DP X DC PROMPT: ATLAS AU
The GIW fuck up, Amity is blown up and the Ghost Zone is seriously destabilised.
Danny ends up having to literally hold up the Infinite Realms to make sure that what is literally the lining between dimensions doesn't collapse on itself. Stuck halfway through the portal while putting all of his focus into his task, he stays in the ruins of his haunt for 3 years before the Justice League Dark finally manages to break through the barrier the Ancients set up to conceal him.
The entire JL have been itching to investigate what happened to the town without anyway to get in. To say that they didn't expect the ghost of a teenager playing the role of Atlas would be an understatement. Now they must find a way to relieve him of his burden.
(Danny hasn't aged in all the time he's been there due to his trauma, which is made worse by the fact that time moves differently for him due to the Zone's instability. He has no idea how long it's been, but the bone-deep exhaustion he feels suggests it's anywhere between decades or centuries.)
The infinite realms is theoretically a lot ‘heavier’ than what Atlas would have to hold.
It would make sense if this was a Ghost King Danny AU as well as maybe having some assistance from other ancients and maybe his rouges as well?
It fills in some plot holes too as his rouges and allies would have tried to help him or find help.
Or you could add in some extra angst where the only reason he’s able to hold up the infinite realms is because everyone sacrificed themselves to create pillars to help hold and contain the realms
Whether or not they died to create the pillars or are more in a suspended animation is up to you.
Just imagine Danny desperately moving and grasping the fabric of time and space fully incapable of diverting even an ounce of attention to anything else.
Even though Amity was destroyed and he could never have a normal life again with the rest of the GIW knowing where he was and what he looked like.
Even though his loved ones may never become ghosts or might not even remember him as ghosts.
Even though all his loved ones are dead and those who already were may have been destroyed by the explosion.
He can’t mourn.
He doesn’t even think he’s strong enough to last long but he has to.
Just long enough for someone, anyone to notice.
He can feel his core buckling and straining under the pressure, his form is slowly destabilizing.
Just a little longer.
He can do this.
He never wanted to be a hero.
He never wanted to be the only one that could protect his town.
But he was.
And he’s the only one that can stop the realms from destroying earth and itself in the process.
Just a little longer.
As the pressure of the realms alleviate and form into something easier to hold.
As his very being mourns.
As his sense of time and identity withers.
He can keep holding the realms up.
He never wanted this.
But who else could do this?
Just a little longer until someone comes.
Just a little longer and he won’t have to do this anymore.
…
He’s tired.
When the Realms get a little easier to hold, did one of the JL do something? Maybe Captain Marvel is helping now?
If you want to be nice
If you don’t… someone else just became a pillar
At first there are many helping hands.
Friends and Rogues and the entirety of Pariah's Skeleton Army. In the beginning Danny could look around and he'd see Pandora and Frostbite and Skulker and Boxy and Johnny and Spectra and Undergrowth and...
So many familiar faces. Everyone from his worst enemies to his closest allies (save Clockwork who was busy trying to stabilize the timestream; and Youngblood who no one wanted to see a second give himself to this cause).
Yes, in the beginning there were many.
Pointdexter was the first to fall. No. Not fall. That's not the right word. Change. He changed. He's still holding his chunk of the zone, but he's different now. Strong as stone and just as immobile. A pillar, a statue of crystalline ectoplasm in the shape of a friend.
It didn't happen instantly. It had been a transition. Danny would say slow, but he's not sure he knows what slow and fast are anymore. It feels like it's been an eternity since they took up this burden. It feels like it's been a second. All he knows is that Sydney started changing and eventually he was stone.
Danny hadn't understood what was happening then. Couldn't spare the thought to ask. Not when it was Sydney. Not when it was Skulker. Not when it was Technus or Ember or Spectra. Not when it was Walker or Vlad or Vortex. Not when it was Frostbite or Pandora. By the time the burden was just barely light enough to have thoughts beyond holding it up, Danny was already alone.
He grieved then. As best as he could when all but a fraction of a fraction of his energy and attention was singularly honed on holding up the Realms.
Just a little longer. I just have to hold on a little longer. I have to. It has to be me. No one else can. So I will. Just a little longer.
Oh.
Danny understands now.
In the distant, fleeting way he can understand with only one thought in every eternity being about something other than the burden.
He can feel it happening to him too, now.
The shift in his core, the shift in his ectoplasm to match it. Physically starting in both his outermost extremities and in his centermost self. Moving outwards and inwards to meet somewhere in between.
Mentally starting in the things he starts forgetting. The empty spaces between his thoughts where there used to sit memories and emotions and hopes and dreams. He wanted to be something when he grew up once. He wanted to be... To be a. . .
He was losing himself. Bit by bit. Everything he once was; consumed to make room in his self for this new purpose; sacrificed to stay strong enough to hold on to the Infinite.
The longer his thoughts were filled with nothing but the need to hold on, the more he changed, his form shifting to match this new purpose. This is what happened to the others. They gave everything they had to the cause until it became all they were. He had lasted the longest because he was the strongest. He'd had the most to give.
And now.
Just a little longer. He could keep dropping pieces of himself into the Abyss, as long as it meant he could ignore the strain, the pain, the creeping exhaustion. Just a little longer. He doesn't want to. He never did. But he's the only one who can. Therefore he must. Just a little longer.
.
@angelnumber1 You did this.
You used the phrase, "His sense of time and identity withered."
I took that literally.
: )
Okay but listen
Freeing people from the pillars by misting them down with lazarus water like a cranky succulent
It takes a while and maybe they come free bit by bit but Danny spending the next few years running around frantically with a plant mister and continually heisting Ra’s
(Because it’s gonna empty all the pits to get everyone but Danny’s not gonna waste time taking out the League of Assassins when he can run in with a mason jar)
(Or thermos-vacuum one pool at a time)
Okay but? The IMAGERY? Of Billy seeing this Fellow Kid, just like him? Hurting and alone? Straining and breaking under the weight of EVERYTHING? In the barren, ruined center of what must of been his home.
Alone too.
Billy CARES. He KNOWS he's strong. Might not be strong enough. But? You know he wouldn't even hesitate. He'd have to TRY.
A burden shared. The champion of MAGIC ITSELF.
Just two kids with burdens too big for shoulders so young, holding up Creation Itself.
It's going to be okay. We can do it together. You held on.
We're going to fix this.
He's here.
And just? Like trying to careful mold honey back into place. Soft fabric that drapes and dripes far beyond what it should, the green barely holding together in their hands. But like kintsugi, the art of mending broken things with gold, the realm between Realms is shot through with bands of Magic. To act like pins holding its brokenness together until it can heal.
But? The sea of pillars at the heart of the Realm. Ghosts without Obsessions. Who GAVE UP their Obsessions to CHANGE so completely for one united cause? They crystallized. United.
Joined together to try and hold up the skys.
It would be? The most painfully beautiful sea of shimmering crystal lights you could ever imagine. Tragedy made manifest. The cost of billions of billions upon billions of SOULS. All trying to prevent the end of everything, brought upon by humanity's petty hatreds, callus actions, and unthinking hubris.
With no guarantee it can EVER be undone.
Sometimes damage is permanent. Some costs are high and losses unspeakable. How much of this CHILD KING is even left? When he wakes up... IF he wakes up...
Just? The phrase "Tragedy should not be so beautiful." ECHOES in my head? Because it would be? Wouldn't it? Pillars of intricate crystal people, glowing in the light of a now silent, gold streaked world. Floating islands filled with strange and wonderful things in the distance. Soft green, ever swirling skies.
It's beautiful.
Serene.
And that? Is somehow the most terrible fact of all. Because this is the scene of an unspeakable tragedy. There should be blood on the floors. Wailing and howls. Smoke in the air and bodies in the streets. Proof they lived and suffered and DIED again. That they were brave. That something terrible and wrong transpired here.
It should not be peaceful. Or beautiful.
It's a field of bodies.
And they shine like diamonds in the light.
Fuck this is just so.... beautiful
I'm just... ok when shazam sees him there's 2 parts that cry out Atlas sees this kid taking on a burden greater than even he had foisted on him the other is billy who like you said sees this kid hurting alone straining under this
Know how what else you said The kintsugi part gold flakeing through the realms I'm viewing that as how the other ghosts of the realms become whole again the magic once the realms are tied together enough that they start healing themselves starts streaming into the ghosts
who became like this because they gave themselves up their obsessions their very cores
Of course reawakening a ghosts obsession is not simple it's not just hey you like this no they awaken them by showing them their obsession why they became a ghost them moving towards their obsession
So wraped around their crystalline statue pillers play their obsession and so slowly ever so slowly all these ghosts are crawling back to existence
Speaking of I'm viewing the ancients pillars as more than just a statue they become true pillers like frostbite has changed from massive yeti to a piller of ice frost stretching empowering the statues of yetis amd frost cored ghosts
While pandoras is like truly ancient greek that is blinding with it's light of hope glow reaching out empowering near statues etchings of hope in humanity of instances of hard fought battles that only the power of hope brought victory
God I'm fully just viewing all the ancient pillers
Awakening the ghosts from the pillars they became to support Danny in holding up the Infinite Realms makes me thing of PJO and waking up Thalia Grace from her tree that was protecting the camp. The pillars would still be there doing the job they were created for, but not quite as powerful as they were when they were literally being fueled by a beings’ energy. 🏛️
Here are some of my favorite tags from the past few posts.
