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The thing about created objects is that they have intentions. A book is meant to be read. A bed is meant to be slept in. A knife is made to cut. A door is meant to open.
This, of course, extends even to objects not created by mankind. A bird's nest. A fox's den. These things have meaning, purpose.
This extends also to ghosts. Perhaps, with regard to ghosts, it is even accentuated. Imbued with the unlife of ectoplasm, an object with intention might also find itself with a measure of will.
Danny knew this both experimentally and instinctively. It wasn't only dead meat and vegetable matter that rose in the Fenton household, and Danny wasn't half ghost for nothing.
The mask would have been suspicious even if it didn't remind Danny strongly of one of his enemies. This mask wasn't exactly the same as Nocturne's, the features were rounder, softer, more delicate and generic, but there was enough similarity there for Danny to be on guard. The color, the shape, the texture, the dark arcs that lead from the brow to the tip of the nose, the horns that cupped the sides and served as a place to tie on the long, wide, black ribbons… All of them called back to Nocturne.
Things like this were made for a reason. Somehow, Danny doubted that reason was to decorate a pawnshop window.
He made sure the lid on the thermos was tightly pressed down before going in. The last thing he needed was for the ghost he had chased here to cause problems on top of everything else.
The pawnshop smelled musty and old. A thick layer of dust lay on most surfaces, interrupted here and there by finger marks, handprints, and oddly shaped patches that were either clear or at least had a little less dust. The only fully living creature in the store was the bored-looking college-age man manning the desk.
There weren’t even any flies, as far as Danny could tell.
Creepy.
Danny approached the desk. “Hi,” he said.
“No, we don’t have public restrooms,” said the man in a practiced tone. “We’re not discriminating, they don’t meet the city’s requirement for them to be public because they aren’t wheelchair accessible. File your complaints with the city.”
“Uh,” said Danny, who hadn’t even heard of that ordinance. “No. I was wondering where the mask in the window came from?”
“Hm? I dunno. Storage? We hold onto stuff for a while before we sell it.”
Danny kept his comments about how unhelpful that was to himself. “How much is it?”
“Mm,” said the man. “Fifty.”
Danny rummaged in his pockets. “I’ve got thirty and a candy bar.” He placed the offerings on the counter. “It’s full size,” he added, temptingly.
“I can see that. I’m not supposed to barter.”
“If it makes you feel better,” said Danny. “It’s probably haunted.”
“Wow. That’s probably the first time I’ve ever heard that. About anything. Ever.”
“No, really,” said Danny. “My parents are Jack and Maddie Fenton. Here, you see this?” He flashed the thermos readout at the man, hoping that he’d never seen one before. “It says that there’s something haunted here.”
The man looked less skeptical.
“I can show you my school ID if you’d like,” offered Danny. “But I could call them if you don’t believe me.”
“Ugh. Fine, whatever. I’m not paid enough to deal with any of that.” The man snatched the money and candy off the counter. "Knock yourself out."
Danny nodded and tried not to feel too bad about the disappearance of his allowance. He had a nefarious plot to stop. Or something. He took the mask from the window display and turned back to the counter.
"Do you need to scan it or–?"
"Does it look like it has a barcode? Just get out."
Danny didn't need to be told twice. Which left him standing in the middle of the street with a cursed (?) mask.
What the heck was he going to do with this now? He frowned at the sculpted face, which was looking less and less like Nocturne the longer he looked at it. It was too… young, he decided. Sleeping an innocent kind of sleep.
He could always hide it somewhere at home, but he had a feeling that would come back to bite him. He could… give it back to Nocturne, maybe. There was a certain kind of fairy-tale logic there that appealed to him. On the other hand, Nocturne was a massive jerk with a habit of magically roofie-ing people, so Danny was, understandably, leery of going anywhere near him.
He tilted the mask from side to side. He’d thought that the whole closed eyes look was an illusion, like how mascot eyes were actually see-through, but he was beginning to think they weren’t. Which meant that this mask had to be decorative… or maybe a death mask. An unsettlingly large number of cultures had those. Flying through a community in the Zone where those death masks had literally become the ghosts’ faces was always creepy.
If it wasn’t meant to be worn, why have the ties?
He flipped it over and looked at the back. The darkness inside twinkled with stars. Then it pulsed and lunged towards Danny’s face.
.
Being an Ancient was wonderful, in many respects. Power, riches, luxury, admiration. Worship, even, and a smooth road both ahead and behind. Oh, there were wrinkles here and there. Dictators to overthrow, tests to be given, havoc to wreak. But wasn’t it better that way? Wasn’t life sweeter with a little salt?
Not that Nocturne would know about life.
There was, however, one particular difficulty Nocturne could do without. One problem that all of the Ancients had to deal with separately. A weakness. Anything and anyone so powerful had to have one. For the Ancients, these were objects, tools, that contained enough of themselves and their power that, in the wrong hands, could be used to either siphon away their power or even control them.
For Clockwork, it was the Key that wound his internal clock, currently and unfortunately in the hands of the Observants. For Sojourn, it was the Map, kept safe by the ever-steadfast denizens of the Far Frozen. For Vortex, it was the Barometer, which he had been bound to against his will. For Undergrowth, it was the elemental Seed from which he had sprouted. For Pandora, it was the Box around which so much of her legend had been formed, guarded jealously in her Labyrinth. Nephthys was the only one of the Ancients who seemed to be an exception, but Nocturne suspected that she merely hid hers better.
Nocturne’s weakness was the Mask. A portion of his identity was bound up in it, and if worn by someone who knew his name, it would allow the wearer to take on his identity. Among other, even less desirable effects.
He didn’t worry about it terribly much. He’d hidden it away in the human world, far from where anyone knew about him. And even if someone did find it, the Mask was twistier, slipperier than the Key. It had its own fully-formed will, and that will was not one that would easily consent to being used. A wearer would have his own problems with the Mask, sure enough.
At least, that had been Nocturne’s attitude about the situation until this very second of this very minute of this very day.
He had been disastrously wrong about the ‘no one will find it’ portion of his assumption. He had, further, been incorrect in his unspoken assumption that the Mask would not be changed by its long absence from his presence.
But the unpleasantness of both those realizations paled in comparison to that of finding himself sharing a body with not one but two other consciousnesses, both familiar to him.
The Mask giggled and, metaphorically speaking, leaned back, taking its hands off the reins now that the damage was done. Meanwhile the boy, Phantom, whimpered and whined and futilely tried to pull the Mask off.
Nocturne’s body, or what passed for his body under the circumstances, dripped and slid from the reverse side of the mask, its starstruck and well-sculpted glory reduced to that of thick, viscous, glittery goo , and constrained to remain on the boy’s skin, bound to the physical body of the Mask as much as boy was.
Nocturne snarled at the Mask, reminding it of its true master. In reply, the Mask tied its black ribbon in an elaborate bow on the back of Phantom’s head. Unnecessary, considering its powers, but an obvious message. It wasn’t going anywhere unless Nocturne made it.
Very well, then. He would.
Somehow.
Of course, the first order of business was to deal with Phantom.
Limited or not, Nocturne still had his powers, and he threw some Phantom’s way. The child hadn’t even noticed that he was no longer alone in his own head, but his panic certainly increased when he started to fall asleep. Thankfully, that only lasted a minute before Nocturne had him smothered in mostly-pleasant dreams.
Although, how long that would last was anyone’s guess. Phantom had proven capable of both lucid dreaming and blindly finding a way past Nocturne’s powers.
The Mask, meanwhile, radiated obvious disappointment. Nocturne would have told it to get over itself, but he didn’t currently have a mouth and Phantom’s was well blocked by the combined forces of the Mask and Nocturne’s current form. The same went for the rest of Phantom’s facial features. Nocturne was glad, then, that he did not need eyes to see.
He picked Phantom up off the pavement - only stumbling a little bit when confronted with the unnatural solidity of the body - and looked around, mentally sneering at the overly mundane and shabby street. Of all the things he found incomprehensible about Phantom, the fact that he chose to defend such a drab and uninteresting place was certainly the most perplexing.
Now, to business. To remove the Mask, Nocturne would need access to his tools. His tools were in the Ghost Zone, in his lair. Therefore, his first act must be to access the Ghost Zone.
Walking through a human city like this… Nocturne raised one of Phantom’s arms and observed the way the inky, starry blackness of his body clung to the pale limb and wrapped around it. No. Nocturne did not believe this was a state that would go unremarked on, even if he could somehow disguise the Mask.
How annoying. Of course, he could simply become invisible for the duration of his travel. It wasn’t as if it was hard. He followed his thoughts with actions, and quieted Phantom again as he stirred.
Now. Where did Phantom lair? Nocturne had visited it before; traveling through the portal made it difficult to avoid Phantom’s home, such as it was. But he didn’t know where it was from here.
The Mask continued to snicker.
Nocturne would simply have to canvass the city until he came across something he recognized.
He took off, flying slowly. He didn’t want to miss anything, and he was unclear regarding what speeds Phantom could comfortably survive. As much as he disliked the current state of affairs, he didn’t want to be stuck puppeting a corpse. That would be disgusting and terribly gauche.
But the use of his powers seemed to agitate Phantom, who strained against the dream Nocturne had so generously constructed for him. The drain on his limited form tired him quickly, and he landed on the roof of a nearby skyscraper. He still could not see Phantom’s home. Had the child been visiting another city? Had the building been changed somehow?
His thoughts were interrupted by a blue-white portal forming only a few feet away.
Ah. Excellent. The Mask’s escapades must have troubled time itself. He turned to greet his old frenemy and fellow Ancient, Clockwork.
But the being that came through the portal wore an expression Nocturne had never seen on Clockwork’s face in all his years of knowing the other ghost. Rage, pure, simple, righteous, and barely contained.
“Release him,” ordered Clockwork, raising his staff threateningly.
In that moment, Nocturne recalled two very important things. One, Phantom, despite most ghosts agreeing that he was an insufferable, incorrigible brat, was a favorite of Clockwork, Ancient Master of Time. Two, Nocturne had taken great pains to conceal the nature of his principle weakness from his fellow Ancients, especially Clockwork, who was already compromised by the loss of his.
As such, Clockwork and Nocturne were seeing two very different situations.
And Nocturne could not possibly explain what was really going on to Clockwork via mime. He leapt off the building.
A blue-white portal opened underneath him, and, for a while, he knew no more.
.
Danny woke to the sensation of someone running their fingers through his hair. It wasn’t a feeling he usually liked, but for some reason it felt very good today, and he leaned into it. It was a strange contrast to how awful the rest of his body felt, especially his mouth, which tasted like something had died in it.
“Ah, Daniel,” said Clockwork, “you’re awake.”
That… was not normal. He tried to open his eyes and sit up, but found himself unable to do either thing. His eyes were pressed closed and his arms were pinned down. He whined, deep in his throat, unable to do much else.
“Shh,” said Clockwork, “shh.” To Danny’s vague embarrassment, the reassurance did help. “Daniel, you’re safe. I’m taking care of you. Do you remember what happened?”
Danny shook his head minutely, not wanting to dislodge Clockwork’s hands.
“You’ve been possessed,” explained Clockwork. “I am attempting to remove the problem. The medium of possession was a mask. Do you remember the mask?”
This time, Danny nodded.
“Good,” said Clockwork. His hands shifted position, and now he rubbed the skin behind Danny’s ears. “That’s good. I know this must be stressful for you. At the moment, I have you restrained because the beings possessing you have been trying to escape.”
Danny shuddered. Beings? Trying to escape? He didn’t want to think about what these beings might want with him and his body. Thank goodness Clockwork had found him.
“But it’s alright,” continued Clockwork. “I believe the measures I have taken will prevent them from exercising control over you, for the time being. Unfortunately, the mask…” He trailed off, running his finger around the rim of what had to be the mask. Danny twitched at the odd sensation.
“We may need to let them retake control to fully banish them, however,” warned Clockwork. “But, for now, I thought a rest would be more beneficial. Would you agree?”
Danny nodded again. For all that he had been asleep, a break sounded like a good idea. Especially if moving forward meant letting someone else control his body.
“Very good,” said Clockwork, hands returning to the top of Danny’s head.
Somehow, it felt even better this time, and his core purred, low, shaky, and not quite catlike. It was a recent development, his core doing that, and this was the first time it didn’t startle him.
Overhead, Clockwork chuckled. “Just relax, Daniel,” he said.
Daniel did.
.
Clockwork, Nocturne realized, didn’t just have some loose affection for Phantom. He adored him. Perhaps even loved him. Certainly, he was possessive over him, using Phantom’s indisposition as a bonding opportunity, encouraging and engendering a helpless trust.
Nocturne could respect that, if grudgingly.
Slowly, Phantom sank back into sleep. Of course he did. Immobile, eyes closed, relaxed… It would be more surprising if he didn’t.
Nocturne’s control was abruptly switched with Phantom’s.
“If you harm him,” said Clockwork, pleasantly. “I will destroy you.”
Nocturne had no good way to respond, so he didn’t.
“I will give you a writing utensil. You will use it to tell me exactly how to remove Daniel from your influences. Nod if you understand.”
Nocturne, not seeing what else to do, nodded.
“Good.” Clockwork freed one of Phantom’s limbs and put a pencil into it. “Write.”
Let me return to my lair and I shall remove Phantom myself.
“Unacceptable.”
Rarely had Nocturne seen Clockwork so blunt. However.
I see no reason to cooperate with you, then. Eventually, you must release me, for the sake of the boy if nothing else.
A nasty, thin smile raised the corners of Clockwork’s mouth. “Is that so? Will you still feel that way when I tell you that I can imprison both of you within Daniel’s psyche indefinitely? Perhaps I would not be able to remove you, but you would have no control. Daniel would not be pleased with that scenario, but he would adapt. I myself would not be opposed to Daniel residing in my lair on a semi-permanent basis. So. Think carefully.”
If Nocturne had a face at the moment, he would have scowled.
Very well, he wrote, this is what you will need to do .
.
Danny woke up slowly, his eyes fluttering open but not really registering what they were seeing for several minutes. Then he realized he was seeing and sat up. Tried to sit up. He was being held quite firmly in Clockwork’s arms.
Clockwork smiled down at him. “How are you feeling?” Clockwork asked.
“Better,” croaked Danny. “You saved me. I thought you couldn’t do that.”
“Not usually,” said Clockwork. “But when another Ancient has interfered, I have slightly more wherewithal to act.” He lifted Danny’s chin with his fingers and tilted his head from side to side. “I was afraid of that.”
“Afraid of what?”
“That particular variety of control occasionally leaves traces,” said Clockwork. “Think of it as being somewhat similar to exposure to radiation. Even when the source of it is gone, the effects linger.”
“What did it change?” asked Danny.
Clockwork smiled and released Danny’s chin. “Nothing you need to worry about terribly much. You may have a bit of glitter in your skin from now on.”
Danny made a face. “Being possessed by… Nocturne?”
“It was Nocturne, yes.”
“It gave me the glitter plague?” Danny started rubbing at his face.
“Hardly a plague,” said Clockwork. His smile fell away. “You will let me know if you feel any internal changes, won’t you?”
“Is that something I have to worry about?” asked Danny.
“Hm,” said Clockwork, putting the tips of his fingers on Danny’s chest, right over his core. It started to purr. Loudly. “Perhaps.”
“That doesn’t count. Does it?”
“Not particularly,” said Clockwork, wrapping his arms around Danny and forcing him to lie back down.
“I should probably go home… It was getting towards the end of the day.”
“I’ll make sure you get home on time, whenever you want to go.”
Danny sighed. “Okay,” he said, snuggling closer.
“You’ll have sweet dreams from now on.”
“Huh?”
“Consider it rent from your erstwhile roommates.”