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“Do I really have to wear this? It’s so stuffy.” Danny complained, tugging at the collar of his shirt.
Clockwork hummed lightly, smoothing down the vest that kept getting bunched up no matter what Danny did “It is traditional for the King to wear clothing befitting their station.”
“Okay, but, counterpoint, I really think my normal suit would be fine-“
“Daniel. We have been over this.” Clockwork said with a sigh.
Danny rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue anymore.
They had, in fact, been over this. They didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to dispute his claim to the throne, or start a stupid fight about him being a bad choice for King.
That last bit was most likely to happen because of the Observants, which Clockwork had told Danny would be ‘an annoyance’. Considering that was strong wording for Clockwork, and weirdly straightforward as well, Danny was taking him pretty seriously about it.
Anyway, what it meant was, unfortunately, Danny was stuck wearing the stuffy formal clothes.
Okay, to be fair, they weren’t that stuffy. They just weren’t as casual as he would’ve liked them to be. For that, he’d need to be in jeans and a t-shirt, or his suit.
At least the belt had a pocket for his thermos.
Danny turned, grabbing the notecards for his speech. He’d spent the last few days trying to come up with something that didn’t completely suck, and hopefully he’d managed to do it.
He was not that confident, however. Clockwork had refused to help him with it, stating that “A King’s words must be their own, whether or not they are.”
“Tell me again why I have to do this? I really think I could get away with not doing it.” He said, stuffing the notecards in the same pocket as his thermos.
Clockwork did not sigh, but Danny could tell he wanted to.
“You need to announce your intentions as King, as well as formally swear to uphold the mantle of the Ghost King and protect the Realms. You cannot ‘get away with not doing it’.”
Danny floated off the ground, flipping onto his stomach so he could prop his head up on his hands “Okay, yeah all that is important, but like, I really think I could just not do it and everything would be fine. There’s no way Pariah did it-“
“Pariah Dark did, in fact, have a formal speech, swear-in, and coronation.” Clockwork said, cutting him off.
Well damn, there goes his best argument. Wait-
“You’re telling me Pariah Dark, as in the same Pariah Dark who was completely insane, made a speech about how he was going to ‘protect the Realms’ and be a good King?” Danny asked, bewilderment in his voice.
Clockwork sighed, an amused tone to it.
“Well, no. His speech was much more focused on ‘crushing his enemies’ and being ‘the most powerful ghost’. However, he still made one.”
Danny sighed, before lowering himself back onto the ground “Fine, fine, I guess I do have to make the stupid speech. Would’ve been more convenient if I could’ve done the coronation at the same time.”
He was being a little bit petty with that. But, to be fair, Clockwork had literally just shown up in his room, in the middle of the night, with the Crown and Ring and crowned him right then and there. Well, not quite then, seeing as time had been frozen. Regardless, the entire thing had been weird.
“You had to be crowned then, Daniel. Just as you have to make this speech now.”
Vague, and unhelpful. Just like Clockwork usually was.
Clockwork reached out to smooth out the vest again, since Danny twisting in the air had messed it up.
…Okay, maybe he wasn’t usually unhelpful. At least when he wasn’t trying to be.
Ancients, everything about Clockwork was so confusing-
“Are you ready, Daniel?”
Danny shook his head slightly, focusing back on Clockwork.
“Ready as I can be, I guess.”
Clockwork nodded, before opening the door and stepping out into the hallway.
Danny followed after him, not bothering to close the door behind him. Technically, the Keep was his now, so it didn’t matter.
He was not actually planning to spend time here, but it was the principle of the thing.
As they walked through the Keep, Danny could see the finishing touches on the renovation being completed, ghosts floating around and carefully reshaping the architecture. The renovation was mostly for the ghosts that actually enjoyed the Keep, but Danny had been the one to start it.
The whole point was to make the castle not quite as crumbly, and not as gloomy. He’d wanted to make it nice, since it was technically his. He’d also wanted to make it better for the ghosts who liked it and wanted to live there.
Already, it was looking a heck of lot better with repaired walls and more color. Though, since he’d put other ghosts in charge of the actual decoration, a lot of the decoration was in ‘his colors’, which everyone seemed to define as black, white, and a bit of green. At least it was better than the grey and blacks of the Keep previously. The white brought at least some brightness into the long hallways.
Clockwork stopped outside the door to the throne room, turning back to Danny.
He inclined his head, gesturing for Danny to step into the room ahead of him.
Which, for the record, Danny did not want to do.
But unfortunately, he couldn’t avoid this.
He sighed, before stepping in front of Clockwork and through the door.
Oh that was entirely too many ghosts. There had to be at least three hundred crammed in the throne room, waiting for his speech. They were stretching the limits of how many of them could fit in here comfortably.
Danny had a feeling the only reason there weren’t any more was because a bunch of the Realms had sent representatives, as opposed to multiple of their denizens coming.
He knew there were representatives because of the fact that a ton of them sent letters ahead, giving him their regards and generally sucking up to him.
He was not a fan of that part of being king. He was literally a random teenager, why were these people trying so hard to get his favor?
He knew why, obviously, but it was still a valid question. He couldn’t even drive! Though ghosts probably didn’t care about that, actually.
He finally looked away from the crowd, seeing the raised dais where the throne sat, as well as the ghosts on it. Clockwork had made his way over at some point, and-
Ugh. Great. The Observants were here. Or at least one of them was. Probably to ‘keep an eye on things’.
It was fine, he had the notecards. He wasn’t going to give them an excuse to yell at him. Or Clockwork. Ancients, did he hate the amount of control the stupid eyeballs had over him-
“King Phantom!”
Danny froze as he realized he’d been spotted by the crowd. The door had let out just next to the dais, slightly out of sight, so he hadn’t caught their attention immediately, but now that one of them had noticed him, they all noticed him. He quickly stopped being able to recognize his name in the cacophony that followed.
Danny winced, before floating up onto the dais. As he did, the crowd quieted, all of them waiting for him to speak.
No pressure, or anything.
At least he remembered how he was supposed to start his speech.
“Greetings, Dead and Neverborn of the Infinite Realms. Thank you for attending to this speech, as it was not ordered of you.” As he spoke, Danny carefully pulled out his notecards and hid them behind his back. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to use them, but he didn’t want to fumble them if he did.
The crowd cheered, some of them looking at him with expressions that bordered on mania. He’d realized, in all the preparation for this speech and fixing up the Keep, that a few of the ghosts were desperate for a ruler. That wasn’t, y’know, Pariah Dark.
It was really weird to think they saw him as the solution to their problems.
“In this speech, my intentions as ruler will be formerly declared, as well as illustrated through the taking of vows-“
Danny froze, feeling something. It felt almost like his ghost sense, but different. A sense that the area in front of him was warping-
The crowd in front of him shifted nervously-
He heard the Observant mutter-
And then the something snapped.
Hovering in front of him was a staff, horizontal and roughly level with his waist. On one end, a black hole lay, drawing some of the ambient ectoplasm into it. On the other, a white hole, small shapes that almost looked like birds flying out. Connecting them, a thin bridge of bright green rods, mimicking the way that space-time was shown in every textbook he’d seen.
Danny took a breath, feeling the power coming off the staff in waves.
-Child king, betwixt realms you lie.-
Danny startled at the voice, seeming to come from every corner of the room and yet not reaching more than him.
-In this, you are unique. In this, your potential is revealed. In this, your responsibility.-
Danny felt frozen, held in place by the voice and the staff.
-Reach out to Space, child king. To the Space between stars. Reach out and hold your fate.-
Danny shuddered, feeling the voice retreat, the staff floating in front of him folding back into itself. He could tell that no one else had heard it, the crowd’s faces uneasy and full of confusion.
He stared at the staff, seeing the twin spaces at the ends swirl, shine, reach out and touch the world around them.
He- The staff felt right, somehow. The idea of taking it up, holding it for the rest of his afterlife. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt.
The Crown and Ring were a burden, one forced on him by circumstances and Vlad’s rash actions.
Even other artifacts, like the Infini-Map, were neutral presences on his senses.
The staff felt like coming home.
He held out a hand to it, dropping the notecards.
They fluttered to the ground as he reached out to grab it.
His fingers barely an inch away as the Observant screeched “No!”
Grazing the staff, the buzzing of the black and white holes overtaking him, as he faintly heard Clockwork declare “A master of Space has been chosen.”
His hand wrapped around the staff, and pain surged into him.
Cold and burning and tearing his very atoms apart-
Fractals of ice surged out from him, Danny just barely able to see the crowd flinch away and panic through the tears in his eyes.
He dropped to his knees, no longer able to hold himself up in the face of the pain coursing through his entire body. The staff was still gripped in his hand, his muscles locking around it as it threw all its power into him.
He could feel it as parts of him changed, as parts of him broke and reformed in the wake of the staff’s power, of Space, pouring into him.
He wasn’t big enough, he couldn’t contain it, Space was too large-
Space was infinity, Space was miniscule, Space was shredding him-
Danny’s vision blurred, and he listed to the side as the pain reached a crescendo.
He caught a hint of purple in the corner of his view as he screamed, as he fell to pieces, as he-
As he passed out, mercifully feeling nothing.
***
He woke up slowly, blinking up at the unfamiliar ceiling for a while.
He’d been about to give his speech, but he’d only gotten through some of it before-
His hand flexed around the staff, still clutched in his grip.
Right. He’d passed out.
Danny blinked again. Wait, he’d passed out cause of the pain. But.
He felt fine. Better than fine, really. He felt like he’d gotten a normal amount of sleep for once, on top of having more energy than he’d had since the ghost attacks started.
He also felt…different.
He frowned, sitting up.
He glanced down at the staff, hearing it hum as he moved it around. It looked the same, other than-
Huh. In the center of the green links, there were black and white ribbons of ectoplasm twining around each other, shifting and changing before his eyes.
Had that happened because of him grabbing the staff?
It must have.
Danny glanced around the room, at the gears and clocks on the walls. Clockwork must’ve taken him back to Long Now after he passed out. Which, thank the Ancients for that. The other options would’ve been staying at the Keep, which, no thank you, or trying to get Danny back to the human realm while he was passed out, which would’ve gone even worse than staying at the Keep.
He looked at the room for a moment longer, and became aware of something.
The room wasn’t real. Well, it was real, of course it was. But it wasn’t really a room.
It was just measures of space, of objects in space and measures of their own space.
Easily manipulated with just a moment of effort-
Danny twitched the hand holding the staff, not even thinking as he did it, and found himself by the far wall. It wasn’t teleportation, it wasn’t even moving. It was just changing how he viewed the space. There was no difference between him sitting on the bed and him standing by the wall, not really, not from his point of view-
Danny shook his head, snapping himself out of the trance he’d gone into when he’d realized the room wasn’t real. Okay, that was weird. He could still see, or sense, the way that the Space in the room had no fundamental difference between it. He could definitely pull the little trick of moving Space around him again, if he wanted to.
This was really weird. And not normal, even for ghosts. They teleported, yeah, but not like that. He should be freaking out.
But the staff still felt like home, felt safe, felt right.
And the way that Space folded around him at the slightest desire from himself felt right, too. Like it was meant to be this way.
…He should find Clockwork.
He’d know what was happening, why this staff had appeared in front of Danny. Why it seemed to have been waiting for him.
He opened the door with the hand that wasn’t holding the staff. Briefly, he wondered if he could set it down. The amount of wrongness that hit him at the thought of doing that confirmed he couldn’t, at least for now.
That really should’ve sent him into a panic attack or something. It didn’t.
Instead, he felt calm, even giddy. The staff was so cool!
The concept of having a black hole so neatly contained was already insane, and he really wanted to know how it worked but had an unfortunate feeling that the answer was magic, or at least close to it-
But having a white hole, of all things! It proved that they existed, even if just on the end of an impossible staff. Danny was the first human to see one! It proved the theory that they were the inverse of black holes as well, since it was on the opposite end-
Danny blinked, stopping in his tracks in the hallway. Huh.
Were the holes connected? If he sucked something into the black hole, would it appear out of the white hole?
Earlier it had just been pulling in ambient ectoplasm, though it strangely wasn’t doing that anymore, and putting out the bird-lookalike energy, but now that he had claimed it, would something different happen?
Logically, it should be more controlled. That was probably why it wasn’t pulling in ambient ectoplasm, and why it hadn’t sucked up the bed he had been in.
Danny looked down at the staff, watching the black and white energy twine together inside the staff.
On one hand, he really should go find Clockwork.
On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt if he played around with the staff a bit first, right?
He was pretty sure it was connected to him, and did what he wanted, so it wasn’t like he was accidentally going to cause a Space-Time anomaly or anything.
Unless he wanted to. He probably could if he wanted to.
But Danny was not going to do that, especially not in the middle of Clockwork’s lair.
That would just be rude.
Though, he really didn’t think Clockwork would care that much what he did as long as there wasn’t too much damage to be easily repairable. The ghost had always been nice to Danny, and accommodating, excluding their first meeting.
Their first meeting was a disaster. And also one that was not going to be repeated, ever, for multiple reasons.
Anyway! The point is he really wanted to mess around with the staff.
So, he was gonna mess around with the staff.
Danny grinned, holding the staff out in front of him like he’d seen his sister do with her bo staff.
He…was probably going to have to bother her for lessons if this turned out to be a staff he could actually fight with.
Danny shook his head, concentrating on the staff. He might as well test out the black hole first, since that fed into the white hole.
He glanced around, looking for something he could destroy without it being too much of a problem, or too annoying for Clockwork. He zeroed in on a small vase, one without any of the clock or gear imagery Clockwork was fond of. Instead, it had what looked like fish swimming through seaweed, though they weren’t like any fish Danny had ever seen, fins branching off fins.
Either way, not something Clockwork was likely to care if Danny destroyed. It was probably something he’d picked up or been given, and shoved in the hallway so he wouldn’t have to see it.
Danny knew for a fact that Clockwork spent most of his time in his viewing room, or the garden. Well, and the living room, but he was pretty sure that had only started after Danny started coming around.
He was pretty sure the living room hadn’t even existed before he’d started coming around.
It was nice, that Clockwork had made such a comfy space for him.
Danny shook his head again. He needed to stop getting off track. Thinking about feelings and stuff later, testing cool new staff now.
He braced himself, before sweeping the staff out at the vase. He made contact with it, the black hole dragging and distorting the vase as it pulled it in. That’s so cool-
Danny, unfortunately, had overestimated the amount of force he should put behind his swing. He realized this as the black hole kept moving forward, and made contact with one of the many clocks on the walls.
The brass machinery was sucked into the black hole, a shrieking sound following as it was ripped off the wall. Danny winced, hastily pulling back the staff.
Okay, noted. This thing was a lot lighter than it looked. Or it just felt lighter to him. Either way, hopefully Clockwork would forgive him about the clock.
Though, Danny wasn’t going to tell him if he could avoid it. It was more a hope that Clockwork would forgive him when he inevitably found out on his own.
He glanced back at the wall, seeing that despite the horrible noise it had made, pulling the clock off it hadn’t damaged it all that much. At least he’d gotten rid of the vase.
Danny started to float down the hall. He probably needed to head to the viewing room, he’d bet that’s where Clockwork was.
It took him a minute or so of floating through the halls to remember the original reason he’d been experimenting with the staff.
He wanted to figure out if something would come out of the white hole after being sucked into the black hole. He glanced around, seeing that the hallway he was in now didn’t have anything he was likely to destroy if he messed up again. The walls were full of interlocking gears, and Danny knew from experience they were not easily destroyed.
He may or may not have accidentally hit one of them with an ectoblast. And some of his ice. And also himself. He’d been running on an hour of sleep and three ghost fights, it really wasn’t his fault. Clockwork had barely managed to avoid laughing, Danny could just tell. He’d let him take a nap outside of time after that though, so that made up for it.
Anyway, the gears were not likely to get messed up, was his point.
Danny looked at the staff for a moment, before holding it out in front of himself again.
Okay, how was he gonna do this? It had seemed pretty obvious that the black hole had to touch things, though technically he bet that wasn’t so much a restriction of the staff as it was a restriction he was putting on the staff-
He needed to focus.
Danny tilted his head. Well, a bit of that ramble probably was useful. If the staff responded to him, which he was sure it did, it just hadn’t really sunk in yet- The staff responded to him.
So, he could do whatever and have the staff do what he wanted.
Danny grinned, before pulling back the staff and making a motion with it as if he was hurling an ectoblast at someone.
A burst of white light shot out of the staff, heading directly towards the gears on the wall, and it was then that Danny realized two things.
One, it looked like whatever went in the black hole got turned into energy, which made sense, at least a little bit-
And two, he hadn’t considered the fact that the staff was quite a bit more powerful than one of his ectoblasts.
The energy blast hit one of the gears, shattering it and stopping the spinning of the gears around it as they lost connection with each other.
Danny grimaced, looking at the remnants of the gear on the floor. That…was not going to be fun to fix. And he did not doubt that he would be the one fixing it, when Clockwork found out. At the very least, he’d be made to help.
He was gonna put off Clockwork finding out about this for as long as he could.
It wasn’t like the damage was in an area of Long Now he went through that often, and he’d told Danny that it often took him months to realize if something had gone awry with his lair, just due to how big it was and his own distorted sense of time.
So, if luck was on Danny’s side, which it almost never was, he wouldn’t have to fix the wall for a few months.
Danny sighed.
Yeah, he was fixing it before he left today, wasn’t he?
Unless something distracted Clockwork enough.
The staff in Danny’s hand hummed, and he realized that Clockwork probably was pretty distracted. He’d seemed to know what was going on with the whole ‘Master of Space’ thing, anyway.
Danny should probably find him, instead of destroying more stuff.
Accidentally destroying more stuff.
Danny shook his head, before flying down the hallway. The viewing room was usually close-ish to the living room and the garden, just cause Clockwork didn’t want to have to go that far if Danny visited or he needed to check on the time screens.
All Danny had to do was find one of the three rooms, and he was sure to find Clockwork.
Who would hopefully have some explanations.
***
In the end, it took about twenty minutes for Danny to find his way to the viewing room.
Long Now was big, and also Danny had spent perhaps too long wandering and thinking about the staff.
It turned out that the room he woke up in was pretty close to the living room, if he’d gone the other way in the hallway.
Which was a bit frustrating, but fine. He’d gotten to mess around with his cool new staff, anyway.
He opened the door to the viewing room, seeing Clockwork floating in front of the time screens, his back to Danny. Each screen showed a different era, from regency London to 80’s Japan. Danny had gotten a lot better at identifying time periods after he’d started hanging out at Long Now more, but it was weird that he could tell where the screens were showing. None of the scenes had specific landmarks, or people. He just…knew.
Probably due to his new staff, and title, now that he thought about it.
Clockwork turned, a small smile on his face as he faced Danny.
“I trust you’re satisfied with your staff and new powers, then?”
He sounded fond, exactly like he did when Danny managed to finish a homework problem he’d been struggling with, or like he did when Danny showed up to vent after a long day.
It became very clear, in that moment, that Clockwork knew everything. And that he had known this would happen for a while, maybe even since- since their first meeting.
He was the Master of Time, after all.
Danny drifted closer, watching Clockwork carefully.
“Why?”
He figured Clockwork had more than enough context to work out what he meant.
Clockwork hummed slightly “You’ve already worked out you are the Master of Space, yes?”
Danny nodded, before adding “I don’t know what it means, though. I know you’re the Master of Time-“
Danny cut himself off, a realization hovering at the edges of his thoughts.
The Master of Time. And the Master of Space.
Space-Time.
“I see you’ve figured it out, Daniel. The Realms needs both a Master of Space and a Master of Time, to be truly stable.” Clockwork said, turning back to his time screens.
Danny floated over to stand next to him.
“As you’ve seen, and participated in, my duty is to keep the Timeline running in the correct way, and to make sure things work out as they’re supposed to. But I am limited in directly interacting with the events I see, and limited in my abilities to intervene in any that need to change.”
Danny frowned. He’d thought that was all due to the Observants, but the way Clockwork was talking-
“The Realms choose the Masters, and I was chosen due to already having a strong connection to time, the ability to see the past and future. Though, I must admit, much of my current powers are due to my staff.” Clockwork continued, gesturing vaguely at the time screens.
Danny tilted his head slightly. The traveling in time, and stopping it, were because of the staff? He’d assumed that the staff was an extension of Clockwork’s powers, rather than the source-
Though, of course, his own staff was the source of his new powers.
“So, why was I chosen? I don’t really have any ‘Space-y’ powers, not without the staff.” Danny asked, shifting so he could see Clockwork’s face.
Clockwork smiled “I am getting to that, Daniel. The point is that it was simple, comparatively, for the Realms to choose me. Choosing the Master of Space is, was, much harder.”
Clockwork turned, floating over to be closer to one of the time screens, which shifted as Danny watched.
He flinched as it resolved into an image of the beginning of the portal accident, Sam and Tucker watching as Danny stepped into the portal. The scene stayed frozen, thank the Ancients.
Danny hesitantly came closer. Clockwork wouldn’t bring this up if it wasn’t important.
“The Master of Space must have a strong connection to both the Infinite Realms, and the Mortal one. Most ghosts are connected to the Infinite Realms just by virtue of their nature, but for a ghost to be truly connected to the Mortal Realm, and not just lingering behind? It takes something special, miraculous.”
Clockwork turned to Danny, a serious look on his face “It takes a halfa.”
Danny blinked, processing that.
“But, wait, if it only takes a halfa-“ Danny cringed, unable to finish his sentence. He did not relish the idea of Vlad having the amount of power that Clockwork did, even if it was Space instead of Time.
The amount of power that Danny now had.
Clockwork chuckled, a fond look on his face.
“It’s not quite that simple, Daniel. There is one other requirement, that is the reason that none of the other halfas before you were chosen.”
Danny gave Clockwork a questioning look, receiving a smile in return.
“I was chosen first. The Master of Space, then, must be able to work with me, and I them. None of the other candidates before you were capable of that. But you were.” Clockwork said, no small amount of awe in his voice.
Danny shifted uncomfortably. It was really weird, having Clockwork be amazed by him. He didn’t like it. He preferred it when Clockwork was being cryptic and annoying, actually.
Or soft and fond, like he was sometimes.
Either of them was better than this.
Clockwork drew back, his face going back to a blank, knowing look.
“The two Masters work together to protect the Realms, Daniel. Time to guide, monitor, and correct the Timeline, and Space to correct the Realms themselves. Closing dangerous natural portals, fixing fractured lands, and manipulating any psychical aspects of Timeline maintenance.”
He let out an unneeded breath, one likely entirely for show and Danny’s benefit.
“The Realms need both of us, Daniel.” There was a desperation in his voice, one very close to the awe from earlier, if slightly bent out of shape.
Danny backed up a little, Clockwork’s intensity scaring him slightly.
This was really weird, seeing Clockwork anything but perfectly in control.
And this was a lot, but-
But.
He looked down at the staff, still clutched in his hand.
The staff felt right. The title of ‘Master of Space’ felt right. What Clockwork was saying, under the desperation, felt right.
Danny had to do it. It was his responsibility, his fate. Just like the voice, which he guessed had been the Realms, had said.
“I wouldn’t need to give up my life in Amity Park, right?” he asked, nervousness in his voice.
The look of relief on Clockwork’s face, undercut by fondness and love, is what cemented Danny’s decision.
“Of course not, Daniel. It would help, in fact. Maintaining a strong connection to both planes is needed. All you would need to do is work with me.”
Danny took a deep breath, before looking Clockwork in the eyes, a smile on his face.
“Alright. I’ll do it.”
Clockwork returned the smile, and said “We have a lot of work to do, I admit.”
He waved a hand, shutting off the time screens.
“But we have Time.”
Danny couldn’t help himself.
“And Space?” He asked.
Clockwork sighed, the smile still on his face.
“Yes, and Space.”
Danny grinned.
This was definitely one of the strangest things that had happened to him, including the whole Ghost King situation, but he had a feeling it was also going to be one of the best.
Clockwork opened the door out to the hallway, looking over at Danny as he did so.
“And Daniel? We will be starting with repairing that wall you broke.”
Danny groaned.
Of course they would be.