The shattered pieces of glass glittered on the floor, a few spinning in place from the momentum of their fall.
"Tucker!" Danny exclaimed in horror. "I can't believe you broke Clockwork's mirror!"
"It was an accident," Tucker gasped, grabbing two of the pieces and trying in vain to fit them back together. "We need glue. Lot's of glue."
"Oh, yeah, like glue is going to fix the magic time mirror," Sam scoffed. "Seriously Tucker you shouldn't have been messing around."
"Uh, guys?" Danny said nervously. "Maybe you should step back."
Both Sam and Tucker leaped away from the shattered glass as the pieces started to glow. Slowly fine spectral threads began to unravel from the individual shards.
"Maybe it's fixing itself," Tucker said hopefully.
"Or it could undo our reality," Sam snapped. "We have no idea what that thing was capable of. You might have literally broken time."
"Do you think Clockwork will be mad when he gets back?" Tucker asked nervously.
"No, no," Danny said with mock seriousness. "But he will be disappointed."
"Oh, haha," Tucker griped.
Before Danny could make another joke the threads suddenly pulled taught before exploding in all directions. Sam and Tucker ducked out of the room and Danny swerved as best he could around the temporal strings in an attempt to follow after his friends. A flash of light temporarily blinded Danny and by the time the spots cleared it was too late to avoid running into a wall.
Danny groaned as he rubbed his nose, thankful it wasn't broken. Turning he took note of the buildings on both sides and the street at the end of the ally.
"What the...?"
Danny took a few cautious steps forward and peaked around the corner. He was back in Amity Park.
"How'd I get here?"
With only the wind to answer Danny took to the sky. Hopefully, Sam and Tucker were ok after...whatever just happened.
Danny hurried across town, occasionally glancing down to the cars on the street, all parked, and the odd bird or squirrel perched on a bench or railing.
Halfway home Danny slowed down. Something was wrong.
Where were the people?
Landing on the sidewalk Danny hurried to a nearby store. The door was locked and the place was completely clean out.
Danny flew across the street to try another door and look through the window. Empty boxes and cobwebs decorated the abandoned space.
Danny took to the air and turned intangible before flying through several more building. Each room he passed through was either completely empty or what was there was covered in dust. The more he looked the more he realized there was no one anywhere in the city.
Panicking he flew home.
Fenton Works was empty. The couch was gone, the kitchen was cleared out and every single room had been deprived of its furniture. The lab was devoid of even a single table or chair. Only the portal remained, a gaping void where an ectoplasmic vortex had once twisted, glowing and emerald green.
Danny placed his hand on the cold metal.
"This is really bad."
Danny turned, took to the air and passed quickly through the ceiling and back into the city. Except for the lack of people and the empty buildings Danny couldn't find a single reason for the mass exodus. No signs of a major battle, no widespread destructions. As far as he can tell everyone just collected their things and left.
Danny needed answers and unfortunately, there was only one place he could think to go, well two places, but both of them required taking the same path. Clockwork would most certainly have answers, but so might Vlad. And, since Vlad would have the only other functioning ghost portal, Danny would need to visit his mansion anyway.
Wisconsin wasn't exactly next door so Danny had to fly for a very, very long time to get anywhere close. By the time he was in the same zip code, he was well past exhausted and had to land to take a break.
Leaning against a tree Danny took a deep and slow breath. He felt an urgent need to hurry, but he knew if he didn't take time to rest he might find himself overpowered in the event of a fight.
Somewhere not far off a siren started to blare.
Danny's head swiveled as he tried to locate the noise and realized the large historic looking structure in the distance was flashing with emergency lights.
Not wasting a second to think Danny took to the air and headed for the building. A crowd of young people in uniforms was evacuating the structure and Danny realized this was some sort of fancy private school. He could hear sounds of destruction and echoing laughter inside and hurried to phase through the wall and find the source of the chaos.
Several students ducked and screamed as he flew overhead, which was reasonable. They likely had no idea who he was and didn't know he was here to help.
Down the hall, the splintering sound of wooden furniture and the screech of bending metal directed his attention to the cafeteria. The remains of actual steak and some fancy vegetable dish that probably had a French name was splattered over the walls and floor.
Danny was immediately jealous and regretted wholeheartedly his public school lunch menu.
He was only partly surprised to see the one causing the ruckus was his own home town's lunch lady, a ghost he had dealt with on numerous occasions.
"Well," Danny said readying his quip, "I guess with no one left to haunt even the ghosts had to leave Amity Park." It wasn't his best one-liner but it would do for a warm up.
The lunch lady fixed him with a sour glare. "And who are you, child?"
Danny was taken aback and his mouth gaped open. "What? How could you not know me? I kick your butt every other week."
"Ha, I'd remember if I ran into a punk like you," said the lunch lady, raising her hands as she spoke. The contents of the cafeteria began to rise into the air. "I always remember twerps who don't eat their lunch."
Danny dove for cover. His hand glowing green as he readied his ghost ray. "How can she not remember me?" he muttered to himself before blasting the elderly ghost from the air.
The lunch lady's eyes widened in surprise as she fell through the wall.
Danny quickly followed, his hands glowing once more and ready to throw a heavy punch. He had fought the lunch lady often enough to know how she worked, but she seemed to have forgotten and kept using tactics that hadn't worked on Danny since their first encounter.
Danny would have ended the fight sooner but Sam had been holding the thermos and since he had no idea where she was he had to settle for chasing the lunch lady off through an old fashioned beating. It wasn't until he clobbered her silly in the band room that she finally wobbled off, still threatening vengeance, but decidedly retreating.
"Don't bother coming back," Danny shouted after her. "If I see you here or at any other school I'll happily beat you again."
Danny landed and breathed a deep and heavy sigh. Once again he was exhausted and would need to rest. At this rate, he'd have to face Vlad tired.
A squeak of furniture made Danny straighten up suddenly.
"Who's there?" Danny demanded.
No one answered. It then occurred to him that one of the students might have come here to hide. He adjusted his tone to sound friendlier. "Sorry for the scare. I'll be leaving soon. Hopefully, that ghost won't bother you again. I'm a friendly ghost by the way." Friendly ghost? Seriously, that sounded so lame. "I just came to help."
At first, there was only more silence, then a pair of blue eyes peeked out from behind the piano. When the student emerged completely Danny's jaw dropped.
He was looking at himself.
"Holy-, what the heck."
The other Danny was completely taken aback at Phantom Danny's reaction.
A few pieces clicked into place.
"Wait if you're here why weren't you fighting the ghost?" Danny demanded of his other self.
Other Danny gaped at him. "Are you kidding? That was a ghost. What am I supposed to do against a ghost?"
A few more pieces fell into place.
"Hey, odd question," Danny started, "but, do you not have super ghostly powers?"
"Why would a human have ghost powers?" other Danny exclaimed.
Crap.
Danny moaned loudly, covering his face and pulling his lids wide in frustration. "This is like, the third or fourth alternate timeline I've been in. Why does this keep happening." Danny groaned again. "I definitely blame Tucker for this one."
Other Danny suddenly perked up, "wait, do you mean Tucker Foley?"
"Yeah," Danny sighed. "Long story short, I'm you from an alternate timeline where we got ghost powers and became a superhero."
Other Danny looked suspiciously over Phantom Danny's white hair, green eyes, and hazmat suit. His eyes slowly widening as he recognized certain similarities. "Oh my god, did I die in your timeline!?"
"What! No, I went inside the ghost portal, it turned on and zapped me with ecto energy, which hurt a lot, by the way, and now I'm half ghost."
"Pff, you can't be half ghost."
Danny's raised an eyebrow before letting a flash of white light radiate out from his center. White hair turned black, green eyes turned blue and his hazmat suit became normal jeans and a t-shirt. "I beg to differ," Danny protested.
Other Danny stared at him. "Woah. But what are you doing here?"
"Well Tucker broke Clock-" Danny paused when he realized this version of himself probably didn't know about Clockwork. "Wait, let me restart. There's a ghost with time powers called Clockwork. Tucker broke his portal mirror thing and I think it sent me here. I need to get back to Clockwork's lair in the ghost zone to find out how to get home."
"You're leaving? What about the ghosts here? Can't you stay and fight them off?"
"I have to get home," Danny said, his tone serious. "Besides if this place needs a hero you can always become one. Trust me you'll-"
"No."
Danny gaped a bit. "I know it seems scary but you can-"
"No!" This time Other Danny was even more firm in his statement.
Danny was confused and then noted that Other Danny was shuddering and holding himself tightly. It also occurred to him that he should have asked a very obvious question much sooner.
"Hey, why are you in Wisconsin anyway? What happened to Amity Park?"
Other Danny stared at him with wide eyes before sighing and sinking to the floor, his head held in his hands.
"It started with that ghost you just chased off. She appeared one day at Casper High. Mom and dad managed to chase her off but not before the school was reduced to ruins. It eventually got rebuilt but it didn't matter in the end. Ghosts were everywhere and my-our parents could only do so much. It was starting to get better. Mom and dad had gotten really good at fighting the ghosts, but…" Other Danny started to tear up, and Danny felt his stomach grow heavy.
"Please tell me," he said softly, trying to encourage this other version of himself. "I want to know everything."
The other Danny took a deep breath before he continued. "Mom and dad went to their college reunion and there was a ghost at the castle. They tried to fight it and…" Other Danny swallowed. "Mom got away but dad…"
"I get it," Danny said bitterly. His nails dug into his fists and he fought down the bile and fury that was building in his throat. In this timeline, he hadn't been able to stop Vlad's plan. In fact, this version of himself probably had no idea who was at fault. "Please, what happened next?"
Other Danny continued, "Vlad was a big help after...after what happened."
Dammit. Danny bit his lip and tried to focus on the story.
"Things were getting better again, but, there was an accident during spirit week. Jazz…"
Danny felt the blood drain from his face. He had almost forgotten that incident with Spectra. At the time, even though he knew what was happening he had barely been able to get Jazz to safety, but, here, in this timeline, no one had even been aware that Spectra was a problem and that meant that no one had known about her plan to make the entire student body miserable.
Danny could help it. He punched the nearest wall making other Danny jump.
"Sorry, sorry," he said running his hand over his face. "None of that...in my timeline none of that happened. Everyone is still ok."
Other Danny looked at him in awe. "They're ok? Really!"
"Yeah, really. Now, what happened next?"
"Ember happened next." Other Danny paused, "Do you know Ember, she's-," he stopped when he saw Danny nodding. "Oh, well, she pretty much hypnotized every at school. When she left to tour the world half the students went with her." He paused again and looked ashamed, "I went to. Vlad was the one who brought me back. He saved me from her."
Danny decided not to mention that Vlad probably only did it to stay on their mom's good side. This version of himself had been through enough.
Other Danny continued again, "After that was some circus freak who tried to kill a bunch of the parents during one of his acts. He failed and got away but it turned out he had been controlling ghosts the whole time. We still don't know where he went. Then the pirates invaded and…" Other Danny swallowed. "All the parents disappeared. They left notes about some cruise and never came back. Vlad...I don't know how but he rescued mom. With no adults left child services came for everyone else and mom and I were the only ones left in Amity Park so Vlad invited us to move here."
Danny sighed heavily. So that's what happened. That's why no one was left and why there were no signs of a struggle or a battle. Ember had enchanted them away, not once but twice, the second time working with Youngblood. Danny remembered that incident. It had ended much better for him.
But Other Danny wasn't done yet, "I found out later that Tucker got possessed by some mummy spirit. That whole town looks like ancient Egypt now and Tucker become a literal puppet ruler. Mom's still trying to find a way to help him but…" Other Danny shook his head.
"Let me guess," Danny said, starting to see a pattern. If so there might be one bit of good news in this whole mess. "Vlad came down with ecto acne."
Other Danny looked surprised. "Yeah, I guess that happened to you too."
"Yeah, all of those things happened but I was able to fix all of it and save everyone each time. Even Vlad was cured."
"Oh," Other Danny's head dropped again. "Vlad...we never found out how to save him."
Danny hid his grin. At least someone got what they deserved. But there was still one other incident he knew wouldn't have ended well.
"What about Sam? What happened to her?" Danny clenched his fist as he braced himself for the news.
"She...she's still alive, but like Tucker, a ghost took a liking to her and turned her into its puppet. Mom's trying to save her too but...it doesn't look good."
Danny let his breath out slowly. That was what he expected. "I'm guessing ghosts attack everywhere here. It's probably normal."
Other Danny nodded. "Mom's helping a few agencies with creating ghost weapons. Vlad left her his fortune when he died so she's had plenty of funding, but she's the only real expert on ghosts and it's a lot for her to handle on her own."
Danny sighed heavily and took a seat by other Danny. It was a lot to take in. Sure he had seen one version of what happened when he never got powers, but he had never considered a version where things went so horribly wrong.
"I need to get home," Danny said at last. "I'm guessing mom has a working ghost portal I could use to find Clockwork."
Other Danny nodded. "You could still stay here. If you were able to save everyone in your timeline then you could save us here."
Danny was tempted, he wanted to help, but… "If I don't go home who will protect the people in my timeline? I have to go back."
Other Danny stood angrily, "What about us? Who's going to protect us?"
"You can!" Danny shouted, standing just as quickly. "We are the same person, that means if you go inside the portal and turn it on you will get the same powers I have. You'll be able to save everyone. You'll get Sam and Tucker back and be able to keep mom safe."
Other Danny looked away, his shoulders drooping. "I...I can't. I'm not like you."
Danny glared at the cowardly version of himself. "Fine." The white light radiated out from his center and he fixed his other self with a glowing green glare. "But keep in mind that you have the potential to be the strongest ghost there is. You could make a difference. I already have."
Danny didn't wait to see how his other self would react. He hoped for the best. He knew he couldn't force this version of himself to take that path, but, there was one more thing he could do before he left.
Danny approached Vlad's mansion and as soon as he got close enough he heard alarms start going off. They were probably reacting to his ghost energy.
A shield went up but Danny turned human just long enough to get past it.
Turning intangible he searched all the rooms until he found his mother, or at least this timeline's version of her, in the lab. She was ready for him with a large ecto cannon pointed in his direction.
Danny didn't want to waste any time so he shot the weapon from her grasp along with the others she pulled out until she was finally unarmed. He watched her take a fighting stance.
"I'm not here to fight. But I do have something very important to tell you, mom."
Maddie began to hiss, "I'm not your-" but stopped short when Danny transformed into his human form.
"Danny!? Why aren't you in school? And what's going on?"
Danny held up his hands. "Long story short I'm actually a different Danny from an alternate timeline, one in which I got ghost powers after an accident with the ghost portal."
Danny watched his mother's face look confused, then suspicious, then suddenly flood with realization. "Oh. Oh! But that would mean..."
Danny had to cut her off. He had been here too long already. "Look I need to get back to my timeline. I already spoke with this timeline's version of me and he's not thrilled with the idea of becoming half ghost, but the reality is that with those powers he would be able to keep everyone safe. He could save his friends. In my timeline, I was able to stop every disaster that fell on Amity Park. He won't be able to change the past...well I guess he could, but Clockwork probably won't let him, anyway not the point. If he can be convinced to be a hero you guys would be able to stop any more bad stuff from happening. I can't convince him, but maybe you can."
Danny watched as his mom shook her head. "No, I couldn't ask him to do that."
Danny sighed. At least he tried. "Then I wish you luck, and, if he changes his mind I hope you'll support him. He'll need it if he's going to save everyone."
Maddie nodded and turned to press a button on the wall. The alarms finally stopped blaring and when she pressed another button the doors of the ghost portal opened with a hiss.
"I'm guessing you'll be going to visit Clockwork if you need to get back to your own timeline," she said matter of factly.
"Good guess," Danny said changing back into his ghost form and floating into the air.
"Hold on," Maddie stopped him.
Danny froze as she reached out. A part of him worried she had only been pretending to believe him but then she touched his cheek gently and traced the side of his face, brushing a few strands of white from his eyes.
"Do I know? Where you come from do I know about you?"
Danny gaped and then bit his lip before looking away. "No, I...there's never been a good time to tell you or dad. Jazz knows though."
Maddie flinched and for a moment Danny saw her eyes glisten as though about to tear up. But, she closed them and the moment passed.
"Danny, I think you should tell me, and your father."
"I...I want to but,..."
"Think about it. Please. I'd want to know if my Danny was risking his life. I'd want to be there to help him and to make sure he still had time to be a kid. So please, think about it."
Danny nodded. "I'll think about it. I promise."
Maddie smiled and with a wave from each of them Danny entered the portal.
On his way to Clockwork's, Danny kept going over everything he had been told in his head. He loved being half ghost and having such amazing powers, but he had never considered how having them had impacted everyone else. He'd never realized how many close calls he had actually prevented.
He'd enjoyed taking pride in the thought that the city couldn't get by without his help, but this was the first time he realized how true that might actually be. The thought was heavier than he expected.
As Clockwork's tower came into view Danny decided it was time he started taking his role as a hero more seriously. To do that, he would need to use all the resources available to him, including those he had been avoiding.
"No more secrets," Danny whispered to himself.