… I wasn't going to type this up until much later, but, I'm sorry to say, I am extremely bored and have absolutely no motivation to work on my other fics. I am very sorry about lack of updates, due to a busy schedule and complete lack of enthusiasm, but my update schedule will resume as of Monday. For sure. If I get bored at some point, I may shove in extra chapters to make up for lost ones during the weekends. Until now, make due with this, as strange of a crossover as it may be. If you can understand it, that is. Anyway, this is a Danny Phantom/ Bleach crossover. Strange, but… It's the results of reading too much manga.
Disclaimer: I own neither Bleach, which is owned by Tite Kubo, or Danny Phantom, which is owned by Butch Hartman. I also own no related people, places, things, or ideas. I do, however, own Dominic and my hollow. I designed them, so I keep them! Hands off!
Danny Vs. the Hollow
What the heck is this thing? That was all Danny could think as the monstrosity stared down at him and his friends. It had triggered his ghost sense as soon as Danny had seen it, but the mist that escaped his mouth was distinctly different than it had ever been. No ghost had turned his breath black before.
With a roar, the creature lunged. Sam and Tucker had apparently not heard or seen it, as they resumed talking. Sam gave Danny a strange look.
"Danny, what-" She began to say, but stopped sharply when he held up a hand, glowing green, and shot off an ecto-blast. She followed its trajectory, and it struck something invisible.
"Whoa, dude, what the heck?" Tucker asked curiously. "What was that about?"
"Can't you see it!" Danny nearly screamed, looking from one confused face to the other. His head moved slightly, almost as if he heard something, and then his reflexes kicked in. He grabbed Tucker's shirt and pushed Sam to the right, dragging Tucker along with him. His two friends gave a startled yelp, and something tore at the ground right behind where they'd been standing before. Something invisible to the two humans, but something the half ghost saw only too well.
It was a black and white creature, profoundly reptilian. Its body structure resembled that of a large cat, four times larger, and equipped with claws that looked more like talons. The majority of its scales were white, with black spines running from the back of its short neck to the tip of its tail. The strangest part about it was a white and black mask. It had a short, square snout, full of square teeth like a human's. Its eyes were like a void on the mask, decorated by jagged black markings around them and on its cheek. Black spiked protruded from around the sides of the mask.
It's a very good thing we're in the park, Danny thought to himself as the creature growled and turned to look at him once more. If we were out in the street, this would be bad. It was starting to get dark, and Sam, Danny, and Tucker had been coming back from a sweep of the town for ghosts when they were attacked.
Settling into a fighting pose, Danny changed easily into his ghost form.
"Guys," he said urgently, keeping a glare on the creature, "I want you to sit this one out."
"What!" Sam exclaimed, incredulous. "If you think for one minute we'll lea-"
"Sam," Danny said with a sigh, "you can't even see it, and its not trying to be invisible. You guys would just be a hinderance. It'd go after you and I'd have to save you, because you wouldn't know. And, if something happened to you," Danny paused, and looked over his shoulder into the violet eyes of the Goth teen. "I don't know what I'd do." Sam bit her lip, then nodded solemnly. In her heart, she knew Danny was right, but all this time, they'd always been there for Danny as best they could. Maybe it was out of their hands now.
"Well, I'm outta here, then," Tucker said lightly, taking off through the trees. Frankly, all this ghost fighting stuff scared him, but trying to fight something he couldn't see, or watching Danny doing it… No way. No freaking way.
"… Be careful Danny," Sam finally said, and turned to follow her techno-geek friend. She still heard Danny's reply as he turned back to his quarry.
"I always am."
Contrary to what Danny had thought, the monster stayed stock still as Danny's friends left. It seemed totally focused upon him, as if Sam and Tucker where small enough game to let flee. It waited for Danny to make his move, every inch the patient hunter.
Danny soon grew tired of waiting, and floated upwards hesitantly. He snapped back his right arm, and, like a pitcher with a baseball, threw a sphere of bright green ectoplasm the creature's way. It was well ready, as it reached up with a front claw and easily caught the ball.
"… Interesting," it said, much to Danny's surprise. Its voice was a strange combination of a cat's purr and a snake's hiss. "Ectoplasm. You really are quite a ghost. You can see me, too. Most of the ghosts like you don't have enough sixth sense to even realize I'm there before I'm upon them." It one quick, liquid movement, it flung the ball like someone would fling an unwanted rock. It hit Danny in the chest, knocking him against the tree. The creature lunged for him, and Danny phased into the earth just soon enough to avoid a swipe from its claws. The tree wasn't so lucky. It was literally ripped in two.
"But then, you aren't a ghost, are you?" The voice drawled on, ignoring the fact that its killing strike had missed. "You must be one of those halfas the Ghost Zone has been abuzz about. I always wondered what they'd taste like. I guess now is my chance to try one." As the lizard talked, Danny phased out of the ground behind it. Using a tactic that had worked before on a similar creature, he grabbed its tail and lifted the monster off the ground. With a grunt of exertion, he flicked the tail upward to twirl it around his head. The lizard turned around and hissed, spitting tiny black needles at Danny. (Think Arbok's poison sting from Poke'mon.) Crying out in pain as needles hit his arms and upper torso, a few scratching his face, he dropped the tail. He soon found he could no longer move his arms, as if they were paralyzed. Frantically, he floated backwards. The lizard advanced.
"Like my paralyzing darts?" He said suavely. "They're handy against particularly annoying prey." He spat a few more, nailing Danny's legs, literally. Some caught his clothing and sent him backwards into a tree, pinning him to it. In an attempt to phase through, Danny discovered another side effect of the poison; it appeared to nullify his ability to go intangible. The monster lifted its claw. "Now, to finish you off…"
Danny knew he had only one chance of saving himself, his ace in the whole this thing wouldn't be expecting. His Ghostly Wail. He took a deep breath, and screamed, right as the razor claws were inches from his chest. A familiar feeling crept through his body, up through his throat and out his mouth. A regular scream was replaced by an intense roar. Danny could practically see the sound waves vibrating through the air, striking the lizard and sending it flying. He kept releasing his energy, he couldn't help it, and slowly felt himself changing back to human. By the time he'd stopped, nearby trees had been felled, and the monster laid unmoving. His transformation became complete and Danny, utterly exhausted, fell into a deep sleep. Still stuck to the tree.
It had taken longer than Dominic had anticipated to pinpoint the hollow. Much longer, in fact. He jumped through the trees, zapaku-to out and ready, looking for the hollow he'd sensed. He wore the traditional shihakusho, a black kind of robe that was similar to the one worn by the Grim Reaper, only lacking a hood. His hair was black, cropped short in a military style, and his eyes were a hard gray. He was a Soul Reaper, a being from the Soul Society that exorcised ghosts and killed hollows. They couldn't be seen by humans, except for those extremely gifted in the sixth sense.
Something is obscuring the hollow's spirit energy, he thought. Some kind of strange energy that resembled spirit energy, but was in its own way very different. He finally came to a part of the park cleared of trees. To one side was an unconscious hollow, the other, pinned to a tree, was a young human. First things first, Dominic dispatched the hollow by cutting off the head. It faded into oblivion, its spirit cleansed, to pass on to the Soul Society. Next, he turned his attention to the boy. He was pinned to the tree with needles that, as the hollow disappeared, disintegrated. He slid to the ground with a thump, completely unconscious. He had a few wounds where needles had punctured his skin, and Dominic muttered a spell to heal them. Carefully, he took out a kiokychikun, or memory replacement, device and opened one of the boy's eyes. It was a bright blue, but unfocused. He pressed a button on the device, and it erupted a puff of smoke along with tiny plastic figures on springs. The eye focused for a second, as if he were waking up, then Dominic let it close. The boy grunted before falling back asleep. He wouldn't remember a thing.
"I wonder what the heck that kid did, to knock out a hollow," Dominic thought aloud. "Unless it was something else…" Dominic just shook his head, and went on his way to wait for the scanner to identify another hollow.
Phew! That sucker was long. Well, took a long time to type. It wasbetter than my original version, though! Things are described in greater detail, and I like the fight more. Now, a couple notes…
I've only read the Bleach manga, or some of it, anyway, so I don't know the official colors of hollows. In the manga, they're always black and white.
Dominic is, obviously, an OC Soul Reaper, and I'd like to note why his name is not Japanese. Well, I figured that Soul Reapers are fairly regional, and therefore have names that are used in the specific culture. Like Dominic. Exotic, but not too exotic.
If there's anything I may have gotten wrong, tell me in your review! Which means, R&R, please! No flames unless you have a good reason too. Pointless flames will be catapulted back to their owner.