A/N: I'll preface this by first apologizing, I'm sorry lol, you'll understand what I mean when you read the chapter.
[Third Person Pov]
Danny stared at Vlad for a long moment, the silence between them thick unresolved rage and grief. He drew a deep inhale, held it, then softly exhaled, the breath steadying the tremor in his shoulders.
"You know what, Vlad? No."
Vlad froze mid-step. That single word landed harder than any spectral blast. It was not the response he had expected—not the broken apology, not the crumbling confession, not the desperate plea for forgiveness. Confusion flickered across his face, followed by a sharp edge of anger.
"What do you mean, no?"
Danny's voice gained strength with every syllable, his eyes hardening into cold steel. "It means no. What happened that night isn't my fault. I've spent all these months drowning in self-blame, tormenting myself with guilt every single day, every single night. I'm tired of it."
He raised his sword again, the blade catching the faint green glow of his own ectoplasmic energy as he settled into a defensive stance.
"I'm ready to move on with my life. Not just for myself—for them. In their memory. You should learn to do the same."
Vlad's face twisted. "You don't get to decide when it's time to move on! How can you stand there and talk as if you didn't murder your parents? Your sister?!"
A laid-back, almost weary grin tugged at the corner of Danny's mouth. "I got a really good therapist. I suggest you do the same."
With a sharp gesture, Danny split. One became two, two became four, four became eight. A small legion of identical Dannys materialized in a loose circle around the original, each one solid, each one armed, each one wearing the same determined expression.
"There's no shame in needing one," the central Danny said calmly. "It does wonders for your mental health."
"No!" Vlad's roar cracked the air. "I won't let you forget! I won't let you move on!"
Ectoplasm surged from his body in violent green waves. An entire infantry of Vlads erupted into existence—easily double Danny's numbers, possibly triple—each one wearing the same wrathful, almost demonic expression. Their eyes burned with pure hatred as they charged.
The two armies collided.
Vlad's clones slammed into Danny's duplicates with brutal force, fists and spectral energy tearing through the air. They punched and crushed the copies into one another, forcing them to merge and collapse back into fewer and fewer forms. One by one the legion shrank until only a single Danny remained, surrounded on all sides by a seething army of Vlads.
Danny stood alone in the middle of the storm. He drew a deep, steadying breath. His chest rose, ribs faintly visible beneath glowing neon-green energy as power gathered inside him like a rising tidal wave.
Then he unleashed it.
The Ghostly Wail erupted from his throat in a devastating sonic blast. Windows shattered for miles in every direction. The force tore through the ranks of Vlad's clones, peeling them apart molecule by molecule until most of them dissolved into swirling neon-green waste that scattered on the wind.
Mouth-like slits opened across Danny's palms. More Ghostly Wails poured from them as he spun in a tight circle, the overlapping screams slamming into every remaining Vlad that tried to close the distance. The air itself seemed to scream.
Only one Vlad survived the onslaught. He threw up a dense force field at the last second, the barrier shuddering under the repeated impacts but holding just long enough. Danny focused all three Ghostly Wails on that single shield. The combined force hit like a series of thunderclaps, launching Vlad backward through the air.
Danny didn't let him go. He surged after the flying figure, both of them hurtling out of Gotham's crowded streets and into the empty outskirts where no civilians would be caught in the crossfire.
Vlad crashed into the ground hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. The force field shattered around him in a spray of fading green light. He lay there gasping for a moment, stunned.
Danny landed a short distance away, chest heaving. He was running low on energy—his earlier battle with Skulker had already drained him, and this fight was draining what little remained.
"I think you're misunderstanding something, Vlad," Danny said between breaths. "Moving on is not the same thing as forgetting."
"Spare me your sermon!" Vlad snarled. Chaotic energy erupted from his body in a distorting wave that warped the air around him. "I don't want to hear it!"
He charged.
Vlad moved faster than Danny could track, a blur of pure rage and ectoplasmic power closing the distance in a heartbeat.
"No! You will listen to me!" Danny shouted as they tumbled violently through the open sky, bodies locked in a chaotic spiral of limbs and raw power. Ghost Rays streaked between them in searing green arcs. Exploding disks detonated in rapid succession, each blast rocking the air and sending shockwaves that rattled their bones. "You will hear what I have to say!"
"Moving on is not the same thing as forgetting!" Danny's voice tore through the wind and the roar of impacts. "In fact, I hope I never forget this feeling. Moving on means accepting that this grief inside of us will never go away—and learning to live with it as a part of us!"
"I don't want it!" Vlad bellowed back, teeth clenched so hard they ached. "I want it gone! It's this empty, hollow thing inside me that can never be filled again!"
"No, you don't," Danny answered, his throat tight with emotion. Ice Vision flared from his eyes in twin beams of freezing blue-white light, slamming head-on into Vlad's own optic blasts. The colliding energies screamed against each other, neither giving ground.
"As corny as this might sound," Danny yelled over the deafening clash, "what is grief if not proof that we once loved? Grief is love with nowhere left to go. So it turns inward and starts eating us alive. We can either let it consume us… or we can learn to embrace it. Carry it with us instead of letting it destroy us!"
His eyes hardened as the beams continued to push and grind against one another, the air between them shimmering with heat and frost.
"I chose to carry mine. What you do with yours is up to you."
"How about I let it consume you instead?!"
Vlad closed the distance in the space of a single heartbeat. His hands clamped around Danny like iron, and the Ghostly Stinger activated at full capacity. Violet lightning erupted across the sky in a blinding, searing flash. Danny's scream tore from his throat, raw and animal, mixing with the shrill, electrical cry of the attack.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!"
His body convulsed violently. Strength drained from his limbs as if it were being ripped out by the roots. His eyes rolled back. The pain was absolute.
When the Stinger finally cut out, steam rose from Danny's body in thick, acrid clouds. He went limp mid-air and plummeted.
He struck the hillside with an earth-shuddering impact, dirt and grass exploding upward in a wide spray. The crater that formed around him was deep and ragged.
Vlad hovered above for a moment, chest heaving. His gaze faltered as he studied the broken figure below. Both fists clenched so tightly that neon-green blood welled between his knuckles and dripped down. Blood coated his lips and the side of his face. His entire body shook with indecision—
—until Danny groaned and tried, weakly, to push himself up.
That single movement reignited everything.
Vlad dove.
He slammed into the crater on top of Danny, pinning him, and began raining down punches with savage, relentless force. Each impact landed with a wet, heavy squelch as green ectoplasmic blood sprayed across both of them—staining Vlad's face, his chest, his arms, and the violet energy flaring around his fists.
Danny tried to raise his hands to block. Vlad shoved them aside and struck again.
"Moving on?!"
Punch.
"Learning to live without her?!"
Punch.
"Embracing it?!"
Every question was punctuated by another brutal blow.
"Think, Daniel! Think!" Vlad snarled, briefly tapping the side of his own head with a bloodied knuckle before driving another fist down. "We're probably immortal—already dead! We could live for centuries… maybe even eons! How can I move on knowing this void will accompany me for many more years to come? What is there left to look forward to now that she's gone?! What do we have left?!"
Another punch crashed home.
"What do we have left now that they're gone?!"
Danny's eyes struggled to stay open. His face was swollen and bloodied, consciousness slipping further away with every shallow breath.
"E-Each…" The word barely made it past his split lips. "Each other…"
Vlad froze, fist still raised.
"We'd still have each other…" Danny whispered, blood trailing down his temple. "And… the memories we've made."
A violent cough wracked his body. "We'll live… so their memories never die. So there'll always be someone who remembers them."
Vlad stared down at him, motionless.
Danny forced his eyes open one last time. "What is grief… if not love persevering?"
His voice was little more than a thread of sound. "So we'll persevere… in their name."
A faint, broken smile touched his bloodied face.
"As long as we remember them… as long as we carry the love they left behind…"
His eyes began to close.
"…some part of them will always exist through us."
Vlad's raised fist trembled. Then his entire body followed. His features hardened, softened, then hardened again—caught between rage and something far more devastating.
A white ring of light appeared around Danny's waist. His transformation unraveled, the ghostly form dissolving until only the battered human boy remained.
Vlad's face collapsed. Tears spilled freely down his cheeks, cutting clean paths through the ectoplasmic blood. He slowly raised his trembling, blood-slicked hands and stared at them in horror—then at the broken boy beneath him.
"W-What have I done?" The words cracked out of him, horror blooming fully now. He lifted himself off Danny with shaking arms, curling inward as tremors of suppressed sobs tore through his body.
"Madeline… I'm so sorry. Please forgive me." He sank back onto his knees, voice breaking. "Your son. Your only son. All that remains of you. All I have left of you… and I almost killed him."
His voice fractured completely. "Instead of preserving your legacy, I've been destroying it."
A black ring formed around him. The monstrous ghost form peeled away, leaving only Vlad Masters kneeling in the dirt—unable to hold onto the shape of the creature he had become.
Overhead, a high-pitched whine cut through the night, followed by the heavy rumble of an approaching vehicle.
Vlad rose, walked to Danny's side, and carefully lifted the unconscious boy into his arms. The tenderness in the gesture was almost shocking after the violence that had preceded it.
The Batmobile skidded to a stop ahead of them, doors flying open. Batman emerged first, already armed with an array of specialized ghost-hunting equipment. Robin followed close behind. Tucker and Sam were there as well, faces pale with dread.
"Danny!!" the three younger ones shouted the moment they saw him.
Vlad ignored the weapons trained on him and walked steadily forward, still carrying Danny.
"I don't wish to fight," he said quietly. "I only want Daniel to get the help he needs as soon as possible."
He stopped in front of Batman and gently transferred the boy into the Dark Knight's arms.
"I think there's been enough battle for one evening. We can settle our differences another day. Danny's condition is far more important."
His gaze remained fixed on the unconscious teen even as the others exchanged uncertain looks. Batman's eyes narrowed, sharp with suspicion.
Vlad's voice softened. "He's a good kid. He must get it from his mother… Tell Bruce Wayne to keep looking after him."
He began to fade, the edges of his form dissolving into the night until only his voice lingered.
"And keep a close eye on him. After all… I'm technically his uncle. I should be eligible for custody."
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