Everything was dark.
…
Screw Clockwork and his attempt at altering time….
…
The darkness grows.
…
I was so close….
…
The shadows cut deeper.
…
Why am I here, anyway…?
…
But light suddenly permeates the blackness.
…
Who… Am I…?
…
A boy was suddenly forced awake, surrounded by nothing but hills for as far as the eye could see. He could only remember his name, but he did not bother with it at the moment.
Standing up, the boy ran a hand through his black hair, thinking for a time. Finally making up his mind on something, he stood up, traversing in the direction he guessed to be south.
Walking over a hill, the boy first saw impressive marble structures in the distance. To his left side, a river ran until it reached a set of buildings that looked like barracks, then it circled back around into a lake near the white city.
The boy began following the river in the direction of the military encampment, not because of necessity for societal interaction, but because he could feel his strength weakening from lack of nutrients. Or in an understandable format, he was hungry.
After waking a little while longer, the sun beating down on him from the center of the sky the whole way, the boy decided to rest for a moment. He kneeled beside the river, rolling up jeans that were quite unsuited for hiking through foothills. After doing so, he reached a hand towards the river to allow his parched throat to be quenched.
The moment his fingers touched the water, however, a fierce sensation of a thousand burning embers coursed through his body. He quickly jerked his hand out, letting free a bout of colorful words, all of which he had no idea how he knew.
One thing was certain, he presumed after ceasing his colorful language, there was no point in wasting energy on useless breaks. He stood up and started walking again, constantly trying to prevent the heat and thirst from distracting him.
The boy would have probably liked to say he had strutted into the military encampment releasing an aura of confidence that caused everyone within the area to stop what they were doing and give him necessary answers and guidance. In reality, he was only able to take a few steps inside the proximity of the barracks before literally collapsing from exhaustion.
Last time with Danny and Danielle:
The two half-bloods, as well as Grover, tried forcing themselves between Danny and the attackers to reason with both parties, but Danielle held them back protectively. She felt that Danny and herself, even though they were both weaponless, could hold their own against the antagonists hiding between the trees.
The leader stared at Danny and Danielle as if they were prey to be hunted.
"You monsters are going down."
Danny faced the leader with adrenaline in his veins and determination in his eyes. He looked back slightly at Danielle, seeing that she was protecting their friends.
Good. He didn't have to waste time or energy during the fight to protect them.
"Monsters? The only monsters I see here are you guys trying to pick a fight for no reason."
The leader's frown deepened into an angered glare. She instinctively tightened her grip on the bow and arrow in her hands.
"If you think that's going to fool us, Tartarus spawn, you better try a little harder than that."
Danny sighed, shaking his head at the girl's stubbornness.
"Well, I tried being diplomatic. Seems like there's no other way around it." Without warning, Danny lowered to the ground and kicked the leader's legs out from under her.
But this girl wasn't the leader of the Hunters of Artemis for nothing. She shot her knocked arrow at Danny before he had even finished speaking, but because he moved down before it could hit him, it shot into the person directly behind him, Danielle. Or, more specifically, the cast of her 'injured' leg.
Danielle let out a gasp of shock, but otherwise sounded unharmed. Even so, Danny suddenly felt the spike of some cold power in his chest.
As the leader was getting up, he suddenly grabbed onto her bow. With some unknown strength, he wrenched it out of her hands and threw it to the side, out of her reach.
A hint of shock appeared in her eyes, but she counteracted his attack. Quickly taking a pair of hunting knives out of her boots, she pointed one at Danny and one at Danielle.
The cold feeling in his chest grew as the electricity it the air made itself known. Danny's hair stood on end.
Suddenly, the world around him seemed to slow down, the duel electric blasts from the leader's knives and a lightning strike coming down from the clouds were coming at him and Danielle too fast for them to block or dodge.
Even so, Danny positioned one hand towards the two beams of energy and the other below the lightning bolt's path to the ground. By now, the cold feeling had become almost overwhelming, but Danny only needed to hold it in for one more second until…
BOOM!
Danny let out all the stored cold energy at once, creating a giant ice dome around him and Danielle just before all the electricity could fry them. The ground shook when the electricity and ice struck each other.
Danny gritted his teeth, placing all his focus into stabilizing the dome against the force of the electric beams and lightning strike. The ice dome was acting like a grounding rod, dispersing the energy.
As he was doing this, Danielle looked around, dumbstruck at the dome Danny had created completely out of thin air. Being that she could look through the ice, she saw that their friends were also staring at the unbelievable spectacle in front of them. Even the leader, who was still shooting her energy beams, had a concerned look on her face.
After what felt like an eternity, the electrical energy faded. The ice dome was still standing, with the two kids inside left mostly unharmed. Letting his hands fall to his sides, Danny sighed in relief and looked around as Danielle had done while he was enforcing the dome.
The little girl in question was currently sitting on the ground looking sternly at the arrow in her cast. She must have failed to take it out, for now she was trying to take her cast off.
Danny let his eyes trail elsewhere, now taking a look outside the dome and towards their friends. After that extreme shock, Annabeth seemed to have been forced out of her thoughts, for she stormed over to the leader and began yelling at her. Danny could tell how furious Annabeth was, even through the sound-proof dome of ice.
Piper also looked like she wanted to give the leader a piece of her mind, but Grover nervously kept her back. Whether he was scared of what the leader, Annabeth, Piper, or all three would do to each other or not, Danny was unsure.
He also didn't fail to notice the other archers silently circling the dome. Annabeth, slowing her yells, also noticed it, and began arguing with the leader, who now started arguing back. To Danny, it looked to be a heated discussion, even if he couldn't hear what was being said.
"Danny..." Danielle said from her position on the ground, not taking her eyes off her leg, but moving Danny's focus away from the soundless argument.
Her cast, along with the silver arrow, had been tossed aside. With how she had been moving around so successfully, it was unsurprising in that way to see that her bleeding gash had vanished. What was surprising was how it had healed so fast. Danny kneeled down to take a closer look at her leg.
"It's completely healed…" He looked from Danielle to her leg and back, unsure of how to otherwise respond.
"Yeah, I don't know how, though. Kayla told me-" Danielle looked up at Danny, her voice faltering. "Danny, your shoulder!"
Danny raised an eyebrow, but then looked back at the arrow lodged beneath his skin. With a mood similar to one taking off a band-aid, he moved a hand on the arrow and pulled it out with some unknown strength. He let out of grunt of pain, but otherwise sounded unaffected.
"Wouldn't it hurt?" Danielle scrunched up her eyes at the act.
Danny slightly shook his head, looking at the blood-stained arrow in his hands, "Not really." He moved a hand to cover the wound, surprised to find it already closed. His face must have shown his surprise.
"It healed? Already?" Danielle began staring at the arrow, noticing how the blood on it was unnaturally shiny.
"Yes, but I don't know how or why," Danny's confusion was obvious on his face.
Danielle suddenly stood up, forcing Danny to stand up, too.
"Well, can you at least explain how you-" She cut herself off, rewording her thought as she circled the dome and motioned her hands around at the ice, "How this is even possible?"
Danny sighed as he watched her circling.
"Honestly, I don't have a clue."
Sometime in Clockwork's distant past... Or was it the recent future? It was hard to tell the difference sometimes when he was too focused on stabilizing the timelines.
Anyway, the time ghost in his middle-aged form had stationed himself in front of the most deadly artifact in his collection, a dented, futuristic thermos with the word Fenton on it.
Currently, it was the only object that had ever required him to take physical action in the correction of time. Usually, he would have just let time flow by itself, only instigating necessary events from the shadows. However, with the possible annihilation of Earth and the Ghost Zone, the Observants had forced his hand, allowing a dangerous ghost to remain in the alpha timeline.
Rather than being an inconvenience for him, Clockwork had a plan. Ironically, the ghost was to play a part in saving the Ghost Zone, which in turn would prevent the other worlds from meeting destruction.
"Yes, Dan. It's quite ironic, isn't it?"
Perhaps it was just his imagination, but the container seemed to rattle slightly at his words.
When you look back at your writings from a year ago and see how much you've improved. You just get that little happy feeling while trying to ignore the part of you that wants to rewrite everything.
Sorry about the longer-than-I-expected delay. November and December were blurs, January and February sucked, March was a relief, and April had been my safe haven. I guess I didn't really have the spirit to write much.
That was bad. Ignore what just happened there.
I was actually planning on waiting until the summer when I would have finished writing a whole bunch to release this chapter but…
That would take too long and even then I probably wouldn't have any ideas for after.
So instead, you readers get half of the planned story early, leaving the rest for me to actually have something to keep working on.
But don't count on me to actually finish writing the next chapter by the end of summer. I don't like making promises.
On another note, my friends interrogated me and got my fanfiction account name. I know you guys are probably reading this, and if you are, I despise all of you.
(But don't worry, fam, I still love you all because your insistence on making my un-dead life something better for me.)
(Hehe. Get it?)
Thanks to all of you readers for being so patient with me while I have gone through life. Especially so for the reviewers, you guys are the best.
Speaking of reviewers, I'll be getting to some long-awaited responses;
BaconLover1800: Care to expand your opinion?
gwencarson126: I was expecting someone to try cracking the prophecy, and I'm glad you were the one who attempted it. Your evaluation literally filled my un-dead heart with joy. Seriously. I had your review as front-row inspiration for, like, a majority of this chapter. So thank you.
astrovagant: Yep! Sometimes even quite literally!
sickly-wicked: Thank you! I hope you felt the way with this chapter! I don't think I've ever seen Archer. Time to add that to my growing list of series-es to watch.
PsychicEevee0103: Aww, thank you! I'm honored.
xTCatxx: Yeah, sorry for not updating as soon as you hoped. I realized how good a "Clockwork's claiming" plot would be only after someone recommended me doing it. And don't worry! This story ain't leavin' me just yet!
The Fan of awesome: Hello.
SONGS4LIFE (Guest): I'M GLAD YOU LIKE IT. MORE COMING SOON, DON'T WORRY!
TEAM LEO (Guest): FOR LEO, THE LORD AND SAVIOR OF HILARIOUS BANTER HIMSELF, I HAVE UPDATED. GO TEAM LEO!
Guest (Guest): No, they weren't. And that's the strangest thing, isn't it? What would've caused the Hunters to act in such a way? I'm glad to see that you like the story so far. Your review actually inspired part of Danny's banter to Thalia.
And to everyone who didn't review, May the 4th be with you!
(accidental rhyming. hehe)