[ VII. A Synonym of Madness ]

Two Years Ago…

Endurance training lasted three months, and at the very end of it their twenty-person cohort was reduced to ten. Dusan said that he must have been going soft.

If that was 'soft' then Danny shuddered to think what Dusan's ruthlessness looked like.

Phase Two of their training was…different. For one, instead of the familiar base of Infinity Island, now Danny's cohort was transplanted to some desert. For another, the expectations and demands placed upon them fundamentally increased compared to the three months of endurance training they had.

But all the same, the training was grueling, the sun was hot, and sand got absolutely everywhere.

Oh. Can't forget about the chores either.

Henri looked up from the whetstone, disbelief spreading across his face. "You were going to…quit?"

"Well, yeah?" Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean— I'm not now. I've come too far to quit now, but back then? I was about ready to quit by week two." He sighed, leaning his head back against the cool stone wall. "You had to admit that I wasn't cut out for it back then. Hell, even now, I still don't think I am."

Henri shook his head, the dagger ringing in his hand as he glided it against the whetstone. "I envy you, Danny. You must've had a pretty good life before coming here."

It's because he came here that Danny had a life. But Henri wasn't supposed to know about that. "What makes you say that?"

Henri scoffed. "Well—" He lifted his knife, meticulously inspecting the edge before flipping it around to start sharpening the other side. "Just look around you. The other novices? The people you've trained with? None of them are even going to think of dropping out just because the training's tough as shit."

"I'm not a math guy but statistically I'm pretty sure that's impossible."

"You're not taking into account the human factor, that's why. You know, the majority of the people who get picked up for this are orphans, or runaways, or people who just got dealt the—uh, how does the saying go again? Short end of the stick? Yeah, short end of the stick one too many times."

Henri paused. "You know Niki?"

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"Week Five. Brown hair, short, has more faces than fingers, a really strong kick."

It was the kick that unlocked the memory, strangely enough. After his first month of endurance training, Dusan came in with a woman—a recently graduated apprentice—and had her spar with the best person in their cohort: a guy named Amir. Danny didn't know him very well—in fact he disliked the majority of the people in his cohort—but that didn't stop him from audibly wincing when he witnessed Niki kick Amir's back so hard she dislocated both of his shoulders. He was in the infirmary for weeks and got set back in months of training after, so Danny heard.

Seeing Danny's expression, Henri laughed. "Yeah, that Niki. Before she came here, she used to be an addict. Got kicked onto the streets and spent a whole year doing whatever she could chasing her next high. Got into a fuck ton of trouble too. The League took her off the streets, cleaned her up, and gave her a new life. Last I heard, she's posing as the date to some fancy Greek diplomat in Monaco."

"How do you even know all this?"

"Maybe if you stopped being a kissass and actually made friends with the others, you'd know these things."

Danny threw the rag he was using to wipe a knife at Henri's head. "A kissass— well fuck you too." Then, grumbling under his breath, "It's not my fault that they don't like me."

"Yes, yes," Henri placated, throwing the rag back. "Poor little Danyal, stuck being Mentor's favorite."He flicked his auburn hair. "Good thing I'm around to keep all the mean kids away."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Whatever would I do without you."

"Starve, probably." Henri cleaned off the knife. "But I digress. You see, out there—" he jerked his chin towards the open window, and beyond it the wide expanse of sand and shrubs and rock " —we have nothing. A life in the slums, of being treated less than dirt. We are leeches. Vagrants. Eyesores. But here? Here, Ra's al Ghul gives us food and clothes and a roof over our heads. Here he gives us purpose. A meaning to our lives."

"Is that why you're here?"

Henri's smile was dark with contempt. "Paris may be the city of lights, but that only means it casts larger shadows."

The metal door that guarded the armory groaned open. A welcome interruption considering that Danny didn't know how he was going to respond to Henri's insight.

Or…not.

"Oi!" Owens banged his fist twice on the side of the door before leaning up against it. His relaxed figure contrasted against the annoyance that scrunched his face. "Ugh, you guys aren't even halfway done yet?"

Danny rolled his eyes. "We just started an hour ago."

Owens—and no one really knew if that was his first name, last name, or even real name—was the youngest member of their cohort after Danny. He was a six-foot tall pillar of jackassery, and at sixteen, would probably grow even taller in time. His skin was tanned and covered with bursts of freckles over his face and arms from long, grueling hours in the sun. Owens always seemed to be sporting a scowl whenever Danny saw him. Or maybe Owens simply had that 'recently sucked on a sour lemon face.' Who could say?

He clicked his tongue, crossing the room to snatch the cloth Danny was using to wipe down the sword in his lap. "Shove off, loser."

Danny held firm against Owens' foot pushing him away. "Hey, what gives?"

"Mentor ordered for you to be 'summoned to the east compound' so I have to take over doing your shit," he grumbled.

Henri narrowed his eyes, the knife in his hands taking on a dangerous glint.

Owens just scoffed, raking a hand through his hair. "Don't even try to start shit, Henri. Remember what happened to the last trainee that tried to murder someone without permission?"

Danny grimaced. The incident itself happened within a different cohort, but stories had a way of circulating. Rumor had it that one of the trainees tried to gain favor with their instructor by eliminating another member of their cohort. Drowned them on the beach and didn't do a good enough job at hiding the body. The trainee was found out very quickly—there were eyes everywhere on the island after all—and summarily punished. Though exactly what the punishment was, no one except those in the cohort knew; the only thing known for certain was that no one would ever make the same mistake again.

Henri huffed, resuming his maintenance with a serene grace. "I have no idea what you're implying."

"As long as you keep to your side, I'll keep mine." Owens said. He shot Danny a glare. "What the hell are you still doing here?"

Danny stuck his tongue out at him. "Don't have to be so rude about it, jeez." He got up, said goodbye to Henri, and headed off to the east compound.

The building was, thankfully, only a short walk from the armory. It was a giant, boxy building with dark-tinted windows, that sat near the edge of the jungle and bordered the sharp cliffs of the island. One of the Shadow-people—official members of the League—intercepted him at the door, leading him through a series of winding hallways until they arrived at a large room on the far-end of the building.

The room wasn't lavishly decorated by any means, but it lacked the foreboding utilitarianism of the rest of the island. Not homey or welcoming, but more…warm, somehow. Human. There were couches and chaise lounges, beautifully carved tables, bookshelves, potted plants, and dark green curtains. At the end of the room were glass doors that opened into a balcony that overlooked the sea.

And there, stood in the middle, with a smile that made his core hum, was her.

"Talia," he breathed, as if the very name was sacred. His core fluttered, barely biting back the word it wished to call her. Too shy despite its eagerness. Mother, it whispered. Mother-mother-mother.

The first time Talia parted with her son, mere moments after his birth, it was more out of necessity than any true desire to do so. Her father needed the aid of the Batman against an old enemy. Her mother's death needed to be avenged. Her beloved needed to be focused on the mission— not be burdened by the weakness of family.

The plan was easy enough to execute. The ambush at their desert HQ was the perfect setting to enact her great performance. Her beloved may be the world's greatest detective, but Talia had been taught all the ways to craft a lie ever since she could learn to speak. A sudden fainting spell, a conspiratorial request to Dr. Weltman, and silent tears to soak her infirmary pillow were all she needed to fool him.

Him and her father.

(But the tears were real; that, she knew. Talia could count all of the times she wept out of true sadness on one hand and the tears she shed that day were real, even if the reason for them was not.)

Talia hid her pregnancy for as long as she was able. And when she could no longer hide the swell of her stomach, she hid from the League and her father and the world. Tracked down Dr. Weltman to help Talia give birth and swore her to secrecy. Saw only the downy tufts of dark hair on her son's head, heard his shrieking cries, before bidding Dr. Weltman to take her son and leave him some place where he could be safe.

Talia never inquired as to where Dr. Weltman took her son. The less she knew, the better. Especially when Talia's return to the League was met with punishment. Ra's al Ghul did not take lightly to betrayal; less so from his own kin.

When she conceived Damian, Ra's made sure to keep a tighter surveillance on her movements.

"The League of Shadows require an heir," he said, Lazarus green eyes cutting in their gaze. "You have already robbed us of one. This new child will remain here."

It did not take long for Ra's al Ghul to order that the little fetus inside her womb should instead be transferred to an artificial gestation tube. An unfaithful daughter such as her did not deserve to carry the precious heir to the League, after all.

Talia bore all this with grace and a fierce determination to regain her place in the League. All her effort focused towards gaining the privilege to raise Damian herself.

Damian was such a cute child. A sweet and kind child who squealed in delight at the birds nesting at his window. Who was the balm to her soul. Whose first words were a gurgled mama. Whose aches and hurts she soothed with gentle touches and soft kisses to his black hair. Whose little hands she pressed a wooden training sword into as she taught him all the ways he could cut the life out of a foe.

Then one day, Dusan came to the League with tales of a little boy with black hair and too-pale-blue eyes.

The ache in her heart returned with a vengeance.

Talia did not know why Ra's al Ghul did not decide to recover his lost grandson then and there. Perhaps he thought of Danyal as a lost cause, what potential he had chipped away by years of civilian life and mundane morals. Perhaps he had some grand and masterfully crafted plan for Danyal that required him to stay with the Fentons for however long Ra's deemed it useful. Perhaps Ra's was simply curious. He was an old man; old enough to have seen the patterns of history repeat themselves and know, almost instinctively, which people are destined to become instruments of Fate.

Talia never claimed to know the inner workings of her father's mind.

When the time finally came that she could claim her eldest son as her own—could finally, finally hold him in her arms and say "yes you are my son" after years of trying to bury his existence in her heart—her elation was short-lived.

It would be Dusan who would train him.

Dusan who would mold him.

Talia was ordered to sit on the sidelines and turn the other cheek.

For three months she heard nothing about Danyal. Any news from Dusan was vague at best. But Talia was a patient woman. And Damian—sweet and kind Damian whose hands were stained by the League's bloody lessons—still required her tutelage.

And yet…

Behold!

Here is her first born, in the flesh. Taller than she last saw him, his hair cut shorter and away from his face. His arctic eyes bright at the sight of her despite the shadows beneath. He stood straighter; his stance not necessarily confident but disciplined.

He spoke. "Talia." There was a slight quiver in his voice, and all Talia could remember was the fading cries of a baby she never let herself see.

"My son. My habibi." She closed the distance between them, hands cupping his face. Her thumbs brushed against his cheekbones—could see the faint smatterings of freckles on his nose. There is a sharpness to his face now. A sort of gauntness that was never there before. "How are you?"

Danyal's eyes—his father's eyes—crinkle up in a smile. "I'm alright. More than that, now that you're here. " He blinked, head tilting. "Why are you here?"

She smiled. "Officially, I am here to deliver you this." Talia walked back to the table, taking out two opaque white pill bottles. She handed the one with a simple green label on the front to Danny. "After hearing of your condition, Ra's al Ghul had his people work on a medicine that will, hopefully, supply your ghost half with its needs."

Danyal twisted open the bottle and shook a few gel capsules onto his hand, the bright green a stark contrast against his skin. "It's…from the Lazarus pit?"

Talia nodded. "Take these once a day. And these—" she hands him the other bottle with a red label " —are to help control your cryokinesis whenever your mania has gone out of control. There will be some side effects with this one, so make sure you are somewhere safe if you ever need to use them."

He clutches both bottles in his hands and lowers his head. "Thank you."

"Anything for family." Talia smiled. "Though I will say that while the medicine is the official reason I am here, unofficially I am here for something else." She beckoned him to come closer. "Come, I want to introduce you to someone, though you must take care to be quiet."

Talia took him by the hand and led Danyal into an adjoining room. "Do you remember when I told you that I had a son?" A soft four-poster bed sat in the middle, ladened with all manner of pillows, and nestled at its center was a small lump.

"Come closer," she whispered to him. Talia sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over the lump, brushing away soft strands of hair to reveal a soft, rounded face, eyes closed in sleep. "This, Danyal, is Damian. He is my youngest son."

She turned to look at him. Could see the realization blooming on his face, eyes wide at first in surprise, then understanding, then longing. His mouth was agape in a silent 'oh.' "He's…"

"Yes, my son. This is your brother."

"My brother," Danny whispered.

Brother-brother-brother, his core echoed.

This small child cocooned in sleep was his little brother.

"I told him about you during our flight here and he was absolutely determined to greet you properly but…" Talia laughed softly, fingers brushing against Damian's cheek. "However stubborn he may be, he is still seven and prone to exhaustion."

Danny laughed, instantly enraptured.

He looks like me, Danny thought. Though the skin was much darker—closer to Talia's own—and the shape of the eyes a bit different, Damian almost looked like the childhood pictures his mom and dad would frame and decorate the house with.

"What's he like?"

"Proud," Talia said. "He's been raised as a prince, you see. Stubborn, of course, something he inherited from your father. Very intelligent and very determined and…kind. So very kind and gentle to animals."

His chest fluttered with warmth. His core hummed. Brother-mine-mother-mine-family-here-us-together.

This-is-how-it-should-be.

Danny's own eyes never left Damian's face. "Can you tell me more about him?"

Talia smiled. And for the rest of the afternoon, her voice filled every corner of the chamber with warmth as she regaled Danny with anything and everything about the precious treasure that was Damian al Ghul. Danny listened with rapt attention, mind absorbing every little detail.

The voice in his head that sounded like Jazz spoke. Being a big brother is a lot of responsibility. Can you handle it?

Yes, his core sang. A conviction. A promise. A vow.

Brother-mine-mother-mine-family-mine.

Alive-alive-alive.

Protect-protect-protect.

The physicality and discipline they gained during phase one of their training was refined in phase two. The martial skills they were taught were further expanded upon; an entire arsenal of techniques cultivated and developed into the most efficient way to take down any opponent was open to them. "The goal of a fight is to end it," Dusan instructed. "To make sure your opponent cannot get up and strike you again."

Danny's revitalized ghost half gave him advantage over the rest of his cohort, who were all older and bigger and stronger than he was. A bit of experimentation and he found that he could channel his ghostly energy into his human form to enhance his strikes, increase his speed, or boost his stamina. Though his early spars were mediocre at best, now he was a force to be reckoned with on the training mat.

Stealth was another subject. Dusan taught them the exact way to walk so as to minimize any footsteps. How to hide your tracks. The art of disguise. They were given obstacle courses and staged missions with the objective of getting in and out of a building without being seen or traced. Even without his invisibility or intangibility, Danny passed these tests with flying colors.

They were taught weapons handling and herbology, first aid and navigation. Languages, too, were on their list. Mandarin and Spanish and Arabic and Hindi and Russian and more, their accents trained so that eventually they'll be nigh indistinguishable from a native speaker's.

They were taught about the mission; the grand purpose of the League of Shadows. They were the great fangs that protected the head, the hands by which to do its bidding. The world was dying, said Ra's al Ghul. The world had been rotting in a slow and agonizing death because people were too stubborn, too selfish to change their ways. And from the shadows, the League will preserve the world by cutting off the rot, like how a surgeon cuts out a tumor.

"Rules and order alone will not right the world. Justice cannot be done without whilst staying clean," Dusan lectured. "To survive in this world, to survive in the League of Shadows, you must have the conviction to dirty your own hands."

Danny does not believe in the mission. Not wholeheartedly, anyway. What he does believe in is his grandfather's generosity and his uncle's solid stature, an ever present anchor against any storm. Believes in Damian's bright curiosity and his compassion, in the bashful way he'd reach up to hold Danny's hand in his. Believes in Talia's healing touch and soft smiles, the warmth of her voice washing over him like a gentle tide.

Danny believes in the vows written in the names he is called. Grandson. Nephew. Brother. Son.

Family.

And for that, Danny was willing to do anything. Be anything.

When Dusan gave him a poisoned cup, Danny drank without hesitation.

Mithridatism: the practice of building immunity towards poisons made from large organic molecules through gradual administration of non-lethal amounts. In this area, Danny also had a greater advantage over his cohort. Further experimentation showed that his ghost-half naturally detoxifies Danny's body of any inorganic poisons, metabolizing it into itself and using it as energy.

Ghosts feed off death much the same as how they feed off ectoplasm, though the former seemed to be a less effective energy source according to his parents' research. Ra's al Ghul—who personally came to observe how Danny's two forms intermingled with one another—wanted to test if Danny could also feed off death. Long story short, the answer was Yes.

But only his own.

Not that Danny ever actually died while doing these experiments. Really the only thing that was needed of him is to imbibe enough poison to actually trigger the death aura manually and let Phantom do the work of healing him up. Phantom, you see, cannot let the human-Danny die because then there would be nothing to stabilize Phantom. Instead, Phantom converted whatever ectoplasmic or deathly energy he could get his hands on and pumped it through human-Danny's system to speed up the recovery process. Danny's wounds, in a way, were also the source of his extraordinary healing factor.

Ra's had theorized a method that would allow Phantom to keep the energy siphoned from the death aura as an extra source of power without harming human-Danny— but it was risky. Simple, but risky. A plan to be used only in the worst case scenario.

Blood Blossom training was the worst of the lot. Staying human was Danny's only defense against that stupid flower, and even then just being close to the blossom's sickly sweet scent made his stomach lurch in on itself and his head spin with nausea. But his family expected him to be able to bear it. To work through the repugnant feelings that made his skin prickle and his chest flare with pain and tolerate it.

Mind over matter.

That's all it was.

Control the mind, control the body.

He would not be beaten by this.

"Is it just me, or has everyone been really out for me these days?" Danny wiped the sweat matting his forehead with a small towel. Settling the towel around his neck, he leaned his back against the cool concrete walls of the indoor sparring room.

He and Henri were taking a short break a ways away from the rest of the cohort. Some of the others were still sparring on the practice mats, repeating katas over and over to perfection. Dusan with a long wooden rod in hand circled the mat like a hawk, ready to strike at any sign of a mistake and correct with harsh precision.

Henri poured a bit of his water bottle over his head, soaking his auburn hair. "You just noticed?"

"It's not like I've been here long enough to." His extra training covering the extent of his ghost powers usually meant that Danny was summoned to practice away from the rest of the cohort. On the bright side, he saw his family more often. Damian even came to a few of his training sessions to observe.

On the down side…well, as much as he didn't like his cohort, it didn't mean that he wanted to be an outcast. Mutual dislike was a given, this alienation on the other hand…

Focus. Their opinion of him didn't matter in the long run. Besides, Danny was used to be an outcast. He never had many friends throughout his life except—

Except…

"Hey, hey!" Henri snapped his fingers in front of Danny's face. "Earth to Danyal, are you reading me?"

Danny startled. Blinking the ghost of a memory away from his eyes, he smiled. "Copy that, Houston." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sorry 'bout that."

"No need to apologize to me, but you better hurry up." Henri pointed to the imposing form of a League of Shadows member diligently standing at the entrance. They were masked, but Danny could tell from the angle of their head that the Shadow was looking expectantly at him. "It looks like I won't be seeing you for a while."

Ra's al Ghul carefully snapped the tome shut in his hand. "I have decided that it would be more beneficial for your education to remove you from your cohort."

Danny's mind stalled. "What?"

Ra's hummed. "You've improved in keeping your composure but you still leave yourself far too open. We must work on that."

He's frantic. Tongue tied and mouth dry as he tried to phrase the multitude of questions he had into the forced formal speech of the League. "I'm, uh— Sir, may I ask why I'm being removed?" Internally, Danny was flipping through all memories of his performance as a League apprentice. He didn't see anything he could have done wrong; his marks were always high, Dusan had always praised his hard work, and Danny trained himself into the dirt from dusk till dawn. Why then? Why move him?

"Simple," Ra's said. "They are holding you back."

Seeing the confusion plain on his face, Ra's continued. "You are leagues ahead of your peers, Danyal. It would make no sense for you to have to stay at their level when you could instead reach farther. It's also much more efficient, considering you have spent the majority of Phase Two of your training in private lessons." He steepled his hands atop the heavy wooden desk. "Fear not, you are not completely removed from them. When the time comes, you will join them for the final test."

The final test. The last hurdle before being welcomed as an official member of the League of Shadows. None of the recruits actually knew what the final test entailed; none of the inducted members would say anything about it, and the only sure piece of rumor they could get about the test from more advanced cohorts was that it had a very low pass rate. The League viewed its recruits as investments, and if they could not fulfill their potential, then they would be discarded.

Ra's set his book aside and pulled out another one from a stack to his right. The book was small, only a bit bigger than Danny's hand, with a faded purple cover bound shut by a long leather cord wrapped tightly around it. At Ra's beckoning hand, Danny moved closer to the desk, hovering awkwardly over Ra's.

"A recent acquisition," Ra's said, slowly unraveling the book with tender care. "It is difficult to find not only authentic, but reliable, books on the supernatural. To differentiate the experts from the charlatans. But these—" gingerly he flipped open the cover, carefully flattening the worn and yellowed pages "—were penned by a member of the foremost occult experts on ghosts. Their research into the infinite realms and its inhabitants have spanned centuries, and the exact depth of their knowledge is incalculable. They're rather fond of their secrets."

In thick, bold calligraphy—ink cracking at the edges—the title 'AN EXTENSIVE ACCOUNT ON THE NATURE OF GHOSTS AND THE MANIFESTATION OF THEIR PSYCHE'. Then, in neat curling script at the bottom was the signature of Elizabeth Showenhower.

Danny's memory sparked at the name. "Showenhower?"

"You know of them?"

"I…had a run-in with a Showenhower—a criminal that liked to call himself Freakshow—when I was still in Amity. He ran a circus and had a staff that could mind control ghosts to perform acts and rob banks for him."

"So they're still around, then." Ra's flipped through the book, summarizing the rumored history of the Showenhower family to Danny. The family was a collector of cursed artifacts and scholars of the antiquated and esoteric, their interests laying solely in the territory of ghosts or ghost-adjacent things. Each member would collect and study and compile their knowledge into various caches of hidden libraries, passing the secrets they learned of the Infinite Realms onto the next generation of Shownehowers who would then repeat the cycle.

Danny wondered if his parents ever came across any books by the Showenhowers and consulted it. They would have poured over the text, reading it cover to cover and analyzing every scrap of information it had to offer. Did they even know about the Showenhowers? Wonder what they would think about all of the alchemy in their books. Some part of Danny believed that, as scientists, his parents would scoff at the idea of magic. But then again…his parents did build their entire career on proving the existence of and then studying a creature that many believed didn't exist, so maybe they'd eat up the magic part, too.
"Ah, here we are." Ra's settled on a page and flipped the book over to Danny. "I feel that you will find this section quite interesting."

A Case Study on the Ghost of Miss Catherine and the Subject of Mania.

Mania. The ice. The overwhelming cold. Perhaps this would finally give him the answers to Vlad's cryptic words. God…that entire conversation—Vlad, Amity, ghosts— seemed like a lifetime ago.

It was great uncle Johnathan who first coined the term Mania to describe this phenomenon in ghosts. Mania, from the greek word μᾰνῐ́ᾱ, which is synonymous with the word 'madness' or an otherwise 'mad desire.'

His eyes locked onto that word. Madness. Like…insanity?

The ghost of whom I had the pleasure of meeting goes by the name of Catherine. She is comparatively weak in power to the other ghosts recorded by the Showenhower family, a mere apparition with minor poltergeist tendencies that had, until recently, been haunting the young lady of an affluent family. They are not relatives, of that I have no doubt, but a thorough and in-depth research into the family in question's history revealed that some years ago they had once employed the services of a young woman as a live-in nanny for their newly christened daughter. It was remarked that the two shared a very close relationship up until the nanny was unfortunately killed defending her charge in some sort of conflict.

The passage then went on to describe the afterlife of Catherine the ghost. A tragic tale of a woman who protected a girl she thought of as her own daughter and, even after death, continued to watch over her from afar until the girl's untimely death via consumption.

He traced the words with a building impatience, slowly parsing the meaning of the passage. Some of the passage was written in a long, winded, and pedantic style. Reading it reminded Danny of that one assignment in 8th grade US History where they had to memorize and recite the Preamble of the Constitution.

The case study of the ghost of Catherine Eckhart seemed to go on forever, but things did start to become interesting once Elizabeth Showenhower started to describe the effects young lady Helen's death had on Catherine. She became inconsolable, yes, but at the same time frenzied. Her normally weak poltergeist abilities began to manifest stronger, somehow, more erratic as she began to attract objects toward herself. Curtains and bedsheets and wooden chairs and silverware would start to float and circle around her pale and lingering form, a swirling vortex of household objects that scared the occupants of the Edwards manor so much that they soon abandoned it.

Ghosts, Elizabeth wrote in small curling script, are at the very heart of it a manifestation of a particular brand of psyche. They are the imprints of the dead that choose to linger beyond the veil. The central feature that formulates a ghost and anchors it onto the material plane is the primal human experience of want. Of desire. Think of it as a very singular sense of purpose. They have an uncontrollable need to pursue this desire—though whether if it is because of a belief that by fulfilling it their souls can finally seek peace, or if by continuously satiating that desire they are able to maintain their permanence in both the Infinite Realms and the material plane, we know not. It is the constant source of debate among the Showenhower family. I am of the belief that it is the latter.

Mania, then, as great uncle Joseph described it, was the consequences of failing to fulfill that desire. Or, perhaps in the case of Miss Catherine, it is the inability to fulfill that desire leading to the perceived failure of it. Her last act in life was one of sacrifice and an intense desire to protect the young lady Helen, and in death that feeling only persisted and manifested ten fold. What then was she to do now that her dearly beloved charge has passed? Had been taken away by a disease that neither doctor's nor Catherine's efforts could cure?

Logically, one would realize the futility in blaming one's self for such a death. It is not the fault of any party that lady Helen died so young. It is not the fault of any party except that of the diseased hands of Fate itself. But ghosts are not built on logic. They are pathos incarnate; they are the strongest emotions a person has in the moments before death takes hold that manifest itself into substance.

Mania is, perhaps, the most tragic form of self-preservation for ghosts. It works two fold: the first being either the amplification of the ghost's current abilities (in the case of miss Catherine, the radius of her poltergeist abilities doubled and she was able to commandeer larger and heavier objects than before) or the manifestation of new abilities (great uncle Joseph wrote of a ghost that developed an ability to manipulate light to cast illusions) as a way of coping for the perceived failure. The second is the amplification of their own emotions to an almost mad and degenerative degree.

To illustrate the second point— Before lady Helen's death, Miss Catherine had been, foremost, a benign ghost. Her desire to protect Helen mostly appeared to be eliminating any slight inconveniences, such as helping Helen find lost objects, or warding off unwanted suitors. After Lady Helen's death, Miss Catherine's benign nature changed to one of hostility. Her ghostly aura threatened to choke any of the servants that attempted to remove the late lady Helen's belongings from her chambers. The incidents increased to the near impalement of one of the servants that I was forced to intercede and exercise Catherine from the chamber with blood blossoms. Catherine, then, took to zealously guarding Lady Helen's grave.

I am reminded of the words of my namesake, my thrice great-grandmother Elizabeth Showenhower. "Ghosts have only a singular desire in their whole existence to which they must devote the altar of themselves to, but it is an unfortunate truth that they cannot choose as to what that desire may be."

It was the desire to see lady Helen safe that tied Miss Catherine to this world, and now that the lady is gone, Miss Catherine's soul seeks a new anchor.

There was more to Elizabeth's writings, but Danny left it off there, confident that he got all the information he needed, but still in the process of deciphering what it meant.

The idea of ghosts having a singular desire was not an entirely new concept to Danny. It was a theory his parents had discussed a few times over dinner, though the terminology they used was different. Obsessions, they called them. Danny didn't really think much on it until he started fighting ghosts himself, and even then he didn't really care much about the validity of the theory. Though considering how gimmicky the Amity Park ghosts sometimes got, maybe there was some truth to this whole 'singular obsession' thing.

If so, then what was his?

"Why did you show me this, sir?"

Ra's scrutinized him with that unreadable smile. "I thought you would appreciate learning more about the workings of your other half, even if it is through an occult lens." He took the book and slid it towards himself, carefully shutting it. "When you first came to us, you said that you were afflicted with mania and yet could not tell us what that meant. Now, we know."

That familiar and biting cold began to creep into Danny's chest. "That I failed," he said. A statement. An undeniable fact.

"Yes." The bluntness of Ra's words hurt more than Danny would like to admit. "You did. Your cryokinesis developed in response to your mania, but instead of making you stronger, it only hampers you. I believe this is because you lack an anchor. If we can figure out your obsession, then we can quickly find the appropriate anchor and better help you get your powers under control. So the key question remains: what did you fail at? Tell me, Danyal, do you know the core of your own desire?"

No, said his mind.

(Yes, sang his core. Yes-yes-yes-we-know).

Did he?

He clutched at the fabric of his shirt above his heart. His core thrummed just beneath the skin. "I think I do…but at the same time I don't? It's not— it's difficult for me to put into words because at one moment it's one thing and the next it's another."

Danny thinks about that nightmare from so long ago. Of Sam and a raft of burned and water-logged corpses asking why, why didn't you save us? He thinks of Damian, both arrogant and so eager to please, his boundless curiosity, and quiet gentleness. He thinks of Talia's fingers combing through his hair, of her warm embrace, of her enduring love.

"I don't know what exactly my obsession is. All I know is, at the very end of the day, what I want is to get stronger. Not for revenge, not as some kind of weird penance. I want to be stronger so that I can protect them—Mother, Damian, you and Dusan. I just want to keep my family safe, because you took me in when I had no one else to turn to."

Ra's stared at him with his all-knowing eyes, surprise alighting for a moment across his face before it settled into a smile. Something almost fond. "Well, I believe we found your anchor without even having to try."

(Here, his core sang. Here-family-stay. Here-us-belong.)

A/N: As always, massive thanks to my beta reader Dragon for all their wonderful help 333

Niki - a reference to the 1990s French film La Femme Nikita which is about a teenage girl whose death is faked by the government so they could train her as an assassin. While I've never watched the movie in full, the bits and pieces I've seen and reading about the movie's plot influenced some of how I portrayed the League of Shadows to work.

Owens - Technically not an OC but might as well be. There is an Owens in the League of Assassins. He's an elite sniper and was seen in a 2009 Red Robin storyline. I try my best not to make a lot of OCs but its unavoidable for a project like this, so I ended up retro-fitting a little-known but existing character.

Dr. Weltman - Talia's doctor in Batman: Son of the Demon

Death Aura - yeah this is something that just sort of...appeared. But to summarize: everything that is dead or dying has a 'Death Aura.' This aura can be used as an alternative energy source for ghosts if they don't have any access to ectoplasm, though not as effective. That's why, if cut off from a portal to the GZ, ghosts tend to 'haunt' places that have a lot of death in them (cemeteries, hospitals, sites of death) so as to feed onto that aura. Halfas can use this aura as well but their physiology, for some reason, is only able to process their iown/i death auras. With Phantom, he only really uses the extra energy to heal up his human half (which explains a bit about Danny's healing factor). Ra's and Danny, however, are thinking if its possible to try and game this system.

Elizabeth Showenhower - one of Freakshow's ancestors. We don't learn much about the Showenhower family other than that they know a lot about ghosts, and I really like the idea that Showenhowers have been occult researchers for literal centuries

Mania - if a ghost fails (or perceives themselves to have failed) their obsession, they enter a manic state where their main goal is to find a way where they could...not fail their obsession. Ghosts are created because of their intense desire for something. It is a core part of their psyche post-death. If that desire remains unfulfilled then that becomes a huge blow to their psyche, which has the possibility to destabilize the ghost if left alone for too long. Halfa can experience this to a lesser extent.

Anchor - the target of an obsession. Not every obsession has/needs one

ANNOUNCEMENTS!

I'm excited to announce that I'll be hosting a DP/DC CROSSOVER EVENT WEEK on tumblr! It'll be from November 14-20 with 14 available prompts for any type of creator to choose from! You can learn more about the event by reading the pinned post on my tumblr blog avaritia-apotheosis

Some more exciting news! Some lovely folks on tumblr have been working to put together REALITY TRIP: A Danny Phantom AU Zine which focuses on a variety of DP AUs. I have the honor of being a part of this zine as one of their writers and have had a lot of fun working with the many talented writers and artists of the zine! Take a loot at their carrd (dpauzine . carrd . co)for more info about the project, and make sure to keep an eye out for the zine once its released!