You Can’t Punch a Ghost
AO3
A classic Danny Phantom and My Hero Academia Crossover where Danny ends up in Japan by accident and needs to figure out how to get back home. Easier said than done of course. It helps that Danny is ridiculously OP and may be able to help out during his time there.
Danny knew about natural ghost portals, how they were very random, rarely showed up outside of ectoplasmic hot spots, and mainly only affected the unluckiest of people in terms of tearing them from this familiar time and space and spitting them out into something completely different. He also knew the ones in the ghost zone were ones you don’t go in willingly unless you want to ditch the world you know so well and never want to be found again.
So imagine his goddamn surprise when one decides to fuck up his life before he even gets a chance to process what the fuck was happening.
“This is honestly a new low, I mean seriously. I was pretty sure I was going to die again from a heart attack when I saw your ugly face. I mean, it’s not as low as the whole cloning incident, which I am still rightfully pissed about,” Danny hissed, shooting an ectoray in Vlad’s general direction, “but watching me sleep? Didn’t you already plant enough cameras in my house to do that from your castle?”
“I was not watching you sleep, Daniel. I had simply shown up to wake you up,” Vlad hummed as he dodged the ray, finally slowing down after the long chase Danny had given after the froot loop.
“Oh, so now it’s your goal too to absolutely ruin my sleep schedule, huh? The rest of the ghosts already cause enough grief, and now you’re doing it too? I have you scheduled in for times after NOON. Go back to bed and let me get at least an hour's worth,” Danny groaned in annoyance. Did he seriously just drag him all the way out here to tell him he wanted to wake him up? He didn’t have to deal with this, honestly he never thought he would see the day that Vlad would stoop to his level of petty pranks.
“Aren’t you even remotely curious about what I have to say?” Vlad asked.
“Nope,” Danny replied bluntly. What a waste of time.
“What about the fact that the thin veil around amity is spreading?”
Danny pauses, then glanced over, “again. You chose to wake me up by staring at me, then dragged me all the way out here, to tell me that? There is a special device. Called cell phones. Which I have. Which you have the number of. That you could have used,” Danny spat in the most condescending tone he could muster.
“You would have just ignored my texts or calls.”
“Yeah. Because this doesn’t seem like my problem? Maybe the veil spreads on its own then returns to Amity? Like natural patterns or whatever. It’s not causing issues. The worst is that natural portals show up and ghosts slip through, but they just end up back in amity. Even if they didn’t, your little bounty proved there’s other, less competent, but other ghost hunters that will deal with it. Eventually. I’m going back to bed,” Danny spun around and aimed to head back home.
He was surprised by the plasma ray to his back that shot him out of the sky with a yelp as he crashed to the ground. He snarled, taking Vlad’s invitation to fight as he shot back into the sky and threw an ectoplasmic punch into his gut. Vlad split into clones before Danny managed to land a punch and blasted him again, “you have no respect for responsibility, I was giving you a chance to prove yourself and you threw it away like the child you are. How you managed to obtain-!”
Danny shot a series of rays into Vlad’s clones, destroying them before he tackled the real one with a snarl, cutting him off, “oh fuck off with your tests! I don’t answer to you! You aren’t my dad, my mentor, or anything I will ever respect! Get that through your thick skull you psychotic froot loop!” Vlad grabbed him by the arm and threw him off, but that wasn’t very effective as Danny just spun in the air and slammed right back into the asshat, sending them both backwards and through something… that sent off a chill that ran down Danny’s spine.
Danny barely registered what he just did when Vlad slammed him against a building and disappeared, Danny’s vision swimming as his powers shorted out from the sudden pain and he reverted back to Fenton. Then he dropped into an open dumpster below him, hearing multiple crunches beneath and within him before a final slam knocked him out.
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Shouta was out on patrol when some guy ran from out of an alley and waved him down, or more like he was yelling out in general on how he needed to call for a hero or ambulance.
He landed softly, approaching carefully as he managed to calm the bystander down, asking what the issue was as he took note of the ragged clothes and scrawny look. Homeless from the looks of it, and not doing well. It explained why he didn’t have a phone to call in for help.
“I uh- was checking dumpsters, some of them have really good stuff people throw away like it’s trash and- uh…”
“You don’t have to explain why you were there, just tell me what’s wrong,” Shouta huffed, annoyed. He had a lot on his mind, especially regarding the recent events regarding his class and his problem children. He would rather punch out a villain than negotiate information out of a panicking citizen.
“There’s a dead kid,” he sputtered.
Shouta felt his blood run cold, “where?”
“The green dumpster, I opened it and he was just laying there- I freaked out when I saw him-,”
Shouta didn’t bother to listen to the rest as he rushed to the described dumpster and threw open the heavy lid. Sure enough, there was a raven haired kid laying in the garbage. Crimson covered his face and he looked almost as pale as a ghost, it was easy to think he was dead with a short glance. He couldn’t be completely sure the kid was in fact dead, unless he got a pulse checked, and it was hard when he had to hold up the dumpster lid while attempting to check. He glanced over to the bystander, “Hey, come hold this up while I get him out.”
The bystander didn’t argue, running over to hold up the lid as Shouta reached in and lifted the kid out, already assuming the worst as the kids skin was freezing cold. He carefully laid him down as the bystander dropped the lid and took a few steps back, shuffling his feet as Shouta took out his cell and dialed 911, then went to check for a pulse. He could feel any hope that this kid was alive slipping as he didn’t feel a pulse.
The operator picked up, “I need-,” Shouta began and paused as he felt the faintest hint of a pulse, his heart fluttering slightly with hope, “an ambulance, Musutafu, an alley just off Might’s Avenue. Fast. Looks like a head wound, loss of blood, very faint pulse and cold to the touch.” Shouta glanced back up at the bystander, “you may have just saved this kid.”
The bystander glanced at his feet, “Ah- just… he’s so young… I couldn’t leave him…”
Shouta turned his attention back to the kid, finding out the blood on his face was coming from a wound on his head. Either someone tried to kill him and dumped his body in the dumpster so it wouldn’t be found, or he got hit on the head by the lid. Both options had a variety of questions: who's, what's and why’s. But if the kid lived, he may just get his answers.
----------
Danny felt like absolute shit before he could even manage to peel his eyes open, the glaring light above him giving him an instant headache. He twisted, groaning in annoyance as he lifted his hand to his face to try and block out the light and struggled with the sheets he seemed to be wrapped in. In a fit of frustration, he managed to aggressively kick the sheets off and free himself from its bundled prison. He used his hands to prop himself up and felt a wave of nausea wash over him, causing him to pause slightly and wait for it to pass.
He glanced around the room he was in, his scrambled thoughts slowly falling into place as he tried to remember what he was last doing and where he could be. He didn’t recognize the room whatsoever… but it looked a lot like a hospital…
He looked down at his arms and finally noticed the IV, and frowned. Okay. Definitely a hospital. The bundled sheets on the floor, IV running up his arm, and very chemical smell in the air confirmed it.
He then remembered Vlad and forced down a growl rising in his throat, the asshole dragged him out in the middle of the night then threw him hard enough to knock him out, someone must have come by and noticed him passed out and took him to a hospital- shit did he transform back? Was he still-?!
He quickly reached up and pulled his hair in front of his eyes, taking note of the raven black colour and leaning back with a sigh. So, Fenton. Not Phantom.
The clicking of the door handle caught his attention as a man walked in dressed in scrubs; then paused as he noticed Danny staring at him. “Y-you’re awake?”
Danny blinked at the stammered question, nodding, “uh… yeah?”
Before Danny could ask him anything, the nurse was gone and Danny was left alone in the room once more. He glanced at the IV’s again and then around the room as he twiddled his thumbs a little. A year or two ago, he would be freaking out. Fearful of what doctors would find if they tried any sort of tests, but thanks to Frostbite he was able to figure out what parts of his human half were irregular in medical terms. Nothing that would suggest too strongly about his ghost half. At most he had a bit of ectoplasm in his bloodstream. But that was easy to disregard since his home was an ectoplasmic hot spot, it would be weird if he didn’t have some in his body. He bet Jazz even had some ectoplasm in her blood, he wasn’t as sure with mom and dad since they wore hazmats most of the time, but again it would be weird if they didn’t have any ectoplasm in their DNA anywhere, Danny just had a bit more thanks to his ghost half. The other irregularities happened to be conditions other people sometimes had, usually it would cause issues but there always seemed to be cases where it doesn’t bother the person. Slow heartbeat, slightly colder body temperature, that kind of thing.
So hospitals just weren’t as scary as he thought they would have been. The worst was that haunted hospital that Spectra decided to use to mess with him. This was like a hotel compared to that experience, so not bad. As much as he was tempted to be uncooperative in the idea that it was easier to just fly out of the building and head home, it would be weird for a kid to just… disappear. Not to mention news stations go nuts for kids disappearing from hospitals, so that draws a lot of attention from the media and the last thing he needed was more bad press on Phantom. The closest connection people have was the rumour that he was dating his ghost half, which worked, surprisingly. So no doubt there would be people guessing that Phantom kidnapped Fenton and then his parents would show up and shoot at him again and he would have to disappear and reappear and make some weak argument about how it wasn't Phantom, so it all just dragged out into a massive mess. If he answered the doctor's questions and got into contact with his parents, it was easier to say he was wandering and got lost then got mugged or something. His curfew would tighten, and his parents would hover for about a week but it was just a lot less hassle.
When a new person walked into the room, he was snapped out of his thoughts and looked up and jolted, choking back a squeak of surprise at what he saw. There was a person, they had a white coat like most doctors would, but it was their face- er-... head? Their head was… it was-
“Hello, my name is Doctor Ichiyo,” the doctor's alligator looking head spoke, their lips forming to make the words as they spoke instead of the mouth opening up wide like he had seen on nature documentaries. Were they a ghost? If they were, why hadn’t Danny’s ghost sense gone off? Was he hallucinating? “Can you tell me your name?” Danny opened and closed his mouth, unsure of how to react to… to the alligator face. The ‘Doctor’ gave him an odd look, “are you alright, young man? Anything in pain that we should be worried about?”
“Danny. Danny Fenton,” Danny squeaked out.
He saw the doctor's eyes widen, he was sure their eyebrows would be raised… if they had any. Which they didn’t. Because the doctor had an alligator head. And he was acting like it was normal. The nurse in the room was acting like it was normal. Was this normal? Had he finally lost his mind? “Do you have some sort of healing quirk, Danny?”
Danny sputtered, “uh- what.”
“A healing quirk? Or some other kind of quirk that may increase your metabolism? Some strength quirks are known to have positive healing effects.”
“What- I… what's a-...? A quirk?” He stammered through his thoughts, still very distracted by the person. With an alligator head. Were those glasses on the end of their snout holy shit how did he not notice that? How did they stay there? Tape? Or were they really good at balancing the glasses? Why at the end of their snout too shouldn’t they be right up to the eye none of this made any sense- hell the ghost zone made more sense than the Doctor sitting in front of him- what was happening.
“... Danny what year is it,” the Doctor asked, tilting their head.
Danny blinked as they did so, mirroring the action slightly just out of the fact that his brain was on rapid fire and he still had a headache and the alligator head was still tripping him up. Either he was dead. Or he was crazy. Both were very plausible. “2021,” he answered without a second thought.
The doctor frowned, why was he frowning- holy that was really weird to see though. An alligator frowning. The long jaw twisting to make the expression was still so weird-.
“Who’s the current number one hero?” The doctor asked next. The question was like a second punch to the gut for Danny at this point, number one hero?
That was an opinion thing, right? “You mean like comics? I’ve always been a fan of Spider-Man…” Danny trailed off as he saw the Doctors frown deepen even further, muttering under their breath.
Which Danny managed to pick up, hearing ‘the head wound was worse than we thought…’
Head wound?
Danny almost reached for his head, stopping himself when he realized that he shouldn’t have heard that, and kept his arms down with his hands on his lap. So was he really hallucinating? But why was it like he was answering all their questions wrong?
“One last question. Do you have a way to contact your parents or a guardian?”
Danny perked up again at this one, finally he knew he could get in contact with his parents, then maybe clear whatever the heck was up at this place. This had to be a prank, his vision being bad or some other reason. They’d show up and drag him back to amity park, familiar ground. “Uh yeah. I know the phone number, can I-,” the Doctor handed him a pen and paper and Danny nodded with a soft ‘thanks’. He quickly scribbled down his home number, Jazz’s number and finally Sam’s number, just in case. He handed it back to the Doctor who glanced at the numbers and nodded back, offering a new level of disturbing smile.
“Thank you, I’ll come back to check on you shortly,” and the doctor stood up and left, the nurse trailing after them with a more… concerned expression. As Danny was left alone once more he leaned back against the pillow and blinked.
“I must be hallucinating,” he stated to himself.
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“It’s… concerning,” Doctor Ichiyo shook her head, “he seems almost delusional. He stated the year was 2021, over 100 years off from our current date, he was confused about the mention of quirks and heroes, and the numbers he gave us for contacts are dead ends. We tried looking up his name, but it’s not in any Japanese medical records, not to mention it’s very… American? If he’s from America, we need a city or town so we can call someone there for possible records but from what information we did manage to get from him, it’s all false and odd. It’s likely he will give us a name of a fake town.”
Shouta blinked, “so the kid is lying? Hiding something?”
Dr. Ichiyo shook her head,” that’s the weirdest part. He genuinely seems to believe that his answers are correct. His reactions to my own made that very clear, we think it’s very severe head trauma, making his brain jumble up words, letters and numbers so what he thinks is correct comes out odd and jumbled. We plan to run an MRI test right after a quirk specialist checks him over, see if he does have a quirk we should be concerned about. It can get dangerous when a patient forgets about their quirk and it gets revealed, it tends to happen at the worst times, too.”
“And what happens if you can’t find anything?” Shouta asked, crossing his arms as he thought carefully. “No connections to America, or Japan, or anywhere?”
Dr Ichiyo glanced up, “Foster care. Most likely. He’s still young, and we aren’t going to toss him on the street. But he seemed very sure of the numbers he gave us. If he has a quirk and we reveal putting him in the system and he doesn’t like that…”
“He may run,” Shouta frowned.
“We have ways to prevent that of course,” the Doctor assured, “is there a reason why you’re so interested in this boy? Most heroes would have just left this up to the hospital by now.”
“He’s a young kid who was found in a dumpster with a serious head wound, my initial thought being the concern that someone wanted him dead. Do you know how he got there yet?”
The doctor shook her head, “we haven’t brought it up yet. The fact he woke up so quickly was surprising. We expected him to be out for a few days at the very least. We want to be careful about this kind of thing, head wounds always cause the most concern.”
Shouta nodded, “all right. I’ll be back later, and call me if you have any updates. I have work to do.” Shouta turned as he headed to leave, the mystery of the kid bouncing around in his head. Danny Fenton. He’d have to try and dig up information regarding that name. Connections. Relations. Anything.
Ever since the USJ field trip he’s been on edge. He took interest in young Shinso at the sports festival as well, offering training so he may eventually transfer to the hero course. The kids were all splitting up on internships, and he hadn’t had too much issue regarding it. His only other concern being about Iida. His brother being in the hospital thanks to Stain. But the kid would work through it, he had a strong moral sense to him. He didn’t expect him to do anything brash, that was more to be expected from his problem student… Midoriya.
So a kid ending up in a dumpster during the times Stain is active and after the League of Villains made their appearance? It raised questions. Concerns. Possible connections between either or both. It could be entirely unrelated, but he couldn’t take that chance yet.
--------
Danny was restless, and worried. Those questions were… weird. And the expressions he got in return (from the Doctor with an ALLIGATOR FACE HE MAY ADD) was not encouraging. Since he managed to get his thoughts together after the doctor had left, he noticed he was in one of those dumb hospital gowns. And that his clothes were neatly folded on a chair next to him. He reached over and dug his phone out of his pockets and turned it on, sighing in relief as the screen lit up and he quickly unlocked it. Immediately he tried to call Jazz first, lifting it to his ear and frowning as the cell beeped in response and the robotic voice of a woman told him the number was invalid. His phone was connected to wifi, so he tried the Internet next.
This was when he noticed something… off. The normal search engine he used was… different. It was spelled weird. The colour was off. The big thing that threw him off was the word ‘quirk’. It seemed… important. Extremely important. Ignoring the fact that the search engine was weird, he typed in the word.
The results were immediate.
And worrying.
They were… essentially powers. Powers people were born with. Powers that have been around since 2014. And apparently… The year was 2148.
Danny swallowed the lump in his throat.
So. At some point. He either went through a portal. Or. Clockwork decided it was time for another adventure. Across time and possibly even dimensions. The first reported quirk was a glowing baby in 2014. And he knew damn well that nothing like that ever happened in his world.
So different time. Different world.
Okay. Fun. Joy. This means these people think he’s crazy and he can’t contact his friends, his family, nobody.
He could feel his restlessness increasing by the second.
Amity was unguarded. His home, his territory. No- no Sam, Tucker and Jazz could handle it. They knew about the equipment and how to deal with lower level ghosts and higher level ghosts. And Sam and Tucker knew where to find his ally’s for any help when some of the more troublesome ones decided to show up.
They… they would be fine. They had to be fine.
Oh and mom and dad…
Time travel was one thing. He could be here and back within 5 minutes but this was dimension logic and who knows what that meant.
He could be gone for weeks.
Or hours.
He may just have to hope that whatever this mess was, dimension… time.. confusing mess, wouldn’t affect his time back at home.
And if it did…
You know what.
That’s a future Danny problem.
To distract himself, Danny opened his phone and checked out who this #1 hero was. It was an odd question, and seemed important. Once again, the results were immediate and he got his answer in the form of a list. A hero called ‘All Might’ was number one and had been for quite a few years. Then it went down the list, number two being a hero named Endeavor and three being a hero named Hawk’s. It was a long list and he decided to maybe not read off every single name. He almost missed the fact that it was listed as Japan’s Top Heroes.
So… did this mean he was in Japan? If he was, why was everyone speaking English? Or… were they all speaking English? He didn’t actually know- after meeting Wulf he tried to learn Esperanto. Which was difficult at first and then one day… it was like he knew it off the top of his head.
Or maybe this was just weird dimension language stuff. He didn’t know. Nothing made sense. He would just have to try to make sense of what he could.
So a world where almost everyone had powers, huh? Superheroes were a common sight. Maybe he could even pass off his ghost powers as a quirk or something… but the wiki page he found did explain some science… and the one thing that stood out was that people had one power. Usually being derived from one parent or a mix between the two. Danny… well his ghost powers were a big ol messy pot of powers. Invisibility, intangibility, not to mention ice is pretty new and not related at all to his ectoray’s…
Too much attention, and he may need to try to keep Phantom and Fenton separate, which meant if he wanted to pretend to have a quirk, he should limit it to one of his abilities. And let Phantom keep the rest. He chewed on his lip as he thought about his options. He had a really good handle on his ghost powers… but ice was still one he was trying to keep under control and he would slip up more often with it… he could also pretend to have no powers, quirkless as they called it here…
Would that be better or worse?
Scrolling through the information, he slowly began leaning more for the idea of having an ‘ice quirk’. There was a lot of history of quirkless people being targeted for various things, since they didn’t have much of a power to defend themselves against those that did… but also there was a profession of heroes. People getting paid to do hero work with licenses and everything. And heroes got a lot of benefits. Access to certain opportunities and the ability to use their quirks in public. Which apparently… using any powers in public was illegal unless in self defense. Vigilantes were like… super illegal. But to become a hero there was schooling, license exams, and it was listed to be very competitive. And Danny didn’t want to stay here for years.
Not to mention… he wasn’t the type to sit by and let people get hurt.
But the students did get access to heroes of the world, as well as some of the opportunities full blown heroes did. Especially this ‘UA’ school.
He tapped on the link to the schools information and swore under his breath to see he missed the time to get in. So much for that idea… so it would be sneaking around and into buildings then… guess he would really need to keep Phantom separate from Fenton, just to make it easier to survive in public. From all these news articles, it seemed like it was impossible to stay out of the light when a lot of attention is placed on someone.
He continued to try and think on what to do. How to get home. Then noticed another odd thing…
There was an app… one he didn’t recognize.
With a hesitant tap, he opened it and noticed it was some sort of notes app. And someone had already written in it.
-
Do not fret about Amity.
Remember to follow your heart.
— CW
-
Danny blinked at the note. Then blinked again. Then dropped his phone onto the table beside him so he wouldn’t crush it in his hands.
God.
Fucking.
Damnit.
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