Many years ago, I was wandering around downtown Ottawa with my best friend. We ran into a friend of his who offered us some hash (it sucked), then said there was a really good house party nearby if we wanted to go. We were like, yeah, sure. So that's how we ended up at some completely fucking random person's house.
I look around to ask if my friend knows anyone here and he's simply gone, as is his friend. And this isn't some red solo cup hangout; this is a party. There's people counting out pills on the kitchen counter. I am clearly neither as cool nor as drug-savvy as the kitchen people, so I back away and instead wander aimlessly into the living room, which seems to give off more of a chill vibe.
A bunch of people are seated in a circle on the floor. One of them is fiddling with a big wad of newspaper or something. A really cute grunge girl with piercings and tattoos scoots aside to make room for me, so I sit down.
"What's that," I ask her, gesturing at the newspaper wad.
She gets a really big smile on her face. You know the smile. It's the I'm About To Watch This Innocent Soul Get High As Fuck smile. "You've never smoked a tulip?"
"What's a tulip?" I ask.
"It's like if a joint was also a bong," she replies. "You gotta try it."
"Alright," I reply, a little uncertainly. This will not be my first encounter with weed. I am more comfortable with the janky newspaper bong than I am with whatever the fuck is going on in the kitchen. Besides, this girl is really cute and I would like to have a friend here now that my existing friend has turned into vapor or been transported to the Upside-Down or whatever the hell happened to him.
I watch as one person holds the newspaper joint-bong upright and holds a lighter over the top while another gets beneath it, tilting their head back to take a puff. Apparently smoking this Cheech & Chong monstrosity is a two-person job.
"Oh," I say, looking at the fist-sized knob at the top of the wonky newspaper joint. "Yeah, it does kinda look like a tulip." Grunge girl smiles at me.
I watch as the tulip is passed around the circle, along with the lighter, and hits are cooperatively taken. It reaches grunge girl, who takes a huge puff and holds it for an extended moment before exhaling an impressive blast of smoke. She smiles expectantly and holds the tulip up for me, preparing to spark the gigantic meteor of dank that makes up its tip. By this point I have completely forgotten about my missing friend. I only care about making a good impression on grunge girl. I tilt my head back and hit the tulip like a smokestack.
It is the following morning. I am sleeping between a couch and a wall. I'm not positive that this is the same house I was just in. My memories are gone. Someone is yelling at me: "dude! Dude! Wake up, dude!"
I sit up. My mouth tastes like cigarettes. I do not smoke cigarettes. "Wha," I ask the yelling man, who I am quite confident I have never met before in my life.
"We're going on a quest," he tells me, gravely. "You have to come with us."
I look around. Neither my friend nor his friend are anywhere in sight. I also do not see grunge girl anywhere. I shrug helplessly. "Okay."
We embark from this house. I learn that the destination of this quest is Tim Horton's. This is a relief to me, as coffee and a donut sounds really fucking good right now. Somehow, the route to Tim Horton's takes us past the Governor-General's residence, which everyone else in the group loudly heckles on the way past. I do not know what the Governor-General has done to raise their ire, nor do I particularly care. I trudge along with my hands in my pockets, pleased to note that I still have my wallet, phone, and keys. I fervently wish that I could remember anything about last night. Maybe I talked to grunge girl. Maybe she's why my mouth tastes like cigarettes. The tulip tasted nothing like cigarettes.
I am asked about my politics. I voice my frustrations with corporate corruption, the pay-to-win electoral system, the lack of transparency and accountability. This is met with great approval. The guy who was yelling at me claps me on the back. I get the impression that we became friends last night. I don't recognize his face. I do not know his name and he definitely does not know mine. I behave as though we're friends anyway. We are comrades on a quest.
By the time we make it to Tim Hortons, the gaggle of stoners I'm walking with have all run out of energy and/or attention span. People order snacks and break away in pairs or solo, to call for rides or plan the day's events or just vegetate and wait for the drugs to leave their systems. I look around and find that my nameless friend has also gone to the Upside-Down. As I wash the cigarette taste out of my mouth with coffee, I unsuccessfully try to remember whether I saw grunge girl smoking tobacco at any point. I remember nothing. That tulip was so fucking powerful that it instantly sent me a whole day forward in time.
Alone in the city, I try to call my best friend and get no answer. I walk to the nearest bus stop, catch a bus most of the way home, and call up my parents to ask for a ride back. They ask where my friend is. I tell them that I have no idea; we went to a house party and I don't remember anything else.
When they pick me up from the bus station, they ask me some very safe, nonspecific questions, and seem to relax when I describe what little I can remember. It isn't until years later that I realize they were probably terrified I'd gotten rufied or something, and were so relieved to learn otherwise that they didn't even bother chiding me for smoking myself unconscious in an effort to impress a strange woman. In any case, they were probably happy to find out that I did, in fact, like girls; I suspect they had been privately wondering whether I was gay.
After getting home, I finally manage to get my best friend to answer his phone. I discover that he tried the kitchen pills, spent most of the night crossing the entire city on foot, and crashed at his cousin's house. He sounds like shit. I tell him that he should have tried the tulip, instead. He fervently agrees with me.
I never see grunge girl again.
That's okay, though. She got to see a clueless stranger get fucked the entire way up on some ungodly strain of giga-weed, and I got smiled at by a cute girl, and then I got to go on a quest. Wherever grunge girl is, I hope she's happy. I hope she's smoking the fattest fucking blunt and smiling as some kid passes out behind a couch.
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Hera stood, waiting for her turn at last. The Queen of the Greek Pantheon traced the lines of neon green, its light reflecting against her true form in a soothing way. She’s no stranger to patience, to waiting. But there were little of those that had the gall to make her wait, and even smaller of that number that she would tolerate such behavior. Regardless, this was the one being she could not afford to offend and so, she waits. Her many forms, her divine self, perceived the room and compared it to her own halls of residence.
Olympus was much more intricate, carved of noble marble and inlaid with countless of priceless metals and gems and divinity. Twelve seats of power atop an engineering wonder, halls adorned with the brightest of the original flames, an hearth that was roaring at Hesta’s skillful hands.
In comparison, this throne room had been changed much since she was last here. Gone were the spikes of terror and screams of the damned. Now… it looked like the most bare throne room she’d ever bore witness to.
And yet, as she waited for the Boy King, Hera could feel the subtle thrum of impossible power. The new king did not flare his will and might like the previous tyrant, and for that, Hera approved. She has had quite enough of living with and under tyrants who cared only for themselves… and their bed achievements whilst failing spectacularly in their marital roles. Zeus was not a good life partner and Hera regretted ever saying yes to him many times in her immortal life. And yet… she loved him still.
The doors opened, and a small figure floated in, flanked by the previous King’s Knight. Perhaps that is what makes this Boy King so dangerous, Hera thought as she dipped into a bow, because he can turn the loyalest to his side.
“Your Majesty,” she greeted, in ghost speak.
“Heya, Hera!” The Boy King greeted her back, before waving the Knight away. Hera marveled, a bit, at the sheer confidence he had to dismiss his knight in her presence. Even the last king kept the knights around to ensure his power was always in display, always unchallengeable. The Boy King could destroy her with a snap of a finger and he knows it. He knows that she knows it.
“What did you need?” The Boy King asked, grin still on place as he floated to her instead of seating himself on his throne. Hera masked the bit of confusion she felt in pursuit of her goal.
“I have come here to ask of you a favor,” she began. “I am aware that… you are fond of this, the earth in which I reside in?”
Hera carefully picked her word. Everybody knows that the new King Phantom had laid claim to not only the Infinite Realms as is normal of his station, but an entire Earth as his haunt. He had the power to do so, she could finally see, now that she was standing before him. It would not do for Hera to get her strings cut because she claimed what is his.
“Sure. Why?” The Boy King tilted his head, narrowing that predator green upon her true form.
“Do you know of the Justice League, my lord?”
“Phantom’s fine,” he waved a hand. “And yeah, sure do! Why?”
Hera tilted her many forms in acknowledgement of the command. She bowed.
“My daughter, of a sort, is Diana Prince. Wonder Woman. She is… in grave danger. We can not exert our influence over a land that does not have our history. I can not interfere and aid her.”
“Oh, you want me to help her?” His tone was exasperated, and Hera spoke even more carefully in fear of offending him.
“Yes, if it pleases you. And it would be most gracious of you should Your Majesty have time to watch over her. I fear the danger will not leave her so quickly.”
There was a brief period of silence before King Phantom sighed. “And if it does not please me to do so?”
Hera looked up and locked gazes with evaluating green. “Then I am afraid I will be breaking a fair bit of cosmic law, King Phantom.”
He laughed. “Okay, yeah, I’ll check up on Wonder Woman.”
Hera blinked her many eyes, peacock feathers spreading in shock at how easily he allowed her favors. She did not even have to beg.
King Phantom turned to leave before pausing. “Hera, if you need help, just ask. Preferably without beating around the bushes next time. Also, Pandora misses you. You might want to hang around for tea later.”
Hera regarded him with the might of her divinity, which was but hardly a spec of his own kindness. The last one had not had her respect. Fear, yes. But never respect But this one…
“Yes, my King.”
“It’s just Phantom.” He shot back as he left, the Knight returning to his side once more.
Hera transformed into a more mortal form. She had not seen Pandora in a long time, the young woman had made quite an impression on her. Perhaps her old friend could be convinced in helping her punch Zeus and ruin her beloved husband’s day. Hera hummed, the green that used to flicker acidly against her divine form now only soothed. A reflection of its owner.
King Phantom is worthy of her regard.
——
Holy shit, a goddess asked him to check on the Justice League! She was super weird about it and talked in a really old way of speaking, but Danny hadn’t had anything to do for the past few days while entering the zone for his annual check up.
Danny waved away Fright Knight and dived into the portal that would take him directly to the Justice League and Diana!
He floated down from the portal, blinking at group of disheveled and injured superheroes surrounded by a group of demons. Belial?
“King Phantom.” Belial rumbled. Danny waved, not noticing the standstill his presence forced.
“Shite.” The British man cursed, drawing on his magic once more.
“King Phantom?” Diana Prince, Wonder Woman, said quizzically.
“Who?” Batman, Batman! That’s actually Batman, rumbled.
“High King of the Infinite Realms. We’re buggered if he decides to help Belial.”
“Wait, like the god of gods, that King Phantom?” Captain Marvel asked. Ancients, why are all of them electrical based? Danny hates electricity.
Danny floated closer to them, grinning in a friendly way before frowning as they tensed up.
“King Phantom. May I ask why you have graced us with your presence, my King?”
“Hey, Wonder Woman! Your mom asked me to babysit you!” He grinned, sharp and mischievous.
“What…?” The Flash asked, zipping to their side. “Her mom? Queen Hippolyta?”
“No, Hera,” Danny said, and watched Wonder Woman straighten at his words.
“The Goddess Hera.”
“Yep!” Danny rocked back on his suddenly formed legs instead of the whisp of a tail he usually kept in the Zone. He was also still floating. Danny sent a wave of ice and froze the rest of the demons in one fell swoop.
“The rest of you can take care of clean up, yes? Diana has to get some snacks, dinner, and then go to bed.” He pushed gently at Diana’s shoulders, nudging her towards the plane. She went willingly, respectful but amused.
——
Bruce, intellectually knowing that’s a king but only seeing a superhero teenager: *fills out mental adoption paperwork*
——
Hera, a goddess, terrified of misspeaking and dying as a result: he’s so strong even though he’s young omg powerful and could end my immortal existence
Danny, an unserious king: golly gee why is she speaking like a Shakespeare novel
——
Hera, thinking Danny’s gonna be dignified: pls watch over my daughter
Danny, who has a clone he sees as a daughter and therefore has no issues babysitting a grown woman: lol snacks, dinner, bedtime
Diana:… usually I’m on the other spectrum of this but it’s from a higher up so… okay?
——
Danny, terrifying gods and ancients: they’re my friends! The power of friendship!
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