Danny's senses came back to him slowly. The first thing he felt was a high-pitched ringing in his ears mixed with the sound of a... female voice? His body felt like a brick house built on top of a lake- unstable and heavy. He attempted to move, succeeding. Danny sat up and attempted to open his eyes. The blurry world before him representing that of a mid-morning time frame. A black blob in his direct vision split into multiple colors. "Sam...?" He croaked, then turned away and sealed his eyes shut as a ball of fire jumped into his throat.
"Yeah, this is Sam." The female voice confirmed Danny's suspicions.
The half-ghost attempted to say another word but only ended up coughing, the fire increasing in intensity every time he tried to formulate a sound. He slowly opened his eyes to look at Sam.
"Danny, don't speak." Sam's voice was stern but full of concern. "Me and Trixie found you guys out here lying on the floor so we called for help. Howard's here already and Spud went to get Lao with Tucker. They'll be back soon. We moved you three to this clearing... Hopefully we didn't injure Randy more..." Sam let out a light chuckle. Danny's vision began to recover and he noticed that Sam was holding a hand out to him. "Can you stand?"
Fenton took the hand and stood, stumbling to regain his balance. A massive headache overcame him and he took a second to recover.
"Jake's hurt pretty badly, but Randy-"
Danny then saw his two friends and made his way over. Trixie and Howard were overlooking the two boys.
At the appearance of Danny Trixie spoke up. "Jakey's got a nasty wound on his shoulder... What were you guys doing? This kind of injury is serious- it's more than usual bad guy fighting."
"..." Danny looked over to Howard, a sigh escaping the ginger's body. "Randy's left arm is broken." He gestured to demasked Randy's clearly broken arm, it's direction unnatural.
The halfa glanced between Jake and Randy, dread overcoming his entire being. He caused this. If only he had come up with a better plan. If he could have prepared the howl before Randy broke his arm. If he hadn't even met the two then mayb-
Danny's thoughts were broken as Jake groaned, shifting. Danny watched as Jake's eyes opened, a trace of fear in his slitted pupils as they adjusted. He closed them and shook his head slowly, attempting to sit up. "Wha...?"
Danny felt a mixture of relief, fear, and disappointment in himself as he spotted the dragon's bloodied shoulder.
"Morning?" Jake paused as he blinked a couple of times. Suddenly he shot to his feet and ran to the clearing where the unicorns were mere hours ago. He fell to his knees.
What? Danny followed after Trixie as she dashed over to the boy.
"Oh no... is that what..." Trixie's voice held bewilderment. Jake nodded, falling silent.
To this Danny jumped the last foot and froze. In the field before him a herd of... beautiful... pure white... hors- Danny choked, unable to finish the observation as he once more shut his eyes. All of his strength exited his body and he fell to his knees, the world once more turning black.
~Time skip, transported to Lao's shop~
Failure. The word circled around Danny's head as he slowly regained consciousness. He reached out to the side. It was soft. The ghost's eyes snapped open and panic overcame him as he realized he was in a bed- one that looked like it belonged to a hospital. His fear grew as he remembered his unusual DNA- surely if the hospital took a blood sample they would catch him?
"Ah- Good morning young ghost child." Danny peered over at the door as an old man walked in. "Welcome to my makeshift hospital. Cozy, no?" Lao chuckled.
Danny willed his heart to stop beating so fast and turned to the elder dragon. He opened his mouth but before he said anything Lao spoke once more.
"Don't talk. I'm not sure what you did, but you managed to mess up your vocals. You shouldn't speak for the next couple of days." Lao shook his head at Danny's unasked question. "At all." He paused, then continued. "Randy and Jake are awake already- it's been a couple of days since Trixie and Samantha found you three in the forest." His eyebrow raised. "According to Jake, you two were helping him protect a herd of unicorns from the Huntsman..."
Danny then remembered that Lao initially told Jake not to invite them. Once more he was going to try and say something but was stopped.
"He had his reasons." The man sighed, "But this is why you two should not have joined Jake." He shook his head and glanced at Danny as he gestured. "If you are wondering where the ninja and my grandson are, they're just outside this room."
The halfa swung his feet over the edge of the bed and attempted to stand, wobbling in his step.
"You should rest!"
Danny ignored the man's advice and took steps forward anyways, his headache dispersing as he walked. He stumbled his way to the door and opened it, blinking at the afternoon light.
Another wave of guilt overcame the halfa as he registered the injuries that his comrades had endured. Jake sported a bandaged upper arm, shoulder, and chest, all of which were being replaced by Fu Dog. He glanced over to Randy and his voice caught in his throat. Randy was wearing a sling, playing Grave Puncher with only one hand, the other half of the remote held by Howard. Danny held back the tears that were forming, refusing to show how much it hurt him to see his two best friends this damaged.
Just then, Randy glanced up from his game and over to Danny, an immensely relieved look overtaking the ninja's face.
"Dude! Danny!" Randy let go of the controller, leaving Howard to fly solo for a bit. "You're awake!" The purple-haired teen made his way over to the halfa.
Danny simply nodded, gesturing to Randy's arm with an implied question.
"Oh, what? This? Pff-" Randy waved a hand, as if the brokenness of his arm was nothing. "Injuries are temporary."
"He's right. Injuries are temporary." Jake glanced over, only to be scolded by Fu Dog.
"Stand still! Geez, fidgeting at every little thing..." The dog grumbled a few times.
Jake rolled his eyes and continued. "The fact that we're alive is far more important don't you think?"
Danny slowly nodded, understanding their words, but still feeling bad about what happened.
"Before you do anything Danny- it wasn't your fault." Randy grabbed Danny's shoulder to get his attention.
Danny opened his mouth.
"No. I ain't allowing this." Randy shook his head firmly. "We would have done the same thing in your position. Who woulda known that the Huntsman would be able to withstand... whatever it is you did."
Ghostly Wail... Danny wanted to say, but of course couldn't because of his damaged vocal chords. He took a deep breath, and put his hands on Randy's shoulders, nodding his understanding. He nodded to Jake as well, then walked up to Lao. He put his hand forward and imitated a piece of paper and pencil. On his hand he wrote out I just need some time to myself... when Lao nodded, Danny smiled. He somehow knew that the dragon would understand what he wanted to say.
"Danny wants to spend some time in the city." Lao nodded confidently.
The halfa facepalmed. By. My. Self. Danny tried to gesture.
"I think he means he wants to be alone Grandpa."
Danny whipped around to Jake and nodded, pointing to him.
"Well, if you're too long you'll miss out on the best level." Randy waved his hand again, going back to sitting next to Howard.
Danny rolled his eyes and changed into his ghost form, flying out of the roof and towards someplace he could be in isolation.
~POV to Vlad~
"You imbecile!" Vlad spat at the dragon-head-wearing idiot before him. "They were unconscious and you just let them go." Vlad hissed his venom, pacing in the great room of his mayor-worthy mansion.
"What could a measly bunch of kids do to us?" The Huntsman once more placed the bag of unicorn horns on the floor, annoyed that he had to carry it everywhere.
"That measly bunch of kids can ruin our entire plan!" Vlad threw his hands up into the air. "Ah- put it them into that chute please."
The Huntsman complied with another grumble of complaint. "How?"
"Thank you." Vlad returned to his pacing soon after the words, knowing that the horns would go straight to his lab without conflict. "How? You're asking me how? Doesn't that dragon boy always get in your way?"
"Yes, but if we ignore the children and get the ingredients, then that's the problem?"
"They could catch onto our plan!"
The Huntsman let out another grunt of disapproval. "I doubt even those who are reading this story know exactly what's going on and they get all the perspectives..."
"Readers?" Vlad looked confused for a second.
"Oh nevermind." The Huntsman shook his head. "There's no way the kids could know about our plans."
"But Daniel is a clever boy..." Vlad returned to plotting, the interruption odd but shrugged off. He found the Huntsman a queer personality, thus, the comment was not too weird. "And based off of what McFist says, this... ninja is sneaky... I just have a bad feeling about this..."
"Even if you have a bad feeling, it won't matter if we collect everything we need before they find out."
Vlad's blue eyes pierced into the Huntsman's glowing red ones. "Make that a 'when' and we may have a chance... May."
Woo! I'm back! Sorry for such a long wait for this chapter! Hopefully this is good enough to make up for the long wait... ^^'
I'm back in action now, so hopefully the timeframes will get shorter between chapters.
Also~ Does anyone have a guess for what the baddies are planning?
That 4th wall break tho ;3
