Hi, everyone, and happy Friday! I'm a bit pressed for time this morning, so no replies, I'm afraid (oops).

In other news, I added a couple of chapters to my original fic, In the Water, this week! It's on AO3 under the username Marsalias. If you like superpowers and weird small towns, come check it out! :)

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Chapter 186: Ascent, Dissent

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A small army of relatively weak precognitive ghosts was still an army of precognitive ghosts. The very weakest had been sent first and had done the job of wearing Dan down enough so that the fanatical middle ranks could overwhelm him.

If Dan had been at full strength, if he hadn't spent so long trapped in that thermos, if Danny and his friends hadn't put up so much of a fight, if Nephthys hadn't taken such a perverse pleasure in swinging him around, these small fry would have been a walk in the park.

If.

But if hadn't happened.

Dan had been wounded.

A single wound, be it a burn, a blast, or a cut, wouldn't have been enough to stop him. He could heal that kind of simple damage with a thought. He had long since gained a mastery of his form that would turn any ghost greener with envy. But his core, like the core of any ghost, grew weary of the strain, and injuries that should have been smoothed over in minutes took longer and longer to disappear, until the damage to his body stopped healing at all.

He retreated, unwillingly, back into Long Now. The walls of the lair felt watchful, and spidery things scuttled between the gears in the wall, but he was not attacked. The lair let him be, though he was clearly resented.

Resented, he suspected, for not being Danny.

The Observants did not follow him in. The few that tried were rapidly, and gorily, dispatched by the lair.

He wandered through the halls, spilling ectoplasm in his wake. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen his own ectoplasm. It was a sickly green mixed with neon pink. Disgusting.

(Disgusting disgusting disgusting.)

Dan stumbled into Clockwork's workshop. It was empty. No sign of Clockwork, Nephthys, or anyone else.

Dan snarled, and swiped at a large, thin, lens. The sound it made when it fell and shattered was satisfying. He pushed over another delicate-looking instrument, and stomped down on the brass casing, warping it. Letting Dan in had been a mistake on Clockwork's part, and he was going to pay for it. Within minutes, the room was a ruin. Dan's hands and nose dripped with ectoplasm. His gloves were shredded.

He kicked a table.

Stupid old man. Up and disappearing when Dan nee-

Freaking out and losing his marbles just because Danny was gone. Wasn't Clockwork supposed to be better than Dan? Wasn't he supposed to be all wise and crap?

Jerk.

All at once, the atmosphere of the lair changed. At least, with respect to Dan. It almost felt... approving? Had Clockwork wanted Dan to wreck his stuff? What the heck?

Dan growled. He wasn't going to let that old meddler meddle with him anymore. He swept out of the room as best he was able, scattering shards of glass out past the doorway.

He turned left, thinking he could find an exit in that direction. A barrier popped out of the wall and slammed into place. Dan scowled at it and picked a new direction.

Infuriatingly, that wasn't the only time the lair cut him off, whether by walls or by other obstacles. It was becoming more and more obvious that the lair was leading him somewhere.

Dan should never have come back here. He should never have put himself back at Clockwork's mercy.

He came into a vast room, full of tiled arches. It felt like a forest. His ectoplasm smeared on the tiles. He should rest, recover his strength, but he didn't want to rest here.

A flash of water caught the corner of his eye, and he made his way towards it. He could be clean, at least.

Standing on the other side of the water was Clockwork. Nephthys, too, and... Was that Danny? Like, a tiny version of Danny? Had the twerp gotten himself cloned again? Or de-aged?

Was the tiny Danny wearing a flower crown?

"Daniel!" said Clockwork, apparently pleased. "You're here!" He frowned. "You're here twice. That can't be right."

"You were beaten?" asked Nephthys, eyebrows raised. "I hadn't expected that."

Dan sneered. "Oh, gee, I'm so sorry I disappointed you. What's wrong with the old man?" He jerked his head.

"You think a fight between Ancients could be without consequences?" asked Nephthys, archly. She stripped out of her outer robe. "Clockwork, put down Daniel, and come sit here," she pointed at the edge of the pool, then looked over at Dan. "You look like you need some work, too."

The little Danny was staring at Dan, radiating hostility. Dan bared his teeth. The little ghost bared them right back.

"Daniel," said Nephthys, "both of you, stop that."

"Don't call me that," hissed Dan.

Nephthys fixed him with an analyzing gaze. "Alright," she said. "You had better sit down, too. You look like you're about to melt."

Dan wanted to protest, but the ectoplasm pooling under his feet would give lie to his words. Instead, he glared at Clockwork. "Why did you bring me here?" he demanded. "You want me to clean up another one of your messes?"

"Brought you here?" asked Clockwork. He swayed. He still hadn't put Danny down.

"Your stupid lair led me here. Forced me here. What do you want?"

"Nothing," said Clockwork, cheerfully.

Nephthys rolled her eyes. "The water here has healing properties. He probably doesn't want you to bleed out. But he isn't experiencing time linearly, right now, as far as I can tell."

She pulled Danny from Clockwork's arms. The little ghost didn't take his eyes off of Dan. He didn't even blink. But then she turned him around.

"Keep an eye out for the Observants," she said.

Danny whirled, wide-eyed. "You can't possibly trust him!"

"Daniel," said Nephthys, softly. "It's fine. Trust me. Trust yourself."

Dan leaned against the side of an arch, grimacing. "We are not the same."

"I wasn't saying you were," said Nephthys, looking back at Dan. She steered Clockwork to the edge of the pool, then jumped in herself. The water came up to her knees. "But you saw some things, didn't you? The things that you," she looked at Danny, "thought were important." She drew Clockwork down into the water and was no longer looking at either Dan or Danny. "You now know why certain things happened as they did. The reasoning behind actions. Behind why and why not."

Something flicked over Danny's face. What was that? Pity? Dan snarled weakly. He shouldn't be pitied.

"I-" started Danny.

Something green flashed behind him.

"Observants," interrupted Dan.

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The Observants hadn't been noticed yet. They were outside the room, looking in with their powers.

Issitoq couldn't believe his eye. Well, he could, but he did not want to. Somehow, the abomination had found its way back to this time. Somehow, it had not been destroyed by Inanna. It was oddly reduced in stature, yes, but it was here.

Not only that, but the monster, which he had thought would be safely distracted by the more junior Observants, was here. Clearly wounded, yes, but here.

They must be to blame for Clockwork's madness. Issitoq couldn't see the path to that result, but that did not matter. It was obvious they had something to do with it.

The question was, what should Issitoq do about it?

None of the ghosts in the pool room were at full strength. The monster was losing control of its form. Beyond the change to its appearance, the abomination's power output was waxing and waning without any sign of control. Clockwork was wounded, and his ability to perceive the present moment was dubious, at best. Nephthys, too, was injured, and more severely than she was letting on.

When they had gotten the injuries, Issitoq did not know, but Clockwork's had the scent of death on them, and Nephthys's that of time. He could guess that they had injured each other, if not why.

There would be no better time to attack them and destroy the abomination once and for all.

But then Clockwork's madness would go unchecked. Worse, his attachment to the abomination would cause his madness to grow.

An insane Ancient could not confirm a new king.

But to leave the abomination...

"Issitoq."

"What?" snapped Issitoq, annoyed. Balam, the Observant who had spoken, had long been a rival of his.

"We know what you are thinking. We will not attack Phantom here."

Issitoq's eye widened. "You dare-"

"Our first oath," said another Observant, Mimir, "our first duty, is to preserve the order of the Realms. Then to preserve our own order. Please, my lord, Phantom may be faced another day. But how can we continue with time itself set against us? How can the Realms endure? I was not yet formed during Clockwork's first madness, but I have heard the stories."

Issitoq clenched his hands so hard that his claws drew ectoplasm from his palms. He knew that. He knew all of that. He had been moments from the same conclusion.

But that they would question him like this-! He had led the Observants to their present position of power, had he had not? He'd been a good leader, rebuilding their order after Loxias had forced them into a policy of strict noninterference. He might not always listen to council, but he always, always, put the good of the order above all else.

"I am aware of that," he said, coldly. He made a conscious effort to relax.

"We will cure Clockwork. And then we shall make sure that he will never defy us again." He looked at the walls of Clockwork's lair with distaste. "He can do his work in the Panopticon from now on, where we can keep our eyes on him."

The other Observants bobbed in agreement.

"Each of you know what is needed of you?"

Another round of bobs. Few of them had been present at the first time Clockwork had been cured, and those that had were not always doing the same thing they had done the first time, but they had all practiced their roles.

Issitoq turned. He would let the abomination be... for now. But if it interfered...

They would have no choice but to fight it.

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Danny turned, scowling. The interruption was not welcome, and despite everything, he trusted Dan more than the Observants. They stood spread out among the arches, their black, white, and gold robes hanging limply from their unnaturally still forms.

"Leave," he said, as forcefully as it was possible for him to do, as short as he was at the moment.

"We are here to cure Clockwork of his madness. Stand aside."

"Leave Clockwork alone and go back to your duties."

"Stand aside, abomination."

"Is that really how you want to speak to your king?" asked Nephthys.

The tension in the room, already high, went up. Danny had a hard time reading the Observants, but the one who had been speaking looked like he had been punched in the eye.

"Return to your duties as Judges. This is not part of your purview." Sometimes, Danny's vocabulary surprised even him.

"The order of the Realms is," said one of the Observants, not the one that had spoken before. "The madness of one such as him threatens existence itself. Stand aside."

"We're taking care of it." Danny took a deep breath. Despite what Nephthys had said, maybe he did need some formality. "As King of All Ghosts, and of the Infinite Realms, I say to you, leave this place, and go back to your duties as Judges. You have neglected them for long enough."

"No!" shrieked the first Observant, suddenly. "You are no king of mine." It (He? Danny had a hard time telling one Observant from another, let alone their genders.) lunged for Danny, claws extended, ectoplasm whirling into ectoblasts, time twisting just slightly.

Inside Danny, something snapped.

He was so tired of this, and he didn't have time for it. Clockwork was hurt, Dan was here, he didn't know what had happened in Maddingly after he'd been thrown through time, his friends were who-knows-where, his parents were on trial, he still hadn't had a chance to figure out what the GIW were doing, and he was pretty darn sure that most of those problems could be attributed, directly or indirectly, to the Observant coming at him.

Time twisted, slowed, but it was Danny's doing, not the Observant's. The temperature of the room dropped, the air becoming thin, frigid, dry. The shadows grew, deepened, the auras of the other ghosts in the room becoming pale and wan. The stars in his cloak flared and began to twinkle. He felt himself growing taller, back to his normal size. If they wanted a fight-

The Observant was caught by his fellows before he was halfway to Danny. They pulled him back.

"We will go," said one of them. "But you yourself will call us back before too long. He cannot control his powers without us, and without control, he is a danger to all."

"Get out," said Danny. "You are not welcome here."

They slid out of the room, their eyes not leaving Danny's until they turned at the door. Danny followed them out, watching them creep down the hallway and out of sight. He waited to make sure they were really gone. Apparently, he didn't need to, because the lair started slamming doors all down the hall. Danny sighed. Couldn't it have done that earlier?

He turned back into the room and blanched. The pool had frozen over. More precisely, he had frozen the pool over. With Clockwork and Nephthys still in it.

"Oh my gosh," said Danny rushing over. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry- I-"

"It's fine," said Nephthys, brushing some frost off her arm. "Harmless. I am well acquainted with the cold of death, after all."

Clockwork started laughing, cracking up the ice around him. "You froze time," he said giggling. "Excellent! Excellent. That will teach them to get out of my house!

Nephthys snorted. "Right, right. Let's get this off you, now," she said, tugging at Clockwork's coat. "Danny, if you could just push Dan in, that would be great."

Danny was hovering over the water, hands stretched towards Clockwork and Nephthys, but not quite touching. He looked at Dan, who gave him a glare that could have killed a cat.

The thing was, Danny was no longer sure what to think of Dan. His knee-jerk reaction was to reject him completely, to fight him, to trap him somewhere he couldn't hurt anyone, or, failing that, to destroy him. To deny him, and any logic behind his actions.

To dismiss him as a monster, and nothing else.

But Danny had seen his logic. Felt it, almost as if it was his. Almost, but not quite. His own thought process differed just enough to put him at one remove, and to horrify him throughout the experience.

Now, unwillingly, Danny had to consider that, rather than being evil, Dan was just insane. He had to consider that Dan, like Clockwork, could be cured. Or, taking into account how Jazz said mental illness worked, managed. He had to consider that, maybe, it wasn't Dan's fault, not entirely.

(That is wasn't his fault.)

In many ways, it would be easier if Dan was evil.

(It would be easier if Danny could say that it was his fault because he chose.)

But the easy way was rarely the right one. Even if that reasoning had backfired hugely for Dan when he took the hard, and very, very wrong way.

Danny looked back at Nephthys, who was entirely focused on the gash in Clockwork's side. Nephthys was the Ancient Master of Death and Change. If she thought that Dan had changed enough to trust him, she probably knew what she was talking about.

Cautiously, Danny approached the injured ghost. Just because Nephthys thought Dan should get another chance didn't mean that Dan wouldn't attack Danny. It was best to treat him like he would a wild, and very dangerous, animal in a similar situation.

"Touch me and I'll break your legs," snarled Dan.

Well, it wasn't a death threat. "Nephthys," Danny called back.

"Ignore him," said Nephthys briskly, "he can barely move. Not enough conviction."

Danny thought that the gaping holes in his body might have more to do with it, but then, a ghost's physical state was highly related to their mental one. He flitted around behind Dan, picked him up under the arms, and dumped him into the water.

He retreated to Nephthys and Clockwork.

Gosh, Dan would look hilarious with his hair extinguished if he didn't look so sinister. The older ghost was glaring at Danny with his eyes just barely over the water. He looked bald.

Dan managed to get his mouth out of the water. "I hate you."