"No. It won't work out the way you want it to. We need to refrain from interfering here."

"Oh? Now you want to stop screwing around with the timeline? Look for yourself, Clockwork. This needs to be fixed." The Observants waved towards the portal in front of them.

"Oh, I'm looking. I see a situation with multiple widely-varying possibilities with extensive consequences. Besides being dangerous on its own, it's practically a beacon for time-travelers."

"Afraid you'd lose them again?" They asked, an edge to their tone.

Clockwork grit his teeth and stared down the Observants. "No, I'm afraid of contaminating an already volatile event without sufficient reason. Your plan could work, I'll grant you that—"

"Then why n—!?"

"But," Clockwork continued, shouting over them, "The situation could just as likely turn in our favor on its own, and there is a significant possibility that our interference could make matters worse."

"But we can see that it won't!" they screeched.

"And it's an established fact—no matter how you might deny it—that I can see more possibilities than you can." Clockwork countered.

"'Established' nothing," they snapped. "You just want to trick us into going along with whatever you want to do."

"I do not! I'm serious about this!" Clockwork gestured sharply. "I refuse to interfere here, and nothing you do can convince me to change my mind."

"Too much progress is on the line!" they insisted. "Too many lives! You must!"

"I will not!" Clockwork gripped tighter to his staff.

"Then—then we'll do it ourselves!"

"You'll make even more of a mess of it than I would!" Clockwork shouted in exasperation.

"It can't be worse than doing nothing!"

Clockwork got closer to them, glaring menacingly. "Don't make me cut off all the portals, because I will."

"You can try."

Clockwork lunged at them, and the Observants dove through a portal. It spiraled shut, and Clockwork raked his hand through the air.

"Fools!" he yelled. "You don't know what you're doing!"

The empty tower didn't answer. The ticking of Clockwork's gears was the only sound.

He dashed around the tower, closing every portal he passed. He reached a dark hallway just in time to see the edge of a robe disappear into a swirling green disc. He growled and tried to dart through, but it dissipated as soon as he touched it.

He flicked his staff around and teleported to a spacious room filled with glass instruments. There were numerous work stations, but every single one was conspicuously empty. One glass disc displayed a live image of himself. He closed his eyes and tensed his shoulders.

Clockwork swung his staff and smashed through a collection of delicate equipment set up on a desk. He tore open a green portal and disappeared into it.

….

"Hey, Clockwork? Can you help me out? I've got this essay due next Friday but the movie I'm supposed to watch is missing from the library. Could you stream it on one of the portals? Clockwork?" Danny Phantom stopped inside the entrance to the tower. "Hello?"

Danny swooped inside. "Are you busy or something? I can come back tomorrow." He flew around, searching high and low. "Hey! Anyone home?" The tower was eerily quiet. Usually there was a billion clocks ticking along. "Clockwork? Hello?"

Danny passed a portal, then backtracked to get a better look at it. The frame was there, but the portal itself was missing. It was just a loop of metal. His eyebrows drew together. He explored further, passing more portal frames, each of them empty.

He landed and walked up to a small clock on a shelf. The hands were still, and it made no noise. Danny leaned away and glanced through the windows. The Ghost Zone swirled and churned as usual, so time was still moving. Danny curled in on himself in mid-air, drawing his hands close and bringing his knees up. "What's going on?" he muttered.

He zipped around, hovering in doorways and looking behind statues and pillars. Nothing seemed out of place or damaged.

He found him at the top of the tower.

It was a small room, the top half of which was all windows, looking over the Ghost Zone. In the middle of the floor stood a portal frame, empty like all the others. Clutching at its base, facedown on the floor, was Clockwork.

Danny unfroze and swooped over. "Dude, are you okay!? What the heck is going on?"

Clockwork didn't move. Even his spectral tail was still. Danny swallowed and reached over to pull at his hood. Clockwork's eyes were dull, and his skin had lost its usual glow. Danny pulled the hood further, eyes wide. The back of his head was a curved glass skull with gears inside.

Danny gasped and dropped the cloth. He stared, then relaxed. He couldn't think of a reason why the gears were a bad thing. Several ghosts he knew were machinery-based. He just hadn't realized Clockwork was one of them. The actual clock in his chest probably should have tipped him off earlier, he reasoned.

He hesitated, then cautiously pulled Clockwork's limp hands from the portal base and flipped him over. The clock in his chest was as still and silent as the rest of the tower. Danny let out a long breath. This was bad.

He cleared his throat. "Hey, uh. Dude. Clockwork." He prodded his face. "You um, gotta wake up or whatever. You're freaking me out." He tapped on the glass in his chest. "This is super weird, dude. Seriously." He thought of the different ways to tell if a human was alive or not, but none of them would work on a ghost. Could ghosts die? Could Clockwork die?

"Hey, sorry if this is a bad idea, but I don't have anything else right now." He found the clasp on the glass case and tugged on it. It was locked.

"Do not tamper with that."

Danny spun around and held his hands up. An Observant floated in front of him. "I didn't do it, I swear. He was like this when I found him."

"Leave."

Danny opened his mouth, then frowned. "Are you gonna fix this?"

"Yes. Leave." The Observant loomed over him.

"Yeah, fine, chill out. I'm going." He stood up and took a long look at Clockwork before flying away.

….

Danny burst through the door. Sam and Tucker ran in behind him.

"Clockwork!" Danny called. "You here?"

"Time dude?" Tucker called, jogging across the expansive floor.

"He might be where you left him," Sam suggested.

"I hope not," Danny said. "Hellooooo!"

"Yes?" Clockwork casually floated down from a doorway on the second-floor level.

Danny gasped and flew a tight circuit around him, inspecting him closely. "You're okay! I was worried man, what happened?" He stopped inches away from Clockwork's face. "You have no idea how relieved I am right now. God, I'm glad you're alright."

"Yeah, honestly," Tucker chimed in. "You're kind of important. Freaked us out, man."

"I told you he'd be fine," Sam said, but she glanced him over too.

Clockwork had gone tense. He stared Danny down, his eyebrows creased and his mouth set in a frown. "What are you talking about?" he asked in a low tone.

Danny backed off and tilted his head. "Yesterday?"

Clockwork's expression shifted. "Go on."

Danny glanced at his friends before continuing. "I came by yesterday, and I couldn't find you, and then I did, and you were, like—I don't know!—you looked awful, like you'd died again or something. It was creepy. You don't—know?"

"Ah." Clockwork tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. A wry smirk tugged at his lips. "Interesting."

"Hey, uhh, you want to tell us what happened?" Tucker suggested.

Clockwork frowned at him. "Not particularly. I don't really care to leave you worrying about matters that have nothing to do with you."

Danny floated between Tucker and Sam. He huffed and put his hands on his hips. "If we don't know what's going on, we can't help you out." He pointed at Clockwork. "And don't say it's none of our business. You're responsible for preventing Evil Phantom from happening, and you're the reason all of us are alive right now."

"We've got a vested interest in your wellbeing," Sam deadpanned.

Clockwork spun his staff in one hand, carving a slow arc through the air. "I don't need help," he said slowly. "But I can explain the basic situation, if it'll convince you that you have nothing to be concerned about."

Sam raised an eyebrow. Tucker gestured at him to continue.

He shifted to his oldest form. "It's quite simple, really. Every once in a while, a clock runs down and needs to be wound up again."

Sam squinted. Danny frowned. Tucker blinked. "But, you're a ghost. I realize you've got this whole clock aesthetic going on, but you can't expect us to believe that you actually run on—well—clockwork."

"His clock was stopped," Danny reminded him quietly.

"But we know that ghosts have a base energy level," Sam explained, more to Danny and Tucker than to Clockwork. "Technus doesn't need electricity to do average ghost stuff like fly, he just needs it for extra powers. Same with Ember, or the Lunch Lady. They can all at least exist just fine without outside power sources." She looked up at Clockwork. "Whatever's going on, it's more serious than just getting run down."

She tilted her chin up. "Try a different story," she challenged.

Clockwork rolled his eyes and shifted to his youngest form. "Not every ghost works on the same exact principles," he groused. "Alright, so an outside force acted upon me and caused the condition you found me in. You couldn't have stopped it from happening, so stop worrying about it."

Sam threw her hands up. "Then tell us what it was! It couldn't hurt just to tell us what happened, could it?"

Clockwork hesitated. "It could," he corrected. "It might," he repeated, seemingly to himself.

His shoulders slumped. "Oh, fine. This has got to be more interesting than the alternative, anyhow." He floated down to eye level with his visitors. "I'd make you guess, but that would take forever. Let's just say..." He waved his staff absently. "There's a curse-like force that obligates me to take orders from someone, and when I refuse, I'm shut down for a time."

Danny straightened. "This has happened before?"

Sam gaped. "You take orders!?"

"From who?" Tucker added.

"Numerous times; begrudgingly, yes; and who do you think?"

"Thought you weren't gonna make us guess!" Tucker complained.

"Is it—" Danny began, eyes wide.

"No, it's not Plasmius," Clockwork cut him off with a wave of his hand.

Danny let out a huge sigh.

Sam put her fist to her chin and frowned thoughtfully. "Not Pariah Dark or Fright Knight?"

Clockwork snorted. "No."

Tucker spread his hands out. "Anyone Danny fights on the regular?"

"No."

"Frostbite?" Danny offered skeptically.

"Nope."

Sam shook her head. "Who else is there?"

"Hang on," Tucker said. He pulled out his phone and started scrolling through notes. "Not the Dairy King... Uhh... Oh. The Observants?"

"Yep."

Danny tilted his head. "Aren't they like, ghost government or something?"

"Not exactly," Clockwork said. He switched to his adult form. "They make decisions about what they think is best for the Ghost Zone, and they act so infrequently that nobody really bothers to question or stop them."

"So—okay, but—you said they cursed you to obey them or something?" Sam looked intrigued.

"'Or something,' but yes. It's very annoying."

"When did it happen?" Tucker was typing new notes in his phone.

"Technically, it happened at the very beginning of time."

Tucker gave him an irritated look, then shook his head. "Whatever. Not like an actual year would be helpful or anything."

"It really wouldn't," Clockwork said. He spun his staff around. "That's about it. It's not a curse that you or I could break, so you might as well forget about it."

"Sure, sure," Danny said, brows furrowed in thought. "How's it work again? You disobey orders and they zap you?"

"No, they just let me wind down and leave me for a while. I wasn't kidding about running on clockwork."

"They put you in—" Sam snickered. "They put you in time-out?"

Tucker tried to disguise a laugh as a cough.

Clockwork raised an eyebrow and fiddled with his staff. "If time-out involves being trapped in one's own body, unable to move, sense, speak, or rest for days or weeks at a time; then yes." He turned his attention back to them, and his tone iced over. "They put me in time-out."

Sam and Tucker both looked sheepishly at the floor. Danny grimaced and wrung his hands together. "H-How'd you get cursed?"

"It was a 'misunderstanding,'" Clockwork said, enunciating every syllable. "We had to set up an arrangement quickly, and we did, but the Observants took more than they were due." His tail flicked. "Specifically, my autonomy. In perpetuity."

Danny glanced at Sam.

"Means forever," she muttered.

The three of them simmered in frustration, concern, and confusion.

Tucker straightened up, eyes bright, and then slouched again. "Suppose you've already tried time travel, huh?"

Clockwork tilted his head. "Sort of. I tried to find a way to go back that wouldn't cause a paradox, but there simply isn't one. Besides, the existence of time itself was still in flux. I can't manipulate what happened in the instance that contained the events in question."

He saw their baffled faces and continued. "It's really not worth explaining. The point is, it definitely can't be fixed that way."

Danny ran a hand through his hair. "There isn't anything we can do? I mean, I don't know; maybe if we talked to the Observants, we could convince..." He looked up and trailed off.

Clockwork was shaking his head firmly. "No. Do not waste your time talking to them. Nothing will convince them to nullify or change our agreement. There is nothing you can do."

He sighed and gave them a halfhearted smile. "Go home. Don't worry about it. I'm all wound up again, I'm not going to collapse any time soon; I'm fine."

Danny grumbled, unconvinced. Sam got the same glint in her eyes that she got when she was defending the rights of frogs destined for dissection. Tucker shook his head minutely and squared his shoulders.

Danny reluctantly turned around and motioned for Sam and Tucker to follow. Clockwork watched them go. Danny poked his head back through the door before closing it. "I'm going to do something about this," he declared.

Clockwork didn't answer.

The door swung shut.

Clockwork took a few minutes to think as he returned to his work, setting up portals he'd had to close two weeks ago. "This will very likely end in obliteration on multiple levels," he noted to himself, "but it will certainly be entertaining."