AN: Well, this is certainly a very fast update. Don't get used to it, all three of you that have followed this story. I usually have the beginnings of my stories very planned out, and then have to muddle through the middle and end. So updates tend to slow down.

I don't own Danny Phantom, Alex Rider, Gravity Falls, or Young Justice. And I'm going to see how many different orders I can type that in.


Kaldur stood with the team, taking in his 'guests'. They were gathered together in a nervous clump a few feet away from the team. Alex stood in front, tension visible even from this far away. Danny stood behind him and to the right. The teen seemed much more lucid now and had a thick bandage wrapped around his head. He poked at it every few seconds, ignoring Alex's disapproving look. Dipper stood mostly behind Alex, clearly hiding. The kid looked like a nervous wreck, his fingers twitching constantly, never looking anyone in the eye.

Nightwing stood between the two groups, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. He cleared his throat, his gaze darting between the two groups.

"So. Um. Hey guys. Long time no see."

The team stared at Nightwing blankly. The acrobat winced a little, looking away.

"Right well. I'd like you guys to meet my friends. They're…"

Nightwing trailed off looking a little lost. Alex rolled his eyes.

"Freaks?" Danny offered helpfully, finally leaving the bandage alone. Nightwing frowned.

"Well, I wouldn't put it like that…"

"Nightwing, you promised explanations." Kaldur said, slightly exasperated. "You said something about them being wanted by the government?"

"What?" Alex yelled, whipping around to glare at Nightwing. Nightwing flinched, holding his hands up defensively.

"Come on Alex, we couldn't have kept that secret. It wouldn't be fair to ask them to shield you without them knowing what they were getting themselves into."

"We could have just left." Alex hissed, looking absolutely furious. "You had no right to-"

"I don't want to leave."

Alex blinked, turning to look at Dipper. The teen flushed, looking away from Alex's searching gaze.

"What do you mean Dipper?" Danny asked, looking a bit surprised that the kid had spoken at all.

"It's just… I feel better here. Better than I have in a long time. And I think it's because of her."

Dipper gestured toward Zatanna before realizing what he was doing. He turned a brighter red and hunched in on himself. Alex and Danny exchanged a look. Danny shrugged, seemingly indifferent. Alex groaned.

"Fine. We'll stay. But I'm still mad."

"Hold up! Before anything is decided, how about we get some explanations." Connor said. "Like Nightwing said, we need to know what we're getting ourselves into."

Alex sighed.

"Okay fine." He muttered. "Want to know my whole life story? Here we go. My dad was a spy, which got him and mom killed when I was a baby. My uncle, also a spy, trained pretty much from birth to follow in his footsteps. Then he died, and various intelligence agencies, mostly MI6, blackmailed me into working for them. I did that for a year til the head of '6 had a crisis of conscience and sent me to live with a foster family in the US. But then the CIA started snooping around, so I took off, cause no one is going to control me like that again."

Alex huffed, clearly annoyed. "I didn't really expect them to label me a terrorist. Now any law enforcement agency that gets its hands on me has to hand me over to the CIA. And from there… I honestly have no clue what they would do to me. And I'm not particularly keen on finding out. I mean, they've freaking water boarded me before, and that was on accident."

Kaldur blinked as he tried to process the mass of information Alex had just spilled. It… was frankly terrible. He wished he could say that he didn't believe Alex, but he had enough experience with the government to know that such a thing very well could happen.

Kaldur knew that there had to be more to Alex's story, but the teen had apparently said all that he was willing to. He was now looking at Danny expectantly, but the black haired boy didn't seem to notice. He had gone back to poking his bandage.

"Um, Danny." Nightwing prompted. The teen suddenly noticed that everyone was looking at him.

"Oh!" Danny said. He smiled brightly. "I'm an abomination of nature!"

Alex rolled his eyes and smacked the back of Danny's head.

"Ow!" Danny whined. "Headwound here!"

"Quit being a baby." Alex scoffed. "We both know that it's practically healed by now."

Danny shrugged, smiling again.

"You got me there." He said cheerfully, pulling the bandage off his head. Or rather, through his head. He had turned it intangible. Or he'd turned himself intangible. It was hard to tell.

"You're a meta?" Bart asked, sounding excited about this turn of events.

"Sure." Danny said with a grin. "Except, no not really. I'm actually a hybrid. Half human, half ghost. Which really sucks for me because ghosts are considered non-sentient by the US government. And also their existence is illegal. So technically, me existing is breaking the law."

"Wait. Ghosts? Seriously?" Garfield scoffed. "No way."

"Hey, ghosts are real!" Artemis snapped. "I've met one. And I have to admit, she seemed pretty sentient to me."

"Of course she did." Danny agreed. "All ghosts are sentient. It's just biased scientists who say otherwise. The government believed them because it's easier to wipe out a threat if you don't have to worry about it's rights."

"But you should be protected, considering you're still half human." Robin pointed out. He paused for a second, thinking it over. "Which is weird. How is that even possible?"

Danny shrugged. "I dunno. Like I said, abomination of nature."

"Danny…" Alex groaned. "We've talked about this."

"What? It's true. I shouldn't exist. Things aren't meant to straddle the line of living and dead like I do."

"Okay wait." Artemis cut in. "So you're a ghost hybrid, however that works, whatever. Why is the government after you? Surely they can tell you aren't like… dead or something."

"Oh they know." Danny said carelessly. "That's why their so eager to get their hands on me. I'm 'special.' Once they realised I was a halfa, I had to run. No point putting my family at risk, you know? If they ever caught me, they'd probably cut me open and mess with my insides or something like that. They say ghosts can't feel pain so…"

Danny shrugged. He seemed entirely unbothered by the fact that a group of mad scientists wanted to experiment on him.

Kaldur swallowed, trying to hold down bile. He was pretty sure that there was something wrong with Danny. No one should be able to discuss their own potential vivisection so calmly and cheerfully. What had happened to Danny to make his so unconcerned with the idea of his own survival?

The whole group now turned to Dipper, who cringed under their attention. Kaldur almost didn't want to hear Dipper's story if it was anything like the other's, but he had to know.

"Um… it's kind of a long story." Dipper whispered, keeping his gaze glued to the ground.

"It's okay Dipper." Alex said gently. "Take your time."

Dipper took a deep breath, stealing himself.

"Okay. Well, you guys know about magic, right?"

The team all nodded. They were pretty experienced with magic, both good and bad. Dipper nodded, seemingly encouraged.

"Right. Well. Every summer for as long as I can remember, me and my sister would spend the summer in this town called Gravity Falls with our Great Uncles. The thing about Gravity Falls is that it's teeming with magic, and one of my Great Uncles had spent the vast portion of his life studying it. So me and my sister ended up learning a lot about it too."

Dipper hesitated. The shaking in his hands got worse.

"Um… well. Everything was fine til this one summer. See, Gravity Falls is actually a weak point between our world and the chaos dimension. That's why so much weird stuff happened there. And… well. In the chaos dimension there are demons. And they want to get into our world. Which is what ended up happening."

Dipper was about to continue when he paused. "This is where it gets a little complicated."

"You got this." Danny said with a grin, patting Dipper on the shoulder. Dipper gave him a shaky smile.

"Okay. Um… have any of you ever heard of the Cyper Wheel?"

Most of the team looked blank, but Zatanna gasped.

"Of course!" She said. "It's one of the most powerful magical sigils in existence. No one has ever been able to figure out how to channel its energy without being completely destroyed."

"Yeah, well there's a reason for that." Dipper said with a slight smirk. It was the first time he'd shown any emotion except anxiety. He held his hands together in a prayer type pose and then opened them as if he was opening a book. To the team's surprise, an actual book made of golden light appeared in Dipper's hands. He flipped through it before stopping on a certain page. He swiped his hand across the page and a large circle flew off of it, floating in midair. It spun slowly, the symbols along the outer edge circling a triangular figure in the middle.

"This is the Cypher Wheel. It was created to serve one purpose, to banish the demon Bill Cypher back to the chaos dimension. Ten people were chosen from before the start of time to channel the energy and put an end to Bill Cypher once and for all."

The symbols on the outer edge began to glow.

"Each person was represented by one of the symbols." Dipper continued. "I was the Pine Tree, and my sister was the Shooting Star. Together we were going to stop Bill."

Dipper's smile faded. "Only… it didn't end up working like that. Half of the Wheel were killed, and those of us that were left couldn't do it alone. In the end, the US army invaded Gravity Falls and got any survivors out, but the town itself had to be abandoned. Gravity Falls is now a nightmare, overrun with demons. Luckily, they can't get out. Something about Gravity Falls traps the weirdness in, but they're all still there. Just waiting for their chance."

Dipper sighed. He watched the wheel mournfully. Half of the glowing symbols faded, presumably representing those who had died in the battle with Bill.

"The government set the surviving members of the Wheel up in some facility. They wanted to use our magic, but there was a problem. The magic of the Cypher Wheel was never meant to just sit around. It was meant to be used up defeating Bill. When that didn't happen, we were left with a lot of excess power with no where to go."

As Dipper talked, another symbol of the Wheel faded.

"With only half of the Wheel still alive, the magic was too powerful to contain. Attempting to use the power always ended the same way. It killed the remaining members, burning them up from the inside. In the end, only my sister and I were left. We had been doing magic our whole lives, so we could withstand it a little better."

Only the Pine Tree and the Shooting Star were lit on the wheel now. Dipper rubbed his arms.

"Of course, when I say we handled it better, I mean it didn't kill us. My sister… the power was too much for her. She went insane, killing the some of the guards at the facility and running off. I was left alone.

"The army was insistent that I use the power of the Cypher Wheel, but I didn't want to. Using that power… it's dangerous. I was terrified of what I would become if I did. So I ran away. And they've been after me ever since."

Dipper looked incredibly tired as he finished his story. "Now all the power of the Cypher Wheel is contained within me and my sister. If we died, it would be released all at once, and probably destroy the entire world. I do my best to control it, to keep it from going crazy, but it's hard with my sister out there doing who knows what with it. The balance of the magical world is in danger. I do my best but…"

"You do great." Alex said brusquely. "I can't imagine anyone doing better."

Dipper smiled gratefully. "Thanks Alex."

Dipper stepped back, clearly done talking. Alex moved slightly in front of him, glaring at the team.

"Well?" He asked. "You know now. Are we allowed to stay, or are you going to turn us in?"

"Of course not!" M'gann said. "We don't work for the government. We do what's right, regardless of what the law says."

"M'gann is right." Kaldur said. "You are all welcome to stay as long as you like. You have nothing to fear from us."

Alex still seemed unsure, but Dipper seemed happy. He relaxed a bit, even attempting a smile. Danny, rather predictably, looked like he couldn't care less. He grinned, shooting Kaldur a double thumbs up. Nightwing looked practically ecstatic.

"So." Bart said, running up to Danny. Alex looked like it took everything he had not to just attack the speedster, but Danny merely raised an eyebrow. "You're half ghost, huh? What does that entail exactly?"

"Would you like to see?" Danny said with a mischievous grin. Bart nodded excitedly, eager to learn about a new hero. It wasn't often that Bart met someone that he didn't already know about from the future, so it made sense that he would be fascinated by this mysterious group of powerful teens.

Danny laughed. A bright light lit up at his waist, splitting into two rings that went up and down his body. As the rings passed over him, his appearance changed. His normal clothing changed to a skin tight jumpsuit. His hair turned bright white, and when he opened his eyes they glowed a toxic green.

Danny floated off the ground, sweeping into a deep bow. "Allow me to introduce you to Phantom, ghostly superhero and scourge of all ghost hunters everywhere."

Bart and Garfield both started clapping, before stopping and glaring at each other. Apparently they were still fighting. Jaime came forward, studying Danny with interest.

"Whoa. What can you do?"

"What can't I do is a better question." Danny said with a smirk. Jaime grinned right back.

"Come on! Let's go outside and you can show us! Normally we'd use the training room, but it was destroyed yesterday and we haven't gotten it fixed yet."

"Cool." Danny said. "How did that happen?"

The two teens walked out of the room, Bart and Garfield following. Alex watched with increasing alarm.

"Danny, wait!"

He was about to run after them when Nightwing stopped him.

"Relax Alex. Danny can take care of himself. You're going to give yourself a heart attack at this rate."

Alex scowled, grabbing Dipper by the arm and marching out of the room. Dipper yelped, but he didn't try to escape the hold, following Alex without complaint. Kaldur raised an eyebrow at their retreating figures.

"He's not very friendly, is he?" He asked Nightwing. The acrobat sighed.

"He has trust issues. Not really surprising considering… well anyway. Thanks for letting them stay. Things have been getting dangerous."

"You know, you never really explained what happened." Connor pointed out. "How did you meet them? And who attacked you guys?"

Nightwing shifted uncomfortably. "As for how I met them… it just kind of happened. I ran into each of them separately and I helped them form a group. Safety in numbers, right? I was working on figuring out how to get the government off their backs when everything happened. It had to go on the backburner for a while. So when Kaldur came back, I figured it was a good time to check in on them."

"Let me guess, everything had gone wrong." Barbara said dryly. Nightwing grimaced.

"Not quite, but yeah. Some group has been on their tail for months now. They've had to relocate almost twice as often as they usually do. The group chasing them finally caught up yesterday. They were just lucky I was with them, or things could have gone bad fast."

"So the government almost caught them?" Kaldur asked for clarification. Nightwing shrugged.

"Maybe? It's not that simple. They're not just wanted by the government. Alex has several terrorist organizations that would love to get their hands on him. And Danny has plenty of enemies in the ghost community. Dipper, well, his sister is always trying to get to him. It's impossible to know who it was that finally managed to catch up."

Kaldur fought the urge to groan. He was starting to realize why Nightwing had been so hesitant to introduce the teens to the team. There was just too much going on with them. Still, they seemed like good kids who had just had a terrible break. And Kaldur had never been the type to back down from a challenge just because it was hard.

"Alright. Well, they will be safe here until we can figure something out."

Nightwing grinned. "I knew I could count on you!"

Kaldur smirked. "You do realize that I have to tell Batman about this."

Nightwing's smile faded. "Oh no."


AN: Sorry about all the exposition. It had to happen, but I hope it wasn't too boring. Future chapters will be more fun!

You may have noticed some weird behavior from our merry little group of troublemakers. I will tell that not a single one of them was a reliable narrator, not even Nightwing. They all either withheld some pretty pertinent information, or just straight up lied. So get ready folks! This is going to be quite the ride!

Bye for now!