Hello! :D This is a definite AU fic for the Phic Phight, based on a prompt by Cyroclastic. I have an outline for this entire thing, but April came and kicked my writing time (as always seems to happen during these things, unfortunately), so I haven't quite written half of it so far. (i.e. I have 10 scenes plus a prologue and epilogue planned, and little less than 5 written.)

Honestly, this is a very unusual story for me. I do enjoy reading AUs, but I definitely do not write dramatic AUs like this. It's been challenging, which, I will not lie, is also a reason I didn't get as much as I hoped done this month. But I am excited about it! I'm going to keep writing and hopefully keep ahead of the update schedule (once a week, starting next Friday.)

Okay, story-wise, the prompt is thus: "Mythological AU where Sam's a witch and Tucker's a werewolf, the two help guide Danny through the secret world of the supernatural, fending off threats and figuring out his newfound powers." I went in a bit of a different direction for this, which you'll probably discover shortly. Apologies for the long A/N and I hope I can finish this!


The unfamiliar, glowing man was looking haggard after too many run-ins with Danny's weapons. Well, technically they were his parents' weapons, but Danny had done his best to disguise that fact. There was no reason to let anybody think that he was stealing from them… even if he was.

"You poor, poor ignoramus," the glowing man said, straightening his burnt purple tie and doing his best to sound condescending. Danny scowled, a blaster trained on the man's head as they floated a dozen feet above the shopping district. People ran around under them, trying to get out of blasting range. The man, who had introduced himself as the Executive, shook his head sadly.

"I know enough, thank you," Danny retorted with a snap. He pulled the trigger, knocking the Executive down onto the roof of a craft store with a blast of green light. Danny lit on the concrete a moment later, his hands pulling out the thermos with practiced ease.

The Executive looked up from where he had risen to his knees. His face was twisted. "Your knowledge of Crescentia is laughably basic, little one."

"I don't need to know Crescentia, I know Earth." Danny pulled the top off the thermos and aimed it.

"Ah, but you don't," the Executive replied with malicious glee, speaking faster when he saw the thermos begin to glow. His voice strained as he was dragged into the vortex. "If you did, you'd see the havoc your parents are - " And he was gone, compressed into the small thermos that Danny knew was uncomfortable but nowhere near deadly.

"My parents are smart," he told the container firmly, shaking it a little (as if that would do anything.) Even while he said that, though, a thread of doubt crept into his mind. His parents studied Crescentia, but they called it the Ghost Zone. They built weapons to fight and capture the Crescentians, weapons that worked, but they called themselves ghost hunters. Crescentians were just like Earthen humans, personality-wise, it was just… most of them had a grudge. A big one. There were plenty of nice Crescentians out there, but those weren't the ones that took the opportunity to come to Earth in the first place. So it was that the entire town of Amity Park and its resident "ghost" experts assumed that every glowing being was out to get them. Danny lifted into the air, intent on finding a nice, safe alley to turn back into something more human.

A ball of bright green, the color of Crescentia, flashed worryingly close, disturbing Danny's thoughts. He flinched and made sure the thermos was clipped securely to his belt before whipping around to face the attack.

Just his luck. It was his parents.

"You're not getting away this time, ghost boy!" his mom cried, peering through the scope of a rifle. She was hanging out of the sunroof of the family van, a large RV thing that was outfitted with probably more weaponry than the White House and the Pentagon combined. Her hood was up, covering her eyes with mirrored red goggles, supposed to keep ghosts from hypnotizing her. Danny was glad - he wasn't really in the mood to see his mother's soft eyes turn hard and cold as she looked at him. Not today.

Danny laughed awkwardly, waited a second, then - "Bye," he said, suddenly zipping off. He heard the van following him via the streets, his parents shouting insults, but it wasn't the first time that he'd had to outrun them… well, outfly them, anyway. He didn't turn his weapons on them, though it would have been much simpler to blow out a tire or something. They just misunderstood, and that's the only reason they still chased him.

When he'd lost the van, a combination of turning invisible and flying over things that definitely weren't streets, Danny landed near a warehouse not too far from one of the freeways. He leaned up against the brick wall, holding the stitch in his side and breathing hard. Why couldn't they just leave him alone? He was helping, for goodness sake.

Someone was coming down the alleyway. Their footsteps weren't quiet on the pavement, which gave Danny time to straighten up and let his appearance revert back to human. It wasn't as difficult now as it had been a month ago, thankfully. He was still panting, but that could easily be explained away, as he really had been running away.

The someone turned the corner, her lined face disapproving and her callused hands holding a well-used blaster. She wore an official-looking uniform, kind of like a police outfit, only completely black and with runes embroidered on the edges. Her red eyes took in Danny's appearance, all six feet of a totally normal eighteen-year-old boy, and - "Your eyes," she reminded him.

"Dang it," Danny whined, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to turn them back to blue. Fine, he wasn't as good at this part as he pretended. But the eyes were the hardest. He was getting the rest of it down. "Better?" he asked, opening his eyes again.

The woman gave a brief nod. "Why didn't you call me?"

"It was just a little one, Ms. Wells," Danny started to explain, but Ms. Wells cut him off.

"It doesn't matter how big the threat is, or how much work it's going to take. You left your last class to fight it! You're supposed to let me know so you can stay in school." Ms. Wells tucked the blaster in its holster so she could better put her hands on her hips. "And to make matters worse, your parents showed up, despite it 'being a little one'!"

Danny slowly smiled, knowing it looked more like a grimace. "Sorry?"

Ms. Wells sighed, some of the fight leaving her uniformed frame. "We can't keep doing this, kid. You need to tell - "

It was Danny's turn to interrupt. "I am not telling my parents about magic. We've had this conversation. I can manage them just fine."

"Danny. They fight you every chance they get. If they knew about magic, about Crescentia, they'd stop."

"Would they?" Danny looked away from Ms. Wells and crossed his arms. "According to what they know, I'm an evil ghost, and you can't be an evil ghost and a good kid at the same time. Who's to say they would believe me?" He changed his voice, mocking a high-pitched tone. "Oh, look, ghosts are real but not actually what you've been studying! You're looking at a splintered evolutionary group of humans who live inside the moon! And guess what? Your son found out that he's one of them!"

Ms. Wells rubbed her forehead. "I know, there's no good way to explain it. There are people who wouldn't believe you. But many people have been introduced to magic later and believed it. Your friend Tucker's parents, for example."

"Believing me isn't really the issue," Danny countered. He looked back up. "If Mom and Dad have evidence, they'd accept magic without a problem. The issue is that they'd have to tell the world! Even Jazz knows that. You've talked to her, she's better at explaining our parents than I am."

"I have talked to Jasmine," Ms. Wells agreed firmly. "I understand your reasoning, even if I don't agree with it. But, Danny, that's not what we were talking about. Your parents are a moot point at the moment. You skipped school to do battle. That's unacceptable, you need to stop. My job is to help you, or part of my job, anyway. I know you're uniquely suited to doing this, and you do a good job, but you don't have to do it all on your own."

Danny shook his head, frustrated. Ms. Wells just didn't get it. It was his fault that the portal to Crescentia actually worked, his fault that the Cressies came in and banged up the place.

"I'm not letting anyone else fight my battles for me," he finally said. "You've got enough on your plate, anyway. This is my responsibility." With that, Danny looked at Ms. Wells again and walked past her to turn the corner and get out of the alleyway he'd fled to.

Ms. Wells called after him as he left. "You're going to have to let me help someday. It will be too much, eventually."

Danny didn't answer, just kept walking, down the road and into his house. His parents were on the phone with Jazz, who was away at college, telling her in excited voices about the ghost they'd nearly caught, and the measures they were taking to protect everybody. Danny silently climbed upstairs and changed his dirty shirt before leaving again. At least tonight was the full moon, and he could find some peace under its light.