Chapter Text
Travelling through portals is never a fun experience for Danny.
This is no exception.
Danny, as Phantom, was just exploring a mostly uncharted area of the Ghost Zone when Cujo had come barreling in, knocking Danny off course. As the halfa and ghost dog were occupied with slobbery face licks and tail wags, a portal had popped open in the way of their new trajectory.
Completely off guard and distracted, the two ghosts subsequently fly straight through its middle.
And now Danny is dealing with the most uncomfortable body manipulation he has ever experienced in his half-life. He's manipulated his ectoplasmic body plenty of times before, and it has never, and probably will never, physically hurt him. He briefly wonders if Cujo was also feeling the discomfort before he was soon spat out onto the other side of the portal.
Tumbling in the air in a free fall, the 19 year old desperately tried to get his senses under control in order to stop his fall. He tries to call on his ghostly flight but couldn't seem to get it to work. His limbs felt strange and completely unlike the ones he was born (and had died) with that he couldn't begin to work with them. His body felt too long and narrow, arms too lanky and broad, seeming to catch the air at random moments, his face and eyes felt different, elongated and sharp respectively. Cujo's frantic whimpers and yelps told Danny that the ghost dog was probably also having trouble getting used to his new limbs, whatever transformation he had recieved.
But sooner rather than later, Danny ended up close to the ground, having crashed chest-first straight into a pointy tree. Several pointy trees, actually, as he continued to crash and bump into more pines like a falling comet, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. He finally ended up heavily landing on the ground and rocks below, skidding through the dirt and tree roots until he was forced to a sudden stop by a thick branch from a fallen tree being rammed cleanly into the flesh under his right shoulder.
The halfa freely roared out at the sudden pain he's now feeling, head thrown back into the air by a longer, thin neck, barely registering the fact that the sound coming out of his mouth is one he isn't capable of making.
Some fast rustling noise comes from the direction he crashed in from, and a small but thick body collides with Danny, causing the two to flip over the fallen tree in a tangle of awkward limbs and breaking the branch from the tree in response.
The halfa lets out a pathetic, breathy whine, trying to breathe through the pain invading his body. A strange sounding bark filled Danny's ears, making him shakily open his eyes to see what it was. When did I close them..?
His new sharpened eyesight locks on to a weird creature struggling to get its limbs underneath it while staring worriedly at Danny. Or at least, I think it's looking at me in worry.
It had a bit of a chunky body, with four stout legs ending in some decent, slightly curved claws. A tail was trying to work itself out behind the creature, swaying and flopping around at random and highlighting the fact that it had a sort of boney, axe-looking club at the end. There was a pair of wings settled on the creature's back, flicking open and closed, showing how large they are compared to the small body. Well... I thought it was small at first. When looking at the surrounding foliage, the creature is actually rather big in comparison, seeming to be around 10 to 15 feet in length from axe tail to short, chubby nose. Its short but large head rests on a thick neck, capable of carrying a great set of moose antlers that rests above a pair of giant, bright red eyes. Its underbite opened to reveal a wide mouth with tiny, cone shaped teeth as it called out in a garbled bark.
The strange thing about the creature, besides the uncanny feeling that it looks an awful lot like an artist's unique interpretation of a dragon, was its color. It was a dark lime green along its head and the top half of its body, fading into a bright light green along the bottom of its neck and belly. Random speckles of dark red and black appear around the bottom of its feet, along the edges of the wings and in the membranes, the sides of its body and neck, and around its nose and cheeks.
Danny got the distinct feeling that he should know what this creature who is staring expectantly at him is, but nothing comes to mind as he continues to stare unabashedly at it. Another garbled sounding bark emerges from its mouth and it suddenly clicks for the halfa.
"Cujo?!" But the sound that left Danny's mouth was not human words, but a strange roar a little on the higher pitch scale. The dragon-creature, now revealed to be a transformed Cujo, happily stands at attention at his name being called, wagging his apparently destructive axe tail as it pummeled any bushes and tree trunks in its way while his tongue stuck out of his mouth in a happy pant.
However, as Cujo started to hop around on awkward new limbs, Danny quickly decided to take stock of his own new body after hearing his not-quite voice.
The halfa could only stare as he took in his own thin, long body in shock. He was rather streamlined but made of compact muscle thanks to his time fighting ghosts the past 5 years. His chest seemed a bit broad for his thinner body, and he wondered if there was a significant reason for that. He had two legs that ended in three toes with sharp, long talons. His tail was as long (and tangled, Danny thought as he saw how it was nearly wrapped around trunks and branches) as his body and neck combined and had interesting fiery-looking tail fins near the end. He no longer has to deal with arms as they have turned into large spanning wings, with an unusual separation between each lobe, almost into a shape of diamonds but more ragged and reminding him of Sam's lectures of poisonous plant leaves. On the inside of where the inner elbow would be on each wing, were two slightly curved hooks. When he looked beneath the sprawled wing, he saw long, slightly curved spikes protruding from his back in regular intervals, leading down his tail and up his long neck, and presumably to his head which he cannot see at the moment without a reflective surface. His coloring seemed to be following his theme - albeit loosely - as his body was covered in a light gray-blue. The very edges of his body and underbelly was a bright silver color interspersed with a bright blue. The spiked wings even held a dark lightning pattern on them, more prominent and scar-like on the left wing, reminiscent to the scars he recieved after the accident.
The only thing that interrupts Danny's casual evaluation of his dragon body, however, is the tree branch still jammed below his shoulder. Now that Danny is staring at it right front and center, the pain suddenly slams back into him causing him to let out a low hiss. Cujo is watching him with worry and eyeing the branch like he wants to tear it to pieces for daring to harm his human.
The halfa looks at the branch, debating on whether to pull it out with his not-so-stellar motor functions, trust Cujo with his slightly better motor functions, or just leaving it in place. He'll have to remove it if he wants his healing factor to kick in, but asking either himself or the ghost dog to remove it is asking for more damage to happen, and if he does get it out, he'll run the risk of being unable to get rid of whatever bark and splinters might end up being lodged inside the wound.
A rock and a hard place, huh? Danny decided to let Future Danny deal with it later, as he does with problems he doesn't quite want or know how to solve, and settled for trying to get used to his new body. He attempted to stand, but his center of balance was all over the place, making him trip without even moving and falling back to his belly.
Danny huffed to himself in exasperation. This dragon body has two legs. You would think it would be easy to stand given that humans walk on two legs all the time. After letting out a grumble, he tried again, being very aware of how his long body balances itself out. He attempts to put his wings down as an extra pair of legs to keep himself from tipping forward, but ends up putting pressure on his right shoulder, causing him to hiss in pain. Lifting his right wing back up to tuck against his body gently, Danny began to slowly figure out how to limp around and get a feel for his sense of balance.
When he glanced up, Danny realized with a start that the trees around him seemed much smaller than when he was laying on the ground. He looked at himself again now that he has a general idea of what he looks like and compares it with the scenery. He was huge. Cujo looks tiny despite his chubby, near 15 foot length, making Danny, if his mental math serves him correctly, a good maybe 100 feet from nose to tail tip. He could be wrong, probably a high chance of him actually being shorter than initially guessed, but until he finds any sort of measuring device, it would be hard to tell for sure. If he raises his head to the highest his neck could reach, he's pretty sure he might be a good 20 feet tall. If these are my guesses for my height and length, I almost don't want to see just how large my wingspan is. They already look huge when they're not spread out.
As Danny and Cujo hopped and walked about in the forest, there was suddenly noise approaching them from the front. The ghosts raised their heads and stopped in their tracks to listen to what- or whoever is closing in on their location.
Angry voices seem to be coming out of the trees, signifying humans coming towards them. Danny tensed at the thought of humans, especially seemingly easily angered ones, discovering live dragons in the wild. He had some pretty firsthand experience with humans and their biases and need for knowledge.
Cujo growled so Danny moved to shield him slightly from the incoming voices while also hiding his injured side to prevent any weaknesses being exploited. Staring out into the trees revealed a ragtag group of burly men in strange animal fur vests and different weapons in hand. They froze as they saw the ghosts standing in front of them, before erupting into sudden loud chatter at each other.
Danny tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes at they way they were addressing each other and handling their weapons. He couldn't quite understand the language, although the more they conversed, the more the pieces seemed to click in his head. So they're speaking a dead language... Either the portal made me time travel to a point where people still spoke dead languages, or it sent me to a different world or dimension that uses the same language and happened to have real dragons. Wait... Didn't I visit a world like this before? With dragons and the Old Norse language?
"- a Titan-!"
"- a baby Crimson-!"
"- who roared earlier?"
"- green one will-"
"-o we got a cage big en-?"
"- gotta bring them back-"
"- bet we can all agree we'll recieve a nice pay fo' these two, so let's ge' them."
The last bit of the conversation finally translated in completion, giving Danny the warning he needed to react on time. Just as the men were readying their weapons and something that looked like a medieval capture-net thrower, Danny hunched low and let out a shrieking roar at the group in warning.
Turning around while they were slightly dazed from the sonic attack, Danny quickly clamped his jaws around Cujo, hauling the chubby ghost dragon up onto his back as he started for a sprint through the woods. The moment the ghost landed precariously between his spines, Danny nearly had his chest collapse onto the ground from how heavy he was. Danny may be huge, but his body is still more of a compacted, lithe type than a burly, bulky type, not to mention his unbalanced limp as he ran with only three limbs rather than four.
Still, the hero ran as fast as his limbs could take him, even attempting to take flight only for the excruciating pain in his shoulder and the surrounding trees to get in the way of being able to escape to the sky. He huffed as he kept running. Cujo turned towards the men and angrily barked out loud booms, causing them to stumble in their pursuit. He would occasionally belt out a spew of lava at them which slowed them down further.
Eventually, Danny's luck ran out as he approached a clearing. He believed he could take a leap into the sky or perhaps turn around to fight unhindered, but not too far from the edge of the trees, a rocky cliff suddenly dropped towards a small, rocky beach and the open ocean beyond it. He skid to a stop before he could plunge down to the rocks below and tried to catch his breath.
Looking around showed that there was no easy way down besides flying, which would be hell on his shoulder, and that his tail was still within the forest behind them. He quickly spun around so the men couldn't suddenly tackle or attack his tail in their attempt to get them, and faced the forest as their voices grew closer.
Danny nudged Cujo off of his back, urging the growling dog-dragon to the edge of the cliff. "Cujo, you have to fly." The ghost looked up at him at his name and showed a bit of shock on his draconic features. "Fly and get away before they catch you. I can't fly but you need to be safe."
"No!" The halfa was taken aback as he suddenly understood Cujo's language. Maybe them both being dragons had some pros to it. "No! Human Phantom! Stay! Protect! Master, Partner, Boy!" Cujo didn't seem to speak in full sentences, which would make sense if he was a dog learning the human language, but his thoughts and intentions were clear as day.
"Okay, Cujo. But if it gets dangerous and I get captured, please escape. Find a way back to the Ghost Zone without me."
"No promise. Protect Precious Boy."
Danny wasn't sure if he could blush as a dragon, but he felt the embarrassing need to as he heard the term 'precious boy' come from Cujo so nonchalantly.
Before they could argue or talk more, the men arrived with their weapons at the ready. A series of swords, axes, knives, and the net thrower were aimed at the two snarling dragons.
The halfa rose to his back feet and spread his wings wide to either side, showing off his great wingspan and uncaring if the men end up seeing his injury. He sees brief expressions of uneasiness appear on faces in front of him before he opened his maw and released an air-quaking roar worthy of making the biggest of creatures bow in fear.
The humans faltered at the bellowing roar but didn't seem to stay cowed for long as they soon rallied themselves up with battle cries. They rushed forward with their weapons, ready to take down the dragons before them.
But before either of the battle ready groups could engage with the other, a whole slew of dragons roared and raised into the air behind Danny and Cujo. The ghosts looked up in surprise as the lead dragon, which had four identical wings and a flat face surrounded by thick frills, bellowed and unleashed the gathered dragons against the humans.
Danny watched in awe and confusion as this random flock of dragons protected him and Cujo just like that. He looked back up to the large dragon regally flying above and noticed something standing on its back. It was covered in strange blue and dark gray armor that almost seemed to be made to copy a dragon's looks. It was holding on to a tall spine protruding from the dragon's back in one hand and held a sort of staff in the other. The way it was standing seemed human, on two legs and perfectly balanced, even if they gave off the vibes of a dragon.
Well... that isn't disturbing.
The being in the blue and gray armor looked down at Danny, causing him to flinch at the unexpected eye contact. They stared at each other for a moment before Danny noticed the other dragons flying back to hover beside and behind the owl-like dragon and its unusual rider. He looked back towards the clearing and noticed the men were all gone, several scorch marks on the ground and a few bushes singed and trampled.
A rattling sound caught his attention and he turned his head back to the large dragon, seeing the being on its back moving their staff. The surrounding dragons all flew off to land nearby in the forest but within sight. The large dragon itself flew down to land in the clearing in front of the two ghosts but with a decent enough distance between them, almost reverently lowering the being to the ground in front of it.
The blue and gray being started to do a weird walk, close to the ground, moving in a purposeful way, somehow portraying more of its dragon aura in a friendly way. Danny tilted his head in confusion and with narrowed eyes before movement by his side brought his gaze to it. Cujo was seemingly entranced with the being's movements and gestures, his head bobbing and twisting with them and pupils blown wide.
Danny lightly glowered at the being in front of them as he quickly covered Cujo's sight with his wing, trying to prevent any weird hypnotizing from happening. He didn't know if this was just another person trying to collect dragons for their own gain. If that trick normally worked on dragons who're more intune with their instincts, then it would make a bit of sense that Danny, the half ghost, would be able to resist the urge to fall in completely. He has lived with his ghost side for 5 years now, controlling his more troublesome urges and instincts thanks to his human side's logic and natural buffer against truly impulsive actions.
The being stopped what they were doing after seeing him cover Cujo's eyes, tilting their head curiously. They reach up to their helmet, hesitate for a second, before deftly taking it off and revealing the face underneath.
Danny's eyes widen and unconsciously leans his head closer to the woman standing in front of him. He takes in her features, noticing the brown hair speckled with silver hairs slicked back into a braid hidden in the suit, the wide and round pine green eyes surrounded by faint wrinkles from age, the thin lips which also had faint wrinkles around the corners that suggested a decent amount of smiles, the narrow chin.
All in all, she just looked like an older woman with kind and curious eyes. Danny couldn't help letting out a low rumbling purr deep in his throat as he observed her. His wing had gone a bit slack, allowing Cujo to look back and forth between the halfa and the woman.
The brunette tilted her head in question, still looking at Danny with those wide and awed eyes. Danny tilts his head along with her. "Curious..." She speaks, standing just a bit straighter and Danny copies her, "You are certainly an odd one."
The halfa broke out of his mesmerised daze to roll his eyes skyward and let out a scoff of amusement. How fitting that even as a dragon in another world, I still don't quite follow the normal standards.
The woman's eyebrows raised in surprise at such a human gesture, a hand raising to almost touch her face as if in thought. "That's amazing. To think a Titan Silver Phantom would ever make such a gesture... and be with a young green Crimson Goregutter..."
Danny's head had shot up when the armored woman said 'Silver Phantom'. Is that this species' name? It's a little bit on the nose for a dragon I suddenly turned into. Cujo being this 'Goregutter' is interesting though.
Tilting her head again, the brunette noticed his reaction to his species name. "Curious. My name is Valka. My dragon, here, is Cloudjumper. Would you like to come with us to our sanctuary? You can heal," at this she points a hand to the branch still painfully lodged in his shoulder, "and recover in safety. You can stay for as long as you like and leave whenever you like." Valka looked at him expectantly, awaiting his answer.
The halfa glanced down at the ghost beside him, seeing that Cujo was just as open minded and curious as he usually is with new, good people. Their eyes met, and the dog-dragon just put on a wide smile and wagged his tail back and forth, being very clear he'll go wherever Danny goes.
Looking back to the woman watching their interaction with wide eyes, she zeroed in on his eyes immediately, hoping to get a positive answer.
And so, Danny gives it to her.