Her Own Legend
----
Chapter Two
'Stone'
----
Disclaimer- I do not own Danny Phantom (Especially Masters of all Time) or Eragon. I own some of the characters in chapter one, but that's it.
----
Reviews for Chapter One- 3
Total reviews- 3
----
Full Summary- Dani has been on the run for a year and a half, since the last time she saw her 'cousin' Danny. But now it seems she has no choice but to go back to Amity Park, because she's having trouble going into her ghost form- in fact, she can't do it at all. Unfortunately, she has no money, and she's stranded halfway across the country from where she needs to be. When a mysterious woman gives her a strange orange stone, she thinks her problems are solved- she can sell the stone and be back in California within a week.
But then things go horribly wrong, and Dani is thrown into a whole new world, where she's going to have to find the secret of her stone fast- or die.
---
She had turned the last number, grabbed the lock, thrown it carelessly aside, opened the locker door and grabbed the thermos from inside. Opening and activating it quickly, she pointed it at Vlad.
He tried to resist, but in the end it was futile. Dani capped the thermos. She had escaped from Vlad, but she still wasn't safe. She had to get out of that school.
Fast.
And so that's how Dani ended up walking along the edge of Lake Michigan at 10:47 on a Thursday morning, trying to avoid the suspicious stares of the people all around her, no doubt wondering what a thirteen-and-a-half-year-old girl was doing outside of school on a weekday.
Coming to Chicago had at first seemed like a brilliant idea- with so many people all around it would be a simple matter to remain undetected.
But now it seemed stupid. It had been easy enough to fly half way across the country, even with below average ghost powers, but without any at all, getting back to California would be almost impossible.
Because she had to get to California.
That was where Amity Park was, and that was the only place she could think of to find help. Danny would know what to do.
But that still left the problem of how to get there- a problem she had to solve fast. Ever since she'd first come to Chicago, Dani had been sleeping in stores, fazing into them after they were closed, but without ghost powers, she couldn't do that.
Dani was broken from her chain of thought as she collided with a woman heading the other way. "Sorry," Dani muttered, getting up and bending down to help the woman to her feet. To her surprise, the woman was already standing.
Dani started to move away, but stopped as the woman grabbed her wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. After a moment of fruitlessly attempting to break free, Dani turned back to the woman, who was examining her.
Dani was now very worried- she had seen a lot of crazy people in the past eighteen months, but this was the first time one had ever managed to scare her.
The woman looked up at Dani. "Many people have been waiting for you for years uncounted."
Despite wanting to get out of this… extremely uncomfortable situation as fast as possible, she couldn't help being curious. "What do you mean?" she asked, nervously.
The woman only smiled, kindly, as though sensing Dani's nervousness, and opened a pack on her back. Dani could have run then, when the woman was occupied with her pack, neither hand gripping her, but she didn't.
Finally the woman thrust an orange stone into Dani's hand. "Be careful with this," she whispered.
Dani looked down at the stone. It was bright orange, with flecks of dark red running throughout. It was smoother than any stone she had ever seen, but dirty, as though it had been dropped in mud, dulling its color. She could tell, though, that if it was clean, it would shine brightly.
Dani looked back up at the woman, but she was gone, and Dani was once more alone on the sidewalk.
---
She had tried to calm her conscience with excuses- It's the only way I can get there, She'll never know anyway, She probably stole it in the first place- but it refused to be placated. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she was going to do it anyway.
After the woman had left, a horrible plan had come into Dani's head- she could sell the stone and get enough money to get back to Amity Park.
It was her only choice- wasn't it?
'You always have a choice' Dani shook her head in annoyance. She didn't have any of Danny's memories (She was pretty sure Vlad had created her that way on purpose, so she wouldn't have any memory of him trying to kill Jack and marry Maddie, or any of his other insane plots), but every so often a phrase or image would enter her head that she was pretty sure had come from Danny- like that.
'You always have a choice' said the voice again.
"You're wrong," Dani whispered, "I don't have a choice."
It was getting darker, and the streets were beginning to empty around her.
'You always have a choice.'
"I DON'T have a choice!"
The man crossing the street just in front of her started as she spoke and walked a little bit faster.
'You always have a choice.'
It was starting to rain, and Dani looked desperately for somewhere sheltered she could rest for a minute. To her great relief, she spotted a covered bus stop a block and a half away.
'You always have a choice'
She was running, though weather she was running away from the pouring rain or the voices in her own head, she didn't know.
'You always have a choice.'
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
Her face was wet, with both tears and rain.
She reached her goal and sank to the ground, gasping for air as sobs racked her small body. She had been left to fend for herself almost since she was a day old, and now these voices wouldn't leave her alone. To think that just over twelve hours ago she had been sitting in a bathroom trying to finish her homework before first period…
'You always have a choice…'
Dani examined the stone, determined to block out the voice by any means possible.
Firstly, it was much lighter than she would have thought just by looking at it, and made a strange ringing noise when she tapped it lightly with her fingernail.
The mud had been all but washed off by the pouring rain, and the stone's bright orange color shone bright and clear. Unfortunately, this also had the effect of making the stone incredibly slippery, and Dani dropped it.
The stone fell to the concrete floor below...
And didn't break.
Her heart in her mouth, Dani bent down and examined the stone for any cracks. There were none, but something was written in a faded-almost-washed-out kind of print.
"Ganga Shur'tugal vinr alfakyn?" (1)
There was a flash of bright light, and Dani vanished.
And so did the thermos containing Vlad.
(1) Ganga means 'to go' (but I flipped it to say 'go to' so it would make more sense. Just in case anyone was wondering), Shur'tugal means 'rider', and vinr alfakyn means elf friend. A gramatical nightmare, but I'm working with limited resources here!
That chapter was surprisingly fun to write! Ok, not much to say here, so I'll just go publish it.
Also, someone asked what happened to 'A minute to Midnight'... Basically it just got really hard to only be focusing on that, so I'll probably end up switching back and forth between that story and this one once I've got a few chapters in here.
Au revoir! That's French for 'Please Review!'
