Hey guys! I'm back with my first crossover series (the first one published that is). Before we get started with this series, I want to thank my counselor for everything she's done for me. She's also the reason this series exists, so once again, thanks so much for everything. Consider this series a dedication/gift to her.
I don't own One Piece or Danny Phantom. Without further ado, let's get started!
It was 3:00am when a sudden chill awakened the sleeping halfa. Groaning at the loss of sleep, he nonetheless phased through his sheets, transforming into Phantom before flying out of his house to find the ghost that had decided to interrupt his sleep.
At first it seemed that there were no ghosts, but after several minutes of flying around, he could hear an echoing shout coming from within what looked to be a department or storage garage. Beginning to suspect who it was, he phased into the building, groaning upon seeing that he was right.
"Beware! I am the Box Ghost!"
"You have got to be kidding me. You again?!"
"You should not underestimate the power of boxes and all things that are rectangular!"
Danny sighed. "Can we just get this over with"—he yawned—"so I can get at least a few extra minutes of sleep?"
The ghost stared at him for a moment. "I am the Box Ghost! Face the wrath of—" he turned to read the label on the ghostly box in his hand (hold on, had that always been there? Man, he must've been really tired to not have noticed it). "Skulker's extra weapons and armor parts!"
"What?!" Caught by surprise, the halfa barely managed to avoid the weapons and the random shots being fired from them as they hit the wall behind him and fell to the ground below. Now more alert, and deciding not to take any more chances, Danny quickly took out the Fenton thermos and captured the box ghost inside it, but just after capping the lid, a sudden explosion sent him flying into the ceiling before crashing back onto the ground.
He groaned in pain, taking a moment to let the world stop spinning as he tried to figure out what had happened. Seeing the remaining pile of weapons, he decided that something in there must have exploded. Now somewhat worried (who knows what kind of effects they'd have on him), he tried to float, inspecting both himself and the surrounding area for any damage when he found that he could fly without a problem. "Ok..." He shot an ectoblast at the remaining weapons, destroying them. Satisfied and slightly confused to find no signs of any trouble, he shrugged and phased out of the building, ready to go back to his room and get more sleep when his ghost sense went off again.
"Ugh... can't they just leave me alone for one night?"
Before he could sense it coming, he was blasted in the back, the thermos in his hands slipping out of his grip. Alarmed, he flew to catch it, but before he could grab it, another green blur, having reached it first, snatched it away from him.
"Hey! Give it back! I don't have time for this!"
Finally getting a good look at the ghost, Danny realized it was one he'd never seen before, and it was rather mischievous if the way it curiously shook the device said anything. "Listen, I know it might look like a toy, but it's really important to me. So can I have it back now?"
The ghost looked at him before sticking its tongue out, turning and flying away afterward.
"Wha—seriously? Hey, come back here! This isn't some kind of game!" He really didn't want to chase this ghost around. He just wanted to go back to his room and sleep. What made the idea even more tempting was the fact that the only ghost in the thermos at the moment was the box ghost, so if the release button was hit, there wouldn't be any major consequences.
But he knew he couldn't let the ghost take the thermos. If it got into the wrong hands, it could be a huge threat. It was a device specifically made to capture ghosts, and Danny was half of one, so if another ghost used it on him, he'd be trapped, and Amity Park would be left defenseless.
Sighing more out of worry than annoyance, Danny gave chase.
The ghost seemed to like that, for it smiled and sped up, flying outside of Amity Park.
It was around that time things went wrong.
At first he found he couldn't speed up even though he hadn't reached his top speed. Frowning, he had only just started to ponder what was wrong when his flight gave out, and he began to fall. Seeing the ghost pause, Danny tried to aim at the troublesome ghost, firing an ectoblast before crashing into the forest below.
In too much pain to move at the moment (surely something had broken in that fall), he shut his eyes to keep from crying out, instead focusing on listening to his surroundings, hoping the ghost (or anyone else for that matter) wouldn't take advantage of his current weakness while he healed. But a few seconds later he realized that his ghostly healing wasn't working, for the pain still hadn't eased. He struggled to sit up, wincing and hissing as he transformed back into Fenton. The various scrapes and bruises he felt as Phantom were now visible, stinging and throbbing even worse than before.
"Ow... Just great. My powers short out while I'm flying maybe hundreds of feet above the ground, and I crash in the middle of a forest. Not to mention that ghost probably got away with the thermos by now. Could things get any worse?"
His eyes went wide in realization. He was alone, somewhat injured and without ghost powers, in the middle of a forest. In other words, he was completely helpless. Forcing himself to stand, he looked around several times, waiting for any sign that an enemy was nearby. Because knowing his luck, someone was going to find him any moment now—
The sound of footsteps made him freeze. There were several footsteps, and they were coming towards him. He considered making a run for it but quickly realized he likely wouldn't be able to outrun whoever it was, regardless of the fact that the approaching footsteps were most likely human.
"Hey! Someone there?"
Danny jumped at the sudden shout, nearly falling onto the ground from the pain as he landed. He bit back a curse as he realized they probably heard the noise he had just made.
"We know you're there, so there's no use hiding. If you're not here to cause trouble, then show yourself!"
Danny swallowed before moving toward the voice. As he moved past the final barrier, he could make out a guy (the one who had been shouting, he realized) and a girl, both in battle-ready stances. He saw them tense briefly before relaxing, surprise written on their faces. "You're just a kid. What are you doing out here?"
"Oh. I uh..." I was chasing a ghost when my powers stopped working, so I fell into this forest. "I was chasing someone that went into this forest, but I lost sight of him."
Their gazes turned suspicious. "And what did this person you were chasing look like?"
"Oh... well..." He couldn't say that it was a ghost. Nobody outside of Amity Park, unless they had seen one themselves, believed they existed. "I'm not entirely sure what he was."
"And what does that mean?"
Seeing that somehow his response had put him under even more suspicion (though for what, he had no idea), he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "At this point, it doesn't really matter anymore. I doubt I'll be able to find him." Seeing the question in their eyes, he elaborated, "He stole my thermos. I have more, but it would've been better if I got it back."
"Your thermos?" The two strangers glanced at each other, as if asking the other something neither had the answer to.
Instead, the guy said, "You're pretty banged up. Someone do that to you?"
"No, I just fell is all." They stared, skeptical of his half-truth. "Really! I had a bad fall and got scraped up. It's not too bad though." They still seemed doubtful, but it seemed something in his response convinced them to refrain from questioning him further on that topic.
"And you didn't come with anyone?"
"No. It was pretty sudden. Besides, I didn't want to wake anybody up." They didn't say anything, instead trying to assess the severity of his injuries and how much the darkness of the night was hiding from their sight. "I'm really sorry if I intruded in any way. I'll be going now." He turned to leave, wincing at the pain from the movement but tried to remain steady as he began to walk away.
"Hold on!" He paused, slowly turning back around to face the two strangers. "I don't think you should be going home alone like this."
"I'll be fine, I promise. I don't want to be a bother to you guys."
They both frowned at him. "Exactly how far are you from your home right now?"
Danny thought about it for a moment. Flying from here to his home at a normal speed would probably take ten to fifteen minutes, but since his powers weren't working at the moment... "At least half an hour."
The two were silent, clearly considering what to do. Turning to each other, they began to murmur amongst themselves, but thanks to Danny's enhanced hearing, he was able to make out what they were saying.
"We can't just let him go home alone like this. If his home were closer, I wouldn't mind letting him go, but half an hour is pretty far, and I'm pretty sure it's even farther than he says."
"It's only natural that his home's so far. That's the reason we're here. I'm still not sure we can trust him. Even if someone did steal his thermos, I haven't seen anybody else in this forest, and we would've known if Luffy took it."
"True, but he's just a kid. I doubt he'd be dumb enough to try to attack us, especially in his state. He may say he's fine, but he's clearly not in any condition to be walking back home."
"You know we'll have to leave if he sees the others."
"That's true for anybody, which is why you were on watch tonight. If he stays in the living room and leaves before breakfast is ready, it should be fine."
"What about Brook? He's always up early."
"I'll have Robin tell him to stay in his room until he leaves. And it won't be a big deal if he sees Sanji since he goes into town to buy food anyway."
"Alright, if you say so. I'm still going to be keeping an eye on him though."
"Of course."
They turned toward him. "You can stay at our place for the night. You clearly need rest."
Danny frowned at the offer. They might not have known he had heard their discussion (and he was pretty sure he'd heard plenty that he shouldn't have heard), but it was clear his staying would be not only an inconvenience but a risk to them and whatever secrets they were clearly hiding from the outside world. "Listen, I really appreciate your offer, but you really don't have to do this. I'm pretty sure you guys don't actually want me to stay with you. Don't worry about me getting home. I've had to deal with worse, so I should be fine."
Strangely enough, his refusal sparked some kind of fire in their minds, for the girl walked up to him and firmly grabbed his arm, gently pulling him toward her companion, who also seemed to have a different kind of look in his eye than before. "You're staying with us for the night, and that's final."
Baffled by their sudden change in attitude towards him, Danny let himself be taken to their cabin, where he was allowed to sleep on the couch in the living room.
"Thanks... Sorry if I caused any inconvenience."
"Forget about it. If it really wasn't okay, we wouldn't have invited you to stay here."
"I guess..." But Danny knew that they had plenty of reasons to not invite him. He knew his presence was risky to them and their secrets, and if they had gone so far as to live in isolation from society, then those secrets had to be huge.
"Well, I'm going back to sleep." She began to go up the stairs only to stop and come back down. "I forgot to ask you: what's your name?"
"My name's Danny." He considered asking theirs but quickly decided not to.
"Danny. My name's Nami. Goodnight!"
Surprised that she had actually shared her name, he forgot the other one was still there until he said, "Sorry, but since we don't really know you, I'm going to be keeping an eye on you."
Danny was about to say that he already knew but caught himself just before saying it. "I figured as much. It's fine." Settling down, he allowed himself to fall asleep.
The next morning, he awoke to the hushed voices of two guys, one being the same from last night.
"Curlybrows, think you could hold off on making breakfast until he leaves?"
"Huh? What's a kid doing here?"
"We found him all banged up in the forest last night. It was late and he was alone, so the witch and I offered to let him stay here for the night."
Deciding he didn't want to overhear more than he already had, he stirred, and the two guys fell silent.
"Hey, kid. You awake?"
He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "Yeah." Turning, he saw that the other guy was blond, a peculiar curly eyebrow the only unusual feature he could see.
Realizing he had been staring, he looked away in embarrassment and shame. "Sorry... I was being rude just now."
Had Danny been looking, he would've seen the irritation on the blond's face morph into surprise. "Oh, don't worry about it. I've gotten used to it at this point."
"It was still rude of me to stare."
"Well, dartboard brow has weird genetics, so it really isn't your fault."
"Like you're one to talk, mosshead!"
"At least my hair can pass as being dyed. Your stupid eyebrows aren't something people would find cool."
"Don't act like having green hair is normal, shitty marimo! And for the record, I look way cooler than you, moss for brains!"
"You wish, stupid cook!"
As they bickered, Danny shrank away toward the door, his eyes wide as if he were witnessing a bad argument between his parents.
"Don't mind those two idiots. They're always fighting like this." He turned to see Nami walk up to the two guys, who at this point were on the verge of fighting, and knock them on the head. "Stop that or else you'll wake everybody up!"
"Understood, Nami dear!"
"Damn witch..."
"What was that?!"
"I told you guys to stop fighting!"
The moment they remembered Danny was still there was obvious, for they fell silent, eyes going wide before turning their heads toward Danny to see what his reaction to the whole scene was. Had he not been so shocked, he would've laughed at their faces, but as it was, he was busy enough trying to comprehend the apparently normal chaos he'd just witnessed (compared to what he'd later witness, this was nowhere near crazy).
"Uh... thanks for letting me stay here. I should really get going though." Actually, now that he thought about it, his injuries had healed, and that could only mean that his powers were working again. How that had happened, Danny could only guess (he'd later decide that whatever weapon had shorted out his powers only had a temporary effect).
"Try not to get into any more trouble, you hear?"
Danny internally winced at that. If only they knew. "I'll try." He left the cabin, trekking through the forest for several minutes before stopping to transform into Phantom and flying the rest of the way back to Amity Park, where he was sure by now Jazz had noticed his absence.
Robin opened her eyes, smiling as she released the extra limbs she had sprouted. "It appears our guest last night was very interesting indeed."
And things only became more interesting for the archeologist when Luffy came running into the cabin later that day holding a thermos.
How's that for a first chapter? Thanks so much for reading this fanfic. I'd greatly appreciate any feedback on my writing or even ideas for more chapters since this is a series of isolated events (but they still happen in order and build on previous chapters).
If you'd like to suggest an idea, I definitely appreciate and will consider it, but I'll decide whether or not to actually write them. If I do use an idea someone suggested, I'll mention who suggested it at the beginning of the corresponding chapter. This series is meant to be relatively light-hearted, so anything too dark or drastic won't really fit here, even if it's an idea I like.
I'll be updating weekly, so since this first chapter was published on Wednesday, I'll be updating every Wednesday as long as I have a chapter to publish. Once I run out of prewritten chapters, I'll only be updating as new chapters are written. Those new chapters will still be published on Wednesday, for consistency's sake.
