Based on a prompt by tumblr user dannyphantom-rework.
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Danny had, by the time high school ended, resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't going to get a traditional higher education, much less a normal job. Ever. Simply being what he was would have made it difficult, even if he ignored all the ghosts attacks and the subtle, but measurable, effect he had on local reality.
Which meant he was joining the family business. Yay.
At least his parents knew, now. If they hadn't... Well. Danny didn't know what he would have done. Something stupid, probably.
Anyway.
"You want me to what?"
"Go to the bottom of the Ghost Zone!" said Jack, enthusiastically.
Danny blinked and set aside his ectoplasm-infused sandwich. "I'm not sure it has a bottom."
The best part of his current arrangement with his parents was that Danny got to explore the Ghost Zone to his heart's content, albeit with a little direction when they wanted to research something specific. It was almost always safer for him than it was for normal humans, even with the Specter Speeder and the advantage of humans occasionally being intangible (as of yet they hadn't quite figured out the rules behind that particular feature; Jack and Maddie couldn't get it to activate consistently). Also, exploring the Ghost Zone soothed something inside of him, some need, that he found difficult to explain. He wasn't sure if exploring the Ghost Zone was quite as cool as exploring space, but... It sure was something.
"Of course it has a bottom!" said Jack.
"I don't know. It's always looked like mist all the way down to me."
"We've seen it on the cameras," said Maddie. "Here." She pulled out a few stills from the cameras Danny had taken on previous expeditions.
"You mean the island under the portal?" asked Danny. "That's not the bottom."
"It's not?"
"Nope. I've even been underneath it," said Danny. "How do you not know this? We left it when I took you to meet Frostbite."
"We just..." started Maddie. "Huh. Why haven't you taken us there? With it being so close and all..."
"Because it's a graveyard full of angry skeletons that'll attack if you get too close," said Danny. "I think they're thrall remnants from one of the old wars, but I don't really know and haven't found anyone that does." He picked up his sandwich again. "You guys did not pick a good neighborhood when you opened the portal."
"We didn't exactly pick it, dear," said Maddie.
"Point stands," said Danny.
"Well, you know what that means!" boomed Jack.
Danny pushed the last bit of sandwich into his mouth. "No, what?"
"It means we have to see how low you can go!"
"Sure. Maybe I'll get far enough down that I'll reach limbo or something," said Danny.
"Don't be silly, dear, limbo is a myth!"
Danny followed his parents into the lab and they started to go through pre-expedition checks and got Danny fitted with the various cameras and other recording instruments. When everything was in place, he stepped through the portal without much ceremony and flew a fair distance away from the portal and the island it hovered over.
"Still receiving?" he asked.
"Everything's green, sweetie," said Maddie.
"Great," said Danny. "I'm going down."
He did not fly at full speed, instead maintaining a jogging pace for the most part, giving his parents time to make note of features and changes, as well as giving himself time to react to anything dangerous coming his way. It grew darker as Danny went deeper, the ectoplasmic mists becoming thicker, richer. Glows rippled across the atmosphere in scintillating, eye-catching patterns.
Swarms of tiny, finger-long blob ghosts swirled past Danny periodically, occasionally making ineffectual attempts to nip at him. A jelly-fish-like ghost attempted to latch on to his arm with long, slender tentacles, but backed off when Danny bared his teeth at it.
The doors became more elaborate as Danny went deeper, more ornate, with more decorations, and heavier. One door he passed was positively Baroque in design, sparkling with lavender gems. It also seemed... too inviting. Danny steered clear.
He also stayed away from islands and other large shapes in the gloom. He didn't want to intrude on anyone, and, honestly, it felt pretty spooky down here, even if it was kind of soothing at the same time.
"So," he said, out loud. "Still no bottom."
A small but rather grotesque ghost flew across his path, followed by a seemingly normal black cat. Both quickly disappeared from view. At this point, Danny was relying more on his ghost senses than his more human ones.
"Nothing on our sensors indicating you're close to one, either," said Jack. "Do you want to come back now, or keep going?"
"Eh, I've only been out for an hour or so, right?"
"Almost two," said Maddie.
"I'll keep going for a bit, I think," said Danny. "Tell me if your sensors are keeping up. I'm probably going to be switched over completely pretty soon, and I don't want- Ow."
"Ow?"
"I bit my lip. Huh."
"Huh?"
"I think my fangs are sharper than they were this morning."
"We'll have to measure that when you come back."
"Yeah. Hey, do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Hear- Oh, it must be ghost noise. Give me a sec, I want to see where it's coming from."
"Be careful," said Maddie.
"Aren't I always?" asked Danny. He continued downward.
He really was operating on his ghost senses, now. Despite how, typically, charged ectoplasm glowed, it was dark here, and still ectoenergy buzzed tantalizingly on his skin. He felt, maybe, a little dizzy, and resolved to bring it up to Jack and Maddie when he got home. For now, though, he was too curious about the source of that ghost noise to risk being called back.
It was the only sound around Danny, now that he wasn't talking. Everything else was muffled to nothing by the thick atmosphere that pressed against Danny like a comfortably weighted blanket.
He felt like he was almost there when the song shifted, and suddenly it wasn't sound or song at all, but true ghost speak, broadcast emotions and intentions, layered on one another a thousand times over and backed with the power of the speaker.
Curiosity far more intense than his own pinned him in place as he was abruptly surrounded by an immense presence. It reminded him a little of what Clockwork had felt like when he, just for a moment, stopped shielding his ectosignature.
The curiosity was accompanied by delight! (anticipation) (so small) [so deep?] Why? (How?)
Danny pushed back something that may have been an answer but was more probably mixed so much with the desire not to have to fight whatever and whoever this was that it was probably unintelligible. It was impossible to lie in any way in true ghost speak, and it was nearly as difficult to talk about anything that wasn't at the very forefront of one's mind.
That's why hardly anyone ever actually used it.
(Mirth) (anticipation) Clever! Clever! (little thing) (child) (so deep.) Delight! (so deep) [belong here.]
The pressure on Danny's skin intensified, and he realized that, even with this other ghost surrounding him, he was still sinking. They were still sinking. Or- No. He was instinctually shying away from the other as they approached him from above. They were too big. Too overwhelming, even if there wasn't even a shred of hostility in their words. He couldn't feel a way out.
And they were going faster and faster.
Have to go, he tried to send to them, (home) not here. [He didn't belong here.]
Silly (affectionate). The ghost's mood was something akin to an adult humoring a child. A teacher. Time's child. {Belong here.} (Are here.) (little thing) (clever to be so deep) (delight) (anticipation)
The sound, the song, the music from before, came back, knifing through Danny's core. He did not want to be here, and he tried to say so to the other ghost even as the bubble of space between him and them decreased. (What was wrong with him that he still wanted to follow that song?)
[Belong here] Time's child. (Precious little thing.) An almost tangible thread of possessiveness wound through the words.
No- The thread was tangible, binding Danny's limbs in place. Danny's mind skittered in confusion at the intersection of physical reality and imaginary concept before he realized that, in a place where the ectoenergy was so strong as to almost be painful, the distinction between the two was largely immaterial.
Clever, purred the ghost again, now pulling Danny into the depths with ever-increasing speed. Time's child. [You belong as deep as you can go.] (Delight) (anticipation) (curiosity)
Danny wriggled. His core felt too large in his chest, his teeth too sharp in his mouth. He was effectively blind and deaf because his ghostly senses had developed in a much different, much quieter environment, and his human equivalents quite simply had nothing to hold onto.
Fine.
He didn't want to fight, but he wasn't keen on getting even deeper than this. He called on his core and-
No (chastisement).
Without conscious thought, Danny went completely limp, his mind blank.
Good (encouragement). Time's child. (Mirth) (gentleness) (affection) [Taking you home.] {Home.}
Danny didn't know what they were talking about, but didn't have the wherewithal to properly respond. The music alone was louder than his voice could be. He curled protectively around his core and felt very small.
Distantly, he noted that his form was not nearly as human as it normally was, distorted by the pressures and energies surrounding him. Other large, powerful forms, ideas, forces, passed them on the way down, and Danny shuddered, shifting and warping, every time. The other ghost only projected (mirth) (amusement) (encouragement) (satisfaction) (anticipation).
Danny could hardly feel anything else. They were too loud.
{Home!} Welcome!
What? (annoyance) (distraction) (affection)
Clockwork!
This time, Danny did manage to eel out of the strings that held him and flew to hide behind Clockwork.
What? (exasperation) (incredulity) (protectiveness)
[Found him] Time's child. (amusement) (satisfaction)
Why? (Where?) [How far?]
Most of the rest of the conversation went over Danny's head. Then reality decided to turn itself inside-out, and he found himself coughing, spitting up ectoplasm, on the tiled floor of Clockwork's tower.
"How?" he croaked.
"I moved my lair," said Clockwork, tapping his staff on the floor. He held his hand out to Danny, who took it gratefully, and pulled him up.
Danny blinked several times, trying to realign his senses. This was about when he noticed that he only had his jumpsuit on. All the equipment his parents had given him was gone.
"What happened?" asked Danny.
"I should ask you that," said Clockwork. "Whatever possessed you to go so deep?"
"I didn't mean to!" protested Danny. "I was about to turn around, really, and then I heard..." He trailed off, uncertain how to put what he'd heard, exactly, into words.
Clockwork sighed and ruffled his hair. "I think I can guess," said Clockwork. "I'm actually impressed you stayed so coherent."
"I didn't feel coherent," grumbled Danny, leaning against the older ghost. He hadn't felt quite this unsteady since he was fourteen.
"Trust me, you were. You should not have been brought so deep, so fast. Although..." Clockwork placed his hand over Danny's core and hummed thoughtfully. "You're growing more powerful. It may benefit you to spend more time farther down."
"Is that a thing?" asked Danny. His core still felt uncomfortably large in his chest.
"Yes," said Clockwork. "But I wouldn't make a habit of going as deep as you were."
"Why not?" asked Danny. "Other than the obvious, I mean."
"Well, if you were an ordinary ghost," said Clockwork, "and you were strong enough to survive the journey, too many trips like that would greatly increase your power and eventually make the human world and the upper reaches of the Ghost Zone inaccessible for you, except for very brief periods. There would not be enough energy or ectoplasm to sustain you."
"Is that what happened to you?" asked Danny.
"Somewhat," said Clockwork. "I do have other sources of sustenance. I am uncertain what would happen to you as a half-ghost. Many of your physical requirements can be substituted by their equivalents to your other half. Your core has grown larger, however."
"That's not just in my head?"
"No."
"It feels weird. Tight." He blinked slowly. "The other ghost, they kept saying I was your kid."
Clockwork smiled, and very briefly brought Danny closer.
I am (patience).
He pulled back again, leaving Danny blinking tiredly.
"We can explore the deeps together, later," said Clockwork. "For now, you should, perhaps, inform your parents that they're off limits."
"Okay..." said Danny. He yawned. His teeth were still too sharp.
"Let's get you home, then, shall we?"