I am once again sticking to the weekly update schedule. I am still not guaranteeing it will stay this way, but it WILL remain on a schedule.
Summary: The dragon riders are back on earth. too bad they don't recognize it.
"We can all agree they're not from the present, right?"
Danny turned to Sam, whose arms were crossed over her chest warily. She kept glancing at the group of vikings as they, too, huddled around each other anxiously from a few meters away.
As Danny sighed, Tucker butted in, "We don't know that, they could be from another dimension, too."
The gaze Danny sent him must have been similar to Sam's, because Tucker quickly followed his statement up with, "I mean, dragons? Last I checked, we don't have anything about them in our history books…"
"That's true…" Sam agreed, "but when have we ever known ghost portals to open up into other dimensions?"
Tucker opened his mouth again, and she held up a hand " – that's not a parallel dimension to itself."
Tucker closed his mouth.
"As far as I'm concerned, those helmets mean that they're vikings." Sam concluded with a definitive nod, eyes darting towards the group of dragon riders.
Tucker looked like he wanted to argue, but Danny interrupted him before he could.
"I don't think much of that matters right now." he said restlessly, "We all agree we're not gonna tell them about the time-travel, right?"
"And risk compromising the timeline? No, thank you." Tucker paused and looked to the sky, "...actually, what if we did? Clockwork would probably come to fix it, and we can ask him to find the Infimap while he's at it."
"No offense, Tuck," Sam responded, "but I'd rather not annoy the ghost in charge of the space-time continuum."
"Well how do you propose we go about this, then? It's not like we can just drag them through town. That's practically a billboard displaying something fishy. And that's not including your parents' lab, Danny." Tucker stuck a finger at the ghost boy pointedly.
"Tucker's right." Sam agreed, "I don't think dragging these people through Amity and trying to convince them that nothing's wrong is the best plan."
"Yeah", Danny reluctantly agreed, "...but do we have a choice?"
They could risk hunting down Wulf, Danny presumed, but that meant that these people would be in the Infinite Realms for a much longer time than he cared for them to be. Besides, a ghost that was on the run from Walker was a ghost that was next to impossible to find.
A shudder went through Danny at the reminder of the warden and for a second, his gaze focused on the array of definitely-not-ghostly possessions on the vikings.
"...There is another portal." He begrudgingly brought up. He turned back to Sam and Tucker to find them in varying states of disbelief.
"No." They both deadpanned.
Danny threw his hands into the air, "oh come on, you guys aren't even gonna hear me out on this?"
"Listen, Danny, I'm all for messing with the Froot Loop, but breaking into his mansion?" Tucker shook his head incredulously, "That may be one of your worst ideas yet."
"Look, I don't like the idea either," Danny admitted, "but let's be honest, it's better than leading these guys through town. It's an old-timey-looking castle in the middle of the wilderness. And Vlad isn't even there because of all his Mayor Stuff going on!"
"And then you'll be stranded in the Wisconsin wilderness," Sam deadpanned, "what are you planning to do then? Honestly, Danny, they can stay at my place. My parents have more than enough room."
"Your parents also have more than enough state-of-the-art technology." Tucker sighed blissfully, and Danny jabbed a thumb at him with a pointed look to Sam.
"What he said. I also doubt you have dragon stables."
She didn't say anything back. She only shifted her weight.
"Look, I know it's not very…host-ly…" Danny shrugged helplessly, head lulling from side to side, "but I don't see any other way to do this! I'll lead them to Lake Eerie and get them settled at that Camp Skull-and-Crossbones place our class went to a while back. They've got that whole… 'No Technology Thing'." He air quoted.
"...Still such a stupid name for a camp." Sam agreed in her niche type of way, "but don't you think that's still a little too close to Amity Park?"
Danny, admittedly, did think it was cutting it a bit close, but he'd rather it be that than an overly obscure part of the forest. "I need to get to them somehow," he shrugged.
Sam and Tucker shared a look before turning back to him. "Then I guess we'll head out." Tucker agreed reluctantly and gestured back to the treeline where Danny was sure the Specter Speeder was hidden.
"Good," Danny snorted, "go before I lecture you about leaving the Speeder." He half-joked.
Rolling their eyes, Tucker responded, "fine, dad."
"I'll see you guys later tonight." He returned the eye roll. "If you see Jazz, tell her what's happening.
Tucker gave a salute by flicking two fingers off his forehead. "Can do."
"Be safe, Danny." Sam added, and the ghost nodded earnestly.
"I will."
"Yeah, seriously, don't let those things eat you." Tucker laughed.
Sam rolled her eyes, "Wow, you're such a comedian."
Tucker chose to ignore her sarcasm, "Really? You think so? Cuz you know, I was actually considering…"
Danny tuned them out as they disappeared back into the woods.
the ghost boy's brow furrowed as he realized he didn't know how long it had been. He almost pulled his phone out, but resisted. Instead he sent his ghost sense out again.
The Behemoth was still on the opposite side of the island – curled up in a den, Danny was sure. It made him feel better to know that they weren't on a time crunch yet.
Well, not a tighter time crunch.
It wasn't long after he caught a glimpse of the Speeder heading out that the vikings approached him again.
"So, where is this portal you're taking us to?" The brunette – Hiccup as he'd come to know – asked with a crooked smile.
Danny had to remind himself to switch back into Norse before he answered. "It's a bit of a flight. Are you guys ready to go?"
"Some of us never landed in the first place," Snot-something complained as his lower half still seemed to be determined in becoming his upper half. Danny resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
"Fair point." He decided not to push it, his core could feel the unease seeping through the air. "Then I guess I shouldn't keep you guys waiting."
Flying in the Infinite Realms was different from flying on Earth. For one, there was no gravity – that much was a given. But there was also no wind as well.
It was easier to fly in it, he'd dare to say; learning how to fly while in Amity certainly wasn't a piece of cake. The wind was something he had to learn how to navigate, and gravity constantly pulled at his core to let him know that he was trespassing in something that should be impossible to trespass in.
But Danny wasn't just a ghost, he was a human, and much like his ancestors, his gaze had always been plastered to the stars. He didn't let something like physics deter him.
That being said, his flying system didn't involve wings.
He had no idea how flying with them actually worked, but watching the dragons struggle in the atmosphere that hugged him in the way Earth's never had made Danny realize that, perhaps, the only reason the wind seemed to hate him was because he never had any of his own.
"Just a few more miles," he tried to encourage them, his tongue twisted and instead of 'miles', the word 'rôst' spilled into the air instead. His core told his mind that they were similar measurements, and a disbelieving chuckle left Danny at the realization.
If only his school work would come to him as easy as that. He pressed a hand over his core as Hiccup turned with a polite pull of his lips. It wasn't quite a smile. His eyes fell to Danny's hand with curiosity. "If you don't mind me asking…what's that symbol on your chest?"
"Oh!" Danny exclaimed as a smile broke out on his face, "Sam designed it. It's…my initials combined, kind of." He traced it with a bashful shrug.
Hiccup seemed satisfied, "Hmm. I don't recognize those runes, I guess…" he trailed off.
Danny took that statement like a warning. Had he said too much, already? He hadn't realized that Vikings used a different alphabet. Did the English Alphabet even exist in their time?
What was their time? How far from home were they?
"What's with the doors?" The new question snapped Danny out of his musings and he turned to see…was it Fishfeet? It was something like that, pointing to yet another floating door as they passed.
He didn't answer for quite a while as he debated whether or not he should explain. Fish seemed to lose his bravado at that. "I-I mean, if that question isn't…"
"Oh way to go, Fishlegs, now you pissed him off!" Snotlout snapped and threw up his hand, he turned to point a battle axe towards Danny, "Don't you even try anything, Acid Eyes, or I'm gonna pummel you –"
"Snotlout if you don't shut your mouth I'm going to actually send you to Hel." Astrid droned as her blue dragon flew between them.
The shorter viking squawked indignantly, sputtering out something that didn't help his case, and Danny chose to turn back to Fishlegs, who still looked rather anxious.
"It's fine. They're…other portals, I guess. Ghosts live in them." He supposed that was true since the Infinite Realms had been created, and he knew for a fact that was way before much of recorded history, so it technically wasn't something that could disrupt the timeline.
Ancients, this was making his head hurt.
Fishlegs made an 'O' face, and something that was both disturbed and intrigued settled in his eyes. It reminded Danny of the way his parents looked at ghosts.
At least these people were actually ignorant, and not willingly.
Vlad's portal appeared a half-hour or so later, hidden amidst a bunch of floating debris that looked like the remains of a brick building. At least it was better than the giant football.
Danny forced down his nerves as they lingered to a stop. Now came the hard part.
Spinning to the vikings, he jabbed a finger towards the portal. "I'm going to make sure that the other side is clear for you guys." It wasn't technically a lie, but he still hoped it sounded convincing, "Just stay right here until I give you the all-clear."
The group didn't seem too happy with the prospect of staying in the Infinite Realms for much longer, but they seemed to agree anyway.
With a tired sigh, Danny darted through Vlad's portal. He blinked as the green landscape dimmed into a darkened lab.
A quick scan of the room revealed a menial layer of dust over a lot of the surfaces. Not that Danny was surprised with Vlad's move to Amity, but it did make him wonder where the man was doing his experiments now.
Speaking of…
Danny's head swiveled to the corner, where he found a security camera blinking. The ghost boy felt a snarky grin break out on his face as he floated up to it. He wasn't sure if it had audio recording skills, and even if it did his ghostliness wouldn't allow it to pick it up, but he spoke anyway. "I promise I'm not breaking our truce, Fruit Loop," he chuckled as his thumb searched for the power-off button, "just passing through…"
He found it with a satisfied click of the tongue, and the security camera turned off with a whirl, its lens falling towards the ground.
Doing much the same, Danny turned back to the lab and plastered his hands on his hips. "Okay," he muttered to himself, "now comes the harder part."
The task was 'harder', because it wasn't as simple as pressing a button. But truthfully, the most difficult part of the entire thing was finding enough sheets to hang over Vlad's machines. Danny had to wonder why the man didn't do this in the first place, but rationalizing the other halfa's actions was something that he'd given up on long ago.
In fact, he was probably doing Vlad a favor now that he thought about it. Danny floated up in the middle of the room and spun to make sure that everything was secured. "Okay," he tried to hype himself up as he turned back to the portal, "please work…"
Poking his head back out of the portal prompted a small startle amongst the vikings, Danny tried not to flinch apologetically. "Alright, all clear over here!" He called and nodded his head back over his shoulder.
Except…none of them moved. Danny's brow furrowed. "Well don't all of you jump at once…" He muttered. He thought they'd be ecstatic to get out of here. "What's wrong?"
It took a moment before one of them answered. "...can never be too cautious." Hiccup shrugged before tapping Toothless on the side of his neck. The night fury crooned and inched forwards. "I guess I'll take one for the team…again."
Danny wasn't sure he was supposed to hear the last part, but then again he'd heard a lot of supposed-to-be-private comments since gaining his powers.
"Just, ah, make sure you prepare for the gravity shift." He advised, popping the rest of the way out of the portal to give the duo some room.
Hiccup quirked an eyebrow. "Gravity?"
The word was weird with his accent, and Danny slapped himself.
So vikings were before Newton. He'd figured as such, but there was a reason he was failing his history class.
What did people pre-1600's call gravity?
"Just – be prepared to land." Danny corrected himself, and Hiccup seemed to catch onto his words with a slow nod.
"Alright…"
The viking hesitated in front of the portal, turning back to give his gang a reassuring nod. "Five minutes?" He called, and Snotlout as well as Fishlegs groaned.
That was obviously a joke that Danny wasn't privy to, but a smile broke out on his face anyway.
With a final, not-exactly-sad look around the Infinite Realms, Hiccup and Toothless plunged through Vlad's portal, and everyone else was quick to follow.
Danny knew that their dragons were big, but he hadn't really registered that until they were being forced into a finite space. It was strange, realizing that these hulking beasts were…alive, and couldn't just turn intangible if things got too cramped.
He didn't want to keep the vikings in Vlad's lab any longer than he needed to, so he may have seemed a little suspicious as he ushered the vikings through Vlad's secret hallway and out into his library.
Fishlegs and Hiccup both seemed to fawn at the sight of the multi-storied shelves, and if they were literally from any other place, Danny would have, maybe, told them to take a few souvenirs.
"What is this place?" Astrid asked as they made their way through the hallways.
The humans seemed to be in a much better mood now that they were back on Earth, and her tone didn't have as much of that biting wariness he'd begun to associate with her. Instead, she seemed genuinely curious. Hiccup was smiling at her as they walked.
"It's…just a place I know." Danny said rather flatly, "No one's been using it, so…"
All he got as a response was a suspicious hum from Astrid, and she and Hiccup seemed to share another glance that Danny couldn't quite read.
As they came to the front door, Danny opted to turn the locking mechanism intangible (though, he deliberately blocked this from the viking's point of view), he hoped it looked like he was just opening an already-unlocked door.
He hoped Vlad didn't have some sort of rich-guy security system, because he didn't know how he would explain his company to the cops.
He didn't know how he would explain the cops to his company.
"Alright, welcome back to Earth!" he held his arms out as the sun greeted them, breathing in the scent of sweet pine.
Snotlout let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, I didn't think I'd ever miss the sight of living grass." His dragon – a large red one – glided down the marble steps and soon the both of them were laying in Vlad's very pristine lawn.
"Yeah, no kidding." Hiccup snorted as he, too, dismounted his own dragon.
He promptly slipped and, with a metallic screech, fell onto the marble porch.
"Ouch…" He groaned, and Danny began to dart over to him but was cut off by Astrid.
"Hiccup…" she stifled a laugh as he sent her a glare.
"Yeah, I know." He sighed as he propped his left foot onto his right knee.
There was a prosthetic there. Why had Danny just noticed that? He'd noticed Toothless' red tail fin and all the mechanics attached to it, but he hadn't noticed Hiccup's own?
…weren't they supposed to be made of wood? Or was that pirates?
"Woah, that thing looks cool!" the ghost boy found himself saying, and it was true. It had some sort of…suspension on it, which was definitely not something that pirates had.
Hiccup seemed to blush slightly as he inspected his prosthetic. "Thanks…it's got some 'Hiccup Flare'..." He looked to the sky like he was remembering the words of someone else. He remained still for a little bit before shaking his head. "Alas, it still has some kinks to work out…"
He took Astrid's hand and leaned on her for a bit after he was hoisted back to his feet. He was giving the stink-eye to the stairs. "Polished rock is, apparently, one of them."
Danny shrugged, "eh, Vlad has a habit of making very stupid architectural statements. I mean, you guys saw the…" He trailed off before he could explain the man's football obsession and it left a sour expression on his face.
"Anyways," He shook his head, "let's get you guys to the camping spot, and then we'll figure out how to get you back home from there."
"Wait, I thought we were home. You mean we aren't in the archipelago?" Snotlout had righted himself on the grass.
"The what-i-pelago?" Danny responded, but the vikings seemed to ignore his question.
"How are we not in the archipelago? We didn't even travel a day's time!" Fishlegs exclaimed, making a sun-visor with his hand to look to the sky. He paused for a moment. "...actually…no, that's not possible." He shook off whatever he wanted to say, but his brow remained furrowed.
"Um," Danny panicked, "Distance works a bit – differently in the Infinite Realms than on Earth. So."
"So…where are we, then?" Hiccup asked.
"...Wisconsin." Danny couldn't lie. He just hoped Clockwork didn't appear to chew him out later.
"And where is Wisconsin?" Astrid asked, and again the word sounded weird with her accent.
"If you're asking for coordinates, you're looking at the wrong ghost, dude." Danny shook his head with a nervous chuckle, but he felt a wave of unease settle through the vikings, so he tried to comfort them.
"Look, it's a few hours flight north of my…" could he use the word city? "Village," He settled on. That sounded more old-timey, "There's some campsites out on the edge that you guys can stay in."
At their silence, Danny spun to face them. "Look. That's…the best I can do for now. I promise I'm going to get you home, but you have to give me a little time."
Danny tried not to think about how much time they'd already given.
The flight to Amity had been considerably easier than the one in the Infinite Realms. Danny was quick to learn that dragons could be fast, which was just as well, as they were flying in mid-day. Thankfully, what they did fly over was mostly wilderness, so there were no unwanted eyes as far as Danny could tell, but he was still thankful when the sun finally set.
They landed at Camp Skull-and-Crossbones about two hours after they took off from Vlad's, at which point Danny couldn't ignore the buzzing of his phone any longer.
He just had to be thankful that it hadn't been set to ring.
With a quick apology, he flew into the air for some privacy.
"Danny?" Jazz's voice rang through the speaker. She sounded exasperated, like she was on the cusp of worry.
"I'm fine," he soothed, "what's up?"
She sighed in relief. "Sam and Tuck came back from the Ghost Zone without you – they said something about vikings? And camp Skull-and-Crossbones? What's going on? You had us worried when you didn't answer!"
the ghost boy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry, I know, I just – I don't need these guys asking any more questions than they already have. I don't know what's gonna mess up the timeline or not."
"...wait, are you saying they're not ghost-vikings?" Jazz sounded almost excited, "You mean like, real, breathing vikings?"
"Yeah," Danny chuckled tiredly, "The whole shebang, plus dragons."
The silence on the other end was very telling, and the ghost boy could imagine her 'buffering' face. "Okay, now you're just pulling my leg."
"I kind of wish I was?" Danny admitted, "but I have some very clingy spit still on my suit to prove otherwise."
"...I don't know whether to be amazed or disgusted." Jazz whispered, "I…I need to do some research on this. Fly home safe, Danny. I mean it!"
"I will," the ghost boy shook his head fondly, "Love ya, Jazz."
"Yeah, yeah…dragons…" She muttered, and if Danny hadn't been the one to hang up he was sure she would have forgotten to.
Danny pocketed his phone and turned to look at the group of vikings, who seemed to be setting up camp already. He'd actually expected them to take up one of the cabins, but he supposed if they really were from the viking era they'd be used to roughing it.
He met them just as Snotlout and Fishlegs set down a bunch of kindling and began arranging them into a strange sort of campfire. "Are you guys going to need anything before I head out? I'm sure I can grab you…something to eat…" he trailed off at the sight of a crossbow being pulled from one of the twins' bags, and they gave him a mischievous smile as they walked into the woods.
The others didn't seem phased about this, and instead shrugged in varying ways. "We'll manage. We always do." Hiccup answered. He noticed that the campfire was done being arranged, and pointed at it. "Toothless, you mind?"
The night fury growled and turned to the bundle of sticks with half-lidded eyes. A purple flash of light followed, and soon the campfire was alive with flames that quickly turned orange.
A disbelieving laugh left Danny's nose at the sight, he turned back to Toothless with almost the same wonder he had when looking at the stars. "Wow…"
He felt Hiccup watch him for a moment, and for some reason he felt too skittish to meet his eyes. Whatever the older teen wanted to say, he bit his tongue.
Danny glanced behind him, where he could see the lights of Amity polluting the sky. Just the sight of it made his core sink. "I'll bring you guys some breakfast tomorrow morning, if you'd like?"
He wasn't all that sure if hunting here was even legal. But he wasn't going to tell them that for obvious reasons, so giving them alternatives was the best option.
Hiccup turned to gage the rest of his riders' reactions before he gave Danny a response. Even then, it was kind of hesitant. "You don't have to, but we'll be here anyway…"
Well, that was better than what he was usually met with. Danny nodded an affirmative.
He almost wanted to give out his number, but he realized how useless that would have been a second later. He felt even worse just…leaving them there, but he had a haunt to take care of.
The vikings didn't seem very phased by the distance, which was still overtly weird to him. How did people live like this?
"Okay, well…I guess we'll see you tomorrow, then." Danny said, hesitated, and then held out his hand. "It was nice flying with you, today."
Hiccup stared at his hand for a long while, enough that it made Danny wonder if it had frosted over at some point. He tilted his palm upwards to check, and the movement seemed to prompt Hiccup to hesitantly return it. He latched onto his forearm instead of his hand, giving a polite shake.
"...Thank you, Phantom." He acknowledged, only making eye contact for a split second.
And, well, that was better than nothing.
A ghost hunting convention had called for Jack and Maddie Fenton to be guest speakers a few days ago, so it was a lot easier for Jazz to have already deactivated the ghost alarms before Danny got back.
Their parents' week-long absence also meant that Danny wasn't getting caught breaking curfew, so the only reason he really held onto his invisibility until he was in the living room was to ward off any prying eyes.
Danny dropped onto the carpet with a flash of white rings, causing Jazz, who had her homework sprawled out on the coffee table, to jump briefly. He giggled as her face fell in exasperated realization.
"Not funny, Danny." She deadpanned as she reached down to pick up her thrown pencil. the ghost boy shook his head in amusement as he stretched.
"Sorry," he chuckled as she closed her textbook and set it and the pencil gingerly on top of the coffee table.
"How was the flight?" She asked, standing and stretching in a way that said she'd been sitting for quite a while.
Shrugging, Danny began walking towards the kitchen. "Not as long as I was expecting. Dragons are, evidently, strong fliers." He saw the oven light open, and cracked it open to reveal a casserole dish full of something that didn't look ectoplasm-infected. "Did you make this?"
"Just because Mom and Dad gave us take-out money doesn't mean we should use all of it. Besides, I wanted to try out the recipe." She said, paused briefly, and Danny could see her shake her head as he wrapped his hands in oven mits to pull the dish out.
"Dragons. Ancients, I still don't believe it. What did they look like?"
What did they look like? Giant, winged lizards was the obvious answer, but they were all so vastly different that it was almost overwhelming. Danny's brow furrowed as he prepared a considerable serving.
"One of them had two heads," he started, "and one really reminded me of a bumble bee." He chuckled.
"You mean they had different traits?" Jazz sunk into her chair at the table as Danny neared it.
He nodded. "Yeah, they had different scales, too. Different colors. One of them was pitch black – seemed pretty friendly, I guess. No teeth, which is probably where his name comes from, now that I think about it…" He shoved a forkful into his mouth and hummed in pleasant surprise. "This is actually good, Jazz!"
"Danny, focus." Jazz snapped a finger, "but thank you."
The ghost boy waited until after he swallowed to continue his train of thought. "Some of them were, like, Wyverns? I think that's what they're called. They didn't have four legs like Dora or her brother."
"And you're positive they didn't look anything like them, either?"
Shaking his head, Danny took another bite. "Nah, I've never seen anything like it."
Jazz was shaking her head. "I can't believe it. Not only are there living, breathing dragons, but there are different species of dragons?" She got up restlessly, pacing as her hands rested gingerly on her lips.
"Did Sam and Tuck not tell you this?" Danny asked.
It was Jazz's turn to shake her head, her gaze was still plastered to the floor. "No, I was out at a tutoring lesson when they got back. They texted me a brief rundown but that's about it." She eyed him worriedly, "I don't like that you escorted them on your own. What if something happened?"
"I can handle it, Jazz." Danny narrowed his eyes with an annoyed twitch, "besides, I don't think we could explain away the Speeder."
Jazz neither agreed nor disagreed with that. Her stink eye continued for a moment longer, "and you're sure these vikings aren't from a different dimension or something?"
Danny resisted the urge to move his head, his grip tightened on his fork. "Frostbite said that portals only opened between Earth and the Infinite Realms. He seemed pretty confident with that."
Jazz let out a noise that was a mixture of a disappointed sigh and an excited gasp. "So that means that, somewhere out there, there are dragons in the fossil record – an entire part of history lost to time! Danny, this is incredible!"
"Yeah, if only we could call up National Geographic." He droned with an eye roll. Jazz suddenly became a lot more solemn.
"So you haven't told them? About the – time travel thing?" She asked.
Danny was quiet for quite a few minutes as he stabbed at his plate. "I – no, not yet."
Jazz's look was rather skeptical, so he elaborated, "I took some detours to avoid anything…present-looking. That's why they're at Camp Skull-and-Crossbones."
"You can't expect that to work for very long…" Jazz said, and Danny groaned.
"I'm trying to play it safe, okay? I don't know what Clockwork considers…okay or not. Besides, even if it wouldn't ruin the timeline, they've already been through enough with the whole 'Falling Through a Ghost Portal' deal…" His thumb came to rub at his palm, and suddenly the dinner table was very far beneath his elbows.
The feeling of a hand being set over his own drew Danny out of his musings. He looked up to see Jazz with worry in her glistening eyes. "Hey," she said, "You're doing great, okay?"
He managed a smile, but turned away. "Thanks, Jazz."
She nodded comfortingly, "You don't need to have an answer now, but…do you have any idea how we're going to get them back?"
Despite his best efforts, Danny's head betrayed him and shook back and forth. "The only thing I really know would work is missing." He grumbled, twirling his fork on the plate slowly.
There was something that Jazz obviously wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. He didn't think she needed to speak for him to know what she was thinking.
He couldn't keep those vikings in the woods forever.
Danny had another plate before he was full, at which point Jazz had gone back to her homework. He threw his plate into the sink and pretended to not see the other dirty dishes that were piling up before heading to his room.
He called up Sam and Tucker as he plopped onto his bed, staring tiredly at the glow in the dark stars plastered to his ceiling. Even now, sleep was calling to him in the back of his mind, and he rubbed a hand over his face as the dial-up tone rang in his ear.
"Danny?" Tucker picked up first, and the ghost boy greeted him with a groan.
He could imagine the techie cringing, "That bad, huh?"
"What's bad?" Sam's voice came through after a click, "Sorry, I was stuck at that 'pre-business trip' dinner with my parents. Thanks for getting me out of that, by the way."
Chuckling, Danny's head lofted to the side to look out his window. As per usual, his parents' sign was blocking out any chance he had at viewing the stars. "Not bad, just long." he answered the previous question. "You guys get back without much trouble?"
There were pretty nonchalant affirmatives from both Sam and Tucker that left Danny's core feeling just slightly better. He sat up and made his way over to his desk, wiggling the mouse until the monitor booted up.
"I've been doing some research on, y'know, Vikings and stuff," Tucker was saying, "And it seems our friends here jumped a good millenia through time."
"Yeesh," Sam audibly sucked in a breath through her teeth, "That's gonna be jarring."
"Yeah, no kidding." Danny agreed, grumbling as his search for 'dragons' prompted only a slew of children's books and toys. "Any update on the Infimap?"
Not unexpectedly, he was met with matching "no's". He sighed wearily. It was just as well. Sam and Tuck shouldn't have to be doing his work.
"I think we're going to need to get a read of every ecto signature in that vault," Tucker said, the sound of his keyboard clacking made its way through his speakers, "I know that Frostbite said there was nothing there that shouldn't be there, but there has to be something, right?"
Clicking to the next search page turned the marketing websites to conspiracy ones, and Danny promptly gave up on his search. "Ugh, I'm too tired to be thinking about this tonight." He grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Well then go get some sleep," he could practically hear Sam rolling her eyes in that way that conveyed 'caring', "We'll do some brainstorming and get back to you during patrol."
"Well I'm gonna feel guilty if I let you guys do most of the hard work," Danny protested.
"Said the dude that just flew, like, 200 miles today." Tucker countered, "Seriously, Danny. Go get some shuteye. We've got this, right Sam?"
"Damn straight!"
Danny hummed briefly, pulling his phone back to check the time. "You guys shouldn't be doing this." He reprimanded, "it's not your job."
"Which is why we're not asking for paychecks," he could practically hear an eye roll from Sam.
"That's arguably worse, you know that right?" He countered, and there were twin chuckles from Sam and Tuck that he didn't like. "I'm serious, guys." He iterated.
"Danny," Tucker retorted, "this isn't a big deal. We're Team Phantom! Besides, wouldn't you rather get some shut eye before your patrol?"
Glancing at the clock revealed a few hours until he had to leave. Danny grumbled apprehensively. "...I can power through –"
"Oh, what's that? Sorry, we can't hear you, oh King of Sleep Deprivation, you're – you're cutting out!" Sam said in an overly dramatic voice.
"Very funny, Sam." Danny felt his eye begin to twitch.
He was going to protest some more, but Tucker had joined in with a very bad rendition of static interference, and he couldn't get much through. "Alright, alright!" he relented, turning back to his bed in defeat, "But you guys text me if you make any breakthroughs."
They both gave enthusiastic confirmations, at which point the ghost boy hung up the phone and promptly fell back into his sheets.
Astrid stopped watching Phantom's form only after he disappeared on the horizon, which was rather hard to do because he literally glowed. She hadn't really noticed it in the Infinite Realms – Ghost Zone – whatever it was called, but now he was nearly indiscernible from the stars.
"We can all agree this is weird, right?" She asked as she leaned back against Stormfly.
"Which part?" Snotlout groaned, "His weird handshake? The fact that he's dead? Oh, I'm definitely not getting any sleep tonight…"
"Well…all of it was weird," Astrid admitted with a shrug as she plucked at the blades of grass below her, "I mean…ghosts."
"Ghosts." Fishlegs agreed with a very similar tone, and she noticed he'd pulled out his notebook again, undoubtedly to write down everything he remembered.
"But there's something in particular that's bothering you?" Hiccup asked as he pulled a fishing net from Toothless' saddlebag, and Astrid admitted this with a nod.
Beyond the dead boy, and the dead creature, and the dead netherworld, she just…couldn't shake the feeling that something else was going on. "I mean the…the flight here." She paused.
"This is one big island, that's for sure." Snotlout agreed.
Astrid shook her head, "No, I mean – yeah, that's weird, too, but…you guys saw those lights in the distance, those were definitely villages, right? Why wouldn't he lead us to those?"
"I doubt most people are gonna be very welcoming to a ghost…" Fishlegs fiddled with his thumbs.
"Fair point…" Astrid raked a hand through her hair. Though from her point of view, it seemed to be the ghosts that weren't very welcoming to humans. Even by Phantom's own admission, he was an outlier.
Not that she could take his word for what it was, yet. He may have helped them, but there were most definitely ulterior motives that Astrid had not caught onto yet.
Gods. She was still rather surprised at how calmly she was taking this entire situation. A ghost. They'd just spent an afternoon with a ghost, and all she could think about right now was when Ruff and Tuff would be back with dinner.
The shield maiden got to her feet suddenly as Hiccup slung the fishing net over his shoulder and hopped onto Toothless. He turned as she neared him. "Care to join us?" He asked with that crooked smile that she loved.
She nodded wordlessly, and he returned the motion. Stormfly got up to follow them.
The lake was…well. Astrid supposed it was better than a mudpit. It was murky, and more green than blue from what she could see in the dark. Algae, long-dead driftwood, and fog decorated the surface. As she and Hiccup tied the net to their dragons' saddles and went out to the center of it, she noticed with a shiver that waves didn't even bother to grace the body of water.
"I guess it's on par to what we've been dealing with so far…" Hiccup grumbled as they lowered the net into the water.
"I swear to Thor, if another ghost pops out of this lake, I'm done." Astrid shook her head, "what did Phantom call that thing we fought earlier?"
"A behemoth, I think…" Hiccup said, and the word rang a bell.
Against her will, a shiver raked its way across her spine. She didn't want to know what part of the world that creature came from before it died.
The only thing that Astrid heard for a while was the water lapping against the net as they dragged it along the surface. When she looked back to Hiccup, his face was contorted into a disturbed expression.
"What's wrong?" She asked, he jolted slightly to look at her.
He opened his mouth for a second, closed it while looking to the horizon, and then opened it again. "You…saw how Phantom defeated that thing, right?"
Astrid swallowed. "How could I forget?" She said, "I mean…green fire? Have you ever seen that before?" She chuckled nervously.
"Was it fire though?" Hiccup countered, "I mean, that thing he put around us…" He paused briefly as the net caught and then shuddered. At least there were fish in this lake, "it looked pretty solid."
That was true. Like a reminder to the whole situation, the nick on her foot stung right then. With a grumble, she pulled off her ruined boot to inspect it.
"Did that arrow get you?" Hiccup asked, concern lacing the air, "How bad is it?
Astrid shook her head as she rubbed a thumb over the dried blood. "Not bad, my boot got the worst of it. Don't even think I'll get a scar out of it." She felt a faint sense of disappointment at that, but giggled when Hiccup gave her the stink eye.
The net pulled then, and they both lifted it to reveal a pretty okay catch. It was enough to feed their dragons, at least. Astrid was honestly relying on Meatlug snacking on rocks more than anything else.
"...I don't recognize these species." Hiccup mumbled, and she glanced down to find that she agreed.
"...are you okay?" She asked.
He looked at her with something that was almost disbelieving in his eyes, "I'm not the one that almost died." He answered.
"Please don't do that." Astrid scolded, "You know I hate it when you do that."
He didn't say anything, looking back towards the horizon line with the strange light that Phantom had flown to.
"Hiccup." She said, and he finally turned to her.
"I know," he sighed, "I'm sorry, I just – I can't help but feel like…"
Astrid wanted to set a comforting hand on his shoulder, but she couldn't do that. Instead she tilted her head to the side, because Hiccup's had dropped to his saddle and it was becoming rather hard to catch his gaze.
"Hey, we're all alive, aren't we?" She asked.
Hiccup shrugged. He seemed like he wanted to wallow for a bit longer, but he quickly sat back up and put a mask over his face. "You're right."
They caught the tail end of Snotlout and Fishlegs conversation as they landed with their catch. "No, because what was that material he was wearing?" Snotlout threw his hands out like Phantom was floating right in front of him.
"Maybe it's some kind of ghost fabric?" Fishlegs suggested.
Hiccup dismounted Toothless, who trilled and then jumped to get first grabs at the fish. The rest of the dragons had also gotten to their feet, and Astrid patted Stormfly on the side once she slipped off her.
"Phantom said that suit protected him from the Ghost Zone. I doubt ghost material would do that."
"I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that." Fishlegs shook his head as Hiccup neared, tilting his notebook so that the dragon whisperer could take a look at it, "I mean, he said a lot of things that were…odd, right? What kind of ghost needs protection from a realm for ghosts?"
Hiccup steadied the notebook with one hand and was silent as he read over Fishlegs notes. "I mean…we need protection from weather phenomena here. Maybe it's the same thing?"
Somehow, Astrid didn't like that explanation. "He sighed", she said, "when we exited the Ghost Zone. Wouldn't you have to breathe to do that?"
"Maybe a habit from when he was alive?" Fishlegs inquired as Hiccup leaned closer to the journal.
"What's this referencing?" Hiccup asked.
Fishlegs leaned to see what he was pointing at. "Just some theories. I mean…the sun. I didn't want to mention it when Phantom was just – there, but…the sun was way too high considering how long we were in the Ghost Zone for."
There was silence for a moment, and Hiccup brushed his hand across the runes. "He did say distance worked differently there. Maybe time does, too." he said, but Astrid caught his glance for long enough to see the unease that rested there.
"Look, there's obviously something he's not telling us." Snotlout exclaimed, "Are we sure we can even trust this guy?"
"Not that I disagree with you, Snotlout, bute did save us from the Behemoth." Fishlegs reprimanded, "And he stayed true to his word about getting us out of that place."
At Snotlout's skeptical look, Fishlegs squeaked, "look, I'm not saying he actually lied to us, it may have just…slipped his mind?"
"Yeah, besides, when have you ever spilled out your whole life story to total strangers, Snotlout." Astrid snarked.
He opened his mouth with an upward twitch of his lips.
"Don't answer that."
"Oh come on!" Snotlout protested, and Hookfang let out a mimic of a chuckle from where the dragons were eating. "Shut up, Hookfang! Look, we all agree he's shady, right?"
Admittedly, Astrid had to nod. She was slightly relieved to see that Hiccup did, too. At least she wasn't paranoid.
"So that means we have to figure out what he's being shady about!" Snotlout resolved, throwing his hands in the air, "let's get the jump on this guy!"
"Maybe he's pretending to be a ghost!" came Tuffnut's voice from the treeline, and he and Ruffnut appeared from the brush carrying two rabbits, "and he makes these nightly escapades to do…ghostly stuff!"
"Ghostly stuff." Astrid snorted, "genius as always, Tuff."
Snotlout stood to take the rabbits from the twins, obviously brooding for the time being.
"You scoff now, but mark my words, Astrid Hofferson."
"I've got my own reservations, too." Hiccup muttered much to Astrid's surprise.
Heads turned to their leader, and he pressed his lips together nervously. "I mean…look, I'm not denying that he's obviously something supernatural. We all saw the same thing. But…ghosts? It just doesn't sit right with me…"
"It's not like we have any ghostly companions to compare him to, though." Astrid countered, "or anything else for that matter."
Hiccup hummed noncommittally.
Sighing, Astrid tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Nobody better complain about dinner tonight," Snotlout warned, "There's no spices. I'm working with what I got." He held up the skins of the rabbits, "anyone need extra pelts?"
Astrid raised her hand, feeling the unusual chill creep back into her punctured boot, and Snotlout tossed it her way.
She snatched it from the air effortlessly.
Sorry if this chapter's a little slow, but it had to be done.
I'm a fucking sucker for Badger Cereal, but it's not gonna work here, so we're compromising and yall are getting what I've dubbed Domesticated Vlad Masters: his Mayor plan backfired, and now he doesn't have time to be a villain.
"Oh, you use she/they pronouns? That's so cool...so can I she/them tiddi-" - user "syductively" on tiktok
Until next time, my lovelies :)
~Local Dragon Haunt