Author's Notes: Back to the story! Please enjoy, and please review.
Yours Truly, RoxieDivine
(Back with Danny and the gang…)
[Time Frame: 10 years into the future]
{Location: The ruins of Amity Park}
The future…
Even Sam herself never imagined it this grim and unpleasant.
The trio looked around uneasily.
"Man." Tucker sighs. "If this is what we have to look forward to, I'm definitely not taking the C.A.T. test."
"How do you think this all happened?" Sam asked, looking around in defeat. 'How could Danny's life get so messed up?' She wondered. 'Sure he's not perfect but...' She stopped, looking at Danny thoughtfully. '…Who is?'
Danny floats around still in his ghost form. "I don't know. But based on what we just saw, I have a really bad feeling I'm the one responsible."
"Got that right, ghost!"
Suddenly An Older Valerie springs out of the wreckage on her jets-led, powering up a huge shoulder-mounted blaster. She fires, the kickback knocking her back a little. The blast impacts the street right in front of Danny, blowing the street apart. Danny retreats into the street, then rises back up through it intangibly to face off against Valerie.
But he doesn't want to fight her.
"Valerie! Wait! Listen to me!" He begged.
Valerie turns a deaf ear. 'He's just messing with me again, trying to make me suffer. Trying to make me hesitate.' She told herself. 'But it won't work this time.' She wavers, but only slightly. 'That's Danny, No! It can't be, and even if it is I have to stop him before he hurts anyone else.'
"You can't fool me this time, Phantom!" She fires again and he takes a flying dodge. She fires a few more blasts then chases after, jumping into the air and letting the board continue on its own.
Danny loops back around, just barely misses getting beaned by the hoverboard, and gets caught in an electrified purple net which drops him to the ground. Valerie lands nearby and trains her blaster at him, powering it up with a whine.
"I've been wanting to do this for a long time." She said. But these words are only half true, she never blamed Danny for any of this. This monster was not the Danny she knew, and there for in her mind this was not Danny.
This was not her Danny!
With that thought she goes to pull the trigger. "And good rid-"
Tucker and Sam suddenly jump in front of Danny, shielding him.
"Valerie, no! Don't shoot!" They declare.
Valerie's eyes widen, and she rears back in shock. "Sam? Tucker? I-It's not possible! This is a trick! You can't be alive!"
"Wait. Not alive?" Tucker drops his arms in shock. "That's our future? I'm definitely not taking the C.A.T.!"
"The C.A.T." Valerie gasped. "That's the last time I saw you alive. The explosion at the Nasty Burger...you, Tucker, Danny's family—" Suddenly she trains the gun on Danny again. "And it was all your fault!" She screams going to fire again.
However a green flash of flame knocks Valerie off her hoverboard, and into some rubble. The trio look up to the source to find Dan floating there.
"Actually, that was me." He admitted. "And you, eventually." He said looking down at the still trapped Danny. He then lands before his old childhood friends. "Sam and Tucker. It's been a while." He says almost kind heartedly. "Ten years, to be accurate." He raises a hand, he sweeps it down, and Sam and Tucker are encased, motionless, is green light. "So, to what do I owe this little blast from the past?" His eyes widen as he notices Sam's CW medallion.
Suddenly images flash across his mind. He was flying towards Valerie and an old looking ghost in purple robes.
"Not so fast!" he declared. "You're not taking my future away from me!" he lunged for the robed ghost.
"No!" Valerie panicked, and stepped in front his target protectively.
"There is no need to protect Me." the robed ghost said.
"But he-!" Valerie began.
"Here wear this." the robed ghost then places a gearshift shaped medallion around her neck.
Dan had just enough time to take in the piece of jewelry, there was nothing special about it only that I bared the initials CW. "How's some petty trinket supposed to save her!" he declared still coming at full speed.
"Like this." the robed ghost said, punching the button up top his staff. "Time Out!"
Dan frowned as he shook his head. What was that? A memory? He didn't remember these events happening, but they were so vivid. He looked at the medallion again. 'CW?' He wondered, 'Who?' Then his eyes widen once more. "Clockwork!" he whispered.
He begins to raise his arm, but a purple blast from somewhere to his right, knocks him into the street. As he stumbles up and waves the smoke away he see Valerie, blowing the smoke from a wrist-mounted weapon, a grenade in her other hand. Scowling, he gets to his feet and charges. Valerie throws a pair of grenades at him, but he transforms to a green, blobby form and they pass right through him. She fires her wrist gun, but he is too fast and grabs her by both wrists.
Meanwhile, Danny is struggling to get free. 'I have to save her.' He thought. And bursts from the net with a cry.
Dan lifts Valerie with one hand and punches her with the other, sending her bouncing off the pavement. He follows as she props herself on one hand and one elbow.
"Valerie!" Danny flies and catches Valerie around the middle, making them fly intangibly through a few buildings before crash-landing in the street on the other side in a tangle.
Valerie looks at him stunned, and realizes something. 'This can't be a duplicate sent by Dan to confuse me, Dan wouldn't save me from himself. In less…' Valerie notices the gear shape medallion around his neck, and the same memory as Dark Dan's flashes before her mind. 'Clockwork?' She smiles. "You're from the past, aren't you?"
Danny gets to his feet, stunned that she's figured out this information on her own.
"I almost forgot how cute you were back then." She admits, before slumping back on the ground, knocked out cold.
"You thought I was cute?" Danny asked shocked. "Wow! An older woman likes me."
Dan looks to his former frozen friends still trapped in the green light with a look of distain. "You know, if I had an ounce of humanity left in me, this would be a touching little reunion. But of course I surrendered my human emotions a long time ago."
Behind him, Danny rises invisibly from the street, teeth gritted, and fists clenched.
Dark Dan's ghost sense goes off as tendrils of red smoke coming from his nostrils. "Oh, please." He whispers. He turns and punches an ectoblast at Danny, who returns the favor.
Both are knocked down by the other's blast, and the green light trapping Tucker and Sam vanishes, dropping them to the street as well.
Danny sits up, panicked. "Tucker! Sam! Run!" He orders.
They do.
Dan scoffs getting back to his feet. "Run? Where are they going to go?" He asked the obvious. Turning, he lets out a Ghostly Wail. Danny covers his ears. Tucker and Sam stop, looking up at the Fenton Works next to them. The brick begins to crumble, the Op Center tilting from the top.
'It's going to crush them.' Danny realizes, and gets to his feet in hopes of saving them in time. But as he flies to their rescue Dan grabs him by the ankle. "Ah-ah-ah." He mused.
Danny gasps as the Fenton Works falls over on top of Tucker and Sam, throwing up a cloud of dust. Danny stares in shock for a moment, then cries out as Dan shocks him with energy causing him to revert back to his human form. Then Dan spins and throws him toward the wreckage.
Getting up on his elbows, he sees the two time medallions Tucker and Sam had been wearing are now lying abandoned on the ground. "They took off their time medallions!" He realized in relief, getting to his feet he grabs the medallions. "That returned them to their time period just like Box Lunch and Skulktech! Tucker and Sam made it out alive! Which means I can—" He goes to take off his own, but Dan seizes his arm.
"Why go back for them?"
Danny cries out as Dan lifts him into the air.
"They're doomed anyway. And you aren't going anywhere if you can't remove your time medallion." Dan reasons. Suddenly His hand glows green. Ripping off Danny's time medallion, he makes it intangible and sticks it inside Danny's chest, fusing it with his very being. Keeping him in this time frame forever.
"In fact, you aren't going anywhere at all." He vows.
"You won't win!" Danny declares, struggling in his hold. "I will never become you!"
Dan growls and shocks Danny once more.
Danny screams then slumps, before becoming unconscious.
"Yes you will." Dan Vowed, as he picked up one of the other two time medallions. "And I'll make sure of it…"
(Back to present day with Tucker, and Sam…)
In the alley beside the Nasty Burger, Sam and Tucker appear in a flash of light. The still-live heating element and tanks of Nasty Sauce are visible.
Tucker is on his knees, still shielding his head, screaming. Sam crosses her arms and frowns at him. He looks up, surprised. "You got the medallions off, didn't you."?
"I don't accessorize well." Sam said confirming his suspicions. "Unfortunately, Danny's still stuck in the future fighting his jerky older self! We've got to help him!"
"Tucker? Sam?" The two freeze as Jazz suddenly appears. "You got a second?"
The two look at her unsure while preparing to make a run for it.
"Let me answer that for you. Yes, you do." Jazz said, blocking their paths. She had been looking all over for Danny since she found the answers to the CAT in his bag. And now she finally found them. And even if Danny wasn't with them Jazz was going to talk since hearing it from his friends might actually make him want to come clean. Probably more so then hearing it from his nagging older sister. "Look I know Danny stole the answers to the C.A.T. That he's going to cheat!
"Actually, Danny wasn't going to—" Sam began to defend him, but Jazz stops her.
"Sam, enough. I know more than you think I do. A lot more." She admitted. "So I suggest when you see Danny, you tell him I wanna talk to him. Tonight! Because if I don't, I will be talking to our parents and Mr. Lancer tomorrow." She stomps off then disgusted. 'They knew he was going to cheat; they knew he had the answers and did nothing to turn him in or try to stop him.' She shook her head. 'Honestly I thought these guys where better.'
Sam looks stunned. "Mr. Lancer knows Danny has the answers?" She gasped.
"Oh, man, is he in trouble." Tucker realized.
That's got to be it." Sam said. "Danny cheating is the thing that leads to that horrible future!"
Tucker shook his head finding this hard to believe. "Let me get this straight. Danny gets caught cheating on a test, and we pay for it with our lives? How is that fair?"
"I don't know." Sam said, "But we have to find him, and warn him."
"But how?" Tucker asked. "He's still stuck in the future."
"Maybe he isn't." Sam said looking around. "We reappeared closely where we last where in this timeline." She told him. "We stopped Skulktech around the Nasty Burger.
"So you think Danny's around here to, just not with us because we didn't disappear from this alley?"
"Maybe." Sam said. "It's the only theory I got."
"Then let's go see if we can find him." Tucker said, before the two friends set off to look for Danny.
(Back to Clockwork who is watching Dan in the future…)
This was important,
This single moment could ruin his efforts all together.
Clockwork watched Dan within the future time rift with much interest, knowing full well if he got distracted now it could hall be over.
Dan drops his past self in disgust, resisting the urge to tear him apart, but only just barely. 'If I kill him now I will cease to exist.' He reminds himself, deciding to get from difference from the boy. He walks around to the other side of some nearby rubble thinking to himself as he goes. 'I can't believe that hooded time wiz actually had the nerve to meddle with my future.' He looks back down at the medallion in his hand. 'I can fix this.' He realized. 'If I put this on it might teleport me to the time frame opposite of my own.'
It was strange how he could know this, he never fiddled with time travel before, or he hadn't originally. However now that the past had been changed, Some of Dark Dan's memories had altered too. For example, instead of fighting the Box ghost in the original fight that allowed him to get the test answers in the first place. Dan now recalls it being Box Lunch, Skulktech has also replaced Skulker in his memories as well.
Dan shook his head. "His meddling is changing everything, including my memories!" he whispered out loud. "I have to fix this-"
Clockwork focused immensely at the moment before him, knowing that at any moment Dark Dan's new realizations, and confused memories of him could prompt the dark phantom to turn the tables back in his favor.
The Observants watch Clockwork closely, they are becoming more and more suspicious of the ghost's actions.
Danny moans still lying on the ground, he opens his eyes A large stone statue comes into focus before him.
"Mom? Dad?" He whispers rolling to his knees. The statue is of the Fentons Mr. Lancer, Sam, and Tucker, all smiling. An epigraph on the large pedestal reads "GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN". At this angle we also see that Danny's arms are bound to his torso with glowing green rope.
"Gone but not forgotten"? He whispers, He stands, realizing where he is, and that something is missing. "Where's the Nasty Burger?" He asked. He looks up at the wreck of the Nasty Burger, and gets his answer
It's been blown open, and the sign is fallen. Dan walks around the corner of the building.
"Strange how, one massive fireball of highly combustible condiments can ruin your whole future." He mused/
"The time medallion?" Danny asked hopefully.
"Fused inside you." Dan answered. "Nice, huh? Intangible and unreachable whether you're ghost or human which means...you can't go back in time."
"It doesn't matter if I go back in time or not." Danny shouted. "I'll never turn into you! Never!"
"You are altering the timeline!" Melk realizes. "You're influencing his decisions."
"This is against the rules!" Klem hisses, jumping in front of the time master, blocking his view.
Dan smiles, and alters his appearance to that of his 14 human-self before placing the medallion around his neck. "Of course you will, it's only a matter of time." He suddenly disappears, leaving Danny alone in the future.
"You fool!" Clockwork exclaims, pushing Klem out of the way.
"You altered Time that is forbidden!" Melk shouted.
"For me? But not for you." Clockwork asked. "You Observants are hypocrite, forcing me to change the things you do not approve of, but no longer." He vowed. "For now on I say when and how I use my power!"
"We gave you that power, and we can take it away!" Klem warned.
Clockwork's eyes narrowed. "TRY IT I DARE YOU!"
But the two Observants make no move to take his staff.
"Though not." Clockwork scoffed, calming down a bit. Then he looks back at the rift to see young Danny alone in the future. He then sees another young Danny appear in the present day rift; Clockwork realizes in an instant what has happened. "You idiot! Now He's in the past!"
"Where he belongs." Melk hissed.
"No that's not the boy!" Clockwork shouted. "That is!" He says pointing at the future rift. "The other one is his future-self who's about to undo all my work."
"Good that means he'll set things right." Melk snapped.
"You mean to the future you just beg me to stop only 2 days ago?" Clockwork pointed out.
The Observants exchange an anxious look.
Clockwork shakes his head. "You two are unbelievable." He mumbled. "Just stay out of my way while I Try to fix this."
"Can't you just rewind time from before I intervened." Klem asked, now seeming to be on board with this.
"I could." Clockwork agreed. "But I really hate repeating myself.
Melk laughed. "Father Time afraid of an endless lop?" He asked. "Well then maybe you shouldn't have started this." He pointed out. "You know how determined Dan is to keep this dark future, and now that his Deja vu has triggered his alternate memories of you he will never forget you meddled in the first place, and he will always try to undue whatever work you've done."
"You've created a time Paradox!" Klem said, who now seemed to be back on the other observer's side. "This struggle will never end!"
"I know what I am doing." Clockwork says, now let me focus." He causes the present day rift to fast forward so that he may see the events of the timeline without his meddling.
He frowns as Dan simply recalls every things that happened in the original timeline. He reunites with Sam, and tucker who believes his lies that he has shut off the Nasty Burger heating element, and defeated his jerky future-self. He then pretends to be the perfect Danny as he hangs out with his friends all day.
He then comes home late to argue with Jazz in the basement as he originally did. He then cheats on the test the next day, and everyone still ends up by the Nasty Burger seconds before it explodes.
"It's no good." Clockwork admits, as the time rift stops fast forwarding, and begins to move in real time. "He's fixed it."
The Observants watch as Dan still disguised as Danny drags his feet to the Fenton RV. "Way to go Fenton." He said, mocking the words he said so long ago. "You really blew it this time." He laughed.
The explosion lights up the rift!
"He's right you blew it!" Clockwork scowled. "Now I have to fix it!"
"This only proves our point." Melk hissed. "This loop will never end."
"Yes, we see that now." Klem agreed. "We never should have gotten you involved with this." He admitted. "We've learned our lesson, Altering time is bad, now let this play out as it is supposes to."
"NO!" Clockwork yelled.
"Why not!?" The two Observants asked as one.
"Because I'm not trying to teach you a lesson!" Clockwork explained. "I'm trying to teach him!" he says pointing to the present day Danny, who is still stuck in the future. "So that he will not become that!" he said pointing to Dan who is laughing as the explosion rocks the world around him.
"That is not Fate's design." Melk argued, as if time is a true conscious force. "She and Dan will fight to fix the timeline. You think this will cause Daniel's Dark –self to disappear, and be replaced by a kinder more human version of him, but there is no way that will happen. Neither Time, nor Dan will allow it."
"Just because they won't allow it, does not mean it will not happen." Clockwork Argued.
"Mark my words." Melk said. "No matter what you do Dan will not change, or disappear. He will continue to exist, because Daniel like all humans have a dark side, and one Mistake can change him for the worse."
"Clockwork please listen to him." Klem begged. "Your intentions are noble." He admits. "But he is right, your chances of success are slim to none."
"I do not care." Clockwork said. "I made a promise to fix this, and to start using my powers to better both worlds, and I meant it." He raised his staff.
"Clockwork! Don't you dare!" Melk warned.
Clockwork ignored him and said. "Time Out!" Everything freezes and Clockwork steps into the present day rift.
Dan looks around puzzled as everything freezes around him, but his cluelessness does not last long. "I know you're there." He says. "Show yourself Clockwork!"
Clockwork appears before him. "So I bet you think you have won this little game of ours." He said.
"Go ahead and press you little rewind button." Dan laughed. "I'll just do it again, my younger-self is too weak to defeat me. And now that I've recalled the real timeline I can fix this over and over again if I need to."
"You underestimate the abilities of you younger self, and my own." Clockwork told him. "Young Danny has overcome enemies much stronger then him before, and my power is far more in depth than just rewinding, pausing, and fast-forwarding time. Why I could manipulate your very thoughts if I wanted to. Making you take a different course of action then before."
"Do whatever you want." Dan Says, looking unimpressed with this newfound knowledge. "It won't make a difference in the end result."
"We'll see." Clockwork sates, before raising his staff once more, he presses the top button and says. "Rewind!"
-To Be Continued