Amity Park, Illinois
Amity General Hospital
12:06 A.M.
It had started around the New Year. Before then, if one were to think a bit more into the situation that he found himself in. Tucker and his family were taking a vacation for the winter holidays. They were headed out of the country, though Tucker hadn't mentioned where. Mere hours after their plane took off, word had spread that the plane had gone missing. Some suspected it had crashed, others, specifically those in Amity Park, speculated that maybe a ghost portal was involved. Either way, after weeks of nothing turning up in the resulting investigation, the case was closed and everyone aboard the flight was presumed dead.
Valerie had been distraught over it all. Danny knew that she and Tucker had only recently started dating and to find out that something like this happened? He made an effort to check up on her when he could, but as time went on those visits became more sporadic until he hardly saw her in passing outside of school.
Of course Danny had been one of those to think that ghosts could be involved. He had gone into the Zone to ask his mentor, Clockwork, about it. The only straight answer that the ghost of time could give was that no, his friend's disappearance had nothing to do with ghosts. If it had been, Clockwork reassured, he would have told Danny what had happened, or lead him to find the missing people who could have been alive. He could still be alive, Danny had thought dozens of times. He could still be out there somewhere.
His thoughts had taken a left turn sometime after his parents died. They had either been too careless with their experiments and had died from ectoplasm burns, or had forgotten about the filter to the portal but either way, the house had caught fire after the explosion rocked the basement. The surrounding buildings also caught fire though thankfully no one was seriously hurt. Well, no one but Danny's parents who hadn't survived.
He could now count the number of people that cared about him easily on one hand.
Sam had then been sent away by her parents to a boarding school. Danny thought it might have been in Japan but he hadn't been paying too much attention to that little detail. He'd texted her during the entire flight just to make sure she'd be okay. She was, but now that she was half a world away, it was ten times harder to talk to each other and keep up a relationship. While they managed it to Sam's parents ire, Danny knew he wasn't in a good shape.
Jazz was next, having sustained injuries while Danny was fighting off Skulker and some other animal ghosts. She had been on the sidelines in case he needed an extra thermos or first aid after the battle. Danny couldn't capture the remaining ghosts fast enough once he knew.
The past year had been a nightmare for Danny, to say the least.
"Little brother?" Danny's head snapped up to stare at his sister. She had been in the hospital for a few days now, and though the injuries she had were healing fine, the medication she was on lowered her immune system some. Neither of them had thought she'd get sick though, as everyone, including Dani and himself, took every precaution they could.
It hadn't been enough, and now it was a toss up whether or not she'd make it.
"Yeah?" He asked, his voice kept low because of the sleeping half-ghost girl in the chair next to him.
"I remember you said something about a plan that you were working on. With Clockwork. To go back in time or something, right?" Danny shook his head.
"Not exactly, but it does involve messing with time."
"Are you going to do it now?"
"Yeah. Now's a good time as any. Is it alright if I called him here?" Jazz chuckled.
"Sure thing, little brother."
Clockwork appeared not even a minute later in his adult appearance, stopping time for all but the two siblings, who he temporarily gave time medallions to. He looked tired, worn down, and his eyes were burning with some kind of inner light that made Danny look away. He was thankful that Dani would be asleep through this.
"Clockwork?" Jazz asked as the time ghost turned his attention to her, "What's the plan that you and Danny came up with and can I be in it?"
"The plan is to, as you humans might say, hit the reset button on time. It wouldn't just affect this timeline, but all connected alternate ones, and the way that time itself works within the new timeline may change. In order to do this, with both of you, would be that one of you could not speak of the events of the past 18 months or otherwise communicate it to anyone. The other would not remember the same amount of time at all. There will be circumstances that can be met for you to remember an or speak about a specific event, but they will not come up until at least a full year has passed."
"I want to be the one to remember." Jazz volunteered as soon as he was done speaking, her voice stronger than it had been for the past few days.
"What? Jazz, no." She turned to glare at her brother who, upon seeing it, shut up immediately.
"Jazz, yes. I know you want to protect me Danny but please. Just let me do this for you. Please." Well crap. He could refuse her, could he? Nope, not with that face he couldn't.
"Fine." He relented, not feeling happy about the decision, knowing it was a rushed one that could have unforeseen consequences but also knowing he'd have to live with it.
"Are you ready? Daniel? Jasmine?"
Was he ready? There was no going back after this. Dani, he was assured, would still exist somehow, somewhen, which helped him in going through with the plan up to this point but was he really ready for whatever he'd have to face?
Danny shared a look with his sister before both faced the ghost of time and nodded their heads.
"Very well then." Clockwork took the medallions, resumed time, and then did something so his staff extended about a foot. A blade formed from the end with the clock and the whole thing morphed into an elegant, but deadly looking scythe. Pushing ectoplasm into it and calling up his power over time, Clockwork spun the weapon faster than Danny's eyes could catch before driving it into the floor.
"R҉̡̨Ȩ̵́͞Ş͢E̷͟͞T̴̶̀͢."
And then all Danny saw was white.