AMITY PARK, ILLINOIS
September 16, 2005, 17:12 CT
Danny's POV:
"Nooooooooooooooo!" I screamed as I tripped and fell to the ground.
I had sealed Dan within my thermos only to then run towards the Nasty Burger, where Mom, Dad, Jazz, Sam and Tucker and Mr. Lancer were tied to a container filled with Nasty Sauce, which, as I fell to the ground and as I looked at the container and them with sweat running down my face, exploded seconds later and caused me to be thrown back a couple of meters.
After about 30 minutes, I regained my conscience. I went over to the site of the explosion. I soon wished I hadn't done that: There were pieces of human flesh, blood and clothing scattered around the debris, in which place the Nasty Burger had stood not even an hour ago. The image would haunt my mind for years to come. Meanwhile, a lot of people had gathered around the site of the explosion and the police-forces began securing the area. I quickly went intangible and slipped away through the ground. The last thing I wanted after what had just happened was to be questioned by the police.
When I got home, I simply collapsed on my bed and started crying.
After my initial shock and trembling, I went to the ghost-zone to find Clockwork. Even though he had attacked me earlier with the intent to eliminate my future. Though you couldn't really blame him, now could you?
I eventually found Clockwork's lair. Since it was in a part of the ghost-zone I'd never been to before, it took me at least a couple of hours. I went inside, ready to plead him to change my fate. I confronted him right away:
"Clockwork, since you're the spirit of time, you surely know the horrible thing that happened to me". I spoke with lowered head and with a sad look on my face, which of course didn't go unnoticed.
He nodded in agreement.
"Is there any chance of changing my fate, the fate of my friends and family?" I asked with a feeling of sadness and hopelessness clearly glaring from my eyes. Deep inside I knew what his answer would be.
"No, I am sorry." He said, changing into his older form, while he shook his head. "The time-stream has already been altered too much. The Observant High Council decided, that I am not allowed to interfere, as much as I would want to. What happened is absolute." He stated with a determined, yet sad look on his face.
"However, your future is not carved in stone!" Clockwork said to me, as I was already about to turn around and leave. He changed into his younger form and continued: "You, and only you, can shape your own destiny. You have to try to move on, live a normal life again, so you don't turn into Dan!"
I snapped. "I-I just lost my loved-ones! How could I possibly move on like that?!" I said with my eyes flaringly glowing green in anger and with gritted teeth.
Clockwork sighed and said: "Look, I know I am expecting much of you, but you cannot live on like this. You have to try and fix everything on your own, because if you don't, your sadness and depression will consume you; you will turn into Dan!
I trembled from his statement. Was I really going to become Dan? Would I really not be able to keep my promise I had made to my loved-ones, if I didn't move on? I couldn't just move on. Too much had they meant to me. Too many times had I saved them and risked my life for them. I couldn't just move on. Not like this. Streams of tears started to flow over my eyes. I cried out everything; my pain, my feeling of hopelessness and my anger towards Dan and the entire situation I was in.
Clockwork patted me on the shoulder and said: "I wish I could help you, I wish there was a way to lessen your pain, but sadly there isn't. Again, I am sorry".
I tried to calm down, but the pain was just too much. I continued to cry for about half an hour. When I was finally able to stop crying, I decided to leave; I had tried my last chance to bring them back. I left the thermos that contained Dan inside with Clockwork and told him to guard it with his afterlife. He wished me good luck and said goodbye. I flew out of his lair towards the Fenton Portal, which I then closed permanently, after I had slipped through it.
After I had lost everyone I ever cared about, I made a decision to leave everything behind: My not-so-successful superhero career, my town, the townspeople who never appreciated my heroic acts and also my bad memories, or at least I had hoped back then that it would be as easy as that.
My only drive was now to keep my promise I had made to my family: To never ever turn into Dan. I decided to leave Amity for good and to never come back, mainly because in order to keep the promise I made, the best possible way to do that, was to stay as far away from Vlad as possible.
And if that wasn't bad enough, the GIW-agents were chasing after me, since obviously they, along with everyone else, of course blamed Phantom for the accident and the death of my friends and family. I heard them talking about Phantom or "Inviso-Bill", as some of them still called me, in a manner that made the pain in my heart even more permanent and hard to bare. I was only 14, and yet I had to go through so much already. It was the final straw, which eventually fully convinced me to leave Amity Park.
After I had left Amity Park, I went from town to town, all around the country. One would probably be impressed by the distance I had covered, though of course they wouldn't know about my ghost-powers, now would they? About 4 years after I had left Amity Park, I arrived at Happy Harbor, a small municipality in the state of Rhode Island, which looked promising. It had a bookstore that I soon started working in, it seemed pretty safe from Vlad or the GIW and it was remote enough that no one would find me there, yet if they did, the municipality would be big enough for me to blend in with the crowd.
HAPPY HARBOR
July 18, 2010, 12:00 EDT
No one's POV:
10 months had passed since then. Danny had now a steady job at a bookstore he could at least somewhat enjoy and enough money to pay a room in a hotel on the other side of Happy Harbor. While his physical state had much improved since he had been on the run from the GIW for over a year, his mental state is still dominated by the loss of his family, the fight with Dan, the future that could still await him and a general feeling of depression.
Danny also soon realized, that the city was protected by The Team, a group of superheroes consisting of former Justice League members' sidekicks and a few heroes of unknown origin, who had made the nearby mountain into their HQ. But Danny didn't really care. To him, they were just a bunch of kids who tried to play heroes.
Sort of like I did, I suppose. Danny thought to himself and sighed.
Danny was preparing for his lunch break: He closed up the bookshop and waited at the nearby bus stop for his ride home. The bus was already 3 minutes late, when the all too familiar sound of explosions caught his attention.
The Team had headed out on patrol of Happy Harbor with the Martian Bio-Ship, which Megan had shown them only shortly prior. Superboy was still angry at Megan, who had used her telepathy on him earlier that morning, since this way of communicating was common on Mars, not expecting that everyone, especially Superboy, would see it as an invasion of their privacy.
Red Tornado then informed them via the communication system of the bio-ship, that there was an incident at the Happy Harbor power plant. Megan steered the ship towards the location of the power plant.
Suddenly the Bio-Ship was hit by two giant tornados. The ship was shaken around, making all of the team members feel uncomfortable, to say the least. After some struggling, Megan managed to stabilize the Bio-Ship and maneuver it out of the tornado and land it a little away from the tornado.
The members of The Team then all jumped out of the Bio-Ship, ready to take on whoever had caused this much havoc.
The tornado now moved towards the power plant, causing panic and chaos among the people, who had parked their cars outside and just stood there, before they could realize the danger they were in.
"Robin, our tornado's coming to New England! Robin?!" Kaldur quickly shouted, but Robin was nowhere to be found.
They heard Robin laughing happily from an unknown location, wondering where he could've gone.
"He was just here!" Megan exclaimed.
They all stopped wondering where the Boy Wonder had disappeared to, when they heard explosions coming from inside the power plant. All the windows cracked open and smoke escaped from them.
Inside was the cause of the tornados and the chaos, a villain with a robotic look, similar to Red Tornado, though appearing much more determined and menacing.
Robin was already inside the building, fighting him. But the villain threw Robin back into a wall with a tornado attack.
Kaldur, Wally, Megan and Superboy now jumped into the fight as well as Robin was still lying on the floor.
"Who's your new friend?" Superboy asked Robin, half-ignoring, be it because he wanted to pay attention to the upcoming fight or because he had ran ahead of his team mates.
"Didn't catch his name, but he plays kind of rough!" Robin answered as the villain prepared to strike again.
"My apologies. You may address me as Mister Twister." Mister Twister said in his deep robotic voice as he attacked again with his tornado, sending it towards Superboy, who was struggling to stand his ground against the strong winds.
Mister Twister repeated his attack and trapped Superboy in a tornado, which then spat him out just as violently, throwing him into a wall, just like Robin before him.
The Team regrouped and exchanged eye glances, to make sure the next attack would be more coordinated.
Wally quickly put on his speedster-glasses and started to run towards Mister Twister. He jumped and prepared to do a high-speed kick, aiming at his chest. But Mister Twister formed another tornado and redirected Wally's kick and sent him out of the building through the window, where he bumped a couple of times on the ground before coming to a hurtful landing.
Next to attack were Kaldur and Megan. But they awaited a similar fate as they were thrown back by Mister Twister's tornados.
"I was prepared to be challenged by a superhero. I was not, however, expecting children." Mister Twister said mockingly
Robin grit his teeth, threw two batarangs at him and yelled: "We're not children!"
Mister Twister met the attack with ease, using the tornados to stop one batarang and protect himself from the explosion, and after the other one of the batarangs actually hit its target, he simply flipped it away with one finger, before it could detonate.
"Objectively, you are." Mister Twister countered Robin's statement and went on: "Have you no adult supervision? I find your presence here quite disturbing!"
"Well, we'd hate to see you disturbed. Let's see if you're more turbed, once we kick your can!" Robin shouted.
Miss Martian attacked now by breaking the bottom of a container. Steam erupted on Mister Twister, but the attack showed no effect.
Superboy attacked again, but was stopped by Mister Twister in mid-air and was sent flying into Miss Martian, which caused both of them to crush into the wall, and the floor afterwards.
Now both the Boy Wonder and Aqualad attacked simultaneously, but each one of them were sucked into a tornado and sent flying, crushing into each other.
"Indeed, that was quite 'turbing'. Thank you!" With that, he flew off and left the building, as each member was lying temporarily unconscious on the floor.
Kid Flash was rubbing his sore neck, as he slowly recovered from his unpleasant landing. Just in time to see Mister Twister leaving the factory.
He started to run and prevented him from leaving the battlefield just yet.
"What have you done to my team?!" Kid Flash asked accusingly.
"Embarrassed them, largely!" He replied and sent another attack towards Kid Flash, who was sent flying as well.
But before the tornado would've made him crush into a wall, he was saved by Miss Martian.
"I got you, Wally" She said as she held him in place mid-air with her powers, until the tornado disappeared.
"Whoa, thanks!" Wally replied, as he was placed back on the ground gently.
"I thought you would've all learned your limitations by now." Mister Twister stated.
"What do you want?!" Aqualad asked.
"Isn't it obvious? He asked in return as he floated off the ground. "I'm waiting for a real hero!" He added.
"Read his mind, find a weakness!" Aqualad said to Miss Martian.
"But I thought I wasn't supposed to do that." Miss Martian argued.
"It's okay with the bad guys!" Robin insisted.
Miss Martian tried to read Mister Twister's mind, but she was unable to.
"Nothing, I'm getting nothing!" Miss Martian stated as realization suddenly struck her. "Hello, Megan!" She said as she put her hand on her head.
"Mister Twister is Red Tornado in disguise. He's inorganic; an android. And how many androids do you know, that can generate tornadoes?!" Megan said in realization.
"Red Tornado sent us here!" Aqualad said after the same thought hit him.
"…After saying we'd be tested soon enough. This is his test, something to keep us busy!" Robin added to Aqualad's statement.
"Speedy called it, we're a joke!" Kid Flash said with lowered head.
Aqualad clenched his fist angrily, as he and Robin turned towards, who they thought was Red Tornado.
"This game, so over!" Kid Flash said as he walked up to Mister Twister with Robin and Aqualad.
Robin then confronted Mister Twister: "We know who you are and what you want!"
"So let's end this!" Aqualad stated.
"You consider it ended?!" Mister Twister replied as he stretched his arms towards the sky and unleashed two tornados from his hands into the clouds.
"Impressive show. But we will not indulge you, we will not engage!" Aqualad shouted as the sky darkened and the wind created by Mister Twister became stronger and stronger. Soon, lightning was created by the dark storm clouds above Mister Twister.
"Uh, can Red Tornado do that?" Kid Flash asked the moment he saw the lightning.
"You think I'm Tornado?! Ironic." Mister Twister stated, while he was releasing the energy he had built up with his tornados, on The Team.
The Team was struck back, as lightning hit the ground in front of them. All of them went unconscious, except for Superboy, who got rid of his burred and torn jacket and then super-jumped, in another attempt to attack Mister Twister, towards him, only to be thrown back and electrocuted by lightning. He fell to the ground and sled across it from the sheer power of Twister's attack. The entire team was now lying unconscious and helpless on the ground. Mister Twister was now charging up more electricity to end the existence of The Team once and for all, now that he had the chance to and before they might grow stronger and one day actually oppose a threat. Just as he was about to strike, out of nowhere, a green ray was fired at him, his left arm suddenly froze, and he was thrown to the ground.
"What the hell was that?!" Mister Twister exclaimed as he slowly stood up back up to see who had dared to interfere with his battle.
Who- or whatever you are, show yourself!" Mister Twister turned to where he assumed the unknown intervener to be. He was distracted for a minute. Enough time for our unknown hero to bring the team into safety, away from the factory, where he sat them down on a nearby meadow.
When Mister Twister realized that this somebody wouldn't respond, he turned around to see Robin, Superboy, Miss Martian, Kid Flash and Aqualad had successfully escaped or were brought to safety. For him however, it didn't matter for long: Mister Twister came here to battle a real hero, not children.
After the team was brought into safety, they woke up and recovered quickly, in fact fast enough to see Mister Twister flying off.
"Ugh, what just happened? And how did we get here?" Robin groaned while he stood up and rubbed his sore head.
"I felt someone carrying us here. But right now, we should focus on Mister Twister, now that we know he isn't Red Tornado." Aqualad pointed out.
"Ugh, ugh, and the fact that we survived is supposed to make it right?!" Superboy accused after crushing a junk of rock in anger. "She tricked us into thinking Mister Twister was Red Tornado!" He added furiously.
"She didn't do it on purpose!" Aqualad answered.
"I-it was a rookie mistake. We shouldn't have listened." Robin added.
"You are pretty inexperienced. Hit the showers, we'll take it from here!" Kid Flash said to Megan.
"So, stay out of our way!" Superboy said angrily. With that, he, Robin and Kid Flash left for the city, to face Mister Twister once more.
"I was just trying to be part of the team…" Megan stated with a lowered head.
"To be honest, I'm not sure we really have a team." Aqualad replied. He then started running off to join the rest of the team. Megan was kneeling on the grass, sobbingly regretting her false conclusion.