No thoughts, just Phantom being a "Cheshire Cat"-like character to the Justice League. Sometimes hes cryptically helpful, but mostly hes just toying with them.
RMH

ellievsbear

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Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
almost home

oozey mess
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One Nice Bug Per Day

#extradirty
wallacepolsom
Misplaced Lens Cap
Xuebing Du
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todays bird
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$LAYYYTER
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@mosh-rem
No thoughts, just Phantom being a "Cheshire Cat"-like character to the Justice League. Sometimes hes cryptically helpful, but mostly hes just toying with them.
DPXDC Prompt: Duke's Depressed College Friend
Duke has this friend he meets in College. He's cool, he's kind, he's smart- and he's depressed. The kind of beaten up depression that you would normally imagine on a 50 yr old man who's been beat down and had every moment of happiness stolen from him- The kind that you can only lighten the weight of but never shake off.
But he's only 20.
He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he just keeps cracking jokes and coming to class with his hair disheveled from a restless sleep.
Duke didn't want to find out at first. Wanted it to come from him. That's how friends should be, right? But… Perhaps he been with the bats too long. 'Cause before he knew it- it clicked way too soon.
The way he acts, how protective he gets when villains attack. How quick he is to step in, to get people out. The firm grip on his arm, yanking him away from a speeding bus.
Danny acted like a hero- no he WAS one. But who? How? He shouldn't dig- yet he felt so driven to bring the light back to his friend's eyes.
A pair that looked like they were a moment away from being snuffed out.
He had to stroke the flames- otherwise he has a hunch Danny Fenton will disappear.
Danny: Okay, what do I know? 1. I'm from a different dimension. 2. The government here can't be trusted. 3. The heroes are working for the government, which means I can't trust them. 4. I have to lay low and blend in as a normal human boy, which means I have to go to school.
Danny: Okay. Okay. This will be easy. No one will catch on. I got this!
A week later at Wayne Manor
Bruce: I'm so happy you all could make it to Family Dinner Night. Is there anything new with anyone?
Damian: My new classmate is either an alien or a dimension traveler.
Dick: ....why did you say that so casually?
Damian shrugging: He's not very good at hiding it. I once told him, "egg on your face," and he took the egg out of his breakfast sandwich to smear on his cheek. He then proceeded to smile at me and shout loudly, as if though it was a greeting response "And a egg on your face!"
Jason: Well....he might not know English very well? Or he was making fun of you? Doesn't seem enough to assume he's not of this world.
Damian: That same day, I found him talking to himself in the showers. He was reciting a list of his objectives. He literally said, "I have to blend in as a normal human boy," while actively glowing in his skin and eyes with snow white hair.
Bruce: Damian-
Damian: I know, Father, I will keep an eye on the situation.
Bruce: No! Why were you watching a boy in the showers?
Steph: *Gasp* I didn't even realize that. Oh no, we lost Damian. He used to be a gentleman. Now he's a degenerate.
Tim: How the mighty fall!
Damian, red-faced: I was not watching him! I was cleaning the showers for the janitor because he had knee surgery, and it hurts to bend down! Daniel didn't even have it on! He was just standing in there, talking to himself and glowing! He was supposed to be in class, but he was obviously cutting!
Bruce: Oh that's okay then.....why weren't you in class?
Damian: ......WHAT IS THAT! *Flips the table and runs*
Bruce: Damian!? Damian, you turn right back around! Damian! *Leaping over a fallen table to chase his son* Why weren't you in class!?
Dick sadly: One family dinner. Can't we just have one family dinner without someone flipping the table?
Jason: No, we can not. That's why I always hold my plate. You never throw someone from Crime Alley's food on the ground. We won't let you.
Duke: Amen to that!
Cass: Your food is on the ground.
Duke: Yeah, but I'm not from Crime Alley. I just hung out there.
dpxdc prompt/idea:
Stephanie Brown is going through medical courses. Danny Fenton is in the biochemical program. They met in the library on campus because a scheduling error put them in the same Quiet Study Room for two hours.
They agree to share the space and make a little small talk but mostly study in silence.
After an hour of quiet pencil scritches Steph uses the chair to crack her back. Danny smirks and does the same. Steph laughs.
“You ever wish you could just take your spine out and wring it like a wet towel?” she asks as a joke.
“Oh I’ve done that,” Danny says. “Super satisfying.”
“…what?”
Iconic
Danny: I'm Phantom and i'll be the Titan's healer for the forseable future.
Superman: So, you have healing powers? That's amazing.
Danny: Yeah, its hard work but I can manage.
*Later*
Danny: Stop fucking moving speedster! Now let me finish bending it back!
Wally: Your hand is in my spin!!
Danny: Yeah, but its not like it hurts. You can't even feel anything because your paralyzed.
The One Rule We Never Broke
The first sign was not a sound, but a silence.
Across countless planes—heavens, hells, afterlives, in-between places—the constant background hum of existence stuttered. For a heartbeat, the machinery of judgment, reincarnation, punishment, and rest paused.
And then the screaming began.
Heaven, Hell, and the One Rule
In one Hell, the screaming of the damned was as normal as fire and brimstone.
It stopped.
Lucifer Morningstar froze with a glass of hellfire halfway to his lips. Around him, the Seven Sins went rigid, their bickering dying all at once. Their attention turned—not toward any rebellion, not toward Heaven—but downward, toward something deeper than their own Pit.
Above, in the Silver City, angelic choirs fractured mid-hymn. Wings stilled. Swords half-drawn, they looked outward, past the realm of pure light, into the far reaches where even angels rarely gazed.
A single, unified dread rippled through beings older than mortal language:
No. Not again.
They remembered the last time something this old moved. They remembered the cost of putting it back to sleep.
They remembered the one rule they had not broken.
The Infinite Realms Break Open
In the Infinite Realms, there was no single sky, no single ground. It was layers of afterlives and memory, rivers of ectoplasm carrying the echoes of every death in every world.
Deep in a dead current at the bottom of it all hung the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.
Its chains were made of concepts: slumber, denial, containment. Its wards were written in languages from universes that never reached stars. Around it floated seals set by beings so old that gods had learned from their mistakes.
No one was supposed to reach it.
No one was supposed to touch it.
The skeleton key slid into a lock that was never meant to turn.
The sarcophagus groaned as if the whole structure of death itself resented the motion. One by one, the conceptual chains snapped, their breaking echoing across thousands of ghost realms.
Inside, something vast and furious opened its eyes.
The first flex of Pariah Dark’s power was not a roar but a pressure wave. Ghost cities burst like soap bubbles. Old battlefields crumbled. Domains that had persisted for entire cycles of creation shattered under the sheer wake-up stretch of a king who had slept too long.
He rose.
The Infinite Realms shook.
Ghosts dropped everything and ran.
“Run! For your lives!” a woman’s voice screamed, amplified by terror and the currents of the Realm. Her warning rode along every ectoplasmic stream, bleeding into every psychic fault line it could find. “Run to any dimension you can reach—just run! He’s awake— If you don’t run, you’ll die permanently!”
The dead had always believed themselves past the worst. Now, they are refugees.
Watchtower – J’onn J’onzz
On the Watchtower, J’onn J’onzz sat in calm meditation, his awareness gently brushing the minds of Earth below.
Then the calm became a storm.
A tidal wave of terror slammed into his mind—billions of voices, not human, not living, shrieking in every language and none. He staggered, catching himself on a medical console.
Under the screaming, one voice cut clear as a knife.
Run for your lives. Run to any dimension you can reach—just run! He will kill, torture, pillage, and enslave you if you do not escape!
“Who are you?” J’onn sent back, straining to hold his mental footing. “Who is ‘he’?”
He didn’t get words.
He got an image:
A massive sarcophagus, chains snapping.
A Ghost wearing heavy armor, crowned in green fire, arises from his prison. A name surfaced from the depths of collective fear like a corpse out of dark water:
Pariah Dark.
J’onn’s eyes snapped open.
He slammed his hand onto the comms panel. “All systems,” he said, voice iron-hard despite the shaking in his mind. “Prepare for catastrophic psychic spillover. The afterlife is in collapse.”
Xavier’s School
At Xavier’s School, telepaths fell like puppets with cut strings.
Jean Grey hit the floor, clutching her head. Emma Frost cursed as diamond skin spider-webbed with hairline fractures from raw psychic impact. Charles Xavier’s chair rolled back violently as his mind was dragged toward an ocean of howling dead.
They felt people running.
They felt whole populations tearing themselves free of resting places, graves, planes of peace or torment, all surging toward any anchor they could find.
In Jean’s mind, something older than the universe recoiled.
Host, the Phoenix whispered, and for once, even it sounded small. Let me in. Fully. I am not enough as I am. I may not be enough even then—but without me, you will be ash in his shadow.
“His?” Jean choked, gasping. “Whose?”
Images blasted through her: A group of powerful ancient ghosts, incomprehensible silhouettes surrounding. These ancient ghosts combine their powers to defeat Pariah. He falls to the ground, seemingly defeated. One ghost takes away the Ring of Rage, another takes the Crown of Fire, depriving Pariah of most of his power. The Ghost King, Phoenix breathed. Pariah Dark. He was locked away because killing him would have broken too much. The afterlives themselves use him as a load-bearing horror. He was a danger and a necessity. And now his prison has been opened.
The dead were not merely running. They were abandoning a support beam of reality.
Peter Parker’s Migraine and the First Ghosts
At the Daily Bugle, Peter Parker’s world narrowed to amber and pain.
His Spider-Sense wasn’t just buzzing. It was a wailing siren wired directly into his skull, screaming that the foundations of everything were coming undone.
He grabbed his head with both hands.
“Parker!” J. Jonah Jameson’s voice blasted across the office. “You having a stroke on my time? What’s wrong with you, kid? You look like you swallowed a ghost.”
“Something’s… wrong,” Peter managed through clenched teeth. “Something really wrong. I don’t know how to explain it, but—”
The office door opened.
A familiar man in an old, worn coat stepped in, blinking at the lights. His hair was thinner, his face more lined, but Peter knew him.
He had known him his whole life.
“Peter,” the man said softly. “It’s good to see you again, son. God, I’ve missed you.” His eyes swept the office, filling with sorrow. “I just wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.”
Peter’s hands fell away from his head.
“Uncle Ben?” he whispered.
Ben’s smile was sad and gentle. “Yeah, kiddo.” He reached out and put a steady hand on Peter’s shoulder. The touch was solid. Warm. Impossible.
“All of us,” he said quietly, “where we were—it’s not safe. Feels like the floor dropped out from under us. So we’re running. Anywhere we can.”
“Running from what?” Peter asked, but he already knew the answer wasn’t going to be simple.
Ben’s eyes darkened. “Not what from whom,” he corrected.
Around them, more impossible figures bled through thin places in the air. Co-workers gasped and shouted as dead relatives, long-buried lovers, and lost friends appeared, eyes wide with fear.
“What—Mom?!” a receptionist sobbed.
Jameson took one look at the growing chaos, went pale for a split second, then barked, “Parker, get pictures!”
Peter didn’t move this wasn’t a story; it was an evacuation.
Wayne Enterprises
On the top floor of Wayne Enterprises, the temperature dropped like a stone.
Bruce Wayne was halfway through a sentence about quarterly earnings when he saw his breath fog. Tim Drake paused in his quiet correction of the numbers, looking up as the lights dimmed.
Damian Wayne, in an immaculate suit that did nothing to hide his impatience, sat near the window, watching everything and caring about nothing—until the world shifted.
They appeared near the glass.
Thomas and Martha Wayne.
Martha’s pearls caught the light. Thomas stood straight, eyes sweeping the office, Gotham’s skyline, and finally settling on his son.
“Bruce,” Martha whispered.
Bruce’s carefully cultivated idiot-billionaire mask shattered. The room narrowed down to her face, Thomas’s shoulders, the warmth in their eyes.
Tim’s attention jerked toward the doorway.
“Mom?” he croaked.
Jack and Janet Drake stood there, as solid and confused as the day they died. Jack lifted a trembling hand. “Timmy?”
All around the room, executives stared as their own dead appeared—spouses, children, parents, siblings—each with the same wild mixture of fear and relief.
Damian’s gaze darted between them all. Logic slammed into disbelief. His brain did what it always did: looked for the trap.
“This is a hallucination,” he snapped, standing quickly. “Some mass gas exposure. Fear Toxin. Shared delusion. Crane is experimenting, or some other rogue.” He glared up at the vents. “Everyone, breathe shallowly. We need to evacuate.”
“This is not Fear Gas, Damian.”
The voice was firm, calm, used to being obeyed.
Thomas Wayne stepped forward, his attention moving from Bruce to Damian, weighing, assessing, and finally softening. He said quietly. “My grandson.”
Damian went rigid. “You… know me,” he said, and for a moment the boy in him pushed past the soldier.
“Of course,” Thomas replied. “We’ve watched, as much as we could. And we’re here, all of us, because we are running.”
“Running from what?” Bruce forced out, voice hoarse.
Martha’s eyes shimmered. “From where we were,” she said softly. “From a king who woke when he should have slept forever. From a tyrant whose stirrings are tearing apart the place between life and death.”
Thomas looked around the conference room at the dozens of newly arrived dead, all wearing the same brittle terror.
“If we stayed,” he said, “we would have died properly. No afterlife. No second chances. Nothing.”
Damian swallowed.
“Ah....permanent death,” he repeated.
Thomas met his gaze and nodded once. “Yes.”
The boy who had faced assassins and demons felt, for a moment, very, very small.
The Fortress of Solitude: Frostbite’s Warning
In the arctic calm of the Fortress of Solitude, Kryptonian technology hummed with quiet purpose. Superman hovered a few inches above the crystal floor, reviewing odd readings from the outer edges of reality.
The readings spiked.
The Fortress didn’t shake so much as shiver. The air crackled with a strange, cold energy. A jagged tear opened in the center of the main hall, swirling with green-blue light.
Figures stumbled through.
They were tall and furred, white as the snow outside, walking upright with a warrior’s bearing. Not myths—people. Yeti-like ghosts, armor clinking, weapons sheathed, faces drawn tight with fear. At their head strode a massive figure with a prosthetic arm of intricately carved ice and glowing teal veins.
Superman landed in front of them, palms open. “You’re safe,” he said, voice as steady as he could make it. “My name is Superman. You’re in the Fortress of Solitude. What are you fleeing from? Apokolips? A trans-dimensional invader?”
The leader bowed his head slightly.
“Kal-El of Krypton,” he said. “I am Frostbite, chief of the Far Frozen.” He glanced back at his people—children clutching crystalline artifacts, elders huddled together. “We apologize for intruding. But we had no choice.”
“Why?” Superman asked. “What’s happening?”
Frostbite drew in a slow, steadying breath.
“We come from The Infinite Realms,” he said. “Your people might call them ‘the afterlife.’ But they are more than one place—they are the connective tissue. The glue that holds all your worlds’ deaths in balance. Every hell, every heaven, every world, every power, every timeline —all flow into it.”
He looked Superman in the eyes.
“And the Tyrant of that place has awakened from his Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.”
Superman felt the words land like a weight.
“And the name of this Tyrant,” he repeated carefully.
“His name is Pariah Dark,” Frostbite said, each syllable heavy. “The Ghost King. Long ago, he was sealed by the Ancients, stripped of his ring and crown, locked away not because they could kill him, because killing him would break the multiverses.”
Frostbite gestured helplessly.
“Now he stirs. With the first flex of his power, realms crumble. His ancient armies answer his call. Our homes are destroyed. If we stay, we will not simply die—we will cease.”
Superman’s jaw set.
“You have sanctuary,” he said immediately. “All of you. I’ll contact the Justice League. If the Infinite Realms are the glue holding everything together, this concerns all of us.”
Frostbite bowed, relief flickering over his features—but not hope.
“Then may your sun watch over you, Kal-El,” he said. “Because if the Tyrant cannot be put back to sleep…”
He glanced toward the flickering portal, where more ghosts desperately pushed through.
“This may be truly the end of reality as we know it.”
Diana, Pandora, and the Fallen Amazons
In Gateway City, the museum was quiet but for the murmur of tourists.
Diana Prince adjusted a placard beneath a piece of Greek pottery, smiling faintly at a child’s awe. Then the air thickened.
It pressed down on her shoulders like the heaviest armor she had ever worn. Not divine presence. Older. Sadder. The weight of stories remembered and stories deliberately forgotten.
She turned.
A woman stood among the displays.
Her beauty was ancient and unearthly, framed by simple garments that failed to blunt the sheer myth of her. Sorrow pooled in her eyes like an ocean.
“Pandora,” Diana said.
Behind Pandora, the gallery was filled with women.
Amazon warriors in archaic armor, shields, and spears at the ready, faces taut with a mix of pride and bone-deep fear. Sister Diana had mourned. Names etched into her heart and the stones of Themyscira. A curator gasped and dropped a box of pamphlets. Another simply fainted.
“Diana,” Pandora said, inclining her head.
Diana’s hand twitched toward where her lasso would hang in uniform. She let it fall.
“Pandora. My sisters,” she said. “How are you here? What has happened?”
“We are fleeing,” Pandora answered simply. “The realm that once held us in death is no longer safe. The Tyrant King has awoken from his Slumber. The one your mother spoke of only in warnings.”
Diana’s mouth went dry.
“Pariah Dark,” she murmured.
As a child, she had heard the old stories: of a king who had tried to unmake the boundary between living and dead, to rule both. Of a coalition of beings older than gods who had bound him when they could not kill him.
“He was sealed by the Ancients,” Diana said. “Locked away. His crown and ring taken. His sarcophagus hidden where none could reach it.”
“The seal is broken,” Pandora said. “The Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep has been opened. Whether by arrogance or ignorance, the result is the same.”
One fallen Amazon stepped forward, saluting Diana with a fist to her chest. “The Infinite Realms is cracking,” she said. “Spirits from a thousand cultures are abandoning their rest. If the glue that binds the afterlives fails, all heavens, all hells, all reincarnation cycles may fall with it.”
Diana straightened, resolve hardening like tempered steel.
“Then we will fight,” she said. “For the living and the dead.”
Pandora looked at her with weary compassion.
“This is not a war that can be won by swords alone, Diana,” she said quietly. “This is the terror of a Tyrant who could not be killed… only stored.”
Coast City, Oa, and the Lore of the Ghost King
Over Coast City, Hal Jordan’s ring screamed in a tone he had never heard.
WARNING: REALITY STABILITY COMPROMISED. SOURCE: INFINITE REALMS. SEVERITY: EXISTENTIAL.
He rocketed toward the anomaly blazing across his ring’s display.
A vortex churned in the upper atmosphere, green-black-white energy writhing like a wound.
Two figures stepped out onto nothing.
Hal’s heart stopped.
“Hal,” said Martin Jordan, wearing his old bomber jacket, that familiar proud smile sitting uneasy on a face touched by fear.
“Dad?” Hal whispered.
Beside Martin stood a purple-skinned alien in a Green Lantern uniform.
Hal knew the face of the alien whose ring was chosen, Hal Abin Sur.
“It is good to see you again, Hal Jordan,” Abin Sur said. “Yes, even previous dead Lanterns of every core, and I, too, have fled.”
Hal’s ring threw up frantic readouts: ectoplasmic signatures, afterlife energy, cross-reality bleed.
“You… you’re both dead,” Hal said. “How are you—”
“The place we were is coming apart,” Martin said quietly. “Where we were supposed to stay. We’re running because staying means being erased. No heaven, no elseworld. Just… gone.”
On Oa, the Guardians gathered in a forgotten chamber, the central battery pulsing with sickly green overtones.
Ganthet lifted his small hands, projecting images to every Corps that would listen.
“The Infinite Realms,” he said, “are a convergence of the dead from a multitude of realities. Long ago, a being rose there who called himself Pariah Dark.”
The projection showed a towering armored ghost, crowned, bearing a blazing ring.
“The title of Ghost King is not passed by blood,” another Guardian said. “It is taken in combat. Power is both a test and a reward. The Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire amplify the King’s dominion, making all but the oldest Ancients bow.”
Images flashed: wars between realms of the dead, borders dissolving, the living plane buckling.
“Pariah Dark’s reign nearly tore the wall between living and dead to shreds,” Ganthet continued. “Attempts to destroy him almost shattered the underlying structure of reality.”
“So they didn’t,” said another Guardian bitterly. “They sealed him instead.”
The projection changed: a group of half-silhouetted beings, each embodying a concept older than any Corps—binding, balance, memory, finality. They forged the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep around Pariah, chaining him with the energies of every emotional spectrum.
“They took his crown and ring. They hid them. They buried the sarcophagus in a depth no one could reach. And with Heaven, Hell, and all powers that touched death, they made an accord: this prison would never be opened.”
The Guardians bowed their heads.
“Someone,” Ganthet said, “has broken that accord.”
Apocalypse and the Burden No One Wanted
Deep underground, in a chamber older than many civilizations, En Sabah Nur watched reality ripple across ancient devices.
His Horsemen shifted uneasily at the sight of spirits flooding through unseen cracks.
“What is it, my lord?” one asked.
Apocalypse’s eyes glowed cold blue.
“A throne, long-abandoned, has been reclaimed,” he said. “Not by choice, but by necessity.”
He tilted his head, listening to echoes only he could hear.
“The Infinite Realms are the confluence of every death,” he went on. “Every god, every demon, every cosmic farce of judgment empties its refuse into the same ocean. That ocean always had a monarch. A hand on the gate.”
He smiled humorlessly.
“Pariah Dark was that hand. A tyrant, yes. But a structural pillar as well. The Ancients locked him away because killing him would have toppled the building. So they left him as a cursed cornerstone. A necessary horror.”
His gaze sharpened.
“And someone, somewhere, has pulled at that cornerstone. Now the building shakes.”
Strange, Darkseid, Ra’s, and Constantine
In the Sanctum Sanctorum, the Eye of Agamotto snapped open on its own. Doctor Stephen Strange grabbed the table as a vision slammed into him. A group of ancient figures encircled a raging king of ghosts. They tore a crown and ring off him, wrapped him in chains of shared power, and forged a sarcophagus from the fear of every soul that had ever died. He saw them approach Heaven, Hell, cosmic abstracts, asking—not for help, but for commitment.
This will never be opened.
Strange tore free from the vision, panting.
“There was an accord,” he said aloud. “A pillar left in place because pulling it would bring the whole house down. And someone has just yanked on it.”
On Apokolips, Darkseid watched ghostly distortions ripple across his burning sky.
“The Ancients,” he mused. “So proud. So careful. They had the power to bind but not the will to rule.”
His fists tightened.
“They could not stomach destroying their cornerstone, so they buried him. And left a key.” He snorted. “Cowards.”
In the mountains of Nanda Parbat, Ra’s al Ghul studied a churning scrying pool.
Portals: opening. Ghosts: fleeing. Across countless worlds.
“Even with all their preparations, they were afraid,” he told the silent League of Assassins around him. “Fear breeds contingency—and they were no exception.”
He gestured.
The image shifted to runic gateways and ancient mechanisms igniting all over creation.
“They wove failsafes that would activate if the Tyrant ever woke,” he said. “Not to stop him—no, they had no faith in that—but to warn the living that the end had begun.”
In a dingy London flat, John Constantine finally punched through the magical static enough to get Zatanna on the line.
“John!” she shouted over a background chorus of wailing spirits. “The Veil is in shreds, the House of Mystery is just gone, and I have dead people flooding into every circle I’ve got—what's happening?”
John lit a cigarette with hands that wouldn’t stay quite steady.
“What's happening,” he said, “is that someone, somewhere, decided the one line we all agreed on was optional.”
“John—”
“The Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep,” he said flatly. “It’s open. And Pariah Dark is awake.”
Silence. Then a sharp inhale.
“That’s not possible,” Zatanna whispered. “Nobody’s that stupid. Every god, every demon, every sorcerer agreed—”
“And yet, here we are,” John cut in. He looked out at a London sky laced with thin green cracks. “We couldn’t kill him. So they locked him away and used him as a twisted bit of scaffolding to hold up the system. Now the scaffolding’s moving on its own.”
He dragged on the cigarette, ash trembling.
“And every ghost that can run,” he said softly, “is running.”
The multiverse did what it always did in the face of the incomprehensible.
It held its breath.
A Tyrant King, too necessary to destroy and too dangerous to wake, had shrugged off his chains. The glue holding together life, death, and everything between had started to crack.
Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, sorcerers and soldiers, telepaths and scientists—all felt it.
And none of them were wrong to be afraid.
Author’s note: I came up with this story prompt because I’ve been reading a lot of crossover fanfiction. Whenever the Ghost King gets mentioned, John Constantine obviously freaks out because that being is what holds all of reality and the multiverse together. Most of the time, though, fics kind of gloss over that.
So I started thinking: what can I do to make it feel more epic, to really give it that weight of, “Oh no, this is bad—this is really, really bad”? That’s how I ended up with this idea.
If there’s any fandom you think would fit, feel free to add your own words and scenes—just let me know. I’d love for this to be a kind of collab chain where we keep adding all the other fandoms we want to throw into the mix. We’re talking multiversal here, so the sky’s the limit.
Of course, there would also be a signal for if Pariah Dark was sealed once again. Unlikely, yes, but the ancients had managed it once before. They had to have held hope they could manage it again.
However, when the signal of safety spreads throughout the multiverse only a handful of the billions of previously retreating ghosts believed it. After all, in most worlds, it had barely been a day since the signal of his release.
The worlds whose doors lay closest to Pariah’s keep within the Infinite Realms felt the largest impact within the shortest amount of time. Large-scale natural disasters took place within mere moments before the signal of safety hit them. The furthest worlds saw the arrival of the dead over the course of a few days with little else. The only world closest to Pariah that didn’t experience disaster was the host world of Danny Phantom, as that was the eye of Pariah’s storm. And even then, nearby ghosts fled into it to escape the disasters in the adjacent worlds.
The signal of safety did not reassure the masses as it had been originally intended. After all, no one believed Pariah Dark could be sealed away so quickly. It had taken the Ancients a year of fighting to simply seal him away, and many of said Ancients had retreated alongside the dead. If Pariah Dark had truly been sealed once more, in such a short period of time, then something must have defeated him. Something far, far more powerful than the Ancients as they are now.
Oh my GOD, yes – this is exactly what I’m talking about. This is the kind of lore-building I want to see more of, whether it’s in the comments or in reblogs. I really want this chain to keep going.
Because honestly? As a fanbase, I don’t think we treat Danny fighting the Ghost King as seriously as we should.
Fandom (rightfully) treats Dark Danny/Dan Phantom as a huge deal – he’s terrifying, he’s important, he’s iconic. But I feel like we don’t give Pariah Dark that same level of weight, even though canon literally tells us how bad he is.
In Reign Storm (I hope I’m remembering the title right), we’re flat-out told there is a Ghost King, and he was so dangerous that:
It took a group of Ancient, insanely powerful ghosts to band together.
They had to strip him of his crown and ring.
They forged the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.
They set up a guardian to protect the Skeleton Key.
They didn’t just beat a powerful ghost. They had to restructure the rules of the afterlife to contain him.
And then Vlad opens the sarcophagus… and never really gets any comeuppance for it. We don’t even know if anyone in the Infinite Realms realizes it was Vlad who did it, aside from the Fright Knight. That’s wild.
On top of that, what Danny does in that episode is insanely brave when you think about the timeline. Canon never spells out exactly how many months it’s been since he got his powers, but it’s not long – maybe a few months, maybe close to a year if you’re being generous in fanon.
By ghost standards, that makes him basically a newborn:
Half-alive, half-dead, a weird anomaly.
No centuries of experience.
No ancient backing, no formal standing.
And he’s the one who steps up.
He’s the one who’s willing to face the Ghost King’s army. He’s the one who challenges Pariah directly. He’s the one who intends to put him back to sleep – and actually does it.
Yes, his rogues and other ghosts help. Yes, Sam and Tucker help. Yes, Vlad uses the key at the very end so the sarcophagus will seal again. But the person doing the heavy lifting in that fight – the one Pariah accepts a challenge from – is a fourteen-year-old kid who has barely been dead for any time at all.
And I feel like that doesn’t get talked about enough.
Look at who didn’t step up:
Skulker didn’t fight the Ghost King.
Ember didn’t fight the Ghost King.
Walker didn’t fight the Ghost King.
Nocturne, Undergrowth, Clockwork – none of the Ancients we know of came forward to challenge him again.
Every one of them ran or stayed back. Danny is the one who stands his ground and says, “I’ve got this.” And he’s 14.
That’s such a huge, selfless act that it should have massive ripple effects:
How his rogues look at him afterward.
How the Infinite Realms see him.
How Ancients and other high-tier ghosts talk about him.
Even if they “thank” him in their own weird ways, even if they never tell him the full implications (like, “hey, kid, you basically just did a Ghost King–level thing”), it should matter.
What Danny did was not normal. It was abnormal in the most important way – and that’s part of what makes him so special.
Some months later, when things are just starting to calm down, Danny is bantering with a ghost (one of his typical rogues, who is still scared because the baby (hc that he's had his powers between 6-9months) fought AND defeated He who shall not be named) when he lets it slip that Vlad opened the sarcophagus of forever sleep. (All the ghosts in the vicinity go eerily still and hone in on Danny, who's still ranting). He talks about how he read that the crown a ring granted power, and for those selfish reasons, and his typical greed, he opened it to get the crown and ring.
When Pariah stepped out, Vlad had the bright idea to hide it in the human realm, particularly, this city. Meaning that everyone here would have been killed, and the destruction of this universe, would have started from the destruction of their entire city. (Someone else is recording this, a human with the new Fenton Phones). After ranting, Danny turns to the ghost and tells them thanks for listening. He asks them to go home after safely having their fun and flies back home.
....
The thing about no media block, is that everyone is able to see his rant. They are able to hear him properly for the first time, ever. It doesn't take long for people to start converging on his universe, because people in his Universe want Vlad. People in the IR want Vlad. Higher beings from his universe and the multiverse want Vlad. He has committed the greatest Taboo ever. (At this point, slightly following Canon, but Canon is a concept not truth¿ Thus he fought Dan, then fought Pariah Dark, and is about to send Vlad off to space).
About a week later from his rant, Phantom is o patrol when he sees a gaggle of spandex cloaked and weirdly dressed people. He's going to investigate when they come to him themselves.
Danny: who are you people and what are you doing here?
...
Pick it up from here. I'm working on 2 hours kf sleep and trying to go back to bed.
Danny: I have a hypothesis that ghost animals -- both Living and Realms-born -- have the ability to develop greater intelligence and sapience due to ectoplasmic accretion. It just takes a really long time and is dependent on ectoplasmic density of the surrounding area. Along with other deciding factors.
Bruce: (running on three hours of sleep and has a bruised rib)
Bruce: ...tell me more?
Danny: GLADLY.
DPxDC prompt
Constantine hears a knock on the door of the house of mystery. This is already strange, but made even stranger by the fact that the house isn’t supposed to be in the material plane at the moment.
He cautiously opens the door, expecting some demon, god, or some other dangerous entity, but he instead finds what appears to be a scrawny human teenager begging for help.
Of course appearances can be deceiving so he keeps his guard up, but still he decides to hear the kid out. It’s almost certainly a trick, but on the slim chance this is real he couldn’t just turn the kid away.
Anyway the kid seems to want help getting out of some magical contract or obligation? Something about trial by combat and… “BLOODY HELL Kid is that the ring of Rage?!”
Basically, Danny does not want to become the ghost king. And after hearing about John, he figures that if there was anyone who could help it would probably be John Constantine. And even if he can’t the Hellblazer is at least a good place to start. (And the Observants absolutely despise the man, which in Danny’s eyes is a glowing recommendation)
Idea.
Constantine decides the best advice he can give is for Danny to find somehow Danny thinks would be a good ruler (and that Danny can tolerate) and propose to them using the Ring of Rage. Sure Danny would be stuck in a political marriage of convenience but at least he wouldn’t be king.
This begins Danny’s search for the most competent person he can tolerate being married to.
Cue shipping shenanigans.
Thinking abkut killing 2 birds with 1 stone Constantine suggests Raven. Shes well acquainted with the supernatural and dosent take shut from anyone, plus becoming the sovereign of an entire plane fucks over her dad's plan to posses her
Nice idea, there needs to be more Danny and raven shenanigans
My thoughts exactly
Dpxdc prompt "two dudes just vibing platonically"
Tim Drake and Tucker Foley are roommates
Tucker figures out Tim's Identity from all the Egyptian curses attached to his soul and canceling each other out
Tim has worked with Phantom and knows Tuckers callsign as Pharoah
They work on their respective projects at the kitchen table while discussing food opinions
A Ghostly Medical Consult:
When Chief Frostbite had agreed to become The Great One's primary care physician he had thought it would be an easy task. After all the young halfa had defeated Pariah Dark, he probably did not get injured often. This would be a small way to repay him.
He had. Vastly. Underestimated. The situation.
The Great One began coming to him, constantly. Bodily injuries and illnesses caused by fights with other ghosts and ghost hunters. He had never had a patient who needed his care so frequently.
Still it would have been managable if The Great One were a normal ghost. But his halfa nature complicated things beyond Frostbite's ken.
It had been millenium since he was alive, and when he was he was not a human being. Living human biology was something he had never encountered. He didnt know how to correctly set a broken human bone, or how to repair a damaged organ. By the ancients he didnt even know what the purpose of each organ was, nor even where they were meant to be inside the body.
Within a month, he did something that as a healer he had not had to do in a long time.
He called for a consult.
He made a request for the ghost of a human doctor, one who had died as recently as possible and was more experienced with human surgical practices. Thankfully a ghost and his wife came to his call. In life Thomas had been a surgeon and was more than happy to once again practice his craft. Martha was keen to act as his assistant. Frostbite offered them a place in his village, a safe place with plenty of resources in exchange for help with the Great One.
The next time the Great One flew in, leaking blood and ectoplasm with a bone sticking out of his leg at a jaunty angle, Thomas was ready. It was the quickest healing session the Great One had needed yet!
"Well Chum, looks like you get into a lot of trouble. A real hero you are." Thomas said, to the Great One. "Reminds me of my son!"
"Oh really? Who is your son?"
"Batman of course!"
The hacking noise the Great One made after that was apparently normal according to Martha.
Jason: "Who do you love more: me or that plush?"
Jazz, sitting in a huge pile of Fatson Todd plushes of various sizes: "Don't make me choose Jason."
Jason: That's— it's literally just me but fat?!
Jazz: *hugging Fatson Todd to her chest* I feel a maternal care for him!!
Jason: DAMMIT JAZZ YOU'RE PROVING FREUD RIGHT!!
Jazz: YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW—
DPxDC prompt
Constantine hears a knock on the door of the house of mystery. This is already strange, but made even stranger by the fact that the house isn’t supposed to be in the material plane at the moment.
He cautiously opens the door, expecting some demon, god, or some other dangerous entity, but he instead finds what appears to be a scrawny human teenager begging for help.
Of course appearances can be deceiving so he keeps his guard up, but still he decides to hear the kid out. It’s almost certainly a trick, but on the slim chance this is real he couldn’t just turn the kid away.
Anyway the kid seems to want help getting out of some magical contract or obligation? Something about trial by combat and… “BLOODY HELL Kid is that the ring of Rage?!”
Basically, Danny does not want to become the ghost king. And after hearing about John, he figures that if there was anyone who could help it would probably be John Constantine. And even if he can’t the Hellblazer is at least a good place to start. (And the Observants absolutely despise the man, which in Danny’s eyes is a glowing recommendation)
Idea.
Constantine decides the best advice he can give is for Danny to find somehow Danny thinks would be a good ruler (and that Danny can tolerate) and propose to them using the Ring of Rage. Sure Danny would be stuck in a political marriage of convenience but at least he wouldn’t be king.
This begins Danny’s search for the most competent person he can tolerate being married to.
Cue shipping shenanigans.
Thinking abkut killing 2 birds with 1 stone Constantine suggests Raven. Shes well acquainted with the supernatural and dosent take shut from anyone, plus becoming the sovereign of an entire plane fucks over her dad's plan to posses her
In which, Grundy acquires a kid.
"Grundy is out and he has a tag along." Oracle voiced over the comms.
"Please tell me it isn't croc. I cant handle that right now." Spoiler whined. Robin tsked.
"Unless crock is a teenager dressed in a giant coat and looks related to Grundy- no."
"What-"
"Where are they?" B cut in.
"On the edge of Hood's territory. Just crawled out of a manhole. They seem to be walking deeper in though."
Robin huffed. He was fortunate enough to not have an encounter with Grundy while he was robin with Grayson. Granted, Grayson assured him that the last time Grundy was active was when Todd was robin. According to the files Grundy was a high priority-
"Yeah. That's Saturday. Leave them alone. " Hood's mechanical voice cut through the comms.
"What do you mean leave them alone?" Nightwing asked, a bit winded. He must have been running.
"You knew about him." Batman asked as he landed beside robin.
"Yeah. Like I said. Leave them alone."
"We cant just-"
"My territory. My rules." Hood singed. "They're chill-"
"The zombie that can take down superman is chill?" Spoiler asked.
"Look. The zombie had a kid. The kid keeps him out of trouble and he's good at helping with the other kids on the street. Who am I to look a gifted horse in the mouth?"
"How does that even happen?" Spoiler asked. Robin was a bit interested. Grundy was a walking myth. Did the kid actually die like Grundy or did Grundy really procreate.
"I am not asking a zombie how he- yeah- listen Saturday keep you pops below ground he's making the bats jumpy."
"Oh my god-"
"Yeah yeah. You got- a what- when the hell-" Hood's mic cut off for a second.
"Alright good news. Found out what the chemical was in that last breakout we had."
"What is it?" Batman asked.
"Ectoplasm- kid- kid- dont eat it! Grundy- what do you mean he needs his nutrients and he's still growing-"
Coffee and Comfort at 2am
AKA "DILF!Danny owns a coffee shop in Gotham. It quickly becomes the batkids' favorite hangout." DPxDC prompt idea!
Steph finds the coffee shop first. (Finds is a strong word. She accidentally misses her grapple mark and swings into the wrong alley, nearly smacking into a half-rotten wooden door. She winces at the resounding bang that echoes in the alley.) She's about to grapple away, very glad that she bribed Babs to keep any mishaps between the two of them, when the door is yanked open.
Standing in the door way is a four-foot gremlin in an oversized hoodie, pig-tails, and pink spiked Converse.
"Well?" The kid grumbles. Steph opens her mouth to apologize for waking the little girl when the kid beats her to it with a, "You gonna order anything?"
So, it turns out Phantom's Keep has been open for a total number of 28 minutes before Spoiler almost breaks down the door. The owner Danny Fenton and his daughter Ellie moved from Illinois a little over a week ago and converted a foreclosed shop into a "late night" coffee shop.
It's not entirely in working order, but the shop plays soft rock and it smells like coffee grounds. The vibe is very... calming. There's something about the mismatched furniture and warm lamps that feels homey. Danny offers a smile at Spoiler's costume, complimenting it in a way that feels very earnest and dad-like, and gives her a free pre-packaged muffin. Tells her to be safe on her way out. Steph leaves with a warm coffee, muffin, and a messily hand-drawn map that Ellie gave her with a stern instruction to "bring more customers." (Endearingly, Ellie drew Phantom's Keep as a castle.)
True to her word, Steph came back with Cass and Tim. Who then came back with Bernard and Duke. Duke brought Damian, who brought Dick and Jason. They both like Danny a lot - he's soft on Ellie but has a sharp sense of humor. Ellie and Damian also get along surprisingly well; Ellie, despite being younger, has a special interest in swords. She's very passionate about the macharia and xiphos. ("Her great aunt is Greek," Danny says with a tight smile. "She's gotten super into ancient Greece because of it.")
Ellie is probably the batkid's favorite part of Phantom's Keep. She's a spitfire, has very loud opinions about their costumes and vigilantism, and is clearly a meta. Both Danny and Ellie are, they're sure, but Ellie tends to... float. Often. Although Danny will typically give her the Dad Glare and remind her with a curt "feet on floors indoors" or sometimes just "floor, Ellie!"
And well... The batkids can see when a good person is just trying to make a living. Danny is a good dad to a good kid. Usually when the second-hand TV plays re-runs of Grey Ghost and Ellie's head starts drooping, he'll disappear for a few moments to put her to bed in their apartment upstairs. Danny mentions off-handedly to Red Hood that he's going back to college during the day and the coffee shop's open from 8pm-8am so it doesn't leave him with a lot of free time. If the batkids quietly and unanimously decide to keep Phantom's Keep as their own little shop... It's not like Batman has any reason to investigate a small business owner who may or may not be a meta, right? He won't find out.
(....Bruce does, indeed, find out.)
After three years (but no aging), Ellie... stops wandering. It was fun at first. She still loves exploring.
But she thinks she'd love a warm bed, regular food, and a family even more. So she walks up to the nearest homeless shelter and asks to speak to a social worker.
Five foster homes later, she's decided she's done with the random family assignments from social services. She'll find a family all on her own. She even has one picked out!
So Ellie, very determined, marches right up to Wayne Manor and rings the buzzer at the gate.
"Alfred Pennyworth speaking. How may I help you?"
"Hi! I'm Ellie, I'm an orphan, and I want Mr. Wayne to adopt me. Can I come in?"
Clark: I'm here. What's the emergency?
Lois: Perry is making one of us cover....the kid.
Clark: The kid?
Lois: You know. The kid. Bruce Wayne's kid.
Clark: Richard Grayson? Whats the problem he's a well mannered young man?
Lois: No. The other one.
Clark: Bad Luck Daniel Grayson?!
Lois: Yes.
Clark: The same Daniel Grayson that put Jimmy in the hospital last year after taking his photo!?
Lois: Yes the very same. Maryann tried reporting on him Monday and her house flooded within the hour.
Clark: How!? It didnt ran this week!
Lois: The dam near her house broke, but get this, out of all the houses near it, only Maryann's got washed away.
Clark: I dont like that.
Lois: Look Clark, the only ones left to try and cover a story on the Bad Luck Grayson twin is you and me, and frankly only one of us is indestructible.
Clark: Oh fine, I'll take on the story. Besides, Ma overheard us gossiping about the boy in Jimmy's hospital room and she was less then impress. She insisted the bad luck isn't real.
Lois: and you believe her?
Clark: Its Ma.
Lois: Fair enough. Thanks Smallville and good luck. Your plan leaves in half a hour by the way.
Meanwhile in Gotham:
Danny: B?
Bruce: Yeah?
Danny: My shadow is laughing again.
Bruce: Tell your shadow to not cause trouble. The reporters from the Daily Plant are going to be here any minute
Danny: Its just started laughing harder.
Dick: Is it laughing? Just looks like it shaking to me- oh wait thats the cliche cartoon evil villain laugh pose. Yeah, Shadow is definitely laughing.
Danny: I think Johnny's shadow is a bad influence to mine. I shouldn't let them hang out anymore.
John sold his soul. A lot. But almost as often, he sold his first born son's soul.
Now, that sounds bad on paper, but if John was being honest with himself, he was never going to have a kid. It felt unimaginably cruel to burden a baby with the weight of having John Constantine as a father. So, what better deal than to sell something that would never exist?
One thing he didn't take into account, was that he was a bloody idiot and the universe hates him.
John met Danny when he was still working independently in Amity Park. They worked together on a couple of cases in and around Amity, the kid was bright despite what his grades would leave you to believe.
It was John that brought up the idea of joining the JLD to Danny, and it was John that submitted a personal recommendation once Danny showed interest.
John helped Danny through moving away from his haunt, he offered the kid a couch to crash on that slowly turned into a bed, and he was never seen at a JLD meeting without a ghostly shadow.
Everything felt perfect, and that honestly should have been John's first red flag.
Now, he was preparing to take a trip down to Hell, because John never bothered to check if those contracts specified blood.
Danny fell asleep in his space theme bed at Constantine after whispering good night dad.
Only to wake on a plush pillow like some exotic auction in a between a massive oversized room full of multiple different gods, demons, Fae, and Eldritch beings of different, both or non gender all arguing that it in their right they had first claim on Constantine's first born son, with their contracts.
A fine, very valuable price, as Newly crowned Infinite Realm King as Constantine's firstborn son, that upon the child considering Constantine as his Father brought forth the contracts glowing gold.
All the Competition between the Supernatural, the Myth, and Legendaries Gods forgot one tiny little thing about the infinite realms King.
He is a toddler in the infinite realm with the age of death.
The infinite realm don't take kindly on those who kidnapped their young, especially when it their beloved king