I don't own Danny Phantom or Emily Dickinson... because that's weird.

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all."

-Emily Dickinson

It is very, very strange, what a single revelation can change in huge amounts in one's life while keeping everything the intact and strangely similar at the same time. Scaeth is Daniel; Daniel is Scaeth. This is the new eye-opener, still shocking and infantile in its familiarity. But at the same time… It is a recognizable idea, that Daniel Fenton is masquerading as someone different.

But that does not mean that breakfast the next morning was not awkward.

The motherly cook, Nomis, with two portions of steaming, homemade waffles in hand, scurried around the murky silence, thick with the question of what to do next. Her kind, motherly face smiled down at the young half ghost and handed Daniel a generous mug full of hot chocolate topped with gently whipped cream and a dusting of chocolate sprinkles.

The he returned her smile with a small murmur of, "Thanks," and she and her silent assistant tread lightly into the next room, leaving the two halfas alone.

Both dug into their food like birds, tentatively picking at the pile of waffles to compensate for the lack of conversation. But even as Daniel ate in the painfully quiet kitchen, the billionaire could see his mind wander. Cracks behind the teen's strong façade had been appearing since Scaeth arrived, but now the emotion was all behind the eyes. All behind the iced eyes that were a few shades colder and brighter than Daniel's cerulean eyes that he knew so well.

Hmm… Vlad sensed small talk!

"Your eyes," he started, "have they changed color from their original hue? I don't quite remember them being so… bright."

The young halfa snorted with amusement at the horribly forced attempt at conversation, but he humored the man all the same. "It's from a herb poultice that Clockwork made when after I ended up on his doorstep. It, along with Clockwork's natural healing talents, kept me alive and the blue is a side-effect. It turned all of my blood blue as well."

"Oh," Vlad replied conversationally, "I thought it would have been from your ice core, but I suppose that makes a little more sense. Do you know which herbs he used?"

"Never asked."

Vlad nodded, feeling the half formed conversation take a knife to the gut. The awkward silence was back again.

He watched as Daniel swirled the syrup around his waffles a few times and sipped at his rapidly cooling hot chocolate. The boy picked at his food and seemed deep in thought for a moment until he abruptly set his fork down and sighed.

"All right, we need to stop wasting time," Daniel shook his head and turned his full attention to the billionaire. The younger man's eyes were intense, bordering on a glare as he spoke. "There's something deeper here, something I hoped you would never need to understand."

Vlad ruffled. This sounded like a speech one would give to an ignorant child, knowing nothing about the cruelty of the world. He almost interrupted, but stopped himself as Daniel continued.

"But Vlad, I want you to stay out of it."

In an instant, the self control was gone and the elder halfa interjected. "Daniel-" But the teen would not let him finish.

Cutting him off, Daniel persisted. "I want you to stay out of this so badly, but I know it isn't possible anymore." He ran a slightly shaky hand through his raven locks. "The Head Ancient got you involved the moment he sent me here.

"And you said that you would help me, so I'm asking for it." There was quickening of his voice as he went on. "I have no plan, but I need to figure out what is going on in the Ghost Zone. It's dying; I can feel it."

Skepticism shot up the billionaire's spine. A world does not simply die off. Where was Daniel getting this from? Voicing his concerns, the older man got a quick response back.

"It's unbalanced without a Time Master; events are happening that shouldn't and people are dying that shouldn't." A shudder seemed to wrack the younger halfa as he spoke now. He looked like a child that was recounting a ghost story. "The Head Ancient did something... I don't know what, but... ghosts are suffering, fading."

Grief came up from behind Daniel's glowing eyes as they watered slightly. A lost look fell over his countenance as he whispered, "And I need to find out what it is."

"Perhaps he released some creature, an invasive species." Vlad piped in, hoping for a spark of something in the child's eyes. Instead another shudder ran through his body.

Daniel bit his lip and rubbed the back of his neck in thought. "The only creatures I can think of," he started, "are... Nevermind."

He trailed off; a sickened look festered on his face that morphed into unadulterated horror. "Oh my God…They have the staff," Daniel muttered and brought his head to rest in his palms. "That idiot let them out… Oh God…"

Worry trickled into Vlad's stomach as butterflies took flight at the terror on the young man's face. Daniel shuddered and shook with what Vlad assumed to be fear until the halfa looked up with a furiously red face. He smashed a fist to the table before growling, "How dare they?"

Tentatively, the elder man looked into the youth's angry eyes and asked, "What?"

Grasping the table with white knuckles, Daniel rambled through gritted teeth. "Death, plague, curse. They are the last resort of the Time Keeper."

The young Apprentice scowled as he continued. "They purge when turmoil and apocalypse wipes everything good in the world out. They are given a task and they won't stop until it's done. The last time they were used, there were dinosaurs. I've seen it. A meteor didn't wipe out an entire biosphere; They did… on the order of the first Time Master. But the Head Ancient can't be using them... it's suicide!"

SMASH!

Daniel was already in the air as he snapped the hood of his cloak up. Leaping across the table, he knocked the elder man out of his chair and sent them rolling on the floor. Surprise bubbled out of Vlad as he jumped to his feet, rings spreading up and down his body to reveal Vlad Plasmius as he fell into a defensive stance. Charging his fists with a tinted red ectoplasm, Plasmius stepped forward, ready to fight, but it was not needed.

The cloaked half ghost had already shot over to the figure on top of the very thoroughly smashed table and hoisted him up. A grin plastered onto the young one's face as he helped the intruding ghost to his feet.

"Hello Skulker."

A slither of unrest slipped down the young apprentice's spine as he looked at the armored ghost getting up from the broken dining table with fatigued limbs. A crazed look shot across Skulker's countenance as he got to his feet, until he saw the cloaked figure next to Vlad a froze.

"Time Apprentice?" He breathed, astonishment bleeding through the cold tone of his echoing voice. The metal ghost grasped a nearby counter top and gripped it like a dead man to thin fibers of life. If he were alive, Danny would have expected him to pale.

A fondness slid into the teen's beaten heart as he took a step to stand next to the hunter. A small smile rose to Danny's eyes and for a moment... he was the Demon of Shadows, Clockwork's Apprentice, once more.

"Hello Skulker," the young halfa greeted softly, joy swelling up in his gut.

The robotic ghost grasped the counter with more strength as he muttered, "You're alive."

"Why would I be dead? You saw me being paraded around the Zone like everyone else."

Skulker said nothing, but solemnly held out a dusty pocket watch with a brilliant full moon shining with pride on the front. He opened the clasp on the front and open popped a watch with a shattered screen. A look of shock passed over him as the familiarity did. The watch... It was the one he gave to the little girl... Danny took it into his pallid palm a sense of dread filling his being-

"Ah!" The halfa jolted as a shot of pain shot through his fingertips not unlike an electric shock. The pocket watch fell to the floor and cracked like a broken neck. Vlad, who had been skulking behind the teenager, jumped next to him, kicking the watch across the floor of the kitchen with his leather shoes as he did.

"I'm all right," Danny assured the pair, gripping his trembling wrist with his other hand. But he was not all right. A sickly green circle had formed on his flesh, burning with a vengeance as a sense of evil and disease permeated his heart that was only countered by the firm hand of the elder halfa on his shoulder.

"They're hunting." The Apprentice remarked as he met Skulker's red eyes with his own fearless blue. It wasn't a question, a mere fact stated, but from the corner of his eye Danny saw a fire light in Vlad's eyes and his grip tightened.

Skulker nodded, a morose gleam inhabiting his movements.

The air was silent for a moment as the young apprentice stared at the tainted watch across the room. The air shuddered with Danny's flat voice. "The little girl," he demanded, "that I gave that to...?"

"Gone. Dead."

A shadow curled around Danny's fist as he listened. Fury echoed off of him like a boisterous voice in a cave, but Danny restrained himself when he saw Vlad' s eyes widen as the shadow menacingly encircling his fist.

"Everyone is in hiding?" He asked with a sharp point to his words, trying to ignore Vlad who had been trying to interject into the conversation. He was practically bouncing where he stood.

Skulker answered, a slight waver in his baritone words. "Yes... or dead."

"Then this is the Second Purge," the Apprentice stated, his eyes glazed over with a stoic lense. Anger was behind, but the need for information kept him in check. "What plague did this idiot release upon the world?"

And it only took a single word to create quite a few effects.

"The Scoahs."

It was one word.

Danny paled and stumbled back, only remaining upright because of the hand on his shoulder. Panic flooded the teen's synapses and adrenaline caught in his throat. It couldn't be. The Ancients weren't that idiotic! His posture deflated and the lithe figure trembled. Hyperventilating a little, Danny shuddered and said with a petrified, hysterical laugh, "Well, I suppose you are joining me in exile, then. There's no way you're going back in the Zone, not with them hunting."

"What in the name of the Packers is a Scoah? And what exactly are they hunting?" Vlad piped up hastily, unaccustomed to not being the center of the conversation. Danny turned to his former enemy with a grimace plastered onto his face. Dread filled the soft,barely noticeable lines in the young halfa's visage as a weariness flooded over the arctic eyes.

Danny gazed into the navy eyes of the elder halfa and sighed.

"Scoahs," he began, "are the bleach of the universe. They take orders. They find their target. But most of all...

"They feed."

FLASHBACK: Time Realm

"But what if I mess up?"

Clockwork looked at his half ghost charge with a smile. The teen had been hobbling around the tower for a month now, eager to learn, but still healing. Every once in awhile a small wince would escape the child's lips and Clockwork was reminded of the scarlet gashes emblazoned on his chest that were mending quickly, but painfully. Not that this stopped the young one, of course. Danny followed him as a baby hawk would follow the mother to learn to fly, but there was always an element of anxiety. The Time Master could see it. His apprentice was eager to please, in fact, Danny needed that emotional security. He needed to know that Clockwork still cares for him.

"You will not "mess up", as you say, Danny," the Time Ghost's smile did not fade as he continued, "Besides, you have been my apprentice for only a few weeks, fledgling, and you have not exactly been in prime condition. It will come with time."

"With time... Punny, Clockwork. Very punny," A lopsided half smile painted over the young halfa's worn visage. He looked to the Time Master with flawless emerald eyes and the smirk grew.

Clockwork watched as Danny's jovial mood persist through the fidgeting bandages. The grin hit his eyes this time as he quipped, "Do I at least get a reset button?"

The Time Master stopped for three twentieths second and a douse of seriousness came over him. Hmm... Sensing a teachable moment, he gestured for his apprentice to follow. As they floated down the tower stairs, Clockwork explained.

"Well," he began, "in a way, there is a reset. However, there is no reset to the reset."

"What do you mean?" The teen's eyes comically grew a size in confusion, to which Clockwork only chuckled. The duo descended farther until to the right of the spiral staircase stood a door with a scarlet letter "A" emblazoned on the wood work.

Clockwork felt the familiar, but still sickening chill run down his spine and to he saw his apprentice shiver. Wrapping an arm lightly around Danny's shoulders, the Time Master gave his shoulder a small squeeze of reassurance before tapping the door with his staff. The door glowed an iridescent red before a glass pane appeared in the middle of the door, revealing the contents of the room.

Inside the large room was pitch black with an eerie crimson glow emanating from the walls of the chamber. Clockwork watched as Danny strained his eyes to see the creatures inside. It took the young one a few moments before a soft, "oh" left his lips with a gasp.

The cloth-like creatures floated ominously around one another, twirling aimlessly until all at once, they turned to face the door. As they turned, a glowing, bloodshot red eye pulsed with intense hunger in the center of the drifting textile specters.

Clockwork watched as his lithe Apprentice starred, fixed on the single gaze of the Scoah closest to them. Danny's breathing quickened as he was immersed in the gaze, seeing something that even his mentor could not. The boy trembled and shook in Clockwork's arms and paled before the Time Master led the teen away with the arm around the youth's shoulders.

"W-w-what are they?" Danny gasped as he weakly gripped the arm enveloping him. Clockwork did not answer him at first, but instead took them quickly back up the stairs to the young man's room where he laid the child on the well worn armchair. They were both quiet for a few moments before the elder specter began to speak with a soft murmur.

"They are Scoahs," Clockwork grimaced at the name. "They are the last resort. That is your reset button; however, I caution you not to use it, for these creatures kill all when released. You would not survive the release of the Scoahs and I fear that your soul could not take on the fault of that much death.

"You see, my boy," the Time Master carded his hand gently through the pallid teen's raven locks, "even if catastrophe occurs, you will always have the option, no matter how awful that option is. But you will not need it, my child."

Danny looked doubtfully up at his mentor from the midnight bedspread. With desperation he asked, "But how do you know?"

Clockwork smiled back at the young man. It was a soft, fatherly smile, one that the Time Master could tell reassured the teen. "I just do." He said, "I do not need to see the future to know this. I have faith in you, my apprentice.

"You just need to have faith in yourself."

Well... there goes my attempt at a schedule. Sorry guys...again. It's summer, so I'll try to be better.

Please review. They do keep me going. I would've quit a long time ago without you guys. Thanks so much! But please let me know your thoughts on this chapter and where you think it's going.

Thanks again,

kirby