Every now and then, a kind but simply extremely confused ghost came through the portal. Oftentimes these ghosts were not aggressive— merely lost or curious.
It didn't happen often— most ghosts barged through doors with generally aggressive intent (that was true in the zone as well)— but it still happened enough to provide a welcome relief to Danny, who ordinarily just had to guide the ghost back to the basement in secret. After all, his parents were the wrench in the plan; they'd try to kill any ghost.
Today was one such day.
xXx
Danny's ghost sense went off in the dreary spring day to announce a ghost. One look at the boringly easy astronomy paper he'd already finished, and he was off to the "bathroom."
It was only a short jump to Phantom form, and Danny was easily sliding through walls and away from the ground, hair rippling in the air, easily following the pull of his ghost sense.
It wasn't hard to find the ghost even without his ghost sense— a slightly aerial view revealed a smoking mess fairly close to the school that had him darting off.
Naturally, Danny assumed damaging ghost, but instead was greeted by damaging humans. His parents were there, in the middle of the street, shooting at a group of ghosts that were shouting furiously in… some other language.
Asian of some kind—? Danny wasn't enough of a language buff to know the differences between Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese. In the moments these thoughts flitted past his head, so did a half-joke— Tucker would probably know if it was Japanese, with all that anime he watches.
Danny just snorted to himself at the thought of Tucker's awful taste (Sword Art Online? Really?!), then shook his head, refocusing on the obviously sensitive situation at hand.
"Stop, citizens!" he barked in his Big Hero voice, putting up an easy ghost shield with his hand. Thankfully, the ghosts were smart enough to gather near, behind it.
On closer inspection, many looked like various yokai— which he recognized because Sam had forced him to study various popular legends and cryptids, considering a ridiculous number of ghosts followed their themes.
The closest one, a pale blue woman in an icy dress who emanated cold— Yucky One? No, that can't be right— started talking at him.
Danny shrugged helplessly, and she stopped, looking off put. He just motioned a vague stay behind me before focussing in the Fentons.
"Phantom," Maddie hissed, taking out a large ecto-gun. "We've got you now."
Danny gulped at the whine of the much higher charge gun, putting more energy into his shield— it barely held through the green blast.
"And that's my cue to leave," he quipped, laughing nervously before enveloping all the yokai in a bubble and dropping into the ground.
xXx
"Alright, everyone," Danny hissed, popping up a few blocks down and motioning follow to his house. "Let's get you weirdos home."
The yokai stared at him, no sign of comprehension. Granted it was pretty hard to tell with some of them— how could you read a floating horse head? A lamp?— but still.
"Uh, come?" he tried, floating a few paces forward and motioning follow again. They trailed behind him unsurely. "Oh this will totally not work if I have to give you complicated instructions," Danny whuffed, face palming. "Especially considering we'll need to split up so my parents can't track the big ecto signature," he mumbled to himself, carding a gloved hand through his hair.
An ugly bird creature floated close to him, showing off ghost-green skin and cocking its head. It said another few words in the same dialect that Danny couldn't understand— then it gave a caw and said, "what was that?"
Except… it didn't really say that. Danny just… felt like it did, in the jumble of noises.
"Uh," he responded eloquently.
The tengu eyed him. "Repeat," it not-said.
"But I thought you couldn't understand me," Danny mumbled, a bit taken aback— and as a test.
"Can now," the Yukki Onna chimed in, soft, in that same not-speak.
"Repeat," the bird ordered in the jumble of noise.
"Alright, well— you get back to the ghost zone like so—" Danny began, laying out instructions to his house and that would avoid the route he would take as Phantom to distract his parents.
xXx
"I swear, Phantom's here! We tracked him here, saw him disappear!" Jack yelled over the intercom as he was wrestled away. "Suffering spooks!" he barked.
Danny sweat awkwardly in his seat in science. Sam and Tucker gave him looks.
"Close one, huh?" Tucker laughed under his breath, nudging him.
"You can say that again," Danny whuffed back, relieved.
"Say that again?" Sam leaned in, cocking her head.
Danny rolled his eyes. "Hardy-har-har. Sam, I didn't know you were the kind to make jokes like—"
"Danny, what are you saying?" Tucker cawed incredulously.
"What?" Danny paused, focusing on the movements of his mouth. Those… those weren't the right mouth movements for the word what. "Uh," he said eloquently.
"Sounds like Latin," Sam chimed in, helpfully.
Tucker blinked at her, then at Danny. "Is this a prank?"
Danny shook his head.
"Ah, a ghost thing, then," Tucker sighed. "It's always a ghost thing, isn't it?"
"It is with me," Danny agreed solemnly. Sam and Tucker just looked at him weird.
"Just stay quiet for the rest of the day," Sam offered in a drawl. On a lighter note, she teased, "it'll be a nice break."
Danny elbowed her.
xXx
While musing over what could've caused this— Danny could tell it had to do with the not-speak of the yokai, but not the specifics— Danny was called on.
He faked a cough, pointing demonstratively to his throat to indicate a lost voice. The teacher just gave him a skeptical eye.
Danny just thanked everything that science was the last period.
xXx
Forty minutes later, and Danny was out of school, walking with Sam and Tucker.
"Still a problem?" Sam questioned at his silent wave.
"Maybe?" Danny said, cocking his head. At their uncomprehending gazes, he gave an augh and a nod.
"Wonder if this is what the Ghost Gabber is for," Tucker mused. "Bet it'll help."
xXx
When Tucker mentioned the Ghost Gabber, something clicked in Danny's brain— but it wasn't until the Gabber was procured that he could tell them his idea.
"I think this weird bird man thing talked to me in some kind of ghost language— like the one mom and dad invented this for— and it flipped some switch in my brain or something," Danny said into the metallic box.
It whirred for a moment.
"Same bird told me in dead language— similar to parents create this purpose— gymnastic whip inside mind or others," the Gabber translated. "Fear me," it tacked on, even less helpful than the original translation.
Danny stared at it, dumbfounded, processing his words and how they could've become that hot mess.
Sam and Tucker looked equally stupefied.
"What?" Tucker said, slowly.
"Maybe you could just try writing," Sam suggested, tossing the Gabber back on the Fenton junk pile.
xXx
"Well, that didn't work," Sam huffed, looking at the short note written by Danny… in Latin.
"Wait!" Tucker barked, stopping her from crumbling it up. "Google translate to the rescue!"
xXx
"Weird bird man?" Tucker read, turning to Danny with a questioning eye.
Danny, floating as Phantom and trying to think very hard English thoughts, just shrugged.
"Not important right now," Sam discarded. "Maybe you need to think less about thinking in English—"
"How did you know I was doing that?" Danny barked out, surprised.
"You're predictable," Sam answered. Before he could open his mouth, she added, "and yes, that's how I guessed what you were going to say next, too."
"That predictable?" Danny pouted midair. "Kumquat!" he barked, just to prove a personal point of unpredictability and give Sam a smug look of can't understand this.
"Danny, kumquat doesn't have a latin word," Tucker informed him, snickering.
"Fine then," Danny hissed, thinking for a moment of something completely out of the blue to say. "I was judging Tucker for his taste in anime earlier," he settled on, giving a smug look to Sam. "There. You can't understand that, huh?"
"I guess a word that isn't translatable at all breaks it," Sam mused at the same time Tucker gave a bark of "not cool, dude!"