This is for the Phic Phight!
Prompt by Greyheartwriter: Danny's been summoned. But not by who you'd expect. In fact, not by an actual person.
Standard disclaimers. Enjoy!
Danny had been summoned before. Or rather, Phantom has. Usually by Sam, with Tucker occasionally tagging along. Typically when he was grounded. His two best friends always got a kick out of it. Grounded or not, they were going to hang out with their friend, especially when he insisted he should probably stay home "just in case". He hadn't gotten caught yet, but there have been a few close calls. Regardless, summoning Phantom was one of the rare moments the trio had to goof off and be regular teenagers. Well, regular enough anyway.
Danny sat with his elbows on the desk, hands gripping his hair in frustration. Falluca had assigned a large problem set to be done overnight. Like Danny didn't have anything better to do - rest, catch ghosts, nap, hang with his friends, sleep. At 10:30 pm, he was almost done, he was just stuck on this one problem. He thought about calling Sam and asking for help, but he really wanted to try getting this on his own first.
He grabbed his pencil and tried writing out the problem for the 400th time when he felt the pull. "Oh no," Danny muttered and looked around his room before trying extra hard to focus on his math homework and not the pull. It always failed, but he had been trying to train himself to ignore the pull. "Not. Now."
Danny put his face closer to his paper and tried to focus, but the pull was getting stronger now. Ugh, why him? Why can't people summon other ghosts? Well, that could get ugly and dangerous real fast, but come on! He was gonna kill Tucker and Sam. Or maybe…
Maybe his friends were struggling with the same problem as him and they wanted to put all their brain power together. But they could have just called. Regardless, he was still resisting the pull.
The pull was just a feeling of needing to be physically somewhere else. Or it started out that way, anyway. It was like holding your breath and forcing yourself to not hiccup again. You could try to deal with it absentmindedly, but usually it was all you could focus on until you were satisfied. And that's where Danny was at now, the pull was beginning to consume all of his thoughts, it was beginning to cloud his brain of anything else. He gripped his desk as he felt another strong pull. Whoever was calling him had done it at least 3 times now. Again, Danny tried to focus on his paper.
Another pull, and Danny's vision became cloudy. He felt anxious. He needed to be somewhere. What about math homework? That was supposed to be his top priority, they had a test on Friday. He gently started shaking as he tried to refrain.
He fell out of his chair at another pull, another call. Fuck it. He couldn't hold on anymore.
He sighed, took a deep breath, and focused on the pull. He felt immediate relief as he answered. He felt the familiar feeling of following the call, like riding a waterslide or a rollercoaster in the dark. You had no idea where you were going, you couldn't see anything in front of you. You didn't know how long the ride would last and you had zero control. You were just being forced in a different direction, sometimes feeling the whiplash of the unexpected.
He could feel his core becoming colder. He felt his transformation into Phantom, and soon enough, the blackness was beginning to fade, and he tried to gather his surroundings. "Sam, Tucker, if it's you I swear I'm gonna-"
Oh, OH. This was new. Danny didn't even know that this was possible. He guessed it made sense though. Maybe Ouija boards were like cell phones in the Ghost Zone. Ghosts had to get a hold of each other somehow.
He turned his body as he slowly looked around. He didn't know this part of the Ghost Zone. He didn't even see any ghosts around. He started to panic. He didn't know where he was, or who called him, or if anyone even actually called him at all. Was this some new stupid ghost power he had to learn to controll again? He just figured out how to keep his pants from falling down when he tried to flirt with girls. Not important right now, he reminded himself. He formed a small ectoball of energy in his hand, preparing himself for any attack.
But no attack came. Instead, he just felt a little nudge at his feet. Looking down, he sighed and dropped his ectoball. "Really?" He glanced down at his caller. "First of all, how did you even learn to do that?!"
Headbutting his ankle was the small green fluffball nicknamed Cujo, in his puppy form. To answer Danny's question, he used his nose to nudge the planchette on the board, moving it around until Danny began to feel the pull again, though this time the pull wasn't as strong because he was already in his destination.
Danny chuckled and scratched the pup's ear. "What's up buddy? I gotta finish my homework."
Cujo barked and wagged his tail ferociously, sticking his butt up towards the air as he bounced around. Eventually, the dog dragged his squeaky toy towards the halfa and barked again.
"I can't play! I have to finish my homework so I can try to get a few hours of sleep in a row tonight. Sorry dude, but no."
The puppy's excitement level deteriorated quickly. He let out a little whine, and gave Danny his best puppy dog eyes. Danny sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck. Cujo was adamant on playing, that much was clear. He called him 6 times already, what was going to stop the pooch from doing it again until he got what he wanted? Maybe just for a few minutes…
Cujo's tail began wagging again as he could see Danny caving in. "Alright, alright. I needed a break anyways." He formed another ectoball and threw it as hard as he could. "Go long, Cuj!" He smiled as the pup darted after the ball at lightning speed and stretched his muscles for the few seconds it took for Cujo to return with the ball. The pup barked excitedly.
Danny smiled, he always wanted a dog anyway. He threw the ball for Cujo for another few minutes, before playing tug of war and teasing the dog with the squeaky toy. "Who's a good boy?" Danny said in a voice only reserved for Cujo and other animals (except for Sam's pet snake...he couldn't use his little baby voice on that thing, it was too weird). He rubbed the dog's belly, laughing when Cujo's back leg would twitch in response to the belly rubs.
The phantom yawned as he laid down on the ground next to the pup, using one hand to prop his head up and the other to scratch Cujo's chin. "I'll admit, you are making me feel more relaxed."
Soon enough, Danny was snoozing with the little puppy curled up into his side, snoring softly. Though, the moment of peace didn't last more than 15 minutes as Danny woke up to the feeling of being pulled again. He groaned, gave Cujo a little kiss on his head, and answered the new call.
Sure enough, he was in the middle of Sam's room, falling to her rug as he was still too drowsy to make a better landing. He heard Tucker's laugh and jolted up, shaking the remaining grogginess out of his head. Danny groaned, "what?!"
"Look who woke up on the wrong side of the...rug…" Tucker tried. Danny could feel Sam rolling her eyes as she offered him a hand so he could stand up.
Danny couldn't help but let out a low growl, "Tucker…"
"We've been trying to call you for 25 minutes already! Guess you didn't have your phone on you. Thank the goddesses for Ouija boards," Sam stated as she straightened out her skirt.
"Why? What's wrong? Is there a ghost?" Danny examined her room, making a face at the snake that he swore was glaring at him.
"School starts in 4 minutes, dude," Tucker explained as he grabbed his backpack.
"You gotta fly us to your house to get your stuff then fly us to school, and maybe we won't get detention this time," Sam put her backpack on as well.
"Ah, fuck," Danny quickly grabbed his friends' arms and flew as quickly as he could to his room, grabbing his backpack and flying to school. His parents were already in the lab working on stuff, and Danny doubted they even noticed he was missing and almost late for school. A bomb could go off in the town and they would be so immersed in their work that they wouldn't hear it. His overattentive sister, on the other hand, had apparently been trying to get a hold of him for an hour now, only stopping when Sam texted Jazz that they had Danny with them.
The trio landed in the bush as the first warning bell rang. Danny transformed and they ran into the school together, making it to their homeroom late, but for once luck was on their side as the teacher wasn't paying attention...her car alarm mysteriously went off.
Danny pulled out his notebook and realized he still had to finish that math problem. Shit.
He turned as Sam tapped his shoulder, handing him her homework. He smiled gratefully.
"Don't worry, Tucker had to copy mine too. That problem took me 5 hours to solve. You both owe me."
Danny sighed in relief and nodded. He had 10 minutes to copy this down, and it was two pages long. It should be a crime to assign problems that long. He pulled out his pencil and started scribbling down the solution when he felt it.
Another pull. Damn that dog. No, he loved Cujo. Damn that Ouija board. "Remind me to find Cujo a puppy friend," the halfa muttered to his friends.