Bruised

Chapter Seven

All the King's Men

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppressed.

Carl Jung

Nightwing wasn't sure what to think about the green sky that they flew through.

There was no land at the bottom, just continued sky. He wondered how Danny knew where to go.

He looked at the kid and watched as he navigated through the environment without worry. He avoided certain areas and took turns that didn't make sense. Even at one point seeming to go in a circle, but Nightwing only knew that from the turning of the speeder cause nothing looked the same when he looked outside.

Nightwing wasn't sure how many times the kid had come in here, but he knew for a fact it probably wasn't something his parents knew about.

"So this Frostbite can help us find the Ghost King?" Nightwing asked as Danny slowly started to lower the speeder. Danny glanced at him before looking back out the windshield.

"Sorta, finding the king isn't the problem," Danny said not really wanting to tell them just yet.

He wasn't officially the King yet and without the crown or ring, he wouldn't really be able to control the fallout of this.

"That's why we're here though," Red Robin said as he tried to hack into the speeder just to see how it operated.

He hated every second of looking at the code.

It was in four different languages and one of them he wasn't even sure was a real language.

"Yes, but I need to see Frostbite," Danny said. He knew he could just tell then and transform, but he didn't want to. Especially since they last seen him in ghost form was when he was possessed by those ancient ghosts.

"Alright, well, I'm not getting any signal to the Watchtower," Red Robin informed making Nightwing look at him. They didn't like this.

Danny laughed.

"We're in a different dimension, of course you're not getting signal out of it. I mean, I can, but only with Fentonworks," Danny informed.

"Yeah, we can help get you guys set up to do it," Ticker jumped in. He'd been 'playing' on his PDA.

In actuality he'd been counter hacking Red for kicks.

They didn't need to have more information until it was for sure they were on their side. So Tucker busied himself with annoying the hero.

"And that's only if we need to. It drains a lot of battery to keep that connection," Sam said. "We're working on it, but between ghost attacks and schoolwork, we haven't really gotten that far in fixing some of the more helpful inventions. His parents just want to work on guns and stuff."

"They're brilliant scientists, but they tend to not see the help with ectoplasmic based technology unless it's to hurt ghosts," Danny said as he dived the speeder suddenly making the two heroes grab the seat. Sam just leaned back while Tucker braced his hands against the windshield.

They drove into a frozen tunnel making both heroes wonder if this was a good idea for the hundredth time that trip.

Superman watched as Batman paced in the Batcave. There hadn't been any signal from Red Robin or Nightwing since they entered the portal with Danny.

Robin told them that they went in with a couple more teens by the names of Sam and Tucker. Robin hadn't gotten last names but Batman was quick to figure it out.

They were Danny's best friends and they knew.

Alfred walked into the cave with tea and had another teen walking with him.

She had bright blue hair that looked like fire and was dressed like a punk rocker.

Batman glared.

"This is Lady Ember McLain," Alfred introduced. " She is a ghost who follow Master Danny here."

"Where is the Dipstick?" She asked looking between the two heroes not really caring.

Gotham wasn't a fan of Superman actually. Ember could feel that much.

She wanted to tell them that too just to see their faces of horror once they realize that the city was sentient.

"Dipstick?" Superman asked confused. Batman looked at Ember amused by the nickname.

"Danny went into the Ghost Zone to find the Ghost King," he informed before Ember burst out laughing. Suddenly Batman felt like there was something missing. He disliked not knowing things, and this whole thing was turning him one way or another.

"He didn't go to find the King. He went to get the crown," Ember laughed before wiping her eyes. "Damnit, now I owe Box Ghost. That's the shittiest part of all of this."

"I'm sorry what? The crown?" Superman asked not following, but Batman had a feeling.

"He's the King, isn't he?" Batman asked staring at the ghost rocker.

Ember smiled.

"Not yet, but if that's where he went, he will be soon. Technically he's just the prince for now. He won the crown, and even though there's some fighting over it, everyone knows Phantom was the one who kicked Pariah's ass," Ember explained. "We still like to torment him from time to time, but the kid's a protector. He protects his town, and he'll protect us. He even led an attack against the Guys in White when they caught Johnny."

"So there's already been fighting," Superman sighed not liking where this was going. There were too many unknowns.

As much as he trusted Bats, he wasn't sure that the caped crusader even knew everything.

Which made everything even more dangerous.

"Well, yeah," Ember said as she crossed her arms. She narrowed her eyes suddenly feeling like she was missing something. "The Guys in White have been going after Phantom for a long time. They also tried to blow up the Ghost Zone at least once. For as incompetent as they are, they are a danger and not just to ghosts. They've attacked humans as well."

"We just got back from Washington," Superman said unsure. "They've temporarily pulled the Anti-Ecto Acts and the President wants to talk to the King within the week." Batman watched as Ember huffed and put her hands on her hips and leaned to one side.

"You humans are always demanding us to compromise. Every time. The only time we ever get any wiggle room when it comes to you guys is if we are talking to Phantom. He's the only one who ever takes us consideration," Ember said as she glared at both heroes. "You guys are just as guilty. I know I tried to take over the world once or twice, but you guys know you're powerful, Dipstick does his best, and you're luckily that the worse of what come from the Zone only attacked Amity, but had Phantom failed, you'd all be dead. He didn't fight Pariah just for his town, but for us. To ensure we had a home to go to as well."

"We'll be there as well," Batman said looking at her. She relaxed slightly but kept her glare at Superman.

Batman realized that she didn't like Superman, but was willing to trust him. He wondered why that was.

Gotham pushed just a little more on Ember.

"I want to be there too," Ember said crossing her arms back. Batman sighed.

Danny slowed the speeder down as they came into the open. Nightwing blinked at the sudden brightness of the landscape.

Everything was Frozen.

Sam and Tucker got up and walked to the back of the speeder and pulled out four winter coats and handed two off to the heroes.

Nightwing looked at Danny.

"Uh, my suit has warmers in it for when we fight Mr. Freeze," Nightwing said holding the coat out to Danny who just smirked.

"I have an ice core. This is nothing," Danny grinned before opening the door.

A bright white ring appeared around his waist and for the first time since he'd been possessed, he transformed.

Sam and Tucker just stared at the white cloak while Nightwing and Red Robin's mouths dropped.

Bright green eyes stared at them with mirth.

"Got an upgrade, cool huh?" Phantom grinned as he started floating. Sam walked up to get a closer look at the cloak.

"The colors inverted?" Red said as he slowly walked closer to Phantom. Phantom remembered that the beings had one on him when he was possessed and laughed.

"Yeah. They said something about giving hope to the hopeless too," Phantom said as he pointed out towards a house that they all had missed at first.

"Oh good, we got closer before we crashed this time," Sam said making Phantom stick his tongue put at her.

"Shut up, I'm getting better," he defended himself.

"You're only slightly better than your dad," Tucker said and dodged a snowball that was aimed for his head. "Rude."

"Shut it," Phantom grumbled before leading them into the little house.

"Great One!" Frostbite greeted as he noticed their arrival. "What are you doing here?"

Phantom swallowed as he looked up at him.

"Ever heard of the Sons and Daughters of Lazarus?" Phantom asked making Frostbite get serious.

"I have, they disappeared many a moon ago. Why do you bring this up?" Frostbite asked. Phantom just smiled.

"Let me tell you how the last forty-eight hours have been…"

Robin looked through his information and compared it to what Technus had.

There were many inconsistencies in the reports from the GIW.

"So outside of Amity shows a completely different stat than inside," Robin said confused.

"Yes, while none of us has ever killed a human, I will admit we have hurt some. Mostly ones who've tried to stop us," Technus informed. "Those GIW agents have harmed many people."

"They set a bomb off in a school," Robin growled.

They thought Phantom would come if he seen it, and they were both right and wrong.

Another ghost had shown up and was helping get people to safety.

"Johnny 13 isn't in good condition. Phantom may have saved him, but from the last time I seen him, Kitty didn't think he'd be able to make it," Technus said subdued.

"Phantom's rep took a huge hit after that," Robin whispered seeing the calls for his head from the very people he was protecting.

"Yes, luckily the child is of both worlds and his human half can protect his ghost half," Technus informed as he brought up some more information regarding the goings on in Amity.

"What happened exactly?" Robin asked looking at the ghost who was now standing next to him. Technus looked down before recounting.

TheLiterallyLord made a TV tropes page for this story if yall wanna check it out.

tvtropes pmwiki/ pmwiki. php/ Fanfic/ BruisedDizzlyPuzzled

Hiya, it's me again, the crazy lady who managed to write two chapters just today on this.

I'm working on fourteen and thought it'd be a good day to update! Hope yall enjoyed it!