Dan peered down on the party as they looked in terror to him before he landed and spoke. "Sam and Tucker. It's been a while. Ten years, to be accurate." He raised a hand and swept, freezing them in piece within green light as he inquired with walking closer. "So, to what do I owe this little blast from the past, and who your other friends seem to be?" He stopped to take in the medallion around Sam's neck before he spoke again. "Clockwork. Meddling again." He was blasted away, sweeping a hand through the smoke to Valerie blowing on a wrist blaster before he charged, she tossing grenades that went through him as a green blob before reforming and closing the gap between her and him, plucking her up and punching her across the pavement as she propped herself back up as he spoke. "I suppose out of respect for our past, I should let you live." He grabbed her by the holsters before finishing. "But that's not how I work." He lifted and tossed as Danny, having gotten free from the net, exclaimed.

"Valerie!" He caught her in the air and turned them intangible before crashing on the other side as she spoke in recognizance.

"You're from the past, aren't you?" Danny said nothing as he got up as Valerie continued. "Almost... forgot how cute you were back then." She slumped to the ground as Danny questioned.

"You thought I was cute? Wow! An older woman likes me." Dark Danny mused as he stood before the five remaining there, frozen.

"You know, if I had an ounce of humanity left in me, this would be a touching little reunion." They exchanged nervous glances as Dark Danny finished. "But of course I surrendered my human half a long time ago." Danny arrived back and the ghost sense of red flared from Dark Danny's nostrils as he commented. "Oh, please." He turned and blasted as Danny blasted back, getting both of them and dropping the green aura around the party before Danny exclaimed with sitting up.

"Tucker! Sam! Guys! Run!" They did so as Dark Danny stood back up with musing.

"Run? Where are they going to go?" He turned and unleashed a Ghostly Wail, Danny covering his ears from the sound, but it was directed at the crumbling FentonWorks building, bringing it down on the party as Tucker spoke to Sam.

"For the record, I blame you." Danny made to save them, but Dark Danny stopped with with grabbing his foot as he spoke.

"Ah ah ah." Danny gasped as the building collapsed on his friends, burying them before he was shocked, reverting back to human before getting tossed over to the rubble, getting up to find four medallions before him before he realized what it meant.

"They took off their time medallions!" He stumbled to his feet as he continued the thought with one of the medallions in hand. "That returns them to their time period just like Box Lunch and Skulktech! They made it out alive!" He didn't pause to realize that there were suppose to be five, not four medallions there as he took a hold of his own. "Which means I can-"

"What?" Dark Danny questioned as he sized Danny's arm and lifted him up with dropping the medallion. "Go back for them? They're doomed anyway. And you aren't going anywhere if you can't remove your time medallion." His hand glowed green before ripping the medallion off Danny, giving him no time before the medallion was turned intangible and stuffed into Danny's chest as he screamed and slumped unconscious as Dan spoke. "In fact, you aren't going anywhere at all..."

In the present, Jazz drove up to the Nasty Burger and looked around for her brother. "Danny has to be out here somewhere." In the alley by the destroyed section, a orb of light glowed before it dropped Tucker, Sam, Talia, and Topaz there before Tucker found volume as he screamed, the girls crossing their arms as the geek finally realized that they were not in danger as he asked.

"You got the medallions off, didn't you?"

"I don't accessorize well." The other two shrugged as Sam continued. "Unfortunately, Danny's still stuck in the future fighting his jerky older self! We've gotta help him!" But that idea was out of the running when Jazz found them and spoke.

"Tucker? Sam? You got a second? Let me answer that for you." Jazz cut them off as she spoke on, Topaz and Talia looking around before they started to clue in on something very wrong. "Yes, you do. I know Danny stole the answers to the C.A.T. That he's going to cheat!"

"Way to jump the gun, Danny wasn't going to-"

"Sam, enough. I know more than you think I do. A lot more. So I suggest when you see Danny, you tell him I wanna talk to him. Tonight! Because if I don't, I will be talking to our parents and Mr. Lancer tomorrow." She walked off as Sam exclaim in confusion.

"Lancer knows Danny has the answers?"

"Oh, man, is he in trouble."

"That's gotta be it. Danny cheating is the thing that leads to that horrible future!"

"Let me get this straight. Danny gets caught cheating on a test, and we pay for it with our lives? How is that fair?" They nearly left before Talia spoke with grief in her voice.

"Where's Cedric...?"


Danny started to come too, before a statue or memorial as he spoke. "Mom? Dad?" He rolled to his knees, since his arms were bound in green ecto-rope as he took it in. "Gone, but not forgotten..." That meant... his family, his friends, this was what happened to them, why Valerie said that 'can't' be alive, he glanced to the side to find Lancer's, which was buried to only show the 'GONE' part before he questioned himself in standing up. "And where's the Nasty Burger?" He looked around to find it, crumbling to ruin and decay before Dan returned as he mused.

"Strange how one massive fireball of highly combustible condiments can... ruin your whole future."

Danny looked down to his chest as he questioned. "The time medallion?"

"Fused inside you. Nice, huh? Intangible and unreachable whether you're ghost or human which means... you can't go back in time." He raised a hand before opening a portal elsewhere as Danny exclaimed.

"It doesn't matter if I go back in time or not. I'll never turn into you! Never!" But Dan spoke otherwise.

"Of course you will." He changed, but Danny knew that it was a fake, the mirror of him had no life, no heat, nothing but the cold touch of a ghost, it won't fool anyone as Dan continued through Danny's body. "It's only a matter of time." He grabbed Danny before hurling him into the portal as he continued to Danny's screaming into the place that he was tossed into. "I need you out of my way and out of my hair while I make sure nothing happens to change my past." He pulled out a time medallion as he grinned. "And luckily, this is all I need to make sure of that..." A ecto blast rang out and he hissed as the medallion was knocking out of his hand, the armored youth standing by the portal there as he spoke behind the visor.

"Cute trick, too bad, you are just a poor mimic of the real deal."

"I don't know who you are or what you intend to accomplish, wannabe robot, but this is my future and I will ensure that it happens."

"Funny, if you did know me, then you would know exactly what I can do." Cedric answered as he beamed. "As it stands, this is a future untouched by me, why Clockwork couldn't make heads or tails of the additions, that's because what I did, who my companions are, and what has been done was not seen initially, no one expects a man to run on ecto energy, especially my refined source." With that, he blasted himself into the portal as it closed, Dan pausing before picking up the medallion once more.

"What Clockwork couldn't see... who exactly did Clockwork not see either...?" Dan shook his head as he used the medallion to warp, backwards to the present as he mused. "...And to get where and when I need to be." Back in the tower of Clockwork, he tampered with his staff to a blank viewer, his mind wondering who the three that came with the initial trio were, he saw all, but what exactly happened to involve those three and were they trustworthy? He didn't mused for long as the two Observants appeared and he stopped as the first questioned.

"Have you completed the task?"

"Everything's fine." Clockwork answered crossed before he smiled. "Everything's the way it's supposed to be." He turned to the viewer console and brought up 'Danny' by the Nasty Burger as he turned into his elder form in explaining. "And there's your boy, back to his time. Safe, sound, and clearly not evil." The screen went back to blank as he turned to the pair. "Now. Care to observe the door?" The two glanced to the other before disappearing, Clockwork still frowning as he turned into his child form, the dark future was not set, especially now that it was clear that someone else was involved, somehow altering the timeline before the initial start.

Back with Dan, he mused as he took in the Nasty Burger, intact... mostly. "The Nasty Burger. Still standing. For now..." He glanced inside to find that the heat was building and that meant the plan was on schedule, but he didn't ponder it long before a pair of voices spoke up.

"Danny!" He turned surprised as Sam and Tucker rushed over to him, Talia and Topaz gone to tend to something down in Kentucky, a note from Cedric their guide, as Sam hugged him.

"You made it back!" Tucker joined in as he asked.

"Did you beat that evil jerky pus-pack alternative version of yourself?" His eyes flashed red for a second before he chuckled in Danny's voice.

"Always with the quips. In my weaker moment say, sometimes I miss your droll sense of humor." But that nearly tipped them off as Tucker questioned.

"I'm sorry?" Dan thought fast as he slipped up, a bad start from the beginning.

"I'm just kidding! I beat my other self quite easily. Had you guys going there for a second, didn't I?"

"...Well... we should probably do what we can to stop the Nasty Burger from blowing up, huh?"

"Already done! Now, who's up for..." He stopped to ask himself about it too. "...what did we used to do together?" He recovered as he finished. "Playing some games and raging against the machine?"

"We're in!" Both shouted as Dan was somehow able to hide his plan from the get-go.


Danny soared through the Ghost Zone as he struggled against the bindings. "Gotta get out of this! I'm going ghost!" He turned into Phantom and struggled once more to escape, but they were not able to be busted as he gave up. "Well, it was worth a shot."

"Well, well, well." The voice was familiar, but the appearance was not, Danny couldn't believe that the most annoying and easily dealt with ghost was not that of a tough and muscled dock worker, eye-patch on, tattoo of a heart and arrow, and his right hand was replaced with a hook as he continued. "All this time we've been planning how we'd take the fight to you, and here you are. Wrapped up like a present." Danny adjusted as he spoke the name in surprise.

"Box Ghost?"

"Beware." He blasted a beam at Danny, launching him into a more chunky form of Ember as he exclaimed to the larger ghost.

"Ember?! You look..."

"Like I went to seed right after you destroyed my vocal cords with that Ghostly Wail of yours?"

"I was gonna say statuesque, but uh-" Ember strummed out a punch chord and launched Danny into a balding Johnny Thirteen in a wheelchair as he exclaimed. "Johnny 13?! OK, whatever happened to you, I swear I had nothing to do with-" The black blanket over Johnny's legs came alive as Shadow as he spoke.

"'Been waiting a long time for this, punk."

"Wait!" Danny pleaded as the ghosts came closer. "No! Nooo!" And they attacked. Meanwhile, in the present, Dan floated into Danny's room and commented with distaste.

"My old room." He walked over to a mirror touched it, having seen or heard from Valerie which was unexpected, normally she would be all over his rear for being Phantom, something was very wrong as he commented to the younger face. "And my old face." The door opened to a peeved Jazz as she spoke.

"Danny? We need to talk."

"And my old sister, Jazz. What do you want, Jazz? I'm busy." Jazz approached as she reached into the backpack she had, the Boo~merang between them on the floor.

"Yeah, busy cheating!" She said, pulling out the C.A.T. answer packet as she continued. "Lancer was right, you 'did' steal the answers! Don't you understand?"

"That I'll be destroying my future? Haha. You don't know the half of it." He answered with taking the packet and book bag form her as she contineud to get to the bottom of it.

"Danny, I know all of it." Dan shoved the packet back into the bag as Jazz continued. "About everything. That you're part ghost." She picked up the Boo~merang as she continued to scold Dan. "That you're always doing the right thing with your powers. Until now." This took Dan by surprise as he questioned.

"You knew?"

"I know. And I've been covering for you with Mom and Dad because I'm proud of you, and the good that you do. But not anymore." Jazz internally knew the truth, Danny KNEW that she knew as well, so this was an impostor somehow as Dan spoke.

"You always were smarter than I gave you credit for." He abandoned the disguise, revealing himself as Dark Danny as Jazz stammered, it was an older, more vile-looking Danny as she spoke.

"You're-you're not Danny!" She backed up in dropping the Booo~merang as she repeated herself. "That's why the Boomerang wasn't homing in on your ecto signature! You're not Danny!"

"I was. But I grew out of it. The Danny you know is floating helplessly in the Ghost Zone ten years in the future."

"He'll escape. He'll beat you!"

"How? Is the answer A, the Fenton Portal? Destroyed it. B, the only remaining portal? The one my idiot cheese-head archenemy has? As soon as I find it, that's going too."

"Cheesehead? Vlad Masters?! 'He's' your archenemy?" But Dan just continued as he mused.

"Is it C, you? No. You can't stop me from cheating on the C.A.T. and solidifying my future, so it must be D-" He blasted her with an ectoblast, freezing her in green as he finished. "None of the above!" She dropped unconscious as Dan donned the disguise again before pulling out the packet in amusement. "Well, what do you know! The answer to the first question 'is' D." He laughed and set it up so no one would be the wiser.

But Jazz was not done in as she tossed in her bed and gasped in waking back up.

"Danny! Nooo!" She stopped to realize that she was in her bed now, how did she...? "Huh? What?" Jack kicked open the door as he came into the room with the Booo~merang in hand.

"What's up, princess? Are you OK?"

"I'm in my bed? I'm alive?" She thought for sure that that impostor would have silenced her to keep his plan form getting exposed as Maddie laughed with kicking Jack out of the way.

"Well, of course, you're in your bed and you're alive, sweetie! Danny said you fell asleep helping him study and we tucked you in."

"He even woke up bright and early to make sure nothing happened to make him late for the big test!"

"Oh no! The test!" Jazz jumped out of bed and snatched the Boo~merang form her dad, getting down to the lab before holding up a folded piece of paper nad taking off her headband, tying the piece on the metal device as she spoke to it, hoping that it will find Danny, the real one. "I need you to find Danny. Fourteen-year-old Danny, ten years from now." She drew back and hurled it into the swirling green of the Zone, it seeking out its charge through the ages before it finally found him, the red signal turning green on the battered piece of tech and homed in on him as Danny was bounced around by his angry foes as Skulktech and an older Kitty joined the bash before Ember pinned him against a solid piece of the Zone as he pleaded.

"Please! I didn't do all this to you, it wasn't me!"

"Oh, stop! You're responsible for the horrible things that happened to your world 'and' ours." Skulker answered with Technus following.

"To everyone you've ever come in contact with!"

"Your family, your friends, and most importantly, us." Ember answered in backing off as Danny pleaded, he catching a glance of someone familiar as he shouted.

"But-I didn't do any of that!" But the ghosts powered to attack before Danny started to panic and unlocked that same power that Dan used. "Get away. Get away! Get AWAAAAAY!" His scream ripped through as a Ghostly Wail as it blasted the ghosts back, destroying his bindings in the process as he reverted partly to see what he just unleashed. "Whoa." The ghosts were knocked unconscious before Danny questioned. "My voice is changing? Great." He reverted back to full Phantom as he moaned. "I'm going through evil puberty. Everywhere I turn, my stupid future is smacking me in the face!" Something hit him in the back of the head as he exclaimed. "OW! I DIDN'T MEAN LITERATELY!" He took in the thing, to find it was the Boo~merang which meant something in the long run as he saw what else was on it. "...A note?" He took it before tossing the Boo~merang to the side with unfolding the note and reading it out. "Wisconsin? Plasmius. Figures he's involved in this!"

"I won't jump to that belief yet, Danny." He turned to find the Exorcist as he stammered.

"Cedric... I-I didn't..." But the Exorcist rushed over and hugged Phantom as he spoke.

"Thank the Realms you're alright, I was worried to just leave you to fight your darker future..." He released and continued. "...But I know better, this is a future not involving me or any additions, this was a future set with only the trio in mind."

"Only...?" Danny gasped as he spoke. "You mean...?"

"Dan didn't recognize me, at all! He figured I was an impostor which means that the future Cedric can also help us, if we can explain it, but that would be a paradox." He shrugged as he spoke. "Let's find out what Vlad's part in this story is..." Both soared in search of what would stand out, heedless of the mimic scoping in on them before following in their shadow...


Dan moved with interest to ensure the dark future to come, stunning Jazz when she came to stop him and cheating on the test, with a firm belief that the future was his once more while in the future Ghost Zone, Danny mused to the 'subtlety' of Vlad. "Well, that's Vlad for ya." Both looked at a giant purple football as Danny continued. "Subtle as a flying mallet." They pushed it out of the way before going through to a cave packed with equipment before an older Vlad's voice spoke up.

"Come to kick a defenseless old man while he's down?" Danny inquired as Cedric stayed on the ready.

"Defenseless? Old?" Danny approached the chair, emblazoned with a V before it turned to a ragged old man with outgrowing hair of bread and mane, dark rings under the eyes, suit torn and stained and wearing no shoes as Danny questioned in sympathy. "Man. What happened to you?"

"I could ask you the very same question, my boy." He stood up with the aid of a cane. "Although, perhaps I should ask what 'hasn't' happened to you. Yet." Vlad recounted it all to the two of them. "If it's any consolation, they went so quickly. They felt no pain." It was broadcast across the papers then after the event, the Nasty Burger exploding with only Danny the only survivor as Vlad continued. "Unfortunately, the same could not be said of you, Daniel. With nowhere else to go, you came to me, the only person on the planet who could possibly hope to understand your situation." He told how Danny in this time line was utterly lost, his whole world destroy and Vlad shared in his misfortune before he accepted. "All you wanted was to make the hurt go away. I honored your wishes-No more painful human emotions to drag you down."

The former Fenton Gauntlets became the Ghost Gauntlets as they extended out claws to pull out what Danny asked for. "Sadly, that freed you up to rip the ghost out of me." Grinning manically and with the whole pain of losing it all, the then-free Phantom donned the Gauntlet and ripped Plasmius and Masters apart, flinging both against opposite walls as Phantom dropped the Gauntlets and went into Plasmius, developing into the monster that came to be known as Dan Phantom as Vlad continued. "And when my evil ghost half mixed with yours, and my evil side overwhelmed you..." Phantom took form, but his body fragmented and screamed as skin turned light-blue, hair became a roaring flame, and rings of energy erupted from his body as Danny asked the needed question, the one that told him why there was no Danny in the future.

"What happened to my human self?" Vlad closed his eyes in raising a hand, with the two halves mixed, there was no mercy for the now Danny Fenton as Dan lashed out to Vlad's words.

"Some things, my boy, are better left unsaid." Danny looked down, realizing that with hatred and anger alone, welled up inside of himself, his ghost half would have still be the same? Cedric rested a hand on his friend's shoulder and he held it too as Vlad breathed in remorse, in picking up the photo of him and his friends, Jack and Maddie, from their college days. "If any good came out of this, it's that ten years without ghost powers have given me a chance to see what a fool I'd been."

"Maybe that's all anybody needs... a second chance. You still have those Ghost Gauntlets?" Before Vlad could answer, another spoke, a robotic one.

"That will not be necessary." Both turned to the Portal as a futuristic version of the Exorcist exited the Portal and readied to fire at Danny. "Your threat will be terminated, Phantom, once and for all." Cedric leapt in front of Danny as he shouted from under the visor.

"Override Code Seven-Five-Six-Seven, Epsilon Mu!" The weapons powered down as the robot stood still, its mechanical eyes pulsing with hidden controls to Cedric's surprise and his heart pounding in shock. "It... you are me... aren't you?" His fist clenched as this was not a future he would want, if Dan wanted to turn it into a nightmare...

...Then Cedric Trace will join Danny Phantom in stopping it completely, the plan to use proxies of himself was a plan conceived if he was... ever made less than human and more machine as the proxy spoke, its hidden face agreeing with only a glowing blue lens. "...Yes."


Dan finished his cheat and handed the test in, the plan going accordingly as Lancer soon called the Fentons to meet at the Nasty Burger while Vlad understood what Danny was asking, not inquiring about Cedric as he spoke. "So you're saying there's a medallion lodged within you, keeping you rooted in this time period?" He donned the Gauntlets as Danny answered.

"Yes. And I can't reach it. But I'm guessing if you could reach into me and rip out my humanity - which, by the way, sounds totally gross - you can get the medallion out too! Then I'll pop back to my present like Tucker and Sam did."

"Or I could just destroy you now and prevent this future. Didn't think of that, did you?"

"Vlad, maybe he didn't, but Dan wants to ensure that the future is his, he doesn't know who the Exorcist is or who is under the mask." Cedric spoke as Vlad came over with the Gauntlets. "You pull that medallion out of Danny, you send him right back into his present, to stop Dan from winning, so this future never comes to pass, and besides, I am the wild card, he won't expect a thing." Vlad peered to the robot as it nodded as Vlad breathed.

"Then here's to hoping that this future is not the real one, with you proving the same choice." With that, Vlad brought the claws down and Danny screamed, Cedric somehow channeling the medallion to his advantage as, in the present, the Fentons arrived with Dan to the Nasty Burger as Maddie questioned the meaning behind it.

"Mr. Lancer sounded urgent on the phone. Danny, is something wrong?"

"Not yet." The vats started to reach critical levels as Lancer spoke to the trio getting out of the RV.

"Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, Daniel, this is the Nasty Burger. When people fail, this is where they end up- whether they fail because they don't study, or because they cheat." He said as he held up Dan's test, all perfect, but the parents gasped as Jack shouted.

"Danny! Is this true?"

"Did you cheat?"

"You have to get out of here!" They turned to see Tucker and Sam rushing over as Tucker exclaimed.

"The Nasty Burger's gonna blow, and we're three feet from it!"

"South Beach Diet, people, what's going on here!" Lancer exclaimed as Jazz also arrived, donning the Ghost Peeler armor.

"I'll tell you what's going on." They turned to her as she continued. "Or better yet, I'll show you." She fired the Peeler on Dan, shredding his disguise from him and revealing him as the dark future of Danny as everyone looked in shock, Sam and Tucker shocked as that was not Danny at all, Maddie and Jack agape as this was not Danny one bit either, while Lancer was surprise that it was a ghost who cheated on the test with Danny's form. "That's not Danny!" Jack and Maddie recovered with training weapons on him as they demanded.

"Where is he? Where's our son?"

"What have you done to our boy?" Dan Phantom laughed before glancing up to her with a smile.

"I am your boy!"

"What?!" The teacher and two best friends remained in shock as Dan sprung into the air and ranted with the sky twisted in green darkness.

"What kind of parents are you anyway? The world's leading ghost experts, and you couldn't figure out your own son was half ghost!" The weapons were still trained on Dan as Jack turned his head to Maddie.

"For the record, I blame you."

"Hello? Danny 'Fenton'? Danny 'Phantom'? Ever notice the similarity? Jazz did."

"She did?" Both questioned as they didn't notice that Danny was not Danny, they knew that she was fully aware about Phantom, but did Dan not know that at all as Jack yelled.

"Liar! Don't move!"

"Actually, nobody's going anywhere. Not until it's time for you to be blown everywhere." He fling a cord of ectoplasm at the party in front of the Nasty, binding them to the heating vat before gagging them, Jazz making an attempt to punch, but she whiffed it with a hole in his chest as he commented in glee, reforming it and turning his head one-eighty before the full turn around. "Nice try, Jazz. But me, my future, I'm inevitable." Two more appeared to Jazz's side and easily caught her off-guard before gagging her from her helmet and leasing her to the vat as well before he laughed in victory before the real deal came back.

"Hey, old man!" Dan turned to find Danny zoomed right for him form the sky. "Ready for a blast from your past?" He collided with Dan as the Exorcist followed close behind and jabbed hard into Dan's chest as Danny spoke to the captive members. "Don't worry. I won't turn into that. Ever. I promise." He looked over to Lancer as he spoke. "I guess this sort of explains my periodic absences, huh?" The Exorcist crashed as a rope of ecto energy caught Danny before reeling him in to Dan's grip as Danny spoke. "What are you gonna do? Waste me? What happens to you then?"

"You don't get it, do you? 'I'm still here.' I still exist. That means 'you' still turn into 'me'." He punched Danny into a light post as the Exorcist, staggeringly got up and tried to undo the bindings in vain, the backpack opening to the Gauntlets as Dan continued his rant. "I don't have to waste you. I just have to run out the clock until your entire life falls apart." He dove for Danny before Danny went intangible with the backpack, Dan ripping through the light post before Danny returned with Gauntlets on as he called out.

"Maybe if you'd remembered more about your family, you'd have remembered the Specter Deflector!" He whipped it out to snap it on Dan, shocking him greatly as Danny continued his attack. "Or the Ghost Gauntlets!" He delivered one mean punch as Dan crashed into a fuel truck and it erupted into blue flames as Danny landed, the Fenton Phones activating as Cedric called out.

"The bindings are leased to Dan, he is not down!" Danny grimaced as Dan emerged from the flames before ripping the belt off, but he was blazing still as he went for a punch, catching Danny off-guard as Danny laid flat on his back as Dan spoke.

"Your time is up, Danny." He spoke as he duplicated himself into four. "It's been up for ten years." They made to punch before one was vaporized as the Exorcist arrived as the three mused. "Oh, what can a tin suit do to me?"

"How about a tin suit that can channel ectoplasmic energy!" Cedric shouted as the Exorcist suddenly expanded in frizzing blue energy, a orb of the energy generating before the upper torso emerged like a shell and the eyes were the blue lens once more as the being was doubled the Exorcist's size. "POWER OVERWHELMING...!" This caught Dan by surprise as the being blasted and charged as Dan exclaimed to another clone destroyed.

"What are you, you are not part of my future!"

"BECAUSE THE FUTURE ME IS SOMEONE YOU HAVE NEVER KNOWN BEFORE, HIS TIN SUITS WERE THE ONLY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF HIS EXISTENCE!" He blasted once more and the two struck back, knocking the being back before Danny returned and smashed the clone before the real Dan pounded him hard into the ground, the being receding away to the Exorcist against the Nasty Burger as Dan questioned.

"What makes you think you can change my past?" Danny got up as he called back.

"Because I promised my family!" Dan laughed as he inquired.

"Oh, you are such a child! You 'promised'?"

"Yes! I PROMISED!" His shout became the Ghost Wail and it took Dan by surprise as he was blasted away and dug a trench in exclaiming.

"That power, ugh, it's not possible! I don't get that power until ten years from now!"

"I guess the future isn't as set in stone as you think it is." Danny answered as he landed before the down Dan before unleashing another Ghostly Wail, blasting through the street with power as it demolished the building Dan crashed into with Danny running out of power before he slumped forward in human form as Dan burst free, severely defeated as he questioned.

"Well, that's it, isn't it?" Danny narrowed his eyes as he had the last word in.

"Time's up!" He opened a Thermos and absorbed Dan in as Dan parted in utter defeat.

"Too weak to escape - and you're too late to save them!" Danny capped it before he realized what else he needed to do as he turned with a gasp.

"Oh no." The heat to the vat was overwhelming and the vat started to steam before Danny booked it, Cedric peering up with blood dripping down his skull from under the armor, Danny tried to will his powers to come back to save his family and friends, but only his rings appeared before they faded as he exclaimed. "I can't go ghost!" He tripped forward as time came to a slow as he yelled. "Noo!" They exchanged before the whole place erupted in flames as the shock wave blasted him back before everything just froze, a familiar clock hand appearing before Clockwork arrived in child form and flew up to Danny before slipping on a time medallion onto him. Danny gasped as he flailed in the air, just floating as he asked to the ghost before him.

"Clockwork?" The ghost simply pointed and Danny gasped to the captives saved in a nimbus of green light, the damages to the Exorcist mending itself as he stood up before Danny asked. "You saved them? I-I don't understand!" Clockwork gladly explained it out. in shifting to adult.

"The Observants look at time like they're watching a parade, one thing after another passing by in sequence right in front of them." He gestured to the wrecked Nasty Burger as he continued with Danny by his side. "I see the parade from above, all the twists and turns it might - or might not take." He said as he took on his elder form and gave a wink as Danny exclaimed.

"You knew all this was going to happen. All of it! Even this part." He said as he gestured to the saved people before Clockwork continued.

"Everything's the way it's supposed to be. And here we are with you, a fourteen-year-old child, risking everything to save the people you care about." Danny smiled with Cedric resting a hand on his friend's shoulder before Clockwork spoke once more, with staff in hand. "Time in!" Time rewinded back to the test itself, all frozen in time before Clockwork picked up the packet and offered it to Danny. "You've given everyone else a second chance." He shifted to child as he inquired. "Why not you?" Danny took it with a smile as Clockwork disappeared and time restarted, Cedric outside as he had sent an excuse that he needed to take the C.A.T. in detention, a 'family' emergency as Sam and Tucker glanced up to Danny standing there with the packet with a smile before Lancer inquired.

"Mr. Fenton, is there a problem?"

"Um, actually Mr. Lancer, there is." Danny answered as he walked over, Jazz walking to the door to attack, but gasped as Danny approached Lancer with the packet. "I, uh, found this the other day. Outside the Nasty Burger." He slip it over to Lancer as he hummed in finding something off.

"Hm. The seal is broken."

"Yeah. I know. A-and, I'm sorry. I couldn't stop myself from looking at the answers when I was trying to clean it off. But I'm not a cheater! And I never will be!" Jazz beamed as Lancer accepted it as he explained.

"Well, you'll have a chance to prove that when you take the make-up test next week, now won't you?"

"Really?"

"You'll have plenty of time to study for your make-up test in detention, with Mr. Trace. But for now..." He gestured to the door as Jazz ducked away, forcing Danny out as he spoke to Cedric.

"Clockwork still let you keep the medallion?"

"I think he let the both of us keep them." He answered as they walked through the halls. "He didn't know that my involvement in the past would have resulted in such a change, Cedric to-be was interested in ghosts when Dan hit the scene with intense power, the suits were proxies of the Exorcist, so when he or rather the Observants failed to see me along with you back then, that turned me into the wild card no one was expecting."

"So we don't have to worry about Dan anymore?"

"Danny, we always have to worry about our own demons coming out, but Dan is not foretold, his is a future when you despaired with losing Sam, Tucker, Jazz, Jack, and Maddie, where Vlad finally got the son and apprentice he wanted in his bitter heart, we don't have to worry." Cedric spoke as he gripped his hand with blue energy volts from the bracer. "Things are different, Dan couldn't see that, Topaz and Talia are here with us, the family knows that you are you, and there are more surprises to come..." Danny beamed as there was one final matter to attend to, reaching into his pocket to pull out a teal headband...


Danny sat on the front steps in waiting before Jazz arrived, he had already witness Talia just lock lips with Cedric as she was at a loss for him not returning in time, Topaz being a bit more passive as she waved to Danny and he waved back before he asked his older sister. "So, how long have you known?"

"About the test? For days. But I'm really proud of you for not cheating."

"No, not that." He pulled out the band and note from his pocket and offered them to her. "Your headband, your note, your handwriting..." Jazz stammered as she spoke.

"What? That?" She blushed with a shrugged as she continued to try and brush it off. "Oh, I didn't write that. And there must be dozens of headbands." Danny raised a brow before he asked.

"Jazz." Jazz sat down and took both as she voiced.

"Since the Spectra thing. I didn't want to tell you until you wanted to tell me. It's your secret."

"Well, it's our secret now. Honestly, you have known beforehand, but that evil version of me... he never did know." They hugged before Jazz spoke again.

"Don't think this means I'll stop being meddling and overprotective."

"Wouldn't have it any other way." He chuckled before his ghost sense went off and they turned to find a colossal monster with tentacles chasing a police car before Jazz spoke, Taila and Cedric smiling before they gave chase as well.

"Go." She rested her hand on his before he took off for the fight.

"Going ghost!" He went ghost as Topaz joined him as they were casual about it. "Ready to rock?"

"Got the pipes to belt it?"

"You know it!" The four confronted the titan as Danny called out. "Hey! Giant, green, and gruesome! Guess who's back and better than ever!" The monster was afraid as Danny struck, splattering ectogoo all over, and somehow all over Jazz as she mused, she was never really dredged in ectoplasm beforehand to be honest.

"This is gonna take some getting used to." In the Ghost Zone, Clockwork watched the viewer with a smile, Cedric already knowing that Clockwork took the Thermos that now contained the ultimate enemy of Phantom, the Observants not so pleased that Clockwork and that human derailed the plan to execute Danny.

"You manipulated the boy! You influenced his choice!"

"That's a direct violation of the Protocol of Temporal Displacement! In other words..."

"You cheated!"

"True, I cheated." Clockwork mused as he turned into an adult as he explained with glee. "But I assure you his choice was his own."

"You realize the boy is your responsibility now."

"As is his evil self, now that he exists outside of time."

"I know. But then, I know everything." Clockwork flew past the pair in his elder form before putting the Thermos down in the vault, it starting to bulge before a wicked face appeared in the metal and a evil laughter echoed across the chamber, but Dan was contained, there was no way for him to escape unless Clockwork released him for any reason...