Chapter Text
Things happened so fast that the next emergency JL meeting segued smoothly from the first one. They cued into the broadcast easily.
It was meant to be viewed by everyone, after all.
“To all the humans watching, good luck,” the High King finished. The broadcast clicked off with a burst of crackling static.
“That,” Constantine said. “Is really fucking bad.”
“Yes, thank you for that expert analysis,” Batman said. “Do we have any proof that this is real?”
“I need to see someone die,” Zatanna said.
“What, you think someone’ll take kindly to the JLD showing up in their hospital room to-- and I cannot stress this enough-- stand there and watch them die?” Flash asked.
Zatanna shrugged. “We could ask for volunteers.”
“That might work,” Superman said. “Especially if we made it known that we need to verify the severity of the situation in order to work on fixing it.”
“Fuck that,” Green Lantern said. “Let’s assume this is real and get to work now. People die every minute. Thousands of souls are being lost while we stand around here and debate about verification.”
“He has a point,” Green Arrow said.
“Well, at least now we know what caused the disturbance in magic,” Captain Marvel said.
“We do?” Superman asked.
“Yeah! The king said he’s newly crowned, right? And he took action immediately. So what we all felt, that must have been his coronation!”
“That… makes sense,” Zatanna said.
“High King of the Infinite Realms? Yeah, that tracks,” Constantine said. “Christ, that means that bloody kid must have slain Pariah Dark.”
“Is he actually a child?” Batman asked. “Or does he merely have the appearance of one?”
“Anything’s possible, but ghosts’ forms are largely based on their own self-perception. He feels young. To himself, if nothing else.”
“We should split into teams,” Wonder Woman declared. “One team will verify this new way of existing. The other team will work on reversing it immediately.”
And that was that.
Zatanna led the verification team, and Constantine led the reversal team. Heroes split off accordingly. Zatanna’s team posted an open call for ordinary citizens to help in the pursuit of justice, and responses from hospitals poured in nearly immediately.
Constantine’s team stayed in the conference room, debating what to do.
Green Lantern, the exception to the division, left on his own to Oa. If this problem was interplanetary, or, God forbid, universal, then Earth could be looking at war in reprisal. So he needed to go make sure that Earth itself was the only planet that had been cut off, so to speak.
“Our best shot is begging and pleading for mercy,” Constantine said.
“What makes you think this new king will listen to our plea?” Wonder Woman asked. She and Aquaman had been specifically chosen to stay on Constantine’s team, in the hope that the new king would respond well to fellow rulers, or-- at the very least-- experienced diplomats. “He has only just issued this decree. It would make him look weak to reverse it so quickly.”
“We should investigate this GIW before saying anything,” Batman said. “They can either verify or dispute Phantom’s claims. Either way, additional information on the incidents that preceded this could make the difference in negotiations.”
“I agree,” Wonder Woman said.
“We shouldn’t waste any time,” Constantine warned. “We need to do this now. More souls are lost every second. Let the verification team do the investigating.”
“Acting without all of the information leads to mistakes. Mistakes that could cost lives.”
“Why are you here, Batman? Why didn’t you go with the other team?”
“Because this team is meant to be strategizing. We will plan before we act, Constantine.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yes.”
Zatanna’s team stood around in a hospital room. Detective Chimp and Ragman are there as well, but she told the members of the Light League to wait out in the hall.
This woman deserved as much dignity as they could give her. Her death was not a spectacle. Only mages who could actually sense or see something from it needed to be present.
“I’m going to turn off the machines now,” a doctor said quietly. The woman’s daughter stifled a sob, nodding.
“Are you sure you want us here?” Zatanna asked one more time.
The daughter nodded. “It’s what she would want,” she said. “Mom was… Mom really believes in you guys. Always has. If her death can help you, can be meaningful… It’s what she would want.”
“Thank you,” Zatanna said.
The doctor turned off about a half dozen machines. The heartrate monitor slowed to a flatline, and she turned off the tone for that as well.
“Time of death,” she said. “15:48.”
Zatanna watched with sharp eyes.
The woman’s soul faded in an instant. It didn’t leave, didn’t go anywhere, or move on, it just… Ended.
“Thank you,” she said. “That was exactly what I needed to see.”
School was super fucking weird the next day.
Sam and Tucker stuck close.
Everyone kept staring at Danny. Whispering about him, with all the subtlety of a brick to the face. Three different teachers pulled him aside either before or after their classes and said he could always come to them if he needed anything.
Again: super fucking weird.
And then lunch happened.
The A-listers converged on their table like swarming locusts.
Sam stopped eating entirely to stare at Paulina as confrontationally as it was possible to stare.
“Hey, guys,” Paulina said. “So. What’s happening?”
“Lunch,” Tucker said flatly.
“So….” Paulina said. “Where’s the little baby?”
“Daycare,” Danny said. “Why?”
“Well, we wanna know!” she said. “”She’s such a cute baby! And none of us knew anything about her!”
“You have to spill,” Star said.
“No, actually, Danny doesn’t have to say shit to you people,” Sam said, ever the diplomat.
“Is it true the dad’s the mayor?” Kwan asked, looking sick.
Tucker and Sam looked at each other, Danny studiously paying attention to his lunch tray.
Nobody answered.
He felt the pull of a summoning a few hours after school.
It was pulling him somewhere on or near Earth, he knew that much.
Danny rolled his eyes, and allowed it. He released the tension from his form, snapping into eldritch mode and letting the current pull him along.
Ellie was in his arms, in a fancy silk baby sling that again, she was too big for. She was in her adorably little monster-baby ghost form, too. With white hair and teeny fangs and pointy ears.
They manifested in a shower of snowflakes and green smoke in a sterile metal room, surrounded by a bunch of heroes. Danny looked at them all flatly.
It probably looked pretty intimidating, in his current manifestation.
The heroes all took a knee, bowing just their heads-- the proper style of bow in the Infinite Realms.
“High King Phantom of the Infinite Realms,” some guy in a trenchcoat said. “Great One of Prophecy. Keeper of the Veil. Bringer of Balance. We beseech you.”
“What is your request?” he asked. Just a bit snappish.
“We ask that you thin the Veil,” he said. “Restore it to its natural order.”
He looked Trenchcoat Man up and down skeptically. “You presume to tell me about the natural order of things?”
The man held his gaze, eyes steely. “Will you not accept me as a negotiator?”
He huffed.
“Why ask this of me?”
“Our people are dying, Your Majesty,” he said. “Dying with no potential afterlife. We beg your mercy.”
“You beg my mercy?” he asked, floating closer, higher. “You beg my mercy? Was I the one so wronged?”
Trenchcoat Man hesitated. “We recognize that your people have suffered. Greatly. Greatly suffered.”
“Recognize that my daughter has suffered!” he shouted. “Beg her for mercy!”
He nodded. “Of course,” he said. “May we have her name and titles, to address her with the respect she is due?”
Danny looked down at his little girl. Ellie popped up out of the sling.
“I,” she said imperiously. “Am Crown Princess D… Uh. No! You don’t get to know my name. I am the Crown Princess of the Infinite Realms, and that’s all you need to know.”
“Very well, Your Highness,” Trenchcoat Man said. “Crown Princess of the Infinite Realms, we beg sincerely for your mercy. Please. Forgive our world. Thin the Veil.”
Ellie climbed carefully out of the sling, with as much dignity as its possible to do such a thing. She flew over to hover mere inches from Trenchcoat Man’s face. Stared directly at him.
To his credit, Trenchcoat Man held her acid-green gaze without flinching. The glow of her eyes was reflected slightly on his skin.
“They cut me open,” she said. “They cut my arm off. I was awake.”
“We’re sorry.”
“Did you change it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Did you change it?” she asked. “Did you stop them? Do they… Do they still have other ghosts?”
Trenchcoat Man floundered. He looked over to Batman helplessly.
Danny’s eyes narrowed.
“The investigation is active and ongoing,” Batman said.
Ellie squinted.
“How long has it been active?” Danny asked for her. “How long have our rights been an issue to you?”
The heroes hesitated, tellingly.
“Answer,” he demanded.
“Since your decree, Your Majesty,” Trenchcoat Man said.
He snarled, baring his fangs.
Still.
“It’s up to you, Princess,” he said. “Do you think I should thin the Veil?”
Ellie stared out at the heroes. She met each one’s eyes individually.
“No,” she said.
The next summoning happened between sixth and seventh period the next day.
Ellie wasn’t with him this time; she was with Frostbite and the yetis and Danny had a magical amulet on him that would heat up in the event of any emergency. The pull was tugging him towards somewhere on Earth again.
His next class was gym.
He shifted into eldritch form and allowed the pull to tug him along.
He manifested in a fucking throne room. It was dark. There were sconces. Were they underground? What the fuck.
Some guy in a fancy green robe-dress thing was standing before him, having clearly just risen from the throne. There were…. Ninjas? All around the room in a shadowy ring.
But the real piece de resistance was Agents K and O bound and gagged at the leader’s feet.
The scary ninja leader king guy bowed in the way of the Infinite Realms, exactly how the Justice League had the day before. Every ninja in the room assumed the same position, all at once.
“High King Phantom of the Infinite Realms. Great One of Prophecy. Keeper of the Veil. Bringer of Balance. I approach you as one king to another.”
“What domain are you the king of?” he asked carefully.
“This land, Nanda Parbat, and my people, the League of Assassins.”
Danny was flat-out internally panicking now.
He could not afford to be fucking panicking. He had to get his shit together, ASAP.
“You are a king of killers and approach me, the King of the Dead, claiming to be an equal?” he asked. Which might be a mistake to say, but never let it be said that Danny knew when to shut up.
“I have not claimed to be your equal. I recognize the limited scope of my domain. I am keenly aware of the realities of our relative situations, Your Majesty, and I hope you too recognize how my actions have served to benefit you.”
“I have no need or want to see lives lost before their time,” he said quickly. “A long life is more beneficial to me than a short one. All enter my domain eventually, or at least they once did. An elderly person may produce many heirs to also become my subjects, whereas a young death results in only one soul.”
“I have been blessed with an exceptionally long life,” this so-called king said. “I am Ra’s al Ghul; the Demon’s Head. I have been able to see my children and grandchildren grow thanks to blessings from your Realm.”
“Explain.”
“For many centuries, the holy Lazarus Waters have been used to preserve my and my family’s lives,” Ra’s said. “You must surely be familiar with them. They bear a strong resemblance to your own ectoplasm.”
“You researched me.”
“But of course,” he said. “Your ectoplasm appears to have many uses. Our Lazarus Waters were used solely to resurrect the recently dead.”
Danny nodded, slowly.
“Were?” he asked. “What has changed?”
“Closing the Veil has eliminated all unbonded ectoplasmic matter in the Living Realm,” he said. “As the Lazarus Pits appeared to be primarily ectoplasm or at least a form of it, they have since dried up.”
“Pits, plural?”
“Yes. All of them,” he said. “My people were thorough in their diligence.”
“I see,” he said. “And I suppose you want me to restore your ectoplasm to you?”
“I would never be so dishonorable as to approach a king for a favor without offering one of my own in return,” Ra’s said. He tilted his chin to the GIW agents cowering on the floor. “These two are the ones who harmed your daughter directly. It was their hands that touched her. I offer them now to you as a gift. Enact your vengeance as you see fit.”
Danny’s core thrummed. He knew hos eyes were glowing.
Them, it was them, they were the ones who-- who--
He ceased breathing and darted forward, tail lashing behind him in the air. K and O cringed back against each other, helpless in their bindings. Danny smiled, full of fangs.
The Crown was a blazing inferno floating above his head. The Ring of Rage glowed brightly on his hand. He remembered his oaths, the sacred vows he had taken to become king. He remembered what Death had said when she gave him the Ring.
I now outfit you with the Ring of Rage. Use it to feel the righteous fury of the unavenged dead. To fight for those who no one else will.
This was his duty.
Jagged, clawed fingers gently removed the agents’ gags. Danny had never felt less human.
“Have you any last words?” he asked.
“Please,” Agent K gasped out. “Please, have mercy.”
“Did my daughter beg?” he asked, and O sobbed. Both of them had tears running down their faces.
Cowards. They could dish it out, but they couldn’t take it.
“Answer the question,” he snapped.
“Yes,” Agent O said. “Yes, yes she did. We’re so—”
“Shut up,” he said. “Did you listen to her? When she asked you to stop?”
“No.” As if Danny was torturing the confessions out of them. He hadn’t even touched them.
He flew in a circle around the two. He was glowing brighter than anything else in the throne room. The Crown was a small sun above him, casting the place in noonday light. The gloom from before was entirely gone.
He could kill them so easily.
He could do worse than kill them. He could do to them what they had done to Ellie. Every last cut.
Would Ellie want that?
Would it scare her?
“Be so very grateful, then,” Danny said. “That I am more merciful than you.”
The agents sobbed out their pathetic thanks.
“Your Majesty,” Ra’s said. “It is noble of you to offer such mercy. But if this is a matter of not wishing to sully your hands with their disgraceful blood, I am happy to take up the task in your stead.”
“I do not want them dead, by my hand or by my order,” he said. “Their time will come when it comes.”
“Torture, then, if I may be so bold as to make a suggestion.”
The agents went into renewed hysterics at that.
“You are trying to appease me,” Danny said. “My wants are nothing like your own.”
“What do you desire, Your Majesty?” He quirked his lips wryly. “To the half of my kingdom.”
He paused.
“You said your scope of power was limited.”
“Only insofar as any mortal’s scope of power is limited in comparison to yours,” he said. “Wish it, and you shall have it.”
“Abolish the Anti-Ecto Act,” he said. “Disband the GIW. Jail and disgrace all their agents.”
“It is done,” he said. “I am so glad, Your Majesty, that we have come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
Danny didn’t roll his eyes, as much as he wanted to. “Your ectoplasm will be restored after I see your word fulfilled.”
“It shall be swift, I assure you.”
“Good.” He smiled. “A word of warning, Ra’s al Ghul?”
The assassin tipped his chin up.
“The Justice League is trying to appease me as well,” Danny said. “You’re in a race.”