#Duulaman

[bet-on-me-13]

Tucker gets Recognized

So! This is using the Egyptian version of Hawkman and Hawkgirls past, cause that's the only way this works

The basic idea is Hawkman and Hawkgirl used to live in Egypt in high positions of Power. Hawkman used to be the Prince, and Hawkgirl used to be the High Priestess. They died one day and became cursed to forever reincarnate.

Ok, onto the prompt.

So, Hawkman is one day flying over the Midwest USA while lost in thought. He gets hungry and decides to set down in a small-ish town called Amity Park.

He goes to a nearby Burger Restaurant, and while he is waiting for his food he sees someone else pick up their food and walk out the door.

And one thought passes through his mind.

"Is that my fvcking Dad?!"

Yeah, Duulaman was Hawkman's Dad in his first life. He just never knew that his Dad was also a Reincarnator (he had the power before even his son, he just never told him).

Tucker, who has Duulamans powers but not his memories (by choice), has no idea why this Guy with Wings keeps following him around.

Wait, did that guy just call him Duulaman?! Oh Hell No!

[sagaduwyrm]

I've been thinking about Pharaoh Tucker/Duulaman and I really wish it was longer than a single episode. Like, that is such a brilliant story line? Finding out you were a powerful sorcerer in your last life should be the start of a trilogy, not a one-off gimmick.

Imagine this:

You are a king. You are a god. You are a sorcerer.

You will kill yourself to protect your home.

You know it's going to happen. You have always been willing to tear yourself to pieces to protect your people, and you long ago lost the arrogance that made you think being Pharaoh was a reward rather than responsibility. You look forward to it, almost.

But you don't die fighting, no, you perish with a traitor's blade in your back and the chains of a curse wrapped round your soul. And you hate.

And then, thousands of years later, when the people and the land you fought to preserve, earning your title as the greatest sorcerer in the world, are gone, you are born again.

And the two are nothing alike, except in all the ways you're exactly the same. But you are a new person, with no memories of your past, and you live and thrive without the weight of the throne on your back.

Just like you were once an innovator of magic, now you create new tech that touches the afterlife in ways never seen before. Just like you were once a protector, now you fight to protect your new home, this time with friends by your side.

And you are happy. Happier even. It's not an easy, perfect life but you are free from the responsibilities that dictated your last with people you trust. You love it.

And then, well...

You should have known you couldn't touch the infinite afterlife without consequences.

It starts in your dreams. You remember the sands under your feet, the magic in your hands, the sun in your face. In mirrors you see a face that is yours but older, more worn in ways you don't recognize. In battle you find yourself reaching for a bow rather than a gun, and your code is written in a language none but you now speak.

And you can maybe deal with it, maybe. It's not easy, reconciling two lives that were lived so differently, but if your friend can reconcile death and life then surely you can do the same.

But then. The traitor. Comes. Back.

You are easy to manipulate now, is the thing. The lack of a crown may have been good for your social development, but it didn't lead to the same paranoia and sense of responsibility that protected you in your last life. He turns you against your friends, but they help you fight him back anyway, yet how can you trust yourself now? Your last life was terrible, he was cruel and selfish, the traitor said so, and the one moment the person that is not you but is almost you came to the surface he hurt your family.

You don't touch magic, even when you find yourself reaching for it. You drop the bow and pick up a gun that never feels quite right in your hands. You don't let yourself reach for the eyeliner that reminds you of kohl, even though you miss how sharp it made your eyes look.

Because you won't hurt them again. You won't.

But maybe someday things can be better. Maybe someday you'll back up your friends with summoned sandstorms and clever illusions and no one will ever be able to hack your tech because of the magic woven into the wires.

Maybe someday you will step into the sands of your home, preserved in the infinite green of the afterlife, and you will learn yourself again. Maybe you'll meet old friends and loved ones, and maybe things will be different now that you are a child in need of guidance rather than a leader they depend on.

Maybe.

But a character arc like that would certainly take more than a single episode.

[proneterror204]

Return of the Pharaoh

Vandal Savage had a problem. He felt a magic oath of fealty he took long ago, to one of the few people he was ever truly loyal to. When he was "younger" he swore a magical oath of loyalty to one of the most powerful God-kings of Egypt, Pharaoh Duul-aman. He attempts to Scry the location of his ancient Pharaoh, but his attempts are blocked by the powers of Anubis, the powers of the dead.

Tucker jolted awake, he had fallen asleep at his computer again. Recently he had been suffer more sleep problems than Danny, Instead of dreaming of his lovely ladies he had been dreaming of egyptian sands and a hairy man he feels he should know. He felt the tingling of magic under his skin. Nope none of that, he's had power twice and both times he nearly killed his best friend and once he enslaved his class. Hes learned his lesson that he cannot handle power.

[spookberry]

friendly reminder that the Pharaoh's name was Duulaman and Hotep Ra was like his evil conniving assistant who mind controls Tucker with a magic staff.

[nelkcats]

Tucker and Danny were playing with the Scarab Scepter, Sam told them it was a bad idea but they didn't think Duulaman would be a problem.

Well, not until Tucker joking said "Danny Phantom, you are under my control now" with a villain voice, suddenly he realized what he have done "Oh God, Danny sorry, I forgot about Freakshow incident, I was joking, I swear, please don't be mad at me"

But Danny didn't answer, Tucker open his eyes and saw his friend completely mind controlled, it does not matter how many times he yell "You are not under my control anymore" he couldn't reverse it, Duulaman's Scepter didn't reverse it.

Now he needed to figure out how to call Justice League and said "Oh sorry, I mind controlled my best friend with a magic staff that can change reality at my will but don't worry I am not a villain ¿please help me?" yeah, Sam was going to kill him sooner than later.

[charlietheepicwriter7]

Teen Villain Alliance

Chapter 1 - Damian

Despite his proficiency in the skill, Damian hated spying on the Teen Villain Alliance. 

Having appeared two years ago in alliance with Klarion Bleak, the Teen Villain Alliance, or TVA, quickly made themselves known as little more than pests, often rushing in to assist other young adult criminals or harass Justice League officials. Father wanted to investigate when they first appeared, but with Todd’s reveal and Damian himself coming to take his place as Robin, he’d been… busy. 

Which allowed the TVA to flourish into a respected criminal enterprise. No vault was safe, no hero strong enough. A group had even banded together to take down Superman! And while there was no lasting damage other than some bizarre markings on the Kryptoian’s face, it was enough to prove these teenagers as a threat. 

Damian, as much as it galled him, was not the first chosen to infiltrate. Martian Manhunter, shapeshifted into a meta fourteen-year-old girl, tried and was identified as a hero on sight. The Teen Titans and Young Justice got closer, actually able to talk to the villains about joining, but “it was like they could smell the hero on us,” Beast Boy had explained. “I don't know how else to explain it.”

Most likely, the TVA kept tabs on the Justice League and affiliated organizations. They needed someone fresh, someone who wasn’t a hero.

Damian had been more than willing to volunteer. 

Introducing himself as Damian Al Ghul, the recently escaped Heir to the Demon Head, he’d been accepted immediately despite having approached the group mid-heist. All he had to do was extrapolate about how Grandfather’s assassins were chasing him, and the Wolf—a designation given to the members of the TVA’s inner circle—allowed him to join, but he was forced to stay with the hacker of the group while the heist commenced with no interference from a hero.

Damian had been confident. He’d gotten so far in mere minutes when a member of the Justice League, and even Drake, couldn’t get past the first few questions. He’d have the Teen Villain Alliance dismantled within the week.

Then Manson, as the Wolf had introduced herself, took out a device that transported them all to another dimension. Which was where the main base of the Alliance was. And none of his communication devices or trackers worked there. 

Damian had only been able to update the Justice League a few times since his tenure as a spy began. Superman had reassured him it was fine, that there had been plenty of missions were communication was infrequent, but after a month of living in the TVA Base in the Infinite Realms, Damian hated not being able to contact his father easily. And in return, Father and Drake had taken to interrogating him for as long as possible the couple of times he was outside Headquarters. 

(Phantom’s Haunt is what the TVA members called it. It was Phantom Dark’s home that he opened up to them all. Damian didn’t know how to feel about that.)

Damian had only been able to contact Father three times in his four weeks undercover, each time on a supply run… which was essentially just a grocery trip for the Haunt. The first time Damian had slipped away to the bathroom and called, Father had been… furious. He’d thought Damian’s lack of updates was on purpose. It had been five minutes before Damian could correct him. 

He wished Grayson had answered during any of his updates, but he was on a mission in space and wouldn’t be back for another two weeks. 

In those four months, Damian was still the newest member, and had yet to be involved in the truly illegal aspects of the organization. All the information he’d gathered purely administrative, like how Duulaman, a reincarnated pharaoh turned hacker, stole money from various billionaires and government organizations to fund their plans. He’d yet to be involved with anything serious. 

He wasn’t allowed on serious missions either. He only had the supply runs to look forward to, and those only occurred once a month. 

His other objective, to undermine the Teen Villain Alliance and spur a mutiny, was also going poorly. The children he surrounded himself with were fanatically loyal to the Alliance, citing Phantom and his harem as the reason they were alive today. Even those who weren’t directly rescued were loyal. One such child, a boy named Kyd Wyckyd, had confessed to turning to a life of crime due to his terrifying meta abilities and their effects on his appearance. 

But the TVA took him in after the collapse of HIVE Academy. He hadn’t participated in a crime since, preferring to work with the Wolf named Jasmine who led individual and group therapy sessions for the villains. Jasmine had tried multiple times to convince her therapy sessions—more like brainwashing sessions—but Damian had stayed strong in the face of adversary. 

Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much more Damian could do. He tried to push, to get involved with the criminal aspect of the organization, but the Wolves blocked him at every turn, saying he was “too young.” That he needed “stability” and to “rely on them to keep him safe.”

Perhaps Damian oversold the danger of the League of Assassins. 

For now, Damian hid in his room in Phantom’s Haunt. His castle. Even the magnificence of the compound he grew up in couldn’t compare to the headquarters. There were an infinite number of rooms—”as many as we need,” Phantom had told him—that changed based on the user’s preferences. Right now, Damian’s room looked like a cave. The Batcave, to be precise, though he didn’t allow references to his Father and legacy. 

He was hiding because Manson had suggested he attend some of the classes held in the libraries—there were four libraries at the moment. Classes were taught by ghosts under Phantom’s control and weren’t mandatory, but “everyone’s worried about the lack of structure in your life.”

He tried to tell himself it was because he didn’t want to be brainwashed by Phantom’s lackeys, and that he already knew everything they were going to teach. But in truth… Damian was anxious. Attending school at the Haunt felt too permanent, too much like he was planning to stay. He hadn’t gotten the choice to attend school back in Gotham, with Father acting like he would compromise their identities around children. He wasn’t that petty. 

Someone knocked on his door. “Damian? Are you inside?” 

Sighing, Damian stood up and opened the door. “Dr. Fenton. Am I needed for anything?”

Dr. Daniel Fenton was another Wolf, another member of the harem Phantom had built around him, twenty years old and not an actual doctor but everyone called him that anyway. While Damian had yet to see Fenton and Phantom in the same place, Damian was keeping a detailed record of how the Wolves’ polyamourous relationship worked. Phantom and Fenton both dated Manson and Duualman, though they didn’t seem to be dating each other or Jasmine. Klarion often inserted himself into those relationships for hugs and hand-holding, but only seemed to kiss Jasmine. 

“Actually, yes.” Damian’s lips parted in surprise. “I wanted to talk to you about something down in my lab. Would you join me?”

Fenton’s lab was off-limits to low level members of the TVA. He was the engineer, the creator of all their weapons of destruction. Fenton had no minions, while Manson had her thieves, Duualman had his hackers, Jasmine had her helpers, Klarion had his witches, and Phantom had his fighters. 

Fenton was alone. 

Isolated. 

Damian agreed. 

Fenton led him to the depths below the castle, past the never-used dungeon and through a secret door into a surprisingly bright and airy lab. He caught Damian looking through a window that displayed one of the Haunt’s many gardens, an impossible feat for being so far underground. “Magic castle, remember,” Fenton chided him. “Those work as portals that lead to the garden too, so it’s an easy one-way exit.”

Damian scoffed, abashed that he’d been caught so easily. From a glance, the lab was perfectly maintained, with every piece of equipment assigned to an outline meant to indicate where it belonged. As he walked further into the room, Fenton made slight adjustments to his tools, meticulously shifting them back into place. It looked more like a set than a laboratory. 

But then, Damian observed Fenton. The twenty-year-old relaxed as he put his space back into order, nudging the screwdrivers and beakers back into their designated outlines. As he worked, the sleeve of his lab coat road up, revealing a glimpse of lichtenberg scars before it was hidden again. 

Finally done, Fenton turned back to Damian. “My sister, Jazz, has told me that you’re not attending individual or group therapy sessions, is that correct?”

Well, that revealed a  lot of information. Ignoring the fact that Fenton and Jasmine were apparently siblings, Damian replied, “I do not see a reason to attend. If this meeting is an attempt to force me–”

Fenton held his hands up in surrender. “No, I would never. Therapy doesn’t work if the person receiving it doesn’t want it. But you haven’t been attending any of your classes either, and Phantom has mentioned that you don’t hang out with the other kids. Are you settling in alright? I know the others are a few years older than you, so it might be harder for you to connect with them.”

Damian chewed on the question. While part of him was furious that someone, especially a villain like Fenton, was concerned about him and discussed him with his fellows, the other part… wasn’t. It was true; he was having difficulty connecting with the villains. Damian didn’t particularly want to, but it would make his mission easier. 

He chose a neutral answer. “In the League of Assassins… I was the only child in the entire compound. Other children weren’t allowed inside, not unless their parents did something wrong. And those children…”

“Were used against their parents?” Fenton offered when he struggled to find the words. 

“Precisely. It’s not in my nature to associate with children.”

Fenton nodded in understanding, stroking his chin in thought. “That does present a conundrum alright. How unfortunate; the task I needed your help with requires you to interact with at least some of the others, but if you’re that uncomfortable with the idea, then I could find someone else.”

Damian stared at the man in suspicion. “What task?” he demanded to know. If this was a way to get more information for father, he needed to know. But if this was another trap to get him into therapy…

“You’ve probably noticed by now, but I’m the only Wolf without someone working under me. Sam has her Bats, Tucker has his Flies, Jazz has her Rats, Klarion has his Strays, and Phantom has the TVA as a whole. The others have been pressuring me to create my own group, but babysitting a group of teens in a lab where anything could explode is just asking for trouble.”

Damian stepped away from the nearest device. Fenton continued, “However, I think a group dedicated to investigation would work much better. Here in the Infinite Realms, we’re very isolated from the human world, so my research on competing inventors is always lacking. Tuck and Sam help, but Tucker has his own hacking projects, and Sam targets financially viable targets instead of labs.”

“You want me to be a member of your new… group?” Damian read in between the lines of what Fenton was saying. Surely Father would be proud of him for gaining information about Fenton’s inventions and targets—

“I want you to lead the group.”

His glare dropped right off his face in shock. “Lead?” he whispered. 

“That’s right,” Daniel agreed. “It’s not conventional and I barely got the others to agree, but Damian, you’re one of the best trained villains to ever join the TVA. Yeah, you’re really young, but you are serious and professional. To be honest, most of the kids we take in don’t take our work seriously. It’s not a bad thing, but I need a leader who is willing to keep their group in line. Infiltration and information gathering can be very dangerous, and I need someone who can keep the team safe.”

Daniel trusted him enough for that? Father didn’t trust him enough to be his partner; honestly, Father didn’t even trust him enough to introduce Damian to the world as his son! Perhaps he was aggressive towards the interlopers in his home, but he wasn’t going to stab a civilian!

And while Damian didn’t understand why Daniel was so cautious around what amounted to breaking and entering, he wanted Damian to lead. He trusted Damian for that. 

And Damian was going to take back whatever information Fenton revealed back to his father, like a hunting dog to its master. 

Daniel continued, “Of course, this is still a few months off from being necessary. But that should give you plenty of time to attend some classes to prepare you more! One on leadership skills, one on modern technology, one on basic magic and wards, maybe a refresher on hacking… Knowing you, you’ll test out of them in a few weeks, but the main point is to find other people to join our team. I’m looking for four other team members, and while I am looking for certain traits and skills, it's up to you to decide who you want on the team.” Daniel placed a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “So, what do you think?”

He’d betray Daniel by saying yes. He’d betray Father by saying no. 

He made his choice. 

Damian looked up at Daniel, determination set into his face. “I won’t let you down.”

Daniel smiled. “I know you won’t. You couldn’t if you tried.”

[gilbirda]

DPxDC cheat sheet

So. I'm not a nitpicking person. I understand that mistakes can be made and typos are a thing and sometimes we are just not the kind of person that can make words work for a variety of reasons (dyslexia, for example).

This is not for that people.

This is for everyone who stumbled into this fandom by mistake and had learned things via osmosis and don't have the energy/time to check the source material for the "correct" thing.

Y'all are valid.

This is a cheat sheet of correct terms and fandom things that are not correct that I've seen in fics.

Disclaimer: while experimenting with canon is fun, this is just to lay down the rules of what's what so it can be the springboard of y'all's beautiful creations.

Given that some people just can't behave online: "If you don't have anything constructive to say, don't say anything." Did I say something wrong? You have resources better than this? You want to make a nitpick? Cool! More info to the mix — But come at me in a hurtful and insulting way and I'm blocking you on the spot.

[Will add more when I think more/have suggestions]

DP SIDE - Post "A Glitch in Time" Canon

Sam is Jewish

Sam is ultra-recyclo-vegetarian aka "doesn't eat anything with a face". Is not a real thing.

It's "Amity Park" not "Amity Ville".

Wes is fanon, same as Kyle. Info on Wes here

It's "Casper High", not "Caspar High".

Mr. Lancer doesn't have a canon name. Common fanon ones are William or Edward.

Ghost obsessions are canon. In AGIT, it's explained that ghosts have a purpose or drive. Danny's purpose is "protection" of both humans and ghosts.

Ghost cores are fanon-ish (there is a mention that Danny's ice powers come from his "core" temperature and is never addressed again, of course) (Episode is "Urban Jungle"). Then in the videogame Urban Jungle for the Nintendo DS, Undergrowth's "core" is an actual object called a "core".

Ghost speak is fanon. However, in AGIT, it's revealed that there's an ghost alphabet, and it's ancient form is based on sanskrit and tamil alphabets. Codex of Ghost alphabet.

Ghost Hunger is canon! In AGIT it's revealed that ghosts feed on emotions and thoughts to stay sapient. If they don't, they become feral with time. Halfas feed from their human side, remaining stable.

Danny is the bridge between the spirit world and living world - canon!

Danny beats the Ghost King Pariah Dark in combat, but faints and that fight is never addressed in the series again. Ghost King!Danny is fanon-ish so go ham with interpreting that. (Episode is "Reign Storm")

Tucker is the reincarnation?? (never stated in canon, but he does look alike) of a pharaoh named "Duul Aman" (Duulaman is also accepted as spelling). Said pharaoh never appears in the series as a ghost, just a picture. Who does appear is his (evil) right hand man, Hotep-Ra, who tries to manipulate Tucker (Episode is "King Tuck"). That Tucker gets cool magic from this event is fanon. But cool.

Sam gets possessed by Undergrowth via a vine straight into her spine (gross). Undergrowth calls her "his daughter" and she tries to lure Danny into "joining her to take over the world". (Episode is "Urban Jungle"). That Sam gets cool plant powers from this event is fanon. But cool.

The Fenton parents are never physically abusive - just comedically neglectful in the way parents are depicted in early 2000s cartoons. Incompetent, misguided, dumb... but they are shown to love their kids. The even accept Danny the 2 canon times they find out about him (Episodes "Reality Trip" and "Phantom Planet").

Jazz is never shown as "mature" in the sense that she had to parent Danny and be the responsible adult. She is comedically the "annoying and meddling older sister" from early 2000s cartoons. She wants to be considered an adult. She couldn't see Youngblood, who is a child ghost that cannot be seen by adults, and Danny had to push her into acting childish to make her see him.

Axiom labs is bought by Vlad's company "Vlad.co" not "DALV.co". DALV.co was the fake company that paid for Maddie and Danny to fly to a conference but stranded them in a forest where Vlad's cabin coincidentally was. (Episode "Maternal Instincts")

Dan is not older Danny. He is not called "Dan" in the series, just "Dark Danny". In The Ultimate Enemy videogame for GBA, he's called Dan Phantom. He is Danny's ghost half, who killed his human half, ate/merged with Vlad's ghost side and then tried to kill Vlad's human side. Was losing his humanity what made him evil? Was it merging with the Bad Guy(tm) of the series? 🤷‍♀️ Take it as you will. (Episode is "The Ultimate Enemy")

Freakshow is NOT a clown. He is the ringmaster of a goth circus (called Circus Gothica). Danny's headcanoned fear of clowns can be traced back to the "circus" and clown-related imagery surrounding Freakshow's performances, but not directly BY Freakshow. (Episodes "Control Freaks" and "Reality Trip")

DC SIDE

Damian (not Damien or Demian) had never confirmed his religion. Fanon has accepted he is Muslim.

Bruce is from a Jewish family (Martha Wayne was Jewish), but he considers himself an atheist. Same with Kate Kane (Batwoman).

It's "Selina" Kyle, not "Selena" or "Salina".

It's "Talia" Al Ghul, not "Thalia".

It's "Jason", not "Jayson".

Damian is vegetarian, not vegan. It means he doesn't eat meat, but eats animal produces like eggs, milk, etc. He went vegetarian after rescuing Batcow from a slaughterhouse, he didn't arrive at the manor already being vegetarian.

Duke is NOT adopted. Bruce is fostering him temporarily and is more of a mentor to him than a father. Duke considers the others his siblings, though. EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DUKE: Part 1 | Part 2

Dick was not adopted as a kid, Dick was Bruce's ward. That term is not used anymore, though. Adoption happened later in Dick's adulthood.

It's Gotham, not "Gothem".

Cassandra IS adopted.

Cassandra's most common nickname is "Cass". Even if "Cassie" has been used in canon before, is more commonly used Cass in fandom. Cassie is used more to refer to Cassandra Sandsmark, Wondergirl.

"Baby bird" or "Baby bat" are fanon-ish(?). Little Wing, Dickie, Dickie-bird... Canon! Jaylad is not canon, but Jaybird is canon! A GREAT post with receipts about all nicknames. ("Replacement" isn't canon btw).

Stephanie Brown was the 4th Robin. She is not adopted, and was part of the batfamily because she was dating Tim. She is still considered batfamily even if they are not dating anymore.

In Hush, when Jason comes back to Gotham, Jason puts a knife on Tim's throat, but barely leaves a cut. Tim's throat wasn't injured during the Titans Tower attack.

Cass is selectively mute because she wasn't taught any language beyond what she needed to predict people's movements. She doesn't know sign language. She doesn't know how to read and write (more recent comics show her reading a bit). But she could learn, with difficulty. Very in depth analysis of Cass' disability.

Jason's "Pit Madness" is fanon. Canon offers Ra's saying "the Pit alters the mind - could happen for a few days or for years, you never know" or something like that, and that's it. There is reason to believe that the Lazarus Pit can cloud judgement for a while but there is no voice in the back of the head or the Pit taking over.

Tim never expressed special interest in photography or in it as a hobby. Nor he is a coffee addict more than the other bats, who pull all nighters on the reg. He is actually addicted to energy drinks.

There are 2 main Conner/Kon-El/Superboy I portrayed in fics: Young Justice cartoon one (grumpy, same age as Dick, kind of an asshole, has daddy issues, wears black shirt and jeans, has a space motorcycle and a pet wolf) and 90s comics one (leather jacket, piercings, punny guy, same age as Tim, has a #nohomo relationship with Tim, kind of a himbo).

There are a few Ghost superheroes - Greta Hayes (Secret), she was in Tim's run as Young Justice's leader; and Boston Brand (Deadman), who is a member of Justice League Dark (with Constantine and Zatanna and Swamp Thing!). So the DC heroes are familiar with ghosts and ghost powers.

It's "rogues" gallery, not "rouge". Rouge means "red" in french.

Clark is never abusive to Conner, he just doesn't know what to do with him and chooses to ignore the problem; which, yeah, is mean, but not to the levels that fanon has taken it. And this is in the Young Justice cartoons, not across all depictions. In comics, they consider each other family and that's why Conner took a kryptonian name (Kon-El - of house of El, Kal's family)

The whole "No metas in Gotham" is not true. Batman understands that Gotham is very Fucked Up and that if you add metahumans and heroes with powers trying to do good to the mix it could make things worse. Outsiders don't understand Gotham and if they get jokerized or mind controlled, it will get ugly real quick. That's why Signal is cool beans! Duke is a gothamite through and through.

While is interesting that no one in the Batfam knows about Tim's missing spleen, is very probable that Alfred knows - post about this

Constantine is more powerful than it looks like. A post about interesting abilities.

Damian has a metal spine. Yeah I don't know how it works either. They used it as way for Talia to control Damian for a bit :(

Interesting links:

What's fanon in DP

Fan project for Ghost Speak, written and spoken form, and a ghost speak generator - post AGIT canon

Transcripts of all the Danny Phantom episodes

The whole DP series + the complementary comics + A Glitch in Time comic (if you are able to buy the AGIT comic please do 🙇‍♀️)

How to pronounce Ra's Al Ghul

BatPham ship names (updated regularly).

What are the canon ages of the Batfam?

In depth guide to everything Batman in one place (be prepared to go down the rabbit hole)

Fanon vs Canon Batfam edition

Superfam family tree

Interactive map of Gotham (Gotham Knights videogame)

Timeline of events (Batfam adoption order and ages when those events happen)

Map of Gotham (made based on various sources, with annotations (check the reblogs for more info))

The Titans Tower attack: Fanon vs Canon and More thoughts on the Titans Tower Attack (with links to the comics online)(wear protection kids! before clicking the links have a solid adblocker and a vpn if possible)

This person has dedicated a lot of time to research receipts of Comic stuff so check out their masterlist

---

Suggestions are welcome! Please be kind with each other and remember to have fun with this fandom!

[puppetmaster13u]

Howdy Yall, workin on a story, and have realized I need to draw designs. SO- not including the Ancient of Time: Clockwork the Endless, the Ancient of Space: Phantom the Gatekeeper, Ancient of Light: Pandora, Guardian of Hope OR Batman himself, now the new Ancient of Darkness,

(Do Keep In Mind that Not Everyone Originated From the Same Dimensions)

Not part of the pole but also here as part of the Ancients: Ancient of Dreams: Nocturne, Son of Morpheus Ancient of Autumn: Fright Knight of Samhain Ancient of Winter: Frostbite of Healing Frost Ancient of Life: Overgrowth, Son of Gaia

[radiance1]

A random au thought that I barely thunk up before splotching it on here.

So basically, Danny, Sam, and Trucker are doing some bullshit thing and somehow manage to create a whole ass world out of a tabletop game they were playing or something.

Basically DnD I guess.

But anyways, the three create this world so that they can play and do whatever they want. All three of them have legends about themselves from the npc's they's inhabited the world with.

Tucker is the Pharaoh of the night less desert, known as Duulaman. Freeing the citizens from the rule of the Tyrant god Abanoub and brought peace and prosperity to all across the land.

Sam is the Queen of Nature known as Terra, directly on par and sharing interests with Mother Nature. Her legend is that she freed the Forest of Vita and defeated a powerful void entity who sought to use the powers of Gaia to further its own ends for power. Joining forces with Mother Nature who almost fell to its corruption to end the void being once and for all.

Danny, known as Astraeus, unlike the other two, have two different aspects to his legend. Prince of the undead, and the constellation Star Child.

The first one as you should know, is basically Danny being the prince of ghosts, wherein in the world they made the ghosts (and extending too other undead), were disorderly and running rampant among the other races in the continuation of a war that should have longed ended. So, he rounded then all up and took control because the person who was originally supposed to be doing it was... indisposed.

(Cough, real reason is that Pariah Dark somehow got his ghostly hands on the world cords and was like "Hmmm, my son's world is awfully boring time to spice things up" and then shit happened.)

Which in turn, ended the eons long war between ghost kind and the other races.

Constellation Star Child is one he kind of got on accident, his friends made a joke about him being the spawn of death and time itself and being molded from a star. Which the npc's took seriously.

Also doesn't help that he goes out to explore the void and space around their world on numerous occasions to identify any threats that would require his attention (Which is literally just an excuse so he can go and explore space to his hearts content.). And whenever he comes back, it's like a shooting star falling down to earth.

So, after they've done all of their adventures and when it was time for them to just scrap this world and move on. They just, couldn't.

This world grew extremely on them during their time in it (Despite the unexpected inclusion of Pariah Dark), and they just didn't want to destroy it so they just, stayed.

Not like stay stay, more so they come back to it a lot more than they should. Fermenting themselves as these deities or god-like beings who protect and care for their followers or something.

They created a space for the three of them to converse, known simply as the council. A realm sitting on the plane of reality between the world and the void, basically heaven but not really heaven?

Anyways.

So, continuing on with this, the trio splits apart, a feud in reality carrying into their game world that caused Danny to just leave and explore the calmness of the cosmos so he can clear his head.

Sam went to Mother Nature to talk about it and seek aid about the recent crack in three's friendship.

Tucker just went to take care of his kingdom and confide in one of his trusted advisors, much like Sam.

This is when something unexpected happened. Danny never came back to that world, not as if he went back to his reality.

He just never came back.

Something is keeping him from going back, some powerful threat that he's keeping at bay with all of his might while out in the endless nothingness that is the void.

With the absence of his presence, a powerful void creature who managed to slip between the cracks of Danny's notice suddenly sees he's not there anymore for an extended period of time and has its sights on the core of the world, Gaia, and the two goddesses protecting it. Mother Nature and the Queen of Nature.

To distract the one known as the Pharoah, it managed to find what remained of Abanoub and gave him some of its power to combat Duulaman.

Abanoub worked behind the scenes, slowly rising back to his prime state of power and with the added power of the void entity, he managed to corrupt the roots of Duulaman's kingdom and sow discord.

Unfortunately for Abanoub, it couldn't exactly kill Duulaman, so it instead caught him by surprise and put him into eternal slumber.

The void entity who named itself Akasa, just like the previous one. Sought to use Gaia as a power source, but not just the core, but the two goddesses as well.

And with Duulaman and the Star Child of death out of the way, it was free to do so however it wished, though not to say it wasn't extremely careful when it enacted this plan.

Sam didn't know that Tucker was sent into eternal slumber, nor that Danny was never going to come back as soon as she hoped he would. So, when she went to the council and found that she was the only one there, she knew something was wrong.

Mother Nature was attacked while she was on a different plane, with such a coordinated attack on both her and Gaia by Akasa, Abanoub's army, and a recent addition, Chiwa the undead duchess' pawns. She unfortunately fell and became nothing more than power source.

Sam tried, oh she tried. But in the end, after a drawn out battle between her, Akasa, Abanoub, and Chiwa. She fell as well, with the added power Akasa gained from Gaia and Mother Nature, now with the added source of the Queen of nature. He was basically unstoppable.

That didn't mean all hope was lost, with the last bit of her power, she managed to seal all three of them to specific areas.

Abanoub, the Night less Desert. More specifically Tucker's throne.

Akasa, the realm between the world and the void. The council.

Chiwa, the blood lake of the eternal lady.

Their forces were still at large however, with the ghosts under Chiwa's command wishing to continue the war from eons ago. Abanoub's armies spreading across the world to take over their various kingdoms and be forced under his rule.

All two wished to free their master's, who in turn promised to free Akasa when they were free as well.

The rest of the races didn't take this laying down at all, immediately going to war and managing to hold their ground relatively well.

Both sides were at a standstill, with Abanoub, Chiwa and Akasa sealed they lost a signifcant portion of power.

Whereas with the Star Child gone, the Queen of Nature captured, and the Pharaoh of the Night less Desert sleeping, they couldn't push forward no matter how hard they tried.

So, what did they do?

They came together and summoned people from another world of course!

And who did they summon?

The Justice League.

[bet-on-me-13]

Why are there so many gods here?

SO! One day, the Eternal Trio decided to Check if they had ant past lives using Magic.

They already knew that Tucker was the Reincarnation of some Pharoah, so maybe they were also some historical figures in a last life.

It does not go as expected.

Danny finds out that he was the Ancient of Space, and the reason Clockwork was so invested in keeping him from being erased from Time is because he's his Brother apparently.

Sam finds out that she was the Embodiment of The Green, and Undergrowths attempt at Adopting her was some scheme to become the Parent of his used-to-be Queen while she was in Mortal Form, therefore overthrowing her.

Tucker finds out that Duulaman was just one in a long line of the Reincarnations of the Sun God Ra, and that he had been quite a few more historical figures in the Past.

They were surprised to figure this out, but then they got curious.

They tested the Spell out on Jazz, and found that she used to be an Amazonian Goddess, alongside Pandora.

They test it on Dash, and find that he used to be Hermes, God of Travel and Speed.

Ellie was an Embodiment of something called the Speed Force, who was also a child of Space before their rebirth, apparently.

They slowly realize that almost every person of note in Amity Park is the Reincarnation of some kind of God or Spirit. And none of them seem to realize that.

Why are there so many reborn Gods in this town?

...

Constantine is actually asking himself the EXACT same question at that very moment, after a botched teleportation spell landed him in Amity Park.

[shadow-pixelle]

Help the snippet grew legs

I did more snippet. I actually did more snippet checks nearly two weeks ago now, but then things went to pot a bit and I didn't post. Because I am a living disaster.

But yeah the last DCxDP snippet I wrote has grown legs. In fact it has grown so much legs that I know where it starts as well as where it goes from the last snippet onwards for a while.

I don't know how we got from the start to here, but that's not my problem right now.

This however is not the start. This follows up directly from this post from a month ago.

--

Jason had been on edge since getting back to Gotham. The sort of on edge that made him want to go patrolling Crime Alley, just to make sure everything was alright. Which was ridiculous, because he’d only been gone for a week, and more importantly he was exhausted and patrolling when he was this tired was asking for trouble.

Mostly, he just wanted to go home and sleep, but he needed to head to the Cave to check on some information regarding this case, just to make sure it was closed and stayed closed, so he turned his bike to go and do that first. At the very least it would be quiet there, since it was just late enough in the night that all the Bats would be swarming out on their own patrols.

So of course Babs patched herself into his comms not two minutes after returning.

“Hood.”

“Hey, O.” He said, because he couldn’t really be mad at her for any length of time. And it wasn’t like it was her fault he was on edge right now. “What’s up?”

“Are you heading to the Cave?”

“Yeeesss...?” Jason frowned slightly, leaning forward. “Why, is something wrong?”

“No, just need to warn you, we’ve got visitors.”

Jason jerked in surprise, then swore as he regained control of his bike. He pulled to a stop so that Babs wouldn’t lambast him about it, before replying. “Visitors?”

“Red Robin made some friends while you were gone.” She told him, with an odd tone in her voice. “They’re doing something involving the Lazarus Pits.”

Jason went cold. “They’re- what?”

“The Pits.” She repeated. “They- Hood, we don’t know anything about them. But Red Robin says they’re trustworthy, and yes we checked for mind control and things. There’s nothing. But they know more about the Pits than anyone we’ve ever met.”

Jason laughed, strangled. “What, really?”

“Really. I think they might know more than Ra’s does.” Babs sounded nervous, he realised with another cold flush, and he started his bike again and pushed off.

“That’s not suspicious at all.”

“No, it isn’t.” Babs sighed. “But Red trusts them, for some reason, enough to bring them to the Cave for whatever project they’re working on. The others are there too, he’s not alone, and we’re keeping an eye on things, but…”

“Yeah.” Jason knew. They were Bats, paranoia was in their nature. The fact that none of the Bats that had come into contact with these unknowns seemed bothered at all was… intensely concerning. “You want me to take a look or avoid it?”

“...You can come by, if you want. I’m watching remotely in case we need a League alert or something, but…”

“I hear you.” He sighed. “Who’re we dealing with?”

“They all look to be about mid-twenties. The main guy calls himself Phantom. The other two defer to him on just about everything, so he’s definitely the boss. No real description, he’s not human and only sometimes has a human shape. Fairly middling height and frail-looking when they do, white hair and glowing green eyes. Most the time he’s wearing a sort of hazmat suit of some kind, but that shifts sometimes. When he’s not human it’s pretty much impossible to describe him, but I guess the best way to put it is that he looks like space.” Babs immediately filled in.

“The other two seem to be some kind of subordinates. The man goes by Duulaman, he seems to be a mix of tech guy and magic. Phantom also seems to know his way around technology pretty well, hardware while Duulaman does software. His magic is Egyptian themed for the most part, and seems linked to his technological ability otherwise. Fairly tall, dark skin and blue eyes with a green shimmer, black hair. He wears glasses but I’m not convinced that they’re actually necessary rather than being some kind of device for either his magic or technology. Also, we can’t hack him.”

“What, at all?”

“Admittedly I’ve not tried too hard, I don’t want to make them hostile if they’re not going to be, but I think he uses his magic to amplify what his technology does. Just what little I’ve seen is incredible.”

“Huh.” Also concerning, but in a different way. Though if Babs wasn’t trying too hard then it might just be that Duulaman’s tech seemed harder to deal with than it is. “And the third?”

“A woman, Caucasian with black hair and mostly violet eyes. Little bit of a green shine there, too. She’s the tallest of the lot of them, pretty thin but not as frail-looking as Phantom. Not sure of much more about her, she doesn’t seem to have the same sort of technological abilities as the other two and she’s mostly been standing to the side like a guard or acting as an extra pair of hands whenever either of the males need something. Name seems to be Belladonna, but both males have been giving her a few different plant-related nicknames, so I’m not certain which one’s real.”

“Great.” He sighed again. “Don’t suppose there’s any way to get an idea of that?”

“Not likely. Other possible names are Nightshade, Overgrowth, Foxglove, Yew, and Daffodil.”

“Daffodil?” That didn’t quite fit the theme, though the fact that the woman had a theme of poisonous plants was concerning. Then again, neither did Overgrowth.

“Daffodils are poisonous, apparently.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

Babs went quiet for a while after that, letting Jason drive, and only spoke up again when he reached the entrance to the Cave.

“Be careful, Hood.”

“Always am, O.” He replied, slightly nervous despite himself. A part of him wanted to just run back to Crime Alley and go to bed, not deal with whatever disaster Tim had apparently brought into the family trying to study fucking Lazarus Pits, somehow. He just… didn’t want to deal with this.

But he had to, because if there was any chance the other Bats were under some kind of subtle mind control, they needed someone outside to go and take a look, and with Jason knowing about it ahead of time, there’d at least be a chance for Babs to call in the League if she saw a change.

The Cave was surprisingly quiet when he entered, though in a way Jason wasn’t surprised. The place was practically made to amplify certain sounds, and his bike roaring in was definitely one of them. Plus there was the fact that there were three unknowns in the Cave, so no-one was going to be talking about anything private or secret. Still, it was disconcerting to enter the Cave when it was so quiet, with none of the others calling out a greeting and no sounds of sparring on the mats. It just felt wrong, and Jason felt a chill run down his spine even as he stopped his bike and headed further in.

The chill only got worse when he saw the group. Most of the Bats were just hovering around the Cave, doing nothing in particular and obviously only there to keep an eye on the unknowns. Red Robin was the only one over by the workbench that had obviously been hurriedly pulled together from about four other smaller workbenches, leaning over it with his back to Hood. One of the strangers was with him, and Hood could suddenly understand why Oracle had said Phantom was difficult to describe. For the most part, he definitely looked like Oracle had said, a black hazmat-like outfit and white hair. Given the way he was leaning over the table next to Red Robin, it was hard to see much of him, but he did look fairly frail.

Except when Hood blinked, the man suddenly looked… well. Not human. At all. He could see what she meant by looking like space, because he just… cracked. Like a swirling void full of stars.

Then Hood blinked again, and he was back to normal, and all three strangers were straightening. The woman, maybe-Belladonna, looked up first from where she was hovering- not literally, unlike Phantom, who Hood now realised was literally floating at Red Robin’s side- behind Duulaman, met Hood’s eyes despite the helmet, and paled sharply. Duulaman looked up next, and both their eyes flashed a bright green- a toxic green, one only a few shades off being very familiar- before both swore sharply.

That was when Phantom turned around.

Hood froze. Not just from the sudden chill, fear biting down his spine in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time, but from the look. Something about Phantom seemed familiar, in a dangerous way. Floating slightly in the air, white hair waving like it was caught in an invisible breeze, and eyes shining a just as brilliant green as the other two but solid rather than mixed into their apparently-original colours. The being- because he wasn’t a human, no matter what he looked like most of the time and no matter what the other Bats thought, that wasn’t a meta or even an alien, he was something else- stared at him, a hazy mist of breath clouding in front of him, eyes wide.

There was a crackle of something like electricity and machinery starting, and Phantom disappeared. Hood suddenly felt like he could breathe again.

“Oh Ancients.” Duulaman murmured, looking pale. He was still staring at Hood, as was Belladonna, both of them looking horrified.

“Phantom?” Belladonna called, eyes darting upwards for a moment before returning to stare at Hood.

Slightly uncomfortable with the attention now, Hood looked up.

The Cave roof had been replaced with a starry sky. Based on… everything else about this situation, that was probably Phantom.

The electrical sound came again, somehow sounding apologetic and Hood had no idea how a noise like that could sound like that, and Duulaman sighed. “English, Phantom. Or at least something living, please.”

“Sorry.” The mass of space on the roof said, with an undertone of electricity and ice. “Just… Ancients.”

Belladonna laughed, a small, horrified sound. “You’ve got that right.”

“What happened to you?” Duulaman asked, and out of the corner of his eye Hood saw the rest of the Bats stiffen.

His focus was on the mass on the roof, though, which slowly crept down- like some demented dripping tap of space, Hood thought hysterically- to settle between Duulaman and Belladonna in a mind-twistingly strange blob.

The shape shimmered, and Phantom’s human form appeared, the space-blob folding away like it had never been there. He looked at Hood again, then winced and deliberately turned his head to focus on Duulaman as he leaned into his side. Light flickered again, and then-

Phantom shifted.

White hair swapped to black, the strange hazmat suit disappeared in favour of jeans and a long sleeved shirt- which looked immensely out of place compared to his… partners? Underlings? Outfits; Belladonna had a dramatic black dress lined with vines and pale flowers, and Duulaman leaned into the Egyptian theme with an outfit like a pharaoh. Compared to them, Phantom looked incredibly normal. Like a regular guy in his mid-twenties.

He looked over at Hood again, eyes now blue with only a faint green shine, and Hood shivered. No matter that he looked normal, something about the being still screamed unnatural.

“Phantom?” Both his partners asked, sounding surprised.

“Sorry.” He said, in a raspy voice. “It’s- easier, this way. Kidnapping isn’t exactly a good idea right now.”

“Kidnapping?!” Several of the Bats chorused, and Hood saw Batman stiffen ready to lunge.

Hood just couldn’t stop staring.

He was aware, faintly, of the conversation going on around him. More than aware, really; he was a Bat by training, he didn’t just… tune out of important conversations. Everything that was being said was being catalogued for later, held in the back of his head for evaluation once he had time. But at the same time, it was just… difficult. As much as he was aware of the conversation, he wasn’t really listening. A part of him just… couldn’t stop watching the three. Even as Phantom very deliberately looked away from Jason, almost like he couldn’t bare to look at him. As Duulaman put his hand on Phantom’s shoulder and Belladonna leaned into his side like they were anchoring him, while neither of them looked his way for more than brief glances that every time warped their faces into grimaces.

He was fully aware that the other Bats were interrogating the three. Something they really should have done long before this, before they brought them to the Cave because they were doing something with Lazarus Pits and knew too much about them. And he was well aware that none of them were making getting the information difficult. They talked easily, like none of it was a secret- and maybe it wasn’t. These Infinite Realms, these ghosts, everything about the Ancients and the halfas that Phantom apparently was, maybe none of it was a secret. Or maybe it was just that none of them cared, because-

Phantom looked him in the eyes for the first time since the start of this whole thing.

“Pariah Dark was a monster, and even he would consider what was done to you unforgivable.”

Jason jolted, pulling away from that horrible chill and the feeling that there was something incredible in front of him- something horrifying, something nightmarish and awful. And he listened, really listened, as Phantom laid out as best as he could what it felt like to look at him. It felt like drowning, almost, and somewhere in the back of his mind past the crystal haze of shock it felt like he was screaming. Jason just listened and stared as the three of them laid out how things felt to them- how he felt to them, and wasn’t that just hilarious, that there was something so deeply wrong with him that even these strange beings, these half-dead and partly dead people, were able to look at him and know immediately that something is wrong here.

He wondered a little if it was like the uncanny valley. If looking at him made these people, who were apparently ghosts or at least close to it, unnerved because there was something wrong here, something not quite correct for what it should be.

Of course he would be fucked up. He was already well aware that the Pit had done terrible things to him. What was one more?

Phantom glanced at him only once more, then focused on Batman.

“So,” he said, in a firm voice obviously used to being obeyed. “I’d quite like to know who did that to him. Because my next step is going to be to call the council, get war declared on them, and then erase them.”

Neither Belladonna or Duulaman objected. In fact they seemed like they agreed, or possibly they just didn’t intend to contradict the person that was their leader.

Jason wasn’t sure. He was still too busy being shocked, lost in a hazy daze of… something. He couldn’t have spoken even if he wanted too, and all he could do was stare at Bruce as well, waiting to see what was next.

Batman didn’t speak.

He wasn’t sure he was surprised.

The silence stretched, reaching a minute, two. Phantom continued to stare at Batman, who stared back, a firm line in what Jason could see of his mouth. No-one else moved.

Jason took a shuddering breath, and a step back. It was more of a stumble, really, and it broke the holding pattern the rest of the room was in. Eyes snapped to him.

The three- ghosts? Realms beings? Whatever they were- looked directly at him with only a slight wince. Phantom tensed slightly, like he wanted to spring, and both Duulaman and Belladonna did the same in response, hands grasping at their leader as if to keep him in place.

Jason took another trembling breath, and bolted.

Someone- Dick, he thought, but he couldn’t quite tell over the shuddering sounds of his own breaths and heartbeats- shouted after him, but Jason didn’t stop. He just ran, going straight for his bike and leaving.

The chill lingered in the back of his chest the entire time. Jason couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so cold.

He hadn’t even realised he’d been warm, until he saw Phantom. Now there was just the chill, slowly seeping into his bones. He wasn’t even sure that was Phantom’s fault, though.

After all, Bruce had been silent.

Why would Dad tell them who hurt him? It wasn’t like Jason was his son, or anything. It wasn’t like it was only the League, like it was only the Joker, like it wouldn’t deal with so many of their problems without them needing to do anything.

He somehow wasn’t surprised.

So Jason ran.

[proneterror204]

Danny Phantom DND Prompt

Maddie Nightingale. Species; High elf. Class; blood hunter order of the ghost slayer/ Artificer Alchemist.

She isnt married but has sworn a lifelong partnership with Jack FenTON. She has no children of her own due to her class but has adopted 2 for herself and her partner.

Jack FenTON. Species; Goliath. Class; Artillerist Artificer

The sworn life partner of Maddie Nightingale. A big strong oaf with a talent for machinery but not for people. Loves his partner, loves his kids, loves making things go BOOM! no, thats not a typo. thats how you spell his name, he swears!

Jassmine Nightingale. Species; High elf. Class; Wizard order of scribes.

Originally the daughter of Maddie's sister, but taken in by Maddie because she was a barbarian berserker and was unfit to raise a child. Jazz strives for perfection and aims to be the best wizard in the land and earn the title Arch-Mage. She loves and supports her brother. She sometimes feels she has to be more of an adult because of her parents.

Daniel Fenton-Nightingale. Species; Snow elf. Class; Shadow Sorcerer/ Wizard school of Necromancy

As a baby, Danny was saved by Maddie and Jack from a ritual of the Death cult of the Ghost King. They couldn't find his home as snow elves were thought as myths and decided to adopt him as their own. Danny loves the cold and spells that use cold and the aftereffects of the ritual have given him incredible talent in necomancy. Danny has a Shadow Hound called Cujo.

Tucker Duulaman Foley. Species; Human. Class; Artificer.

Tucker is Danny's best friend and artificer apprentice to his parents. He tries very hard to learn from Jack and Maddie despite their difficult teaching techniques. He might like technology alittle to much.

Sammanthia Manson. Species; Half-Elf High elf heritage. Class; Nature Cleric/ College of Elloquence Bard

Sam is a half-elf born from her fathers dalliances. Her step-mother is dissaproving of her half elf nature and tries very hard to make Sam act like a "True Elf', forcing her into the college of Elloquence at a young age despite her love for nature. Sam dreams of being a druid and ran off after hearing of a arranged marriage with another elf to "clean the bloodline". She runs into the forest hoping to find a druid conclave. After weeks in the forest she becomes a Nature cleric after a run-in with a nature god and is lead to run face first into Danny and his family. Danny is the prettiest elf she's ever seen, but she'll never tell him that.

[miscellaneoushunger]

Hey phandom you all know how Tucker is the reincarnation of an ancient pharaoh. And that we headcannon tuckers fear of hospitals due to pharaoh duulaman being alive during the mumiffication process alive. Well a big part of the mummification process is the removal of bodily organs. So can someone tell me how we have for some reason not seen a vivisection fic based on this fact.

[five-rivers]

Life's Great Lie Chapter 18

AO3

.

Cujo circled.  He was a good boy.  He was the best boy – that was a fact, his person told him so – but even he had to look for things, and there were a lot of interesting smells in the air.  Well, there were always a lot of interesting smells, but the smells today were interesting-er.  Along with the flashes of light, the dust, the noise—

There was just a lot going on. 

But!  That was okay!  Cujo liked challenges!  Challenges were fun!  And he was going to get that stick.  He just had to sniff it out, first. 

Ah-hah!  There it was!  All shiny and straight with a rounder, shinier, pointier bit on top.  He snatched it up off the broken car it was on (Why was it broken?  Who cared?) (Cujo didn’t know this, because he was a dog, but over fifteen pounds of enchanted gold, bronze, and topaz, falling from over a hundred stories, made an impact.  Specifically, fifteen pounds impacting at close to two hundred and fifty miles per hour, imparting over six hundred pounds of force – more than enough, considering the narrow profile of the object, to put a significant dent in the roof of a sedan.) and flew up in a spiral pattern. 

His person was nearby, yes, but… Where?  Usually, it was easier for Cujo to sniff him out, but now… now, there was something obscuring his scent. 

Cujo circled the tall building restlessly.  Where was his person?  Where?  Where?  It should have been much easier to find his person than it was to find the stick!  That’s how things were supposed to go, wasn’t it?

Oh!  There!  On top of the tall building!  It was his person’s friend!  Maybe he could play with Cujo! 

He zoomed down and deposited the stick in his lap, tail wagging. 

.

“Oh,” said Tucker, staring wide-eyed at the Scarab Scepter, covered, as it was, in green-tinted dog drool, “crap.”

.

“Oh,” said Pharaoh Duulaman, taking a moment to reward the beast who had retrieved his scepter with a pat on the head, “wonderful.”

.

Erik Selvig stumbled back into the penthouse, looking for a closet to hide himself in as burning sand from nowhere whipped itself into a storm.  He was, to be honest, in shock.  How many mind-controlling scepters could there possibly be?

.

Sam landed lightly on top of the Ops Center, powering down her jet pack momentarily, and propping the bazooka against her shoulder.  She was good at using it – no false modesty here – but it required work and attention, and she didn’t want her attention to be split while she was in the air.

“Tucker, is that sandstorm you?  Did you get your scepter back, somehow?”  She paused.  “Tucker?”  No response.  “Hey, everyone sees that sandstorm, righ—”

There was a huge flash through one of the sand clouds, followed almost instantly by a deep, bone-shaking, ear-splitting rumble.  A space whale fell out of the sky, smoking.

“I love storms like this!  Keep up the good work, Tucker!”

Sam bit her lip.  “If no one is hearing from Tucker, either his phone got wrecked or Duulaman’s got him messed up.  So, uh.  Be aware of that.”  There was, of course, the option that he’d somehow gotten himself killed, and this storm was caused by his ghost somehow (in which case, wow, he’d formed fast), but she was kind of.  Not thinking about that option.  So. 

She frowned.  The sandstorm was expanding. 

.

Thor flew through the storm. 

He did not often have the opportunity to navigate sandstorms.  There were no deserts in Asgard, and that was where he had spent his time for most of his life.  But a storm was a storm, and a sandstorm – or a dust storm, for that matter – held lightning in it. 

Lightning, through Mjolnir, was his.  Storms were his. 

And his brother—

He made quick work of the next group of chitauri he encountered, although they had already been injured by the sheer force of the storm.  He was getting closer to Stark’s tower, and where the fight with Loki was, but he couldn’t just leave the battle.  There were too many enemies. 

Something metallic flashed among the sand, and Thor readied a blow, but no.  That was no chitauri.  But neither was the metal suit a creation of Stark’s.  The green fire that burned at its head, and the lights behind its eyes was that of the ghosts.’ 

“A human?  Flying?” asked the creature, its words almost whipped away by the wind.  “No.  You’re the Asgardian that Phantom’s human friend talked about.  Do you know where he is?”

“Phantom?” asked Thor, warily.  “Yes.  With Loki.”

The creature grinned.  “Then what are you waiting for?  Lead on!”

.

Valerie didn’t like this.  She didn’t like this at all. 

“He’s really not responding?  Can we still hear other people?”

“I can sure hear all of you,” said Hawkeye.  “It might not mean anything.  Storms can mess with comms, sometimes.  Focus on what’s in front of you.”

Yeah, but the Fenton’s super ultra ghost comms, or whatever they actually were? 

What was in front of them was a legion of aliens they were trying to keep more or less in the air.  It was like Galaga, but real.  And worse.  Because, you know, people were dying.  Her weapons weren’t the most effective (unfortunately, the chitauri were firmly alive) so she’d been ferrying people down from damaged buildings, but now she was racing towards Stark Tower.

By the time she’d gotten through the portal, Danny had already disappeared with Loki, but now that they knew where he was, well.  She was the only one other than the ghosts with real experience fighting Danny, as crazy as that seemed. 

She really did not like the look of that storm. 

Tucker was okay, right?  They weren’t, like, great friends or anything, but they had dated, sort of, and Valerie didn’t hate him, really. 

She dove down into the sandstorm, and the HUD in her visor lit up with red lines, giving her an overlay of where things were supposed to be, based on city plans pulled from the internet.  It was risky flying like this, like flying by instruments on a plane.  Records weren’t always right.  She knew that much from flying in Amity Park, and New York was probably worse, honestly. 

But there weren’t any buildings quite as tall as Stark Tower, so her chances of running into a building were slim.  Chitauri gliders and Iron Man, on the other hand… Well.  It’d probably be fine.  This far up, it’d take a while to hit the ground. 

Wire-traced lines splayed out below her, showing her an outline of the roof, and she carefully landed near the center, a good way away from the pillar of light that was the portal beam. 

“Tucker?” she called. 

A bubble of clear, but blisteringly hot air formed on the roof.  Her HUD helpfully informed her that the temperature was 101.49°F/38.61°C.  At the center stood Tucker in full Egyptian regalia.  His eyes were bright, solid red. 

“Hello, Valerie Gray.”

.

It wasn’t a guarantee that the pilots were HYDRA.  The chances weren’t even above fifty percent, as far as Coulson’s estimates went, which were, admittedly, based largely on hunches at this stage.  Even for him, the amount of research he could do under the present circumstances was… limited.  But the odds were still too high to let them sit in those planes. 

Especially when the council was ordering Fury to launch a nuke at New York. 

Yeah.  That wasn’t going to fly. 

(Literally.)

So far, both of the pilots had been compliant, but Coulson wasn’t going to relax.  He wasn’t missing an ‘until’ at the end of that sentence.  He just wasn’t going to relax. 

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t be happier when there were no longer two potential HYDRA agents walking behind him. 

He turned the corner.  At the other end of the hallway, Jasper Sitwell and six other agents also turned the corner.  He saw the flash of blue characteristic of Phase Two weaponry and his gun was in his hand before his conscious mind processed the connection. 

He got off two shots before he was hit.  Center of mass.  If it had been a conventional bullet, it would have bounced off the Kevlar vest he had on underneath his jacket, but it wasn’t designed to counter Phase Two weaponry.  Nothing was.  The pilot directly behind him got off one wild shot at Sitwell before the second pilot shot him in the back of his head. 

Lying on the ground, Coulson mentally apologized to him.  He hadn’t been HYDRA after all.  Not that it did either of them any good. 

But Coulson was down, not out.  He’d kept a grip on his gun, and now he aimed it at the pilot.  It was probably too much to hope he was the only HYDRA agent onboard who could fly a plane, but any delay—

He didn’t see if his bullet hit.  He’d been shot again. 

.

Loki didn’t seem at all interested in escaping. 

They could have escaped.  Definitely.  Absolutely.  It would have been easy to escape, at least temporarily.  But Loki was uninterested. 

And they kept going for the scepter. 

They definitely knew, which was something that had Danny’s heart racing.  Well.  Racing as much as it ever did. 

Unfortunately, the three of them weren’t quite good enough to take the scepter, and Loki’s obvious malingering aside, Danny couldn’t, like, talk to him about it.  Talk him into doing something about it, talk him out of doing something about it, whatever.  Partially because they were in the middle of a fight (duh), partially because of the influences still acting on him.  Boxing him in.  Forcing him to fight in the first place. 

Mind control sucked. 

Really, what he had to hope for at this point was that something would come along that was actually a threat.  The Hulk or something.  Danny wasn’t sure he could beat the Hulk as a human.  Escape him, sure, maybe even trap him, temporarily, but beat him?  That was a different thing altogether.  Oh!  Or maybe Pandora.  Pandora was really cool, and maybe mind control could be sucked into her evil-trapping box. 

Probably not, but a guy could dream. 

He pulled another piece of armor off of Tony Stark, who, mostly unarmed, seemed to decide that discretion was the better part of valor and booked it, sliding over one of the lab tables and disappearing behind a partition.  Good for him.  Discretion, valor, all that.

The mechanical arms on the ceiling began to move.  Danny, not expecting that, failed to dodge and was knocked over a table.  Iron Man #2 bore down on him, flinging a prototype Fenton Net with Utra-Grav Weights (patent pending) at him.  Unfortunately for Iron Man #2these things didn’t have the same level of protection against Danny as the other weapons.  Probably didn’t have time to modify it.  Just stuffed whatever could fit into the suit and hoped something would hit.  Danny drained its energy and tore it, easily. 

Loki, surprisingly, looked like he was having trouble with Black Widow and the mechanical arms.  He was probably just faking.  But the appearance was enough for Danny, and he grinned as he dropped Mr. Norse God of Mischief through the floor, then tore off his green-stained shirt and dropped through himself. 

“You,” said Loki, “are a menace.”

“Thank you,” said Danny.  “I try.”

Loki rolled his eyes and handed Danny his jacket.  “You look ridiculous without a shirt.  You have less muscle than an infant.”

“That’s completely untrue.  I’ve got a six pack.”  He did.  It wasn’t a super well defined six pack and existed more due to lack of body fat than muscle mass, but it did exist.  “Unless, like, alien babies are ridiculously ripped.”  Which was a possibility.  It wasn’t as if Loki had been super forthcoming about, well, anything.  Which was incredibly unfair of him.  Danny deserved to know more about aliens.  Particularly the space-related parts. 

A thump from above shook dust off the ceiling.  They both looked up.

“Stark does not seem like one to attempt to follow us directly through the floor,” observed Loki. 

Danny licked his lips.  “You know what it means that they want the scepter.”  He cast a sidelong look at Loki.  Loki looked… Well, his whole… everything looked really weird without the armored trench-coat-like… thing.  The jacket.  Whatever.  It probably had some kind of fancy Asgardian name that, once again, Danny was not privileged to know. 

He wasn’t upset about the relative lack of space-related knowledge he was receiving. 

But, to get back to the point, Loki looked awful.  Like, he hadn’t looked great before, but now he looked the way Danny felt.  Which was bad.  In case anyone was wondering.  And also reading his thoughts.  Which wasn’t super likely, but also not outside of the realm of possibility.  And, hey, maybe the part of him that was still sitting out the whole mind-control thing would appreciate the context if it didn’t already have it. 

“It means,” said Danny, probably unnecessarily, “that they know.”

There was another thump, a louder one, but now that Danny was paying attention, it didn’t quite seem like it was coming from above—

The next sound was distinctly more crash or explosion like. 

“Uh,” said Danny.

“Thor,” said Loki, baring his teeth in something that wasn’t a smile at all.  “Perhaps this time, my brother will do me the honor of fighting me in earnest!”

“I don’t think honor is really the right word for that,” said Danny. 

His ghost sense went off. 

Skulker phased through the ceiling shortly before Thor’s hammer turned it into rubble.  Danny managed to get Loki out of the way, but this?  This would be difficult.  He felt his lips stretching in an approximation of Loki’s expression.  Okay.  So.  He might empathize a little.

And then the sand blew in. 

Yep. 

Difficult.

.

“What,” said Tony, “the hell is going on?”

“I think Tucker might have lost control,” said Jazz, “but it’s a little unclear right now.”

“Yeah, I think that might have to do with the sandstorm in my building.”  He’d slammed down the lab’s steel blast shields as soon as he realized that the sand was a) razor sharp and b) eating all the glassware in the room, and now he and Romanov were shut in one of the lab’s testing areas.  Never say he didn’t give his employees the best.  “JARVIS, can you navigate?”

“Yes,” said JARVIS, who was piloting the other suit.  The AI’s control over it wasn’t great.  They’d done tests – a bunch of tests, Tony had plans – but he hadn’t intended for JARVIS’s first foray into solo-piloting a suit to be such a trial-by-fire.  However, a mapped area like the tower, where JARVIS was completely aware of the floorplan, wasn’t the worst place to start.  In some ways it would’ve been better for JARVIS to take the Mk. VII, but Tony had known the kid would be able to take that one apart, and one of the two of them had an actual body outside of tech, so…  “One moment, Mr. Stark.”

“What do we do now?” asked Romanov. 

“Try to see what other systems I can access from here,” said Tony, impatiently tapping through the interface for the mechanical arms.  It was the only computer currently installed.  “Hope the sandstorm gets taken care of soon.  Hope rip-off green and silver me is worth something in a fight and that Thor doesn’t get tricked again.  Lots of hope.”

“But not much doing,” pointed out Romanov. 

“Maybe one of you can take over as mission control,” said Jazz.  “Because we’re going to be hit with the storm soon, and then I’ll be focused on keeping us steady.”

.

The pilot was relieved when he saw the man he replaced returning.  Sure, Agent Coulson had told him not to leave without direct orders from him or Fury, personally, but Coulson wasn’t the one with the World Security Council breathing down his neck.  And the conversation with the WSC was getting… progressively more unsettling.  If he could call it a conversation.  They’d brought up his family several times in what might have been a vaguely threatening way, but, luckily, he hated his family, so he didn’t care if they got their taxes audited or shipped to a black site or whatever conclusion he was supposed to draw from what they were saying. 

Point being, he got out as soon as the other man knocked on the cockpit glass.  Yes, he’d probably be reprimanded, but he could handle that better than the WSC.  Plus, it looked like his usual plane was being loaded up to go fight those aliens, and he was always happier when his bird wasn’t carrying a nuke. 

He waved to the pilot in the plane next to him as he went, one of the other replacements.  He’d taken his helmet off for some reason, and he looked terrible.  Completely white-faced.  Must be the kid’s first time sitting on a nuke.  Well, hopefully the guy he replaced would be back, soon, too.

.

“Once I remove these armies, this city shall make a fine capital,” said Duulaman.  “Pandora and Frostbite I shall reward handsomely, of course.  I invited them.  But the others…  These insects.”  Duulaman paced on the edge of the rooftop.  “The sheer insult cannot be borne.  I will allow these ‘police’ to live, should they swear allegiance to me.”

Valerie watched him, and the ghost dog padding along next to him, warily.  “The police aren’t an army.  Technically.”  Not that they weren’t full of crap more than half the time, but they weren’t actually an army. 

Duulaman waved a hand at her, lazily.  “Anything that has to be appended with technically is a lie.  Everything will be much better after I fix it.  Some of these buildings…” 

He pointed, and a nearby skyscraper shimmered into a pyramid, like a mirage.  It shimmered back after a second, but the sight still made Valerie’s breath catch in her throat.  That was definitely enough of that. 

“Tucker,” she said, voice tight.  “You’ve got to snap out of it, this isn’t you.”

“I have snapped out of it,” said Duulaman.  “This is what I was before.  This is what I was always meant to be.  And would the people of Earth not prefer a native son to rule in place of a dictator from beyond Great Ra’s furthest reach?”  He spread his arms.  “I will return to this world the glories of Kemet, that even in ruin and decay are celebrated thousands of years on.  I would think you would understand, Valerie Gray.  After all, you, too, have wished to return to what you once were.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ve maybe thought about that once or twice,” admitted Valerie, “and what you’re saying does sound cool, but can you do it without the megalomania and the sandstorm of death?”

“You want me to cease my efforts against the invaders?”

“No?” said Valerie.  She did not know what the right answer was here.  “But, look, I might’ve wanted to go back to the way things were before my dad lost his job, but I’m not that person anymore, obviously.  Can you really say you’re the same person you were, what, a thousand years ago?”

Duulaman rolled his eyes.  “The next thing to reform will obviously be the educational system.”

.

The sand was the worst.  So was Skulker.  And Thor.  And Iron Man #2.  And Loki, while he was at it.  It was all the worst. 

But then, that was a good thing.  Sort of. 

Lightning crackled through the sand cloud as Thor swung at another fake Loki.  The resultant impact with the floor sent cracks through the tile and concrete.  Danny didn’t have time to pay attention to that, though, because between Skulker and Iron Man #2, there was a lot of stuff flying through the air.  Missiles, bullets, knives, those weird repulsor ray things, ectoblasts, more nets, the works. 

.

“What did you say that tin can is using on the teenager?” asked Tony, appalled. 

“You shot missiles at him, too,” pointed out Romanov.

Tony stared at her, wide-eyed.  “Full of the equivalent of paint, yeah.  Aren’t you bothered by this?  At all?”

She shrugged.  “I started younger.”

“Of course you did.”

.

All in all, a normal day for Danny.  If he’d been in ghost form and not trying to protect Loki at the same time. 

He was getting closer to his limit. 

The whole fight went through a pair of walls, and Danny hoped that they weren’t breaking anything structural, because to the best of his knowledge, Black Widow and Tony Stark were still up there on the other floor, with minimal protection. 

They stopped just short of the next wall, a pane of frosted glass—except the glass wasn’t supposed to be frosted, apparently, and a second after they’d gotten there, even more sand blasted in.  The wind sucked at them, creating a sort of vacuum pulling them out.  Danny didn’t particularly feel like fighting three people who could fly while falling through the sky, so he anchored himself to the floor with ice.  Iron Man #2 (seriously, who was that guy?) promptly tumbled out into the sand and vanished. 

He was probably fine.  He could fly. 

.

“Sir,” said JARVIS, “I appear to have collided with one of our neighbors.”

“Please tell me you mean a building and not a person who will sue me.”

“I am quite certain people will sue you for this regardless.”

The terrible thing was, JARVIS was probably right. 

.

Thor and Loki grappled momentarily, hammer to scepter, and then Loki twisted, the hammer sliding down, into the floor, with a huge bang that echoed despite the howling of the wind.  At the edge of Danny’s ice, the floor fractured, then began to tip outward.  Danny took the opportunity to throw Skulker at Thor, who mostly phased through except for when he ran into the hammer, which knocked both of them off balance and half into Loki. 

Who promptly fell out of the building. 

Danny lunged after him, but Thor caught him by the heel.  Danny thanked him by kicking his chin as hard as he could.  He’d have to apologize later. 

For now… 

For now, Loki was way too far down for Danny to catch with the powers he had available in human form, and he had no idea what kind of a height would kill an Asgardian. 

(Or whatever Loki was.  He was still unclear on that.)

(And, yes, he was still resentful of his lack of alien knowledge.)

(He was never going to let it go.  He was going to get a t-shirt that said ‘I spent three days mind controlled by an alien and all I got was this lousy t-shirt and sleep deprivation.’)

(He was pretty sure it was three days, anyway.)

Anyway, point was, his orders were to protect Loki, and the only way to do that right now was to go ghost. 

Finally.

.

Okay.  So.  Valerie had tried reasoning with her mind-controlled kinda-sorta friend, but the sandstorm was getting bigger, and he was talking about conquering Syria (yikes), Mitanni (where?), and New Jersey (meh), and also making her one of his chief advisors, which was flattering but not really something she wanted, so she was pretty sure now was the time to try something more physical.   

She braced herself to move fast, and pulled up the biggest gun she could safely use on a human. 

Duulaman countered it easily, batting the blast away with the scepter.  He sighed.  “Of course.  I will have to take care of things here first.”

Next to him, the dog perked up, as if hearing something, then jumped for the scepter. 

“Argh!” said Duulaman.  “What are you doing?”

Well, Valerie wasn’t a fan of that stupid dog, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth or an ally in a fight in a motivation.  She charged her blasters. 

.

Cujo had just sensed his person!  His person was here!  And since his person’s friend wasn’t playing fetch after all, it was time to get his stick back!  Or play keep away!  That would be good, too! 

Cujo was having a great time, and he was being the best boy!

.

Danny’s transformation burned through his body like fire through flash paper, a brilliant flare of energy kept contained for too long.  The bonds on his mind, designed to control something of this world, something alive, shredded themselves on the crystalline, ethereal geometries that were Phantom as the pieces of himself that were kept separate came back together.  Whole again.  Free again.  Able to choose. 

He caught Loki and landed them in an alley that was, at least, somewhat protected from the howling storm.  Loki stumbled away from him. 

“You caught me,” he said, as if he couldn’t believe it. 

“Well, yeah,” said Danny.  “I wasn’t about to let you fall to your death.”  He held out his hand.  His white glove gleamed moon-bright in the shadows of the alleyway.  “You’ve made your point.  They’ve come together.”

“Half a dozen men does not an army make,” said Loki, his body between Danny and the staff, “and I—"

“I think there was at least one woman with them.  Also, my friends.  Tucker.  Jazz.  Sam.  Tucker actually sort of beat you up a little bit, there—”

“Don’t be obtuse, child,” snapped Loki, moving a little further away.  There was a glimmer of magic on his skin, and Danny knew they’d be more evenly matched in a fight than either of them would like… at least, without Danny resorting to the kinds of attacks he’d use against his stronger enemies.

“What do you want them to do,” asked Danny, throwing up his hands, “materialize an army out of nowhere in under a week?  Well, they did!”  Danny jabbed his finger up, where the green line of the ghost portal was still barely visible. 

It chose that moment to flicker out into nothing.

.

The Ops Center had already been struggling, but the moment the sandstorm hit it, everything but emergency controls and communication went down.  The wind pushed them sideways, and Jazz struggled to keep the airship upright.  By the time she managed something like stability, the ghost portal was long gone.  

Sam staggered onto the bridge.  She’d stayed out until the last minute. 

“The portal?” she asked, managing to get to the copilot’s seat. 

“Gone,” said Jazz.  She tapped comms.  “I’m going to have to set us down, we can’t maintain our position in this.”  An alarm – something for envelope integrity – started to go off.  “Hawkeye, if you aren’t already off the roof, you need to go now.  I won’t be able to see you.”  And even if she didn’t like the guy very much, she didn’t want to squish him with the Ops Center.

“Got it,” said Hawkeye.  “I’m headed down, now.  Hopefully things will be clearer closer to street level.”

Jazz inhaled slowly, and carefully started down.

.

Loki raised an eyebrow. 

“Come on, you want the chitauri here as much as I do.”  Which was to say, not at all.  “Give me the staff so we can end this.”

“It is my destiny to rule this place.  My… my glorious purpose.”

“I don’t believe in destiny,” said Danny, moving closer.  After all, if destiny was really a thing, his family and friends would all be dead along with a big chunk of the population of the US.  “It sucks and it’s also really uncool.”

“And you think that makes you free of it?”

“Well, yeah.  That is how that works, actually.  You’re free to choose what to do.”

Loki laughed.  “There is no choice.  Freedom is life’s great lie.”

“Well, maybe the bigger lie is that you don’t have a choice?  Have you thought of that, huh?”  Danny gestured emphatically, aware that he was not delivering this argument as eloquently as he could be, but since Loki was regurgitating lines from the night he’d popped out of the Tesseract, he felt like he was winning.  “Like, that’d be the real trick, wouldn’t it?  A really great lie.  Because there’s always a choice.  I mean, like, right now, you can choose to keep doing this, and then we’ll fight, and, no offense, but if you haven’t managed to run away under my nose or something, I’m definitely going to beat you up, I have experience with this, or you can choose to stop this and give me the staff.  Obviously, I’d prefer you to give me the staff, but, like.  It’s a choice.”

Loki stared at him.  “Do you always talk this much?”

“Only when I’m sleep deprived, so, really, this is your fault.”

A sigh came from behind him, and he twisted to see Loki fade out of invisibility.  “Now you sound like my father.”

He held out the staff.  Danny took it.  It felt cold, heavy, and unpleasantly alive in his hand. 

“Uh,” he said, lifting off the ground.  The portal device was, after all, on the top of the tower.  “My condolences about your dad, I guess.”

“He’s still alive,” shouted Loki after him.

“Yeah?  So?” Danny shouted back.  He didn’t get an answer. 

He flew up, faster, faster, as fast as he could go, now, and braked in the middle of a firefight between Tucker and Valerie… and Cujo?  Or Duulaman and Valerie.  He recognized those red eyes.  (And Cujo.)

(Cujo was the best boy, trying to get the staff away from Tucker.  So smart!  Danny made a mental note to give him lots of treats and pets when this was over.)

Duulaman smiled and tilted the scarab scepter just so.  “Hello, Danny.”

“Nope!”  Danny zoomed past Tucker/Duulaman in a burst of speed.  “I’ve already fulfilled my mind control quota for the year, thanks!”  He used shields to push away the sand and flew directly towards the portal device.  He would’ve liked to free Tucker on the way, but the portal spewing an alien army had to come first.  Every minute it stayed open, more people would die. 

(He wondered how many people had died while he talked Loki into giving up the scepter.  He wondered how many would have died if they fought, Danny tearing through illusions and Loki running for his chitauri ‘allies.’  He wondered which number would have been bigger.)

He plunged the scepter into the heart of the device, smacking the Tesseract off-center.  The device, naturally, didn’t like that, and some whirring part inside it kicked up into a high-pitched scream before the device shut down altogether. 

Danny grinned, then turned to face Tucker.  That was one problem down.  Now he just needed to knock some sense into Tucker and help with the chitauri that were still in the city.

Heh.  Just.  That really went to show what his week had been like.  Thank goodness it was almost over. 

.

“Hill, have you seen Coulson?” asked Fury.  Coulson hadn’t been answering his comms, which, given the HYDRA situation, might very well mean that he was dead, but Fury couldn’t just start sending people out to look for him.  On the other hand, it was possible Coulson was utilizing alternate methods of communication. 

“No,” said Hill.  “I—”  She cut herself off, fingers flying over her keyboards.  “Sir, we have a bird in motion! Anyone on the deck, we have a rogue bird! We need to shut it down! Repeat! Take off is not authorized!”

Fury didn’t waste his breath swearing.  He took the emergency route – the one also stocked with emergency weapons – up to the deck. 

He didn’t like shooting at his own people, but the fact was, whoever was in that plane wasn’t one of his.  He raised the RPG to his shoulder and fired.  It hit, sending the plane spinning across the deck, just in time for the second plane to shoot off past Fury. 

Reflexively, he drew his gun, but there was nothing a little handgun could do against a fighter jet that was already hundreds of feet away. 

There was only one more thing he could do. 

[talzane]

Tucker is Pharaoh Du'ulaman (I *refuse* to say Dull-a-man even though that's the canon pronunciation via Mr. Lancer, and even though the wiki says it's Duul Aman, I have yet to see a Pharoah have separated names like that [I am not an expert, though]. Tuthmoses, Tutankhamon, and Dhakhamunzu are all one word despite how complex the spelling is. However, I also learned that Ancient Egyptian writing didn't have vowels, which means a double vowel like in Du'ulaman hasn't been recorded. While the double vowel sound most likely didn't exist, the show gave us the name Duulaman, and in order to force a pronunciation like with names like Akhenaten [Ahk-en-ah-ten], I think the apostrophe needs to be there. I posit Duulaman would be pronounced Do-lay-mahn, and the closest way I can find to spell it without changing the constituent letters is to add the apostrophe.) reincarnated, and General George S. Patton firmly believed he was a general who was reincarnated to fight in every major war. Given that reincarnation is canon, is that ghost from Reign Storm, the one in the WW2 uniform, supposed to be Patton? If so, it seems like he got demoted.

[akela-nakamura]

Oh man oh man I wanna send so many of these you've no Idea™️ how much I'm holding back on this but, for the made up title thing (not really I'm just stealing these from my Spotify lmao), how about "Carrion Comfort"?

send me a made-up fic title and I’ll tell you what i would write to go with it: Ooooo~ I LIKE that title.

Pings in my brain like 'cold comfort.' Also makes me think of crows. Of rot and the life that grows from the dead.

It makes me think of Sam and how she was never quite the same after Undergrowth, in the same way Tucker was never quite the same after Duulaman, or Valerie after Technus upgraded her suit.

In how Danny lies between life and death, how Jason carries death with him like a shadow.

I think of graveyards growing flowers, but odd flowers. They're strange things, not quite of this world. Some of them are so pale as to be see through, others can only be seen when the moonlight hits them right. Life after death, yes, but life feasting on death.

It's the mushrooms that climb the still standing trunks of long dead trees, it's the call of a crow and a circle of vultures.

It's Amity Park and the ectoplasm that seeps out of every pore. It's Gotham and her restless dead. It's the flowers that grow from the cracks of abandoned buildings, from the shallow unfound graves.

It's Gotham and Amity having the same flavor of mystery, linked through their dead that refuse to sleep. The flowers speak death. The graves shine through.

It's a boy who died and lived in the same moment, another who refused to lie still in the grave meant for him.

It's life blooming from these dead boys, from these living carrion corpses.

It could be a twist on the good ol' fashion Corpse!AU (not my usual thing) but not quite. When Danny's alive, there's a flush to him, instead of a pale, whispy kid he's almost too alive. Bright, with too much energy and a heartbeat like a hummingbird's.

When he's dead, he doesn't drop a corpse, not really, but life cascades around him, the life he drops away bursting out into mushrooms and graveyard flowers and the creep of bugs. It's like he gives back to the earth whatever his body would have given.

It's Jason, who didn't come back as cleanly, as evenly, leaving death and life in his wake. It's the fresh loam soil he leaves behind, deeply rich. It's the way he can make someone feel dead without ever putting a knife to their skin or a gun to their head. It's the things he can see, hear, touch.

It's two boys who should be carrion, but refuse to let nature take them.