Ch. 11
Little by little, the Team had gotten out of bed and made their way to the kitchen. There was little to no conversation, even the greetings were brief as everyone ate their morning meal. It wasn't until about an hour later did Dick and Danny walk in.
Both had greeted the team, however, Danny was the only one to take a seat amongst the others.
Dick didn't even have to clear his throat to grab the attention of everyone as they all hushed in record time and gave him their undivided attention.
"Today we're going to start investigating. We will be split into three teams: Alpha, Beta, and Delta. Superboy, Kid Flash, Zatanna and myself are Alpha. Alpha is going to go to the most frequently attacked areas of the city to see if there is anything that the police might have overlooked. Impulse, Beast Boy, and Robin, you're Beta. Your job is to explore the city during the day and see if you can spot good watch posts. Miss M, Aqualad, and Artemis, you guys are Delta. You're going into the Ghost Zone with Phantom to speak with some of his allies in order to try to find more information as to what the enemy is planning. All teams, but Delta, are going to wear civilian clothing in order to have a better chance of our presence not being known. Als be sure to be on the lookout for any suspicious activity. We'll leave in an hour."
All the members nodded their heads and gave verbal confirmations, then turned back to what they were doing previously. It was at that moment that Jazz came into the room.
Her fiery orange hair was pulled back into a ponytail and wore a jumpsuit similar to Mrs. Fenton's. Strapped to her waist were a multi-pocketed belt with two gun holsters (both equipped with ecto-guns), one thermos, and two ammo cartridges. It appeared that she also had two wrist rays and a comm link in her right ear.
The older teen walked over to her sibling and started talking about the day's plans.
"I'm going to tag along with Danny. I know you may not feel comfortable with me being there. I know you're worried I'll get myself hurt or mess up the mission., however, you'll need someone else there that can handle ghosts if things get- 'out-of-hand'. I already gave Nightwing the locations of the most recent attacks and landmarks to investigate."
Danny was silent for a moment as he thought of a way to get his sister to stay with the main Team, but his mind went blank. The Halfa rolled his eyes and sighed, "Fine."
Jazz smirked at him, probably because she knew that Danny didn't have any excuse to say no.
Eventually, everyone grew bored and had decided to pass the time by listening to amusing stories about Danielle and Jazz living together.
"-and as she opened the door- WHAM! She was covered from head to toe in the green goo. I told her that I hope she learned her lesson in pranking me because I could a lot worse than some green goo. It took her hours to get the stuff off (since it was made to stick to ghosts even if they turned intangible), and after she got cleaned up, she apologized and told me she'd never prank me again."
Younger members of the Team clapped and laughed at Jazz's tale. Danny couldn't help but crack a smile at his clone's misfortune, they used to pull pranks on each other often when he lived in Amity. But Danny learned a long time ago never to pull pranks on his sister because 'hell hath no fury than a woman pranked'.
Everyone's attention turned to Dick as he stood up from his place on the couch. "Time to go."
"I'm booorrreeeedddd!" Bart whined loudly.
Gar, Tim, and Bart (Team Beta) have been walking for hours now and have yet to find anything.
The young trio turned another corner only to see they've already been to this street.
"I just don't get it guys. There's nothing! No suspicious activity, no questionable people, we're not even being given second looks! Not even Gar who is sitting on my shoulder as a green bird!"
Tim rolled his eyes under his sunglasses. He knew that Bart and Gar were easy to work with, but at the same time, they get bored very easily.
"Well, it's not exactly like we can check East-Downtown, Bart. That area is almost completely closed off to the civilians, not mentioning the fact that that is where Alpha is investigating." Tim stopped, almost causing Bart to run into him. "Let's go check the park again, maybe we missed something..."
Bart sighed as he watched Tim start walking away. 'I just hope everyone else is having better luck than we are,' he thought as he caught up to the speed-walking Boy-Wonder.
Dick and the rest of Alpha were surprised, to say the least.
When they arrived at East Downtown, they found the roads closed off and police tapes up. After, looking around and seeing no officers around, they let themselves in.
It didn't take long to reach their first destination. The road was in pieces, windows were cracked and broken, glass littered the ground, there was debris all over the sidewalk, and scorch marks were evident on almost every surface nearby.
"Do you think the bomb went off here?" Zatanna asked quietly.
Wally shook his head. "The way the pieces of road are scattered, it's not likely. See the debris over on the sidewalk? Something—or someone—crashed here."
"That explains why the pieces of road are bunched up the way they are, but how does that explain the shattered windows?" Connor commented.
Dick made a motion to follow him as he started walking again. "It could be possible that something crashed there because it was hit by some type of artillery. Probably tried to escape but was shot into the building, before being shot again, hitting the road."
Connor grunted in agreement, thus leaving Alpha in silence as they continued into the next location.
Jazz creaked the front door open and looked around. She nodded her head, swung the door open, and then beckoned everyone inside.
"I don't know how long my parents will be gone, so we need to hurry," Jazz declared.
The Team members nodded while Danny remained silent.
The group quickly made their way downstairs and with little to no effort, everyone piled into the Specter Speeder and they were off.
"This place still gives me the creeps," Artemis commented quietly.
Do to their previous adventures, the majority of their group wasn't too surprised entering the Ghost Zone. The only person genuinely new to the atmosphere and appearance of the GZ was Kaldur. (Due to taking a personal leave when Danny had built his replica of the Ghost Portal at Mount Justice.)
"Is it always this dark within the Ghost Zone?" the Atlantian asked.
Danny gave him a small smile as he answered, "Yeah, it usually doesn't change much. That's another reason why it's usually very difficult to determine time here. What may feel like an hour here could easily be several hours to the Living."
Kaldur raised an eyebrow, which Jazz happened to notice and decided to clarify. "The ghosts refer to our world as 'The World of the Living' or 'the Human Realm'. So by 'the Living', Danny is referring to our world."
"Do you not consider yourself human my friend? Or are you required to speak as though you are one of them while inside this dimension?" he asked.
Danny took his time before responding, "I'm not sure how to answer your question Kaldur. I guess... I choose to use the language of the ghosts because it makes me feel less foreign while I'm here."
It was quiet as the members all took his answer into consideration, Kaldur being the only one to verbally respond. "I see..."
The subject was dropped and they continued on in silence before the Atlantian had more questions. Questions that were mostly answered by the either M'Gann, Artemis, and Jazz.
It felt as though an hour had passed before the group finally reached their destination.
Danny landed the Specter Speeder well within the woods and began to lead Delta towards the castle nearby (transforming into Phantom first of course). As they walked, Miss M noticed something about the trees, "Are the trees actually black?"
Phantom nodded and began to explain the strange organisms. "If you remember Dora's story from last time you met her, Aargon had stopped time from moving forward. So after Dora and I freed her kingdom from her brother's influence, time began to move again. If you look carefully, you'll notice that the trees are beginning to blossom purple and blue flowers. That's just one of the many plants here finally being allowed to flourish again."
By the time they reached the castle gate, one of the guards were already missing. Mostly likely to go inform the princess of their arrival.
The heroes walked up to the gates, Phantom in the lead. As they walked past the guard, the masked ghost bowed respectfully at the Halfa, in which Phantom did the same. The guard's jaw dropped a little in surprise and the white-haired teen couldn't help but chuckle at the other's reaction. However, before the teen could reassure the guard, the princess and the other guard came running over to him.
"Sir Phantom!" Princess Dorathea practically tackled Phantom as she hugged him.
Phantom laughed as he embraced the blonde ghost. "It's good to see you too your Majesty."
Dora let go of him with an attempted look of betrayal, "You promised you wouldn't be so formal Sir Phantom..."
He raised an eyebrow and smirked back, "Just like you promised not to call me Sir Phantom?"
The princess laughed lightly, "Touche, young Phantom. Oh, I see you brought your new friends. Hello, everyone!"
"It's nice to see you again your majesty!" Miss M bowed, the other heroes following suit.
"Now, now! There is no need to bow. Any friend of Phantom's is a friend of mine."
The princess waved off the hero's apologies and turned towards the Atlantian. "I'm afraid I haven't met you before. Are you too a friend of Sir Phantom?"
Aqualad nodded and began to explain why he hadn't met her due to a personal leave when some members of the Team came to the Ghost Zone some time ago.
"Well, you're here now. I do hope you'll feel welcome here in our kingdom. Now, if you will all follow Sir Phantom and me to the castle. We'll discuss matters over lunch."
As they walked, Miss M, Jazz, and Artemis began to explain why Dora referred to Phantom as 'Sir', while Dora and Phantom began to make small talk.
"I see your kingdom's trees are finally beginning to bloom, are the gardeners are happy?" Phantom asked.
Dora's eyes lit up at the mention of her garden. "Ah, so you noticed as well? My people and I are so excited about this year's harvest. We may finally be able to trade multiple things rather than just weapons! Even the farmers are ready to get back to work again after all these years! And we owe it all to you and your old companions, Sir Phantom."
Phantom let out a nervous laugh, "Now, let's not make such exaggerated claims your Majesty. It was you who took back this kingdom, not me or my old friends."
"Oh, you are ever so modest Danny. You may believe in what you wish, but without your influence, me nor any of the other ghosts you've made it where we are today. Remember that..."
Phantom sighed and let the conversation drop at that, in which both he and the princess continued on in silence.
Meanwhile, the other heroes accompanying him noticed that Phantom was gaining a lot of attention from the majority of the ghosts they passed by. Every ghost, servant or not, would bow or curtsy as they passed by, which Phantom and Dora would reply with a nod of recognition or a bow of the head back. Before any of the members could bring up the topic, they had all arrived at the dining hall.
They followed Dora and Phantom all the way to the end of the massive dining table. Dora stood by the head chair, while the ghost teen stood by her right. Aqualad stood next to Phantom, while Miss M and Artemis stood on the other side.
Phantom pulled out the seat for the princess and earned a teasing look from the said person as she sat down. Phantom then sat closest to her on her right. The other heroes reluctantly sat in the chairs they stood by as well and remained in a tense silence.
Princess Dorathea started to chuckle and looked at Phantom, "Now look what you've done Sir Phantom, you've gone and confused your friends as to how they're supposed to act."
The teen laughed at the princess's words and looked at his friends, "You guys don't need to worry about formalities here, I only do it as a sign of respect due to my status within the Ghost Zone."
The members all sighed a little in relief, which resulted in both Phantom and Dora laughing lightly.
They made small talk with the Princess until lunch was ready. The servants bowing and saying hello to Phantom as they put the plates of food down.
They ate for a little while, talking here and there, and once everyone was done, the real conversation had begun.
"-so we came here to see if you could shed some more light on the situation."
Dora still had her hands intertwined as she thought over the teen's words. After a while, she answered, "I'm afraid I know a little too muchabout what is going on within the Ghost Zone. Where would you like me to start?"
"From the beginning, we need as much information as possible," Aqualad interjected.
"Aqualad!" Miss M scolded.
Dora waved the interjection off, "It's alright Miss Martian, you may speak freely while you are in my presence. I will not punish you for speaking your mind or asking questions. Now, back to the problem at hand. I guess it had begun about 6 months after—Sir Phantom—left the Land of the Living and took refuge in their dimension. No one knows exactly how, but word had gotten around that you had disappeared and an old follower of Pariah's had decided to use it to their advantage. They were able to open the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep and freed the Dark One."
"After a while, things were quiet. Which was both relieving and terrifying at the time. We didn't know if Pariah had decided to give up his old habits of conquering, or if he was planning something big. It eventually got to the point where there was a Grand Meeting, except..."
Phantom's eyes lit up dangerously, "Except Pariah ended up crashing the meeting, correct?"
Dora sighed, "We all demanded that he leave our meeting of peace, but he would not comply with our wishes. Fortunately, he wasn't there to kill, he was there to give us a message. Danny... he wanted you. He said that he was no longer focused on conquering both the Land of the Living and the Dead, he only wanted revenge. He demanded that we give you up or else we were declaring war against him. Of course, at the time, we had no idea where you were, nor did we have any intention of telling him if we did know your whereabouts. When we explained that to him, he grew furious and left the meeting declaring we'd all regret not giving you up. A couple weeks later, a strange ghost claiming to be 'Dan Phantom' appeared and started wreaking havoc. He has destroyed fourteen small civilizations, nine towns, and three major kingdoms about three days journey from here. We've been trying to rally up as many forces as we can, but it appears that many ghosts have already given up and fear being punished by either Dan or Pariah Dark."
The room was quiet after a while, and when someone did speak, the dangerous tone sent shivers down everyone's spines. "I swear on my afterlife and my Knighthood that I will do everything in my power to stop those two from hurting anyone else. Because not only did they attack the Land of the Living, they've attacked my home, my people. And that is the last mistake they are ever going to make..."
"Danny..."
Said person's eyes softened as he turned to Princess Dora. She stood up (as did he and everyone else), and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to promise me anything my friend because I know that you'll always pull through for us. Just promise me something..."
He raised an eyebrow at her, "Yes?"
She gave him a sympathetic look, "Promise to remain true to yourself, even when in battle..."
He smiled at the princess, "Of course, your Majesty."
Dora pulled the young hero into a tight embrace before seeing the young heroes off. "Don't forget that a private Grand Meeting is going to be held tonight and you are not to be late."
The teen nodded his head and waved goodbye as he and the others got back into the Specter Speeder.
Soon enough, they were back in the Fentonworks Lab and slowly began to make their way back to the warehouse.
Dick was honestly frustrated. There was nothing at the locations that Jazz had given him besides debris and rubble from the old battle and bomb sites.
He glared at the red dots on the computer as he laid back in his chair with an aggravated sigh. The sound of footsteps was heard, but Dick didn't bother turning towards whoever just entered the room.
"Delta just called back and said that they were on their way back," Zatanna announced softly.
The older hero nodded his head and continued to glare at the screen, however, the other just sighed in exasperation. "You know you should really take a break. You've been staring at the screen for the past hour and a half."
He raised an eyebrow but still kept his attention on the screen, "Only an hour and a half? I felt shorter than that..."
"Dick. I'm not messing around, you really need to take a break. Come to the living room, just relax for a couple minutes." Zatanna reprimanded.
The hero sighed at his ex-girlfriend and reluctantly agreed to accompany her to the living room, "But only for a few minutes. As soon as Delta walks down those stairs, I'm going to keep investigating."
As soon as Dick and Zatanna walked into the living room, the sounds of gears and running footsteps echoed the room.
"Nightwing!"
Everyone tensed up when they heard their leader's name exclaimed with a hint of panic.
Artemis appeared from the stairwell with a look of slight panic and worry. "The Fenton's are here and they don't look happy."
Nightwing started to walk towards her, meanwhile giving everyone directions, "Superboy, Kid Flash, and Zatanna, come with me upstairs. The rest of you stay down here and keep an eye on the cameras around town, and also on the observation screen."
He turned to Artemis as their small group quickly began to make their way upstairs. "Where's everyone else?"
"Upstairs. Phantom is trying to calm the Fenton's down but I'm sure you know how well that's going to work."
"We need to make sure that a fight doesn't break out and under no circumstances are we going to inform them about our findings."
Kid Flash raised an eyebrow, "But we didn't find anything."
Nightwing nodded his head, "Exactly, and we don't want the Fenton's to know that. It would just cause conflict and would give them a justification for us to leave their dimension."
Everyone nodded as they finished making their way up the stairs to find the Fenton's and the other members at a stand-off. One side staring angrily at the other, and the other with concerned looks on their faces.
"What is going on here?!" Nightwing demanded.
Everyone's attention turned to Nightwing.
Sam decided to break the silence, "Danny has a lot of explaining to do! First, he invites strangers from a different dimension, then he decides to give those strangers our warehouse and confidential files, and then he drags Jazz of all people into this mess, and now you're not giving us any information from your investigating and still refuses to tell us what the investigation is even about! And that's not mentioning the fact that he thought he had the right to convince every single ghost we know, to not give us any information regarding Pariah Dark and Dan Phantom!"
"Yeah! And where is the justice in that?!" Jack added.
"Because I gave Phantom the order not too. Now, I need all of you to calm down, so that we may sort this whole situation out. I'd kindly like to remind you who is actually in charge of this mission and who authorized it in the first place." Nightwing's voice had gotten dangerously low, which the Fentons must've gotten too since they almost immediately calmed down.
"So, what? Is Danny your errand boy?" Sam asked.
Several of the Team members shifted at Sam's words, clearly upset that she would think so low of their friend. Connor and Aqualad both tightened their fists in hopes that it would keep their anger at bay.
"We are a team. Phantom is a member of this team and is treated as such. No one is thought lower than the other because we all work towards the same goal," Aqualad calmly explained.
Maddie scoffed and began rubbing the bridge of her nose, "You've got to be kidding me. Fine. Say Phantom isn't just some puppet, what are you doing here and what is this mission you keep mentioning. Most of all, why are you keeping information from us?"
Nightwing sighed in exasperation, "All information regarding the mission is completely confidential, including any new information we receive. Now, about the ghosts that reside in the Ghost Zone. We don't want word getting out about what we are doing or that we're even here in Amity Park. Therefore, I ordered Phantom to tell all the ghosts to please not give out any information to anyone until further investigation."
"Asking the ghosts to not give out information is fine, now that we've heard the reason why. However, that still doesn't explain why you won't give us any new information that you may have found that the police or we didn't find." Jack crossed his arms after adding his two cents in.
"Again, since it regards the mission, it's completely confidential," Kid Flash answered.
"Oh, come on!" Attention turned to Sam and Tucker. "Fine! Since you won't give us any information, at least answer this, did you or did you not find new information regarding our case?"
"Yes, in fact, we found a couple of things," Artemis declared.
"Great! Since the information doesn't pertain to your mission, then you can tell us!" Tucker proclaimed excitedly.
"That's where you're wrong, unfortunately," Phantom interjected. "You see, the information does regard our mission, therefore, we can't tell you."
"Phantom, the adults are talking please stay silent, it's what you're best at," Maddie said off-handedly.
"Excuse me? Do you want to say that again? I don't think I quite heard that," Danny sarcastically replied.
Maddie turned to face her son completely, "I said, you're a liar, Phantom. Even the simplest statements could be tall tales and therefore think it would be beneficial for all of us if you just remain silent."
"My wife is right, you should never listen to a ghost. All they do is tell lies and attempt to manipulate you," Jack added with a stern look.
"I'm pretty sure that isn't something you're supposed to say to your kid Mr. and Mrs. Fenton," Zatanna glared.
Maddie scoffed, "That's not my child miss, that is just an odd and evil manifestation of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness."
"How dare you say that about your son!" Miss Martian protested.
"My son died a long time ago!"
Silence.
It felt as though a spear was thrust into his heart and was slowly pushing its sharp blade deeper into the wound.
Danny said nothing as he turned around and began to walk away.
"Don't you dare turn your back on us!" Maddie screamed in frustration.
The teen stopped and turned his head slightly. "Why? All you and everyone else do is scream and hunt the ghosts and me without mercy, and when we try to fight back to defend ourselves, all you do is point and declare us 'evil'. So do us a favor-" He pulled the hood of his cloak onto his head, his eyes now glowing menacingly from underneath. "-stay out of our way, or you will be the ones who have to watch your back..."
Danny turned back around and started walking away slowly.
"Did you just threaten us?!" Sam exclaimed.
"No-"
ZAP! BZZT!
Several light fixtures above the Fentons shattered. Sparks raining down from the ceiling as though they were falling stars.
"-that's a promise."
With no other words, Phantom left the warehouse, leaving just the Fentons and the rest of the members standing in shock.
"Pariah, it is time..."
"Agreed, Dan Phantom."
"We will show the boy no mercy!" both voices declared.