Oops! I was so involved in my Dannymay fic for today that I forgot to post this on time. D:
Well, it isn't tomorrow yet, so that's fine.
I hope you're all having a good time.
lenasmith106: You might be... intrigued by some of the foreshadowing I'm laying down in this next chapter. :) Dan's trying to make a connection, but he sucks at it, yeah.
Anne Camp: Perhaps. :)
Jeptwin: Yeah. He's sort of trying to warn Ellie, but he's, you know, Dan.
AnniBananni: That's a pretty good summary.
Asilla: He's had time to get used to the chaos all around him. :)
neokid93: Yep, that's what happened to the GIW! The Dannies are all... so feral... Your review here is actually pretty spot on.
ReflectiveReader: Yeah, I had a lot of fun writing that gag, so I had to revisit it.
17: Cookies are the best.
Felix: Yeah! Nephthys is also the Ancient Master of Death, so she's a little more down with the whole murder thing, overall. She's a pretty good fit for Dan. I'm glad you're enjoying the story.
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Chapter 197: One for Each
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The ghost that flew through the dark of the Infinite Realms was no longer the leader of his order, was no longer even an Observant, having quit in a rage after the vote did not go in his favor.
Yet he was still Issitoq, the Eye of Heaven, the Punisher of Taboos. He had power in his own right. Not so much as he did with the full force of his order- his former order- and all its privileges, but power.
Didn't humans have a saying about this? If you wanted something done right, do it yourself.
He would do this himself. Somehow. The oaths of noninterference he had taken were null and void.
Outside the Observants who had voted him out, no one would know he had been ousted. He could use that. Barter on his former position.
If not, he had artifacts stored away, kept in secret places, and he knew the location of dozens of others, a perk of his former position. Nothing so strong as the hourglass, but not inconsiderable, and being able to act directly would make up for other deficiencies.
First, a weapon. He needed a weapon, one that could pierce the abomination's natural defenses. Next, a defense for himself.
For the weapon, there was only one possibility: the cutting void, the Calesvol. Acquiring it presented its own difficulties. It was a finicky thing, Calesvol, exacting in its requirements. He would have to threaten it, to ensure its compliance. Luckily, the ghost who had its allegiance tended to let it wander while he slept, and it had a ridiculous attachment to a human bloodline.
But a defense… some kind of armor… Finding something suitable would be tricky. He would have to be careful. Doubtless, the abomination had acquired even more power. It had to have, to return to the present time.
The legendary shields were sadly beyond his grasp, as was the ruby sheath. Most armors weren't worth wearing, ghost bodies being what they were. Often, a ghost's clothing was part of their body, not separate. Armor, in those cases, was generally felt to be redundant.
He needed something more, something better than that.
He needed the skin of the Nemean, the great cloak of Heracles.
Yes, that would work. True, it was kept Elysium by Pandora, but she was not there at the moment, was she? She was off tearing apart his life's work and colluding with the abomination's accursed spawn.
Well. Perhaps he could begin to return that favor.
Then, there was one other thing. He was uncertain if he, even with all his power and mastery, could touch it, uncertain if it lay as unguarded as he had glimpsed it in his last hard-won vision, but, oh, the sweet, delicious irony. Oh, how it would hurt those who had brought him low, wrack them with guilt, even if he wasn't able to get all of them.
He giggled, and it briefly crossed his mind that he might be going mad. No matter.
Now, where should he start?
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Clockwork sighed as he finished reciting his final part of the story.
Danny sighed, too, in sympathy as much as relief.
"But," said Ellie, "shouldn't you be more powerful now? Shouldn't your powers be stronger, now that you aren't giving the Observants some of them?"
"Yes," said Clockwork. "That is the problem. I have never had full control of my powers. When I first was formed, they drove me mad with their wildness. To gain control and sanity, I went to the Observants, and relinquished a measure of my powers and freedom in exchange. As such, I must adapt myself to my restored powers, lest I lose myself again and all this turns to naught. Until I can do so…" He trailed off, clearly uncomfortable.
"Learning new powers is hard," said Danny, trying to help. "When I first got mine, sometimes it was better to just not use them, rather than try to use them and have them go… uh…" What was a good substitute for crazy? "Have them go out of control."
Clockwork raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, a lot of them are still like that," said Danny. "Like my Wail." He had trouble with more than that, if he was being honest. Sometimes, he still inadvertently went invisible or intangible. "But I got better! It just took time and practice."
Clockwork gave Danny a thin smile and patted his hand. "Thank you, Daniel. You are a great comfort."
"You cannot see anything? At all?" asked Pandora. She ran one of her hands up and down the haft of her spear. She seemed disturbed.
"Very little. When I try to look," he closed his eyes, "I see little more than chaos with mere flashes of meaning. I fear I am little better than a penny seer, one to speak in riddles and metaphor, always with a twist I failed to see."
"That must be troubling."
"It is what it is. Freedom is worth the inconvenience." He smiled, broadly enough to show his fangs. "Ha! If an Observant ever again shadows my doorstep, they shall regret it."
"Great," drawled Dan, who had retreated to lean against a corner. "Now what? Because this genie is not going back in the bottle." He pointed at himself with both thumbs.
Ellie snorted. "In what world are you a genie?"
"In many quarters," said Nephthys, pleasantly, "the correct term is djinn or jinn."
"Can we not fight right now?" said Danny.
Ellie rounded on him with wide eyes, and made a sharp gesture towards Dan.
It was a very good question. One he didn't have a good answer for. On one hand, Danny firmly believed in second chances, on the other… Dan.
Dan had helped. Danny understood that. But what he had done before that couldn't be ignored.
This wasn't something that had an easy solution. People didn't make guidebooks for how to deal with genocidal future versions of yourself. Reconciliation? Rejection?
Personally, Danny didn't cope well with rejection. He couldn't imagine that Dan would handle it any better. But that didn't mean reconciliation was a good idea, something Dan deserved, or even possible.
Dan might not even want to reconcile. Danny wasn't sure he did.
A good portion of him wanted to fight Dan right now.
Danny tried to summarize all this with a shrug.
"I am not going to lock you away, Dan. Not unless you give me reason to do so," said Clockwork.
Dan held up two clawed fingers. "First, what makes you think you can lock me up? I just told you, you can't. Second, what the heck are you talking about? I've done plenty of crappy things. He knows." He pointed at Danny. "She knows." He pointed at Ellie. "You should know."
"Not in this timeline," said Clockwork.
"Are you trying to tell me the other timeline isn't real?" asked Dan, sneering. "I know enough about time at this point to know that's a load of garbage. Maybe it's collapsed or pruned or not the main path or whatever, but-"
"But it was real to you. Do you want to be punished?"
"Do I look like a masochist? Who'd want to be punished? I've been trying to escape."
"You do," said Danny. "That's why you keep bringing it up. Because you want to be imprisoned again."
"Wow," said Nephthys. "This is all fascinating, but I'm going to take my new assistant and go. I do have other things to do."
"Your new what."
"Don't look so surprised! You two each have a Phantom."
"Excuse me," said Pandora. "We don't 'have' the Phantoms. They are their own people. They get to do what they want."
Ellie raised a hand. "Actually, I'm intrigued by this idea. There are supposed to be seven of you Ancient guys, right? So, you have room for four more?"
"Once your brother gets rid of Vortex and Undergrowth and replaces them, yes. In theory. Why?"
"Oh, no reason in particular."
"What do you mean, 'replace?'" asked Danny. "I can do that? I can replace Vortex and Undergrowth? That's a thing?"
"Clockwork, really, what have you been teaching him in here?" asked Nephthys.
Clockwork interlocked his fingers and sank down in his chair. "Armies," he said. He glanced up at the chalkboard. "As well as the Smoke Writing of Agartha. It… seemed relevant at the time."
"It'll probably be relevant eventually," said Danny. "I mean, I've never been to Agartha, but I probably will, right? If it's one of the Realms?"
"Probably," said Nephthys. "You're King, now, after all." She grabbed Dan's sleeve. "Let's go."
"Wait, what? He's King? King of what? That's for real? Not just Clockwork losing his marbles?" Dan's voice faded as Nephthys pulled him out of the library and away.
"If you feel well," said Pandora, after a minute. "We should all go to Libra." She rubbed the side of her nose and gave off an impression of being extremely tired. "They at least want Daniel there."
"It is difficult to have this kind of trial without the injured party present," allowed Clockwork.
"Maybe I could just… Not go? If that would really be a problem?" asked Danny, hopefully.
Everyone gave him a look.
"Right," he said. "Never mind. I knew that wouldn't work."
"I will be with you the whole time," said Clockwork.
"So will I," said Ellie.
"I may not be able to be there for the entire trial," said Pandora, "but my thoughts will be with you."
"Yeah, I know. Thanks," said Danny. He went back to the table and pulled the mirror out from under a pile of papers. "When do we go?" he asked, listlessly. He wanted to see his parents and friends again, of course, but he did not look forward to the trial itself.
"I will need to make some preparations before I am ready to leave," said Clockwork, floating to a standing position. "Daniel, I believe you do, as well. You will need more than one change of clothes."
"Oh," said Danny. "Right."
"Danielle, do you want anything?"
"Nah, I brought some stuff from Mattingly," she said, pointing at her backpack.
"Stopping by Elysium may also be worthwhile," said Pandora, thoughtfully. "It is on the way. Although, it is likely any clothing you wear during the trial itself will be custom made."
"Really? Why?"
Clockwork chuckled. "You haven't been to a big trial yet, have you, Daniel? We will endeavor to explain on the way."
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Seeing Elysium again after all this gave Danny a weird feeling, one he wasn't sure how to describe. Last time he'd laid eyes on any part of it, he was about to be shot by Valerie. That had been a long, long time ago.
They touched down in the palace courtyard, and the staff came out to greet them. Pandora was treated with a normal level of deference, her seneschal and a number of other chief servants approaching and discussing the most urgent matters, but Clockwork was all but shunned. A few people came up to him, but most scurried away after a few seconds.
Clockwork was known here, apparently. They wouldn't treat a stranger that way.
"Before we go any farther," said Pandora, "there is something I would like to loan you, Daniel. At least for the rest of the journey."
"Oh?" asked Danny, as Pandora turned to the temple-like building that housed the Elysian treasury.
"Yes. You see, I have noticed an increasingly disturbing tendency on your part to get into existence-threatening fights even in places that should be perfectly safe."
"That's not my fault," said Danny.
"I know. On at least one recent occasion, it was mine," said Pandora.
"No, it wasn't," said Danny. "It was Spectra's fault. And Valerie's, a little bit."
"It was mine," said Pandora. "As a guest under my roof, your safety was my responsibility."
"Xenia," Ellie whispered to Danny.
Danny stuck his tongue out at her. He was familiar with the concept.
"It may be futile to expect trouble not to find you, therefore, I want to give you something that will at least help protect you. I want to lend you the skin of the Nemean."
"You mean, as in the Nemean lion?"
"Yes?"
"I can't wear that. Sam would kill me if I showed up wearing a lionskin."
Pandora stopped, hovering above the top step, and turned. "Daniel, please. This isn't the time for jokes."
"Please, if I don't make stupid jokes I'm going to dissolve into a puddle of stress."
"I thought I was the only one in this family who could do that," said Ellie.
"No, no, you got it from me."
"Ah, so we have a family history of it."
"Seems like it."
"Do you think I'd have to put that down when I apply for health insurance?"
"Unless you get it through work."
"You know as well as anyone that being a hero doesn't come with any benefits. Maybe it'll be different for you with your career change."
Danny winced. "Can we not talk about that?"
"It isn't something that will go away," said Clockwork.
"I know," said Danny. "Just… One thing at a time. Please. Otherwise I'm going to start thinking about everything, and that's a lot." For example, whatever was going on in Amity Park, how he was going to get his parents out of trouble, his classmates, being King of All Ghosts…
It was much easier to think about whether or not Sam would bite his head off if he showed up wearing a lionskin.
"Is it an actual lion's skin?" asked Danny. "Or is it, like, strictly a ghost thing? Not that ghost lions aren't actual lions, but I'd like to tell Sam that no lions were killed or destroyed in the skinning, you know."
"It was originally taken from a living lion," said Pandora, giving up on making Danny take things seriously.
"Then that's just a no-go, isn't it?"
They entered the treasury. By the time they got to the artifacts vault, Pandora had embraced the philosophy of 'if you can't beat them, join them.'
Danny felt just a little bad about that. She must be feeling some stress from this whole ordeal as well, and him acting out couldn't be helping. He should be showing more gratitude, she was trying to help him and keep something else from happening. He shouldn't be giving her a hard time.
With a glowing hand, Pandora opened the door of the vault. There wasn't really a center to the room, and it was clear that it hadn't been designed with aesthetics as the top priority. It looked like a bank vault full of safety deposit boxes more than anything else, except that the boxes weren't made of any earthly metal.
Even so, it was obvious where the Nemean skin was. Why?
Because Issitoq was wearing it, along with a few other obviously stolen items.
(It had to be Issitoq, right? What other Observant would show up here and now?)
Before Danny had fully processed Issitoq's presence or what he was wearing, he, Pandora, and Ellie had launched themselves at Issitoq. Behind him, Danny felt Clockwork try and fail to do something with time. A broken second washed over the extremes of his awareness and faded away to nothing.
Issitoq brandished a wand-like object at Danny in a way that screamed dangerous attack. Danny threw up a shield, but the sickly red bolt broke through and-
It tickled. A tracery of silver swirls was knitted through the black fabric of his hazmat suit, not entirely unlike the embroidery on his new cloak.
Unpack that later. There was still a guy trying to kill him.
Issitoq cursed in a harsh language- or was he casting a spell? That wand was throwing Danny off, and he ducked away from another red bolt. Pandora was stabbing at Issitoq with the one spear she had retained, and the guards (who really needed to get better at their job) outside the treasury had rushed in and were throwing ectoblasts. Their aim was almost as bad as Danny's dad's.
Ellie and Danny were finally at a useful range, and Danny wondered for a moment if he should have tried to order Issitoq away, like he had back at Long Now, but dismissed the thought. If Issitoq was here, that clearly hadn't worked.
He called on his ice, directing it with his hand not currently occupied by the mirror, and grimaced at the sensation. He was badly out of practice, having spent so much time getting beaten to within an inch of his half-life and then recovering. Issitoq swirled the lionskin, and the ice bounced off his cloak.
"I'm out of shape," he said, out loud.
"No, you're not," said Ellie, shouting to be heard over Pandora's deprecations of Issitoq. "You're quite a nice sha- Oof!"
"Ellie!"
"I'm fine!"
The deposit boxes behind her, however, were not fine, and gold coins rained down from a cracked box above her. They glittered in a decidedly dangerous way as they spun through the air. Danny dove at Ellie and pushed her away as another red blast from Issitoq's wand splashed against his shoulder. Bits of it hit the wall of deposit boxes, leaving singe marks.
Why wasn't it hurting him?
The coins hit him. He hissed as whatever power they had rippled against his skin and left white marks on his suit and pulled away.
Another blast came at him, and he instinctively raised the mirror. The blast changed colors and ricocheted around the room before falling to the ground and fizzling out.
Okay, new approach. He met Ellie's eyes, and she nodded. They put their hands on the floor, and ice spread from their fingertips over all the surfaces of the room, sealing all the boxes on the walls, and giving them better access to ice.
Ellie vanished. Danny stayed visible and parried another bolt. Thus far, Issitoq had only aimed at him with the thing, going after Pandora with a weapon in his other hand, and Danny had to wonder if it had a special effect he was going to start feeling soon. It was safer for him to draw fire away from Ellie and the others rather than disappear and hope Issitoq didn't start trying to hit them, too.
He called up a fleet of simple spheroid ectoplasm constructs, charged them with ectoenergy, then sent them hurtling at Issitoq at odd angles, hoping to get past his guard. One found the tip of his tail, but the others harmlessly impacted the Nemean skin.
Danny darted closer and took an eye-laser to the knee.
It knocked his leg out from under him but did not hurt as much as it should have. In fact, it did not hurt at all. Adrenaline? No, he knew what pain masked by adrenaline and shock felt like, this wasn't that.
Considering that the Observant was all eye-themed, shouldn't his eye-lasers be stronger? That's how it usually worked, considering how ghosts' appearances were affected by their self-perception.
(Like Danny, right now, stars cloaking him and a crown that refused to stay a barrette half-wrapped around his head.)
Whatever. Losing one's footing was a less of an issue when the fight was taking place in three-dimensional space and all participants could fly. Pandora and Issitoq were currently oriented to the ceiling.
He didn't leap up into the fight. Danny rather suspected he would get in the way of Pandora if he tried right now, and the last thing he wanted to do was distract her. Distraction could be fatal in a fight. He had to wait for an opening or come up with some new tactic, in the meantime, he would draw Issitoq's attention and provide supporting fire.
The Nemean skin was proving to be a frustrating barrier. Every attack Danny sent at it was rebuffed. He could see Pandora's spears glancing off Issitoq as well, her lighting and fire doing little to Issitoq. Ellie was manipulating the ice on the walls, sending it out to grab at Issitoq, but the ghost always seemed to see it coming.
Which, yeah. Eye-themed. Made sense.
Near the door, Clockwork seemed to be having a hard time. Reasonable. Clockwork was rarely caught off guard. But Danny didn't have time to think about that in the middle of a fight.
How had the Nemean lion been defeated, in the myths? Strangulation? That wouldn't work on a ghost.
Issitoq started to use another artifact. Why did he have so many? Had they all been in here? Why didn't Pandora use them?
That slightly petulant mental question was answered when a line of pulsing corruption was raised on Issitoq's hand.
Okay then. He would not be touching that. The way his luck was going lately, if another artifact ever got into his possession, he'd be forced to eat it.
Ah. So that was the real reason he was leery of wearing the Nemean skin. Good to know he'd picked up a phobia, and-
He hissed through his teeth as Issitoq pushed past Pandora's guard and charged straight for Danny, narrowly avoiding an ice spike Ellie sent from the wall.
Danny darted sideways, avoiding Issitoq's grasping fingers. Issitoq had put gold caps over his claws. A decoration or another artifact? Danny didn't remember them from before.
It didn't matter.
He pulled the ice up from beneath him, then summoned a broad shield and shoved it at Issitoq. For a second, Danny thought he had pinned the Observant, but Issitoq swiped at his shield with his claws, and the barrier tore. Not completely, but enough. Danny abandoned it and gathered a touch of lighting into his hands. He didn't like using the power, but it was the only thing he could think of that would get past the Nemean skin.
Pandora was on top of Issitoq again, but Issitoq reached into his cloak again and pulled out something that screamed and screamed and screamed and SCREAMED-
Danny flinched back, slightly dazed. Something familiar-
Issitoq was too close. Danny threw up his arm, motivated more by instinct than thought. Issitoq's claws came down on them and-
Nothing. Again.
Danny kicked Issitoq with both feet and imparted an ectoblast with the blow. Of course, Issitoq came hurtling back at Danny, and this is when Danny hit him over the head with the mirror.
The mirror, being a mirror, shattered, bits of it sticking into Issitoq's eye. The other shards, being broken pieces of a time-manipulating (or at least time-viewing) ghost mirror, danced suspended in the air, glitching and flickering.
Crap. Clockwork had said that he'd need that mirror.
Issitoq howled and clutched at his face… eyeball… thing. He arched back, still screeching. His robes tore, and eyeballs swelled out of the holes, all of them wet, lidless, and shot with blood and corruption. His ghostly tail went red, iridescent, and stringy, like a bundle of nerves. So did his hands. Other tendrils poked out of the mass of eyeballs, tangled with random items that could only be dangerous ghostly artifacts.
Danny could feel power flat against the surface of his skin, and he had spent too long being terrified of the Observants not to flinch at this entirely unexpected turn of events.
All the eyes focused on him.
"You!" howled the malformed creature. "You! You will escape me no longer! I am Issitoq, the All-Seeing, Punisher of Taboos! And you, abomination, are the greatest Taboo of all!"
"Who are you calling abomination? If I hadn't just introduced a mirror to your face, I'd assume you'd never seen one!"
Danny threw ectoblasts and ghost rays at the thing Issitoq had become, but they melted away. Where had that power he had touched back in Long Now gone to?
Issitoq's tendrils lashed towards Danny, from too many directions. He dodged most of them, but one lashed around his ankle and squeezed.
He didn't feel anything other than pressure. He was starting to get worried about that. Had he sustained nerve damage? Ghostly nerve damage? Damage to his silver cord?
Then he did feel something and wished he could go back to being insensate, thank you very much because that hurt. He lashed back at Issitoq with electricity, shrieking at the idea of it as it ghosted over his skin and stirred unpleasant memories.
Issitoq dropped him, and Danny put his hands together to form a large ghost ray (not that he thought it would do any more damage than the small ones) and hopefully push Issitoq back.
He didn't get to, though, because Clockwork jumped in between them and started punching Issitoq. For some reason, this worked.
Come to think of it, the mirror had also gotten past Issitoq's defenses. Clockwork's mirror and Clockwork's fists…
Danny pulled the hand lens from where he had stored it in his pocket and brought it up to his eye. Two could play at the eye-laser game thing. Even if one of them had, like, ten times as many eyes.
Parts of Issitoq melted. Parts of him caught fire. Some parts rusted. Some parts decayed. Danny blinked and faltered, half lowering the lens. The action wasn't out of mercy, exactly, but more out of a horror that this was something he had done.
Because it was… bad.
And Clockwork was still hitting Issitoq, despite how still the Observant was. Well, maybe Clockwork knew something Danny didn't. He usually did. The others seemed to have the same opinion, because they attacked the ocular mass with renewed vigor. Ellie dropped her invisibility and pulled away the Nemean skin.
Whereupon Issitoq melted entirely, ectoplasm steaming away into the air.
Salt and acid rose on the back of Danny's tongue. "We didn't- We didn't just end him, did we?" he asked, urgently. He had never actually… participated in ending someone. The thought made him nauseated. Ellie looked like she might throw up on the Nemean skin.
"No," said Clockwork, definitively and sharply. "More's the pity. I had hoped this was him." There was bitterness and hate in the words, and an undercurrent of vengeance. His gaze softened as he looked up at Danny and Ellie. "This was only a duplicate. Not the real Issitoq."
"Oh," said Danny, feeling both relieved and concerned. "Um. I'm sorry about your mirror. I know you said I would need it." He gestured at the delicate shards still floating in the air.
Clockwork shrugged tiredly, his form growing almost imperceptibly older. He still wasn't shifting ages like he usually did.
"I do not remember what I saw, to say that to you. Perhaps this is what I meant." Clockwork looked like he meant to say more, but Pandora clapped him on the shoulder, making him jump.
Danny cringed in sympathy as Clockwork's hands flew halfway up, as if to defend himself, and then settled down.
"So," said Pandora, with a certain glee. "You punch things, now."
Clockwork's eye twitched.
