Chapter 10: The Ultimate Enemy

Danny watched the falling snow with half-lidded eyes. It was no longer white, mixed as it was with ash and smoke, and the war-torn sky with its heavy grey clouds looked equally dirty.

When was the last time he saw the sun?

"You could always fly above the clouds," a deep voice rumbled, and Danny slowly turned his head to look at his other half.

Phantom looked as apathetic as ever, his face lacking expression – he rarely bothered to fake emotions.

"I don't want to," Danny replied and pressed a bit closer to Phantom's side. "I feel-" he paused to take an unneeded breath, trying to keep his grief and sorrow from bleeding into his voice and warping it into a Screech. "I feel like the sun is dying too. The sky is nothing but poison."

"Absurd," Phantom replied. "The planet is dying, but it can't affect the sun." He crafted his expression into a mocking smirk, baring the tips of his fangs, "Aren't you supposed to be a space nerd?"

For a moment Danny stared at him incredulously and then burst into laughter. It wasn't particularly funny but still he laughed, doubled over and clutching Phantom's shoulders for support, his unstable emotions overtaking his mind yet quickly burning up into nothingness.

Calm again, Danny leaned back against his other half and pulled on his cape, wrapping the fabric around them both. Of course, neither felt cold, if for opposite reasons – Danny had the chill of Arctic winter in his core while Phantom was hellfire incarnate.

Danny dug his too long fingers into the white fire of Phantom's hair. It felt warm and almost solid to the touch and Danny smiled, mesmerized by the sight of his translucent blue claws amidst the white flames.

It was hard to believe they used to be the same person.

Phantom didn't mind his scrutiny – or rather didn't care – merely waiting until Danny snapped out of his reverie.

"What now?" Phantom asked, his forked tongue flicking out in what might have been nervousness if he had enough humanity left to feel it.

"Now we wait," Danny replied, the blue glow of his eyes dimming slightly.

They stayed in silence, watching the snow fall from the poisoned sky, and waited for the world to end.

If Danny Phantom had stopped Pariah Dark from taking over the world, Clockwork would have shifted him into a timeline, where he was the one who died while his family and friends stayed alive. It would have been a fitting reward for saving the world while placating the Observants – Clockwork could have merely said he was ensuring that another timeline didn't fall victim to Pariah.

Unfortunately, he had only succeeded in part. The Ghost King was defeated, but the damage inflicted upon the two worlds was too numerous. Still, even destruction was preferable to eternal slavery. Clockwork merely had to wait until his employers realized that this timeline was doomed, giving him permission to erase it. He could have still honored his end of the deal, if more subtly – a transfer of consciousness rather than a physical transport into the past.

But Clockwork didn't account for the secrecy of the deal having such an effect on his employers' opinion.

"To save the future Danny Phantom must perish," one of the Observants proclaimed haughtily and Clockwork fought the urge to bash it over the head with his scepter. So in their eyes it was Danny at fault for this mess of a timeline?

Even worse – if they had only ordered him to kill the current version of Danny and Phantom, he could've simply faked it, fulfilling his end of the bargain. But no, his idiotic employers wanted to meddle with the past.

This was going to complicate his plans but he refused to be outmaneuvered. They wanted him to intervene, to make sure that Danny Phantom never went down this path?

Fine then. He will.

"Time out!"

Phantom flinched at the sudden weight around his neck, lighting up an ecto-blast in his hand, but he let it dissipate when he recognized the Time Medallion.

"Clockwork?" Danny asked curiously as the Master of Time materialized before them. "What happened? Are you finally going to erase this timeline?"

"Not yet," Clockwork replied. "It has to exist for a little longer."

"Then why are you here?" Phantom asked. "We had a deal."

The Time Lord gave him a flat look, "My employers in their infinite idiocy decided that you are the one responsible for the destruction of this timeline rather than Pariah Dark. And now they want me to destroy your past self ten years ago, before the split in the timeline."

"WHAT?!" Danny shrieked, rising into the air. "I will end them!"

"Tempting," Clockwork sighed, "but no. They do have a role to play in the grand scheme of things."

Danny didn't calm down, the distilled humanity of his existence turning his anger into a blinding rage. His back arched and he screamed into the heavens, the piercing shriek climbing higher and higher until Phantom matter-of-factly clamped a hand around his throat.

Danny choked and clawed at him, ice-blue talons leaving long bleeding gashes, but Phantom much preferred dealing with physical attacks rather than the destructive and barely controllable Screech.

Clockwork merely waited until the unstable ice elemental calmed down, which didn't take long – Danny tended to swing wildly from one emotion to the next, unable to sustain any one of them for longer than a few minutes.

"So what now?" Phantom asked, releasing his other half who promptly settled on his shoulders. "Are you changing the deal again?"

Clockwork shrugged, "It is perfectly within your rights to refuse, but I was going on the assumption that you would prefer to not be erased from existence."

Danny snarled at him, gnashing his teeth, but otherwise stayed quiet.

"Do you have a plan?" Phantom asked and Clockwork smirked in response.

"Of course I do. Now listen closely…"

It was so strange to see them again – a blast from the past indeed. No wonder Clockwork demanded that Danny stay away. His unstable, formerly human half would have promptly had a breakdown and destroyed everything in range with either his Screech or his ice powers.

Even Phantom, for all that he lacked emotions, felt somewhat uneasy when he saw Sam and Tucker trying to shield his past self from Valerie.

"It was all your fault!" the Red Huntress yelled, ready to shoot the halfa, blaming him for the destruction of this world.

Well then, time to get in character.

Phantom sent a flash of green flames at the Red Huntress, knocking her away, and smirked at the trio of teenagers, "Actually, that was me. And you, eventually."

A/N: Since the Observants were unaware of the deal between Danny and Clockwork, for them it seemed like Phantom started killing people for no reason. But the deal has to stay secret because it didn't just bend the rules, it outright broke them. If the Observants ever found out about it, the repercussions would be dire for everyone involved.