Kingdom of Aragon

-:-

"Is everyone here?" Dick asked with a serious tone.

Conner looked around and noticed that everyone, besides Danny and Danielle, were present.

Shortly after they dismissed themselves from the dining hall, Dick had informed the Team to meet up in his and Kaldur's room via Mindlink.

Once everyone was settled comfortably, Dick cleared his throat to grab everyone's attention.

"Alright, let's go around and share reports. Kid's group, you guys start first."

Kid began to recount the events from earlier that day…


East Bazaar, Festival of Peace

-:-

"When you said 'don't stare at his eye', did you mean-?"

"Yeah."

Beast Boy's eyes widened fearfully. "Oh, crap."

"You looking at something punk? Huh?!"

Beast Boy waved his hands nervously. "Nope! nope! Totally not! I was just checking out those eye- GLASSES- eyeglasses! They look totally cool! Haha…"

"Huh." The ghost huffed and walked away.

Both teens let out a sigh of relief.

"Phew.…

"That was way too close."

"You haven't even been by yourselves for five minutes, and you already managed to almost start a fight with a cyclops?"

They turned to see Ghost Writer walking up to them from inside a nearby shop.

Beast Boy looked down shamefully. "Sorry Writer, I wanted to see the sunglasses in the souvenir shop and accidentally bumped into that guy."

Writer sighed but didn't seem genuinely upset. "Well it couldn't have been avoided, you young people were eventually going to get into trouble one way or another."

Kid scoffed and crossed his arms. "Gee, thanks for the faith, dude…"

The ghost raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything else as they continued to walk around.

"I didn't expect to see so many different types of people here," BB awed.

"Well it is a festival, young shapeshifter," Writer smiled knowingly.

"Yeah, but like, I didn't expect to see so many ali-"

Ghost Writer and Kid Flash quickly covered the green teen's mouth.

Luckily, nobody around them was paying attention and simply continued to walk by or browse.

Writer couldn't help but chuckle nervously. "Well, that was definitely what you would call, 'a close one'."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Kid breathed out.

The speedster blinked. "Wait, you're not upset?"

"Whatever for? Here at the Interdimensional Festival of Peace, many of the visitors forget that some of us were not born here. We are used to it here, but I would still advise you to choose your words carefully. There are few that would not-uh- forgive easily, I could say."

"Oh, noted…"

Writer smiled and nodded before gesturing to follow. "Noted, I quite like that phrase…" he muttered to himself.

They walked for a bit longer before Kid spoke up.

"Hey Writer, I have a question."

"You may ask as many as you like, Kid Flash."

"How come we haven't heard about any other people helping out?"

The ghost stopped walking and turned to the speedster. "I'm afraid I don't understand the question. Would you mind elaborating for me?"

"Well, I noticed that a lot of ghosts respect Phantom, even if they don't like him. But, I haven't seen any other ghost have that, except for rulers or higher-ups, of course."

"Hmm… I would ask Lord Frostbite, as he enjoys telling the tale of the Savior of the Infinite Realms, though… he does have the tendency to exaggerate at times…"

"The Savior? Like Jesus?" BB asked with a tilted head.

Writer let out a genuinely amused laugh. "No, no… You see, Daniel is considered the Savior of the Ghost Zone because he had defeated Pariah Dark."

"Who's Pariah Dark?"

The writer's eyes sparkled with glee as he began to tell the tale of the sleeping tyrant king and Vlad Plasmius being up to no good.


"That explains a few things…"

Miss Martian turned to Zatanna with a perplexed look. "What do you mean?"

She cleared her throat as she explained her theory. "Frostbite constantly refers to Danny as the 'Great One'. He probably started using that title after Danny was labeled 'the Savior of the Ghost Zone'. It also explains why so many ghosts know him, or at least of him. If they don't recognize him at first, they could definitely recognize his name."

"Yeah, I noticed that too," Artemis added. "That must also be why I heard a handful of people say 'the Protector' too. Must be another name…"

"Well yeah sure, but aren't we missing the bigger picture?"

The Team looked questioningly at Wally.

"We think the future Ghost King and Danny have beef, and we don't know why, right? Maybe this is our clue."

"How is it a clue?" Miss Martian asked curiously.

"Well, think about it, if Danny defeated this Pariah guy, that would mean that he would have to be super powerful. Maybe the reason they don't get along is that maybe Danny is stronger than the guy and they have this unspoken rivalry or something."

"You know… I hate to say it, but Kid mouth may be onto something," Artemis admitted.

"Thank you- HEY!"

Dick hummed in thought. "Maybe… we'll do some more digging tomorrow. If any of us see Pandora, we can ask her if she found anything out tomorrow. Onto the next report, Artemis?"

Artemis sighed and cleared her throat…


South Bazaar, Festival of Peace

-:-

"I don't understand how some of these people aren't freaking out," Artemis commented.

"Huh?"

"Well, if you look around us, there seem to be people even from different timelines here. So wouldn't futuristic stuff freak them out?"

Their popstar guide stopped and looked around them with her hands on her hips.

"Huh, I guess I never really noticed," Ember shrugged.

"Wait wait wait, how could you not notice the togas and chainmail?" Zatanna raised an eyebrow while crossing her arms.

The pop star raised her own eyebrow. "I guess because that's normal here? I don't really know what to tell you guys. Around here, we're used to all sorts of people, and we just kinda leave each other alone about that kind of stuff."

"Then why do some have a problem with uh-" Miss Martian lowered her voice to a whisper. "-Humans?"

Ember blinked and after a moment her eyes widened as she came to some realization. "Ahhhh, I get it. You mean why did me and a few others always pick on Dipstick!"

Miss Martian smiled unsurely. "Well, that's not exactly what I meant, but if you don't mind sharing…"

"Sure thing! Well, I don't know about a few people, but I know between me, Skulker, Kitty, and Johnny, we all just wanted to stir a bit of trouble in Amity." Ember put bluntly.

"But why?" Artemis asked with crossed arms.

"Why not? It was fun! And it gets kinda boring here after a few decades or two."

"Oh? Then what changed?" Zatanna politely, but teasingly nudged.

Ember seemed genuinely confused by Z's comment. "What do you mean?"

"Well, after Phantom left, it would only make sense if you guys stirred up a bit of trouble while he was gone. So what changed?"

The pop star's smile disappeared as she looked away from them. "Because he didn't deserve the crap he got from his folks."

The three team members shared glances.

"I didn't think you guys were sentimental towards him," Miss Martian commented.

The ghost shook her head. "We weren't, some of us still aren't."

"But?"

"But…" She hesitated briefly before sighing and continuing. "Even before the stuff went down with his folks, something happened and Danny and I made a- deal- of sorts. If I didn't stir up trouble and try to take over Amity Park, then I would be allowed to be in the Living Realm for a bit. And if I stepped out of line, he would have full permission to throw me back into the Ghost Zone."

"Fair enough, I guess. But what about after?"

Ember huffed and fake pouted. "I don't really go to Amity anymore. It's no fun if Dipstick isn't there. Who would I mess with?!"

Miss M smiled sympathetically. "Hey, Ember?"

The ghost looked at her curiously, confused by the change of tone.

"What happened between Danny and his parents?"

Ember raised an eyebrow. "Did he never tell you?" she asked with a hint of awe.

The heroines shook their heads, and the guide seemed hesitant.

"Ember…" The martian took the ghost's hand gently. "Please… We just want to make sure he's going to be okay…"

"Ugh, fine… but not here, there's too many eyes and ears."

The pop star took them to a more secluded spot and the heroines got comfortable as she began to explain what happened.

"After the Disasteroid incident-"

"What's that?"

Ember huffed irritably. "Basically, an asteroid almost destroyed Earth and Danny came up with a plan to save the world and it worked."

"Got it. Continue."

"After that, Danny's parents found out about his ghost half. As time went on, they started to get more and more curious about the make-up of our kind and started doing experiments on him, all consensual and non-invasive mind you."

"Okay, then what was the problem?"

Ember let out an aggravated huff and crossed her arms. "Do you want to know or not?"

Artemis grunted in return but stayed silent.

The pop star rolled her eyes before continuing. "Anyways, after some time the tests started to get more and more invasive as his parents got more invested in their research. Babypop started to get more and more uncomfortable and slowly started coming up with excuses not to go down to their lab in order to avoid them.

Now, something important to note before I continue, is that all of these tests were done with both parents present, that way one could monitor his health while the other ran tests. One day, Maddie had called him down to the lab and, not noticing it at the time, Danny didn't realize his dad wasn't there. So Maddie tried running a new experiment by herself. Long story short, he got hurt. Like really hurt. He tried to make a run for it, but the stupid government guys in white suits were waiting for him outside. They shot him down and nearly drove off with him, but before they could, Skulker happened to be flying by and managed to free him.

After that, which he has now nicknamed 'the Maddie incident', his parents slowly but surely started their old 'all ghosts are evil' propaganda. Basically, according to Danny's sister, his parents thought that by turning people against ghosts again, he would go home to look for safety. But, of course, it had the opposite effect."

The girls went quiet.

"Oh…" Miss Martian breathed with wide eyes.

"That's… a lot to take in," Zatanna admitted solemnly.

"Yeah, well, now you guys know. If you know what's good for you, I wouldn't bring it up around Danny. It's a bit of a touchy subject for him."

"I could understand why… Thank you, Ember."

"No problem. Just, if Dipstick asks who told you? You didn't hear it from me…"

Miss M smiled reassuringly. "Of course."


The Team was silent for a bit.

Dick cleared his throat and slowly regained everyone's attention. "And lastly, us. We didn't really collect much, only that some of the ghosts we encountered seemed a little on edge. We think they may know something is up or suspect something is wrong, but either doesn't know or are pretending not to know."

Conner let out a deep breath and felt exhaustion slowly creeping up on him.

He already knew about the Maddie incident and a little about the Pariah one. But Danny had shared those memories with him privately in a rare emotional outburst. So he chose not to share with the Team.

Kaldur stood and offered a reassuring smile. "Good work today, Team. Go and get some rest. Tomorrow will be another busy day."