 AM. A cool night breeze rustled through the trees as it swept by. Everything was unusually quiet as a long minute seemed to dangle, frozen, in the air.

There was a loud crackling of electricity. A small, white orb appeared. Without warning, it exploded, expanding quickly before dying in an instant, all energy dispersed. Veins of burnt soil and grass stretched out in all directions in an almost sun-shaped circumference around the center of the explosion.

A blazing white fire helped to cast a dim, white spectral glow, to brighten the darkness. The ghost was a hulking beast of a man, with an impressive physique of muscle that would have made even the war gods of old legends sore with envy. But if he had the body of a war god, then he had the face of a death god – dark, black rings circled under his blood-red eyes, making them even more terrifying and striking to look at. It was an aesthetic that many war-lusting, blood-thirsty ghosts picked up naturally, as their physiology worked to match their behavior.

It had taken roughly four years to repair the dimensional portal that the Guys in White had used to send his companion away, but Dan Phantom was no slouch in the technical department. He had managed to follow the Stitch Witch to another time.

As he looked around, however, his frown etched deeper across his face. It was early 2008, yet his birth-town was still intact and standing. In his own timeline, he had formed in late 2007. Amity should have been nothing but abandoned ash and rubble by now!

So this was why his own reality had started to crumble and disappear. Dan snarled at nothing, exposing a canine. He had just barely escaped non-existence because someone or something had prevented his creation.

Of course, now that he was outside of his own timeline, he felt great. As great as a sociopathic psychopath could feel, anyway.

Something familiar stirred his senses – a spectral signature that had sewn itself into his memory. The daughter of Pariah Dark was nearby.

"Ashley." Dan took off in the proper direction, his body becoming a black shadow rather than disappearing. He rarely turned invisible anymore.

As he drew closer and closer to the signature's location, however, he became increasingly more familiar with his surroundings – uncomfortably so. The signature called him to Amity's rich neighborhood, Polter Heights. He recognized Vlad Masters' mansion as he approached, suppressing his own signature so that he wouldn't be detected as he landed on the rooftop.

A small, black object exited the mansion: a stitched-together cat. She ran into the center of the back garden and looked around, meowing loudly. Dan waited patiently. The cat searched some more, eventually growing quiet in her wandering. She even slowed to a prowl.

When nothing stirred, the cat leapt upon a fountain and shapeshifted to her true form, a young-looking woman with a myriad of stitching seams running around and along different parts of her body. Her wild, red hair cascaded down her back; she hadn't cut it since the last time he had seen her. Her shattered porcelain skin stood out in the moonlight, and he could see her cold, gray eyes looking around with suspicion. Oh, how he missed his cunning Stitch Witch. He had never had a victim who was always so certain that a predator was nearby…

"Stitches! What're you doing out here?"

Dan lowered against the roof some more, growling and narrowing his red eyes as another familiar face came out of the mansion. Himself… or, at least, his forebear and namesake, Danny Phantom. Stitches was a cat again before the fourteen-year-old Danny could rub the sleep from his eyes.

"Ugh… What time is it…?" Danny looked around, then down at the cat. He picked her up around the middle and tucked her under an arm. "Dude, you totally ripped the blanket off of the bed."

"It's three in the morning. What the heck are you doing up?" the kitty asked, looking up innocently.

The ghost arched an eyebrow until the two halfas disappeared from his vision. Then he flew off again. If he was going to rip off the Witch's right arm, he would need to get close to her – and resist the urge to kill Danny and Vlad Masters until then. In the meantime, he would need to gather resources.

Luckily, he held all of Vlad's memories and all of Danny's. He knew where forgotten hiding places were, which blind spots would go unnoticed for the longest amount of time, and exactly which investments Vlad had made to make his stolen millions into legitimate billions.

Danny Masters yelped as he was stuffed into a locker, backpack and all. He gasped as the door slammed shut, encasing him in darkness. Over his weekend in the Rockies, he had not missed school or his bully one little bit.

The darkness gave him a rare flashback to his childhood. Air couldn't be recalled to his lungs. Eyes glowing bright green, he yelled and shot through the door of the locker, turned, and shoved Dash in the chest. The shocked blonde tumbled backwards through the intangible door, then lost no time in slamming his fists against the now-solid door. "Hey! Let me outta here! How the hell did I get in here?!"

Dazed, Danny took a step back, holding his head. His eyes widened as he registered that Dash was now in the locker he, himself, had just been in. It didn't take much for him to realize what had happened – he had reacted instinctively on his fear of dark, small spaces. The last time that he had reacted like this, however, had been years ago. He was at least eight when it happened. Six years, and now this happened…?

"Danny?"

He whipped around. Sam and Tucker were standing just within the hallway. Shoot! When had they arrived? Better yet, had they seen him doing anything… ghostly? "Uh, h-hey, guys! What's, um…" He coughed, pretending to clear his throat uncomfortably. "What's up?!"

"Dude, you okay? You're acting weird." Tucker looked around. "So… Wasn't Dash just here? Kicking your butt?"

"Uh… Yeah, but… he left. You know Dash! Beat up Danny and… dash." Danny cringed at his own sentence.

Sam tilted her head. "Are you sure, Danny…?"

"Yup! Absolutely positive! Come on, let's get out of here!" Danny shoved them both ahead of him, hurrying to get away from the lockers before any other kids came along, or Dash started thumping on the lockers again. He knew for a fact that the janitor did one final check before going home.

The three friends had walked from home to school and back every day since Danny had moved to Amity Park with his father, Vlad Masters, and made friends with Sam and Tucker. That was a little over four years ago, now. It was their first year of high school. So far, Danny hated high school. Apparently his ghostly half was affecting his human body's ability to properly go through puberty. Now, granted, Danny had always been a little short for his age, but still having the baby face… sucked.

"Thank Doom it's Friday! I'm setting aside the books and hittin' the video games hardcore tonight!" Tucker cheered, folding his arms behind his head with a grin.

Sam shot him a sideways smirk. "You study? Since when?"

"Hey! I almost read a whole chapter of the Scarlet Letter this week!" he retorted.

"I can send you a copy of my notes… if not tonight, then definitely tomorrow." Danny offered.

This got a shared frown from his friends. "Why does your dad always take you up to the Rockies?" Sam asked suddenly. "It's kind of weird. There's almost no vacation or weekends where your family has stayed in town outside of birthdays."

"She's right, man. Is your dad a super villain or something?"

Danny tried to repress a laugh and it came out as a weird sort of snort, which ended in him choking on his own spit and nearly coughing up a lung. While his dad had been relatively plot-free for the last four years, he was still fairly certain that Vlad expected to take over the world sooner or later. Of course, the old badger was too busy being married to the former wife of Pariah Dark, who had been the first super villain, but all of that would be very, very hard to explain to anyone who wasn't savvy to Ghost Zone lore.

"Not exactly. A corporate super villain, maybe, but only because it's impossible to say no to the guy. That's why he keeps getting reelected, you know." Danny said once he had recovered. "I, uh… I kinda have to go out there as much as possible for a… a medical condition."

"A medical condition?" Sam snapped to attention, looking paler than usual. "You have a medical condition?"

"Er, it's nothing! It's… just… something that's wrong with my blood. Something to do with that accident with my birth-family." Danny tried to brush it off, but was aware of how much worse he had just made the situation seem simply by opening his mouth at all. Sam and Tucker both had wide eyes. Danny mentally kicked himself. "I'm fine, okay? I promise. It's nothing life-threatening. My dad just gets paranoid about it, so he takes the family up to the lodge and makes me do a bunch of exercises."

"Well, that explains why you never sweat during summer or wear enough snow-gear during winter."

"For goodness sakes, Tucker, he's not a lizard!" Sam studied Danny critically. "…Are you sure you're okay?"

"Stop! I'm fine!" Danny felt his cheeks grow warm. Judging by Tucker getting ready to laugh at the two of them, his face was now either red or pink. He hoped it wasn't pink.

"Your face is turning pink." Crap! Danny frowned at Sam as Tucker began cackling.

"Haven't you heard? I just love talking about myself." Danny sighed and shook his head. "Hey, I'm not the one who totally didn't read all of my class' book, remember?"

"True." Sam turned and punched Tucker in the arm, eliciting a yelp of pain from him. "I told you! Read that book by Saturday or suffer the consequences!"

"Ow! Hey! I still have until tomorrow – don't punch me!" Tucker tried to sprint ahead and out of her reach, but unlike himself and Danny, who were happy couch potatoes, Sam was very active. She had no problem darting alongside him and smacking him for trying to escape.

Danny smiled a little, following at a lazy pace. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought that he saw one of his father's employees.

He turned his head slightly. The man was large, both in height and weight… and by weight, Danny meant muscle. The guy was ripped and looked like he belonged in an action movie with spies, explosions and fast cars. He was wearing a suit – expensive and black, like his dad might wear – with a black tie, dress shoes and sunglasses. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and he had a goatee, both as black as his suit. He looked incredibly familiar…

The stranger, who was sitting at an outdoor table of a restaurant and reading a newspaper, turned his head sharply, tilting his sunglasses slightly. A pair of dark, cold blue eyes scowled at him.

This wasn't a bodyguard, that most was certain. Danny recognized a look of threatening intent, and this man's was murderous. Was this one of his father's enemies? An assassin? A kidnapper? Was he a ghost, or a human? Danny's ghost sense hadn't gone off. Unease churned in Danny's stomach as he stared ahead at Sam and Tucker, who were still bantering back and forth, oblivious to his sudden tension. What if he tried to attack Danny now? What should he do? How would his friends react if he had to protect them? How would he react if he had to protect them?!

Of all the days for his step-sister not to be tailing him…

"Hey." Suddenly the mountain of a man was in front of him. Danny stopped abruptly, jerking back a little as he did so. When had the guy even crossed the street? He hadn't even had time to get up from his table!

"Definitely a ghost." Danny muttered to himself, on guard.

The stranger sneered. Danny thought he saw an elongated canine. Great. A vampire ghost. Wait until Dad heard about this one. "Don't mumble when your elders are talking to you, brat." The man had a low, rumbling growl to his already-baritone voice. It was, again, oddly familiar. Danny was starting to get bothered.

"Hey, yourself!" Sam appeared out of nowhere, planting herself between Danny and the imposing-looking adult. "Who are you supposed to be?"

The man stared at Sam silently for a moment. "I'm a friend of Ashley's, that's who." Reaching into his suit, he pulled out an envelope and handed it to Danny. "So, since I know that you know her, be sure to give her this message from me. We have important business to continue."

"Business?" Danny gaped as the envelope was tossed at him, fumbling to catch it. "Wait! Ashley doesn't do 'business'!" he called after the man as he left. It was no use; the stranger ignored him and continued going.

"Your step-sister has some really weird friends if she keeps guys like that around." Sam muttered. She looked at Danny. "I thought she lived in Europe or something…? Is she visiting?"

"Ashley's visiting? Better lock up the arcade…" Tucker frowned deeply.

Danny's mind conjured up memories of the last time his friends had 'met' Stitch Witch. She had treated the trio – well, more like Tucker and Danny – with sugar and soda, then shared in the sugar high and destroyed most of the local arcade. Then she had brought them to the Masters' estate where she had continued to do the same to their home arcade.

"That was awesome! I still have the pictures on my phone!" Sam grinned, pulling out her phone and going through it. "We should get her a 2-liter of soda. She's, like, the best clean adult ever! Hard to believe her mom was into your dad, though…" She shot a teasing smile at Danny.

"No! No caffeine for Danny's sister!" Tucker begged.

Danny smiled at them, but looked down at the letter in his hands uneasily. Ashley's 'friend' was obviously a ghost, and his instinct told the young halfa not to trust the man. He didn't know any of her other acquaintances, either – namely because she made sure not to have any. It was all really suspicious, which made his protective nature kick in.

"Hey, guys? I'll talk to you later, okay? I've gotta go." he said.

They nodded and waved as their friend left.

Tucker looked at Sam. "So… is there some reason we didn't ask about the locker?" he asked.

"And say what? 'Hey, we just saw you fly through Dash, and then push him through a solid metal door'?" The young goth girl rubbed the back of her neck with a frown. "We'll ask him on Monday. Maybe. We just have to come up with a way to approach him about it. Understand?"

Tucker frowned, but nodded. "Got it."

=^n.n^=

Woo! Lots of stuff going on right off the bat. Dan wants to either love or maim Stitch Witch (possibly both, he is a psychopath), Sam and Tucker have seen Danny's powers, and Danny's without his usual bodyguards! Let's not forget Stitches' strange reaction to Spectra's name at the end of Vlad's Son, either. Hmmm!

*puffs up with friskiness and runs away cackling* Nyahahaha! =^òwó^=