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raaorqtpbpdy · 3 months

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Haunting With Dinosaurs (0)

Written for @crossoverdanuary Week, Day 4: Any Fandom Dino Squad | Element

Read it on AO3 also, Watch Dino Squad on Youtube it sucks (affectionate)

Danny is slightly aged up to be 18 and a recent high school graduate, also this is a ghost king Danny AU, and obviously Phantom Planet didn't happen, but other than that, no major changes have been made to DP lore in this fic.

As for Dino Squad, I've made some pretty significant changes, but they pretty much boil down to: This is a supernatural AU, so it won't have canon-typical Dino Squad made-up science. All other changes are explained in the actual fic as they come up.

I'm lowkey assuming that the majority of people who read this will not have seen Dino Squad, so I've made sure to describe all the DS elements a little more thoroughly than the DP elements so those of you who haven't seen Dino Squad can understand what's going on.

Prologue

Next Chapter

[Warning for death, coercive control, and semi-graphic violence]

Danny was getting real sick of summonings. He'd been warned that after he officially became the ghost king, more people would try to summon him, but if he'd known it would be this bad, he would have fought harder to abdicate the title.

At least back when he was just Danny Phantom, ghostly superhero, he would be summoned to girls' slumber parties right here in Amity Park. As the ghost king, he kept getting summoned by whack-jobs and cults on the other side of the world. Plus, whack-jobs and cults never wore skimpy pajamas or asked him to play truth or dare with them.

Being ghost king didn't have any perks.

Sometimes he could ignore a summons, if it was weak and he focused really hard on it, but not this time. This time, whoever was summoning him was powerful. The pull to answer was stronger than he'd ever felt before.

He could barely resist it long enough to rinse the toothpaste out of his mouth before he was forcibly torn through space and transformed into his ghost form, crown, ring, and all. Then he was floating in the center of a summoning circle.

Wherever he was now, it was dark, maybe a basement, or maybe a cave. He didn't hear any dripping water or echo, so probably a basement. The only light came from Danny himself and five dim, candles with green flames burning low. Normally that wouldn't bother Danny, who could see in the dark as if it was daylight, but something about this darkness was unnatural. Even he couldn't see through it.

It smelled like must and blood. So much blood he could taste it when he opened his mouth, and nearly gagged.

"Finally, I have you," a voice said. It was deep and slightly accented, although Danny couldn't place what it was. Almost British but not quite.

Danny swallowed and braced himself for the metallic taste in the air before he opened his mouth again to ask, "Who are you? Why did you summon me? And can you turn a light on?"

He squinted into the darkness, trying to make out the figure standing there The light he gave off revealed only silhouettes, but it looked like just one man, tall, with a dignified stance.

"I have spent centuries perfecting this ritual to summon you here and bind you to me," the man continued.

Then he spoke words in an ancient language. Not Latin. Older. Almost primeval.

Danny hissed as he felt a burning sensation wrap around his wrists. Through his gloves he could see a red glow circling them. It became brighter and hotter for a long minute, until finally, it faded.

"What is this?" Danny demanded harshly.

"A binding spell," the man responded, holding up his hand to show a faintly glowing red sigil on his palm. "You are now bound to me. You will come when I call; you will do my bidding. You belong to me, ghost king. You belong to Victor Veloci."

Danny backed away slowly, only to stop when he reached the edge of the summoning circle and hit a barrier.

The usual freaks never knew enough to actually keep him in the circle, let alone bind him to themselves. This guy was the real deal. He wasn't just another whack-job who got his hands on a summoning ritual; he actually knew what he was doing.

It had finally fully dawned on Danny that this was not his typical summoning. This was really, really bad.

"What do you want from me?" he asked, carefully keeping his voice steady.

"I want you to resurrect my friends," the man, Victor, said.

"You have friends?" Danny scoffed.

"I did." As he watched, Victor's eyes started to glow, amber with slitted pupils. Definitely not human. "And you're going to bring them back. All of them. So we can destroy humanity and return the world to the way it should be. When we were in our prime."

"Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, you mean?"

It was meant to be derisive, but Victor smiled, green light glinting off wickedly sharp teeth.

"Exactly."

One by one, the green candle flames finally burned out, and the oppressive, unnatural darkness faded away to regular darkness. Now that Danny could see again, all the cards were on the table. He knew where he was, what Victor looked like, and where that smell of blood was coming from.

A corpse laid on each of the five pentagram points. They looked like they were teenagers. A few years older than Danny had been when he'd gone ghost the first time. Probably still in high school, or they would have been if they weren't here, glassy-eyed and still sluggishly dipping blood.

Victor Veloci himself was a well-groomed man with long dark hair streaked with dark red. He wore a burgundy suit, and carried himself like a respectable businessman. If it weren't for the glowing yellow monster eyes, he could have had anyone fooled.

Danny was made to listen as Victor shared his story. It sounded ridiculous. A pair of velociraptors somehow surviving the extinction of the dinosaurs, developing immortality and the ability to transform into humans. But Victor clearly believed it. And after what he showed Danny, it was hard to deny.

He told Danny that, unlike the other velociraptor, he was always supernaturally gifted. He could see the ghosts of the other dinosaurs, even speak to them. They were angry. They wished to return. And he vowed to make that happen no matter how long it took.

"And now, finally, after millennia, I have you," Victor finished. "The king of death, bound to my will. Now, you will bring the dinosaurs back to life so that we may return the world to its rightful state."

"Yeah... that's not gonna happen," Danny said, less than apologetically.

"You must," Victor insisted.

He held up his palm and the sigil their glowed more brightly. At the same time, the marks around Danny's wrists glowed, but they didn't burn. If Danny were to hazard a guess, he'd say they could only make him do things he was actually capable of doing. So he wasn't in direct defiance of his new master's orders.

"Why isn't this working," Victor hissed.

"I didn't say I wouldn't do it, I said it's not gonna happen," Danny said. "I can bring people back from the dead, but I need blood, and flesh, and bone marrow. I need DNA. I can't bring back a ghost without anything remaining of their physical form, and I can't bring anything back from fossils either. Tough luck, man."

"So what can you do?" Victor growled.

Danny looked down at the mutilated teenagers beneath him.

"I can bring them back," he said.

"I don't care about them."

"I can bring them back and merge them with the ghosts of some of these dinosaurs you care so much about," he continued. "Sort of like an overshadowing situation. You know, possession kinda."

"Will they be able to take their true dino forms?"

"Sort of? They'll still be ghost dinos, but they'll be corporeal at least."

What Danny was proposing was basically bringing these teenagers back as halfas, except their ghost forms would be dinosaurs. Which, actually sounded pretty epic, honestly. He wasn't actually sure how, or even if it was going to work, but he had to do something for these kids, and he had to do it without directly defying this mad wizard. This was the best he could come up with.

"Your proposal is acceptable... for now," Victor said. "I shall call to the spirits of five dinosaurs for you to use."

He spoke again in that ancient language. Its guttural tones sending a shiver down Danny's spine. Ghost king or not, this stuff was creepy.

A moment later, a pteranodon swooped into the room, perching at the edge of the summoning circle.

Cautiously, Danny placed one hand on the pteranodon's beak, then knelt down to the nearest teen, a kid whose only recognizable feature at the moment was a bright green mohawk. It was hard to look at, so Danny closed his eyes. In his mind, he told the ghost to merge with the teen, ectoplasm mixing with blood as the teen healed and the dinosaur was locked inside them.

For a terrifying second, he just waited. If he'd been breathing, he would have held his breath.

Then, the teen started to breathe. They were still unconscious, but they were alive.

Danny sighed with relief.

"Did it work?" Victor asked.

"It worked," Danny confirmed. "I'm ready for the next one."

In truth, doing that just once had been pretty exhausting. Doing it five times would definitely push the limits of what Danny was capable of. He might even end up passing out and turning human again. And then where would he be? But it would be even more difficult the longer he let these kids rot. He had to try.

The next dinosaur Victor called was a stegosaurus, and Danny successfully merged it with a purple-haired boy wearing a shredded button-up and a tie. Then came the spinosaurus, which he merged with a redheaded girl in cargo pants. Then a T-Rex, which was terrifying, but merged with the boy in the bloodstained Letterman jacket without issue.

By the time the final dinosaur arrived—a styracosaurus, Veloci claimed, although it looked like a triceratops to Danny, not that he was a dino expert—Danny was exhausted. He wasn't sure if he would be able to pull it off one more time. Rather than using his authority to order the ghost, it felt more like begging this time. He was desperate. Almost completely drained of energy. If he didn't turn human after this it would be a miracle.

Much to his relief, he succeeded the fifth time too, merging the styracosaurus with the last teen, a large, African-American boy wearing a robotics club T-shirt.

Somehow, and it really must have been a miracle, Danny managed to stay in his ghost form.

"Alright, man, done," Danny said.

"I disagree," Victor denied. "There are millions of dinosaurs, and you're going to bring them all back."

"Not tonight I'm not," Danny argued. "I don't actually have unlimited power, you know. And doing this takes a lot out of me. It's gonna be a long time before I get enough energy back to do it again."

"How long? A century? Two?"

"Uh..."

Danny had been thinking more like a week, but this was a pleasant reminder that the man currently controlling him was apparently from prehistoric times.

"Yeah, maybe," Danny said, rather than correct him. "If we're lucky."

"I've waited this long," Victor said. "I promised. As long as it takes."

"Right just uh... don't kill anyone until I'm actually ready to resurrect them, okay?" Danny said. "The longer someone's been dead, the harder it is to bring them back."

"I make no promises," Victor replied. "You're dismissed for now, but don't go too far. I'll call you back when I need you."

He uttered one guttural word, and Danny felt the tense atmosphere around him break. Instinctively, he knew that he could now leave the circle, leave the basement, and he did. Though he swore to himself he'd come back to rescue those kids as soon as Victor left.

Until then, however, there was someone else he needed to find. According to Victor's story, there had been two velociraptors who survived extinction. And apparently, the other one lived in the same city.

#fic #dp #dp x dino squad #danny phantom #dino squad #dinosquad #crossover #dp crossover #crossover danuary week 2024 #crossover danuary week #haunting with dinosaurs #things i wrote #danny fenton #victor veloci

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raaorqtpbpdy · 3 months

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Haunting With Dinosaurs (2)

Danny is summoned by a powerful occult practitioner named Victor Veloci, who wants him to bring dinosaurs back to life. It sounds absurd, but Danny is bound to him and cannot refuse, even though he can't actually bring dinosaurs back to life. Instead, he merges the ghosts of five dinosaurs with the bodies of the five human sacrifices Veloci used to summon him, restoring them to life as dinosaur halfas. And that's only the beginning. I'm lowkey assuming that the majority of people who read this will not have seen Dino Squad, so I've made sure to describe all the DS elements a little more thoroughly than the DP elements so those of you who haven't seen Dino Squad can understand what's going on.

Written for @crossoverdanuary Week, Day 4: Any Fandom Dino Squad | Element

Read it on AO3 also, Watch Dino Squad on YouTube it sucks (affectionate)

This may or may not be the last chapter, haven't decided yet, but I made sure to give it a decent ending, just in case. It is not yet edited, but will be eventually.

"Italicized dialogue" indicates speech that can only be heard in the POV character's head. (Danny in this chapter)

Chapter 2: Day of the Dinos

[No applicable warnings]

After dropping off the van and driver, Danny flew straight to the school and waited impatiently. It was a Saturday, so the only people on campus were the boys' soccer team playing practice games, the few unlucky teachers who had last-minute work to get done, and the fewer, even unluckier students who'd gotten stuck with weekend detention.

For the sake of not drawing attention to himself, he'd switched to his human form. Any time someone got close who might recognize he wasn't supposed to be there, he would duck out of sight behind the school's sign, or a tree or something. He didn't need to be mistaken for someone who was supposed to be in detention—or worse, on the soccer team.

In the 15 hours or so that he'd been in this town, Danny hadn't learned much about it. He'd learned that it was called Kittery Point, and it was in Maine, so at least he hadn't left the country. After hearing Victor's accent, he'd been a little worried that he might've been in Europe somewhere. He'd learned that he couldn't leave this town, thanks to his order not to go too far.

And he'd learned that this place was absolutely teeming with dinosaur ghosts.

It was a veritable Jurassic Park of ghost dinosaurs.

It was kind of awesome, but also kind of terrifying, because Danny had nearly been stepped on twice while he was standing in front of the school waiting, and even if they were too weak to be visible or tangible to a normal human, they could still crush Danny just fine. He wouldn't die, but it would hurt like a bitch.

He'd been waiting for half-an-hour before Rodger finally showed up.

Danny had made sure to get all their names before he'd dropped them off. Rodger was the one he'd merged with the styrofoam-saurus or whatever it was. The one that looked like a triceratops, but wasn't. Danny still hadn't figured out the difference.

"Over here!" Danny called out to him.

"Uh... do I know you?" Rodger asked. "Sorry, I can't really chat, I'm looking for—"

"The ghost king?" Danny flashed his eyes. "It's me, Danny."

"You overshadowed some poor kid?"

"No, it's me," Danny repeated. "I can take on a human form to disguise myself. I call myself Danny Fenton in the form. Get it? 'cause it sounds like—"

"Phantom, yeah, I get it."

Back home, Danny couldn't really use his human form as a disguise, since even as a human he was fairly famous locally for his association to his parents, who were regularly in the news, especially the traffic report. It was pretty convenient to be a nobody, all told.

Rodger immediately tried to get answers out of him, of course. He seemed like the inquisitive type. He was obviously the smart one of the group. Not that the others weren't smart, but it was a type, and he met all the requirements.

"Please, be patient," Danny said. "Once everyone is together, I'll explain things to all of you at once, and you can all ask your follow-up questions. I don't want to have to keep repeating myself for each of you guys, okay? Sound fair?"

Rodger begrudgingly allowed it.

Danny had to go through basically the same conversation again when Max and then Fiona showed up, and again with Caruso.

Danny liked Caruso. He was cute when his face wasn't all busted up, and it turned out he was pretty funny too. Now that he'd showered, gotten dressed in new clothes, and put a little product in his hair, he was downright gorgeous. He looked classy too. Not a lot of teenagers wore their skinny jeans with a dress shirt and tie, but Caruso made it work.

Oh, Ancients was he staring? Danny, stop staring!

"So you can shapeshift," Caruso summed up. "That's convenient."

They had to wait a little while longer before Buzz showed up. He strolled up to them wearing brown combat boots, green cargo pants covered in patches and safety pins, and a tie-dyed muscle shirt with the logo of a band Danny had never heard of. Now, with all the piercings, and punk accessories, the mohawk made a lot more sense.

"Sorry I'm late," he said. "I almost didn't come. I thought it might be better not to know what was going on and just try to move on, but this voice squawking in my head is really annoying."

"Does it want fish?" Fiona asked.

"Yes! Yours too?"

"She literally won't shut up about it."

"Mine is also complaining about having to walk everywhere and calling me stupid and inferior for nor being able to fly," Buzz added. "Anyone else? No?"

They all shook their heads.

"Awesome."

"It's so weird seeing you without the battle jacket," Caruso commented.

"Well, you'd better get used to it because that thing is toast. Literally."

"Right... sorry."

"Alright, our ride should be out any minute now," Danny said, checking the clock on the front of the school building.

As if on cue, the very woman he was waiting for walked out the front entrance and he waved at her. Joanne Moynihan, a bespectacled, gray-haired, Irish science teacher at the very same high school these kids happened to attend, and she was the second velociraptor who'd survived the extinction.

It had taken Danny all night to find her, asking both human and dinosaur ghosts for leads, but he'd tracked her down that morning and talked to her, and she was way different from her counterpart. For one thing, where Victor had been able to see ghosts the entire time, Joanne didn't even believe in ghosts until Danny proved his own existence to her. For another, she was kind, and cared about humans, and Danny was fairly certain she would never kill anyone, let alone her own students.

"Our AP bio teacher?" Fiona asked. "Am I the only one whose confused?"

"I'm confused," Buzz agreed.

"What does she have to do with any of this?" Max asked, looking a little lost.

"A lot more than you'd think, actually," Danny told them.

"These are the five you were talking about?" Ms. Moynihan asked, surprised. "What are the odds of five students from my third period class all getting dragged into this mess."

"Well, every story gets to have a really big coincidence," Danny said with a shrug. "So here's ours, I guess. Should we get going?"

"Of course," Ms. Moynihan said, leading the way to the parking lot. "You're lucky I decided to buy a van so I could transport lab equipment more easily or it'd be quite the tight squeeze to drive all of you."

They all piled into her car. Then she and Danny explained the situation to them.

Ms. Moynihan took the parts about herself and Victor surviving the dinosaurs' extinction and then for millions more years, part of which was spent in suspended animation. Danny took the spooky and supernatural parts, like telling them he'd merged them with dinosaur ghosts to bring them back from the dead.

"I told him that it would be like a possession, but my intention was to essentially give you the powers of the ghostly dinosaurs while your own wills and personalities were completely in control," Danny told them. "I meant to use the energy from the ghost dinos to bring you back with some residual ghost powers. I didn't expect the ghosts' personalities to stick around.

"Honestly, I didn't really think ghost dinosaurs would have distinct enough personalities to stick around. Sorry about that, guys."

"So basically, the voices we're hearing were an unintended side-effect," Rodger summed up. "But what did you mean by bringing us back with some residual ghost powers? What ghost powers?"

"I'm surprised you haven't noticed them yet," Danny said. "Side-effects of being brought back to life using ghosts may include: intangibility, mild ESP such as the ability to sense the presence of other ghosts, flight, energy manipulation, laser eyes, and much much more!"

"Laser eyes?" Buzz repeated.

"Well, ectoplasmic beams that you can fire from various body parts, but yeah."

"So like... seeing giant spectral dinosaurs tromping through the streets?" Rodger asked. "Yea or nay?"

"You see them too?" Buzz asked. "So It's not just because I missed my meds today."

"That's what I'm talking about," Danny confirmed. "This town has, like, a hugely disproportionate population of ghost dinosaurs, and I strongly suspect that's Mr. Victor's doing. He has this spell or something that calls them right to him. That's how I got the dino ghosts I used to bring you guys back."

"I don't want to have ghost powers," Max lamented. "I wanna be a quarterback."

"Well, your only other option is actually being dead," Danny pointed out. "I'm not asking for gratitude, but you could at least stand to have a little perspective."

Max pouted and sighed but didn't try to complain anymore.

"Hey... we've been driving a long time," Fiona observed. "Where are we going?"

"Ms. Moynihan has graciously agreed to lend us her secret base," Danny said. "It's a lighthouse on the cliffs at the edge of town."

"It's not exactly a secret base," Ms. Moynihan pointed out. "It does have a very powerful light at the top signalling it's position to everyone it can, but Veloci doesn't know I live there, so it should be a safe place to use as our base of operations."

"What operations?" Caruso asked. "What exactly do you think we're going to be doing?"

"Well, for one, I've gotta teach you how to use all your ghost powers," Danny pointed out, "because they can be kind of problematic if you can't use them properly."

"And for another, Veloci needs to be stopped," Ms. Moynihan added. "You five now have the power, and I believe also the motivation to stop him."

"I stalled him by saying it would take centuries to regain enough power to repeat what I did with you guys on other dinosaurs," Danny said, "But with this binding spell on me, it's only a matter of time before he discovers I was lying."

"We should probably add finding a way to remove that binding spell to our to-do list, too, then," Fiona said. "Right?"

"I would certainly appreciate it," Danny agreed. "In the mean time, Ms. Moynihan is gonna help me enroll as a student at your school. I never thought I'd end up back in the hell that is high school after I became the king of actual hell, but I'll do whatever it takes to keep an eye on you guys and protect you."

"Why?" Caruso asked. "In fact, why did you bring us back to life at all? Not that I'm necessarily complaining, but like you said, you're the king of hell, king of the dead. Why do you even care about a few insignificant humans like us?"

"I may be the king of the dead, but that doesn't mean I want everyone to die," Danny said. "I was alive once too. I died young, and it sucked. It only happened to you five because someone wanted to summon me, so... I guess I feel responsible for you. For your deaths, and for making sure it doesn't happen again any time soon.

"Besides, I can't leave town because dear old Victor told me not to go far, so what else am I gonna do? Hang out with him and work as his dumb black magic shop? No thanks."

"I guess that makes sense," Caruso allowed, but he still sounded a bit suspicious.

Danny decided not to push it, even though he kind of really wanted Caruso, in particular, to like him. Hopefully, Caruso would come around eventually, but Danny wouldn't get anywhere with him by aggressively insisting he was the good guy and they had to trust him. He could show them he was trustworthy. That was what he planned to do anyway.

At last, they reached the lighthouse.

Ms. Moynihan went straight inside while the rest of them stayed outside so Danny could give them their first lesson: transforming.

"Transforming from a human to a ghost is just like flipping a switch," Danny explained. "Just try to focus, and shift from human to ghost. I've found a catchphrase can help when you're a beginner. Observe." He clenched his fists, solidified his stance and shouted, "I'm goin' ghost!"

Familiar white rings appeared, spanning his body, and then he stood before them in his ghost form.

"Turning human again should be even easier, since it's your natural state," Danny said, then demonstrated turning human again. "Now you try."

The five teens looked between each other with raised eyebrows and puzzled expressions.

"Uh... going... ghost?" Fiona tried.

Nothing happened.

"Hm.... Oh! I know!" Danny said. "Remember how your ghost powers come from being merged with ghost dinosaurs? Try picturing the dinosaur you're merged with. Fiona, for you, that's a spinosaurus. Caruso got a stegosaurus. Max got a T-Rex. Buzz got a pteranodon—"

"No wonder she won't shut up about flying!" Buzz shouted.

"And Rodger got a... um... styro... styrieco... saurus?"

"A what?" Rodger asked. His brows furrowed and he frowned in thought. "Do you mean a styracosaurus?"

"Maybe?" Danny said. "It looked like a triceratops to me."

"But with spines on the fringe and no horns over the eyes, right?" Rodger guessed.

"Is that what the difference was?" Danny asked, gaping. "You know, come to think of it, it did look like that—Oh! Also, those voices you guys are hearing might actually be able to help with this, since you're kind of trying to transform into them."

"Are you sure they won't be able to take control once we transform?" Caruso asked.

"Absolutely," Danny confirmed. "Well, mostly. Actually, I hadn't even considered that possibility, but it's probably fine."

Wow, Caruso was more clever than he let on. And Danny had just completely fumbled his reassurances. Damn. He was losing points with this guy that he didn't even have.

"Great," Caruso said sardonically.

Still, the five of them kept trying, and one by one, they were each able to turn into faintly glowing spectral dinosaurs. And as a bonus, the dinosaurs' personalities didn't even become dominant when they transformed. Huge win!

While they were practicing, Ms. Moynihan came out with a camera and took pictures of the red markings around Danny's wrists, the markings from the binding spell. They even carried over to his human form, which was concerning, and Danny couldn't make heads or tails of what the symbols meant. Not that he was exactly an expert on that.

Ms. Moynihan wasn't an expert on ancient symbology or languages either, as she was quick to point out. She was a scientist—a geneticist, actually—and all this magic and spirits nonsense was not her field. Nevertheless, she was a skilled researcher with millennia of experience, and she would do what she could.

By the time the teens insisted on heading home for the night, they could all fly back on their own, and Danny felt like they had a solid start. There was a lot they still needed to learn, and a lot they still needed to do before they could beat Victor and Danny would finally be able to return home himself, but they could do it. He was sure of it.

"Come to me," Victor's voice sounded in his head and the marking's on his wrists burned.

He shifted to his ghost form and took off toward the black magic shop in the shady part of town.

This would be both their biggest advantage, and their biggest struggle. Danny could act as a double agent, telling them about all of Victor's plans and schemes and warning them of danger. But he also had to follow all of Victor's commands, no matter what.

Leading Victor on without giving the others away until they were able to take him down was going to be quite the challenge.

"Ghost King," Victor called him. "They're gone! They've escaped."

"First, it's Phantom, not ghost king. I don't call you Evil Velociraptor Witch," Danny said. "And second, I can see that they're gone. I'm standing right next to you. You don't have to yell at me."

"Well where are they?"

"I don't know, they probably went home. Why don't you just call their parents and ask?"

"I can't call their parents, I don't know who they are."

"You sacrificed five random kids without even knowing who they are? Very sloppy."

"Can't you find them with one of your powers?"

"No can do," Danny said. "I can sense ghosts when they're nearby, but I can't magically track them down."

It wasn't a lie. Victor hadn't asked Danny if he knew where they lived, or if he could find them without the use of his powers.

He was starting to realize that Victor was one of those magic-users who was completely over-reliant on magic, to the point where he forgot about easier non-magical methods of doing things. If Danny was right, Victor wouldn't ask Danny to start knocking on doors until one of his missing sacrifices answered one.

He'd try to find a tracking spell or something, and a tracking spell wouldn't work without something that belonged to the person he was looking for. The only thing Victor had from any of them was their blood on the floor of his basement, and that wasn't going to cut it. At least, not once Danny mopped it all up and claimed he was just trying to be helpful when Victor yelled at him for it.

"I suppose I'll have to find a tracking spell," Victor said, turned out Danny was right on the money. "But first, you said they would be possessed by the spirits of the dinosaurs I called. But when they woke up, they seemed to be in complete control. I know how a dinosaur trapped in a human body acts, and they were not acting like dinosaurs trapped in human bodies."

"Technically, I said it would be like possession," Danny pointed out. "I can merge two spirits together, but I can't control which one has control. My guess is that the spirits of the dinosaurs were partially faded and weakened because of their age, which meant the human spirits were stronger and took control."

That actually was a lie, but Victor hadn't ordered him not to lie, so as long as he wasn't refusing an order, he was fine.

At least, that had been basically what he'd hoped was going to happen when he revived those kids. In reality the dinosaur spirits had ended up being much stronger than he'd expected, despite their age. That was why the humans could still hear their voices.

"I've never dealt with ghosts that were millions of years old before," he continued. "Honestly, I didn't even know there were ghosts of dinosaurs until after you summoned me. I'm doing the best with what I've got, but you gotta understand this is completely new territory for me, and I'm learning as I go."

"So what you're saying is I know infinitely more than you about prehistoric ghosts."

"I wouldn't have put it that way, but pretty much."

Victor sneered. "Very well," he said. "Leave me to my work, but don't go too far. I'll call upon you when I need you again."

"Aye aye, sir," Danny said with a mocking salute.

Then he flew up through the ceiling and back toward the lighthouse where Ms. Moynihan had told him he could stay until he was able to return home. He could tell already that he was in this for the long haul. And he definitely had his work cut out for him.

#dp #danny phantom #danny fenton #fic #things i wrote #dino squad #dinosquad #dp x dinosquad #dp crossover #crossover #crossover danuary week 2024 #crossover danuary week #supernatural elements

31 notes · View notes

raaorqtpbpdy · 3 months

Text

Haunting With Dinosaurs (1)

Written for @crossoverdanuary Week, Day 4: Any Fandom Dino Squad | Element

Read it on AO3 also, Watch Dino Squad on YouTube it sucks (affectionate)

"Italicized dialogue" indicates speech that can only be heard in the POV character's head. (Caruso in this chapter)

Chapter 1: So, You're Finally Awake

Previous | Next

[Warning for descriptions of several different types of ritualistic deaths with varying degrees of detail, some of them being more graphic than others]

Caruso woke up slowly. That was normal.

He liked to stretch out in the warm comfort of his lush bed, breathe in the flowery sent of his air freshener, and adjust to the sunlight streaming through his window before he got up, did his morning exercises and started his skincare routine.

Unfortunately for him, he did not appear to be in his lush bed. The air, still and stale, carried the sharp metallic scent of blood, mixed with mold and must. Definitely not honey-suckle and jasmine. And the dim, yellowish light cast by the single caged bulb above him was hardly comparable to the morning sun.

For some reason, as he tested the ropes that tied him to a wooden chair, he was guessing his skincare routine would have to wait.

Still, it was a bit of an improvement from how he expected he was going to wake up last night, which was: not at all. Suffering a death by a thousand cuts was not typically conducive to waking up in the morning without a scratch on you. Too bad he couldn't say the same thing for his clothes, which were completely shredded and covered in blood.

This was a silk shirt, too. There wasn't even enough undamaged fabric left to make a pocket square out of. Maybe he could use it for silk fringe on something. If he could get the blood stains out, of course.

When he finally looked around properly, he saw that he was one of five people, sitting in a circle of chairs with their backs to each other. He had to crane his neck to see the other four, but still, he recognized them. They were the same four people he'd been tied up with last night. The four people he'd watched die before he himself was killed.

Caruso jumped as much as his bonds would allow and whipped his head around as he heard a scream to his left. The girl sitting there was shrieking at the top of her lungs.

She had thick, red hair, with blunt-cut bangs. He remembered seeing her last night. Watching her get disemboweled, her entrails spilling out over a black pentagram. He wished he could forget.

They went to the same school... she was in his AP bio class, he thought. What was her name?

"Fi... Fiona," he said, hoping that was right. "Are you hurt?"

"I... I... no," she said. She was panting, frantically looking down at herself, shaking her head like she couldn't believe what she saw. "I was... I died. Her clothes looked undamaged, but the blood on the hem of her once-white T-shirt still looked damp.

"Yeah, I remember," Caruso said. It had been especially grizzly, but at least it had been fairly quick, comparatively. As the last to be sacrificed, Caruso had had the horror of watching the rest of them die before him. They weren't all lucky enough to bleed out in seconds. "I did too. Seems like we're fine now, though... somehow."

"How are you so calm?" Fiona demanded, sounding on the verge of hyperventilating.

"I don't know," he said. Caruso had never really been the type to freak out when something bad happened, but even for him, this seemed way too calm for what had happened.

"Death is inevitable," said a voice in his head. "It comes and it goes. It's gone now, so why bother about it?"

"Uh... what?" Caruso muttered.

"Caruso?" Fiona asked, and he turned back to her. "It's Caruso, right?"

He nodded.

"How are we alive?"

"I don't know," he answered. He nodded his head toward the three other people tied to chairs behind them. They hadn't woken up when Fiona screamed, but their injuries from last night were gone. "Are they alive?"

"I don't know," she said, craning her neck to look at them. "Are you also hearing a weird voice in your head?"

Caruso swallowed and bit his lip before answering. What he wouldn't do for some lip balm right about now.

"Yeah."

A groan attracted their attention next. One of the others had woken up. This one Caruso recognized immediately. Max Maxwell, real name Rolf, poor guy. Varsity quarterback, big man on campus, and Caruso's sophomore crush—but he was totally over it now.

Max had been stabbed last night, Caruso hadn't counted how many times. Not shallow cuts like Caruso, but deep enough that they could hear the bones crack. First his feet, then hands, then wrists and ankles, knees, elbows, hips, shoulders, abdomen, chest, and finally his eyes. He probably hadn't died until the killer reached his torso.

It was no wonder he seemed so frantic and disoriented. That was a nasty way to go. To his credit though, he'd gritted his teeth though it and didn't give their murderer the satisfaction of hearing him scream.

"You linger too much. Focus on the present time. It is the only thing that matters."

"What... how... where?" Max said. Incoherent, but who could blame him.

"We're not dead," Caruso explained. "We're still in that freak's basement though, it looks like. He hasn't even cleaned up the blood."

"I'm not bleeding," Max said. "Nothing even hurts, how—what was that?!"

"Voice in your head?" Caruso guessed. "We've got 'em too."

"We don't know how we're alive and unharmed..." Fiona shuddered, "physically anyway—God knows I'm gonna have nightmares about last night for the rest of my life. I'd bet those voices are related, but mine just keeps talking about how much she craves fish."

"I think big guy's gonna wake up next," Caruso said, nodding toward him. It seemed like they were waking up in the opposite order that they'd died. He wasn't sure if that was significant or just the way the cookie crumbled.

"Rodger," Max said. "He's the smartest kid in school, how'd he end up in this."

"Are you saying the rest of us are here because we're idiots?" Fiona shot back.

"No, it's just... I mean, if anyone could have avoided something like this, I would have bet on him," Max attempted to clarify. "I guess nobody could have."

Just as Caruso had guessed, Rodger woke up next and immediately started taking deep, gasping breaths. Nothing'll make a man savor oxygen like having his throat slit and drowning in his own blood, Caruso supposed.

"I'm alive," Rodger panted out. "This isn't a hospital. How am I alive? How am I talking already? Who said that?"

Almost the instant after the three of them had gotten Rodger up to speed on what they knew about the situation, their fifth and final companion woke up, screaming like he was still on fire. Neil Buzzmati, AKA Buzz. Him, Caruso recognized from school. He made himself pretty hard to miss.

Whatever product he put in that hideous green mohawk of his seemed to have protected it from everything but the ashes. His clothes had been completely burned away, but whoever had tied him up had also had the decency to lay a blanket over him to protect his modesty.

"Stop screaming!" Caruso shouted. "You're fine!"

The screams gave way to panicked pants, and half formed questions and expletives. "I was on fire!" Buzz finally shouted.

"Well... you're fine now," Caruso amended.

They all fell silent as heavy footsteps started coming down the stairs.

"Is that finally all of you?" came a deep voice with a transatlantic accent they would not soon forget. "I didn't want to gag you, but your screams are disturbing my customers. If you can't stay quiet—"

"Why should we?" Fiona demanded, cutting him off. "We should keep screaming as loud as we can until someone calls the cops! You literally killed us last night!"

"And I can do it again," the man threatened. "So I strongly suggest you keep it down. Or do I have to gag you after all?"

No one responded. They just glared at him as viciously as they could.

"He brought us here. We trusted him. He would kill us?"

Caruso tried not to visibly react to the voice in his head. Did that mean the voice truly was connected to what had happened last night? It made sense, but there hadn't been any proof until now.

Their captor sighed. "You were supposed to be possessed, but you still seem to be quite in control of yourselves. We'll have to have a word about that."

Up the stairs, they heard a distant bell ring, and their captor sighed again.

"But I suppose that will have to wait," he said reluctantly. "Please excuse me, and keep your voices down... or else."

With that he retreated back up the stairs.

"That was the asshole who set me on fire," Buzz hissed out in a hoarse whisper.

"We know, we were there," Rodger told him. "When he was done with you, he moved onto the rest of us."

"Although, we didn't all get burned to death," Caruso said. "He used different methods for each of us."

"Why?" Buzz asked.

"He didn't exactly stop to explain."

"My guess is he was summoning a demon," Fiona said. "I mean, pentagram, black candles, human sacrifices? Classic demon summoning ritual, right? At least, that's how it looks in movies. Not that I'm much of a horror buff, to be honest."

"You're close," said a disembodied voice.

At first, Caruso thought it was another voice coming from his head, but then he saw everyone else reacting to it, too, and realized that couldn't be the case.

"It was a summoning ritual, but not for a demon," the voice continued. "He was summoning me."

Instantaneously, a person appeared just on the other side of Fiona.

It hurt his neck a little trying to get a good look, but Caruso guessed the stranger was seventeen or eighteen, about the same age as the rest of them, and not bad-looking. He was on the short side of average height, sharp jawline, square shoulders, with wispy white hair and eyes that glowed an unearthly green. He wore a black jumpsuit with a white belt, white gloves and boots, and a signet ring. A crown floated above his head, flickering with green flames.

"Hi, Danny Phantom, ghost king, at your service," he introduced. "I'm the one who brought you crazy kids back from the dead, and I'm the one whose gonna bust you out of here. Keep it hush-hush, though, yeah? If the boss man hears you, he'll come down and tell me to stop, and he has me bound to obey him. It's a whole thing."

He stepped over to Fiona, who was closest, and all he had to do was touch the ropes that tied her down to make them instantly fall to the floor, freeing her. He went to Max next, and did the same.

"If you're bound to obey him, why are you letting us go?" Max asked.

"I'm only bound to obey direct orders, and only ones I'm actually capable of carrying out," the ghost king explained. "Aside from that, I can do whatever I want. He never explicitly told me not to free you guys, so here I am."

He went to Buzz next. "Wow, you look a lot different with a face," he commented.

"That is an absolutely horrifying thing to tell someone, thanks," Buzz replied.

"Sorry." The king moved onto Rodger, and finally Caruso. Their eyes met for a moment, and Caruso could swear his cheeks looked greener from this angle. "You look different too," he said.

"Yeah, well, that happens when someone isn't covered in a thousand cuts and a corresponding swimming pool of blood," Caruso replied.

"Jesus Christ," Fiona said, barely managing not to raise her voice. "Is that what he did to you? How long did that take?"

"Hours," Caruso said with a shudder.

Their captor had counted out every cut, and he'd made sure that Caruso didn't actually die, or even pass out, until the very last one. There was no reason to tell them that, though. They were traumatized enough from their own deaths.

"But I'm fine now, see? Too bad about my clothes, though."

"How do we get out of here?" Rodger asked. "There's only one exit, and it leads to where that psycho is."

"Exits?" the ghost king scoffed. "Where we're going, we don't need, exits."

"Did you just reference Back to the Future?" Rodger asked.

"Yup!" He grabbed Rodger by the shoulders and picked him up like he weighed nothing at all, then flew straight through the wall and out of the basement. He then returned four more times to collect the rest of them.

"Your majesty?" Fiona asked once they were safely standing in a back alley, where the greatest potential danger was tetanus and muggers, and not a monster trying to summon the ghost king.

"You guys can call me Danny," he said. "But go on."

"If you brought us back to life," she continued, "then can you tell us how you did it? Or why we all have these voices in our heads?"

"Voices in your heads?" the king, Danny, repeated. Based on his expression, that was not a good thing. "Hmm... that... was not intentional. But we should go somewhere else, somewhere more than half a block away from old Victor and his creepy magic shop. Luckily, I know just the place."

"Uh, any chance we can pick up some clothes first?" asked Buzz, who was still wearing only the blanket their captor had left him, wrapped tightly around his lanky body.

It was only a few weeks away from winter, and his shoes were gone, too. He must have been freezing.

"Yeah," Caruso agreed. "And maybe a shower too?" He was basically decent, but he was pretty sure his clothes could completely fall apart on him any second, and he was still thoroughly covered in blood.

"I second the shower," said Max, who was similarly blood-soaked.

"Thirded," Fiona and Buzz piped up at the same time.

"Motion carried," Rodger tacked on.

"Motion passed," Danny agreed. "Seeing you all in the daylight... you obviously need a little TLC. You weren't taken from your homes, were you?"

"No, we got grabbed as we were leaving a house party, at least, I think we all did," Max said. "I didn't see Rodger there, though."

"I wasn't there, but I passed it when I was walking home from my DnD sesh, and got grabbed then," Rodger said.

"Great!" Danny said.

"That we got kidnapped by a witch?" Fiona asked.

"Well, no, but if he took you from someone else's house party, that means he doesn't know where you live, and that's good news," he said. "Let's see... can't exactly call you guys a cab when you look like that... hm... wait here a sec."

Danny vanished, and the five of them were left standing in the alley waiting for something to happen. A minute or so later, a while panel van stopped at the mouth of the alley, and the driver's side window opened.

"You kids need a lift?" Asked a bearded man in dark sunglasses.

"Uh, no thanks, sir, we're waiting for a friend," Fiona said.

The man pulled down his sunglasses revealing glowing green eyes.

"I'm just messing with you guys, it's me, Danny," he said, the man's deep gruff voice turning into Danny's own, much lighter one. "Hop in and I'll drive you guys home. You just need to give me directions."

"How are you doing this?" Rodger asked once they'd all piled into the back of the van.

"Overshadowing," Danny explained. "I just found a car that could carry all of you without drawing too much attention, no matter how much I wanted to take the one with flames painted on the side, and I took control of the driver. I'll top off the gas and take him back where I found him once we're done, and he won't remember a thing."

"That seems unethical," Buzz said.

"A) It's harmless, he'll be completely fine, and the only thing he'll lose is an hour, tops. And B) Would you rather walk home?"

"Fair enough," Buzz relented, adjusting his blanket over his lap.

Caruso got dropped off last, since his house was the farthest away. They'd all agreed to meet up at their school once they'd showered and changed, and Caruso lamented the fact that there was no way he'd have time to properly moisturize.

"I'll uh... see you later," Danny said as he dropped Caruso off behind his house so he could sneak in the back door and hopefully avoid his parents seeing him like this.

"Huh?" Caruso said.

The way Danny said it felt like he meant something more by it, but Caruso was too distracted by the thought of the shower in his tantalizingly near future to know or care what it was.

"Yeah, see ya," he said, and headed gratefully into his home.

#danny phantom #dp #dino squad #dinosquad #dp x dinosquad #dp crossover #crossover #crossover danuary week 2024 #crossover danuary week #fic #things i wrote #Danny Fenton #Erwin Carsuso #Victor Veloci #haunting with dinosaurs

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