Chapter Text
Loud crashing could be heard from the other side of the town of Amity Park Illinois, a territory battle between Danny Phantom and a rogue ghost that had escaped the ghost portal was being fought. Danny was thrown to the ground cracking the concrete sidewalk on the edge of the road. He looked up rubbing the back of his head while his eyes flashed green in anger. A Low growl in the back of his throat, he was getting tired of this.
"How could one ectopus cause so much damage!" He yelled floating up into the air, grabbing the green glowing creature by its tentacles spinning around making enough momentum to have the ghost crash into a building. It landed on the ground I bit dazed by the unexpected blow, not even having enough time to phase through the bricks. After a couple of seconds, it looked back up with anger in its eyes, reaching for Danny. Who in response shot back with a single powerful ectoblast from the ghost boy's hands. Danny's eyes darted around and caught onto his friend who was running frantically towards the fight holding some sort of green and white capsule.
The teenage boy tossed the object to the halfa who spun around opening the lid causing blue light to emit from it and absorb the low-level ghost into it with a blue beam. Tucker was now lying on the ground next to Danny out of breath. "Sorry man, I am... the tech guy... not the running guy..." He panted. Danny chuckled at his friend. Even though he couldn't be out of breath (due to his lack of breathing) the ghost was still exhausted. His core humming like an angry refrigerator.
"Just don't tell Sam that I almost lost to an ectopus while she was away." He stuck his hand out to help up his friend from the ground. "I just need to do one last wrap around town, I'll take the thermos. You should go home and get some rest."
Tucker leaned forward and put his hand on his floating best friend's shoulder to help hold himself up. "No arguments here. Just don't die while I'm gone."
"Well, I'm already halfway." He gestured towards himself, and Tucker gave back a tired smile. Danny shot into the air waving back at his friend who was slowly ambling away.
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He flew around town, searching for any rouge ghosts that could still be lurking around. Danny glanced down at his wrist where a watch would be, and then at the star-filled sky with tired eyes. It was getting late and he really should be getting back soon. Even if he could survive longer with no sleep than a normal human, doesn't mean he should. Besides Jazz would kill him if he did an all-nighter twice in a row.
He was just turning around when his ear twitched and he heard a light whistle of air speed towards him, he backed up just enough that the small object shot past him nearly clipping his chin. His eyes followed the object's trajectory and saw it had struck a billboard across the road from him. He flew over to it cautiously and pulled out an arrow from the wood, leaving behind a splintered hole where the arrow hit.
Danny held the arrow in his hands examining it carefully. It had a green tip and green and black striped feathers on the back, it was a human-made arrow not from a ghost, so it couldn't be Skulker trying to get at him again. He looked up to the top of a building where the arrow originated from, and slowly hovered his way there, his wispy tail splitting into legs once he got close to the lip of the building. His ears twitched listening for any sign of sound.
He checked over the roof for who or what the arrow originated from. "Phantom." The deep voice startled Danny, making him flicker invisible for a second on instinct, whipping his head around to look at the person that spoke. Two people stepped out of the shadows, one wore a black cape and a recognizable cowl but was still smothered in shadows, facial features hidden by the darkness. The other person though had a green hat and a bow and arrow in his clenched fist with fingerless gloves, his other hand ready to grab another arrow at a moment's notice. Danny now had a pretty good guess where that arrow came from.
"Batman?" Danny recognized him from what he had heard about Tuckers gushing over the man. But Danny got way more cautious, he had no idea what was going on here and why the Dark knight was intruding his haunt. Was this a trap of some kind? Were they here to take him to the Guys In White? Danny was ready to turn intangible at any second, It didn't seem as though they had ghost weapons, but it seemed Batman would be able to keep anything in that pouch of his.
The halfa turned his head to the green-clad hero, one eye still on Batman even though he showed no visible weapons. "I assume this is yours?" Danny held out the green-tipped arrow in front of him. "I don't know why you needed to shoot it at me though." Danny narrowed his eyes, flashing a brighter green unconsciously.
Batman spoke again. "We needed to get your attention." Danny tilted his head a bit looking at the bat. Why would they need to talk to him?
"You didn't need to shoot at me. You could have waved or something." The teen suggested crossing his arms.
"I wouldn't have hit you." The other man spoke, casually grabbing the arrow from Danny's hands and putting it back in his quiver.
"What would you be doing in Amity Park? I thought that you lurked in Gotham or something." Danny tilted his head to the side. "And why would you need to talk to a ghost? and in case you were wondering, I can't talk to a dead friend for you or something." He held his hand up in a stopping motion.
"We wanted to talk to you about a small covert ops team made up of young heroes, like yourself." Danny's ears perked up, what was this about now? Was he going to be recruited for something? "We are looking for another team member, would you consider?"
Danny's eyes widened slightly in shock and he was excited, his chore whirring at the thought, especially to be seen in the light of hero by someone so well known in the super community. But he still needed to ask. "Why me? I mean I don't have the best rep when it comes to hero-ing."
"I have done my research. That's why this will be a trial run. If you can prove your worth, you can become a respected member of the team."
Danny glanced at the ground below him. "I would need to think about it, I can't just leave with all the ghosts that this place has."
"You wouldn't need to leave much behind, we can install a teleporter here in Amity Park. You will be able to go back and forth with no problems. Call this number when you decide." Batman held out his hand with a card. And Danny grabbed it tentatively, it reading it over. It was white with a small bat symbol in the corner, as well as a phone number written in gold ink across the bottom.
"This is so cool, thank you, I will call soon with my answer." Danny tried not to sound to giddy as he turned invisible so as to not let the heroes know what direction he was going in and shot into the air flying back to his house. Batman, the Batman wants him to join a team. He needed to talk about this with his friends as soon as possible.
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After the ghost had left Green Arrow turned to face his old friend. "Why? The team seems fine on their own already." He raised his eyebrow.
Batman stayed silent for a second, as if trying to figure out if the ghost was still there or not. He started walking to the edge of the roof. "Phantom is powerful. Probably more powerful than anyone on the Young Justice team." He looked back to Green Arrow, his face stone cold. "Or in the Justice League."
"So you are going to use him as a weapon? Grab him before anyone else does?" Arrow questioned raising an eyebrow.
"I will be able to observe him more closely if he is on the team. He is very elusive out here and with the general public, we are lucky to have gotten in contact with him in the first place." Batman said. "With him on the team, we can determine how much of a threat he actually is. And if necessary, how to take him or other rouges his species down." His voice stayed the same deep tone. "Better to have him on our side than the one fighting against us. Because if he decides against us... We may not win."
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After Danny had triple-checked whether or not Batman had placed any tracking devices or listening bugs on him he got on a call with his best friends to talk about this new situation and opportunity.
"He offered what!" Sam's voice came through the speakers of his computer, making them cut out a bit.
"He offered me a place on a young team of superheroes," Danny explained.
Tucker's eyes were filled with excitement. "Batman is like my favorite superhero... umm, well after you of course." He showed a nervous smile.
"He said that there will be a teleporter, so I can come back whenever I want and help you guys, as well as do school."
"Are you sure Danny? What if they find out who you are?" Jazz asked, leaning back on the wall of Danny's room with a concerned look on her face. She was always looking out for the teen
"Well, it's not like they are going to be looking into me or anything." Danny shrugged. "Ghosts don't have a secret identity; they're dead, even if they did, they would never find out because I am very much alive." He waved his hand in front of his face and rocked back and forth on his bed.
"This is awesome, you will get to help the Justice League, and it will probably help clear your name for good!" Tucker exclaimed practically falling off his chair.
"He did say covert, so it probably won't be out in the public," Danny shrugged, he didn't like attention that much anyway, the less people to look, comment, and prod him the better.
Tucker nodded. "Well, it will still be cool anyways. I think you should do it."
"Sam?" The ghost boy asked. She had been awfully quiet since he had started explaining.
"I think this is a good opportunity. But it's your choice, just be cautious with these guys." The goth said cooly.
Jazz crossed her arms, "Just don't forget to come back, I can't keep trying to come up with excuses as to why you are not home, or late."
Danny nodded to his sister with a light smile on his face.
After a bit more chatting with his friends, Danny closed his laptop, putting it on the floor. And reached for the card the Dark knight gave him, as Jazz left he twiddled it around his fingers, feeling the smooth paper in between his cold lightly scared hands. Thinking about it one last time, he picked up the burner phone Tucker had set up to be untraceable and sighed deeply before dialing the number. He just hoped he was doing the right thing. The phone picked up almost instantly making Danny's core feel like it was sitting in his throat. He could hear Batman's voice on the other end of the line.
"Phantom?"
"...I will join your team."
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Danny followed the coordinates batman gave him the night before it wasn't too far of a flight for him. Once he landed in the strange place he saw batman out of the corner of his eye and floated over to him. "Hi, I'm here." He was still hovering off the ground. He didn't often like to stand on the ground in his ghost form. Aaaaand it was a dark alley filled with puddles from the rain that morning so he would rather not stand in it.
"This is one of the teleporters, you can get to the base through here. We will add one in Amity Park at some point in the future."
"Cool." Danny stepped into the phone booth and was blinded by blue light, it felt like getting sucked into a Fenton thermos. As the light slowly dimmed he heard a robotic voice call out.
"Recognized: Phantom B-07. Recognized: Batman 02."
Danny's eyes widened, he was in a large room with a very tall roof and filled with tech, it was like he was in a fully furnished cave. He flew up and around the roof with a smile on his face. He glanced down to see a blond woman wearing black standing next to Batman gazing up at him, her eyes reading slight disbelief before cooling over. Danny lowered down to talk to them "You must be Black Canary." Danny stuck out his hand.
"Yes, and you must be Phantom." She shook his white-gloved hand, noticing that it was quite cold. She stared at the palm for a second before pulling her hand away, it didn't seem that the ghost noticed though. "Okay, so in a couple of minutes, you will meet the rest of the team as they come in for their debrief. You Ready?"
"I guess, I didn't think I should be this nervous." He wrung his hands together in front of him. Man, how could he act this dorky with these powerful heroes in front of him.
"There won't be a problem. Batman will debrief them on their new mission and then he will do his thing where he says, 'the seven of you'." She put on a slightly mocking deeper voice. "And basically, you step out and meet the team."
"Wouldn't it just be easier for me to meet them before the meeting?"
"Yeah, but Batman likes his dramatic effect." She winked at the ghost. And the man in question merely shrugged. Danny chuckled to himself.
A couple of minutes later the six young heroes entered the room, Danny only recognized robin, also from the stories Tucker had shown him and explained.
"There have been problems on an island that we need you to check out. The island is used as a testing site for hybrid animals, but recently the Lab in the center of the island has been cut off from all communications, and two scientists are most likely trapped there. We need you seven of you to retrieve them and bring them back safely." A red-haired teen who was wearing a yellow suit and red goggles, cracked his fingers walking around the room.
"Easy peasy, simple search, and rescue. Wait did you say seven?" Danny was so nervous about this part, it felt silly. He hovered out from behind the door holding his arm.
"Hi, I'm Phantom."