"You called?" he asked as he stood by the end of the stairway.
Maddie Fenton's red hair stood out brightly compared to her teal-blue jumpsuit as she turned and smiled at him. "There you are! Come over here, please? I need your help with a new test I want to run."
His uneasiness spiked as he saw that the examination table was prepped.
"What exactly do you need help with?" he asked cautiously as he hesitantly made his way closer to his mother.
She was tinkering with something on a nearby work table. "Oh nothing too special, and it won't take long either. Would you mind sitting on the table for me?"
He eyed the table, contemplating on just going back upstairs saying he had homework or something. But before he had the chance to, he felt a small pressure on the side of his neck, and his body forcibly relaxed into his mother's waiting arms.
'What the?!'
"Didn't I tell you to sit on the table?" she sighed.
His mom carried him over to the table and laid him down gently, his entire body feeling numb, and barely being able to move his head or make much noise.
With a calm expression, she then began strapping down his wrists and ankles. All the while, Danny kept attempting to will his body to make any kind of movement again.
"W…what… are-"
"Don't strain yourself, honey. Your body will have feelings again soon. But I had to have you relax in order to have more accurate readings."
He was able to turn his head slightly to see his mom still messing with something at the work table.
"D…Dad… where's-"
"Jack isn't here right now honey. He had to run to the store for something. Now-"
The red-haired woman turned and started approaching him with a syringe filled with some kind of blue substance.
His eyes widened and panic started to flood his mind. Whether because of adrenaline or because of his advanced healing, his body finally began to have some feeling again as he immediately started to weakly attempt to remove the restraints.
He heard footsteps and his attempts started to turn desperate in his spiking panic.
Maddie gently grabbed his upper arm and held it as still as possible as she wiped a spot with an alcohol wipe, the cold from his arm making his stomach sink even more.
"This will only hurt for a second, honey. Just sit still for me," She calmly said as she grabbed the syringe from her pocket.
Danny let out a pained gasp as she injected the contents of the syringe into his arm.
The liquid felt cold at first as he could feel the contents drain into his bloodstream, but just as quickly as it felt cold, it turned red hot.
He gasped in pain as his arm felt like it was on fire, then his chest, then his whole body.
Pulling at the restraints, his will to break out was even stronger than before, so much so that he accidentally transformed into Phantom.
His mom started to gently run her hands through his hair in an attempt to soothe him. "Danny, I need you to remain calm for me… if you stay calm, the pain will subside."
He took a deep breath and tried to force his body to relax through gritted teeth. The pain he felt from before did actually start to die down, though his body felt tired and weaker than before.
Danny opened his eyes to see his mother smiling at him and she placed a gentle hand on his cheek. "There you go, honey. Deep breaths…"
After a minute or two, the pain went down to a dull ache, his mom still running her hand gently through his hair.
"Good job, Danny. Now… I'm going to play some music okay? I want you to tell me how it makes you feel every time I change it."
She walked away, and had still not processed what she had said, was startled when a loud pulsating ringing bombarded his ears.
He went to cover his ears, but the restraints kept him from doing so, only causing his panic to spike up again.
"How does it make you feel, Danny?"
He gritted his teeth and managed to take a deep breath. "It's… loud…" he managed to mumble.
"Hmm… okay, how does this feel?"
Suddenly the ringing got louder and a small pain started to form in his chest.
He shook his head to try to rid himself of the ringing, but it didn't change anything.
"Mom, can I go now? This is starting to hurt…" he asked with a slightly panicked voice.
He heard a sigh and after a second the ringing got even louder than before and the pain in his chest worsened to the point he felt nauseous and wasn't able to see clearly.
"Mom stop!" he exclaimed as he began to struggle against the restraints again.
The ringing became overwhelmingly loud and the pain in his chest became unbearable as he cried out in pain.
"STOPPPP!"
His body reacted on its own and his Ghostly Wail was unleashed. It almost immediately took out all the electricity in the lab, making the awful ringing come to an abrupt stop and the pain in his chest became nothing more than a dull ache.
With the newfound adrenaline rush, Danny quickly ripped off the restraints and got off the table.
As soon as his feet hit the white tile, his knees gave up on him and his nausea became unbearable as he threw up. Though instead of stomach bile, it was blood, his ectoplasm blood, that came out instead.
He wiped his mouth and quickly made a dash for upstairs.
"DANIEL! GET BACK HERE!" Maddie exclaimed from down in the lab.
He swung open the front door and bolted into the air. But before he could even reach the height of the neighboring houses, a blue ray of energy struck him in the chest, right where his core was.
A pained gasp escaped his lips as he fell to the street below, not too far from where a white van was parked.
Four men in white suits with black sunglasses rushed out from behind the van, each pointing a gun toward the fallen hero.
Phantom winced as he made to stand up, but was stopped by the feeling of a gun pushed against his back.
"Don't bother getting up, ecto-scum. Let's lock him up, boys!"
The Halfa watched as two GIW agents jogged over and pointed their guns at him as the person behind him placed power-suppressing handcuffs on his wrists.
The agent from behind lifted the teen onto his feet and pushed him towards the white van.
'Crap, crap, crap!'
Phantom quickly began to try to piece together a plan, but before he could get any further, one of the agents punched him in the gut, making the teen fall onto his knees.
Yet again that day, Danny coughed up blood, though this time it was a mixture of green and red.
"Enough Operative K, we need it alive for the experiments," One of the agents reprimanded.
"Understood, Alpha. Get in the van ghost scum!"
Phantom gasped in pain as he was thrown into the back of the van harshly, black spots appearing in his vision.
"Alright let's-LOOK OUT!"
BOOM!
The teen turned his head to see a semi-blurry image of the GIW agents shooting at something.
BOOM!
After the second explosion, his vision started to become darker.
"Ghost Child! Get up!"
Phantom let out a surprised gasp as he was lifted up by the front of his suit. His eyesight slowly focused to find it was none other than Skulker.
"Skulker? W-"
"Now's not the time for questions!" The robotic ghost broke the handcuffs restraining the teen and pulled him out of the van. "GO! RUN!"
"GHOST SCUM!"
Danny woke up with a gasp, drenched in sweat yet again from another nightmare.
He groaned as he rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling with a defeated frown.
"Just one night without nightmares would be great…"
Kingdom of Aragon
-:-
The next morning was almost the exact same as the past two. The Team quickly got dressed and went to the Dining Hall to eat breakfast before the big day.
However…
Superboy glanced over to see Danny unusually quiet.
Over the past two days, the clone had hoped that what he was noticing wasn't the other distancing himself. He had hoped that it was just the stress getting to his friend. He had barely been eating and when he did, he barely ate anything. When he smiled, it seemed forced or tired at best. Now, he was barely speaking and seemed to be lost in his thoughts as everyone chattered around them.
But, when interacting with Dani, he would act almost entirely normal. He would laugh, comment, or even joke around, though tiredly, it was genuine. When a team member tried though, he would almost completely shut down and everything felt forced.
"Are you feeling okay, Danny? You don't seem like yourself today," Miss Martian asked with a look of concern.
The person of topic just smiled tiredly and offered a quick, "Just a lot on my mind today."
Well since she got him to talk-
"How did the investigation go at Pariah's Keep?" Superboy asked, hoping to get his friend to talk more.
The white-haired teen seemed hesitant. "It was alright. We honestly didn't find much there, so the investigation is still ongoing."
"Do you have any idea who could've been behind the whole thing?" Beast Boy asked with a hopeful expression.
Dora smiled apologetically. "Sorry Team, but we couldn't find anything. But don't worry, I'm sure we will find some answers soon."
"What about Hades?" Kid Flash mumbled.
The room went still. Phantom, Dani, and Dora all sent the speedster inquiring looks.
"Hades? What about him?" The eldest Halfa asked uninterestedly.
Superboy found this response odd but stayed silent as the conversation continued.
"Don't you find it suspicious that the guy keeps popping out of nowhere, but as soon as you show up he goes away? Even after the attempted assassination, the dude was literally smiling," Kid recalled.
Dora put her silverware down and looked between the Team and Phantom. "Are you suggesting Lord Hades might be behind the attack?" Dora asked incredulously.
"Yes, Princess. We have suspicions he may have been involved," Aqualad replied with a determined look.
Phantom sighed and put down his silverware as well. "And what evidence do you have?" he asked pointedly, still not making eye contact with the Team.
"Well uh you see, the funny thing is-"
"Miss Martian was disguised as one of the guards during the meeting. She noticed Hades had been particularly insistent on being a part of the investigation. And after we-"
Dora slammed her hand on the table as she shot up from her seat, and scales started to appear on her cheeks. "You did what?! Do you have any idea-?!"
Phantom didn't even blink, as he calmly raised his hand. "Dora, deep breaths…"
The princess huffed angrily, but took a deep breath as asked and started to calm herself down.
Their ghostly friend sighed tiredly and cleared his throat. "What you guys did was uncalled for-"
"But we-"
The Halfa turned towards them, flaring his bright green eyes in warning. "And unjustified," He glared. "Lord Hades was there because he is a ruler and was answering a summons. If M'Gann or any of you had been caught or if someone were to catch wind of what you did-"
"We were just trying to help, Phantom," Nightwing interjected with a reassuring wave.
Phantom's eyes flared again as he stood up with a threatening glare. "We didn't ask for your help, Nightwing. Now please just let us do our jobs and you guys do yours."
Kid raised an eyebrow. "Which is?"
Dani and Dora stood up and followed Phantom as he started to walk towards the Dining Hall doors. He glanced back with a final glare. "Staying out of trouble."
The Team was once again left alone in the Dining Hall.
"Who does that guy think he is?! We were just trying to help!" Kid exclaimed, slamming his hand down in frustration.
"And yet, it is evident that they do not wish for our help. Perhaps we came off as inconsiderate?" Aqualad offered.
Superboy grunted and sighed. "Yesterday, Danny told me that we couldn't go to Pariah's Keep because of how the politics work around here. He mentioned how we could give Frostbite and the others a bad rep if we tried to help."
"This Team was literally made to be a covert team. How would that give them a bad rep?" Kid retorted.
"Name one mission where something doesn't blow up?" Artemis commented.
All the Team members paused at that.
"That's a good point actually, we are really bad at covert missions," Beast Boy chuckled nervously.
"I wonder what he's so worked up about?" Zatanna said to no one in particular.
"He did seem to be pretty distracted this morning. Do you think something may have happened last night? Or yesterday?" Miss M asked with a worried tone.
"Maybe… maybe it's the ceremony today? Since there will be a large number of people in one place, security is going to be pretty tough," Zatanna suggested.
"That's a good theory, perhaps Danny will feel better by the end of the day," Aqualad smiled reassuringly. "Now then, let's get ready to go. We can't miss the ceremony after all."
Festival of Peace
-:-
The festival was buzzing with newfound excitement when they arrived. People of all ages flooded the streets and venues, many with more formal or ceremonial attire, Superboy noticed.
Their guides from the first day led the Team to where the ceremony was going to be held, the Main Stage.
The stage itself was set up like the letter 'T', a mixture of a Proscenium stage and a thrust stage. Large curtains with a black to purple ombré hid the rest of the stage, while yellow and red-lit torches were spread evenly around the outer edges of the dark gray stage.
The seating was closer to how a large amphitheater was set up, with rows and rows of light gray stone. Each row gradually filling up with more and more people.
Also based around the stage perimeter, were about a dozen or so guards. Some Far Frozen, some from the Kari Clan, a few of Dora's knights, and the rest Pandora's warriors. In each corner, were humanoid ghosts that chatted with either the guards or people from the crowd. Superboy guessed they must've been the translators that Ghost Writer mentioned.
The Team had decided to stay there and get situated since the area had already been getting packed.
After about half an hour, the crowd roared with newfound energy as Clockwork walked through the curtains and onto the stage.
"Greetings, all of those in attendance."
Clockwork's voice still sounded as stoic as ever even when his voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere; though the clone admittedly had gotten a little used to it by then.
"Welcome to this year's Interdimensional Festival of Peace."
The crowd roared and cheered with the energy of American football fans, Clockwork being patient as he waited for them to settle down.
"It is with great honor that this year, our future ruler of the Infinite Realms will be in attendance."
The crowd again roared; whistles, applause, and hollers of all kinds.
"Though he did not wish for this title, he has shown a great deal of us that he is not only powerful enough to stop foes a hundred times his own strength, but he is kind, caring, humble, and honest. All qualities that I, Clockwork, Master of Time, find and believe him to be more than fit to rule."
Roars and cheers rolled throughout the crowd once again. This time twice as long as the last.
Superboy's eyes widened as he saw Clockwork smile before continuing.
"Now, without further ado, and with my utmost pleasure that I now present the future King of the Infinite Realms-"
Superboy and the rest of the Team held their breath as they watched the curtains be pulled back.
Main Stage (Backstage), Festival of Peace
-:-
Danny didn't need super-hearing to hear that the place was packed.
He fiddled with the green aflame black crown in his hands as he stared at the ground, the uneasiness in his core still not having dissipated from the night before.
The green flames didn't hurt him, but they didn't offer a sense of warmth either. Just like the green ring on his right hand, it gave off a faint chill, much like his ice core did when his emotions were all over the place.
"Great One?"
He turned to see the Far Frozen yeti with a serious expression. "All security has been accounted for and is ready at a moment's notice."
The half-ghost nodded, "Thank you Frostbite."
The yeti nodded as well before a small reassuring smile appeared. "You're going to do great, Great One. There is no need to fret..."
Danny chuckled. Of course, Frostbite could tell, and like usual, he always knew what to say to help him feel more at ease.
"Thanks…" He looked down at the crown in his hands. "I just hope not to fall on my face as soon as I step out there."
The yeti chuckled along with him as he walked closer and held his large fur-covered hands out.
Danny handed the crown over and stood still as Frostbite gently positioned the crown so it floated over his head properly.
The yeti smiled at him encouragingly. "Just remember to speak as though you are speaking at a feast. Now, will you be speaking in English or another language of your choice? I've heard your Esperanto has significantly improved."
The teen smiled appreciatively. "I will speak English, though it would be best if translators were provided at different corners of the stage for the crowd."
Frostbite smiled and nodded. "It has already been done. For now, feel free to relax as I am away. Before I forget, shall I summon any rulers to the stage?"
He shook his head, still smiling. "No, I'd rather not give the wrong idea and show any favoritism. Thank you though."
"Of course, Great One. May the Ancients watch over you."
"And to you as well, old friend."
The yeti grinned as he bowed slightly before walking away.
Left alone, Danny turned to his thoughts as he waited behind the unopened curtains.
After Dani had told him about Kid and BB spying on her, he couldn't help but keep an eye on his own surroundings too. And sure enough, when they got back and Danny put the other halfa to sleep, he found Miss M spying on him. But why? Were they just trying to keep them safe? Or is it about the Hades and Heir thing? Surely, they simply could've just asked them about it.
Danny sighed mentally. 'Yeah but it's not like you've been a good friend lately, either. They have tried to ask you but you keep avoiding them, Fenton.'
He let out a quiet growl of frustration. 'Well of course I keep avoiding them! They keep causing a scene everywhere they go and are just going to make the situation worse! Hades already has it out for them, the least they could do is keep their heads down!'
But why do they keep bringing up Hades?
Danny froze as he thought back to what he could remember about the conversation. He shook his head as nothing really added up. Hades couldn't have been behind the assassination, because he was helping the rulers find more information about the assassin himself. Though the visiting rulers wouldn't approve, Frostbite, Pandora, and the half-ghost had all gone to talk to him about granting him permission to do his own investigating.
'So maybe all the stuff the Team is seeing is all a misunderstanding?'
His thoughts came to an abrupt stop as he heard Clockwork's voice boom overhead.
"-with my utmost pleasure that I now present the future King of the Infinite Realms-"
He held his breath as he fixed his posture and waited for the curtains to part. Two guards joined him on either side behind him..
"-Pariah's Bane, Savior of the Ghost Zone- Sir Daniel Phantom."
The crowd rose and roared with newfound vigor.
He let out his breath slowly as he walked towards the end of the stage next to Clockwork, the crowd still cheering.
Phantom raised his hand, to which the crowd slowly dialed down the noise to excited whispers.
He cleared his throat and offered a small smile. "Nobles, rulers, citizens, visitors, and people of the Infinite Realms, I welcome you all to the Interdimensional Festival of Peace!"
The crowd roared again, this time he decided to wait for them to quiet down first.
"I am pleased to see so many, from near and far, that have come to celebrate this annual event and share our many cultures, experiences, and resources. It is a great honor to be able to deliver the welcoming remarks for this special occasion."
A small roar again.
"As many of you may know, the past rulers of the Infinite Realms have never sought to make the Festival of Peace a priority. But I disagree. This Festival brings all of us together in ways that others could only dream of. This Festival allows us to meet new worlds, new dimensions, and new people. This Festival allows us to celebrate the one thing that has and can always bring so many together-"
The crowd started to chant the word 'peace' in unison.
He chuckled as he waited again for the crowd to die down before continuing.
"I truly hope this Festival has and will have been all that you've hoped it be and more. However…"
The crowd's cheers turned into harsh whispers.
"While we are here, I wanted to remind everyone in attendance that there is a zero fighting tolerance within these sacred grounds. As the Infinite Realms' future king, your safety is my number one priority. Therefore, should anyone disobey this rule, they will be exiled from the Festival of Peace. Should anyone maim or otherwise attempt to kill another, they will suffer the same fate as the assassin from yesterday's events and will be banished to the Unworld. One who does not show mercy towards others does not deserve any mercy in return. This will be your only warning."
The harsh whispers continued until someone shouted from the crowd. "Long live King Phantom!"
Slowly most of the crowd began to chant the same phrase in unison while the others cheered or hollered.
Phantom blinked and smiled bashfully before attempting to shout over the crowd. "May you continue to enjoy the festivities!"
The future king bowed his head and the crowd cheered even louder as he walked backstage.
"So… it appears the rumors were true. Our young friend truly is a future king…"
The teenage boy with v-shaped bangs and wore a black suit made a gagging face as he pet his striped cat with red eyes. "Not like that changes anything…"
"Come now Klarion, is that any way to behave at an event like this?"
The boy huffed and stood up to leave. "Teekl and I will be waiting to go get some food. Come find us when you're done."
He chuckled as he turned back to the stage and saw the Justice League's younger ranks slowly making their way out of the cramped audience, all showing different emotions.
Betrayal, shock, bewilderment, sorrow, and all the hidden ones that couldn't be seen by the normal human eye.
He smiled as he stood up and fixed his formal tunic from one of his past lives.
The Witch Boy was correct… This would change nothing in regard to their plan. However, it did mean that the next phase of their plan was going to run much more smoothly.
'Time to make some new friends…'