Hello, I'm kind of continuing this. Honestly, I just wanted to write. I want to work on my other stories but I just can't focus... Life has been... interesting. I had a nice little vacation. My first time overseas... but life gives and takes... I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. Not that I ever really did. Please bear with me as I try to find my footing... I do hope you enjoy this addition to this story.
"What the hell did you do Lalonde?" He heard the shaking voice of a boy. His head hurt and he was trying to understand why that name seemed important.
"What the HELL were you thinking?" Another voice yelled, raspier than the first as if its holder did a lot of said yelling. Danny wasn't sure, he still had his eyes closed and his nose pressed firmly to the ground. He wasn't yet ready to process anything.
"I merely tapped into a resource. We need the help." A calm female voice replied. The image of a girl- no the girl- Rose flashed in Danny's mind. He silently wondered if it was her. That would make things so much easier.
"By using dark magic!" The voice of the other boy barked back incredulously. His voice squeaked just slightly making Danny winced. "You're lucky you didn't go Dark on us! How would we communicate with you to finish your brilliant plan if only screams of the damned were coming out of your mouth?!"
Screams of the damned sounded like a pretty good description for the voices that broke his mind. Deciding it was time to get his bearings Danny attempted to move only to end up curling into himself with a pained groan and felt more than saw the people around him go tense. "You don't know what that thing is!" The yeller said a slight panic in his voice.
"He look's... human." The girl said a slight color of surprise coating her voice.
"Great." The raspy voice grumbled. "Like we need more of your weak species."
The girl sighed. "Though I'd hate to agree with you I am a bit disappointed. I was hoping it would be some kind of Horrorterror."
There was a snort and the other boy spoke with so much sarcasm Danny was surprised he didn't choke on it. "Oh yeah, because dealing with one of those would have been a walk in the park."
There was a light touch to his shoulder as he heard the girl's voice close and above him. "Shh!" She berated the other two before her voice became more level. "Hey…" She shook his shoulder lightly initiating a groan from the halfa. "I hate to be rude but the floor is not the place to be taking a nap- plus… if nothing else I think it best that we at least discuss our predicament. Yours and ours."
"Do you think he can understand us?" Danny finally coaxed his eyes open in time to see that the speaker was a pale blond boy who had a striking resemblance to the Rose girl he was supposed to be helping. Though half of it was covered by aviator glasses. "Whoa…" The kid took a step back as Danny glanced upwards toward the female. Sure enough, there was a stoic-looking Rose Lalonde leaning over him.
"Welcome to the land of the living." Rose said with a slight upturn of her violet colored lips. "Can you speak?"
Danny blinked and felt a slight smirk play at his lips. "Y-yeah." Setting up he rubbed his head looking at the girl who inadvertently called on him. "I'm really glad you're here. I am not up for a hunt right now."
The boy in sunglasses stiffened, as a sword materialized in his hand. "You hear that he's here to hunt you down!"
"What?" Danny blinked shocked by the magic sword. Then the words sunk into his still numb skull and he shook it. "No. No. I'm here to help Rose Lalonde. Her will is their will. Or so I was told." He gripped his head as it pounded with his slow heartbeat. "Seriously, I hope I don't ever have to talk to one of those beings again."
"Beings? You are not a monster from the Furthest Ring?"
Danny blinked. "Furthest… Oh. You mean like the Outer Ring? No." He rubbed his head. "They did send me here though. I guess because you asked… or something...?"
Rose blinked. "I see." She did not seem pleased. Though Danny deduced she didn't seem particularly upset either.
"Okay. That proves your little magic light show did something!" The raspy-voiced speaker growled from behind him and Danny turned to see a... what looked to be a boy with gray skin and small candy corn horns. His eyes were narrowed at Danny.
The ghostly boy stared a moment taking in the yellow eyes with grey irises. "Hm…" He said. "You're not human."
"No shit!" The creature growled showing off a pretty row of sharp teeth. "I'm a troll. We eat humans for breakfast."
Danny hummed. "You keep interesting company then."
Rose laughed. "I think Karkat like's you." This elicited a growl from the troll. "Most definitely a sign of troll love right there."
Danny blinked turning to the gray being. Then he shook his head and smiled. "So your name is Karkat."
"You told it my name!" Karkat growled as he snarled at the blond.
Danny chuckled having long gotten used to being referred to as everything from "it" to "monster." To be honest between the two he preferred the latter, if only because it gave more of an identity, even if it wasn't so positive. "Don't worry I can't do anything with a name." Pushing himself to his feet he held out his hand to Rose. "Hello, Rose. I'm Danny Phantom and I'm here to…" He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Well, honestly I don't really know why I'm here. I had nothing better to do and wrongly assumed it would be explained to me on the way."
"Well, we should rectify that then." Rose said shaking his hand. "Let's get the formalities out of the way first. You've been introduced to Karkat Vantas." She nodded to the troll then motioned to the other boy. "This 'cool dude' here is my friend and ecto bro Dave Strider."
Danny's eyes widened slightly at the turn of phrase. "Ecto... bro?"
"Long story." She said simply. There was the sound of a distant honking and Roses face fell minutely. Dave's left eyebrow rose just ever so slightly, and Karkat stiffened. "We... should probably go meet with the others before we start." The girl said belying any feelings toward the sound.
Danny was about to ask about the noise but paused. "Others? How many others are there." Danny was horrible with names and years of isolation had only made that trait worse. He hoped there weren't too many faces to keep up with.
"Let's see…" Rose said tapping her finger to her lips.
Danny glanced around and noticed they were in some sort of cave. "Also, where are we?"
"I believe there are a little over a dozen of us- if you count the sprites... as for where we are..." She motioned him to follow her up a staircase. Silently he wondered why a well-carved staircase would lead to such a strange location. Especially since the cave, they were in seemed to be empty save for its currently retreating inhabitants. As they walked Danny glanced around at the narrow walls that now surrounded them as they climbed the frustratingly steep stairway. He waited for Rose to finish her sentence but she hesitated. "Currently we are between sessions."
Danny's head tilted. "The game we were in was corrupted." Dave said.
"These idiots found a way to scratch into a new version. We're headed there now."
Danny blinked. None of what these kids were saying made sense. Scratch? Session? Game? "What?"
"We broke our game." Rose said.
"Game?" Danny asked.
Rose stopped turning just slightly to look at him. "Do you really know nothing?"
Danny shrugged realizing she was talking about the strange predicament they found themselves in. "I told you... I was bored and then I was here... The... bit... in between..." Danny shook his head trying to shake off the memory. "It was less than informative..." He tried to smile but her gaze was growing darker by the second and his mouth twitched with uncertainty.
"Good job Rose. You summoned a noob." Dave said with a slow clap.
Danny couldn't help but glare back at the boy, getting a micro flinch in response.
"This is all fascinating." The troll said with dripping sarcasm glaring up at him. "Really, enlightening, but if you don't mind... I'D LIKE TO GET PAST THE FUCKING STAIRS!"
Rose proceeded up said stairs with a slight eye roll. "It does seem we have a lot to discuss."
"So you're talking about a game- like a video game?" Dave snorted.
"It's much more interactive than just that." Rose said.
"All this talk of games... do you guys like them? Games, I mean."
"Ha!" A sharp laugh left Karkat who was following close behind him. "Is that some kind of sick joke?"
"What? No."
Rose laughed lightly. "To put it as bluntly as possible. We are in a game."
The "Hu?" That left Danny's mouth was not the most pleasant sound. It was a strange mix of disbelief surprise and mirth. "So like role play?"
"Hardly." Rose said then paused in thought so thoroughly she halted their progress up the one-person wide corridor again. "Forgive me if I'm wrong Mr. Phantom but did I detect a flavor of amused doubt in your eloquent response? I assure you if this were simply a game of LARP I would not have gone to such extremes as to summon a being from beyond the Furthest Ring." She shrugged before continuing their progress. "Though I guess that would have been amusing in its own right."
Danny worked his jaw a moment fighting back a sharp response as Rose's tone made him feel as though she were belittling him. Rose was, after all, the reason he was here. He didn't know what she- or heaven forbid the Horrorterrors- would be able to do if he pissed her or the Outer Ring off. Taking a breath, he resolved himself to be civil as their group continued up. "You can just call me Danny." His words came out short and clipped and he balled his fist, internally disappointed in his lack of self-control. Though he really shouldn't be so hard on himself considering he'd spent the last 413 years curled in a ball floating through virtual space. Shaking his head, he decided to dig deeper. "So it's not LARP and it's not a virtual-
"I wouldn't go so far to say it's not virtual..." Rose countered.
"Yeah, it did start out on the computer. With a disc and everything." Dave said. "Then the virtual part of virtual reality turned real quick into actual reality."
Rose nodded. "Eloquently appropriate in a way and for most back home it would be hard to believe. I take it it's the same for you?"
"Uh… it would be shocking and downright unbelievable to the people I grew up with… though if it would shock the ones living in my world now I could only guess…" He cleared his throat. "As for me… well, it's been a while… but I'd be lying if I said I've never been in a game before."
Rose glanced over her shoulder at him her brow up in a sign of curiosity. "Interesting."
They continued for a bit and Danny felt a slight wash of relief as a rectangle of light became visible just meters away. "To be fair though… I doubt your experiences are the same." Rose stated out of nowhere. "To be frank this game is entirely immersive. It destroyed our homes and nearly killed us. To fight back we broke our game and find ourselves desperately fleeing to the next."
"Sorry…" Danny said slowing only to have Karkat growl about the fact that they were never going to get out of the corridor of never-ending stairs at this point. Taking the hint, the ghost-boy picked up his pace. "That doesn't sound like a game to me…"
"Oh?"
"No…" Danny said. "Immersion aside… If it destroyed your homes… how can you simply call it a game?"
"Uh… because it is." Dave said from behind Karkat. Danny didn't bother arguing with them. These kids wanted to call their struggle a game who was he to argue. Hell, for all he knew it really was just a game.
The top of the stairs opened up immediately and Danny took in a deep breath before he looked around. They'd come up into a large common area. In the center of the room sitting atop a large red rug was a half circle of sofas. The walls were that same cave-like material but despite that the room felt warm with the many lamps that were scattered about. Odd piles of random items littered the floor. It looked like there was another level, just above, with two small flights of stairs on opposite sides of the wall, each sitting next to a large door.
"ROOOOSE!" An energetic voice chortled as a blue blur rushed into said girl. When the blur settled it turned out to be a scrawny kid with blue eyes and black hair. His limbs were wrapped around the girl. The kid was so gangly he made Danny feel less like the twig he was. "I heard you were going Dark! I'm so happy to see you're not gray and spooky! Not that being gray and spooky is bad- I just like it best when we can talk."
"Hello, John." Rose greeted calmly. "I'm glad that you enjoy our conversations. Dave had said something similar." The girl glanced back at her maybe brother with a smirk as she pried John's hands off of her.
Dave crossed his arms turning his head away. "No, I did not. I just didn't want to deal with demon speak."
Roses smirk grew. "Right."
John had noticed Danny by now and was giving him a once over. When their eyes met the boy stared for a moment before breaking into a large grin. "Woah! Did you know you glow?"
"What?" Danny asked putting as much shock and surprise into his voice as he could muster as he looked down at himself. Rose let out a snort of a laugh in response.
"How do you not know something like that?" Karkat asked venomously.
"Chill." Danny said waving his hand. "I was just joking. Of course, I know I glow. I've been able to glow for the last…" Danny stopped. "Uh… wait I'm bad at math…" He held up three fingers then one then another. "Uh… I guess 600 years or so?"
"Hum… I wonder how your world's time flows in regards to Earth. You don't look a day over 14."
"You look about 6 to me." Karkat said with a nod.
Danny glanced at Karkat then rubbed the back of his neck and let out a curt laugh. "Yeah… well… according to the time the Earth in my universe followed I would have lived more than 5 lifetimes at this point."
"That explains the white hair." Dave said. "It shows his age."
"What?" Danny was surprised this time. "No. My hair has always been... when I'm... Like this... I mean..." Danny refrained from clarifying that that was only when he was a ghost. Past experience told him people tended to freak out the moment you told them you were kind of dead.
John's head tilted to the side like a confused puppy. "Like this? What do you mean? When you're what?"
Danny stiffened. Rose hummed, clicking her tongue. "This is better but still not a good place to hold such a complex conversation. How about we all migrate a few feet in this direction." She gestured toward the couches. Danny sighed. "Then you can tell us a little more about yourself Mr. Phantom."
"Hey," Danny glared at her. "I told you to call me Danny!"
"Phantom?" John asked looking at Rose then at Danny. Suddenly he pointed at Danny fully animated as he yelled. "YOU'RE A GHOST!?"
"Ghost only exist in Dream Bubbles dumb-ass." Karkat smacked John on the back of the head. Danny blinked.
"Dream bubbles?"
The group looked at him at once. "I guess you wouldn't know would you?" Rose smiled. "Come. I'll fetch us some tea."
"How are you coming on that A.J.?" Dave asked watching her walk by.
Rose twitched. "It isn't so easy to make something so simple." Rose stated bluntly before leaving them into another room.
Now Danny's head was tilting to the side as he made his way to the couches following the grumpy troll. Karkat took a seat at the end of one of the couches and Danny took a seat in the middle of the one across from the troll. The ghost studied the alien as Karkat sat with his chin on his palm and a generally irritated look on his face.
John sat next to Danny on the arm of the couch his feet next to Danny's leg. The boy looked about ready to explode with excitement. Dave took a seat next to Karkat leaning back as he coolly crossed his arms. "So..." Dave said.
Danny nodded in response and twiddled with his thumbs suddenly aware of his own awkward self. "So." Danny could see his green eyes reflecting back at him in the stupidly reflective glasses of the 'cool kid.' "What?" He frowned.
Dave shrugged. "I just think it's weird. That you don't know anything."
"I just got sucked through an orgy of terrifying monsters and spit into a new universe or whatever." Danny shrugged. "They only told me to protect Rose Lalond." Danny put up his arms and let them become tentacle-like as he wiggled them around. He let his voice drop as deep as he could manage and said. "Our will is her will." He allowed his arms to return to normal as he placed them on his lap and let out a sigh. "Or something like that."
Even with the sunglasses, Danny could see the disgust on Dave's face. "That was a weird trick." Slightly surprised by the lack of a yell in the voice Danny looked over to Karkat who for the first time was showing another emotion other than anger. It was an amazing kind of curiosity.
Danny couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. "If you think that was cool you should wait and see what I can really do."
Danny blinked as Karkat looked away with an angry grunt. "What are you?" Dave asked doing nothing to hide his distrust.
Danny swallowed then gave a weak smile as he looked away. "Do you really need to know?"
Somehow Dave's glasses flashed his mouth down in an angry frown. "With a response like that, I'd say I'm dying to know." Danny chuckled sadly.
"Don't be so mean." He heard from beside him. "Danny's here to help Rose. That means he's here to help us." Blinking Danny looked to his side to see John giving him a reassuring smile. "I think he's kind of funny."
A green tent flushed through Danny's cheeks. "Th-thanks. Honestly, I don't know yet what you're dealing with, but if it's firepower you need I've got plenty of it." He smiled at John his gaze sliding over Dave's miss trust and falling on Karkat once again. The troll's face was curious but closed off.
'These guys seem interesting.' Danny thought his smile growing more genuine. "I feel like this will be fun." He said watching as a red blush touched Karkat's cheeks. Almost simultaneously ghost and troll showed looks of confusion.
Not much happening yet... man... is it me or is Karkat actually enamored by Danny?
Seriously, that wasn't my initial intent. Karkat, stop being an overly emotional/hormonal troll! I don't know how to write romance! Please don't do this to me Karkat! Oh, wait you are obsessed with romcoms... what am I saying? I'm doomed and so are you. Nothing but pain can come from this! You hear me Karkat!?
Of course, he can't... I'm not even in the same universe... The Hussy of this universe probably already realized this is a paradoxical universe and is off chasing horses... or Vriska... or both. Yeah, probably both.
Anyway... Now that I got that all off my chest thank you for reading- also... if you want romance in this story better tell me now or the hammer will come down on this hard an all you'll be reading is kindergarten level puppy love- most possibly one-sided... depending on these crazy characters... plus, any theories on Danny's human half. I already have that planned out but I'm curious to see if you guys have any preferences.
Please comment, thanks again for reading and have a great day!
