Danny Phantom: Clockwork Apprentice.

Prologue.

“We're all stories, in the end.”
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Time was a fragile state. It could easily be ended and altered. Clockwork knew it was not his place to interfere with it, just observe. But sometimes observing was so very dull. The observants observed. They got so very angry when he made little adjustments. Said he was soft, that he should just let the world move to its own fate. But Clockwork was fond of humans, found their lives intriguing. He'd once been human long ago, for a brief moment in time before his life had been snatched away. Many thought he changed ages so often because he was the Ghost of Time. But there was another reason. Before Clockwork had even had a chance to breathe the air his life had slipped away. His mortal body had been weak and didn't make it. It wasn't often newborn souls were suspended in limbo. The conscious soul usually had to have regrets or wants. Clockwork remembered he'd been a very aware soul and remembered knowing he was going to die. He also remembered a singular thought.

“I want more time.”

And more time he got. He had been surrounded by Observants as soon as his eyes opened, they were in deep discussion, he felt it was over him. But he found he didn't really care to wait for them to finish and quite literally skipped the conversation. Knowledge flowed through his mind at speeds that brought him great pain for many years. Era's long since passed, Era's yet to be decided. The Observants seemed to fear him, seemed to want to lock him away. But he would have none of that. And so they gave him a job, with very vague outlines. "Protect time, don't interfere." The first part was easy enough. He could start and stop time, travel to different eras, easily stop those wishing to disrupt time. But as it went on he began to struggle with the second part. Times like plagues and natural disasters tugged at his consciousness. Looking upon mass destruction with the thought that he would have averted this disaster. But still the observants pressed. Watch, don't interfere. Not. Your. Place.

For a long while he obeyed. Thinking them older and wiser than he despite the knowledge swirling inside his consciousness. And then he met a certain human who helped him break out of these oppressive thoughts. A young doctor, saving lives while hers dwindled away due to incurable illness. She used her time so selflessly that Clockwork was moved. He, who had all the time in the world, who never had a name or ties to life, who could freeze all time for eternity if he saw fit, simply sat and watched. But this human, this fragile creature, with an identity, a family, people who verified her existence, cherished it, was using the little time she had to do right by others rather than trying to save her time for herself.

Clockwork watched her life, pleaded for the observants to let him help her. But they did not yield. And then her life was ended abruptly, not by her illness but by a careless driver who ignored road signs and sped right into her as she hurried to push a child out of the vehicles way. Clockwork was furious but it wouldn't solve anything, nor would he go back and save her, she died doing what she thought was right. She'd accepted death as inevitable and left the world with no regrets as a hero in her small town. He wouldn't take that from her. Not even to satisfy his anger against the Observants.

And so Clockwork began to rebel. Small things like little warnings before a disaster that resulted in some survivals rather than total wipe outs. Of course he had to let some horrific time lines run their course rather than risk making the situation worse. He understood why the Observants were against interfering. But he also understood that sometimes it was necessary.

But the boy was not necessary. He was unique, caught both in the world of living and of dead. But he was not necessary. Not in that timeline. He was young and frightened of the change, knowledge did not come to him as it had Clockwork. His parents knew of the afterlife but feared and distrusted it. Claiming evey soul caught in suspension, as a wandering spirit commonly known as a ghost, was beyond a doubt evil. They hated ghosts. Why was not something that made a whole lot of sense to Clockwork. There were indeed ghosts that had bad intentions but more often than not they were simply people who had regrets turn into obsession. Clockwork knew of time, knew of the actions people would make and how it would effect the time streams, the multiple existences. But he didn't know what they thought when they made those actions. Just that they would make them.

Clockwork knew the boy, recognised him. In almost every time line he became the unique creature known as a Halfa. One of unimaginable potential. And for the most part he used his powers to do right. Some cases led to a dark and twisted version of the bright eyed boy but small nudges here and there kept him away from those paths. Time had many streams, some led back to the main river, the branched off stream causing a mere difference that didn't cause to much variation. Other times, rare times, it became it's own river, causing a different existence. Scientists called it alternate realities. And though amongst human minds it was stuff of fantasy Clockwork's afterlife consisted of watching over many realities. And in many of them the boy would appear.

In the one that had his attention now he felt dread. It was not an easy path, the boy seldom had an easy path but this version was in for a particularly rough and short story. He frowned. If the boy's destiny was to die young in that place anyway it wouldn't matter if he was free earlier than usual. Clockwork couldn't often see his own time, but when involved with others he watched himself act, it was often a strange occurrence. Like a kind of double vision. Timelines involved with him for long periods of time began to get blurry. He often didn't stick around long enough for that to happen. But the boy. His eyes always were drawn back to the boy.

And abruptly one day Clockwork decided to make another big interference on behalf of the boy. A different version of the boy but still him, and perhaps in more need of someone like Clockwork.