[Prompts used are from @kinglazrus @lexiepiper and @ash-rabbit. Special thanks to @jackdaw-sprite @datawyrms and Lexie for beta and encouragement! You can read the full fic here.]
“You know who you should ask about all of this?” said Sam, pointing the little wooden ice cream spoon at Danny.
“Clockwork?” guessed Danny, trying not to look at the ice cream too enviously. He'd lost his ice cream to Dash earlier during lunch. “He's not big on answering questions.”
“Frostbite,” said Sam. “He likes you, he's always been honest with you, and he's been around for a while. If anyone would be able to tell you about the Observants, it would be him.”
“Plus,” said Tucker, “he can probably tell you where to get ahold of some of that stuff. Not that all the stuff you do know how to get is going to be easy.”
Danny nodded. He had shown them the ‘shopping list’ earlier. It was written on a small roll of parchment (Sam had not approved), with his name at the top, as if the Observants thought he’d forget that he was supposed to get the stuff.
“Dora, too,” said Sam. “Although she might not know as much. Her kingdom is still pretty isolated.”
“Oh, and what about the ghost who helped you with the box ghost that one time?” said Tucker. “The tall scary lady.”
“Pandora? I don’t know her very well,” said Danny. “But I think that some of these things are Greek, so, yeah. Probably wouldn’t be the worst idea.”
“Still can’t believe they didn’t tell you where to find all the stuff,” said Tucker. “I mean, they’re asking you for help, and they’ve got that whole ‘see all, know all’ aesthetic going on.”
“They’re probably not supposed to give out a lot of information, or something,” said Danny. “Their oaths or whatever.” The Observants had been less than forthcoming about… Well. Everything. They seemed direct, talking about tools and relationships and the timeline, but Danny’s questions about what tools they were going to make, how they’d be put together, how soon things would be ready after he brought the supplies, and even how long Danny had to get the things together before the world ended had gone unanswered.
“Kind of weird,” said Sam, “considering they’re worried about time breaking.”
“If the world was going to end soon, I’d expect them to be a lot more willing to break their oaths and spend a lot less time arguing about ambition and precedent. Also, Clockwork would be taking their help instead of being ‘stubborn.’” He sighed. “If it’ll make it easier for him after everything, though, I’m still going to do it.”
“Yeah,” agreed Tucker, sliding the remaining half of his ice cream over to Danny. “Just make sure these guys aren’t scammers, first.”
“Speaking of scams and tricks,” said Sam, “what are you going to do to Dash?”
“Nothing,” said Danny, eagerly eating Tucker’s ice cream.
Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Come on,” said Tucker. “You can’t blame him for not telling you. You never approve of his pranks.”
“Sure I do,” said Sam, waving her spoon at him. “I’ve even suggested some, remember? With the frogs and that stupid Hummer dealership–”
There was a shriek from the hallway, and all heads turned to look.
“Okay,” said Sam. “What did you put in his locker?”
“One of Mom and Dad’s holographic ghost decals. The super realistic ones.”
“You know he’s going to know it’s you, right?”
“Yep,” said Danny, finishing the ice cream and slipping under the table. “See you in class!”
The cafeteria doors slammed open. “FENTON, WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU–!”
Danny phased through the floor, snickering.
.
Rather hilariously, Frostbite put on a pair of tiny spectacles to read the list of supplies. “You say the Observants gave this to you, Great One?”
“Yeah,” said Danny. “You do know who they are, then? They’re legit?”
“The Far Frozen is aware of them,” said Frostbite. “Our direct interactions have been few, however, and mostly only come about when someone has misused the Infi-Map.” He peered at Danny over the top of his glasses.
“They came to yell at you after I gave it back, didn’t they?”
“They did,” said Frostbite. “They are not the most pleasant or understanding of company, but they are dedicated to the timeline, and they were stout allies against Pariah Dark. Why, they predicted his fall.”
“Fall?”
“To insanity and tyranny,” said Frostbite. “Although their oaths precluded them from acting directly. If they say they have reason to believe the timeline is in danger now, then it is.”
Danny huffed. “Okay. That’s good to know.” He floated up to peer at the list over Frostbite’s shoulder. “I’m pretty sure that Vlad still has the Skeleton Key. I can probably steal it from him without too much trouble, especially if I can get, um, the other me to help. Then, the chain, they just said I had to make it, which sounds a little sketchy, honestly…”
“It is strange, but it may have to do with your frequent journeys through time, and how central you were to the, ah, cause of the damage.”
“That… makes sense. Then, they want me to get some special type of metal, ‘chronobrass,’ and I think that must be what Clockwork uses, so I can get it from the scraps outside.”
“I do not believe it would hurt to bring such things regardless.”
“But I’m not sure where I’d find the Phlegethon, or the Styx, to get water from them, or where I’d get ‘time sand.’”
“The Phlegethon and the Styx are rivers in the Realm of Elysium,” said Frostbite. “I think you are familiar with Lady Pandora?”
“I mean, I’ve met her,” said Danny. “I don’t know about familiar. It was only the one time.”
“Even so, I am sure she will aid you in your quest, Great One. Time sand, on the other hand can be found in the Great Desert of Time, in the Time Locked Lands.”
“I don’t know where those are.”
“The kingdom of your friend, Queen Dorathea, used to be located there.”
“Oh!” said Danny. “Okay. That makes things a lot easier.”
“May I ask how you intend to make the chains?”
“Oh, um, I was thinking I could make them out of ice? The Observants didn’t say anything about size, so I figure I’ll just see if I can look at the ones Clockwork has, and then go from there, see what’s easiest to make.”
“That sounds like a wise decision,” said Frostbite. “Although I am troubled that the Observants did not give you… more detailed instructions. Amounts, sizes, and the like.”
“Mmm,” said Danny, agreeing with him. He settled his elbows on Frostbite’s shoulders and propped his chin on his hands. “Maybe the amounts don’t matter?”
“For any tool I can think of, the amounts would matter greatly. I recall when the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep was under construction… But perhaps the Observants have seen something I have not. That is, after all, their calling.” Frostbite handed the list back to Danny. “When you begin making the chains, there are some tricks of the trade I would like to show you that we had no time for when you learned from us before. Although, we may wish to handle any training outside of the village…”
“Right,” said Danny, tucking the list into a pocket and rubbing the back of his neck. “My aim is a lot better, now, though.”
Frostbite laughed. “Of course! That is how it usually is, for young ones! We were merely surprised by your strength. Most of us were only throwing snowballs when we were new to our powers.”
“Really?” asked Danny. Although he spent a lot of time in the Far Frozen, he didn’t actually know all that much about their… lives? There had to be a better term for that…
“Oh, yes,” said Frostbite. “The things I could tell you about my own youth… Perhaps you would like to hear a tale or two during your checkup?”
“Um, about that…” Danny trailed off as Frostbite gave him a disappointed look, and Danny abandoned the half-formed plan of slipping away before his doctor’s appointment.
It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate them, it was just that he was feeling fine, and being here in human form, even in the medical caves, was cold. But Frostbite was right. Danny’s biology was weird, and having regular checkups meant that he wasn’t going to get blindsided by a life threatening new power. Probably.
“Okay,” he said. “That sounds nice.”
.
At home, Danny planned out his robbery of Vlad with Sam and Tucker and experimented with making chain links from ice in between ghost fights. In the Ghost Zone, he worked through the rubble around Long Now an hour or two at a time. The pile of metal scraps grew larger and larger.
He felt watched.
Not always. Sometimes, the feeling waned and disappeared. Of course, there was no way to tell if his assigned watcher had disappeared, or if they were merely being a little more subtle.
He hoped the Observants would find something else to do once he was done. But he wasn't counting on it.
Every time he came across a length of chain, he examined it carefully before putting it in the pile, looking for tips on how to make his own. Sometimes, he gathered the broken links together, soldering them into longer chains of inconsistent width with ghostly ice and pale fire.
It wasn’t very productive, but it was fun, sticking them all together.
He was doing it now, attaching a chain with links about the size of his thumb to a chain with links about the size of his wrist. It was silly, and he knew enough about what chains were usually used for in machinery to know that it would be completely useless, but, well, they were useless now.
He pinched two ends of a deformed link together, snickering. This was definitely not the best use of his time. If it turned out that the destruction of the timeline or whatever was on a (hehe) deadline (he’d have to find a time to use that, later), after all, he’d feel really stupid.
(Even stupider than when he missed the late work deadline on one of the biggest Language Arts projects for the whole year, and Mr. Lancer gave him that look.)
(It wasn’t a fun look.)
But if the Observants wanted him to work on a schedule, they could stop spying and tell him, so–
“Daniel.”
Danny jumped and twisted, the first sparks of an ectoblast forming around his fingertips before he recognized Clockwork, standing in a broken window. Between his hood and the bandages, the whole side of his face was covered.
“Sorry,” said Danny, letting the chain fall back into the pile. “I didn’t– It’s been kind of– Oh, you know what’s going on.”
The corner of Clockwork’s mouth twitched upward even as he shifted into a younger form. “I know everything,” said Clockwork.
“Uh huh,” said Danny, crossing his arms. “You’re not going to trick me with an innocent face.”
“Trick you? What makes you think I am trying to trick you?”
Danny gestured at all of Clockwork.
“Very eloquent. Come. There is something I think you should see.”
Curious, Danny followed him. They went up a winding staircase whose banister seemed to describe an ecliptic through unknown constellations, the stars of which were represented by candles set in star-shaped niches in the walls. Then, they walked through a series of rooms that reminded Danny of museum displays, except their exhibits were all smashed to shards on the floor, rather than on the stands.
“You know, I could sweep this up…”
“Another time, perhaps,” said Clockwork, waving a hand over his shoulder.
Danny lingered for a moment, looking back over his shoulder into the last room. “Clockwork, you, um, you know what I’m doing.”
“Not following me, at the moment.”
Danny huffed and hurried to catch up with Clockwork. “I mean, with the Observants. Are they really making a tool that’ll help you?”
“I cannot speak as to their goals,” said Clockwork. “Except to say that they often diverge from mine.”
“Did you… have some kind of argument with them?” asked Danny. “Only, you said that you didn’t have anything bad to say about them…”
“I cannot speak against them, no,” said Clockwork. Then, he stopped, drifted slightly to one side, and waved to the set of broken glass doors in front of them. Familiar broken glass doors. Somehow, they’d wound up in front of the workshop again. “Our destination.”
“But,” said Danny, looking around. This wasn’t the hall of wall clocks, but the doors were exactly the same. “How?”
“Sometimes,” said Clockwork, “there is more than one route to the same destination.”
“Sure,” said Danny, “but usually that route makes sense. Like, if you go north first or west first to get to something that’s in the northwest.”
“Are you so certain this route is not similarly sensible? There are more dimensions at play than are typically accounted for by simple considerations of north, south, east, and west.”
“I guess,” said Danny, as he followed Clockwork into the room.
This time, Clockwork made his way directly to the time viewer, which had been laid face-down on one of the worktables. Clockwork motioned for Danny to come closer, then lifted off the back panel. Inside was a bewildering mixture of gears, rods, chains, circuit boards, transistors, spinning hard drive disks, and things Danny couldn’t even identify.
“Let us begin,” said Clockwork, pointing at what appeared to be a glass bubble full of water. “This is the wellspring, not to be confused with the mainspring, which is here…”
There was someone floating above Casper high. Vlad stalked up the wall, invisible, trying to get a read on this new opponent. Possible opponent, that is. After Ember took out the Box Ghost by talking, Vlad was… offering the approach to his rogues gallery. It had worked for two of the ghosts, Johnny and Kitty, who were apparently also friends with Ember? They looked Vlad’s age, but he supposed if ghosts didn’t age…
Right. Not dealing with that.
The rooftop ghost was dressed in a black and white, a lot of white, actually, and had white hair to match.
“Um,” Vlad announced, before cursing himself for that being his opening remark. That was lame. “I mean- Who are you?” That was better, his tone was stronger there.
The other ghost leant back to look at Vlad upside down. He grinned. “I’m Phantom.” He turned horizontally, ending up looking like he was laying on his elbows, just midair. “How can I help you?”
“You can tell me what you’re doing here,” Vlad said suspiciously.
Phantom laughed at that, “right, sorry, the girls always say I’m better at sarcasm than communication but I forget sometimes that it’s true. I’m Danny Phantom. I’ve been a halfa for nineteen years, and I’m here to help.”
Vlad stared. “You’re a halfa?” The words were quieter than he meant them to be. “I thought I was the only one.” He moved forward to sit across from Phantom.
Phantom’s smile turned wry. “There are four of us, five including you.”
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