Here's the second chapter. Sorry if the characters a little OOC but I'll try my best to make them more canon from now on. Enjoy!

His scalp burned. It burned with the power of a hundred million seven thousand sixty hundred and two embers. Exactly. It burned with the force of the sun, but like, the centre of it. It burned with the heat of dragon's fire.

As the strands of his hair were pulled and stretched, Danny grimaced and yelped. Leaning forward, the hands just followed him, the painful sensation never ending. It was days like this one that the ghost king cursed having such thick hair. It seemed to knot itself no matter what he did to prevent that from happening. It also doomed him to this awful fate.

"Daniel, if you would just hold still for five minutes," Dora berated him sternly. The hairbrush she held in her hand briefly untangled itself from Danny's hair and he let out a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, no more than five seconds later, it had found its way back into the ghost king's baby dreadlocks. "Please stop whining, it's unbecoming."

"Dora, just put me out of my misery already! I don't think I can take the agony!" Distracted with his task of crying out in mock pain (it was real pain, actually), the door to his sitting room opened and the ghost of all things literal waltzed in. Ghostwriter arched an eyebrow at the image of their king having his hair brushed by the fierce and stubborn Dora, Lady of the Dragons.

He cleared his throat, smirking as Danny's bellows cut off suddenly. The white-haired ghost shot to his feet in one smooth, desperate motion, startling poor Dora, who shrieked and feel over backwards in surprise. The ghost king brushed his clothes off, straightened his large coat, and walked over to Ghostwriter regally. The poet decided not to comment on the hairbrush imbedded in the ghost boy's wild hair.

"Ghostwriter," the king greeted politely, smiling widely. "How are you?"

"I am well, my liege. I have contacted the ghosts from the list you gave me. They have all responded and are on their way to the castle as we speak."

"Wonderful," Danny began to walk past the ghost, swinging his braced arms towards the door. "Well, let's get going. There's still a lot to prepare," he was almost out the door when Dora seemed to appear out of thin air and tackled him to the ground. With a resounding OUF the king hit the ground.

"I'm terribly sorry, your highness," Dora apologized as she ripped the hairbrush from Danny's hair. The ghost screamed. "But I'm not finished with your hair. If you believe that you will be permitted to enter the Human Realm with hair that resembles a nest for rats, then you are sorely mistaken," and with that, the dragon lady began brushing his hair once again.

As Dora did her work, and Danny grumbled with the occasional screech when the fingers of the brush snagged a particularly bad knot, Ghostwriter didn't really know what to do with himself. Did his king expect him to leave? To go finish the preparations he was just going on about? Ghostwriter was about to ask when Danny's hand lifted from the ground and shooed him away.

"You may leave, Ghostwriter. Thank you," a small humiliated voice called out to him from under the mountain that was Dora. Ghostwriter nodded, bowed and swiftly left the room. He had an idea for a new story.

"No."

"Okay, let's just talk about this. I understand how you'd be… opposed to this arrangement, but this is necessary. The ghosts are an extremely powerful faction. It's a miracle that no one has acknowledged and taken advantage of that yet."

"They're violent, primal, and unpredictable. No one has reached out to them for those reasons. King Phantom is selfish. He'll use this opportunity to steal from us. Trick us. Call it off. Be rude about it."

"I'm not going to do that, nor will anyone else. Your rift with the king is clouding your judgement. He's willing to look past it to save his people. You should do the same!"

"It's not my judgement that's clouded: it's yours with your desperation! I am the only one thinking clearly!"

"No, you're not because you won't even consider the alliance!"

"That's because there's nothing to consider!"

The members of Young Justice watched as Captain Atom and Batman argued with each other. It was tense and amusing at the same time. Jaime heard crunching to his right and turned to see Bart shovelling popcorn into his mouth rapidly. As if he sensed his friend's eyes on him, Impulse froze and the two locked eyes. Blue Beetle sighed and turned away, hearing the crunching start up again.

The two leaguers, while having seemed to forget they had an audience, had enough sense to argue in the kitchen instead of the main room, out of human hearing distance. While some members of the Team didn't have super hearing, it wasn't at all needed as the two leaguers waved their arms at each other and scowled. Those that did have super hearing however, frowned. The ghost king was a big deal. Some sided with Batman, the ectoplasmic spirit shouldn't be allowed to come to Earth while others were with Captain Atom, more power the better.

Nightwing stood off to the side. As Captain Atom and Batman's argument seemed to grow more heated, he pushed himself off of the cave wall and towards his mentor. He could feel the eyes of Young Justice on his back but he kept going forward. Bruce turned towards him with a furious look in his eye when he approached. But before Batman could spit out a single syllable, Nightwing interrupted him.

"We need the ghosts."

"Nightwing, you-"

"Batman, listen to me, please," he pleaded to the only person he would ever plead to. Bruce hesitated but nodded. "I was there when the alliance was offered. I was the one who showed Phantom the video of the Reach's speech declaring war on him. Batman, he didn't even know about it."

"He was lying-"

"He didn't said anything," Nightwing quickly cut in. "He never said that he wasn't contacted. It was his face, his expression. He was shocked. And his bodyguard was too if that's the message he was trying to get across by threatening to hang the leader of the Reach on his wall. I'm guessing it's a yes though," Nightwing finished with a shudder. The ghost king's bodyguard sure was temperamental. "I think he want this alliance for his people. Isn't that a King's and Queen's first priority?"

Batman and Captain Atom shared a quick glance. Bruce's temple began to throb. When he'd cut off all contact from Danny fifteen years ago, he'd expected no more ghost business save for the occasional wanderer. This was getting out of control.

"Exactly, Nightwing,"Batman began slowly, treading carefully. "That is one of the reasons I'm against this. If Phantom thinks that we present a possible threat to his people, who knows what he'll do then."

"It doesn't matter," Captain Atom cut in just as Nightwing opened his mouth to respond. The young man ground his teeth together in frustration. "Last week we told Phantom to meet us outside of one of our zeta tubes tonight at 8pm. It's now 7:45," shocked, both Batman and his protégé looked up at the holographic clock on one of the walls of the cave. It was indeed quarter to. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught Nightwing's attention and he looked to left to see Young Justice still standing there, watching the trio intensely.

"Miss Martian, Superboy, Mal, come here," Batman instructed firmly, accepting the fate he was now doomed to. "The rest of you, leave and don't come back until we call for you," the teenagers looked between each other, no one moving. Finally, Impulse shuffled forward.

"What's going on, head honcho? Don't mean to make you feel the mode or anything but we're all pretty confused about what's going on here," with the nods of agreement from various members of Young Justice, Batman grumbled and walk over to the holographic computer, typing away furiously.

"You want your questions answered?" Batman inquired. The image of King Phantom appeared above them. A few gasped (those lacking super hearing of course) and the kids talked amongst themselves quietly. They were silenced with the raising of the dark knight's hand. "This is King Phantom of the Ghost Zone, as most of you may know. You also might know that the Reach has recently declared war on all ghosts. Due to this," he paused and shot a freezing glare at Captain Atom, who to his credit, shrugged it off. "a meeting has been arranged between the league and the ghost king to negotiate terms for an alliance between our two groups."

"Batman," Robin stepped forward, his eyes behind his domino mask narrowed at his mentor. "Everyone knows that the King Phantom is ruthless. Not even the Light goes near them because they have enough power and strength to wipe out the Earth. How don't we know that we're being led into a trap?"

Batman inclined his masked head towards Captain Atom. The leaguer's eyes widened as the attention of Young Justice focused on him. He cleared his throat nervously.

"Nightwing and I," cue the swivelling heads. "met the ghost king in secret just a week ago. When we did so, we were convinced that Phantom wants this alliance to work just as much as we do. If our forces combine, we take down the Reach and even the Light, once and for all."

"If this is such a big deal and everything, why are we leaving?" Bumblebee spoke up. "Shouldn't we be here if something goes wrong? If the ghost start to attack you guys?" Batman quickly shut off the hologram and turned to glare at her.

"No, it's bad enough that we're even making contact with this individual but he doesn't need to know the extent of our forces either," and with the, Batman shooed all of Young Justice, save Miss Martian, Superboy, and Mal, back to their rooms. "It's too late for all of you to take the zeta tube now, so just go to a room and stay there until we call for."

Surprisingly, the Team obeyed with minimal grumbling and decided to head over to Superboy's and "hold it hostage in exchange for details". When they'd all left and only six remained, Red Tornado descended from his room above the cave.

"Am I also invited?"

"Of course," Captain Atom answered him. "We just needed to get the kids out of the picture before we offered you to join us."

"It's eight," Batman called from the computer. After having entered the zeta tube coordinates, he shut of the program and the holograms collapsed in on themselves. "Captain Atom, Nightwing, you're the welcome committee. Get going."

As Phantom stepped through their transportation system and into the Young Justice headquarters, he was met with a face he had really been hoping wouldn't have been at the meeting. Bruce Wayne. And he was still dressed in his stupid bat costume.

How long had it been? Ten years? Twenty? Yet, somehow, he still looked exactly same as he did all those years ago when he put flowers on his grandmother's grave. The little boy that forced himself to speak through the tears caused by his Nanny's death. He still looked like Sam.