smolgaedragon

[smolgaedragon]

[smolgaedragon]

A little dragon sketch I made while procrastinating doing math

[smolgaedragon]

The Drummer's a King? (DP X DC) (Pt.3)

“Forgive me if this is in any way a question I shouldn’t ask Phanom,” Tim started, it had taken the group a minute to gather themselves back, and Danny thought that his comments were stating the obvious and a blatant attempt to make everything less serious. He thought that he was succeeding in that regard, and was also shocked at his ability to keep it together. He was totally going to call Jazz screaming later though. “But why do you spend so much time in this realm?” Tim’s detective brain must be working overtime to come up with that.

“Well,” Danny thought if there was a simple way to say this without destroying the whole Justice League's view of ghosts even more than he already has with the question he knew were coming, then decided that he didn’t care if that happened. “I’m still alive, well, half alive anyway, and the amount of data that it takes to send messages and calls interdimensionally? No thank you, and I also need to go back to gather back up some ecto, there's not nearly enough here for me to live normally without going back every once in a while”

“You’re half alive?” Batman grunted, and Danny thought that he could hear concern seep through the big bad bat exterior, “I mean, yah? I’m the bridge, I’m like schrodingers boy, I’m both alive and dead at the same time, that’s another reason that I have to watch out for the GIW” “Wait, urm, King Phantom” Superman spoke up now, “Sorry, but what exactly does this GIW do that is so dangerous to you and your people? And what did you mean earlier about, uh, dissection? Aren’t most ghosts like deadman and intangible?" 

“Why isn’t Deadman here? I thought you’d maybe want a ghost in the room when trying to summon a ghost?” Danny asked, “Uh, he, he wasn’t sure if you would take offense to him, apparently the former king wasn’t too fond of weaker ghosts, as he put it” 

“Yah, that actually makes sense, he was an asshole to everyone he viewed as ‘weaker’, which was basically everyone. And the GIW  is so dangerous because while many ghosts who form in this realm are intangible, that's because there isn’t typically enough ambient ectoplasm in their environment to allow them to take a physical form, but many from the realms tend to ignore these ghosts, and there are unfortunately many in the realms that don’t view them as actual ghosts because of where they formed” Danny shifted in his seat, everyone's eyes were trained on him and he wasn’t used to that happening outside of the realms.

“And there are also a few from the realms that are intangible but not invisible, or vice versa to living people, but overall many who come across to this side can be seen and felt.” Danny was staring out the window at the stars, he’d had an eye on them ever since he was brought here, “So the GIW will capture them and run experiments on them to see what can actually hurt, or kill us. Because of how I died, we aren’t sure what will happen when I die the rest of the way, and if the GIW kills me then they will trigger a war that they have no chance of winning.” Danny had been specifically making sure that the more powerful ghosts never went against the guys in white to not trigger the US to try and bomb them again.

“And there’s no doubt that that will cause an all out war?” Flash blurted out, and was then elbowed in the gut by Tim, who was apparently Red Robin. “Well yah, after what happened the last time there were quite a few who made it known what they would do if it ever happened again” “What happened last time?” Jason questioned, “Oh, I was vivisected briefly, hurt like a bitch, but my sister got me out, so it’s all good now” some of the older heroes were looking rather sick. Danny was sure that he would get a hit from Jazz, or any of his friends for that matter, for the vivisection comment. All it got him here were some horrified looks from the elder heroes, but he did get a snort from Jason, who got a growl from Batman in return; which was a total win in Danny’s mind.

“How did you die?” Batman spoke up, at this question Constitine looked like the world was going to explode, which Danny thought was kind of hilarious. “Damn soul whore, you should really tell your people more before summoning someone, if I was Periah you’d all probably be floating dead through space right now” He focused on Batman, “That’s a question that you should never ask a ghost; you will not be getting an answer.”

“Now, this has definitely be fun, but since I do actually still have a life I do have to study for some tests I’m taking in the morning, how about I give you my number and someone can call me next time instead of using a circle, falling out of those hurt” Danny wrote down the number to the phone that had Tucker customized for him on a small piece of paper that was slid across the table to him. “Please just text or call next time, being summoned sucks ass” and with that he turned invisible and intangible. 

Now Danny did actually have a math test to take in the morning, but he didn’t have to study all that much. He was in space. The earth looked so small below him, and the vacuum of space felt nice and freeing around him. Sure he made the occasional trip to the moon to hang out, but it had been quite a while since he’s had an excuse to float through space for a while and he was going to take advantage of this chance.

--------------------

Tim didn’t know what to think about Danny anymore. Sure he was a great drummer, but apparently he was also the king of the dead and had the ability to kill the world's heroes in an instant. He knew Bruce would be going crazy to find out everything about ghosts after this meeting, and Tim was going to learn everything he could about Danny / ‘Phantom’ and this GIW that he could. He and Jason would also have to catch up and agree on how to confront Danny about this.

Constantine left almost immediately after ‘Phantom’ left, mumbling about needing a nap. The rest of the heroes dispersed slowly afterwards, lingering around to talk about all the new information that they were just given, and some - including Tim - wondering what Constitine put in the small sacrifice box. 

On the relatively short trip back to the manor, Tim tried to find everything he could about the GIW. Somehow, there was next to nothing, he found their government website along with a basic statement, but there was nothing about what they were actually doing. He sent what he could find to Oracle before moving on to Danny himself. 

Danny was from a small town in the middle of nowhere, and that's where things started to get even weirder than they already were. He already knew that everything surrounding Amity Park was weird, but he couldn’t find anything about Danny before he came to Gotham. No school records, no family history, nothing. So that was mentioned to O as well, so that they’re on the same page, but with a note to not tell Bruce about Danny yet, Bruce would trace down Danny immediately and that could go badly. An alert for a message from Danny interrupted his thinking.

Danny

So how about we set up a place for that chat, maybe tomorow evning?

Tim and Jason glanced at each other, not alerting Bruce to what was happening. 

Jason

Here's an address to a place we can talk safely

SafeHouse123ForSecretTalks

Jason

Show up whenever

Tim had until tomorrow afternoon to find as much as he could about why Amity Park was such a ghost town. Metaphorically and in reality.

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Danny was absolutely freaking out. He hadn’t actually talked to anyone like this before. All his friends back home either stumbled upon all his ghost stuff or just figured it out. And now Danny was going to have to talk to his new band members, were they even a band though? They've only met once, and what if they didn't piece together who Danny was from that JL meeting? They must have, right?

“Danny, you're spiraling,” Jazz said over the phone that Danny had thrown to the other side of his bed - which he was currently laying face down in. “Now these Bats are renowned for being smart, right? Do you really think a color inversion will stump them Danny? You don’t even change your voice, I have no idea how more people here didn't figure it out” 

“I know Jazz, but like, what if I show up and say something and needlessly tell them. That revenant really needs some clean ecto instead of whatever he’s gotten into” Danny reached for his phone to check the time, “Exactly” Jazz emphasized, “Even if they didn't figure it out, with is highly highly unlikely, you need to help this guy. Imagine how haywire his brain went after coming back”

He didn’t have too much longer before he had to leave for the location Jason said to meet at. It wasn’t too far away, and he’d only stopped by his apartment because it was in between his classes and this place. He’d meant to be in and out, maybe grabbing a small snack to eat on the walk, but then Jazz had called to ask about how his test went, and now they’d been on the phone for longer than Danny had planned for and he really had to leave soon. Sure he hadn’t given an exact time, but google had said that evening time started at 6, so that’s when he would show up, and it was nearing 5:30 and Danny was not a fast walker, he didn’t really want to fly over cause then he’d have to find a place to become viable again nearby and there's literally always people in the alleys and hidden places in this side of Gotham.

“I gotta start walking over, talk to you later?” Danny asked, knowing that he would probably end up calling her again later that evening or in the morning at least. “Sure, if you don't call or something tonight or tomorrow I’m flying down there ok?” Danny rolled his eyes, even though he knew that it was a threat based entirely in reality, “Yah, yah, love you”

He was locking his door as he put his phone into his hoodie’s pocket. He was constantly thanking his ability to stay aware of his surroundings since he came to Gotham, it was constantly dark out and with the sheer amount of crime that happens, he’s glad that if worst comes to worst he’s confident he can get out of the situation.

Danny took out his phone to make sure he was standing in front of the right door. It was the apartment closest to the door leading up to the roof in a pretty grimy building. It was the right place. He knocked a few times on the door, it was Jason who answered the door, he motioned for Danny to come inside.

The apartment itself was pretty plain, he probably wouldn't put it past these guys to have just bought this apartment yesterday for the sole purpose of talking with Danny. There were no pictures on the walls, no personality on the furniture – which was probably as bland and cheap as possible – and overall nothing that could tell someone anything about the person who ‘lived there’.

“Alright then,” Danny sat down at the circular table across from Tim, who had a laptop open in front of him. “So what are your questions, what do you want to know?”

Tim glanced up at hom for a second before he flipped the computer around to face Danny, “Is this you?” He asked. Jason was just sitting down at the table. The image that Tim had pulled up on the laptop was one that Danny had really honestly hoped to never have to see. 

Logically he knew that the GIW had recorded everything that they had done to him, he just thought that there wasn't a chance that he would ever see it from this angle. Danny was strapped to a table, this must have been after he had passed out as his face was slack, one of the scientists was poking around in his guts which you could only somewhat make out through the blood which looked a sickly and wrong mix of regular red and ecto green.

Danny gave a slight chuckle as he rubbed the back of his neck, “Uh, yep, that's me” Jason glanced at the picture before watching Danny with concern, Jason was probably concerned with how Danny would react to this since it definitely had bad memories attached.

“Why did the ghost investigation ward do this to you? I can’t find any notes or anything online about what happened” Tim flipped the laptop back around, which Danny was infinitely thankful for, thank the ancients he wouldn't have to keep seeing that picture. “They wanted to see what was different about me compared to the others, and there's no notes about any of it because I used a favor with another ghost to wipe it from existence”

Danny knew better than to tell these two all about how complicated some ghost’s powers can get. Tim seemed to want more than that simple answer, but thankfully for Danny, he didn’t push for more. He was not really in the mood for a lecture from clockwork about how badly he’s explaining ghosts and stuff, he thinks that he understands everything perfectly fine but apparently his understanding is ‘completely flawed’ and ‘not how anything actually works’.

And besides, Tim and Jason didn’t need to know the exact ins and outs of the realms; it would take forever to explain a bunch of things that the living just don't need to know everything about. “Why did you come to Gotham ghostie?” Jason crassly asked, which Danny found that he didn’t really mind during this conversation, from what he’d seen Tim tended to be very analytical and stoic, so anything that wasn’t bland questions was a-okay.

“Well I really did come for college primarily, but there's also a lot of ambient ecto in the air here, so I don't have to go back to the realms every week, I also really needed to leave Amity, so yah” If he reached his hand out, Danny was sure that it would catch of the awkwardness in the air. “Yah, no one not running from the government would ever willinging come here unless it was their absolute last choice, and even then they probably wouldn't be as out and about as you are” Jason moved his hands slightly as he spoke, as if it were a habit he couldn't quite make himself break it when he felt safe.

“I mean, from what I've seen so far Gotham’s honestly safer than other major cities most of the time for normal people, sure there's more large-scale shit, but there's relatively few deaths that aren't tied to the major crime bosses. So for someone who can go intangible at a moments notice I’m pretty safe here” Danny thought that that was a very well thought out argument for why Gotham’s a safe city to move to, he had to convince Jazz with that afterall.

Danny sighed, faceplanting onto the table, “So what's the next move? Did the broody bat say I had to get out of his city?” Danny could feel the two of them glance at each other for a moment before Tim spoke, “We don’t feel like the big bat has to know anything right now”  Danny glanced back up at them, “Why? Won’t he find out anyway?” Danny asked, he’d heard that Batman was one of the best detectives in the world, so shouldn’t he know who Danny is by now?

“He thinks he’ll get told everything he needs to know, and considers this something that we’d tell him. So by not telling him anything he won't know anything” Jason was leaning back in his chair now, “How about you come on patrol with us one of these nights, we can pass it off as you being curious about the JL” Tim suggested, Danny was confused, “If you're not telling him who I am, then why would I go meet him when he’s dressed up as a furry”

Jason lost it. Tim was grinning, “For this exact reason, he will totally crash out every other minute with your comments and we all want to place bets on how long he stays quiet about it. There's also absolutely nothing about you, as Danny, online before you came here, so there's no way he’ll be able to find you out any time soon, especially since he's not even looking yet.

“I want a cut of the money, now, what day are we doing this?” Danny was also grinning now. This will certainly be an interesting night.

AO3 link

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[smolgaedragon]

The Drummer's a King? (DP X DC) (Pt.2)

Danny walked in through the door on Tuesday to find the woman from last time leaning against the wall, talking with two guys, one of which was the revenant Red Hood – Danny guessed that he probably shouldn’t say that out loud – and the other was sitting on top of the desk gesturing widely with his arms while saying something about security cameras. Dora was the first to notice him since she was the only one whose back was not facing the door, but the other two turned around before she even got a chance to greet him.

“Danny! Great, This is Jason and Tim” she gestured to the two respectively, “Guys, meet Danny, your new drummer” Danny gave a small wave. Red Hood, Jason, definitely recognized him from the way he tried to keep his face neutral. “Hi it’s nice to meet you guys” Danny smiled at them and did a little wave. 

Danny wasn’t too sure if Jason had told Tim about how Danny was dead, so he was just not going to mention anything about how Tim’s friend ran around at night killing people (Yes of course he did  little google search on the name he was given, who wouldn't when a revenant jumped down from a roof right in front of you).

“Nice to meetcha too, Danny. Lets go see how you play” Jason motioned for Danny to follow him back through the doors he went through last time. Tim’s eyes never left him, seeming to take in every detail about Danny, who was now pretty sure knew about Jason and Danny’s meeting, afterall why else would he be staring so intently at him. 

As they were setting up and tuning the public use instruments, Tim spoke up, “So Danny, where are you from? You aren’t exactly giving Gotham vibes” “Oh, I’m from Amity Park, Illinois, I’m just here for college” and it seemed that that simple sentence shocked the two of them to the bones. Or something like it, Tim had widened his eyes at Danny and slowed his motions slightly. Jason was openly staring at him, ignoring the bass in his hands. 

“Are you serious?” Jason asked, to which Danny slightly tilted his head, “Why shouldn't I be? I have no reason to lie about that” That when Tim put his guitar down. “A. No one willinging comes here for school, so you must be running from something or someone. B. Amity Park does not officially exist, and no one has previously been able to contact anyone in that town”

“Man, no wonder the gov’s ok the Guys in White and the acts” a nervous laugh burst out, “No one knows” somewhere in the back of Danny’s brain he was aware of Tim and Jason glancing towards each other. “They didn’t get the message, that’s why we were ignored, wasn’t it, they wouldn’t ignore a plea for help right? That’s like their whole thing” Danny could tell that he was losing control, his breathing was getting fast and he had no idea what was happening in front of him. Which probably wasn’t too great seeing as he didn’t actually know the two people in front of him, but the idea that his pleas to the government and to the Justice League went unanswered, they had never been received in the first place. The GIW probably intercepted everything, and what about everything online? He knew damn well that there were fan accounts for him run by a few different classmates, did Tucker know about this? What if…

“Hey Danny” Jason was in front of him, kneeling down. Danny could feel a wall against his back, when had he moved from over by the drums? “Can you follow my breathing?” Jason was starting to take exaggerated deep breaths. He was vaguely aware of Tim looking towards them with worry, but all he could think about was what this information actually meant. “Danny, I’m going to touch your hand, alright?” Danny heard this being said, but couldn’t for the life of his response, his brain was thinking about too much all at once and had all together stopped thinking about keeping up appearances or faking his breathing, which was probably what was freaking the revenant and his friend out. 

“Shit, he’s stopped breathing” he heard Tim mutter “Danny, you have to breath” Jason muttered, “How the hell is he still conscious with how he freaking out, he’s still moving, just not breathing” “This has to be more than just the pits, his heart rate is still elevated” Jason said to Tim, “Hey Danny, can you breathe for me? Danny, can you do that please?” 

It took a minute, but Jason and Tim’s panicked voices grounded Danny into starting to breathe again. They both seemed to relax now that he was breathing again, which Danny thought was fair, as fully living people needed a continuous supply of oxygen in order to remain conscious. “You ok dude?” Tim asked once it was clear that Danny was responsive again.

“Just peachy” he mumbled. There were feelings of anger and fear wafting off of the revenant in waves. Tim backed away quickly as Danny turned his head towards Jason, “You do not have to get angry on my behalf revenant” and with that, Jason’s eyes faded from green back into blue, with a clear look of confusion on his face.

“What the fuck” Danny could vaguely hear Tim mumble, “Jason? You good dude?” “Uh, Yah, sorry,” His eyes stared directly at Danny, “What the fucking hell did you just do to me” Tim looked like he was about to jump inbetween the two of them. “I don’t feel angry at all right now, how did you do that?” 

“I just put some feelings of calm into your core? That’s something that, like, all of us can do? Unless you didn’t know?” Danny was rambling at this point, “I’m sorry that whatever killed you was so gruesome that you came back from it, but you do know you died right?” 

“What are you?” Tim asked, Jason was definitely stunned with Danny’s word choice, he’d have to remember to talk to Jazz to figure out how to word some of his thoughts better, she was always great at those kinds of things.

“I’m Danny. Now I did promise my sister that I’d actually play with other people today. So how about we hold off this conversation until another day while we’re in a place where mysterious people won’t appear, and play some music today” Danny was well aware of his blatant deflection, but was just hoping that the two of them felt like they didn’t know Danny well enough to push him for answers just yet.

He could see Jason and Tim glance at each other, Danny knew that he wouldn’t get them to hold off from bombarding him with questions for too long, but when they picked up their instruments, Danny would count the whole interaction as a win. He’d totally break down to Jazz once he got back to his apartment about everything he’d found out today, but that was a problem for future Danny. Present Danny would get to enjoy, about an hour, of peace from the outside world while banging on the drum kit.

--------------------

It had been almost a week since Jason and Tim had met with Danny, who;d promised to set up a time to explain everything, but it just so happened that Danny had said that he had a bunch of work from his classes that they had to put it off for a few days. Jason hadn’t seen green since Danny had told him to calm down. 

Tim kept watching him as they made their way over to the JL meeting that B had told them that they should both be at. They were apparently going to attempt to summon the Ghost King to talk to him about the ongoing political disputes between the US government and the Infinite realms, as Constitine called them.

“So what exactly are you doing?” Tim asked as Constitine was drawing intricate circles, shapes, and symbols on the floor of the meeting room. “A summoning circle” was the simple response he was given, and after a few more answers that were answers to nothing, Tim sat back in his chair and waited. 

It wasn’t long before everyone was sitting in their respective chairs in the room and Constitine was finishing up the summoning circle. “You must all be respectful, we do not want to start an interdimensional war that we have no way of winning” Constitine addressed the room, who Jason thought also had next to no idea about what kind of being they were about to meet.

Once the box containing whatever Constitine thought would work as a sacrifice for the Ghost King was placed in the center of the circle, a familiar green spread out from the box, following the patterns on the floor. A horizontal portal of the same color appeared in the air above the circle, and something fell out of it and onto the floor with a relatively loud thump for a supposed ghost.

“Owww,” The being cried, sitting up and stretching his arms. It was Danny. Sure, the colors were inverted, but the hair, the face, the voice, was all Danny. He stood up as he looked around at who all was in the room he had just been plopped into, his eyes lingerie for a minute on Jason, Tim, and for a slightly shorter amount of time on Batman. “Well at least you didn’t try to use a dead body before doing your research” Danny shrugged, picking up the small box and looking inside, before closing the box back up and sucking it up into his chest, it was fully gone from reality now. “Sacrifice accepted, now what do you all need?” 

The JL looked around at each other before Flash spoke, “Aren’t you supposed to be the Ghost King? Why is there a non ghost, kid here?” Constitine face palmed with an audible smack. “Oh sorry, would you refer I was completely intangible and invisible to your eyes, or in a form that no one who is fully living in this realm could comprehend?” Constitine looked absolutely terrified, “Unless you all were hoping for Peria Dark, and I can’t imagine a group of heroes wanting anything to do with that piece of shit” Danny waved his hand around a little as he spoke.

“Forgive them your majesty, they are unaware of your customs. We were hoping that you would be willing to talk to us about the ongoing tensions between your realm and our United States” Constitine stepped forwards, looking extremely anxious, which Jason thought was hilarious, and clearly Danny did too seeing his smirk. “Oh sure, what do you guys want to know? But no trying to sell your soul or nothin’, my ghost guardians said I’m not allowed to make any deals with you” Constitine’s face seemed to morph to be even more horrified now, “You’re not allowed to make deals yet? Your a baby, we’re all doomed, we’re negotiating with a baby” Constitine slumped down into a chair.

“Hay! I am not a baby, I’m just not ancient enough to make deals, I’m not a 3,000 year old ghost like most who you’re used to dealing with, I was born and died in this century, so till I’m ancient like all of them or gain full control of my domain, no deals with me are valid” Danny sat in an empty chair at the end of the table closest to him, “And I really don’t want to have to deal with any sort of fighting, especially interdimensional stuff, all of the tensions have been started by good ol’ ‘Merica trying to send a nuke through a portal and destroy both our worlds without knowing it”

Danny was just dropping information like nothing that no one in the JL or JLD had even heard about prior to this meeting. Constitine looked like he was going to evaporate on the spot, and Jason could just feel B’s adoption instinct going haywire with Danny. Jason could only imagine how much Danny must be masking with how chipper he was after the last time Jason had seen him. 

“So how could we be of assistance?” Wonder Woman asked, she’s been observing the whole time. “Well, you could see about getting rid of the Anti-Ecto acts, and maybe get the GIW to back off, that’d be a great help, and then we wouldn’t have to worry about ancestors getting dissected when the come through the portals” Danny had a bit of a hesitant look on his face at this request, these Anti-Ecto acts must be the acts he had been referring to when he had that panic attack the other week.

“Red Robin?” Batman said, turning to Tim, “I haven't actually heard of those” Tim seemed to be racking his brain for anything he could come up with, “It’s ok, they aren’t exactly well known and only truly affect very few people relative to the whole US, and the GIW, the Ghost Investigation Word, is only really a problem in one town, but that one town is where one of the only stable portals between the realms is, and some ghosts actually live on this side of it and need to be able to go back sometimes for some ecto exposure” 

“Sorry, uh, your majesty, but is there a name that we can call you?” Jason asked, not exactly wanting to name drop Danny to the JL, and especially not in front of Batman who’d ask so many questions. “I’m Phantom, nice to meet you Red Hood” “So you know who we all are?” Tim asked, no doubt keying into the fact that this was Danny before Jason did, “Oh yah, I mean, I do spend almost all of my time on this side of the realms, of course I know who’s in your little boy band”

Jason and Tim, as the only non serious old men in the room, both let out a laugh at the comment. Batman let out a growl™. “Why do you spend so much time here Phantom? Don’t you have, like, kingly duties to attend to?” Danny glanced over at Constitine, who was slumped down in his chair, “Man, you really told them nothing about ghost culture huh soul whore man” 

Neither Tim nor Jason even tried to keep their composure, “HA, dude, your soul selling habit got around huh?” Jason cracked, leaning back in his chair. Flash and Wonder Woman were both trying to conceal their laughter, and only Batman was still, though Jason thought that there was probably a smirk under the cowl. 

“For your information Ghost monarchy works in a very different way than those here do, I have a council that make like 99.999999% of all decisions, and I’m asked to weigh in on certain topics, beat up others in brawls, and deal with stupid living old men in charge”

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[smolgaedragon]

The Drummer's a King? (DP X DC) (Pt.1)

“How’s your new place Danny?” Jazz asked, Danny held the phone up so that Jazz could take a look around his new apartment. “It looks ok, I'm just starting to unpack non-essential boxes” “Have your classes started up yet?”

Danny flipped the phone camera back to face him, propped it up against the wall, and opened another large box which had been sitting in the corner of the room with a bunch of other boxes for the last week. “Yep, but we haven't really started doing anything yet. There's a bunch of homework though” He pulled an electric snare drum out of the box.

“Oh, are you going to find a group to drum with out there?” Jazz asked, she had been trying to get him to join a band ever since he started drumming, saying how it would be good for him to make friends in the new city. It was a great way to take his mind off of all the stuff that was going on with him being the ghost king and having to actually be in the infinite realms occasionally. 

Danny had been lucky that the court of observants had allowed a break from ghost king duties with guaranteed no interruptions unless it was truly a last resort world ending sort of thing. Which knowing his luck, may just end up happening within the year. 

“I dunno, maybe, I guess it’ll depend on if I have time outside of school stuff” Danny didn’t really know if he would do well in a band, Jazz sure seemed to think so, all he did was jam out, he’d never really tried to play anything in hopes of performing it on stage or even just recording it. The closest he got was posting a 25 minute video of him drumming whatever he felt like onto youtube. It got quite a few likes and comments, but that was just people on the internet. When you're face to face with others they can be a lot meaner.

“Well, just think about it yah? I know you haven't been talking with Sam or Tucker as much recently, get out there and make some friends” Jazz was right, Danny knew it, but they had all gone their separate ways in order to achieve what they wanted to with their lives. The three of them still video called occasionally, but it was difficult to stay caught up when they weren't in the same building every day for hours on end. 

“I will Jazz, but how’s your stuff going?” Danny knew he was being obvious with the subject change, but he truly was doing all right. He just needed a break, the guys in white were still operating in Amity Park and could be in Gotham in an instant if Phantom was sighted.

“Good, good, I’m visiting mom and dad in a few weeks, checking in on what they're doing, sabotaging it if needed, seeing what the GIW have been doing” Jazz was still watching him a little warily, “I’m going to send you some places near you that you could go play music with others, you need to be doing something outside of school Danny”

“Ill look at them, call in a few days?” Danny asked, knowing that Jazz must be glad that he’d at least look at what she was sending him. She puts a lot of effort into making sure he’s ok, more so mentally than physically now that he’s out of their parents’ house. 

“Course Danny, let me know what you think about the places, maybe actually go to one of them” Danny thought that at this point she may come through the phone and drag him to one of them herself. “I will, I will,” Danny muttered “Thanks Jazz” 

After his phone was back in his back pocket he looked at the drum in his hands. It had been forever since he’d sat down at his kit. His phone buzzed with the special notification sound he’d set up for Jazz, probably a few different open jam places. He glanced over at the rest of the boxes still sitting in the corner. 

It took him a while to unbox everything he needed to set up the kit, but once he was sitting on the stool, with the sticks in his hands and the headphones on, he was actually glad that Jazz got him to finally unpack some more of his stuff.

It took another few days before Danny actually went to one of the places jazz told him to check out. It was only a few blocks away from him. He stood awkwardly in front of the door, it wasn’t the best looking building, but the sign on the door said that anyone was welcome to come inside and make some music in a space together.

There was a woman sitting at a desk in the small entrance room, she glanced up from her book at him for a moment then lifted her whole head up to look at him. “Wow, you’re new, we haven't had anyone new come in for forever! What do you play?” She stood up and motioned for him to follow her through a hallway next to the desk.

“Drums” Danny said, glancing at all of the random pictures hanging on the walls. There were a few groups that he’d heard of, and a bunch more of what looked to just be some random people who were all performing at the same stage. “I’ve never been to a place like this, what kind of stuff should I play?”

She smiled at him, “Play whatever you want, do you mind if I mention that you're a drummer to a group who plays here? They’ve been looking for a drummer for awhile, but like I mentioned earlier, we haven't gotten any new people in awhile.” 

This 100% took Danny by surprise, “Uh, sure, you can do that, what do they play?” She motioned to an open door, which led to a relatively small room with a few different kinds of instruments around it and a drum kit in one of the corners. “They tend to play some punk and metal music. If you wanna come back sometime within the next few days I can let them all know to come in then to meet you?” She tilted her head at him a bit, “Yah, I can do that, uh maybe, in 3 days? On Tuesday?” She seemed to think it over, “Alright, and what’s your name” “Danny” “Nice to meet you, I’m Dora. I’ll leave you to play now”

She closed the door, sealing Danny inside the room with what he just did. He was going to play in a band. Maybe not a band band that performs in front of people, but a group of people who want to play music together. He could do that, right? Yah, totally. What if they met him and didn’t want him to be their drummer? He knows he doesn’t really give off the vibes of someone who’d play drums, what if they wanted someone who looked like someone who’d be a drummer in a punk band. 

He took a deep breath.

It would all work out alright, that's what Jazz would have told him if she were here. He came here to see about playing with other people, and he’s done that. So he sat down on the throne and picked up the sticks that someone must have donated recently, they looked almost brand new, and started to play a beat that he’d had in his head all day.

By the time Danny left the little building it had started to get darker out. He really didn’t want to be out too much past dark, he knew with his luck he’d end up at the top spot on the Bat’s radar, and he really didn’t want that so soon after leaving Amity. 

It was just his luck that just as his apartment building came into view that he was dragged into an alley 

“Gimme your wallet” The guy was dressed in a black hoodie and jeans and pointing a small kitchen knife at Danny, with a stereotypical bandana over the bottom half of his face. “Dude, I’m in college, I have absolutely no money, especially not any on me” He leaned back onto the dirty alley wall, completely unbothered by the knife, if this guy actually tried to stab him he had fast enough reflexes to turn intangible and not get hurt.

This seemed to make the masked man pause, “You’re not from around here, why didn’t you just hand over your wallet?” “Dude, overall this city’s been pretty tame, buildings don’t come down every other weak, but there's weirdos running around on the rooftops” He glanced up as he said that, he could feel a small ghost core on the roof looking down at them, it was probably one of the bat’s he had been trying so hard to avoid, which was just his luck. “Now are you going to try and stab me to take the tiny amount that I have on me that’s worth anything or are you going to leave this alley and rethink your choices?” The man made the sensible choice and ran off. 

“Now that that’s settled are you going to come down here and introduce yourself or am going to have to go through the process of elimination on who you are?” Danny looked up in time to see a guy jump down from the roof and land a few feet away, leaving Danny as the one closer to the road. Which meant that the bat was, hopefully, not going to fight him.

“Well that was a sight, not every day an out of towner makes a mugger rethink his choices” Now that the bat was closer he could practically see rancid ecto coming off of him in waves. “Red Hood, nice to meet you” The bat, Red Hood, held his hand out for Danny to shake, “Danny” “Are you ok Danny? That must’ve been a scare?”

Danny chuckled, “He wouldn’t have been able to stab me even if he actually tried, see you around Red Hood” Danny tipped an imaginary hat and let his eyes flash green briefly in a greeting to the revenant before turning to walk the short way to his apartment building.

--------------------

What the fuck. That was probably one of the absolute weirdest interactions Jason has ever had. He was expecting the pretty civilian to at least be a little stunned, as most non-bat-affiliated people tend to be after a mugging attempt. But the guy just acted like it was no big deal, tipped an invisible hat, and his eyes flashed green? He didn’t think that his entire vision flashed green, only the guy's eyes. 

He stood there, still, as the mysterious guy walked out of the alley and out of sight. “Uh, Oracle?” “What’s up Hood? You don’t usually ask for anything out of a fight” “Did you have eyes on the civilian I just ran into?” Jason was not going to say ‘saved’, he did anything but that. “Can you confirm that his eyes briefly changed colors? They flashed green, but I don’t feel angry, and it wasn’t my whole vision, just his eyes” 

The comms were quiet for a moment before Oracle muttered a “What the hell?” “So I'm not losing it right?” Jason questioned, coming close to yelling. “I’ll look into it, we may have another person who got a bit too close to the pits”

AO3 link

Next>

[smolgaedragon]

No. Not Anymore. (Pt.5)

Hiccup and Toothless shot the queen in the back.

Just as he and Valka had predicted, she opened up her wings and took off. It had likely been quite a while since she had flown anywhere. Queens of nests weren’t known to move after they had settled into their nests, but judging by her size, she was a relatively new queen, as Red Death’s are known for getting absolutely massive, some getting almost as large as juvenile Bewilderbeasts, towards the end of their lives. This queen was probably just older than Berk, as they mature quite slowly compared to most other species.

The queen chased the two of them through the sea stacks, making some of the hiding dragons have to leave their spots right before the queen rammed into the sea stacks, sending them under the water. It wasn’t long before she had almost caught up to them. Toothless’s size and speed could only do so much as the queen was hurdling through pillars of rock.

Toothless started to pull up and away from the sea stacks. Up into the heavy cloud cover. The queen followed them, seeming to struggle with the steep incline that Toothless had taken. As soon as they were protected by the clouds they took a sharp turn to end up behind the queen as she rose into the clouds. They took random shots, hitting her wings and chest the hardest.

The queen had started to twist and randomly fire around her into the clouds, which was when Hiccup and Toothless decided to dive down right in front of her, towards the ground. It didn’t take too long before they were out of the clouds and could see the people standing, all in one large group, staring at what must have been quite a scene for them to witness.

It seemed to take entire minutes, but was simply seconds, before Toothless flipped around with Hiccup and his back facing the rapidly approaching ground, and shot directly into the queen’s open throat just moments before she would have taken a shot at them. Toothless spread his wings out as far as they could go, and they both shot up just as the queen collided with the ground.

Hiccup swore that he could feel the slight touch of the queen’s tail ball along his back as Toothless took them safely out of reach of the gigantic flames given off by the burning queen. 

Hiccup and Toothless hovered above the warriors of Berk and took in their shocked silence, one of the only times that most of the tribe was quiet while in one space together. Of course, that wouldn’t last long. The vikings started yelling and congratulating each other, even though they did next to nothing. 

Hiccup saw Astrid, Fishlegs, Ruff, Tuff, Snotlout, and even Stoick watching him hover on Toothless above where the vikings were celebrating the win of the great battle. He wondered if Astrid had changed her mind about leaving Berk, or if everything that had happened only increased her drive to leave that way of life.

Valka came up to hover next to Hiccup, not wanting to go down in the middle of the chaos that was happening as people tried to organize themselves back onto the few boats that had survived the queen’s initial attack.

Those who came on the backs of dragons had been given a pretty wide berth around them from the others, who very much did not want to get close to the dragons standing next to them. Everyone but Snotlout, who got helped by Tuff, was able to get back on their dragons without help.

Stoick hadn’t gone up to them yet, but he had given them a curious glance. Hiccup flew back to Berk faster than the ships could go, Valka had set her pace to match that of the ships, simply to ensure that no dragons got close to the vikings who were drunk on the feeling of success.

It was his old friends who were the ones who ended up chasing after him, they ended up landing on Berk a few minutes apart. They couldn’t go nearly as fast as Hiccup, as this was their first times flying on the backs of dragons. Hiccup also wasn’t trying to drastically outpace them.

Hiccup was placing his riding mask into Tothless’s saddle bag as the rest of them landed. “So what have you decided?” He asked, glancing up at Astrid. The others gave them a weird look before interrupting, “Um, decided about what?” Fishlegs asked Astrid. “I’m coming” She said, “Coming where?” Tuffnut asked, “Can we come?” Ruffnut followed up. “Oh” Snotlout spoke, staring at Hiccup. 

“You’re both leaving then, huh” Fishlegs gasped and what Snotlout revealed, “What? Astrid?” He turned to plead with her, “Why are you leaving, and Hiccup, don’t you want to stay longer?” 

Hiccup absolutely did not. He did exactly what Stoick had asked for, and he had always planned to leave immediately afterwards. His dad used to use him as the punishment for those who wouldn’t go search for the nest with him. His mother was interested in what he did day after day, and he loved having the freedom to explore, that just wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t left Berk behind.

“No one’d be happy for long if I stayed and they knew who I am” Hiccup said, “Sure, tell Stoick I’m alive or whatever, but I’m leaving with my mother” Hiccup turned to Astrid, leaning onto Toothless, and started to tell her some of the things she'd want to make sure she brought with her. 

“Make sure to bring any clothes you can fit, bring bags, any books you have, those you don't want we can trade with, any thing you don’t want to leave behind. Assume you’re never coming back. I can stuff some things into Toothless’s bags too since you don't have saddle bags” 

“Hold on a minute, why’s she the only one who gets to come with you?” Tuff blurts, “Yah! We still want to come!” Ruff follows, “I mean it would give me a chance to expand my dragon cards” Fishlegs smiled, “See” Snotlout motions to all of them, “Berk’s gone downhill, let us leave with you”

Hiccup was shocked that all of them actually wanted to leave Berk, none of them had been all too interested in anything about him until he started to achieve something in dragon training classes with Gobber. They had done pretty well for themselves during the fight with the queen, maybe they could be useful for larger battles Hiccup sometimes partook in. 

“Alright, if any of you ever want to come back to Berk I wont be taking you back here” Hiccup said, “You all here what I told Astrid she may want to bring?” They nodded, actually listening to what he was saying instead of acting as if they knew everything and him nothing. It was a welcome change. “Meet back here once you're ready to leave. We’ll be flying passed the fleet, so any goodbye’s can get made there”

Hiccup and Toothless flew back to the cave that they’d been crashing in during their stay on Berk, and packed up his things as well as his Mother’s stuff and shoved it all back into the bags. They had brought relatively little with them to Berk, so it wasn’t too much that Toothless couldn’t carry all of it. He attached the bags to his saddle so they wouldn’t fall off without Hiccup holding onto them. They would have to clear out some of the nearby caves in the home of the bewilderbeast so that they would all have their own spaces, but in the meantime, they should all be able to fit in their main cave with Hiccup and Valka.

It would be weird to share a space with so many other people, but Hiccup would adjust. It would only be for a short amount of time. “What do you think about letting them follow us bud?” He asked while adjusting Toothless’s saddle, repositioning some of the padding in between him and the metal parts. Toothless chirped, “Yah, we’ll have to see how long they can last on their dragons. They also need to name them huh” There was a lot Hiccup would have to teach them, and just tell them before they get to the nest.

“Do you think that we can ride the whole way back without stopping?” Toothless laughed, there was absolutely no way that people who’ve sat on dragons 1 singular time would be able to handle the journey. Their dragons likely weren't adjusted to carrying them yet and would need at least 2 breaks during the trip. Especially since they’d be carrying extra stuff as well as people. 

“Do you think we should take them on a tour?” Hiccup questioned as he climbed onto Toothless’s back, making sure that everything was secured and there wasn’t anything left laying around. “Come on, lets see if anyone’s ready to go yet” The two of them shot out of the cave, taking a quick lap around the island, there were still no viking ships in sight. It would take another day or so for them to come back to Berk based on the current winds. Berk ships were built to last, definitely not to be able to go very quickly.

Astrid was there, gently petting and talking to the Nadder. She didn’t seem to have overpacked, but did have a significant amount of weaponry. Hiccup dismounted and went over to her. “Are you sure you want to do this? Once you leave there's no taking it back” 

“There hasn’t been anything truly exciting that has happened since you’ve left. There's no new inventions happening, there’s nothing to work towards, and now there won't even be dragon raids to fight against at night” She was just as stubborn as Hiccup remembered, “I’m sure”

Hiccup began to show her how to wrap a rope around the Deadly Nadder in a way that wouldn’t hurt her as she flew, the Astrid could hold on to, and that they could tie some of her stuff to. Hiccup should finally get around to building a force at the den, it was nice to have a fly functional one to perfect some of his gear while he’s been on Berk. He could also see the benefit of not having to trade for usage of a forge now that there’ll be 6 of them instead of just 2.

They should also expand their food storage, and increase how many rain barrels they have out. Hiccup was also thinking up ways to improve his shower design. He also would have to teach them the different cultural norms of all the places that he tends to visit.

Fishlegs was the 2nd to show up. He brought quite a lot of books, Hiccup was excited to possibly read more, he didn’t often buy books unless there was a need for them as most of his knowledge is enough for him to get buy. So most of the books he has are about engineering and creating different shapes without the ‘right’ tools. 

Snotlout had a large red metal ‘s’ that he insisted on bringing with him, which the Nightmare was eyeing warily. The twins had multiple large bags of things that Hiccup couldn’t think up any use for. This was going to be a long trip.

“Well bud, ready to go get mom and Cloudjumper?” he coo’d as Hiccup got positioned in his saddle. It took a minute for the others to get on their dragons with all their stuff this time. But they were all able to end up on their dragons before too long.

“Does everyone have everything that they want to take?” Hiccup glanced around at the nodding heads, “Great, you all can land on the ships, say goodbye to anyone you want to, then there won’t be another break for awhile” Hiccup made sure that he had his smaller notebook within reach, as well as had his map as close as possible so that he could reach it quickly if he ended up needing to.

After they had taken off from Berk, with only mild screams from some of the others, Hiccup made sure to have Toothless slow his speed down a bit so that the others wouldn’t have a hard time staying caught up to them. They didn’t have to go too fast to be able to see the slow moving ships within around an hour of flying.

Valka had come up to Hiccup when she saw that the others were still there on dragons. He gave her the rundown about what all was said and that they all know that leaving Berk may be a hard task. “Astrid, you get to tell the chief, there's no way I’m going down there” She gave him an odd look before she and the Nadder went to land on the head ship.

The ships didn’t slow down, but a hush came over everyone. They were losing a large amount of children today, sure there was a possibility that one day they’ll come back to Berk, after they've had their fill of wild adventures, but who knows when that will be.

Hiccup still hasn’t fully forgiven his dad for how he enabled the village to treat and act towards him, and watching people cry saying goodbye to their children, it made Hiccup accept that maybe, one day far in the future, he’ll end up actually sitting down and talking to his dad, and actually being listened to.

While that may be something that Hiccup will remain open to the idea of, that day is a long way off, and right now Hiccup has to start coming up with a plan of how they're going to have to change their habits to incorporate 4 more people.

He watches as Ruff and Tuff hug all their relatives, how Snotlout gets a pat on the shoulder from his dad, how Fishlegs is hugging his family, and how Astrid hugs her parents while speaking to Stoick. Who looks up at Hiccup with a shocked face. Astrid probably told him who Hiccup was. That’s alright though, he isn’t going down there. They’ll have a conversation the next time he sets foot on Berk, whenever that may end up being.

Hiccup didn’t know what tomorrow would end up bringing, but it would certainly be an adventure trying to educate the four of them over how to act at the inter-tribal markets that Berk had never sent people to, as well as how he’d introduce them to the many islands of which he’s formed alliances with, and which islands to avoid at all costs.

He’s been without people his own age to truly connect with throughout his whole life. Before Valka he would long for someone to understand him, someone to say that he is a viking, that he does fit in. Now he knows the truth. That being part of the group is overrated, that he is so much more fulfilled by doing his own thing.

Now he gets to teach his thing to others. Others his own age. Others who actually want to listen to him. Others that will get to experience the freedom that riding a dragon can bring for the first time.

Hiccup can’t wait to get started.

<Prev

[smolgaedragon]

Escape (Pt.4)

Pidge glanced at her clock, it was 6 in the morning.

Her thoughts from her dream circled around her head.

“You don't deserve to eat”

“You. Deserve. Pain.”

“You should cut your arms”

Before Pidge even processed what she was thinking, she walked over to her work station and grabbed her box cutter knife that she used for some projects.

Pidge walked over to her bathroom, and locked the door.

She pulled up the sleeves of her sweater, and raised the knife to her left arm.

Pidge watched blood slowly drip down her arm.

It felt nice.

The stinging on her arm from the 7 cuts felt good.

She had deserved it.

Pidge deserved pain.

After a minute or so of Pidge just staring at her blood dripping down to the floor, she started to panic.

She started rushing around looking for band aids she knew she had somewhere.

Pidge used some toilet paper to wipe up the blood that made its way to the floor. She flushed the blood covered toilet paper down the toilet.

When Pidge finally came out of the bathroom with her arm bandaged under her sleeve, the time was almost 7.

Her arm was still stinging a bit as she sat down in front of the tinkering project she thought would be most helpful.

It was one of the smallest, and simplest projects she was working on before the Galra took her.

It was a circle, about 3 inches thick and 6 inches wide, flat on both sides. Kinda like a coin.

It was something that Pidge was going to use to unlock Galra cell doors when on rescue missions, and it should unlock the door in just a few seconds.

It would also work on any locked door.

Pidge’s room door suddenly opened.

Pidge ducked under her desk, fearing it would be a Galra guard coming to take her to either the torture room or the arena.

“Pidge?” Shiro called from the doorway, looking around the room.

“Yah?” Pidge asked, peeking her head out from under the desk once she realized it wasn't a guard.

“What’re you doing under there?” He asked, “Oh, nothing, why did you need me?” She deflected the question.

Shiro’s eyes told her that he was going to ask again later.

“We were going down to train, do you want to come with us? It’s ok if you're not ready yet” Shiro’s understanding voice was a comfort to Pidge.

“Sure” She replied, ‘what could go wrong’ she thought.

Pidge got into her armor, eyes hovering on the bandage on her left arm. It was going to be covered anyway. No one would see it.

She joined the group in the training room.

Hunk seemed to think she shouldn't have been there.

‘I’m weak’ Pidge thought, ‘I’m too small’ ‘I shouldn't even be here’ ‘I should've died in that fight’ Pidge got pulled out of her thoughts by the one in blue armor, what was his name again? Lance.

“It's good to have you back, Pidge” He said. Pidge smiled.

“Thanks Lancelot” Pidge didn't know where that came from, but she remembered it was something she used to call him.

Lance froze for a moment before responding, “No problem Pidgeon” Pidge smiled, she could feel the nickname had good memories attached to it.

If only she could remember them.

After the paladins and Matt finished training, the red guy approached Pidge when no one else was around.

“Are you ok?” He asked. Who was he again?

“Yah” Pidge replied. Right. Red was Keith.

“Your arm was stiff in a very specific way” Kieth pressed

“Was it? I didn't notice” Pidge knew her voice basically gave her away, but she still hoped that Keith would just accept the answer.

“Would you be comfortable showing me your left arm?” Keith asked, the question surprised Pidge.

“I know how to properly bandage cuts, and I can help. If you don't show me, I'm gonna go to Matt with my suspicions of you self harming”

“I’m fine Keith” Pidge insisted. Keith sighed, just when Pidge thought he might give up, he started rolling up his left sleeve.

“I stopped a long time ago, but occasionally Shiro still checks my arms sometimes” Keith said.

“He didn't talk to me about it, he didn't do anything about it, all he did was make sure all the cuts got treated right and didn't get infected, and made sure none were too deep.”

Pidge was silent and still for a long time, but finally she did start rolling up her left sleeve.

His cuts were nothing compared to Keiths, he had too many to count. She had 7 small, hardly deep at all cuts.

Keith just nodded, and Pidge started to roll back down her sleeves.

“I won't say anything to anyone else” Keith said simply. “Come to me if you need bandages, or just want to talk”

“Ok” Pidge replied, and she started walking back to her room.

Training had taken a toll on Pidge.

She kept remembering the arena.

The creatures she had killed.

But somehow, she didn't freeze up.

But now that Pidge was alone in her room, even more bad memories had started to come back.

Her holding weapons with a dead body on the other end.

“You’re a murderer” a voice inside Pidge whispered.

Her plunging a spear into someone's head, and it coming out red on the other side.

“Your friends won't accept you if they find out how many you've killed”

“They’ll kick you out”

“No they won't” Pidge insisted to the voice.

“Yah, they’ll murder you avenging all the creatures you’ve killed”

The voice left, leaving Pidge sitting on the floor staring straight at nothing. Right as Hunk opened her door.

“Hey Pidge-” Hunk froze once he saw Pidge in a ball in the corner.

“Hey” He said, coming over to sit beside Pidge, and wrapping his arms around her, “You ok?”

Pidge couldn't respond, she just barely managed to shake her head no.

Hunk pulled her closer, and hugged her tighter.

“You can talk to us, you know?” He said. “You don't need to keep everything in”

It had been a few hours since Hunk had found Pidge in her room, that was when Hunk realized Pidge hadn't come out for breakfast, and it was almost lunch!

~~~~~~~~~~

Pidge had gotten it stuck in her head that she cant show any weakness, and she can't ask for anything.

It was close to noon when Pidge realized that she hadnt had breakfast.

This was the first time since getting back that she actually felt hungry.

But she figured that she’d be called for lunch.

‘Hunk will probably freak out when he realizes that I didn’t eat’ Pidge thought

It felt weird to her to have someone who made sure she actually ate enough.

With the Galra, you were just given the bare amount of food to live.

So even though Matt was there too, he couldn't have given any of his food to Pidge, or vice versa.

Both of them needed the food they were given.

Pidge decided that if Hunk wasn't in the kitchen, that she’d try to find some little snacks to keep in her room.

Pidge peaked around every corner before she started moving to the next corner.

When she peeked into the kitchen, no one was in there.

Pidge tip toed towards the pantry to see if there was anything like granola bars in it.

“Pidge?” She heard a voice call, “You in here” It was Matt.

His eyes had a bit of confusion in them when he saw Pidge in the pantry.

“We’re going to actually be getting to Earth earlier than Alura thought, their Altean tech went weird, but we’re getting to Earth late tonight!”

Matt seemed very happy about this, Pidge was happy too, then she remembered that she’s most likely going to be the one to tell their mom that their dad is dead.

“The others and I are going to be hanging out in the lounge until we get to Earth. If you're not too tired, would you want to join us?”

Pidge hesitated, maybe if she sat towards the edge she’d be able to sneak away after a bit.

“Sure” Pidge replied slowly, “I’ll be down there in a bit” She waited until Matt walked off to start looking again.

‘There’ Pidge saw a large box full of some crackers, gummies, and even a few granola bars.

Pidge had put on her extremely oversized bright green hoodie earlier. It had a gigantic pocket, so Pidge was able to fit a lot of food in there.

She was eating a granola bar when she sat down on the large couch with her laptop and headphones.

Pidge’s headphones were only covering one of her ears, so she could still talk to the others.

She still couldn't fully trust anyone but Matt and Hunk, but she trusted Shiro and Keith and even Lance a little, mostly because she could remember herself trusting them.

Even though it felt like that was someone else, she trusted her own instinct, and her instincts were telling her that all these people could be trusted.

Keith was eyeing Pidge a bit, but she pretended not to notice.

It felt like hours before Coran came down to tell everyone that it’d be around 5 Earth hours before they’d be there.

It would be close to 4am where the Castle would land at that time.

They would be landing at the Garrison.

Pidge was researching coding and eating another granola bar, constantly yawning, and explaining things to Matt about what she was doing. Matt was, of course, looking over her shoulder.

“Maybe one of us should set an alarm for 4 hours, and we should all sleep down here?” Shiro suggested

“That's an amazing idea!” Lance yelled, making both Pidge and Matt flinch.

Shiro noticed this, and sternly said “Lance, volume” Lance glanced around at everyone, only Pidge not meeting his eyes, he had a guilty look on his face.

“Come on guys!” Lance said, at a slightly more reasonable volume,

“I’ll be like a sleepover! We can tell spooky stories! We can watch movies!” Keith chuckled as he set an alarm that’d wake everyone up in 4 hours, as Lance rambled on about all the fun stuff they could do.

Keith, Lance, and Shiro were the ones that went to get everyone some blankets and pillows they could use.

Pidge paused her music, and closed her laptop when they got back.

Pidge set up her blanket and pillow right along the far side of the couch.

It was just a bonus that Matt, Hunk, and Shiro were the ones to set up closest to her. Lance, Keith, and Allura were opposite of her.

Coran was making sure they actually got to where they wanted to go, and didn't fly right into the sun.

Pidge completely forgot about the cuts on her arm and her stash of food as they all went around talking and telling stories.

She didn't talk too much, and her face did not show too much emotion, even at the really happy or scary moments of the stories.

But Pidge really was having fun.

She was glad she didn't go back to her room right after she went to get some food.

As it got later, and everyone was losing their self control Matt opened up about some of the stuff that happened to him as he was with the Galra.

Casually mentioning how much worse Pidge had had it, didn't really help Pidge with the pitying looks everyone was giving her.

She couldn't get why they all cared so much.

Sure, she could remember that she used to have a much bubblier personality before the Galra, that she trusted everyone in this room with her life before.

But now, she hardly felt safe to open up even a little bit.

Keith quickly changed the subject when the room went quiet, asking everyone what they were most excited about returning to Earth.

Or for Allura and Coran, what they were most excited about seeing Earth for the first time.

It was very late when the small lamp finally got turned off.

Pidge had fallen asleep almost immediately, leaving the rest of them to talk about how much she has improved since coming back to the Castle.

It was even later when everyone had finally gone to sleep for the very few hours of sleep they were all going to get that night.

Most of everyone’s dreams that night were about how happy they were going to be in the morning on Earth.

Pidge’s however, were about everyone hating her, her mother blaming her for their dad’s death, then dying when the Galra invaded earth to recapture her.

Pidge was more scared about the morning than she was happy.

And most of the others could tell.

Pidge was the last to wake up.

The alarm had gone off a while ago, and she had slept through it.

Lance couldn't see how that was possible, because the alarm sounded like it went off right next to his ear.

Matt was the one to wake Pidge up around 10 minutes after everyone else was awake.

Yet somehow, she was somehow the first to actually get up and start doing things.

The Castle of Lions was within view of Earth by the time everyone had finished getting ready for the exciting day.

Pidge was still wearing her hoodie with her snack pocket.

When the Castle landed, everyone was right by the opening door.

It was very early in the morning, but there were already cars waiting there to transport everyone.

Shiro recognized their driver as a cadet he had taught a long time ago, and started to try to make a conversation.

Shiro, Matt, and Pidge were all in one car, Pidge didn't pay attention to who got in what car.

There were people waiting for them to get there, Pidge kicked Matt to stand up when she saw their mom.

Their dog was even there.

‘Your dad is dead’ Pidge’s brain reminded her.

“Dont worry” Matt said, placing a hand on her shoulder, “I’ll tell Mom about Dad”

Pidge was surprised, but nodded anyway.

Their mom was looking between the cars, probably wondering which one had Matt and Pidge in it.

As soon as the doors opened, Matt jumped down from the car and ran over to their mom, Pidge was close behind.

Pidge didn't notice the others hugging their families, or Shiro talking to Iverson.

Pidge’s peace instantly went away when their mom asked a question she had hoped wouldn’t be asked.

“Did you end up finding your father?”

The question was asked with such hope in her voice, that Pidge could only completely shut down.

The emotion went off of her face, her eyes weren’t looking at any specific thing, Matt wrapped an arm around Pidge and looked at their mom with sadness in his eyes.

“We believe he’s dead” Matt said simply, “He was taken out of our cell one morning and he never came back. That was his arena day. That was a few weeks before Pidge got captured”

Pidge stared at her mother, sadness and fear staring back.

It had taken a while, but by the end of a few days on Earth, Pidge could remember everything from the Galra.

She just felt like it was all happening to someone else.

Her brother was there when Pidge didn't want to eat anything.

Matt had been able to convince Pidge to at least eat a few bites of each meal.

Matt had been able to comfort Pidge after her nightmares.

Pidge could almost constantly be seen right at either Matt’s side, her Mom’s side, or Hunk’s side.

They were who she trusted the most, so she didnt care if she was being a little bit clingy.

And if she felt like she was being too clingy, all Pidge had to do was go bother her mom.

Her mom would let her just sit and they would talk.

They would often talk about the fact that Pidge had left to the Garrison without saying bye.

Then she went off to space.

Without saying goodbye.

It had taken a while, but eventually, Pidge had set up a way for video chatting for their little group while they were in space.

Pidge knew that the others itched to get back into space, but were waiting for Pidge’s mental health to get better.

This way, they could have video chatting sessions with their family’s.

And Pidge could switch to online therapy, so hopefully her mental health wouldn't get worse.

When Pidge told the others about what she’d done, they were definitely surprised.

Everyone but Shiro thought that the idea was amazing.

Shiro was a bit hesitant, he didn’t want Pidge to feel like she had to do this just because it’s what the others wanted.

But after a while of convincing him, he agreed.

As Long as Pidge promised to go to her online therapy once every other day at least.

She agreed, and signed up for that schedule starting after they had taken off to space.

There hadn't been any more cuts on Pidge’s arms.

And the few that were there, had healed over, and were only going to leave light scars, if any.

Pidge started doing missions again after a few weeks in space.

And soon after that, Pidge backed her digital therapy sessions down to once a week.

She sometimes went for one every two weeks, but only when she’s had a good week.

Pidge wasn't nearly as trusting with anyone anymore.

But she trusted the other paladins with her life again.

Even though it took a while for Pidge to get to that point, they were always patient.

Matt had decided to stay on earth for a bit longer, and he was now a researcher for the Blade.

Pidge visited him sometimes, but never told him she was coming.

She liked to see the panic in his eyes thinking the Galra had found him again before realizing it was just Pidge.

Pidge’s nightmares came back every once in a while.

But She talked with Shiro.

Shiro always made sure to listen, and not interrupt when Pidge just needed to talk.

Pidge had been eating three meals a day almost every day.

She always had alarms for when to go to sleep, so she never over worked on accident.

Pidge was going to be just fine.

<Prev

[smolgaedragon]

Escape (Pt.3)

“How long has she had nightmares?” Lance asked Matt, “It's been a while since they started” “Has she ever told you what they're about?” Shiro asked, being very concerned for Pidge.

Matt shook her head, “But I've heard her whispering my name” He said sadly, “And Shiro’s and Hunk’s, and Keith’s, and a whole bunch of other names. She sounds sad, and cornered” Matt looked down as the others stared at him.

“I used to see her flinch in dreams,” Hunk said, surprising everybody because he had been quiet for so long. “When she used to fall asleep in the lounge, I would usually be the one to carry her back to her room, and when I put her down, sometimes she would flinch suddenly. It always made me feel sad, cause it meant she was having a bad dream, but when I asked her how she slept, I could see in her eyes that she was lying when she said ‘fine’.”

“Why didn't you ever say something about that to us?” Shiro asked, “Because it’s Pidge” Hunk argued back, then immediately hushing his voice as he remembered Pidge was in the room right next to them, “I figured she’d tell us about it when she was ready”

Today had been a very stressful for everyone in the Castle. But as Pidge fell back asleep on the floor, covered in her blankets, listening to the other paladin's conversation outside her door. But all she could think about was why everyone here seemed to know her more than she did?

~~~~~~~~~~

It was quiet when Pidge woke up in the morning. But she didn't think that it was too early though. All of the rescued prisoners were in the dining room eating a meal, Pidge wasn't sure which though.

After a minute of Pidge just standing there awkwardly in the doorway, Hunk came out of the kitchen balancing what looked like a million plates of food. “Ah, Pidge!” He smiled, some of the prisoners turned their heads to look at her.

In the prison, she was just called ‘The Human Girl’, or ‘Weakling’, or something about how small she is. Pidge was pretty sure that some were surprised she even had a name. Pidge was self given, but still a name at least.

“How was your night?” He asked, knowing what the answer really was, so all Pidge said was “It was fine” Pidge could see the pain in Hunk’s eyes as she said those three words.

But she still said them anyway, "Well," Hunk continued, ignoring the lie Pidge had just told, "I made breakfast, would you like some?" Hunk didn't wait for Pidge to answer.

He knew that she needed to start eating more, so Hunk just placed a full plate of food in front of Pidge. Pidge knew that there was no possible way she could eat all of this food, so she ate till she was full, then a few bites more.

Hunk seemed a little disappointed in how little Pidge had eaten, just under half of the plate. “What do you want to do today?” He asked instead of bringing attention to it, Pidge shrugged.

“I dunno, maybe look through the laptop in my room” Hunk nodded, figuring Pidge needed to re adjust to her life. It made him sad to leave Pidge alone all day, but he did.

Pidge made her way back to her room, and sat down in a corner, covered in fluffy blankets. She made a little blanket fort. Pidge pulled some blankets over her head, pulled the laptop onto her lap, and started to look at everything that was open.

Pidge had made sure to plug the laptop in before she had started. But what really blew her mind, was that there were well over a hundred things open. There were tabs for stupid models for things that Pidge thought might work with a lot of changes.

There were tabs of notes for various projects, Pidge could match some of them with half completed things scattered around the room. Then she found the music tab. It had obviously not been touched since Pidge had gotten captured, but she didn't remember listening to any of the songs on the playlist.

The playlist had well over 200 songs, and Pidge pressed play as she looked through the many, many, many other tabs. The music was perfect background noise for what Pidge was doing.

Pidge could hear the music, and she liked it, but it went in one ear and out the other. She didn't acknowledge anything other than the laptop screen until she was interrupted by Shiro.

“What are you listening to?” He asked, even though Pidge knew that all the mean things he had said was from a dream, she still flinched. But quickly hid her flinch, and told Shiro the song name.

“Do you want to tell me what your dream was about last night?” He asked Pidge. As Pidge was about to shake her head and say no, she remembered a time where she and Shiro sat and talked.

It felt peaceful, and Pidge had trusted him. Pidge felt as if she was looking at it, not actually living it. But everyone has to start somewhere, so Pidge started explaining her dream to Shiro, as he just sat and listened.

Needless to say, when Pidge finished, Shiro was speechless. Not just because of Pidge’s dream, but that she felt safe enough to share with him what she had dreamed of.

“I found some cool things open on the laptop” Pidge said, trying to divert the conversation from her dreams, Shiro went along with it, because he knew that she wasn't going to talk about it much if at all again if she could.

“What did you find?” Shiro asked, watching Pidge get all excited like she used to, “I found a whole bunch of models, and notes, and even a music tab!” Pidge said, with an obvious grin on her face.

“I'm kinda surprised that the laptop could still run with everything that was open” Pidge glanced up from the screen to see a look of happiness in Shiro’s eyes. “Obviously I couldn't close anything, just in case it was needed later” Pidge continued.

Shiro chuckled, when suddenly Allura’s voice came over the speaker system, “All Paladin’s, please report to the meeting room” Shiro’s smile imminently fled his face as he stood up.

He glanced down at Pidge, “Do you want to come?” Shiro asked, “Or should I come back afterwards and tell you what was said?” Pidge didn't really know what she wanted to do.

All she knew was that she wanted to know what was so important, so she made up her mind. “I'm coming” This decision seemed to surprise Shiro a bit, but he just nodded.

Pidge followed Shiro down the long halls all the way up to where the pilot chairs were. The rest of the paladin’s, as well as Matt were there. They all looked at Pidge when she came in, like none of them had expected Pidge was going to be there.

Allura glanced at Pidge as if she was going to have a breakdown. “We are heading to Earth” Allura said plainly. There was no reaction by anyone in the room. “We will arrive on Earth in 2 Earth days”

“Oh” Keith broke the silence, “You're serious.” “Wait?” Lance’s brain caught up to the conversation, “We’re actually going home?” Allura nodded, because that was exactly what she had just said.

Pidge was the only one who wasn't jumping up and down with joy. Of course she was happy. She would get to see her mother, and her dog. But her father. According to Matt,

he was dead.

And Pidge would be the one to have to break that news to her mother.

Pidge went out of the room along with the others, as they went to the lounge to celebrate with some treats Hunk made, Pidge slipped away back into her cozy blanket fort in her room.

She sat down, and slipped her headphones onto her ears, and pressed play on the playlist, just listening to the songs, not multitasking like she felt she should, but right now Pidge just needed not to think. So music was what she had thought of.

Pidge didn't know how long she just sat there, not thinking, but at some point, Hunk peaked his head into her room. “Pidge?” He asked, Pidge, having her headphones on, did not respond.

“Pidge?” He said a bit louder. Still no response. Hunk moved closer and sat down right in front of Pidge. As Hunk sat down, Pidge looked up, and took her headphones off as she pressed pause on her music.

Hunk stares at her for a moment, “Do you want a hug?” He asked. Pidge went to hug him first. She didn't even know why, nothing bad had happened today. She got to eat, listen to music, and even learn that she was getting to go home.

But for some reason, nothing felt real.

To Pidge, it felt like at any moment she would wake up on the hard smooth torture chamber in the Galra prison.

Like she would have a dream where she got out, only to wake up and have that dream used against her.

Pidge hasn't seen her mother since before she went to the Galaxy Garrison, which felt like years ago. She looked through some of the things on the laptop that were closed.

Then she clicked something that looked like it should be the dictionary. But something else popped up. A list of dated recordings. The last entry was from about the time Pidge would have been captured.

Pidge looked up, but Hunk had vanished, he had probably gone to celebrate going home with the others.

Pidge clicked on the last made video. After it loaded, Pidge’s face popped up and started speaking. “You would not believe what Lance did today” Past-Pidge screamed at the camera.

“He did probably the most classic prank ever. Does he have any imagination at all? My guess is no. He did the water bucket on a door thing, and I got completely soaked! Lucky for him I wasn't carrying any projects that could have electrocuted me. So I tackled him to the ground. He’s a weakling.” Past-Pidge smirked in a fond way.

Pidge chuckled at Past-Pidge’s humor. And she could actually remember bits of that now, not the full thing, but walking through the door, feeling cold, having to be torn away from Lance.

Pidge clicked to the next video, then the next, and at some point later she reached the very first entry.

“I'm going to be making basically a video diary so that Mom, Dad, and Matt know what I've been through, and I can share the funny parts with them. And today was my first day in space. As this is more of an introduction video, I'm going to make a separate video describing today”

So she had done these videos every day before she had gotten captured.

What if she started them up again.

Her 2ed night back in the castle.

A lot had happened today, should she also make a video for the time she had been in the Galra prison?

Yeah, she's going to do that.

Pidge clicked out of the video, scrolled the long way up to the top, and pressed that little + button to record another video. She titled it, ‘Galra Prison’. Where she would have added the date, she didn't, she didn't even know the date she would add, Pidge was there for so long.

When Pidge’s photo popped up, along with the small red dot that told you if the screen’s recording, she started to talk.

Pidge talked about everything.

How all the torture felt.

How hungry she was, but when she was given food she could hardly eat it cause she felt too full.

Everything.

When she had talked about everything, Pidge clicked the stop recording button, and pressed the + again.

Then, she talked about today.

Starting with her nightmare.

Pidge was listening to more of her music when Hunk peaked his head in, “It’s dinner time” before he could say more, Pidge stood up, “Ok” she said with a smile, “What are we having”

Hunk didn’t really know what to do, he knew Pidge was smiling to hide something, but he didn’t press.

“I found the ingredients to make pasta!” He seemed so excited for such a simple food.

Pidge also got excited though, she couldn’t even remember the last time she had pasta.

For the first time that day, Pidge felt like she could really be happy.

She could actually sit and eat a bit.

Pidge actually was able to eat almost half of how much everyone else ate.

Matt ate a little more than Pidge did, but even that looked like nothing compared to how much the others were eating.

“Today went by fast” Pidge said, interrupting the comfortable silence at the table.

All heads in the room turned to look at her, Matt nodded, “Yah, it was kinda a blur”

Pidge finished her food first, she had the Least, and ate the fastest.

But as she was leaving the room, Shiro asked her something.

“Pidge?” He asked, Pidge turned to look at him.

“Would you mind if I told the others what you told me about your dreams?” Pidge just shrugged, “Sure” then she left the room.

Pidge didn't think that she could handle the horrified and pitying looks she knew she was going to get from the others.

At least Shiro had kept his face blank.

But Pidge knew that the others probably weren't going to be able to do that.

Logically, Pidge knew that Matt and Hunk at least would never do some of the things she had dreamed about them doing.

And logically, she knew that she was safe now, and she wasn’t going to be tortured again.

But her mind didn't seem to be able to process that.

To get her mind off of everything, Pidge decided to start looking through all of her past work in progress tinkering projects.

She knew somewhere in the very back of her mind, that these were all supposed to never really be finished, to just be something to keep her hands busy when she was bored.

When she got comfy back inside of her pillow fort, she started to put all of the tinkering tabs into groups.

Pidge didn't really know how long she had sat there, hunched over her laptop.

Next time Pidge looked up, it was well past midnight.

‘But’ Pidge thought, ‘At least I got everything more organized so I can mess it all up again later.

As soon as Pidge stood up, her vision went slightly blurry.

“Well then” Pidge mumbled, barely loud enough for even herself to hear, “I guess it's sleep time”

As soon as Pidge closed her eyes, she was in a dream.

Pidge braced herself for what she knew was coming.

The insults.

The ‘comments’.

And everything else.

But instead she heard nothing.

She cautiously opened her eyes to see a curved sheet of metal covering her eyes, making it impossible for Pidge to see.

But she could recognize the voice she heard out of the darkness anywhere.

Haggar.

“Did you like that little fantasy? Little Miss Paladin?”

Pidge froze. Was all of that just a dream?

Had she given Haggar even more to use against her?

No. Pidge thought desperately, this was all a dream. She was safe. She was at the Castle of Lions. She was going to wake up any moment now.

Right?

The guards grabbed her, and dragged her back through the hallways towards her and Matt’s cell.

Pidge was too caught up in her thoughts to even try to struggle.

As Pidge hit the wall, and the door closed, the Matt shaped lump in the corner was suddenly standing over her.

He scoffed.

“You’re so weak”

Pidge didn't know what to do.

This was all a dream.

Matt would never say stuff like that to Pidge. Right?

“Why wont you just give in?”

“You don't deserve to eat”

“You. Deserve. Pain.”

“You should cut your arms”

“Maybe I should” Pidge couldn't believe what she was thinking.

Hurting herself wouldn't help anything.

It would be as if she was admitting to herself that she’s weak for her feelings.

Pidge felt as if she couldn't breathe.

The real Matt would never say stuff like that.

The real Matt would comfort her.

The real Matt wouldnt make her feel like this.

Pidge sat up suddenly back in her bed.

She was in the Castle of Lions.

She was safe.

<Prev | Next>

[smolgaedragon]

Escape (Pt.2)

Pidge had been tossed into the arena with a giant green creature. ‘Weird’ Pidge thought, ‘I thought Green was a good color’. Pidge shrugged as she got into her fighting stance.

This fight was either going to last a long time, and at the end she would die, or she would die almost immediately. Pidge hoped she could at least last a while. Matt had to have fought worse things, she could survive a little acid.

When the green creature was released from its chains, the first thing it did was spit acid towards Pidge. She easily dodged, but the acid quickly seeped through the solid ground. If she touched even a bit of that, she was doomed.

She was given a long metal stick to fight with, it didn't sit right in her hands, but none of the Galra weapons really did, so she was used to it. Pidge ran around to the back of this creature and stabbed it between the soldier blades, it was the highest Pidge could reach with her short arms.

Pidge quickly ducked and rolled away from where she was standing as the creature twisted and shot acid right where she was standing a moment before. ‘Shit’ Pidge thought, ‘I’m not gonna last too much longer’.

~~~~~~~~~~

“A viewer platform is right over there” Matt said as he took a right down a hallway that looked like the last hallway, that looked like the last hallway, you get it. (A/N: No Hunk we don't, continue your never ending loop)

They came out on a platform that looked over the arena, where Hunk could clearly see Pidge. And she was obviously losing her fight. To be fair, she was fighting a creature well over double her size. Even from here Hunk could tell she hasn't grown since she’d been here.

Her ribs were sticking out, same as Matt’s, there were clear ragged scars on her face, arms, and legs. The glass in her glasses was definitely cracked, and her hair was much longer.

She didn't look like the Pidge Hunk had known. But he knew that she was in there. Under the protective walls she had built. The Pidge that had laughed at his jokes, that had watched silly shows and movies with him, that had made their Galra tracker. Hunk just had to hope that he could reach her.

Pidge hadn’t seen Hunk and Matt yet, but they already knew she wasn't going to last too much longer, and judging from the look in her eyes, she knew that too.

“We have to get down there” Hunk said to Matt, who was just staring at Pidge dart out of the way of the Acid. But he nodded, “Find a way down” Hunk yelled to Matt as he jumped off of the edge of the platform, using the rocket boosters on his suit to slow his fall.

Matt ran back into the hallways to find a way down that wouldn't get him killed. When Hunk landed, both the creature and Pidge turned towards him. Pidge squinted at Hunk and blacked a few times.

“Hunk?” She whispered, “Hunk!” She screamed as she darted over to him and gave him a hug. She was even smaller than Hunk had thought. Her hair was a mat of dirt and blood. ‘I hope that's not her blood’ Hunk thought as he squeezed Pidge tightly.

The green creature charged at Hunk and Pidge after getting over its confusion about another person joining this fight suddenly. Hunk quickly stopped hugging Pidge, and put himself in between Pidge and the creature.

Hunk gripped his bayard in his hands and aimed it at the creature. But right before it got within range, a sword came through its chest, and it fell over, revealing Matt.

Hunk took a gigantic sigh. Pidge was back. She was alive. Her brother was alive. She was going to come home. Hunk couldn’t wait to see her reaction when she sees the other paladins back in the castle of lions.

A Galra guard comes out of nowhere, Pidge see’s him, her eyes go wide, and she hides behind Matt, who shields her from his view. Matt was so protective of Pidge, it was cute to see their sibling bond.

This guy has obviously done something to Pidge, she looks so small behind Matt. So instead of trying to fight this guy, Matt, Pidge, and Hunk just turned around, and ran out of the arena the other way.

They had been running for what felt like ages. But none of them slowed down in the slightest. When they arrived at the Yellow lion, the Red lion and the ship Coran had flown to help the prisoners get to the Castle of Lions, had gone.

Which Hunk was thankful for, at least they didn't wait around asking to be attacked waiting for them. So they didn't stick around either. As soon as the three of them got into the cockpit, Pidge basically fell into a corner and brought her legs up to her chest.

Matt acted as if that was normal, and didn't acknowledge that she had done anything. But to Hunk, it was weird. As soon as he sat down in his pilot chair, Shiro spoke to him over the coms.

“Hunk?” He asked, “Are you finally back?” “Yes Shiro!” He said in a very happy tone. Which surprised even him, as he hadn't used that tone of voice since Pidge had been captured. “I got Matt and Pidge here with me” Shiro let out a breath of relief.

Hunk smiled to himself as the Yellow lion took off, and headed towards the Castle of Lions. Just happy that Pidge was finally back, not even considering at this time how different she would act.

~~~~~~~~~~

Pidge had recognized Hunk’s face as soon as she saw him. His face was the one that saved her in her nightmares by making her cookies, and sweets. And Matt seemed to recognize the Shiro person over the coms of the big Yellow lion, and Pidge knew that she should too, but she just couldn't remember.

She knew the name from somewhere, but all her brain associated with the name Shiro was a comet falling from the sky as she sat on top of the Garrison’s roof.

A similar thing happened when they got closer to a big white thing that resembled a castle. Pidge knew that she should recognize it, she knew that she had memories with it, but her brain just wouldn't show them to her.

Hunk piloted the big yellow lion into the space castle, and started to walk out, Matt followed him, motioning for Pidge to follow too, which she did cause if Matt thought it was safe, she did too, because Matt would never do anything bad to her.

Hunk led Pidge and Matt through the large white hallways, which were nothing like the ones that the Galra made, and into a room with a large fancy table, with 5 people sitting at it. Well 3 humans, and two Altens? Where did Pidge’s brain know that word from?

At once all five people jumped up and formed a group hug around Pidge. Pidge backed into a corner which received strange looks from the 5. “Who are you guys?” Pidge asked, because she genuinely didn't know. But all of their faces dropped like clockwork.

“Wait, Pidge?” The tall man dressed in black asked, black was a protecting color. A safe color. “Do you not remember us?” His voice was filled with a mix of sadness and fear, but all Pidge did was shake her head no.

Matt had guided Pidge to her room. She actually did remember it, she remembered showing all of her little tinkering projects to Hunk, the guy dressed in black, and the guy dressed in red.

Pidge knew that she should have known everyone in that room. But she just didn't. Why couldn't she remember? What was wrong with her? Why could she only remember Hunk?

~~~~~~~~~~

“Shiro?” Hunk's worried voice sounded off of the walls after Matt had led Pidge to her room, “Why does she not remember you?” He asked, “When she saw me, she yelled my name and ran and hugged me, she looked so small” he commented.

Shiro had sat back down, as if he didn’t want to have to deal with the questions. “She probably blocked us out” Shiro muttered under his breath, but everyone heard. “We can ask Matt what he thinks when he gets back.

They sat in silence until Matt came back into the room. Hunk and Lance immediately jumped up and asked him as many questions that their minds could come up with.

Matt looked at them, blank faced, not taking in any of the questions. “Hunk! Lance!” Shiro’s voice yelled above the questions, “one at a time, and let Matt answer, more important ones first”

“Why doesn’t Pidge remember anyone other than Hunk?” Lance asked, “That’s the thing,” Matt started as he sat down at the table, Hunk and Lance followed his lead.

“She does remember you,” Matt stated. “Just the other day she was repeating your names over and over in the corner of our cell. She just doesn’t connect your names to your faces.”

This broke the paladins. “It’s a tactic Haggar uses” Matt continued, apparently not done, “I’ve seen it a few times, someone I get close to, then they suddenly don’t remember anything but names. At least it didn’t get too far on Pidge, she still remembers some moments”

No one wanted to ask any more questions now. “Let’s revisit this topic tomorrow with Pidge, and see what she remembers” then Shiro lowered his voice, “And what she doesn’t” Everyone filed out of the room and towards their rooms.

~~~~~~~~~~

As soon as Pidge’s head touched her pillow, she was asleep. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept in a bed. But her dreams didn’t seem to understand that she was safe now.

Pidge was standing on Earth, in front of two graves. She squinted at the names, Colleen and it was her parents. Her parents were dead.

“No!” Pidge screamed at the graves, “This is just another thing Haggar is showing me!” Still, something just felt different about this. It didn’t have that tint around the edges. It was something that could happen. It was real.

Pidge was suddenly standing in front of a room full of people, she recognized almost everyone in the room. Then, there were the people from the room earlier.

She should remember who they were, but she just didn’t. But there was also Matt. “Ha, look at the puny little orphan” the red one chuckled, they all towered over Pidge.

The black and blue ones laughed like lunatics at that, Pidge backed into a corner and cowered. Then there was Hunk, his face looked cruel. “Why would any of us help you Katie?” Hunk snarled, Katie, no one but her parents and Haggar called Pidge Katie.

Matt didn’t say anything, but him just laughing at what the others said was enough to break Pidge’s spirit. A sword manifested in the hand of the one dressed in black.

“What do you say guys?” He asked, his face filled with hate, “Should we put this weak little girl out of her misery?” The next thing Pidge knew, the sword was coming down on her head.

Pidge sat straight up in her bed, and screamed. A second later everyone appeared in her doorway. The black one. The red one. The pink one. The blue one. The darker blue one. Hunk. And Matt.

Pidge started crying when she saw them, and fell back into the corner, pulling a blanket off of her bed to shield her from the staring eyes of the others.

After a while, Pidge felt a hand slowly touch her shoulder. She peaked out of the blanket, it was Matt. The actions of dream Matt flashed in her head, and she pulled the blanket back up with a jerk.

“Hey” Matt said in his calming voice, “It was just a dream, do you remember what we do with the bad dreams?” Pidge nodded from underneath the blanket.

Pidge took a deep breath and pushed the dream away. But she knew something about this strategy that Matt dint. All the dreams came back into her head when she was about to sleep. She would never get rid of the dreams.

“Pidge?” Hunk asked, his voice soft and worried, instead of cluel and cold. “Are you ok?” Pidge took a breath, stood up, and put on a smile, “Why wouldn’t I be?” She asked, even she was surprised at how normal her voice sounded.

Slowly, one by one, they filed out of Pidge's room and out into the hallway. Their minds were clearly still on her. Pidge felt guilty about that, no one but Matt had ever seen her after a nightmare.

<Prev | Next>

[smolgaedragon]

Escape (Pt.1)

‘It was just supposed to be a simple in and out mission’ Pidge thought. ‘Just to rescue some prisoners’. But it went wrong very quickly.

Yesterday

“Hey Pidge?” Shiro asked, pulling Pidge away after the mission briefing had finished. “Yah?” “There is a pretty high probability that your brother, Matt, is in this prison. But I need you to not go off looking for him.” Shiro knew he was asking a lot from Pidge. But he hoped that he wasn't asking too much. Pidge nodded. Hoping she would be able to keep this promise.

“Alright Team” Pidge heard Shiro’s voice over the Lion’s coms, “We ready?” “Hell Yah” Keith shouted back as he raced forwards towards the Galra ship. Shiro and Lance also raced forwards. Soon they were both fighting their own mini battles. It was Hunk and Pidge’s job to get onto the Galra ship and free the prisoners.

But they only freed maybe 15 or so out of at least 25 when things went wrong. A large group of Galra soldiers were coming straight for them. “Run” Hunk yelled to the prisoners. Hunk led them towards the escape pods, Pidge was in the back of the group, making sure that no one fell behind.

One thing about the Galra escape pods that Pidge thought was trash was that someone has to hold down the launch button for a full 5 seconds before the pod will launch. Normally Pidge would have been able to hack it and get the pod to launch without having to have someone press the button. But this time, that wasn't an option. The guards were racing towards them. They would be brought out of the pod before it would have time to launch.

Everyone else was now in the pod. Hunk looked up with surprise as the pod doors closed. ‘Pidge’ He mouthed. Tears were threatening to fall from Pidge’s eyes, but she pressed and held the launch button down for the full 5 seconds.

“Pidge” Pidge heard Hunk scream at her as the guards got even closer. But once the pod was safely launched, Pidge turned around, and got ready for what she knew was going to be a losing battle.

~~~~~~~~~~

When Allura opened the Galra escape pod, she and Coran Tended to the injured prisoners. It was only after the prisoners had been taken care of that Allura sought out Hunk. “Hey Hunk?” Allura said, peeking her head into Hunk’s room, “Have you seen Pidge any-” She took one look at Hunk’s crying form on the floor, and sat down next to him. “What’s wrong?” She asked, her voice not doing much to sooth him. “Pidge, s-she” Hunk could hardly say anything through his crying. “She what Hunk?” Suddenly something clicked in her head, Hunk. Where is she?” Alarm sinking into her voice.

“Th-the Galra” He said between sobs, “T-they took her” Hunk hugged Allura as she processed this new information. “We need to inform the others before they get back.” Allura said, standing up suddenly.

“Before we get back from where?” A voice said from Hunk’s door. It was Shiro, taking one look at Allura’s alarm filled face, and Hunk’s tear filled eyes before standing up straight, “What wrong”

“The Galra got Pidge” Hunk said, looking at the floor. Fear immediately made its way to Shiro’s eyes. “Let’s go tell the others and go get Pidge back” Shiro said as he helped Hunk up from the floor, his voice clear of emotion.

When the rest of the paladins got a glance at Shiro’s determined face, Hunks tear filled eyes, and Allura’s broken expression, they were all already standing. “What’s going on?” Keith asked, worried by his friend's faces. “Why isn't Pidge at this surprise meeting?” Lance asked, making Hunk flinch slightly, Lance saw, “Hunk.” He said. “Where is Pidge”

“On the Galra ship” Shiro answered for him. Keith and Lance’s faces went from confused to angry to fear all in a second. “Then what are we waiting for?” Keith asked angrily, “We know where she is, let’s go get her” “Now hold on” Shiro said, placing a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“They’re probably expecting that” Shiro said, making Keith pause for a moment, “And? We can get her.” He said with anger in his voice. “We need a plan” Shiro said, trying to get Keith to not run off into a battle.

“Shiro’s right.” Hunk spoke up. He hadn’t said anything in this conversation, so everyone turned to look at him, “W-we need a plan. It’s my fault she got caught. I should've remembered about the trashy Galra escape pods, and how they need a button pressed down for 5 seconds before they can launch”

“Hunk-” Shiro said, with sadness leaking into his voice, “Here's a plan” Keith said, “We fight our way onto the ship. We find where Pidge is being held, and we bring her back.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Pidge woke up in a dark cell. There was one dim purple light, and there were voices outside of the cell door. Pidge only caught a few words, ‘Bet… last… arena… human’. Then the door opened, revealing two big muscled Galra soldiers.

“It’s been decided human” The one on Pidge’s right said, “You’re going to the arena” He said with a grin. The other one chuckled, “You bet your sword that this was going to last in the arena?” He said, “We’ve only had one human survive a single round”

“Let's put this one in with him, he’ll scare her with his stories” The two of them laughed as they pulled Pidge up from where she was sitting, “Let me go!” She screamed at them as she tugged away.

The one who had spoken first laughed loudly at Pidge’s attempt to get away from him, then held her into the air by her wrist. “You're lucky that we aren’t allowed to kill you right now” He snarled. That got Pidge to freeze, before starting to tug away again.

The soldier just sighed, and carried Pidge all the way to her new cell by her wrist. The door opened on Pidge’s new cell. It was a bit larger than the other one, but not by too much. “Hey survivor” One of the guards called to a human shape in one of the corners, “We brought you a friend”

They threw Pidge into the cell. As soon as the door closed, the person leapt up to check on Pidge. “Are you ok?” He asked, his face was now illuminated by the dim light. Pidge could only stare.

It was Matt. Her brother. He was here. He was alive. “What’s your name?” He asked, ‘He doesn't recognize me?’ Pidge thought. To be fair, he thinks I'm safe on Earth, not a paladin of Voltron trying to take down the Galra empire.

“Matt!” I cried as I leaped to hug him, Matt froze, probably wondering how she knew his name, then he placed my voice. “Pidge?” She hugged him tighter. He hugged back, “How did you get here?” He asked with a bit of sadness in his voice.

“Don't say the galra have invaded Earth!” He held her at arm's length, Pidge shook her head. “Then how?” Matt asked, afraid for his little sister, “Well,” Pidge started, “Me and my team were here to rescue some Galra prisoners, and Shiro knew I was going to try and look for you, because we had thought that you were probably here, but we ran into some guards, and I didnt get out in time”

Matt just stared at her, wide eyed, “Slow down” He said, “Your team? Shiro was with you? Who else was with you?” Matt had said slow down, but he was talking anything but slow. “Yah, my team, Voltron, Shiro, Keith, Hunk, and Lance. Then there's Princess Allura and Coran, they were on the castle”

This did nothing to make Matt slow down. “You're part of Voltron?” I nodded, “And so’s Shiro, and everyone else I mentioned” “Wow” I can't believe this. “When did you come out into space?” Matt asked, His happiness going down a bit, then with a sad look in his eyes, he asked, “Have you heard about Dad yet?”

Pidge’s spirits fell to the ground after Matt said that. “No” She breathed, “What’s happened?” Pidge asked. Before Matt even put together his words, the cell door had opened. And Pidge was grabbed by a guard and dragged out down a hallway.

Before Pidge had time to struggle, or fight back, she was tied to a table. And a familiar face came into view. Haggar. “Hello my little Paladin” She said in her raspy voice that Pidge had heard in nightmares many times.

“Now, what is Voltron planning, Ms. Katie Holt?” These words made their way into Pidge’s skin. How does this evil witch know her name? “How the fuck would I know?” Pidge screamed.

“Wrong answer” Haggar hissed. Suddenly Pidge felt a horrible wave of pain. The pain lasted for ages, and seemed to drain Pidge of all her energy. But she wouldn't let that be seen.

Pidge didn’t remember what the next few questions were, but she screamed street names from her neighborhood on Earth. The pain just barely disappeared before the next wave hit. Until Pidge passed out from pain, and was thrown back into the cell with Matt as a limp body.

~~~~~~~~~~

It had been 9 months since Pidge had been taken. The Voltron team seemed to be breaking apart. They still went on missions, and helped save people, but they no longer had their beloved green paladin by their side.

Many people noticed the absence of the Green Paladin. And the team told them. She has been captured by the Galra. They didnt know if Pidge was even still alive. Of course they hoped, but they knew there was only so much that Pidge could take.

Once the four paladins got back to the Castle of Lions, Allura called a meeting. It felt weird to all of them to be there without Pidge. “We think we have a lead on where Pidge is being held”

This got all of them to sit up straighter. “Where?” Shiro asked, hope seeping into his voice. Coran took a shuddering breath. “The Arena planet.” He said, they all went white. Shiro a bit more than the others.

“We also have reason to believe that Haggar is there as well” Allura said softly. “Let’s go get our Pidge back” Hunk said, standing up from the table.

He had lost his friendly attitude the day they had lost Pidge. Allura had lost her happiness. Keith his excitement. Lance his humor. Shiro his smile. And Coran his hope.

Without another word the four paladins got back into their lions, and headed towards the planet where the arena was. All they could do now was hope they weren’t too late.

~~~~~~~~~~

Pidge’s life now operated on a system of 4 days. 3 days of torture by the hands of Haggar or a cruel soldier, and 1 day of 3 or 4 battles in the arena.

It was the 3rd day. Pidge’s torture had just ended, and she was thrown into her cell. Her head shot up when the door closed. With a wince of pain, she then sat up.

Matt was in the arena. He was usually in the arena when Pidge got back to the cell. She could only hope that he survived his fights. He was the champion, and had a fight a day. Pidge was dreading the day when the Galra would make her and Matt fight.

Pidge couldn’t remember too much from before she was captured. She could remember some things from Earth. But only a few from being with Voltron. Pidge could only remember what Hunk looks like, but she could remember everyone’s names.

Pidge remembered a red, a black, a blue, a black, a pink, and a yellow, who she knew was Hunk. But she didn't know what colors belonged to which names.

Pidge sat in the corner, and hummed to herself. The best way she’s found to pass the time. Eventually the cell door opened, and Matt was brought in. He was lucky he was too big to be thrown in like Pidge was.

Pidge let out a gasp when she saw his face, he had a large bloody cut going across his face. On Earth he would have been immediately rushed to the ER, but they were not on Earth.

The guards closed the cell door as Pidge lept up to check on her older brother. “It’s ok Pidge, I’m more worried about your fight tomorrow”

Pidge was confused, “Why? Have you heard what I'm fighting?” Matt nodded slowly, “You're fighting something big with acid breath” Matt said with fear clearly written on his face.

Pidge was nervous. She thought this might be her last battle. But she wasn't about to let Matt know that. But She knew he was thinking it. Pidge knew that the next time she was taken from the cell, was the last time she would most likely see her brother.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Keith? Hunk?” Shiro asked as they neared the Galra base, “You remember the plan?” “Get in, rescue Pidge and anyone else we can, get out” Keith replied in the plain emotionless voice he used for everything.

Keith and Hunk landed their Lions a little ways away from the base, and somehow managed to sneak in, past the Galra guards. The two of them opened all of the cells, looking for their friend. They instructed all of the other prisoners they found to follow them, but if they saw a guard to hide.

Hunk got to the final cell door. “She has to be in here” He whispered to himself, when he opened the door, there was a human laying in the far right corner. For a second he thought it was Pidge. This boy looked so similar to her, but his voice was clearly not Pidge’s.

“Who are you?” The boy asked, Hunk’s heart fell into his stomach. Pidge wasn't here,

“Im Hunk” He said, instead of letting his true feelings show, “Is there any chance there’s another human here? A girl?” Hunk asked, not quite ready to give up hope that Pidge was here.

“Hunk” The boy repeated, “Where have I heard that name before?” He asked himself, “Well, I’m a paladin of Voltron? Is that where you’ve heard of me?” He asked the clearly broken boy.

“Pidge said your name when she was first moved in here” The boy said. This made Hunk freeze, “Pidge is here then?” Hunk couldn't help the relief that flooded his voice and face. “Im her brother” The boy said walking to stand right in front of Hunk, he was a tad taller, but each of his ribs stuck through his torn up shirt.

"Pidge has a brother?" Hunk asked, the boy nodded, then stuck out his hand in greeting "I'm Matt" "Nice to meet you Matt" Hunk said, "Is Pidge still here?" He asked, knowing what answer he hoped he was given.

Matt slowly nodded, "Hopefully" he said, this made Hunk worried, "Hopelly?" He mimicked, "She was taken into the arena a half hour ago"

Hunk was staring at Matt in horror thinking about what Pidge could be doing this very moment.

Keith yelled at Hunk from down the hallway, "Hunk, Pidge, we need to get going" Keith mistook Matt for Pidge, they looked pretty similar except Pidge needed glasses, and Matt didn't.

"Keith!" Hunk ran up to Keith, "That's Pidge's brother Matt, he says Pidge got taken to the arena, and she's still in there" Keith paled.

He thought for a moment, "I'll take the other prisoners to the ship Coran brought down, you and Matt you get Pidge" Hunk nodded, and he followed Matt towards the arena.

Next>

[smolgaedragon]

No. Not Anymore. (Pt.4)

It wasn’t long after sunrise when Hiccup and Toothless got up to take a few laps around the island. Toothless definitely got a good laugh at how many people screamed to get down at the sight of him. After their 2nd lap around the island that Hiccup used to call home, Toothless took them down to the cove that they were both sure they’d never see again since they left.

“I thought I’d find you down here this morning” Astrid said from behind them, she was on the ground, leaning up against a large rock, slightly smirking at Hiccup. Toothless trotted up to her, and to Astrid’s credit, she only tensed up instead of running away like the last time those 2 were face to face. 

“What’s his name again?” Astrid asked, letting the Night Fury sniff as the back of her hand, “Toothless” Hiccup let out a small chuckle at how ironic the name was, but nevertheless Toothless showed Astrid his bare mouth before snapping down, very much <em>with</em> teeth now, on a stick that hiccup had thrown towards him. He laughed at how Astrid had startled at the sudden appearance of teeth, as it was something that Hiccup had grown quite used to after spending pretty much all his time with Toothless since he left Berk.

“Some of us really have missed you ya’ know” She said, standing up to lean on her axe, while making very direct eye contact. “The chief’s not doing what he used to for Berk, do you plan on telling him who you are or no?” Astrid did not let Hiccup avoid this question, and he wondered why she wanted to know. “Not at the moment, he made his choices and now he gets to see what they cost him”

“Then that being said, when you leave Berk after this is all over, I want to come with you.” This was very much not where Hiccup had thought Astrid was going with this. “Ok, you can come with us, you’ll have to get really comfortable with the dragons though” Hiccup got back into Toothless’s saddle, “I’m going to go use the forge to make Toothless a new tail, we need something strong to beat a queen in battle huh bud?” 

He glanced back at Astrid, “You have likely at least a week to think about it more, make sure you're sure before our fight with the queen” and with that Hiccup was up in the air again, flying slowly towards the village forge. If Astrid truly wanted to come with them she’d have to find a dragon that likes her, Toothless wouldn’t want to be the one to carry her everywhere whenever they had to go somewhere. Hiccup would also have to introduce her to his mother formally, and teach her how to avoid getting shot down by the trappers and hunters who made their bases all over. It would definitely be a change from the only other human around being his mother.

He’ll have to wait and see how she reacts to his plan to kill the queen.

He had his mask down before he landed in front of Gobber’s forge. The few who had been talking nearby had hid behind various things around them when they saw Toothless approaching in the sky. Gobber stayed well out of his way as he worked. He’d had lots of ideas on gadgets that he didn’t have the ability to make himself without access to a forge. 

He made Toothless a new tail fin, and added some little things to his saddle to make it more comfortable for both of them and so it could hold a few more hidden trinkets. Hiccup also added a few more doodles in one of his notebooks on a few different alterations he could make to his mask to make it better for being worn for an extended amount of time, it was really starting to rub on some parts of his face since he had never worn it constantly as it had been made to protect his face from the wind during fast flying. He couldn’t care less if the hunters whose ships he sank saw his face. 

Hiccup’s flight suit was still an in progress project, and he was debating finishing it up for the battle with the queen, but he did ultimately decide that he’d get parts that he would be able to do better with access to a forge, but the rest could wait. He did also help on a few orders from the berkians each day he worked in the forge. He just got some stuff started, never too much, but enough that Gobber stopped being quite as wary of Hiccup. He still stayed away from the Night Fury laying in the corner of the shop.

Valka was doing recon on the nest, which was how they learned just how hated this queen was by her nest. Most queens were at least respected by their nest, but the nest closest to Berk was an outlier, which was probably why they continuously raided the vikings. They had to bring back their body weight in food for their queen. 

Hiccup started to notice Astrid watching Valka leave the island each day, and look at what Hiccup was working on when he was taking a short break. Maybe she was trying to figure out what to expect if she decided to actually leave Berk for good.

After spending a week on Berk, the dragons from the nest hadn’t been back since that first night. It was clear that the chief was getting anxious from not doing anything since Hiccup and Valka arrived. Hiccup and Valka had made a plan to attack in 3 days. They had mapped out their path into the center of the nest and were going to use quite a few tricks to use the queen’s size against her in the tight area inside the nest.

All of their planning went out the window when Hiccup left the forge after not taking a break almost all day to find Astrid, Ruff and Tuff, Fishlegs, and Snotlout arguing about how to tell him something. 

When they noticed that he had left the forge it was Astrid who had yelled out what they wanted to tell him. “The Chief launched a pre-emptive strike against the nest, they left earlier and he told us not to tell you or her” She motioned above to where Valka and Cloudjumper were coming down for a landing by where Toothless was standing, just behind Hiccup. 

“Hiccup, all the fighters are gone” Valka called out as Hiccup moved his mask on top of his head as he looked through the saddle bag that kept a few tails for Toothless. “Wait what?” Snotlout yelled, “Hiccup? I knew you were still alive!” Fishlegs smiled, the twins just stared. “Hiccup,” Astrid stepped forwards, “I want to help, they’ve messed up your plan already, can’t hurt right?” A clammer of the others agreeing and also wanting to help  came after Astrid said that, “Well,” Valka commented, “Looks like we need to find us some dragons then”

Lucky for them there were still some dragons in the arena that had been kept there to teach the kids to fight them. Asrid got the Nadder, Fighlegs the Gronkle, Ruff and Tuff got the Zippleback, and Snotlout got the Nightmare.

Hiccup showed them where they should sit and how to hold onto the rope he had gotten secured in place of a harness. Hiccup had them all fly around the island first before handing in the direction of the nest, he couldn’t let them hurt the dragons with how they were sitting or something.

There were luckily no cases of anyone almost falling into the sea on the way there. Hiccup had pulled his mask back on to protect himself from the wind, just like Valka, but the others had to depend on their dragons to keep flying them straight and to not veer off course until they got used to the feeling of flying. 

When the group of 6 arrived at the nest the Vikings had made a Viking sized mess. The regular dragons seemed to be hiding from the queen, which is also what most of the Vikings were doing, but there were two who were trying to get the attention of the queen, it should be no surprise that those two were Stoick and Gobber. They were waving their weapons around in the air like lunatics. 

“Is no one else freaking out about how Hiccup is riding a Night Fury right now?” Snotlout called out as Astrid sighed, “I’m going to check on the hiding dragons” Valka said, veering off towards the nearby sea stacks where the dragons were likely hiding from their queen. “I for one am” Tuffnut replied to Snotlout, “I’m just trying to hold on!” Ruffnut commented, slipping down one of the Zippleback’s necks a little.

Hiccup was the first one to take a shot at the queen,the others followed after Toothless, they definitely had her attention now. Hiccup saw Stoick and Gobber give Hiccup all their attention now that they weren’t being chased by the queen.

Snotlout fell off the Monstrous Nightmare, and was lucky enough to fall onto the queen’s face. He was stupid enough to try and use his feet to kick her in the eyes, as he must have dropped his axe at some point, and not expect her to fling him off. Hiccup and Toothless caught him, he kept screaming bloody murder until Toothless dropped him onto the ground at a distance where he wouldn’t be hurt.

Astrid and the Nadder she was on had done some nice damage to the queen’s wings, which now had a few tears in them. The twins and the Zippleback saved Astrid from being sucked in and eaten while Hiccup had saved Snotlout, and now everyone but Hiccup was on the ground. 

<Prev | Next>

[smolgaedragon]

No. Not Anymore (Pt.3)

Hiccup and Valka spent the morning packing their few belongings into some saddle bags that they had made from old clothes. They ate an early lunch before heading out, knowing that they’d be landing soon to feed the Vikings that surely hadn’t gotten too far with the minimal amount of wind the night before.

And sure enough after a little over an hour the Berk ship was in sight. “Make sure to head down slowly, we don’t want a dead Viking on our hands” Valka joked as they started their, somewhat slow, descent towards the ship.

This time there was no voice telling everyone to get down, but they were all standing behind each other trying not to be the closest to the dragons when they landed. This time Toothless wasn’t trying to intimidate them so he was smiling at them and at Cloudjumper.

“We brought you some food other than fish,” Valka said, removing her mask after she sat the bag of meat down. “Eat up” Hiccup also took off his mask. That was when the Vikings seemed to recognize who were standing in front of them, “You know, everyone thinks that you two are dead” said one of them who was definitely the first to remember their faces. 

“Well that’s their mistake” Valka said, tossing a raw fish into the mouths of both dragons, who happily ate them and the Vikings watched them warily. “We’ll pull your ship the rest of the way so you're not sailing for a week again” Valka told them as she got the rope out of one of her bags and tossed it down onto the deck of the ship.

One of the braver, or stupider, vikings spoke up as Hiccup and Valka were finishing up connecting Toothless and Cloudjumper to the ship with the rope that Valka had found who knows where. “The chief’s changed since you left lad, gave up on the nest as well” That did make the boy pause for a moment, “Guess I’ll have to see all that for myself when we get there”

It was past sun down when the group finally could see Berk, it looked near identical to when hiccup had left, sure the houses were all new, but that was to be expected since he had assumed <s>correctly</s> that the raids hadn’t stopped when he had left, why would they. “Wow” Valka muttered, “The raids have gotten far worse since when I left” They landed back on the ship to unsecure the dragons while they were still a ways away from the port. 

“Wanna stop the raid? Or should we wait till morning?” Valka asked, seeming to want to follow Hiccup’s lead on this, as she had been away for far longer than Hiccup had. “Stopping it may make at least some of them a tad less wary of Toothless and Cloudjumper” Hiccup said, sliding into Toothless’s saddle. “My thoughts exactly Hiccup” Valka smiled and was now standing on top of Cloudjumper with her staff in one hand, the other pulling down her mask. Hiccup did the same as both dragons took off, letting the vikings still on the ship worry about getting to the port, which wouldn’t be too hard to get to if they started rowing sometime soon.

They flew above most of the other dragons, who were close to the ground to pick up anything they could off of the ground. They stayed out of sight until they saw the entirety of Berk, one well placed plasma blast from Toothless made the dragons scatter after they heard his roar that came after it. There were many shouts of “Nightfury! Get down!” across the village, but none of them noticed the Storm Cutter land by the outskirts of the houses.

Valka had wanted to see what Stoick had decided to keep in his hut after all these years. Hiccup and Toothless hovered over the shocked vikings as the other dragons left in a large group with very few things to haul in to their queen tonight.

They slowly peaked out at the Night Fury who had gotten all of the dragons to leave, Cloudjumper and Valka landed next to them a moment after Toothless’s feet touched the ground. The vikings were starting to stand up and come towards the odd scene, they stayed well away from the dragons though, he did hear quite a few whispers of ‘The riders’ but most went away or grew even quieter when Stoick the Vast made his appearance.

“The ones you sent should be coming into your port soon,” Hiccup said, only looking at his father. His voice had deepened from breathing in so much smoke over the last year so it didn’t come as too much of a surprise that no one seemed to recognize his voice, especially if they all truly thought he was dead.

“Now, what is it that you wanted so badly that the chief of the dragon <em>killing</em> hooligan tribe of Berk sent for two dragon <em>riders</em>?” That seemed to be what made everyone in Berk stare at their chief, he must not have consulted the entire village about this choice like he would have done just a couple years ago.

“We want your help with the stopping the dragon raids” Stoick glanced between Hiccup and Valka, not knowing who really stood in front of the village. Hiccup glanced at his mother, wondering what she thought about that, “They’re getting worse, and if it continues we may not have enough to make it through the worst of winter” The village seemed to know this part, glancing between their chief and the riders, wondering if they’ll need to come up with a new plan.

He looked over at Valka again, this time, there was a slight nod, which he returned to her after a moment. “Alright, we’ll help, but you have to do it our way” Hiccup’s eyes wandered over the crowd now, he saw many faces he recognized. Astrid was standing behind Stoick, an axe was still in her hand, but she seemed very intent on staring right at Hiccup, he wouldn’t put it past her to have already realized who he was.

Snotlout was standing behind his dad, glancing towards him every few minutes, probably to decide how he needs to react towards things. Ruff and Tuff were standing in front of a, quite large, cart of various weaponry, Hiccup could only imagine the chaos that those two have caused in the last week alone. Fishlegs was staring at Toothless and Cloudjumper, probably trying to break them down and see where to put them on his mental scale of powerful dragons, that was if he still did that of course.

Just before Stoick turned around, probably heading back up to his hut to get some sleep before the sun rose in a few hours, Hiccup spoke up again, “I’d like access to your forge for the time we’re here though” He saw Stoick immediately turn towards Gobber, who wasn’t far from the chief, “Aye, that’s all right,” Gobber stepped forwards towards Hiccup as he said that, “Been a good long while since another’s been in there with me”

The chief took that as his sign that he could leave, and since he left everyone else started to turn towards their huts, giving the dragons, and the people on them, a <em>very</em> wide berth. It wasn’t until everyone but Hiccup, Valka, and Astrid were the only people left in earshot that Astrid spoke.

“I convinced him to send for you, the way that Night Fury looked at you that day, I never thought he wasn’t going to kill you” Hiccup got off Toothless as she kept talking, Valka and Cloudjumper moved to stand behind Toothless. “He’s closed off now, I’m surprised that he’s still alive with how rash he’s been more recently”

Hiccup took off his helmet. There was no one but Astrid there to see him, and she had clearly already figured it all out after seeing Toothless. “I heard that he’s changed, and sending for riders shows that clearly. All mighty Stoick the Vast, pleading for us to help him” “I do look forward to hearing what your plan is though” Astrid said, before walking away from the clearing and back to where Hiccup vaguely remembered her family hut being.

“So, where’d you want to sleep for tonight?” Valka asked as Hiccup got back on Toothless and pulled his mask back down, “I know just the place”

Hiccup and Toothless led Cloudjumper and Valka up the hill towards the Great Hall, and if you looked from just the right angle, there was a decently large cave sitting just to the side of the large doors. The cave went into the mountain, and for some reason they didn’t use it when first making the hall, who knows how many years ago.

Toothless and Hiccup fell asleep together in a way that no one but them could ever find comfortable enough to sleep like that. Valka slept half propped up on Cloudjumper. They slept lightly, and woke up when people started to leave their huts around sunrise to start their days.

<Prev | Next>

[smolgaedragon]

No. Not Anymore (Pt 2)

“Hiccup?” A feminine voice asked. “Is, is it really you?”

“Uhh, sorry, do I know you?” He asked, still being wary of the stranger’s hand touching his face. 

“No, no, you wouldn’t remember” She said, mostly to herself. Hiccup didn’t think that she had spoken to other people in a while, the woman took off her dragon-like mask, and Hiccup could see her face for the first time. Then the woman said something that left Hiccup completely speechless, “But a mother could never forget”

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“How could he do this Gobber?” Stoick asked. The two were alone in the great hall, Stoick having ordered everyone else out. No one argued, they had all heard what had happened, news travels fast in such a small village. “If it hadn’t been for the lass would I even have noticed? Ever since he was born he’s been different, but he was still my son. What reason could he have to abandon his people” 

Gobber took a swig of his drink, “You said it yourself, he’s different then us, he’s never fit in. Not that that’s a bad thing” Stoick sighed, being able to understand exactly what the other man was saying, “He’s just like his mother in so many ways, if only she had been here. She would be able to give him far better advice than I could” The chief sat back in his chair, “What am I going to do Gobber?”

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“Slow down for a moment!” Hiccup yelled at the woman (his mother?) as she was running through the cave system, there was some light coming through small cracks in the walls and ceiling that must have led to open air somewhere above. Toothless was squeezing his way through behind Hiccup as well.

As Hiccup ran through the opening to the cave system he was stunned, the area was ginormous. There were large dragons flying around from place to place with smaller dragons right next to them. There were some species that Hiccup had never seen before, and most he’s only ever read about in the Book of Dragons which seemed to be wrong about most things concerning dragons.

Toothless was surrounded by some baby dragons, who seemed to be deciding what they should think about him. “Well?” Valka questioned, being let back down to the ground by a large Stormcutter dragon’s wing. “What do you think?” Hiccup was still stunned, “This is where you’ve been? For 15 years?” Valka just nodded.

“This is amazing” Hiccup couldn’t help but smile, “There’s so many different dragons in here!” “So, you’re not mad?” She asked, the Stormcutter moved to sit by her side, looking down at the two humans, Toothless was still preoccupied with the younger dragons that he was half heartedly trying to get rid of.

“Course not, this seems great!” Hiccup Was still looking around, “May I?” Valka asked, gesturing at Toothless, he shrugged and nodded. The baby dragons moved away as Valka crouched down in front of Toothless, who let the woman look at the insides of his mouth. He retracted his teeth, to the utter amazement of the woman. 

“He is amazing, how on Earth did you ever manage?” She trailed off as he spoke, “Hahaha, well, I kinda shot him down in the woods, but we got past that, didn’t we bud?” He shook Toothless’s face as he said the last bit. Valka only looked a tad worried, but did seem to be able to brush it off somewhat fast.

It took a hot minute for Valka to show Hiccup all around the den of the great Bewilderbeast. But before too long she showed him to where she usually stayed and cooked her food. It was a cave halfway up the mountain that the large den was built around. It had an opening inside, and one outside the den, and was probably high enough for a fully grown Timberjack to fit into. 

“What did your father think about your Night Fury friend?” Valka asked as Hiccup took a big bite of fish. “Well” His face was still half full with fish, “I kinda left before he got a chance to find out” Valka nodded solemnly, “People aren’t capable of changing Hiccup. That’s why I've stayed away for so long, I have to protect these dragons, especially Cloud Jumper” She gave her Stormcutter a pat on the leg. “I never would have guessed after all this time that you took after me” Valka reached to touch Hiccup's face, and this time he didn’t back away.

“Oh Hiccup, could you ever forgive me for staying away, we can travel the world! Mother and son! I can show you all I’ve learned through the years!” Valka was grinning, and Hiccup couldn’t wait to see the world.

Hiccup would only have to get used to the semi raw fish. He had so many ideas on what he could change on Toothless’s saddle, and how he could make it so Toothless could fly by himself too. He’s got to find where the nearest trading post was so that he could get the metals and fabric he needed.

Hiccup spent the entirety of the next day out flying, he was using some paper from one of the notebooks he brought to make a map, one that detailed all the abandoned islands that no human had ever set foot on. Toothless warned Hiccup many times when people were nearby, and usually when Hiccup ignored the warnings is when they’d need to make a speedy exit to prevent being shot out of the sky.

Toothless ended up getting a tail that was fully automatic so he didn’t need Hiccup to come with him whenever he wanted to go somewhere. Valka and Cloudjumper did have to learn how to be around Hiccup and Toothless, as it had been years since Valka had really spoken to another person and she didn’t always say things that she thought she did.

He seemed to like his new tail, mostly so that he could go off to catch fish from the air by himself and of course so he could quickly and easily bail Hiccup out of the numerous dangerous situations he often gets himself into. Which has definitely plateaued since the days of him getting captured for days on end and Toothless, Valka, and Cloudjumper having to bail him out every other week.

It had been almost a year since Hiccup had left Berk when he encountered a ship flying Berk colors on one of his flights. He was quite sure that he was still at least a week’s boat ride away from that island, so what were these Vikings doing this far out?

Hiccup purposefully showed himself while flying over the single ship, and heard the long forgotten words of “Nightfury!” “Get down!” They all ran to hide at the other end of the boat as he landed. He was wearing his riding outfit, one made out of some of Toothless’ shed scales that he had made after literally catching on fire multiple times.

He wore the mask, which completely hid his face, designed to protect his eyes when Toothless was flying fast against the wind. But it did make him probably look crazy to these men. These z Vikings who were hiding behind their many barrels starting and gaping at Toothless.

”Why are you so far away from Berk?” He asked, unclipping himself from the saddle of the dragon’s back. “We were sent to find the dragon riders” Hiccup didn’t recognize any of these men, but they were probably part of the group that used to head out and try to find The Nest. 

It was also pretty likely that the dragon riders they were talking about were Hiccup and Valka, mostly because he and Toothless haven't encountered any other riders during their flights.

“And what does the mighty <em>dragon killer</em> Stoick the Vast want from a pair of dragon <em>riders</em>?” Hiccup asked the obviously very frightened Vikings as Toothless sat watching with his wings spread out slightly. 

It took the Vikings a moment to respond, there was one who was clearly the leader among them who stepped forward, towards the Night Fury he feared, to answer. “He wants help. The raids have gotten far worse and many are going to die this next winter if the raids keep coming”

Hiccup had heard that the dragon raids at Berk had been growing stronger, but not to the point of what he was hearing now. “Then sail back to Berk, and we’ll think about coming to your aid. If we decide to come, we’ll meet with you again just before you get to Berk”

“Come on bud, let's go see what she thinks about this” He motioned for Toothless to stop intimidating the poor men. Within a few seconds Hiccup and Toothless were in the air, Toothless was kind enough to help push the boat back around to make it easier for them to start the journey back home.

Valka had started cooking some fish for dinner by the time Hiccup and Toothless flew back in. “We’ll you were out later than usual, you’re usually back to help get the fire started, I know how Toothless likes to light it” “Yah well we had a little run in with some Vikings” Valka sighed, “Please tell me you weren’t captured again Hiccup” “Hey give me some credit, it was only one ship,” “That hasn’t stopped you before” His mom interrupted, 

“They were from Berk” This got the women to pause for a moment, “And? What were they doing so far out?” “They were asking for our help, apparently the rumors of us have made it all the way back to Berk” “What do you want to do then?” Hiccup wasn’t really in a hurry to see Berk again, but he also didn’t want people to starve, even if they had never really been nice to him.

“I don’t know. I want to help them, but I can’t let them hurt those dragons and don’t want them to treat me like they did before” Hiccup sat down with his back against a large rock, “Then we could go, and leave if they don’t agree to your terms” Valka suggested, but Hiccup knew she also wasn’t in too much of a hurry to see Berk again, especially not after hearing how Hiccup wasn't treated too well there as he grew.

“We should leave in the morning, we can bring those poor Viking sacrifices some food that’s not fish” She tossed a raw fish up into Cloudjumper’s mouth.

Hiccup was left to dream off all the changes that Berk must have gone through in the last year for the chief to send people that kill dragons to ask dragon riders for help.

<Prev | Next>

[smolgaedragon]

No. Not Anymore (Pt.1)

A03

“Duh duh duh, we’re dead” Hiccup announced to Toothless as Astrid ran back towards the village through the woods. Realistically it would take her a while to get back there, and even longer to get others to follow her back if she mentioned that the dragon she saw was a night fury.

He had come down into that hole ready to leave Berk forever. To go off, and maybe find others like him. Others, who also couldn’t kill a dragon as it laid helpless in front of them. There had to be someone else out there yah? He wasn’t just the odd one out again? Either way, he was willing to take that risk, no matter what he ended up finding.

This time, Toothless let him put the rudimentary saddle on his back and hook it up with his tail so that Hiccup could help the dragon fly again. He had made sure to load a basket up with a decent amount of supplies. He was confident in his, well in Toothless’s, ability to couch some fish, so most of what he brought wasn’t food. There were a few journals, pencils, solid metal balls to be welded down later, some tools, and other basic things like that, that Hiccup wasn’t 100% confident in his ability to re-make.

It was as Toothless got to the top of the tree line that Hiccup heard his name called. It was his dad. Astrid stood next to him, with Gobber and a few of the other cadets. Their faces shone with fear, even from this far away Hiccup could see that. But he could also remember all the times of being pushed to the side, of being ignored, of not feeling good enough.

So he turned back to face the front again. Not truly feeling the desire to turn around and steal another glance until well after Berk could no longer be seen in the distance. After that, he glanced back a few more times, not expecting to see anything at all, but just to know that off in that direction was the family and life he had just left behind forever.

They spent that first night huddled up in a cave on a small sea stack. It was clearly well above where the sea level would rise too during the night, so the two of them collected some logs and had a nice warm fire to sleep next to all night long.

The first few days were tough. Hiccup kept feeling like he should just turn around and go home. He had made it well out of the archipelago by the 3rd week after he had left. The two of them had to regularly find smaller caves to wait out some storms and to hide from some dragon trappers. Hiccup had been shocked to see how many other Vikings there were just trapping and killing dragons. 

“Come on bud” Hiccup urged as the hunter’s net launcher aimed at them. Then there was a sudden explosion behind them on the ship, Hiccup held onto the rudimentary handles on Toothless’s saddle as tightly as he possibly could as the black dragon sped off as far and as fast as his wings could take them. It was after Hiccup was sure that the hunters couldn’t see them anymore.

The sound of wing flaps behind him did catch his attention after a while though. The first few times it came from below the clouds where Hiccup couldn’t see, but he could see how Toothless kept getting more and more anxious as the noise grew louder. Then, all at once, the noise vanished. No more wing flaps. No more sounds of another dragon. Nothing.

Toothless was on edge for the rest of the day. It wasn’t until they had found a really nice lake to sleep by that he didn’t seem quite as anxious anymore. They, Toothless, caught some fish from the lake as Hiccup started on a fire so that he didn’t have to eat raw fish, again anyway. 

As the Night Fury did his routine of warming up the ground underneath him Hiccup couldn’t help but wonder what was happening on Berk right now. “Do you think they miss me bud?” Toothless lifted up his head at the question and gave a sad coo. “Yah, but what would have happened otherwise? It’s not like they would go ‘Yah all right  let's live together with dragons now’” Toothless laid his head back down.

A russell in the bush nearby was Hiccup’s only warning before his vision went black and he saw Toothless’s head fall back down. 

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When Hiccup could finally open his eyes again he saw a person with a strange mask on. As soon as he opened his eyes though the person lept back towards the dragons who were surrounding the two of them in a small circle. They must have brought him somewhere because the ground under him was now stone instead of grass or dirt. 

As soon as Hiccup’s brain actually processed what in Thor's good name was happening he started looking around at the dragons for Toothless. “Toothless?!” The mystery person tilted their head at this, “Where is he?” He asked the masked person, who shook their staff, making the little beads inside of the decoration rattle.

Almost in unison fires started in the thoughts of all of the dragons standing around in the circle. A moment later a large red dragon, maybe a Nightmare, placed a half asleep Toothless in the middle of the circle. Hiccup ran to check on the sleepy dragon as soon as he made contact with the ground, he made some happy noises towards the boy. Hiccup hugging Toothless as he mumbled “Hey hey hey bud, you ok? Yeah? Good good good” 

That's what really caught the person’s attention it seemed, they made their way over, most of their movements seeming to mimic dragons movements unconsciously. Hiccup moved in front of Toothless, as the dragon was still unable to defend himself well yet. The mysterious person reached their hand towards his face, and as he tried to back his head away from their hand, which was covered by long sharp dragon scales, he heard a gasp as their hand was centimeters away from his chin. 

“Hiccup?” A feminine voice asked.

Next>

[smolgaedragon]

Switcheroo (DP X DC)

Danny was definitely not expecting Damian to ask what he thought about pulling a prank on their birth father. The Waynes had apparently never been told about Damian's twin that had been sent far away from any and all Leage businesses from the moment be took a breath.

Dami had defended himself by saying stuff about how the fact that father had had another child whom he's never met just never came up. They seemed to shy away from talking about where Damian had grown up, which included him secretly keeping in contact with his twin.

After Damian had been taken in by their father, he began to text with Danny far more often as he never had to worry about getting caught and Danny getting killed anymore, which was pretty nice.

When Danny died Damian was the first to get the full story about everything, followed by Sam and Tucker. Damian and Danny knew everything about each other, even though they lived in completely different worlds. Danny knew everything about the Bat's, including how emotionally repressed all of them are.

So, when Damian wanted to go on a road trip, he asked Danny to take his place in the manor for the 2 weeks he was supposed to be gone. He didn't want any of his brothers to stalk him while he was away. Danny had gleefully accepted. Under the condition that for every blatant lie he got everyone to fully believe Damian had to spend a day with him and the Fenton's. Jazz was upset that she'd never met Danny's twin. His parents, and more importantly Jazz, were all for this, even if it meant sending Danny away for almost a month.

He made sure to spend a week in the manor while invisible to get a better sense of how people interacted with each other, especially how Dami talked to his brothers and their father. If Danny didn't mimic his twin brother perfectly then their whole plan was over before it started.

Danny already knew that this would be a challenge because of how different his and Damian's personalities are, despite being identical. Luckily because of being Phantom he didn't have to worry about struggling with the physical aspects of being Robin, or the lack of sleep it caused.

This was going to be a fun 2 weeks. Danny just had to start thinking up some sort of lies to get Dami's family to believe. Which will be easier than he thought as Dami to have absolutely 0 social skills and doesn't see the point in lying. Sure, he knew that growing up somewhere like the league made Dami as emotionally stunted as their birth father, but with how he acted when he was calling or texting with Danny, he would have thought that the social incompetence had lessoned, at least a little. But nope. He's the epidemy of awkwardness.

During day 1 Danny focused on simply not being detected by anyone. Which went really well. For a group of great detectives and vigilantes Danny was a little surprised to find them not batting an eye at him. He waited until day 3 to see about adding in a lie, he started out really simple to test the family.

"Alfred's cooking in a lot better than Ra's cooking" he said during dinner, it was only Bruce and Tim at the table with him, as everyone else had one thing or another to do instead of eating dinner as a family. Bruce seemed to just accept this bit of new information and kept eating after a slight pause. Tim however looked a little shocked, "Ra's never cooked though?" Danny faked a very confused face, "Yes he did Timothy, you were never allowed in the kitchen so you may have not noticed it as he didn't cook very often. He was horrible at it" It took a few minutes before Tim seemed to come to terms with his new reality and continue to eat his dinner.

He waited 2 days before deciding to say something again. His comment about Ra's cooking hadn't been brought up by either Bruce or Tim. This time he was with Jason. The hardest part of this was to have to deny himself the pleasure of straight up asking if Jason would break into Arkam with him to kill the Joker, as Dami abided by Bruce's to killing rules. Danny, however had no such wish to abide by that specific rule, there are some people who truly do need to be killed to ensure that they don't cause more pain.

"Dam flying rats" Jason mumbled as a heard of pigeons took off right above them as they turned a corner towards the Bat Burger, which was now in sight. Danny had to hide his excitement about not having to fight his food before getting to enjoy it. "Mother used to take care of a room of pigeons in order for Ra's to be able to send messages to those who thought cell phones made you turn green and go insane."

Jason, to his credit, didn't stop walking or change his pace, but he did turn his head to stare at who he thought was his brother who just randomly said something completely insane. He processed what he thought was a truth that came from his brother who wouldn't bother telling a lie. "Theres's people who think cell phones drive you insane and turn you green?" is what he asked once he could speak again. Danny had great control over his face, but it was still a challenge to not burst out laughing there and then. "Of course there are" Danny wondered if Damian would count this as 2 lies or just 1.

Danny got a delicious burger and fries; Jason got an unholy amount of chicken nuggets that he somehow managed to eat all of them within an hour. Day 4 was the only day Danny spent alone with Jason, which Danny thought was pretty sad and had hope that after it was revealed that he wasn't his twin he and Jason could kill some people together as the only 2 who seemed to not bat an eye at braking dear Brucie's rules. It would also be nice to actually be able to float again instead of having to walk. Danny did miss being able to play video games while floating upside down.

Days 5, 6, and 7 were bland and honestly, Danny was running out of ideas that could maybe be believed and wouldn't be something that they knew was false. It was on day 8 out of his 14 days long stay in the manor that he was alone with Barbara in the bat cave.

"So," she said after blatantly ignoring Tim on coms making a very bad pun. "What do you think Damian wanted to do so badly to finally ask you to come here, and who's idea was it for you two to switch places?" Danny burst out laughing.

"Finally!" He yelled, "It's like none of them are aware of their surroundings at all!" Barbara was also laughing when Danny shifted into his ghost form and floated up a little before answering her questions, "Oh, it feels so nice to be in the air again" he took her lack of surprise as a sign that she knew absolutely everything about him already. "Dami wanted to go on a road trip without getting stalked the entire way, which makes so much more sense after spending a week with you guys"

Barbara smirked, "I know exactly where he is right now, like I'd let someone show up pretending to be him and not go looking" "It was also his idea," Danny was upside down now, "We're gonna tell them when he gets back and shame them all" "As you should, I'm also going to shame them, just because you two look alike you're not the same person" "So I also am guessing that you know about our bet?" When she nodded back at him, he continued, "I'm so out of ideas for them! You have any ideas?"

"What if you tell them that Bruce listens to K-pop in his free time? I'll back you up on it too" Danny grinned at her, "That's amazing, and if you back it up, they'll totally believe it no questions asked. You and my sister would be like, best friends. She is also 100% stalking where I am right now, but that's mostly because she doesn't trust the GIW to stay out of Gotham since I've come here"

Barbara sighed, "That horrible branch of the government has been a personal project of mine to try to dismantle from the inside and not start an interdenominational war, but after finding out who the feared Ghost King is I could probably move a whole lot faster"

"Yay! I'm so sick of those guys following me around constantly" Danny was back on the ground now, "It felt so nice to be weightless again, it's so relaxing" Barbara smiled at him.

It was the next day when Jason, Tim, Barbara, and Danny were in the kitchen getting a quick lunch when the topic of music had been brought up by Tim, who was trying to guess what kind of music Jason listened to. He'd guessed a bunch of genres that honestly did seem to fit with what Danny knew of Jason. "Perhaps Korean pop, like father"

"Theres no way Bruce listens to K-pop, right?" He turned towards Barbara, who was eating her sandwich, seeming to ignore the conversation, Danny knew she was trying not to laugh though, "Of course he does Tim, there were even a few articles about it a while ago when it was mentioned at a gala" The two boys seemed only a little stunned at this point.

With Barbara's help Danny was able to get the Wayne family to believe a grand total of 9 lies over the 2 weeks Damian was gone without being found out by anyone other than her.

When Damian walked into the game room where Danny was playing Mario Cart against Tim, everyone turned to stare at him and Danny. "How many did they believe?" Damian asked Danny. "9" Danny said, letting himself burst into a giant grin, Barbara mimicked that grin.

That did seem to let everyone know that who they had thought was Damian playing video games with Tim was actually someone else and none of them had known. "How could you believe such blatant lies that could have been easily fact checked" Damian asked his family as Danny was having a laughing fit on the floor.

"I for one, am disappointed in all of you guys" Barbara spoke up, "Over the last 2 weeks Damian hasn't been in Gotham at all, and Danny has been in his place and also trying to see how many blatant lies he could get you to believe" Bruce hadn't said a word, his eyes going between Damian and Danny.

"Wait, who are you?" Jason pointed at Danny, who had recovered from his burst of laughter. "I'm Danny, Damian's twin" Danny took so much pleasure in everyone's shocked faces, "Where have you been living?" Bruce asked, clearly mentally preparing to adopt him then and there. "Oh, cool your adoption craving dear Brucie" Danny once again made Bruce blue screen, especially since he was here that in the same voice that he heard from his youngest who was always the most formal no matter the setting.

"I have a great loving family that I was adopted by before I even knew who our grandfather was. The whole reason I made up so much stuff while I was here was because Dami promised me and my sister Jazz that for each thing you all believed he'd spend a day with us in Amity Park"

Bruce seemed a little sad at this information, "Danyal also assured me that he would stay here for the next week to actually form a bond with our father while not impersonating me"

Danny and Damian had planned for Danny to start to slowly freak everyone else out with his ghost abilities. But that first night Tim brought up the topic of how Danny was able to be Robin so easily as he hadn't grown up with the Legue nor went through Bruce's crazy training, "Oh, I became a superhero before he did so I have a leg up on him"

"Who are you? I don't know anything about Amity Park enough to guess your 'hero' name" Time said, "Oh I'm Phantom," he said, letting his eyes glow a bright unnatural green that made Tim jump back away from him as he had only that kind of green with the Lazarus pits. "And don't worry, next to no one in this realm knows about me"

Phantom didn't join the bats for their night out for that week, mostly out of fear that it would draw the GIW to Gotham and he really didn't want to do that. So, he grew closer to Barbara and helped give ideas on ways that they could take the GIW down now that she knew that she could have the help of a ghost or 2 doing some stuff in Amity Park if it was needed.

There was a night where Danny heard Jason in the kitchen at a ridiculous time in the morning and decided to scare him by walking into the kitchen on the ceiling with his eyes glowing as brightly as he could make them while in his ghost form, and saying something in ghost speak, which meant that Jason was properly freaked out when he rubbed his eyes and the next second Danny was standing in the doorway looking normal giving Jason a confused look "I said, what are you doing eating cereal at 2 in the morning?"

When it was eventually time for Danny to head home again, he turned into his ghost form, and made a portal right into his room, "Dami, you better follow through on coming here for a week at some point, and I'll definitely visit again, maybe once the GIW aren't trying to tear me apart atom by atom and the law stating I'm not sentient is reversed" and with that Danny vanished into the portal.

The last thing he heard from his brother's family was "Excuse me, what the actual fuck?" From a bewildered Tim and a "Danny being here was certainly an experience" Barbara patted Tim on the back, before he was back in his room realizing that he had to fight his food during dinner tonight.

[smolgaedragon]

Hidden Twin (DP X DC)

Danny wasn't all too surprised when his texts with Damian began to get more and more spread out. His last message from his twin had been to let him know that he had moved in with their birth father, Bruce Wayne in Gotham.

Their mother had chosen to hide Danny away with a random couple in Amity Park, and seeing how it prevented him from getting killed by his grandfather and his horrible, contaminated ectoplasm pond, Danny didn't mind it all that much.

Danny never felt a strong urge to connect with Bruce Wayne, especially as he grew up with the Fenton's. Sure, they were a tad insane, but Danny fit right in, and he had Jazz to watch over him after he died and became the Ghost King, as his parents were still very much trying to kill Phantom and therefore kill him.

What Danny wasn't expecting to happen though is for Phantom's help to be requested by the Justice Leage to help with an out-of-control ghost that was making its way around causing havoc. Instead of doing this the normal way, Constitine, who had somehow gotten hold of his summoning circle decided to summon him to a Justice Leage meeting when he was in the middle of doing homework.

Damian, of course, wasn't allowed to be in the room during the summoning. So, he was hiding in a dark corner of the room, out of Batman's line of sight. And due to him being so distracted with the possible down-sides to summoning the King of the Infinite Realms, he hadn't noticed that Damian had snuck into the room.

So, when Danny poofed into the center of the summoning circle drawn on the space station's floor, he grumbled. "Constitine, you know there are so many other ways of getting me to talk than forcing me to abandon my homework, I had almost finished it!" Bruce sucked in a very small breath, probably noticing how Danny looked near identical to his son, mostly since he was currently Fenton instead of Phantom.

It was only now that Danny actually took the time to scan who was all in the room that he was just summoned into. He eyes holding up on Batman, and right where Damian was hiding behind him, then he turned to Wonder Woman. "Your grandfather speaks very highly of you" Which made her just stare at him before accepting this new information.

"So, what exactly do you need me for?" Danny turned back to Constitine, who was sitting rigid in a chair. "We have been unable to locate a ghost quickly enough to trap it and send it back to your realms" "Ahh" Danny said, leaning his back against the glass wall facing out into space that he was totally going to geek out over as soon as all of this stuff wrapped up. "So, you need to catch a little ghostling for you, you're losing your touch old man"

"Will you help us?" He grumbled out as the smirking teenager. "Of course I will, on 2 conditions" he said, eyes flicking over to Batman, who was the next one to speak up, "Which are?" "Simple!" Danny chirped, "I wanna be able to come back up here to look at the stars occasionally, " Which made the superheroes all nod secretly towards each other, as it wasn't all that much of a payment for saving them all a lot of headaches and time, "And second, I want to meet Batman's current Robin" he said while looking right at Batman.

Danny had instantly recognized the energy that his twin was giving off from his hiding spot in the corner and wasn't too certain on whether or not the rest of the Justice Leage were aware of who the Bat's all were and didn't want to be the one who released that information.

All heads turned towards Batman, wondering what he was going to say, and if it would cost the team Phantom's help if the man said no. "That could be arranged" And with that Danny had a giant smile on his face, "Great! I'll be back in an hour or 2 if that would be good with you both?" Danny questioned Batman, eyes glancing to Damian once or twice. Batman nodded. Danny kept his smile as he poofed away just like how he had shown up.

"What now?" Superman asked, "And why do you think he wanted to meet Robin?" "Guess we'll find out in a little bit" Wonder Woman said, watching Constitine leave the room with a slightly shell-shocked face, mumbling about needing a beer.

Batman was sitting in the meeting room alone an hour and a half later when Phantom appeared again, he was actually prepared and in his ghost form now, this time he showed up facing the window, completely entranced by the stars he could see. "I bet you were wondering why I want to meet with Damian, but knowing how Batman works I assume you have already figured at least part of it out by now?" Danny twisted his head to look at the man who his twin calls 'father', his form switching back to 'Danny' from 'Phantom'.

"I'll call him in" Batman said, his voice somewhat betraying that he did in fact have emotions as he went to the door. Nearly as soon as the door opened Damian stood inside staring at Danny, who was smirking at him. "What? Shocked I became a better superhero than you? You know, Talia did always say we'd become exactly like dear old Brucie, though I don't think that this was what she had in mind"

Damian took off his robin mask, walked up to, then hugged Danny. "Danyal, I apologize for not communicating with you more often" "Don't worry, its mutual, I totally forgot to send you a text after I died and came back too, we can swap full stories later"

"I do have like 2 more hours before Jazz realizes I'm not quietly doing my homework anymore, so we have time to chat more if you want, same goes for you Bruce" The duo sat down around the meeting table and started to swap some stories about what had happened since they last had an in depth talk with each other. Bruce almost felt like he was out of his depth, what are you supposed to say to your son's twin that you hadn't known existed before today and was apparently the king of ghosts.

Before Danny went home, he made plans with Damian to come to Gotham sometime soon to visit and meet his family, and for Danny to bring Jazz with him so she could also meet her brother's twin's family, and he had to promise that they would actually text each other now.