Chapter Text
Danny blinks open his eyes to an unfamiliar- 𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙣- sky. His head pounds as he sits up. He rubs at the back of his aching head- he must have bumped it or something during his unceremonious landing- looking around at the foreign landscape before him.
Metal stretches out as far as the eye can see, glinting a strange, glowing blue hue in the light of the nearest star. He is beside a large, mountain-like structure that looms above. Taller than any mountains on Earth, that's for sure.
It could be one of the places he starts searching first. He has no leads on where to find the artifact that Clockwork wants him to retrieve, and it is a place to start.
Danny stretches his arms above his head, wincing slightly at the usual ache in his body after he fights a rogue. Probably from his earlier fight with a particularly angry Skulker. He dealt with it easily enough, but getting thrown into buildings and shot at suprisingly ends with achy joints and muscles, who knew?
His feet leave the ground as he floats up, legs melding into a whispy tail. He'll start his search with the mountain.
In and out. Easy, right?
---
The mountain has yeilded no results so far. It has an extensive cave system inside, which makes his whole plan of getting in and out so much harder.
The cavernous space stretches above his head. He can hardly see the ceiling, even with the soft glow his body provides to the space.
---
'𝙇𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙠,' Sam said, once, chuckling. Tucker, laughing, agreed whole heartedly, adding his own two-cents about Danny's glowing.
'𝙉𝙖𝙝, 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙢 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙮 𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨. 𝙁𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙜𝙧𝙪𝙢𝙥𝙮 𝙢𝙖𝙟𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙮 𝙖𝙡𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙤𝙤 𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙡...' Tucker glanced over at him with mocking suspicion in his turquoise eyes, waggling his eyebrows. Danny batted at them both, huffing, but smiling nonetheless.
---
𝘼𝙣𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨, he misses them already. It hasn't even been a day!
He goes back to looking at his surroundings. He doesn't really know what to expect, or how he'll even 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙 the artifact in the first place when he knows little to nothing about what he's looking for.
All Clockwork said was that he'd 'know when he found it'. What does that even mean?!
Blue crystal stalactites hang from the cave ceiling, completely unfamiliar to him despite the resemblance to Earth stalactites. But, as much as he wants to just float around and explore this new planet (his core purrs happily at the mere thought of it), he would like to find the artifact sooner, rather than later. The quicker he finds it, the quicker he can go home to his friends, to Jazz, to his parents.
Only, he has no leads, and this cave has, thus far, revealed nothing other than glowing crystals that radiate strange energy. He floats closer to one, poking it curiously.
He yelps when a shock zaps the part of his hand that made contact with the crystal. Strange. Danny can feel it thrum with invigorated energy. Almost like it was... 'powered up' from his contact with it? His mouth ticks down into a frown as he focuses his attention on it.
He presses his entire hand to it this time. A quick jab. Hesitant, fast.
The crystal lights up like a beacon, almost blinding with its sudden brightness. He sheilds his eyes from the light, letting them fall down to his sides when it dulls, blinking dark spots out of his eyes.
Weird.
He looks around quickly, looking for something. He flies down and back again quickly. The sharp metal rock (? (It looks like a rock at least)) is heavy in his hands, but not so heavy that he struggles to raise it above his head. A quick motion, a fast thrust down of his arms, and a shard of crystal chips off.
He discards the rock, snatching the blue shard out of the air before it can hit the ground. He holds it carefully. Its warm in his hands, like a nice cup of hot chocolate.
Dang, now Danny wants hot chocolate.
He shakes his head, dispelling the thoughts. It doesn't feel shocking like it did before, the feeling dulling as he holds it. Phasing the crystal inside of him (wow, that feels weird)- he'll inspect and investigate it later- he leaves the cave.
Other than the crystals, he hadn't found anything to take note of in the cave.
Now outside, he stares up at the dark, starry sky. Three moons are visible among the bright spheres decorating the night sky, unobscured by clouds or pollution like they would be on Earth.
When Danny gets back, he is 𝙨𝙤 going to ramble about this to Sam and Tucker.
His core thrums happily in his chest as he stares at the sky. Colors blend together; blue, black, purple, the white and pale blue stars. They combine seamlessly to create a beautiful harmony.
Colorful arrays of stars composed of plasma dot the scape. A perfect synchrony of hydrogen, helium, and gravity. Powerful and beautiful. So stunning yet capable of great destruction under circumstance.
Danny has wanted to be an astronaut since he was a child. To float among those stars and explore the vast vacuum of space. Meet alien life, maybe. Discover new planets, make new discoveries.
He may never be able to accomplish that dream now.
He gave that dream up the day he came out of that portal changed. Different. No longer alive, but not quite dead either. In a constant limbo between the two fundamental states. Something new. Something that defies all logical and scientific standpoints.
His heartbeat is too slow now. His body changed from the accident. He would never be cleared to visit space, and thats even leaving out the fact of his ghost side. NASA would never accept something deemed by the US government as 'nonsentient' and 'dangerous'. To be hunted down and exterminated.
Sometimes, when the ghosts are quiet and everyone is asleep, he goes to the Zone and asks Wulf to portal him up there. Joins the inky expanse of space. Floats among the dark void that held everything he held dear and 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚. So much 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚. So many undiscovered places, lightyears away. Unseen by the human eye. Places that their technology wasn't quite ready to enable travel to. Places that Danny hasn't seen yet.
The though sends a jolt of excitement through him. His core cools at the thought, happily purring.
He wonders about any constellations that might be here. Stories created by local life forms. If there is any, of course.
He doesn't know whether to be excited at the possibility of new (at least to him) life-forms, or wary.
It 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 make his search easier if they were friendly and willing to help. Danny also has the advantage of being able to speak any language as the prince of the Infinite realms- a fun little quirk among many that comes with the title.
But, it could also make his search 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧. If even 𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙨 aren't amicable to other humans, who's to say aliens would be?
Well, not that Danny's exactly 𝙛𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣, but still!
He would have to avoid locals (he suddenly has the mental image of little green men coming at him with pitchforks and torches- olden style-) while simultaneously struggling to locate a dumb trinket from the Ghost Zone.
Danny swipes a gloved hand across his face, before putting his head in his hands and letting out a long-suffering groan.
𝙒𝙝𝙮, 𝘾𝙡𝙤𝙘𝙠𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠, 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙮?!
---
Danny goes back into the cave for the night.
Yep, you heard it right folks! A cave. A freakin' cave. (Or at least, it looks like a cave, if it was made of metal and dripped weird blue stuff.) Looks like he's going to become a cave dweller. Succumb to sucky eye sight and crawl around in the shadows, like some screwed up boogyman.
But, well, he doesn't exactly want to spend the night awake and searching for somewhere to set up 'Base Camp' when there's somewhere he 𝙖𝙡𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙮 knows about. So, henceforth the cave is now designated base. Maybe thats just sleepy brain thinking, though.
He's dead. Aren't the dead supposed to not need sleep? Or is it 'sleep well'? Or maybe 'cause he's half ghost, those rules don't apply to him. Probably. He hasn't gotten one good sleep since his death! Which, yeah, sad, but with his poorly maintained schedule, ghosts attacking at any and every hour of day/night, and the constant need to be alert about any new anti-ghost tech his parents may have installed around the house while he was at school attacking him, you can imagine how that isn't his fault.
He sets up his base camp in a small, jutting aclove near the ceiling. But, with sleep avoiding him like he has the black plague, Danny has nothing to do.
He sits up, crossing his legs and staring out into the dark cave.
This is his life now. A bored cave creature cursed to stare at a wall for eternity, with no hope of ever getting to sleep.
---
After a while, he gets bored of staring at nothing but cave wall (He may have been a 𝙩𝙖𝙙 𝙗𝙞𝙩 dramatic about eternity). Instead, Danny lies down on his back, closing his eyes and humming the Barney theme song. It's catchy, okay?!
After a while, he gets bored of that, too. He doesn't know what he 𝙘𝙖𝙣 do in this place, though. Well, other than explore. Or find the artifact. He really needs to give it a name at this point, 'the artifact' sounds 𝙨𝙤 boring.
Hmm...
Maybe Meggy or something? It sure is a mega pain in the-
His train of thought gets disrupted by a scuffling sound.
He jumps slightly, startled. Invisibility washes over him as a wave of cold, as natural as breathing in his ghost form.
He glances around, trying to find the source of the noise.
The scuffling stops, before picking up again. It sounds far, even with his enhanced hearing. His elf-like ear twitches as focuses his attention on the noise.
Its coming closer to him, and he has to remind himself that he's invisible.
The louder it gets, the more nervous he becomes. Its almost statue like how inhumanly still he stays, as if so much as a slight movement might clue 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨 into where he is.
But, as the thing rounds the corner, his nervousness is replaced by awe, mixed with anxiety, weariness and fascination.
Danny doesn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.
He holds his breath as he meets the metal, humanoid beings eyes, glowing a soft blue and ominous in the caves darkness.