#the lazurus pit is not contaminated ectoplasm

[enigmaris]

Lois writes the article. The Justice League freaks out. Investigations are done, meetings are held. In the mean time, a suspected connection between ghosts and the lazurus pits means that there is a very specific person who wants a one on one with Phantom even though all of the heroes agreed to not approach phantom until the anti ecto acts are gone. Jason never follows the rules anyway:

“Daniel Phantom, do not even think about it.”

Her tone of voice made every bone in his body yearn to turn invisible immediately, Lois jumped up trying to catch him. Danny grinned and got ready to fly away, a game of tag would keep Lois from questioning him! Right before Danny’s plan could commence, the sound of Lois's phone ringing cut it off. Danny froze as Lois pulled out her phone and looked at the screen.

“It’s Batman. Wonder what he could possibly need.”

Danny let himself fly all the way to the ceiling, until his back was pushed up against it. He looked down as Lois answered her phone, helpfully putting it on speaker.

“You’re on speaker Bats, what can Lois Lane and her plucky new intern do for you?”

“Intern?” A voice Danny didn’t know answered back. “I thought Superman was the only one for you. I guess you move fast, Lois.”

“Nightwing.” Lois said. “What are you doing calling from Batman’s phone?”

“If B didn’t want me to use his phone, he should have called you himself. You know how he is, Lois. Won’t ever ask for help unless he’s about to die and not even then.” Nightwing snarked back. “Gotham’s got a bit of a supernatural concern that I think I need a consult from your intern for.”

Danny tilted his head, not moving closer to Lois when she looked up at him.

“What sort of concern? I’ll pass along your message if it's interesting enough. My intern’s got enough on his plate getting me coffee to watch after you birds.”

“Fair enough.” Nightwing allowed. “We think one of our own is ecto-contaminated. To be entirely fair we all might be a bit, not that we’ve gotten our hands on a GIW scanner. The real concern is with Red Hood though. I know your report said that ecto-contamination is harmless but Red Hood has had some interesting side effects since he took a bath in some glowing green goop.”

“A bath?” Danny asked, his voice echoing out from the ceiling.

There was a pause on the other end of the call before Nightwing spoke again.

“Yes. A bath. Do the words Lazurus Pit mean anything to you, Miss Lane’s Intern?”

“Never heard of it.” Danny said, trying not to let himself sound ashamed by it. “But I don’t like the name. Sounds spooky.”

“Aren’t you a spook?”

“Different kind of spook.” Danny defended.

“Well. We think it might actually be the same sort of spook actually. The Lazurus Pits are pools of glowing green liquid, no one knows where they came from. There are a dozen or so dotted around the planet. If a sick or dying person goes into it, they are healed sometimes with side effects. If a healthy person goes in, they die.” Nightwing said. “Sometimes if people go into, they don’t come out again.”

Danny... might actually know what those are. Huh.

“What kind of side effects?”

"Homicidal rage. Memory loss. Temporary increased strength. Glowing eyes.”

“Okay. And how long has Red Hood being dealing with this?”

“On and off for about five years.” Nightwing answered.

“I might actually know what’s going on.” Danny said. “But I’d have to see him. I’m not like a ghost doctor or anything, but if it's what I think it is, then I can fix it for sure.”

“Fix it?” Another voice from the phone asked.

Danny could hear a scuffle over the phone as two people wrestled for it. He exchanged looks with Lois until the second voice seemed to get the phone under his control completely.

“What do you mean by fix it?” the second voice demanded.

“Erm. Who is this?”

“Red Hood. Who the fuck else?”

“I don’t know who has access to Batman’s phone dude, chill.”

“Don’t tell me to chill. Tell me what you mean by fix it.”

"Dude. I have ice powers I absolutely can tell you to chill.” Danny shot back making Lois snort.

"Start. Talking.”

“He wasn’t kidding about the anger issues huh?” Danny asked Lois instead of answering. Danny grinned when he heard a growl over the phone. “Look. Red Hood. I don’t know if it is what I think it is. I need to see you in person before I can tell you anymore. Do you know how many glowing green goops there are in the universe?”

“Do you?” Nightwing asked, voice muffled as he was further from the phone. Danny listened as Red Hood told Nightwing to ‘shut the fuck up’ with a hiss.

"I’ll send Lane an address in Gotham. Meet me there in an hour.” Red Hood instructed.

“How do you know I’m free in an hour? I’m a busy intern you know. You’re not being very polite.”

Danny could hear the teeth grinding on the other end. He grinned as Red Hood took in a deep breath through his nose.

“Can we please meet in an hour?” Red Hood asked.

“Yeah sure. I’ll fly by.”

“Now what do we say to people who do nice things for us?” Lois asked. “Especially poor lowly interns who have an entire branch of the government hunting them?”

“Would you like me to blow up a GIW base for you?” Red Hood asked.

"Hood no!” Nightwing shouted.

“Hood yes.” Hood said.

The two vigilantes started arguing with each other, so Lois just rolled her eyes and ended the call.

If Lois Lane had a nickle for every time she had to help an overpowered boy from the midwest with the power of journalism, she'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot but its weird that its happened twice.

Danny watched as Lois pulled out her phone and pulled up a recording app.

“What are you doing?”

“You came to a journalist and are surprised to get an interview?” She asked him, her tone clearly joking. “What you’ve given me here is great kid, but newspaper clippings and copies of federal laws don’t get the public’s attention. I need a story, Phantom’s the story.”

“I’m not Phantom.”

Lois looked at him, less than impressed. Slowly, she turned the screen of her computer until it was visible to both of them. There, in full clarity, was a front-page story from his hometown newspaper. ‘Danny Phantom saves Bus Full of Children!’ and there was a picture of him in his ghost form, his face crystal clear on her screen.

"Phantom’s a ghost. I’m just a dumb kid.” Danny tried again.

Lois pinched the bridge of her nose with her right hand and muttered to herself.

“Why do all you midwestern boys have the same schtick?”

“I’m sorry?” Danny said, unsure if he should be apologizing or not.

“Changing your last name from Fenton to Phantom does not a secret identity make kid. It might work for most civilians, but anyone familiar with the hero game will clock you from a mile away.”

“I’m not Phantom.”

“Sure, kid. But I’m sure you have a way for me to interview him, right? Because I want to talk to him before I do anything else about your town.”

Danny hugged himself and looked down at his knees.

“Is it really that bad?”

“Not the worst I’ve seen. Wonder Woman’s is paper thin. I'm pretty sure most people in DC know who she is outside of the cape and just don’t say anything because she scares them.”

Danny snorted involuntarily at that, looking back up at the woman.

“What’s going on in your town, Phantom? Why come to a journalist and not the Justice League?”

“The Anti-Ecto Acts got passed like a year ago. They state that only being that produces or contains ectoplasm above a certain amount is considered non-sapient and is to be turned over to the government for disposal.” Danny said. “I put the whole thing in there for you to read, but it's long. Amity Park has a lot of ectoplasm in it. It's seeped into the air and water. Normal human people have it in them now. At first, those agents were just firing at me whenever I finished a ghost fight. I could deal with that. Their aim is terrible anyway. But then they figured out that humans can become contaminated with ectoplasm. They decided that meant the entire town was under their jurisdiction. They've decided that means that no one in town counts as human anymore, that we don’t have rights, that they’re doing us a favor by not just exterminating the entire town like the law says.”

Danny leaned forward, putting his hands on the desk in front of Lois Lane. He looked right into her bright eyes and spoke seriously.

“When it was just ghosts under attack, I didn’t think anyone would care. I’ve tried calling the Justice League for help, but they’ve brushed me off. People need to know what’s happening. Anyone can become ecto-contaminated. You just have to be in the right place at the wrong time. It’s not right what’s happening to Amity, Miss Lane. I came to you because if anyone could get the world to listen, to believe, then it's got to be you.”

And Lois Lane smiled. It was a proud, eager smile. The kind of smile Danny had seen on Sam right after she convinced the school to serve a vegan lunch. He barely held back from shivering.

“Well then, Mr. Phantom.” Lois said, before tapping onto the recording app on her phone and starting a recording. “Let’s begin.”

[megaerakles]

Dp x DC Crossover Concept I think is fun but will never have time to properly write

Several years ago the scientist of the GIW were investigating the miraculous resurrection of Vlad Masters by ectoplasm. Their team managed to isolate the cause to a randomly mutated gene that he possessed which they dubbed “the ReGen Gene”. A project known as Project Phoenix managed to splice this gene into what was eventually just two viable human embryos made primarily of genetic material provided by the project’s Lead Scientist Sheila Haywood and one of her male friends. The specimens were implanted into the friend’s wife who had volunteered thinking it was part of a research project to cure something or other.

One of the junior scientists on the team [the future Dr. Maddie Fenton, in fact, although that was not her original name] had a crisis of conscience about the work and decided to tell the woman carrying the babies the real nature of the experiment. When the woman learned that the plan was to intentionally kill the babies to see if they could be brought back to life, she decided to go into hiding. With Maddie’s assistance, she convinced her husband to flee with her to Gotham City to protect the babies.

When the children were born, they decided that keeping the twins together would make them easier to find. The couple, under the assumed names of Willis and Catherine Todd, kept the older one and named him Jason. Maddie took the other, and moved her small family with new identities to a random town in Illinois, where she determined to raised Danny alongside her own young daughter as her son.

Things mostly happen the same as the original canons; Maddie and Jack continue their work in ectology and eventually this leads to 14 year old Danny unknowingly proving the experiment a success, replicating Vlad’s resurrection and acquisition of powers. Danny still keeps this from his parents so Maddie has no idea. Vlad’s obsession with Danny is fueled by the fact that he figures out Danny is one of the Project Phoenix subjects and is convinced that because Danny shares that *one* gene copied from his own DNA, he should be considered Danny’s true father. (If he found Jason he’d also try to steal Jason as his son)

Jason’s life follows the same pattern, except for the fact that Sheila Haywood (who was fired from the project for losing the specimens and went rogue trying to get them back) had been actively searching for signs of him, only to locate him after he’d been adopted by Bruce Wayne and was too well protected to simply be snatched away (she’s tried hiring kidnappers a couple of times, and every single time, either Batman or Nightwing or fucking Superman had been on their assess before they’d even made it out of Gotham. The woman just does not possess the resources to fend off the entire Justice League when they’re determined to protect the son of a billionaire socialite for some strange reason). Sheila does plant the other birth certificate in the hopes of him eventually deciding to come to her before resuming her still fruitless search for the other twin.

Unfortunately for Sheila Haywood, when her plan finally works and Jason seeks her out, he brings along the Joker and the Batman for the ride. Sheila tries to make this still work in her favor by making a deal with the Joker and arranging for Jason’s death so that she can then bring him back to life and finally prove her experiment a success, but that backfires and she is killed too. Jason’s corpse is taken away by Batman to be buried in Gotham.

Now, there’s not a lot of ambient ectoplasm in Gotham’s atmosphere. However the Lazurus Pit buried under the city has contaminated the soil with low levels of ectoplasm through leeching over the years. After some time, this is enough to revive Jason, but not enough for him to manifest powers or completely heal the brain damage he suffered at death before he crawls out of the grave. Talia shows up to whisk him away.

Not exactly clear on all the details, but Danny is eventually captured by the GiW and placed in containment to be studied as their successful experiment (the Fenton parents might be killed in the struggle to capture him maybe?). They also finally manage to locate Jason, and when they learn he’s already dead they send some people to retrieve his corpse to see if he can be reanimated too.

There is, of course, no corpse to be obtained, and they have to regroup and communicate with their bosses to decide what to do. Their activity drew the attention of Robin, who sets up surveillance of the grave site. That means when a couple of the GiW goons come back to test the soil for ectoplasm, Batman and Robin get a front row seat to their conversation regarding Project Phoenix, the fact that they’ve concluded Jason has been resurrected, and the fact that Jason’s long lost twin brother is currently being held prisoner in a high security facility and making himself a nuisance for his guards (one of the goons has spent time on Danny guard duty and has much to say about it).

Batman and Robin go rescue Danny!

Jazz and Dani were *also* trying to find and rescue Danny, using a magical tracker from the ghost zone that relied on using Dani’s blood to lead them to the one who shared her blood. Unfortunately for Dani and Jazz, the GiW facility is shielded against this type of ghost tracking. Unfortunately for Talia, who has just finished giving Jason his Lazarus Pit Bath (and unwittingly suppling the rest of the ectoplasm needed to properly give him his ghost powers), the League of Assassins is *not*

Basically, the two parties rescue the twin that’s not their own and then have to work to find and reunite with the other group without knowing the others are also actively on the move and searching, so they keep missing each other. Danny is freaking out because not only does he have a twin brother who also died and came back, the twin was apparently adopted by Batman, but Batman is helping him hide from the GiW so that’s cool. Jason is trying to learn as much as he can about his new powers from Dani while also protecting his two new sisters who keep trying to protect *him* instead even though he has actual vigilante training, except he can’t tell them that, and the League of Assassins AND the GiW are both after him and all he wants is to get back to his dad and the help them find this twin brother of his he just heard about. (It is important to note that the Jason, Dani, and Jazz party are all simultaneously convinced they are the most competent member of their contingent-Jason due to his training and history of survival, Dani due to her relative mastery of ghost powers and history of survival, and Jazz due to her age and perceived maturity—and are privately trying to take on the full responsibility of protecting the other two)