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Phantom floated idly in the green sky, although sky was an ambiguous term. There was no such thing as “sky” or “ground” or “up” or “down” within the Infinite Realms. There was backwards, forwards, left, and right, but the whole thing was very “M.C. Escher-esque”. Sure, there were floating islands interspersed throughout the Realms, but gravity was very much a suggestion that only existed if a Realms’ Denizen believed it did.
Phantom had retreated into the Realms for break. Mom and Dad were off on their whole “tear that nasty ghost scum (him) apart molecule by molecule” thing again. Sam and Tucker were having their Meat versus Vegetarian fight for the millionth time this week, and it was only Tuesday. Jazz was doing her “You need to tell Mom and Dad about Phantom, Danny. Otherwise, you’ll stunt your emotional growth again. Vlad was being well…Vlad. And Phantom just needed a break before he broke. This was especially true since he’d become High King of the Realms, and he set up a brawling schedule for his usual rogue gallery.
He felt a sudden, sharp pull on his core. He jerked upright from where he’d been floating lazily on his back. He cocked his head to focus on the feeling. It didn’t feel like a summoning. Rather, it felt like one of his Fraid had died, suddenly and violently, and had formed as a ghost in the Realms. Phantom let out a pained cry and shot off in the direction of the pull; his legs morphing into a spectral tail as he flew. He was glad that there wasn’t “air” inside the Realms, or he might have broken the sound barrier with how fast he was flying.
He found himself approaching Infinite Gotham, but the outer part. He landed on a deserted island and found the body of the newest Robin, the one that was called the Stabby Robin, to grace Living Gotham’s skies laying on a rock outcropping. His eyes were covered in a tattered pink mask, but his mouth was twisted in a horrible rictus grin. His body was curled into a fetal position as if he were both cowering in fear and trying to block his vital spots. The smell of unnatural fear and something wafted off him, but Phantom could see that Robin had been caught in an explosion as well, judging from the state of his torn and bloody uniform. Phantom didn’t know if the explosion was the primary cause of death or if was the smell of other that had possibly caused Robin’s heart to give out under the strain. Robin’s uniform, or what was left of it, was completely inverted, much like Phantom’s hazmat suit had when he died.
Robin groaned and opened his eyes. Phantom sucked in a breath. Magenta light spilled out from Robin’s mask. Phantom guessed that must have meant that he had green eyes when alive. Phantom watched as Robin assessed his situation and took stock of himself. Robin nodded, as if to himself.
“So, I really did die,” the young hero muttered softly, not knowing that Phantom could hear him. Robin finally looked up and locked eyes with Phantom and vaulted up. “HOW DARE YOU HAVE HIS FACE!” Robin snarled drawing his katana that had transferred with him, even in death.
Phantom floated up and out of reach of the hero and held his hands up in the common surrender motion. “Dude, I literally have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“My Akhi. My North Sitar. My Polaris. My Danyal. You would wear his face like some ill-themed farce. I will kill you, you Pit Demon” Robin growled.
“I…Wait…WAIT! Please!” Phantom’s eyes trailed down the katana and bugged out. He’d seen that katana before. In fact, he had the wakizashi that paired with it hidden beneath the floorboards under his bed. It was phased there so that not even Jazz could get to it. “Qamari? (My moon?) Damian?”
Both Robin and Phantom stopped short. Robin was breathing heavily, though he realized that if he was dead, he didn’t need to breathe. He sheathed his sword and took a hesitant step towards the other, hands outstretched like he wanted to take the other by the hand.
“How is this possible? Mother told me you died in that mission in Prague,” Robin sat down harshly on the desolate island. He could see Gotham in the background, and even though it was the same as he remembered it being when he was alive, there was something distinctly wrong with it. The more he thought about it the more he realized that there were no car horns, no gun shots, nothing to indicate any crime or other evil doings.
Phantom sat down next to him, not quite touching but within distance. “I deserted, Dami. I might as well have died.” Robin balled his fist into a tight ball. If he weren’t wearing his armored gloves, he likely would have drawn blood or the ghostly equivalent. “I overheard Mother and Grandfather talking about how Grandfather only needed one heir. And between the two of us, well, it wasn’t going to be me.”
Robin opened his mouth to protest, but he knew he couldn’t refute his twin’s claims. Danyal didn’t kill unless it was absolute necessary. He was mouth and sassy. He didn’t hesitate to talk back to the instructors. Hell, he even sassed Grandfather and Mother. Of course, that earned him more than one beating. Danyal was caught sneaking out to the roof to stargaze more than once, and again, this action earned him punishments. But it never broke Danyal’s spirit. However, Danyal had a point. All of that meant that that Grandfather would never have chosen him as his heir.
“May I ask you a question?” Robin said stiffly, pulling at the edges of his masking and wishing to take it off. His twin nodded. “If you did not die in Prague, how did you get away? The League would have made sure to verify your death. But also, why do you look so different?”
“As for how I got away. I knew the League’s agents were nearby. I found a boy who had terminal cancer, who could pass as me at a glance. I paid his family what money I had managed to steal from the League, which ended up being around a hundred thousand euros. I dressed him in my League uniform, and then I blew up the building. I made sure there was not a body to recover. But the agents would have seen me enter the building, and I presumed they would have reported the explosion to Mother and Grandfather and the inability to recover my body.”
“So, you killed that boy?” Damian, having finally managed to pull his mask off, demanded.
“You can believe that if you want. But according to his medical file, he was already dying. His kidneys and liver were already in systemic failure. There was fluid buildup around his lungs and heart. He would have been dead within the week, regardless. His parents had already signed a “Do Not Resuscitate”. The money I gave them helped pay for the funeral, among other things. I know it doesn’t change the fact that they lost their son, but at least he went instantly, instead painfully drawn out in a hospital. I made sure of it. I put him to sleep before the explosion. He never felt it.”
Damian’s jaw clacked shut. He couldn’t argue with Danyal’s logic. He wanted to. But there was a truth, a dark and scary truth in Danyal’s words. Danyal HAD done the child a favor. Damian knew that those afflicted with cancer suffered, some in more ways than others. It truly was cruel.
“You didn’t answer my other question, Akhi,” he said instead, finally pulling his twin’s hand into his own and noting how cold his brother’s hand seemed to be.
“Ah. Damian. There’s something you need to know. You said something earlier, and I need you to understand. You realize that you’re dead, right?” Danyal said with a wince and frown marring his face.
“Yes, I figured as much. Joker and Scarecrow had teamed up. I was evacuating civilians and gave my gas mask to a civilian. I knew one of my family members was close, and they were likely to have spares, but I miscalculated. One of Joker’s bombs went off, both releasing his Joker venom into the air and causing an explosion. I was already beginning to feel the Fear Toxin take effect when I took in a lungful of the Joker Venom. My heart could not cope with the strain. Additionally, I believe I was caught in the blast radius of the bomb,” Damian reported as if he were giving report to Batman.
“Wait. So, you’re NOT with Grandfather anymore?” Danyal exclaimed.
“No, Mother sent me to Father two years after you died. Now, please stop deflecting,” Damian demanded.
“Right. Ok. So, after I left Prague, I made my way to America. I didn’t know who Father was, but I also figured that Father would be the first place Mother would look. So, I stowed away in buses, trains, cargo ships, anywhere to get me away from Europe and Asia. Eventually, I ended up in Midwest America in some mid-sized city in bumfuck Illinois. But I figured after six months of wandering and false trails that I’d pretty much lost the League. Somehow, I got caught up in the city’s foster care system. I don’t even remember how that happened. One minute I was scavenging for food outside of some restaurant and the next I’m being frog-marched through the orphanage’s doors.”
Damian huffed. “That explains nothing, akhi.”
“I’m working on it. Anyways, I was at the orphanage for about four months when this weird ass family walked in. The parents were the towns’ crackpot scientists, but their daughter was pretty cool. She took one look at me and decided that I was going to be her brother. Last year, I was messing around with one of their inventions, and well, it killed me. At least halfway. I’m what the other ghosts call a Halfa. Half ghost, half human.”
The two brothers spent the next however long reminiscing over being their city’s respective heroes. Damain asked his brother why he never sought him out. Danyal, Danny the other said he preferred to be called, said that he knew that if he ever made contact with Damian then the League would know he was still alive and would come after him and destroy his peaceful life. Damian couldn’t argue with that; he knew how ruthless the League, and especially Grandfather, could be.
Damian curled up in agony and screamed in pain. It was white hot and pulled at the center of his very being.
“Dami. Dami. Damian. Talk to me. What’s going on?” Danyal held his hand and patted his head like he was five. It was embarrassing.
“I do not know. It feels like I am on fire. Like I am being pulled away,” Damian bit out through clenched teeth. He gripped his brother’s hand with all his strength and would have been afraid of breaking it if not for the fact that his brother had told him that he was very durable.
“Damian. It feels like someone on the Living side is trying to bring you back to life. Stop fighting it or resisting it. It’ll only hurt worse if you keep fighting,” Danny said while rubbing circles on his brother’s back.
“I cannot lose you again,” Damian said, tears slipping out of his eyes and down his cheeks unchecked.
“You won’t,” Danny promised fervently.
“You will find me? In Gotham?” Damian gasped out desperately, pleadingly.
“On my life, er, unlife, er afterlife, er halflife. Whatever. I will find you,” Danny vowed with his entire being, including his core. Then, in a puff of toxic green mist, Damian disappeared.
Danny sat there stunned for a moment. But then he realized that he had nothing left holding him in Amity. He, Sam, and Tucker were drifting apart because they had realized that fighting ghosts meant getting hurt and not being able to keep up in school. His parents were too lost in their obsession with finding Phantom and tearing him apart that Danny knew that he would never be able to tell them the truth, no matter how much Jazz wanted him too. And Jazz, as much as he loved her, she didn’t realize that she was following their parents, just in a slightly different manner with her psychology obsession, and he refused to be her guinea pig one more time.
He went invisible and intangible as he phased through the portal. Surprisingly, neither Maddie nor Jack were in the Lab. He dropped down to the floor and transformed back into Danny. He quickly went about gathering everything he would need for his trip to Gotham. Three Thermoses, every last bit of ecto dejecto, all of the Fenton Fishing Line since it acted as suture replacement for him, a couple of wrist rays, a couple of lipstick blasters, the Fenton Peeler, the Boo-merang, and the Boo-Staff. Then, he grabbed the paper schematics and blueprints for every single one of their inventions he could lay his hands on. He dug around his chest until he found the USB drive Tucker had given him, just in case things ever went wrong. He plugged it into the computer and downloaded all of their files before wiping the computer. The very last thing left to deal with was the Portal.
Danny tried to think when was the last time he’d changed the ecto filter on the portal. But then, he realized it didn’t matter. He could force it to overload with his own ectoplasm. He created a shield around the portal so that when it exploded, it wouldn’t take out the rest of the basement or house and poured as much ectoplasm as he could into the filter as he could. The alarms started sounding when it overloaded, then Danny flew up to room. He felt the house rattle when the Portal exploded. His mom and dad Jack and Maddie burst through the doors, panicked and upset that their systems couldn’t prevent the Portal from self-destructing. They never once checked to see if Danny or Jazz were home or if they were ok.
Danny landed soundlessly in his room and opened his closet. He pulled out two duffel bags and began packing. The more he packed the more he realized he didn’t actually want to take with him. He wanted his model rockets and books about space. He wanted the few trophies he’d won at space camp before his accident. And most importantly, he wanted his wakizashi. He felt that was especially important because he would need that to prove to Damian and Father who he was when he found his brother.
He ended up packing a few changes of clothes and what little money he had saved up. Not that it was a lot, but he figured it he could thrift and scrimp and save enough to get him to Gotham. He pulled his two bags over his shoulders, and then with a small amount of trepidation, he pulled his battered and beaten and barely working phone out of his chest. He logged into the rarely used Team Phantom server. The last message on there was from Dani last week saying that she was somewhere in Russia.
Danny checked the messages. The last time HE had interacted with anyone on the server was two months ago to let them know about the colony of ghost rabbits that had taken residence in the park. So far, neither his parents nor the GIW had found them. Val had given a “thumbs up”, but no one else had responded. It hurt in the way that sucking at a sore tooth also hurt. But Danny was also about to metamorphically pull that tooth, thus it would feel better.
I’m leaving Amity. Blew up the portal. Don’t look for me. I’ll let you know when I land.
His hand was shaking as he pressed the send button. He heard Jazz’s door open with a bang, but he was already phasing out the window, invisible and intangible. He thanked whatever god or Ancient or other deity out there that he had disabled the house’s ghost defense system earlier. Jazz threw open his window and started screaming his name. But it was too little, too late.
The first stars in the sky began winking at Danny. He oriented himself and rocketed eastward. He flew for around an hour or so before he slowed down and pulled out his phone again. He promptly ignored the multitude of notifications from Team Phantom that popped up. That wasn’t what he was interested in anyways. He performed a quick Google search with the key words “Damian” and “Gotham”.
The results popped up Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s biological child, that appeared in Gotham five years ago with over thirty thousand search results. Danny clicked on the most recent article, and sure enough there was his akhi doing a fundraiser for an animal shelter. According to the date of the article, it was just before Damian had died. Danny didn’t know what method was used to resurrect his brother; he hoped it wasn’t a Lazarus Pit, but that was Future Danny problem. For now, he had a promise to keep, and a brother to find.