I know I haven't written anything in months, and I'm sorry. I should probably be uploading the next chapter of Exposed or something right now, but I got the inspiration to write this instead.
Okay, a brief note/question about stuff. This first chapter is a parody, but the rest of the chapters aren't really parodies. I don't have to categorize this story as a parody, do I? Somehow, I don't think so.
Disclaimer: I have never lived in California, so I do not own Danny Phantom. I have never lived in the ancient world, so I do not own anything from mythology.
What I do own, is an unnamed OC or two.
The Injured Beast
As he usually was those days, Danny Phantom was in a ghost fight.
"So are you ready to go back into the Ghost Zone yet?" he asked his opponent, a wild-haired spectral witch in a black dress.
"After looking so hard for a way out? Never!" she replied.
"I don't have time for this you ugly . . . "
"Ugly?" she screamed in rage.
"You heard me," Danny said.
"Take it back!" she screeched. "Or must I inflict punishment?"
Danny laughed. "Punishment?" he asked. "That's what I'm giving you for terrifying those poor little kids! You can't threaten to turn them into toads!"
"Speaking of turning people into toads . . . "
"You do realize that a witch turning someone into a toad is about as cliche' as a werewolf howling at the full moon, don't you?" Danny asked, trying to distract her.
"If you want a little more original curse placed on you, then fine!" the witch said. "You'll get the curse of your own choosing."
"Really?" Danny asked, his face brightening up. "In that case, I choose . . . "
"Oh no," the witch told him, "You're not changing your mind about this spell, not when I heard you quite clearly the first time."
Danny paused for a moment, thinking about what the witch could possibly have meant by that. "Are you telepathic or something?" he finally asked. "Can you read minds?"
The witch sighed. "You've chosen, so I must get on with it. I will not answer any of your silly questions!"
The witch flipped out her wand, and hit Danny with a beam of white energy. Conjuring up a mirror, she showed him his reflection.
Danny recoiled with horror when he saw himself. 'Oh no,' he thought. 'I'll never blend in with society again! I can't stay here!'
He turned and fled into the woods. No one but the witch saw him go.
Valerie didn't know why she kept hiking through the forest. It was getting dark, and she was gravely certain that she wouldn't last the night.
She pulled her heavily-stained white jacket closer around her, in a vain attempt to fight off the deadly cold of the midwinter. Her breath clouded up in her line of vision as she fruitlessly scanned the white forest for some form of shelter.
Her stomach growled, reminding her again of the absence of several previous meals. She ignored it, knowing that if she was lucky enough find anything that had not gone barren for the winter, she could not tell whether it was edible or not.
As she shivered, she could almost smell the scent of her own impeding death in the numbing air.
'Stupid ghost kid!' she thought, feet still wandering through leaf-bare undergrowth. 'If it wasn't for him, I'd never have come in here!'
She clearly remembered getting the assignment, only a few days prior.
"Oh good, you're here!" her boss said upon Valerie's arrival.
"I'm assuming you have an assignment for me, sir?" she asked.
"That I do. Now listen carefully," he warned her, "and do not repeat any of this information. I'm assuming you've heard of the Fentons?"
"The ones who built that portal in their search for ghosts, but then retired from ghost hunting last year?" she clarified.
"Yes, that's them. Their teenage son went missing a few months before they retired. After weeks of searching, biologists reported a possible lead. They found something in a nearby forest that was supposed to be off-limits to unauthorized personnel. When the police investigated, they found significant evidence of the kid's death: shreds of his clothing, strands of hair with his DNA, wolf prints, drag marks, and the like."
Valerie felt faintly sick at the thought of the Fenton boy, at the thought of anyone, dying the way implied.
"Not long after the discovery, reports started flying in of Fenton's ghost haunting the forest. Scientists, punk kids, and the search teams looking for the boy's remains all reported being chased out of the forest by Fenton over the next few nights. No one from that town has dared to return since."
"And you think he might become a threat?"
"Yes. That is where you come in. You will fly to a nearby city tomorrow, and begin your search the night of your arrival. We will send you into the center of the reported sightings. Fenton's ghost must be destroyed, understood?"
"I understand," she said.
"Good," he said. He handed her a manilla folder labeled 'Top Secret'. "Here are the details of your assignment. It contains Fenton's description, biography, and details of his disappearance. We expect you to memorize the contents by tomorrow night, when you will shred the documents."
'Research?' she thought. 'How hard can it be to recognize a ghost in a restricted forest? I am totally blowing this off!'
Valerie had only been looking for Fenton for an hour before she'd crashed her hover board into a large rock. She looked through her night vision goggles at the GPS attached to her wrist.
"Ugh," she groaned. "No signal."
She turned away from her useless GPS to see how much damage had been done to her hover board. What she found was not good. Its side was smashed in so deeply that it would be irreparable, even for a professional repairman. If it could still fly, it would be too much of a risk to ride.
Valerie groaned again when she became aware of a throbbing ache on the left side of her body, where she'd hit the ground. 'I've got to get out of her,' she thought, pulling out her small first aid kit. 'I don't think I'll last long, all alone in here.'
She ditched her ghost hunting equipment, knowing it would only slow her down, and started to on her search for a way back to the city.
Valerie shook her head to clear it. "I thought it was my whole life that was supposed to pass in front of my eyes," she said, "not just the last few days."
However, she stopped talking to herself when she heard a pained whine. Valerie walked around a cluster of leafless bushes until she found the source of the noise.
Sitting behind the bushes was an injured wolf. It didn't look badly hurt, but its tail was missing chunks of fur, and was bleeding a little.
Valerie shivered at the sight of the animal. A wolf was what had gotten Fenton, after all.
The wolf sat where it was at, staring at her with its huge, yellow eyes, and making injured noises.
'It's just a dumb animal,' Valerie realized. 'It's not really concerned about harming humans. It's just looking out for its own survival.'
She moved closer to the wolf. 'Maybe I can do one last act of good tonight before I die,' she thought.
Valerie pulled out her first aid kit from the inside pocket of her jacket. Pulling out a cleansing wipe, she mumbled, "I'm sorry, but this is going to sting."
'As if the wolf can understand me,' she thought.
Surprisingly, the wolf didn't fight her when she wiped its tail with the wipe. Instead, it only yelped a bit. Valerie finished treating the wolf by wrapping gauze around its tail and securing the bandage with medical tape.
"There you go, wolf," she said to it. "You'll be fine. I won't live through the night, but you'll be fine."
The wolf stood up, and took a few steps away from Valerie. It looked back at her, and waited.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
In response, the wolf jerked its head between her and the way ahead, as if beckoning her to follow.
"I'm supposed to follow you?" she asked.
The wolf trotted ahead, at a pace that Valerie could easily follow. Valerie allowed the wolf to lead her, partly out of curiosity, partly because she didn't have anything better to do. The wolf paused every now and again, letting Valerie catch her breath. Eventually, the wolf led her into a small cave.
Valerie looked around in surprise when she saw the contents of the cave. There was a stack of firewood, and a fire pit. There was no bed, but there was a small pillow, and some blankets made out of fur.
Stored in a bowl of ice, there was a small supply of dried fruit, There was also a container holding some clear, liquid, water.
Valerie looked over at the wolf. "You knew about this place, so you brought me here. I guess that must've been out of gratitude, huh?" She frowned, and wondered, "Someone must live here, but who?"
Obviously, the wolf couldn't answer that. What the wolf could do was nudge the bowl of food toward Valerie.
Valerie glanced around the cave. Now that she was taking a closer look, she saw something in the dirt on the floor of the cave that hinted at her that the cave was abandoned. The dirt was only disturbed by her own, and the wolf's paw prints. "I guess whoever was here hasn't been here in a while, huh?" she asked softly. "I guess it won't hurt if I stay here for a while. I do need the food and shelter, after all."
Valerie picked up the fruit bowl, and ate gladly from it.
P.S. Anyone who can name both the mythological story this chapter is based on, and the Danny Phantom episode that alludes to it, will receive public praise at the beginning of the next chapter, and an imaginary piece of German Chocolate cake!
(The episode should be pretty obvious to anyone who knows the story. :))