Here it is, like I promised you guys. Chapter one.
Longer, yes. Oh, and a lot more stuff happens here.
Well, read on, I guess! See ya guys at the bottom.
Deep inside the ghost zone, past numerous numbers of swirling green clouds, floating doors and broken off landscapes, there is an area of space that exists outside of time. If we think of time as a winding, flowing river, this area could be considered as a sort of watchtower for time, no pun intended.
In that area stands a lone castle, which is more like a tower, actually. This tower is filled with ticking clocks and swinging pendulums. And gears. Lots and lots of gears.
It also has a sign put up by the very annoyed owner of the tower that warned people…well, ghosts, that using time puns and/or jokes might be a bad idea. It also says that one must never ever use the phrase 'killing time', for this could cause an abrupt discontinuation of said person's…ah…afterlife.
This was, is, and will be Clockwork the Time Master's tower, and said ghost was currently in front of a table, frowning at a cluster of glowing orbs placed in front of him. They were arranged in a way so that the whole thing looked like a supernatural glowing onion. Each of the many layers of the onion acted differently-some would suddenly flare brightly while some would dim, and some would disappear altogether or appear out of nowhere.
Clockwork sighed and looked at the very center of the onion, rubbing his temples with his thumb and forefinger.
Suddenly, there was a rustle as space distorted behind him. Time and Space fought of dominance around the distortion, resulting in total chaos as lights flashed and wind swirled around the room in circles.
"Clockwork!" A disembodied voice yelled, "Let me in!"
Clockwork raised an eyebrow at the familiar voice and waved his staff-with a clock on it- at the distortion. Immediately, time stopped its assault and allowed space to bring out a certain ghost. This ghost looked a lot like the ghost Master if Time in his adult form. In fact, he would've looked exactly like him if not for the color schemes.
He wore a long dark blue cloak with his hood thrown back, revealing long locks of purple hair. It was fastened at the shoulder by a pendant looking like it had been broken several times but was put together again by expert hands, leaving only traces of cracks that glowed a brilliant white behind. Beneath the cloak, he wore a sky blue tunic, fastened with a black belt. With Clockwork, there had been a swinging pendulum right above the belt and in the chest area. The new ghost had nothing-a black void that seemed to draw everything into it. He held no staff.
He was grinning, his scarless face brightening at the sight of Clockwork.
"Clockwork!" the strange ghost crowed, spreading his arms. "It's been too long."
The Time ghost drifted over and embraced the ghost, smirked and said;
"One of the many side-effects of being the Time Master is not being able to tell if it's been long or not, brother."
The brother smiled and drew away from the hug, sticking out his hand towards Clockwork instead.
"Hello, brother. My name's Nate."
Clockwork quirked an eyebrow.
"Wasn't it Walter?"
'Nate' shrugged. "Walter, Nate, they're both the same to me."
Clockwork looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said 'Ah'.
"An interesting word play, your name is." He said, taking his brother's hand and shaking it. The brother nodded.
"Sometimes I think I was made for this job."
"You were, Nate."
Nate paused, crossing his arms.
"Well, I'm not the Time Master. I couldn't have known that."
Sighing, the Time ghost fixed his brother with a stare that made him squirm.
"Why are you here, Nate?"
"Just a friendly brother-to-brother chat?" Nate tried but when Clockwork frowned at him, he turned and started to wander around the room, running his hand over the various clocks and gasping when he found a particular cluster that he didn't like.
"Clockwork," he cried, "What have you done with this place?" His face was one of those who had just witnessed a gigantic earthworm force its way out of the ground and swallow a bus full of people; shocked and disgusted.
"It's, like, remember where we went when we were young? Where humans put their trash together to make this huge pile?"
Clockwork did.
"It's like that place!" Nate pat out, waving his arms and pointing at a corner of the room.
"Nate."
"And here as well!" Nate continued, staking around and pointing to various machineries around the place. "What have you done?"
"Nate?"
Nate whirled around and sighed, rubbing his temples.
"Okay, Clockwork. I understand that you are the Time master and want nothing that has to do with Space, like organizing, but this has gone too far. You keep onions on your desk?"
Clockwork reached up to hide his faint smile. Everything was falling into their respective roles in this scheme perfectly. As they should be. Then he turned and drifted to his Time mirror.
Nate had wandered over to the onion and had picked it up. The glowing orbs responded to his touch and began to slowly turn violet. He held it up to his eye level.
"You know, Clockwork," he began, knowing that though his back was turned, Clockwork was listening in, "I've always loved these things."
"I know. After all, it was you who gave me that."
Nate blinked and shot a furtive glance towards his brother. Clockwork seemed to be looking at his Time Mirror, watching two ghosts fight each other.
"Yeah, well…" Nate continues, now staring at the glowing orb held between his hands. "I knew that…" And with that, he released his hold on the spectral onion, causing it to freefall from in front of his nose to the top of Clockwork's desk, landing with a dull 'thunk' approximately 0.14532 seconds afterwards.
"Ooops?"
Clockwork turned and, with his brother, watched ripples slowly spread throughout the onion. Both siblings then glanced at each other.
"You knew this was going to happen?" Nate stated more than asked.
"Yes."
"And you didn't stop me."
"No."
"Oh." So this was one of his many plans. "You know what this will mean for this universe, right?"
"Yes. I know everything."
A short pause.
"Then you'll know that the Observants will be furious."
Clockwork let a small smirk grace his features at that.
"Of course."
Inside the looking glass, the two ghosts were still fighting it out…
"Forget it, fuitloop!" The white-haired ghost, which happened to be me, yelled, firing ectoblasts at the older ghost. "I'm not going to become your son or your evil apprentice-whatever."
The older ghost created a pink shield in front of him to block the volley, rolling his eyes.
"Don't be ridiculous, my boy. My plans are not as see through as you make it seem to be."
"So you're claiming that you're not here to kill my dad, get my mom, and make me your son?"
Vlad, for he was the other ghost, blinked.
"Well, no. Not exactly."
I snorted.
"Today, I'm here for just one reason." Vlad continued.
"Oh? And what could that be? I'm so curious." I shot at him-literally, punctuating my words with ecto-balls that exploded on contact. One caught on Plasmius's cape, burning it a bit.
"Gah! Daniel!" Vlad glowered at me, clutching his singed clothing. I smirked back at him. I felt really cocky that day, like nothing would ever go wrong. How wrong that was.
I'm here, little badger," Vlad said through gritted teeth, "to make you see reason. By force if necessary."
Huh? I was floored.
"And that's why I brought you this!" Vlad then whipped out a pair of metal gloves from behind his back.
That was when everything started to go downhill.
Vlad droned on and on about how his research found that ghosts were connected to extreme emotions and some stuff like that, and I couldn't take my eyes off the gloves.
I knew what they were. The Ghost Gauntlets. They were made of some kind of ghostly metal and could touch ghosts no matter whether they were intangible or not. Grew six-inch claws that were able to pull a ghost out of the target of its overshadowing, or more importantly, out of their human half's body.
And the last time that happened, the whole world went to ruins.
Not good.
"So what do you say, Daniel?"
The sudden questions jolted me back to the present and I looked blankly at the older male ghost's face, having no idea what the question was.
"Err…no?" I tried, bringing years of school experience of answering unheard questions into action.
"I was afraid that you might say that." Vlad commented just before he lunged forward, gloves on and claws out. I yelped and dodged to the side.
"Wait, wait!" I stammered, "What? Why are you doing this again?"
Vlad paused momentarily in which time I hoped that he would throw this plan out the window, but no such luck. He struck again.
"You haven't heard a word that I said, have you, Daniel?" He asked between swipes. "You should really start listening to other people when they speak. It helps in life. But then what would I expect from Jack Fenton's son?"
I gritted my teeth as my insides boiled with rage, until one of those killer claws actually managed to snag me on my left wrist. For a moment, my ghostly wrist got dragged downwards, leaving my human hand behind. I stared in shock at my three arms for a moment and that was just the opening Vlad needed.
The Claws of Doom being driven into my chest hurt like hell. Then came the feeling of being torn into two as Vlad slowly forced his arms apart. That hurt even more. The claws caused a throbbing from deep in my chest-the ripping was more like someone was skinning me alive, and then mincing the remains for good measure.
I cried out. I couldn't help it. It hurt, it hurt more than I could've imagined.
And as I was flung sideways, I could hear someone scream in agony right alongside with me.
Oh, look! Two updates in two days! This is like a mini-miracle for me. Don't expect this to be my regular schedule, though. This happened only because I had this pre-written :P
Don't worry, though. I have the next chapter half written. Worry when it gets to chapter 3, which is where I have nothing. Yet, that is :)
Review, guys. I, like the rest of the writers here, love feedback. Also, I have a question for you, readers. Can you tell me some of your favorite AU stories? Thanks in advance.
See ya guys next update, eh?
~Jads