Chapter Text
Danny pressed his hands together in front of his lips. “I need you guys to understand that it’s the twenty-first century.”
“That matters not!” an Observant thundered.
“Clockwork, back me up on this,” Danny said.
“It is tradition, my king,” the old young teen man kid said.
“What?!” Danny shrieked. “Clocky! How could you?”
“Ain’t no one above the law, kid,” Walker said.
“But it’s Pariah’s law! I’m the king now; don’t I get to change that? Isn’t that the whole point of, ya know, having a king?”
“You are mistaken,” Princess Dora said. “This law was not created by Pariah Dark. It has been the way of ghosts for eons, since the first King of Ghosts.”
“There’s been. More than two kings?”
“There have been Ghost Kings since the first death in the first of the Realms,” Clockwork intoned. “Since the first blob took form and gained sapience. The concept of the strong ruling over the weak is nearly as old as the concepts of life and death themselves. It is how it has always been. The lineage of kings goes back billions of years—thanks, in part, to rigorous succession planning.”
“Since when? The only ‘succession planning’ I heard of before this was whoever beats the old king has to be the new king. And you should really warn a guy about that beforehand, by the way. I woulda let Pariah take over the world.”
“No you wouldn’t have,” Clockwork said, and Danny couldn’t even argue with him. Smug bastard. “Pariah Dark had 372 wives and 814 concubines. His heirs are numerous. The line of succession was well-secured under his reign, but that has been disrupted by your conquest. A new line must be secured.”
“Can’t Ellie just be queen if I die? Or fade, or shatter, or whatever? She’s basically me anyway.”
“A singular heir is not sufficient!” An Observant said. Danny will be honest here. He had no clue what this guy’s name was. “The throne will not last the next ten billion years with a mere two kings upon it!”
How long do you think I’m going to be king, Danny wondered. He knew that… That this was it. The afterlife. Nothing more after this, no end to this in sight. But ghosts can still be permanently destroyed. In rare and brutal circumstances. And time marches on, always.
He supposed it made sense. A single ghost king could outlast whole civilizations and planets and stars but absolutely nothing lasts forever. Not even universes.
Though the multiverse was young, apparently. Not even the first of its universes had entropized yet.
Would Danny live to see it? Or, well. Not-live?
He couldn’t hold onto the concept of ten billion years. He couldn’t imagine a million. Even the most outrageous lifespan in any of his shitty sci-fi movies had only been in the thousands.
Still, though. He had way more immediate problems. Such as the next thirty minutes.
“I’m not marrying 900 people,” he said. It was important to sound firm.
“372,” Pandora said. “And 814 concubines. No one said 900.”
“I’m not marrying 372 people,” he said, slightly hysteric.
“No one is requiring that many of you,” Vortex said. “A few dozen wives would be fine.”
“I’m gay!” he blurted.
“No you aren’t,” an Observant said. Fuck that guy, Danny thought viciously.
Frostbite cleared his throat a bit awkwardly. “Great One, even if you were solely attracted to men, it would not… affect the process, as it were, for ectoplasmic entities such as ourselves. The creation of ‘life,’ as it were, in the Infinite Realms, is not the same as life as it’s traditionally thought of for organic matter. Being as ectoplasm is—Well, perhaps it would be best if you stopped by my office afterwards. I would not want to derail this meeting.”
Great. Just great. Now he had to go to Frostbite’s to learn ghost sex ed after this. This day just got better and better.
He was so glad he hadn’t played the trans card. He knew better than to try. For one thing, they might’ve just switched to saying husbands, and for another, ghosts were beings of emotion and intention. Their forms reflected how they saw themselves. Which meant Danny’s ghost form and his human form had, ah, different parts.
There was at least one good side effect of the portal accident.
“I am aware of the modern concepts of ‘sexualities,’” Pandora said, and Danny mentally braced himself for whatever was about to come next. “Those rare people who prefer only men or only women rather than both. I think I speak for everyone here when I say that no one cares who you marry so long as you produce a suitable number of heirs within a timely manner, as is expected of any king.”
“I hate this,” he said. “I hate this so much.”
Undergrowth waved a hand/stem/vine. “Claim heirs you find worthy then. That’s what I did. Samantha Manson is both my daughter and heir, yet I did not meet her until her adolescence.”
Danny put his head in his hands and groaned.
“C’mon, kid, what issue could you possibly have with that plan?” Walker asked.
“I don’t know, the one where I’m twenty-one and a father?” he asked. “This is the worst birthday ever, by the way.”
“The responsibilities of adulthood wait for no one,” Clockwork said. “You have come of age, Danny. You must pick at least one consort.”
“Can I—” he hesitated. “No.”
“’No’ is not an option.”
“Yes it is. I renounce the throne!”
“You are the king!” one of the Observants shrieked. “You will pick a consort or we will pick one for you!”
“What?!”
Dear Red Hood,
The High Council of the King of the Infinite Realms
Is pleased to invite you to
A BALL
Three weeks hence, at the Grand Palace, for the duration of a fortnight.
King Phantom has come of age and must choose an eligible citizen of the Realms to marry. As such, all unmarried ghosts, revenants, halfas, spirits, and risen between the ages (lived years) of 18 and 50 shall be formally presented to society before His Majesty, with the potential of courtship to follow.
Attendance is mandatory.
Thank you for your cooperation, honored guest.
“What the fuck is this?” he said. The paper was green and glowing, written in some cheesy pseudo-calligraphic copperplate. It had appeared out of nowhere on his patrol. Literally out of nowhere—the thing popped into existence right in front of him.
Hood carefully enclosed the thing in an evidence bag and headed for the cave.
“Hood! Did you or did you not get a weird green letter?” Replacement yelled as soon as he entered.
“What? Was this some sad attempt at a prank on your part?” he asked.
“Ha!” Tim shouted in victory. Damian scowled. “I told you!”
“Congratulations, Drake, you successfully deduced that Todd was, at one point, dead. An astounding deduction. It still doesn’t make sense for any king to consider him worthy courtship material.”
“Hey,” Jason said. “Is anyone gonna explain what the hell is going on, or do I have to listen to you two bicker for a few more hours?”
Steph waved a green paper from over by the Batcomputer. “Cass, Dick, Babs, B, and I all got these on patrol tonight. Exact same moment. Boss Man is currently on the phone with Constantine.”
“Thank you. See, was that so hard?” he addressed to Tim.
Cass lightly punched Steph on the arm and handed her her phone to look at.
“Uh oh,” Steph said.
“Uh oh? What uh oh?” Tim asked.
“Civilians have gotten them too,” Cass said.
“’When I was five, I hit my head on the pool and fell in. I was legally dead for 42 seconds. Apparently that’s good enough for the Ghost King,’ and then there’s a bunch of emojis,” Steph read.
“If this really did go out to everyone who’s ever died, that’s gonna be a good chunk of the capes,” Jason said grimly. “This could be a trap. A way of rounding people up.”
Cass nodded. “Affinity crime. Prey on trauma.”
“That’s… ambitious. A lot of our heavy hitters have died before. The entire Trinity. Lots of GLs. Most the Kryptonians, actually, a lot of Amazons too. Everyone who’s ever been the Flash, I think.”
“And us,” Jason said. “We don’t have a Dead Robins Club for nothing.”
Bruce reentered the main section of the cave, face grim. “I’ve called an emergency meeting of the League.”
The emergency meeting of the League turned out to actually be an emergency meeting of every cape affected, which was most of the ones on Earth, and some beyond, who were videoconferenced in. All of the Titans, Young Justice, the Outsiders, the Outlaws, the Birds of Prey, the Doom Patrol—every team had at least one member with a stake in this. Everyone was waiting for the verdict from the Justice League Dark.
“It’s not good,” Zatanna said.
“We’re all buggered,” Constantine translated. “The last Ghost King, Pariah Dark, was also known as the Eternal Tyrant. The biggest bastard in this life and the next. Everyone hated the fucker and nobody could do shit to get rid of him. Not permanently, at least. The Ancients had to band together just to lock him up. And then this new king, apparently, just defeats the guy in a day when he eventually breaks out.”
“What all do we know about the new king?” Batman asked.
“He has the power to command the dead,” Zatanna said. “In addition to possession.”
“Possession? Like, horror movie possession?” Hal asked.
“I hate mind control,” the Flash muttered.
“We will review our anti-mind control training before the ball,” Batman announced, to a chorus of groans. J’onn steepled his fingers.
“I unfortunately was not invited,” he said. “But perhaps I can accompany one who was as a chaperone.”
“I’ll go too,” M’gann offered. She hadn’t been invited either. Jason never wanted to meet anything that could kill a Martian. They were more overpowered than Kryptonians, in his opinion. Except for the whole weakness-to-fire thing, but like, c’mon. Supes’ weakness is green rocks. That’s nothing.
“Ghosts have other powers too,” Constantine warned. “Even aside from the mind control, a single one of them is a League-level threat.”
“Deadman isn’t,” Hawkman said.
“Deadman doesn’t count.”
Deadman threw up his hands in offense.
“He’s got a point,” Zatanna said. “Whoever this new king is, they managed to do what took the Ancients hundreds of years. Not only did he oust Pariah Dark, he won the throne by right of conquest. And he’s apparently very young, if he’s just now come of age.”
“We might be looking at a baby Ancient,” Constantine said.
“Isn’t that an oxymoron? What is an Ancient?” Impulse asked.
“Ancients is a bit of a misnomer. Lots of them are very old, sure, but there’s no telling when one will manifest. They’re conceptual spirits. They represent things like time, hope, various forces of nature, stuff like that,” Zatanna said.
“They’re basically gods,” Constantine said. “Gods among a race of already overpowered beings. So best behavior, everyone.”
“Which brings us to our next topic.” Zatanna clicked a button on the remote and the viewscreen switched to a PowerPoint presentation.
GHOSTLY ETIQUETTE 101
“I’m not going,” Superboy said, two and a half hours later. “You can’t make me.”
“Do we need to run through the PowerPoint again, Superboy? Because—”
“We can’t make you, but they absolutely can,” Zatanna said.
“I didn’t think it needed to be said that snubbing the royalty like that could provoke a war,” Aquaman said. “A war we’d lose.”
“Anyone who refuses to go or causes an incident at this event will answer to me,” Wonder Woman said.
“What if he actually chooses one of us?” Superboy asked.
Silence reigned.
“We will cross that bridge when we get to it,” Supergirl said. “If we get to it.”
“There are billions of dead people from this planet, in this universe, alone,” John Stewart said. “There’s a reason this ball will last two full weeks. Statistically, it’s unlikely anyone here will be chosen.”
“Oh, calm down,” Red Hood snapped. “It says ‘with the potential of courtship to follow,’ not ‘with a shotgun wedding to follow.’ Worst comes to worst you go on an awkward first date.”
“He’s got a point,” Red Robin said. Batman glared at him. “What? Technically, that’s exactly what the invitation said.”
“As if any warrior-king would ever be interested in anyone in this room,” Artemis drawled. “If I were him, I would host a tournament for my hand and demand any suitors be able to defeat me in battle first.”
God, he was so glad they stayed friends after they broke up. Artemis was a badass.
“We will hear no more discussion on the matter,” Wonder Woman said. “You are all going, and none of you are to disgrace our universe and bring down war upon us. Is that understood?”