This is my first Danny Phantom fic, I hope you guys enjoy!

Some background info for this fic: This fic takes place after PP, Danny and Sam are back to just being friends (this will be explained as the fic goes on, I don't hate Danny x Sam but I like Danny x Ember more). Also, Clockwork has accepted Danny as a student and is teaching him how to overcome his weaknesses and learn new abilities.

DISCLAIMER: I'm only going to say this one time. I do not own Danny Phantom, it and its characters belong ENTIRELY to Butch Hartman.

The Phantom Hero's Realm

Chapter 1 – The Time Master's Gift

The Ghost Zone, Clockwork's Tower

Clockwork smiled as he watched a familiar white and black figure streak through the Ghost Zone on his monitor. It had been several months since he had saved the Earth from the Disasteroid and had been globally hailed as a hero on Earth, several months since Danny Phantom had finally been given the praise that he deserved. Even now, the halfa he had grown to care for as a mentor and friend was on his way by the Time Master's own request. It was time to give Danny the reward he deserved for selflessly dedicating his life to protecting not just Amity Park and the Earth, but also a world that was filled with enemies who tried to attack him on a daily basis.

"Bah," a sinister voice growled from behind him. "Don't tell me my weaker half is coming here again!"

"That is exactly what he is doing," Clockwork snapped at the evil alternate reality version of Danny, the dreaded Dan Phantom of a future that could no longer occur. Clockwork would have kept Dan in the thermos for much longer, but his visions of the future had revealed to him that things would turn out much better for everyone, surprisingly including Dan himself, if he released him early.

Dan's response to being freed from the thermos had been as predictable as it had been violent; he had lunged at Clockwork, trying to overpower and destroy the ghost who had dared to ruin the future he had created and keep him imprisoned. The evil hybrid of Phantom and Plasmius had assumed that because he existed outside of time, he would be immune to Clockwork's time powers and therefore the time ghost would be unable to use his main weapon against him.

It was unfortunate for Dan that Clockwork had been concealing far more powers than just those related to chronokinesis. The Master of Time had revealed a hidden merciless side during their "battle" that even Dan had been stunned at, delivering one of the most devastating and one-sided beatdowns the Dark Phantom had ever experienced during his entire existence.

"Did you truly think that I would have set you free if I was not capable of utterly controlling you or wiping you out of existence for all eternity?" Clockwork had all but snarled after hurling the badly wounded Dark Phantom onto the hard floor of the tower. "The only reason you still have a presence in this world is because I allow it to be so, and be assured that this can be easily rectified!"

As much as he hated Clockwork's guts, Dan had to respect the elder ghost's sheer power and unexpected ruthlessness. With his very existence on the line, he had no choice but to concede to the Master of Time's will. A large tower as a prison was much better than the cramped thermos, after all, and Clockwork did allow Dan to occasionally carry out errands into the Ghost Zone so long as he avoided violent confrontations with other ghosts, an order which Dan obeyed purely out of self-preservation.

"Hey Clockwork," a voice yelled out from the entrance to the tower. "Are you there? I came like you wanted!"

"Yes, come in Danny!" Clockwork called back. He smiled as his student floated into his tower, looking slightly flushed and out of breath.

"Sorry I'm so late," Danny apologized. "My parents made me a new Ecto-Skeleton suit and they wanted to show it off to me." He laughed. "Can you believe it? An improved Ecto-Skeleton that doesn't drain your life force!"

From behind them, Dan grinned and chuckled darkly. "A new toy to play with when I get my hands on it?" he muttered. "How very interesting…"

"Don't even bother!" Danny glowered at his evil counterpart. "After I told my parents about you, they redesigned it so that it only recognizes my ectoplasmic core and DNA signature. If you tried to use it you'd just get blasted by its anti-theft mechanisms since you're a combination of my ghost half and Plasmius. I still don't even know why Clockwork let you free in the first place!"

"All in good time," his mentor responded calmly, ignoring the string of angry curses from Dan at the realization that the supposed idiots he once called his parents had actually outsmarted him. "Danny, do you know why I called you here today?"

Danny shrugged. "I don't have a clue," he admitted. "I just thought that it was because you wanted to show me something important for our training…or an impending disaster that I'm going to have to save the world from. Again."

Clockwork smirked. "Though this may come as a great shock to you given the events of your life up to now," he responded wryly, "I am happy to tell you that this is actually good news for a change. Danny, I've convened with the Observants and the Ghost Elders, and we've agreed to give you a special honor as a reward for saving our worlds many times from destruction. Even if one of those times was technically your fault to begin with," he gestured towards Dan, who growled but said nothing. "We will have to depart from my tower to show you my gift."

Danny looked at his mentor quizzically. "And you're actually leaving Dan here by himself? Doesn't that scream 'bad idea'?"

"If he starts causing problems, he ceases to exist. End of story."

"Wow," his student whistled. "I didn't know you could be so vicious."

"Time can be cruel and time can be kind," Clockwork replied with a cold smile as the two of them departed from the tower.

The Ghost Zone

As Danny accompanied Clockwork to whatever his master wanted to show him, he could see that they were beginning to enter more familiar territory where he would be much more likely to encounter one of his enemies. "Uh…Clockwork…?" he asked. "Aren't you at least a little concerned about us getting attacked?"

"The ghosts here already feared invoking my wrath before my battle with your evil self," he said reassuringly. "And as for afterwards…" his eyes narrowed. "Let's just say that news travels quickly in the Ghost Zone."

Danny made a mental note never to make an enemy of the ghost of time as the two continued on their journey, occasionally exchanging small talk but otherwise making the journey in relative silence. It wasn't until a few minutes later that they came upon a gigantic but empty floating island, about the same size as Skulker's without any landmarks or features.

"Clockwork? What…exactly…am I looking at?"

His master smiled at him. "Remember the reward I was speaking about earlier? You're looking at it, Danny. You've been granted your own realm and domain in the Ghost Zone, and a very large territory at that."

"My own…my….my…my own…" he spluttered, his mind going haywire as he tried to process what had just happened within the last few seconds.

"Once you get over the shock that this news has just given you, you are going to ask me why your new island looks so empty. I assume that this is correct?"

"You really needed to ask?" Danny raised an eyebrow.

Clockwork chuckled. "The reason why this island is empty right now is because the nature of your new realm is based entirely on your own will, Danny, and how you wish to shape it. Because you have not yet directed your attention and focus to creating your domain, it has remained as empty land. Now that you are aware of your new territory, you can transform it into whatever form you deem fit. That is something for you and you alone to determine."

"Wow…" Danny muttered. "I'm going to need some time to think about this…"

"If you want I can literally give you as much time as you need," Clockwork offered, and they both smirked at his joke.

"Can I ask you something, Clockwork?" Danny suddenly asked. "It doesn't have anything to do with this new realm of mine, but I figured it's worth asking anyway. Why haven't there been a lot of ghosts coming after me lately? I pretty much begged my parents to repair the Ghost Portal so I could travel between Earth and the Ghost Zone more freely, but you'd think that plenty of my old enemies would come back, mess around with Amity Park, and carry on with the same old same old. Do you know something about this?"

The Master of Time was about to answer when suddenly a beam of ecto-energy and several missiles blasted toward Danny. The halfa instinctively erected a shield around himself, blocking the attacks and sending the projectiles flying harmlessly away. "Oh, great…" Danny groaned. "I just had to open my mouth…"

"Whelp!" an all-too-familiar voice yelled. "You know what it's time for! Now that you have foolishly decided to enter the Ghost Zone on your own, it will be all the easier for me to mount your pelt on my wall before the day is through!"

"I don't need you wasting my time and ruining my day right now, Skulker!" Danny shouted back. "I've got more important things to deal with! And besides, who says I'm alone?" the halfa suddenly grinned and crossed his arms, pointing at Clockwork, "I happen to have a friend here who wouldn't be very happy if you went through with your hunt."

Skulker's eyes shifted towards the ghost who Danny was pointing at…and instantly his ectoplasm went cold with fear. It was nigh impossible to keep secrets in the Ghost Zone, and despite the Observants' efforts to conceal the knowledge of the ruined future, he and several other ghosts had heard all about Dan Phantom, the atrocities he'd committed in his corrupted future, and his brutal defeat at the hands of the Time Master.

A Time Master who, at the moment, was glaring at him menacingly with narrowed eyes, daring him to attack his student.

Overwhelmed with a sudden urge to get the hell out of there as soon as possible, Skulker pressed the "Eject" button in his armor and his tiny true form blasted outward, flying all the way back to his island. He did NOT plan on staying around two of the most powerful ghosts in the Ghost Zone by himself.

"Wow," Danny whistled as Skulker disappeared into the distance, "I need to start hanging around you more often."

"Since your summer vacation has started and your parents will not be travelling anywhere, that can easily be arranged," Clockwork replied with a smile. "But in the meantime, Daniel…think about what you want to do with your realm. It can be simply your second home in the Ghost Zone, or it can be a place where many ghosts can interact freely with you or each other. And while I do know what your choice will be, that choice is entirely your own to make and I will not force anything upon you."

Danny looked again at the vast, empty land that he could now call his own. So many possibilities, so many options! He shifted his gaze away from his island and towards the Ghost Zone at large. He knew quite a few of the realms of the other ghosts by now, having travelled through the dimension of the undead multiple times. But there was something he'd always thought was missing, something that he'd seen only once during the annual Christmas truce…

"The ghosts here…" he said slowly. "Do they have any place to….you know, hang around? Kick back and relax? Because now that I think about it, I feel like the reason why ghosts keep invading my hometown is because this place feels so, so…"

"Empty?" Clockwork supplied. "Boring? The Ghost Zone has always been a fairly isolationist place, Danny, at least where interactions among ghosts are concerned. Most ghosts stick to their own realms without interacting with others except in times where unity is necessary or desired, such as the battle against Pariah Dark, the saving of the planet from what Earth calls the Disasteroid, and the Christmas Truce. It is not something that everyone necessarily agrees with, but it is just the intrinsic nature of Ghost Zone society."

As his mentor finished speaking, Danny's mind flashed back to several of the ghosts he had met and fought with. His mind drifted to ghosts who he considered more as aggressive rivals instead of legitimately evil villains: Johnny 13, Kitty, Youngblood, even Ember after he had paid closer attention to the lyrics of "Remember"…from what he had gathered from their personalities none of them would be very satisfied with sitting around in the Ghost Zone doing nothing all day…could part of the reason why they invaded Amity Park be because they were just too bored to do anything else? Were some of them outright lonely with their lives here?

Suddenly, an idea crept into his mind. What if he turned his realm into a place where the ghosts could come together to just have fun, no plans for destruction or world domination involved? It wasn't like he needed this entire place entirely to himself; no matter how much he enjoyed being a ghost and wandering the Ghost Zone, Danny would always put his human life over his ghost life until the day he died. And if the ghosts were busy enjoying themselves, they wouldn't be coming over to Amity Park and ruining everyone's day. They get to have fun for a change, Amity Park becomes safer, and Danny himself could live his life without having to deal with ghost attacks 24/7.

"It appears you have a plan in mind, Danny. Would you care to share it?"

Danny grinned. If this worked out, everyone, ghost and human alike, would be a winner. "Clockwork, you know everything, right? What would the Ghost Zone be like if it suddenly had a public bar, a park, and a dueling arena?"

/

Danny certainly likes to think big, doesn't he? But making his new realm in the Ghost Zone the way he wants certainly won't be easy to accomplish without a little help…

I hope my characters weren't drastically OOC or otherwise had any glaring faults. Except for maybe Clockwork since I always imagined he had a badass, ruthless side that he rarely displays unless he gets really pissed. Especially considering how often he flips the Observants off.

Read and review please!