Permanence
Chapter 4: Ectoplasm
Clockwork's lair, the Clocktower, isn't one that can be found by any old ghost. Danny's almost certain the only reason he ever manages to find it is because Clockwork lets him. It's never in the same place twice.
Sometimes Danny goes through door after door, passing through different realms, before he can find it. Other days he can just stumble across it as he flies aimlessly through the Ghost Zone. One time, when Clockwork was feeling particularly cheeky, Danny came face to face with the Clocktower the second he entered the Ghost Zone.
Today, Clockwork seems determined to keep Danny away. Danny's gone through at least eight doors, one portal to the 1950's and back again, and invaded four lairs on his path to the tower. Clockwork is determined, yes, but not enough to hide the Clocktower's signature from Danny's ghost sense. If that were the case, Danny would have turned back hours ago.
He ended up sleeping for six hours in Sam's bed, she and Tucker taking turns waking him up every once in a while. By the time Danny woke up for real, the world had stopped spinning, the dizziness faded, and his headache was little more than an afterthought. Thank you, weird ghost biology, for the affect you have on human healing.
Almost immediately after waking, Danny set off for Clockwork's, promising to report back to his friends with what he learned. In the meantime, Sam and Tucker were stuck with monitor duty, keeping an eye on the news for any updates on Freakshow.
"This better be the last one," Danny mutters as he zeroes in on a dark purple door. It's sinking down to the crumbling road beneath him and, as he lands and approaches the door, he feels his ghost sense flair.
It took Danny more than a year to learn to control his ghost sense like this, once he realized it could be controlled. It isn't perfect, especially since a lot his normal enemies give off very similar feelings. But ghosts like Clockwork, that are powerful and ancient, have a different feel. An intense thrumming that resonates with Danny's very being.
But in Clockwork's case, that might also be because of the connection they share as guardian and ward.
Danny opens the door, grinning when a giant cog goes floating by. Finally.
Despite how many times he's been to Clockwork's lair, Danny still feels the need to pause and take it in. There's no other lair like it, and not just because each ghost's lair is unique. There are much stranger things than a giant clock in Pandora's realm. But when Danny sees the giant grandfather clock, it's like he's seeing something out of time.
Not to mention the fantastic pun that is the Clocktower's name.
Danny flies up to the massive doors, thick oak panels reinforced by black iron and set in a stone archway. The medieval architecture of the tower's base is offset by the modern-looking clock face at the top. The materials that make up the walls change at intervals along the tower. Grass and mud for the very bottom foot, followed by wooden beams, and topped with ill-shaped stones that are masterfully arranged so they look like they were always meant to go together. Further up Danny can see red bricks, concrete, and there's even a thick band of glass that looks like a section from a skyscraper.
Sam would love this place. If Clockwork would ever let Danny bring her here again, or anyone really.
He doesn't bother knocking, instead pushing the door open and making his way to where he knows Clockwork will be. The viewing room, where the past, the present, the future, and all alternate realities can be seen through cog-shaped screens.
Clockwork is floating over the main platform, looking at the largest screen that shows the current timeline. His hands are folded behind his back, staff dangling from his fingertips.
"You're stubborn today, Daniel," Clockwork says. It's amazing how hearing Danny's full name from Vlad sends shivers up his spine, but when Clockwork says it, Danny feels reassured somehow. It's nice.
Danny crosses his arms. "I'm stubborn every day."
"Oh, I know." Clockwork turns, drifting back so Danny can see the viewing screen. It's showing what's happening right now. More than that, it's showing it from Danny's perspective, so it looks like an infinite loop of the viewing screen itself.
"That's just creepy," Danny says. He looks away, then whips around and looks at the screen again. The image doesn't change. Turning around, Danny peeks at the screen from the corner of his eye. Still nothing.
"As long as you are looking at the screen, all it will show is the screen," Clockwork says.
"Ugh, that's boring." Danny ignores Clockwork's chuckle. "You already know why I'm here."
Clockwork hesitates, looking between Danny and the screen. "Humour me."
"I want to know where Freakshow is." Danny scans the other screens, the ones showing different realities. He knows they won't help him here, but it's still cool to see. Sam and Tucker are in a few of them. Brief glimpses of Amity Park. Ghosts. It looks like they're all set on one focused perspective, rather than flipping through perspectives the way Clockwork likes to do.
Danny gets a sinking feeling that every pair of eyes he's seeing through are his own.
"I'm afraid I can only show you what you see," Clockwork says.
"So..." Danny pauses, slowly looking back to his guardian, his mentor. The being that is supposed to guide him when he needs it. "You're not going to help."
"When all is right, you will be able to see with more than just your own eyes. But ultimately," Clockwork's lips quirk, "no."
"What day I lost? Can't you at least show me what happened then?" Danny doesn't want to admit how scared he is. It's only been a few hours, but he's been doing everything he can to push those thoughts and feelings to the back of his mind. He knows that if he gets overwhelmed, then he'll start feeling empty and distant again, and that's the last thing he wants.
Clockwork's jaw clenches, eyes widening. The ghost of time is a man of few expressions, all expressions Danny knows well. But this one is new, and Danny has no idea what it means.
"Ah, yes, your... lost time. I'm afraid I can't show you that either."
"You can only show me what I see," Danny mutters. Maybe not remembering it doesn't count as seeing? He huffs. "Okay, fine, whatever. I'll figure it out on my own."
He spares Clockwork one last, pleading look, and is met with a stony, unmoving gaze. Danny was hoping for guidance at most, a leisurely visit at least. Clockwork always manages to put him at ease. Until now.
Danny swallows the lump in his throat as he leaves.
( ・᷄ ‸・᷅)
Danny swoops down and punches a strange, hybrid snake-bear ghost in the face. It looks like one of Vlad's experiments gone wrong but is obviously a lot weaker than those, if the way it shrieks and goes flying back when it gets hit is any indication. Ghost now vulnerable, Danny pulls out the Thermos and sucks it inside, slapping the cap on as soon as the beam fades.
He's been patrolling Amity and hunting for ghosts—and Freakshow—ever since he returned from the Clocktower. Danny was in the mood to hit something by the time he made it out of the Ghost Zone and Sam and Tucker, deathly bored from a day of watching the news, were eager to jump at the chance to fight some ghosts.
There are no developments on Freakshow, no help from Clockwork, and no breakthroughs on Danny's missing memories. He doesn't really know how to deal with all that, but he does know how to deal with some spectral nuisances. At least it helps him vent his frustrations.
Danny flies up above the buildings, scanning downtown Amity Park and reaching for his Fenton Phone.
"How goes the hunting?" Danny asks.
Tucker answers first. "Just some nameless ghosts. They barely seem conscious. You?"
"Let's just say the one I was after is hisstory."
"... Was it a snake?"
"Bear-snake. Or snake-bear. It seemed a little more snake than bear," Danny says. Not sensing any ghosts close by, he heads uptown, flying high above the city. It's beautiful seeing everything from up here. Usually a good flight helps calm him down, but Danny still wants to hit something. It's just not the same when he's hunting half-formed animal ghosts that can hardly think.
It's not as fun.
"Found a regular," Sam says, interrupting Danny's thoughts. "I think I saw Kitty by the park. She wasn't doing anything, but I'll keep an eye on her."
Kitty's definitely more fun than a snake-bear.
"I'm on my way," he says.
"I don't think that's—"
Danny takes out his Fenton Phone and stuffs it in his pocket. No point in risking it getting damaged.
It doesn't take him long to find Kitty. Just like Sam said, she's walking through the park. It looks like a regular stroll and she's relishing the attention the men are giving her. At least until they get close enough and realize she's a ghost and not some regular young woman.
Danny doesn't see Sam anywhere nearby. Maybe she moved on since he said he'd take care of Kitty. Either way, it doesn't matter. He flies down, leaning forward and folding his arms under his chin so it looks like he's lying on the air.
"Hey," Danny says, grinning when Kitty spins arounds.
"Oh, it's just you." Kitty pops her hip and examines her nails. "What do you want?"
"Stop terrorizing my town."
"Wha—" Kitty is cut off by an ectoblast Danny shoots from his finger. It's weak, meant more to startle than hurt, but still strong enough to make her stumble. "What the hell! Don't you and Johnny have some kind of truce or whatever?"
Danny ignores her. He swoops around her and fires again at her back, a little stronger this time, and Kitty is knocked off her feet. She goes sprawling on the grass.
"Okay, that's it." Kitty shoots into the air and spins around, bringing a hand to her lips. "If you want to fight, let's fight!"
She blows a kiss, sending a blue lip mark hurtling in Danny's direction. Danny grins and ducks out of the way, flying beneath her while firing a series of ectoblasts. Kitty dodges them, turning constantly to keep Danny in her sights as he flies around her. Her hands glow blue with spectral energy and she fires twin beams from her fists.
They gouge the earth, the smell of burnt grass rising from the darkened patches. Kitty jerks her hands to the side, following Danny as he flies evasively, and her ghost ray manages to clip his shoulder.
Danny cries out as he's thrown to the ground by the force of the blast. Of course, she just had to his already bruised shoulder. When he touches his shoulder, his hand comes away covered in ectoplasm.
Kitty doesn't give him any time to wallow, quickly following up her attack with a barrage of ectoblasts. Danny scrambles to avoid them, his eyes widening when he realizes one is about to hit him in the chess.
Danny panics, unable to dodge in time or turn intangible against an ecto-attack. Just as the blast is about to hit, a hole opens in his chest and the attack sails harmlessly through. When the hole closes, it feels like all the air has been sucked from his lungs and he heaves in a weezing breathe to compensate.
The split-second leaves him vulnerable and Kitty shoots forwards, hands glowing. But Danny recovers faster than Kitty is able to attack. He leaps into the air, twisting and spinning, and delivers a devastating, ecto-powered kick to the middle of Kitty's back. She slams into the dirt with a surprised shout.
She's dazed, but Danny isn't done. Hovering over her, he charges an ectoblast between his hands and throws it down. It explodes when it hits her and Kitty screams in pain, thrashing as the energy consumes her. When the light of the blast fades, she's prone on the ground. Still conscious, but unmoving and unable to fight.
Danny grins and pulls out the Thermos, pressing it to Kitty's shoulder and activating it. She doesn't even wail as she's sucked inside. He can only think one thing as he caps the Thermos and returns it to his belt.
Damn, does winning feel good.
( •̀ ᴗ•́)و
Deep in the Ghost Zone, Clockwork stares at his viewing screens with a melancholic expression. A frown tugs at his lips and he watches with half-lidded eyes. He turns away as the screen is engulfed in the bright light of the Fenton Thermos beam, turning instead to the many alternate realities of this world.
Not many people would be able to look upon these screens and see the things Clockwork sees. The people, the places, the obvious things, sure. But they wouldn't see the important things. The subtle increases in violence, the scared expressions on the faces of Daniel's loved ones, the defeated looks on his enemies and allies alike.
Six months ago, only a handful of these screens had shown bitter futures, even as they constantly shifted through the infinite number of alternate realities. Slowly, that number has dwindled until there are no less than nine "good" futures that Clockwork can see.
He raises his staff and waves it through the air. There's a soft spark, a faint blurring of purple energy, but that's it. The perspective on the screens doesn't change.
Clockwork looks away. He has never seen time shift so dramatically like this before. Has never lacked this much control over it. It takes a great force of will for him to look back to the present timeline. The Sam girl is the focus of the scene now. She's shouting.
Ignoring what he sees, Clockwork waves his staff again, and the events on the screen start playing backward. It's more than a relief at least that power is working. He takes it back one day, to the lost time Daniel mentioned earlier. Lost time that Clockwork had not been aware of until his ward mentioned it.
When Clockwork sets the screen to play normally again, there's nothing. Just an empty screen. For the first time in his life, there is something that he doesn't know.
Clockwork closes his eyes. He is Daniel's guardian. His role, beyond being Master of Time, is to guide Daniel to the best possible future. Looking at these screens now, Clockwork finds himself facing a frightening possibility.
He is failing.
( ´• _•`)
A/N: Hey, look! I updated before midnight for once! Yay! I feel like this chapter kind of stretches to fill the prompt, but I doubt it's going to be the last one
A personal headcanon of mine is that everything seen on Clockwork's screens is being shown from someone's perspective. In weird, meta fashion that is fitting to Clockwork's power, he can show things from his own perspective, which is a perspective that can already see everything without stepping outside the Clocktower. But Clockwork feels that showing the direct perspective of people involved makes it more personal and helps separate him more from the Observants, who only see things how they want to see them.
I was originally going to have Danny fight Johnny because I love their broship, but his fighting capabilities are pretty limited, so I went with Kitty instead. I also really wanted to use some of Danny's freaky spectral body manipulation because that's one of my favourite abilities, but I hardly ever use it in my fics.
Review Responses
Guest 101: Solidarity between sick people! Today was a bit better, but I couldn't go into work since I handle food and that would just be unsanitary. I'm having so much fun with the emotes! I have this website bookmarked that I use, and it has so many different emotes, so even if I don't find one that totally fits, I can mix and match expressions. I can't deny it, I do like to work with clichés a lot. One of my favourite things to do in writing fanfiction is see the kind of clichés there are for the fandom and write my own unique version that totally flips the trope. If the fandom has the cliché, I have the fic planned :P I hope you enjoy them!
Katpet: KATPET! SO WONDERFUL HEARING FROM YOU AGAIN! This makes me really want to jump back into my other fics again so that I can get in touch with my regulars again, I love you guys. I spent a lot of time considering who I wanted to be for my villain and I thought Freakshow could use some attention, I'm glad you like it so far!
Also thought I'd share that you can find me on tumblr as kinglazrus
