Okay! This is the real chapter 169, which was supposed to be posted this morning. Sorry to everyone who got 170 and confusion.

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Chapter 169: They Take Things

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"Oh? Who is it?" the ship's captain asked Sam.

"Ah, well," Sam looked back over the railing. "I think it's Youngblood. I'm pretty sure it's Youngblood."

"I'm not familiar with that name. Is he likely to help?"

"Well, he's sort of a pirate. Sometimes. Usually." She made a face. "He's a kid. 'Piracy' is his favorite game. So, I mean..."

"He's not predictable," interjected Jazz, "but he isn't cruel on purpose. He'd attack as a game, not as anything serious. His ship is mostly crewed by thralls. I don't think he would attack if he knew we were in real trouble. Whether or not he'd help, I don't know."

"Precious child," said the captain. "I've seen the type. Do any of you know him?" he asked, looking at the crew.

"I've come across him," said one of them, a woman. "He's not quite harmless, but he just wants to play. I've never seen him, mind you. He has a glamour against most adults. It doesn't work against animals. Thing is, he doesn't come out this way much."

"So, why is he here now?" asked Tucker. "Think he knows about us?"

The captain sighed. "Trying to outrun that rig would shake us apart," he said. "We will prepare for whatever comes. I don't suppose I could convince you three to go back below decks?"

Jazz copied the captain's sigh. "I'll go. Someone needs to keep everyone downstairs calm, and you two know Youngblood better, anyway."

"Good call," said Tucker. "See you later."

"Bye," said Jazz, waving over her shoulder as she left.

They watched as the ship drew closer, its sails and flags growing clearer. It was a bit strange, how the pirate flag didn't elicit any fear or unease from the crew, like Sam half-expected. Maybe it was because they were ghosts. Maybe it was because Sam had given them warning. Maybe they were just really used to pirates.

Whichever, whatever. It was definitely Youngblood's ship.

It pulled up alongside them, but kept what the sailors apparently regarded as a respectful distance. If Sam was going to do a lot of riding around on ships in the future, she should probably invest some time into learning more about them.

Ember hopped up onto the rails, her hair pulled back into a bandanna. She was wearing her pirate ensemble, her guitar and microphone in hand.

"Hey!" she shouted. "We heard you losers needed some help!"

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Danny and Inanna reached the violet gate.

"We have to go through, great lady."

"Is there not some other way?" she asked, eyeing the gate with distaste.

"Not- Not as quickly, great lady, nor as safely."

"What care have I for safety? How long would it take?"

Danny swallowed. How long would sound reasonable, and still be too long for Inanna to bother with?

A season. Say a season.

"A season," said Danny, "a whole season, great lady. At least."

Inanna pulled her lips back in a grimace. "And how long for this way?"

"Perhaps, perhaps a day? A little more? I have not gone the whole way. Little ones, like me, we fade if we get too close to the core."

"This is why your people need me," said Inanna, haughtily. "You people are so easily swayed from one side to another, from one state to another. You have no concept of permanence, no physical existence." She sniffed. "And so we go." She glanced sideways and down at Danny. "You go first."

Danny dove into the portal. A portal like this felt a little bit like a water slide, if the slide was the fabric of reality, the water was pure energy, you were also made out of water, and the pool was a sentient dimension that worked half on dream logic and wishful thinking.

Actually, it wasn't really like a water slide at all.

Anyway, the moral of the story was that, like on a water slide, if you braced yourself right, you could manage to get yourself stuck. Sort of. In theory. Danny had never actually done it himself, just heard about it from other ghosts. He had good reason to not mess around with portals unnecessarily. He rather suspected it would hurt a lot.

Surprise, surprise, it did.

Danny held on until he felt Inanna slide past him, and then he let go. As Danny had expected, Inanna wasn't completely aware of what was going on. Her eyes were closed.

Danny snatched the crown off of her head, and realized he didn't have any plan about what to do with it once he had it. If he just dropped it, it would come out with them.

There was a white moment of panic, and he thought of Aragon's amulet, and the time with Dan and Clockwork's medallion, and he phased the crown into his chest.

Oh. Dear. Oh boy. That did not feel good.

He tumbled out of the portal and took a few stabilizing breaths. Inanna was doing the same. Danny looked around. Where was the next gate? It should be the blue one, if he remembered correctly, and it shouldn't be too far away.

He felt a tug on his mind.

This way.

He looked, and found the distant speck that signified the gate. Thank you, he thought back, as hard as possible.

His nose was bleeding. He licked his lips and tasted salty, spicy, sweet-sour ectoplasm. He had just gotten one ghostly artifact pulled out of his body, and he just had to stuff a new, even more powerful one in. Ancients, he was an idiot. He really hoped he could figure out a different way to get rid of the next six, because he didn't think his body could handle that.

You will be fine, Neti.

Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, but no thanks. He'd figure something else out by the time they got to the next gate.

"Where is my crown?" demanded Inanna. His attention was back on the incredibly powerful human invader.

She pointed imperiously at Danny. He didn't know what the crown did, but clearly it wasn't what was supplying her mind-control powers. He bet it was the beads, for that ability.

"You, where is my crown?"

Danny shrunk back. "Great lady, I do not know. Please, I beg you, I do not know. Sometimes the gates, they take things. It is just how things are."

"And you did not tell me?"

"It does not always happen. I did not think it would happen to you, great lady."

Inanna regarded him through narrowed eyes, then hit him, casually, across the face. Danny squeaked, and flipped all the way over. Twice.

"On this path of yours, are there any other gates that 'take things?'"

"Y-yes, great lady. Six more. But- But when you are queen, great lady, when you take the throne," it might have been the ectoplasm, but the words tasted sour in his mouth, "then you will have a crown beyond crowns, and all the jewelry and good things you could ever want, and the regard of all people." Yeah. Yes. That was it, imply that he didn't know that the crown had any power in itself.

"I will," said Inanna. "That is my right." She seemed to have an argument with herself.

"Take me to the next one," she ordered.

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Dan frowned up at the doors of Long Now. He had spent years trying to escape Long Now, and now he had come back, and to help his jailer, of all things. It was ridiculous. It was insane. He didn't know what he was doing here.

"What are we doing here?" he asked. "I thought you wanted to destroy the Observants."

"I do," said Nephthys. "But if they see us coming, we won't be able to do that."

"I did it before," grumbled Dan.

"Yes," said Nephthys, "and you still didn't get all of them. You didn't break their organization."

"What are you talking about?"

"A weakness they have is that they can't see past their own destruction." Nephthys pushed open one of Long Now's tall doors. "If they could see what you were doing up until your final attack on Amity Park, and they had, if they were browbeating Clockwork with it, you hadn't destroyed them. I want to destroy them so completely that tales will be told of their folly a thousand years from now. For that, we begin our work here."

The main hall of Long Now had an empty quality to it that Dan had not expected. From his interactions with Clockwork, he'd expected to feel something... more. He scowled. Talking about feeling... disgusting. How had he fallen so far, so fast?

"Where is he?" muttered Nephthys. There was a sound. She stopped, and changed direction. "His workshop, of course."

Dan followed her to a room stuffed with esoteric and often glowing equipment, mirrors, lenses, and odd-looking tables. Nephthys turned to one side, and snagged a pair of amulets from a rack. She handed one to Dan.

"Wear it. Don't eat it," she said.

"How much did that old meddler tell you about me?" asked Dan, much more annoyed than he would have believed.

"Enough."

Nephthys seemed to know her way around as she threaded expertly through the tables. Dan followed her, not sure what she was doing. Clockwork would have already shown himself, if he was in this room. He ought to have revealed himself if he was in the building.

They turned the corner, and Dan was shocked to find that Clockwork was there, tucked into a corner. He looked terrible. His skin was translucent and spotty, and he was fidgeting.

This was not at all like the image of Clockwork Dan had in his head.

"Nephthys!" exclaimed Clockwork. "I can't- I can't see him. I can't see him. I could see, I saw all of it, all those futures, everything, and then he was gone! Do you have him? Please, sister. I can't lose Daniel."

Nephthys took a deep breath, something unusual for a ghost of her age. "No, I do not. You told me this would happen."

Clockwork's eyebrows drew down. "I told you? Told you what? When?" He looked over at Dan. "You... You've... You've done well. But I didn't- I didn't see this."

"It was a few thousand years ago," said Nephthys, "and you told me that this would happen to you, when you lost the child. I hardly believed you, of course. I didn't think that the Observants would ever allow you a child, but here we are."

"No," said Clockwork, shaking his head. "No. I didn't see this. I didn't see this."

"But you did. You spoke to Mnemosyne- She called herself Nisaba in those days, and had her brew you a tincture of Nepenthe, from the Lethe. You said it was the only way. Otherwise, you wouldn't react properly, and you would be slave to the Observants forever."

Clockwork blinked, then shook his head again, more slowly. "No," he repeated. "I wouldn't have. I couldn't have."

"You did," said Nephthys. "It is the best way to break the contract, making them default on their end of the bargain. The contract depends on them continuing to guarantee your sanity, so if you lose your mind... But there are very few things that could drive you mad, once you were stable. That's why we're here. I will fight you, keep you from doing anything regrettable while you're in the throes of insanity, and Dan, Dan will make sure the Observants do not pull you out of it, keep them out of Long Now, until you are ready to come out on your own terms." Nephthys tipped her head to one side.

Dan gazed at her, confused and impressed. A plan lasting thousands of years? And that convoluted? Vlad certainly couldn't have conceived of it. His planning was much too short-term.

"Oh. And to give you this final push. You were very specific-"

"No! No, I wouldn't have done that to Daniel! I wouldn't have used him like that!"

"What's more likely, that you missed an entire this entire group of futures, or that several thousand years ago, you decided that a little ghost you'd only know for handful of years was expenda-"

"NO!"

Clockwork leaped at Nephthys from where he was crouched, and they both disappeared in a flash of green and blue light.

Dan quickly blinked the spots out of his eyes. A darkness laid on his core, as if it wasn't dark enough on its own. Danny was gone, really gone, and as part of Clockwork's plan? That old meddler, he had no right. Dan wasn't a pawn to be pushed around and played with as Clockwork pleased, and neither was Danny. If Danny had joined Dan-

Dan pushed away the reminder that he hadn't only been Danny Fenton, but Vlad Masters as well, and shoved down the resurgence of an Obsession he hadn't thought of since then.

For now, he would do what Nephthys wanted, and fight anything the Observants decided to send. Then, when the dust settled, he'd pummel that heartless old man, and teach him a lesson or two about making Dan care.