Chapter Text
The Ghost Zone glowed the erie ecto green as Danny Phantom dodged a sound attack, a missile, an animated pile of cables, and a simple pink ecto blast from his various current foes. Glowering at them he did idly note that there was both less chatter from his opponents and fewer attacks that could seriously hurt him than normal. Odd but not something he planed to contemplate over during the fight too much. Although Ember seemed to be seriously rocking it out in between attacks while the others kept him sort of busy. Between Skulker as her boyfriend and serious hunter after Danny's "pelt", Technus always up for new tech to look at, and Vlad always trying to get Danny to join him as his new son/evil apprentice its not like it would hard to talk and/or bribe them into fighting him. Then again if they were basically in the middle of Ember's show... yeah, Danny could work with that and hopefully not ruin Ember's show at the same time if only to avoid a revenge tour later in the week.
Before Danny could put his tentative plan into action things went strange.
"I am sorry Daniel," came Clockwork's voice echoing in Danny's mind as he fought several of his normal foes at once.
"Wha?!" Danny said, startled into breaking off his immediate fight and looking in the rough direction that he felt his ghost guardian from. He stared in shock at the sight of the ancient time ghost lifting his staff in preparation for doing something big with his powers.
"My only advice to you all is try to stay together and work together to get back home to the Infinite Realms," Clockwork spoke to all of them this time as Vlad, Technus, Skulker, and Ember paused in their fight with Danny.
None of them could move fast enough to escape the shockwave portal that captured four of them. It sent the fifth, Ember, spinning away to float half conscious behind a bit of nearby floating rock the size of a car. She had indeed been recording their fight as a part of her latest ghost zone album so she caught what happened next on live broadcast. She would later review it in disbelief.
"There, its done, but mark my words if they don't make it back within the next hundred years you will pay for targeting my children!" Clockwork growled. His diction and tone clearly conveyed his anger with whoever he was talking to.
"Be glad we allowed you to banish him rather than forced you to rip out his core with your bare hands to crush it!" One of the Observants spat back at the time ghost. "As for children, you have no children! Do not claim otherwise."
"Daniel James Fenton-Phantom, Danielle Jamie Fenton-Phantom, Dan Plasmius Fenton-Phantom, and Vladimir Masters-Plasmius! All of them are my children! Do not dare to tell me otherwise! Especially not when you hold my daughter captive and my core bound to a slave contract! You are lucky that this action won't destroy the ghost zone because wiping out my family most certainly will!" Clockwork half roared at the Observants standing in witness to today's actions. "To say nothing of these actions also being treasonous acts against the heir to the throne while he is still underage! All of them are underage and will be for some time yet you fools! Not a single one of them was over twenty when they died and the Zone fused them with my ectoplasm!"
"You see the abominations as your offsprings?!" One of the Observants shrieked in outrage. "If you weren't so important to maintaining the Zone you would be ended alongside them!"
Ectoplasmic chains appeared and rapidly bound the ancient time ghost, making a racket as they did so. Clockwork made no attempt to stifle his cry of pain or the grunts of discomfort. Each sound was clearly transmitted across the ghost zone and recorded on Ember's latest album track.
"You will dearly regret this," Clockwork said darkly as the chains dragged him to kneel bound in front of his masters.
"Who is to know?" The lead Observant said carelessly, deliberately cruel. "You are the only one left as witness and your tongue will be silent on these matters. We will continue acting as the regency council and Phantom, any of the halfas really, will have tragically disappeared despite Daniel's conquest of Pariah Dark in single combat after the former King's acceptance of the abomination's challenge."
A blow landed against Clockwork's head and a gag tied before they disappeared through a transport portal. The binding of the slave contract on his tongue would keep him from speaking of the incident even without the gag but that wasn't the point. After all as the Master of Time he was very aware of the current nearby recording equipment and that a copy of the conversation would shortly fall through a natural portal to land in Danny's lap. The ancient ghost could only hope that it would be enough.
The album which caught this spat between Time Master and Observants would become infamous across the Ghost Zone even as it was hurriedly spread far and wide, sometimes openly and sometimes as contraband.