I don't own One Piece or Danny Phantom.

In the forest just outside of Amity Park, Danny looked around before allowing himself to become visible again, sighing as he transformed back into his human form. He was starting to have second thoughts about this whole mess, but in the end he had come to the forest where the Straw Hats' cabin was hidden.

"You've gotta come meet the others!"

"Actually, I'm pretty busy. I can't go right now."

"You know where we're staying, so just come when you get the chance."

"Don't take too long, okay? We'll be waiting!"

Walking the rest of the way to the front door, he paused, unsure he wanted to go through with this. He had a strange feeling that if he knocked, there would be no going back. Taking a moment to strengthen his resolve, he knocked on the door before he could change his mind.

The muffled sound of conversation stopped, and for one second, it was silent. Then, the sudden pounding of someone sprinting toward the door had Danny freezing where he stood, a voice from inside shouting "Luffy, wait! It might not be hi—"

The door flew open, a very excited and energetic Luffy practically jumping in joy upon seeing him, unware that he'd quite literally scared the poor teen half to death. "Danny! I knew you'd come!"

Danny grimaced slightly from the painfully loud shout. "Hey, Luffy. I'm guessing I chose a good time to come?"

Walking to join Luffy, Nami answered, "To be honest, I'm surprised you even came. I thought for sure Luffy would've scared you off by now. He can be a lot to handle."

"Believe me, I've dealt with plenty." But she was right. Luffy was unlike anyone he'd ever met, and Danny wasn't yet sure if that was a good thing or not.

He felt a hand grip his arm. When he looked up, he saw Luffy smile widely, laughing lightly. "Let's go meet the others!"

Before he could think to respond, Luffy began to tug on his arm to go inside. Startled by Luffy's abrupt actions, Danny almost phased his arm out of Luffy's grip, but, remembering he was supposed to be human, he let Luffy pull him inside into the living room.

"Danny's here, you guys!"

He nearly gasped in pain. Right. In. The. Ear.

"Luffy! Not so loud!"

Coming here had been a mistake.

"Hey... I don't think this is going to work..."

Luffy glanced at him, his gaze unreadable. Danny waited, expecting some kind of response, but Luffy only turned back toward the now gathering Straw Hats, Nami following suit despite being somewhat puzzled by his lack of response.

Confused and somewhat unsettled, Danny looked toward the others, eyes going wide in shock as he took in the sight before him.

"Hey there, little bro! Your name's Danny, right?"

He barely managed to nod.

Despite Danny's blatant staring, he smiled, taking no offense. "Super! I'm Franky. It's super nice to meet you!"

He couldn't stop staring.

"Yohohoho! My goodness! It certainly is quite a sight, isn't it? My name is Brook, and I do hope we come to be great friends."

Danny couldn't even nod with Brook.

Luffy laughed, managing to snap Danny out of his gawking. "They're pretty funny, aren't they?"

"H-How..."

"Franky's a cyborg, and Brook's soul was revived. Now he's a living skeleton!"

"Luffy, are you sure it's a good idea to be telling him all of this?"

Danny was immediately drawn to the Pinocchio-like nose on his face.

It didn't take long for him to notice. "Hey! My nose isn't that weird!"

Danny started as if caught doing something bad, looking down in shame. "Sorry... It's not like I really have a right to judge."

Touched by the genuine apology, he softened. "Ah, forget it. I've gotten used to people staring at it." He smirked, marking a noticeable shift in his demeanor. "They just wish they had a face like mine! In fact, one town I went to worshipped me as the God of—"

"You're lying, aren't you?"

"Hey! You couldn't at least let me finish?"

"Nope."

Luffy laughed, the others smiling in a fondness that Danny sensed was familiar to them. Taking a moment to observe the warm atmosphere of the group, Danny couldn't help but smile with them.

"Oh, my name's Usopp by the way."

"Oh, I never told you my name, did I? My name's Luffy!"

"He called you by your name when he got here, remember?"

"He did?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Guess I forgot."

They all groaned in exasperation.

"Shitty rubber aside..." He gave Danny a friendly smile. "My name's Sanji, and this idiot here"—he pointed to the green-haired guy next to him, who scowled in response—"is Zoro."

"Like you're one to talk, love cook."

"Shitty swordsman."

Nami sighed as they continued to argue with each other. "Those two never stop."

But as their argument escalated, Danny was surprised to find that none of the Straw Hats seemed too worried that their friends were fighting. "They really seem to hate each other. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure they argued the last time I was here as well. Are you sure it's okay for them to be like this?"

"That's just how Zoro and Sanji are. Trust me when I say they don't actually hate each other."

Danny was skeptical but decided not to argue against her words, instead warily watching the fight between the two Straw Hats.

"It's fascinating, isn't it?"

Caught off guard, Danny turned to the archeologist who had at some point moved to his side. "Huh?"

She smiled. "That people like us are able to coexist despite our differences. Perhaps it's because of those differences that we understand each other on a deeper level."

"Our differences..." But that didn't make sense to Danny. How could being half-ghost help others understand him? If anything, it was because of that difference that no one could understand him even on a fundamental level.

The fight between Zoro and Sanji ended, Luffy quickly picking up on the conversation Danny was having. "That's Robin. She's really smart!"

Danny, still brooding over what she had said, absently nodded.

"Hey, where's Chopper?"

They fell silent, looking around for the missing Straw Hat until a sneeze interrupted it, and they all turned toward the noise.

Chopper froze where he stood, his wide eyes locking onto Danny's equally wide eyes. Half of his face was hidden behind a doorway into some unknown room (it was the doorway to the infirmary, as Danny would later discover), but the rest of his small, furry form was exposed to the halfa.

Realizing that Chopper was trying to peek from behind the doorway, he awkwardly coughed to himself. "Uh... You're doing it backwards."

Chopper flinched for a moment before correcting his position so that only half of his face was visible.

Upon receiving no further response, Danny rubbed the back of his neck in discomfort. "Uh... my name's Danny. You're Chopper, right?" Struck by a sudden thought, he turned toward the others. "Wait, can he talk or am I just wasting my time trying to talk to him?"

"Of course I can talk, bastard!"

Danny's head whipped around in shock, Chopper quickly falling silent, his panicked face making it clear he had been the one speaking. Danny almost asked what he was, but he hesitated. That question was something he himself had problems with, so asking Chopper felt wrong. What if he was like him and didn't want to be reminded that he was different?

"You're wondering what Chopper is, aren't you?"

Danny's eyes went wide in instant discomfort. "W-What? I wasn't—"

Chopper, being the doctor, could tell that Danny was incredibly agitated, more so than he had been with the others even though they were just as strange if not even stranger than himself. Wanting to calm the teen down, Chopper smiled reassuringly. "It's okay to ask. I'm a reindeer-human hybrid of sorts, but I usually just say that I'm a reindeer."

Danny's eyes went wide. Luffy's crew had many strange people, but none of them had been hybrids, so to see that they had accepted one into their crew already... He himself was a hybrid. He was different than normal people, and they were too. Would they accept him just as they accepted Chopper? What would they think if he told them what he was? Remembering the warm feeling the group exuded when they laughed or smiled, Danny suddenly realized how lonely he had felt before meeting them. With the only other freak (clones not included) being Vlad, Danny had no one who could truly understand what it meant to be different to the extent that it would be considered unnatural. But in that cabin, surrounded by people so bizarre he couldn't imagine them existing at all without seeing them himself, he no longer felt like he was the only abnormal existence in the world. To have a group of friends like the Straw Hats was something he had never wanted more than at that moment.

He wanted to tell them, but at the thought of actually revealing his secret, he blanched. Sure, Chopper was a hybrid, but Danny wasn't a normal hybrid. Reindeers and humans were undoubtedly alive, but a half-ghost, half-human hybrid? How would they react to someone who was both dead and alive? No, he couldn't tell them. Not yet at least.

"Danny? Are you okay?"

Brought out of his thoughts, he realized that some of them were concerned by his lack of response. He froze when his eyes landed on Luffy.

Once again, his expression was unreadable, but the intensity and wisdom shining in those eyes made Danny uneasy, as if the very core of his being were on full display.

He didn't respond until he was sure he had regained his composure. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Luffy stared at him a moment longer before smiling, all the earlier seriousness vanishing as if hitting a switch. "Okay! Hey, Sanji! Let's throw a feast for Danny! And then I can eat lots of meat!"

At that moment, Danny's ghost sense went off, and he frowned. He was starting to really appreciate the Straw Hats' company (not to mention a feast sounded amazing if not for the absolute mayhem it was sure to cause given Luffy's excitement), but somewhere in Amity Park was a ghost that needed to be taken care of, so, regrettably, it was time to go.

"Hey, I really need to go. I just remembered I promised my friends I'd go watch a movie with them. Is it alright if I come back another time?"

Luffy was the first to react, pouting in obvious disappointment. "Aww! We were gonna have a feast! Now I won't get to eat any meat!"

Although his response was somewhat exaggerated, the disappointment was genuine, causing Danny to shrink back in guilt.

Sanji sighed. "I'll make you meat for dinner, so stop whining already. You're making him feel bad." Turning to Danny and ignoring Luffy's cheers, he smiled reassuringly. "Don't mind him. He's just upset because he's a glutton for meat. We'll have the feast the next time you come."

Relieved and grateful, he smiled. "Thanks. See ya!"

The Straw Hats said their goodbyes as he left the cabin, hurrying through the forest until the cabin was out of sight before transforming into Phantom and flying the rest of the way back to Amity Park.

Maybe this could work after all.