I got roped into Ectober by LadyDrosselmeyer and while I do not have the time to do a story for every day of October (her original idea) I do have a few things to post, this will be the first. If I do any more really short one shots they'll be added here to keep things nice and clean.
AS IT SHOULD BE
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There was something Dan Phantom hadn't counted on in all his years locked in that cursed thermos. He hadn't counted on Danny ever being stronger then him. Hadn't counted on the years making that much of a difference.
How could he have ever thought of that as a possibility!? Danny was weak, and meaningless. Danny couldn't hold it together when his family was taken from him, when everything that ever meant anything to him was stripped from him. Danny had begged Vlad to get rid of his humanity. He was a weakling, a brat. He would always be such; he could never match the greatness that was Dan phantom.
Yet, yet here they were, Danny without help, without clockwork (who was still trapped in his collapsed tower), without the humans that made him weak, and Dan Phantom facing off again. Yet it was Danny standing tall, eyes eerily indifferent to the situation and Dan, Dan couldn't believe that he was this depleted, this weak. Nothing he did made a scratch on the Boy. It was like their first encounter but in reverse, Dan begging (he'd never beg) for Danny to spare him (he couldn't recall if Danny ever begged either but he preferred to think he did). It wasn't supposed to go this way.
Years.
He'd spent years in that fucking thermos under the boot of that damned time manipulator, plotting, scheming to get his revenge, to get his future to be the one true future, he couldn't fail! But he was, right before his eyes, he was failing.
Danny was no longer the gangly 14 year old boy that lost to him, that would have become him if Clockwork had minded his own damned business. He was solid and built, powerful. Nothing about him showed any sign of weakness. His blows landed with ease of years of practice. Dan couldn't believe this was the same Danny, there was no way the pathetic brat became this, not without him, not without losing his humanity.
Yet as this battle was determined to prove, it was. Somehow his past had grown up, had gained powers that Dan wasn't even aware were possible. Somehow, somehow Danny had become stronger then Dan ever could. That was a possibility that he could never conceive, yet here it was the only possibility that mattered. The one outcome that had him beat, and almost broken before his past self.
Well, what would have been his past self.
He was no longer the future of anything, he realized. Clockwork had made sure of it, had nudged the time lines just enough, he knew Dan would never be again. The only future 14 year old Danny would ever see would be this one, this paragon of the obsession to protect, this hero. Dan would never be, ever.
"Clockwork kept you around because he saw something, knew something that made keeping you around worth it. I never agreed with him, I wanted to never see you again. You were a nightmare that was always in the back of my mind." The ghost boy paused, eye's finally taking on some sort of emotion. "I was always scared that I'd become you, despite everything. When my voice got deeper I heard you. When my body started to fill out I saw you. The normal act of growing up had me terrified because I thought I was turning into you."
Dan would cherish the fear he heard in Danny's voice in that moment, though it was a past fear because it was all he had, all he would ever have.
"Then why aren't you scared now?" Dan was more curious then he wanted to admit.
"Not sure. This right here, you being free, was my worst fear. I'd say I out grew the boogy-man, but I think, really I realized some time ago, you as my future didn't exist anymore." Danny shrugged, staring at his evil self, at his failed possibility.
Dan laughed. In all his planning and scheming, nothing had prepared him for this. Danny was no longer weak, no longer a bumbling fool.
"As I see it you have a choice here. I can lock you up in the thermos again to await whatever it is Clockwork saw or I could completely destroy you."
"You're giving me the choice?"
"Choice, is what separated me from you."
Choice.
Why did that word send chills through his core?