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pinksaphira11 · 19 days ago

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An idea for a different take on a Demon Twins au.

–

Danyal stands ramrod straight beside Damian, staring directly ahead despite having his full attention on Grandfather. Danyal does not let his nerves show. He can’t afford to show weakness, especially not before Grandfather and Mother. You already have, a traitorous thought whispers.

Finally, Grandfather speaks.

“It is time to determine which of you will be my heir.”

Danyal feels a thrill of anticipation and dread go down his spine. They’d been looking forward to this for so long. All their training, for this moment. And yet, Danyal knew he was the one seen as lesser, weaker. He already knew the answer. He had for a while.

“The strongest of you will prove themselves the most worthy. That is why, in order to determine who is truly worthy, you will fight to the death. The one left standing will be my heir.”

Danyal couldn’t stop his gaze from jerking to Grandfather. They what? Grandfather looked serious. So did Mother. Danyal swallowed. He’d wondered why they’d kept him for so long despite being the weaker twin. He’d thought hoped it was because they loved him. Instead, it was just so they’d have a spare. His heart sunk at the realization. They didn’t think they needed him anymore. They all knew Damian was better at combat than he was. Danyal would be the first to admit it. They knew Damian would win and Danyal would die. It must be some sort of last test. To see if Damian could do it, and rid himself of what they considered a weakness.

Danyal looked at Damian. Damian’s horrified expression reflected his own.

“Draw your weapons.”

Danyal looked down at his katana. He’d taken lives he’d never wanted to with it, and every single one of them haunted him. He’d never be able to be an assassin. He was too soft, too weak, to do it when no one was there to push him. He’d known this long ago. It’d be better for the both of them if Damian killed Danyal here, and yet… Danyal didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to just give up. He wanted to live together with Damian. He clasped the hilt in shaky hands, then looked up.

Damian looked stricken.

Danyal hardened his resolve.

He pulled his katana from its sheath.

Damian took a step back, betrayal written on his face.

Danyal threw his katana down, turned to Grandfather, and said, “No.”

An all encompassing silence engulfed them. Danyal hardly dared to breathe.

“What.”

Grandfather’s face was a hardly suppressed storm. It nearly shattered his courage, but he held onto it with trembling fingers and repeated, “No. I won’t fight him.”

Damian was suddenly next to him, his own katana in the dirt beside Danyal’s.

“We’re stronger together,” Damian added in support.

Grandfather’s expression turned murderous. He threw his arms open wide and spit, “Then you’ll both perish!”

The League’s agents bled from the shadows and Danyal glanced at his mother. She was frowning, but made no move to stop this. His heart dropped. Did she really not care? The assassins closed in and Danyal suddenly felt like this had been a terrible idea. There was no way they could fight through all of them, and that was with Mother and Grandfather staying out of it. At least they loved them enough not to do it themselves. A familiar hand squeezed his, drawing his attention to his twin.

Damian smiled sharply.

“We’ll show them why we’re called the Demon Twins.”

And Danyal knew he’d made the right choice.

If they went down, they’d go down together, taking as many as they could with them.

And if they somehow made it out of this alive? It’d be only because they’d done it together.

Danyal smiled back, squeezing Damian’s hand in return, then let go to shift into a fighting stance. He watched their movements and they watched his, the air holding its breath.

Then Damian moved.

He dove for their dropped katanas.

The other League members rushed forward.

Damian threw Danyal’s katana to him.

He caught it.

And blocked his attacker’s blade with it.

He felt Damian’s presence behind him and fell into step with him. Damian thrust, leaving his side exposed, and so Danyal stepped back, falling in to cover him. Danyal sliced, his leg over extended, and Damian stabbed at the spot, the prediction catching an enemy between the ribs. The movements were easy, natural, from all the time they’d spent fighting together, learning each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Danyal was convinced that no two people could ever fit together as perfectly as they did.

Danyal slid his blade through his next opponent’s throat, their eyes going wide as they choked on their own blood. He normally hated killing. Hated the feel of his blade going through flesh. The look in their eyes as they died. The smell of iron and the feel of blood. But it was them or him and his brother, and so there was no choice. He’d do anything for Dami. Maybe it’d come back to haunt him in the future, but for now, he charged onward, so they’d have even a chance at a future.

The assassins kept coming, pushing against their defenses, their blades an endless torrent, constantly testing their skill, but they continued to stand tall, too synchronized to fall. Yet even the best defenses eventually crumble.

It started with a misstep. Danyal was growing weary, yet there seemed to be no end. His tired muscles reacted too slowly, his katana not coming up fast enough. Instead of blocking the attack, it slid off his blade. He jerked his head to the side in time for it to slice his cheek instead of his eye, and he retaliated with a blade to the abdomen, but the damage was done. His mishap left Damian alone in their dance of death, and so he stepped where there should have been someone guarding him. He was instead left open to a slice across the ribs. Danyal scrambled to return to his spot.

There was a reason they called him the weaker twin. He didn’t necessarily think they were wrong.

In his haste, he left himself open, and they took full advantage of it. Someone stepped in and swiped at him, forcing him to take a step back. Someone else threw a dagger at him, making him spin away to avoid it. Before he knew it, he and Damian were separated. Danyal’s hope was hanging on by a thread. This was his fault. If he’d just been better, he wouldn’t have exposed them like this. It was already practically impossible that they’d win, but even less so now that they were apart. Danyal fought desperately to get back, could see Damian doing the same, yet they were kept apart, their futile attempts earning them more and more wounds, weakening them further, and their defenses crumbled under the maelstrom.

Danyal noticed someone behind Damian.

Their blade was in the perfect spot for a killing blow.

Damian was focused on someone else.

He’d never be able to block it in time.

The throwing knife left Danyal’s hand before he could even think.

The threat fell.

Damian turned to him.

Damian’s eyes widened.

They were focused behind him.

Danyal tried to turn around.

Pain shot through his back.

A katana emerged from his chest.

His eyes met Damian’s.

He couldn’t hear what Dami screamed before the darkness claimed him.

—

Damian saw Dany’s eyes go blank, his body slide off the blade, fall to the floor, lifeless. He knew what death looked like. He’d never been so horrified by it.

“DANY!”

He dashed forward, cutting the back of the knee on the assassin that dared to get in his way, and skid to his knees beside the corpse his brother. Suddenly everything was still, quiet, reduced to that moment. It was like the world held its breath, giving him a reprieve in the eye of the storm. He hesitated for a second. Then turned his brother over. A sob ripped itself from his throat.

Dany’s eyes were open and glassy.

He was already gone.

Damian reached out a shaky hand and closed Dany’s eyes. League assassins shuffled closer, the storm approaching once again. Damian let his tears fall and grabbed Dany’s katana. Then turned to the assassins and screamed, lunging at them with all the fear, anger, grief he had. His blades struck out one after the other, cutting up everything in their path. His world narrowed to his blades and his next opponent. Nothing else mattered in that moment.

Damian slashed and stabbed and cut until there was nothing left to attack. The assassins were returning to the shadows, no longer interested in fighting. Damian looked to Grandfather Ra’s al Ghul. His hand was raised.

“You are the only surviving sibling and have proven yourself capable. Congratulations, you have shown yourself worthy of being my heir.”

And he walked away. He just left Dany there. Damian couldn’t believe he’d ever looked up to Ra’s. Damian would not do the same. He turned to walk back to Dany, but was stopped by a hand on his wrist. He snarled at them, turned to stab them with a dagger, but froze when he realized who it was. Mother.

“Damian, no, we need to go.”

Damian couldn’t believe it. Her too.

“No! I’m not leaving him!” he snarled, yanking his hand to release her grasp. She was too strong and she tightened her grip further.

“He’s dead! You’re still alive! Come quickly, before Father changes his mind!”

Damian pulled against her, tried to twist his arm out of her grip, but she stayed firm.

“I don’t care! I won’t abandon him!”

“Damian, stop being so stubborn!”

“No! We were going to stick together no matter what, and I intend to do so!”

“So, what, you’ll let yourself die too then?! Do you really think he’d want that?!”

Damian froze. Would Dany want that? Would he want his brother to join him in the afterlife? It took barely any thought to find an answer. No. No he wouldn’t. Dany would have him take advantage of the second chance he was given. He stopped fighting and let Mother take him away from Danyal’s corpse.

Damien felt like he was walking through a haze, the only thing grounding him Mother’s grip on his arm. He still couldn’t wrap his head around it. Dany was gone. Just last night they’d snuck up to the roof together to look at the stars. Now he was dead. And they’d never get to do that again.

Mother said something but Damien couldn’t hear it, his thoughts too weighed down. He only realized he was in his room when the door clicked shut. Mother must have closed it behind her, he briefly acknowledged, before his mind turned back to Dany. They’d never get to hang out together again. He felt tears start to fall.

Now it was only Damien. Just him. Not the Demon Twins, just the Heir. He’d always have that empty spot beside him. He’d never get to hear his brother’s voice again. Never get to hear him laugh again, or hear him rattle off facts about the stars. He’d never… get to do anything with Dany ever again. It was brutally ripped away by the Demon Head. And Damien had been given the chance to live in that world without him, all because he was favored. If their places had been swapped, and Damien had died instead, would Danyal have been given the same chance? He highly doubted it. But because he was their favorite, he’d been given a second chance. He wasn’t even sure he wanted it. He’d been so ready to go down with Dany. He almost wished he had. But Mother’s words came back to him. No, Dany would want him to live, to take advantage of this life he’d been given. Damien just wasn’t sure how he’d get through it without Dany.

Damien curled up on the floor, wrapping his arms around his legs and putting his head down as he started sobbing. For the first time, he found himself sympathizing with the League’s victims and their families.

How was he supposed to do this? How could he simply move on? How was anyone supposed to be able to do anything after such a great loss? He’d never get to do anything with his brother again. Never get to see him again. Never get to hear him again. Never anything with him again ever. He wished he’d cherished those last moments they’d had together. Wished he’d paid more attention, focused on Dany more, so he could remember him better. He’d commit all he could to memory, go over every last detail until it was etched in his mind so he’d never forget. He wished… he wished he’d told Dany he loved him more. He’d said it maybe once or twice their whole lives. Did Dany know he’d loved him? He hoped he did. Hoped all the times they’d done things together was enough to show Dany he’d loved him. The spot beside him felt bare. He wanted his brother back.

“Dami?”

Damien’s sobs ground to a halt and his head jerked up. Who-?

A glowing person was standing halfway through the wall. What-?

“Dami?” the person said again, coming fully into the room, face concerned. There was something familiar about them. Their clothes looked like a League uniform but white instead of the usual black. Their hair was similarly white and their eyes were as green as the Lazarus Pit. The voice and face seemed a bit familiar as well, like they were made just slightly off by the glow and echo. It was the word itself that tipped Damien off.

“...Dany?”

The person- Dany- smiled hesitantly and nodded. He was so different, but now that he knew, he could see it so clearly, it was Dany, he was somehow here and-

Damien jerked to his feet and crashed into his brother. Their arms wrapped around each other and Damien couldn’t stop himself from burying his face in Dany’s shoulder and sobbing. He was here.

“It’s okay Dami,” Dany said, his own voice choked with tears, “I’m here, it’s alright. I’m sorry I left you, I didn’t want to, but I’m here now. I won’t leave you again.”

—

Yes, Danyal is fully dead. Yes, this means this is a full ghost au. ik a lot of people make it so ghosts form in the Ghost Zone, which I agree with, but uh, I didn’t wanna do that here, so something something Lazarus Pit messed with things? Idk, but this is an au, so I don’t work for canon, canon works for me. :P btw, I did purposely write Dany instead of Danny. Why? For two reasons; one, I like how it looks, and two, to helps me separate the demon twin au from normal dp canon. I just like making it different sometimes, particularly if it’s this different. Idk, my brain just works like that.

(If you don’t want to read these next few paragraphs there’s a tldr after them.) Also, it’s probably pretty obvious but I know almost nothing about DC. So I have no idea if the stuff for DC here is accurate or not. Hopefully I know superheroes and tropes well enough to have been able to fill in the gaps, but there’s only so far that and fanfics can get you, so idk. Because of this I also have no idea if anyone is ooc here because I don’t really know DC or the League of Assassins so, here’s hoping they’re alright.

I’ve watched a few pieces of media set in the DC universe but it’s pretty much just been movies and they don’t really dive into the depths that I’m sure there are, based on my experience with Marvel. I actually had planned on not getting involved in dcxdp whatsoever, was very content with just normal Danny Phantom things, there’s enough to get into with superhero stuff in the Marvel fandom, thank you very much, did not need another huge superhero thing to get into.

Then, while perusing dp fics, I stumbled across a dpxdc one that, from the summary, sounded interesting enough that I thought I’d give it a try. I could always stop reading it if it didn’t pique my interest and go read something else. I ended up reading the whole thing, and since it had a good story and some great art, I decided to check out the author’s tumblr to see if I could see some more of their art. I decided to search through their dp tag first, as that was what had brought me there, and the only things I could find for it were the parts of the fic I’d already read and a few things about demon twins au. I was curious enough to take a look at them. Oh boy did I not know what I was getting into.

See, I am a sucker for good friendships, regardless of if they’re familial or not. Ratchet & Clank, Hiccup & Toothless, these fantastic, unbreakable friendships make me wanna flap my arms and squeal cause I love em so much. So when I saw that these two were kinda being painted in the same light? Oh boy was I all in. I’m honestly still not interested in the rest of the DC stuff, but things pertaining to this? Oh man do I wanna know it all now. This stuff is my jam, especially because there was so much delicious angst potential here. Mmmm, giving me all the good stuff. So yeah, I fully blame @aealzx for getting me sucked into dcxdp (even if it’s only a part of it) when I otherwise was determined to stay out of it.

Tldr; I don’t really know DC but, through a fic and the author’s tumblr, have now become very invested in Demon Twins au regardless. I also am unsure how accurate this would be to anything DC.

The way I see this potentially going would be for Danyal to haunt Damien and use his powers for the Greater Good (read: for pranks and stealing things for Damien) while with the League. I’m unsure if, in canon, Damien runs away from the League on his own or Talia sends him to Bruce. I’ve seen it both ways in fics so I’m not sure which they’d do, but I imagine that regardless of which one it is he’d leave to go to Bruce fairly soon after this event. (I’m also unsure if Talia actually loves Damien or not, the fics were also controversial on that front, so I kinda tried to leave it vague. Actually anything I was unsure of I left vague if I could.)

There’s a few ways I’m thinking the people from Amity Park could be included in this:

Between leaving the League and getting to Gotham they somehow run into Jazz, Sam, and Tucker and befriend them.

After leaving the League they hear about the Fentons and their ghost research, so they go to them to try finding out more about Danyal’s new afterlife.

After they join Batman someone hires the Fentons to get Phantom out of their way. (I personally like the Fentons, they’re just oblivious etc, so the way I’m seeing this is as them helping Phantom eventually, but it could be them just being evil is someone wanted to do it that way.)

All fun ways of potentially bringing them into a story like this, thought I’m sure there’s even more out there, these are just the ones I thought of.

I personally am actually not a huge fan of Obsessions. I don’t like the idea of something forcing you to act/feel certain ways rather than you being able to choose for yourself, but I do understand why people came up with them to begin with and they can be fun to play with, so for those that want to attach an Obsession to this, here’s a few ideas I had:

When he died he was trying to protect his brother, which caused his protection obsession.

When he died instead of it just being a generic protection obsession, it’s specfically an obsession about protecting Damien. (In this au I kinda see him as something of a guardian angel to Damien, as I think he’d really just care about Damien and making sure he’s safe and happy with his life since his own got cut short, so I think this one makes a lot of sense here.)

When they actually get to Wayne Manor and knock on the door, there are two fun ways I think this could go:

They both show up together, introducing themselves as his twin bio kids and then having Dany just tell them outright, right out of the gate, that he’s dead.

Only Damien introduces himself and Dany remains invisible and just kinda stays hidden. This would probably result in him pulling pranks and unintentionally leaving clues here and there until he’s discovered. He probably at one point tries to make them think the house is haunted. (Which it now is thanks to him being there but he doesn’t think of that. XD)

They’re both hilarious in different ways and I can’t tell which one I like more. XD

Now, knowing superhero things and how many characters die and then come back to life, maybe they find a way to revive Dany! Or maybe they just half revive him so he’s a halfa. Or, maybe, for once, a superhero character actually stays dead and he just continues to be a ghost. Up to you and your imagination.

As you can see there’s a lot of ways this could be taken. I just think it’s fun to take ideas like this and play with them.

The songs I switched between while writing this fic were Paris by Chainsmokers and Hercules by Livingston, for anyone interested. The vibes were perfect.

Now normally, I put all my writing on ao3, usually just wanna leave my tumblr for casually perusing stuff for my favorite fandoms, but with it being a snippet for a thing I don’t plan to do anything more with, putting it here seemed more appropriate. Why don’t I plan on doing more with it? Mainly because I don’t know DC like, at all besides some origin stories for the main heroes. And I’m not all that interested in learning more. The story I’d wanna write for this would probably follow DC canon quite a bit, with Dany as Phantom probably just helping out or something, idk, didn’t really think it through much cause I knew I didn’t know enough to do much with it. But this was all I really planned to do with it. Just get the idea out of my head and out in the wild. The only thing I think I’d do more for this is if someone decides they’re willing to lore dump about all the stuff important for this and it’s different enough from what I wrote for it to matter, I’d then edit this to makes things fit better with DC canon/how the characters would act, but that’d be the extent of what I’d write for this. Otherwise it’s for someone else to do what they want with it. It’s outta my hands now.

#danny phantom #dc #dp x dc #dpxdc #dc x dp #dcxdp #should i give this idea/au it's own tag?#how about #guardian angel au #i think that works?#just to help ppl find it ig #hope people enjoy this despite all the probable inaccuracies #oops somehow forgot these tags #demon twins AU #writing #fanfic #full ghost AU

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