Summary: A large storm grew ever closer and everyone - ghost, humans and animals alike were unaware of it. It was coming for them and Clockwork should have heeded her words when she told him. The time for preparations is at hand. And they were going to need as many allies they can get.
A/N: A DP fic that is long overdue. This is a mix of some old stuff mixed with new stuff so that it makes more sense. After PP.
Disclaimer: I own nothing! Danny Phantom is by Butch Hartman. I own Egret aka Aurel and Blisse,
~*~*X*~*~
PROLOGUE
[Timeline #90]
Within a tightly closed chamber, nothing but dimly and otherworldly orbs were the only source of light there is. The room itself lacked any materialistic decor. It was a discussing display of living veins and nerves bunched together that created the room itself.
A scream filled the silence. Echoing her feeble pleas to deaf ears.
"Stop! Stop it! You've already won, stop it!"
A petite female ghost struggled to get out of her binds, for many a times now. But they held her down, and they were stronger than any material substance on the planet. Living or dead.
The veins held her down with a iron grip that not even her strongest attack, the Sonic screech, could release her from her binds.
Agonized screams caught her attention again as she returned to look at the eyeball of a screen to see two more of her precious friends die at hands of Cartophyllus' minions.
"Blisse, Vlad! No!"
"Oh, look at you. So helpless. So pathetic!", a disembodied voice echoed around and the trapped ghost couldn't help but flinch from the sudden appearance of said voice.
"Cartophyllus, enough! You've got what you want. We had an agreement!"
Humming resonated around the cage. "Nah, I think not. Why waste a good opportunity as this? And with your Emperium core, dear Egret, gathering the core of every living being and ghost alike, I will be unstoppable."
Shock coursed through the ghost, Egret. How? How did Cartophyllus know about the cores inside the humans? It makes sense for the ghosts, but that type of knowledge was never supposed to be brought to light. No one was to know about it. How? How? How?!
"How did you know-"
Egret was cut off by a high pitched laugh.
"Oh, please. I did not wonder the earth for millennia after my banishment doing nothing. I was once the guardian of knowledge. And you know that knowledge means power. I could never get enough of it when I read from the Sacred Library. The fools didn't even realize that several of their more precious tomes were replaces by fakes." Cartophyllus said with a flippant before a gleeful continuation followed.
"Imagine my surprise to discover such as the Ghost zone. Admittedly, long, long before the Fentons did. My search for power were the most fruitful of discoveries. Imagine my finds of such as the Emperium core."
Cartophyllus cackled as Egret struggled to get free.
"I would say that struggling is pointless, but it is funny seeing you do so. Now enjoy as the last of your comrades perish. After I take their cores, you will be next. Ta ta, my dear."
The sinister being laughed as they left the lone ghost to herself but her shrill screams drowned it out as she helplessly watch see her friends die one after another.
Jasmine's group was easily overwhelmed, followed by Valerie's group. Their cores taken out of their lifeless bodies. Dani, Skulker and the rest of the ghosts group didn't even stop the flooding army. Not even Nocturne, Vortex and Overgrowth.
As each one Egret knew fell her struggles became violent, her shrill cries became prominent that she even let out a couple of Sonic screeches until her throat was raw from the abuse. Her attacks were absorbed every time she tried to turn her bindings to ashes. And her dirt covered face left trails of tears that kept falling.
Then everything slowed to a stop when she saw her two best friends and her beloved get struck down. Their blood mixed with ectoplasm spilled in rivets towards the ground.
She felt nothing but the empty numbness. She heard nothing but white noise even when she knew that Cartophyllus was laughing with manic glee when he collected the three cores from her fallen family and friends.
Falling limp, Egret was blank to everything around her, she saw nothing but the deaths of her comrades and many innocents.
Unknown to a sudden darkness that was slowly blanketing the broken ghost like a second skin, Cartophyllus slowly formed in the chamber. A victorious smirk on the shadowy form as they held the Emperium core on their hand.
"Tut Tut, my dear. No need for such sadness. Look on the bright side, you will join everyone soon enough." Cackling, Cartophyllus raised the Emperium towards Egret and chanted in old tongue.
Something snapped with Egret as she let out a combined attack of her screech and her beloveds wail.
The attack caught Cartophyllus off guard that he dropped the Emperium to cover their ears. As the item hit the floor, it glowed. Thousands, if not millions of spherical light burst out, lighting up the chamber.
Cartophyllus' eyes widened. "What is this!?", he said in outrage as the cores of those he gathered burned away the chamber they caged Egret in, as well as the binds she was imprisoned to.
"Payback for everything you did!"
The voice shocked Egret.
It was impossible.
"Danny!"
True enough, the spectral form emitted by Danny's core showed that he was holding Cartophyllus back. It wasn't just him. Sam, Jazz, Phantom, Vlad, Blisse, Dani, Jack and Maddie, the ghosts, everyone, was holding Cartophyllus back.
"Egret, grab the Emperium and run!", Sam said as she Jazz, Dani and Ember entrapped the creatures legs, as well as to name a few others as well.
"Run where?! There's nowhere to run or hide, Sam! I might as well finish them off right here, right now! And don't tell that I can't!", said ghost ground out, her fists charged up with ecto-energy.
"That is the thing; you can't!", Danny's retort made Egret falter.
"What?!"
"It is as he says, little bird.", Vlad grunted. "You can't finish this beast, not yet anyway!"
Stunned as to whats going on, she let out a frustrated reply. "What the fuck do you mean 'not yet'?!"
"It is as they say, Egret."
Rounding to find Clockworks spectral form behind her did not calm her dread from forming.
"Clock...", she thought that she was done with the tears, apparently not.
A wan smile appeared on the Time guardians face. "I am so sorry for placing this responsibility on you."
Responsibility? What responsibility? What did he mean?
"The only way to beat Cartophyllus are the Tree of beginning(*1), life(*2) and balance. Each on specific locations and Cartophyllus needs to be inside the converging ley lines for them to be destroyed. Everything you need is back at the Clocktower, along with my staff. Go to the timeline I've chosen for you and get help there. Use the staff well, it tends to be shoddy at times.", Clockwork finished with a low chuckle as he wiped away the flowing tears on his longtime friend and crush. A shame she will never get to know, not with their status as Keepers.
"You can't be serious. There is no way that you are pinning this all on me!", Egret chocked as she was handed the Emperium by Paulina's spectral form.
"I'm sorry for doing this to you, love." Phantom's spectral form came to Egret's side to give her a final embrace as she cried. Try as she might, she couldn't return back the touch.
It was not fair. It wasn't fair!
"You can't fucking do this to me, you assholes!" She crowed as she glared at Cartophyllus.
"We know!" Several voices replied in good nature despite their situation.
"Time is running out. Go now while you still have a chance!", one of the Observants called as the rest of them circled Cartophyllus, the rest of the ghost joined their circle as they Observant began chanting. The human half of the cores didn't understand them since it was in ghost language, but Egret did.
"What are you doing? Stop!"
"Go now, Egret! Don't let this opportunity go to waste. Go!", Blisse ordered as they were wrapped in a blinding hot light.
With no other choice, Egret and Clockwork flew off towards the portal Wulf created before he joined the others.
"Mark my words, I will get out of this!" Cartophyllus declared as they were slowly being encased by a crystalline-like substance.
"We know you would! But until you do, Egret has enough time to finish you off once and for all!", Sam crowed as she and the rest let out a war cry.
After the discharge of power and light, all that was left was Cartophyllus encased in the crystal, the cores of all those he slayed were nowhere to be seen as the sun set on a quiet and desolate world.
In a single day and night of misfortune, a large shadow cast the world in darkness and all was silent.
X*~*x*~*X
Clockwork stared at the time mirror in numb disbelief on the timeline he saw even after it went static on him.
With the gears in his home groaned and creaked the time keeper was completely oblivious to anything for the first time in a while. Gripping his staff as he looked at nothing as he was trying to cone to terms in what in the world did he just saw.
It was several minutes into his thinking when the gears if his home suddenly stopped. Clockwork looked around to see what was going on when one of his time mirrors' surface swirled in a vortex before something was spit out. Correction; someone.
The time keeper looked on in shock disbelief as he watched the female ghost groaned in pain from trying to get up but can't. She blearily opened her eyes and saw him.
"Clock...I need your help." Was what she could only say before she blacked out on his floor.
TBC
A/N: (*1) beginning and (*2) life are not the same, I've checked. Also, if anyone didn't notice Danny and Phantom are two separate beings in that timeline. Danny and Sam are married and Phantom and Egret are together.
Tell what you guys think of this longtime story under the works come to light?? I did this way back in 2013 but I've scratched it out several times because I didn't think it was interesting enough plot-wise. And with Butch Hartman's video about the unexplored places in the ghost zone came out, it solidified one of the plots in the story to work. I added a couple of myths here and there, too. Again tell me guys what you think, it would be deeply appreciated.