Summoned

"Well, this is weird."

Danny looked around in confusion. He didn't see any immediate reason to panic: just two very tall men, one holding a book and the other brandishing a... spray bottle? He had seen some pretty strange things in his day, but this might have just taken the cake.

"Who the heck are you?" the one holding the spray bottle barked. He brandished it at him threateningly, which would have been hilarious if not for the intimidating stone-cold expression on his face.

"Um, I'm Danny Phantom. Amity Park's resident ghost superhero. You mind telling me where I am? And how I got here? I was kind of in the middle of something important."

'Something important' happened to look like spending time with Sam. He had been holding her hand, watching one of the Dead Teacher movies, when a dizzy sensation overwhelmed him, the world blurred, and he landed on his feet in the middle of a dark room looking at the giants in front of him. He had been too distracted by his own surprise and the bewildered looks on their faces to notice he was in the middle of some kind of circular painted diagram on the floor. It looked vaguely like a Satanic symbol, and Danny started to panic for the first time since being yanked here. What if these guys wanted to sacrifice him or something?

"Also, a good question to answer would be what is up with the freaky looking art on the floor. This isn't a cult thing, is it? Because that did not go so well last time."

True, it had been more of a crazy obsessive fan club spearheaded by Paulina than a cult, but the whole 'worshipping him' thing got downright scary. He still wasn't sure if they had killed a small animal to get the blood. Or how they'd gotten a hold of a lock of his hair. That shrine had been creepy. He was dragged out of his memories when the taller of the two warily answering his questions, more or less.

"You're in a secure bunker that belonged to the Men of Letters, and you got here because we summoned you, which was an accident. We were calling someone else. Crowley. King of Hell. Do you know him?"

"Nope. Didn't even know there was such a thing as Hell until now. Thanks for the tip, by the way. It has a King? No. Wait. More important questions: Men of Letters? Creepy circle thing? Spray bottle? Explain," Danny demanded.

"Nuh-uh. You first. What are you that the summoning circle got confused and brought you when it couldn't snag Crowley?" the spray-bottle one growled.

"Um, well..." Danny shuffled his feet, embarrassed. "I'm sort of the King of Ghosts. Not that any of them actually listen to me unless I bring out the scary voice, but that's the title, anyway. Similar job descriptions, I'd guess. Except I'm not, you know, evil, or presiding over the souls of the damned."

"Kid, we've hunted ghosts. Whatever you are, you ain't no ghost," the angry one scoffed.

Danny calmly levitated off the ground a couple feet, maintaining a cool expression. He flickered invisible for a second, then lit his palm up green with ecto-energy. He hadn't even noticed that he'd automatically gone ghost when he got pulled to the summoning circle.

"Proof enough for you?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"If anything, that's the opposite of proof. I've never seen a ghost do anything except the disappearing act before," the tall one muttered.

"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm definitely a ghost. King of them. In case you missed it," he snarked.

Suddenly, he got a face full of water from the spray bottle. He dropped to the ground, spluttering, and went intangible to drop the moisture off him.

"Rude. What was that for? Am I a bad ghost? You gonna hit me with a rolled up newspaper too?"

"That was holy water. You definitely ain't a demon, then, kid," the shorter angry one huffed, putting away the spray bottle.

"Holy water. For real. Wow, if it weren't for the summoning thing working , I'd say you guys were nuts, but there's clearly something to this philosophy of yours, even if it doesn't seem to apply to me. And stop calling me kid. I gave you my name for a reason. Use it, Mr. Bad Attitude."

"Okay, Danny," the tall one interrupted. "My name is Sam, and this is my brother Dean. We're... hunters of the supernatural. We've never seen anything like you before. We're... curious."

"Don't treat me like I'm stupid, Sam. I may be 16, but I'm not entirely clueless. You're not curious, you're concerned. If you don't know what I am, you don't know how to fight me, or things like me, and that worries you. I'm honestly still freaking out that demons are even a thing. Tell you what, how bout a little... what does Vlad call it?" he mumbled under his breath. "Quid pro quo. Info for info. We take turns asking questions. I'll even let you go first."

"Deal," Sam said quickly, presumably before Dean could make any snide remarks to get on his bad side.

"How did you get to be the king of ghosts?" Dean asked, not one to be left out.

"I imprisoned the old one in a permanent state of sleep for basically eternity and the ghost population owes me a debt because he was a crappy ruler to his people," Danny answered. "What is with the creepy graffiti on the ground?"

"It's a devil's trap," Sam explained. "Demons get in but not out. Keeps people safe when summoning. What exactly does the king of ghosts even do?"

"Not much of anything, really. I mean, Pariah Dark was out of commission for a long time before some idiot freed him and I had to put him back down. The ghosts are basically autonomous, but sometimes I have to settle disputes or punish the ones who step out of line in the human world. They were never my biggest fans, so they were pretty happy when I was fine with the hands-off approach," Danny shrugged.

"What do you mean by out of line?" Dean asked suspiciously.

"Nope. Not yet. My turn. Men of Letters. Who are they?"

"They were an organization dedicated to monitoring supernatural threats and dispatching hunters to where they were needed to take care of a problem. They dedicated their lives to studying this stuff, but they disbanded in the 1950's when most of their members were massacred by a pretty high level demon named Abbadon," Sam explained. "Our grandfather was one of them, so the bunker is ours now."

"Okay. Sounds cool. It's too bad they're gone," Danny said. "Now for your question. The rules are simple. No killing humans under any circumstances, and if the trouble you cause causes property, physical, or psychological damage, you will be remanded to prison in the Ghost Zone for an appropriate amount of time. Visit the human realm all you want. Scare a couple tourists, sure. But hurt anyone and you're done."

"You really keep a tight lid on things," Sam sounded reluctantly impressed.

"There's always something that slips through the cracks. I'm one guy, after all. But, we haven't had a single fatality yet. I'm pretty proud of it."

"Why do you care so much about humans, anyway?" Dean asked, glowering skeptically.

"Again, still my turn. Not very good at sharing, are you? What do two hunters want with the King of Hell, anyway? I assume he's a demon. Why would you two mess with that stuff if you know firsthand how dangerous it is?"

"We need him for something. Believe it or not, he's the lesser of two evils and we could use the kind of powerful mojo he's got," Dean replied.

"That's terrifying. And wildly specific. Care to specify what 'something' you need him for?" Danny asked.

Dean smirked in a feral grin. "Our turn, this time. And you don't have to answer verbally."

"What is that supposed to- Ow! Butter biscuits, that hurt!" he hissed, clutching at the fresh wound in his shoulder. A cluster of small holes oozed green ectoplasm from the shotgun blast to the shoulder. He couldn't phase out the projectiles. Perfect. Now he'd have to dig them out by hand later. "What was in that thing?"

"Rock salt," Dean crowed triumphantly. "Best weapon against ghosts. Had a feeling you wouldn't totally dissipate on us, but I wanted to see if this would still have an effect on whatever weird thing you are. Answer: yes."

Danny glared at Dean and growled, "You suck. You are luckier than you know that I am not the kind of ghost you think I am."

"That a threat, ghost king?" Sam said in a low voice.

"Friendly observation. My turn."

"Nuh-uh. You used yours on what was in our guns. It's our turn," Dean cut off with a smirk.

"False. You asked me if my statement was a threat, and I answered. My turn," Danny corrected. "What is so bad you need help from the King of Hell because he's less scary than whatever it is?"

The two brothers shared a sidelong glance rife with silent communication. Danny could see the question in their faces. How much do we tell him? They came to a decision and turned to face him. It was Sam that spoke.

"Leviathans."

"Sorry, but that does not answer my question in the slightest because I have literally no idea what those are," Danny said drolly.

"Monsters. The worst of the worst. Sentenced to Purgatory by God himself because they were that awful, that terrifying. They can shapeshift into anybody they've come in physical contact with. They eat people, bleed black goo, and are basically indestructible. They're trying to take over the world, and they're succeeding," Sam replied.

Danny was silent for a long moment. "Wow. That's- that's horrifying. You two deal with this kind of crap all the time?"

"We deal with a potentially world-ending event at least once a year. We actually stopped the apocalypse not long ago," Dean chuckled.

"Man. I thought I had it bad trying to protect a crazy town like Amity Park. The whole world? I've only had to do that twice, maybe three times. That's rough," Danny remarked.

"How old are you?" Dean asked. "You look a little young to be saving the world multiple times."

"Old enough," the boy snapped gruffly.

"Okay. Since that doesn't count as a real answer, it's still our turn," Dean commented. "So, back to my earlier question, why do you care so much about humans?"

Danny sighed. "I used to be one. I still have friends and family who are human. I believe that every life is worth protecting, and losing mine didn't change that. Just because I'm a ghost doesn't mean I'm some kind of evil monster. I still want to help people."

"I don't quite buy that being the only reason, but it's good enough for now, I guess. Um, since you're here... Do you think maybe you could help us out with the Leviathan thing? If Crowley is so off the grid that the summoning circle can't reach him, you may be the next best thing," Dean pointed out.

Danny regarded the brothers with an incredulous look. "You're kidding me, right? You basically kidnap me, interrupting my date by the way, throw holy water in my face, interrogate and insult me and- this is the icing on the cake- shoot me in the flip-frakkin shoulder with salt of all things, and you are actually asking me to help you. Are you so far gone that you don't see how seriously messed up that is? You haven't even apologized."

"You were on a date?" Dean spluttered. Danny glared at him. "Right. Not the point of that speech. You're right, man. Sorry about the mixup and the shooting, but not for hurting your feelings. Good enough?"

"It's probably the best I'm going to get, so yeah. We're good. I still don't like you, but saving the world is kinda what I do, so I'll help with your monster problem as best as I can. In exchange, you see me flying around, you don't shoot at me. Deal?" he asked, extending a hand to shake.

Dean looked less than certain about touching him, so Sam rolled his eyes and did the handshake for the both of them. It was better than the demon way that involved lip-locking.

"Awesome," Danny said with a grin. "Let me call my girlfriend to let her know I'm alright and we can get started."

His bright green eyes gleamed in anticipation of the battle to come and he felt a little guilty for the twinge of satisfaction he got from the brothers' alarmed expressions in reaction to the manic look that was likely on his face. But hey, he deserved a bit of payback for being shot.

"Let's get to work."

A/N: Another SPN/DP fic I cooked up while the springs of inspiration for my ongoing fics were refreshing. I like this as a oneshot, but if I get requests for a continuation, I'll see what I can come up with. Hugs, Me.