Finally, I've finished this chapter. I've also edited the previous chapters, so I highly recommend rereading those as I did add more to both of them. (And on another note, we now have an epigraph!)

There's going to be another author's note at the bottom, so I'll meet you there.

Clockwork remained like that, with his head resting in two gloved hands for a whole ten seconds.

It was all he could allow himself. Having sadness was a weakness. The time master wasn't allowed to have weaknesses. Only people were allowed to have such weaknesses. Only people were allowed to feel such crippling emotions. Clockwork knew; he knew superior beings of the ghost zone were not and, never would be, people. It's a sacrifice of which he'd long since accepted; if he had weaknesses, they could be easily used against him. He wouldn't be able to protect the little he cared about.

Maybe why that's why he envied Dan so much? Albeit harboring bad emotions and ill intent, it only served to prove that the ghost was indeed once alive; he was still a person. He can have emotions; he can have weakness. Clockwork was never alive; he wasn't a person. He can't have emotions; he can't have weakness.

Danny was about to do something stupid. He was his responsibility; he was supposed to make sure Danny didn't cause trouble. He had to protect the boy, but in this situation, Danny was in danger, and he wasn't lifting a finger to help him. No, that's not right; Danny wasn't in trouble; Dan was.

Why did that have to make his very core ache with fear and immeasurable sadness?

It was because caring was an emotion; it was an emotion wasn't it?

He flipped his hood off and combed his hair back. Dropping his head as he did always tampered with his hair. Clockwork liked having his hair in such a way where it was impossible to tell which way it grew, and incidentally made it impossible for anyone to see due to the fact that it was always pushed back.

He frowned to himself, recalling what he was going to say to Dan moments before the man left. That was careless of him; who knows what that would have caused the phantom to do. Oh yes, that's right; Clockwork knows, and it wouldn't have been very good.

Why did the timeline have to be so confusing and so… dangerous?

He sighed and pulled his hood back up, stepping away from the time screen avec-portal he was staring warmly into. He now had his own problems to deal with.

Problems that namely came in the form of his two favorite Observants.

If Clockwork didn't see everything in advance, they might surely startle him at times. They were certainly quiet and subtle on approaching… until they started speaking.

"Clockwork!"

"Yes?" He said turning around to face them.

"What is the meaning of this?"

He sighed and lowered his staff. "You're going to have to be more specific; I honestly have no clue what you're referring to." For once this was completely true, and Clockwork was glad Dan wasn't there to hear him say it.

The Observants were powerful; they had to be if they wanted to control the entire Ghost Zone. As they had the power to control Vortex's weather powers, they also were able to restrict Clockwork's own sight. Decisions made by them were often blurry or even blocked completely.

It's not that they didn't trust the time master; it was more of a precaution. The Observants were very cautious by nature. It's part of what made them so obnoxious.

Clockwork was trustworthy, and they knew that. They never would imagine having to restrict certain timelines from his view; albeit they couldn't see different timelines, but they could prevent him from seeing futures concerning certain people which could be fairly disastrous.

"We see a future that shouldn't even be plausible." The first one began. This is how their conversations went: one begins, one continues, one echoes, one finishes.

As if on cue, the second one continued. "A future in which you've been destroyed permanently!"

Clockwork's eyes widened in shock, he believed they were here about Dan. "I know." He turned his gaze towards the looking mirror-slash-portal. There wasn't a timeline showing, but he stared as if there was the most interesting one playing a run-through. "I'm preventing it. Don't worry about it; we wouldn't want you to strain your eye."

He noticed both of them looking rather strained and distressed, and he amended. "Or shall I say your 'eyes'?"

"You surely must be slacking in your duties."

"Surely." The second one echoed.

Clockwork could feel a migraine coming on. "I assure you I'm doing just fine; this will all work out. I've already begun to correct the situation."

"We've never had reason to doubt you, Clockwork. But if we feel you cannot perform your duties accurately enough…

"We will replace you." They stated the last line in unison.

Oh yeah, he definitely had a migraine coming on.

"I have it covered. Please just leave it be for now." Clockwork asked them calmly. The stress was killing him, metaphorically of course. His 'impending doom', Dan, his younger self and his unbeknownst attempt to destroy the timeline, yeah but most importantly Dan.

"We will desist for the time being. Is there anything we can assist you with?" The calmer second one asked. For being annoying, they really did care in their own strange way.

Clockwork nodded, turning around to face them. "You have Vortex back in your possession."

It wasn't a question. Danny had returned Vortex to the Observant High Council after their weather fiasco, but sometime later he escaped again. That's how it worked; he causes trouble, he gets locked up, he escapes, and the next time he causes something disastrous on earth, the cycle repeats itself.

Recently he caused some major weather problems in Japan, including a category five hurricane and temperatures that have reached the highest they've been since 1961. Needless to say, he's been brought back in by the Observants.

"That is correct." The first one stated. He was clearly not happy with the time master at the moment.

"May I see him?"

"Of course." It was an instantaneous response from the Observant who still had his absolute trust in Clockwork.

"But why?" The upset one asked nervously; gaining trust was difficult, losing it was upsettingly easy.

His older appearance dominated his features. "I have something I need to speak to him about. It won't take long."

"Well, I don't see why not." He reluctantly agreed. They knew Clockwork surprisingly well; it was clear when he was hiding something. It was up to them to decide whether or not it was a danger. Naturally some were more skeptical than others.

"I'll be there shortly; inform him of my arrival." Clockwork waved them off. "I have to check on the time stream again."

The two Observants shared a look before teleporting themselves away; he didn't seem to be slacking as accused which only made them wonder what quite happens to cause the man's demise in the future. Seeing the future wasn't nearly as helpful if you couldn't grasp what happens to cause certain things.

Approaching the looking mirror, he shifted back to his adult form.

"How's it going on your end, boys?"

-.-.-

Where'd that brat go?

Dan snapped his head around; looking for any indication of where Danny had went, to no avail. He wasn't even entirely sure where he himself was.

Turning around, Dan realized he was in front of the closest thing Amity Park had to fast food.

And he was in full ghost form. Ugh. I suppose that human disguise does come in handy after all. Dan thought irately letting two white rings encompass him as he shifted back into his tan-skinned long-haired human look.

He could only hope he didn't stand out too much.

Smoothing down his wrinkled black dress shirt, he looked up at the building with a feral grin. "Ah, the Nasty Burger, still standing." Déjà vu.

Deciding that Danny may have gone there perhaps looking for his friends, Dan decided to drop in.

Unfortunately, the interior was pretty much the same; it had the same dull colors with the bright red vinyl seats.

He ordered one of the cheapest things off the menu; Dan obviously didn't have the money for anything else, and it was not like he actually wanted anything. He didn't eat that much as a ghost, mainly because he never had the time but also because of a lack of desire, but people normally gawk and write you down on the 'suspicions persons' list if you sit down in a restaurant and not order anything.

Settling into a booth in the back of the small restaurant, he wasn't particularly noticeable. In fact if one glanced quickly and didn't think too much of him, they'd most likely assume him to be a young college student hanging out to work. The Nasty Burger had recently become more popular with students and business men solely for the fact it now offered free Wi-Fi.

Picking at his fries and periodically glancing up and scanning for any sign of Danny or his nerd herd, he practically didn't notice someone slide in the seat across from him.

"Hi there," the black haired girl began, and Dan couldn't help but recall her to be Paulina, the girl he so helplessly crushed after for his adolescent years.

Dan raised an eyebrow. "Go away; I'm busy."

"I'm Paulina." She batted her eyebrows suggestively. She certainly did appear to be much more mature than Dan remembered her; she was probably about seventeen now yet appeared to be able to pass as a lower classman in college.

Dan resisted the urge to scoff; she looked almost as unsatisfying as the portion of food he had in front of him. "You're not going to go away, are you?"

"Nope. Say, you're kind of cute."

Some part of Dan liked the attention she was giving him, some part of Dan wanted the chance to be able to flirt again, some part of Dan wanted to kill her, but most importantly, most of Dan didn't want to flirt with Paulina, and she was distracting him from what he came here to do.

"Say, you're kind of too young for me."

She only seemed to get more interested. "Are you a student at the university? I happen to like older men."

"And I happen to not like jailbait or you for that matter, so scram before I do something you're going to regret." It was probably a good thing Paulina didn't ever eat anything that could possibly ruin her perfect figure or else she might have dared to take one of his fries. Problematically, Dan is possessive, and that would have been the last straw and therefore would have missed what she happened to say next.

"Shouldn't you be chasing after Inviso-Bill?" Dan sneered. That was the worst possible name they could have given him, even 'ghost boy' was better than that.

"Do you mean Danny Phantom?" She crossed her arms and huffed. "He's cute and all, but nobody's seen him ever since the Masters' Blasters showed up."

"The Masters' Blasters, who are they?" Dan asked unaware of any of the recent events that had transpired.

Paulina raised an eyebrow. "You really aren't from around here, are you? They're the ghost hunting team the mayor, Vlad Masters, created to fight ghosts." She still wasn't the brightest girl around.

Plasmius? Holy crap, when did he become the mayor of Amity Park?

"They've caught so many ghosts that our Phantom just sort of fell off the map; it'd be terrible if something bad happened to him!" Paulina was now distraught. Apparently, she couldn't comprehend that as far as they knew, the ghost boy was dead.

There was more to this story than he was getting, and frankly, it was bothering him. Dan slid out of the booth rather gracefully for someone who had none as a teenager. "Do you know where I can find Danny Fenton?"

"Uh, no. Why would I know where that loser is? Just look for the Goth chick and you're bound to find him." Paulina said, also exiting the booth while fetching something out of her handbag.

"Here take this," she said pressing a neatly folded piece of paper into his hand. "If you ever stop chasing after worthless people, give me a call, okay?"

"Whatever." Dan said, pocketing the note. He knew he wouldn't use it, but he had a strange feeling it might come of some use to him.

He quickly left the restaurant, leaving his half-eaten food on the table next to a very confused and awe-struck Paulina. He never understood why girls liked the guys who treated them like crap.

Almost makes him wonder if he should have been nice to her; it might have been over faster, but then Dan remembered that girls were complex and cannot be defined by a minimum of food and sports. Being nice would have only encouraged her and made Dan want to gag- as if the food didn't already.

.-.-.

I should have just gone to Fenton Works to begin with. He frowned, looking at the portal in the basement lab obviously noticing its broken state.

What happened to it?

Jack really screwed up this time. Dan smirked as he held up a framed picture of the previously intact portal, but he didn't really have the time to admire the screw ups by his failure of a father.

Placing the picture back down, he flew up intangibly through the floor above him until he was in the living room. The television was left on once again courtesy of Jack.

"And now we bring you back to our live broadcasting. The ghost boy, Danny Phantom, has just gone into the 'ghost zone' to retrieve the ghosts necessary for turning the earth intangible.

We now eagerly and a tad nervously await his return. How is it down there Lance?"

The image cut away from the female news reporter to Lance who was bundled up and shivering clearly not enjoying the cold. He stood a fair distance away from a huge pole, and huge wasn't an exaggeration.

Dan smirked to himself. Leave it up to Danny and his friends to come up with a totally ridiculous yet successful plan.

Wait… Live broadcasting?

Crap! It's happening; I have to get down there now.

And what faster way to travel across the globe than through the ghost portal? The Fenton portal was trashed of course, but that wasn't really an issue as Dan could create his own portals; the perks of not being Danny were immense.

Stretching a gloved hand out, he formed a swirling green portal and flew into the ghost zone, careful to remain invisible in his ghost form.

It was chaotic to say the least. Ghosts were everywhere; he couldn't move an inch without bumping into one of them. As if it was a bonus, they were all distressed while seeking refuge from the disasteroid. It would have been a perfect time to cause mayhem if only he wasn't busy trying to save the timeline.

He scoffed. As if he never imagined one day he'd be working for the good of someone besides himself; it was almost enough to make him physically ill.

The roaring of an engine like sound made him look up. Skulker was in a fast pursuit of something… or someone. It was best to follow him. Skulker usually knew what was going on; at a time like this it's quite possible he'd be leading people.

Speeding up, Dan kept in pace with him. He was careful not to get to close, who knew what types of upgrades he had installed to that suit to detect powerful foes.

Alternating speeds was not necessary; Skulker was not a happy camper right now. When Skulker isn't happy, there's only one power level and as guessed, it's max.

He fired a ghost ray ahead of him; it hit its intended target: the plane he'd been following. In the next moments, it ejected whoever had been piloting, and it didn't take much to realize it was obviously Danny. Unfortunately, it was past Danny- complete with a strange skunk stripe in his hair.

He'd have to remember to ask about that.

Glancing around, Dan quickly spotted who he was after. The long-haired slightly older Danny was dropping into the currently unpiloted plane; he had no clue what the kid was up to, but whatever it was, it was something he wasn't supposed to be doing.

And Dan was going to put a stop to it.

-.-.-

Clockwork was glad everything was going as planned so far, except he couldn't help but narrow his eyes while rewatching the excerpt from the Nasty Burger as if it were a television show.

He was picking apart everything Dan had said looking for signs of anything even remotely flirtatious; it was almost enough to make the man forget he had somewhere to be... well, almost.

This was difficult to write. I'm not completely satisfied, but oh well.

I have a question for you guys: In the previous chapter, what did you believe Clockwork was going to say to Dan right before he left?