A Moment From Chapter 7 Of In The Hall Of The Mountain King By @st-whalefall .

Feral McGee™

It starts with the Joker. 

His goons picked up Tim Drake. Not specifically because it was Tim Drake, he just so happened to be in the Joker’s neighborhood, and we'll, he can't pass up that opportunity now can he? 

Except Tim Drake is watching, along with the rest of Gotham, at the Batcomputer. He’s nursing a broken foot and has been put on monitor duty until he's cleared for field work again. 

The guy looks enough like him, though. Black hair, blue eyes, and bags under his eyes for days. He's also got the same lean sort of build like he does. 

It happens like this. 

The Joker is doing his monologue thing where he explains whatever twisted game he's come up with this time. He takes up the majority of the screen, so nobody can see Not-Tim behind him, not until the big reveal. Then he covers the screen again, getting up close and personal, before stepping back. In those quick few seconds, Not-Tim is no longer sitting there tied to the chair. 

Someone off camera lets the Joker know, and he whirls around, confused as the rest of Gotham. 

And then Not-Tim comes in with the steel chair. 

Or, well, a crowbar, but the reference holds up. 

He takes out one of Joker’s knees before punching him in the face. The Joker drops like a bag of stones, out cold. 

Then he looks towards the camera. 

“Hey there. I'm not really sure where I am, but also if he was after Tim Drake, he got the wrong guy. I'm not him, I'm just some dude. Anyway, I'll just-yep-” he carefully steps over the unconscious Joker, gives the camera a little wave, and then leaves. 

Batman and Nightwing enter shortly after, with the Joker and his goons out cold and tied up. The knots were complicated enough where, in the end, the police resorted to cutting the ties off of them so they could be properly cuffed and taken to Arkham. 

“A constrictor knot,” Batman tells Nightwing as they watch the villain be taken away. “Often used by sailors to temporarily tie things together to keep something in a bag, or to hold something to glue it back together.”

“Huh,” Nightwing says, scratching the back of his head. “Go figure.”

—

The next time it happens, it’s the Riddler. 

He’s laughing, giving his riddles to the Bats and recording himself to all of Gotham while his victim, one of the Wayne brats, hangs over a vat of something. From a distance, he looks like Tim Drake, or maybe a lankier Dick Grayson. And he’s not the only victim, they’re all scattered across the city, but he thought an important figure such as a Wayne should be under the Riddler’s direct supervision while he enacts his schemes. 

While the Riddler cackles and plots and waves his cane around, in the background all of Gotham can see the figure escape. Several Gothamites recognize him as the kid from before, who clocked the Joker. They all watch with bated breath as he sort of wiggles his way out of the ropes holding him up. Once he’s free, he climbs the rope and gets himself down safely. 

Gotham holds their breath as the kid casually walks up to the Riddler, who’s mid-rant. He politely taps him on the shoulder, and as the Riddler is turning around, the kid clocks him just as brutally as he had the Joker. He’s down with one punch. 

They think he’s going to say another sort of awkward goodbye, but instead he pats the Riddler down until he finds a piece of paper tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. 

“Right,” the kid says, looking at the list. There’s a lot more static overlay now, and several wonder if it’s damage to the cameras. “Uh, the Clocktower, the Docks, and-” he squints at the page for a moment-”Mama Nacaroni’s? What the fuck is that? Anyway, uh. See you later, I guess. Oh! And we’re at the Gotham Arena. Have fun with him, I guess.”

The kid tosses the paper off to the side before the camera cuts to black. 

Just like last time, everyone is out cold and tied up. The Riddler himself is sporting a pretty bad shiner, but well deserved nonetheless. 

“Stop it,” Red Hood tells him. Batman just looks at him, and though Hood can’t see the top half of his face, he can tell that his eyebrow is raised. “You know exactly what I mean, B. Put the adoption papers away.”

“Hn.”

—

After that, it sorta becomes a game. The rogues of Gotham are no longer after a Wayne, or after anybody who holds any kind of social status like usual. They’re all going after this one kid, all determined to be the one to hold him. And each one is televised. 

Mr. Freeze freezes him in a block of ice, but due to the cameras glitching out, nobody can really see how he got free. They do, however, see the kid suplex Mr. Freeze. It should seem impossible, given his lanky figure, but he evidently has more muscle than he’s originally let on. 

Two-Face gets a hold of him, using chains and some power-dampening cuffs just on the off-chance that he’s a meta. They all watch as the kid leans down, pulls a bobby pin out of his hair, and picks the locks on his cuffs. One punch, and Two-Face is down. 

Gothamites are going wild for the kid. They’ve dubbed him Feral McGee™ (an online poll, of course), because every time he goes in for the punch he gets this feral look in his eyes. Also, just the fact that he casually goes up to these rogues and takes them out with all the casualness of doing something incredibly mundane? Incredible. The Gothamites are eating it up. However, despite the video evidence, nobody has been able to properly identify the kid. They know he has black hair and bright eyes, but any time he gets near a camera, it’s like there’s this weird, sort of warped quality the camera takes on. It doesn’t usually calm down until the fight is done-as one sided as they usually are-before he awkwardly skedaddles away.  

He gets kidnapped by the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (though that was more just a friendly chat than anything), Mad Hatter, and the Riddler again. 

And then the Joker escapes. 

It’s no surprise as to who he’s going to go after. 

Due to one too many careless goons, they manage to find their way to the Joker’s hideout pretty quickly. This time, it’s all Bats on deck, and they all hide away in the rafters as Feral McGee™ is hung over a vat of acid. His whole body is tied up, hardly a single inch of exposed skin to be seen except for the neck up. 

They watch the goons, they watch the Joker, and they watch Feral McGee™. 

The Joker is monologuing, practically begging the bats to come find him before the timer runs out. When it does, the kid gets dumped into the vat of acid. 

Despite these stakes, the kid seems to be only mildly annoyed. 

“Fuck this, I have homework I still need to finish,” they hear him say. 

They all watch, amazed and confused, as the kid starts gnawing through the ropes. Human teeth shouldn’t be able to do that so easily, but one bit after the other, and soon enough the kid’s got himself freed enough to just climb up the rest of the rope. When he’s at the top of the crane holding him up, Batman lets down a rope and pulls the kid up and out of danger. 

“Oh, cool, you’re all here,” the kid says casually, as if meeting the entire Bat Clan is just a normal Tuesday. And then he pulls out a notepad and pen and hands it to Red Hood. 

“Can I get an autograph? You’re dope as fuck, dude.”

Red Hood has to look away and hide his face in his arms for a few moments to not give away their location with his laughter before signing. And then, one by one, the others do as well. They pass along the kid’s notebook with shit-eating grins and barely contained snickers despite the fact that the Joker is still right below them. Even Batman signs it, after his children don’t stop hounding him about it. 

In their distraction, they didn’t see the kid sneak away. He’s far away from them now, nearly right over the Joker. Danny waits, though, until the Joker has turned around as the timer almost runs out. They watch as he snickers at Joker’s flabbergasted look. The Joker comically looks back and forth and under objects the kid obviously isn’t under. However, before he can do or say anything else, the kid drops from the rafters and right on top of the Joker. He crumples to the ground, unconscious. The kid, however, just brushes the dust off of himself. Despite the fall he took, there isn’t a scratch on him. 

When the bats join him, they give his notepad back to him, barely able to contain their laughter at the absurdity of it all. The kid, too, joins in the camaraderie, laughing and joking along with them as Batman secures the Joker. 

“Okay, okay, but I gotta ask, dude,” Red Hood says at one point, looking at the kid. “How do you keep getting kidnapped?”

The kid just shrugs. “I get distracted easily. And I’m sleep deprived, so you know. Social awareness is kind of at an all time low right now.”

“Why are you sleep deprived?” Nightwing asks, barely hidden concern in his voice. 

 “Finals are kinda kicking my ass right now. Especially this dumb English homework I have. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Oh, lucky for you,” Red Hood says, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders as he walks them out of the warehouse, “I happen to know a lot about English. So, it is Shakespeare?”

“Yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

As they walk off, Batman calmly watches, though the rest of the bats can see his jaw twitching. Nightwing comes up behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. 

“If you don’t adopt him, I will.”

“Hn.”

Authour: @lirabuswavi

Subfandom: Other (Shazam/Captain Marvel, Danny Phantom)

Media: All Media Types

Relationships: Gen (Billy Batson & Danny Fenton)

Year: 2022

Summary:

“Am I your dad!!?” Billy shouted. Danny paused. Took a deep breath in and out before turning to him. “I’m gonna need you to back up, and explain. Please.” Or, what happens when a twelve year old masquerading as an adult superhero calls his guardian, an adult who can also turn into a child superhero, on speaker phone, in front of the Justice League.

Submitted by anon

Submitter's comment:

Yes yes it's a crossover of the blended/integrated universes variety. Billy is still the primary MC though/ball is mostly in DC court. The wonked up age wbit is funny, and they stuck to it. It's also genuinely and generally pretty sweet.

if you’re having a bad day, here’s a cute little marching band

And not a pet, but

This frogs looks a lot like a leaf.

Ya girl is goin through a not so good time rn mayest I please have photos of y’all’s pets as a means to get that good good happy chemical

whoever decided to turn daisy bell into a spooky dookie creepypasta song is fucking evil. that computer was brave enough to sing us a delightful little song and you do THIS to him? thats hatsune mikus grandpa dude. fuck you

Gordon: As much as I appreciate it, I don't quite understand why you're doing this.

Johnny: Oh, I had a pretty chill deal with the vigilante in my last haunt. If he found out I was causing too much trouble for the locals he'd drag me back, lol. He's a good kid.

Kitty: Yeah, we're gonna TRY to stay on the right-ish side of the law. Unless the GIW shows up.

Johnny: Oh yeah. If a government organization dressed in all white shows up, we're not holding back. We will go feral and fuck with them and anything they do, damn the consequences.

Gordon, definitely going to sic Red Robin on this mysterious government organization: Noted. I'll try to keep them out.

Kitty: Oh, would you? That's so sweet.

Gordon: I like the people with ghost powers on MY side, thank you very much. This city doesn't need any more rogues.

Short DPXDC Prompts #981

Johnny 13 and Kitty decided to switch their haunt to a more gloomy area. Gotham City was the perfect getaway for the couple. Lots of crime, rampant gas attacks, and a wonderful motorcycle racing scene. Everything is perfect except for financials. See, ghosts technically don’t have identities in the government's eyes. Robbing every time you need something isn’t ideal and can get magic users to hunt you down. After a few weeks of searching Johnny strikes a deal with Barbara Gordon and Jim Gordon of the GCPD. His job is to be a rat/informant of gang and villain activity in Gotham.

Reblog if you're not homophobic

Every url that reblog’s will be written in a book and shown to my homophobic dad. 

John looks at the kid. Is he going to do it? Is he going to be the responsible adult? No, that sounds horrible. And it isn't effecting the kid anyway...

But it's a bad example... And he can't let the kid get away with stealing his flask, right? Yeah, he's being petty, not responsible. Right? Right.

I am positively feral of the idea that John Constantine is an ex of both Maddie and Jack Fenton. Imagine the possibilities. They’re endless.

"Before we start the meeting," Superman said, "Is there anything anyone would like to address first?"

Phantom stood up, chair rolling softly against the carpet as it was pushed back. "Yes, actually," He reached into his utility belt and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "This is my resignation from the Justice League,"

A beat of silence.

"Oh," Wonder Woman said. "Has something occurred in your personal life?"

"Yeah, I guess you could call it that," Phantom snorted, sounding remarkably bitter, a stark difference from the cheerful young man they knew.

"Is there nothing we could do to help you?"

"No. There isn't. Because it happened ten years ago,"

"Is there something wrong with your powers?" Flash, who was very quick at mental math and quickly aligned it to a fourteen year old metahuman gene activation, said.

"Yes. There is something wrong with me," Was the meeting room getting colder? "Because I'm not a metahuman. I'm a ghost,"

Incomprehension flitted across many Justice Leaguers' faces, while a dawning horror alighted on others.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Green Lantern, freshly back from a trip to Oa and in no way up to date on recent politics, asked.

"Why. Didn't I. Tell anyone?" Phantom said softly, and yes, the room was definitely getting colder. "I don't know. Why didn't I, fourteen and freshly dead, tell anyone about what killed me? Why didn't I, the son of ghost hunters, tell my parents I was what they hated most? Why didn't I, the hero of my hometown, tell people I was the same kind of 'thing' that attacked the town on the regular. Why didn't I, in an increasingly hostile environment, tell people I was the same kind of being they made effigies of to burn and laugh at. Why didn't I, the person whose existence was just made illegal, tell anyone?"

Silence. Their breaths wafted in front of their faces. There was frost spiralling up the wall behind Phantom like an aura of dread.

"Because. I. Was. Scared. I was scared of exactly what's happening now with the Anti-Ecto acts. I was scared of being hated. Of being treated like a monster. Of being held down by my parents, my town, the government, and ripped apart molecule by molecule just like they said I should be,"

Phantom breathed in deeply and exhaled, temperature slowly rising and icy crystals dissolving.

"I became a hero to defend humans from invading ghosts. And now the roles are switched. Humans are the ones invading ghost towns, their homes, kidnapping and enslaving them, sneering and laughing all the while. I am half human. And I am half ghost. I am a hero to the people that need me. Not just in name or words or membership cards," Phantom waved a hand to the paper he had put on the table, "But in deeds. I am not a metahuman. I am not a human hero. I am not human. And I would not be a hero at all if I didn't do what was right,"

Phantom planted his feet on the carpet, shoulders rolled back and head held high. His bearing was regal. They had never seen Phantom like this before. "The Justice League is beholden to the governments of this mortal world. But as someone who has known you, fought beside you, and prevented you from becoming part of my Realms too soon, I hope you are first and foremost beholden to your conciouncess,"

And without another word, Phantom turned, clawed a hand through the air, a portal ripping into existence at his fingertips, and stepped through. The swirling green portal closed behind him, like he was never there.

A beat of silence.

"First on the agenda-," Batman began.

"What the fuck?!" Green Arrow snapped. "Bats, you are not telling me we are just going to ignore-,"

"-we will discuss the Anti-Ecto acts and how we will best prevent the egregious sentient rights violation the United States Government has passed into law," Batman continued.

"We were planning to bring this up even before Phantom revealed himself," Superman interceded peaceably.

"You knew, didn't you," Wonder Woman said accusingly, gaze fixed on Batman.

"Yes," Batman said. "It was obvious if you were looking,"

"Well then why didn't you tell any of us?!" Green Lantern demanded.

Batman fixed a flat stare on Green Lantern. "It has been made expressly clear to me," He said slowly, "On multiple occasions, that sharing my knowledge of others' secret identities, up to and including the sources of other people's powers and/or training, was expressly forbidden as an invasion of privacy. Including revealing my knowledge to the individual in question as it was 'creepy' and 'honestly better off not knowing you knew',"

Silence.

"Any other objections?"

Silence.

"Good. Let's get started,"

Dark Secret

So! Danny was discovered pretty quickly after his first battle against the Lunch Lady. His hair turned white, and his body shape was a little different, but he largely looked very similar to his Human Form, so it was only a matter of time really.

Thankfully he was assumed to be a Metahuman.

He didn't look like any other Ghost, the closest resemblance was his hair and eye color, but even that could be explained away. Also his parents were adamant that he couldn't be a Ghost because he was still Sentient and not Evil, so he must just have powers that just looked similar to Ghost Powers esthetically. Probably as a result of the Portal Accident, which he used as an explanation for how his powers awakened.

Danny also avoided using the more obvious Ghost Powers like Intangiblity and Invisiblity, sticking mostly to the most basic Flight and Energy based Powers he got to be as generic as possible. If anybody saw otherwise, it was a trick of the light or a trick of the Ghosts.

Danny became the Hero of Amity Park, always pretending to be something else. It was his darkest secret.

Unfortunately because the public never saw a Ghost like Phantom on a positive light, their perception of Ghosts never changed. Nobody believed that Ghosts could be anything aside from Evil, and as the knowledge of Ghosts and the Ghost Zone began to spread around the world that perception became more and more commonplace.

If Danny had been revealed in the early days, it could have been salvageable, but nowadays if his secret was revealed he would have to convince the entire world that everything they knew about Ghosts was wrong. It would practically be impossible.

Even when he joined the Justice League when he became an Adult, he still had to hide his secret. Years of hiding made sure he could conceal his true Nature from the magic users on the team, but he still had to be distant from the team just to be sure.

While all this was going on in the Living Realm, his adventures in the Ghost Zone still happened as normal. He saved Pandora and the Acropolis, dethroned the Tyrant King Aragon, managed to defeat Pariah Dark in Single combat, and even became recognized as a Great Warrior by the Far Frozen.

After years of hiding, he actually felt more at home in the Ghost Zone than in the Human Realm. There he could be his true self without having to hide a huge part of his identity, and people accepted him for who he was. Sure he had enemies there, but he also had more real friends outside of Tucker and Sam.

He was content with his double life, acting as a Hero to the Public while hiding his true self, and secretly going to the Ghost Zone to be himself among his friends and even his enemies.

Of course it all came crashing down when he Anti Ecto Acts finally passed.

Now there was a Legal Path for Humans to enter and profit off of the Ghost Zone. Beyond just being able to legally kill and experiment on Ghosts, the Acts also allowed Humans to claim parts of the Ghost Zone as their own Property, enslaving the Ghosts residing there, and destroying the Ecosystem of the Zone because there were no laws preventing it.

And now Danny had a choice.

He could either side with the Humans to which he was a Hero, allowing them to destroy the Ghost Zone and Enslave the denizens living there with the full support of the Government, or he could side with the Ghost Zone, betraying Humanity and the people he had been protecting for years, but trying to save those who had accepted him for his true self years ago.

To him the answer was obvious.