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phantomphangphucker · 1 year

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Phic Phight - A Truck-Shaped Menace… And God?

For: @pennerjones @jackdawsprite @briarlovesu @phantomfana @detective-casserole43 @dekalko-mania @modordracena @ectoplasmicsoda @raaorqtpbpdy @gracedbymyface @eyesofcrows @majorastudios

Stereotypical adventuring heroes party determined to defeat the demon lord, but they need someone from another world to help them with their quest! Except… that person is somehow the Ghost Lord.

Chapter 1: Get Hit

The world had a cruel sense of irony, in Danny’s opinion. The final field trip for his class, the senior class, was to a water park of all places. Meaning him and his icy-armed self was going to get stared at and asked if that was safe to go in the water or if it would melt in the hot tub or if it would freeze the pool or if it could cause ecto-contamination; it was going to a pain in the fucking ass. At least the bus ride there was going to be maybe peaceful, no one to pester him, meaning he can listen to music and relax. Maybe he’d be talking to friends and such, like pretty much everyone else, if he actually had any these days… or any that were allowed on the trip at least.

Tucker got an advanced placement into some tech school with a guaranteed job already lined up in cyber security or something so long as he also got a piloting licence on account of him being on multiple no fly lists; they guy couldn’t pass up on the opportunity even if it meant leaving Danny and all the ghost hunting behind, Danny was glad for him but it still kinda sucked. Sam’s parents finally had enough and sent her off to a boarding school in the uk, her retaliation for that involved multiple attempted murders and a burned down building so now she’s in juvie and destined for adult prison, her parents moved out of Amity shortly after. And it was weird, after they’d both been gone a while he kind of noticed that his life hadn’t exactly changed much at all… which made him seriously wonder how good of friends either of them actually were. Heck! He got into less trouble nowadays. He did still have a sorta friendship with Val though, except she wound up flunking out last year; she was doing the huntress thing full time now and part time security where her dad worked.

Then of course his parents always viewed him as either a failure or damaged goods, so that relationship was shit and nonexistent. Jazz was in university of course, she tried to keep in touch and talk to him a lot but she didn’t really have the free time to be consistent about it, especially with Danny’s hectic schedule. It didn’t help that last time she came back for a visit it had turned into a fight with their parents.

So yeah. He gets to be a loner for his last year and his last years trip. Which is all well and dandy by him. That is until a fucking truck hits the bus sending both flying through a ghost portal. Why the fuck is his luck like this? What is wrong with him? Ancient’s fuck.

Needless to say everyone starts screaming or otherwise freaking out.

“Did we just get hit!”.

“Why was a truck driving through an alleyway?!?”.

“I think my bag went out the window”.

“Oh zone are we finally going to die! After everything!”.

“Fuck! My phone!”.

“I fucking hate this town”.

“The one time it’s not a ghost attack it’s a drive by beating instead!”.

“oh shit! We’re in the zone!”.

“Ah fuck I think I dislocated my shoulder!”.

“Shit shit Shit SHIT!”.

“There aren’t any ghosts around are there?!?”.

“Oh zone, if we die here how will anyone ever find our bodies!”.

“Heh, think you become a ghost if you die in the ghost zone?”.

“GREAT GATSBY PEOPLE! CALM DOWN!”.

“Ow my foot!”.

“You're the loudest one here!”.

Anyway, for some fucking reason the truck drives into the bus again, sending the thing spinning and rolling through the miasma that is the ghost zone and it’s questionable gravity; everyone holding onto anything for their dear lives and just screaming more.

“WHY DOESNT THIS THING HAVE SEAT BELTS!”.

“WHY DID IT HIT US AGAIN?!?”.

“We so did not need a round two!”.

“EVERYONE HOLD ON!”.

“WE ARE!”.

“If my shoulder wasn’t dislocated before it sure as shit is now”.

The bus hits a land mass and bounces back up into the air before coming to land back down on the mass; the entire vehicle is goddamn sideways. Danny scrambling, using the seats to climb, and kicks open a window, sticking his head out and staring at the truck… the truck that’s aimed at them and getting closer and seems almost angry? He’d guess ghost truck but it doesn’t have an ecto-field or anything. It also doesn’t have a driver? Great. Just what he needed. A driverless maybe sentient bus is trying to either destroy the bus or kill them or maybe just kill him specifically ‘cause that’s usually the way it goes. Ducking back down through the window and shouting, “BRACE FOR IMPACT!”. At least everyone does as he says before the truck goddamn rams into them again, completely tearing the bus in half. A tree impales through the windshield, scaring the day lights out of the one person who did have a seat belt aka Mr. Lancer. The other half of the bus stops skidding from the impact when it hits a rock, snapping everyone around. Fucking everyone was going to have a case of whiplash at this rate.

Meanwhile, the truck lands on the land mass and begins driving at the back half of the bus, people fleeing out the hole away from the incoming vehicle. Considering this is the half Danny’s in, back seats for the win, he’s officially convinced the trucks after him; so Danny doesn’t run towards the front half of the bus like everyone else, but instead goes to the side. The truck damn near runs him over, it would have if it hadn’t gotten snagged by a box and flipped end over end; Danny skidding to a stop and booking it in the exact opposite direction.

“DANNY!”.

“I THINK THE TRUCKS TRYING TO KILL HIM!”.

“Because he separated from the pack and is alone? Or because it was always after him? You think?”.

“FUCK! I don’t know, Todd!”.

“DANIEL!”.

“THROW SOME FENTONWORKS STUFF AT IT!”.

Danny blinks while he’s running, that wasn’t a half bad idea, too bad he had nothing on him.

“MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU HAVE FALLEN TO MY BOX OF DOOM!”.

Oh fuck him. Why is that idiot here? Why can he just never get away from Boxy? The ghost of course, flies right at his terrified schoolmates, assuming he’s why they’re frightened, “FEAR ME!”. Mr. Lancer, in a badass move, violently tears off one of the buses mirrors and bashes the ghost across the face with it.

But oh dear heavens the shit show doesn’t stop there, the truck’s righted itself and is on the chase again with Danny fleeing for his half life because there’s no way this is a normal truck. Apparently the FrightKnight agrees as he just comes out of goddamn nowhere, attempting to slam his sword down on the truck, shouting, “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!”. The truck speeds up, Danny runs faster, The FrightKnight gives chase, “THIS WOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED UNDER PARIAH!”. Danny turns around enough to give his knight some seriously judgy side eye; the truck swerve's to avoid a meteor from ol’ Frighty.

The truck smashes into him before evaporating into purple mist, leaving his crumpled body on the ground for all his classmates and teacher to run over to while freaking the fuck out. The FrightKnight just stands there sighing into his hand, shaking his head; he never thought he’d have to deal with a truck god from another dimension, this was ridiculous.

“DANIEL!”. “DANNY!”. “FUCK I THINK HE’S DEAD!”. “ᴰᴼᴱˢ ᴬᴺʸᴼᴺᴱ ᴷᴺᴼᵂ ᶜᴾᴿ!”. And that’s the last Danny hears.

The FrightKnight sighs again before looking at his majesties humans, glancing back to the pulverised bus, and back to the humans, “you lot”. Everyone jumps and eyes the tall frightening ghost, granted they also knew this ghost helped Phantom out a lot so… The FrightKnight continues, “Phantom would want you all safe, come”, and summons some of his horses and chariots to them. He could take them through Phantom’s Keep’s portal right back to the Mortal Realm, but his liege would need time to get back; back here and back in his own body.

Mr. Lancer sighs thankfully, “thank Shakespear”, looking to the class, “okay everyone! Let’s get Daniel on a flat piece of metal! Chelsea, keep up the compressions!”.

This was officially the most disastrous field trip in Amity Park’s history.

As soon as the class is sent on their way The FrightKnight finds Walker and delivers the less than great news that Danny just got abducted by Truck-kun into another dimension. Walker glaring and slamming a fist down, “you can’t just steal OUR KING TO FIX ANOTHER DIMENSIONS PROBLEMS! THAT IS AGAINST THE RULES! SO MANY RULES!”. Cue searching for a way to not only get their king back, but also punish Truck-kun, and maybe an entire dimension. This was not how Walker wanted to spend his day.

---

Danny snaps his eyes open and takes one big ass breath. Oh thank fuck that’s over.. except that’s not the green/purple sky of the ghost zone or the off-white of a hospital ceiling and the grass he’s laying on is definitely not ectoplasmic and he’s also pretty sure he’s in ghost form for some reason. Maybe he did fucking die and this is the afterlife after the ghost zone or some shit?

“Yes! It worked!”.

Okay at that Danny sits up with a jerk, eyeing the people near him. One’s a… cat person? One’s got fucking horns. The other two just look like people but in armour or olden style travelling gear?

“We finally have enough members to defeat the demon lord!”.

Did… did Danny just get fucking isekai’d???

Chapter 2: Yes, Yes He Did

A girl with black hair crouches down, holding her hand out to him, “hello, I’m Miden, a warrior, nice to meet you”, tilting her head and smiling a little awkwardly, “sorry we totally pulled you here out of the blue”. Out of the blue was a massive understatement.

Danny blinks, “yeah, that was kinda a dick move”. The horned guy raises his eyebrows at that. “Anyway, where is here and why?”. Danny has way too many questions to do anything about said questions. Though that truck… that was totally like anime style Truck-kun right? Was that a real thing? The fuck.

Miden laughs awkwardly and rubs the back of her head, Danny does take her hand to help him get up through; not that he needed it but he wasn’t about to be rude to a bunch of random people. The black-haired girl, Miden, was wearing bronze plate armour, a Pteruge skirt, white pants, bronze armoured boots, and had a freaking sword on her hip. She gestures at the others, “introductions first, I guess”, pointing at the horned red-head dude in a white Tabard with silver filigree, and silver shoulder arm and leg armour etched with purple sigils. “That scary demon guy, he’s our party leader and a paladin, is Vraat”. Pointing at the little pale brunette kid? in a tunic with a brown rope waist belt, black trousers, and wood sandals, “that’s Kelcini, he’s our archer and just a wee bit shy”.

“Hey…”.

Miden looks back at him, “it’s true”, then back to Danny while pointing at the freaking chocolate point long-furred cat girl (her tail looks so fluffy), in a black cloak over a burgundy halter top, leather chain mail, and black harem pants, leather shoes. “That’s Stuccfit, world class assassin and a bit stand off-ish”.

Stuccfit huffs, eyeing Danny, “and he’s clearly an ice elf”. With Vraat scolding her immediately, “be nice. You summoned him, remember”. Cat girl just huffs and crosses her arms.

Danny blinks, the fuck is an ice elf? Well obviously an elf that uses ice but… why do they think? Maybe it’s the fucking ice arm? Or he was in ghost form so.. pointy ears? White hair? The fact that he kind of emanates cold thanks to his core and being dead? And shit right, the last time he was in ghost mode he was in the Far Frozen Right? So.. glancing down slightly, yup still in his Far Frozen clothing; this all made sense now, and it also meant his eyes were currently crystal blue. They were probably writing off his glow as icy mist or something.

Rubbing his neck at them just staring at him, fuck, they gave their names guess he should give his. Danny or Phantom? Definitely not the Great One. “Ah sorry little thrown here, still don’t know where here even is”.

Stuccfit muttering, “an ice elf with manners, that’s a new one”; getting glared at by the demon again.

Okay so apparently ice elves are dicks and since they think he’s one that’s not really a great thing. But… he’s not going to even get into the ‘actually I’m dead’ thing. Fuck knows if these people even know about ghosts or how they feel about them if they do know. “I don’t really have a reason to be rude, would definitely like an answer to you summoning me apparently though”, shrugging, “eh weirders happened. Anyway, I’m Daniel, but I definitely prefer Danny”.

The short boy starts up a bit awkwardly, “um, do you have a class? If there, uh, are any where you’re from”.

Danny blinks, “I don’t know what that is”. Sure he had the whole king of the restless dead title, the Prince of the Far Frozen was probably more applicable right now though. Probably shouldn’t mention they just abducted a prince from a warring yeti tribe… for now at least. That might scare the crap outta them, and he still has no idea what’s going on here.

“Ah, sorry”.

Vraat nods curtly, stepping forwards a bit, “then well met, Danny. Apologies for pulling you here but we need your help to defeat the demon lord who has been terrorising this world for far too long”, gesturing at the other three, “our party is strong but we lacked a magic caster, so we needed Stuccfit to summon one; you”.

Should… should Danny just go along with this? They were basically asking him for help and it rather sounded like he’d just been yanked into a world that was in serious danger. Plus, if he tells them to fuck off that doesn’t mean they can just send him back… and Amity was pretty good in Val’s hands at least for a while. He could probably pass himself off as magic and it did kind of explain truck psycho targeting him. Probably couldn’t yank a full dead and Vlad would have been a horrific choice... and Elle was really young. Ah fuck it. “I mean, it’s very egotistical of you to just assume that whoever was going to be okay with that but whatever”.

Miden laughs at that, crinkling her eyes a little, “so you’ll help?”. While Stuccfit grumbles, “I can believe we’re doing this with one of them”.

Danny blinks at cat girl, “okay what beef do you have with ice elves?”.

“Beef?”.

Danny sighs, “what issue do you have with them?”.

She glared at him, “besides them all being sadistic murderers?”. Kelcini muttering, “I mean, we do need to kill the demon lord so…”.

Danny blinks, okay very bad image, “okay, I have never killed anyone and actively try to make sure that doesn’t happen”.

“Sure. Say I believe that”.

Miden blinks and grins more, walking a little closer, “oh are you a fighter? A defender of the people? Or a healer perhaps? One who treats the injured and brings them back to health”.

Vraat eyeing him up and down, “based off clothing I would lean more towards healer”.

That’s fair Danny supposed. He was in a heavy blue leather coat and kilt lined with white yeti fur, a waist belt made of snowdew fox fur with three tails attached, gold wirst and ankle guards, a gold choker with an ice crystal in the centre, and hooded white robe lined with black wolf fur and the trim has ice crystals (the symbol of the Far Frozen tribe) all along it. Not very ‘combat warrior’. “I’ve never healed anyone in my life other than myself”.

Stuccfit huffs, “now that sounds like an ice elf”.

Danny glares a little, “it’s almost like you want me to be a dick to you? Gosh”, rolling his eyes and looking to the others, “I guess fighter but with what you might call magic?”, and holds up a hand to make a little ice crystal, might as well stick with the whole ice elf thing.

Vraat grins, “ice magic, fitting. Yes we would call that magic”. Miden staring, impressed or in awe, a little, “I’m more impressed you did that without a circle or any chants or spells”.

Danny snorts, oh that is so stereotypical fantasy world shit. “None of that exists where I’m from”, reabsorbing the ice, “this is just cryokinesis to me”, smirking a little and deciding to fuck with these people ever so slightly, they did just abduct him after all. “I’m the best with that type of kinesis, but I also have pyrokinesis”, making a little blue flame, “telekinesis”, moving a little rock up into the air and making it zigzag around, “mild electrokinesis”, a bit of green electricity zaps around in his palm, “and ectokinesis”, making a little ball of ectoplasm form and bubble.

Kelcini blinks and goes a bit starry-eyed, practically running up to him, “you’re on par with at least a grand mage”, looking to Stuccfit, “good job”. Stuccfit just grumbles quietly to herself.

Danny’s pretty sure a mage is basically a really good magic class in most games. Rubbing his neck, “I mean, my ice has nothing on my frostypa’s”, lifting up his ice arm and waving it a bit, “he made my new arm”.

Kelcini stares, wide-eyed and makes motions to poke it, Danny nods him ahead. “So you’re whole arm is ice? Is that why there’s… visible bones in your hand?”.

Miden frowning a little, “don’t be rude”.

Danny waves her off with his normal hand, “eh it’s fine, basically got electrocuted by four lightning bolts worth of electricity and got it caught in a portal at the same time; totally unsalvageable”, and pulls down and back his jacket collar enough so they can seen the Lichtenberg scarring there; Miden gasps and covers her mouth, but Stuccfit actually smiles for a change, “sick”.

Kelcini blinks, “are you just really unlucky?”.

Danny can’t help but laugh at that, “my makers were never big on safety”.

Vraat nods, “we should get heading to town, we’ll need you to sign into our party and we should all eat”. Stuccfit’s stomach growls immediately, making everyone chuckle and begin walking.

Miden hums, moving to walk next to him while watching the sky with her hands folded behind her back, “so what are ‘makers’? And your ‘Frostypa’? Sounds like parents to me”.

Danny snorts, “yup. Makers, well, made me. They’re two of my parents. Frostypa, as I like to call him, is another of my parents; got five in total and two sisters. Though one of my sisters has another brother but he’s not my brother”.

“Sounds confusing”.

Danny smirks, knowing exactly what he’s about to cause, “I also have a daughter”.

As predicted everyone stops and stares at him. Kelcini sounding small, “how old are you?”.

Danny’s smirk grows, “oh only eighteen”. At their slightly horrified looks he adds, “she was created through illegal cloning”.

“What’s ‘cloning’”.

“Replicating someone’s body to make a perfect identical copy of them, it never actual works right so only insane people try it. My uncles kind of all kinds of crazy, he’s got this whole thing about wanting me as his son and decided cloning was the way to go”, Danny taps his chin, “pretty sure he’s still trying to marry my maker mom and murder my maker dad”.

Vraat blinks, “I think we pulled you into a situation that is less complicated than what you came from”.

“You’re probably right about that, which is why my reaction to all this is probably abnormally calm”.

And with that everyone continues to walk to the town place for food stuff.

Chapter 3: Fightin’ Time

“Do you want shoes?”.

Danny glances down at his feet, the cobble road didn’t exactly feel great under bare feet, “Hmmm, well this ground isn’t covered in soft snow, so I suppose so. My feet would probably hate me after this whatever otherwise”. Stuccfit tosses him a pair, “mine will probably fit you”.

“Are you seriously being nice to me now?”.

She just grumbles back while Vraat sticks up a finger, “we should not be judgmental nor generalise, you don’t act like our ice elves and that’s something someone must keep in mind”. Stuccfit grumbles some more as a response.

At least the little black leather shoes do actually fit, and he makes a little ice coat the inside tip so his toenails/claw don’t utterly destroy them.

Kelcini comes back with some meat balls on sticks, Danny has no dann clue what kind of meat this is but it is good. Vraat nodding and pointing to a building that looks like a medieval school, “since you’re similar to a mage, the mages academy would be best to get your identification card”.

Miden nodding, “though it probably will only be a basic one since you’re not from here so you probably can’t be fully assessed”.

Danny thinks that’s probably for the best. Would probably not be good if this thing gave him like ‘King of Death’ as a title or whatever. Following after the little group as they all head over to the building.

Vraat greets the desk lady, an elf from the looks of it, pleasantly and completely ignores the leery look she gives the demon, “we need an assessment and identification for a summon, Name’s Daniel, species is ice elf, class mage”. At least the desk lady nods curtly at him, glances at Danny with narrowed eyes, and begins typing on something that looks kind of like a typewriter but sends the note? through the air in some kind of energy stream. Weird but hopefully efficient.

Danny’s going to guess that this whole demon lord terrorising the world thing has given demons a bad rep. At least Danny was already used to ectophobia, so the whole ‘ice elves are evil’ treatment wasn’t really all that new. Him going up when she gestures him over, handing a clear glass-like card, “here. Your information will appear as soon as you touch it”.

“That’s it?”.

“That’s it”.

Danny takes the card thing, he’s giving this system some serious efficiency points. Not weird ‘touch this mirror/orb/scanner’ and ‘oops, you’re too strong weint know what to do with you, you broke the limits of the device’. Danny is literally the king of a fucking realm, if he isn’t overpowered here than this place has some serious power scaling issues. It’s kinda cool how the info stuff really does just appear on the card.

Name: Daniel

Species: Ice Elf (unspecified clan)

Origin: Summoned Otherworlder

Class: Combat Mage (unspecified rank)

Specialties: Unspecified

Grade: Unknown

Hopefully he won’t get in shit if they all later find out he’s not an ice elf. Vraat gives him a pat on the shoulder, “expected, now combat assessment”, giving him a small smile, “cant fight alongside someone if you don’t know what they can do”.

Danny shrugs, that was fair… but him pulling some god tier shit was probably not a good idea and he has no clue what level of power is good here. Why is life always an uncertain ass to him?

“And I’ll admit, I didn’t know ice elves skin was this cold, even through thick clothing”.

Miden hums, “I’m surprised you’re not overheating”, blatantly eyeing his thick clothing.

Danny shrugs as they walk, probably to a combat area or something similar. “It would have to be a lot hotter for that. I’m like a walking air conditioner”.

“A what?”.

Danny chuckles, “it’s an electric device that makes warm air colder usually by cycling it through water, sorta. I don’t exactly use them so don’t quote me on that”. A younger fully living him would have hated this world if there was no way to near instantly cool down on hot days.

“Interesting”.

Stuccfit chuckles a little, rolling her eyes, “yeah an ice elf wouldn’t need that, you could just make ice to cool the air”.

“Tell me about it”, Danny waves his flesh hand around, “though the townsfolk don’t exactly like it when there’s an accidental snow storm ‘cause I got pissed off again”. They were used to but definitely glared at him over it as Phantom.

Kelcini makes a face at that, clearly a little confused, “um, why would ice elves complain about that?”.

Miden nodding, “and ice elves say townsfolk instead of clansmen in your world?”.

Oh fuck now he’s just confusing them. Rubbing his neck and glancing around a bit, this was kinda awkward, “I live in a human town actually”.

They all stare at him till Stuccfit shakes her head, “that explains a lot”, eyeing him with a bit of a sneer, “what. Do the other ice elves not like your passivity?”.

Vraat sighs, shaking his head, “Stuccfit…”; she just huffs at him.

Danny rolls his eyes, he has literally never been called a pacifist before, by anyone. “I’ve literally been described as ‘would literally fist fight the Sun if given a reason’ and both of my adoptive parents, not my makers, are warriors. I am no pacifist”.

“Well you are by ice elf standards”.

“Oh piss off”.

They all give him slightly weird looks at that; that’s probably not a phase used here. Vraat gesturing at a door, “ignoring that crass comment, we’re here”, and pushes the door in.

A big dude in brass armour and a purple cape wave at the group, “over here! Heard we got a newbie that needs to show his stuff and get put through the ringer!”. Ah shit, Danny’s definitely not going to get to watch a mock fight first. Lovely.

Vraat walking up and shaking hands with the man, looking to Danny, “this is Linbome, he’s one of the knights that oversees all the other knights training”.

Linbome chuckles, “and pretty well all the assessments here!”, grinning and winking at Danny, “can’t be letting weaklings out as adventures or hunters, you know”, shrugging, “though it’s really rare for an Otherworlder to not be capable, and I’ve never heard of an ice elf that wasn’t tough”.

Danny can absolutely understand that, it was just like with being a ghost hunter; if you were weak shit you were probably going to get your ass kicked or die. Miden gestures eagerly at him to just get to it already so Danny unclips and hands her his cloak and it now stuck going up into the centre of the area place and shaking hands with this Linbome guy.

“Well you’re a far more friendly fellow than our ice elf’s”.

“So I’ve been told repeatedly”. And yet everyone back home, and pretty much every ghost, considered him either a little shit or an asshole.

Linbome nods curtly, hands on his hips and a wide smile on his face; this man’s like a little ray of sunshine. “So how this works is pretty simple. We try to beat each other up”, chuckling, “no real weapons of course, or in a mages case, no dangerous magic. Honestly I’d like to see just plain hand to hand combat first, if that’s something you’ve got”, and smirks in a very competitive way.

Danny smirks right back, if this guy wants a fist fight Danny can give him a fist fight. “I learned hand to hand long before anything else”.

“Good. I like it”.

Danny can’t help but laugh at that as they get into starting positions. He’s going to have to make a point to reign in his strength and speed, and not go around defying the laws of gravity. This was clearly a skills test, without any kind of dead enhancements. Except he had no clue how strong or fast ice elf’s were supposed to be so he’s just going to aim for human.

Then the guy immediately goes to throw a punch so Danny, being a dramatic bastard, lifts his right leg straight up swiftly and kicks the man’s chin with his heel; the four watching cringing as Linbome gets lifted off of the ground a little. Dropping said foot back to the ground as Linbome coughs and rubs at his upper throat a little, “wasn’t-”, coughing, “-expecting that”.

Danny chuckles, “eh when someone’s trying to punch you, they except you to either punch back or try to block, not to kick them in the face or throat”. Suddenly getting a foot to the throat also tended to startle the fuck out of people.

“That is true”, the man laughs, “I certainly didn’t!”, then takes position again, “let’s try that again, playing a little bit dirty won’t always work out for you”.

Danny smirks a little, honestly he won a lot of fights by playing dirty or just by doing the unexpected. This time when the guy goes to punch him, Danny grabs his fist and pulls it towards and past him before kneeing him in the gut, “I could also whack your neck but that might knock you out, and I don’t think that’s the point here”.

Danny spinning around as Linbome staggers to regain his balance and cracks his neck, “you’re pretty strong for an elf”, chuckling, “most are lean or lanky, far too reliant on long range weapons or magic”.

Danny’s half tempted to take his arms out of his jacket and let it hang around his waist just to show off the fact that he was honestly kind of built these days. Lanky noodle arms Fenton was very firmly a thing of the past. “I don’t tend to be reliant on any one thing”. He fought way too many different kinds of ghosts for that shit.

“Well at least you have the ego of an elf”.

Danny’s not sure if that’s an insult or not and doesn’t get much of a chance to think about it as Linbome comes at him again, this time with a roundhouse kick. Danny just ducks down into a crouch at the last chance, grabs the man’s ankle, and pushes while standing back up; forcing him to back do a backflip.

Linbome catches himself with his hands and avoids a full face plant, getting back upright quickly and going for a tackle this time. Danny jumping up a little and pushing his hands off the man’s shoulders to launch right over top of him. Danny landing on his hands and using his momentum to spin his legs around to kick Linbome in the knees.

The man gets up from the floor again, “alright so you can evade and counterattack impressively well, though I’m sure you’d have a harder time in armour”, brushing his leg armour off, “now try attacking me instead”.

Arguably, the man was very top heavy and was definitely more of a swords or axes and fists type of guy; so going for the legs would be the most reasonable… but it was also the obvious choice, meaning it would be expected. The man doesn’t expect the flying double kick though, based on the slightly surprised look, Linbome ducks in time though but Danny expected that and wraps his arms around the man’s shoulder and under the armpit; the momentum of Danny’s kick dragging him back. Danny swinging his feet down and kicking out his ankles. Leaving Linbome on his back with Danny crouching on the ground with a hand to the other man’s chest, mock holding him down.

Danny smirks, “my world has around a hundred and eighty different fighting style just for humans, I’m at least somewhat trained in every single one. My makers even made some completely new ones. I’ve been doing combat training since I could walk”.

They both stand up fully, Linbome shacking his head with a smile, “your makers must really like fighting then”.

Danny shrugs, “eh, they’re hunters, which is maybe similar to hunters or adventures here, maybe. They hunt the things that go bump in the night that humanity can’t really deal with, basically”.

The man laughs, “sounds about right. Though adventures do far more than just that”.

Miden groans a little from the sidelines, “gods I remember all the herb gathering I had to do when I started, it was awful”.

Danny chuckles to himself at that. Yeah that would be boring. Putting a hand on his hip, “I’m also trained in swordsmanship, boardswords, rapiers, claymores. Also pole arms, a little bow and arrow, guns which I don’t think exist here so far, cavalry training, not a big fan of whips though”.

Linbome blinks, “your makers and trainers went overboard. I’m surprised that level of training didn’t kill you”, then grinning, “so you know how to use a sword then, Mage?”, and wanders off to get wooden training swords, tossing one at Danny, “usually a mage is at the biggest disadvantage when fighting either a sword wielder or an assassin, being a swordsmen yourself would negate that”.

Danny twirls the ‘weapon’, “my Mythicma throws a lot of sword tournaments, she’d be very disappointed if I sucked at it”.

Stuccfit puts her hands around her mouth and shouts a little, “that’s a parent of his!”.

Linbame grins, “then I too would be disappointed if my son couldn’t use a sword, and would be glad to see someone test his skills”.

When the man lunges with his sword, Danny sidesteps and swings right at the hilt, sending Linbome’s sword out of his hand; the man shaking his hand out afterwards, “risky but clearly practiced”. And when the guy gets his sword back and when Danny lunges it turns into a more standard sword fight with them smacking each others swords. Danny intentionally smacking Linbome’s sword backwards into his face once or twice. Danny absolutely gets whacked quite a few times though.

Danny could sword fight but he didn’t do it every goddamn day, unlike hand to hand and ‘magic’.

Eventually stopping, Linbome nodding, “you definitely don’t use a weapon nearly as much as your bare hands”, grinning, “still pleased though!”.

Vraat sighs, “I’m glad he’s well rounded”. Miden nodding and grinning at Stuccfit, “way to summon a mage that can use a sword and punch people in the face”. Stuccfit just smiles a little. Kelcini mumbling, “I wanna see how he is with magic though”. The others all nodding, that was why they summoned someone after all.

And testing magic was exactly what Linbome wanted to do next, “I’d like to see what you can do with some ice, you are an ice elf after all. Though I’m no magic caster, so I can’t throw it back at you”.

Danny shrugs, “I’m used to fighting those that can so I can garuntee I’m well practiced there too”. Honestly his ghost powers were probably a bit much, but he can’t know that. At the least being good with ice won’t seem too fucked up. So Danny makes two panthers out of ice forming at his sides, the icy scales and spikes clicking as they walk from around his sides and growl.

The man blinks, “you can make ice golems?! And without any magic circles or build up time?”.

Danny has no fucking clue what exactly that is. “Maybe? What’s a golem?”.

No one says anything for a bit before Stuccfit sighs, “it’s a lifeless substance given form and sentience through magic to do its creators wishes”.

Danny tilts his head, similar but not the same, patting one cats head, “well they’re not sentient, I’m actively mentally controlling every movement they make”.

Linbome blinks, “that might be more impressive, actually”, chuckling and eyeing the big cats, “ice elf mages are nothing to scoff at”, and makes ‘come at me’ motions, so Danny sets the cats leaping and stalking after him. Linbome’s wooden sword breaks in half when he swings it at one that leapt on him; resulting in him landing flat on his back pinned by an ice panther, “that is some tough ice”.

Danny would comment on that but the reason for that was it was ecto-ice not standard ice. For the fuck of it, he sends a bit of flames out through the ice inside the other panthers mouth. Linbome blinks, “ice just breathed fire”. Making Danny snicker, spitting out a little flame from his own mouth, “and so did I”.

The panther lets the man up, “so you have fire magic too? Not as powerful or skilled as your ice magic, I imagine”.

Danny shrugs, making a little blue fire tornado come out of his fingertip, “Ancients no, and it’s cold fire rather than hot”.

Stuccfit grumbling, “figures”.

Either way Danny reabsorbs the panthers and Linbome nods, “okay now let’s fight, though… without any build up times it would be rather impossible to actually fight you”.

Danny shrugs, “everything’s mostly instant where I’m from but also every non human can do these sorts of things, and humans have guns and bombs and stuff; which work extremely long range. Some can even be shot from one side of the planet to the other”.

Kelcini gasps a little, “that’s horrifying”.

Danny rubs his neck, looking back to the little guy, “yeah, some parts of my planet aren’t inhabitable anymore and you’ll get poisoned just by going nearby”. Needless to say they all look firmly horrified by that.

And of course Linbome picks that moment to lunge at him with his new wooden sword; who moves to stop a little when Danny doesn’t react at all but still ends up going through Danny’s body and staggering. Turning around, blinking at Danny before swinging his sword at Danny’s face; it goes through. Danny quirks an amused eyebrow while the man blinks and asks, “A mirage?”.

Danny shakes his head, “nope, intangibility”, and grabs the man’s sword, turning that intangible, making the sword phase right through Linbome’s grip. “The ability to become immaterial and thus untouchable, literally”.

Linbome shakes his head, putting his hands on his hips, “that is a swordsman’s worst nightmare”.

Then Danny turns invisible slowly, “absolutely”. In Amity this wasn’t very useful, but here? Against non-ghost hunters/the living? Very useful.

Vraat blinks, “so he can’t be seen or touched”. Miden giggling a little, “seems a little over powered to me”.

Danny returns to normal, shrugging, “there’s ways around it but I’m not sure they exist here, invisibility and intangibility are very common where I’m from so there’s been a lot of workarounds made”.

Linbome nods, tapping his chin, “makes sense, here your intangibility seems similar to stealth, which is fairly uncommon. And invisibility spells often only work when still or anyone can simply hear them walking if they’re not quiet enough”.

Danny can’t help but snicker at that, these powers weren’t setting off alarm bells so he seriously doubts they know about ghosts, or much about them anyways. “That’s not a problem for me”, Danny crosses his feet up in the air, resting on arm on his knee and his chin in his palm as he floats. He was honestly enjoying all the shock he’s causing here, it was nice and kind of fun.

Kelcini grins, muttering, “that demon lord is so dead”.

Linbome looks over at the archer, “I wouldn’t count on that, being over eager never ends well”, looking back to Danny, “I think we’re done here, I’m impressed”.

Danny grins and gives him a silly little thumbs up before heading back to the four others. Miden and Kelcini both start clapping Danny on the back, Kelcini grinning, “you're definitely above a grand Mage”; which fine, Danny blushes over a bit embarrassed. It’s been a while since anyone’s been truly surprised or impressed by anything other than his ghostly wail.

Chapter 4: Back In The Park

The FrightKnight knew well enough to inform the Red Huntress immediately of the situation, as she was very much like his liege in that she would rush into the trouble without a second thought; unlike his liege she was far more liable to ‘lose her shit’ as his highness would say. Needless to say, she sighed when he told her about that bus ending up in the Infinite Realm and began pacing as soon as he mentioned his majesties condition.

“So he’s unconscious and possibly dying but if you bring him here right now he definitely will die?”, throwing her hands out to the side, “that makes no goddamn sense”, pointing at him, “is it because of the zones ectoplasmic atmosphere? Is there some kind of natural law against dying in the land of the dead?”.

The FrightKnight nods, “if they bring him here, he will die”, this was both true and not, his body would technically die but it would come back as soon as his liege was truly in it, “the ectoplasm will keep him going till he heals enough to survive at the least. The townsfolk here are not normal”.

Valerie rubs her temples, eyeing her sand bag a little, she needs to blow off some energy, “right right, the whole severe long term ecto-contamination, which out of everyone Danny has the worst case of. Never though I’d be thankful for that shit”, fuck it, she smacks the punching bag.

The FrightKnight moves to lean against a wall, “my liege is also indisposed, as a Truck god has taken him to another dimension against his will”.

Valerie glares, hitting the punching bag again, “what do you mean Phantom got abducted into another dimension by a truck god!?”; the punching bag shakes.

The FrightKnight shakes his head from his spot leaning against a wall, head practically brushing up against the ceiling, “there’s a god responsible for sending people between dimensions, normally they never go after ghosts, as that’s a violation of our rest and the barrier between life and death; but my liege always has to be special”.

She gives the bag two or three more hits, huffing and pausing, looking at the ghostly knight tiredly, “you seem more annoyed than I am?”, sure she was plenty ticked off but it wasn’t the end of the world, “unless there’s an invasion or a really powerful ghost, I can handle it myself. Just means the jackass-”, hitting the bag again to make a point, “-is shoving all his work on me now”, grumbling, “and while I’m worrying about Danny too”.

The FrightKnight huffs, “if he weren’t a ghost he very well never could return”.

“What”, she glares a bit murderously at him, “he can get back, right”.

The FrightKnight rolls his head, “obviously. Nothing could keep him”, one thing he would never do is assume that his highness couldn’t do something that he decided to do; he had no problem breaking the laws of time, he’d do the same to any other universal laws. Crossing his arms, “this situation is absurd”.

Valerie sighs, well at least he wasn’t being forced to abandon Amity to be some other dimensions Bitch. “This is Phantom we’re talking about, absurd is half his whole thing”.

“If he wasn’t in this realm this wouldn’t have even been possible”.

Valerie started glaring at him again, “oh so this is our fault now?”, scowling at the ghost not answering her, “fuck you”. She goes back to smacking around the sandbag and ignoring the ghosts entire existence. Of course there was going to be complications from a ghost basically residing in the living world, but he chose that so it’s his own damn fault if frightful and grumpy wants to blame anyone.

Of course the FrightKnight interrupts her after a bit again, “Walker is mad too, on a bit of a war path”.

“Fuckin’ why? He doesn’t even like Phantom”.

“As I said, ghosts don’t get taken like this; it’s firmly against our laws. It breaks the barrier of life and death, and throws off the balance. Further, my liege isn’t an unknown or insignificant ghost; and Walker does respect him to a degree”.

Valerie sighs, “and that ghost hates law breakers”.

The FrightKnight nods slowly, “indeed, he’s been chasing left over whisps for hours; he’s destroyed quiet a few things”.

“If he’s running around wrecking shit why are you bugging me instead of him”. Valerie laughs a little at the ghosts silence, “avoidance, gotcha”. After all, this ghost has effectively been trapped/sealed away for a very long time and probably had gotten used to relaxing… didn’t help that he’d gone and swore himself to a ghost that can’t take anything seriously to save his afterlife and who will be lazy at any given moment.

The FrightKnight merely grumbles, “Pariah would have just annihilated this other foolish dimension and returned to us swiftly”.

Valerie throws a pillow at him, “I, for one, am glad Phantom’s not okay with mass murder and annihilating a dimension”. There’s no way she’d tolerate him otherwise, heck she’d call him a good -though dead- friend; the only one she’s got.

The FrightKnight eyes her before shrugging, watching his lords mortal realms lair’s sky through her window. As rather displeased as he was, he could sense some level of amusement tinged with caution from his lord, so at least he had found some type of amusement. Most who got pulled into another dimension in this particular way were usually tasked with defeating someone or something, which would be a very simple task for his liege. If only he would summon his knight there! Huffing and shoving himself off of the wall, giving the huntress in red a polite wave before phasing through the wall to leave; he must ensure the Infinite Real didn’t fall to ruin because of some truck. That… and there was the humans he had to keep an eye on. Some of them were exploring Phantom’s Keep now, it was only a matter of time before one stumbled on something. Though the FrightKnight did admire the Adult human, the one who refused to leave his lieges body alone; he could… appreciate someone who genuinely cared about his highness.

Valerie grumbles, “annoying ghosts”, shaking her head, “fucking hell, you stupid Phantom”. Of course he’d wind up in another dimension, his little knight seemed pretty damn bothered though which he might actually get a kick out of. Phantom always got amused or really touched by ghosts legitimately giving a shit about him.

Flopping down onto her bed, it would be nice if Phantom was the only real issue, but he wasn’t. Danny was in trouble too, near death even. So much so that Phantom’s knight was refusing to bring an entire horde of humans back here. If this was any other ghost she wouldn’t trust that worth a damn, but the FrightKnight had proven himself repeatedly; not just to her but to the town. That time they got attacked by a literal army of sirens and Kelpie was a real eye opener. That ghost won’t betray Phantom, and killing a bunch of Amity Parkers would be there worst betrayal he could possibly do. Everyone was going to start getting upset eventually though, all wanting their children back, and The Fenton’s were bound to go on another anti-ghost rant. Probably claim that Phantom and ‘his minion’ had abducted them and how this was the ghosts plan all along. Which come on, if either wanted to abduct people, they could have done it a long time ago. People weren’t always rational when children, especially their own, were involved though; and the ectophobia wouldn’t help.

---

Walker was mad, very very mad. He was chasing dead end after dead end and it was beginning to feel like Truck-kun was mocking him, mocking THE LAWS. And then there was the whole mess of all those trouble maker ghosts finding out that the punk was mia, resulting in rioting and looting and speeding and break ins and EVERYTHING. It was as if the worms were taking the chance to break every rule there ever was! His men were being run ragged and he still hadn’t gotten that no good god.

When that punk gets his sorry butt back here he’s going to charge him for the inconvenience.

Chapter 5: The Lionhands Forest

Danny gets shaken awake by Stuccfit, “wake up, ice elf, Vraat wants to get going”. Danny grumbles, “I have a name you know”, while stretching out. She ignores him. Typical.

At least Miden gives him some breakfast as soon as he gets out of the bedroom and down to the common area. Danny giving her an appreciative nod before turning to eye the demon party leader, “so where are we going? On some quest to find the demon lord immediately?”.

Vraat shakes his head slowly, “we already know where he resides”.

“Wait, really?”. This is way less complicated than anime then. Danny’s not about to complain about that though. He’d rather not have to go through a hundred floor dungeon or travel through the layers of hell or search every corner of the planet or find the one unassuming person the demon lord turns out to be sealed inside of.

Vraat nods, crossing his arms, “his castle is neigh impenetrable except by the undead, which guard it en mass”.

Kelcini shivers and grips his quiver tighter, “those things are terrifying”. Miden scratching her head and laughing a little awkwardly, “it’s pretty impossible to get through them without a strong magic caster: can only swing a sword through so many for so long, right? Heh”.

Danny blinks, trying to just look confused, “the undead?”. Danny was technically undead, like undead was the literal ‘official’ term for unable to die and unable to pass on; humans don’t pass on and ghosts don’t die; so he does neither. But the question was, was he this dimensions version of undead. Did they mean zombies? Like resurrected corpses? Or did they mean spirits and ghosts.

Kelcini shivers again, “zombies, necromancers, liches, mummies, skeletons, banshees, and ghouls”,

Stuccfit explaining a bit better flatly, “reanimated corpses of the dead. Without souls or their old personality. Some are made through magic, others through artefacts, others by curses, others by exposure to the undead, others by pure chance”.

Danny nods a little, okay he has to ask, “what about, like, ghosts, spirits, wraiths, will-o'-the-wisps, the Dread, nightshades?”; Shadow might be the only nightshade he knows but still.

Vraat taps his chin, “I can’t say I’ve ever heard of the Dread, nightshades, or wraiths. But we use soul and spirit interchangeably here, ghosts are more children’s fantasy, and will-o'-the-wisps are light energy from the beyond that lead souls to the afterlife”.

Miden tilts her head as they all walk out of the inn, “I’m guessing it’s different where you’re from”.

Danny rubs his neck, arguably this is good for him. “Ah, now how to explain”, shrugging, “I guess the easiest way is simply that the barrier between life and death is very thin in my world. There’s multiple layers or realms one can go when they die, one is for those who died horribly or far too soon; got ripped off or stiffed or done dirty, by their life. Those are ghosts, though some ghost are born ghosts and were never actually alive. And due to the weak barrier they often come into the land of the living to do stuff. Sometimes sight see, sometimes just because they can, sometimes to cause problems, and sometimes to try and kill people. Spirits would be the souls that go to the more peaceful realm. Nightshades are created from darkness, in peoples hearts or in the environment, mixed with the energy of death; they usually hang around ghosts. Wraith are after images of the memory of a person made through the energy of death. The Dread are skeletons made of the energy of death, not actual physical skeletons. And will-o'-the-wisps are the exact same thing actually”.

Stuccfit shakes her head, “you are never allowed to talk to a necromancer, you’ll give them ideas”. Kelcini grimaces, “do you have our undead?”.

“Nope. And I think I’m happy about that, ghosts are a pain enough as it is. There’s this one that thinks boxes are super terrifying so he goes around throwing cardboard boxes at people”.

“What’s cardboard?”.

Oh Ancients, Boxy would cry hearing someone ask that. “Think thicker paper”.

Kelcini laughs a little, “that’s really pathetic”.

“He thinks he’s the most terrifying thing to ever exist”:

Vraat shakes his head, “those with large egos are often the ones who over estimate themselves the most”, then eyeing Danny, “do you know a lot about your ghosts? That could prove useful against our undead”.

Danny smirks a little, “when I said my parents were hunters, I meant ghost hunters, they’re also some of the top researchers on ghosts; I grew up learning and helping with all that. I know ghosts very well, no clue how similar to your undead they are though. But if they’re reanimated or powered or however by the same Death energy as ghosts then you might be right”. He’s not going to mention that he is literally a ghost, that’s asking for trouble… at least for now anyways. One problem, he has no idea if these ‘undead’ will be able to sense the ecto-energy in him or the fact that he’s half dead. Will they ‘think’ he’s one of them and thus not attack him? Will they recognise him as the king of ghosts and bow down? Will the recognise a strong ass ghost and just flee? This is fucking inconvenient.

Stuccfit blinks, muttering, “did someone cast a luck spell on me before I summoned him or something”. Kelcini muttering right back, “thank them if they did, the less of those, uh, things we have to deal with the better”.

Danny hums, “why are these undead even guarding the demon lords castle, if they don’t have personalities and are likely non-sentient. Loyal to their creator? Or is this demon lord controlling them?”, while a few people from the street wave Miden over.

Stuccfit huffs, “undead hordes are usually controlled by an elder lich, or a High or grand death knight”, eyeing Danny, “a death knight is a paladin horrible beyond redemption”.

Vraat nodding, “one whom committed the unjust killing of the faithful, practicing high rank necromancy, mass defiling of the dead, intentionally slaying an obedient angel”, nodding again, “paladins must not stray”.

Stuccfit continues, “everyone’s guess is the demon lord has one or more serving him loyally, or he is one”. Kelcini full body cringes at that.

Vraat grimacing, “it’s well known he’s a demon”, he was clearly a bit bothered by that fact, a bit sad even.

Miden comes back over with some more supplies, food from the looks of it, “yup, I remember hearing rumours that the demon lord was born from the flames of the knight of fear and shadows; so he had to be a death knight”.

Stuccfit rolls her eyes, “that was just said to scare children away”.

Danny coughs a little, this sounds slightly familiar, “big smokey black and gray knight, skull belt, purple flaming helmet and cape, sword that sends people to the plain of nightmares?”.

Miden, Stuccfit, and Kelcini all stare at him; Vraat just grimaces. Kelcini putting his hands on his knees and wheezing, “oh It’s real. Oh I don’t like that”.

Danny rubs his neck, “yeah I kinda freed him? And then stole his sword? He was not happy about that”, holding up a finger while they all glare a little, “but I did win the scary haunted house contest, accidentally sending the judge to the nightmare scape will do that. And he’s a ghost, his name’s The FrightKnight; he’s usually only a problem on Halloween”, tilting his head, “though there was that one time he helped lay siege to my town with an army”. Frighty might be loyal to him now but oh boy had he once been an utter pain in the ass… and easily one of the most over dramatic ghosts he’s ever met.

Kelcini wheezes a little more, “I’m, uh, surprised you survived that”. Miden shakes her head, “what’s halloween?”.

“Celebration of fear and candy, and I almost didn’t”.

Everyone either nods or winces as they get outside of the towns gates, the knights nodding respectfully at them; though eye Vraat and Danny distrustfully. One muttering, “I still don’t understand what the temple was thinking with that demon”.

Danny glances to the side a little and telekinetically moves some loose dirt down the back of the guys suit, making him jerk and try to shake his suit out while very confused, “how the?”. Stuccfit absolutely noticed though, chuckling a little, “very ice elf, but I approve”. Danny just chuckles some himself while the others look confused. Danny’s decided he likes these people.

Vraat points in the distance, “we’re heading through the lionhands forest, there’s a gate there that will take us near the demon lords castle”. Danny nods, convenient.

When they get there Danny can’t help looking up, the trees were huge and thick as buildings, the trunks and branches all growing in a zigzag shape that’s really odd looking. Danny smirks, “these trees would make great napping spots”.

“A fondness for trees is the only thing we have in common with you, ice elf”.

Vraat winces a little while everyone glances to the left and up, there’s what looks like an orange-haired elf wearing green leather and bark armour. Vraat sighs, “these trees are also the territory of the spring wood elves”.

Danny sighs a little right back, “and they don’t like ice elves, do they”. Vraat shakes his head slowly. Why was Danny’s luck like this?

The spring wood elf glares a little, “only ice elves like their ilk”.

Danny giving back an very sarcastic, “that’s nice”. Well this is just lovely, time to walk through a forest full of elves that fucking hate him based on appearances alone. Now he’s seriously wishing he’d been summoned in Mythos or Draconics clothing… though showing up here wearing dragon scale armour might have caused even more issues. Dragons were usually super tough or the top dogs in fantasy games right? Besides gods and demon lords, anyway. Heck, demon lords were often actually dragons or dragonoids.

The elf narrows his eyes more, “the heroes party is welcome here, but not the tag along”.

Miden’s the one to step forward, “he’s part of our party actually, an Otherworlder. A powerful mage skilled at dealing with the dead specifically”.

Danny quirks an eyebrow at Vraat, who’s supposed to be the party leader. Vraat sighs a little, “Miden is the hero collectively chosen by this world's kings”. Okay, Danny guesses this makes sense then, that and they might not listen to a demon; paladin and party leader or not.

The elf frowns, “Otherworlder or not, ice elves aren’t welcome. Even if that one’s not from any clan of our world, that sort of presence may very well still be seen as a breach of treaty and unity with the other wood clans”.

Miden frowns right back, “so you’re willing to block the heroes path?”. That feels like a threat.

And the elf grips it’s spear tighter, “if we must”, and other elves pop out around the trees; officially making this look like it was going to turn into a brawl.

Danny huffs a little and puts his hands on his hips, looking up at the sky. Grinning, “if this land is their land then what about the sky?”. He had an idea, one that might piss off a bunch of pain in the ass elves.

Kelcini furrows his brows, “I, well they only claim the land. But, uh, how does that help?”. Miden looking back and quirking an eyebrow herself, she’d rather avoid having to fight elves that had done no wrong clearly.

Danny takes one hand off of his hip and points up, “my ability to float doesn’t have a height limit and can be passed on to others so long as they’re touching me or something that’s touching me anyway”.

Vraat frowns faintly, “how long can you maintain that? Magic casters typically only have so much at their disposal”.

“Floating uses almost none for me. So with four people and myself? Eh, like five days. Floating is so easy I accidentally do it in my sleep sometimes”. They all blink at him. Stuccfit shakes her head, “your floating magic must be different than our flight spells”.

“I delete gravity and use the energy particles that whisp off of my body to grab onto particles around me to move”.

The spring elf practically growls, “that won’t matter, the dragon who guards this area would send you fleeing, ice elf”.

Danny quirks an eyebrow, so there’s also a dragon here. “And if i just ask them for permission?”. He has a few ways to get a dragon to listen to him, all of them were very dramatic.

The elf scowls, “they would never give permissions to an ice elf. She’d kill any for even suggesting such a thing”.

Fucking bigotry. Danny looks back to the others and shrugs, “I mean, might as well try”, then smirking a little, “I’m not really worried about a dragon”. Now he definitely wishes he came in Draconics armour. The others seem slightly alarmed or perhaps concerned about that last statement.

The elf scoffs at them as they step outside of the forest a bit, “walk to your own death, ice elf. Stay out of our forest”, and seemingly vanishes along with the rest of them.

Chapter 6: The Mattingly Name

Stuccfit shakes her head at Danny. He tilts his head, “what?”.

“Dragons are very dangerous, you’re a fool, but I’ll call her here anyways”.

Danny shrugs, “ghost dragons are probably more dangerous, and I like to throw grapes at one while he can’t do anything about it”, huffing and crossing his arms, “that's what he gets for trying to forcibly marry an old friend of mine and abducting her, not to mention being an abusive sexist asshole to his sister”.

Stuccfit blinks before grinning, tail swishing a little, “I’m actually impressed by that”. Danny smirks smugly, while she gets to drawing a circle thingy on the ground. Calling someone is probably similar to summoning.

Vraat eyes him, “I would prefer if you didn’t fight this one, dragons are respected noble creatures; even if the one you speak of is clearly not. We can go around”.

Stuccfit nods at the ground as the symbol thing glows, “done, she should be coming”.

Danny grins, “fightings not really my plan. Literally just talk, my mouth tends to be my best weapon. Both in getting out of bad situations and making them a hundred times worse, or just pissing someone off enough that they start making really stupid decisions”, grinning a little as he can hear wing beats in the air, “besides, those sisters of mine I mentioned? The younger is a dragon, I smell like dragon”; they stare at him and with perfect timing the large purple and white dragon lands and the ground shakes under her, she does not look happy.

She huffs a bit of steam out of her nose, “what do you want, small ones”.

Kelcini shrinks down a little, whispering, “um, suddenly this doesn’t feel like such a good idea”; glancing at Danny panicky.

Vraat walks up to her calmly, “we wish to pass through your skies, the spring wood elves of the forest are understandably unwilling to allow all of us passage through their lands”, and gestures back at Danny.

The dragon narrows her eyes at Danny, then looks back at Vraat, “I can see why, paladin. An ice elf would never be welcome. And to suggest that one would be in my sky is insulting, but you are a respectful one and a paladin”. Moving her head up and putting her snout practically in Danny’s face, he just waves, she huffs a little chuckle, “I don’t know if you’re brave, stupid, or egotistica-”, cutting herself off with a blink and huffing again, “you smell of dragon, but not of our blood, rather of our dead. Why?”. Kelcini and Miden both pretty noticeably wheeze out held breaths.

Danny grins, letting his personal Draconics amulet appear around his neck, putting a hand to it as the dragon goes a little wide-eyed, “I’m standing brother to Dorathea Mattingly, daughter of Guinevere Mattingly and Clement Mattingly, and sister to the disgraced Aragon Mattingly”.

“I require proof, if you lack it I will kill you”.

Danny was kinda hoping to avoid that, but oh well. Dragon shifting time it is. He always found it kinda cool the way ghost family, though basically all adopted, enhanced each other. Stronger ice (and an entire arm) from Frosty, minor time manipulation and actually being allowed to time travel from Clocky, enhanced skill with any weapon from Pandora, and a dragon form from Dorathea. So Danny’s eyes slit, his tongue forks, and his form grows into a large white dragon with a black belly and green zigzagging horns, his ice arm changing shape with him to give him a wicked ice dragon arm, he gives a little dragon smirk down at the now smaller dragon.

Kelcini clutches his chest, Miden just looks confused and amazed, Stuccfit falls on her ass with her ears pinned back and tail fluffed, Vraat just raises his eyebrows; one spring wood elf also falls out of a tree, Danny can hear them chattering to each other in some language he definitely doesn’t know.

The dragon stares up at him before bowing her head down, “you speak true, my apologies, your highness. No dragon would dare deny a Mattingly even if not one by blood”.

And now the party all seem even more shocked. Reasonable. They did just find out he was dragon royalty after all. Danny chuckles, sitting his dragon butt down, “eh, no worries. Dora’s your deads Queen, not me their king”.

She looks up at him, lifting her head a little, “what of Guinevere and Clement”.

Danny scowls a little, “Aragon ended them”. Fuck that jackass still pissed him off, he’s going to have to have a grape pelting session against him again soon.

The dragon scowls as well, “I see, disgraced indeed”, looking down to the other four, “you’re more than welcome in my skies”, bows again to Danny, “I am Errol Skriver, what may I call you?”.

Danny chuckles, “Daniel, though I prefer Danny”, smirking again, “and if you’re wondering, Dorathea granted me her elder brother largely because I helped her dethrone her abusive fool of a brother, it really pissed him off”.

Errol grins toothily at that, “a perfect reason”, nodding at all of them, “fare thee well, I must see to my hatchling now”. They all say their awkward goodbyes and Danny nods at her; then all watching her go. Danny taking his eyes off of the sky and looking down on the group, laying down on his stomach and folding his front legs/arms over each other, “so, surprise?”.

Stuccfit almost squeaks, “you think?!?”, tail twitching. Miden looks absolutely jazzed, walking up and patting his forearm area, “this is awesome! Why didn’t you tell us this”.

“Eh in between suddenly being in a new dimension, the ice elf reaction, and the whole ‘we need to defeat a demon lord’ thing; it was kinda not the thing I was thinking about”, and shrugs.

Kelcini blinks, shakes his head vigorously, before walking closer to Danny. He was going to get a kink in the neck from looking up so harshly though, “so, um, I, uh, guess we can just ride you? Now? Instead of the floating?”.

“I’m faster with my floating and it’s safer, but I don’t see why not?”. These people were more familiar with dragons than his ghost powers, so he got the Why of them preferring to just ride on his back.

Vraat nods, sighs in a very calming way, and looks up at Danny too, “alright, we’ll do that, since you’re already in this form”. So Danny puts down a wing and the four all climb on a bit awkwardly; and it’s fucking weird feeling peoples feet all over his back. Miden pats his scales, sounding amazing, “they're really scales, I never would have thought I’d get to ride a dragon! Actual dragon or not”.

One of the wood elves shouts, “you could have said you were a dragon!”.

Danny holds up a claw finger, “dragon shifting and being a dragon are not the same thing, Woodie”. The elf looks offended and mutters something insulting about ice elves. Danny just chuckles before standing up and shooting off into the sky, Kelcini screaming the whole way until Danny settles into more of a glide.

The group take a bit to get settled and comfortable with this situation before anyone speaks up. “Okay, before we get anymore surprises, what are all of your family members, outside of your makers as that’s rather obvious”; that sounded like Vraat.

Danny chuckles, it wasn’t actually obvious but he’ll take the save. “Well my other sister is a human, same with my uncle. My Frostypa is a yeti, My Mythicma is a four-armed Amazonian, and my ClockPops is, uh, actually I don’t know what species they count as, huh”; ‘a god’ isn’t really a species, more of a title.

Stuccfit grumbles, “darn, we don’t have either of those, so your relation to them won’t be useful”.

“Eh fuck you, I am not a tool”, Danny rolls his eyes and blows a little air at some birds, snickering as they wobble wildly in the air, “yeti’s are like icy bears but a lot bigger, huge teeth, entirely two legged, and with ice horns. All of them have cryokinesis and build their homes and buildings with ice. Amazonians are extremely similar to humans but incredibly strong and violent, plus all of them are female and are either ghosts or reincarnations of women who died at the hands of cruel men”, blinking, “oh and yeti’s are all ghosts”.

Vraat hums, “and are any of them royalty?”.

Danny totally expected that, “well my human sister is studying to become a therapist, which is someone who heals the mind; but she’s not royalty. My uncles my town's mayor, which the word you might be familiar with would be an earl, I believe. Frostypa is the chief of his people though, the Far Frozen, effectively the same thing as a king. Mythicma is the queen of Mythos, which is where a lot of ghosts that have inspired myths reside; like cyclops and Medusa. And uh-”, swivelling his head back towards them and eyeing them before looking forwards again, fuck it,“-ClockPops is known by most as Chronos”.

Vraat coughs a little, “you mean the god of time? You’re god kin?”.

Danny chuckles, “never heard that term before, but that’s them. Guardian of time since time immemorial”. At this point freaking his sorta new friends out was fun as fuck.

Miden shakes her head, “suddenly you being a powerful Mage by our standards makes a lot of sense”.

Stuccfit grumbling, “I’m surprised I could even summon you at this point”.

Danny laughs, “me too actually! Your summoning magic, or whatever, literally chased me from the living realm into the dead one along with, like, twenty other people”.

Vraat gives Stuccfit a bit of a glare, who shrugs, “I didn’t mean to put that much power into it”. Vraat just shakes his head.

Danny narrows his eyes a bit, there’s, like, a weird white shiny door just standing by itself, that’s probably the gate thing. “Is this gate white and door-looking? ‘Cause if so we’re diving”.

Miden whoops, “yup!”; so Danny dives and Kelcini screams. With Danny returning to his normal form as soon as they land and they all get off his back. Annnnnd there’s elves glaring at him from the tree line again, just on the other side now; Danny sticks his tongue out at them. One fires an arrow at him, probably out of spite or offence, so he makes a simple ecto-shield around himself, disintegrating the arrow on impact; Danny’s smirk grows.

Stuccfit blinks at that, “how big can you make that?”.

“Uh, like enough to cover a small town at least? One that big would take some effort though and wouldn’t last more than an hour”.

She stares at him, tail drooping, “couldn’t you have just covered us in one then and walked through the forest”.

Danny opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, rubbing his neck, “I didn’t think of that”, then chuckling, “would have been a lot less dramatic though, and I do love drama”. She sighs and glares at him while Vraat gestures at the door and they get going, heading through it.

Chapter 7: Horde But Not Bored

Danny blinks as they make it through the doorway/portal, giant black castle that looks very stereotypically demonic? Check. Horde of zombies, skeletons, and mummies? Also check. This place reeked of death, in the dead corpses way not the ectoplasm way; Danny definitely preferred the ectoplasm way. Crinkling his nose at it, Stuccfit doing the same, though she also mutters, “I swear only necromancers and demons like this smell”.

Danny side-eyes Vraat who shrugs a little, “it’s a comfortable scent to me, yes”. Danny shrugs back, “well I guess most don’t like Death energy scent, but I do”. That actually gets him a thankful smile from the guy. This guy seemed like the type to hold himself to impossible standards and blamed himself for others faults. Sure Danny himself did that to a degree but Danny also then went and did the literal impossible on a causal Sunday.

Miden walks near the cliff edge, looking over the mass of undead and then at the demon lord castle, drawing her sword and pointing at it, “we’re gonna get you”, and smirks, turning back to the party, “so how are we doing this?”.

Stuccfit grumbles, “if it weren’t for the skeletal dragons and Mage undead, we could just skip them”, sighing, “I doubt putting up a shield will help enough”.

Danny shrugs, there was also the problem that his shields were made from ecto-energy, or death energy as he’s been calling it purely to avoid the ‘so is ectokinesis control over death energy?’ conversation, so there’s no telling how it would react to one of these ‘undead’ or their ‘magic’; he might just have to now though. And since these ‘undead’ weren’t really sentient of their own consciousness, they weren’t going to be all, like, respectful of dragon royalty bullshit. He also wasn’t super into just destroying them, but he was honestly probably putting them and their souls out of their misery; Danny damn well wouldn’t want someone hijacking his corpse and using it to hurt people in a personal army. “If we’re going to use my abilities, which is kinda the entire point of summoning me here, definitely would like to test that effectiveness first”.

Vraat frowns, “yes, your magic might not be the same as this worlds”. Kelcini nodding, “good thinking”. Stuccfit steps forward towards the edge, pulling some cord out of somewhere, “I’ll go fetch one”, that sounded a little murdery. Kelcini muttering, “please just a zombie”, after her; an ear twitch being the only indication that she heard him as she slinks down the cliff.

In the meantime, Danny glances around, there was a lot of char around and destroyed boulders and dead trees, “I take it there’s been a fuck ton of fighting here?”.

Vraat raises an eyebrow, “if by ‘fuck ton’ you mean a lot, then yes. This used to be a flat plain, all the fighting and magic gouging a crater into the ground”.

Miden sits down, sword resting against her thigh, “and it used to look pretty nice, still all dark and spooky, but nice”, and smiles a little.

Vraat nodding tiredly, “indeed, but that was before this demon lord took power”, looking more so at Danny, “demons have always been ruled by lords, much like elves are ruled by High elves”.

Kelcini smiles at Danny a little, “if you were a high elf you’d probably be the direct ruler of a clan, with, um, all the connections you, you know, have”. Danny just chuckles at that, since he actually was a direct ruler just not of fucking elves… well okay there probably was ghost elves which he would rule just not super directly.

Vraat continuing, “most likely, yes. Anyway, many of the demon lords of old have been either ineffectual or good, this one though…”.

Danny nods understandingly, “a tyrannical genocidal madman?”. A demonic weaker Pariah, if you will. Been there fought that.

Vraat blinks, “not that far, no. More power hungry, egotistical, and supremacist”.

“Oh well that’s a fuck ton better, damn”, Danny roughs up his hair a little, “the previous ghost king absolutely was a tyrannical genocidal madman, was literally called the Mad King; he got sealed inside a coffin that causes permanent enteral sleep, and before you ask I don’t how that thing was made”, then grimacing, “and there’s been a lot of nasty human kings and queens or similar in my world. Three are even responsible for over sixty million deaths each”. Human history was solidly pretty fucked up, which was probably why a lot of the human ghosts were also fucked up and usually sucked at cooperating.

Kelcini is a fair bit bug-eyed, “our demon lord doesn’t sound so bad now”.

“If there’s one thing humans in my world are really good at, it’s finding new reasons to fight each other and new ways to hurt each other”.

Stuccfit pops back up over the cliffs edge, tossing up a heavily bound zombie, “test subject acquired”, and makes ‘well go on’ gestures at Danny as she pulls herself up all the way. Grumbling, “I really do hate undead stink”. Nodding her head at Danny, “at least you just smell like smokey lime and fresh frost, ice elf”.

Danny blushes a little before swivelling around to be facing the groaning zombie that’s attempting to claw at them… too bad for it it’s all bound up. So Danny makes a tiny little ecto-blast in front of his finger and shoots the zombie with the tiny ball.

Some of the wounds on the zombie heal with a flair of faint green light over its body.

Danny blinks, “uh, not only did that not hurt it, it heal it. Well shit”. The others all groan or sag when Danny just sets the thing on fire and it does nothing except clean off any grime. Even shooting it with ice just heals the damn thing, making it seem harder, more energised, and stronger; as it starts thrashing around more and leaving deeper gouges in the dirt as it tries to claw towards them more.

Stuccfit actually whacks Danny over the head, “way to be useless, how did I summon a very powerful Mage who’s magic just so happens to be useless against the undead which is what I summoned him to fight”.

Danny sighs, this honestly fucking tracks for him, “yeah this lines up with my usual luck”, they all stare at him, so he rubs his neck, “I have very bad luck. Usually when anything is going heavily my way something’s going to go horrifically wrong. Like I go on a relaxing break with my one maker and all the adults in town get abducted by a toddler pirate and a mind controlling singer. Or I get a large amount of money and then a ghost hating group try to destroy the entire afterlife. Or I decide to travel to another country and wind up stranded on a small island with murderous poachers instead. Or I genuinely study from a test and the building said testing happens in gets blown up and I break both my arms. I even accidentally managed to make it so that I was never born and had to undo that, once. I could go on”. Half the time it kind of seemed like his life was one long series of really weird and really unlucky events that somehow always turned out in the end for him.

Stuccfit glares, “you need a good luck spell”. She’s not wrong, but it would probably turn out to be cursed knowing Danny.

Miden frowns, putting her chin in her palms, “so now what? We kind of need magic here”.

Danny lets his mental wheels spin a little. Back in the day he didn’t even have his ecto-beams and stuff, it was all just pure hand to hand so…“well I actually also have muscle enhancement, so I can run real fast and punch real hard. And I’m, like, super durable”, then blinking before smirking, “I am also very good at making things that go boom”. At the confused looks, Danny rolls his eyes, “explode. I can build some things that will explode without my abilities slash magic”.

Stuccfit rolls her eyes, “but how long will that take”, she doesn’t sound hopeful.

“That depends if we’ve got cheap meat, some small pieces of wood, metal coils, and rocks”, Danny chuckling ominously, “if we do, give me about ten minutes and I can set this place off like a mouth full of pop rocks”.

Miden blinking, “and those are?”.

“Candy that explode when you put it in your mouth”.

Kelcini looks scandalised, “people from your world eat things at explode?”.

Danny makes a squishing motion with his fingers, “very very tiny explosions, some people even sniff them up their noses to hear it in their skull”; they all look horrified. But he’s given what he requested. Nice.

He’s got about twenty little bombs in nine minutes, and he’s out of metal bits. Nodding down at it, “twenty’s not a ton but it’s nothing to piss at either”, looking up at them, “need more metal if we want more”. Danny’s ‘being a little shit’ ‘powers’ were coming in on the clutch here.

Vraat blinks, “well alright, now how strong is strong with this enhancement of yours”.

Danny just sticks his arm out, leans sideways some, and causally crushes the zombies skull in his hand, “I can pick up buildings if I want”. Which he’s glad for, considering he’s hand to catch wayward busses on multiple occasions.

Miden grins slowly, “can you… enhance others strength?”. Danny knows exactly what she’s asking, sword lady wants to be stronger sword lady, unfortunately….“no”. She pouts a little.

Everyone nods around at each other before standing up, Vraat eying Danny’s armful of bombs, “test one first, for everyone’s sake”.

Danny shrugs, grabs one, and gives it a good hurl into the horde. Someone shouts, “OW! WHAT THE! WHO’S THROWING ROC-”, and then the bomb goes off, shaking the ground a little and obliterating at least fifty or sixty of the horde.

Stuccfit blinks and bends over laughing, “I think you just hit either a lich, a necromancer, or a ghoul directly in the head, I don’t know if that’s bad or good luck”, and laughs a little more.

Danny shrugs, “well I doubt we’ll be able to tell now, and about them not being sentient, what the fuck was that? ‘Cause that kinda sounded like sentience”. Danny is not down with killing sentient things. Like, at all.

Vraat shakes his head, “outside of necromancers and some Death nights, they don’t want to still be around; and those two kinds that do desire to remain are firmly evil incarnate”. Danny hums a bit disbelievingly. All he gets in response to his humming is, “it’s for the best”. Whelp that solves that, Danny’s going to go interrogate a lich or ghoul or whatever. Get his own answers, until then, aiming at the actual zombies, mummies, and skeletons; those are definitely just empty husks.

Stuccfit eyes him a bit suspiciously, probably because Danny clearly doesn’t believe the paladin but isn’t pressing the matter, but shakes her head, looking over at the horde, “let’s get down to business”. Okay Danny can not pass up on this, “to defeat the huns”.

“What”.

Danny snickers, “it’s a reference to a children’s show about killing an army, and a girl pretending to be a guy to get to do it”.

Kelcini grimaces, “your world is starting to sound like a nightmare”.

Stuccfit scowls, “let’s go”.

Danny chuckles again anyways, “I drop bombs from sky, yes?”.

They all nod at him with expressions saying that he’s being a pain and stupid. Vraat looking to Stuccfit and Miden, “we’ll stick together mostly, outside of sword range”, giving Miden a bit of a look, who scratches her head awkwardly.

Kelcini nods, pulling out his bow, “and I fire long range, standard set up”. Which Vraat nods at and the three all slide down the cliff into the fray.

Danny eyes the horde, Miden taking off, like, three heads with one wide swing; whelp alright then she was dangerous to be super near by. Danny salutes Kelcini before floating up and off with enough speed that he probably startles the guy slightly. And soon the sounds of undead moaning and metal clanging has a backdrop of explosions. Danny like-y.

Vraat is flipping over the undead, swinging his sword around and usually bisecting the enemy rather than beheading them; occasionally punching them with some serious force, and Danny’s pretty sure he saw the guy stab some with a tail. Miden’s got her sword and frequent battle cries, clearly someone likes to fight, her hand to hand isn’t great though; she gets a mummy through the eye with her sword hilt though. Stuccfit is jumping on and stabbing them with daggers or popping their heads off with chokeholds; grabbing and swinging them into each other sometimes. And Kelcini is legit a good shot, Danny’s pretty sure he doesn’t miss even once and a not insignificant amount of his arrows are one fire… which the explosions are spreading a lot. Like, everyone on the ground has to start watching out for fire a lot. Danny’d douse it a little with some ice but… strengthening the zombies wasn’t the best plan when there was a demon guy punching them or a cat girl popping their heads off.

Eventually Danny decides to dive down and just use his ice arm to put out the flames, waving it through flames and outright punching fire, zipping around the others to float over by Vraat, “I’d say your welcome, but this is partly my fault”. Vraat nods curtly, “it’s still appreciated”. Stuccfit snapping from a bit away as she pops off another head, “so long as he doesn’t get any ice on the undead!”.

“Hey fuck you! I’m being cautious!”. He punches a zombie with the ice arm just to piss her off, the strength behind the punch means it still gets its ass obliterated and leaves behind a little crater in the ground.

“Why do I not believe you!”.

“Oh Ancients”, Danny rolls his eyes and hucks another bomb a bit of a ways off, before flying up and around some more.

All in all they weren’t making half bad progress. He’d definitely spotted both Vraat and Stuccfit destroying a ghoul though, he’s still not sure about that. Danny himself has taken out… like a lot actually. He’s being weirdly effective without using much energy at all. Last time he’d knocked this many combatants out alcohol was involved. Maybe. He’s a little fuzzy on the details.

But what he’s not fuzzy on is the sound of someone muttering ‘this is a mess. I hate this. Damn mortals’ to themselves and not in a voice he recognises. Shooting down into the horde and making a little crater from the impact, he sort of just backhands and slaps zombies and mommies and a skeleton or two, into oblivion as he marches on. He finds a knight made of shadows and bones waiting for him, Death knight then, just standing there watching him approach and holding up a hand that stops all the other undead in their tracks around them: he doubts this is the leader of the horde though.

It draws Its sword, “you would not be the first to wish to duel honourably, yet you come unarmed”. But when Danny gets closer he can sense Its shock, “you know Death”.

Danny nods with a smile, there was… sorta a soul but not really; it was more like Its soul was still tethered to it, blocking it from moving on. Dead but not dying, Vraat might just have a point. Magic was snagging a bit of its soul and forcing it to stay amongst the living. So Danny holds out a hand and envelops it with the welcoming energy of the Infinite Realm, a Death touch, “more than you know. Tell me, do you desire to die. Truly die”, and let’s the FrightKnights connection to him show in his shadow as well. After all that’s kinda what ol’ Frighty was, his kings ever looming shadow that could grow to consume everything his master wishes to and was always there. He doesn’t know if the people/beings of this world will recognise the regalia of the High Ghost Sovereign but he does know they’ve at least seen depictions of the FrightKnight.

The Death Knight eyes his hand and looks back to his eyes, “I never wanted this, you see. All I wanted, was to save the cursed souls of those turned undead. My blight, their sacrifice, was needed. A means to an end, in the end my own”, and steps forward to take Danny’s hand, what tethered him snapping immediately under such a direct force of death and his remains crumbling to ash.

Danny eyes the ash a little, punching the head clean off the first undead that comes at him, he’s officially good with this because they are definitely not meant to be here anymore and their souls definitely don’t like it. He doesn’t like it. Throwing one of his few remaining bombs and then flying into a bunch of the horde, grabbing as many as he can and slamming them all together and into each other; a truly crushing defeat.

Annnnd then he forgets he has bombs and punches another mummy while holding a bomb in his hand… it explodes and he barely has time to turn his hand intangible, the blast sending him back through the air and flipping around a little. Spotting the others he lets gravity do it’s thing again and crashes into the ground, on his neck with his feet over his head, right by them. Stuccfit quickly pulling him up, “what did you do”.

“Punched a guy, forgot I was holding a bomb, blew myself up”. You know, his usual dumbassery.

“You look good for a guy that just got blown up”.

“Intangibility and a really fucking high durability has its perks”. A zombie tries to bite his ice arm, which does not work, since it’s ice… at least his arm doesn’t leech off energy so no harm done, “only having one natural arm also has its perks”; he shakes the zombie off violently enough to tear its head off and quickly jabs another trying to sneak up on him directly in the eyes, grabbing the facial bones and yoinking off its face. Danny spinning around to the now faceless zombie, giving a very flat sounding, “ew”.

Miden laughs a little, “at least you’re swift!”.

Which just makes Danny grin, whispering, “🎶we must be swift as the coursing river🎶”, then high kicks the things head, sending it a good thirty feet into the air, “🎶with all the force of a great typhoon🎶”.

Stuccfit squints after Danny as he walks and punches his way like a slow moving bull through the horde, “he’s weird, I kind of like it”.

Danny bitch slaps off another head, watching another arrow go overhead with a smirk, “🎶with all the strength of a raging fire🎶”, turning and flying like a bowling ball through pins, Miden knocking some more skeletons into his path, “🎶mysterious as the dark side of the mooooooooon🎶”. Jumping out of the corpse pile, “yeah!”, putting his hands on his hips, “man, I so need to watch that show again”.

Then he picks up on another tethered soul, except it’s not going towards them or staying still, it’s going towards the cliff; well shit. Snapping his head over to Kelcini before shooting off, sending the sorta pile of managed corpses splattering apart and flying in all directions.

“You stupid ice elf!”.

“Ah gross!”.

“Was that really necessary”.

They wouldn’t be complaining if they knew the why, which they sort of figure out when he slaps the half rotted hand of a… necromancer maybe, away from their archer friend. Danny promptly tries to can the undead square in the crotch, which the undead reacts to in a very knee-jerk way enough for Kelcini to get away and more so behind Danny. Kelcini side-eyeing Danny’s stand off with the sudden sneaky attacker while still firing arrows into the horde. Dedication.

Danny tilts his head and the clearly slightly startled undead, “did that actually even hurt”. That would be hilarious if it did, but it logically shouldn’t…

“No…”.

Danny whistles, “you musta got kicked in the crotch a lot then for it to be an ingrained response, I take it you were a major dick in life”; that or he was into some kinky shit.

Kelcini practically hissing back at him, “don’t have a conversation with it, just, just destroy it”, then mumbling, “even if that was definitely an insult”.

The undead sneers, “annoying pest”.

Danny chuckles right back, “if you turn around I can show you just how much of a pain in the ass I can be”.

“Death will stop your annoying prattle”.

“Coming from a talking undead that’s kind of goofy”. Plus, Danny was basically a representation and overlord of death so it’s definitely not going to stop his stupid mouth.

“Silence! That archer, and you, will make great additions to the army”, It holds its little orb up and starts saying some kind of chant in some kind of language; Kelcini just sort of freezing and paling a little. Looks like playtimes over, boo. Or… Danny makes an invisible duplicate, sneaks it over and grabs the orb; jumping away with said orb and making the duplicate become visible at the same.

“How- You return that at once! YOU CANT HAVE THAT!”. The undead lunges at the duplicate which tosses the orb to og Danny before dissipating, leaving the undead grasping at thin air.

Danny wiggles his eyes at the undead with a smirk before just taking a bite out of the orb like it’s a fucking apple. The undead shrieks and black smoke leaves the orb; the undead falling in a pile of rotted flesh and bone. Danny chews a bit and mumbles, “well that didn’t taste great, eaten worse though”, and swallows.

Kelcini audibly gags, coughs a couple of times, and misses the next two arrow shots now that he’s apparently willing to move again, “that… uh, um, I’ve never heard of someone, er, biting a necromancers orb”.

Danny peers inside the orb before just smashing the rest of it on the ground, “so that was a necromancer, good to know”. Looking the archer up and down, “you good”. Danny did just do something freaky and the dude could have just died.

Kelcini muttering, “I’m disgusted”, clearing his throat and speaking up, “um, yeah”. Danny gives him a thumbs up before rejoining the fray. Unfortunately doing that reveals that the three others have found their own more powerful undead; guess casually cutting through the canon fodder will get you some one on one time with the heavier hitters.

Chapter 8: Death Touch

Danny chooses to float in the air, watching the interaction more so and smacking/kicking any undead getting close; like these guys don’t suck right? So they can handle it right? Danny’s overprotective issues aside. Sure, Danny could probably deal with the entire horde alone if he really felt like it; even if he had to slap/punch/kick every single one, it might take a while but it’d be doable. The stronger undead scowls directly at Danny rather than the three pointing swords or daggers at It, Danny punches another skeleton while winking and the stronger undead holds up a hand which once again makes all the basic bitch undead all stop and keep their distance. It was a waste of good canon fodder to keep sending them after him only to be blown to bits.

Miden grins, “ha, guess you recognised pointlessness”. Stuccfit hissing, “elder lich”. Vraat raises his sword a little more, “if you wish to maintain your horde, merely let us past”.

Danny lands and walks over a bit, “what? Do they like their hordes or something? Very sentient behaviour there”. Vraat sighs, “they’re pack creatures, nothing more. They are always inclined to higher numbers”. Danny thinks that’s a load of bullshit, at least somewhat anyways.

The elder lich growls, “you”, with the way It’s staring at Danny it pretty obvious who It’s talking to. “I saw you. Veraint was far too close to you for you to have been able to move at all while he was casting that spell. Otherwise there’d be no reason to get so close for deaths grapple”.

Miden gives Danny some slightly curious side eye, which Danny shrugs at even if he has a very good guess as to why a death spell wouldn’t work on his half dead king of ghosts ass, she looks back to the elder lich and shrugs herself, “he’s an otherworlder, they’re weird”.

“That should not have mattered”, narrowing its hallow eye sockets, “how. Answer me and you shall pass”. Vraat scowls, “you only want to increase your strength through knowledge”; the elder lich grins meanly.

Danny blinks before grinning in a face splitting way, making the lich stop smiling; recognising the threat that kind of smile was. The tether that these stronger undead seemed to have to their souls, unable to pass on, broke so easily. Went from dead but not dying, to firmly dead like he’d snipped a string with scissors. The soul wanted to move on, whether the personality wanted to or not. The death knight wanted it, this guy? probably not. But just how badly did this guy want information? Danny has no problem telling It by showing It. So he lifts up a hand, “won’t you shake a poor sinners hand?”, letting the connection of his energy to the Infinite Realm flow around his hand; something that should be in the afterlife would sense it easily even without it being visually noticeable to the living. … okay maybe demon paladin might be able to tell, based on the guy shiver twitching slightly.

Stuccfit hisses, “are you an idiot”, at Danny without looking back at him. But when the elder lich takes a frightful cautious step back, she blinks, “what”; blatantly confused.

The elder lich glares, “no living should be able to manipulate death”. Danny shrugs, still grinning, “different world, different rules, my guy”.

“You’re too dangerous”, and suddenly the undead are all going on the attack again. Stuccfit jumping on one’s head with her hands and feet, strangling it with her fluffy tail to pop off the head, “well the rest was nice”. Miden and Vraat going back to swinging their swords around. Though it looks like Kelcini had been taking a fuck ton out with arrows while they were having their little pow wow with mr. Elder Lich.

Danny pouting before elbowing off a mummy's head, that motherfucker is not fleeing from him like a little bitch. He immediately starts stalking after the Elder Lich, which is trying to keep Its distance; smart but futile. Danny chuckling, speaking sing-song, “Awww, come on, I’m not that scary, I promise. I just want to say hi, don’t be such a little bitch about it”.

Vraat eyes the why that Danny is menacingly following the Elder Lich around while also smacking the crap out of the undead, Vraat muttering, “I’ve never seen an lich behave like that”. Miden going back to back with him, “it’s probably because of the ghost hunter thing, maybe It can tell he’s dealt with them a bunch”.

“I’m unsure about that. Whatever scared off the Elder Lich earlier, I felt as well, it was… unnerving”.

“Are you saying you don’t trust him?”; she slices a banshee clean in half.

“He’s done nothing to truly warrant mistrust, but I doubt he’s been fully truthful”.

“Well, we did pretty much abduct him”.

The demon paladin hums agreeingly before sending off a spear of holy light through a few undead; stifling a wince.

Danny chuckles to himself, ears twitching, he’s pretty positive he’ll get back to his own dimension after this so it’s not really any harm if these folks do figure his shit. It wasn’t like this dimension had a ghost bigotry problem. He’s more interested in making this fucker move on properly than in keeping the whole ‘I’m kinda dead’ thing quiet. The elder lich sends a whole ass skeletal dragon at him, they were clearly meant to be guarding the castle but oh well. But Danny’s far enough away from the others now that he kinda wants to try something. His ghostly powers don’t seem to be useful here but… KingsSpeak controls the dead… So Danny looks at the incoming dragon, “do̢w̧n̵ bo͟ý”, and it crumbles to pieces littering the ground; course he winds up getting hurt anyway by a random skeleton with a dagger. Danny chuckles, moving quickly to be behind the startled elder lich, grabbing It with his ice hand instead of the death touch one, and whispering into Its ear, “elves don’t exist in my world”.

Its shock is palpable, “you’re no ice elf, your a frost reaper”. Danny has no fucking clue what that is, not that it matters, grabbing the lich with his flesh covered hand and boom the tether snaps and It crumples to nothing.

Of course when Danny turns away cloak falling over his stab wound, there’s Stuccfit standing on a recently made headless mummy's shoulders staring at him. Way to instantly get caught self. Damn. “What did you do?”. It’s a question but it’s also clearly an accusation. All the other undead either stop moving or collapse.

Miden cheers in the background, “oh yeah!”, then turns and points her sword at the castle, “you’re next, pal!”. While Kelcini is all but running down the cliff and towards them, clutching his bow the whole time. Vraat’s just nodding acceptingly to himself.

Stuccfit glares a little, tail twitching, “well?”, while stepping off of the undead corpse which collapses to the side, walking at Danny.

Danny jabs a thumb over his shoulder at the whole demon castle thing, where there's definitely some dude who probably knows his undead army just kinda got fucking run over. “Uh?”.

She rolls her eyes at him but Miden comes over looking happy, “he’ll make us come to him”. While Vraat grumbles about egos.

Kelcini grimaces at Danny, “I still can’t believe you, you know, bit a necromancer's orb”.

The other three all give Danny looks. So he shrugs, “what? I didn’t know that’d actually do anything, I just figured it’d piss the fucker off”; which yeah, it did, being destroyed is pretty infuriating.

Miden and Stuccfit give him judgemental looks while Vraat hums, “well it was effective”, then looks between Stuccfit and Danny, “now what’s going on?”.

Stuccfit huffs, ear twitching, “I don’t know why the skeletal dragon disappeared but the elder Lich was destroyed with just a touch from our little otherworlder”.

All four give Danny curious, or in Stuccfit’s case judging, looks. Rubbing his neck a little awkwardly, “I just snipped the tether”.

“The what?”.

Danny waves a hand around, they probably couldn’t tell or sense it, “I noticed the nonverbal undead are quite literally soulless husks, but the other ones have a thin little tether to their soul stopping them from actually dying in full and moving on”, shrugging, “so I snipped it”. Stuccfit actually smiles at that, nodding curtly; she just wanted him to give a damn answer apparently.

Vraat taps his chin, looking at the ground, “I suppose that would make sense, we’ve theorised on how some undead are more like people, like they once were, than others. A maintained attachment to the soul could do it”, looking up to Danny, “is sensing things of that manner part of your training, ghost hunting training?”.

Now see Danny could definitely use that as an easy out, but holy fuck would that ever be one heck of a lie. They really haven’t given him a reason to lie like that and it was kinda nice getting to hang out with people like this again; it had been a while. Val didn’t really know and she just viewed him as a weird pain in the ass ghost; which might change in the future but still. “Eh ghost hunting is more shoot and capture; sometimes studying and creating things to deal with ghosts. Most ghost hunters are bigoted assholes who don’t believe ghosts have emotions or feelings. So they hunt, capture, study, and if possible destroy; without discretion or care”, looking at the demon lord's castle, “I never really agreed with that, so I talked to them instead, spent time around them, helped”, chuckling and looking back to them, “hence why I wound up with a bunch of ghost family. Thing is, when you spend a bunch of time around ghosts like that without decontaminating yourself, you basically get contaminated with death energy”, rubbing his neck again, “pretty much everyone in my town is contaminated pretty badly and can sense the dead. Sensing someone dying, even if their body or magic I guess, is stopping it from finishing, is pretty easy for me”. Not a lie but not entirely true either.

Vraat frowns a little, “sounds like your ghost hunters aren’t necessarily good aligned”.

Danny huffs, slightly annoyed, “tell me about it”.

Kelcini grimacing a little, “I would hate to be able to sense dying and the dead; too creepy”.

“The dead stopped being creepy to me a long time ago, many are quite adorable”. Danny snickers at the guys disbelieving look. Even Frighty could be pretty adorable sometimes, in Danny’s opinion.

Stuccfit, puts her hands behind her head and starts walking towards the demon lords castle, everyone joining, “so that Elder Lich was avoiding you because it could sense what you were trying to do?”. Vraat instantly shaking his head, “it was more than that, what was done I felt it as well, in the air. It was as if death was here or calling out to us perhaps”.

Danny hums, well he was kinda the representation of death and he did kind of bring the land of the dead around his hand/near them. “Well I did effectively create a connection between my one hand and the afterlife, so that’s not inaccurate”. Kelcini almost squeaks, “so you can just, uh, kill by touching people?!?”.

Danny is slightly offended by that, giving the archer a scandalised look, “no! A little tether to a dead corpse is nothing much, a full attachment to a functioning body is a whole nother thing”, scratching behind his ear, “I mean, I probably could if I tried, but I’d probably also knock myself out or something”. He had absolutely zero plans of testing that theory out ever.

Kelcini muttering a quiet, “please don’t”, and eyes Danny’s ice hand nervously when Danny gives him a little head pat. “That’s really cold”. Well it was ice…

Danny smirks down at the archer, “cold as death”.

Miden raises a judgmental eyebrow at Danny when Kelcini grimaces, “don’t torment him too much”.

“But I must feed on fear”.

She whacks him one.

Danny chuckles, “besides, if I wanted to kill someone with a touch it would be way easier to just remove their internal organs, or all their blood, or their skin”. Kelcini moves to walk on the other side of Vraat while Danny continues, “just making their skin intangible would make everything inside fall out even. There’s a lot of very easy ways to kill someone with intangibility”. Vraat grimacing, “that’s actually quite horrifying”.

Stuccfit pokes Danny with her tail, “that kind of power would probably get you the necromancer class here”. Vraat blinks and pauses, everyone else stopping too, while he raises an eyebrow, “indeed it should”, tilting his head sideways, “normally when someone comes to this world with any sort of powers or magic, it transfers to this worlds classification of it. The way their abilities or magic works doesn’t change but they do get classes. If someone who deals in demonic magics came here, they’d very likely become a demon”, humming and looking up at the sky, “maybe your wide range of other magics is enough to counterattack the necromancer class…”.

Danny glances around a bit awkwardly, “I have no idea, but I wouldn’t bet on that. My contamination might be being considered close enough? I’m basically infected with Death energy”. That is probably actually the weirdest way Danny’s ever described being half dead.

Stuccfit gives him a slightly suspicious look, “still you should have been an undead while here”.

Kelcini shaking her head, “I’m glad he’s not”, looking around then at all the corpses on the ground and at the… shiny liquid on the ground? Danny can practically feel the archers eyes looking across the ground and then to Danny’s shoes and pants. Stuccfit looking at Kelcini, “what”.

Kelcini blinks, “Uh, um”, looking up at Danny cautiously, “are you, uh, bleeding?”. And now everyone’s looking panicked slightly at Danny.

Danny blinks, confused, before facepalming, sounding really unaffected, “oh yeah, I got stabbed”. That shit happened to him so much that he is usually didn’t actually notice these days unless it was one heck of a stabbing or a very weird stabbing. Like getting stabbed by a coo-coo train would be something he wouldn’t forget about.

Miden blinks, going wide-eyed and promptly trying to look him over, “what! Where?!?”. Vraat frowning, “you should have said something”. Stuccfit just shakes her head. Miden pointing at the ground and gently snapping, “sit down. I’ll wrap it, mild healing blessing, Vraat”.

Danny does as he’s told, taking off his cloak and distractedly responding, “I usually just deal with my own injuries and never mention them to anyone. I once punched guy with my arm bisected and only being held together with a hair tie”.

Miden smacks him over the head, “no. Bad”. While Vraat mutters the healing blessing thing, “let flesh shine in crystal clarity and solidity”, while holding a coin sort of above the wound; Danny winds up surprised that it does actually speed up his healing, only kinda though.

Vraat shakes his head, standing up, “that was… less effective than standard”; while Miden wraps Danny up with practiced ease. Vraat eyeing Danny as the paladin stands back up, “I can’t say I’ve seen green and red blood before”.

Danny blinks, ah shit right, he forgets about that sometimes. Miden nodding, “and you have slightly green muscles, white or blue I would totally get though”, and laughs a little. Danny rubbing his neck as he hoists himself upright and pulls his cloak back on, “oh well, that’s, uh, the contamination actually. The green part of my blood is literally liquid death energy”. Stuccfit snorts and laughs meanly a little, “you’re like part Death energy, maybe you do have a point that that’s why you’re not an undead here”.

Danny grins a little, making an ecto-blast in his hand, no real point in not mentioning this now, “in my world, Death energy is called ectoplasm, so my ectokinesis is the manipulation of Death energy”.

Vraat sighs, “and we wouldn’t have understood the term and would have questioned you using what is very nearly necromancy”; Danny blushes a little awkwardly and nods.

Kelcini blinks, “okay, uh, yeah you’re a necromancer without the, ugh, dead problem”, and shudders a little. Danny chooses not to comment on that because he definitely did have the dead problem except he didn’t consider it a problem and it was definitely not the same.

Stuccfit snorting, tail swishing around, “a necromancer whose necromancy is useless against the standard undead”. Danny flips her off as they all start walking again.

Chapter 9: Demon Lord

Pushing the large castle doors open, Danny’s getting some serious reminders of when he walked into Pariah’s castle to face the tyrannical ghost king. The whole place is dark, with blacks, purples, and reds. Large walls covered in fabrics, skull and bones furniture, stain glass windows with depictions of violence on them, things left intentionally dusty or tattered. And then there’s the demon -he’s definitely a demon- sitting on a golden thorny throne with a long rug leading up to him. Fire red hair with flames flicking off of it occasionally, long thick black horns with prominent spiralling gouges, romantic Victorian black and red clothing with tattered frills and an over the top cape; the guy literally had a black ring on every single one of his fingers and one all of his bare toes. And of course there’s the red crown surrounded in shadows sitting on his head. He’s got one elbow on the armrest, cheek resting on a fist, watching them with an amused smile; the guy leaked demonic power. Sure some came off of Vraat but the whole paladin thing probably repressed it a lot… or he was weak by demon standards while this guy definitely is not.

“Ah, a hero doing her duties, a neko who refuses to be soft, a half-dwarf playing human”, smirking down at them more, “a wayward foolish demon prince”. Vraat narrows his eyes a little but nothing more; while Danny is very confused and the others seem slightly confused too. “-and an otherworlder ice elf”. Moving to stand up, “I suppose you’re more interesting than the last bunch, stronger as well”, taking some steps down, “hopefully you’ll be more amusing too”, looking at Vraat, “and if my dear little brother wants to play games, who am I to deny him”. At everyone giving Vraat some serious side-eye, the demon lord laughs, “I see you didn’t tell them, nice to see some proper demon behaviour from you”.

Vraat glares faintly, “it was a kindness, not manipulation”.

“You tell yourself that”.

Stuccfit is obviously a little pissed and kicks the demon paladin in the ankle. Miden frowning with a quiet somewhat hurt, “you should have told us, Vraat”, before glaring at the demon lord, “this changes nothing”. While Kelcini smiles a little at Vraat, “I… can’t really judge”; Vraat giving a thankful tense smile back; he obviously wasn’t expecting a very good reaction to his shit.

Danny just shrugs, he barely has any idea what’s going on here; this slightly seems like Vraat might be trying to actually dethrone his brother and take his place? Maybe? Over a differing of opinions and beliefs, clearly. Danny’s pretty solid on Vraat not doing this for plain selfish reasons, though; so he’s not going to judge or complain.

The demon lord guy rolls his eyes, “how forgiving, ugh”, putting a hand dramatically to his forehead and giving his hair a little flip, “it’s disgusting”, summoning out a black smoky sword, “I’m demon lord Firat-”. Danny tries not to laugh, their parents were dicks when it came to naming. “-though I’m sure only one here doesn’t know that little fact”.

Vraat lifts his sword some, “Vraat, paladin”, he said that like it was a threat. Firat actually scowls at him, so he must be pissed about his apparent brother being a fucking paladin. Which if the guy is a violent demon lord who’s pro-depravity it would make sense that he doesn’t like paladins.

Miden copying the demon party leader, “Miden, the hero”.

Stuccfit scowls, tightening her grip on her daggers, “Stuccfit, assassin”.

Kelcini actually nods respectfully though clearly shaking a little, “Kelcini, archer”.

Danny’s just going to assume there’s a reason for the introductions, like some sort of ‘it doesn’t count if you don’t know your opponents name’ thing. “Daniel, Mage”.

The demon lord huffs a small laugh, rolling his eyes, “a mage, of course”, and throws his cape out to the side as he moves to approach them. But pauses in his advance, one foot in the air before putting it back where it was; eyeing Danny. Unbeknownst to Danny, Firat was powerful enough to see the intense aura of death around him, the connection of the land of death to him. “If I were blind, I’d say necromancer suits you better than mage”.

Miden glares, “and what’s that supposed to mean”. Vraat takes a protective step forward though.

Firat rolls his eyes at his brother, “don’t be so eager”, eyeing the hero, “a necromancer barrows from the afterlife and from life itself, the undead nothing more than shells filled with what was borrowed to animate them”.

Stuccfit snapping, “we don’t need a magic lesson from you”. And then kicks Danny when he mutters, “I mean, I found it useful”. Thing is, it is useful, because now Danny knows exactly where this conversations going; this demon lord can tell that’s not what Danny’s doing. Oh this is about to get interesting.

Firat chuckles meanly before pointing leisurely at Danny, making the others tense as he speaks, “that one isn’t borrowing anything, he’s generating it, connected to it”, eyeing Danny, “you’re a resident of the afterlife, yet also not. I’d be far more interested in studying you than destroying you”. That gets all four of them holding their weapons more threateningly at the demon lord; even if they also give Danny some ‘what the fuck’ glances/side eye. Danny just flips him off, “suck my dick”; studying plus Danny was a big no no in his books.

The demon lord shrugs, “too bad then”, and charges them without a second thought. Vraat clashing swords with him first and being laughed at by his apparent brother in response, “you always were too soft”.

“Better than cruel”, Vraat shoving his sword hard. While Miden joins him but winds up getting thrown back into a wall loudly; Danny did manage to cushion her a bit with some fluffy snow. Stuccfit jumps in as well, Miden running back over.

Firat jumps between different black smoky weapons, jabbing away the assassin with spears, hitting the two sword wielders with heavy claymores or mallets, and throwing blasts of demonic energy and fire at Kelcini and Danny.

Danny was pretty much constantly maintaining an ecto-shield, Kelcini hiding behind it and him, as both send off attacks at the demon lord. Flaming arrows, exploding arrows, ecto-fire balls, ecto-ice spears, standard metal and wood arrows, ecto-blasts/beams, a couple of arrows with some of Danny’s electricity zapping around on them. Danny’s also stuck having to make cushioning things so the three close fighters don’t get knocked out or anything every time they get smashed into something. Mr. Demon Lord is probably pretty annoyed with him at this point, since danny was stopping him from doing any real damage.

Firat sneers, slamming Miden across the cheek with a shadowy claymore, “instant castless magic, annoying”, eyeing Stuccfit, “I’ll deal with it though”, smirking and throwing a shadow whip around the assassin to yank her over, “you know, if the summoner goes, the summoned gets stuck and losses any of their otherworldly power”, and moves to stab her in the neck. Stuccfit grabs the whip and yanks herself up with it and goes to kick the demon lord in the chin, but he turns to smoke and avoids it easily.

Danny blinks, glancing at Kelcini, “that true? ‘Cause I would take issue with that. Like, a fucking lot”. Kelcini grimaces and nods, “please don’t do anything crazy, um, like turn into a very big dragon in this, er, not very big room”. Cool. Okay. If it looks like Stuccfit’s gonna die then he’s gonna make sure that doesn’t happen, for obvious reasons. But could that even apply to him? Like his power comes from being half dead and the High Sovereign of an entire realm. Would this bring him fully back to life and revoke his crown? The fuck? The sheer chaos that would cause, and Danny really doesn’t know how to be a fully living person anymore.

Then Vraat gets slammed nearly through the ceiling, partly due to Danny’s ass getting distracted; making Danny wince. But Vraat uses his downward momentum as he falls to try striking again and does actually nick Firat directly on the nose while the demon lord has been busy with attempting to stab Miden with a poisoned dagger.

Firat jumping back, sneering, “lucky shot”. As Vraat quickly uses a bit of healing blessing on Miden, which Firat rolls his eyes over, “using divine magic that only hurts you is always going to be foolish, I don’t know what you think you’re proving”.

Vraat standing back up, “pain is a great equaliser, makes us empathise; if only you weren’t too foolish and black-hearted to see that”. Firat throws a shadow mallet at the two, forcing them apart. Of course, then Danny’s fire sends him into a wall; Miden giving Danny a thumbs up for the shot.

Firat whipping away the smoke through the air with his arm, growling, opening up his mouth and sending out a large red beam that just screams ‘super fucking dangerous’. Danny has to float Kelcini up into the air to avoid it. Vraat using his claws and some quick manuvering to get himself and Miden up a wall; claw punctures causing cracking to spread across the brick work. Unfortunately, Firat also sticks his hands out to blast multiple shadow spears, pinning Stuccfit to the ground; using some of the cover of the smoke and the glow of the red beam to charge at her.

Danny spotting this, but barely, shouts, “HEADS UP!”, at Vraat before just fucking throwing Kelcini at him, Kelcini shrieks and curls up into a ball but Miden manages to catch him; Vraat’s claws dragging down the wall a little from the added weight. That poor fucking wall. Meanwhile, Danny shoots off towards Firat and Stuccfit who’s still pinned but outright biting and kicking at the spears with one or two dissipating; Danny’s not happy over the smell of blood in the air, it’s not much but it’s there.

Danny barely makes it, appearing behind the demon lord since there’s not really enough space in between Firat and Stuccfit by the time he gets over, Firat in the process of reaching out at her with his claws. Danny pulling an arm back and moving to swing his own ice claws down at the demons neck and face and exuding ‘you’re gonna fucking die’ energy, except Firat goes very wide-eyed and suddenly has a strong fear scent wafting off of him before changing the directory of his own claws and grabbing one of his spears to shove himself to the side and away from Danny. Danny landing in front of Stuccfit and turning on his heels, glaring, “lucky little fuck, you are”.

Firat lands a decent bit away, practically against a wall and with one hand actually on a wall; he’s staring at Danny, eyes racking over his body rapidly.

Firat blinks, “why?? How???”. Vraat and the two others scrape down the wall, Vraat speaking up as they land, “what are you hollering about?”.

Firat drops his one hand from the wall, glaring still wide-eyed at Danny, “I can absolutely see those, those items. You-”, claws digging into the wall slightly, “-aren’t just a resident of the afterlife, you’re a death lord. What is a death lord doing with the heroes party”.

Danny rubs his neck, everyone staring at him, “well they summoned me and, uh, you seem to be fucking shit up. Beating up people, abso-fucking-lutely including royals or lords or whatever, being shitty and terrorising people is kinda my whole thing”. Like, it happened at least twice a year.

The demon lord drops his hand from the wall scowling, gesturing wildly, “a death lord should want more dead! Increase their domain!”.

Okay that’s just mean, in Danny’s opinion, “how the fuck do you figure that? I don’t know any dead royals who want more people in general to die”.

That gets Danny more scowling from the demon lord, “a lord not wanting more subjects, more power, more obedience, is foolish”, rolling his eyes, “looks like my brother found someone equally as foolish”. The guy is trying to regain his bravado and ego, clearly.

Stuccfit kicks Danny in the back of the knees nearly hard enough to knock him over, “you are a jerk, ice elf”.

“Oh it’s back to just an insulting ‘ice elf’ now?”. Eh well, lying’s not exactly great for forging friendships…

She kicks him again. Meanwhile Firat snaps, “whatever”, smirking, “at least I’ll get to add ‘felled a Death Lord’ to my list of accomplishments”, and suddenly there’s a fucking massive shadowy centipede forming out of his body and beginning to run around. Vraat snatching up Miden and Kelcini again and jumping through the air with some difficulty; Kelcini latching onto a ceiling beam and hiding on it, pulling out his bow and firing off curving and zigzagging shots to make it harder to discern his location. Miden’s just waving her sword around trying to hit anything, she’s actually somewhat successful at that too, managing to take out a centipede leg or two.

Stuccfit crawls up onto Danny’s shoulders, Danny rolling his eyes and turning them intangible, she shudders a bit from the sensation but doesn’t say anything. He’s positive he hears a little ‘eep’ and she digs her claws/nails in when the shadow centipede goes through them. She starts hacking at it with poisoned daggers, which Danny has to pull the intangibility back from enough so that’ll actually work. Danny blinking at spotting the demon lord wincing faintly, “wait, all the shadow is legit connected with him?”.

Stuccfit hisses happily, “perfect for poison”. Danny chuckling, “and electricity”, and slaps the centipede with a handful of said electricity. Firat dispels the centipede as he twitches violently, but still chucks a danger at Danny’s face; Stuccfit knocking it away with a smirk. But Firat smirks, snapping a finger and now the fucking walls are attacking all of them.

There’s spikes coming out of random spots, pillars lunging at them, lights trying to punch them. It’s a little ridiculous and annoying, but being assaulted by inanimate objects wasn’t a new experience for Danny. Both him and Stuccfit separate and jump around on the random bits of walling and what not, the other three just dodging. Danny having to yank Vraat out of the way of a wildly swinging light fixture while the guy took a chance to fire off some light spears. Firat either smirking or glaring at them then while stalking around in the background.

Danny blinking, speaking at Vraat, “question, is there a reason literally no one is coming to this guys aid?”. Then chucks a solid ecto-blast to destroy a bit of shit randomly.

Vraat sighs, “my speciality is sleep magic, and while the demon lord is unkind he won’t outright kill his own loyals”. Ah okay, if anyone came to help, Vraat could just knock them out, meaning a bunch of unconscious people all over ‘the battle field’ to potentially become collateral.

“Well that’s something at least”. Danny could never imagine Pariah giving a fuck about ending someone.

“You being a Death lord is something else as well”, Vraat sounds super judgmental and like a very disappointed wise old grandpa.

Danny blinks, “I think that’s the first time you’ve actually sounded judgemental of me and I feel weirdly chastised”.

“As you should”.

Danny gasping dramatically, “the shade!”.

Vraat glancing around, worried. Danny smacking his forehead, “it’s a phrase”. They do actually get smacked into a wall by a shadow mallet though, being distracted was a bitch. Danny also winds up getting mildly gored by Vraat’s horn in the process. Vraat yanking it out awkwardly and quickly using that coin and chant thing to heal it, “my sincere apologies, they’re unfortunately not very soft”.

Danny never fucking thought horns would be soft to begin with. “You really don’t need to heal it”.

“I must”.

Danny rolls his eyes a little but does wipe off the guys horn, leaving his own gore there on the guys horn would be kinda a dick move. Firat muttering, “a failure of a demon, I’ll give him something he can’t waste his pain and effort healing”, is the only warning before everything turns into a hail fire of shadow spears, ceiling spears, and literal blue hell fire. Danny blasting at what comes near him and Vraat with some of his own fire, creating duplicates to thrown out ecto shields around the others as fast as he can; it’s not perfect and there’s some cuts and burns but nothing serious. A Danny duplicate having to grab and keep floating Kelcini when the beam he was camped out on got obliterated, “you good?”. The archer nods a bit startled.

Course then original Danny gets attacked in the back by the fucking building. Firat chuckling, “you’re the biggest problem”; while Vraat looks horrified and slightly panicked at the wall spears going all the way through pretty much all of Danny’s body and some blood trickling out of his mouth and nose. Everyone shouting, “DANNY!”. While Firat laughs, “enjoy the destroyed trump card”.

Danny blinks, glancing down at the damage, feeling oddly reminded how… little damage being injured by non-ectoplasmic things does. It’s been a while since he’s been majorly injured by non-ectoplasmic anything, like the fucker hit basically all his organs and most of his larger bones. He’s almost impressed actually, like talk about accuracy; too bad it was pointless. Danny pokes one of the wall spears/holes in his body, “well shit, you really went for that, huh?”.

Everything just… stops, all of them staring at him. Vraat lifts a hand towards him somewhat, “are, are you going be okay? Should I heal you?”; he sounds so unsure of himself and the situation; it’s both adorable and makes danny felling bad for the guy. Danny turning his head and chuckling, “I’m okay”, having to wipe away some blood from the side of his mouth probably isn’t making Vraat actually believe that comment though. But then Vraat gets slammed back against the wall by shadow chains, Firat snapping, “I don’t think so”. Which makes everyone start moving again, Stuccfit hissing angrily. Except for Danny starts laughing a little, giving Firat a mocking smirk, “dude, you don’t really think this is going to end me, do you? That if he doesn’t heal me I’ll keel over dead? Like… this isn’t even in the top fifty worst injuries for me”.

The demon lord glares, “you’re bluffing”, smirking a little, “but the more time you waste on that the sooner you’ll be out of my hair”. Danny shrugs, lifts his hands up and grabs his hair, straight up splitting his head in half and speaking like that, “this is not going to work”, letting his head snap back together over the sounds of Kelcini gagging, “to be honest, unless you’re utilising ectoplasm in some way there is literally nothing you can do to seriously hurt me; like blow me up and chuck the pieces into the sun, I’ll just snap back together like an odd jigsaw puzzle”.

Stuccfit snapping her head to him and hissing, “why would you tell him how to hurt you?!?!”.

“Because it doesn’t matter? I’m fucking immortal okay. Ending my ass is literally impossible”.

Firat sneers, “I won’t fall for such foolishness”, and goes to raise his hand but then a fucking ghost zone portal opens up in the middle of the battle ground/castle. Danny picking up on the ecto-signature of who’s trying to get here and facepalming, the tall skeleton-faced ghost dressed in a white suit and black fedora looming half his enlarged form out of the portal and picking Danny up by his cloak, pulling him off of all the wall spikes, “I’VE FOUND YOU, PUNK!”. Oh fuck he’s pissed. “I’VE BEEN TRACKING YOU DOWN FOR DAYS!”.

Danny holds up a finger, “to be fair-”. Sure the guy won’t add even more years to his sentence for something that is this wildly not his fault.

“TO BE FAIR NOTHING!”. The room shoes from the volume of his voice.

Firat gets over his shock enough to snap, “how dare you”, and fires a black spear at the ghost; who instantly catches it and crushes it without even looking. Walker turning his head ‘round and narrows his eyes, “assaulting an officer of the law is AGAINST THE RULES”.

Danny muttering a quiet, “oh shit”, glancing up at Walker’s wrist before flapping enough to bite the guy; Walker flailing him off and glaring down as Danny lands on his ass. Danny putting up his hands pacifyingly, “come on, Walker, chill your tits. I’m just helping deal with an asshole with an over inflated ego”, gesturing at the wide-eyed Vraat, “and look! I made friends! You should be happy for me”.

“Taking you from us is still a crime, Punk. Multiple crimes”.

Stuccfit throws her hands up, “I really did not mean to make my summoning spell that powerful!”. And when Walker turns his head and narrowed eyes on her, Danny grabs the guys suit collar, pulling his face into Danny’s, “you will not be giving my friend shit or I absolutely will blow up your jail house again, and then when you reform it, I’ll do it again”.

Walker scowls, shrinking down to his normal form’s height, straightening his hat, “fine, if they’re the decent sort I suppose”; oh that sounds so forced. Danny shrugs back, “I mean, they haven’t tried to kill or otherwise destroy me yet, which would be a first for any friend of mine”.

Walker sighs before turning away and stalking towards Firat, who instantly starts throwing all his attacks at the ghost… said ghost simply goes intangible while Danny puts up shields around his new buddies. Walker snapping his fingers, two guards coming out of the portal and firing restrictive ecto-baton blasts at the demon lord. Walker snarling in the immobilised demons face, “this is your fault, as such you will be held responsible. This is worth at least a hundred thousand years behind bars, don’t like it and-”, grinning menacingly, “-I’ll gladly be your executioner”.

Danny rolls his eyes, putting his hands on his hips, “what is with your hard on for executing people? Also, I seriously doubt demons live that long”.

“His ghost will serve out the rest of it”.

“Oh for fucks sake”.

Firat struggles in vain, “release me!”, and gets tasered violently for his efforts. “I am Firat, a deserved demon lord returning us to our roots, as is my birth right!”.

“You have a right to a jail cell”.

Danny hums, putting his hands on his waist, “hmmm that was actually a pretty spiffy comeback, Walker, I’m proud of you”. Walker fires an ecto-blast directly above Danny’s head, making Danny pout, sounding very whiny, “hey”.

Miden blinks, “this is insane”, looking at Kelcini, “this is real right”.

“I, uh, don’t know anymore”.

Vraat blinks and shakes himself off, standing a little straighter and walking calmly towards his brother/Walker, “can i request you hold on, sir”.

Walker turns slightly, eyeing Vraat, “why”, then glancing at Danny, “you should take a hint in respecting authority from this one”.

Danny sticks his arms out to the side, “I’m of higher authority than you!”. Stuccfit growling, stalking over to Danny and smacking him over the head, “what is going on”. Danny pouts at her, rubbing his neck and glancing around a little, twirling his ice wrist, “uh, Walker here, Mr. Skull Face In White, is someone who enforces Ghost laws and you guys literally abducted me. That’s a crime”.

Walker growling, crossing his arms, “multiple crimes”, and gives Vraat an expectant look.

Vraat looks like he’s resisting sighing, glancing at the ghost, “he’s my brother”, then eyeing Firat, “you’re a fool to your own ego. I apologise, as all I feel for you is pity”.

Firat growling, “a pathetic fool claiming he pities those above him”, sneering, “cute”.

Vraat shakes his head disappointedly and turns to eye the still stunned Miden. Who blinks before jerking a little, “oh! Right”, and jogs over while Firat struggles a little more, “unhand me!”; Walker just rolls his eyes and gags the demon lord. Miden grinning a little as she gets closer, holding up her swords, ��you know, now we don’t really need to even kill him”. Danny half-shouting, “good!”, over that because yeah, he doesn’t really want to be involved in a murder. Firat struggles more but Miden still slices his crown in half with her sword, “as the hero, I cut down the lords lordship”. Kelcini claps a little and Stuccfit just nods curtly to herself with crossed arms; Firat glares murderously at Danny while jerking and having black smoke basically pouring out of his body. Vraat sighing and sagging faintly, walking off a little to lean against a barely intact wall.

Walker grins, grabbing the handcuffs on the ex-demon lord and yanking him up, “now you’re mine, maggot”, shoving him at his men, “take him and make it hurt”; they carry him off. Walker then looking at Danny, “you have never annoyed me so much before, stay out of trouble, your highness”, and then flies off through the portal that closes behind him. Danny thinks he can get bent.

Chapter 10: A New Demon Lord

Danny blinks after a bit, “whelp, that just happened”. Stuccfit kicks him in the ankle for what feels like the tenth time in this room alone, “explain”. Kelcini nodding rapidly at him, while Miden sags and groans a little before sitting on the ground, “me tired. Big nap”.

Danny however is eyeing the smoke still in the air, watching it shudder before zipping past them and at Vraat, who doesn’t look surprised but is definitely not happy as the stuff goes inside his body making him shudder and slump over some. Stuccfit actually smacks herself, “right, brothers”, pointing at Danny, “you’ll still be explaining yourself. So don’t you dare think Vraat suddenly becoming the new demon lord gets you off the hook, death lord”. The three standing moving closer to Vraat, who puts up a hand to stop them, “don’t”.

Miden looks at him from her spot on the ground, legs sticking out and leaning back on her hands, “are you okay?”.

He nods with only one eye open, “I am, fine. Just, don’t come closer, for a bit”, and wheezes.

Danny winces, he remembers how super not fun getting crowned was. The pain it sent through his whole body and the involuntary spasming, how overwhelming suddenly connecting to an entire realm was but also how it felt very good and very right. Honestly? The only thing he’s gone through that was more painful was his own fucking death. So he gives Miden a bit of a smile, “he’s fine, it’s just if it’s anything like the crap I put up with, he’s just in pain and overwhelmed in the physical sense”.

Vraat nods slightly, giving Danny a bit of a thankful look, “how, how was it, for you?”, his clothing was only slightly covering how much he was shaking.

Danny shrugs, “well I nearly blacked out, and considering you did see me get practically full body impaled without flinching? It Fucking sucked. Like being assaulted by a metric fuck ton of fire, lightning, drowning, scalding, and punches straight to every muscle and fiber of my body”. Everyone winces, even Stuccfit,

Vraat blinks, “it’s… not that, bad”. Danny gives him a little thumbs up over that. Good for him. Though the guy closes both his eyes and shudders very noticeably when his horns practically double in length and get a bit thicker, his claws on his feet also totally wreck the front of his shoes and his hand claws damage the wall just that little bit more; bat-like wings and spiked tail popping out from under his tabard, smoky sharp shapes forming across them.

Kelcini smiles a little awkwardly, “it’s, uh, been a while since any of us have seen you’re, you know, wings”. That gets him a little smile though even as Vraat wiggles his face a little and they call all see his fangs poking out of his mouth slightly.

Vraat finally straightens out after the red crown surrounded in shadows forms around his head, him wheezing and sighing heavily before blinking a couple of times and smiling weakly at everyone, “I… think I’m good, now”. Stuccfit grins and crosses her arms, “good, you finally got your act together”. He just fucking smiles at that like it wasn’t pretty much an insult, before moving a hand up to touch at his horns. The increased thickness, length, and weight, was probably a bit jarring and off balancing.

Danny chuckling, “eh, they’re not that big, don’t worry about it”. Stuccfit scoffing at him, “says the ice elf who just looks like an ice elf even with the power and influence of a crown”. Vraat taking another breath and chooing to walk over to them carefully, “I’ll admit, a little jealous at the moment”.

Okay Danny isn’t keeping up with this shit any more, he’s decided these people are his friends and there’s really no fucking point in still playing elf, “I… I’m actually not an elf at all”, shrugging very awkwardly and exaggeratedly, “surprise?”. Vraat does glare a little but mostly sighs, Stuccfit kicks him repeatedly, Kelcini just looks surprised, and Miden laughs and calls him a jerk.

Stuccfit kicks him one more time, “even with me judging you, shush Vraat, you just took it and didn’t correct it”.

“Well would you have even considered believing that I’m human? Well a human ghost anyways. Like really”. When she doesn’t answer him he laughs, “that’s what I thought”. Danny didn’t exactly look remotely human at the moment so…

Vraat grins and eyes his own hand claws a little, “I guess I can’t be bothered much then”, looking to Danny, “but about being dea-”, and jerking a bit, staggering and moving a hand up to his red shadow crown with a faint wince.

Everyone looks worried except Danny, who rolls his eyes and gestures at the poor mangled throne, “go sit on your stupid throne, new demon lord”. At least the demon just nods -Danny gets the feeling the guys actually fairly annoyed though- and heads over to said throne, eyeing it for a bit before shaking his head in a disappointed sort of way and sitting down.

Kelcini’s the only one to jump/jerk from the throne room repairing itself in an instant, the colour pallet becoming more silvery and the whole vibe is more welcoming all the sudden. Miden whistles, glancing around, “nice tastes”. Vraat’s only response to that is a curt nod while he rubs at his temples.

Stuccfit shakes her head towards him, “not going to lie, I do feel slightly used, you and Miden basically recruiting me to help you become a lord”.

“We all know that wasn’t my desire, just a unavoidable end result”.

“Yeah sure”.

Vraat sighs and eyes Danny, “I apologise for cutting myself off, though I imagine you know what I was trying to ask anyways?”.

Danny puts a hand on his hip, waving the guy off with his ice arm, “obviously, but first I’m going to take a wild guess and say we can’t all go have circle time around your throne?”. Vraat blinking, making a barely hidden face that’s almost a teeth-baring snarl, shaking his head, “it would seem that way”. Either way everyone just kind of moves to sit on the steps up to the throne instead, Vraat leaning forward a bit, raising an eyebrow at Danny.

Danny holds up his ice arm, “something that obliterates an entire limb isn’t exactly survivable”, shrugging, “if you’re going to pick a way to die, I don’t recommend trying to twin me. It’s a bad scene. Anyway, since I literally was killed by a ghost portal things didn’t exactly happen normally, hence why I’m also not dead”.

Kelcini blinks, “so you’re, um, alive and dead?”, scratching his head, “that seems really impossible. Um, no offence”.

Danny snickers, “little dude, as far as I know there’s literally only two others in existence like me and one is my daughter. It practically is impossible. But even the impossible is possible once in a blue moon”.

Both Kelcini and Miden frown at that. Kelcini muttering a ‘sorry’ while Miden mutters, “that must be hard”.

Danny shrugs, “it is what it is, and I’m very happy with the way I am. I literally un-half died once and intentionally re-offed myself to get back to my normal”. Stuccfit whistling, “that’s determination”; which he laughs at.

Vraat nods, “I imagine it would be hard to truly understand the way the dead feel about being as such”.

Danny furrows his brows and taps his chin, “honestly I don’t think I’ve ever met a ghost that wasn’t happy to be a ghost. You get to be fulfilled in death when you didn’t get to be in life, and when you are fulfilled you move on. And as a ghost there is a sense of freedom and being truly yourself and having a purpose to it”.

Miden grins, “that’s actually kind of nice”, looking at the door to the throne room a little solemnly, “I’ve seen a lot of people who had pretty awful lives”, looking back to Danny, “so it’s nice they get more than just that awful life”. Kelcini nodding immediately, “agreed”, then frowning, “but when you said you’re, uh, immortal? Does that mean you can’t move on?”.

Danny shakes his head slowly, it had been a bit wild finding that out from both Vlad and ClockWork. Vlad suspected it and ClockWork confirmed it, which Danny also informed Vlad about. It was just like the whole not aging after your ghost side and human side fully stabilised with each other thing. “Yeah, all three of us are immortal. Since humans can’t move on or fade as it’s called, the part of me that’s alive stops the dead part from doing it. Same with how my living side can’t die because the dead side can’t and protects the living side from it. Also stopped aging a little bit ago”, shrugging, “and sure it was a bit much for a sixteen year old, at the time, to find out that ‘hey I’m gonna be around for literally forever once I’m stable’ but, eh, I’m cool with it”. He’d had a few therapy sessions with Jazz over it and him and Vlad had a very long talk about it; but Danny was okay.

Everyone smiles a little at that, Vraat nodding, “I believe I’m the same about this. I knew it would happen even if I didn’t really want it, as such I merely accepted it”. Stuccfit pointing at him, “you still could have told us, I would kick you if I could”. He frowns a bit before eyeing everyone and smiling again, “I didn’t want to be a distraction or for anyone to worry over me”.

Danny snorts, “now you sound like me, which this time isn’t a compliment. If you’re friends, you should tell them these kinds of things”. That gets him kicked by Stuccfit, “oh right? Like how you told us you’re half dead and a death lord”. Danny blinks at her, “I’ve known you guys for, like, two days”. Miden actually laughs while Kelcini mutters, “he has a point”. Vraat nodding and eyeing Stuccfit, “be nice”. Stuccfit just huffs and rolls her eyes.

Danny shrugs, “besides, not many living people actually know about me. Two ex friends that I never see or speak to anymore, my one living sister who lives pretty far away now, and the two others like me. That’s it, I’m used to it not being a thing the living around me know”.

Vraat and Miden share a bit of a look before she asks, “so your parents, makers, don’t know?”. Danny shakes his head, making Vraat sigh, “they should, mine weren’t pleased with my paladins path but they still know”.

Yeah Danny imagines they weren’t, it seemed like it fucking hurt him or at least the whole divine powers part did; demons being paladins was clearly not a common or accepted thing. It really wasn’t the same though. “I mean you have a slight point but I don’t think your parents would have tried to vivisect you for being a paladin”.

“I’m sorry, but what do you mean?”.

“When I said ghost hunters have a bigotry problem I wasn’t kidding. I grew up sleeping above the sounds of ghosts pretty much being tortured by them, no way was a fourteen year old me telling them jack fuck all”, Danny shrugging, “and considering my sister put more effort into raising me than they did and my current relationship with them being pretty bad, they brought me into the world and helped half way take me out of it but that’s it”. He used to mourn his shitty relationship with his parents, but now? he didn’t really care.

Kelcini gives him some pats, “sorry”, Miden and Vraat nodding their ‘sorry’s’ as well. Stuccfit shakes her head, “they don’t deserve to know then”.

“Exactly why they don’t”. Danny makes himself a little ice slab/wall to lean back against, “if they ever do find out, it’ll be by chance or because they massively broke ghost law and I wind up having to deal with them”. Kelcini quirking an eyebrow at him, “if they went after one of your people? Or, uh, one of your other ghost families people, I guess”. Danny waves the guy off, “ghosts expect to get attacked by hunters, it’s normal and totally allowed”, rolling his wrist, “now if they were to go into the land of ghosts, the Infinite Realm, and assault a ghost or damaging the environment that would be different”.

Stuccfit smirks at him, “what? is your lands and family lands close by. You really are unlucky”.

Vraat humming and eyeing Danny, “when… Firat called you a lord, did he mean truly your relations? To so many royals?”. Kelcini blinking and chuckling awkwardly, “oh yeah I guess we shouldn’t, you know, assume”. Danny blinks and tilts his head, shouldn’t Vraat also be able to see it if his brother could? Humming, “maybe try really focusing on me?”, sighing a little, “but, no. He wasn’t”.

Kelcini perking up, “oh so you have your own lands actually?”, shaking his head in disbelief, “this is wild”. Stuccfit huffing, “yeah, we all know two lords now”.

Then Vraat jerks in his throne, staring down and around Danny, “I… I’m amazed Firat still went after you. You take up the room”. At his three full-living friends eyeing him curiously Vraat explains, “he has a hidden cape that’s energy is flowing throughout most of the room, his crown’s on fire in a rather looming way”, tilting his head, “and his energy is everywhere, brushing against all the walls”; and blinks a bit.

Miden whistles, shoving Danny a little, “way to be intimidating”. Danny shoving right back with a bit of a laugh, “all of you would at least feel it if I wasn’t restraining my aura”. Stuccfit rolling her eyes, “like we’d care”. Danny blinks at that, “I think the fuck you would care about dying”; she gives him a very disbelieving look. Vraat frowns though, “what do you mean?”, eyeing Danny over again, “there is an ominous sense to your regalia, however I don’t feel like I would die”.

Danny rubs his neck, he’s tempted to just move his Lord of DEATH energy around one of their necks just to freak the guy out and actively give him that ‘someone’s going to die’ feeling. No need to freak a friend the way he freaked an asshole ex-demon lord though. “Firat did, because I wanted him to”, and smirks a little, “he jumped away from me because he instinctively thought he was about to die”. Stuccfit snickers, tail swishing around, “he deserved it”. Danny giving her a little thumbs up, “agreed”, putting his hands behind his head and looking at Vraat, “obviously you only see the one crown, right?”. Stuccfit rolling her eyes, “right, Mr. Related To Multiple Royals”.

Vraat nods, “I’m to guess it’s because your direct title is more a part of you than your family given ones, yes?”. Danny shaking his head instantly, “I doubt you’d be able to see any other ghost royals royal stuff if it was hidden”, scratching his head, “I was a little surprised Firat could, I assumed it was something to do with either his power even if he wasn’t that strong by my standards, or his title. Obviously it was definitely the title”. Miden nodding immediately, getting Danny’s attention, “all lords can see each others crowns and stuff”, grinning, “I think your one is just over taking the other crowns you have”. Kelcini muttering, “still crazy”, then blinking, “wait, you didn’t think he was strong?!?”.

Danny laughs a bit meanly, “I have literally beaten up multiple gods and taken on entire armies alone. Summoning me was severely excessive”. Stuccfit throws her hands up and jabs him one, “then why were you letting us struggle?”. Danny smirks, “easy is boring, why would I taint a good struggle like that”; she whacks him over the head for that.

Vraat shakes his head, “well do leave my god alone”.

“So long as your god doesn’t, like, try to take over my dimensions planet or my town, or abduct me or my friends, or try to destroy me, or go on a murderous rampage”.

Kelcini grins a little, “I doubt the god of sleep and dreams would do that”.

Danny blinks, oh shit, “uuuuuuhhhhh, if you mean Nocturne, giant masked starry blanket with horns, too late. But we get along now, they helped with crowning me”, and points at his head, letting the flaming green frosty crown appear above his head. Vraat blinks at Danny, “you, beat up my sworn god?”. Stuccfit sighs, “that might be part of why I summoned him”, smirking at the new demon lord, “your god ‘recommended’ him”.

Danny hums, she might have a point about that, the little inn was a really comfy sleep and Nocturne got on his ass a lot about his horrific sleep schedule and was totally fine with Danny being abducted. “Well they did abduct me the first time we met, so another abduction would be totally something they’d do. They harp on me to sleep more pretty much every single time I see them and sometimes they show up in my room and try to throw sleeping powders in my face”. Stuccfit chucking, “I guess someone needs to hit you with a sleep blessing then”; Danny flips her off. At least he doesn’t have to worry about Walker attempting to arrest Nocturne for potentially being mildly involved in this, the Observants were probably chewing them out though.

Kelcini shakes his head, “just how many gods are you involved with?”. Miden pointing at Danny, “and why do you think our lord friend wouldn’t be able to see other ghost lords stuff but can see yours? You never did tell us”.

Danny starts counting off on his fingers, “welly obviously there’s my ClockPops and Nocturne. Then there’s Vortex, the storm god, who accidentally gave me his powers while going on a rampage so I beat his ass with them and now he’s in jail. UnderGrowth, the god of plants, mind controlled an ex friend and took over my town so I froze him and ran him over; he still hates my guts and I hate his. Remi, god of misplacement, who’s probably watching all this and laughing at me; she was sleeping in a bowling lane and I accidentally kicked her, she deleted my liver in response. The Observants are technically a collective hive mind god plural, gods of observation, they tried to assassinate me repeatedly before the whole immortality thing kicked in. Jack Frost, god of ice and snow, Frostypa introduced me and that turned into ‘who can make the better snow storm’ competition. And that’s it, I think”, and shrugs while they look baffled at him. Danny then pointing at Miden, “and- wait shit no”, facepalming, how the fuck did he forget about Pariah, “Frighty is technically a god too, I forget about that; I already mentioned him though. And I also beat up Pariah, god of death or technically ex-god of death”.

Stuccfit chuckles, “of course someone who defied death also beat up the god of death”, raising a skeptical eyebrow at him, “ex-god?”. Danny nodding and rubbing his neck awkwardly, “god of ghosts would be more accurate”. Kelcini muttering, “you beat up your own god”. While Danny holds up a finger, “see the Infinite Realm is slightly sentient and basically chooses and supports Its god, said god is also the sovereign ruler of the whole realm and all ghosts”, shrugging, “ghosts don’t really use the term god, most are called Guardians or queens or kings etcetera. While Guardians are generally immortals so long as whatever they’re a god of continues to exist, the same is not true of the High Ghost Sovereign or God of Ghosts or whatever you wanna call it. And well, not only did I knock Pariah’s sorry ass back into his forever sleep, I also went back and rammed a sword through his core and ended him”, and shrugs again but far more goofily.

Kelcini squeaking, “so you’re a god”.

“No one goes around worshipping me, but pretty much”.

Vraat massages his temples, “it’s no surprise a lord can see your regalia then”, sighing, “as a paladin, I should have realised”. Danny waving him off immediately, “I wouldn’t worry about it, I’m fucking freaky and tend not to follow the natural laws of the universe. And Nocturne wouldn’t have just casually outed me like that to someone; I’m considered a ‘well kept secret’ by most ghosts”. At least that gets him a thankful smile from the demon. Danny looking around at everyone, “so, now what?”.

Miden stretches out, “you're a handful, but I would say head back to town and tell everyone the news but…”, and trails off eyeing Vraat and his crown. Vraat sighs, “I won’t be going anywhere for a time”. Miden claps her legs before getting up, “then does this place have any rooms, because you know we’re not going back without you”. Vraat smiles a little before tilting his head and nodding, “there’s some to the left, I believe”.

Everyone pushes to get up, Danny snapping his fingers and pointing at Vraat, “hit me”, then adding, “with a sleep blessing not your fists, make the old starry blanket happy”. Stuccfit smirks, nodding, “I approve, and they did possibly help us out here”. Vraat looks a little concerned but does chant, “Day is over, night has come, All your problems are now gone, O’ let thee embrace a restful sleep, Filled with visions and sweet, sweet dreams”. Danny giving a little salute before falling on his face, asleep; Miden happily picking up his limp form. Stuccfit shaking her head at the boy, “he’s something of a menace”.

Kelcini scrunching his face up, “he’s the god of death and sees beating up gods as causal fun”.

“Exactly”.

Miden shakes her head at their antics, looking up at Vraat, “no one’s going to blame you if you want to mourn him, your brother, still alive or not”. Vraat just smiles at that and waves them off to go get naps after all the fighting they just did.

Chapter 11: The Heroes Party Returns

Danny’s sitting on one of the beds, apparently he slept for a whole ass day, Vraat’s sleep blessings were no joke, goddamn. “So obviously Vraat wanted to kick his brothers ass for, you know, being an asshole and making demons look like shit, but what about everyone else? Besides the whole ‘he’s dangerous’ thing”.

Kelcini laughs a little awkwardly from his spot on the floor, “I honestly joined just for the money”. Danny blinks at that, “seriously?”; he so had not expected that shit.

“Heh. Yeah”.

Miden grins down at the guy, “but you stuck around for the awesome people”; making Kelcini roll his eyes slightly with a smile. She looks back to Danny, “me? When the ex-demon lord heard about a hero awakening he went and destroyed my town, nearly everyone died”, grimacing and squeezing her fists, “I had to go after him after that, whether I was the hero or not”.

“Well that’s a dick move of him”.

Stuccfit shrugs, “I was just requested to join for my skills, glad I did though”; earning her some smiles.

Danny nods, he’s legit glad only two of them technically had serious reasons for doing all of this. “Well there definitely has to be a celebration for money, avenging a town, and new friends”, blinking, “we are friends right?”. Stuccfit instantly throws a dagger at him, which bounces off his ice arm, her growling at him, “that was for even questioning that we’re friends”.

Kelcini eyes him a little, “you don’t have friends, do you”, looking more than a little sad.

Danny shrugs, he did but… “I do among ghosts, but you know I’m also their king so…”, and rolls his wrist lazily, “sure I have one living friend now, but she doesn’t know about all my bullshit and we did kinda date for a while and she has repeatedly tried to kill slash destroy me”.

Stuccfit shakes her head, “then tell her, idiot. I’d insult you for being an ice elf again but that’s pointless now and disappointedly saying ‘ghost’ doesn’t have the same weight to it”. Danny absolutely sticks his tongue at her. Miden points at Danny, “you really should though”.

Danny shrugs, “I’ve considered it, never feels like the right time you know. Plus I know she’s going to be very pissed and try to beat the actual literal shit out of me, and there’s the whole she technically works for that uncle of mine that’s trying to kill my male maker? Though I think she hates his guts now since he nearly made her an accomplice in murdering a kid, my kid specifically”.

All of them just stare at him, Kelcini blinking after a bit, “you… are incredibly unlucky, how do you wind up in so many complicated situations?”.

Danny sighs, “it gets worse, my dog made her dad lose his work, and destroyed all her belongings, and then made her dad lose a second job; she became a ghost hunter specifically to destroy me. She’s since realised the misunderstanding that happened but you know, being repeatedly shot at, chased, and chained to wall while being tortured with electricity kinda makes you question being open and honest with someone”.

While Kelcini winces and mutters, “gods”; Stuccfit shakes her head, “why are you friends with this person? Why did you even date?”.

Danny rubs his neck, “uh, I don’t care if people try to beat me up? Plus my human living form looks not like this”, gesturing at himself, “so she never realised I was the ghost she was trying to shit kick”.

All three shouting, “you were dating her while she was trying to destroy you?!?”.

“Uh, yes?”.

Miden gives him a judgmental look, Kelcini sighs, and Stuccfit gets up to whack him one. Miden shaking her head, “I’ve made some questionable dating choices, but never that bad”.

“Yeah, even my ex friends, who weren’t ex friends at the time, thought it was pretty dumb”.

Stuccfit snapping, “good”, plopping to sit down on the bed he’s on, “now why are your ex friends ex friends? They also try to kill you”.

Danny blinks and shrugs, “well yeah, but that was before becoming ex friends”. Stuccfit scowling, “you’re an idiot”. Before Danny continues, “the ex friends thing is ‘cause one moved away and we just stopped talking, the other got sent to a far off school then burned it down and nearly killed a bunch of people so she went to jail. Kinda realised after a bit that they were really shit friends. Got me in a lot of trouble, got mad when I didn’t do what they wanted, and didn’t really care about my well being”.

“Then they were not friends you needed”. Everyone looks to the voice, Vraat stepping into the room, holding up a hand at everyone, “I’m fine, before anyone asks. Seems I just needed to connect with everyone, the demons”.

Danny finger snaps at him, “bit much, ain’t it?”. Vraat nods a little uncertainly at Danny, “indeed, but on the subject of friendship, we are certainly friends. If that’s the topic anyways”; everyone nods a little at him. Danny muttering a quiet, “sweet, friendship party”; earning some laughs.

Kelcini sighs and scratches his head a little, giving Danny a bit of a sad smile, “even if you’re going back home, which you, uh, are, right?”. Danny nods instantly, “of course, it would kinda be a problem for an entire realm and my town if I didn’t. Plus, if I stayed, I’d have to establish a lair core here and that would probably weaken the divide between life and death here and ecto-contaminate an entire town and then ghosts would start showing up here a bunch and I’d be a little unwell until the lair core got established fully; you know, lots of problems”. They all makes faces at that even if they likely didn’t understand everything Danny just said, Danny chuckling at their grimaces, “exactly. But-”, holding up a finger, “-considering Walker’s strict ass showed up here through a proper ghost portal, I can probably at least find a way to communicate from my own dimension and maybe visit”.

Vraat humming, “I suppose that makes sense. Everyone dies so every dimension would have to be connected to… your realm and the other afterlives”.

“Precisely, and I’ve already made an ear piece that can communicate between my dimensions living realm and the infinite realm; so it shouldn’t be too difficult”. Miden clapping a little, “yay”; while the others just smile.

Kelcini blinking then tilting his head at Danny, “wait, you said you had a human form, so now that we’re all here, what does that look like”, shifting, “if you're, you know, comfortable with that?”.

Danny blinks, he didn’t even need to try to know that he can’t actually do that. It was like his human self just straight up wasn’t here, which was probably legit the goddamn case. “Uh, actually you guys just summoned my dead self, my human form and body is not here. My school mates are probably with my body thinking the weird kid with ghost hunter parents is dead”, frowning a little, “I hope Mr. Lancer didn’t have a heart attack or anything”. Kelcini flails a little, “how is that even possible? Stuccfit, you only summoned half a person?”.

“Don’t ask me, he’s the weird one”.

Danny shrugs, waving the archer off, “questioning the possibility of something is really pointless with me, I’ve done shit that has caused literal timelines to get deleted and I have altered the fabric of reality once or twice”. Stuccfit gesturing at Danny, “see? Weird one”.

Vraat nods, “another reason you can’t stay then”.

“Yeah, who knows what would happen long term”. That earns Danny more grimacing from the group.

Miden glances around before getting up, “well in that case, get up, we have a victory and goodbye party to throw”, eyeing Vraat, “now that we’re all good”. Vraat simply nods while everyone does as the hero says. Though she points at Danny, “we should probably keep your half dead and death god status to ourselves though”.

Danny snorting, “the amount of chaos not doing that would cause would be impressive but really fucking stupid to intentionally cause”. Everyone nodding and moving to head out, secret decidedly secured.

---

The second they enter the town Danny can tell that Vraat seriously wishes he could take off the demon lord crown, he was very blatantly trying to ignore all the kind of aggressive and very confused staring the townsfolk were giving him and the group in general. Then there was all the whispering.

“Why does he have a crown?”.

“Wait was the demon lord in the heroes party all along?”.

“I think that’s the demon lord crown”.

“You think maybe he was related to the demon lord?”.

“Did that demon paladin become the new demon lord?”.

“Is this a good or bad thing?”.

“Should he even be allowed in town?”.

“I’m just impressed he still smells like a paladin”.

“Yeah a Paladin demon lord is definitely different”.

“Should we be happy about this?”.

“Wait does this mean the evil demon lord was defeated?”.

“Why’d he even come back here? Shouldn’t he be with the demons?”.

“I’d rather he hadn’t come back”.

“Here I thought they all died”.

“I mean? I like him”.

“Yeah they took a while to come back”.

“Is he going to bring demons here?”.

“Does this mean I can party with a demon lord some day?”.

“The temple needs to hear about this”.

“Well if we need to kill this one too, it’ll be a lot easier”.

“Yeah all the paladins that aren’t super murderous are such push overs”.

Danny glances at the one guy that vaguely threatened to murder his friend then to his friends, growling slightly, “can I hit that one guy with a fish”. Vraat shaking his head slowly and gently, “no violence on my behalf, they have every right to be unsettled and cautious”. Danny stares back at him, “I am a ridiculously protective mother fucker. If someone harms my friends, I will beat the fuck outta them regardless of their reasons”.

“If I’m being like Firat then I’d want them to deal with me”.

Danny stares some more, “… I will beat the fuck out of them, and then I’ll beat some sense into you”, then adding on, “or I’ll get you really really drunk, force a therapy session on you, you'll cry a little bit, and then things will be all good”. One way or another he’d find something that would work. Danny was a tenacious mother fucker.

Stuccfit snorts, “there’s a story there”.

“My uncle has a drinking problem”.

“He has a lot of problems”.

“No doubt, no doubt”.

Vraat just shakes his head with a faint smile as they head into the general guild house.

The desk lady perking up instantly, “you’re not dead!”. Danny can’t help snickering at that. Her then eyeing the group slightly and coming around the desk quickly, “and you finally brought the new face! Finally”. Stopping in front of the group and curtsying to Danny, “well met, I’m Emerald, the Adventures and hunters associations leader for the left continents”, standing back up right, “I’d ask you some questions but first-”, eyeing Vraat, “-it seems I need to be drilling into this one instead”.

Vraat gives a bit of a pinched smile, “I may have omitted my lineage”. She sighs and shakes her head while Vraat continues, “I’m the second son of the Lexiar family”. She sighs again before flicking his head, not touching the crown though, “bad paladin”, putting her hands on her hips, “does the temple at least know?”.

“They were informed, yes”.

Emerald grumbles under her breath about ‘stupid secretive temple higher ups’. Before speaking at him properly again, “so then, he’s defeated? You were successful?”, looking to Miden, “the heroes party was successful?”. The room seems to go dead silent.

The whole party grins, Vraat and Miden exchanging glances before nodding at her. Miden placing her hand on her sword, “I cut the crown from the demon lord's head”, then she turns to everyone else in the building, unseating her sword and holding it skyward, “THE DEMON LORD HAS FALLEN!”; cue a fuck ton of cheers. Danny’s and Stuccfit’s ears twitching down from all the loud noise.

Someone does point at Vraat though, “you better be better than that idiot”. Vraat smiling faintly but speaking sure of himself, “as I intend to be”.

Chapter 12: Another Round Just For Good Measure

It took barely any time for basically the whole town to prepare for a big ass party. Though the party atmosphere got intruppted by a temple head showing up and waltzing over to Vraat; though Vraat clearly expected this to happen.

“You seem to have maintained your paladinhood and blessings”.

Vraat nodding respectfully, “indeed, my god is certainly a gracious and accepting one”.

“And it will remain to be seen whether that is for the best or for the worst”.

Danny kinda wants to say something, as the guy fucks off and leaves his friend alone, but that would probably be a super bad idea… or at the least Vraat would be unimpressed and maybe even pissed off. Stuccfit elbowing him, “if those guys try to strip away his paladinhood, haunt them”. Danny grinning meanly at her, “with pleasure”. Kelcini coming back over with some food, “do… do I want to know why you guys are smiling?”.

“Crimes”.

“That’s a no”.

Danny snickers while taking his food.

---

Mr. Lancer had finally had enough, his student needed medical attention! Now. So he had jumped on the FrightKnight and began smacking the large ghost with one of the tapestries from the wall he rolled up. Shouting at the class, “GO! GET DANIEL TO THE HOSPITAL!”; all the students book it because as cool as this place that clearly was Phantom’s home was they wanted to go home.

By the time the FrightKnight had pulled his highnesses educator off of himself they’d already gotten his lieges body through the portal they had found behind the throne. The teacher waving the tapestry threateningly at him as he too backs up and leaves through the portal.

The FrightKnight sighs, sagging slightly, before bending down to pick up the abused tapestry. This… this was pathetic and a fair bit humiliating. Not for the first time he was wishing his liege was just a little bit more like Pariah. But unrolling the tapestry to go hang it back up makes him smile some, it was a depiction of his liege pouring wine on himself while being cheered on; maybe he was okay with his highness as he is if it made him so belov-ed.

---

Danny’s munching on a bit of the bread cracker things, a little bland but oh well, when Emerald finally actually approaches him. She’d been practically interrogating all the others of their little party, he gets to be her special last victim. “Finally harassing me, huh?”.

She rolls her eyes at him, hands on her hips, “well you’re the one I have no prior knowledge on, so, who, and what, are you”, wagging a finger in his face, “I know you’re no ice elf. You have a connection to ice but it’s all wrong”.

Danny blinks, how the fuck can she even tell? “And you know that how?”.

“A dryad would never mistake a non-elf for an elf. We can sense any and all connections to nature, and we know elves very well”, she nods curtly to herself while giving Danny a bit of a glare.

Danny chuckles very awkwardly, saying ‘I’m human’ was definitely not gonna fly since he’s very not human looking. “Uh, I’ve been told my kind don’t really crop up here. The technical term is ecto-entity, spirit or freed soul are kind of accurate. Apparently ghosts are just myth here”. At least now that he knows this world doesn’t have some kind of fucked up bigotry issue with ghosts, he can just be honest about that… more or less anyways.

She hums at him, “you seem honest enough”, then holds out her hand, “give me your card, it’s getting updated. No pretending to be an elf for you”. Danny pouts but obliges.

When he gets the thing back there’s been more than a few changes.

Name: Daniel

Species: Ghost

Origin: Summoned Otherworlder

Class: Lord Slayer Mage

Specialities: Ice and others unspecified

Grade: KingsBane

Danny looking back up at her, “sooooo… am I in trouble now?”. She chuckles, shaking her head, “for lying about your species? Or going along with a false assumption, I suppose. No”, pointing a finger in his face, “but don’t do it again”. Pulling her finger back and a blue orb appears above it, “now, we, the association, would like to have your more complete information. Don’t worry about listening ears, there’s a small sound and watching eyes barrier around us. I’d prefer if you’re honest”.

Danny narrows his eyes a little, “does it really matter? I’m sure you know I won’t be staying”.

“We like to keep our records in order. It’s all kept explicitly private, not even kings or queens can gain access, especially not to information on Otherworlders. I, and the association, have no interest in potentially making an enemy out of another dimension or it’s residents”.

Danny is seriously tempted to tell this lady to fuck off or to just lie or be super super vague, until time stops that is… Turning his head to the side and smiling a little, “Clocky”.

“Daniel”, they smile faintly.

“This is been some bullshit, you know”, Danny shrugs, “enjoyed it though”.

ClockWork nods, “as I knew you would”, smirking slightly, “and you know I wouldn’t dream of warning you”. Danny laughs at that a little before they continue, “but consider this a place where you can afford some honesty, enjoy it while you can”.

Okay Danny thinks that last bit’s ominous as fuck but well, he wasn’t staying here, Stuccfit would send him back or undo the summoning, however it worked, and BAM! back to the ghost zone for him… or maybe Amity Park if everyone got back there. The FrightKnight definitely would have taken everyone back right? Or at least to his keep? “So I should tell her then?”.

ClockWork just winks and then they’re gone; Emerald blinks at him.

Danny sighs, smiling and chuckling to himself a little. Looking back up, “fine. But if you wind up with a loose tongue that’ll be a problem”.

She nods respectfully, “of course”, then grins more genuinely and gestures at a little wood table, the two taking a seat. “So, planet name, where you live town wise, a last name if you have one, power and ability set, home world role, more about your species would be appreciated”, she laughs a little, “I don’t need too much specifics though. We had one that tried to describe their species methods of reproduction”.

Danny snorts, “ew”. She nods curtly, “exactly”, then eyes him expectantly. Danny rests his elbows on the table, “first, don’t be too suspicious if I seem too forthcoming, the god of time just kind of casually dropped by and gave you their seal of approval”.

She blinks at that, “Chronos… spoke directly to you”.

“I’m their son, that’s normal for me and you wouldn’t have gotten honesty from me if they hadn’t okay’d it”.

She blinks, only slightly shocked, “so you’re god-kin then, I can understand the caution and dishonesty then”. Danny smirks, “not god-kin, god. My standing is the High Ghost Sovereign, or the God of Ghosts; a death god”.

She blinks very harshly at that before standing up and curtsying to him again, “then you have my apologies, we of this dimension certainly don’t mean to interfere with the gods; especially not one that resides over the dead”. Danny waves her off immediately, “eh don’t fucking worry ‘bout it. I had fun and us ghosts are suckers for some good chaos; that and I made friends. But-”, frowning a little, “-if this had happened to my predecessor, he likely would have raised this dimension to ash”. She stops with the curtsying, “understood”, sitting back down, “when did this change in gods happen?”.

“Around four years ago, though only, like, a year fully. I wasn’t fully stabilised until around a year ago, so I didn’t fully overthrow him till then”.

She hums, nodding slightly to herself, “that makes sense then”, looking at Danny’s face properly again, “there’s been far less issues where souls have needed a paladin or priests aid to cross over”.

“My dimension has never had that sort of issue, but well, my dimension has a thinner divide between realms. Enough that the living can even wander into the realm of ghosts entirely on accident, and ghosts show up in the living realm all the time”, rolling his wrist, “and that thin divide is the only reason halfas exist, hybrids between the living and dead; like me”.

“So would halfa or ghost be more accurate?”.

Danny snickers, “halfa is the most, but ghost and human are also equally accurate. I’m also the hero of a small human town, Amity Park and yes, on Earth; or an earth I guess”. Other dimensions was one hell of a thing. “Ah and before you worry about some neko summoner summoning a freaking god without some kind of okay from them, Vraat’s god probably at least somewhat caused it. They’ve abducted me before and get annoyed at my lack of sleeping enough”.

She sighs, “that’s actually comforting to know”.

“Yeah but your little demon lord, Fritter or whatever, totally got arrested by my realm of the dead and not actually killed. For the whole being basically responsible for the abduction of me, which is apparently against ghost law”.

“Is there any chance of him returning”.

“He’ll die and become a ghost before he’s done serving his sentence. Walker is a little excessive with jail times, he was very annoyed when he showed up to arrest the guy”.

“I suppose that’s the same as vanquishing him then, he is in the land of the dead either way”, and nods to herself, “now as for your powers, that sort of information isn’t needed from a god, but if you’re alright with it”, and raises an eyebrow at him.

“Eh, I’ll give you some”.

She bows her head respectfully, “we, the association, appreciate it greatly”.

“You ain’t getting anything in-depth, but”, and starts counting off on his fingers, “cyrokinesis, pyrokinesis, electrokinesis, ectokinesis, telekinesis, gravity nullification, intangibility, invisibility, duplication, ecto-beams and rays and blasts, flight, on contact power transfer, healing factor and regenitive healing, enhanced senses and muscles and weapons usage, fast learning, dragon shifting, time manipulation, terror inducing destructive wail, form manipulation, healing and influence over ghosts and spirits, death sense, ghost sense, soul stealing”, and shrugs, “some other stuff”.

She nods acceptingly, “that’s quite the list”. Danny smirking back, “I’ve always been a bit of a powerhouse. But a lot of those powers are simply standard for ghosts or something any ghost who has enough ecto-energy to do them can do”. She eyes him encouragingly so Danny does just that and continues, “all ghosts powers use ecto energy and simply maintaining their form and functioning uses it up, ghosts come into being with only so much their form can cycle and hold, some abilities use very little and others use a lot. We also have cores that have specific abilities tied to them, like mines an ice core hence the cyrokinesis and cold pyrokinesis”.

“Alright, and your full name? Anything else?”.

“Daniel James Janus Fenton Phantom, and-”, Danny smirking, “-outside of being ClockWork’s son, I’m also son to Far Frozen Yeti clan Chief FrostBite and Mythos kingdom Amazonian Queen Pandora. And brother to Draconics kingdom Dragon Queen Dorathea”.

She stares at him a little before shaking her head, “you get in a lot of disastrous situations, don’t you”.

“At least twice a year, yeah. It’s a little fucking ridiculous actually”.

Emerald nods and gets up, sending away the blue orb, “I appreciate you humouring me, I shouldn’t keep you too much from the party though”, putting her hands on her hips and losing the respectful tone, “don’t go turning on our dimension though, you hear?”.

Danny gives her a silly little thumbs up before turning to walk off slightly ridiculously. Emerald shaking her head after him, “that right there is why I prefer the sillier and younger gods”.

---

“Hurry! Get him into the ER!”.

“Shit, man. How long can people go without breathing”.

Lots of running and huffing and wheels squealing.

“Arugh, why is there so many loose rocks here?”.

“Rock ghost?”.

“Don’t even joke about that”.

“What happened to him?”.

“I want a nap”.

“He got run over by a driverless truck in the ghost zone”.

“You think Lancer did the right thing?”.

“Wait is that the Fenton boy?”.

“Start cpr right now, we don’t know when those crazies will show up!”.

“Think we can use this trip for extra credit?”.

“I just want to know if we get a make up trip”.

A sudden very loud crash and what sounds like a sign getting knocked over and run over, two more pairs of feet rushing inside.

“Where’s my boy?!?”.

“Dan-o!”.

“Please stay back and let us do our job”.

“You think someone’s finally going to die from all this ghost shit?”.

“And figures it'd be Fenton, right?”.

“Is there even really any point to this?”.

“Honestly? No. But who knows what the Fenton’s will do otherwise”.

“I hope Danny will be okay”.

“Get the defibrillators”.

“It’s been too long. This is a DOA”.

“The first thing I’m doing when I get home is having an ice-cream sandwich”.

“Oh sweetie, please be alright. Why do you keep doing this to us?”.

“Just do it anyways”.

“If we set a turtles shell on fire, do you think it would cook from the inside out?”.

The sound of electricity charging paddles fills the room and makes it seem almost as if everything had gone absolutely quiet.

---

Danny clinks a mug of some kind of maybe beer, “whelp I could have done with a warning about that”.

Miden shaking her head, “we’re not really supposed to, though I don’t think you actually mind”. Danny smirks, taking a sip, “nope. I enjoy freaking people out with my excessive oddness”.

Stuccfit comes up and whacks him over the back of the head by jumping up a little, “we’ve noticed”, glancing around, “Kelcini went and got himself holed up somewhere again”.

“No I’m sure he’s here, we finally dealt with that prick, he wouldn’t abandon the party”.

Danny glances around, sensing and sniffing a little. He was familiar enough with his new friends that finding one wouldn’t really be an issue. Chuckling, “he’s petting a cat behind a barrel of berries”. Stuccfit whistles, “you would be a dangerous assassin”. Danny just gives her a thumbs up but absolutely telekinetically picks up the guy and floats him through the air over to them, clutching the cat the whole time. Stuccfit bends over a little and laughs, Miden just smiling fondly.

Kelcini staggers when Danny put him down, taking one hand off the cat to clutch his chest, “why… why would you do that?. Ahh”.

Danny pats the cats head, who purrs happily, “but now the kitty gets more attention, don’t you want Mr. Kitty to be happy?”. Kelcini actually pouts a bit pathetically at him, while Stuccfit bops the cat with her tail the cat batting at it.

“I’m merely glad no one is paying too much attention and concern to me”. All four turn to look at Vraat, who continues, “part of me is nearly tempted to wear a hat over my crown”, shaking his head, “but that’s a weakness I won’t indulge”.

Danny snorts, “yeah don’t make people think you’re ashamed or who fucking knows what’ll happen”. Miden putting a hand on her hip and pointing at him, “to be fair, someone might try to hurt him. Even if you say you’d hit them for that”.

Vraat shaking his head, “which would be unneeded, I can defend myself sure enough”, patting Danny on the shoulder, “and I’m sure you'd rather be returned home than fight for my honour”.

“I’m a ‘fuck it, do both’ kinda guy, but”, Danny glancing around at them and lifting his drink up, “this is also a goodbye party”.

Someone nearby muttering, “good riddance, ice elves creep me out”. Which Danny absolutely shouts, “I heard that!”, at. Stuccfit just snickers at Danny’s expense.

Miden shakes her head, “some people”, smiling at Danny, “though here’s hoping your communication device l thing actually works out”.

“Oh it will, it just might explode a few times first or catch on fire or accidentally become sentient for a bit. But eventually it’ll behave after a beating or two and maybe some swearing”.

Kelcini muttering, “that’s slightly concerning”, before putting the cat down, which winds between everyone’s legs. Danny ignoring the guy and digs around in a pocket for the DP pins he always kept on him to give out to random people sometimes during fights or at celebrations or at conventions. Chuckling it to Miden, “my ecto-signature is all over that so I’ll just use that to locate y’all in this dimension”, pointing at Vraat, “I know you’re the party leader but you’re also a brand new king basically”.

Vraat sighing, “understandable, I imagine I’ll be rather preoccupied very quickly there. Have to undo any damage Firat did and establish that I’m not him”. Stuccfit poking him, “watch it, more demons are going to become paladins now”.

“Unlikely”.

Danny chuckles, “yeah even I can tell your blessings, or however that works, hurt at least a little”. Vraat simply nods. Danny couldn’t give the guy shit, since Danny put up with pain a hell of a lot. And seeing everyone laughing, talking, clinking drinks… and the cat roaming around, was nice. Definitely better than being alone or spending all his time patrolling; ghosts were great but yeah he definitely needed some living connections. This was legit relaxing and stuff.

Of course then the universe decides to fuck with him a little, making him jerk as a burning shooting all too familiar pain flares up in his chest. It’s not his core, thank fuck for that, but definitely his heart or his heart area at least. Danny makes an uncomfortable open-mouthed grin, “heh. I’m feeling something familiar”; his tone practically screams ‘oh shit’.

Vraat looks concerned immediately, but Miden’s the one to ask, “What?”. Kelcini give him a quiet, “are you okay?”.

Danny laugh is very strained and awkwardly, him twitching, “Electrocution”, and electricity starts zapping over his skin before he jerks heavily and falls over onto the ground; the four all reaching for him when he disappears in a puff of green smoke.

Kelcini kneeling down and touching the ground, “um, what just happened?”. While multiple bystanders yelp and give the four some serious side-eye.

Stuccfit blinking, dropping her drink, “the summonings been canceled”; she looked incredibly confused, “his world just pulled him back. I’m impressed and a little insulted”.

Kelcini blinks, “they summoned him back by electrocuting him? His world is seriously a nightmare”. The other four just nod, after all they couldn’t exactly do anything about this, could they? And knowing the odd ghost king god human, he’d want them to keep enjoying themselves.

---

Danny jerks upright, screaming, and flails his arms around, outright smacking a very startled doctor. Shouting, “WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK!”, and grabbing his chest. Fucking ow. Why the fuck is he getting electrocuted? Who the heck electrocutes an unconscious body! And why DID HE GET ELECTROCUTED SO DAMN OFTEN!

And then he’s getting hugged, a little crushingly, by his dad. His mom yanking his face towards hers with her hands, checking him over, “we thought you died this time! Stop scaring us like this, mister”, and then sighing in relief. His dad laughing in that forced kind of way, “at least you’re the first in the family to get hospitalised by a truck!”. Danny meanwhile is still twitching from the electricity.

Then the nurses and another doctor are pushing them away, “you two, we need to check him over”.

“We know you’re happy to see him up but we need to make sure”.

“He’s perfectly fine with us”.

“Please sit down”.

The second doctor eyeing Danny, who’s still grasping his chest, “how are you even alive”. The doctor with the paddles shakes himself off and sets the paddles down carefully, “Fenton weirdness strikes again”, swallowing and coming closer to Danny, “are you alright?”.

Danny wheezes a little, body twitching some more, “I fucking’ would be if y’all wouldn’t go around fucking electrocuting me! Fucking Ancients, holy shit. Ow”. this kinda shit is why he hates doctors.

The first doctor looks to one of the nurses, “there wasn’t a heart beat or breath right?”. She shakes her head immediately, “he was DOA”.

Danny blinks, “well at least y’all thought I was a fucking corpse, but surprise! I was not”, and swings his legs over the side of the bed to get the fuck outta here. Of course that makes his parents stand back up and the second doctor grab him, “oh no you don’t. You are staying here for observation no matter how you feel”.

“I’m fine”.

“You were dead and in the ghost zone for multiple days, you’re staying here”.

Jack holding up some gadgets, “don’t worry! We brought the decontamination unit!”, grinning, “we already put your class through the ringer!”.

“Don’t you dare interfere with the doctors, Mr and Mrs Fenton”, Mr. Lancer is making an almost aggressive beeline towards them. Jack deflating, “but”.

“No butts. The hospital has its own, safety approved, decontamination units, they can look after him”, and the teacher eyes a nurse who nods and comes over to start talking in detail with the parents about said decontamination. Mr. Lancer rushing over to Danny and wheezing, making a point not to get in the doctors and nurses way, “young man, you scared us half to death. Baxter even punched you when you didn’t wake up”, the man keeps walking with them as they wheel Danny towards an observation room, “the FrightKnight said we needed to stay there for your safety but… you weren’t waking up, so I made the choice to take action. Everyone’s okay”.

Danny blinks, not for the first time he’s shocked by his teachers massive pair of brass balls, goddamn. At least ol’ Frighty was looking after everyone? Ice arm twitching from the electricity it had basically conducted, “heh, sorry? I didn’t mean to get run over by a psycho driverless truck”; he’s leaving out getting goddamn isekai’d. “I also didn’t mean to get woken up via electrocution, but you know”.

The one nurse smacks him, “oh shut up, you were dead and it’s protocol to at least try ressessitaion so the families feel we did everything we could”.

“I was having a good goddamn dream. Fuck off”, then sighing as they get into the room, “but I guess thanks for trying”, wincing slightly and rubbing at the connection to his ice arm, “but maybe don’t make it hurt so goddamn much next time”.

The doctor he scared the shit out of laughs, “‘fraid that’s just not possible. Most people don’t even remember being shocked”.

“Well I’m weird and have a bad past with electricity”.

One nurse blinks before going a little wide-eyed and eyeing his arm, “oh riiiiight, you’re that kid whose arm got fried”; another more experienced nurse glaring at her. Danny actually laughs though, “yeah that’s me, keep those paddles the fuck away from me. Ow”.

Mr. Lancer pats his shoulder, “at least let them attach monitors to you”. Danny grumbles but let’s them, he knew what had happened to him but they did not, and Danny was so not going to attempt to explain since that would definitely get him a one way ticket to a grippy sock vacation. At least the hospital already knows that Danny’s vitals are all kinds of messed up, and thus won’t freak out at the slow heartbeat and shit.

Annnnnd then Valerie kicks the door in, storms up, and slaps him, “I am half tempted to fucking kill you, Danny”.

“Well considering I apparently just came back from the dead, I beat you to it”.

“I can not believe a truck goddamn killed you, of all things”.

Danny sticks up a finger, “well it was driverless and in the ghost zone sooooo”.

Mr. Lancer steps back a little and shakes his head, Daniel would be fine.

Chapter 13: Story Time

The hospital wound up keeping Danny for nearly a full week, much to the boy’s annoyance, it did give him time to send off a message to Nocturne that he would kick the ghosts ass if that was all just one big dream. It was not. Which was kinda cool. Anyway, his folks visited a lot, but spent most of the time blabbering about inventions or trying to convince the hospital to buy more of their products or taking the piss outta him for having to miss so much school. Jazz called and snapped at him, and then snapped at him again when he told her another Dimension abducted him. It was nice to hear her and her being all annoyingly caring.

Fucking Vlad even came by and gave him an excessive amount of gifts and a ‘we’ll talk about this later, away from hospital ears’ glare. There’s a million things to talk about with this shit and none of them are conversations Danny really wants to fucking deal with.

But at least Val was coming by every single day and sometimes for literal hours before ‘having to leave suddenly because she forgot something’. Heh. Her coming by definitely makes him agree with those new buddies that yeah, he definitely should tell her; and her bringing him little bits and pieces of tech to fiddle with gave him something to do while thinking it over. If his parents did that then his dad wouldn’t leave him alone about what he’s trying to make.

And as if on cue, in walks Val, “you'll be glad, nurse said you can get out of here soon”.

Danny throws his arms up and jumps a little in the bed, “fuck yes!”. And they both laugh a little. Danny flopping backwards in the bed, Valerie sitting on the side of it while Danny grumbles, “my opinion of hospitals hasn’t changed since the last time, not one bit”.

“Then stop doing shit that gets you sent to one”.

“Hey it’s still not my fault”.

She shoves him, “whatever. Anyway, why’d you call?”.

Look, okay, it seemed like a great idea at the time. Giving her a ‘come back and talk’ call instead of just fucking springing a sudden reveal situation on her. Now? Now it didn’t feel like the best idea he’s ever had. She still tried to kick his ghostly and human ass sometimes… she was totally going to kick his ghosts AND human ass for this shit. “So don’t kill me”.

“That’s a fucking horrible way to start”.

Danny glares before chuckling, “true, but like really, I’ve had enough near dying experiences”. She laughs a little, “okay I can understand that, you need to stop having them, dumbass”. Danny rolls his eyes, “it’s not like I’m trying to”, crossing his arms a little, “okay so, I maybe have been lying and hiding a thing and it’s, like, not a little thing. But then I had a really trippy near death but kinda fully Death thing and realised I don’t really have close friends and that’s kinda shitty, but I do in fact have A friend but lying to her face is a really stupid way to go about friendship. So yeah”.

She stares at him for a bit before flicking him in the forehead, “Danny I don’t for a second think that you’ve been fully honest with me. Hell, I’d say it was a two way thing if my thing wasn’t just more of an open secret”.

“Ah so you’re just pretending I don’t know”.

She glares and flicks him again, “and you’re pretending that you don’t know. But my not so hidden stuff isn’t the point here”, flopping to lay down sideways across the bed, feet dangling over the side, “and I am not pretending I don’t know your whatever while actually knowing it, so explain. Though I’m a little impressed your little ramble told me basically nothing”.

“I’m very good with my mouth”.

“Ew!”.

Danny snickers, “well it’s true!”, shifting a little, “anyways. Since you know that I know about your you know, also know that I know about you doing you know pretty much for Vlad. Who is my uncle, that I frequently get into petty arguments with but he did buy me a new car for this whole shit experience. You win some and you win some, right”.

She gives him a very sarcastic, “poetic”.

Danny flips her off, “I would totally rock poetry night and you know it. So Vlad yeah? I’m very aware of a certain thing about him that I’m pretty sure you are too, since you’ve been a dick to him for the past while and way less pro-Vlad than you used to be”.

“I mean, I did still vote for him”.

“That’s just because everyone else sucks, and Vlad is actually pretty good as a mayor”.

“True. But yes I know, what does him being the way he is, however that happened, have to do with you?”

Danny chuckles faintly, eyeing the ceiling, “well besides my parents being literally responsible for that and his whole wanting to kill my dad thing because of it. Which I can kinda get, you know? Anyway, I don’t think there’s a single goddamn person in this town that doesn’t know that Vlad likes me and that we have a very weird friendship slash family thing; but the why is wildly not known”.

“Get to the goddamn point, dear zone”.

Danny pokes her head, “I am, I am”.

“Doesn’t fucking sound like it”.

“Fuck you”, Danny puts his hand behind his head, “okay so, part of the reason is just that I’m the son of ‘the love of his life that JACK stole’, but it’s mostly, because, well, that thing of his, is a… it’s a thing we have in common”. Fuck that was so goddamn awkward, oh why is he like this? And why does telling borderline strangers/brand new friends have to be so much easier? Outside of her trying to destroy half of him for a while there.

She sits up and stares down at his face, him giving her a very awkward smile. “Are you fucking kidding me”. She sounds less than amused.

“Uh… no?”.

“Danny, I would punch you if we weren’t currently in the hospital. Are you seriously telling me you’re another weird ghost human hybrid thing”.

Danny cringes like his entire face just got smothered in fresh lemon juice and he could taste it through all his pores. “Ah so there goes pussyfooting around actually saying it, but yeah. That’s, uh, what I’m doing and, well, the term is halfa not the long winded thing you just used”. She smacks him immediately and repeatedly and it devolves into a mild slap fight, any actually anger and aggression behind it quickly evaporates though.

She smacks him one more time for good measure, “I am mad at you”.

“I think I figured that out”.

For a bit they just stare at each other before laughing tiredly and flopping back down. Danny sighing after a bit, “if you want the how, easiest way to put it is my parents aren’t big on lab safety. Vlad wound up in the hospital for seven years and I lost an entire arm”, holding up his icy one, “even if the new one is cool as ice”. She smacks her fist on his leg for that one. Danny just snickers, “so I don’t really recommend getting into catastrophic accidents with ghost portals; you’re gonna have a bad time. Though, unlike Vlad, my spooky form looks a lot more like my not spooky one and I may have not been very smart when coming up with a ghost name for everyone to call me. Granted Vlad also still goes by Vlad but never tells anyone that, I fucking shouted my name at an entire town”.

She snorts, “yeah that’s very stupid- hey wait a fucking minute”, and jerks to sit back up, “what the fuck is wrong with you? Phantom?!”.

Danny lifts his head up to glare at her a little, thank fuck his room is closed and all to himself thanks to the hospital staff not trusting that he won’t contaminate anyone’s open wounds or some shit, “shout it for the whole hospital to hear, why don’tcha? Ancients”. She does actually wince at that before huffing, “I’m not apologising. I can not believe you dated and befriended me”. Danny roll his eyes and flopping his head back down, “I’ll give you that it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but I don’t really care if someone shit kicks me especially when I know they’re not really doing it for bad reasons. You just thought you were doing what’s right and were very pissed off, not to mention Vlad being the manipulative prick that he is”.

She sighs, “still though”, then smacks him again, “all this goddamn time and it was just you. You’re a little bastard you know”, nearly growling, “this explains so goddamn much”.

Danny can’t help but laugh at that, he got a kick out being basically one of the biggest mysteries of the ghost hunter world. “oh it sure does. Not everything, some is just me being a weirdo, and some is just the weirdos I know”.

“Surely you don’t know that many, especially these days”.

“The god of time would disagree. And the god of dreams and sleep. And the god of storms. And the god of-”.

“I get the point, when you say you’re unlucky I never thought you meant that unlucky”.

“Val, I just got back inside my own body from being isekai’d, literally, my luck is some serious bullshit”.

She shits back up at that, staring at him, “oh you’re serious. What the hell, that’s a real thing?”.

Danny makes some wild hand gestures, sitting up too, “that’s I thought! I went and interrogated Nocturne to make sure that it wasn’t just some whacky ass dream. I was run over by fucking Truck-kun. Which is apparently some kind of inter dimensional transportation god? Fuckin’ wild. I was off fighting a demon lord while everyone else was freaking out about me being dead dead and being stuck in the ghost zone ‘cause Frighty said so”.

She blinks, “you really are Phantom, huh”.

“Yup”, Danny tilts his head, “what convinced ya? Getting run over by a god or?”.

She rolls her eyes at him, “you calling the FrightKnight ‘Frighty’”.

“Ahhhh”.

“… Are you sure you didn’t just dream or hallucinate that?”.

Danny scoffs and rolls his eyes, “well I’m still missing the DP pin I gave the hero and Nocturne doesn’t generally lie to my face, and Truck-kun was very firmly targeting me”, rolling his wrist, “the party paladin basically worships Nocturne so they kind of recommended me without my say so or even giving me a little warning”, holding up a finger, “but if you really want proof, wait for me to finish my little project, I’ve already made an inter realm communication device, so inter dimension is a reasonable next step".

"You say that like what you're trying to do isn't wildly ground breaking and unheard of technology”.

Danny snorts, “I am literally half dead, I think I’m allowed to do ground breaking shit. You’d like Stuccfit, she hit me a lot”. She rolls her eyes, “at least there was someone to put you in your place”.

“I also got mistaken for an ice elf, which everyone hates ‘cause they’re apparently all murderous sadists. And it turns out ghost powers aren’t very useful on the undead and actually heals them, the party literally summoned someone to help them deal with an undead army”. She just starts laughing at him so he continues, “and to get to the horde of undead we had to pass through elf territory but they wouldn’t let us past because they also hate ice elves. And Walker fucking showed up and arrested the demon lord”.

She puts her head in her hands, “okay you’d have to be an utter masochist to dream this up for yourself, you are so unlucky”.

“I sure felt like that”, Danny laying back down again, “so, how do you feel? About my bullshit?”.

She smacks him again, because of course, “mad? Annoyed? Slightly understanding because I did try to destroy you repeatedly and we didn’t start out as friends? Slightly betrayed because we are friends? Pity because you are the most unlucky bastard I’ve ever met?”, shaking her head, “you seriously should have told me a while ago”, shrugging, “sure not before I met Elle but still”.

“Heh, yeah I know. That one’s on me, mostly me being chicken shit but also just plain ol’ being busy”, rolling his wrist, “I mean there’s school, managing my parents and bullies, doing the whole town hero thing, dealing with Vlad and his scheming, training, dealing with the G.I.W. and their bigotry, being kinda sorta a god king, being a father-”.

“Woah Woah, so random ghosts calling you prince or king and other royal titles and The FrightKnight’s ‘my liege’ thing was all serious? And wait, father? I THOUGHT ELLE WAS YOUR COUSIN OR SIBLING!”.

Someone outside of the room eeps and mutters, “you know what? I don’t think he needs someone to check up on him right now”.

Danny glares a bit murderously, but she just shrugs at him. He sighs, “did you think the FrightKnight, of all ghosts, wasn’t serious? I don’t think that guy has ever made a joke in his afterlife. And Elle was literally created from my dna, that’s a child, so father”, and shrugs.

She sighs before nodding slowly, “okay so I seriously over estimated how much ghosts mock you”, sighing again, “and let me guess, all your ghost family are actually royals and that wasn’t just you being dramatic?”.

Danny chuckles, oh no, he didn’t really realise she hadn’t been believing him about any of his bullshit. “Yup. I even got isekai’d while wearing my Far Frozen clothing, further causing the whole Ice Elf assumption”.

“Okay, that dimension just hates you”, shaking her head, “so, are you going to be fully honest with me from now on?”.

Danny shrugs, “yeah I guess so”.

“Weird”.

“Yeah”.

“… Did getting punted into another dimension and making new friends really cause this big change?”.

Danny shrugs, “eh, yeah. Sam and Tuck aren’t around anymore and you and I both know I realised they weren’t great friends. And then I had a wall of secrecy up with you. New party buddies had some things to say about that”.

Valerie smirks at him, pushing herself to get up off of his hospital bed, “yeah, they were super possessive and controlling of you, but also didn’t really care about what you wanted or your well being”, putting her heads on her hips, “I guess I’m glad Yo-Yo made new friends, definitely down to talk to them once you break the laws of the universe or dimensions again”.

Danny finger snaps at her, “you know me, never bound by laws or logic”. She leaves by flinging his door open violently enough for it to bang against the wall and wobble.

A nurse sticks her head in seconds later, nodding a little, “glad to see she didn’t kill you. Props for deciding to tell a rather violent someone some upsetting secret while actually in the hospital, since we could treat you after”. When Danny gives her a slightly nervous concerned look, she tools her eyes, “relax, I didn’t listen in and I frankly don’t want to know. Knowing you Fenton’s it’s probably really really weird and will give me a headache”, then coming over and checking all his stuff over, “the doctors are letting you go tonight, but no earlier. Try not to get sent back too soon”.

“I don’t wind up here that often”.

She huffs at him, “half the staff have debated giving you a membership card or something”.

Okay fine, Danny laughs his ass off at that as she leaves. Him waiting for her footsteps to fully fade away before getting back to tinkering with a little smile on his face.

---

Danny actually manages to get the thing to start blinking and pick up static before his supper even comes. It takes a solid hour to finally start getting readings from his ecto-field, and even longer to actually zero in on it.

“Oh this graftinne tastes so good”. That’s totally Miden, hell yeah.

Danny smirks and actively shouts, “oh yeah baby! Am I good or what!”.

“AHHH!”.

“Eep!”. Ah so Kelcini’s with her, nice.

Miden then starts laughing and sounds less muffled, “oh no way, you really did it?”. Kelcini adding, “I, um, I’m sorry I doubted you. You scare me”.

Danny pouts down a little, “aw that’s just mean, I break the barrier between dimensions and that scares you?”.

“Sorry?”.

Danny snorts, chuckling a little and leaning back against his pillow, “eh don’t worry about it. So you two can hear me fine?”.

Miden’s smile can be heard in her voice, “yes! It is very strange hearing a pin speak though”, and laughs a little.

Danny snickers to himself, he totally hadn’t warned them that his voice would come through the thing with his ecto-field on it. He should find a way to send more pins through the connection he’s made. “I’m very good with strange. Anyway, did I totally freak you guys out when I just up and disappeared?”.

Kelcini responding immediately, “yes! Stuccfit was impressed though”. Miden chuckling, “she was tempted to try summoning you again”.

That would have been awkward and hilarious, just suddenly a fucking truck comes and mows him down directly after he got resuscitated via electrocution. “As absolutely hilarious as that would have been, glad you didn’t. Everyone thought my living body was super dead and electrocuted my heart”.

“Oh so that’s why you felt electricity and then were suddenly gone. Your body got woken up forcefully”, he can practically hear Miden nodding to herself. Meanwhile Kelcini mutters, “that sounds horrifying”.

Danny snickers very meanly, “I scared the crap out of the doctors, uh think healers. People marked dead on arrival usually don’t just spring back up. Now they’re just keeping me in their building to ‘monitor’ me, I am very bored. You guys?”.

“Ah, Vraat had to, ah, go back to the demon lands. You know, demon lord… stuff”. Miden then adding on, “Stuccfit took another job immediately”, she laughs a little, “ice elf hunting”.

He has to laugh at that, she must have been so pissed about having to travel with a ‘damn ice elf’ and then even more pissed off that Danny turned out to not be one so she was hating on them needlessly. “She’s probably mad at the species for thinking she was getting along with one, that’s great”, laughing a little more, “I’m not surprised demon lord had to go be a demon lord, kinda comes with the territory”, rolling his wrist around and grumbling a little, “the sheer amount I get pulled away to do this or that royal thing gets super annoying. No way he doesn’t have a literal crap ton of stuff to do, being a brand new ruler and all that”.

Miden’s clearly nodding, “oh yes, definitely. And Stuccfit sure can hold a grudge”.

“She’s like a ghost that way”, tapping his chin and pulling his phone out, “hey you want to talk to that one friend of mine?”.

“You mean the one who doesn’t know about you but you should tell? That one?”, she sounds a little judgmental. Kelcini hums, “I’m okay with it”.

Danny chuckles a little awkwardly, “she does actually know now, so yay me. She did also hit me repeatedly, started a slap fight, and assaulted my room door; though”.

Kelcini mumbling, “keep her away for Stuccfit, we don’t need to watch a town get burned down”.

“Eh, she’s only burned down a couple of buildings”. Then dialling away on his phone, “hey Val, guess what? Got my inter dimensional phone thing working! Say hi to Miden and Kelcini”.

Valerie: “that dimension has some whacky ass names. Um hello?”.

Miden: She’s instantly eager sounding, “oh! Hello!

Kelcini: “um, hi?”, then mumbling, “this is really weird”.

Miden: “oh hush you, it’s neat”.

Danny: “I agree it’s neat”.

Valerie: “I’m just glad that someone made friends and they weren’t a very vivid hallucination”.

Danny: “oh trust me a little would you?”.

Valerie: her suspicious raised eyebrow is very audible, “says the guy who spent four years lying to me”.

Miden: Her laughing a little in that ‘I’m not sure if I should be laughing’ way, “she has a point you know”.

Danny: “yeah yeah yeah. Anyway, since you now know I’m not crazy and I’ve checked in with my new buddies that I just kinda dipped out on-”.

Miden: “what’s ‘dipped out on’?”.

Valerie: sighing but in an amused way, “oh Danny must have explained so many sayings. He means left. Like disappeared on you”.

Kelcini: “yeah, yeah, he did. Vraat thinks he’s, um, very crass”.

Danny: “Vraat is a paladin, I think they’re supposed to be all moral and stuff”.

Valerie: “I’m amazed a paladin could even tolerate you”.

Miden: “well he is used to being judged and enduring harassment over being a demon”.

Valerie: “Danny! You were hanging out with a demon? How could you not start with the good facts? You mention paladin but not demon”, she huffs, “you’re impossible”.

Danny: shrugging, “to be fair, I’m used to being around many different species, sure they’re all ghosts but still”, rubbing his neck, “but since you seem to care so much-”. She growls a little at him. “-Kelcini’s a half dwarf, I think, and Stuccfit is a Neko”.

Valerie: “if Tucker ever hears you made friends with a neko he’d cry tears of jealousy. Creepy jealousy”.

Kelcini: “I, yeah, I’m half dwarf. I, uh, prefer not to talk about that though”.

Valerie: “Danny you dick”.

Miden: “it’s probably good Stuccfit didn’t hear that. She hates creeps”.

Danny: Rolling his eyes to himself, “hey I have never claimed to not be a bit of an asshole. But I will never tell Tuck, if he ever even gets back in touch with me”.

Kelcini: “um, sorry?”.

Danny: Snorting, “don’t worry, I’m okay”, then perking up, “though hey, Val, Miden is the hero even if I barely understand what that means and a warrior. Kelcini is a archer, and Stuccfit’s an assassin”.

Valerie: Whistling, “nice. I’m pretty sure I’m technically all three?”.

Danny: “when the heck did you start using bow and arrows?”.

Valerie: “guns are close enough!”.

Miden: Laughing, “you can’t really be multiple classes like that. And the hero is just someone blessed with the ability to cut down a lords crown, I try not to make a big deal about the title”.

Kelcini: “I hate people with egos”.

Valerie: “you’d hate Danny’s uncle slash my old but also somewhat current boss then”.

Danny: “yeah that man is ego incarnate”.

Valerie: “pride personified”.

Kelcini: “ugh”.

Danny: “oh by the way, Val, I got Mage class. ‘Cause, you know, spooky boi powers”.

Miden: “which is what we needed, we definitely didn’t mean to summon a literal god though”.

Danny: Snickering, “Vraat’s still processing that I know and have assaulted his god, isn’t he”.

Kelcini: “I think he always will be”.

Valerie: “oh right, Nocturne right? They were staring at me while I slept once, kicked them in the face”.

Kelcini: “… there’s… there’s something really wrong with the people from this other dimension”.

Danny: “to be fair, me and Val are very abnormal and throw fists against everything”.

Valerie: “I still have that video of you trying to fight a light pole, but yeah I would fight myself just for the challenge”.

Danny: “I have literally fought myself. Evil versions of yourself are fucking traumatising”.

Kelcini: “I’m not going to ask, what”.

Miden: “you have so many stories- oh! Looks like our foods ready. We’re meeting with the head of the mages academy, since someone left without informing them”.

Danny: “oh that wasn’t my fault, but I guess I’ll let y’all go then”.

Valerie: “you get me involved in the goddamn würdest situations, Danny, but it was nice verbally meeting Danny’s first new living friends in four goddamn years”.

Danny: “hey! You’re right but still. Bye you guys”.

Miden: Laughing a little, “I’m sure we’ll talk later. Bye”.

Kelcini: “um yeah, nice to talk to you too, bye?”.

The line with the two goes dead. Danny chuckling and just talking into his phone now, “so?”.

“You are fucking insane . But fine, I didn’t fully believe you; and now I can never look at anime the same again, thanks for that”.

Danny chuckles, he felt exactly the same at this point. “Tell me about it, maybe if I figure out dimension hopping, you’ll get to actually properly meet them”.

“I would need proof that won’t just kill me , but yeah sure Danny”.

“Nice”.

“I am going to bed. Bye Danny”.

“Yeah yeah, bye”.

Chapter 14: Round Two? Hell No

One year later…

Things have been better for Danny, he’d managed to actually graduate -mostly thanks to Mr. Lancer liking Danny’s dumbass- and his parents had decided to leave FentonWorks to him once they retired… whenever they finally did that. Jazz was still in school but that was kind of expected, she was totally kicking ass there. Granted not everything was great, Sam and Tucker hadn’t gotten into contact even once so Danny’s pretty sold on those ‘friendships’ being firmly done; and Danny would frankly be pissed if either just showed up like they hadn’t ignored him for years. Him and Vlad were kinda buddies now in a slightly more healthy way; still kicked each others asses and harassed each other and that would never stop.

He usually talked to his other dimension friends at least three times a week if not more, and would occasionally just leave the communication line open during his or their fights for just like the ‘feeling’ of ‘being there’. Little weird, but weird is normal for Danny. Plus it was hilarious when Danny would mock the fuck out of whoever his buddies were dealing with, especially since Stuccfit would double down most of the time; no one liked being mocked by what to normal people in their dimension just seemed like a talking pin. Sometimes he’d crack jokes just to make them laugh when they maybe shouldn’t be. Danny had actually wound up telling Mr. Lancer about what actually happened, with proving it of course, and the man was absolutely fascinated by it; Danny thinks the teacher is actually slightly jealous. Sometimes Lancer would just talk and talk and talk with Kelcini who apparently loved literature, Danny’s a little amazed Kelcini can put up with it. Vraat definitely appreciated having another lord to talk to, even if Danny was on a completely different level. Danny wasn’t surprised in the slightest the guy chose to further knight and warrior training for demons over just making another mass horde of undead. Stuccfit had successful offed her one thousandth murder/assassination of someone in a ruling position and now had scary children’s bedtime stories about her; Danny’s had to make it very clear that he would not be involved in or listen to a murder. Miden had ranked up to a grand warrior even if everyone just called her a hero warrior, every time she went back to the warriors academy she got mobbed by the rooks there and Danny might have convinced her to terrorise them once or twice; he’d also sent ol’ Frighty over to do practice mock battles with her much to Kelcini’s terror.

That had been the biggest thing, in Danny’s opinion, figuring out that yeah ghost actually can just show up in pretty much any dimension it was just harder. He kind of figured Walker showing up through a standard ghost portal was his Obsessions influence combined with Danny giving him a seriously bad day… bad two days. Which meant that Danny could actually just go back there whenever, one problem with that… it took some doing and time; meaning that if there was suddenly an issue in Amity or the Infinite Realm he wouldn’t be able to get back instantly. That was a risk he couldn’t take, one his Obsession frankly wouldn’t let him take. So he’s still working on the pin instant transportation thing, it may or may not be going anywhere. They’d been a little annoyed since he’d been with them for two whole days and that had been fine, well okay Vraat was understanding but he was a ruler himself and a fucking paladin, but that conversation got interrupted by both Vlad and Valerie being all like ‘there’s a ecto-ranium meteorite about to crash into the planet help’ in a move of what had to be pure cosmic timing. Danny having to suddenly help save an entire fucking planet mid conversation definitely made them shut up about nagging him to come over anyway because ‘it’ll be fine’; they were all of the same opinion that Danny’s dimension was a goddamn nightmare.

At least that whole situation had massively improved humanities opinions on ghost, the fucking statues were a little embarrassing though. Kelcini agreed it would be very embarrassing, while Stuccfit and Val just mocked him. At least neither him nor Vlad compromised their identities though.

So yeah, things had been solidly pretty great; and might be becoming greater if things went, you know, well. See turns out turns out the whole thing between him and Val hadn’t just been a fluke that was vaguely reliant on their respective secrets being secrets. Danny being done with school and already being effectively involved in ghost hunting meant that Valerie didn’t really have any reason to not ask him out all over again. And since their relationship wasn’t exactly new, just rather on hold for literally years, it was all in pretty quickly. Val dragged him randomly ghost hunting, both of them dragged each other off to mess with Vlad, Danny showed her around the ghost zone and got her to meet a lot of different ghosts. She’d even tagged along for a ghost zone war or two. It also helped that both their families actually liked each other, and Val’s dad basically worked for FentonWorks now.

So with his half-life being more or less stabilised now, what else could possibly happen to him?, and unknown things being known, Danny didn’t really see a reason to not make things more official official. Vraat had basically caused this too, since he’d been complaining a bit about being expected to ‘take a mate’ and have heirs. Purely out of spite, Danny refused to let a younger lord and new friend get married before him. Meaning he’s now at a mildly fancy restaurant -that Vlad paid for and was slightly annoyed at because Danny didn’t pick a more expensive place- with a little ring in his pocket and his friends on the horn silently cheering his dumbass on.

Valerie quirking an eyebrow at him, “fancy place much?”.

Danny chuckles, “blame Vlad”.

“How is the relationship between you two still so goddamn weird, and I get that he’s rich but geez”.

“He actually got mad that I didn’t want to go somewhere even more expensive”.

“That man has so many issues”.

The hostess waves them over, “we’re ready to seat you now, please come this way”. The two nodding and following happily, arm in arm.

Do both of them get drinks? Obviously, most of America might have a stupid twenty one restriction, Amity said fuck that noise. A town that deals with ghost attacks is going to let ALL adults drink. Both getting silly fruity drinks with the goofy little umbrellas and a sugar rim, they were fucking delicious and the glasses took two hands to hold. When the waiter comes, Val gets a salmon and prawn fettuccini with a rosé sauce, Danny getting steak au poivre soup with cheesesteak stuffed peppers.

Valerie eyeing the stuffed pepper, “that is a monstrosity”.

“A good monstrosity, just like me”.

She chucks a shrimp at him and he can faintly hear Stuccfit groaning and Miden laughing lightly. “Oh yeah, my dad said that he found a flaw in that new tower thing in New York you’re setting up”.

“That’s like the fiftieth one, damnit”.

“You really suck at that”.

“Hey!”.

She slurps a noodle very loudly at him so he chucks a bit of his steak into her bowl and absolutely splashing a little of the sauce onto her face; she glares murderously while he just smirks at her.

Okay, okay, when the fuck should he do this? Like she’s clearly in a good mood and he’s already planned this shit but when? Knowing him it’ll be at a dumbass moment or he’ll really fuck up and wait too long… probably shouldn’t do that. He’s not doing it with food in his mouth, obviously, and her being mid-noodle slurping would just be mean. Okay, so after food but before any desert. Yes, celebratory desert will be right there after the definite ‘yes’ she’s going to give him. Cool cool.

At least the food is fucking good. Over too quickly, but fucking good.

“So are we actually getting desert? Be a waste not to”.

Danny grins a little, “you know how much I can eat, absolutely”. And the waiter has some impressive timing right then, “your preselected desert will be ready shortly”.

Preselected? Both of them quirk their eyebrows at the waiter, who smirks a little, “Vlad Masters and Serendipity 3 send their regards”.

Danny wants to beat that man’s face in. Him and Valerie exchange glances before laughing. Valerie chuckling, “that man is insane”. Danny nodding and wheezing, “I should have figured. There’s probably, like, gold in it”.

Miden faintly muttering, “why would anyone waste gold by eating it?”. Kelcini muttering right back at her, “his dimension is, you know, just weird like that”.

The desert the waiter brings back what looks like just a frozen hot chocolate, except the top is covered in literal gold with two goddamn gold spoons. The waiter putting it down, “one Frrozen Haute Chocolate, made with a special blend of twenty-eight gourmet cocoas, milk, and ice. Topped with twenty-four karat edible gold and the goblet is lined with edible gold as-well”. He bows slightly before leaving them be, while the two stare at the goblet.

“… Danny…”.

Danny gives a very nervous and awkward, “yeah?”.

“Did Vlad do something I should know about?”.

Fucking Vlad, not giving him a goddamn moments piece. “I… don’t think so?”, ugh, how does that man always manage to basically back him into a corner in some way. “I think he’s just trying to, oh goddamnit”. She starts laughing at him struggling. Danny sighing, “trying to get to be my best man. Fucking Hell”.

She blinks harshly, “what”.

So Danny gets down on one knee and presents the ring to her, all while trying to not think about wanting to punch Vlad in the face. “Valerie Gray, will you marry me?”. And probably for the first time since since she was fourteen, Valerie Gray actually squeals in delight.

But then an ominous horn blares in the distance and someone screams and jumps out of the way of a… truck. A very suspicious looking truck. Danny squints at the thing bareling towards the diners windows, “oh for FUCKS SAKE!”. Its Truck-kun. He can hear Stuccfit laughing violently and the others either chuckling or shouting ‘why would you do that to him!”.

Danny grumbling, “oh you motherfucker”. Valerie sighing at Danny while they both jump -taking the frozen hot chocolate as they do because they deserve it- out of the way of the fucking truck barrelling through the windows and right into the table they had been sitting at, “let me guess, isekai’ing truck and it’s Stuccfit’s fault?”. Danny giving a dejected, “yeah”. Them having to scamper onto a roof, struggling to not spill their desert, while everyone else was fleeing the restaurant, Danny sticking out a hand and forcing a portal to form before shouting, “WALKER! Get that ASSHOLE!”.

It doesn’t even take a full minute for a very furious Walker and The FrightKnight to come through, The FrightKnight standing in-front of the couple with his sword out protectively, while Walker shouts, “YOU! You owe me sometime IN JAIL!”.

Danny can barely hear Vraat’s voice over Walker's absolutely massive horde of ghost cops. “Are you arresting a god?”.

Danny huffing, “blame the kitty”. Shaking his head and turning to Valerie, who eyes him a bit before grinning and putting the desert to the side, Danny getting back down on one knee, “so, in the name of this chaos, will you marry me?”.

…

She slaps him, “yes you fucking idiot, I’m going to kill you”, and then let’s him put the ring on her finger.

Kelcini muttering, “uh, there’s so much wrong with that response”.

He ignores all the mock gagging sounds as him and Val kiss over the back drop of a fucking car god fighting cops and Walker trying to taser It into submission. The ghost cop actually managing to drag away a hogtied truck while grumbling at the hugging heroes, “finally”; both of them flip him off but don’t stop hugging. The FrightKnight moving to pick up the desert, tilting his head at it slightly, and holds it near the two, who do, in fact, take the fucking gold spoons to eat the thing. There’s a bunch of clapping and cheering coming through the com at least.

Valerie humming and glancing down, “were they listening the whole time?”. Danny makes a goofy little smirk, “yes”. She flicks ice cream at his face.

Yeah this was a bullshit situation but totally worth it, if getting publicly isekai’d results in wedding bells, Danny’s cool with it.

End.

Prompts: Mr. Lancer fights the Box Ghost with an improvised weapon (the funnier the better). and In some hospitals, CPR is done to a patient despite them being declared dead on arrival. This is a courtesy to the family. The doctor doesn't expect the scream when they lay down the defibrillator paddles on the boy's chest. and Valerie finds out Danny's secret and Tucker decides to get a piloting license. and Disabled Danny AU where the arm that hit the 'on' button in the portal was severely damaged and had to be amputated after the accident (potential gore tw). As a halfa, he makes up for having one arm by using telekinesis or creating a new arm out of ice/ectoplasm/what have you (or by another method if the writer prefers, those are just suggestions). and Walker and the terrible, horrible, no good day. and Anything fantasy. Yes I am that person. Modern fantasy, high fantasy, danny’s powers are magic, or everyone has magic, or anything. The more fantasy vibes the better. 😘 and Danny can sense someone dying or about to die and Danny would dearly like to know why his life is like this and how he can get it to stop. That doesn't change the reality of the current situation though, which is that his school bus is in the ghost zone, along with the rest of his class. and As a fellow upholder of the law, Walker respected Danny a fair amount, though he still had a ways to go. Lucky for him, Walker was more than willing to lend the young hero a helping hand. and Danny really wants to propose to his partner. It does NOT go as planned. and Fright Knight has been around much longer than other ghosts. He has seen a lot. And yet this seems to be the most ridiculous thing he's been a part of.

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