Shadows of the Past

A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Quill N. Inque

I do not own Danny Phantom.

"Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it."-Anonymous

Chapter 1: Time Warp

(A/N: Let me just set a few things straight right from the get-go, 'kay? One: Danny WILL have his powers in this fic, but their use will be minimal. This is partly due to the fact that this story centers on Danny Fenton rather than his super-hero counterpart. Second, historical versions of the DP cast WILL be making an appearance, as well as a few real-life Revolutionary generals and other folks. Lastly, Danny is sixteen in this story. And, in case you're wondering, this fic is NOT a continuity of any of my other DP fics.)

Prologue

Casper High School, one hour ago…

Danny Fenton tried to keep his eyes glazing over as he slumped at his desk, his pencil and paper lying abandoned by his elbow. The classroom, heavy with the smell of old books and chalk dust, seemed to make the boy's senses swim as he struggled valiantly to keep himself awake in the face of yet another one of Mr. Lancer's mind-numbingly boring lectures.

Lancer's teachings were lost upon Danny as the venerable educator scribbled notes on the chalkboard. "…Thus, when General Howe captured New York City, Washington took his army and, under the cover of darkness, snuck across the border and into New Jersey."

The teacher turned around, annoyance on his features as he spotted Danny dozing semi-consciously at his desk. "Mr. Fenton," he said grimly, "Perhaps you would care to elaborate on why Washington chose to make his encampment there. Since you've obviously been paying so much attention, it shouldn't be a problem."

The fact that Lancer was zeroing in on Danny caused his head to snap up. "Uh…"

A rare glimpse of weariness crossed Lancer's face. "Just once, Mr. Fenton, would it be so difficult for you to actually get involved with what I'm trying to teach the class?"

It'd be easy if it weren't so boring,Danny thought silently, but he made no audible reply to Lancer's inquiry. What's the point of learning about stuff that happened two hundred years ago, anyway? Besides, this stuff is so BORING!

"See me after class, Mr. Fenton," Lancer glared at him before turning back to the chalkboard. "You and I need to have a few words."

If only it were just a few, Danny muttered to himself. But knowing long-winded Lancer, I bet he'll keep me here for at least an hour!

I hate history, he concluded bitterly. It's just a bunch of stupid dates and places…

"Time…out."

At the sound of a familiar voice, everything suddenly stopped.

Lancer's mouth paused in mid-lecture, his hand still half-raised. The birds left off in the midst of their singing, the leaves stopped blowing as the wind came to a halt, and the entire Earth seemed to stand still all at the push of a button.

Danny, now completely alert, bolted upright in his desk as Clockwork, the Master of Time, materialized not a few feet from the boy's chair. Danny began to smile at the sight of his friend, but the expression faded as he saw the angry look that Clockwork directed his way.

The powerful entity shook his head sadly, his body reverting from an old man's to a toddler's in the space of a second. "You disappoint me, Danny."

"Clockwork?" the boy asked confusedly. "What are you doing here?"

"You forget that I see everything that was, is, and is to be," Clockwork intoned, growing wrathful. "And my heart aches to see the ignorance you have just demonstrated. Even after your confrontation with your evil future self and having to alter the flow of the timestream to avert his creation, you still fail to grasp the fundamental principle of what I have been trying to help you learn all along."

"And that would be…?" Danny couldn't help be curious.

"That the past, present, and future all are intertwined," the ghost replied harshly, making Danny flinch. "Each one affects the others, and none can exist without each other's influence! I was there when your forefathers bled and died to give you the things you take for granted! I was there when your ancestors risked everything for their posterity, and the way you brush it all off makes me sick."

Clockwork raised his staff and thrust it downward, slamming it against the floor and sending a shockwave of green energy in all directions. An eerie-looking, swirling portal of green miasma opened just behind Danny's desk, and its pull began tugging on the boy's clothes as the Master of Time's voice rose to a crescendo.

"Since you think the work of those men was so easy, you shall bear an equal portion of their unimaginable burden. You will partake in every hardship and experience every deprivation, to suffer as your ancestors suffered! Danny Fenton, you shall pay the price for your apathy, and it shall be great indeed, for I banish you into the days of yore that you have so easily forgotten! There you shall stay, and only when you truly realize your error shall I allow you to return!"

Clockwork kicked Danny's seat out from under him, and the boy cried out in panic as the portal sucked him like soda through a straw.

Blackness claimed him.

Now…

Danny opened his eyes blearily, his fingers twitching as his consciousness began to return to him. He groaned to himself and tried to get into a sitting position-

Something coarse and fiber-like moved under his fingers, and he realized that he had landed in a considerable amount of straw. Danny blinked in confusion as he began to stand, but no sooner had the boy struggled to his feet than an angry voice reached his ears.

"Hoi! You!" A furious-looking man with a pitchfork in his grasp started running toward him. "Does my haycart look like an inn? Get outta there, now, before I call the watchman!"

Danny suddenly noticed, then, that he had indeed found himself in some kind of horse-drawn vehicle, and he put up his arms in a placating gesture as he hastened to comply. "Sorry," he said, trying to stay out of reach from the pitchfork's tines. "It won't happen again."

"Damn right, it won't!" the farmer snarled. "Now be off with ye, boy, an' go an' plague someone else!"

What a jerk, Danny thought as he stepped into the street. It's not like I meant to land there or anything.

His footsteps stopped abruptly as Danny began to notice his surroundings. What the…?

It was immediately apparent to the Dorothy of this tale that he was not in Kansas anymore.

The first thing that came to mind is that the whole place looked like some sort of re-enactment. The streets were not paved with asphalt or concrete, but rather lined with square-cut cobblestones that clattered under the wheels of the carriages as they passed by. There were none of the familiar criss-crossing telephone wires dangling overhead, nor did the red and green stoplights dangle over the intersections. There were no lamps by the sidewalk, no mailboxes, no cars, nor any of the other things Danny was accustomed to.

The buildings seemed antiquated as well. Built of either wood or brick, their roofs were made of thin slides of slate or, for the less well-off, thatched with straw. None of the residential houses exceeded more than one story; in fact, it would have been more accurate to call some of them cottages instead. And the places of business, too, seemed…old, for lack of a better term. Instead of displaying their wares in neon signs and lights, the only denotation of what was being bought or sold was a small wooden sign painted with a name and some kind of crude picture. It was obvious that Danny was in some kind of city, but its size seemed miniscule compared to the super-metropolises he'd grown used to.

The people here seemed just as foreign to Danny. Dapper-looking gentlemen, young and old, strutted about with feather-lined tricorne hats and elaborate waistcoats, their legs clad in white or stockings with black, silver-buckled shoes on their feet. Many carried a cane or walking stick topped by a bulbous gold-tipped head, and they bid a good day to the ladies with a nod and a tip of their ridiculous-looking headgear.

The women, too, dressed strangely. Any who happened to be out and about today carried an assortment of elaborate-looking umbrellas even though it wasn't raining, and their faces were done out in white powder and rouge. Their long, bell-shaped dresses seemed to be so big that they carried the edges in front of them when they walked, and Danny couldn't help but laugh when he tried to imagine some poor tailor attempting to get Sam into one of those things.

Snatches of conversation from the passersby reached his ears, and this, too, confirmed that Danny was so far out of his comfort zone that anyone within couldn't see him with binoculars.

"Fresh fish for two shillings a pound? They're stark raving mad!"

"Did you happen to hear what befell the cobbler yesterday morn?"

"Mr. Jacobs, it is a delight to see you again!"

"And you as well, sir! It is a most agreeable happenstance that we ran into each other like this!"

"My good man, did you happen to hear that our mutual acquaintance, Mr. Jennings, got engaged just seven days past? And to the Livingstons' girl, no less!"

Danny felt fear begin to chill the blood in his veins as Clockwork's parting words came back to him. "Oh, crap…" he whispered, his heart plunging into his innards. "He didn't really…"

The boy stepped out into the street, and Danny gulped nervously as he approached an older-looking gentleman who was browsing the display window of a nearby bakery.

"Um…Excuse me…" Danny began, clearing his throat.

The other man straightened and looked over his monocle disapprovingly. "What is it, boy? I've got precious little time to spare, you know."

"I was just wondering, um, what year it is."

"Surely you jest," the old one arched an eyebrow. "Have you been shut up in your bedroom all this time?"

"You could say that," Danny muttered.

"Then I suggest you read the news-paper sometime," the gentleman replied as he walked past. "But because I wish to be on my way again, I shall tell you only once that it is the year of our Lord 1776."

Danny's heart skipped a beat as his face turned pale. "What?" he whispered, his voice small.

Panicked, he whirled around and glanced upward-

-Only to be confronted with the sight of the British flag flying from the tallest building in the city.

Oh, my God.

"This can't be happening," Danny muttered as he collapsed against an adjacent wall, his mind racing. What am I supposed to do? I have no money, no idea how to get back home and no way to contact my friends!

He took a deep breath, trying to come up with some kind of plan. If anything, I stick out like a sore thumb in these clothes, Danny realized, getting up quickly. And right now the last thing I want to do is draw-

"Hold, citizen!" An authoritative voice called out before Danny had taken three steps.

-Attention, the boy finished morosely, stopping and turning around.

What Danny next saw was hardly encouraging.

Three men, clad in bright red uniforms, stared balefully back at him, their polished boots reflecting the boy's uncomfortable expression.

Danny assumed that right now the best thing for his overall health and welfare was to be complacent, so that's what he did. "Um…is there a problem, officer?" he asked, not knowing what else to say.

"Why do you sit idle like that?" a soldier with sergeant's chevrons on his sleeve demanded with the tone of one used to being obeyed. "Where is your master?"

"What?"

The speaker abruptly backhanded Danny across the face. "Don't take that tone with one of His Majesty's men, whelp!" he snarled. "What reason do you have for being out on the street? Are you not learning a trade, as productive young men of society do? Speak, before I loosen your tongue with the lash for your insolence!"

Danny, furious at how he was being treated, wiped blood from the corner of his mouth before looking the British soldier straight in the eye. "I'm not from around here," he explained.

"Just got off the boat, did you?"

Yeah, let's go with that. "Mm-hmm."

"And what was the name of the vessel that ferried you to this New York City?" the soldier demanded. "Did you pay for your passage in coin or with indenture?"

Danny, having no money and also no idea what the term "indenture" meant, was momentarily lost for words as he tried to think of some kind of explanation.

A moment was enough for the belligerent soldier. "Ah-ha! This dog is a stowaway!" he barked, signaling to his two companions. "Clap him in irons, men! Seize him!"

"Can I give you guys a raincheck on that?" Danny asked as he switched to his ghost form, to the soldiers' consternation. "I've kinda got my own problems to worry about. And by the way, you can tell King what's-his-face to go eat his crown, for all I care. See ya!"

Something split the air with a sharp crack, and Danny gasped as a musket ball sailed past his ear. I've got to remember not to do that unless it's absolutely necessary, he told himself firmly as the city shrank beneath him. Otherwise I could end up being shot at from both sides!

Suburban sprawl gave way to the beautiful green countryside, though where Danny was headed he wasn't sure. He'd never been to the Northeast coast in his life, and if anything, the topography was vastly different than what one would find on a map in Danny's time. For heaven's sake, the entire city of New York could fit into just one of its present-day subdivisions!

He felt his heart clench as the full weight of Clockwork's punishment settled on his shoulders, and one thought, above all else, continually flashed through his mind.

How I am going to get back home?

A/N: To new friends, welcome! To old friends, welcome back! First off, as many of you may have guessed, I'm a history buff. It has always been and remains my greatest passion in life, and I truly believe that if we forget the past, then we condemn the future. Thus, this story is very special to me in a personal sense. But in any case, I sincerely hope you enjoyed this first chapter, 'cause lemme tell ya, it only gets better! Coming up in the next installment, Danny runs into an officer in the Continental Army and "volunteers" for service…. And PLEASE REVIEW! If YOU have ANY ideas or suggestions, LET ME KNOW!

Your humble servant,

-Quill N. Inque

P.S. I think we all know at least one person who could use a refresher course in Professor Clockwork's History 101. XD