The fateful DIVERGE FROM THE CANON EPISODE. I swear it happens this chapter. : /
…eventually.
ANYWAY!
I didn't know until I'd started writing this that Clockwork was voiced by David Carradine. That is one seriously scary voice to have angry at you.
And now we see…
The Rise of Dan
Sam called back from where she'd wandered. "You're going to like this even less…"
The other three walked up behind her, looking up at a circular portal-like image showing an evil incarnation of Phantom laying waste to an army of assault vehicles. Under the image was the bold text- 'FUTURE: 10 YEARS'.
The goth continued- "I think we're seeing your future, Danny…" a moment passed while they watched the evil phantom destroy several buildings. "…and you're kind of a jerk." The future Danny took in a deep breath and blew a battalion of futuristic squad cars, tanks and assault helicopters away with a sonic blast. "Okay, you're really a jerk."
"Wow!" Danny cheered as he stepped closer. "What is that, some sort of ghostly wail? What a cool power!" He turned back to his friends to see them staring at him coldly. "If… it weren't being used… for evil!" He amended hastily.
They rolled their eyes before Tucker turned back to Skulk-Tech. "Let's see if this future-boy knows anything more about-" He'd just started pressing keys and eliciting beeps on his PDA when the ghostly amalgamation began to glow blue, float, and fly through the portal they'd been watching. "-I didn't do that." He added quickly.
"I did." An ominous voice seemed to boom as it echoed down from the rafters. The three Amity Park teens all turned their eyes on the hooded blue ghost as he slowly descended. "I sent him back to his own time, or should I say-" The ghost suddenly aged into an old man before their eyes. "-forward, to his own time. You see, for me, time moves backwards-" he became an infant, then immediately shifted to middle-aged. "-and forward, and…" he shifted into an old man, suddenly looking every one of his impressive years. "Oh, why am I bothering… You're fourteen."
"Who are you?" Danny demanded. "Where are we?"
"Introductions? Fine. I am Clockwork, master of time." He shifted back into his infant form. "I have been charged with the task of eliminating your future, so that-"
He was cut off by a large black gear flying towards him.
(*)
Raven brought her hands up to her cheeks. She was crying. She stared at her wet palms in horror. Was she losing control of her emotions? If she looked at it rationally, she had every reason to be a little distraught- she'd just gotten used to the idea of spending the rest of her life fighting evil with the Titans instead of being the catalyst to the world's end, and now…
She shook her head. There was no proof that what she'd seen was true. Who was to say any of that had to happen? "I did." A voice broke her train of thought, as if reading her mind.
She listened to the ghost's monologue with distaste. Master of time? She could hardly believe it as the anger began to bubble beneath her skin. With a deep breath, she forced it back down. Now was not the time to lose the control she'd spent a decade building. She took a moment to wipe her face with the edge of her cape, and listened. This was the time to watch, wait, and gather information to determine a course of action.
And then he said something about destroying their future.
She reached out a hand, enveloping one of the obscenely large gears nearby in black energy, lifting it up and sending it at the ghost.
And then he vanished.
"You Titans have also done your share of mucking about in the timestream…" She spun in midair to find him grinning grandfatherly behind her. "What a mess that could've been… Do be a dear, and thank Starfire for me, would you?"
She smashed together two gears where he'd been floating a moment before. "Now that's just rude." She heard behind her. "Why can't you be a good little hero and sit back while I end him?"
The boy in question took offense to this. "Hey!" Going ghost, he flew at the time-master, only to watch him disappear again. "Stop doing that!"
The ghost, now middle-aged, floated off to the side with a cocky grin. "No."
Danny growled, shooting off like a bullet as fast as he could go, intent on landing his fist right on the lightning-bolt scar on the ghost's cheek. The blue ghost simply tapped the button atop his staff and sped around to the half-ghost's side. "Time in." He intoned, watching the poor boy slam into the clock-tower's massive bell.
"I could do this all day…" he muttered, reversing time and watching the boy repeatedly run head-first into it with a 'gong'. "…But I have a schedule to keep."
Raven floated up behind the ghost as Danny fell to the floor. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos." She stated coldly.
"You are persistent, aren't you?" He muttered darkly before slowing time, weaving around each of the- admittedly large- things Raven was throwing at him, as well as the various grasping claws and bolts of energy. He chuckled as he made his way up into the rafters to grab a scythe from one of the statues, and then down to the half-ghost's side to split him in two with it.
"Daaaannnyyyy- waaatch oooouut-!" He heard the goth girl scream, distorted by his time manipulations. He rolled his eyes. It was so unfair to be the master of time in situations like these. He sighed as he let time slip back into its normal speed. It could be so frustrating to give people a sporting chance, sometimes…
The scythe split the gear he'd been leaning against in two as he dashed away through the air. The master of time continued the motion to part a gear that was heading for his back, even as he shifted to his smaller infant form while the halves passed. "And now to end this…" He growled, causing eyes to widen through the room as he pressed the button on his scepter. "Time out."
In one moment, Raven was floating next to Sam while watching the ghost -scythe in the hand of his stronger midlife form- heading toward Danny, having just teleported down from the rafters. In the next, Tucker held the weapon, Danny was flashing around the room to rest next to the girls, and the blue ghost was glowering at them. She looked down at the gear-shaped medallion hanging from her neck in confusion.
"Huh? What happened?" The half-ghost asked.
"We leveled the playing field." Sam said, holding up her own identical pendant. "Just get the bad guy!"
"You four have seen too much." Clockwork intoned ominously, shifting to his elder form. "You must be eliminated before you permanently alter the timestream."
Dozens of ghosts began to appear, each seemingly from a different era or technological period, all blue- bearing an identical lightning bolt scar across the eye and down the left cheek as Clockwork himself. This seemed rather unimportant to the four terrified teens, though. "…nowhere to run, children." The master of time prompted.
Danny glanced around frantically before grabbing his friends and shouting "Nowhere but the future!" and flying off toward the portal, calling out Raven's name just before going through.
The Titan watched them go, turned back to the horde of blue ghosts, and followed. Before she went through, she barely caught the ghost speaking again.
"Then let's see if you have what it takes to face that future…"
(*)
She supposed it was fortuitous that she appeared just before Danny, now encased in a glowing pink net, was able to find out how much the bazooka-like cannon pointed at him would've hurt had it fired. It was held by a red combat-suit wearing black woman with a military-standard hairstyle. The weapon was encased in black energy and ripped from her grasp as Sam and Tucker came to his aid.
"Sam? Tucker? Impossible… You can't be here. You can't be alive!" The woman began to yell as she backed away from them.
The two were shocked. "Not alive? That's our future?" Tucker began frantically.
"That seems to be a lot of people's future." Raven stated darkly as she floated down next to them.
Suddenly, the woman tensed, glaring at the now-free Danny. "And it's all your fault!"
A wave of green energy swept the woman away, and a dark voice stated "Actually, that was me." bringing everyone's attention to the floating figure of Danny's future self. "And… you." His eyes widened and his tone lowered.
He seemed to teleport as he appeared behind Raven, his foot already extending as he spun, delivering a devastating kick to her side. His mad grin widened at the sickening crunch of bone as she flew away, toppling the remains of a brick wall. "Always hated her." He muttered, watching the dust cloud for a moment before turning back to the amity teens. "Now where were we?"
A beam of violet energy caught him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He glared at where Valerie knelt, blowing the smoke from the nozzle of her wrist-mounted laser.
(*)
"Yes, Robin, I'm sure Raven's gone." Cyborg said for the third time. "Her and the three she was with, including the local hero, got caught up in something and disappeared."
"It's just hard to believe she's nowhere nearby." The Boy Wonder's voice came over the communicator.
A single human eye rolled. "I've been using the T-Car's tech to boost my sensors, Rob. I'm pretty sure there's no one with her, erm… unique genealogy anywhere in the state."
A long moment passed. "So what are we going to do?"
"I'm headed for the Fenton's now." Cyborg replied. "Maybe they can tell me more about this 'Ghost Zone' thing. That might be where they're at."
"Right. Keep in touch. Robin out."
(*)
Raven wasn't sure, but she had a feeling her demonic heritage gave her a higher pain threshold than most girls her age. She'd noticed several -Starfire didn't count, as she was Tamaranian- just couldn't stand as much damage as she could, think as well while injured… that might be part of her sorceress training, though. Regardless, her train of thought wasn't helping her assess her damage.
The blood she coughed up when she tried to take a deep breath did a bit to help with that, though. Definitely punctured a lung with that broken rib… she mused. No concussion, I think. Still a nasty head wound… that's usual when a wall falls on you, though. She ceased her self-assessment when it became clear that these were what needed to be addressed immediately. She placed a hand on her abdomen, glowing a healing blue, as she tried to remove the rib from her lung and set it. It took a moment, a long moment- but she eventually managed to focus through the pain and stitch the wall of her lung passably, and had the bone holding itself in place for now. …Now came getting all this blood out of her eye. She had some idea why head wounds bled so profusely, but it was still frustrating to deal with. Hit once remotely above your brow, and bam. You're blind.
Calming breath.
Hack up more blood.
Calmer breath.
She needed to keep her emotions in line or the wound wouldn't heal, cleaning out her eye would do no good because more blood would just get in it, and she'd have to take more time healing it anyway. Priorities. She needed to prioritize. Keep herself alive- she was doing that now, check. Find out the situation with Danny and the others… the battle seemed to have moved away after that loud wailing noise kicked up more dust, and made another brick fall on her head. Bastard.
Calming breath. Only a cough this time, good.
Now, after she was done healing herself, she could-
"Well, hello there."
Dammit.
(*)
He was about to rush the red huntress when a green beam struck his shoulder from behind and up high.
"Valerie! Tag-team!" The young Danny yelled.
She'd seen several of the ghost-monster's tricks over the years, but none of them had ever had him shooting himself before… or Sam or Tucker… Still vigilant, she nodded, and sent another blast at the ghost while lobbing two ecto-grenades with her free hand.
A second Dan shimmered into existence behind him, speeding off toward Valerie as the original launched into the air after his younger self. Danny, however, launched a ball of charged ectoplasm down at the clone before turning intangible to phase through the elder Phantom's fist. The attack distracted the duplicate just long enough for the red huntress to tag its chest with a pair of wrist-laser blasts and dissipating it.
So, the young half-ghost was floating and trading blows with his evil mirror-self and losing- badly. Valerie did what she could to provide support fire without hitting her tentative ally in the too-long moments it took for her hoverboard to reinitialize and return to pick her up.
She sped into the air just as a beam detonated the area she was standing in. She then circled the pair, the older menacing Phantom still landing more bruises on his younger form as she played the hawk, ready to swoop in at any moment. Whenever she saw an opening, she'd let loose a volley of red ecto-rays, but so far… the battle didn't seem to be going in their favor.
Dan didn't need an army of clones to beat them- and he knew it.
(*)
"Hold it steady, Tuck." Sam ordered again as she watched the battle above them.
"I'm holding it steady, this thing's just heavy!" He replied from behind her.
She rolled her eyes. How Val and the Fentons could swing things like this around, and pull them out of seemingly nowhere, she would likely never know. Tucker was savvier as far as the how-to of the ghost-tech went. Sam was just better at shooting them than him.
It was pure luck that they'd happened upon the ecto-cannon Raven had relieved from Valerie earlier. Now if they could just lift the thing…
"Okay Tuck, now!"
(*)
Valerie was still circling them, and Danny was still fighting for his life. It was worse than fighting Vlad! He could barely believe it. Just as he was flinching back from a punch he knew would be particularly painful… his opponent was knocked away in a deluge of pink and red energy.
He and the red huntress traded confused expressions before they followed a second shot back to Sam and Tucker.
With a smirk, he started throwing his own barrage of ghost rays at his future self, and noticed Val taking the hint too. They could do this. They were winning now!
…except for the thick green shield between them and Dan.
With a roar, the wall of ectoplasm exploded outward, sending the fliers reeling through the air. As he righted himself, he caught where the ghost-menace was looking.
"Sam, Tucker! RUN!"
"Run?" His future self taunted up at him as he landed, watching the pair abandon their nook in the side of a destroyed building. "Where are they going to go?"
And then he wailed. The ground shook and the air trembled. Danny watched for a moment in horror as the buildings all began to fall. He never noticed Dan turning his attack on him and Valerie until it was far too late. He lost sight of his friends in the painful mid-air tumble that shook him to his bones.
His awkward ascent was halted sharply. He looked up to see Dan holding him upside-down by his ankle. The grin he wore was more than mildly unsettling. "Catch."
Danny was then spun until he felt he might lose whatever was in the ghostly equivalent of his stomach, and then thrown fully away from Dan… straight into one of his doppelgangers. The kick the clone landed on his side knocked the wind out of him, sending him flying straight into the ground with a force that sent a sharp, world-bending pain through his shoulder on impact. He barely noticed the pain of leaving a small crater in the beat-up road, or that of skidding and tumbling along the asphalt into the rubble that remained of the dilapidated buildings he last saw Sam and Tucker near.
After regaining enough of his faculties to wheeze out what amounted to half an 'oww', the ghost-boy shook his head to clear the shock from his cranium and the dust from his hair, which only served to make his headache worse and his eyes water- his legs and hip were propped up semi-vertically on a downed wall, which meant his back was arched at a painful angle and all the dust had settled on his face. He summarily collapsed sideways, curled into a fetal position and rubbed his eyes clear while dearly hoping his evil self would give him time to clear his eyes, head and lungs. He didn't need to breathe, but it was just so damned irritating to have an organ internally caked with dust and sediment.
And ectoplasmic lifeblood. But, since the organs themselves were probably semisolid ectoplasm, that just amounted to semantics he didn't have the time to ponder at the moment…
His eyes now clear, his head only throbbing half as much as it was, and his lungs working furiously to expunge foreign matter, he found himself snugly encapsulated within a jigsaw of ruined architecture. He began to drag himself through dust and graveled asphalt on his elbows, slowly crawling between shattered brick, cracked mortar and ruined concrete, hoping to preserve the energy he'd spend turning intangible and flying out… and hoping to remain undetected as long as possible. Though whether this was from some logical, tactical need to rest and regroup before re-entering the fray, or an innate primal fear of an overwhelmingly superior -and pure evil- opponent, he'd never know.
Danny's eyes caught a glimpse of daylight, and he crawled faster. He almost didn't notice the clatter of metal underneath him in his rush toward open air. Digging it out from under him, he found in his hands one of Clockwork's iconic medallions. "Sam…" was his hoarse whisper as he gripped the second gear poking into his side. "…Tucker."
He shut his eyelids tightly as tears welled up beneath them. His friends were safe. They escaped into the past by taking off their temporal anchors. Which meant…
White-gloved hands froze over the lattice of cloth holding his own medallion around his neck. He was missing something… there was an absence in the equation. An expansive void in the pit of his stomach he just couldn't pin down…
His eyes widened.
Raven.
(*)
"What do you mean Danny got taken by some ghost!" Maddie screeched at Cyborg after he'd explained the situation. Let no one say the cybernetic teen wasn't observant enough to try matching up an image of Fenton and Phantom in his head to see if they really were that similar to shocking results… but secret identities be damned, he had no right to not tell a mother her son might be in trouble.
"I mean, Mrs. Fenton, that Raven, Danny and his friends disappeared along with it when it vanished. I've checked, and Raven's nowhere nearby. I have to assume they're with her, and I need to know if they could be in the Ghost Zone."
After a moment, she nodded. "We can take the Specter Speeder. It's got sensors that can detect people and objects from the human world while in the Ghost Zone." They were quickly heading down to the garage now. "Jack's not home. Neither is Jazz. Let's hope wherever they are, they don't need more backup than just us."
Cyborg could only nod, even if she couldn't see it.
(*)
She cursed in her head as she heard Danny's future self speak from where he'd raised the slab of wall above her. She could practically hear the smirk in his voice. She tried to teleport away when his hand shot out and gripped her neck.
"Ah, ah, ahh…" He shook his finger slowly as he remanded her. Suddenly it felt as if she'd been strung up to a power plant as electricity coursed through her veins. Her muscles contracted and tightened of their own volition as she spasmed. The crash that had resulted from him ceasing his suspension of the wall was lost on her. Finally, after the two seconds of eternity ended, she felt drained and weak. As much as she tried, she couldn't throw him off with her powers.
"Now then…" His grip tightened, and she rasped in one last breath before the ability was beyond her. "I think you've been a thorn in my side far, far too long. Even after I finally killed you, here you are."
He was snarling now, and the gleam in his red eyes had turned manic. As much as she didn't want to admit it… she was terrified. The grip tightened until she heard and felt several painful pops in her neck, his grin widening all the while until they heard a voice.
"Raven! The medallion! Take it off!" Danny yelled as he flew at them at top speed- far, far too slowly to stop his future self from ripping the thing from her neck, turning it intangible, and ramming it into her stomach.
Danny was distraught at this- he could see her eyes widen at the impact, and how weak she was. He formed two balls of ecto-energy in his hands and, in an act of desperation, slammed them together as he approached, bringing the discus-blade of energy down on the monstrous arm that held the girl, right at the soft elbow joint.
His older self grunted as he released Raven, the girl sucking in air greedily and passing out as she struck the ground.
"You…" Dan muttered, inspecting his arm. Both he and his younger form were staring at the gash along the joint. "You cut me!"
The young half-ghost shook himself out of his stupor and moved to punch the red-eyed beast, only to find that a fist had snapped itself into his own face lightning-fast. As Danny flew backward, the ghost snorted, opened up a portal into the ghost zone, and viciously threw the girl at his feet through. Let the ghosts of her future devour the demon, for all he cared. He stalked toward his stunned younger self, plucking the boy from the air where he'd stalled.
"And now what're you going to do?" Dan grinned, shocking Danny just as he did Raven, watching the boy change back to his human form and fall limp in his grasp. He performed the same action with the boy's medallion as he had with the Titan's, causing him to groan, even as the older ghost let a thick rope of green energy flow from his fingers and wrapped it tightly around him.
(*)
They'd had to fight their way through dozens of ghosts, most of which were barely an annoyance, but fighting one dragon was already far too many in Cyborg's opinion. He hadn't even wanted to know they had ghosts, too. In the end, they found a shoe, a frisbee, a slinky, several dog chew-toys and a mountain of socks.
Apparently, there was a Sock Ghost.
Solving the mystery of where the missing sock always ends up was a hollow victory in the face of the fact that there weren't any more real-world items in the ghost zone that they could detect.
Knowing they couldn't help more than they already had, they decided to head back. They needed to tell Jack, after all.
I'm actually starting to grow fond of '(*)'... it kinda' looks like a tiny little ghost going 'rawr!' and trying to be scary, but just being too damned cute...
*cough* anywhut... That's the update for this month. I'll be back in February.
Also- I'm sorry I'm so mean to Raven, but my Beta actually managed to convince me not to do some of the things I'd intended, so... uhh... I really have a bad habit of screwing over my characters?
Heh, hope that's enough cliffhanger for you. Going to see the end of Arc 1 next chapter.