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Amity Park is a strange city. It wasn’t famous, like Gotham, or Star City or any of the other cities that had a superhero based in it, yet, the city had a hero. Granted, it was an unconventional hero, but still a hero that saved lives and fought the city’s so-called Rogues. The city was often confused on why the Justice League hadn’t come and helped out their lone hero yet, or at least offered him a spot on one of the teams or other hero groups.
Danny Fenton on the other hand, was extremely cautious of the idea of getting help from of the big guys. Just the thought of Superman or one of the many forms of Batpeople getting overshadowed brought shivers down his spine. Sam Manson and Tucker Foley agreed with this thought and brought it up to the people who complained about the destruction the ghosts caused. While help would have been nice when it all started, nowadays the trio had a routine and had it handled, especially the more common Ghosts.
So, it was on an unsuspecting Wednesday night that saw the surprising form of the dark and broody Knight of Gotham at the welcome sign. What once said ‘A nice place to live’ was now just ‘A place to live’ with the words ‘Weirder than Gotham’ in bright green paint on a wooden plank below the sign. Danny, as soon as he felt his haunt disturbed by someone—A: not a ghost, and 2: definitely didn’t have enough ectoplasm in them to be part of his city—transformed and flew in their direction.
The sight of the Dark Knight himself made him sigh as he floated down to the ground before him. “What are you doing so far away from your cave, Batman?” Danny made himself visible as he landed on the ground with two feet.
The man in front of him didn’t jump but Danny felt surprise and suspicion from the man’s soul. “Constantine said this was home of a ghost, not a meta.” Batman growled out and honestly, Danny was a little offended and angry at the stereotype most ghosts faced.
“What I don’t look dead enough for you? Is this BETTER?” Danny’s voice tinged with enough Ghost Speak to make the living get chills as he let his more ‘human’ feature melt away into eldritch territory. His skin became a glowing light blue rather tan, ears pointed, fangs extending, and the rest of his body became one with the shadows surrounding him. Danny’s eyes, as he was told, were like looking into a dark abyss and just as you though it was empty you would get the feeling of something staring at you.
The Dark Knight took a step back and Danny could hear frantic words coming from the built-in comms in his cowl. “Hmm.” The man seemed to recollect himself as a voice in his ear yelled out about a diplomatic meeting not causing an incident with the Infinite Realms’ ghost ambassador. Which in itself was weird, Danny was the King not an ambassador.
Danny relaxed back into his usual Phantom form and chuckled as a thought of chaos hit him, “Chill out. If you meant no offense its fine. Now back to my question, what are you doing here in Amity Park and why isn’t the sad trench coat man here with you? This is usually his area of expertise, isn’t it?”
Batman looked at him in the eyes and said the dreaded words no one wants the hear from THE Batman. “We need your help.”
The people listening through comms heard the being give a long sigh and a tired, “Fuck.”
_
The situation, to John Constantine, was a bloody mess. He had always taken one look at the chaos that was the Infinite Realms and said Nope. It had gotten better with the new king tightening the reigns on how much trouble the beings could cause in the Living Realm a few years ago. Which was very little with the Ghost Ambassador they had sent to corral the denizens back to their home.
However, the situation now wasn’t ghosts. He wished it was ghosts as they were slightly easier to deal with then demons. John wouldn’t even have to do much if that was the case. Just a quick summon of the Ghost Ambassador and they would take care of it. But it wasn’t. It was rude to summon a being to deal with a different race and there wasn’t a Demon Ambassador to summon. So here he was, chewing on his cigarette and listening to Batman almost destroyed what little truce the Living had with the Infinite Realms. He had wanted to be there to greet the Ambassador himself but as one of the only ones who could fight demons, he was stuck on guard duty, making sure no other demons came crawling through the portal.
The portal itself was about the size of a door and glowing green, still open even if nothing had passed through it since the demon messenger had given the demands and then went back through. He listened as Bats explained the situation and how the diplomatic approach wasn’t going to work. They needed to know how to contact the King so he could tell his denizens to buzz off. What he didn’t expect to hear was a dark chuckle and the ghost to ask to look at the demands. There was a crinkle of not quite paper and then the dark chuckle turned to a chilling laugh.
“Yeah, I can help you heroes out with him. I’ll need to be at the portal for the dead-line. That’s in like two hours. Can your plane handle that or do we need take a short cut?”
_
Danny and the group Batman had been with got to Gotham (of course it was Gotham) with ten minutes to spare. It had been an interesting flight to say the least. Batman was silent but kept up the suspicion he could feel radiating of him. Nightwing was a delight, their sense of humor matching up to everyone’s grief. Red Robin had been the same dead tired vibes as Danny. Robin had his hand a katana and his eye on Danny the entire flight, only clicking his tongue whenever he felt like being part of the conversation. Wonder Woman had given him a distrustful look and a hand clenched on her Lasso. Honestly, he was mostly disappointed in her. Pandora would have rioted at the show of disrespect.
Upon arrival he introduced himself as Phantom and sat down in the throne of ice he made himself right in front of the portal. He was pretty sure that Constantine didn’t even recognize his name as the new ghost king or the fact that his aura was mostly folded in on itself. The Brit was mainly focused on making sure that it was diplomatically okay for him to deal with demons and that he wasn’t going to get everyone killed by the King for doing this without his permission.
With a sigh, he leaned against the right arm of his throne assumed what he and Tucker called his Badass Villain Position. Danny rested his head on his right fist and raise his right ankle to lay on top of his left knee. With his other hand he handed off the scroll of demands to Constantine and said with a bored tone, trying not to let his nerves rise with everyone else in the vicinity, “Do you see the name signed at the bottom? Do you recognize it as any demon you know?”
The magic man frowned and looked down at the name, studying it for a moment. “So that’s not a demon?”
Danny threw his head back with his laugh, “No. More like a wanna-be vampire. Damn fruit-loop.”
There was a moment of silence and then many voices began to speak over each other. “So, no world domination?” “Wanna-be vampire?” “That’s what you’re questioning?” “Fruit-loop?”
Batman’s rumble quieted everyone, “One minute. Phantom, is this going to be handled?”
Danny turned, an impish smirk on his face, his eyes shining with his mirth, “Yes. I hope you hold on tight. You’re in for a bumpy ride!” He turned back to the portal, “Now if everyone could be a silent as a grave, our not-a-demon is almost here.”
One leg slipped through the green, black boots and white pants before the rest of the being slipped through the portal. The smirk on the being’s face fell as soon he saw Danny reclining in his throne with the Justice League and Co behind him.
“Hello Plasmius, n-ice to see you again.” He moved his leg to ground, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Danny felt a flare of power as his aura unraveled as the Crown of Flames and Ring of Rage appeared. He felt the shock and disbelief surge from behind him; Constantine’s soul felt like he was about to go into shock. “I could have sworn that as King Phantom of the Infinite Realms I had strictly forbidden world domination.”