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To be honest, when Danny got surrounded by the blobs for the first time, he got scared. It was after another Justice League fight he joined because he was flying by and, in his defense, he had very little clue on what was going on in general. He knew JL from one broadcast where they gave an emergency number if someone wanted newly established organization to help, and the blobs were screaming and crying, clinging to him mournfully, so unlike the ones from Amity Park that it was unsettling. Those ones seemed content with their simple lives and much preferred portal to any ghosts around.
He lead the sad ones home anyway, making sure they safely went through portal and hoping that locals will fix whatever was wrong, before falling into dead sleep that would end too soon.
By the fifth time it happened, he just accepted it as another feature of these weird fights, away from home and with competent adults as a back-up. Batman would stare at him like he was trying to figure out if he is trustworthy, Superman would act like he didn’t know what to do with him and try to cover it up with plethora of nicknames, Flash would share some snacks, Green Lantern would answer no more than five questions about space, Martian Manhunter wouldn’t have a cap, but there were minefields to figure out and avoid, Wonder Woman would show him how to punch better and there would be blobs he needed to escort.
It was, all things considered, pretty decent pattern.
Strong hand clasped his shoulder.
“You did well today, Phantom.”
He felt his lips stretch in proud grin, core warming up at the praise. Even overall ache of his muscles wasn’t that bad anymore.
It wasn’t a casualty free fight, but with size of attack, there was no way it could ever be. Since he was there, solely focused on civilians while others fought, a lot more people survived than would without him.
“Thanks Wonder Woman.”
He couldn’t say it was nice, exactly, he was still facing at least city wide disasters and he ended up battered and beaten, but he liked not having to fear getting shot in the back. And he liked when he wasn’t seen as no better than rogues he fought. He was one of the good ones, someone families thanked and children felt safe with. He was one of the heroes.
Frankly, Danny wasn’t sure where he stood with Justice League, exactly. He wasn’t a member, he didn’t even know if and where they met up, he just joined when disaster got really big. He had a comm to they could call him as needed and technically he could call them if they needed him too, one that he tried to carry whether he was a ghost or not. He didn’t know anyone’s identities and they didn’t know his, even though he knew they knew each other’s. They trusted him to handle Amity Park on his own, despite the fact that he was far, far younger than all of them. They kept trying to teach him things, which was nice, even if they sometimes were a bit condescending about it. He would take adults who treated him like a kid over ones who hunted him any day–
Something small and soft hit him between his shoulder blades. Then another a bit to the left. He turned to face them, smile much softer and kinder.
“Hello little fellows, c’mere.”
“Whatchu got there?” Flash asked, trying to see around Wonder Woman. For some reason, she looked stricken.
“A blob ghost.”
“And… How does a blob ghost look?”
Right, not everyone saw ghosts as easily as he did. He kept forgetting that with his friends, he kept forgetting it with his… with Justice League.
“Green, vaguely drop-of-liquid shaped, sized from hamburger bun to loaf of bread. We don’t really know what they are and how do they get made, but the ones back home are much happier and calmer. They like to nap around my– around where I hang out, or on me, in hoods and pockets and so on. Like weirdly affectionate cats,” He gathered few blobs closer to him. They started crying out loud, “These ones are really distraught and seem to not really see the world around them. They keep bumping into me like they can’t understand I’m standing there. So, I’ll take them home and others will help them become happier and more alert.”
“Are they dangerous?” Batman asked, sliding in unnoticed like he always did. Why was it turning into most important situation around? They just finished villain take down in populated area, there had to be something more attention grabbing.
“Do we count the fact that they keep stealing my snacks?”
Batman’s face didn’t really change, Danny came to understand it never did, but he seemed to earnestly consider it. Green Lantern laughed at him so hard Danny probably should’ve felt offended and Flash tossed him his super dense granola bar, with somewhat mischievous smile. Wonder Woman still looked weird.
“How many of them are there, usually?”
“It depends. Now there is about fifty, that time in New York there was probably few hundred, first time we met there were none. I don’t know what it depends on, level of calamity maybe? My friend thought blobs could be imprints of strong emotions on ectoplasm and this would suggest it was true, but that doesn’t feel right. But I know better than to do science based on vibes alone.”
Unlike some people he knew.
“Huh, that’s interesting.”
Danny carefully gathered new blobs closer to him, so that when he started flying, they wouldn’t get lost as easily. Maybe he should get a cape or something of sorts. Something for them to hold onto, or something for him to use as a make shift sling to hold them all. Flash’s mouth turned into an almost perfect ‘o’.
“I can see them now! They are adorable!”
Wonder Woman caught Flash’s hand before he got too close, just as one of the blobs snapped at him with a row of tiny teeth. It was good to hear they were visible. It meant they were getting stronger, probably with his ectoplasm, which he had enough to spare even if he could definitely feel the strain. It wasn’t too bad and it meant they could fly a bit faster, which was going to be good when he started making his way home.
He could take up someone on their offer and fly part way in a jet (which also, why did Justice League hove more than one jet at their disposal?) but it always left him wrong footed. Probably because of Vlad. He was safer when he had full control over where he wanted to fly and how fast he did that.
“Ones outside of Amity are a bit more skittish. I’d say I’ll bring you some friendlier ones next time, but that may not be the best idea.”
“Yeah, no, better not risk the little guys.”
They stayed for a moment, looking at the blobs that were trying their damn best to get inside Danny’s chest, without intangibility or enough force to do more than bump into him, which kind of hurt if they got really desperate.
He glanced around aiming for casual, trying to gauge if he could still get some space questions in. He got a sense he couldn’t, not even because Green Lantern looked particularly prickly or anything (and neither did Martian Manhunter, as far as Danny could read guy’s expressions), but situation didn’t feel right anymore. Oh, well.
“Alright, I gotta go if I want to put them to bed before curfew, see ya next disaster!” He said kicking off the ground with a glee. Out of all his powers, flight was probably the best one.
“Hopefully won’t be too soon, geist!” Green Lantern yelled after him, which, true. He waved vaguely over his shoulder and shot higher in the sky, but not as fast as he would if blobs weren’t there. It was a good day.
Sneaking into the lab was always the hardest part of these little escort missions. Honestly, some days he’d rather not do it, wishing to just flop on his bed and hope for the best, but blobs needed a lot of ectoplasm to thrive. Mortal Zone, as some ghosts called it, was simply not the right place for them, even in places that would make his parents’ ecto-pseudo-geiger counter go crazy. Some blobs still came to hang out, but they never stayed for longer than a day.
Sad blobs were easier, worryingly focused on area where his core was, so at least they weren’t straying away too often. That still left him with task of sneaking through ghost proofed and armored house with bunch of ghosts who didn’t know they should turn invisible when someone else showed up or dodge when a laser struck. There were too many of them for Danny to share his intangibility or anything else he could do, he tended to just take the shot. There were times when this part gave him more injuries than fight beforehand. Blobs were fragile, so it was worth it. He didn’t want to learn how they could handle his parents’ weapons.
Probably most heart-stopping part was the fact that it was impossible to communicate to them that they needed to stay somewhere while he went for a recon or anything of sorts. They just kept flocking around him and then darting to the portal like possessed, so he never really knew what to expect in each room on their way. If he had anyone to tell it, he’d make a joke about how many years of his life stress from this part stole from him.
Even deep in thoughts, at this point he was a master of hearing hidden weapons turn on and moving in their line of fire instead of out of it. He’d patch his shoulder when he was done with blobs.
It was annoying when these wires got crossed during actual fight.
He crept to the basement door and eased them open, hoping that dad finally remembered to oil the hinges. He didn’t, but the stairs were dark and house stayed quiet, so Danny started to make his way down.
There was one remarkable time, when mom caught him with blobs. He had just enough time to turn back human before she came in and his last brain cells rubbed together to come up with some excuse. He was very convincing when he said he had no clue what was going on and just wanted to get them to the portal without shooting himself in the process. She let him go, probably only because she was hardly awake after long few days of ghost hunting. Frankly, Danny was running interference for most of it and then he had to join Justice League, so he wasn’t much better.
Finally, with his soul on his shoulder he cracked open the door to the lab and slipped inside. It was almost ominous, this time of the night. He was used to it bustling with sound and, ironically, life, with bright lights that he almost hated and sounds that caused severe headache if he stayed too long. Danny could hear low hum of small fridge and few pieces of equipment that either couldn’t stop working or needed so much time to get turned on and off that it wasn’t worth the bother, but there was nothing else, thick walls and ground around them enough to cover any sound from outside. Lights stayed off. The pungent smell of ectoplasm, strong enough that he could taste it on particularly days, stayed the same.
Blobs darted forward as soon as they got inside, bumping against shield on the portal with admirable determination. He opened the shield and green light spilled to the room, making it look ethereal and otherworldly in a way that would be just right in a horror movie. Blobs melted with the wall of green before shields were fully up, leaving Danny to just stare after them. There was something both entrancing and terrifying in looking at the tear in reality like that, like a siren’s song.
Something begging him to come closer and disappear in the Ghost Zone forever, promising happiness, belonging and safety, while other part of him kept reminding him how much current running through his body hurt, how much ectoplasm in the lungs drowned, how much pressure thorn his larynx, how—
He hit the button to put portal’s shield back up and smiled in darkness that followed.
It always felt like much bigger, more worthwhile accomplishment than it actually was, when he successfully brought blobs home.
It was surprisingly good fight. It wasn’t the best but they managed to move and contain the damage before they hit highly populated area instead of industrial neighborhood, where most places were off for holiday night already. There were only few casualties. (He both hated and loved the word, because it was so easy to stop seeing corpses when he called them that and he was coward).
It was still incredibly exhausting and Danny was already feeling muscles he didn’t even know he had.
He curled up on some debris and gathered few blobs close to himself. Something in him uncoiled. It felt better, for some reason, to keep them close, up until they got to the Ghost Zone safely. Nothing bad could happen if they were with him.
He’d just take a moment to breathe, before facing the rescue efforts.
Just a moment.
Someone came up to him, debris crunching under their feet. He turned just enough to see their shoes. Wonder Woman.
“Do you need anything?” he asked. He wished she didn’t, but he’d handle it if she did. His whole journey as Phantom was handling stuff whether he was ready for it or not.
“Would you be alright if I joined you?”
“It’s not like any of this debris is mine, come sit.”
He straightened because nobody in their right mind would dare to slouch in presence of Wonder Woman, unless their body actively fought them. It wasn’t really that she was intimidating, or the type of traditional that would scold him on improper posture, or any other reason someone would want to not slouch in someone’s presence. There was just certain something about her, something regal, but a bit to the left, that didn’t allow him to seem or really feel defeated and hopeless. Danny probably lacked the words to describe it properly.
He liked Wonder Woman, even if sometimes she felt like grand statue or the Goddess that came down to Earth to help small, weak mortals live best lives they could, and Danny had to wonder what right he had to stand next to her. It usually happened during battle. Pandora would probably be like that, if she was still alive.
One of the blobs drifted towards her, slow and unsure like a wild animal. From what Danny observed before, they didn’t do that often, generally rather content trying to figure out how to reach to his core or wail and cry somewhere close when they didn’t manage.
Wonder Woman scooped it gently, holding it close to her chest like a precious kitten. He was still getting used to it, to seeing people who could casually decimate a building, people who unleashed rage of gods and primordial concepts on anyone they deemed enemy, moments later be so tender and gentle. Banter he could take, he did that himself, but this weird softens felt like too much. He understood that it was not an act, it was just who she was, just like Danny wasn’t acting when he was awkward and fumbling, despite what Amity Park media liked to claim. But it felt unsettling nonetheless, to be on the other side of it.
“Did you learn more about them since the last time?” she asked, voice barely above whisper. It sounded less like she didn’t want to wake up the blob, which just moved and formed to emulate a napping cat, and more like she was talking about something sacred that couldn’t possibly be discussed any louder.
“Not really. I don’t have many people I could ask and they all live pretty far from me. I didn’t have time to travel all the way there. Did you figure anything out?”
Wonder Woman just hummed, vague enough that Danny couldn’t figure out if she said yes or no.
“There is less of them this time.”
He turned to look at her fully, because he wasn’t brightest but maybe something about her face or body language would explain why she’d bring it up—
“You did well containing the damage and evacuating stranglers.”
Danny didn’t have heart in this form and he didn’t really need to breathe, but suddenly his heart was at his feet and air was too thin to work it’s way through his lungs. He was never the sharpest pencil in the case, but he could connect the dots drawn in front of him.
“No.”
Wonder Woman looked apologetic, but not like she was lying and it got out of hand, but as if she was sorry that she had to be the one to break it to him.
“No, no, no. It- It can’t be true. You’re lying. You don’t know it! You can’t know it!”
He didn’t mean to yell and he didn’t mean to get teary eyed, yet here he was. He didn’t brush the tears away, didn’t bring any attention to them, because it felt like admitting defeat and he couldn’t do that right now.
“Amazons are closer to the arcane than men’s world is.”
“I can’t… No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Maybe they’re just lost? There are many natural portals all around the world, maybe they stumbled through it and can’t find their way back,” Danny tried weakly. He didn’t believe that, he could tell that closest portal was many miles away and was fairly small. Blobs had no reason to go through it and arrive all the way here, especially not in the pack of dozen. But he needed something, anything other than Wonder Woman smiling sadly and telling him all blobs he met were people he failed to save, that their crying and wailing was due to the fact that they died within last hour. Anything but the idea that things he treated as sort of weird pets, silent and cuddly, were actually people who couldn’t quite interact with world so soon after the tragedy.
“I know it hurts. I too would prefer if nobody died, but we can’t change it now,” she said, slowly pulling him in for a hug. She wasn’t forceful with it, if he wanted he could get out any time, even without intangibility, but he didn’t. Cold, hard armor wasn’t most comfortable thing to hug, but he couldn’t really be bothered.
He just cried, for all the people who passed.
“You are doing your best and you saved many. And now you are guiding the rest home.”
Danny was avoiding the blobs. He was man enough to admit that.
Maybe man was wrong word, he didn’t think most men in his life would be able to be honest about it even to themselves.
But he wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t. He doubled down on his rescue efforts, jumping and throwing himself in every way he could, with little to no regard about the damage he took. He would heal.
Blobs, that appeared anyway, would not.
He avoided Justice League too. Not in a sense that he stopped helping when they called, he didn’t think he would ever be able to do that, but he flew off as soon as he could, halfheartedly trying to loose blobs that trailed after him. He didn’t want to see them, palpable proof of the way he wasn’t able to truly protect, the way he was a fraud and maybe if he wasn’t tricking everyone, someone more competent would take his place in rescues and all of them would be alive.
But he couldn’t stop going, not when he was asked for help and he couldn’t leave the blobs behind, when they trailed after him like he was the only thing they could see.
Justice League kept looking at him sadly, and few times he thought they may want to intervene and talk to him like he was younger than he was and still needed empty platitudes. He never let them speak.
Since he was a ghost, maybe he should’ve been better at handling death and related topics. Maybe he should’ve accepted this role with grace, treat it as unimaginable honor. Or maybe because he was a ghost and he remembered every millisecond of his death that stretched to infinity, because he knew that stories of heaven or any other peaceful afterlife were a lie, he was primed to see it as a burden it was.
It all came to head when he met Pandora again. He had some other business to handle in Acropolis, but it was good excuse as any to catch up. She asked him to sit with her on one of the rooftops, saying something about missing her share of living world gossip. Danny had a mom, so he knew how it looked, when she saw that something was wrong and wanted to figure it out without bringing it up outright.
Pandora wasn’t the person he could really say no to, not because she was scary or anything. It just felt wrong to.
“I heard some interesting rumors lately,” she started, and while her tone didn’t betray it, Danny was sure she was teasing him. Good thing he was immune due to having no idea what the rumors could be since he came to Ghost Zone as rarely as (non)humanely possible, “Something about halfa child gaining new title.”
Danny scrunched his brows.
“I have titles?”
“Of course you do. Everyone has some, to be called during their summoning but it’s especially with you, since you run into Ancients and other powerful ghosts so much. Half-reborn is one of them, the most obvious one. Vanquisher of the Fear and Emissary of Hope, are two of my favorites out of your list.”
He was not sure what vanquisher even meant, but if his guess was right, it was total bullshit. He vanquished no fear, for he still got terrified of way too many things. But Emissary of Hope sounded nice. It tied him closer to Pandora, which was always good, but also, if he allowed himself some wishful thinking for a bit, it could mean he did well as a hero. That people were hopeful when he showed up on battlefields.
It would be great on days he needed lies to tell himself.
“Oh, um. That’s good to know.”
“Shepherd of Ascended and Corebound, is most recent one.”
He didn’t know what Corebound meant, or how ghosts understood Ascended, but there was only one thing he was doing lately that would qualify as similar to shepherd’s.
He shoved the urge to cry as far down as he could.
“It’s about blob ghosts, isn’t it,” he said as if he didn’t know, trying to sound nonchalant about it.
“Blob ghosts?” Pandora asked with clear mirth.
“They are small and… just shaped. Like a blob of paint.”
“This does sound like a description of a Corebound ghost, yes,” she nodded, “It’s good to see so many of them make their way here.”
“How can you say that?!”
He didn’t mean for his voice to break like that.
Pandora looked at him, like it was weird that he asked how could she see so many more people die to be a good thing. Like she didn’t expect to see him with clenched jaw and teared up eyes when she brought up all of the people he didn’t manage to save.
“I’m sorry, I tend to forget how sensitive Corelings are to conversations about death. You’re still too young to look at it objectively. But if you want to continue being a hero and being a shepherd, you have to accept that it’s going to happen regardless of how hard you’re trying,” she paused for a moment before shifting the subject, “We’re grateful to see so many Corebound make their way here, because they aren’t as likely to do it on their own. They can sense ectoplasm and it leads them to natural portals, but those are rare phenomena. It can take ages for young ghosts to find one and by then their development is crooked. Or they stay in Mortal Zone for so long they manage to become malnourished Corelings, haunting places they were connected, hoping to gather slimmest amount of feelings to grow on. It’s a terrifying fate,” she smiled at him, grateful and regal, like a queen just informed that he fixed great plague haunting her kingdom, “You make sure they get home and you leave trace so that ones you didn’t meet have a trail to follow. I cannot imagine a world in which that’s a bad thing.”
Danny held back from crying for a moment, shoving the urge as deep inside him as he could, but it slipped around his fingers. Sob got stuck in his throat for a second, before it forced it’s way out, followed by another one. He tried to get rid of tears. He shouldn’t be crying, especially not in front of Pandora, not if he was her so called emissary, not if–
She drew him in for a hug, petting his hair and rocking back and forth, like he was much younger than he actually was. Just this once, he didn’t oppose her. Just this once, maybe, he needed a comfort given to way smaller child.
She didn’t say anything.
“Phantom.”
This… was not a good day. All calculations suggested that meteor, which turned out to be an alien spaceship, would land in the ocean, away from any civilizations (even underwater kind, Aquaman made sure of that). But of course, they were wrong. Because math was always wrong when it truly mattered. It hit some city. Not as big as Metropolis or New York, but still. They didn’t have enough time to evacuate everyone when they realized they were wrong. Danny kept fighting and rescuing, trying to not look at all of the mournful blob ghosts– Corebound, forming around him. Trying to forget all of the people who died under his hands just for a moment.
As the least experienced in fighting aliens (or frankly living folks in general), he was designated to purely rescue missions. There were too many people he couldn’t reach in time. There were more that he thought he reached but lost because he couldn’t fix what was wrong with them fast enough. There were notable few that could survive, if not for stray alien that Danny only saw when it was too late.
There was nothing he could do to help them now. But there were many of them. More than he ever saw, creating swarming green mass, closing him off from the world if he ever stayed still for too long.
“Batman to Phantom. Everyone is accounted for, come back to the meeting point.” It took Danny way too long to figure out that the voice was coming from the comm in his ear and even longer to catch what said words even meant. Blobs just got enough ectoplasm to start making audible sounds and all of them were crying. Danny wished he could turn his hearing off.
Danny wished they didn’t flock around him.
Danny wished they didn’t die.
He kicked off the ground and flew off, hoping to loose blobs at least for a little bit. Those were all people he failed to protect, and only in that one day, in that last few hours. Those were all people whose lives ended too soon. And all he could do for them now was to cowardly run away.
He landed in front of older heroes, all looking equally somber. He took a calming breath in few seconds of quiet, before wailing returned. He flinched as they swarmed him, covering and pressing from all directions. He swayed under the pressure. It was suffocating, even if he was dead enough to not really have to breathe.
“Phantom?”
“You can’t see them yet, can you?”
He couldn’t see anyone either, but at this point he knew pained glances heroes exchanged almost better than he knew his parent’s lab.
“How many of them are there today?” Flash asked carefully. He sounded closer than Danny expected him to be, considering amount of Corebound. For some reason, it was what broke him.
“I… I can’t count them,” Danny’s voice cracked and he swayed again, “I can’t see you, I can’t see my feet. They’re everywhere,” he whispered, sure that nobody would hear it over wailing. He closed his eyes, since they were useless anyway, “There may be more of them than there are people in Amity Park,” Oh, he started crying. He shouldn’t be doing that, not yet, “They’re all wailing. Some are using Ghost Speak and I can understand them. Some are just distraught and screaming. And I can hear them all. I can see them all. I can touch them all. I can- I can feel them all,” his breath hitched and noise picked up. Apparently, some blobs stayed quiet before.
Danny didn’t realize what he was doing until his knees hit the concrete, hands curling around his ears, rubbing aggressively to mask the noise. His forehead touched the ground as he mumbled, “Please make it stop, please, please, please,” over and over again, disrupted by speeding up breathes that he shouldn’t be taking.
He was almost sure someone was talking to him, but they were impossible to understand.
His whole world was just pure green and pain and scream. He might have started screaming too at some point.
Strong hands pulled away his hands from his ears, quickly exchanging them for something that actually helped. It wasn’t all quiet, far from that, but the cacophony became a tad less overwhelming. He pressed his hands over headphones as soon as they were freed anyway. It felt better even if it didn’t do anything.
Someone else, someone lithe but surprisingly strong gathered him in their arms and rose to stand (probably, Danny still refused to open his eyes).
“Let’s get you out of here, kid,” they yelled, close and loud so he heard them over the howling. It sounded nice. It sounded beyond nice. At the moment, he wished for nothing more than to be somewhere else, somewhere where he couldn’t be suffocated by thousands of Corebound he couldn’t save. But… there was something else he was supposed to do. Some obligation Something he owed them. Something—
He bolted upright so fast he almost made Flash drop him. Hero stopped abruptly and thankfully it seemed like they were still relatively close.
“What’s wrong? Is Speedforce interacting badly with some ghost things—”
“They won’t find me if we run off so fast,” Danny mumbled, words barely making their way past his throat.
“That’s… that’s the point, a bit. They seemed to be quite overwhelming back there,” Flash said, looking way too worried for someone who only met Phantom every few weeks during some crisis, and had no reason to care.
Danny gritted his teeth and tried to get down and stand, but older hero didn’t let him. He tried a bit harder. He should stand on his own.
“I have to… I have to…”
“You have to take care of yourself first, kid. There is nothing you can do for them now. We can’t bring them back.”
Danny only barely kept himself from punching the man, and gritted his teeth.
“Believe it or not, I fucking know Flash. If it was possible, I wouldn’t be ghost in the first place, so don’t tell me how death works!” he yelled back, ready to go on a bigger tirade right then and there. It was easier to lash out instead of crying. But it drained out of him between one breath and the next.
He could hear crying again. Mass of blobs was floating their way and it was big enough that for few minutes, it covered the sun. Judging by Flash’s terrified expression, he saw that too.
Danny suddenly felt ill. There was almost no ectoplasm in the city, nearest natural portal many miles away. If this amount of Corebound found enough ectoplasm to grow so fast, they couldn’t source only ambient left of from their… creation. They had to siphon it out of Danny himself and he could certainly feel the toll but… he was fine. He didn’t feel faint or anything. He was a powerful ghost. Really powerful, according to few friends he had on the other side of the veil.
And yet, he failed all of these people.
“Kid—”
“There is nothing we can do for them,” he echoed sentiment he heard each time Justice League saw Corebound after they learned what they were, like it made anything better.
At last, he managed to stand using older hero’s distraction. He raised his hands in a sort of hug towards the upcoming wave. It felt right.
“I’m sorry. It’s alright now. You’re safe. I’ll show you the way,” he promised, as they surrounded him again. He looked back at Flash, barely keeping himself from crying.
“The least I can do is to guide them home.”