(Disclaimer: Butch Hartman owns the show, Danny Phantom, from Nickelodeon and all of it's original characters.)
In this chapter, we get to see another one of my favorite ghostly characters from the show. I won't say much more because I want you guys to find out for yourselves. The search is on in chapter 23.
Chapter 23: Time Will Tell
Danny never thought that his first couple of days of Summer Vacation could be so nerve-wracking. He had gone back to the woods several times to see if he could find any trails leading to where The Guys in White may have taken Danielle from where Operative K had left the young ghost-boy unconscious in the net. But anything he thought might help always led to a dead end.
In addition, every time he went there, he kept getting feelings of uneasiness, and despair. This was where he had last seen Danielle. This was where he watched, as she was being cuffed and dragged away. And the last thing she said to him: That there was no other purpose for her existence.
Once in a while, flashes of the two operatives hurting her in some way kept going through his mind. Sometimes, when that happened he could have sworn that she was screaming from some unseen location and he could only imagine the pain she was going through. He especially got these short visions while he was in the woods. Eventually, it got to the point where he just couldn't stand it and withdrew himself from looking there any longer.
The search continued and by now, Tucker had been informed of Danielle's kidnapping. He had helped to organize some private investigation teams to track The Guys in White. They had not been lying when they had told Danny that even their sponsors had lost sight of their whereabouts. The investigators had gone to examine several outside locations where men in white suits had been sighted. But it turned out that those men, even if they were the right ones, had just been on investigations of their own to find the new Fenton residence.
Mr. Gray had also gotten some people at Axion Labs to help with tracking the government ghost hunters, Out of courtesy of Valerie, whom Danny had secretly informed as well. However, the combined efforts of all of these organizations didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Their technology in addition to the Fentons could not find the location of the lost cousin of Danny Phantom. No traces at all could be found of where the white-clad ghost-hunting agency could be keeping her.
As more time passed with no additional leads found, Danny was starting to lose hope. Most of the time, he was detained from searching because of ghost attacks he had to tend to. Though Danielle was missing, the ghosts didn't multiply the way they had when there were no Phantoms at all in town to protect the city. But even then, there had been several times that Danny's lack of focus caused near misses that would get him into serious trouble. It was incredibly lucky that Sam and Jazz were there to help him out of those jams.
Danny and his close peers weren't the only ones saddened by Danielle's' absence. There were a few citizens who expressed their disappointment to Danny that his cousin was no longer around. One evening in particular, while he was just out on patrol with Sam, who was riding on her electric scooter to get around today, the little boy Andrew and his mother had come up to him. The same people Danny recognized from the mall after coming back from his incident with Freakshow.
After some friendly greetings, the mother asked, "Where's your cousin nowadays? I haven't seen her around for a while."
"Oh…um…" Danny stammered, looking to Sam for help, but she was just looking a bit awkward. She hadn't met this woman or her son before. "She's… gone away for a while." Danny eventually resorted to saying. The news of Danielle's capture had actually been kept from The Press to prevent citywide panic that would more than likely attract more ghosts again.
"Aw. How come?" Andrew asked, looking a bit disappointed. A Danny Phantom action figure was hanging out of his pocket and one that looked like Danielle was held in his little hands.
Behind the teenage ghost-hero, Sam looked down at the handlebars of her scooter as if in regret. Danny knelt down on one knee in front of the small boy, trying to think of how to say this. "Well… before she came here, she liked to travel a lot." Danny replied, trying not to sound like he was holding back in certain facts. "She was just helping me out for a while."
"But wasn't she living with you now, or something?" The mother asked. She held her son's hand as he talked to the hero he admired.
"For a while, yes." Danny said, looking up at the woman while still on one knee. "But she was really only planning on staying to help me with the time that we had that massive ghost invasion." This was actually true. Had Danny not suggested that Danielle live with the Fentons, she would probably have been gone by the time she was rested up from that hard day.
"Oh. Pity." Andrew's mother responded. "It was quite exciting to see the two of you in action together."
Andrew nodded vigorously in agreement. "Yeah. That was really cool how she was flying all over the place. And she scared those ghosts away from mommy." He started illustrating the action with his toys. Though that experience had been several months ago, Andrew seemed to remember exactly how it went. He continued on explaining how much he liked how the two Phantoms had gotten rid of the ghosts that had been chasing him and his mother from the mall.
Danny, Sam and the boy's mother couldn't help but laugh at least a little at the child's enthusiasm as he ran in circles around Danny, making flying sound effects as he pretended that his two action-figures were zooming around, saving the day.
But it wasn't long before Andrew eventually stopped and he looked at Danny again, with a look that saddened both the teenage hybrid and his Gothic friend. "When will she be back?" The little boy asked his hero innocently.
Danny didn't answer for a while before he said, truthfully, "I don't really know."
Andrew looked down disappointedly looking at his Dani Phantom toy. "I miss her. She was nice."
Danny nodded in agreement, though still feeling a bit gloomy. "I miss her too."
That meeting may have ended with the woman and her son walking away with friendly parting words, but Danny and Sam waved goodbye to them, feeling worse that he had since Danielle had run away. Andrew was only one of many disappointed fans of the ghost-girl's that they both had talked to. If Danielle had realized how much especially the little girls had come to admire her, perhaps she wouldn't have felt so unwanted.
The two teenagers continued down the street to continue their route. Once in a while they glanced at each other regretfully. They had talked this over several times before, but Danny couldn't help but think that if he and Sam hadn't had that argument at the dance, this wouldn't have happened.
As Danny was thinking this over, he suddenly stopped in mid-flight. For a second and for some odd reason he felt numb. At the same time, another flash of something happening to Danielle flew passed his vision.
Sam halted on her scooter, looking behind her to see that Danny had stopped. "What's wrong?" She asked, looking concerned.
"Oh, nothing." Danny quickly responded when he realized he had stopped. "I was just thinking of something that Danielle might be going through right now." He said honestly as he hovered a few feet above the road.
"But that's not the first time that's happened. Why'd you stop like that?"
Danny just shrugged not really understanding himself. "I don't know." He admitted, sinking down to the concrete as Sam approached him on her scooter. "I guess…I've just been getting so worried about her." He admitted. "I sometimes wish I could go back and change that fight we had."
Sam let out a heavy sigh. "Yeah. Me too." A moment of solemn silence passed. "Danny I really am sorry for starting that." She said, taking his hand. "If there was one thing Clockwork would let us change in the past, that would be it."
Danny smiled in reassurance of his forgiveness and gave Sam's hand a gentle squeeze. "I had actually thought of Clockwork a few times too." He responded as they started walking together, hand in hand.
Clockwork, formally known as The Master of Time was a very wise specter who had the ability to see, as well as interact with, events in the past, present, or future: Hence the name. He knew everything that would happen no matter what turns certain events took. Once, he had helped Danny to escape an alternate timeline that would have led him, his whole family, and quite a few others to a terrible future.
But every time Danny considered going to ask Clockwork for help in the current situation he was in, he had remembered another time where he had tried to change the past to help his friends in another life-threatening situation. He had learned from that experience that changing the past could only make a matter worse. It was lucky that this time-manipulating ghost also had the power to reset the event to before Danny had tried to change it. And in just taking a view of that event again, he was able to solve the problem anyway.
"Wait a minute." Danny said quietly, making the both of them stop again, when an idea started to form in his head. "We might not be able to change the past, but maybe Clockwork can help in some other way."
Sam looked at him, perplexed. "Like what?"
"If just a window to the view of the past helped to solve a problem in the present, then maybe something like that can help us with this one."
Sam thought on this for a moment. "You think?" she inquired.
"It's worth a shot, right?" Danny shrugged in suggestion. But then he remembered something. "Oh…" He moaned, looking up and down the street. "But I'm in the middle of patrolling right now, I can't just…"
Sam put a hand on his chest, smiling. "You can go, Danny. I'll just call up Valerie or Jazz to help finish the route."
Danny was a bit taken aback by the sudden offer at first. But then he smiled at his friend in thanks. Sam gave him a kiss on the cheek before riding off on her scooter. Danny watched in gratitude as she turned a corner out of sight and lightly touched his check where she had left the kiss. Then, he took off for the underground Fenton Works.
He used a teleportation pad that was hidden in a nearby alley to get down to the house and he headed straight for the lab, where his parents had long constructed a new ghost portal to the ghost-zone.
"Where do you think you're going, mister?" Mr. Fenton asked Danny through a microphone, from the Op Center. Jack and his wife had been working in there when they saw Danny open the ghost-portal from the window.
Danny responded through an intercom on the wall near the portal. "I'm just going to see if I can ask an old friend for help."
"In the ghost-zone?" His mother asked, confused but with a hint of nervousness.
Danny scoffed with a smile. "Don't worry, mom. I'll be fine. I should be back soon." He reassured.
After he saw his parents exchange thoughtful looks, through the Op Center's window, they nodded at him. "Just be careful. Okay, honey." Maddie requested.
Danny smiled up at her in response before shutting off the intercom and flying through the portal. She was always getting concerned whenever he went into the ghost-zone: especially by himself. Neither of Danny's parents had ever been inside (though Danny found that ironic since they were the ones who built the portal in the first place) but Maddie knew that it could be dangerous.
Danny zoomed through the spacious and eerie green world. He remembered how creeped out he was when he had first set foot…or rather…flight, in this place. It was like being in space, only the sky was green and cloudy all the time and you could actually breathe here. All of the places where the ghosts lived were floating around like asteroids or lone planets. Not to mention there were a lot of ghosts he could run into if he wasn't careful. It was the world that all of the ghosts came from. It was their territory: their entire universe.
But Danny had gotten to know it pretty well in all the times he had ventured here with his friends, and knew the safest routes through it. There was nothing for his parents to worry about. He just hoped that Clockwork wouldn't mind him dropping in. But with all the failed attempts everyone else had had, this was getting close to being his last hope. And Danielle's. He had to at least ask.
Before long, he reached the area he was looking for. Clockwork's home was a huge, castle-like clock tower with a look that would remind anyone of a mystical, horror movie with its dark green color and the many spikes around it. A few scythes that had skulls on them extended up from the turrets like flags. Huge gears floated around the clock tower and an echoing ticking of several clocks could be heard even at quite a distance away.
Danny arrived at the door of the tower and it creaked loudly as he pushed it open. "Hello!" Danny called once he was inside. "Clockwork?" No answer.
It was just as uncanny inside the tower as it was outside. There was a very long and jagged staircase that led up to the top of the tower where the sage of a ghost was always spending his time. The overall look of this tower was still a bit creepy to Danny, but knowing the ghost who resided in it helped to counteract that.
Danny followed the stairs by flight, until he reached an opening to the topmost room of the tower. It was a rather dark room with now light at all coming in from the very huge window. The window was actually also the face of the giant clock that could bee seen outside. There were perhaps thousands of gigantic gears in the ceiling, working the giant clock.
"Ah. Danny Phantom. The teenage ghost-hero of both our worlds." A wise sounding voice echoed through the room. Danny turned towards the center of the spacious chamber, where a ghost with a purple hooded cloak hovered above the floor, facing a flat, circular image that waved and distorted the image of the event that was being viewed. There was a smaller window next to it that looked the same, but was reflecting a different image than the large one. These windows emitted the only source of light that anyone would be able to properly see by.
Danny slowly made his accent to the floor a distance away from the hooded specter, which turned around to face him as he landed.
The Master of Time had a purple tunic under his hooded cape and his hands had gray gloves with several watches on top of them. He had a black belt that had a pocket-watch hanging from it and on his chest was a rectangular, glass covering that protected another clock that was actually lodged inside his own body. Clockwork's skin was a pale blue and his eyes were completely red, having a long, lightning-shaped scar across it. Though these red eyes were the same kind that Vlad Masters had while in his ghost form, these ones always reflected a much more friendly nature. The sage carried a long staff that had another clock on the end that was framed with two spiky shapes. It was this staff that he mainly used to channel his power to alter time.
But what was really intriguing about this ghost was the way he was always fading randomly from his strong, adult appearance, to an elderly, bearded and hunched over old man and sometimes fading into an appearance of a chubby little infant. Danny, kept forgetting that he was always doing that. It was really beyond the ghost's control. Danny wondered if Clockwork even noticed anymore whenever these changes happened.
"It's been a long time." Clockwork said as he suddenly took on his future representation of himself in the appearance of the old man.
"Yeah. Hasn't it." Danny said in greeting, but he hurried to get to the purpose of his visit. "Listen. Clockwork? I need your help."
"Help I'm afraid I won't be able to provide you with." Clockwork instantly remarked, turning away.
"No. Not to alter the past again. I was just hoping you'd help me to find someone." Clockwork remained silent and his currently wrinkled and bearded face was unreadable, so Danny went on. "It's my cousin. Danielle."
"Yes. The clone created by Vlad Plasmius who's been living with you for the past few months." Clockwork said, suddenly fading into the young infant appearance. (His staff shrunk with him to the size of a toy.) Then he turned towards the giant, clock-face window folding his now petite arms. "I knew you'd be coming to ask me this. And I'm sorry to say again that I cannot give you the assistance you seek."
"Clockwork, I just want you to open a window so I can see where she is." Danny said. At this moment, he suddenly felt a just noticeable and unexpected jolt inside him that he couldn't understand.
"I know it's only a view you want." The sage said, continuing his gaze out the window. "But it's not that I won't help, Danny Phantom." Danny noticed from the reflection in the window that the infant form of the Master of Time was looking solemn. "It's that I can't."
"What?" Danny responded a bit confused as well as astonished by the answer. "Why?"
"I've tried several times to open my time windows to foresee the exact thing you wish to find." Clockwork said, taking on his appearance that reflected the present. (His staff size change back as well.) He faced the teenage boy. "I saw as she gave herself up to the ghost-hunters. But soon after they made you go unconscious, they disappeared beyond my sight." When Danny just stared at him, in disappointed surprise, the purple-cloaked ghost explained a bit further. "The Guys in White have become very clever with their anti-spectral technology. They seem to have been able to create some sort of cloaking that they perhaps don't even realize is so powerful, I can no longer monitor them with my time windows."
Danny sighed heavily, looking down as his hopes began to drop. "So you can't even see inside the place where they're keeping her?" Clockwork shook his hooded head sadly. "Not even to see…if…she's okay?"
"No." Clockwork said after a sad pause, shaking his head again. "I'm sorry Danny. If I knew where she was, I would show you. That, I promise."
Great. The one thing The Master of Time would be willing to help him with, he couldn't. Danny looked despairingly at the circular image that he noticed was a view of his parents still at work in the Op Center back home. "Then how am I supposed to find her, now?" He asked the sage as he felt him floating up behind him. "How do I know if…she's even still alive?" Danny clenched his fists as another fast vision of Danielle receiving a painful shock zoomed through his mind.
"Danny. If she was really gone, I'm sure you would know." Clockwork said, putting a hand on the saddened teenager's shoulder. Danny noticed from the hand that it had become thin and bony. He had shifted to his elderly appearance again.
He looked up at him, with a confused look at what the now tall and bearded ghost just said. How could he possibly know if Danielle had been destroyed if he wasn't even…? "Wait." Danny said aloud and in consideration. "Those feelings I've been getting. And those flashes in my head." Clockwork grinned as the realization was starting to occur to the half-ghost teen. "I thought that was just me worrying so much, but…" Danny put a hand over his chest. "That's really her, isn't it?" He asked in affirmation. "I'm actually sensing whenever she's getting hurt."
"She was made from your DNA, young Phantom." Clock work stated, removing his hand from the boy's shoulder. "Perhaps, improperly at the beginning because of a lack of the right pieces, but it still has made her a part of you."
"So you're saying that she and I…we have some kind of connection?" Danny asked.
Clockwork nodded, taking on his present day appearance. "It's grown stronger since she started living with your family. You just didn't notice it before because you were usually already witnessing whatever was happening to her during the battles you've fought together." Danny looked back at the view of his parents, taking in this information.
Just then his hand suddenly shot to his shoulder in feeling a particularly surprising and sharp jolt. "You feel her now, don't you?" Clockwork said, when he noticed this abrupt action.
"It's been getting more and more devastating." Danny said, rubbing his shoulder as if trying to brush off the fake pain.
"She's felt them too." The cloaked ghost said, fading into the infant form. "When you were set in the ring of Blood Blossoms, she was riding on your dog friend and she felt it happening when she had almost arrived at the train."
Danny shuddered in remembering how he felt being in that Blood Blossoms circle Freakshow had put him in. To think that Danielle had also felt at least an inkling of what that felt like. It must have been such a surprise to her that she nearly fell off of Wulf.
Hold on a second… Danny's mind backtracked. "Oh, of course." He said, slapping himself on the head for being such an idiot. Why didn't he think of it before?
Clockwork's, currently baby-face, smiled, knowing what idea was now forming in the young boy's head.
Danny looked up at the short little sage that floated above the level of his head, making up for the sudden loss of height. "I don't think I ever thanked you for helping me out so much." The teenage hybrid commented. Clockwork simply shrugged his little shoulders as if it was no big deal.
Danny never realized this until he was older, but Clockwork seemed to always want Danny to figure things out for himself. He just gave him a few hints along the way if he needed them. That was definitely how he helped Danny to avoid disaster the first time he encountered him.
Danny heard a strange noise from somewhere else in the room. He and the baby Clockwork looked in that direction to see two identical ghosts who had unexpectedly appeared in the large chamber. Both had white robes, lined with a magnificently designed, yellow border. The draped sleeves protruded green and bony hands with long, sharp fingernails. They both wore long, black, vampire-like capes and instead of heads, there was a protective, green dome that sheltered a single, bright green and very large, eyeball that floated in the center.
"The Observants?' Danny said in confusion, recognizing the large Cyclops eyes in an instant.
One of the identical ghosts stared at Danny for a second with his large eye before it looked at the cloaked specter next to him. "We didn't expect you would have company, Clockwork."
"He was just leaving." The sage said, turning into the elderly form of himself, but folding his arms as if annoyed in seeing the two all-seeing specters in his tower.
Thought his was true, Danny's curiosity kept him where he was. "What are they doing here?" He asked the temporarily bearded and hunched over Master of Time.
"They've been coming to see me on a regular basis about your cousin lately." The sage ghost responded, giving The Observants another irritated look.
"And what would you be doing here, boy?" The second twin ghost said to Danny with a deeper tone than the first. "To alter another event in the past? Perhaps a contest you lost? An embarrassing moment? Or perhaps that time the clone-girl overheard the conversation you had with your girlfriend."
Danny didn't like how the Observant had referred to Danielle as the "clone-girl," but he ignored it. The Observants were basically judges and peacemakers of the ghost zone. There was only one other time that they came to see Clockwork and that was during a very critical time: One that involved Danny, greatly. The ghost-hybrid turned back to Clockwork, getting a bit nervous. "What's going on?" He asked. "What about Danielle?"
Clockwork looked off in a corner of the room, passed where the circular windows were located. Danny followed his gaze until his own sight rested on a Fenton Thermos that stood on a flat rock and covered with some sort of energy field.
Danny had long known the significance of this Thermos. And it wasn't a good thing at all. In just looking at it, he was starting to get worried in what this conversation was leading up to. "No." He whispered, turning back to Clockwork with his anxiety steadily growing. "You're not saying that…?" He trailed off indicating the Thermos.
Clockwork sighed, looking at the boy very sternly as he faded into his strong, middle-aged form. "There have been several important lessons you have learned since obtaining your ghost-powers, young one." He began in answering the ghost hero. "Lessons that your clone has yet to even dream of encountering." Danny remained silent as the sage went on, but his unease was growing with every word he said. "She will soon be faced with a choice that will determine the course of her entire future. Possibly even yours." Then, as if Clockwork's voice and expression couldn't become any graver, it somehow did as he gave his final warning. "And if you don't find her soon…let's just say that in one way or another…your friend's suspicions about her will be confirmed. Permanently."
Danny stood rooted to the spot for a long moment, as the full realization of what Clockwork was saying hit him at full force. Looking at the Thermos that the cloaked ghost had had in his possession for some time now, he felt his newly found hope was beginning to be replaced with fear of what might soon happen. Of what might soon become of Danielle, as well as others. Something he himself was barely able to escape in time.
Danny suddenly hurried out of the room by flight and Clockwork watched from the huge window as the young ghost flew away through the eerie green space of the ghost-zone, back to his own world.
"What were you saying to him, Clockwork?" The first Observant said after Danny had passed out of sight.
"Him finding her is the very thing that will result in the future he is in fear of." The second Observant followed.
"It may. And it may not." The Master of Time put in. "That will be the girl's choice."
"But you have already foreseen the choice." The first Observant countered. Staring at the sage specter with his one gigantic eye that looked quite up-hauled by what he had just witnessed him doing.
"I have." Clockwork admitted, turning into the old version of himself again. He turned back to his time window, using his staff to change the view to further watch the recently left teenage ghost.
He had seen the choice Danielle will soon make. But he had also seen how much she still cared for Danny, even after she had attacked him when he was trying to stop her from leaving Amity Park. That's why she had surrendered herself to the Guys in White. The decision she would soon be faced with will still be entirely her own. But if anyone can help her before it was too late, it was the only one left in both worlds that she completely trusted. And him alone.
Okay. Those of you who have seen the episode The Ultimate Enemy, I'm sure you already have an idea of what this is leading up to. I don't know about you guys, but Blackjay says that she's getting really excited about how this is turning out. I hope you guys are looking forward to the next installment I have in mind.