Chapter Text
“A gap year?” Danny drifted from behind the tumbling sands of an oversized hourglass.
“You aren’t sure about college like the rest of your mortal friends, and as your mentor-”
“Mentor!” Danny scoffed.
And sure, Danny had been spending increasing amounts of time in Clockworks Lair. It started as a quiet spot to do homework, but Danny felt comfort in the else-ness that permeated the crooked tower. It was hard to be concerned about flunking a test or friend drama when you exited the very flow of time itself.
Plus, Clockwork was a good listener, even if his advice was often more cryptic than helpful.
Clockwork just tilted his head in that knowing way he did sometimes. His constant shifting form changed from child to young man under a bruise purple cloak. Much like his lair, Clockwork was unbound by the concept of time.
Mentor. Danny turned the idea over, getting used to the claim. Sure, I guess.
Clockwork continued. “As your mentor, it is pertinent that I help you grow into your ghostly instincts. So while you decide what to do with your mortal future, I have arranged for you to practice haunting.”
“Clocky, for the last time, I do not have ‘ghostly instincts’.” Danny gestured to his body, “Only half ghost.”
“Daniel, you have been increasingly trying to haunt my lair for the past year.”
Danny frowned and looked around the lair. The rhythmic ticking of clock gears did not pause under his consideration. Floating in-around the machinery gave his core, the soul and center of his ghostly side, a slippery relief. Like play slime melting in the warm sun.
It was, maybe, kind of, possible that he was more ghost than he wanted to admit.
“Fine.”
“There is a ghost who needs help haunting her city. You two will work well together. A natural portal is opening next week. Go and wrap things up in Amity Park.”
“It’s only June. I can’t have the last summer with my friends?” Danny whined.
The time he did have left with his closest friends was a fragile, precious thing. They were the ones who had witnessed his death and rebirth into something other four years ago.
“We often cannot control when destiny calls,” Clockwork said. In a rare show of comfort, the ghost reached out and ruffled Danny’s hair. “The universe I plan to send you to has natural portals keyed to celestial events, the equinox, the solstice. It needs to be then.” Clockwork paused. “There are many twists and turns I can see your life taking, young Daniel, but have hope. In all of them you will see your friends again in one form or another.”
Sam had given him one of her best ‘I’m disappointed in you’ glares when she heard about the gap year plan. She had spent the last two years badgering him to ‘just pick a college already and apply’. Danny hadn’t been able to work up the motivation to do it.
Every time he tried to picture a future outside of Amity Park, there was a looming staticky void of nothingness. Causality ruined all of Danny’s plans. When he was young, he wanted to be an astronaut, but then the accident happened. He thought about going to school for astronomy somewhere, but then his grades happened.
His parents only ever talked about Danny joining the family business after he graduated. They knew and supported his half-ghost nature but had a hard time seeing Danny beyond it. His mom would proudly tell him how they were going to publish soon and his name would be on the paper and how maybe he could take a few night classes at Amity Community College if he had time. His sister, Jazz , was the smart one. They only needed one child to inherit the title Doctor Fenton.
Tucker was mostly upset that the timing would make Danny miss their planned week-long Doomed marathon when the new game released in August. Tucker was an in-the-moment kind of guy. Danny appreciated that.
In the end, Danny had scavenged up a bag of multi-colored floss from Jazz’s crafting supplies. The three spent the day before the solstice braiding friendship bracelets in the shade of their favorite willow tree in St. Mary’s Cemetery.
“I’m glad something good came out of Camp Skull and Crossbones,” Tucker said as he knotted blood red thread into his bracelet.
“We got to help Wulf , that was good!” Danny exclaimed. Danny had also picked red floss, his favorite color, paired with the black and white of Phantom. If his ghost persona was bleeding into his life, he might as well accessorize appropriately.
“I seem to remember a romantic night in the woods looking at stars,” Sam joked. Her bracelet was woven tight black loops with only one sliver of purple running up it.
“Gross,” Tucker pretended to gag. “I’m glad I fell asleep for that part.”
“We weren’t that bad as a couple, Tuck,” Danny mumbled. Sam just chuckled.
“We had a good run.” She said, looking up into the molted light seeping in through the willow branches wistfully.
It had been a good run. Danny and Sam dated for almost a year before they decided it wasn’t going to work out. Sam complained it felt like kissing her brother once the new-relationship-butterflies wore off. It was still the longest either of them had maintained a romantic relationship.
“I’m pretty sure our run isn’t over,” Tucker said. He elbowed Danny playfully. “Trouble always seems to find our guy. You know we’ll be there to help.”
“The only time ghosts were a problem outside of Amity Park, Vlad was involved,” Danny cringed. “And he’s actually trying to be helpful these days.”
Vlad had willingly corroborated an elaborate lie that Danny was going to spend the next year shadowing DALV co. His mom had been hesitant, but as soon as his dad saw that Vlad was involved, Dad enthusiastically gave his approval. Danny was pretty sure his dad was spending his afternoon lovingly baking a batch of fudge to sneak into Danny’s luggage.
“Don’t forget that one summer road trip Freakshow caused,” Sam added. “We got some real mileage on that one.”
“Technically, that never happened,” Danny groaned. He was still a little bitter that he hadn’t had a chance to enjoy Cape Canaveral. Things never seemed to work out in his favor.
“I still don’t understand why Clockwork is making you go on some weird ghost coming-of-age ceremony.” Sam pouted. “There’s no reason you need to do it now and not after college.”
Danny sank into the gnarled roots of the tree. His core warbled an embarrassed rhythm as he buried his face in his hands. “Clockwork said I was trying to haunt his lair.”
Danny tried so hard to appear fully human even to his friends. There was a comfort in the familiarity of the living. It set him apart from the chaotic nature of ghosts. When his fangs came in last fall, Danny stopped smiling with an open mouth.
He wasn’t sure if anyone noticed.
Tucker and Sam just gave Danny a sympathetic look.
“Hence the ghost training montage?” Tucker prodded.
“Yeah,” Danny grumbled.
“I bet you’ll get all sorts of cool power-ups. The training arc makes or breaks any good manga,” Tucker nodded sagely.
Sam reached over and rubbed Danny’s shoulder sympathetically. “You do kind of avoid the whole ‘being a ghost’ thing.”
Danny curled into himself further. This conversation was beyond embarrassing. Next they would ask what tied him to the mortal plane.
(Not like that question kept Danny up at night. He tried not to think about it. He did not like the idea of being stuck in a fragile tether like any other ghost. He really, really did not like to think about what happened if that connection was severed.)
“If he’s half-ghost,” Tucker pondered out loud, “does that mean he’s half-dead?”
Danny lowered his hand just enough to see his friends’ blank faces. All three of them were swallowed by silence. The dappled light flickered as a breeze picked up. The hiss of it hushed them.
“I think you’re spending too much time with Sam,” Danny said sarcastically to break the silence. “Goth was not your style. Stick with techno-geek.”
“Dude, I’m serious. We could make you one of those markers. Like the ones you see on the side of the road sometimes…”
Danny just groaned. It was not flattering to be compared to a car crash victim. He wasn’t sure if Tucker understood that.
“Tuck may have just stuck his foot all the way in his mouth, but he is on to something.” Sam flipped open the switchblade they had been using to cut the bracelet thread. She shuffled to the trunk of the willow tree. “You’re going off to another universe, Danny. Clockwork only knows where. From my research, that’s not theoretically that different from how any other afterlife works. We’re all leaving Amity. No reason we shouldn’t make our mark.”
She carefully carved into the bark, “RIP DF” with a crude heart, then more letters “SM TF”
“There,” Sam said.
The three crowded close together to examine her handiwork. Danny absolutely did not want to examine why the markings seemed to dislodge some weight in his chest he hadn’t known he had been carrying.
“There,” he whispered.
“Okay, enough of that,” Tucker said. “These bracelets aren’t going to weave themselves, and I need one from each of you to show the ladies at school I’m not a total friendless loser.”
They devolved back into inside jokes and old stories in the shade of the cemetery. Later, when Danny crawled into his blankets in his childhood bedroom for what could be the last time, he thought it had been the perfect day. He tried to ignore the growing wet patches on his pillows and focus on Clockwork’s promise that he would see his friends again.
All of Danny’s worldly possessions fit into a duffle bag. The bracelets his friends made him, the best parts of himself, were tied tightly around Danny’s wrist. One from each of them. He hoped they would serve as good luck charms throughout Clockwork’s grand machinations.
“Lady Gotham will meet you on the other side of the portal,” Clockwork said.
Danny gripped the handles of his duffle bag tighter. “Why are the creepy eyeball guys here?”
There were at least a dozen cloaked figures scattered around the Long Now. Their heads were giant eyeballs encased in clear gooey mounds. They collectively belonged to a group of ghosts called the Observants and were not fond of Phantom.
All of the eyes were fixed on Danny.
It was unsettling.
He fiddled with his bracelets again.
“They are simply here to see you off, Daniel,” Clockwork responded fondly.
The Observant closest to Danny simply said, “We wish to observe the Great One leaving for his journey.”
“Not you too!” Danny moaned. There were a handful of ghosts that had started to refer to Danny by the title after he defeated a particularly nasty ghost who called himself the ‘Ghost King’.
The fight had been a matter of necessity and the win a group effort.
Danny did not feel like he deserved the praise.
With a wave of Clockwork’s staff, A green Post-it note appeared on Danny’s shirt. It read:
Daniel Phantom
Ghost in training, I’m here to help!
Direct any questions to C.W.
“Isn’t that a little Juvenile? I feel like I’m going to kindergarten.”
“Perhaps.” A shimmering green portal appeared before the two ghosts. A tear in the rift of reality. “Here’s your path. I will see you at the fall Solstice, Daniel.”
Danny took a deep breath, stepped forward, and plunged into destinations unknown.
The other side of the portal was a dark-looking city. “Oh, Sam would have loved this.” Danny thought. Swooping gothic archways intersected sleek glass skyscrapers. There was at least one brutalist cement monstrosity supported by ornate buttresses.
His examination of the city was interrupted by a forceful coo.
Danny scanned the rooftop. In front of him was a pitch-black pigeon with blood-red eyes that looked absolutely possessed. Amity Park had a few flocks of pigeons, but he couldn’t remember any with eyes quite so big. The pigeon took two hops towards Danny and cooed aggressively again.
“I- uh, I’m supposed to meet a ghost here?”
The pigeon cocked his head, examining Danny.
“And now I’m talking to a bird,” muttered Danny. “Talk about featherbrained. Making a great first impression on this reality, Fenton.”
The pigeon crept closer, close enough now for Danny to touch. City birds know no fear.
An ice breath broke free from his core with a gasp. Whoever was supposed to meet him, they were here.
“I don’t have any food for you,” he said and made a shooing motion.
This just seemed to incense the bird. It puffed its feathers out like an angry sea urchin. It was then that Danny noticed the eyes were giving off a ghostly glow.
“Oh yep, I think you are possessed. Are you going to take me to Lady Gotham?”
The bird huffed. Danny got the vague impression of insulted-annoyed-disappointed. It stuck its beak high in the air and hopped to the edge of the building. Then turned back, as if beckoning Danny to follow.
“Sure, sure, I’m coming, birdie.”
The bird led him over mini-split ducts and down rickety fire escapes. Whatever city Danny was in was a parkour runner’s dream. The gothic-leaning architecture led to plenty of handholds and ledges, and almost every building had some sort of scaffolding on its sides. Unfortunately, Danny was carrying almost all of his worldly possessions in his duffle bag, making his climb gangly.
“Hey! Bird-brain! Wait up!” He called.
The pigeon looked back, unimpressed.
Danny folded over, grounding his hands onto his knees. He tried to catch his breath. “I guess I shouldn’t have skipped so many gym classes to fight ghosts.”
His new bird friend hopped around impatiently. The metal grate they stood on started to rattle.
Danny sighed, “Fine. You win. I’m going ghost.”
He mentally dug deep down inside of himself and yanked at the thread between his living and ghostly form. Familiar white light burst forth as he unraveled. Shaggy black hair became snow white, ethereally floating around his head. Eyes went from ice blue to green. His casual tee and cargo shorts combo was replaced with the black and white jumpsuit of Phantom.
“This better be worth it,” he scowled at the other ghost. Danny had wanted to conserve his ghost form until he had a better lay of the land. His home universe had effective ghost hunters after all. There very well could be a version of the Guys-in-White here. He at least needed to determine how common ghosts were before showing off Phantom.
The journey from the metal gangplank had been easygoing from there. Danny thought he saw a dark figure swoop off a rooftop, but when he checked again there was no one there. The pigeon led him down, spiraling into the grimy asphalt street. Black clawed toes landed on a manhole cover. The bird pecked at the stamped metal.
Danny scooped it up and phased through the ground into tunnels below. He wasn’t sure why the bird didn’t just phase through itself. Danny had never been good at telling the difference between animal ghosts and possessed animals. Both cases triggered his ghost sense all the same.
Beneath the streets, Danny found himself in a room that looked like a hastily assembled workshop. Crooked metal wires, oil cloths, and glow-in-the-dark paint cans were splayed helter-skelter across three folding card tables. Hanging work lights plugged into a generator illuminated the cramped workspace. Standing at the center table was a figure draped in glowing green robes.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to use gas generators in enclosed spaces,” Danny quipped.
The figure swirled around. “Who are you supposed to be?” it scowled.
Danny couldn’t make out his face under the hooded robe. Ah, this must be his ghostly teacher.
“Danny Phantom, at your service.”