'Phase in' and 'Phase out' are my new terms for Danny's intangibility, because 'intangibility' is clumsy. (look everyone, magic trick, I'm back from the dead!)

x.x

No-one was moving, and that didn't make sense. Superboy was doing his best, but he was stuck mid-air, and he wasn't able to do more than flail. Maybe that's why – maybe they were afraid of Manhunter's power – but these were the same people who hadn't baulked at taking down two jet ships, so that didn't sit right.

Miss Martian's corpse was at Aqualad's feet, and no-one had their fists out.

"She is no more dead than we are," Martian Manhunter spoke with slow words, "but if we do not awaken quickly, then we shall all perish."

"You said we're in a dream world," Robin said, and Kid Flash pinched himself and muffled a cry of pain, just to see if he'd wake up. "I'm going to guess this—"

"An unwinnable training scenario!" Kid Flash said in shock. "This place is designed to kill us!"

The earthbound team members shifted in horror.

"So how do we get out?" Danny demanded. He was twitchy with the need to escape, and Martian Manhunter himself needed to be taken down, he was sure.

Martain Manhunter answered, but he didn't look at Danny. He turned to Aqualad. "The dreamworld is held together by an anchor – Miss Martian became that anchor when she wrest control of the dreamworld from me. In doing so, she made you all believe that the training exercise was real – such was her conviction that she has convinced the dreamworld itself to that it is real. I should have shocked her out of the dreamworld, but by then the dreamworld had already become its own anchor."

Aqualad uncrossed his arms, and there was defeat in his voice. "You mean to say that Danny is a personification of the dreamworld – that he is the new anchor."

"What?" Danny squawked. He looked from Aqualad to Kid Flash to Robin to Martian Manhunter. There was no doubt in any of their faces—they all honestly thought he was the anchor. Above them, Superboy's growls had stopped. He knew Danny was in danger, but there was nothing he could do.

"You guys don't honestly believe this, right?" he asked, wafting backwards. "I'm real – I'm not the anchor!"

"By definition, a self-sustaining anchor believes itself to be real," Manhunter commented without looking his way. He continued in an assuring tone: "Its creation is not a disaster: a dreamworld will cease upon a self-sustaining anchor's destruction."

He was saying that Danny's family wasn't real. Sister Jazz's blue headbands. Dad's terrifying, safety-orange HAZMATs. The creepy glowing hotdogs that would come grin at him from the microwave. Tuck's meat-eating. Sam's vegetarianism. Mom's hugs. Dad's fishing trips. Lake Eerie, the ghost portal—

"I'm real," Danny croaked, and wet his lips. "I swear I'm real!"

They weren't listening.

"I'm sorry," Aqualad said, and his hands moved towards his back – the two whips were going to appear in his hands in any moment. Danny darted away – and pain ripped into his thigh. He looked down, half expecting it be missing. Green ectoplasm was dripping from around a disk the size of his palm, embedded in his leg.

A whine of pain was beating at his chest, but he couldn't find the breath to let it out, and there were spots in is eyes. Someone grabbed his arms and pushed him towards a wall – the disk would get trapped against the wall, it'd dig in deeper and it would hurt. Danny shifted to intangibility before impact, and he passed through into the walls of the mountain.

His blue glow lit Kid Flash's face: he'd been held before he went intangible. Danny struggled against the grip on his arms. If they went tangible now, they'd be crushed by the rock. He stopped struggling. Their momentum sent them through the dark walls of the mountain and into the sunlight and the air.

There was a roar of approaching ships, and Danny strained to look behind them. A flock of black shapes was swooping in over the water.

"I can't kill you," Kid Flash choked out.

The words made him look back. Kid Flash's face was twisted with remorse. Couldn't or Wouldn't? His hands weren't strained where they held onto Danny by virtue of Danny's intangibility. The sea was murky blue and white-crested far beneath them, and if Kid tried anything he would fall to his death.

Kid Flash let go. Gravity took hold of him and he fell towards the sea. He'd die on impact from this height. Danny dived after him, losing his own intangibility to grab hold of Kid Flash's body.

A canon boomed behind them. Triumph lit Kid Flash's eyes.

He'd set them both up to die, Danny realised, and was consumed before he could phase out.