Chapter Text
The Clocktower chimed softly, marking the hour of some distant corner of time, ticking ceaselessly in a marking of seconds that moved forward and backward and nowhen all at once.
The inhabitant of this tower was not particularly social, but he wasn’t alone in his timeless vigil. Time-displaced entities resided here, in the timeless bastion of the Ancient of Time, in the space between realities that was the Infinite Realms.
The young King-to-be knew of one, an alternate version of himself, twisted with grief and anger into something the young one feared to become, but Dan Phantom was not the only entity here.
Clockwork made his periodic rounds, though unnecessary. He knew if, and when, each inhabitant would break free of their timeless stasis or other imprisonment. And each inhabitant here had the chance to break free, if the timeline demanded it, thus why they had not been destroyed completely.
He paused at one glass container, considering the woman entombed within. Bloodied bone claws were still affixed to her hands, and she was surrounded by the three artifacts she kept safe through her timeless vigil. Pulling her from the timestream and giving her a more comfortable rest had been a favor to another Entity, her god, a being of Time and Vengeance and Protection…
A favor which Clockwork was soon going to call in.
~~~~~~
He couldn’t breathe. The bandages around his chest pulled uncomfortably, the burn underneath constricting as his rapid healing set in.
Not that Phantom
needed
to breathe.
He was dead. A ghost. A malicious and unthinking manifestation of post-human consciousness, as far as any scientist or politician would tell you. He wiped tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand, pretending it was from the wind, and continued flying as fast and as far away from his parents and his city as he could.
They would be vulnerable. They were in danger. He should go back.
He really shouldn’t.
He needed to go back, to Protect them…
He couldn’t go back. They would be safer without him.
He couldn’t go back
.
There was no moon in the Infinite Realms, but it seemed there was a faint path illuminated before him, barely registering on his consciousness. If Danny hadn't been exhausted and in pain already, he would have been suspicious of it, but as it was, anywhere was better than where he had been.
He told them. They knew. They hated him.
He needed to keep them safe.
He couldn't keep them safe. Not when they wanted to dissect him, to tear him apart molecule by molecule. Not when they thought he was some abomination who had replaced their son.
Danny jolted as he realized he was on the brink of falling asleep and kept blearily flying through the Realms. He didn’t know where he was going, he just knew that didn’t want to stop.
Half asleep, he didn't notice when the expanse of the Realms shifted in a soft swirl of blue to a dimly-lit hallway in some sort of building, and his delirious mind gave in to a strangely compelling feeling of
safety
as he finally succumbed to the pain and exhaustion and skidded to a stop.
The hall was illuminated by rings of light as they passed over his body, and Daniel Fenton lay unconscious in an unfamiliar hallway.
~~~~~~~~
Danny didn’t often have good dreams. Either he was too exhausted to dream at all, or his dreams were an amalgamation of horror, of injury and failure and his own death.
Sometimes, he could convince Nocturne to give him a night or two of sweeter dreams, or the Ancient would take pity on him and give him a calm dream without being asked, but that was only when he had been having a particularly terrible stretch of nightmares, and his screams echoed across the dream-space the Ancient presided over.
This dream, however, was neither the usual nightmares nor the nebula-filled fields of the Master of Dreams.
He was standing on a white marble floor, a full moon shining between tall marble pillars creating a stark pattern of shadow and light.
It was a… temple? Or perhaps a tomb… Or maybe it was both, in that way dreamscapes could be.
He stepped forward, footsteps silent in the space. Stars sprinkled the sky above, where the impossibly-large moon didn’t blot them out, but he noted that they were not in the positions he was familiar with. Whatever, wherever, whenever this dream-scape was, it wasn’t Earth as he knew it.
“Hello?”
“Greetings, Phantom.”
“Who’s there?”
A sound like bone clicking against bone could be heard, along with quiet laughter, and Danny blinked to see a figure appear standing before him: tall, human in shape except for its head, which was the massive skull of a bird of prey. It was dressed in ancient Egyptian-like garb, stark white as the moonlight, and held a staff topped with a sapphire crescent moon.
Chains were linked over his arms and body, disappearing into the shadows beyond the moon-lit space.
Danny stared for a moment, mentally running through the history and mythology lessons he had been given over the past few years in the Realms in order to better interact with the many regions and cultures within.
“You are… Khonshu?” he asked, taking another few steps forward before stopping several meters away from the bird-headed god. Egyptian god of the moon, time, travelers... vengeance. Oh shit, this guy probably knew Clockwork. Heck, Clockwork probably sent him, if the Observants didn’t…
Fuck, did the Observants sic this guy on him?
The creature nodded its beak at him, interrupting Danny’s thoughts. “I am. Greetings, King of Ghosts.”
Ok, so probably not the Observants. Not enough Immediate Murder Attempt. “I’m… not really the ghost king. Not yet…” Danny couldn’t help the grimace at the thought. He still didn’t think it was a good idea and there had to be someone better suited for ruling the Infinite Realms than a screw-up like him...
A screw-up who had already ended the world in at least one timeline. There was a reason the Observants hated him, after all…
At least he had convinced the Council of Ancients to let him wait until he was 18 to take the throne officially. (He tried not to think about the fact that 18 was barely over a year away)
That clicking sound again as Khonshu laughed, and Danny realized it was from his beak, the two pieces hitting each other as he clacked it in amusement. “You fear yourself too much, young specter.”
“No, I think I fear myself a reasonable, healthy amount.” Danny crossed his arms and tilted his head as he considered the luminous being before him. “What do you want? Usually I’d have been shot at by now, so I don’t think you want a fight.”
“No, no fighting. Not tonight. I simply wanted to meet you, Phantom. I have heard much about you.” Khonshu tilted his own head sideways, looking at him with a single, empty eye. Light glimmered like distant galaxies deep in the otherwise dark, skeletal eye-sockets. There was something else the bird-brain wanted, Danny could tell, but if he wasn’t picking a fight… that something else could be figured out later.
See, he could be diplomatic.
“Ok, then. Hi, it was nice to meet you, I’m… going to go back to doing whatever else my sleeping brain was doing before you hijacked it.” He gave a two-fingered salute and started walking backward, not taking his eyes off the god. He wasn’t running away, not at all. He was… politely retreating.
As soon as Danny’s foot stepped off the marble, he turned and flew into the fading darkness of dreamless sleep, Khonshu still watching him.