Chapter Text
One. Day.
Not even one day, and Danny is already back in some underground place with the whitest walls he’s ever seen.
That’s a lie. They’re gray. Light gray, but not white. Danny just can’t help but compare them to the place he had been trapped in mere hours ago. Empty, seemingly endless halls filled with stale air and a general sense of wrongness.
Danny really, really shouldn’t be here right now, following some guy dressed like he’s trying to be cool, but the outfit is ruined by his white little gloves, purple feather hood, and weird plague doctor mask. Maybe normally he would think better of this man’s fashion choices, but it feels good to insult someone who almost definitely should not be responsible for a small child.
A small child whose limbs are covered in bandages, wearing a face of fear, and a dress that suggested she didn’t matter as much as bird mask guy did. He certainly didn’t think so, not with how he gripped the girl’s wrist, nor how carelessly he spoke to her when he found her in the city above.
That was how Danny had come across these two, when he saw a lone little girl running from something. And had been caught by a man who looked at her with nothing but annoyance and anger in his eyes.
The whole scene spurred a deep unease within him, a near overwhelming sense of danger.
If the two didn’t have such unusual appearances, perhaps if the girl looked happy or if they were in the middle of a populated street, Danny wouldn’t spare them more than a glance. He’d assume the girl was just an unruly child running off from her parents on a day out.
That was not the case, and the part of him that drove him to defend Amity Park from crime and malevolent ghosts pushed him to follow.
He abandoned his mission of learning more about this world he found himself in to instead find a way to save the girl. And he knew she had to be saved, because nobody spared her a single glance the entire time he followed them. Nobody saw a scared girl and thought to do something about it.
They just looked away.
And oh did that spark a fierce anger in his core.
You would figure, that in a world full of idolized superheroes for role models, that someone would come to the rescue.
No, it was only Danny, invisible and intangible so as not to draw attention to himself, who decided to do something.
He followed them through dark alleys and streets, past sunset and all the way into a wealthier neighborhood.
The whole time he floated behind, waiting for a chance to get the girl alone or swoop in. He would have grabbed her and phased out of sight, but Danny decided to exercise caution. Who knew what could happen if he got caught.
Already in the single day he’s been here, he’s seen what the people of this world can do. He watched a superpowered villain wreck a whole street, only to be subdued by superheroes within the next few minutes. Sometimes he’d see a child show off some power to a very inhuman looking friend, only to be scolded by an adult for using it in public. Or he’d overhear a conversation about someone’s “quirk”, as they called powers here.
Powers, abilities, mutations, whatever would make someone appear to be straight out of a comic book in Danny’s world. Quirks were normal here.
Oh and that conversation that he heard, when someone was talking about quirks? It was in Japanese.
Of all the places he could go in an alternate universe, he went to Japan. For some reason he found that funny. In the infinite possibilities of the multiverse, it was probably more possible that he would wind up on an alien world if he hopped universes. But no, no he wound up in a Japan straight out of an anime.
Somehow, that thought did plenty to distract him from his current situation of being as lost as one could possibly get. The idea of it filled him with wonder. Not a lot, but the novelty of it prevented him from finding someplace dark to break down and panic. It felt better to focus on something so fascinating, than to focus on his still aching injuries and lingering fear of being found. Despite being a whole universe away from the Guys in Wh-
He shook his head of that thought. He couldn’t afford to be thinking about that right now. Not yet. He can think about it later, when this girl safe and far away from here.
Far away from walls so similar to ones he himself was trapped in not too long ago. Suffocating and soulless.
Danny was thankful he recently developed the ghostly ability to understand any language. Because when the bird mask guy spoke, he felt his anger and protective instincts were justified.
“Don’t think this stunt of yours won’t have consequences, Eri.” The man growled as he shoved her into a dark room, “The lights won’t turn back on tomorrow, you’ll have to deal with the dark for this. Somebody will come by tomorrow to take away your toys as punishment, take this time to think about what you have done.”
With that, he slammed the door shut and stomped off down the empty hall.
Oh. Wow.
Danny hates that guy.
The halfa had to restrain himself from chasing after the man. This was his chance. Eri, as was her name, was alone.
Eugh that made him sound like a creep. Bird guy is the creep here, not him. Bird guy is the one who looks to be the leader of some Japanese mafia and is keeping a little girl trapped in his basement.
She won’t be staying here for much longer, not if Danny can help it.
He phased through the door and immediately his core ached in sympathy to sound of quiet sniffling.
Softly, he knocked on the door, to which the sniffling stopped.
“Hey, your name’s Eri, right?” Danny whispered into the pitch black darkness.
For a moment he worried that despite his efforts, he scared the girl into silence before she responded in a barely there voice, “...Who’s there?”
Danny floated down onto the ground and turned visible and tangible. He summoned energy into his hand, casting a bright green light into the room. There was a large bed and plenty of books and toys, but all of the toys were left in their unopened boxes.
And there on the ground sat Eri, tears shining in the dim light.
He knelt down and gave her a gentle smile. “My name is Danny Phantom. I’m gonna get you out of here. You were trying to get away earlier, weren’t you?”
Tears spilled over Eri’s cheeks and she shook her head. Again in that tiny voice she said, “N-No. You can’t- I’ll- He’ll- You’ll get hurt.”
“I won’t get hurt.” He grinned, channeling confidence into his demeanor like he did when dealing with scared kids. “Nobody can hurt Danny Phantom! Not unless they get real lucky, and even then I heal fast.”
Still, Eri shook her head. “I’m ba-bad luck. Everyone gets hurt because of me.”
Danny’s core twinged in pain. Just what has that bird man done to this poor girl?
Slowly, so as not to startle her, he reached out to wipe away her tears. When she didn’t move away, he summoned a ball of ectoplasm to float in the air so both his hands were free.
“Whatever hurt you can cause me won’t be worse than what I’ve already been through.” –Ignore the truth in those words. Ignore it.- “Trust me, I can handle whatever comes my way. It will be worth it if I can get you out of here. You don’t want to stay here, do you?”
Eri shook her head in his hands, having not moved away from him.
“Nobody will know we’re gone. We’ll be out before anyone realizes. And when they do, we’ll be long gone and they won’t find you.”
For a long moment, Eri said nothing. She just stared into Danny’s glowing eyes as if searching for something. Whatever it was, if she found it or not, she must have decided to trust him.
“Okay. How- How do-?”
Danny smiled again and floated up to stick his hand through the wall. “I can fly, turn invisible, and go through walls. Totally undetectable.”
Eri’s eyes seemed to sparkle with something more than tears, watching Danny demonstrate his powers. “Woah.”
He floated back over to her and held a hand out to her. “You ready to go now? If you have anything you want to bring, we can take that too.”
She looked away from him and to the dark room. The big bed with a single blanket and pillow, the unopened toy boxes, unread books… Try as the adults might to make her happy, none of it mattered to her. None of it held any amount of love or meaning. No comfort. There is nothing for her here.
Her tiny hand grabbed onto his hand, her touch trembling ever so slightly. He held on and lifted her up into the air with him, transferring his own power to her.
Eri gasped and looked down at the ground, her grip tightening.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to let you fall.” He brought her closer to hold in his arms. “This better?”
She still held onto his arms, but she nodded and hummed.
“Alright, let’s get out of here!” He exclaimed, no longer worried about being overheard.
Danny flew through the ceiling and earth, all the way past the house above and into the sky.
Flying all that way so fast was a bit of a mistake. For one it seemed to have startled Eri, though she calmed down quick. But more importantly, it made Danny feel dizzy and weak, and drew power away from numbing the pain of still healing wounds.
He refused to let Eri know that though. Right now she needed a hero, someone strong to rely on. Already, he felt invigorated by getting her out. Having satisfied the desire to protect, to save someone, was probably the only thing keeping him stable in the air.
They weren’t out of the metaphorical woods yet, though. The small child may be out of immediate danger and on the first step to freedom, but the future was still uncertain.
A smart hero would have left Eri behind upon finding where she was kept. They would have returned at a later date more prepared. They would have someplace safe to take her, and ensure her captors were behind bars and unable to find her again.
On a good day Danny might be that hero. But he hasn’t even had an okay day in… Days? Weeks? Hell maybe even months, if he includes the time before he got caught.
Today was only a good day because he was free, and now Eri was too.
Danny didn’t plan this rescue mission at all. Just three steps. Follow the kid and kidnapper, get the girl alone, get her out.
Well mission accomplished! Now what? What does he do with a girl he knows nothing about? He doesn’t even know why she was there, what was being done to her, or what her relation to that man was.
As he flew closer to the ground and away from that neighborhood, he began to brainstorm.
Could he take her to the police? Probably not, he doesn’t even know what crime was being committed. He just knew there was a little girl that was unhappy enough to run away. A girl covered in bandages that lived in such a soulless place devoid of love. It might be enough to get CPS involved, but Eri might just end up back in the bird man’s clutches.
“Hey Eri?”
“Mm?”
“I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know much about you or whoever that man was. The guy with the poor fashion choice and bird mask. Who was he?”
Eri was quiet for a moment, then, “Chisaki. People call him Overhaul.”
“Oh? Why is that?” Overhaul? What kind of name is that? The guy thinks it’s a good idea to wear pants that show off his evil little ankles to the world, and he’s bad at naming himself? He did name himself that, right?
“I don’t know? I think he’s named after his quirk, it’s also called Overhaul.”
Danny drifted lower, flying low enough to weave between the taller buildings. He was beginning to really feel the consequences of using too much of his powers. Did he normally tire out this fast? Normally he had enough in him to last a few days…
“You know what his quirk does?” He hoped Eri didn’t notice the subtle breathlessness of his voice.
“It hurts.” She muttered, barely audible above the wind. “It’s messy and sometimes he doesn’t let people come back when they get hurt.”
Hmm!
Concerning!
And vague!
Maybe it really was a good idea to wait until Eri was alone. Whatever Chisaki- Overhaul- whatever the fuckless bird’s name was, whatever his quirk was, it wasn’t something to mess with. For all he knew it made people explode.
Judging by the tears and silent cries Eri was making now, she probably witnessed what it could do. She witnessed someone be murdered.
That realization prompted him to land on a roof, behind some pipes and big boxy vents. His core relaxed, and wounds began to numb again now that he wasn’t tiring himself out. The wounds still hurt though, dull, but more than the nothing he felt earlier today.
He sat down with Eri in his lap and wiped her tears away again.
“Hey, Eri, you’re safe now. I promise.” He ducked down to look her in the eyes, which he now saw were rose red. “He’s not gonna hurt you, and he’s not gonna hurt me. And if I can help it, I’ll make it so he can’t hurt anybody else either.”
“You ca-” She hiccuped, “-can’t! He’ll find me- you- He always does!”
Danny tucked her head under his chin and hugged her. How often did she receive positive touch, he wondered? Not often, if how she cried so much harder was any tell. And she did cry hard, shaking from the force of her gasps and sobs, but she was quiet. Far too quiet.
All the scared kids he’d save from disasters or ghosts cried loud, calling for their parents or to be saved. Eri cried like she was afraid to be heard at all.
Every little thing he learned about her and Overhaul made him more and more certain he did the right thing. She would never be happy in a place that made her so afraid. It all hurt his core.
He couldn’t let her go back there.
That’s what he’ll do. He will keep Eri safe, no matter what.
Not too long ago, Danny was in the Ghost Zone headed for the Far Frozen. He had just escaped from the whitest, most sterilized place in the world. The Far Frozen would be safe, that was all that was going on in his head at the time. He would be safe there, nobody could get him there.
But he hadn’t been looking where he was going, too focused on sealing bleeding wounds. Next thing he knew, he was tumbling into a new world, and watched as the natural portal he just came through closed.
He had his moment to panic. Remembering when Frostbite warned how unpredictable natural portals were, how when one closed, it may never open again.
Judging by how little ambient ectoplasm was left over after it closed, that was almost definitely the case.
Unless Frostbite heard about Danny being missing, he was trapped here.
Forever.
That revelation along with the sheer stress of having been caught and experimented on, treated worse than a lab rat, like a carcass, he broke.
He panicked and cried and screamed, high up in the sky on a skyscraper where nobody would see or hear him.
It wasn’t until the sun was low in the sky that he could finally focus on figuring out what to do.
He didn’t know what to do, not really. He floated around, observing a world and people so strange, learning what he could about it.
Honestly, part of him wished he was born in this world. Maybe then his eccentric parents would fit in better, maybe if they still built that portal, Danny would still fit in. He could join other heroes in protecting the innocent, or even leave them to it so he can become an astronaut.
But he wasn’t born here.
He was nothing more than a ghost.
Drifting aimlessly without purpose.
There were already heroes here, he wasn’t the sole defender of a city anymore. He ignored that Amity Park wasn’t under his protection anymore. He couldn’t protect a city a universe away.
Yet here was a little kid sniffling in his arms, having been hidden away somewhere heroes couldn’t find her.
This would be his purpose.
Danny would dedicate his time here protecting Eri.
He couldn’t trust any adults to do the same thing, not when everyone ignored her being dragged away. Not when he didn’t know if the police were corrupt or not. Not when there was a sliver of a chance that Overhaul might catch and hide her away again.
For as long as that man and those associated with him were free, Eri wasn’t safe. He needed to be there with her at all times so she was safe.
Until he knew more about this world and those people were in jail, Danny Phantom would remain beside Eri and protect her.
This was all he had now.
