Chapter Fourteen: The Ghost Zone
Despite the trust that the twins have in the team, there are still some things that even they didn't know about. Lena was just one of the things they kept to themselves, and she wasn't even the biggest of their bombshells.
*****Ghost Zone*****
"Have any of Youngblood's lookouts spotted Blackbeard's ship, yet," Danny asked Fright Knight, holding a scroll.
"Not yet, your majesty," the spirit of Halloween answered. "But the young pirate has reported that there have been no pirate raids since your crusade against them has forced them into hiding."
"Okay," Danny accepted. "If anyone can annoy that ghost pirate out of hiding, it's Youngblood. One of the few good things of having that kid around."
"With ghosts like him around, it makes me slightly thankful for how long I was in stasis," Fright Knight said.
"Him, and the Box Ghost," Danny snickered.
"Please do not mention that nuisance, my liege," Fright Knight requested.
"Happily," Danny chuckled. "There is a reason why White tends to 'disappear' whenever I have to fight him."
"I think the words your brother used were, 'if I hear BEWARE one more time, I will kill him… again,' your majesty," Fright Knight told him.
"At that point, who could blame him," Danny said. "Even i'm reaching my limit with him and I lived most of my life with crazy people with loud mouths."
"Haven't you always said that crazy was the understatement of the millennium when it came to them," Fright Knight asked.
"Touché, FK," Danny says. "Touché."
The large doors then opened, revealing his favorite snow monster ghost. Frostbite walked in, in all his yeti glory.
"Greetings, Great One," he smiled at the half ghost.
"Hello, Frostbite," Danny smiled back. "How is everything going with your idea to fully imprison Undergrowth?"
"He is a very illusive ghost," Frostbite says. "We've managed to create cryogenic weapons that use our ice cores to power them. All we need is to find him and then blast him."
"And then we can safely move him to the special cell we created for him in the dungeons," Danny finished for him. "Maybe we could ask Krinos or Lena to help track him down. They hate him as much as we do."
"Nature users would all feel that way," Fright Knight says. "When shall we make a move against Undergrowth, my king?"
"I can get into contact with the Isle of Nymphs or our two friends later," Danny answered. "We still have the negotiations with Walker on his rules. And we all know that will take a while."
The other two ghosts nodded in agreement. Walker was very strict about his rules and fails to see that it is ghostly impossible to follow each and every one of them. Or even remember all of them.
But first, you all heard Fright Knight right (Try saying that five times fast). He called Phantom his king. Phantom had only known that little fact for about two years now. When Phantom and Pariah Dark had their battle, Dark had called it a fight for the throne, not that either twin knew what that meant at the time. But when Phantom defeated him, he ended up inheriting the throne through conquest. Clockwork had told him that when he turned eighteen, he'd become king of the Ghost Zone.
*****Mystic Isles*****
"Fiara, for the last time, we can not have the musical version of a fire festival," White said, totally thinking of giving up at this point.
"Why not," the siren of fire asked, her arms crossed.
"Because you're the only siren of fire," White answered. "Not to mention the fact that there's a lack of fire users in the isles altogether. If we have a fire festival, we have to have a festival for every element and power mystics possess. Even with a festival every day, there wouldn't be enough days in the year."
"Thank you for your time, my lord," Fiara bowed to him.
The siren of fire flew out of the hall pretty disappointed. Gold Siren simply shook his head, rubbing his forehead. Lena flew down, landing next to him.
"She never gives up, does she," White asked her.
"You know Fiara," Lena giggled. "She loves her fire. Lucky for us that she was only the daughter of fireplace makers instead of an arsonist before she became a siren."
Siren nodded in agreement. It was in always a joke around the isles that Fiara was secretly an arsonist in her past life. But sirens are based on both nature and nurture. How a person lived by those around them and who they were as an individual. Sirens are born when another one passes, their element transfering to the next one being "born." Magic itself (herself or himself, depends who you ask) chooses who is next to become a siren. The person is always slightly leaning toward their respected element even as humans. And while they don't have to be music prodigies or musically inclined, all that are chosen are typically those that like to sing, listen to music, or play an instrument. Some are even dancers or actors.
For example, Lena. While a siren for four thousand years, she still was once a human. During her human life, Lena had been quite a normal girl living in ancient Greece like the first recorded sirens. She was a farmer's daughter living in the city of Kavala, known back then as Neapoli. While her parents dealt the animals on their farm, she did the gardening. And even in these ancient times, she had a mind of her own and spoke her mind, defending her thoughts and beliefs. She dreamed of being a lyre player for the theatre. One day, during the Trojan War, her father was forced into the army for the Greeks. As a gardener, she had prayed to Demeter to keep her father safe on the battlefield. Her prayers were answered in the form of becoming the siren of nature to watch over and protect her father from the shadows.
"Anything else on the list," White asked her.
The siren of nature pulled out a scroll from behind her.
"Since all the request meetings have been taken care of, we need to move on to inventory for the artifacts down in the vault," Lena informed him.
"That might take a while with the sheer size of it," White says. "A prince's work is never done."
"Amen to that, and i'm not even a princess," Lena agreed.
Yep, that's right folks. Siren is also royalty. Pariah Dark was not the only power hungry and corrupt mystic ruler. The Isle of Sirens was once ruled by the truly monstrous Obsidian Siren, also known as the siren of shadows. Her siren's song had the power to infect those around her with darkness, almost like she added shadows to their hearts. It been just a couple of months after Phantom took down the ghost king, and she had gotten wind of Gold. The only siren not under her control.
So what did she end up doing, sending her siren army to capture him so that she could sing her sing for him as well. Little did she expect that he was the siren of pure heart, leaving her song useless. Unable to take it, she challenged him to a fight in a fit of jealousy. She was unaware of the precaution Siren had taken in case of his capture. A special jewel called the Heart of the Siren that amplified his powers, allowing him to defeat her, release the hold on the sirens, and obtain the crown.
*****Mount Justice*****
"So, you really think this will work," Dick asked Cyborg.
"Danny has been working on this with me so that he'd save his energy by not having to create portals to the zone," Cyborg explained. "It will work."
The team was in one of the labs that were inside the Cave. Danny spent a lot of time in the lab doing his science stuff. Most are weapons, but he also gets samples sent to him every now and again from cases where the evidence needs to be scientifically examined. It was mostly stuff that Phantom did for Nightwing and told him to take the credit so that Batman thought he was smarter than he actually was, scientifically speaking as the teen hero was a brilliant detective.
"So this can get us to the Ghost Zone but not the Mystic Isles," Jaime asked the half-robot.
"From what White said, there is too much magic in the isles," Cyborg says. "It interferes with the technology that the portal is made from. He said we could end up in the Underworld or Wonderland instead by mistake."
"I'd rather not get my head cut off by a psycho queen, thank you very much," Mal crossed his arms.
"I sure hope you know what you're doing," Karen said. "Cause I rather like not being an extra crispy bumblebee."
Only about half the team had volunteered to go to the Ghost Zone to talk with Phantom and Siren. The ones going we're Nightwing, Superboy, Aqualad, Beast Boy, Impulse, Cyborg, , Bumblebee, Guardian, Wolf, Blue Beetle. The ones staying were Kid Flash, Artemis, Lagoon Boy, Batgirl, Wonder Girl, Static, Arsenal, Sphere, Tempest, and Robin.
"The twins have been gone for over a week now," Dick reminded. "We should check in with them to see if they're ready to come back. Or, at least, find out when they will come back just to ease the tension the league's been gaining around us."
''Will they even like us just showing up like this,'' M'gann asked. ''They're pretty secretive of their lives in the zone and on the isles.''
''We need to show them that we're still in their corner,'' Conner said. ''That no matter what, they're a part of this team.''
"I think they know that, but are hurt by the league's actions," Kaldur says. "Trust is big with them. Break it and it's hard to get back."
"Then I guess it's lucky they weren't part of the team during the invasion thing," Mal crossed his arms. "They would have lost it over Kaldur's fake betrayal and the make believe murder of Artemis."
"More the betrayal than the murder," Cyborg says. "We all know plenty well how the two of them and Wally and Artemis get along worse than cats and dogs. More like fire and water."
The team definitely agreed with that. Artemis was always suspicious of the twins because of the number of secrets they keep and how they don't fully devote all their time to the league and team. That they have other priorities different then their hero and normal person alter egos. Their responsibilities to the Ghost Zone and Mystic Isles. Kid Flash just plain hates their continued belief in magic which is against almost everything he stands for. When the two first joined the team, he kept going on and on about there being so such thing as magic. The friction got so bad that the four could no longer go on the same missions because it would be most likely that only two of them would come back. And I think we all know which two that would be.
"Then, let's get this show on the road," Impulse said. "It's gonna be so crash to see the Ghost Zone."
Cyborg hit a few buttons and flipped a few switches. And like Phantom had told him to avoid, there was no on switch on the inside of the portal like his idiotic former parents did. That little bit on info got a raised eyebrow from the robotic teen.
"Remember to stick together," Dick advised. "We have no idea what will be on the other side of this thing."
"Uh… how about ghosts," Gar guessed.
Half the team facepalmed and the other half slightly laughed at that. Cyborg flipped one more switch and the portal turned on. Unlike the Fenton's portal, which was just a swirl of green energy, their portal looked more like a breach that the hero Vibe is always creating. Swirls of blue, white, and navy blue energy that swirled in an almost cone-like manner.
The team all took turns jumping in. Before he left, Nightwing had Cyborg set a timer for thirty hours. The portal immediately closes when that time is up. So if they are there for even thirty hours and one second, no portal for them. They'll just have to hope that if that happens, Phantom's in a good enough mood to get them home.
"OOF."
"Well, that hurt," Impulse said.
"What did we even land on," Jaime groaned. "Isn't most of the Ghost Zone supposed to be baren floating islands."
"Maybe that's because you landed in the middle of the throne room," a familiar male voice told them. "Guess I forgot to tell Cyborg that I programmed the portal to go right to the castle."
The team looked up to see Phantom looking down at them, his arms crossed. They took notice of the black cloak tied around his neck.
"To be completely honest, we kind of expected this," Danny says. "I wonder who had a week and a half in the betting pool."
The team managed to untangle themselves from the pile they got themselves in when they landed. Then they were able to look around the room they were in. They could tell right away that it was a medieval type of castle.
The castle had definitely changed a lot since Pariah Dark's rule. The walls were now white and silver with black tapestries on the walls. The Danny Phantom symbol was over the main door. To also show a little bit of Gold Siren, the windows and doors were lined with gold bricks. The actual castle design was more like something out of a fairy tale than a medieval themed horror movie.
Where the team were was the throne room, definitely changed from the previous ghost king's reign of terror. The same type of blocks of the exterior made the interior walls with a slightly dark green ceiling. Tapestries of multiple isles, ghost lairs, and a few mystic symbols hung from the walls. A large black rug with green ghost patterns was under their feet. The throne was smaller and was now made of silver and black onyx. Behind it was a very locked up Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.
"Impressive place, you have here," Dick said, trying to clear the tension.
"Sometimes, being me has its perks," Danny responded. "And Phantom's Keep is definitely one of them."
"Danny…" Conner started, but Phantom holding up his hand stopped him.
"Me and White are fine," he told them. "Time with our own kinds calm us down. And we do have other responsibilities. Right now, i'm having issues with Blackbeard's ghost wreaking havoc over the Ghost Zone. He somehow continuously evades my knights. Little does he know of Youngblood's scouts."
The team just gave him blank looks, not really knowing what to say to that.
"You do know that we have no idea what you're talking about right, hermono," Jaime said.
"When you spend a lot of time with those that do, you tend to talk like that," Danny says. "Mostly other ghosts, mystics, or White."
"I always did think twins could talk in circles for hours on end," M'gann giggled.
"Who says me and my brother haven't," Danny smirked.
This was a side the team rarely saw in Phantom. Sure, he would constantly crack jokes and witticisms on missions. But he was still a pretty serious teen for the most part. They were glad to see this more free side of him that being in the Ghost Zone seemed to bring out.
"I'm guessing this isn't exactly a social call," Danny guessed, looming at the ten team members and single large wolf.
"We figures to check in on you two," Mal says. "Make sure you were doing fine."
"And obviously we had nothing to worry about," Karen said, looking up and down Phantom.
"Everyone handles stressful things differently," Danny says. "Follow me and you can see how White handles it."
"To the Mystic Isles, we go," Gar smiled, really excited.