#Jazz succeeded in her quest to give everyone therapy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yama951 · 1 year

Text

Red Ringbearer

A bit of an expansion on the whole 'Halfa Jason being Danny's Red Knight with time travel shenanigans' idea. Got a bunch of other stuff mashed up in the idea and world building as well. The name is still tentative.

--------------------------

“The Infinite Realms, and the very mess that is the multiverse with all its timelines, realities, universes, and dimensions, rested upon the unintended consequences of the beings we call the Firstborn. The Firstborn were quite literally the first sentient beings that ever existed, formed sometime between what you would call the Bathwater Epoch, some fifteen million years after the Big Bang, and the formation of the first stars in the universe, some hundred million years after the Big Bang.” Clockwork said as he captivated Danny with images of space, of the universe at grand scales. Out of all the stuff becoming the High King of the Infinite Realms has given him, cosmic history with Clockwork remained a favorite.

Sure, it was more class but Danny wanted to be an astronaut when he was young, so space remained one of the captivating subjects when it ever popped up in class.

“The Firstborn were the first to master magic, science, nature, technology, any field they set their minds on. One of the things they figured out was essentially creation out of nothing. The creation of the multiverse was an accidental side effect of their actual goal, which is essentially setting up an artificial afterlife with specially designed mental copies to allow the continuation of consciousness after the death of their physical forms.”

When Danny later told that to his friends, Tucker was at awe at the very idea.

“You’re telling me the Firstborn accidentally created the multiverse as a side effect of making an afterlife for themselves! It’s like us creating the Internet only to find out we accidentally created worlds with life in them, like... like… Tron or Digimon!” Danny recalled the tone of disbelief.

“They even created their own gods, based on their philosophies. We call them Entities, the first Ancients though they sleep yet still dreaming. They are, for all intents and purposes, the foundations of the Infinite Realms, and so all realities and all peoples are influenced by them on some level. Known as the Five and Two, the Five Base Emotions and the Two Aspects of Existence. The Rage represents all anger in existence but is also about making things fair. War and justice are domains given to it in the passing of time, as well as an association with the color red. The Anguish represents all sadness but also acts as the keeper of memory. The Revulsion represents disgust but also focuses on good health. The Terror represents fear but also safety and preservation. The Ecstasy represents joy but also pleasure. Meanwhile, the Two Aspects are opposite yet complimentary and both are necessary as too much of one side is unhealthy. There is the Self, the inward focused aspect, the power behind all left-handed magics, techniques, and methods, and thus seen as a malevolent by some, yet it is the power of the Self, the I, that allows boosts of power, self-worth, even godhood when strong enough. It is the power behind our cores. The power to look at reality and proclaim that reality is what one makes of it. The excess of the Self results in a sociopathic solipsism, the mindset that nothing else is real except the individual. Its opposite is the Wheel, the Web, the World, the outward focused aspect, the power behind all right-handed magics, techniques, and methods, and thus seen as benevolent by some. Empathy and understanding are said to be its gifts but an excess of the Web typically results in complete dissolution. Some say it’s fully passing on; others say they become one with existence. Nirvana is another explanation.”

Clockwork turned to face Danny, both to check if he was listening to the lecture and to see if the Crown and the Ring has attuned to him. With a snap, floating portraits of various high rulers appear, circling around the two.

Danny looked at the first portrait he saw and read the writing on the floating plaque below it.

A painting of a ghostly woman in a blue mourning robe and shawl with rivers of tears flowing from her eyes. The crown floated above her in a crown shaped water bubble while the ring rested on her finger. A sense of melancholy and despair seemed to emanate from the painting.

High Queen Allie Hambra, the Queen of Tears, the Halfa Monarch of the Fallen Kingdom of Hope’s Light, wearing the Crown of Water and the Ring of Anguish

“The Crown of Authority and the Ring of Emotion are not just the symbols of office as the high king. The history of the Infinite Realms has numerous dynasties, interregnums, figurehead rulers, ruling councils, and even democratically elected rulers of various kinds. But not all of them attuned to the two and gain true authority to rule. The Crown will shift to fit your core’s element, while the Ring will require the agreement with one Entity. The Coronation and the Investiture.”

Danny glanced at another painting.

A painting of a being of shadow with glowing white eyes posed in a rather rigid and subtly unnatural manner. The crown floated above him, darker than the darkness surrounding it, while the ring rested on his finger, glowing a white like his eyes with some hint of yellow. A sense of fear, dread, and anxiety emanated from the painting.

High King Oz, the Terror’s Awaken Mind and Avatar, wearing the Crown of Shadows and the Ring of Terror

Clockwork glanced at the painting with a cryptic smile.

“Some idiot thought awakening an Entity would make them high monarch during a long interregnum period. The Terror King ruled the Infinite Realms in a reign of fear, anxiety, and dread. Ironically, he did nothing that resulted in such fear. The Entity himself was quite an anxious ditherer and it was more of an effect of his aura than anything he commanded. He had to be sealed away lest the other Entities wake up and unintentionally destroy the Infinite Realms and thus the multiverse. He’s currently living through a couple of time loops in California, living out his young adult-ish high school years. Not your California, another reality’s California though there’s probably a version of him in your California. The need for multiple vessels to house its power and all.”

Danny turned to look at Clockwork, wondering if he was serious or if he was joking. Clockwork’s face kept the enigmatic smile. Danny then turned to the painting of the first High Monarch of the Infinite Realms.

The painting itself was rather bare and minimalist. A translucent humanoid figure, almost like a featureless mannequin if it were either see through plastic or a jellyfish, wearing a white priestly mantle of sorts. The being has two visible cores, which made it look like a humanoid single celled organism of sorts. The one in its head was the living core while the one in its chest was the ghost core. Above it was the crown in its base non-elemental form, looking like glass or crystal, while on its finger was the ring in the same simple style though glowing white. Danny chuckled to himself at how much it looked like a lantern ring.

High Technician Ah’Ou, Founder and Creator of the Infinite Realms, First Among Equals among the Council of Ontological Technologies, Former Acting Director of the Department of Applied Theology, wearing the Crown of Authority and the Ring of Emotion

“Now Danny, are you prepared for the Coronation ceremony?” he asked after a pause.

Danny groaned.

“Yeah, yeah, everyone’s getting ready for the formalities and ritual.”

“The Council of Observants were adamant in completing it once you had your Knight Protector chosen. The less legitimacy Pariah Dark has, the less likely the more opportunistic realms would try to instigate a rebellion.”

“I still can’t believe the eyeballs are technically the Realms’ ethics and oversight committee.” Danny groaned as he looked around at his lair. It grew a lot when he became the Crowned Prince by right of conquest in single battle.

He watched his parents organizing and decorating with their usual manic glee. Had he known his parents would have been mostly accepting of his half ghost state, it would have saved a lot of stress and trouble. Tucker was working on the tech side while Sam was focused on the plant decorations. They had to get a bunch of ice plants for the ceremony, to better attune the Crown with his ice core.

Wes Wilson was working with Tucker, focused on the camera work. The aspiring reporter grated on Danny’s nerves when he moved to Amity Park during Danny’s sophomore year, a wannabe Louis Lane of sorts if she was a bit of a conspiracy theorist. He later found out his secret and decided to help keep it secret from his side of the media.

Jazz was talking to Queen Dorothea on the invites, a soon-to-be certified ecto-psychologist, the first in her field. She had her parents and Vlad to thank for, being the subjects of her paper on ecto-OCD. Danny could imagine his sister’s voice, correcting him that it’s some technical psychology jargon and not ‘ecto-OCD’. Danny still can’t believe Vlad and his parents was in a weird love triangle mess of miscommunication for decades, that and dad revealing his bisexual love of Vlad when Danny accidentally outed himself to his parents. Lack of communication runs in the family, it seemed. Though in his dad’s case, it was more of a deeply religious and repressive upbringing, a family of monster hunters and grandfather being a self-proclaimed witch hunter and an ordained minister wasn’t really an environment to come out of the closet. Dad turned out to have turned his love for Vlad into a sort of Achilles and Patroclus relationship in his head. Still, a mess of a love triangle with incompatible orientations.

Vlad, in his ghost form, was inspecting the food selection with Dan, on probationary parole of sorts, and Daniella, still figuring out her own identity so her name tended to shift around, arguing over what food to serve. Danny could hear Dan’s shout of ‘no Nasty Burger’ during the argument. Walker, and Danny still can’t believe the ghost was his mom’s grandfather and a founding member of the GIW which explained the white suit look in all honesty, was there personally to keep an eye on Dan. Though the idea of him wanting to see his granddaughter and using Dan as an excuse for that was a possibility in Danny’s opinion.

A look outside at the training grounds, he saw Val sparring with Jay with Fright Knight acting as a sort of referee. Jay was the newest addition to the group. Fright Knight found him, trained him, and presented him to Danny as a candidate for his Knight Protector and Danny agreed after talking to the kid. He was still reeling with his post-mortem amnesia typical to those who died from violent deaths, Jazz’s words, when he was put through Frighty’s training regime. The kid was a natural at fighting though, and the comments of him being a street kid made Danny’s Obsession to ring with the need to protect the kid.

Danny let himself relax at the balcony, looking up at the stars of the night sky.

Except, the Infinite Realms doesn’t have a night sky full of stars. The ever-present swirl of ectoplasm was a memory of the universe before the formation of the first stars.

The starry night sky then moved, reformed into a familiar figure.

“Nocturn.” Danny said as he realized what was going on.

“Quite a pleasant dream, full of happy memories, my liege.” The ghost of dreams said with a slight bow.

“Ugh… I fell asleep during another council meeting, didn’t I?” Danny said as he rubbed his head.

“Of course. Nothing important was in the meeting so we let you get some needed sleep. Mostly updates on public and ruler opinion among the various realms from the Observants. Though rumors are beginning to spread on the missing Red Knight. A trickle for now but it can become a flood in the long run.”

“So, it’ll be a problem a century or two from now?”

“In the general public, yes. Those who knew of the Red Knight are asking questions, be it their curiosity or their worry.”

“Any news on Fright Knight’s quest then?”

“He is petitioning to go to the living realm to continue his search since his return. A complete formality, of course, if you deny him, he’ll simply use the knightly mentor loophole to go after his former squire he deemed as a traitor. A stain on his knightly honor to redeem.”

Danny sighed.

“I’ll make a list of people he’ll need to avoid then. Better some rules on what he’s going to do than nothing.” Danny said before he woke up.

He yawned as he grabbed the nearest stationeries, listing down as many supers he could think of for Fright Knight to avoid while the Observant was listing out the possible problematic rulers of the nth infinite set of realms should the current situation escalated. At least Danny has the rest of the council supporting him or he would have looked for the next person to give the crown and the three thousand plus years of accumulated paperwork to deal with.

Fright Knight was hoping for his petition to be denied as he looked at the list of names on the parchment he must avoid. Some of the names are whole groups like one called the Justice League, which meant that many cities are made into havens of safety for his former squire should the chase results in him fleeing into them, or Ancients forbid, haunting in one of those cities in the first place. The GIW, along federal buildings and organizations in the US, are also forbidden in his search for the missing Ring of Rage.

But he knew of things his liege likely wasn’t told of before his traitorous squire vanished with the Ring. The Red Knight told him of the flashes of memories he had of his life amongst the living. But the main thing that Fright Knight’s mind latched onto was the symbol the Red Knight placed upon his tabard and chest plate, a symbol he was adamant in keeping if modified to fit proper heraldic design, a robin with wings displayed and expanded in red.

Based on his information search in the Infinite Realms, the city of Gotham has a figure known as Red Robin but the city is under Batman’s protection, one of the people he must avoid in the list.

But an idea came to him and he began to laugh. Names have power. Names are masks. Fright Knight was told to avoid Batman, then the answer was simple. All he needed was some preparation and calling in some favors.

Jason Todd was destressing at one of those legal property damage places in Los Angeles. We went for a vacation then relatively recent events made him stay in LA for a longer vacation than planned. Honestly, he blamed the dark horse that was Trump winning the Republican candidacy against Lex Luthor. He doubted the Joker reforming and becoming Gotham’s legitimately elected socialist mayor and fixing things in the city would have happened under a Clinton or Luthor presidency. He hoped the Biden presidency would have made the Joker return to his old ways but the current political circus among the Republicans meant that the Joker doing a responsible job as progressive mayor was part of the punchline he’s going with. The thought of the Joker going scot-free with everything he did was fueling Jason’s pit rage at the injustice, at the unfairness, of it all.

Hence, redirecting it on smashing up trash and junk with a baseball bat.

Of course, Bruce had to go on a deep end and caused a zombie apocalypse trying to bring back his dead parents with glowing green plant goop that may as well be Lazarus water.

Jason smashed some fine chinaware at the thought with some extra smashes.

Bruce then allowed himself to be arrested, supporting rule of law or whatever, and ultimately had to reveal that he and Waynetech were secretly supporting the Justice League financially. The Joker had to publicly defend Bruce Wayne and Waynetech against the resulting right-wing vitriol while also making a comment about the rich and powerful not being trusted even with legal avenues to support the Justice League.

Jason stomped on a now broken microwave in rage. Enough that his foot went through the thing.

He blinked in shock at that as his foot should have been hurting from that but not a pinch of pain at all, even when he slowly raised his foot out.

He shook his head, putting it up on adrenaline, and left early.

On the way back to the hotel, a suddenly feeling of dread struck him, as if it were the distant ringing of church bells marking his funeral. In the cab, he found himself looking west, towards Gotham. Something wasn’t right and he needed to return. So, he packed up his stuff and ordered a ticket to Gotham, pit rage be damned.

On the way to the airport, he bumped to a strange kid. A rather lanky guy, young adult by the looks of him, wearing a yellow cardigan. The kid was giving off strong nervous energy as he kept on apologizing while picking up the fallen brochures for a pizza place yet somehow, despite it all, he was important to Jason. Which raised red flags in Jason’s head since he never met the kid in his life.

“Thanks. Vicky would have killed me if I lost all these.” The guy said with a nervous chuckle. “The name’s Oz, by the way. Ozymandias Phobius.”

Jason just grunted as Oz went to pat out the dust and dirt from his traveling bag.

“Stay safe by the way.” Oz whispered in a calm yet clear tone. “The knight has misplaced their retribution against you but you are not to blame. Keep the rage safe. Keep the ring safe, Jason.” Oz said as he stood back up. From his position, Jason realized that the guy wasn’t casting a shadow.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Have a safe flight back, Red Knight.” Oz said with a slight grin before a sudden gust of dusty wind made Jason cover his eyes. When the wind faded a second later, the guy was gone.

Jason made a mental note on that before he realized the time and went to the airport. He managed to catch his flight back to Gotham some minutes later.

32 notes · View notes