Back at the wreck of the Nasty Burger, Mr. Lancer was standing at the door. An engine revved and headlights shone on him. The Fenton RV parked in front of the Nasty Burger, Jack and Maddie up front and Disguised Dark Danny smirking in the back seat.
"Mr. Lancer sounded urgent on the phone. Danny, is something wrong?" Maddie said.
"Not yet." Dark Danny said.
In the wreck of the Nasty Burger, the tanks and the heating element again, and the indicator needle shuddered higher.
"Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, Daniel, this s the Nasty Burger. When people fail, this is where they end up- whether they fail because they don't study, or because they cheat." Mr Lancer held up Danny's test.
Jack and Maddie gasped.
"Danny! Is this true?" Jack asked.
"Did you cheat?" Maddie asked.
"You have to get out of here!" Tucker shouted, coming over. "The Nasty Burger's gonna blow, and we're three feet from it!"
"South Beach Diet, people, what's going on here!" Mr Lancer cried.
Khione landed, facing Dark Danny angrily. "I'll tell you what's going on." Everyone looked over, surprised, and in Disguised Dark Danny's case, angry. "Or better yet, I'll show you." She fired a rune at Dark Danny, peeling away his disguise and revealing his true form. Everyone looked on in shock. "That's not Danny!"
Jack and Maddie went from stunned to angry, and immediately trained weapons on the fallen Dark Danny.
"Where is he? Where's our son?" Jack shouted.
"What have you done to our boy?" Maddie shouted.
Dark Danny laughed and looked up at her. "I am your boy!"
"What?!" Maddie said, confused.
Lancer, Khione and Tucker looked on, shocked. Dark Danny sprang into the air, where the clouds were starting to swirl green.
"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!" Dark Danny accused.
Weapons still trained on him, Jack and Maddie stared up at Dark Danny, stunned.
Jack looked at Maddie. "For the record, I blame you."
"Hello? Danny "Fenton"? Danny "Phantom"? Ever notice the similarity?" Dark Danny mocked.
"Liar! Don't move!" Jack cried.
"Actually, nobody's going anywhere. Not until it's time for you to be blown everywhere." Dark Danny threatened.
He flung out a strand of ectoplasm, binding Jack, Maddie, Lancer, and Tucker to a tank, then released five more blobs of it from his fingertips, gagging them. Khione attempts to punch him from behind, but his flesh moves around her fist, leaving a hole in his chest. She gasped and pulled back her arm.
"Nice try, my dear." Dark Danny's chest sprang back to normal. "But me," Dark Danny turned his neck 180 degrees to look at her. "my future" He turned the rest of his body around, "I'm inevitable."
Two copies manifested, surrounding her. He grabbed her by the waist, shocked her, turning her back into Kurai.
"Now I'll ask you one last time: Will you join me and be my Queen?" Dark Danny snarled. "Or do I have to destroy everything?"
"You'll kill them anyway," Kurai spat back.
"You're right." Dark Danny smirked, throwing her to the ground. "It's over, my dear Queen."
"Get your filthy hands off her!" Danny shouted.
Danny collided with Dark Danny, knocking him a couple blocks away.
"Don't worry. I won't turn into that. Ever. I promise." He looked over at Lancer, who was staring back at him. "I guess this sort of explains my periodic absences, huh?"
A rope of ectoenergy suddenly caught him around the waist. Dark Danny reeled him in to seize him by the collar.
"What are you gonna do? Waste me? What happens to you then?" Danny pointed out.
"You don't get it, do you? "I'm still here." I still exist. That means "you" still turn into "me."" Dark Danny countered.
He punched Danny into a lightpost. The backpack fell off and tips over, revealing the Ghost Gauntlets.
"I don't have to waste you." Dark Danny said.
The Nasty Sauce indicator needle went into the red, then the Fentons, Lancer, and Tucker bound to the tank, which was beginning to crack and shudder.
"I just have to run out the clock until your entire life falls apart." Dark Danny said.
Dark Danny dove at Danny, who grabbed the backpack and sinks into the ground. Dark Danny knocked over the lightpost and spun around, looking for him. Behind him, Danny rose out of the street, wearing the Ghost Gauntlets.
"Maybe if you'd remembered more about your family, you'd have remembered the Specter Deflector!" Danny said.
He pulled it out, flying at Dark Danny and snapping the belt around his waist. Immediately the older Danny screamed as he was electrocuted by the anti-ghost device.
"Or the Ghost Gauntlets!" Danny said.
He hauled back and sent Dark Danny crashing through an oil truck with a punch. Dark Danny looked around for a second nervously and then the whole thing went up in a blue blast. In the air, Danny shielded his face. As the explosion subsided to blue flame, he landed and began to walk away. Behind him, a furious Dark Danny emerged from the flame. He ripped off the Specter Deflector, grabbed Danny by the arm with a still-burning hand, and threw him to the ground.
"Your time is up, Danny." Dark Danny copied himself into four, the copies speaking together. "It's been up for 10 years."
They all punched him at once. Danny fell smoking to the ground and Dark Danny's copies reunited.
"What makes you think you can change my past?" Dark Danny said.
Danny got to all fours and glared up. "Because I promised my family!"
Dark Danny laughed. "Oh, you are such a child! You "promised"?"
"Yes! I PROMISED!" Danny shouted.
He stood and the word turned to a Ghostly Wail, sending Dark Danny flying and digging up a divot in the street.
"That power, ugh, it's not possible! I don't get that power until ten years from now!" Dark Danny said.
Danny landed. "I guess the future isn't as set in stone as you think it is."
Kurai stumbled up, trying to get Danny's attention.
He did another Ghostly Wail practically in Dark Danny's face, sending him flying again; it broke out windows and blew him through a doorway, then demolished the building on top of him. Completely exhausted, Danny dropped to his knees in human form. A fist rose from the rubble pile, and Danny looked up and gasped. Dark Danny burst from the wreckage, bruised up, flames dying, and uniform ripped.
"Well, that's it, isn't it?" Dark Danny said.
Danny's eyes narrowed. "Time's up!" Danny Opened a Fenton Thermos, he aimed it at Dark Danny and began to suck him in.
"Too weak to escape - and you're too late to save them!" Dark Danny said.
His final act was to reach out to Kurai. "My...Queen..you don't have to—"
Danny capped the thermos then looked over his shoulder. "Oh no."
Kurai stood up, transformed, placed her hand on her pendant.
The heat indicator was now all the way over in the red. the glass over it cracked then shattered. The cracking, leaking tanks hissed with steam. Danny ran toward the Nasty Burger, trying to go ghost, but the ring of light fizzled out.
"I can't go ghost!" He tripped on a rock and fell flat on his front. "Noo!"
Xxx
"Khione," Clockwork said in the past. "You watch the events of space-time. You are a ghost who controls time and space. There are three things you must not do. First, you may not cross time. Second, you can never leave the door you must protect. And third..."
Xxx
He and his loved ones stared at each other for an instant, and then the Nasty Burger blew up. The shockwave sent Danny flying with the dust and rubble; then everything froze.
"TIME OUT!" Khione's hands were on her pendant.
Xxx
"The third thing you must not do: You mustn't stop time. You and the pendant you carry are endowed with the power to move time. But no matter what happens, you must never stop time. If you ever violate that law..."
Xxx
A barrier surrounded Danny's loved ones, and pulled them from the explosion.
Khione's pendant shattered, and she collapsed into Danny's arms.
"I... wanted to help you... To fight with you... Danny Phantom. You're what I longed for. Danny, please...never lose yourself to the darkness...don't let Dark Danny win..." She coughed hard.
A clock hand traces out a bluewhite circle, which resolved into child Clockwork. He looked sadly down at his apprentice.
"She violated the most important taboo..."
Danny looked up at him. "What's going to happen to her?! Don't tell me she's going to—"
Clockwork held up his staff and struck her pendant with it. Blue-silver light erupted from the girl, and she reverted to her human form. The light moved to Danny and rained down on him like snowflakes, leaving edges of silver in his hair, which faded, attaching to his ghost form.
The light flew up into the sky, striking and making a firework shaped like a snowflake, and then vanishing in a swirl of snow and ice.
Kurai breathed again, leaning against Danny, looking comfortable, and alive.
"You saved her? I-I don't understand!" Danny said incredulously.
Clockwork switched to adult form. "The Observants look at time like they're watching a parade, one thing after another passing sequence right in front of them.. He gestured down at the wrecked Nasty Burger. "I see the parade from above, all the twists and turns it might—" Clockwork switched to elderly form. "—or might not take." He winked.
"You knew all this was going to happen. All of it!" Danny looked down at Kurai. "Even this part."
"She is human now." Clockwork revealed. "She will age like you and your friends. She no longer has powers. Can I trust you to look after her?"
"I won't let anything bad ever happen to Kurai." Danny said.
"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." Clockwork said. "And the Princess, giving up her power to save the person who caused her so much pain."
Danny smiled at him.
Clockwork pressed the button on his Time Staff. "Time in!"
They were surrounded for a moment by ticking clocks, then reappear in the classroom, where Danny's classmates were taking the C.A.T., frozen in time. Clockwork picked up the answer packet from Danny's desk.
"You've given everyone else a second chance." He switched to child form. "Why not you?" He handed him the packet.
Danny took it and Clockwork vanished. The clock started to tick and everyone started to move. Danny stared at Lancer, standing by his own desk with the packet in his hands, then smiled slightly.
"Mr. Fenton, is there a problem?" Lancer asked.
"Um, actually Mr. Lancer, there is." Danny said.
"I, uh, found this the other day. Outside the Nasty Burger." He slid the answer packet across the desk.
Lancer picked it up. "Hm. The seal is broken."
"Yeah. I know. A-and, I'm sorry. I couldn't stop myself from looking at the answers. But I'm not a cheater! And I never will be!" Danny confessed.
Kurai looked up, and the two of them smiled at each other.
"Well, you'll have a chance to prove that when you take the make-up test next week, now won't you?" Lancer said.
"Really?" Danny said, excitedly.
"You'll have plenty of time to study for your make-up test in detention. But for now..." Lancer said.
He gestured to the door.
Xxx
Danny was sitting on the front steps of Casper High. The door opened and Kurai stepped out.
"So..." Danny said. "I'm sorry."
Kurai looked up. "For what?"
"For what?" Danny echoed, incredulous. "I ruined your life. Your whole life you were tortured by me and then you ended up giving your powers to save my family, and—"
Kurai put a finger to his lips. "I've lived a really long life as a half-ghost. But the time I've spent with you; the real you, has been the best time of all of it. If I had to sacrifice my powers to keep the 'real' Danny around, it was worth it."
Danny stared at her, shocked, and the two leaned close, maybe about to kiss, then stopped as Danny's ghost sense went off.
Sirens sounded. A giant tentacle monster chased a cop car past the school as the couple watched.
"Go." Kurai put her hand on his and they smiled.
Danny Ran and transformed. "Going ghost!" Danny confronted the tentacle monster. "Hey! Giant, green, and gruesome! Guess who's back and better than ever!"
The slime monster made a worried sound. Danny hauled back and punched it, drenching Kurai in ectoslime.
Kurai was dripping with ectoplasm. "This is gonna take some getting used to."
Xxx
Clockwork was watching. As child Clockwork watched, smiling, with the thermos in one hand. The Observants stood with their hands clasped behind him.
"You manipulated the boy! You influenced his choice!" Observant said.
"That's a direct violation of the Protocol of Temporal Displacement! In other words," Observant said.
"You cheated!" Observants said.
"True, I cheated." Clockwork switched to adult form. "But I assure you his choice was his own."
"You realize the boy is your responsibility now." Observant said.
"As is his evil self, now that he exists outside of time." Observant said.
"And the Princess' power, now that it's released into the world." Observant said.
"I know. But then, I know everything." Clockwork said.
Flying past the Observants through a door, he set down the thermos. It blulged out on the sides as though something was bouncing around and punching, then Dark Danny's face printed on the front of the thermos, his laughter echoing.
Xxx
The blue-silver magic flew to a traveling circus, Circus Gothica, and struck a red glowing orb atop a staff.
Freak Show, stroked the staff as it began to glow brightly.
"The Princess is dead." Freak Show said. "I finally have the power I need. Her power. I can control all the ghosts...even half-ghosts...with her power!"
He raised the staff in the air, where it was struck with lightning and glowed brightly. The red light resolved into the image of Danny Phantom.