DP Prompt: Danny fights Dan as the Ghost King
A part of him knew it had been inevitable, just as Dan had promised all those years ago. A reinforced thermos was almost nothing against the brute strength of Dan Phantom, and Danny suspected it would only hold him for so long.
And that day had finally arrived.
It didn’t start suddenly. For Danny, it had been a normal day in Amity while he visited over spring break from university in New Jersey. Thankfully, under his orders as king, none of Danny’s old rogues/sort-of acquaintances had shown up for a daily brawl, leaving him to spend valuable time with his family and friends.
It was a pit stop at the Nasty Burger with Sam and Tucker when it all went down the shitter.
A sudden crack of thunder on an otherwise bright sunny day (an incident Danny had considered unusual but looking back made sense with Dan’s dramatics) had interrupted Sam’s rants about her parents’ ongoing calls for a better career than working in animal welfare.
And then Danny’s ghost sense had gone off, so violently he choked on his own frosty breath, nearly upchucking his Nasty Burger in the process.
“Are you okay?” Sam asks from next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder in concern. Tucker handed him his cup of water from his seat across the cramped grimy table, having not been interested in carbonated soda due to a recent illness.
Danny nods. “Y-Yeah, I’m fine.”
Looking up, Danny sees a flash of acid green in Sam’s eyes, knowing his own eyes were glowing brightly. Quickly, the confusion and panic shifted into something furious and indignant. Lip curling, Danny exits the booth and stomps toward the entrance of the restaurant.
“Alright!” He bellows to the skies as he shifts into Phantom, rings bright and searing even on a clear sunny day. “Who the fuck is interrupting my vacation?”
Sam appears behind Danny, Tucker right behind her. “Danny, what’s—?”
BOOM!
Danny yelps—actually yelps—as a massive shockwave erupts from across the street, a plume of smoke rising from the blast zone. Eyes wide, Danny first orders his friends to stay safe before quickly lifting into the air and taking flight to the source of the explosion.
And what he sees sends a chill down his spine.
Dan Phantom.
Who spots him immediately, eyes blazing.
“Well, well, well! Look who joined the party!” He laughs cruelly.
Danny’s heart is in his throat. How is he here—How did he get out?—No, no, no!
Usually, these days, Danny wouldn’t start a fight fists swinging, as he is king now and has a reputation to uphold, but this time is not for pulling his punches.
Their fight is brutal, long, and very very painful. And Danny realizes that without anything holding Dan back—his own universe being erased, knowing that Danny’s secret identity had been revealed at some point during his imprisonment—he would be the most terrible danger to Danny’s universe and the people within it.
So he gives it his all. And fails.
It isn’t until hours later, Danny is near collapse, not even bothering to use his Ghostly Wail as a last resort because Dan knows he has his ability now and would easily circumnavigate that.
“I am fully evolved!” Dan crows as he rams Danny into a building wall, who groans in pain. This fight hasn’t been going very well for Danny. Just like last time, Danny had been neatly and easily beaten, even though he’d made no move to surrender. “I am evolution at its finest!”
And that’s when it clicks. Evolution.
“You don’t know,” Danny wheezes, his heart beginning to race with something like hope.
“Know what?” Dan growls as he tightens his grip around Danny’s throat.
Dan may be a powerhouse, but he doesn’t have what Danny has. Dan never developed his core properly, never gained his cyrokinesis—instead he inherited Vlad’s pyrokinesis instead of naturally creating his own. While it took Dan ten years to master the Ghostly Wail, it took Danny only mere hours.
Dan wasn’t like Danny anymore, as much as he liked to brag about being the same yet so different—all to showcase Danny’s weakness. The point is, Dan never had a chance to grow into himself for those ten years, while Danny had just as long, he became better.
Danny was a halfa, a rare breed of ghost that trumped over full ghosts by a mile. Dan had once been a halfa, too, but not anymore. He is now an average, albeit more powerful, full ghost.
And he never won the throne by combat either.
At this revelation, Danny cackles. “You have no clue!”
Isn’t that what this is all about? Evolving into something new? Better? Dan had blabbed about being the best, the biggest, the meanest, but he never fully reached his true potential. Danny did, and that made him stronger.
“You know I don’t like not knowing things, brat.” Dan snarls, leaning in close. “Spit it out.”
Danny laughs hoarsely, throat bruised from Dan’s iron grip. “Just like Vlad! And you’re basically his kid!”
“Shut. Up.”
He grins widely. “Make me.”
Predictably, Dan loses his shit and begins royally beating Danny into dust. In a vastly different scenario, Danny would struggle to keep up with Dan’s fists, but with this eureka! moment still lingering, Danny almost meets him right at the same level.
“What the hell are you grinning about, whelp?” Dan roars as he ascends the sky for a better vantage point in attacking Danny. Danny himself doesn’t let his wide smile fade, knowing he was aware of things—very important things—that Dan had no clue about.
Danny laughs right in Dan’s face, who does not take that kindly—and that is when the full ghost completely stops pulling his punches, growling like a rabid animal.
Danny is thoroughly tossed to the ground, so much so that a crater has formed in the pavement of the closed-off road, twitching in pain, knowing the bruises would be absolutely horrendous.
Dan plants his feet on the ground, cape fluttering in a nonexistent breeze as he approaches Danny’s prone form. Dramatic bastard, Danny thinks, but that doesn’t compare to me.
“You’ve lost, Danny.” Dan gloats, baring his teeth in an imitation of a smile. “I’ve won—and I will destroy your world like I did mine.” He leans forward. “I am inevitable.”
Danny coughs, something rattling painfully beneath his ribcage. “R-Really?”
Something in Danny’s tone pauses the larger ghost in his tracks. His eyes narrow in suspicion, his face twisting into something ugly. “No more tricks.” He aims a fist at Danny, the limb encased in fiery red ectoplasm. “Any last words?”
Danny heaves for breath. “Yeah, actually.” Showtime.
He staggers to his feet, wincing at the sting of his straining muscles, and carefully begins to rise to the sky, maintaining eye contact with his ultimate enemy one final time.
One arm arches into the air, and his fingers close around his own sword—similar to Fright Knight’s Soul Shredder—while simultaneously summoning the screaming Ring of Rage and his icy gleaming Crown of Fire along with his entire body being encased in full royal regalia.
Fear is blatant in Dan’s eyes.
Danny spares a long stare at Dan’s tense form, watching as several emotions flicker across his pale blue face, pointing his own sword at the ghost before speaking steadily:
“As High King of Infinite Realms, Protector of the Grave, Ancient of Space, I Danny Phantom declare you, Dan Phantom, unfit for existence and demand an End to your core.”
