#kings are the worst

[kyri45]

We love MK, child of un-divorced. The next update will be more gay. And fluffier.

Shadowpeach Bio Parent AU (PREV / FIRST / NEXT )

before saying anything, read the stuff under the cut

About wukong and macaque

Both these bitches did wrong, but remember that MK saw the vision starting from the fight itself, not what happened before. He then read the chapters of the book and read that Macaque also attacked. I personally think he's mostly hurted by what Wukong did, not because it's worse of what Macaque did, but because he idolized Wukong for so long, and while he know he did so many wrongs in the past, his vision of a "hero" dissapeared in this moment. He s mostly dissapointed let's say. Of course it's not the best of things to put tour heroes on a pedal because you will always be dissapointed. I guess MK learned the lesson...

About what MK said in panel 8

Our monkey boy is remembering his own very stupid thing he sacrificied himself without trying to talk it out with the others AND using the circuit on Wukong.

About the posters

Yes they were Monkey King posters. MK ripped them immediately after the vision because he still was not sure was reality and vision and was scared.

About the eye

Because I would prefer no one dies of angst, his eye is fine, it s more like symbolism.

[chloesimaginationthings]

This is basically Michael in FNAF Sister location,,

[stars-obsession-pit]

The Worst Branch in the Country

The GIW knows Amity Park is a huge fraud. The “most haunted city in the US”, really? They’ve been checking the place out for decades with nary a peep aside from that couple of crazy scientists that moved into town around twenty years prior.

Because of this, the town became a punishment duty. One of their agents causes trouble? They get put in time out and sent to work for a while in Amity Park. Let those idiots chase after pointless rumors while the actually competent agents work with the more important ghosts. The reports back from the town get barely more than a cursory glance before getting tossed in the shredder.

…Which really came back to bite them when ghosts did actually start to show up, and they didn’t realize until after the Amity Park branch had royally screwed up the situation.

Fuck, they really hope this doesn’t start a war.

Optional DPxDC addition: they call in the Justice League Dark for help with negotiation and taking down their rogue members

[locallibrarylover]

*by live theatre i mean plays, musicals, operas, ballets, concert versions of musicals, staged readings, & things of that nature. EDIT: YES this includes amateur, local, kids, high school, & community theatre. almost every show i've seen has been local

if you want, list the names of the shows you've seen in the tags!

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[ravenpureforever]

On one hand, Young Justice is kind of neglected by the actual superheroes that should be looking out for them in a lot of crucial ways and very much failed by the adults around them

But on the other hand Red Tornado straight up hosts a parent-teacher conference where their respective legal guardians all show up, barring Batman who’s in traffic so Nightwing fills in instead because Robin’s dad does not know he’s a vigilante which is objectively hilarious

[manicpixiedreamygirl]

Neil and Katlyn problably look at each other from time to time and go "OMG, This person has the worst taste in man under the sun😭😭😭"

And then their men are literally twins

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 341

Danny sighs as the sound of a falling shelf reaches him, quickly followed by twin snarls. He takes a breath, even if he hasn’t needed to breathe since he was fourteen, and counts to ten as he pauses in making dinner. 

“Ellie, Dan, what’ve I said about throwing each other into the shelves-” 

He stops as he comes to the living room doorway, both of the gremlins freezing mid-stuffing an unconscious vigilante out the window, feathers puffed up. Dear Ancients he does not want to deal with this today, but it’s not like life ever cared about what he wants in any situation. 

“Elnath, Jordan, you better not be about to toss that person out the window-” 

[abnomi]

been trying to get back into animation

original gif below ^^ teehee!

[dcxdpdabbles]

you’ve inspired me so here’s a thing you can do whatever with cause I got a migraine and lost my train of thought

so Danny’s working the bar at the iceberg lounge and notices more people are stress drinking, even the Big Names and asks what’s up only to find it’s ✨Tax Season✨

Danny: oh I always forget about that

someone: (aghast) you don’t pay your taxes

Danny: *shrugs* I’m not allowed to pay taxes

wtf does that mean, is he exempt, someone asks but no Danny explains that the first and only time he tried to pay his taxes he received a full refund and a cease and desist order

word gets around and not even the joker want to mess with Danny because what kind of a monster can scare the irs

(This is actually an inherited problem from his parents)

"What did you just say?" Danny looks up from where he is mixing drinks. Across from him is a purple suit-wearing clown- he hates clowns, so he was attempting not to make eye contact- whose whole white face is twitching slightly.

Danny blinks slowly, using every ounce of self-control to not give in to the urge to reach across the bar and slap him. After a moment, he answered, "I always forget tax season."

"You're crazy enough to take on the IRS?" The clown's jaw drops. "I mean Batman, sure, I understand that, but the IRS?"

Danny frowns. "I don't take them on. I don't have to do my taxes."

"How?" A man in a suit covered in question marks demands from further down the bar.

He shrugs his shoulders a little. "I tried it once, but they sent me a full refund and a cease and desist order. They only remind me that I cannot file taxes now."

"Prove it," A man covered in scales hisses.

Danny grabs a rag, using it to clean off the lemon juice. He reaches into his apron pocket, pulling out a folded-up letter. He could have left it in his locker, but stuff always went missing there. Best to keep his stuff on his person while working. "Sure. Here I have it now. I went to the post office before my shift-hey!"

The lade covered in leaves yanks the letter out of his hand, unfolding it and reading the words as though it wasn't a federal crime. Her voice wavers when she gets to the reminder that the United States of America Internal Revenue Service would not stand another attempt at Daniel Fenton's taxes.

"This can't be real," She scoffs, but there is an underline of worry in her voice that she can't entirely hide.

She turns to a man in a strange white and black suit- like it's evenly split down the middle strange. It matches his face, though; one side is gorgeous, and the other is deformed. "This isn't real, is it Two-Face?"

Two-face takes the paper from her hand, carefully reading the words before pulling out his phone and typing away. After a few seconds, he pauses, then gasps. "It's real. My boys just confirmed the Tax ID number. He is not legally allowed to do taxes."

"Holly Molly, you're insane," the clown gasped, backing out of the seat while pointing at Danny as though he was the devil. "Stay away from me you lunitic! I'm not messing with the IRS's boogie man!"

He turned tail and ran, leaving behind a stunned Danny, wondering what he could have said to earn that reaction. His parents back home were also ordered to not do their taxes. It's common.

He turns to his other customers, ready to take their order, but they all pale and quickly duck away from him as well.

Strange.

Then, Danny notices the silence that has fallen upon the Iceberg Lounge. Even the music has been cut off as everyone stares at him in disbelief.

He shifts, a little uncomfortable with the stares. Danny has never grown used to attention, no matter how much he craved it as a teenager. He always wanted to be in the It Crowd and be given an official membership to the A-listers, but he grew to understand that the only way they liked seeing him was in pain.

So Danny learned to avoid attention as he could, which wasn't complex as the part of the town's freaks, but the very few mintues someone did pay attention to him something terrible ended up happening.

Dash stuffed him into a locker while classmates laughed and cheered the bully on.

A teacher calling on him just to make him feel stupid.

His parents realized he was slipping in his grades and reminded him that he was a failure to the family's intelligence.

Or some random GIW agent that "banished" him from his Earth, flinging Danny straight across the universe to whatever hellhole Gotham crawled out of.

He barely got this bartending job only a few weeks ago- lying about his age which he thinks his boss doesn't care about- and using a shade of an old bartender to coach him in mixology.

Shades were different from ghosts. For one thing, they were weaker and unable to be seen by regular people. They could not interact with the world and often didn't even know they were dead. If Danny had been able to see them before the portal, he would have known they were the cause of what is commonly known as a "ghost."

They were the myths.

Jeff Ricci is Shade, one who is aware he died. He was killed in a gang shoot-out a few years after he and his sister ran away from an abusive home. They traveled through three states, dodging police and CPS, before they disappeared among Gotham's homeless population.

The pair of siblings survived for a while doing odd jobs for local gangs- things like drug runs or helping them move guns- which is why Jeff was out there the night the fight broke out.

It was an imperfect stroke of luck, the wrong place and time. The two had been doing so well, too. They had both gotten jobs at the Iceberg Lounge, lying about their ages, where Jeff was a dishwasher, and Lucia was a housekeeper.

After hours, Jeff was taught by his coworkers how to properly mix drinks, waiting for Lucia to finish her job. When the two turned eighteen, Lucia became a waitress, and Jeff joined the bar- though if anyone asked or checked their employee records, both were twenty-one.

With better pay and hours, they could rent an apartment, finally gaining a home after three years of homelessness. Jeff had lived in that home for only a month when he accepted a job to buy Lucia some migraine medication and had perished.

Lucia lived on without her twin, broken far more than before, but she still had the apartment and job at the Iceberg Lounge. She was unaware her brother still followed her around, watching her actaully turn twenty-one while he remained eighteen.

That's how Danny met him, a somewhat see-through man casually following one of the prettiest waitresses. He had assumed he was being a creep, but Jeff had been delighted that someone could not only see him but was willing to protect his sister by threatening him away from her.

In exchange for lessons on proper mixing, Jeff asked Danny to keep an eye on his sister. Help her when he could not. It was a fair trade from one younger brother to another.

The shade is currently leaning against the counter beside Danny, staring at him as though Danny was a god. "You scare the Joker. Shit, Danny, I knew you were some kind of Rouge in the making, but to take out heavy hitters like this before your debut!? That's just terrifying! Would you be willing to pay my sister to be your secretary or something? She's a great typer!"

What a strange place Gotham is.

[maxzemillian]

hello 💀

got the audio from another user in the kinitopet discord server (creditz to them! honeychips4090)

[yootato]

i am still his biggest fan btw

[nibbelraz]

Shang Qinghua extreme eye twitch agenda.

Mobei Jun is just like: so humans do that? Why r u short circuiting? Is this flirting?

Lil guy probably scared plenty of business partners into deals because of an involuntary eye twitch that freaked them out bad enough to sign the paper just to get the twitchy man far away asap.

Oh yeah, especially when they try to put an offer that doesn't benefit his king AT ALL all while Mobei Jun is convinced it's some type of flirting

[luxaofhesperides]

Soulmate AU: First Words + End of the World ; requested by @justwannabecat!

Duke has long since accepted that he doesn’t have great luck. Most things in his life tend to go wrong very quickly, or complicate situations he was already struggling in (see: being a meta and getting his powers in the middle of a fight). Having an incomprehensible soulmark is an unpleasant discovery on the morning of his nineteenth birthday, but not entirely unexpected.

He had been hoping for something simple, a common one like hi it’s nice to meet you or sorry, didn’t mean to bump into you.

What Duke gets instead isn’t even words. 

Scrawled across his left hipbone is a string of symbols glowing a faint green. They’re not in a language he recognizes, and the symbols seem to move, shifting ever so slightly so they look different every time he blinks.

“Well,” he says after a solid five minutes of staring into the mirror, unable to rip his eyes off his soulmate’s words, “I hope theirs looks nicer than mine.”

He spends his birthday in a bit of a daze, enjoying time spent with the Waynes and his friends. It’s hard to be fully present when he’s all too aware of the soreness on his hipbone flaring up each time he moves. It’s hard to keep his mind off of it, wanting nothing more than to search for answers, unravel the mystery of his soulmate’s first words.

“Something on your mind?” Jason asks, as the attention shifts off of him for a brief moment as Harper and Cullen get ready to leave and everyone rushes to give their goodbyes,

Duke shrugs, carefully keeping his hands still so they don’t drift to where his soulmark is hidden beneath his clothes. “Yeah. Nothing you need to worry about, though.”

Jason looks him over critically, then nods. 

Duke resigns himself to being investigated by the rest of the Bats. If he’s off enough that Jason had to comment on it, then that means everyone’s noticed and are trying to figure out what’s happened. They’re not going to ask him, because they think he needs space to work through whatever’s got him so distracted, but they’re also not going to just do nothing. 

This won’t be the first time they’ve done this. Duke expects it. Frankly, it would be stranger and much more concerning if they didn’t try to dig up all his secrets the moment they caught wind of him hiding something.

He’ll tell them about getting his soulmark soon. Soulmarks can appear on any birthday between the ages of thirteen to twenty five; they might suspect he got his, but they won’t be able to confirm.

For now, Duke can keep his soulmate’s first words (whatever that gibberish means) to himself.

He makes the decision then and there, as his birthday party winds down, to tell them in a week.

And because his luck is abysmal, a world ending threat hits five days later and suddenly there is no time for soulmarks and first words.

Duke is the last to arrive at the Fortress of Solitude, hitching a ride from Superboy to get there. The biting cold and the harsh winds keep the place far from the reaches of the rest of humanity, surrounded by nothing but deadly white. 

Desolate as the landscape is, it’s still in better shape than the rest of the world.

Things would be better if it was alien invaders. It would be more bearable if some sort of cosmic colossus tried to eat their solar system. At least then there would be something physical that they could fight.

Instead, the world is breaking apart, the sky and earth both fracturing to reveal glowing green faultlines. Timelines are getting mixed up and muddled; just yesterday, Duke had to evacuate a building that had been demolished forty years ago, then stop a gang leader who wouldn’t be born for another eight years from taking over a neighborhood block and holding the residents hostage. Strange creatures are appearing out of nowhere, crawling out of shadows and tide pools and from beneath the roots of trees, all horrible, monstrous things that go after people with teeth and claws. 

The Flashes and the rest of the speedsters are nowhere to be found. The last time anyone get communication from them, it had been Impulse sending Red Robin a glitchy, barely audible video chat saying something along the lines of “trying to fix—unstable—keep us here—never been alive before.” All things that are very concerning to hear, made worse by the fact that no one had been able to contact them at all. 

The quiet loneliness of the Fortress of Solitude is a welcome change from the constant screaming, death, and destruction that’s taken over Gotham as well as the rest of the world. Last he heard, even Justice League China was at the end of their rope. 

“In here,” Superboy instructs, guiding Duke through the halls. There’s no time to look around at Superman’s secret base. All his focus is stuck on staying conscious for another few hours to see if this gathering of heroes is able to find a solution to the world breaking apart.

Batman stands besides Superman. Both nod at Duke when he enters the room. Wonder Woman is watching over John Constantine as he writes something on the floor, muttering under his breath. The rest of the Justice League lean against each other, visibly exhausted as they wait for Constantine to finish up what he’s doing. A few other heroes are here too, and Duke goes to join them where they lean against a wall, fighting to keep their eyes open.

“Hey,” he greets, voice low. “Hanging in there?”

Wonder Girl sighs. “Somehow. I don’t know how much longer we can do this. There’s just too much…”

“We’ll get through this. I mean, even without us out there, plenty of civilians have formed rescue and relief groups to help with keeping things under control,” Speedy says, gently knocking her arm against Wonder Girl’s. “We just gotta keep going. No giving up.”

“What’s this plan, anyways? I just heard that they needed me here to some attempt to fix things.”

“Well, without the speedsters, you’re kind of the only one who can help with time and power related stuff,” Speedy says.

“That’s definitely a stretch. My powers don’t really have anything to do with time. It’s all just light and shadow.”

Speedy shrugs. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Too late to complain about it now.”

Duke doesn’t get a chance to say anything else when a loud clap catches his attention. The entire room goes still and silent as Constantine stands up and surveys the circle and symbols he’s written, taking up an entire corner of the large room. 

“Alright,” he says. “Time to get started. Remember, let me do the talking. If you have to speak, it’s only to back me up or when a question is directed to you.”

Batman nods to the other Justice Leaguers, and suddenly everyone is falling into formation behind Constantine. Duke hurries to join them with Wonder Girl and Speedy, taking a place on the edge of the group where he’s a little closer to the circle than the others. 

Constantine begins chanting. His voice is steady though none of the sounds make any sense, refusing to form themselves into recognizable words, and the air the in the room feels heavier. The chalk circle glows a blinding white and Duke can see magic swirling through the air, his power kicking in the let him watch as reality tears and a glowing star in the shape of a boy comes out of it.

Duke blinks, forcing his power down. The hypnotic swirls of magic fade from sight, but the boy still glows, bright and terrible as he floats above the circle and surveys them all. A crown engulfed in blue flame hovers above his head and the fabric of the cosmos is draped over his shoulders as a cape. 

Just from presence alone, Duke can tell that this figure is now the strongest existence in this universe. He hopes this boy king is kind; no one, not even Superman, would be able to beat him in a fight.

The boy king opens his mouth and speaks, but it’s not words than comes out. A strange static like sound emerges, but light and almost melodic. 

His left hipbone burns.

Duke gasps, hand flying down to it, and the boy king’s gaze snaps to meet his.

The world stands still. No one moves. No one dares to breathe.

And then the boy king drops to the floor and walks out of the circle.

“I thought you said that would hold him!” Batman hisses at Constantine, who is looking more and more distressed.

“It was supposed to! I wrote it specifically to hold the King of the Infinite Realms!”

The boy king glances at Constantine. This time, when he speaks, it’s in smooth English. “Did you name the king in your circle?”

“Yeah, I named Pariah Dark… Bloody hell, you ain’t him, are ya?”

“No,” the boy king smiles, “I’m Phantom.”

The cape and crown fade away, and suddenly it’s not an all powerful, terrifying king standing before them, but a young man with white hair and green eyes who looks Duke’s age. Like he could be any other new generation hero in the room. 

“Phantom,” Duke repeats lightly, just under his breath, but it makes Phantom look at him again.

He walks forward, ignoring the other heroes’ aborted attempts to stop him, coupled with Constantine’s frantic back off motion happening behind him. Phantom leaves the circle and the Justice Leaguers behind to stand before Duke, a soft smile on his face.

“Hi,” he says softly, “I dreamed of you.”

“You—what?”

“I dreamed of you. I have for years now. To think that being summoned was what made us meet—” Phantom breaks off into a breathless laugh.

Duke swallows, then drops his had from where it had been pressed against his hip. “So we’re really—? You have my first words too?”

In the corner of his eye, he sees Batman stiffen up. Maybe he should have just told them the day after his birthday, but in Duke’s defense, this is the definition of extenuation circumstances. 

“First words?” Phantom repeats, “Is that… Do we have different soulmate connections?”

“I think so. Here, everyone gets the first words their soulmates say to them appearing somewhere on their body.”

Phantom’s gaze darts down to Duke’s hip, then back up. “Oh. I get dreams. Where I’m from, we dream of our soulmates, and the closer we get to meeting them, the more we remember the dreams.”

“And you dreamed of me.”

“I did.”

“As touching as this is,” Constantine interrupts, and Duke gets to watch as Phantom rolls his eyes, “We summoned you here for a reason. Our world is falling apart at the seams and we need someone powerful, from the Realms, to help us fix it.”

“Okay.”

“...What do you mean ‘okay’?”

“I’ll help,” Phantom says.

“Just like that? No deal to be made, no price to be paid?”

“Just like that. I’m not one for deals anyways. If I can help, then I will. But I do want to see what the problem is with my soulmate by my side, if you don’t mind.”

Batman steps in, fixing Duke with a steady gaze, a barely noticeable tilt of his head. “Signal?”

“Yeah I’ll go with him. Of course I will. The sooner the better, in fact, because everything’s gone to shit.” Duke turns to Phantom, taking hold of one of his hands. “It is really bad out there,” he warns, “If you need help—”

“I’ll ask for help from others in the Realms,” Phantom says. “No offense or anything, but if it’s really that bad, I doubt living mortals will be able to do much to fix things. It’s why I was summoned, right?”

“Right. Let’s get to it, then.”

There’s a flash of mischief in Phantom’s eyes, and cheeky grin stealing across his face for a moment, before he says, “Aye aye, captain!” and picks Duke up like he weighs nothing and flies up through the ceiling.

Duke is able to hear everyone’s surprised, panicked shouts before they’re outside the Fortress of Solitude and Phantom is flying them away. He only needs a few directions from Duke before he finds the first of the large fractures in the sky.

“Yikes,” is all he says, which is not a great thing to hear. “I think I know how to fix it, though. We’ll need to do a little investigating as to who, exactly, started messing around with reality, but once we find the source, it’ll be an easy fix.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”

“Even better than meeting your soulmate?”

“I haven’t slept for more than four hours all week. Knowing there’s an end in sight beats everything else.”

Phantom laughs, throwing his head back and Duke can’t help but drink in the sight of him, so ethereal and bright and full of life. “Fair enough! Got any ideas as to where we should start?”

“I’ve got an entire crew of detective vigilantes,” Duke replies. He’s not taking any more chances. No more waiting to talk about important things; he messed up by keeping his soulmark to himself, so he needs to make sure everyone meets his soulmate before shit goes south again. 

“Let’s go find them, then!”

They take off again, soaring through the skies that are barely holding themselves together. 

The world is still ending, and every hero is being stretched thin, but held carefully in Phantom’s arms, racing head first into a solution, Duke can’t help but feel that everything’s going to be alright now. 

He’s had enough bad luck. Now, his soulmate with him, bearing the title of King with grace, things are finally starting to look up.

[demgozellegs]

i havent done a detailed pencil drawing in awhile, so here's this!

[novelist-becca]

Collector here was definitely jealous of the tight, loving family dynamic Luz, King and Eda have.

Probably thinking “why can’t I have that?”