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raaorqtpbpdy · 2 months

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Made of Meat

Danny Phantom/DC (Animal Man) crossover (thank you @stealingyourbones for the prompt)

When strange, faintly glowing meat creatures start rampaging through the streets of San Diego, there's only one man to call. And when Animal Man could use a helping hand, Phantom swoops in to assist. Or, Danny Phantom and Animal Man team up to fight the Lunch Lady

Read it on AO3

[Warnings for minor violence, mentions of vomit, and repeated mentions/descriptions of raw meat]

When strange, faintly glowing meat creatures started rampaging through the streets of San Diego, there was only one man to call.

Absorbing the power of flight from a hawk overhead, Buddy Baker, A.K.A. Animal Man soared toward downtown to confront the monsters wreaking havoc on the innocent civilians of his city, his blond hair fluttering in the wind.

By the time he arrived, the chaos was well underway. Just like the reports had claimed, several unidentified creatures were causing the brunt of the damage, each of them about four feet tall and composed entirely of raw meat, still dripping with blood and already attracting flies, with glowing red eyes and fleshy teeth. Animal Man could see pools of vomit on the sidewalks from people who had evidently been too disgusted by the creatures to hold down their lunches, but he'd seen far worse himself and wasn't bothered by the creatures' grotesque appearance.

He swooped down to snatch a little girl out of the way of one of the things and take her to the nearest screaming woman—her mother, just as he had guessed—and urged them to run. There weren't as many people downtown as Buddy would have normally expected to see at this time, probably most of them already had already run away, but a few stragglers still remained, most of them filming the incident on their phones, some hiding, none of them in immediate danger.

With his bird's eye view, Animal Man had spotted a peculiar woman in the center of the commotion. She looked confused and sickly, with greenish skin. It wasn't her appearance that bothered him, though. Something about her felt off, and it unsettled the hero in a way he couldn't quite put into words. Using the sharp ears of a bat from the nearby zoo, he could hear her even from high in the sky, demanding to know where she was and what was for lunch.

Whoever she was, Buddy was pretty sure she was the woman in charge, and these meat gremlins were her doing. If he could knock her out, or better yet, peacefully convince her to stop, her creatures would stop too.

With the strength of a charging rhino, Animal Man plowed through her meaty minions with little trouble and slammed his whole body into her, sending her flying a few feet to land sprawled on the ground. He rushed forward to pin her so she couldn't get away, and it was then that he began to realize what was so off about her.

Her skin was cold and green, her eyes glowed red, and her clothes were about forty years out of date. But even more strange that that, he didn't feel any connection to her through the Red. The Red connected all animal life, from the tiniest single-celled organism, to the biggest blue whale, and humans were included in that. Through the Red, Animal Man could absorb the powers of any living creature.

Not this woman, though.

She looked human, and acted human... but she wasn't human.

Animal man dug deeper, trying to feel out a connection to the Green, or the Rot. It was harder for him to sense them, but all three elements were connected, and they encompassed all living things, even after death.

Except for this mysterious woman.

She wasn't fauna, or flora, or decay. And now that he was feeling through the Red, he realized that her constructs weren't connected to it either, even though they looked like they could have crawled right out of it moments before they showed up here. Buddy didn't know how that was possible, but right now, what she was didn't matter half as much as stopping her.

"I don't want to hurt you anymore," he said firmly, "but you have to stop what you're doing, or I'll be forced to. I can't let you keep attacking innocent people with your creatures. It has to stop."

The woman scowled and stood up, her body passing right through Animal Man like he was made of air, and a chill ran down his spine and he shuddered as he fell a few inches onto the asphalt below.

"What the...?" He tried to grab her again, but he couldn't even touch her. His hands passed right through her, like he was trying to catch smoke.

"You think you can stop me?!" the woman demanded, her hair standing up and writhing like snakes on her head. The meat monsters turned as one and began to converge on Animal Man. "Today's menu is doom, and now, it's lunchtime!"

"It's four-thirty!"

Animal Man snapped his head up toward the sound of the new voice, and saw a teenager flying into view. He wore a black and white jumpsuit, had white hair, and the green glow of his eyes was visible even from a distance. The teen rocketed down and slammed his fists right into the strange woman's face, sending her skidding backwards.

"You!" she hissed, her eyes widening and pulsing red—it was terrifying in person, but Buddy couldn't help the thought that it was reminiscent of a really angry Loony Tunes character.

Immediately, her creatures turned their attention away from Animal Man, and toward the newcomer. Evidently, she and him had a history. And she'd determined that the kid was a higher priority than Buddy was.

"That's right, Lunch Lady, it's me again," the kid said, grabbing a thermos that was hanging off his belt. "And I'm here to tell you that the only thing on the menu for you today is soup!"

Whatever he planned to do with that thermos, he didn't get the chance, as one of the meat gremlins morphed its arm into a long whip and knocked it away from him.

"Ew!" the kid said, dropping a few feet to punch the nearest creature and then dry-heaving for a second. "Are these things raw? Why—eugh!" he cut himself off with a shudder as another one got close and he had to punch it. Clearly the creatures were not his bag.

"Hey kid!" Animal Man shouted, ready to offer his help.

"It's Phantom," the kid shouted back. "Wait, who're you?"

"Animal Man," he replied. "I'll keep the meat things occupied if you can deal with her."

"You sure, dude?" Phantom flew back out of the meat things' reach with a grimace, and dodged the sprays of blood they spewed up after him looking almost as green as the Lunch Lady. "These things are pretty gross. Way grosser than the last time I fought 'em."

"I've handled grosser than them," Buddy assured. "They're not a problem—but I can't fight someone I can't touch."

Phantom turned slightly to look at the Lunch Lady, who was laughing triumphantly, and got splashed in the back of the head by one of the meat creatures still bombarding him. He yelped in disgust, and Buddy pressed his lips together to keep from laughing.

"Alright, deal!" Phantom agreed, wiping the back of his head with a gloved hand. "I'll leave 'em to you, just don't let them merge with each other, or her, they become a much bigger problem that way."

"Got it!"

Animal Man summoned up some elephant strength, leopard agility and the reflexes of a fly and ran at the creatures. The force of his punches caused them to burst apart instantly, and in the time it took one to reform itself, he could take down three more.

Meanwhile, Phantom shot upward, firing a green beam at the Lunch Lady. His head turned frantically, like he was looking for something, but he didn't seem to find it. The Lunch Lady screamed as he dive-bombed her again, this time sending her through a wall—the wall itself undamaged. She came back through it moments later, back on her feet and angrier than ever.

As much as he wanted to keep an eye on the kid to make sure he didn't get hurt, Buddy still had to focus on his own fight. Phantom was clearly familiar with this enemy, had apparently fought her before, and he seemed like he could handle himself. None of that stopped Buddy from worrying. None of his worrying changed the fact that he had a job to do.

In his moment of distraction, one of the creatures slammed into the side of Animal Man's knee, knocking him down. He used his elephant strength to throw it off and watched it splatter into a bloody, fleshy mass against a concrete wall.

As he rolled over to get back on his feet and resume the fight, he saw the thermos Phantom had dropped. It had rolled out of sight under the bus stop bench. That must've been what the kid was looking for! Although Animal Man had no idea what Phantom could need it for, he darted forward like a cheetah on all fours and snatched the thermos up.

"Hey Phantom!" he shouted, jumping to his feet and kicking another creature into pieces. "You need this, right?"

Phantom turned, and grinned widely when he saw what his new ally was holding. Animal Man threw it up to him and he caught it easily and uncapped it right away, aiming it at the Lunch Lady.

Animal Man punched out another meat gremlin as a blue light shone from inside the thermos, and the Lunch Lady screamed and shouted in protest as she was sucked inside. As soon as the cap was back on the thermos, the remaining creatures collapsed into piles of raw meat, covered in rocks and dirt and buzzing flies. How this mess would get cleaned up was anyone's guess.

Fight ended, Phantom flew down to where Animal Man was standing, surrounded by a ring of red meat and plucked poultry, but did not touch down on the ground. A strategic choice, although it was a bit too late for the other hero to do the same.

"Eugh, I smell like a butcher shop and I have entrails in my hair," Animal Man commented, sniffing his sleeve with a grimace. "My wife isn't gonna so much as wave hello until I take a shower, and it's gonna be hell getting the stench outta my suit."

"Oh, uh... here."

Phantom put his hand on Buddy's shoulder, and a cold empty sensation wracked his body for a few seconds. All the gross chunks and fluids dropped to the ground, falling through him like he was made of air, just like the Lunch Lady had moved through him earlier. When Phantom took his hand away, Buddy was clean. Even the smell didn't seem to be coming from him anymore, although it still definitely surrounded him.

"Wow, thanks," Buddy said, marveling at the distinct lack of red stains on his white gloves which had been absolutely soaked in it a moment before. "That trick must come in pretty useful for you."

"Yeah, well, it's the least I could do after you helped me out," Phantom said. His shoulders hunched and he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "It was all my fault the Lunch Lady attacked in the first place. I was stupid and forgot to make sure the thermos was empty before I left Amity Park."

"Hey, you're not stupid; don't say that. Everyone makes mistakes, what's important is that you were able to fix it," Animal Man argued.

Phantom smiled gratefully, and it wasn't until he took his hand away from his neck that he seemed to remember the splatter of blood and juices he'd gotten from one of the creatures and he wrinkled his nose at the red stain on his own glove. He hardly seemed to think about it as he turned himself intangible like he had to Buddy before and let the viscera fall to the sidewalk with a splat.

"So... what was she anyway?" Buddy asked, doing his best to keep a straight face. "The Lunch Lady I mean. She definitely wasn't human, I could tell that much."

"Oh, she was a ghost," Phantom replied. "I'm a ghost, too, but I'm a good guy, I swear. Sorry, I forget not a lot of people have seen ghosts outside of Amity Park. They're super common where I come from."

"A ghost, huh?"

Animal Man considered that. It would make sense. A ghost was dead, but not decaying, not made of flesh or vegetation. Not fauna, not flora, not rot. It tracked with what he had sensed from the woman before. But if Phantom was a ghost too, that meant he'd died at about the same age Buddy's own son, Cliff, had, and that sent a pang of heartache through the man's chest.

One thing didn't make sense, though. Phantom claimed to be a ghost, like the Lunch Lady, but unlike with her, Buddy could sense Phantom through the Red. It was a thin connection, like the kid was hanging onto it by a thread, but it was a solid one, too. If this kid really was a ghost, he wasn't the same as the one he'd just trapped in that thermos of his.

For a moment, Buddy thought about pressing for answers, but he quickly decided against it. It could be that the truth was too personal, or embarrassing, or even dangerous for Phantom to reveal, especially to a virtual stranger, even one who'd helped him out. Besides everyone was entitled to their secrets. Instead, Animal Man smiled at the kid and clapped him on the back.

"That's pretty cool," he said. "Say, do ghosts eat? You should come over to my place for dinner. After a hard-fought battle like that, I'd say you deserve it."

"You can eat after fighting those things?" Phantom looked down at what remained of the meat creatures and gagged.

"Trust me, if I wasn't already a vegetarian, I would be after this," Buddy replied. "My wife's making some meat-free lasagna, and we always have tons of leftovers. She usually doesn't like me taking hero stuff home with me, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind in this case."

"She knows you're a hero?"

The open shock on Phantom's face was a bit of a surprise, but then again, he had said he was from out of town. Just because Buddy was often swarmed by local paparazzi, didn't mean he was any more than regionally famous.

"Everyone knows," he said with a shrug. "I don't keep my identity a secret. It can get annoying sometimes, but I don't really have any reason to. I'm not one of the big-shots, like Batman and Wonder-Woman. You're not from around here, so I bet you never even heard of Animal Man before today."

"Well... no...."

"Exactly," Buddy made sure to grin wide enough that the kid knew there were no hard feelings about it. "So what do you say? You coming over for dinner, or what?"

"I'd love to, but I can't," Phantom said apologetically. "I have to deal with all this meat and then my—uh... I just have other plans tonight."

"You need help with the clean up?"

Phantom frowned down at the piled of meat still surrounding the two of them.

Maybe this really hadn't been the best place to discuss dinner plans. Man, Buddy really was desensitized to this kinda stuff wasn't he? For a guy who didn't eat meat, he sure spent a lot of time surrounded by it, both in the Red, and now here.

"Nah," Phantom decided finally. "I think I can just turn the ground intangible and phase everything down under the street level so it can decompose."

"Just turn the ground intangible, huh?" Animal Man huffed a light laugh and shook his head. "Yeah, alright, if you're sure. I should get going anyway. Stay safe, kiddo. Maybe I'll see you around again before you head back home."

"Uh..." Phantom blinked owlishly at him. "Y-yeah... you uh... stay safe too."

Animal Man smiled and nodded, and took off toward his home, borrowing the power of flight from a pigeon on a telephone wire. The way Phantom had reacted, it was almost like no one had ever said that to him before. Stay safe.

Where had he said he was from? Amity Park?

Maybe Animal Man should keep tabs on him from now on, just in case. After all, ghost or not, he was still just a teenager, and all heroes needed allies from time to time.

#dpxdc #crossover #fic #things i wrote #I have way more ideas for DP/animal man crossovers so this fic will likely be the first of many

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raaorqtpbpdy · 18 days

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God Only Knows

Everyone knows AU, but Wes doesn't know that everyone knows, and neither does Danny, because even though everyone knows, everyone also knows better than to acknowledge it.

For the prompts:

Everyone knows the connection between Danny Fenton and Phantom. To keep their town's hero safe, everyone pretends to be oblivious. Only this one kid doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. [From @vigilant-insomniac], and It's like Santa, the students of Casper High think. You know he's fake, just your parents playing pretend, and if Danny wants to play human, well. Who are they to ruin the fantasy? [From @uniasus]

This is a take on Wes I've never written before, despite having written quite a few Wes fics, and it was a lot of fun, I hope you like it : )