A/N: So I had a half-baked idea sitting in the far depths of my notes that I found the other day, and I decided it worked just fine once I fixed it up for the fourth segment of Phanniemay, which is Girl Power. It started reminding me of The Unknown while I was writing it, though these two stories stand apart. Of course, neither of them really relate in any way, though if we placed them in the same universe we could say that in Dani's thoughts, the Danny she's thinking of is a bit of a hypocrite considering the real Danny would totally do that. But, I digress; This is literally totally irrelevant so just have the fic!
It's a real short thing, probably the shortest I've ever written, but that's alright. I was originally going to do a longer piece, but plans change with time. I've still got so many other things to work on. Translation for the title is, roughly, "Natural Gate".
Also a wonderful thanks to Kris, AKA Phantomtype, because they gave me a fabulous suggestion and who was I to ignore it?
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, Danielle Phantom, or anything.
It was green, it was swirling, and it was floating. It barely emit any light at all, especially in the bright light of the sun, and seeing it had been completely by chance.
Danielle had virtually no idea what it was.
Well, that wasn't entirely true. She had an idea, but since the only other ghost portals she'd ever seen were a) gigantic and b) man-made, she kept the idea in mind as she moved in to investigate.
It was 2D, something that was a bit baffling to Danielle. If it was a portal, it was like a rip, so it made sense, but to see something that had the potential to lead go an infinitely sized other world being no thicker than a piece of paper was... surreal. When she faced it head on, the edges moving in tandem with the ebbing green in a neverending dance. When she turned to look "behind" it, the portal vanished from her sight, startling her. She stood where she could still see the edge; Sure enough, when she moved to one side the portal appeared, but moving in the opposite direction took it out of her vision.
"Weeiirrd. How does this even work?"
Danielle floated back to the entrance of the portal, examining the green swirls with a squint. If she looked closely she could sort of see through the portal, like a thick green curtain, but all she could see inside was more green, brown, and purple. Boooring.
Curiously she leaned in and inhaled sharply, taking a whiff of the air around it. The sharp, acrid smell of sulphur and the most bizarre combination of dirt, fudge, wood and salt water shot straight up her nose and Danielle choked, falling to the the ground with a startled "ack!"
She groaned, her nose burning. "Well, definitely not my brightest idea. Why does the ghost zone smell like fudge and dirt, anyway?"
Rubbing her nose, Danielle stood up and floated back to the portal, intent on continuing her exploration of what she knew was definitely a portal. Melted goop and ectoplasm didn't smell that strongly, but Vlad's portal, the only other one she'd ever seen? A nearly perfect match. Warily, she took a smaller sniff, surprised to find that the smell had changed to that of flowers and gym socks, mixed strongly with the same sulphuric scent. Danielle blinked. "Oo...kay then. Moving on."
She shut her eyes, reaching with her ears to see if there were any odd noises in the forest she'd been flying through. Nothing but the rustle of pine trees and plant leaves met her senses and she opened her eyes again with a bit of a sigh, mildly disappointed but not at all surprised.
Last thing.
Danielle rubbed her hands together before reaching a finger out and quickly poking the portal. She blinked in confusion at the feeling that met her fingertip, then shoved her whole hand through, running it through before pulling it back out. Through her gloves she could feel the thin line between the human world and the ghost zone on the palm of her hand; It had felt a bit like water, just a bit thicker and colder, and the ghost zone itself was similar, yet different.
"Man, that's surreal! It would probably feel really cool to fly through something like that..." She trailed off when she realized that was precisely what she could do.
Danielle grinned, excitement filling her when the thought of exploring the place beyond came to mind. Danny would probably call her irresponsible for diving so recklessly into a random portal and probably stop her from doing it, but she wasn't Danny and Danny wasn't here, so there was only one thing to do at a time like this.
"It's official; this warrants further investigation!"
And with that, she pulled back and eagerly shot herself through the portal at top speed. Behind her the green slowly shrank in on itself, leaving only the joyful echoes of the ghost girl's cry and the strangest of lingering smells the only signs that anything had been out of the ordinary in the area.