Disclaimer: I still don't own Danny Phantom. Butch Hartman does, and I somehow doubt that will be changing any time soon. Since I'm not making any money from this, there is nothing for the law-ninjas to sue out of me.
Author's Note: Huzzah! Made it in before my self-imposed deadline! First off, a piece of trivia for those of you who found Valerie's fantasy about killing Dan to be creepy, disturbing, or otherwise eerily reminiscent to how Dan himself used to be. Go back to either Jeremiad (chapter 5 - No Redemption), or Anathema (chapter 4 - Encounter) and reread it. The dialogue from Valerie's daydream came word for word from one scene in both of those fics: namely the scene where Dan kills Dash. Only now, in Valerie's fantasy, Dan was reciting Dash's lines... and Valerie was the one speaking Dan's lines.
Anyway, here's the new chapter, additional notes to follow at the bottom!
Chapter Nine: Call to Action
"The shadows of the night
Are unleashed again
Where their greed begins
The end is near."
-"The Gatekeeper" - Within Temptation
"Dora?" It took Valerie a moment to process what Tucker was babbling.
"She just got here and there's some ghost, he wants something from Dan and the castle's been-" The royal geek blathered in an obvious combination of relief and panic.
"Tucker, slow down!" The huntress barked, shoving her musing about Dan's fate aside to focus on the latest development.
"Look, just get back here quick, okay? It's complicated." Tucker blurted out, closing the connection on his end.
Valerie glowered at her wristband. She really didn't want to go back, not while she knew Dan was still being tended to by Vlad. Still, her duties as Patrol Commander called, and she wasn't one to shirk those duties. Somehow the fire-headed ghost was involved as well, and that alone was reason enough to find out what was going on at headquarters.
She took to the sky despite her reservations, heading back to the bright glow of the new city.
---
"Okay, Dora, deep breaths." Sam and Danny had commandeered one of the meeting rooms in the patrol headquarters to set the dragon princess up in while they tried to get her calmed down. "And start from the beginning."
The princess had caused quite the commotion when she dove through the portal looking for all the world like a refugee waking from nightmare. Tucker had all but pounced his wife with relief; but that relief had been short lived when they first made some sense out of Dora's panic.
"I was looking for Dan." She began shakily. "But-"
Valerie slipped into the room, glowering at no one in particular. "Okay, I'm here. What's going on?"
"Looks like Tucker was right that whatever beat him-" Danny gestured down to the lab where Dan was still being tended. "-is bad news for the rest of us."
Valerie got a good look at Dora, quirking one eyebrow at the ghost princess. She looked terrible; not injured or otherwise harmed, but certainly stressed. What the heck happened?
Dora's next statement answered that.
"This ghost calling himself Maghnus appeared, and made me take him to our castle. He has such terrible power, it was hideous!" The princess shivered. "He took over as though it were nothing!"
"But he let you escape?" Sam asked.
Dora nodded wearily. "He told me to find Dan and deliver a message. Or else."
Valerie's glare darkened at the news. "What message is this?"
"I'm not sure what to make of it..." The princess admitted. "He said, and I quote, 'Tell that weak fool to return to me that which is rightfully mine that he surely has stolen away from my traitorous brother!' ... And then he finished destroying the rest of the castle guards."
Everyone in the room exchanged baffled looks at that.
"Something Dan stole from this guy's brother?" Tucker frowned.
"Why don't we just hand Dan over to him and be done with it?" Valerie muttered.
"Uh, Valerie, normally I'd agree with you on this one." Sam crossed her arms in thought. "But this guy DID just take over Tucker and Dora's home. Somehow I don't think just handing the psychopath over is going to make this guy go away. Even if Tucker knifed all his friends in the back by helping the jerk."
"More importantly, who's this Maghnus guy's brother, and what the heck does he want from Dan?" Tucker paced at the head of the conference table, wincing at Sam's acidic remarks. I'm never living it down, am I? "I don't think Dan actually has any belongings. When you first found him, Val, did he have anything?"
"Just his boxers." The huntress snorted derisively. "Red with white polkadots all over 'em."
The others in the room paused to look at Valerie oddly.
"What?" She asked after a long silence.
"You know, Val, that's kinda creepy." Danny spoke up. "That you know all about his underwear."
"Yeah, that's something I could have gone the rest of eternity without knowing." Sam made a face.
"His suit was blasted to bits showing it for anybody to see when I found him!" Valerie protested hotly. "Tucker saw the jerk's underwear!"
"Yeah, but I didn't memorize it." The royal geek countered.
"Look, it stood out against all that black and white, okay?" The huntress hissed warningly. "Can we stay on topic?"
"Indeed." Dora agreed, voice still shaky. "We know nothing about Maghnus or what exactly it is he wants."
"Or if Dan even has it." Tucker sighed.
"Well hasn't Vlad been busy putting him back together?" Valerie grumbled. "Isn't that ghost awake yet?"
"Valerie, he was beat to death." Tucker tried not to sound too annoyed at the huntress and her continued single-mindedness. "Vlad's got him stabilized, but it's probably going to take some time before he wakes back up."
"Maghnus also mentioned Watchers." Dora frowned in thought as she tried to recall everything about her encounter with the giant. "And that they should have made sure that everyone still knew who the great Maghnus, Lord of the Dark was."
"Wait, did you say 'dark'?" Danny suddenly snapped to attention. "Like... Pariah Dark? The Ghost King?"
That brought the room screeching to a halt as the implications set in.
"That... makes an awful lot of very unpleasant sense." Dora admitted. "But I have never heard of the Ghost King having a brother."
"And nobody's heard of these Watcher guys, either." Tucker mused aloud.
"So we've got two things to figure out while we wait for him to wake up." Sam counted off. "One, find out who this Maghnus is and what the heck he's about. Two, find out about these Watchers and why they didn't warn anybody."
Awkward silence fell over the gathering as they contemplated the goth ghost's points.
"Clockwork."
Danny's soft voice sounded almost like a shout in the otherwise silent room, all eyes turned to the mild ghost.
"What about him?" Valerie raised an eyebrow.
"He released Pariah on behalf of everyone in the Ghost Zone right?" Danny ran his fingers through his mop of black hair nervously. "To stop Dan. He knows a lot, maybe we should ask him about Maghnus and these Watchers?"
"Hey, good thinking!" Tucker brightened. "Think you and Sam can go find him for us?"
Tucker knew he could probably find the clock tower about as fast as his friends, but he didn't want to leave Dan alone in Valerie's care with only Vlad looking out for the injured ghost. Sending Sam and Danny would also keep the two most vocal opponents to not finishing Dan off split up so they couldn't amplify one another. Sam was nearly as irrational as Valerie, and the royal geek didn't need Valerie convincing Sam that Dan was no further use to them. If this Maghnus was such a threat, Dan's full power was probably a necessary and vital asset.
Yeah, Valerie realizing that is about as likely to happen as Vlad wearing a dress.
"Be careful to avoid the castle." Dora sighed. "He has an army occupying it now."
"Right. Sam's got the phone, so we'll call if anything happens." Danny offered the princess a wan smile before he and Sam phased through the floor to the lab.
---
"How can you be so calm about all this?" Sam demanded of her friend as the two ghosts passed the restraining tank where Vlad was still working on Dan.
Danny shrugged as they neared the Ghost Zone portal. "You guys only saw him when he was destroying stuff, right?"
"As if he did anything else?" Sam retorted.
Danny's long silence following the statement drew the goth's gaze over to his intense frown. She knew he'd always carry some measure of guilt for the destruction, though she and Tucker had both repeatedly reassured him that it wasn't his fault.
"He's not mindless, Sam." Danny spoke at last, slowly as though the words were treacherous. "None of us may like it, but he had some reason for everything."
"I don't care what reason he had." Sam glared into the distance as the two flew onward through the inky darkness of the Ghost Zone toward where they knew Clockwork's tower was.
Danny shook his head and remained silent. Maybe I am the only one that caught him with his guard down in all that time.
The long years it had taken him to manifest as a ghost himself after his gruesome demise were mostly a haze of monotony, punctuated by a scant handful of moments that stuck out. Ten years had been a very long time to be all alone, and the black-haired ghost knew the experience had irreversibly changed him. He couldn't fault Sam or Tucker for never visiting him; they'd had no way to know he was there, bound to the grave site until he had gathered the strength to manifest himself properly.
And Valerie had come. Not often; Danny could count the number of times she had visited on a single hand with fingers to spare, but she had come. That first time, Vlad had brought her. He'd only been dead for a little more than a year then; barely cognizant of where he was and what had happened to him. It was her voice that had roused him to awareness.
Or rather, what she had said.
"I'm so sorry, Danny. I doubt you can hear me now, but I'm so sorry." Contrary to what she must have thought, her voice though soft was clear to him above the murmuring of the breeze. He could hear the deep grief in a voice worn raw from weeping. "I was an idiot, I didn't mean to be so cruel, Danny. This is all my fault. I broke my promise, and you suffered because of it."
His vision, if it could even be called that, was hazy and unfocused; as though trying to see through cloudy water. He knew who it was, it was Valerie; it was her reaction to his secret that had sent him fleeing to Wisconsin. She had promised not to freak out on him; yet despite that promise she had reacted poorly. Distantly he thought he should be mad at her; if she hadn't scared him away when he had trusted her, perhaps none of this would have happened.
"Can you see me now, Danny? Pretty pathetic, huh?" He heard her voice catch on the admission, followed by a sniffle and a blur of movement that was probably the girl wiping her face on her sleeve. "Without you around, things went down the toilet. But I guess at least you got what you wanted in the end. Wherever you are now, you're beyond all the pain, right? No more worries, no more fighting, no more hurting. You can see your family again, right? Maybe you and Sam can be together now."
That name stirred another memory, a painful one. Sam. If he'd hands to clench, they would have been balled into fists; tears on his face. Dead due to his own carelessness; his own greed over that stupid test. Was she trapped like he was now? Immobile, impotent, voiceless and alone? And Tucker, what about him? Or Jazz, or his parents?
"She loved you, Danny. She was a better friend than I could ever be. She would never have hurt you the way I did. It's going to be hard to go on now, but it's not your fault. You tried your very best. I know you tried to save them, Danny, but I couldn't save you. I had my chance, we all did." There was no mistaking the anguish in her voice; the weight of a grim burden carried on her words. "And now I'll never see you again, I'll never be able to make amends for those awful things I said to you. You tried so hard, Danny, but I guess it was more than you could handle alone. But I won't let you down now."
There was iron beneath the anguish; the steel of determination backing that declaration. She had already let him down in the worst way imaginable; and it was clear that she realized her grave mistake and bore the weight of the consequences. What had happened since that terrible day in Vlad's lab? What had become of that... that other him?
"I'll protect everyone for you. You'd be heartbroken to see that monster... all that's left of you in this world. But I'll fight on as long as I can. For you, Danny." Valerie continued, the sentence giving him a good idea of where his other half had gone and what must have happened.
Valerie fell silent, wrapping her arms around the rocky grave in an awkward approximation of a hug. It was hard to tell due to her silence, but he was fairly certain that the heaving of her shoulders was more sobbing. Perhaps the first time since it all went wrong that she could express her grief; as the sole capable ghost hunter in Amity Park now, she wouldn't have had time to grieve.
Finally, as the shadows etched dark lines across the clearing, Valerie roused from her grief. Reluctantly she stood back up, trying to rub warmth back into arms gone cold from the weather as she walked toward the trees surrounding the site.
"I hope you can finally be happy now." She paused at the trees, looking back with her head bowed and shoulders slumped. "I love you, Danny."
He was awake.
But then, there was that one time... Dan appeared at the site. Danny had been far more aware and could perform some very minor manifestations. As a result he'd had an... interesting... conversation with the angry ghost. It had been fascinating; Danny's non-manifest state at the time had enabled him to verbally needle the fire-headed ghost without fear. Despite all evidence to the contrary, it seemed Dan did have a reason for his destructive behavior; he wasn't merely an insane madman.
Dan had been caught off balance then; not quite vulnerable, but as their argument carried on the ghost's mantle of arrogant confidence thinned to a flimsy facade. Danny had hit a nerve when he accused his other self of running away. Dan's defensive and violent retort only served to prove Danny right. It wasn't madness that drove the fire-headed ghost's actions.
It was fear.
Guilt, probably; the same self-loathing that Danny himself experienced only as a distant sensation. Perhaps shame as well; while Vlad's ghost half had certainly not helped matters, the other half was still Danny Phantom, self-appointed protector of Amity Park. What that half had become had to be utterly appalling to Dan on some subconscious level at least.
So he ran from it.
Danny was sure that was it. Dan had been running from his own memories that entire ten years; running from himself and what he'd done. Of course, there was one major problem with trying to run from yourself.
No matter where you run to, there you are.
Danny was certainly wary about the fire-headed ghost's return from the past, but something had felt different compared to that encounter at the grave years ago. Violence had been the ghost's answer to mentally or emotionally taxing questions; yet in the lair Danny and Sam shared, Dan had been faced with what certainly had to be an upsetting situation.
Yet there had been no violence.
Something must have happened in that other past. Danny frowned, watching Clockwork's tower draw nearer. I don't think he would have changed on his own.
"Danny?" Sam's voice cut into his introspection.
"Huh?"
"We're here."
---
Dan felt like he'd been mowed down by a steamroller. Not that he actually knew what being run over by a steamroller felt like; but the ache that seemed to encompass his entire body was probably a pretty close approximation. He forced his eyes open and found himself staring blankly at an unfamiliar ceiling, tinged faintly green by a large pane of tinted glass above him.
I got away intact?
He remained still, listening to the noises in the background and trying to piece together the disjointed string of recollections. He remembered Maghnus alright; the memory of how soundly the giant ghost had trounced him ignited a rage Dan hadn't felt since he'd broken free of the Fenton Thermos all those months ago. There had been that energy bolt, his desperate attempt to rip a hole back to the real world. He must have succeeded; Dan somehow doubted that oblivion was supposed to hurt.
Beyond that, his memory was extremely hazy at best. He thought he remembered the ruins of the city, of dragging himself toward somewhere to hide and try and recover. Then voices, distant and arguing. There had been reassurance, had Tucker been there? No, it wasn't just Tucker's voice he remembered; there was another, female, and angry.
Valerie!
That thought drove Dan against the bonds holding him down as he tried to sit up. Tied down? This wasn't the ruins, this was... he listened, noticing the beeps of equipment and the background noise of some sort of facility.
"Relax, you're safe enough for now." A familiar smarmy voice remarked to his left.
"Vlad." Dan's voice sounded hoarse even to himself as he turned his head to see the billionaire, some sort of apron tied over his business suit. "Your lab?"
"Hardly, my boy." Vlad fussed with some equipment nearby, and Dan realized that he was connected to the machine. "You've caused quite the commotion at Ghost Patrol Headquarters."
That left Dan staring in shock while Vlad finished whatever he was doing. "What?"
"Hm, yes, I suppose it's only reasonable to assume you don't remember Valerie finding you out in the ruins." Vlad continued. "Fortunately for you, your friend Tucker barely managed to convince her that anything that could leave you in such a state was probably ill news for everyone else."
"Valerie found me?" Dan hissed, bristling. "Untie me."
"Sorry, but the restraints were the only way we could keep her from blowing what was left of your head clean off." The former villain eased himself onto a stool. "Oh, and do stop glaring. If it weren't for Valerie finding you and my efforts to stabilize you, we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now."
Dan fell silent, trying to ignore an icy knot that had settled in the vicinity of his stomach. He had nearly... died? Him? The most powerful ghost the world had ever known, seemingly invincible against all opponents? The realization that he wasn't did not sit well with the fire-headed ghost.
"Things have been moving rather quickly, I'm afraid." Vlad continued, either unaware of Dan's stricken expression or choosing to ignore it for the sake of the ghost's dignity. "Dora arrived not too long ago in quite the panic, babbling about a ghost named Maghnus taking over her castle and demanding you return something you stole from his brother."
"That I stole?" Dan found his voice again. "It's impossible. The crown and the ring are destroyed; their power is mine."
"Ah, so that's what happened to Pariah." Vlad seemed unfazed by the information. "In any event, Daniel and Samantha have gone back to the Ghost Zone in order to find out more information about this Maghnus. Whether you like it or not, I fear we'll need you to suffer Valerie's presence and tell us what precisely is going on."
"I'm not helping that woman." Dan snarled, struggling more vigorously against the restraints.
"Well, we need to find some way to counter this Maghnus." Vlad chuckled, leveling a positively wicked sneer at Dan. "Unless, of course, you think you might fare better against him a second time?"
Dan bristled but said nothing in retort. He knew if he had to face Maghnus a second time, the behemoth ghost would likely finish what he'd started in their first encounter. Dan knew he had just realized his own mortality and that he was afraid.
He hated it.
---
Something seemed wrong as soon as Danny and Sam touched down in Clockwork's lair. Nothing seemed to be disturbed, all of the Master of Time's collection of oddities seemed to be there. The large time viewer that dominated one wall was where it always was, though its surface was blank.
Clockwork's lair was silent.
The tower was never silent; clocks of every shape and size made up the structure, and the grinding of the gears and ticking clocks meant the place was always buzzing with a steady rhythm of background noise. The mechanisms all lay still, their silence deafening.
"Clockwork?" Danny called out into the uneasy silence.
"Hey, are you here?" Sam cupped her hands and shouted.
Silence answered them both.
"This isn't right." Danny lowered his voice to a worried whisper, as thought breaking the omnipresent silence would bring untold horrors upon them.
"Even when he's not here, all the clocks are still ticking." Sam likewise spoke softly. "But now they aren't."
Despite the size of the tower, the interior didn't take more than a few minutes for the two ghosts to search. Nothing seemed out of place, there was no sign of a fight or any sort of struggle. The place looked for all the world as though it was merely waiting for the return of its usual occupant; yet Clockwork wasn't there."
"Danny!" Sam's voice ricocheted across the main chamber with a note of panic as she picked something up off the floor near the time viewer.
Danny flew over quickly, eyes widening as he saw what the goth ghost had found.
It was a staff, all purples and blues; a small clock set into the top. Clockwork's staff. The Master of Time never went anywhere without that staff; nor did he leave the device carelessly lying around unattended. The fact it appeared to be discarded, the ghost's lair completely still could only mean one thing.
Something had happened to Clockwork.
Author's Note: Okay, I've made the Dan fangirls freak out, I've worried everyone about Dora, and now Clockwork is missing?! I should probably start running for my life again, shouldn't I?
Okay, before that though, the big announcement! Danny Phantom Online is teaming up with DP-RealFans and nearly a dozen Danny Phantom clubs to do a massive fandom-wide project- a holiday themed fanart/fanfic poster (and possibly storybook) to be given to series creator Butch Hartman. You can find the details here: http :// dannyphantomonline. com/ phpBB/ viewtopic. php?t815
And now... virtual caramel apples to my super-cool reviewers for their kind words of encouragement (and threats against my life!): Angelic Kittens, Fulcon, Eleirah, i AM the Random Idiot, Selofain, Akino Ame, Moony's Metamorphmagus, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, Luiz4200, purple almighty, Tie-dyed Trickster, Sukoru, and Kitty Kyinsky! (You get an extra virtual cookie for being the only one to actually recognize that Valerie was quoting Dan's lines!)
See you next chapter! Now to FLEE!