Blob Ghost Supreme chapter 4
AO3
Chapter 3
The colosseum was packed when it came time for the final battle. Eager ghosts were pressing in from all sides, forming a writhing dome of ghosts all trying to press towards the front. Walker's police ghosts had to be working overtime to maintain a shield around the arena to keep any ghosts from pressing too close.
Sam and Tucker probably would have had a very hard time seeing the fight if they hadn't been inexplicably invited into the fancy leader booth.
Tucker looked over at Sam with his eyebrows up high. What did she think about this? He was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Sam shrugged. So she wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Tucker sneered at her for being a hoity-toity rich girl.
Sam sneered back at him for insinuating that this had anything to do with that, and really, shouldn't he just be being more grateful? Be polite, Tucker.
Tucker rolled his eyes. Fine.
Tucker turned to the tall clock man beside him. He was apparently the Observants' boss who he'd heard about. "So. Who're you rooting for?"
Sam snorted, covering her face, and Tucker raised an eyebrow at her. If she was going to be judging him for committing high society faux pas, the least she could do was telepathically tell him what he was doing wrong.
Clock man, ahem, Clockwork, laughed. "It would arouse a great deal of trouble if I were to claim anything other than impartiality. Though I can guess who you are rooting for."
Sam looked up again. "If I may, how did you know Tucker and I knew Phantom? We didn't even know back then."
Clockwork's eyes twinkled knowingly. "Time is irrelevant for me. I have forgotten more things than either of you have ever known."
Tucker grinned. "Is that really something to brag about, Grandpa?"
Sam choked down a laugh, which somewhat stifled the effects of her pointedly elbowing him. "Sorry about my friend. He doesn't mean any disrespect."
Clockwork shapeshifted into a young man. "No worries. It's refreshing."
Sam coughed awkwardly. "Do you know much about the other finalist? I'm afraid I haven't heard much about them." Sam neglected to mention that she and Tucker hadn't watched any matches which didn't have Danny in them.
"He's rather mysterious," Clockwork said, but there was a knowing twinkle in his eye. "He showed up through a portal the day before the tournament, and quickly established himself as one of the most brutal and promising competitors. His skills are quite impressive. I know many ghosts in the audience are rooting for him."
Sam rolled her eyes, muttering to herself. "Power this, skills that. Isn't trial by combat archaic?"
Clockwork laughed, and Sam blushed. Tucker smirked at her. "Many ghosts believe power is related to the depth of one's connection to the ghost zone," Clockwork explained. "Therefore, the ghosts with the most power will be the ones with the strongest connection to it. Usually, blob ghosts are known to take on a weak appearance because they're close to passing on. Those types of souls have little reason to develop any power or reputation. A lack of resolve."
Sam glanced out at the throngs of ghosts in the audience. "I guess that'd explain why people don't really want a blob ghost on the throne, because they'd expect him to leave them before long."
Clockwork nodded. "Yes, likely. Though there are also reasons they're sensitive about the matter. Ghosts care greatly about appearance and change theirs to match how they wish to present themselves."
Tucker frowned. "But we haven't seen any ghosts doing that." He glanced up. "No, wait! Skulker!"
Clockwork chuckled. "Usually it's accomplished through magic, not technology, so it'd be less noticeable. But yes."
Sam started out across the audience, eyebrows furrowed. "Wait, so... if what Skulker did was common... how many of the ghosts out there..." She whipped back towards Clockwork. "Is this common knowledge? Are you supposed to be telling us this?"
Clockwork waved her off. "I can tell anyone whatever I please. Now take a seat. The final round is about to begin."
Sam pulled back and plopped down into her seat.
Tucker leaned over to her and whispered. "What did you mean? I'm confused."
Sam shook her head. "I don't know. It's a long-shot. I'm probably wrong."
Tucker's eyes narrowed. "Isn't that what we thought about Phantom having something to do with Danny?"
Sam shushed him. "Not so loud! I don't know." She sighed. "I'm just wondering, I guess, how many of these ghosts are hiding something?"
"Something like..." Tucker prompted.
Sam frowned, then whispered in Tucker's ear.
He pulled away from her, wearing a baffled grin. "That is crazy. It'd be hilarious if you were right."
Sam shrugged. "Well I'm probably not. Now let's watch this battle. Let's hope Danny wins instead of this nasty-sounding other guy."
...
Danny clenched his jaw as the gate opened into the arena, and he and his opponent both floated out.
His opponent was large, but in a way that was far more solid than the tornado from the qualifying round. He was shaped like a muscular human, but his skin was blue like a corpse, and blue fire consumed his head in place of hair. His gaze rose from the ground, and locked with Danny's. It stabbed into him, the sharp, uncanny smile, the red eyes that looked so sickeningly familiar. Danny had some sense that he'd met this ghost before, that he hated him, that he was afraid of him.
"Welcome, denizens of the ghost zone, to the final battle of the Ghost King Tournament! Blob Ghost Phantom versus Dark Dan!"
Dan lunged. He was where Danny was in an instant, and his clawed hands whipped the air inches from his face.
Danny pulled back, zipping towards the opposite side of the arena again to get a little space to think, but after only another instant Dan was on him again, grabbing at the air he barely halted before. Danny put up a ghost shield to block Dan's claws and ecto-blasts, but Dan grabbed his shield with him in it and pounded it against the wall only three times before it shattered, leaving Danny breathless.
Danny slipped out of the way again just before Dan could grab him. He started darting erratically through the air to try to keep away from Dan, and it worked for a couple of seconds until an ectoblast hit him. It flung Danny against the wall, but he bounced off of it harmlessly.
Dan frowned when he saw that Danny was fine, and Danny rushed out of the way again. He finally managed to pivot and get a few shots in as he flew away, but Dan dodged two of them harmlessly and blocked the third with what looked like his bare hand. Danny gulped and continued trying to avoid Dan's shots. He needed a second to think.
Dan's fist hit him from the side, launching Danny into the wall. Danny bounced off of it and onto the floor, and he pulled up spitting sand out of his mouth.
"So that meager form did have one advantage after all, does it?" Dan said, cracking his knuckles. "Interesting."
What did he mean did? Danny was right here! Maybe Dan wasn't talking about him at all.
Danny fired off some shots of frost, but Dan broke through each one with relative ease. Danny continued his game of keep-away while he tried to charge up an especially powerful blast of ice, though when he managed to fire it off, Dan dodged out of its way. Danny gritted his teeth. How was he supposed to beat this ghost? This was so frustrating!
Danny started curling power around his space core, channeling its destructive force and creating another black hole.
Dan flew right up to the hole easily and extinguished it between his fingers with a condescending smirk. He blew away the smoke on them.
Danny froze. "What?!"
Dan smirked. "Oh, my pathetic, inferior self. Let me show you how it's done."
Dan brought his hands together and pulled them apart to create a black hole of his own. Danny's eyes widened as the circumference of the hole in turn grew larger and larger.
"What are you doing?" Danny screamed as he pushed himself against the wall as far from the ball as possible. "You'll destroy the arena!"
"If that's what it takes," Dan said casually.
Danny set his jaw in determination, then surged toward Dan's black hole like the other ghost had just a second ago. He opened his mouth wider than he ever thought was possible and swallowed the black thing whole.
Dan stared at him dubiously. Danny stared back, hoping his chest wasn't about to implode.
After a few seconds of them staring at each other and the audience staring at them, nothing had happened, and the ghosts in the stands let out a collective sigh of relief.
Danny opened his mouth to yell at Dan again, but the force of the black hole suddenly blasted forth out of it as a void-colored laser, directly in Dan's face. Danny tried to force his jaw shut; he wasn't trying to kill anyone, whatever this was, but it took several seconds before he was able to.
When the power finally depleted, Danny could see that the arena had finally met its match. A hole had been burned clean through it and the hall behind it, with the pale green of the ghost zone sky visible at the other end. Danny gulped. "Dan?"
There was silence for a second. Then a small, round shape pushed out of the wreckage at the end of the tunnel, steaming. Danny squinted. It looked like a large green water balloon. It looked like him.
Dan the blob ghost floated dazedly out of the tunnel, then flopped to the ground on the edge of the arena.
Danny blinked, looking around at the audience. That wasn't real, right?
Up in the fancy booth, the two familiar figures of Sam and Tucker stood up and started to applaud. No one else followed, the entire audience held in stunned silence.
The announcer Observant was frantically whispering to the other Observants beside him. Finally he spoke. "So, um. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. Dark Dan was a blob ghost this entire time. How cowardly of him to hide it! Surely no one else would be able to relate to something so foolish—"
Clockwork took the microphone from the Observant's hand. "On the contrary, I think we can all learn from this. While some ghosts like Dan and Skulker may disguise their true self, it is the one who showed the truth despite its humility who ultimately won this tournament."
Clockwork swept his arms wide towards the audience. "For too long we've assumed that a ghost's appearance defines them. We have passed off blob ghosts as weak, to be ignored and forgotten. But as we've seen today, that belief does not hold water. It is an impression of a more ignorant time. In fact, perhaps a small appearance, rather than demonstrating any kind of weakness, shows confidence, and a strength more than any other."
Hushed murmuring trickled through the audience, ghosts looking at each other in doubt. Sam and Tucker had stopped clapping when Clockwork spoke, and now Sam was glancing around anxiously as Tucker attempted to give Danny an encouraging smile.
Johnny 13 jumped up onto the wall and pumped a fist in the air. "Hail King Phantom!" he screamed, then, with a pop, turned into a small, dark green blob ghost.
Several members of the crowd gasped.
Ember McLain hovered above the crowd and thrust her guitar into the air. "Hail King Phantom!" and she shapeshifted into a squishy blue fireball.
Danny's jaw dropped. Her too? How many of them were secretly blob ghosts?
One by one, each of Ember's bandmates also floated up and turned into blob ghosts of varying colors. Danny could only stare. The murmurings of the audience members had taken on a different tone, them turning to each other with looks on their faces not of shame or anger, but of awe.
A couple of ghosts started to filter away. What, were they blob ghosts too and didn't want to show it?
Those who remained, though, gradually started to also turn into blob ghosts. Danny recognized several he knew. The vine ghost from the first round shapeshifted into a roundish bramble. The tornado ghost turned into a more peaceful-looking sphere of wind. Technus abandoned an avatar he'd been hanging out in to reveal his own sparking blob ghost form.
Danny gaped as the silhouettes of the audience melded into the pleasant appearance of a ball park. Every one of them. "What?" he asked again, dumbly.
A blue blob ghost with a clock pinning a cloak around its neck floated down to him. "Clockwork?" Danny asked, extremely confused.
Clockwork nodded. "We're all blob ghosts. The archaic belief that that appearance was weak has been holding us back for centuries. By winning this tournament, you showed everyone here that they don't need to be ashamed of what they really look like."
"Wait, they all have shapeshifting magic? Does that mean I have shapeshifting magic too?! Teach me how to--"
Tucker crashed into Danny from behind, and Sam was quick to follow, the two pinning him in a hug.
"That was so awesome!" Sam shouted. "I was kind of worried you were about to lose, 'cause apparently he's your evil future self and everything, but you totally kicked his bu—!"
"Evil future self???" Danny spluttered.
"Oh, yeah. Clockwork told us." Tucker said.
Danny stared at him, then said hopefully, "I grow up to look that cool?"
Tucker shrugged. "I mean, I guess? Anyway, you're the ghost king! This is awesome! You're an inspiration!"
Danny looked up at the crowds of blob ghosts floating around each other joyfully. So everything they'd been saying about him had been because they were just ashamed themselves. And now they finally felt proud enough to take their true forms. They looked so comfortable, so happy.
Danny looked back at Clockwork. "Okay, but seriously. Show me how to shapeshift into something cooler!"
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Constantine & the King
First time Constantine meets the Ghost King, he's expecting problems. In his line of work, when all the shadows in the room seem to be pulled toward a point in the room. Creating a dark portal that suddenly glowed a startling green, it's more than concerning.
However, Constantine was thrown off by the young man that stepped out of the portal. Young man could be putting it generously. The kid looked barely legal to drink.
However the kid was holding a scroll that looked thicker than his own head. A crown, ring, and cape that just screamed royalty.
Constantine did not expect the kid to greet with joy and friendliness.
It was the Ghost King. The being that held full control over that aspect of the mythical realms. His name was Danny, and Constantine found the kid's lack of professionalism a nice break.
That scroll? Every contract Constantine ever signed that used his soul as a bargianing chip.
Now, Constantine expected annoyance. If his soul was technically meant to end up in the grasp of thw King, wouldn't the kid be pissed?
After all, Constantine was certain one of those contracts was with the prior Ghost King.
Except, Danny loved it. He was all grins and laughter as he spoke about it. The kid complained about the amount of paperwork, sure. Who wouldn't?
Aside from that, Danny adored Constantine's work. His nonchalantness when it came to signing away his soul.
Danny relished in the chaos he has happening among various other entities. Praised Constantine, and thanked him for the entertainment.
Constantine realized that this Ghost King was a brat. He enjoyed the chaos and the drama as long as it hurt absolutely anyone. This kid was a little shithead.
And Constantine got a confirmation. No matter what, no matter what contracts he signed. His soul was going to end up in Danny's hands.
Constantine didn't mind that. He liked the spirit the kid had. Found a fondness for the King.
A fondness that only grew with every impromptu meeting. Every time the room grew colder, and the shadows moved and warped in the room.
Constantine grew accustomed to it. He looked forward to it.
Then it happened.
Constantine was at the Justice League Watchtower. A simple consultation, nothing too crazy. It was all going to be fine.
Until Constantine felt the shift in the room.
The temperature dropped. The shadows shifted and contorted, and a portal began to form.
Constantine waved off the other heroes concern and defense. Turning towards the forming portal, and prepared to see the kid. The kid who was easily his favorite being in the world at this point.
Except that changed once he saw the familiar being step through the portal.
Maybe step was the wrong word. Danny basically stumbled out of the green portal. Landing harshly on his knees in front of the league.
Constantine wasted no time rushing forward. Pulling the kid close to him, and taking in the sight. Looking for any sign of what was wrong.
Blood and a green substance coated the kid's closed. And Constantine noted the cape was completely missing. The kid was in tears, shaking horrible and in a state of complete hysteria.
All Constantine knew, was that he was going to make them pay.
Whoever brought this normally confident and carefree king to his knees, wasn't going to last much longer.
Those bastards will pay.
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“You’re late.” Danny turns around, looking at the space his nephew now occupied.
Batman frowns, then sighs. He runs a hand across his head, where his hair would be if the cowl wasn’t there. “I know, I got caught up with—“
“I’m not interested in your excuse.” He cut off Batman, “You’re never punctual anyway.”
“Mom never cared.” Batman deflected.
“Of course she didn’t. She’s a Fenton; we’re always late, it’s just part of our biology.” He crossed his arms as he tilted his head, the crown on top of his head brushing against his hair with the movement.
“Have you found her soul yet?” Batman—Bruce asked.
“Not yet. I know she’s been reborn, but I haven’t tracked it down. I’m beginning to wonder if she ended up on a different planet from ours.”
“We’ll know it when we see it.” Bruce agreed, “Until then, we do nothing.”
“Hmm.” He grunted. “How are your children?”
“They’re doing good. Damian is adjusting well. You can always meet them, you know.” Bruce offered.
“I can’t.” He denied, “Most of them aren’t blood related. Being around me for an extended amount of time would sap their life force until they were liminal. They don’t deserve that.”
“I know,” Bruce huffed, “I just wish…”
“I know, Bruce.” He put his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Being fully dead and the ghost king is…not always fun.” He finished lamely.
“It’s okay. You did what you could after mom and dad died.”
The air between them was sad. He wished he could say something, anything, but there was nothing left to say. As much as Danny wished he could be with his nephew’s children, it just wasn’t possible. Being the ghost king might have saved the multiverse, but the cost was that he couldn’t be around his family. The only one would be Damian, Bruce’s blood son, since ectoplasm in his veins from Jazz would protect against his aura. Bruce’s other children wouldn’t have that luxury, and he would never risk his family’s health like that.
It was a good thing Gotham owed him a favor, and she watched over them for him instead.
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