I was going to wait until I'd written up the entire arc to post any more, but then my computer destroyed what some of what I'd written – I'm so grateful for automatic backup! Story short, I'm uploading what remains early for safety reasons.

x.x

Danny left Superboy in the clearing and made for the Mountain, following the sight of its barren side when gaps in the canopy permitted and walking blindly when they concealed his beacon. The forest ended. Stepping out was like stepping from a loose hedge. A wall of sunlight collided with his eyes and he blinked in the clearing at the mountain's foot.

The field of grass hid an entryway. Danny wandered over the field, crouching down. His fingers found a seam in the earth, a slight depression. This was where the earth had opened up and the ship had flown into in the dreamworld. He stomped on the ground. No echo. The earth did not quiver artificially.

Danny hissed a sigh. Going ghost, then intangible, he dropped into the earth and appeared in a grey corridor with the same metallic walls that covered the Mountain. He recovered his human form and shivered. Another sigh, heavier, and traipsed to the room M'gann had given him.

The door was open a crack. He checked the top of the door. No bucket. Cool unease churned in Danny's gut and he wrenched the door open. The room was dark, and nothing seemed out of place. The room was as barren as he had left it.

With on weary swipe of his forehead, he closed his eyes and collapsed into bed.

Chill and dampness assulted him in a cold slap to the face. Danny reared out of bed and tumbled to the floor, blinking widely. His fingers clutched at the bedspread, and found a dry corner of the sheet. He rubbed his face dry, then turned his clothes intangible to drain the moisture from them.

Shoes squeaked in the corridor outside and Wally - Kid Flash - carreered into the doorframe. He spotted Danny.

"Aw man, I missed it!"

Danny gave him a scathing look, which he didn't react to. Kid Flash wasn't teh one who'd been put upon here. Danny got to his feet.

"Phooey," he said blandly. "Now get out of my room."

Wally smiled. "Seriously?" he asked. "'cause I was going to say, that was a classic."

He jumped onto the bedside table and shuffled back into the wall, making himself comfortable.

"This one time I tried the whole bucket thing on my English teacher - absolute disaster! Mr. Jones almost failed me out of science. I still say it was applied physics."

"I think you might have misheard me," Danny growled, stomping up to Kid Flash. "I said: get out."

Kid Flash squinted and cocked his head, knocking his fist against his upper ear - as if trying to knock something out of his head.

"Did you say you think you've eaten a trout?"

Danny's form flashed, and in a moment his hand was covered in a while glove. An ectoblast inflamed Danny's hand and he let that speak for him. Kid Flash's eyes flared wide and he bolted from the room. Danny was hot on his heels.

Kid Flash was a metre from the door. Danny's shoes squeaked against the floor and he skidded into him. His shoulder knocked into the metal wall a moment later. The world spun dizzyingly and his hand collided with the wall, the ectoblast exploding against his hand.

His ghost form flickered out on impact. He slid down the wall. His shirt rode up and his bare skin cringed against the cold.

Kid Flash loomed over him with a grin. He didn't even look like the collision had knocked him.

"You totally fell for that!" he crowed. A sly smirk twisted his lips. "I mean, you really-"

"Yeah, I get it," Danny interrupted, and gathered his feet under him. Wally reached out a hand. Danny looked at it suspiciously, and turned to him.

"Wally," said Kid Flash. "But you already knew that."

"Yeah."

Danny considered the hand a moment, the took it. He pulled hard, lifting himself to his feet as Kid Flash - Wally - stumbled. He grinned down at him, and pulled his hand free.

Wally didn't let go.

He held firm and dragged Danny down the hall. Danny was forced to turn his hand intangible or trip.

"Now come help me pick a movie!" Wally called.

Wally guzzled a litre of coke in the first half-hour and dashed for the toilet somewhere within the next. In his absence, Superboy descended on the opposite couch. His dry stare made Danny's feet itch, and he escaped from the room a moment later.

"Hey, what happened to the movie?" Wally demanded.

Danny shut the door to the lounge with a click. He shrugged. "I didn't feel like watching anymore."

Wally pouted. "Huh. Well, I'm going back. Black Canary's just beamed in though, so stay on your toes."

"Black Canary?" Danny was puzzled.

Wally shrugged. "Mentor, pseudo-den mother, and nagging Mom all in one package. Don't tell her I said that. She'd kick my butt. And yours."

"Right," Danny drawled. "I think you're forgetting I have one pretty major advantage over you." He poked Wally between the eyes.

Wally tried to stop it. He batted Danny's hand away, his his hands went right through. When Danny's finger entered his forehead, he went crosseyed trying to look at it. He leaned back, grimacing at the finger.

"Huh," he muttered. "Well. Good luck with that."

He opened the door. Danny spotted Superboy, but avoided his gaze.

He might be able to turn the bed intangible and wring it of water that way, but that would leave a puddle of the of the sort that his Dad would sweep, green and glowing, to a corner of the lab: messy, and unlikely to go away before it caused trouble. At least, Danny thought, as he grabbed a bucket and a cloth from the laundry, this puddle wasn't likely to start chewing on his homework.

Not that he knew what his homework was, or if Mr. Lancer had assigned any. Knowing Lancer, he'd fail Danny even though he had the quite reasonable excuse that oh, you know, he was in another world.

It was a conclusion he'd come to the moment he realised that there was an apparently public 'Justice League' of superheros.

The path to his room took him through a cavernous hall. The smooth linoleum-like floor was replaced by something more gripping that caught his feet as he entered, and he looked down at it in surprise. As he did, the grip vanished and slipped forward and tripped.

As he fell, the ground cushioned his fall like a cushy mattress. He bounced twice until it firmed underneath him again.

"Sorry about that," said a woman's voice.

Danny startled into action, glancing up at the woman. He dived for his bucket and cloth and vanished from sight. Hidden in the middle of the entryway, he observed the woman. She was short, blonde and wearing all black. Her hands were planted on her hips, and she was smiling a little.

This must be Wally's Black Canary. Were most Justice League members fond of black?

He turned himself intangible for good measure.

"Sorry," she called, "I was testing the floor. You going to appear?"

Her fingers fluttered against her thigh, and her lips twisted in a smirk. She crossed her arms. "Alright, I'm Black Canary. They tell me you're Phantom. Have you ever fought hand-to-hand before?"

Only a little. His mother had sighed him up for karate but he'd never done very well and had eagerly dropped out. Sure, there were a few times he'd swung ghosts around, but it was unlikely that that counted.

"You fought with the team in the dreamworld, did an alright job of it, too, from what I've heard. And you faced Martian Manhunter. Should I be flattered that you're hiding?"

"Okay, I'm not hiding!" The bucket and cloth fell the ground and Danny flew to meet her. She smiled eagerly at him.

"Then help me test out the new floor, hey? How about a spar?"

Danny answered with an ectoblast.

Black Canary dodged, but the green goo stuck to her hair. She moved in, throwing a punch and a kick. Danny went intangible and watched as her limbs sailed through him.

"See ya!" he laughed, kicking at her as she past him. A hand grabbed his leg and hurled him to the ground. Danny went intangible before he hit, and floated out of the floor.

"You're going to have to do better than that!"

Another ectoblast, this time she dodged cleanly and got into range again. She paused. Danny readied another ectoblast. She sent him falling to the ground with a hit that rocked him as it fizzled into life. The ground was coming for him, but with the half-formed ectoblast sticking to his hand he couldn't go intangible.

He moved his hand in front of his chest, letting the ectoblast blast him back from the ground. He stumbled backwards, and an arm wrapped around his neck, pressing against his windpipe.

Danny froze.

"There are lots of ways to get out of this grip," Black Canary's voice sounded mocking. "Do you know them?"

Danny raced through everything his mother had said on the subject. He could have sworn she'd spoken about it. She had. She'd demonstrated with his Dad and it had been cringeworthy. But how had she done it? He didn't know. He'd done his best to forget.

His heart was beating in his ears and he swore he could hear the sound of the television in the distance. Black Canary's breath made the faintest of wet rasps.

He rocked his body. The arm pressed harder.

He kicked back.

She adjusted her posture a little.

Another kick.

Not even a twitch.

He reached up and pulled at her arm, but it held firm. With both hands, he tried to pry it apart. This was nuts. He was stronger. He was part ghost, he could hurl ghost-dragons through bleachers!

He heard a slight crack. It was a organic noise, like a tendon against bone. He watched as his pink-cream hand struggled to pry Black Canary's arm away and stared.

She let go and stepped back. Danny sagged to the balls of his feet. His face was tingling and his feet felt cold. He ducked his head. What had just happened?

Black Canary had let him go.

He whirled on her. "I could have gotten free!"

She smiled a grim smile and nodded. A clap of her hands summoned glowing screens to circle them and she brought up a record of their fight. The Black Canary on screen threw Danny to the floor, and ghost-Danny dived in and out of it. A moment later she sailed right through Danny as he became intangible.

"You could have," Black Canary agreed. "Very easily. So why didn't you?"

Danny pursed his lips. Why hadn't he?

"I thought you didn't want me too," he answered moodily, but it didn't feel quite right.

Black Canary raised a slim eyebrow. "Yet you used intangibility in the rest of the fight. It's true that if I were to train you, you would learn to fight with and without your powers, but today you had permission to use them at their fullest extent. Yet at a vital moment, you hesitated, forgot your powers and acted like any other untrained human."

Danny bristled with pursed lips, but refused to speak. He stormed over to his bucket and plucked it up. A hand came down on his shoulder. Danny pulled it off. Black Canary watched him sadly.

"What?" Danny asked.

"I don't know how long you've been a meta, Danny, but I want to help you get in touch with your abilities. You'll not only learn to punch with your powers just as well as your fists and know which you should be using, but also how to cope without them. You wouldn't even need to change forms to get out of that grip."

Danny smiled.