Danny Phantom in "The Multiverse"

Book One: Rot

Prologue

Green mist swirled through the otherwise empty sky of the Ghost Zone. In the oldest, most vacant corners of the Zone, the atmosphere was black and cold – well, colder than usual. The feeling that this was a world for the dead could not be ignored, not here.

"So," said Danny. His voice was loud, echoing in the silence. "You're saying that thousands of years ago, ghost bugs were the big bad in the Zone?"

Clockwork, body bent and gnarled in the form of an old man, flew next to Danny. His red eye gleamed. "Not just the Zone. They were a menace to the human world as well. Luckily at that time, humans knew how to protect themselves against ghosts."

"The ghost bugs got a kick out of scaring the humans?"

"They ate the humans."

For a moment, Danny froze midair. Clockwork drifted a few feet ahead and waited for Danny to recover. The ghost boy shuddered and slowly rejoined his companion. "That's sick," he said in a quiet voice. He'd heard of ghosts that wanted to terrorize humans, enslave them, extort them, and even kill them, but never something like this. Why?

He asked it. "Why?"

Clockwork smirked coldly. "Some say they liked the taste. The truth is they were able to metabolize the human soul, converting it into ectoplasmic energy. It made them strong."

Danny was quiet for a long time. They continued to fly through the blackening world. Very little existed in it. Here and there were chunks of rock and dilapidated, ancient buildings. There were no doors. No portals.

Uncomfortable, Danny changed the subject. "I'd say this place was like a ghost town, but that's exactly what it's not like. Where are we going?"

"Call it 'study abroad'."

Cryptic, as usual. Danny rolled his eyes and tried to stay the shivers threatening to scuttle across his body.

After some minutes more of flying through the monotonous landscape, they arrived at a large chunk of gray rock. Its body was bulbous and jagged, and its bottom fell away in a sharp tooth of stone. They circled around to its opposite side, where there was an opening – a cave. The entrance, totally black and impenetrable by the eye, was guarded by posts of green flame. It was the most color Danny had seen in the last hour.

"We're not going in there, are we?" said Danny.

Clockwork did not respond, but merely flew between the flame pillars and into the blackness, his staff lighting his way. Danny summoned a ball of ectoplasmic energy into his fist and reluctantly followed.

Even for the Ghost Zone, even for Danny with his ice core, the cave was cold. Part of him wondered if it was truly the temperature he was feeling or if the coldness was something felt deeper than the skin. There was malevolence in this place. Was he feeling the chill of evil?

Though he tried to fight it, Danny began to shiver, so violently in fact that his teeth chattered. He slowed his flight to a halt, let his light evaporate, and hugged himself, rubbing his arms. Clockwork came back to him, bringing Danny back into the halo of his time staff.

"Y-y-you d-d-don't f-f-f-f-eel this?"

"It's because you're human," said the ghost. "Your soul knows there's a predator nearby, even if your mind doesn't."

Danny frowned, but he finally got the point. "Th-there's a b-b-bug here?" His core trilled, shot through with cold.

"Embrace your ghost half, if you can," said Clockwork. "It will help."

Danny barely knew what that meant, but he tried to do it anyway. He closed his eyes and sought out his ghost core, the energy at the center of his being that he always reached for when he wanted to transform into Phantom. Just like those times, he tugged at it with his mind, pulling tendrils of cold, bright energy from it, like stoking a fire. And just like stoking a fire, it crackled and grew, expanding and filling Danny with power. Meanwhile, the unbearable cold loosened its grip on him and faded away.

Danny opened his eyes. Although he felt strangely numb, he did feel better. "It worked."

Clockwork smiled slightly. "Come." He turned and continued into the cave. Danny created another ball of energy, and noted that it came effortlessly. He barely had to think about it.

They continued into the cave through an increasingly narrow passage. Danny's awareness was taut and alert, and he half expected to be attacked any second. He had to remind himself that with the Master of Time at his side, he probably didn't need to be so cautious.

Then again, Clockwork didn't always place Danny's safety as a top priority.

Eventually the tunnel ended in a chamber. Here, the blackness was almost tangible; their lights did little more than to reveal the dark to them. Clockwork waved his staff, and like fog the darkness was swept into the corners of the cave.

There was a dark shape ahead. A lump of blackness somehow blacker than the stuff around it. Clockwork led Danny towards it, casting his light over it. Danny's eyes widened.

It was a creature, bound tightly to the floor by numerous chains. Under the dull gleam of the metal, an ugly green and gray carapace could be seen. Where the tight bindings cut into the corpse, the shell was crushed, and bits of it had fallen away to litter the floor nearby.

At least, Danny had thought it was a corpse. Shortly after Clockwork illuminated it, it began to move, aware of their presence in its long prison. The legs twitched, crackling like thunder in the silence. The dull shell of an eye lit up with green energy at its center, twinkling in the many facets of the orb. Its withered antennae tasted the air.

Danny recoiled from it, floating straight back into the Master of Time. He frowned apologetically at Clockwork but remained so close to the ghost that they were practically rubbing elbows.

"It's alive," Danny stated, dumbfounded.

"Yes," said Clockwork simply.

"Why is it alive? If these things are so dangerous, why is this one still alive?"

Clockwork's customary grimace deepened. "It took the sacrifice of thousands of the Ancient Ones to eradicate these abominations from the Ghost and Human Realms. Few ghosts have such a sharp memory as I do, so this creature that you see in front of you was preserved here as a reminder."

"A reminder?" echoed Danny. "Of what?"

"That even ghosts can die."

The withered bug, the memento mori bound in chains, suddenly snapped the green light of its gaze onto Danny. Its body shuddered, its wings buzzed, and it hissed. Danny could feel the noises rattling through his bones, buzzing in his brain, filling his entire being and paralyzing him to his core.

And behind the crazed intelligence gleaming in its eye, Danny could sense something else, powerful, frightening and inextricable, something he had never felt directed at himself, something that made him feel like insignificant prey being stalked by a primordial predator:

Hunger.


A/N: Am I doing this? Yes. Yes, I am.

I know I've started a couple other stories on here and didn't get very far with them, but in terms of stories that are my babies, Treading Water is my firstborn and "The Multiverse" is its little brother. Just like TW, it is a massive, complex, and overly ambitious story, but unlike TW, it's not funny at all. It's actually pretty bleak? Lots of death and horrible things happening to our characters. I love it. Book One here is called "Rot", and Book Two will be "Hunger".

I've been working on this bad boy since 2017, and now that I'm officially back in business, I decided it was time for it to finally see the light of day.

Chapter One is finished and will be up next Monday. (Treading Water Chp 26 is about 10% done and will probably go up this weekend.)

Read, review, enjoy.

T.F.C~