Echo of the Ghost Kitsune
0000000
Naruto x ?
Danny x Valerie
00000000
Story Start
0000000000
That morning after getting dressed and preparing for school Danny decided to head down to the lab and see if his parents had any more helpful equipment he could scavenge.
Danny walked into the lab with his backpack to grab something only to freeze when he saw Jack with a fishing pole. "Hey Dad what are you doing?"
"Danny keep it down." Jack advised. "You'll scare away the ghosts."
At hearing that Danny just gave him a look that plainly said. 'Are you kidding me?'
Then Jack went to explain what the fishing pole was. "It's the Fenton Ghost Fisher." He proclaimed proudly. "I'm fishing for ghosts!"
With that he reeled the line in to show that it was glowing bright blue.
"Look at this line, coated with a world class ectoplasm that ghosts can't break." Jack explained actually making Danny interested as he made a mental note to learn how to make that stuff so he would have an easier time with his ghost hunting since the Thermos proved to be a helpful tool during the fight with the Lunch Lady.
Jack's voice broke Danny out of his thoughts. "Quiet now I don't want to spook them." With that he cast the line into the Ghost Zone and sucked on the straw coming out of his helmet before he stopped suddenly. "Whoa. Heh that soda goes through you like Sherman through Georgia." With that he put the Fenton Ghost Fisher in Danny's hand before running upstairs. "Here hold on to this, I'll be right back as soon as I use the Fenton Urinal."
Shuddering at that image that Jack put in his head Danny gasped as his Ghost Sense went off right as the line started to reel so Danny pulled back only for two huge blue scale like claws come out and following it was a huge blue ghost dragon with green horns and it had a yellow amulet on her neck.
"… Why me?" Danny muttered as he ran to get away only for it to grab her.
"I want to go." The Dragon roared. "I HAVE TO GO!"
Danny's face scrunched up at the smell of this ghost's breath before he replied. "You'll have to stand in line behind my Dad, in the meantime." Danny went ghost and phased out of the Dragon's grip.
That only seemed to anger the Dragon as it tried to claw at him before letting out a blast of green fire which Danny barely dodged before kicking the Dragon so hard in the face the amulet came off and it fell into his backpack without his noticing.
Getting ready for another throw down Danny was surprised when it shrunk down to what looked like a teenage medieval princess with green skin and blonde hair and the surprising thing was that this princess was crying.
"All I wanted was to go to the Princess Costume Ball and my horrid brother won't let me." She cried out as she flew into the Ghost Zone.
"Well if that Dragon is her idea of a costume than I'm on the brother's side." Danny muttered as he changed back. "Phew that's a relief."
Jack came bounding down the stairs in time to hear that last part. "I'll tell you what a relief is-." Jack froze before putting two new sodas in Danny's hand. "Darn I almost forgot." He ran back up and a second later the toilet flushed.
It was later on that day when Danny was telling the others what happened that morning. "Sound like you had an interesting morning." Before anything else could be said Tucker just came back from trying to ask girls to the Dance, Danny asks him as Tucker sits back down, "Strike three, Tuck?"
Then Tucker says annoyed, "Try strike three hundred." Sam perks up from the right of Danny says, "I don't see what the big deal is about going to some stupid dance. I don't need to be asked to some Dance to know I'm special."
"Well we all can't be Sam Manson now can we," Naruto replied before turning his attention to Tucker. "Listen Tucker, if you want my advice you have to simmer down on your attempts at impressing them."
"Why?" questioned Tucker. "The ladies love a man who is confident in himself," he added before he turned his head to wink at a couple of cheerleaders that walked by.
When the cheerleaders saw Tucker wink, they turned their heads away and left in a hurry. The others saw the whole thing and tried hard not to laugh. Not to be proven wrong, Tucker tried again when a short hair blonde walked by, but she flipped him off before heading back into the school. That was all Sam needed to start laughing at Tucker's failed attempts.
"Love a man who is confident in himself huh?" repeated Danny in a deadpanned tone. "If there's one thing you're full of Tuckers its confidence."
"No big deal," said Tucker as he looked around for another girl to ask. "Speaking of romantic futures your future Wifee has shown up Danny." he added.
They followed his gaze and saw who Tucker pointed out. Walking towards a tree was a rather attractive Latina wearing a pink crop top that showed off chest while highlighting her taunt midriff. She was also wearing blue Capri jeans that further emphasized her figure along with white wedges. Her long dark hair bounced as she walked with a sway in her wide hips. The spark that flickered in her eyes was enough to captivate most of the teenage boys in the area as they continued to gawk at her like hungry animals eyeing meat.
Danny like the rest of the boys gazed at her with an almost hypnotic glance.
"And here I thought you were the smarter of the two Fenton. Paulina? Seriously?" Sam retorted with a scoff. "Girls like her are a dime a dozen," she added.
Sam's little declaration was mostly on deaf ears Danny and Tucker were going gaga over her Queen Bee Paulina. "You like this girl right? Just ask her to the dance?" Naruto casually suggested. After all, even when he was a kid Naruto didn't have much trouble being casual with girls. Picking up signals, yes, but asking them how was as easy as picking a fight for the blond.
"I can't. I'll just get nervous and make a fool of myself. I'm that way with any cute girl."
Sam being offended says to Danny, "Oh, and you absolutely have no problems talking to me?" Danny stutters as he has no idea what to say to that. He didn't mean to inadvertently insult the girl.
"Only one way to solve that problem and its to tackle it head on." Naruto set as he grabbed Danny by the wrist and flung him forward. The teen nearly fell on his face when he bumped into Paulina. His attempts to ask her to dance when halted when his pants fell down!
"You know I can't help but feel somewhat responsible for what happened." Naruto remarked as he and Sam were walking down the hallway.
"Somewhat?" Sam remarked with an eye raise.
"I cannot be blamed for the quality of pants." Naruto remarked.
"Excuse me." Sam found herself suddenly pushed to the side, tumbling over a trash can.
"What the hell?" the raven haired girl cried out.
"Naruto was it?" Paulina completely ignored the girl as she focused on Naruto with a flirtatious smile. "I'm offering you a rather fantastic opportunity. How would you like the opportunity to go to the Dance with me?" she asked him with a flirtatious wink, leaning over to give him a generous view of her cleavage.
"Sorry, while I'm flattered by your interest I'm not interested." The blond kindly rebuffed as causing every boy in the school to look at him like he was crazy.
"Excuse me?" Paulina asked in shock.
"I said no." Naruto repeated as he helped Sam up. "You were rather rude to my friends not to mention I'm not a fan of bullies or people who associate with bullies."
"B-But I'm popular." Paulina managed to say through her disbelief. This went against nearly everything she knew. She was one of the prettiest and most popular girl in school. There wasn't a boy at Casper High who wouldn't jump at the chance to date her.
"So?" Naruto turned to walk away. "Being popular in High school will only bring you so far. Once you leave the school being popular will mean nothing to the thing we call life. There are so many more important things out there than that. Being popular in highschool doesn't net you good grades which you need for any self-respecting college and even if you manage to buy your way into a cushy job once the boss relies your useless by either costing the company their image or money you'll find yourself on your ass and out a job before you can even comprehend what happened. I'll hope you'll come to see that actions have consequences and the people you treat like dirt have feelings and when the day comes that you need help and that person refuses you'll have no one to blame but yourself. I'm hoping you'll take my words to heart and decide to grow up and become a better person." Everyone else was stupefied at the whole event. "Come on, let's go." He ushered to Sam who looked like she wanted to say something rather nasty to the popular girl but decided against it. She just wanted a shower. Like everyone else she was a bit stunned at not only Naruto's change of demeanor, but his words as were. Those were not the words of a teenager, but of someone much older with wordly wisdom and sufficed to say that peaked Sam's interest big time.
Though what happened the following day definitely surprised the group. The group found themselves at the mall as Danny elaborated on what happened. Leaving out how he overshadowed Dash and made him made a fool of himself and skipping to the part where Paulina agreed to go to the dance with him.
Tucker couldn't believe it and congratulated, Sam was more disbelieving while Naruto was just happy for the boy. "Like I told you, you just have to be confident." While Naruto didn't care for the Paulina girl, he knew it was more to her being immature then being a bad person.
"The only drag about the whole thing is my parents chaperoning."
Tucker winched. "Harsh."
"Honestly, guys, I'm glad I'm not going to the stupid dance. Saves me the embarrassment of wearing this lame dress my parents got for me," Sam says as we were still eating. Tucker speaks up and says, "No one's asked you to the dance, huh?" he asked only to get jabbed in rib by Danny.
"Maybe if I was pretty like Paulina!" she remarked with a sneer.
"Pretty and opinionated watch out that's a dangerous combination now." Naruto teased, hoping to get a reaction out of the girl but she seemed rather annoyed. "I don't have any plans that night why don't you and I just go to the dance?"
Sam looked at him, rather surprised by the sudden interest and found that she was unable to suppress her blush. "If you really want to go I guess I shouldn't disappoint you."
A chuckled left Naruto's lips. "How gracious of you." At the end of his statement Sam let out a cry and clutched her head. "Sam!" he exclaimed. Up above far from their sight a tear in space itself began as the dimensional space began to change until it formed into the shape of a portal.
Ectoplasm started to ooze out of the portal taking the form of a braided blonde haired, green skinned young woman dressed in a light blue gown reminiscent of the Renaissance era. Around her neck was a golden amulet with a green jewel that resembled a reptile's eye.
The woman began to observe her surroundings as her eyes quickly glanced over all the humans who were going about their daily business. Slowly her form glided through the air as her intangible form passed through several structures as she continued on her hunt.
She took notice of an advertisement of the Casper High School dance. Seeing that flier triggered repressed anger deep within her. Her eye narrowed as she slowly turned visible and her body started to change from green to blue. Her hands became claws while her body became covered in scales, her face started to stretch, forming a reptilian snout. Green horns grew out of the top of her head, large wings popped out of her back as well as a tail sprouting from her back. She grew in size as her small human form became that of a large glowing blue dragon.
A cold wisps escaped Danny's mouth. People's screams added to the mounting evidence of a ghost attack. "Danny, find a place to hide and change. I'll keep our guest busy." Naruto remarked as he shot forward to the origin of the terror.
The origin was that of a cyan scaled dragon with burning red eyes and greenish spikes running along the creature's back.
"That's the dragon I fought from before!" Danny remarked as he floated above the blond.
"Get out of here now!" Naruto gave a shout to the popular kids who were hiding under the table in the food courts. Chaos was rampant as civilians were running and screaming in every which direction. The massive lilac beast green flames began to light multiple carts and surfaces on fire.
The intensity of the flames had made quick work of the clones as Naruto and Danny were forced on the defensive. The toughness of this beast's hide reminded the blond of boss summon of Snakes Manda, but despite his strength he didn't have this creature's ability of flight nor did Manda breath ember flames that could melt solid concrete with ease.
"They shall pay!" maybe on another occasion Naruto would have tried and talk to the creature and try to get an understanding or some kind of reasoning behind its rampage, but it was proving far too destructive and driven to reason with.
The ghost dragon saw figures heading towards her and let loose a massive amount of green fire from her mouth. When the flames reached Danny, he suddenly turned intangible preventing him from being engulfed and burned by the flames.
Using some of the debris Naruto quickly used a substitution Jutsu and leaped at the creature only for her to use her tail to quickly whip at the blond. The powerful blow from the sharp appendage sent him flying through one of the concrete columns.
Danny flew around the ghost dragon while firing ecto blasts at the creature. 'This isn't working. I'm not doing any damage at all.' Danny thought. Getting closer he took notice of a golden amulet around its neck.
'Why would a dragon have a necklace?' Danny wondered as he flew in closer while dodging the dragon's claws. Before he could get any closer a stream of fire form the ghost caused him to fly back. The intensity of the attacks increased from the dragon became relentless whenever his blasts came close to hitting the necklace. The behavior of the dragon triggered a memory as Danny once remembered what his father lectured about ghosts.
Ghosts with a strong enough Ectoplasmic signatures clung to their deceased life in the form of memories. These memories along with their signature would manifest in something called Ghostly Obsession. Depending on the nature of the ghost's power along with their behavior their obsession could manifest into nearly any object that signifies the core persona of that ghost. Like how a Chef ghost would have a cooking knife or something along those lines.
Naruto darted across the floor as he drew out echo.
"Naruto! The Necklace!" Danny shouted out.
That was the only indication he needed his blade flicker to life with energy. The dragon may have had a tough hide, but she didn't match his speed. In a flash the necklace had been cut lose as the dragon transformed back into a young woman.
The necklace fell towards the ground and landed behind a bush, completely unnoticed by anyone still on the scene.
"All I wanted was to go to the ball," whimpered the ghost girl. "Once…just once I wanted to be able to make a choice of what I get do." She continued.
Before Danny could pull out the Fenton Thermos Naruto cautioned him to wait.
"Look, miss, I don't know much about ghost culture and all, but I do know that both sides would benefit from us not fighting so how about I make you a deal? I'm willing to dance with you for a bit and hang out with you during the dance if you promise to stop attacking the town."
"Really? Do you swear on the name of thy family that thou will keep thy oath."
Naruto could feel the others eyes stare through the back of his head. "Yes…I swear miss…"
"Dorothea Morgoth." The maiden introduced herself.
"Very well Dorothea I'm Naruto. I guess I'll be seeing you at the dance then." He said as the ghost girl gave a courtesy of sorts and disappeared.
"Uum dude, a crazy dragon ghost girl is going to be quite difficult to monitor. Did I mention she was crazy?" Tucker pointed out.
"Better we keep her happy than having her repeatedly come back and attack the town," Naruto pointed out as they began making their trek out of the mall. The sound of police sirens and fire trucks could be faintly heard in the distance.
"I hope you're right." Danny added as they dashed out of there before they could be caught by the police.
Despite the ghost attack and the mysterious appearance of the black and white costumed warrior, the students of Casper High continued with their studies; sort of. In truth the students were more interested in either asking each other out to the dance or gossiping about the ghost attack.
Then came the night of the dance. Everyone was dressed up and looking their best. The guys in their tusk, Naruto and Danny going with the clean and more traditional black while Tucker, of course, had to stand out with his funky light cerulean colored Tuxedo. It was actually a nice looking tuxedo just that the color wasn't common among tuxedos in this part of the area.
The most surprising part had been when he went to pick up Sam though. Naruto didn't think Sam knew what girly was let alone dress the part but he was proven wrong. She had dressed up in a gothic black and purple dress, adding a few more spikes to her hair looking like pigtails while in a pair of purple heels.
Tucker by some miracle had gotten what amounted as a desperation date out of Valerie Gray who decided the mayor's nephew was a slight step up from the other nobodies with all the decent guys taken.
The party continued like any average highschool gym party. Sam excused herself to go the bath room. Finishing her business she was in the midst of washing up. She had to admit this dragon girl's amulet was rather nice looking. Since they were expecting Dorothea to show up per Naruto's promise he had brought the amulet with him and for some reason he insisted on Sam wearing it saying it looked nice with her outfit.
Despite being flustered Sam went along with it and she had to admit, it was rather nice looking.
"Well, well, didn't think dances were your kind of thing Samantha." The speaker was Paulina, in a radiant pink strapless dress that showed off her legs and hugged her figure.
"Shouldn't you be off sacrificing virgins to maintain your appearance…plastic?" she quipped back without missing a beat.
"Is that anyway to speak to an old friend?"
"An old friend no, you yes. Considering you were the one to cut ties you have no room to try and guilt me. I won't fall for any of your games so make your petty little insults and be on your way."
Paulina frowned, "You won't be keeping that attitude for long Samantha, especially when I take your boyfriend from you?"
Sam raised an eyebrow. "I knew you grew shallower over the years, but didn't know being an A-lister required losing some brain cells as well. I have no interest in Fenton."
"Oh please, not that loser. I'm just using him to pump out information about the blond."
"Who Naruto? You must have forgotten, but he has seen right through your so called charms."
"There isn't a boy in this school I can't get. If he thinks he can just waltz right in here and shift the balance of power he's wrong." Humiliating and out muscling Dash had been one thing, but straight out rejecting and dressing down Paulina had started making Naruto into something of a hero among the students who weren't loyalists of the A-listers. Not to mention if you add in how mysterious the blond was he was an enigma that more and more of the student body was interested in getting to know. "Don't worry Samantha once I'm done showing him who rules this school I might be gracious enough to let him crawl back to you." She said, flicking her hair and strutting her way out of the restroom. While her words and actions definitely came off as callous, Paulina had wanted nothing more than get back at and hurt Sam due to their growing feud. In all honesty she genuinely was interested in and developing an attraction to Naruto.
Sam couldn't believe her ears. The audacity. The bitchiness. This was why Sam didn't work well with other girls.
Then, the anger overtook her.
How dare Paulina do this? The grudge she had held against the girl for so long intensified. Shunning her was something Sam could handle; she could have cared less, but wanting to hurt her friend over such petty and immature reasons?
"Shallow LITTLE WITCH!"
Naruto couldn't help but wonder what was taking Sam so long. Then that's when it happened an unearthly shriek sounded from the girl's restroom. Everybody stopped, looking in the direction of the unpleasant sound. The wall burst in a great crash, revealing the form of a massive purple dragon.
Its violet, violent eyes scoured the terrified students until they locked on Paulina.
It reached one long arm out for her, Paulina fainted.
With an echoing roar it exploded through the ceiling, people screamed as debris fell from above. Naruto was horrified as he realized what had happened.
He had thought letting Sam hold on to the amulet for a few hours couldn't cause harm. Now she had been consumed by some sort of rage.
"We have to stop her!" Naruto trailed after her through the hole in the ceiling she had made.
Leaping from the rooftops of the building he was able to easily keep up with Sam before rushing into the dragon's side, causing her to fall headlong onto the football field. It held an unconscious Paulina between its claws.
"Shallow witch!"
Naruto took notice of Danny out of the corner of his eye. "Get Paulina out of here!" He dodged her breath of fire as Danny moved while the dragon was distracted.
He swooped up to snatch Paulina from Sam's clutches, she was limp in his arms. Sam roared, smacked Danny with her tail, he and Paulina went flying for the bleachers. They landed unceremoniously on the dirty ground behind them; Danny had turned himself non-physical to avoid hitting them.
A gasp and a curse word made him flinch and look in their direction. Dash Baxter in a gray suit and an Asian girl in a dress stood slack-jawed staring at them. Danny boggled back at them.
Sam tore apart the bleachers to get at them.
Dash and the girl he was with screamed loudly.
Sam had attempted to attack again, but uprooted ground got in the middle of her path blocking the fire.
Then he made his move. An entity controlled by rage was a sloppy entity. He maneuvered past her flames and with one solid click the clasp of the amulet around her neck broke with a clink.
The dragon started to shrink, until Sam Manson was left, unmoving, on the grass. He rushed over to her side and brought her into his arms. "Come on Sam. Wake up." The panic he felt abated when she finally stirred.
"Ugh..."
"Hey, hey," he cautioned, she looked at him, "Do you remember anything?"
"I...don't know," she then said, "I was...so angry."
"You'll be fine, you're okay now."
Scared parents, scared kids and school staff, it was a catastrophe.
Every adult available was herding children out of the school, some were at the point they just didn't care anymore, they simply took their kids home.
From up above Naruto and Sam watched as students were being ushered off parents to the ever growing pile of panicked and worried pants picking up their children.
"We didn't even get to finish our dance. Kind of sucks."
"You? Dance?"
"Yes I dance." He said as he spun to the roof side and stood up. He extended a hand, "…now the question is can you?"
Not one to turn down a challenge Sam took his hand. With that the two of them simply enjoyed eachother's company as they proceeded to dance and salvage what was left of the night.