Disclaimer: I don't own AMDRAG nor DP.

Summary: Jake has been sent to retrieve the ancient Amulets of Aragon to free the souls of the dragons trapped within. Problem is, his father decided to tag along to the haunted town along with Jake to visit his crazy ghost-hunting cousin. Can Jake keep his dad unaware of the existence of magical creatures in the most haunted town of America?


Chapter 2. One Mystery and Two Ghost Hunters.

When Jake had assumed the car trip to Amity Park was going to be long, he didn't know how much of an understatement that would be. The cassette in the old car had become stuck and only the Huba Hula song could be heard on the three days of travel. Normally, this would have been no problem, but Jake's Ipod was out of battery before the first day was over. In addition, his grandfather, Lao Shi, had made it a point to continue training him at night while his father slept, and the American Dragon had hardly had any moment of true rest since the dreams he would have -as he slept on the uncomfortable car seat- would involve Fu dog and his gramps dancing in only a skirt made of leaves and playing and Ukulele.

Groggily, Jake looked out of the window; the image in his eyes blurring as he tried to blink away the tiredness. Jake exhausted demeanor was highlighted by the dark bags under his eyes, and he swayed twice as he move to rest his elbow on the car's door. He was about to fall sleep once more under the hypnotic view of trees being left behind one after an other, after another, barely listening as his father said something about checking the map and stopping the car completely.

Before Jake could have parted to the land of dreams if not for something crashing into the car a second latter.

The American Dragon opened his eyes widely -all traced of tiredness instantly forgotten- and he could see with his enhanced senses the moment in which the translucent.. teen(?) went trough the front window and crashed right next to him a second before a red beam hit the glass he had come through. The glass shattered instantly, and the source revealed itself to be what looked like a floating metal man with flaming green hair.

Of course, all of this took place while Jonathan Long was face deep inside the map. The man would have looked up to see a non-invisible ghost, if not for the fact that a piece of the glass had bounced on his forehead knocking him out cold -though it thankfully didn't drawn blood.

Before either dragon could react, the white-haired, impromptu passenger growled and flew through the ceiling intangibly and punched the other being outside with a glowing green fist.

"Dragon Up!" Jake yelled as soon as he managed to regain the capability to talk, and bumped his head painfully with the ceiling. It took a whole five seconds to get out to the back seat of the car (which was too narrow to comfortable fit inside a dragon) and he made to fly after his attackers when-

"Jake!" Lao Shi called from bellow, "Your father is waking up!"

"Aw man!" He complained before making his way down instantly, transforming and getting to the back seat with a second to spar before his father put back his glasses.

Fortunately, at that point the evidence the magic world existed was no longer flashing itself in the sky. Unfortunately, his dad instantly demanded to know what had happened.

"Erm... a stray... something, um, ball hit the car?" Jake lamely offered.

Jonathon Long blinked twice and rubbed his head, the potential concussion distracting him enough not to question why Jake's door was opened or the fact that there wasn't a soul in sight in kilometers. "Wowzers, Jake-my-boy, it must have been quite a good pitch to make it this far."

Jake simply let out an awkward laugh in response. A foreboding feeling forming inside his stomach.

...

The foreboding feeling Jake had felt before ten kilometers before making it to the famous Amity Park sign (the one that stated it was "a nice place to live") proved true several times in the next hour.

First, Jake found what it seemed to be a silver soup thermos in the back seat. It hadn't been there before, and he figured the white haired teen -that he suspected to be a ghost- had left it behind when he crashed. Curiosity getting the better of his caution, he took off the lid and started fingering the unassuming object until he pressed a button and a beam of blinding-blue light poured out and a giant solid-green cyclops materialized to the left.

It had been sheer dumb luck that his father had taken off his glasses to clean a mosquito that had died upon impact upon the lenses -which was possible now that the car's front glass was sporting a watermelon sized hole in it. It was a fact that Jonathan Long was blind as a bat without his prescription lenses, and Jake could explain the looming shadow as a passing cloud (not that there were any clouds on the sky that day). "What a weird weather," his guiliable father commented and Jake let out a relieved sigh. As for the cyclop... he was now trapped back in the soup container.

How the thermos had been capable to trap something quite that big, Jake had no clue.

He decided to count his blessings for the time being as he glared mistrustfully to the not-soup-container. The rest of the car trip was uneventful... until they made it into town.

A mob of screaming people ran in the opposite direction the car was going (meaning they were getting closer and closer to whatever the townspeople were running from), and it soon became apparent that the reason was flying pirate ship throwing cannon-balls all over the place.

Lao Shi got a sudden urge of asking the driver if his feet smell bad, putting the awful-looking dirty feet with long and yellow, claw-like thumbnails under Jonathan's nose; making the man's eyes water behind his lenses. The distraction didn't last much, but thankfully it was enough: the pirate ship was gone in the blink of an eye and the people in the town went back to behaving as though nothing had happened.

It was remarkably odd.

It was also unsettling since the mob seemed to have SEEING the ship, the Ghostly ship, and regular humans should not be able to see ghosts.

The dread on Jake's stomach increased two-fold at the revelation that, apparently, Amity Parks ghost (which were more numerous that he had expected) were visible to regular folk.

"Gramps... is it just me or those people looked like they could see the ghosts?"

"Don't be absurd, Young Dragon, a ghost is a creature made of pure magic, and because of that only people with a magical talent can see them."

As if on cue, a newspaper slammed the extremely short old man in the face; the main new in the first page being "Ghost Hero Danny Phantom Saves the Day Again!".

"Or maybe the people in this town can see the ghosts," Lao Shi flatly added, looking quite worried at the revelation. Magical creatures left this place alone, maybe for too long. They had not bothered worrying that non-magical people moved here since ghost, being invisible, didn't threaten the existence of their society from getting out. Now that it seemed people could see... he must contact the Dragon Council immediately.

"What are you two whispering about?" Jonathan leaned towards the two dragons, making them jump and hide the newspaper behind their backs -or rather, behind Lao Shi's back, since he was the one holding said paper.

"Whispering? We are not whispering! why would we be whispering? There is no reason to whisper at all!" Jake panicked, moving his arms so fast he might be able to use them to fly.

In a more smooth fashion, the older dragon pipped in "We were looking for a foot cream. Think you can buy it for us before we visit your cousins?"

"Of course!" Jonathan agreed promptly, entering the pharmacy (which was right to where they were standing).

It had been sheer dumb luck that Jonathan had not seeing a ghost so far. And it was dumb luck that the instant the man walked inside the local that a floating blue man flew in panic, followed by a female in a black and red suit flying on a wheel-less skateboard. "Get back here, ghost!" The masked woman shoot a pink beam out an over-sized gun, somehow managing to miss her target, and making several thick branches fall down on top of their already abused car.

"YOU CAN NEVER CATCH ME, THE BOX GHOST, MASTER OF ALL THINGS CARDBOARD AND SQUARE!" The blue ghost yelled passionately and flew around the corner, the both of them disappearing without so much as sparing a glance recognizing they had heavily damaged their means of transportation.

Of course, it was then that Jake's father waltzed right out the pharmacy. "Holy Wakamole! what happened here?" The man gestured towards the fallen branches that had suffered the wrath of the pink beams coming out of the female's gun -the ones that had half-flattened the car.

"The branches fell," Lao Shi declared before the extremely distressed Jake could babble another pathetic excuse. His son in law might be able to buy about any excuse, but there was no point in risking it.

"Well... seems it isn't our lucky day... but we should see the positive side! At least we are fine and fit as a fiddle!" Jonathan declared optimistically.

Not sharing at ounce of his father optimism Jake deflated. He only hopped he could make it home with his family secret intact.

A green blob in the distance being chased by the same white-haired teen in the distance made him wince. The odds were not in his favor.

TBC


.

AN: Aaaand, it's over (for now). Next chapter (whenever it comes) should have them finally reach Fentonworks and meet the Fentons.

Merry Christmas to you all! Don't forget to review :D