Here is a small fact
Italicised chapters/ blocks of text = flashbacks/ memories

As always: read, review and hopefully enjoy!


Chapter 5: Ghost Stories

It was really getting ridiculous. In his years with Batman and months on the team, Robin had met with lords of order, chaotic demon children, clones, aliens, deep sea dwellers, androids and more. He had even been lucky enough to kiss a certain sorceress at New Year's while in orbit on a secret satellite. But never did the young detective think that he would ever be forced to take the urban legends of a small town and cuttings from paranormal blogs as the most solid leads on a case. By now he should know better than to expect the universe to make sense.

As soon as he had had a spare moment in the chaos that followed the Cadmus incident, Robin had tried to identify the mysterious figure from the power room. But, to his surprise, all leads had come up blank. The person didn't work for Cadmus; employment files and statements from Guardian confirmed it, if the boy's reaction to being discovered hadn't been evidence enough. Next Robin had searched all League, Arkham, Belle Reve and other records of superhumans and nonhumans for anyone who fitted the stranger's estimated age range and physical description, could turn invisible or shapeshift. Once again, there was no match – whoever this person was, they weren't in the system. In mild desperation he had contacted Guardian to pull the video feed from the power room on the night of the fire. If he could get a freeze frame of the boy he could run a broader facial recognition sweep. But that led to another problem. Someone had somehow modified the tapes, replacing the figure with scrambled pixels in every image. They had done a surprisingly thorough job too, resisting all attempts to peel back the distorting code. Whoever it was, they knew their way around computers. With that thought, the Boy Wonder tried to follow the activity on the computer used by the stranger; if he knew what the boy had been searching for he might be able to work backwards. But the terminal records were blank – there was no evidence that anyone had touched the machine from the time the fire was reported. Each and every lead he tried ran cold. It was as if the boy didn't exist.

The enigma continued to occupy a small corner of Robin's mind during his first month as part of the League's new covert ops team. Something to return to when things were quiet; poking and prodding the issue like an impossible Rubik's cube, looking for the one angle, slant or twist that would shift everything into alignment. But as time passed, new members joined and more important cases had come to light, the Boy Wonder put it out of his mind - much like Wally and Kaldur had done long ago.

Then the mysterious figure was suddenly thrust back to the forefront of their attentions. Robin had been driven to pacing the Batcave in sheer frustration - how was he meant to find a new lead when he had already exhausted every option! There was no video feed of the fight and, although none of them would admit it, he, Artemis and Kaldur were all too shaken by the shadow creature and its words to remember many useful details. He had planted a tracker but - much like any semblance of logic on this mission - it had fallen through. The stranger himself had been less than helpful with his cryptic… wait. "just a ghost". That's what the boy had said. Robin had laughed at the thought. But what if…? Common sense had already jumped ship; that was painfully clear. So perhaps an illogical approach, "a truly dumb idea" as they had once put it, was the answer to solving this case.


"You have a new lead." The Batman's voice echoed faintly through the duo's headquarters as he moved silently to his protégé's side.

"Yes and no. I've found something, but it's not exactly tangible"

"In what way?" Robin could almost hear Batman's eyebrow lifting. He smirked internally, knowing how his mentor would react to the next revelation.

"What are your thoughts on ghosts?"

Batman frowned. Dick may have a love for the cryptic and dramatic, but the young detective certainly wasn't one for childish fantasy. Obviously he had found something important, and at the moment the Dark Knight wasn't in the mood for their usual games.

"What did you find?"

Robin grumbled mentally at the blunt reply, allowing his gloved hands to dance across the keyboard of the control panel. Files and blurry photos filled the largest screen, mostly news articles and paranormal blogs. Batman noted a small handful of government watermarked documents in the mix.

"Kaldur told you about the 'help' we had on the mission, when he met with you after the briefing?" The Dark Knight nodded in affirmation though he knew it wasn't really a question. "I don't know if he mentioned this as well, but we've seen that boy before. A while ago - Independence Day - at project Cadmus." Another nod.

"After our first encounter I tried to find out who the kid was. I looked down all the normal routes and then some, but couldn't find anything. No records, no photos, videos, nothing. He wasn't on any League or other lists of known super's. He even managed to hack the Cadmus system and blur his own image on the video feed, as well as wiping any trace of his activity from the computers. Did a whelmingly good job too – I couldn't bring back the originals no matter what I threw at them. I followed all the other leads I could think of, but there wasn't anything solid out there to find, so I let it drop." Robin chuckled humourlessly "I probably would have called hallucination if KF and Aqualad hadn't seen him too."

"And when he reappeared?"

"I went been back over all the old data with the new intel, but nothing useful stood out. I thought I might have a new lead, but it went dead fast. I planted a tracker," Robin made a frustrated gestured to a screen off to one side, still resolutely blank, "but it's been offline ever since. We're stuck at the status quo – he doesn't officially exist."

"Except for the fact that you've seen and made contact with him on several occasions."

"Exactly. Then I remembered something he said before running off. He mentioned being a ghost. I thought he was just being cryptic, but then I wondered. After all, invisibility, walking through walls? So I started looking up stories. One in particular got me."

Robin gestured to the main screen, filled with headlines - 'Invis-O-Bill Strikes Again', 'Danny Phantom Saves Kids', 'A Phantom Menace?' ,'Ghost-Boy to the Rescue'.

"An urban legend, the 'Phantom of Amity Park'. Apparently protects the town. According to the myths, he takes the shape of a young boy or teenager, with white hair, green eyes and a black and white suit. Description matches our mystery man almost perfectly."

"Why didn't the League know about this?"

"Because, from what I've read, Amity Park has a long-running reputation for ghost stories. Locals have been claiming sightings for decades now, though 'reports' only became common around 2 years back. The league sent someone to look into it a few years earlier, but with no solid evidence of paranormal activity it was pretty much written off as a tourist grab. It did attract a number of so-called ghost-specialists and hunters to the town, but no-one heard much on that front either. The people of Amity seem to take it as their calling card. They released statements claiming ghosts were responsible for some major events – remember the plant fiasco and freak storms the year before last?"

"There was a jailbreak at Arkham. Poison Ivy was one of the prisoners to escape. The source of the storms was never traced – presumably a natural disaster."

"Well, rumours from Amity claimed that ghosts had a hand in both. The plant incident was never given a name, but supposedly a being called 'Vortex' was the cause of the bad weather. In both stories, the person who stopped the ghosts was this 'Phantom'. The league didn't investigate because other, genuine, villains were coming forward claiming credit. Amity's ghost stories did, however, attract the attention of the former government paranormal investigation unit – codenamed 'Guys in White'. They were shut down just under a year ago, due to a long record of spectacularly failed missions and generally poor conduct. Massive property damage caused, as well as severe injury to a number of bystanders in one case - which lead to the fatality that ultimately sealed their fate. A few of the higher-ups went private after the incident, and the files were mostly wiped but I did manage to retrieve this."

The Boy Wonder pulled up one of the watermarked files. A pair of images depicted a black-clad, white-haired teen around Robin's own age, apparently glowing and floating in the sky. One showed the boy seemingly on patrol over the town, while in the other he was engaging with a large robotic being, flipping backwards over the creature's head. "Based on the meta-data, these pictures were taken a year and a half ago or thereabouts. I've run them through the normal programs, but there's no evidence of doctoring. Apparently the ghost-boy is legit."

"That has implications of its own. We investigated but…"

"Exactly. The 'ghost king' incident. A whole town doesn't just fall off the radar. Locals and legends claim that an ancient ghost tyrant - 'Pariah Dark' - pulled the town into his own private dimension as the start of some sort of undead invasion. Once again, 'Phantom' saved the day. Naturally, the official story was a lot more routine."

"A local research laboratory, Axion, reported a generator overload in one of their chemical storage compounds." Batman recalled, "It caused an EMP surge that knocked down communications in the town and surrounds while the blast damaged a containment unit and some filter systems. An experimental chemical - Ax915p - contaminated the water supply, and was also released as a vapour. Fortunately harmless, but with apparent psychoactive effects. They were in the process of clean-up when our own team arrived." The Dark Knight's eyes narrowed as he continued. The cover-up, if there was one, was disturbingly elaborate. "The evidence was sound. Our team found trace amounts of chemical in the town water. The generator and facility showed damage reflective of an overload. Zatara personally searched for residual mystic energy and found levels only slightly above average, no indication of a large paranormal event. The ghost stories were attributed to mass hallucination and the town's natural superstition."

"But now?"

"That's a League matter. We will investigate and members of the delegation we sent will be questioned. You have other priorities. 'Phantom' is clearly a person of interest. If he lives in Amity-"

"That's part of the problem Bats. 'The Phantom' isn't in Amity Park anymore. According to the stories, he disappeared last year, after a series of disasters damaged the local school and levelled the home and business of the town's most prominent ghost researchers-come-hunters. Reports of ghost attacks dropped off around that time too. Some people think he was sent to guard the town in its time of need, or as a warning of the coming catastrophes. Others claim he went home – or back to wherever ghosts come from. We have no idea where he is."

"Perhaps you do." A light had flickered into being on the smaller screen. Robin nearly went weak with relief. Finally, a lead among the legends. He grinned at his mentor.

Batman looked up at the newly active tracer beacon with the barest hint of amusement. "It seems we have a ghost in the machine."


I had this chapter basically prepped and ready so I thought I'd upload it now. Thank you to all the people who have reviewed and favourited so far - I'm super happy to have such a positive reception!

Unfortunately I'm not satisfied with the early drafts for a lot of future chapters, and my study workload is getting pretty heavy, so please don't get mad if I don't update again for a while. I promise, promise, promise I will keep going at this, but I also have duties in the land of the living. Try to stay whelmed

See you soon

-3WD