The world was not only paused now, it was stopped. Young Daniel couldn't find air or words. Like the weight of reality crushing down on him, his weary heart thundered within his chest.
"My real name is Cindy Mae Fenton, but when I work with you and Momma I'm Cindress. I traveled through Clockwork's castle, back in time, because I felt like it was my job to warn you." She blew softly over him to help the mixture dry. "In the future, there is this ghost villainess, Vanessa, my age. She's an obsessed, crazy scientist who has dedicated her life to rule not only the ghost zone, but the earth as well with her torture devices and mind control experiments. But see, when she was only a human baby, before all the madness took over, You and Momma had adopted her and she was growing into a healthy young child. She and I were the best of friends, might as well have been biological sisters." Cindress's eyes grew distant, vague, and lost in memory.
"But, knowing the truth about her parent's ghost-centered lives, and having been kept far from them because she was only human, Vanessa began to resent her family, and her humanity. So, she devoted her life to sciences of ghost and humans alike. You and Momma were deceived into believing that her hobby were a healthy one, but it couldn't have been further from the truth. One afternoon when experimenting, she concocted a vapor that would control the bodies of both humans and ghosts. It was then that we lost her. Vanessa asked me to join her in her destiny to control all live, telling me that together we would have been unstoppable. But, loving my parents, I told them everything... Naturally, you and Momma tried to harness her, rehabilitate her, strip her of her discoveries and destiny... A very long story short, I fell victim to her mind control vapor and became her slave for three long months. On the last day of the third month the vapor effects began to wear off and I began to have moments where I was in control of myself again. I kept this secret from her and managed to escape that night, taking with me as many other mind controlled drones of hers as I could. Sadly though, I'm not fully out of her control and I still quirks where she'll pull my strings as her puppet. That's why I lit you on fire and that's the troops I rescued destroyed your city in search of you. I feel horrible, but I can't co anything to stop the quirks with out the proper antidote." She let out an aggravated sigh before continuing.
"Stupid tears. They freakin' burn!" Cindress her bloodshot eyes and sniffled. "Vanessa began to hunt me down immediately. Because I had my mind back, I could set you and Momma free from her capture and she would be stopped. But, I didn't know where to run, I had no plan and no means to rescue you and Momma on my own, so I went to Clockwork's castle to try and seek advise. When I got there, I was told by the observers that Clockwork had devised some plot to rip my mother off the earth and out of the ghost zone, to cause her to just vanish from existence. They explained that if they did this all things would work together in the future to see that you would never seek to marry or start a family and that your sole focus would be protecting the earth from the ghost zone... Anyway, I came here to warn you and to tell you that I know how to satisfy both you and Clockwork at the same time without damaging the time stream." A tiny grin of triumph skittered onto her tired face.
"Let me get this straight," Danny managed to choke out of so much shock, "I'm your father?"
"Yes, you are. I know this is a whole lot for me to just barge in a dump on you. I'm sorry, there wasn't really much of an other choice."
"And you're telling me, that in the future there is a crazy scientist lady named Vanessa, that I'd helped to raise, that wants to dictate the ghost zone and the earth with a mind control vapor, and no one can stop her?"
"Only you and mom could. But, when Vanessa gave you the choice of my slaughter or being put under lockdown, you chose lockdown. You were both put under a paralysis drug of hers, and only she can wake you with an antidote. I can't stop her on my own."
"And when you were fleeing from her, you heard the observers say that he would rip my wife, your mother, out of existence to make everything right, so you came to warn me, but in the process you had a quirk of mind control and you attacked everything?"
"Wow, I thought I was going to lose you at 'I'm your daughter,' but this is impressive. So far you're right on target, are you ready for more?"
Danny lay quiet for a moment, soaking in the silence. Of course he wasn't.
"I guess so," he mumbled under his breath, and she cracked another a smile.
"Ok I think these next few words may solve everything. You can take mom's place and get ripped out of existence instead." Cindress threw her hands dramatically in the air proclaiming, "It's what you want isn't it?"
"More than anything..."
"And you'll be saving her from a horrible fate at the same time!"
Danny pondered this for a moment. He did want this more than anything. Here it was, gazing down on him, yet something wasn't sitting right in his mind. Something was out of place.
"Who is your mother?" he asked delicately, like a thin sheet of glass being placed on the nails.
"Who do you think my mother is? Samantha Manson, duh!" She snapped back, shattering his glass. "A monkey with short-term memory loss could've figured that out! No offense… She wasn't exaggerating, you were totally clueless." She laughed heartily.
Daniel's eyes grew large. All forms of expression, beyond a distant smirk and quiet blush, left his face. He knew immediately, to maintain dignity, he needed to exchange his focus.
"And, how does trading places with her satisfy Clockwork?"
"Another stupid question." Cindress rolled her eyes. "He wants one of you gone so it will drive the other one into destroying anything and everything that is a danger to any innocent person. Don't you know your little Missy Samantha would do that in your remembrance and absence?"
"But, Sam doesn't have ghost powers..." Danny thought aloud, beginning to doubt his little girl's intentions, to question her true motives. Although, his conscience was quick to correct those feelings, kick them back in line with trust. The teen ghost boy cocked his head, longing to sit up, stopped fast with the pain reliever wearing off and the fresh skin fizzing a little like a soda on him as it began to dry and set in place. The blacks from the burning were still lightly visible, as well as the pinks on his new skin, like faint swirls of dark mist on a clear pool. "Um, you know how to illuminate me permanently?"
"Yes sir-ree! You won't even feel anything-well, for the most part. It's another creation of Vanessa's. I stole it, as well a few other things, when I escaped-and let me tell you, it is not easy trying to steal things while running for your life!"
"I don't know about this..." Danny hesitated. "I love Sam, everyone knows that but her, and now when she tells me she feels the same and we can finally be together, I'm going to be ripped out of everything. It just seems that maybe, I don't know. I don't know anything anymore…"
"Yes, but you'll lose her and hate yourself forever if you go for her love, saying all will be fine, when in only a matter of days, she'll receive the very fate you crave."
She paused while Danny thought. "You can't have her Danny, I'm sorry. No matter what you choose, she is not to be yours. Wouldn't you rather spare her life and let her become the most respected and beloved guardian in the world and the ghost zone? I truly am sorry though. I mean, I'm having to give up my existence too. I just hoped, since you are my father, and my family's protector, that you would want to do this for her, for my mother..." She stared onto the floor, there seeing her mother's face, hearing her soft hum and feeling the gentle kiss she'd felt only as a baby...
Danny reached out a trembling hand laid it on hers.
An invisible force passed between them, silently, and quickly. It washed over each of the two teens, with great strength it touched deeply in them. They knew what had to be done, and it was the force that silently settled it. Nothing was said, for nothing was needed. The wave, for a moment, brought together father and daughter, from future and past, and it passed as smoothly as it came.
"I have to go, make preparations and see what I can do to fix all the damage I've done. Again, I'm truly sorry this has to happen. I wish so much that it doesn't have to be this way. But it does, and I guess that's just the way things turn out." She sighed heavy. "I'll give you till noon tomorrow to say good-bye to all your friends and family. Spend time with them, tell them you love them, but do not tell them you're leaving, or give them a reason to think they need to try and rescue you."
Daniel nodded solemnly.
"You do realize that there is no turning back now."
He swallowed back emotion as he was pulled back into his muddy slick hole of depression. Why are you upset? His conscience asked sadly. You are getting all you wanted-and you are doing this for a good reason, to save the girl you love.
"I know," he said coldly. There was no hint of doubt in him about what he was going to do.
Cindress nodded just as solemnly, but with a smirk, and then vanished away in thick black smoke.
Daniel sat up, now alone. All that had just occurred swirled his head into his jumbled stomach. Finally, all that was so wildly still and paused in his world for the past twenty minutes found that a button labeled "PLAY" had been pressed, and nothing was the same as before, just as it never would be.