Danny moped and slouched down the hall. People were staring; there were whispers. Enough of them had figured enough out, and now everyone had an idea who the ghost boy was. He had to think of some way to throw them off, make them think it was all a lie. But how? He briefly wished the nanobots were still active; he could have used whatever was left of Technus' downloaded intelligence right then. Maybe the Ghost Catcher…

Someone screamed. Danny had just enough time to wonder why his ghost sense hadn't gone off when he heard the roar of Valerie's jet sled. He threw himself out of the way moments before it slammed into him and barely caught himself from shouting her name.

"You!" she screamed, leveling a plasma rifle at his head. "Who are you? Really?"

"I…don't know what you're talking about," he stammered. It was all he could do to remain sprawled out on the floor with every fiber of his being demanding that he go intangible and escape.

"Don't lie to me!" Valerie fired her weapon, and Danny rolled out of the way. He didn't need to transform for everyone to figure it out. All he had to do was keep dodging. Danny Fenton shouldn't have been near that athletic, and enough people had stuck around to watch that word would definitely get around.

He rolled beneath the second assault and ducked through the nearest door. Fortunately, the classroom was on the first floor since his escape route took him out the window. He heard a few screams as Valerie simply smashed through the wall after him.

It was every bit as bad as he had feared. Part of him had hoped that she would forgive and, eventually, forget, but he knew it would never happen. She hated his ghost half far too much. Left with no other alternative, he decided to simply be grateful that no one else was around to see him transform. "Valerie, please!" he shouted back, not daring to turn and face her. "I swear I never meant to hurt you!"

"You think I'm going to believe your lies after all this?" she returned over the sound of weapons fire.

"I tried to tell you-" Danny broke off with a pained gasp as he failed to dodge in time.

"You're going down, ghost!" Valerie roared, a menacing tone present that had never been there before. "I will hunt you down and rip you to pieces for everything you've done!"

She continued with a few terrifying explanations of what she would do if she ever caught him, and he forced himself not to listen. The real world was no longer safe; although he hated to admit, he needed to reach the Ghost Zone. If he was lucky, maybe she wouldn't follow him there. There were only two ways to get there that he knew of: since he had no desire to even look at Kat right then, that left the Fenton Portal. He angled for home.

The mad flight that followed would be forever imprinted on his mind as the worst thirty minutes ever. If he could have cried in his ghost form, he probably would have been. He knew Valerie was crying behind him, and somehow that made it even worse. She didn't want to listen. She didn't want to believe him. The more he begged, the more vicious she became.

He noticed that his parents were home, though the knowledge was immediately lost. He didn't stop to consider anything much as he phased through the door mere moments before it splintered into a thousand pieces behind him. An alarmed shout went in one ear and straight out the other, and he dove through the floor. Someone, probably his father, yelled, "Ghost!" Then he was staring at the closed portal.

Something crashed above him, and he rushed to get the door open. He heard his mother yell and a blast of energy hit the wall right next to his head. "You're not getting away that easy, ghost!" Valerie snarled.

Danny backed against the closed door, hands up in the manner of captured bad guys everywhere. "Please, Valerie! Just let me go, and I swear you'll never see me again!"

"I'll never see you again, anyway."

Her weapon charged. Maddie shouted something. The door opened behind him and there was a flash of light…


"Now do you see what your meddling has caused?" asked a wearied voice.

Kat leaned against a wall, not bothering to be manifest. Her eyes, such as they were, were fixed on the floor. "I took out the obvious references. I didn't think she'd figure it out."

"You didn't think, period," Clockwork pointed out. He was angry; of course, he was angry. Between keeping Danny's evil older self in check and warding off the Observants, he had more than enough to keep him busy. The last thing was he needed was some egomaniacal would-be gremlin undoing everything he'd started by sending Sandruu back in time. Well, he still had a few tricks left to deal with the situation. There were any number of possible outcomes, after all.

Kat glanced up and immediately wished she hadn't. Cringing, she looked back down at the floor and wondered if he could actually see her. She couldn't even see her, but those eyes had unerringly found hers. It was disturbing, but only a minor note compared to everything else. "I'll fix it," she whispered. "Just tell me how, and I'll do it. Anything you want."

Clockwork nodded decisively. "I was rather hoping you would say that. Oh, don't worry. You have some time yet before I'll hold you to that promise. In the meantime, you do have quite a mess to clean up. I believe you know how to alter your appearance?"


The boy yawned over his open text book and let his head sink down to rest on the pages. Heroes shouldn't have to do homework, he thought. As many times as he had helped save his city, one would think he'd simply be allowed a passing grade, but no. Of course, not.

He lifted his head and started to doodle in the margins of his notebook. He wasn't a spectacular artist by any means, but his art managed to portray what he would rather have been doing. It was a passable self-portrait engaged in a winning battle with what was most likely the Box Ghost.

With a snicker and a shake of his head, Shade went back to his thrice-cursed algebra. He actually made it a full thirty seconds before his mind began to wander, and he wondered what his alternate universe counterpart was up to. Even with Skulker and Electra trying to track him down, the visit to Danny's world had been a welcome vacation. It had been especially fun seeing that Skulker was really nothing more than a tiny blob of ectoplasm. That made it very difficult to be able to properly respect him.

Suddenly, his ghost sense went off, and he spared a moment to wonder which idiot had decided to attack him in his home before turning. "Clockwork…?" he asked after a moment's hesitation.

The elderly ghost nodded. He seemed torn between worry and exasperation for some reason, but Danny trusted him and that was good enough for Shade. "I have a…an interesting favor to ask."

"Can't be any worse than math," the ghost boy allowed with a shrug. "What's up?"

"I need you to pretend to be Danny for a few hours."

Shade was just about to point out that he was Danny in a poor attempt at a joke, but decided not to as the implications hit him. "What's happened?" he demanded.

"It's a long and complicated story. Perhaps when we return, I will tell you. For now, I simply need you to pretend to be human while Ms. Technus plays the part of Danny Phantom."

Damage control. Well, it was the least he could do. "You can bring me back to right now, right?" Clockwork managed a small smile and nodded. "Okay, then. I think I can remember how to be a normal human for a while." He stepped forward to allow himself to be teleported away.