Me, arriving 10 years late with a Secret Trio Fic and starbucks:
Hi all and welcome! I have very good news for everyone checking in here: This story is already finished. The later chapters need a quick proof read, otherwise it's all done. So you're not in danger of a sudden hiatus.
I love the Secret Trio dynamics with all my heart and decided I wanted in. For something so immensly popular there's very few fics.
Long story short - this story is more of an origin story but can stand on its own. For this story we will only have the Danny Phantom and American Dragon worlds clashing. Randy will follow in the next installment.
I intend to publish once a week. The story will be devided in 7 to 9 chapters of varying lengths. A total of 92 pages awaits you. This first chapter is mostly a prologue and thus shorter.
With that out of the way, feedback is always appreciated. On you go!
Jake Long stepped off the bus, stretching his tired arms before taking a look around.
Amity Park was as weird as he'd imagined. It should have been his first guess, the American Dragon mused, when the bus driver looked at him as if he'd suddenly grown a second head. Apparently there weren't many outsiders keen on visiting America's most haunted city.
The people were definitely weird too. And Jake was a New Yorker – he lived and breathed weird.
No, this was a different feeling. Throwing his bag over his shoulder Jake set off towards what he hoped would be some kind of inner city. He needed a place to stay and preferably catch up on some sleep. He let out a snort at that. As if that would ever happen. And considering he was supposed to start his ghost-hunting tonight he'd probably have to get used to the possibility of not sleeping for the second night in a row. Again. Shaking his head the dragon focused on the people milling around. There were surprisingly many people hustling through the streets. A sense of urgency and general annoyance could all but be felt in the air. A smirk pulled at his lips. This town did feel eerily similar to New York indeed.
Pulling out his phone he sent Fu a text, letting him now he'd arrived safe and sound. And if the text included more complaints about the horrendous railway infrastructure, that was between him and Fu.
He didn't mention the two times he'd been held back by the police during the trip. Which, for the record, had not been his fault. Wincing slightly he rebuked that thought. The second time had kind of been his fault since he'd figured he could check in with the local magical communities while he had to wait for a delayed train and he may have gotten involved in a wrestling match between an ogre and a handful of goblins. Luckily the officers had let him go after they had failed to figure out a way a tiny teenager could cause such destruction all by himself and had believed him to be an innocent bystander. Who hadn't seen anything and really didn't need his parents to be called, thank you very much.
Strolling across the street Jake took in the town as well as he could from the ground. The variety of smells was almost overwhelming. Surprising, considering he was used to New York's countless odors, but he figured it had something to do with the weird ghosts who regularly appeared here. He did catch a whiff of something similar to ozone but with a hint of rot hidden underneath. Maybe this was the ectoplasm that supposedly gave these ghosts their power.
Jake had to breathe through his mouth as the smell got overwhelming. There were so many different varieties his dragon senses easily picked up even in his human form. He could only hope he would get used to them quickly. Otherwise this would be a short visit.
A violent sneeze rattled him to his core, a wisp of flame erupting between his lips. Glaring at nobody in particular the dragon stalled until he was sure nobody had seen anything. Shaking his head he pushed forward, silently thanking whoever was willing to listen that he'd taken this trip on his own. That would have been embarrassing.
It did show why the urgency was warranted though.
These ghosts were messing up the balance in the magical world.
And it was his job as the American Dragon to fix this.
xXx
Danny was having a good day.
For most people that wouldn't have been surprising. Sure, there were always bad days, but they were all too often followed by better days.
Unless you were Danny Fenton.
No, Danny had bad days, worse days, super-bad-how-am-I-not-dead days and surprisingly not awful days.
There was always some ghost attacking the school or an invention of his parents' malfunctioning and trying to kill him or Vlad or...
To cut a long story short, Danny Fenton did not have good days. Except apparently today.
Jazz would chew him out for that train of thought and Danny knew it. And if he were being honest to himself, it wasn't quite as bad. It was just on those rare, actually amazing days that he found himself sulking about the bad days. Which had gotten progressively better during the last few months.
Okay, so his life didn't suck as much anymore. Danny was still allowed to mope a bit. Especially since he spent this wonderful day stuck in school.
He did just ace a surprise test though, so he wasn't about to complain much.
The ghosts had been quiet recently. There were whispers throughout the ghost zone that something had noticed them, had gotten curios. But no matter how much Danny asked around nobody had an answer. Most of his common acquaintances were utterly clueless. Those of higher standing were either constantly unavailable (Pandora), didn't want to cry wolf before they had confirmation (Frostbite) or had simply vanished off the face of the ghost zone (Clockwork). It was beyond frustrating.
It did mean most ghosts kept their heads down though. The only ghosts dropping in recently had been Danni, Johnny 13 and Vlad. The latter thankfully seemed to be unaware of the unusual trouble brewing on the other side of the portal. No, Vlad was preoccupied with business. So preoccupied in fact that he hadn't been able to hassle Danny for weeks, which was part of the reason he was in such high spirits.
Danny did smirk at himself – spirits, got it? - before turning his attention back to the notes in front of him. He could actually focus today, having gotten a solid nine hours of sleep the night before. While he still detested school's monotony he was all too aware he needed to polish his grades up a good deal to have a chance of getting into NASA. If he managed to get into an internship now, if he managed to leave a good impression...
Forcing his attention back to the class at hand he grumbled. He was getting ahead of himself. Sure, he'd aced a few tests now, enough that Mr. Lancer had actually scheduled a meeting with his parents to talk about Danny possibly being a special needs kid who needed a different structure to awaken his inner genius. Danny and Jazz had laughed until their sides' hurt. Special needs indeed. Jazz had soon sobered up and told him he should use this break in his regular ghost fighting schedule to get a grip on all the things he missed out on. Best of all? She hadn't even asked him to focus solely on school work, but to enjoy his current part-time status to relax.
Danny was in heaven.
Okay, maybe he should rectify his earlier thoughts completely.
Because Danny Fenton currently had the 39th good day in a row and he wasn't about to let anyone pull him down again. (Yes, he kept count. He even added little smileys in his planner.)
Not even the fact that he still hadn't been able to find any answers about what exactly had the older ghosts so on edge.
Yet again he forced his thoughts back to the lecture, jotting down a couple of notes. Frostbite had promised to let him know the second anything changed.
Right now there wasn't anything Danny could do.
Except for enjoying video games and junk food and his current break from ghost-hunting duties.
xXx
Jake flopped down on the hotel bed, grinning from ear to ear as he sunk into its embrace. He'd hit the jackpot. If he timed this right he might actually get a solid two hours of sleep in before he had to get going.
While most of his dragon duties had better wait for the night there were some things he definitely needed to do as a human. Such as getting food, another thing he was long overdue on.
He distinctly noticed his eyes closing right before a shrill sound had him literally jumping straight into the air. Checking his phone the dragon grumbled a dejected "Aw, man" that sounded much more like an animal's growl than a human's sigh. Two hours sure went by fast if you were completely conked out.
Slipping on his shoes he begrudgingly left the all too fluffy bad behind. Soon he was skidding down the road on his skateboard, glad he'd brought it along and even more glad it had survived the brief bout with the ogre. Most of his possessions hadn't done that. He'd had to replace most of his clothes before he settled down in the hotel. It wasn't how he intended to start his trip in Amity Park, but he'd used the chance and took a stroll through the inner city.
As glad as he was to not have been attacked – he didn't particularly fancy fighting in unfamiliar territory, and in broad daylight nonetheless – he had to confess he was disappointed. America's most haunted city was decidedly less haunted than he'd been made to believe. Fighting down a toothy yawn he decided it was just as well.
Something reached his nose. The dragon flipped his board and stopped, head raised to catch the scent. Food, his stomach growled. Chuckling slightly Jake followed the scent, arriving in front of a crowded stand. The sign proudly proclaimed Nasty Burger, something Jake's stomach violently disagreed with. The scent was the most delicious he'd smelled in a long time.
He might be biased since he felt about to starve but since there was nobody to call him out, well.
He got his food and slipped into a booth, wincing slightly at the noise inside. Sleep deprivation always had his senses running in overdrive. He had hoped it wouldn't be as bad here since it was a smallish town, but the buzzing in the air had him on edge.
Jake was fairly certain the air wasn't literally buzzing, his senses merely translated the feeling into a way he could understand it without entering his dragon form. He hoped. If this buzz continued dragoning up would get painful really fast.
It didn't help that the buzz continuously grew. When he'd been downtown earlier it had taken him a few hours to notice, but now the noise was all but grinding against the inside of his skull.
Wolfing down his burger – and the second and third, he was a teenage dragon after all – he tried to relax back into his seat. The sound of the people around him was strangely muted, as if there were a barrier between him and them. A small reprieve for his senses.
On a whim he skimmed through his bag until he found the pair of sunglasses Spud had gotten him for his birthday. They were pitch-black from the outside, dark enough that he could use the Eye of the Dragon without having to worry about being seen. It was a simple but genius move that somehow hadn't occurred to him before.
Sure, it might get him weird looks to wear sunglasses inside but honestly, if this town was as haunted as it claimed they'd have seen much weirder things than a tourist with sunglasses. Petulant cityboy tourist was going to be Jake's cover if anyone asked what he was doing here, and he was going to enjoy that role.
His eyes flashed into their second nature with a flash of red invisible to all but him.
Jake was instantly all the more grateful for the sunglasses.
Where his human ears oh so helpfully translated the remains of ectoplasm and its residue energy into a cacophony of wasps his dragon eyes apparently decided he might have missed the unusual energy floating around if they didn't do anything flashy to point it out.
Sadly they had apparently taken flashy a little too literally. There were smears and swirls of ectoplasm traces surrounding him. And each time they moved, like clouds in the wind, the flashed in colors far beyond human sight.
It might have been beautiful if it hadn't been so bright. The swirls were wisps of energy dancing together, colliding and tangling in a way that almost took his breath away. And the colors – man, the colors. They were so far outside of a human's visible spectrum that he couldn't even begin to describe them. They did remind him of green somehow, but they were so vibrant and warm and-
Jake had to close his eyes to get a short reprieve from the brightness but soon found himself staring again. It was mesmerizing.
One of the swirls floated close, rising up as it approached him, floating up as it got into the vicinity of his higher body temperature. Checking for bystanders he reached up, watching as it twirled around, twirling around his arm. It flared up even brighter once it got into contact with his skin, sizzling against his form and evaporating. Huh.
Dragon fire was purifying if used right. And apparently his inherent magic was enough to purify ectoplasm?
Withdrawing his Chi from his eyes Jake allowed his vision to settle back into human parameters. For a brief second it struck him how boringly monotone his human sight was. The thought startled him. He hadn't thought about this in a long time. He'd mostly just rolled with all the changed his draconic nature brought. Never before had it felt quite so off.
Chewing on his lip Jake took a deep breath and settled his Chi as low as possible, withdrawing it until he couldn't feel any of the magic surrounding him anymore.
The buzz faded.
He enjoyed a few moments of blissful silence before relaxing his grip on his Chi. So the constant buzz was the sound of his magic meeting the ectoplasm. Weird.
Jake returned his tablet, nodded a thanks and goodbye to the staff and went his way, deep in thoughts. He'd have to check on any magical creatures living in the vicinity. If the ectoplasm reacted that strongly to him it hopefully shouldn't hurt any of the others. Maybe. Dragons had far more magic at their disposal than any other magical creature. Sure, there were some who could rival their sheer strength or outmatch them in practical application of magic, but in the end dragons pretty much always came out on top. There was a reason why they were the protectors of the magical world.
xXx
Danny hovered over the car, invisible to the eye. He was officially finished with all his duties today. He'd done his homework, tidied up his room and got started on a presentation that wasn't due for another month. He'd patrolled all throughout Amity without catching sight of any of his regular enemies. There had been a bunch of blob ghosts hanging around the Nasty Burger who'd caught his eye earlier, but they'd been harmless. So harmless they'd even seemed afraid of the humans milling around. He'd shooed them off all too quickly before going his way.
The most interesting thing to happen on his patrol was when he'd literally flown into Valerie. Luckily she'd taken his apology and hadn't tried toasting him immediately. She'd bombarded him with questions instead of rockets, asking the same things Danny had given up on questioning almost a month ago.
The conversation had been almost amicable.
They hadn't really clashed since the whole Danni thing, mostly sticking to avoiding each other. She seemed distant, always in thoughts. Danny could only hope she didn't get too close to finding out.
That wasn't it, some part of him all but screamed. Val had something to worry about but some sense told him he wasn't in danger.
If he was, there was no way she'd casually chat his alter ego up like that.
In the end they'd both sat on her hoverboard, watching the city they both protected. Val had told him about the ghostly encounters she'd had lately – somehow slightly more than he himself had – and he told her about the older ghosts' requests to lay low until they knew what approached. Told her how confident they were that they'd know before anything actually happened.
He'd seen how torn Valerie had been. She clearly detested listening to the ghosts but in the end there wasn't much else she could do. She didn't have access to a ghost portal. She didn't have allies among them. And she didn't have the faintest clue what everyone was so upset about.
In the end Danny had promised her to let her know if anything changed. She'd been less opposed than he expected, thanking him and flying off.
She had looked like she wanted to ask something. A look she'd often sported lately. But as always she swallowed the question and went on with her day.
Deciding nothing else would happen this afternoon Danny had met up with Sam and Tucker again. Without having to worry about constant ghost attacks they'd decided to go on an impromptu field trip, made much easier by the fact that Tucker had actually gotten himself a car. They'd driven out to a nearby lake, radio blasting loud enough to be heard miles away (or so Sam claimed).
It had been a perfect evening from the very beginning. They'd done absolutely everything from playing around in the water to roasting marshmallows over a campfire to watching the sun go down. It was peaceful in a way Danny simply wasn't used to. Some part of him wished he could get used to it. The other part clung almost painfully to the familiar thrill of a threat looming over his head, telling him it was the last time he would be able to enjoy an evening like this.
He didn't want it. He hadn't felt as normal as this in a while. (The irony of thinking that while he was literally hovering over his friend's car was not lost on him.) Yet he knew his luck wouldn't hold.
At best some of the ghosts would realize whatever threat loomed ahead didn't actually care for their haunts. At worst said threat would arrive with bared fangs and rip into his life.
He couldn't get comfortable because it wouldn't stay.
Somehow that thought didn't bother him as much as it probably should.
Honestly, even if every single ghost suddenly stopped attacking he still doubted he'd be able to let go of the role he'd grown into. There was some primal part deep within his core that itched for the fights, yearned to be unleashed. The same thing that reared up in him when he first unleashed his ghostly wail, the same that had allowed him to beat Pariah Dark, the same that always growled whenever he got caught in one of Vlad's schemes.
The longer he was Phantom, the more he realized some part of him wasn't human anymore.
It felt like such a silly revelation, back when it first hit him. He was half ghost, obviously half of him was dead.
Except this went beyond being half dead.
There was a primal, all-encompassing thrumming vibrating through his core, getting stronger each day. It wasn't quite animalistic, but it was definitely inhumane.
His parents had been wrong when they said ghosts were inhumane.
Perhaps he was just as wrong when he said they were almost human.
"Danny?"
Blinking he looked down to his friends. Tucker was throwing the last of their gear into the trunk before shooting him a grin and getting behind the driver's seat. Sam was leaning against the car, watching him with searching eyes.
Floating down Danny let gravity take hold of him, tail splitting into legs, a soft prickling of his skin the only sensation that told him the laws of the universe had just demanded their application over his body once more. "Sorry, spaced out for a bit."
Sam nodded, understanding dawning on her features. "We should probably head back. It's getting dark. And in case you forgot, we're supposed to be up early tomorrow."
Right, he did almost forget. They had been volunteered by Mr. Lancer to help out with the school spring festival. Luckily they'd be able to leave the tedious task of putting up stand after stand in time to be able to enjoy the festival like an outsider or the younger years would. Not quite so luckily that meant arriving at the school at 6 a.m. sharp.
The ride home was uneventful. Some part of him wanted to speak up, tell them how much fun the day had been. Tonight's the last night, some part of him whispered. He firmly shut it away.
Besides, Sam and Tucker were his best friends. They knew what they meant to him. No need to be sappy.
Somehow he still felt like he'd just lost an important battle when Tucker let him out in front of the Fenton house.
They wished each other good night and Danny turned to the front door, a heavy weight settling in his chest. Something was very wrong.
He squashed that part of himself again, yet he did sharpen his senses. Probably his instincts were simply warning him of some new invention running amok. It was probably nothing. It was nothing.
If he kept repeating it, he might even believe it.