Okay, now get started!
Danny: Nuh-uh. Not after what Clockwork told me would happen.
UNHOLY SPROCK! Clockwork, stop spoiling you troll!
Clockwork: Well, no need to be so offense.
GAH! ENOUGH! Clockwise and Dusk are not my OC's. They both belong to Miss xwocketx of Deviantart. Go look at her artwork. LOOK AT IT I SAY!
CHAPTAH!
STARTO!
Danny gaped at the size of the hallway they were flying down, hanging from Nocturnes' shoulders. Vortex had relented hold and Danny, shaken from the sudden jolt from his comfort, had been offered a piggy-ride from the ghost of sleep.
"It wasn't easy to heal you, child. You nearly faded at least three times." Danny had an inkling as to what 'faded' meant, but he was still curious enough to ask anyway.
"Faded?"
Vortex tilted his head, scratching his green hair in thought. "Faded. Y'know, like..." Vortex straightened up. "Like what you humans -wheeze- refer to as 'flat-lining'. That." The weather spirit smiled, as though proud of making such a reference.
Danny, on the other hand, had gone pale. Flat-lined. He had come close to becoming a ghost forever. He felt his feet thud against the ground, Nocturne having put him down and looking over him in concern. He swayed.
Then ran.
He heard Nocturne and Vortex call after him, but his legs didn't stop moving. He darted and turned, running through what he realized was Clockwork's castle. He slowed to a halt in front of a picture frame, gold-painted. It was of a ghost that resembled Clockwork, but with slight differences. There also seemed to be a regal air about him, even though it was an image.
"Clockwise. The first Time Keeper, as well as the previous Time Keeper who came before me." Danny turned at the familiar voice, and saw the one ghost he wanted to see the most. He tilted his head in confusion.
"Previous? As in, there was another Time Keeper before you? That's hard to imagine." Clockwork nodded.
"Just as Nocturne was not always the Spirit of Sleep, nor have I always been the keeper of time." His staff lit up and Danny then saw a painting nearby. It was of a figure who resembled Nocturne, but with a horned helmet that did not curl, instead gracefully curving upwards like a bull. He also had a very humanistic appearence, with straight black hair dropping down around his shoulders, and calm red eyes.
"This is Dusk. He was formally the Spirit of Sleep, and raised Nocturne in his footsteps. He loved to pester the Observants, to the point they called him a menace to the Ghost Zone, but Clockwise defended him. Dusk tended to dote on Nocturne, and was sometimes a bit scary when it came to my brother's safety." Danny nodded, and even after his brain had caught the last bit, it took a few more seconds to sink in.
"HUH? BROTHER?-!" Clockwork chuckled at the halfa's reaction.
"Startling, isn't it? But by all technical terms, Nocturne and I are brothers. Clockwise and Dusk tended to, ahem, 'cross each others paths', so to say, and I met Nocturne while on such an excursion." Clockwork smirked wistfully. "We were both hiding in the same tree, and after Clockwise and Dusk had passed out from their 'chat', we talked to each other and bonded until they woke up." Danny had paled, wondering how it was that such powerful spirits could behave like children at times. In front of their own kids, no less! Clockwork chuckled again.
"I am not the child of Clockwise, Daniel." Danny gave him a cross-eyed stare of confusion. "Though he was the one to raise me and teach me, Clockwise was not my parent. No one really knows where ghosts such as my self and my brother come from. Perhaps the Observants would know, given that they put Clockwise in charge of me, but if so we may never know." Danny was slightly put out; the Observants ruined everything with their hysteria and paranoia.
But to keep one's origins from them? That was downright cruel. Even if Clockwork seemed fine with it, it was now irking Danny to no end. A thought came to him suddenly; if Clockwise was the first Time Keeper, and Dusk the first Spirit of sleep, did that mean someday Clockwork and Nocturne would be replaced? A feeling of apprehension was building in Danny's stomach. He was still on edge about Nocturne, but Clockwork was his friend. He was a ghost Danny knew he could trust, and if he were to be replaced...
Clockwork was caught off guard as Danny grabbed him around the waist and held the ghost in a bear hug. "Daniel?" Danny responded by squeezing, startling the ghost. No one ever had given the Time Keeper such affection before, and it was awkward to one who was not used to having contact. There was the natural incentive to push Danny away, to reject the warmth. But, there was that matter still. After a few moments of awkward silence, Clockwork transferred his staff to his left hand, and used his right arm to hug the halfa back. Unseen by Danny or Clockwork, a faint silverish glow streamed along Clockworks' arm and into Dannys' back.
"I'm sorry." Danny finally pulled his face away from the glass casing and gave the ghost a confused look. "I saw you being captured and tortured. I knew what was going to happen. I should've stepped in. I should have-" The Time Keeper cut himself off with a sad look at the floor. It was quiet, until the Master of Time spoke again. "I can only hope you forgive me." For a moment, Danny could only stare.
Forgive? Why would he need to forgive Clockwork? If something had happened to stop Clockwork, then there was nothing the Time Keeper could have done anyway. Right? But, the only ones who could keep Clockwork in line were...
It was un-nerving, the look the boy was giving him. Then, Danny spoke, his voice cracked with barely hidden suspicion.
"Observants?" It was low, and it was only thanks to the quiet gloom in the hall that Clockwork caught the murmur. He nodded.
"I should've done...something." Danny tilted his head to stare at Clockwork's face. The ghost looked like he was in pain, so much so that when his ruby-colored eyes caught Danny's ice blue, Clockwork looked away first.
"...Can I go home soon?" The question was sudden, and Clockwork stared at Danny with a look of blankness. "I need to go home. My folks have got to be freaking out by now. And my friends too. Hell, I'm still freaking out."
Clockwork nodded and began leading Danny down the hallway again. They walked in silence, Danny trying not to think about the situation, and Clockwork more than over-thinking about it. Neither noticed how their hands had slipped together, or the faint iridescent glow around their palms. They reached the room where the Gear-Mirrors were, and Danny yelped and shrank behind Clockwork. Every ghost in the room (pretty much, any ghost Danny had ever faced) turned to them.
Skulker was the first to speak, holding a cup of green glowing...something. "Ah, Ghost Boy. I was about to go bursting into your room to wake you up. Can't have my prey sleeping for too long, after all." Danny gave him a flat look, to which Ember laughed.
"Hello, Child." Nocturne and Vortex were there, both holding the glowing liquid in goblets. The Sleep Spirit smirked as he watched Danny from his perch. "We thought you'd find Clockwork eventually. Vortex wanted to chase you, but I talked him out of it."
Danny did not move from his hiding place. He tried to imagine a ghost bigger and older than Nocturne, holding him and singing lullabies to make the ghost sleep. He was torn between gaping at the mental image, and laughing his ass off, which would raise a few eyebrows. He managed a "Thanks for that." and slowly Clockwork began to move into the room, humoring Danny who was hiding his face in the Time Keeper's cloak. Technus grinned and reached for the Ghost Boy, but pulled his hand back when the Lunch Lady waved a knife at him threateningly. Danny and Clockwork reached the portal that Danny knew was for him. He used it to come and talk to the master of time when he felt like it. On the way there, he peered out of the cloak, and a small canister caught his eye.
It was a Fenton Thermos, small and compact, silver metal and green technology lines. Inside this tiny container was his evil future alter ego. This Dan, as he was named, had lost his family in an accident, and had fused with Plasmius's soul, creating an entity which destroyed Amity-Park, and the world, at that. Dan was evil, but Danny also felt sorry for him. He'd lost everything he loved, become a creature bent on destruction, and was defeated by his alternate younger self and trapped inside the device he once used to protect.
It had a few more dents since the last time he'd seen it, but nothing seemed too out of place. If there was even the slightest hint that Dan was coming back, Clockwork would tell him, anyway. Right?
It was now December, snow fresh on the ground, and Danny was dreading his life at this point. After he'd gotten back, his parents both scolded him, and made him promise to never take so long on a mission again. They didn't know about the GiW capturing him, and if things went his way for once, they'd never find out. The only ones he told were Sam and Tucker, and they knew everything except the part about him getting knocked up. Call it childish, but Danny was scared of their reaction, especially Sam. She might get mad enough to go after the GiW, possibly with a Fenton gadget, and though Danny was amazed by her tenacity when it came to fighting, he really didn't her to get arrested for assaulting someone.
He breathed slowly, watching vapor trail from his lips, grateful that for once it wasn't blue. Though he did burn away his ice-power energy by freezing his foes, the blue mist never failed to appear along with his enemy. Frostbite had told him about cores, and how the core affected what power a ghost had. His core was actually two different elements. One half of his core was Frost, the power of ice that was found prominently in the Far Frozen territory. The other half was Flare, the fire power that was much more common in the Ghost Zone. Frostbite said he'd never encountered a being with two completely opposite core powers before, which would help explain why Danny seemed to continuously get stronger; with every crisis he faced, one half of his core would evolve to a stronger level, challenging the other core half to become stronger as well.
"The cores needed to be in complete harmony at all times." The wolf-looking ghost had said. "If one were to become too much stronger than the other, it may cause that half to swallow the other half, completely dominating it, and the shock of that power taking over may upset your body enough to cause very unpleasant repercussions."
"Like what?" Danny asked, his eyes trained on the drawing Frostbite had made. It was of his cores, a brilliant bright blue diamond shape on the left, and a blinding green diamond on the right side of his body.
Frostbite frowned. "If the shockwave is powerful enough, it might kill you completely." Danny had processed this for a moment, before screaming and falling over.
"Y-You're kidding! Please tell me that was an awful joke you just told!" He begged, heart sinking when the ice ghost shook his head.
"I will not lie to you, Great One. It is the truth. Balance is what keeps things alive. Just as humans must maintain balance, ghosts must have balance as well. Have you ever heard of yin and yang?"
Danny had, but only a little. He'd fallen asleep during the lecture, much to Lancers' chargrin.
"Yin is the balance of light, whereas yang is the balance of dark. They circle each other constantly to keep order and balance, hence why the symbol is always a circle. However..." Frostbite trailed off. He picked up a burush and blotted black and white on the scroll he'd drawn Dannys' core on. "Even in light, there is a chance of darkness."
'Like Dan,' Danny thought.
"But, just like I said, they balance out. Meaning that if there is a chance of darkness in light..." He dabbed a white spot on the black half. "There is also a chance for light in darkness." He turned to Danny. "Think of your core like this. Fire is destruction, black, but if it is controlled, it can be a good thing. Ice is pure, healing, white, but if it isn't controlled, it can freeze a life away and cause destruction just as bad as any fire."
Danny nodded, utterly amazed at the discussion. He had never even thought of his abilities like that. If that was true, then he'd really need to keep track of his powers.
Danny suddenly felt his fire half flare up(sorry, lame pun) and before he could react, his foot slipped and he went down hard on his leg. His head was spinning, his insides were twisting up like a coil of snakes, and he felt like his body would spontaneously combust right there in the street. Then, he managed to stand-
And ran into the alley nearby in time to throw up.
READ AND REVIEW! Whew! So much stuff! Like I announced before, Dusk and Clockwise belong to Miss xwocketx on Deviantart. If you want more info on them, go see her pages on them.
Ah, that core stuff I think I read somewhere else, but most of it I made up. Oh noes! Danny is sick? Le shock! Stay tuned for chapter five, people! And thank you for following me so far!