Chapter Text
“Oh, man, this is awesome! Finally, freedom !” Danny cheered.
He high-fived Tucker.
“We’re going to the Nasty Burger now, right?” Sam asked.
“Duh,” said Tucker. “School’s finally over. We deserve a good celebration, and we’ve only been planning this for…”
Tucker trailed off as sometiming caught his eye down the road. Danny turned to look as well. No, absolutely not.
“...And yeah. You seeing that too, Danny?”
Danny made an unhappy sound, staring at the unfamiliar ghost tearing up Amity Park’s streets and vanishing the rubble through portals in dismay.
“Really? On the last day of school!?”
Sam patted him on the shoulder.
“Annoying ghosts wait for no one. Soup him up fast, so we can go.”
Danny groaned and gave his backpack to Sam and Tucker. He discreetly transformed behind a tree and flew off towards the ghost.
The ghost was glowing blue and their face was hidden underneath a cloak with a large hood that was printed with clouds and if Danny was being honest, looked kind of cool. What wasn’t good was how the ghost shot him down before Danny could say a single word !
“Hey!” he yelled, flying up again. “Where’s your ghostly fight etiquette? Totally rude; even Skulker is better than that.”
The ghost simply shot at him again.
“Just soup them up, Danny!” Tucker yelled from below.
Danny fumbled for the thermos while the ghost continued to shoot at him.
“Wow, you really don’t play around, huh? Well, that’s great because I don’t either! Let me just get my thermos and— Hey, careful with those portals!”
Danny just barely avoided being thrown through a portal the ghost opened right behind him.
“Seriously, where do these even lead? I don’t wa— Hey! ”
It was an even closer call this time. Danny struggled to open the cap of the thermos while performing the feats of aerial acrobatics necessary to avoid being thrown into a mystery portal.
“Today was the last day of school and this is definitely not my ideal way to celebrate, you know! Oh, hey— Hey!”
A shot flew past his elbow and Danny almost dropped the thermos. In the split second that he was distracted with trying to catch it again, the other ghost opened a portal right behind Danny and blasted him through it.
Danny fell back with a yell, barely managing to get himself flying again before he hit the ground. The rocky, sandy ground because the ghost had just thrown him into a desert.
“Oh, wait. No, no, no, no!”
Danny shot back up into the sky as fast as he could, but he was still too slow to get back through the portal before it closed with an almost soundless pop.
Danny was left hanging in the air above the middle of what seemed to be an actual desert.
He scowled.
“One good day! That’s all I was asking for! But nooo, the universe just has it out for me,” he muttered to himself while floating back down to the ground.
Danny rubbed his head, frowning, and turned to look around and see where he was. The desert stretched out in every direction as far as he could see. The ground was full of pebbles and the dirt was sticking to his boots. There were a bunch of large rocks in the distance and there were some sort of odd, half dried-out plants not too far from him. It did at least look like he might have still been in America. Maybe Mexico or something like that—geography had never really been his strong suit. Definitely still on Earth though. Or, well, he hoped. No purple, tall aliens walked out from behind any rocks, thankfully, so he probably wouldn’t have to figure out space travel today.
He could see some cliffs beyond the rocks in the distance, but no roads, telephone poles or even old abandoned trash. Apparently, this was not a very well populated place. Gee, what a surprise.
He glared at the ridiculously blue sky above him. There wasn't a single sign of the portal ever having been there. Not even a little smudge of ghostly green or even a glimpse of the ghost that had thrown him here.
"What! Not even going to come out here yourself?" Danny yelled.
There wasn't a response. Of course, the ghost just threw him here and left him stranded. Who knew what sort of destruction the ghost was causing in Amity Park now? It would take him hours to get back! He hoped Sam and Tucker were doing okay. Valerie was probably going to go and deal with the ghost as the Red Huntress at least. Though he really hoped she didn’t get thrown through a portal as well.
Danny tugged at his gloves, annoyed at how hot and dry the air was. Sticking his head into a freezer sounded like a great idea right now. Maybe it would be better if he wasn't a ghost?
He released his transformation and hissed. Okay, it wasn't any better as a human. At all. Was the sun trying to roast him alive here!? What was this—a freaking oven?? He went ghost again and sighed in relief. Okay, this was much better. Though he had no idea how long he could stay as Phantom but then again it shouldn’t take him that long to get out of here anyway as long as he didn’t get too lost.
"Okay, so..." Danny floated a few feet off the ground and looked around. "Desert. Yep. Sand, rocks, cactuses- cacti? Yeah. Lots of desert-y things— Oh, come on. How am I supposed to know how to get back?"
Maybe he could fly in circles until he saw a road and follow it? No, that would take too much time, it would be better to just pick a direction and fly as fast as he could. But what direction? It would suck if he accidentally started flying the wrong way and then needed even longer to get back. This place reminded Danny a lot of the deserts around Arizona and California, but he'd never actually been there and there were probably tons of other similar deserts in the world.
"Man, I should have paid better attention in geography," he muttered to himself.
A memory of Mr Lancer admonishing their class for not paying attention and telling them geography was an important subject flashed through his mind. No, actually, he was fairly sure geography class wouldn't prepare him for this situation anyway.
He looked up at the sun - it had been a lot lower in the sky in Amity. Here, it wasn't quite noon; the sun wasn’t directly overhead and seemed to be starting to go down. Or maybe up? Either way, it was probably early afternoon or late morning. If it was late morning, then he was probably on some island off the west coast which he did not even want to consider as a possibility, so he tried to assume it was afternoon and he was somewhere in the southwest deserts. Flying northeast would be his best bet then most likely.
He stuck out his arms and mumbled to himself as he tried to find the right direction. There, northeast, right towards the huge rocks in the distance. He sighed and coughed. Ew, a bit of sand got into his mouth. Gross. Well then.
Careful to close his mouth and pinch his nose shut, he shot off into the air, a big cloud of dust trailing after him.
Danny flew up around thirty feet into the air, high enough to have a good vantage point, but still low enough to be able to spot a road or a building. He was careful to keep the sun to his right as he flew and ran it over in his head several times, to make sure he was going northeast.
The desert stretched out before him, kind of looking like something out of a photograph. Danny had to admit, it did look incredible. Sure, the color scheme wasn't that impressive and the various shades of grey and brown didn't appeal to him that much, but seeing the whole desert stretched out in front of him in all directions was more than a little cool. Sam would probably love this. Nature at its finest on all sides. Maybe he should try and bring her here some time? Once he found out where exactly he was, that is.
Danny flew for a while, looking at the desert below him and mulling over the situation in his mind. He could fly pretty fast, but still, what if the ghost had thrown him into some completely isolated and remote place? Danny might even have to keep flying through the night if he didn’t get home. But how was he going to do that? It wasn’t like he could use the sun to navigate at night. He would have to spend the night in one place and continue in the morning— oh wow , how was he ever going to explain to his parents why he’d gone missing for two days? He crossed his fingers and hoped that he wasn’t too far away from home but knowing his luck, it would probably be a whole day before he got back.
Danny continued flying, trying to keep going forward as fast as he could and the ground blurred below him. As he flew, the sun started getting noticeably lower in the sky. The desert still looked mostly the same below him, and he hadn’t caught a glimpse of a single road or town. Danny was starting to get more than a little frustrated though, really, it wouldn't have been that bad if it wasn't for the heat. Scratch that, the heat was manageable enough; it wouldn't have been that bad if it wasn't for the boredom . There was nothing for Danny to do except fly. Strangely enough, there weren’t even any birds around here. Danny hadn’t seen a single bird anywhere, and now that he thought about it, there hadn’t been any insects either. It’s not like he was complaining , but still— weird. And a bit boring. The rush of the wind was the only thing he could hear. The scenery below wasn't bad per se, but it wasn't particularly interesting staring at various iterations of rocks, shrubs and dirt for hours at a time. After what seemed to him like around three hours, but really could have been any length of time, Danny's brain automatically started resorting to thinking about how thirsty Danny was and how much time it was taking him to get anywhere and how much his whole body was starting to hurt after so much flying and how he'd have to deal with the whole situation at home when he got back to it. His brain was not being ‘optimally focused and productive’, as Jazz would say.
Even more time passed with Danny flying at his top speed. He’d never flown for so long before; every few minutes Danny would catch himself starting to slow down or drift towards the ground and his whole body was beginning to ache. Nevertheless, Danny forced himself to continue. He tried to redirect his thoughts to Weary Werewolves, the newest game he, Sam and Tucker were trying to beat, and some of the math problems he was supposed to be solving right now for his homework. Thinking about the game just made him feel even worse that he was stuck here in the middle of nowhere and the math problems slid off his brain like water off a raincoat. He'd known that one was a lost cause.
Finally, when it was nearing dusk, he let himself float back to the ground and took a few steps around, surveying his surroundings with his legs feeling like cooked spaghetti noodles under him. Had he really just pretty much gotten the flying version of sea legs? Probably. Well, there was a first time for everything. His longest previous flight had been a little above two hours, just a fraction of what he must have flown today, and he hadn't even been flying as fast back then.
"Is this desert endless? Unbelievable." He mournfully looked at a tangerine-shaped cactus. "I'll end up having to spend the night here at this rate. I'll destroy that ghost when I get back."
He transformed back to human, the white rings casting unnatural shadows on the plants around him.
"Okaayy. So, sleep?" he said and then immediately felt awkward when no one replied. He wasn’t yet bored enough to talk to himself—it was weird being loud in a place that was so quiet and big.
Danny scratched at his arms, annoyed. They were covered in dirt. How did that even happen? He’d been flying as Phantom the whole time. He'd much rather keep on going, but it didn't seem like there would be an end to the desert soon and he didn't want to end up so exhausted that he dropped to the ground while flying 50 feet up. That would really be the cherry on top of an already terrible day. But where was he even supposed to sleep? On the ground with the sharp stones and pebbles? Fat chance. Maybe he'd wander around a bit and see if he might come across a nice flat rock or even a cave. Thankfully, it was getting cool enough to walk without having to go back into ghost form right now. He checked the sun to see if he was going in the right direction (Northeast? Northeast.) and started walking.
Within a few seconds, he was frustrated out of his mind.
"Oh, you've got to be kiddi- AGH!!"
He leaned down to detach his jeans from yet another of those prickly bushes, and winced when it caught on his hand. Seriously, there was either a cactus or a thorny plant every two steps. Danny couldn't have gotten more than ten feet from where he started and it had been ages! Rubbing at his dirty arms and wiping them on his sweaty shirt, Danny sighed and wished there was something to drink here. He trudged on, acquiring a large collection of scratches and tears in his jeans as he went. There could have been just half an hour’s flight to the mountains further in front of him, and he wouldn’t have had to go through all of this on foot. Ah well, he’d seen a nice patch of large rocks ahead of him a bit earlier and it shouldn’t have been much further now; he’d just continue for a while more, and he would hopefully find a half decent place to sleep there.
In the end, he managed to find a huge, elevated rock to curl up on top that was immensely uncomfortable ...and also way better than the thorny plants and sharp pebbles on the ground.
Danny looked at the sunset - the colors were incredible and he could see the whole sky. It wasn't like Amity Park where you could never escape all the buildings and it was cloudy a good chunk of the year. Here, it was stretched out above him like a huge canvas with colors more vivid than he'd ever seen in real life. It felt like the sky was swallowing him whole. Danny settled down with his head facing the setting sun and tried to sleep.