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No one ever mentioned it to her, and in retrospect it seemed pretty obvious, but being a globe-trotting, international ghost of mystery on the run from an eccentric billionaire could get, at times, a little boring. Well, when it wasn’t awe-inspiring, terrifying, painful, and beautiful, that is, which Elle guessed was a plus. As fun as it was to just watch new people walk around three stories below her, eat foods Vlad would turn his nose up at, and drift through classrooms and festivals and breathe in the wide variety of life, of emotion, it’s not like she could do that every minute of the day. She was, unfortunately, human-ish, and that meant taking care of human needs like sleeping and staying warm and sometimes just sitting down in a quiet spot for a few hours before her legs gave out.
They gave out with pieces of herself sloughed off behind, watching fingers fold over and deform like silly putty and thanking whatever god that could hear her that there wasn’t a mirror, so that she didn’t have to see her nose sliding off her face
And she wasn’t melting anymore! That was a plus. Elle actually felt rested sometimes now, instead of achey. It had been two months and so far not a drop had fallen off, but she was planning on hovering around the Midwest for at least a year, just in case. But a surprising amount of time was freed up when you didn’t have to scrape yourself out of a gutter, and that meant that Elle had a solid chunk of night where she just sort of sat and existed.
Her current spot of sitting and existing was what looked like a gym of some sort, without the equipment. It really was just a room in a converted garage with foam padding on the floor and mirrors lining the wall, but it was warm, it was surprisingly comfortable to lay down on, and she had ramen, so no complaints. It wasn’t actual ramen, (Japan was definitely on her bucket list, now that she was no longer in one) but it was warm and kind of crunchy, and most importantly, there. She was a presumably growing girl, she’d take what she could get.
Really, the only downside to this situation was that she was a presumably growing girl, and two teeth that got knocked out a week ago were causing her jaw to throb as new ones grew in. It was a pretty novel experience, since she was decanted with a full set of chompers, but overall, not that bad. Babies were little bitches if this is what they cried over.
“Now, Danielle, crying is unbecoming of a Masters. I didn’t create a snivelling infant and have no interest in seeing an experiment of mine devolve into one. Learn to hold a stiff upper lip, my dear, or at the very least how to dodge”
Speaking of teeth, Elle had access to a whole wall of mirrors, and it would be stupid not to use them. It was gross, kind of horrifying in an abstract way, that new bones were just pushing out of her flesh, like some kind of Wolverine, but it was gross in a mundane, human way that she kind of wanted to check out now that she had the opportunity. She wondered how they would grow back, since her memories of her fresh teeth were foggy. Elle could feel the points in her mouth, of course, and definitely felt them with every soggy chunk of noodles, but she was bored and there wasn’t anything else to do. She had to ditch her book about Mo’ai heads (Easter Island was another bucket list item. She wanted to see all the islands) at the last shelter she stayed at because she left in a hurry, and there wasn’t anyone to talk to to practice her Spanish.
Slurping down the last of her noodles, Elle stood up and made her way over to the wall, hitting the light switch as she went because she felt too lazy to glow. It came on in a florescent burst that blinded her for a moment, but she blinked the spots away quickly.
And…oh. Huh. There was something up with her eyes. Not normal ectoplasmic glowing green or shockingly ice-blue. They seemed to have darkened in color a bit, and faded to a steely gray-blue. Fuck. Was that a normal, human thing to happen, or was she dying again? Elle got closer, cupping her hands like a visor to see if it was just the eyeshine making them reflect weird. Nope, those were definitely the wrong color. Actually, on closer inspection, they were almost…
It wasn’t two pinpicks of burning red, watching her transform back and forth, over and over, tugging on that little buzzing spot in her chest until it crackedburnedbled while the citrus taste of herself coated the back of her throat. Tubes dug into the crook of her elbow, the center of her stomach. It was the cold slate gray of nothing, convincing her that even being there watching with no light in his eyes was a high honor
Elle closed her eyes and leaned against the mirror, the cool glass on her forehead and the stab of pain from a clenched jaw coaxing her back to the present. Fuck. Vlad mentioned it before, that he spat into her petri dish or something to try and make her more stable than the others, but she didn’t see it. In fact, he made sure that all there was of her, all she saw, was Daniel Daniel Daniel. Learn to talk babbling to the Maddie AI and watching creepy surveillance footage of him at his house. Learn to read with a book of facts about NASA. Cut your hair to resemble his.
Hold still, Danielle.
(Although, in retrospect, maybe he let her have a ponytail because he wanted to see himself too, since there wasn’t anything else he allowed that wasn’t broken into Danny’s shape. Maybe he was just into mullets.)
But now there was something that was physically, undeniably from him. Not something ghostly that he could take care of, but something human. Something that someone could point out on the street, when they saw a man in his forties and his daughter walking together, that meant yes, they’re related. Not that Vlad ever walked with her on the street. Or called her his daughter.
A year ago Elle would have been ecstatic. Part of her still did feel a tiny sense of relief, that she wasn’t Danny, and the proof could be found on her face. (Was that why Danny, for as nice as he was, a little uncomfortable around her? Could he see spots of Vlad that she never bothered to examine? Or was it just the clone thing?) But now, knowing the alternative was Vlad, she felt a little sick. She didn’t want to be anything like Vlad.
But she was, wasn’t she? Danny didn’t steal things for personal gain. (Some small, logical part of her core pointed out that Vlad did it for the sake of being rich, and she did it for the sake of eating. It wasn’t a very loud part, at the moment.) Danny helped people, his whole thing was helping people. Vlad’s whole thing was owning people. What did it say about her, that her thing was just watching people? What if that changed, got possessive? Is that why she didn’t stick around in one place for too long?
Elle took a breath, held it until it started to hurt, then let it out though her nose all at once. Stalking the Fentons actually gave her some coping mechanisms, which probably wasn’t what Vlad intended to happen. If she ever met, Jazz, she’d make sure to thank her.
She probably shouldn’t look at her teeth, actually. Elle remembered some of Vlad’s exceptional parenting, and looking at her teeth would probably hurt right now. Especially if they looked as sharp as they felt. But now she had to know. Rip the band-aid of ignorance off, and all that, self-love and junk. She should probably ghost, too, see if there were any changes there.
Elle flipped into ghost mode with her eyes still closed, and waited a moment for the light to die down. Okay, best to get it over with, pleasenoredpleasenoredpleasenored three, two, one…
Oh thank the Ancients, her eyes were still green. She pressed her face up against the glass and stared deeply into them. No red, not even little flecks of it. Her relieved breath fogged up the glass, highlighting the outline of her face in its refracted glow. Actually, her face was a little off. She was a lot paler than she remembered being. Was it because it was winter? No, that’s stupid. She had a bit of a greenish tint to her skin actually, almost like she was nauseous. Was that because she wasn’t at the peak of health, or was it something else she got from Vlad? Plasmius was blue, though, not green. And he was pretty bright blue. The green tint to her face was a lot more subtle. Granted, it might get stronger, but green was good. Phantom wasn’t green. Plasmius wasn’t green. It was just Elle. Hell yeah. Hell yeah! She wasn’t either of them, and she looked like it. Her shoulders loosened up a bit as she dropped a bit of tension that had leaked in after getting a look in the mirror. Okay, what next? Vlad had little claws under his gloves. She should probably check for that.
Elle reached down and tugged one off. Okay, her hands looked normal. They were also a spooky pale green, which drew a smile to her face. Ears? She turned her head slightly to look at one, honestly wondering what they looked like. It’s not like she paid particular attention to her ears, she just shoved a beanie over them and went about her business.
Nothing Vladlike about those. Maybe that would change when she hit ghost puberty or whatever, but for now the rims were as rounded as Danny’s, last time she saw him.
Alright, enough stalling. Elle looked at herself in the mirror and gave a stiff nod to her reflection. Teeth time. She could feel her teeth in her mouth, so she knew that the incisor and molar that she left on the bathroom floor of a racetrack weren’t going to look the same as the ones coming in now. She opened her mouth and
“Hold still, Danielle, it would be a bother to strap you down just for this.” There was a grip on her face, the hand blisteringly hot and surprisingly clammy as it held her jaw tight enough to bruise. There was something cold holding the edges of her mouth open, and a rasping, whirring noise that tickled as it rubbed against her tooth. It turned, whining higher as ticklefilepainpainpainPAIN. She tried to flinch back, but Daddy wouldn’t let her, he held her too tight, whydidn’theSTOPSTOPSTOP
The incisor was definitely pointed. It was just peeking over the gumline, but what she could see of it was bloodsucker-worthy. Her molar was a bit more jagged as well, the two bumps from her intact tooth turning into spikes on its twin. She ran her bare finger over the new teeth and was surprised she didn’t feel anything, other than a slight ache in her face. The teeth themselves were numb.
She flashed back into human coloring with her thumb in her mouth like a toddler, but the points were still there. When they grew in all the way, would they be super noticeable, like Plasmius’s? They had to be. They had to be. Otherwise, why would Vlad bother with the basement dentistry?
Okay, that was enough for the night. Elle padded over to turn the lights off, then made her way to her sleeping bag. It would take a while for her to actually go to sleep, but might as well try. Decompress, find humor in the situation, etc.. Which, actually, now that she thought about it, was pretty funny. All that work Vlad put into her, trying to break her into a mold, and look where she was now. Sleeping in an empty building in the outskirts of Toronto, alive and absolutely, completely free. Looking like herself, with plenty of time to figure out who that was. She smiled to herself, a little lopsided.