It was late in the evening or was it night? She couldn't tell. There was no time in the ghost zone anyway. Right?
All she knew was that she was exhausted.
Her stomach grumbled and her face was covered with dirt, her suit was stained a few bits of blood and ectoplasm some of which was not her own.
"There you are Welp! Time to hang you're pelt on my wall".
"Ok, first of all eww, second of all I don't think I'm the one you're looking for-"
She was cut off when she was had to dodge a blast coming toward her. When she dodged the ray she was suddenly trapped in a net.
"Hey!" the girl yelled indignantly.
"Of course you're the one I'm looking for Welp, or I'm not Skulker, the greatest hunter in the ghost zone!"
"Well the greatest hunter in the Ghost Zone" She said using air quotes "is deaf and blind!"
"What was that Welp?"
"Can't you see that I'm a girl?"
She focused some plasma into her hands and blasted the net to pieces.
"Your worse than that Ember chic"
Now free from the net, she floated a slight distance off with her hands crossed. "Now what do you have to say for yourself, Skulker?"
The Mechanical ghost just stood err floated there dumbfounded. "There're two Welps?"
The girl rolled her eyes. "No, I'm Dani, Danny with an 'I' and you're stupid".
With that she turned quickly floated away, only to be blasted in the back.
The blast had knocked her down onto a platform of rock, and her face slid into the ground.
Picking her head off the ground and spitting out some dirt, she growled "hey that was unfair!"
"Life's not fair Welp and don't compare me to that woman! "She's the reason I'm hunting you in the first place"
"But that's not my fault she blasted me first!" Dani shouted back.
"Too bad if I can't have the other Welp, you'll have to do!"
With that barrage of blasts we're headed her way she did dodge but a few manage to hit her.
She let out a few blasts of her own and quite a few hit there Mark enough so that one of them had hit Skulker in the face.
"Ahhh my eyes!" Screamed Skulker.
Taking advantage of this Dani sent one more blast to his face and quickly flew away.
And so there she was tired, dirty, bloody, and bruised but not beaten.
Floating aimlessly but cautiously in the zone trying to find an area or cave to hide in.
"This sucks" she said to herself and then she giggled slightly in remembrance "at least it's not as bad as my fight with Ember"
Dani had just floated in from a natural portal.
But apparently it was the wrong side of the ghost zone to float into.
"Hey dipstick what are you doing here? " Asked the ghost with a pink guitar and blue flaming hair.
"Who me?"
"Who else dipstick?"
Realizing that the ghost was probably one of Danny's enemies, she replied "look, I think you got me mistaken for somebody else, I'm not Danny".
"Wha, what do you mean? Of course you're Danny who else would you-well it doesn't matter you're here now and Embers got a bit of misplaced aggression to let out."
With that she struck a chord on her guitar and a blast plasma in the shape of a fist attacked Dani.
Dani, who somehow managed to dodge the attack shouted "hey are you blind or something, can't you see I'm a girl?"
Ember stopped mid-way in her second-strike and looked closely at ghost before her, "huh, I guess you are a girl"
"That's what I've been saying, is your music so bad you've gone deaf, or are you just blind, jeez can you see that I'm shorter than Danny?
"Yeah shorter, more annoying and much more stupid, who do you think you are brat, telling me my music is terrible?
"Oh wait you must've not heard it right, here's a encore!"
Ember struck the chord again and this time Instead of one fist it was three, and each one of them moving faster than the other.
Dani tried flying away but the fists followed, she dodged two but one managed to hit her in the face.
She was blasted down but since she didn't land on anything she ended up floating upside down for a bit.
Holding her face in her hands the wiping the ectoplasm off of it she growled "oh so that's how you want to play."
"Aww is a little dipsticks mad, did I break a tooth?" sneered Ember. "What are you going to do to blast me with your weak little attacks?"
"Face it kid, I'm way out of your league, you can't touch me."
"Oh Yeah?" Take this!"
Dani then put her hands together and blasted a huge amount of the plasma directly at Ember.
The sheer amount of plasma that was headed her way had stopped Ember from moving, there was no way she could dodge. She got hit full on.
Falling on a piece of floating rock below, she growled and was about to pick up her guitar when she noticed it was broken.
At noticing the broken guitar she quickly flew away but not before shouting "You're going to pay for this you little brat!"
Dani was exhausted that blast took most of her energy and two white rings were already forming around the middle of her waist, she had to force herself to remain in ghost form.
"Heh", she said to herself "at least I won." as she continued floating tiredly through the zone.
"Huh, so Ember did tell Skulker, that explains why he was after me".
She continued floating the area she was headed to was getting kind of dark, and she could hear ticking?
Dani brushed it of as exhaustion, she was about to turn back when a blast in the back stopped her.
"There you are Welp"
Hitting the ground once again, Dani stood up and yelled out "leave me alone!" fire a plasma blast at Skulker and flying forward as fast as she could.
She was running out of breath and Skulker was relentless, he kept firing at her!
Dodging as fast as she could flying now with a tail she kept going, it was getting darker.
The ticking, it was getting louder, but that wasn't right was it?
Dani kept flying zigging and zagging avoiding blasts and rocks that were in the air. The blasts were being fired more quickly and her energy was running out, the zone was getting darker and the ticking was getting louder?
She was breathing heavily now her energy way too low, she couldn't dodge anymore and she was hit, blasted directly into the ground in front of a tower?
The edges of her vision were going black, just when she thought she was done for the doors of the Tower opened. Dani could barely keep her eyes open, she saw a purplish bluish blur. "Help" was all she could say.
Clockwork, the all-powerful master of time, watched as two rings changed the ghost girl in a white and black suit back into her human form.
He looked up at Skulker and glared, at this Skulker let out a startled "eep" and quickly flew away.
Sighing the time master picked up the unconscious girl, and took her into his tower.
Blearily two blue eyes opened, Dani looked around she couldn't see much but she could tell that she was on a bed and the room she was in was purple. When her eyes focused little more she noted that she was in human form and her wounds had been bandaged.
"Where the heck am I?"
"That would be in my Citadel" replied a mysterious voice.
"Who are you?"
"I am Clockwork master of time and you, Danielle Phantom, are in my lair."
She gulped, Dani knew better than to enter a Ghost's lair, that had gotten her kicked out and blasted a few more times and she like to remember.
"Calm yourself child," said Clockwork as if sensing her unease "I mean no harm, after all, if I wanted to kill you I would've done so already".
"Oh yeah well, how do I know you're not some Crony from Vlad to take me back to him to melt me down?"
Clockwork chuckled at this "no child I have no dealings with Vladimir, besides my powers are far out of his league."
"Hey wait how do you know my name?"
"I'm the master of time I know everything"
"Oh yeah, then where my parents?"
" You don't have any parents you are a clone of my charge."
"How did you-"
"I told you I know everything"
"Hmm, if you say so", said Dani doubtfully.
A smirk played on Clockwork's features "come now child you must be hungry."
Dani was about to protest but her stomach growled instead. She blushed in embarrassment and Clockwork chuckled.
He led her to what look like a small kitchen with a dining room table and it was filled with all kinds of food.
"I thought ghost didn't need to eat," Dani asked incredulously.
"Normally some don't but I do tend to indulge myself every now and again" he said with a slight tone of embarrassment.
Dani then chuckled and she sat down to eat.
"Hey since you're the master time, did you know I was coming?
"Yes"
"How"
"I'll show you"
Clockwork led her to a place where all his time screens were ,she tried to looked at the different images showing on each screen but some of them are moving too fast for her to see.
"Wow, you're a real TV head, aren't ya?"
Clockwork shrugged nonchalantly, "ehh,it comes with the job description."
Dani laughed, "Hey you said I was cloned after your charge does that mean Danny's your charge?"
"Yes, he is"
"How?"
"I'm not exactly entitled to disclose you that information to you, however if you must know, after a series of events that led up to a temporal paradox, he is now my charge."
"Hmn, so was this paradox before or after my creation?"
"After"
"Oh, so well does that make me your charge?"
Clockwork chuckled, amusing, she has the same, charisma as her original,"Yes, because of the paradox, you also my charge"
"Cool, hey wait... is this how Danny got his ghostly wail?"
Clockwork chuckled again "you are a very clever child, but yes this is indeed the reason Danny acquired his ghostly wail."
"Wow must've been some paradox"
"That indeed it was" replied Clockwork, then, he smirked.
"what's so funny?"Asked Dani
"You'll see in three two-"
BANG!
The doors of the Citadel were thrown open "Clockwork, Clockwork, hey Clockwork can ask you a favour?"
"Dani?!"
"Danny!?"
"What are you doing here?"
Clockwork just floated there simply amused by the display.
"What's going on?!"
"Hey stop saying what I'm saying, stop it, no you stop it jinx, jinx, jinx Clockwork!"
"Alright, alright calm yourselves children", Said Clockwork.
"Now Daniel explain to Danielle why you're here"
"Well I uh, back home some ghosts were complaining that Ember's concert was cancelled because her guitar was broken and that they were looking to settle a score with me for it and I know I didn't break the guitar, I also know that Dani's the only one else who looks like me, so I was trying to find her but no one else in the zone had seen her so I was going to ask you, Clockwork, if you had"
"That's my story ,So Dani what are you doing here and why are you all bandaged?"
"Uh, you see about that, I was ambushed by Ember fought her off, won by the way, broke her guitar during the fight and then she went to tell Skulker, who wanted my pelt, called me a Welp and tried to catch me in a net. When I broke out, he started blasting me all the way to the tower and onto Clockwork's front door."
"Wow" said Danny he then looked at clockwork who just nodded.
"Soo... since were here can you tell me what this whole paradox is about?"
"Paradox, what paradox?"
Clockwork gave him a blank look
"Oh, that paradox!"
"Yeah the one that makes you Clockwork's charge"
"Charge? "Wait so you didn't tell her?"
"No Daniel, it was not my place to say"
"Tell me what?"
"Well you see, Dani the 'paradox', is uh, was, me"
"What?"
"Exactly"
"It started, well it would've started 10 years into the future and Valerie was-Wait Clockwork, can't you just show her?"
"Very well"
Clockwork raised his staff and pointed at one of the time screens, instantly images sprung to life, and started playing.
"Wow your future self was a real jerk."
"Yeah, I know right."
"You're never going to turn into that thing are you?"
"Never, I promised myself and I promised my family that I would never turn into that thing and you're my family too so that means I promise you as well."
"Besides Clockwork said I would never turn into that guy and he's got him locked up tight in the Thermos right Clockwork?"
"Of course Daniel", said Clockwork with a small smile.
Danielle hugged Danny and then giggled "Hey so you think you can teach me the Ghostly Wail too?"
"Dani!" shouted Danny indignantly
This caused the other two to laugh and eventually Danny joined in with them.