#ectoberweek25

“What’s your purpose here?” she asked, Danny could see students with modified ectoguns behind her waiting just inside the school. But he couldn’t focus on them. 

He pushed between the Bats and ran to her.

“Jazz!” 

Her eyes widened and she dropped the bat to catch him in her arms. “Danny!” 

“I thought…” he trailed off, and Jazz hugged him tighter.

“I’m okay.” she whispered against his hair. 

They held each other for a moment before Danny shifted slightly so he could look over at the Bats, who had waited silently on the side.

“I brought help,” he said. “The Justice League is helping too. They’re disbanding the Anti-Ecto ACts and taking down the GIW.”

Jazz’s gaze was hard as she stared at Batman. “And why are you just helping now?”

Batman stepped forward. “We didn’t know. We didn’t receive any of your distress calls. There’s no trace of them on our servers. We’re currently investigating what caused the issue.” 

Jazz nodded slightly, pulling away and glancing back into the school. “Do you have a plan?” she asked, turning back to Batman.

“We are here to help secure civilians. Other League members are working on breaking into GIW facilities and arresting any agents they find. One of the League’s supernatural specialists is taking a look at the portal.” He looked behind her at the students that were peeking out the door, ectoguns held loosely in their hands. “Where are the adults?” 

“There’s a few inside, but most are locked down in their own homes.”

“Why aren’t the all here if this is the safe zone you’ve established?”

Jazz shrugged. “The GIW only care about those with an ectosignature, and the youth are the only ones with enough ectoplasm to ping their sensors. The adults who can stay out and sneak us resources.”

“Hn.” 

“Where’s…” Danny started, biting his lip, “where’s mom– Maddie and Jack?”

Jazz’s expression hardened. “At one of the GIW bases. I’m not sure which one.”

Before anyone could say anything else two people burst out of the building.

“Danny!” they said before colliding with him and almost knocking him to the ground.

He grabbed onto them just as tightly. “You’re okay.” he whispered. 

“Did you find the thermos?” Tucker asked after a moment still not letting go.

“Yeah.” Danny said. “She’s safe. We also ran into Valerie. The GIW were controlling her through her suit. We freed her and she’s also safe with the League.” he paused for a moment. “Is… is everyone okay?”

“Yeah.” Sam said, pulling away slightly. “There’s a few people with bruises and scrapes, but everyone’s fine.”

“Good.”

Nightwing turned to Batman. “A couple of us should stay to check on everyone and help defend the school while everyone else can help take down GIW agents. Someone could go check on Constantine.”

“Hn. Spoiler and Robin are already in the city. Black Bat, Nightwing, and Signal, join them. Nightwing, go the Fenton house to check on Constantine. Red Robin and Red Hood, stay here with the civilians. I will go check in with the rest of the League and see what’s needed next.”

Tim gulped down his coffee, his tongue had long since toughened up so it wasn’t burned to a crisp from gulping down the nearly boiling hot life juice.

He looked at his phone again. Unfortunately the warning hadn’t disappeared. Which meant he’d have to deal with it. He sighed.

He sent a quick text to the Furries Anonymous groupchat that he and his many, many, many, siblings and not siblings used before going to refill his mug. Alfred had tried to confiscate the oversized mug, but Tim just kept buying more, each one bigger than the last.

Finally, Alfred had sat him down and forced him to sign a contract stating that for each mug of coffee he drank he would eat a healthy snack and get two hours of sleep. (Actual sleep, Alfred had said, staring down at him with both eyebrows raised. Actually falling asleep and staying asleep for two consecutive hours.) 

Tim could have said that signing a contract under coercion wasn’t legally binding, but was too afraid of what Alfred might do to him. Last time Tim had angered Alfred, he had recruited Stephanie to get revenge on Tim.

She had snuck laxatives in every mug of coffee he drank, somehow even managing to do it when he was on a mission in space!

He grumbled as he trekked back up to his office since he’d have better access to the building’s systems on his computer. 

On his way back up he bumped into the tour group again. His eyes landed on the black haired teenager. Tim thought he’d imagined him at first (he had only been on his second mug of coffee at the time), but there he was. 

Tim squinted at him. He definitely looked like one of Tim’s siblings, but it wasn’t anyone he knew. Had Bruce adopted another kid without telling them again?

He could have asked the groupchat but he didn’t want to seem like he hadn't been paying attention, if this kid had already been with them for a while. He’d have to sneakily investigate.

His phone beeped.

He’d investigate after checking out this radiation warning. He quickly hurried to his office, hopefully it was nothing and they wouldn’t have to evacuate the building.

Once in front of his computer he pulled up the alert. The radiation warning seemed to be coming from just one floor. He pulled up the cameras with the special extraradiation filter he’d designed, and went through the cameras one by one until he came to one that had a green glow around the source of the radiation signal.

Tim leaned closer to the screen, frowning. The radiation glow was coming from the visiting tour group and seemed to be concentrated on the potential new sibling.

They turned. Danny stepped out of the shadows, pale and trembling, his eyes bright with something that wasn’t human.

“Danny?” Sam asked. “You okay?”

He smiled—too wide, too sharp. “I’m so hungry.”

Sam’s heart skipped. Tucker took a step back. “Uh, dude? You want… pizza? Burgers?”

Danny shook his head slowly. His voice was soft and ragged. “No. You don’t understand.”

When he blinked, his eyes went bright green. The air shimmered around him like heat rising off asphalt. The hunger pulsed in the room, thick and cold, wrapping around them.

Tucker’s breath hitched. “Danny, you’re scaring me.”

Danny took a step closer. “Then run.”

“What?” Sam whispered.

His voice cracked into a hiss—two tones overlapping, human and ghost. “Don’t just stand there RUN!”

They did. Chairs toppled, footsteps slammed down the hallway. The house shook as Danny screamed, the sound breaking glass and freezing the air.

He didn’t remember chasing them, only flashes. A blur of green light. The echo of their terrified voices. The taste of ectoplasm in the air like static on his tongue.

When he came to, he was kneeling in the street. His hands were smoking, his breath visible in the cold night. He looked down. There was no blood. No bodies. Just scorch marks where his power had erupted.

He pressed a shaking hand to his chest. His heart was still, silent.

He whispered, “Sam… Tucker…”

Somewhere far off, he heard sirens. He vanished before they arrived, leaving behind nothing but frost and claw marks on the pavement.

Later, in the Ghost Zone, he would tell himself he’d saved them by warning them. That he’d fought it off. That he could still be human.

But every time he closed his eyes, he saw the glow of their energy. Soft, inviting, alive.

But now that he’s thinking about it he can feel something tugging at him, like an invisible current pulling him deeper into the Realms and farther from the portal. 

He squints, he thinks he can make out something in the distance. He flies closer, tilting his head to the side. It almost looks like depictions of black holes he’s seen. He flies a bit closer.

“Kid!” Someone shouts. “What are you doing!?”

He turns. Embers waving at him. He flies over, and Ember grabs him, dragging him away.

“What do you think you were doing?!” Ember asks as she continues to drag him away.

Danny frowns. “What do you mean?”

Ember glances at him, incredulously. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?” Danny asks, letting her drag him along. 

“The Pull.” 

“What?”

Ember pauses, sighing and turning to face him fully. “I guess I can’t really blame you.” she says with a frown. “I doubt anyone’s told you, and who knows how halfa biology works. Most ghosts are born knowing this kind of stuff.” She runs a hand through her hair and it flares hotter. “Look.” She starts again. “Every hundred years, the Core of the Realms needs to replenish its energy which it gets from concentrated ectoplasm.”

“Ghosts.” Danny says, eyes wide.

“Exaclty.” Ember says. “Honestly, this is the first time I’ve seen it. But from what I’ve heard it normally only pulls in blobs and some of the non-sentient animal ghosts. Everyone else knows to avoid the Pull.”

“Except for me.” Danny says, wrapping his arms around himself.

“It’s not your fault, babypop. Most of us you hang around with haven’t been around long enough to actually see a Harvest take place. That’s why there’s no one around. Everyone’s waiting it out in their lairs. Though,” she says, crossing her arms with a frown, “Clockwork should have told you with how often you visit him.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “If I ask, all he’ll say is ‘all is as it should be.’”

“Probably. But you should avoid the Realms for the next few days. Now one will be starting any trouble until it’s over.”

“Thanks, Ember.”

“No problem, babypop.” she says, punching him lightly in the shoulder. “No one wants anything bad to happen to our favorite ghost boy. What would we do without if we didn’t have our favorite fighting buddy?”

Danny rolls his eyes, but grins at her. “I don’t know. I guess you’d have to find some other ghost to bother.”

“Never, you’re the only one for us.” Ember says, clutching a hand to her chest dramatically.

Danny snorts. “Well,” he says looking in the direction of the Pull, “I’ll see you in a few days then.”

Ember salutes him with a grin before flying off.

Danny’s the first one from earth to travel beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. As far as he knows, that is. So he’s the first one from earth to see this creature. 

They look like turtles except that they have several octopus-like tentacles instead of flippers that it’s using to lazily move forward. It also has jellyfish-like tentacles covering its bottom shell. Danny can see them moving slowly. Every time they come in contact with a small bit of space rock the jellyfish-like tentacles pass it forward to the mouth.

But what’s almost even stranger is the collection of pterodactyls-like creatures just chilling on the space turtle’s back. They seem to be eating what might be the space equivalent of little bugs on the turtle’s back. Danny’s reminded of the birds he learned about in biology that peck little bugs off of cows. 

He decides to follow the space turtle for a while, and his eyes widen when he sees where the creature is heading. In the distance Danny can see a whole stream of space turtles traveling together.

And as he gets closer he sees that it’s not just space turtles and space pterodactyls. There’s a whole menagerie of strange space creatures. There’s a creature that looks like a bird with two heads and no feet. Some fish like creatures that flash different colors. There’s even what looks like a whale with tentacles instead of a tail. There’s jellyfish-like creatures that have tiny pincers at the end of each tentacle. There was also a creature that looked like a deer with large antlers and a mane whose mane and tail looked like the tail of a shooting star. There were manta ray-like creatures with thin almost transparent wings.

He wonders where they’re all going, where they came from. He can now see that they trail off into the distance in both directions. It’s such a strange variety of creatures traveling together. It’s like how ocean animals used ocean currents to travel. 

But if they were traveling then that meant that somewhere out there there are entire ecosystems where these creatures live.

He wants to follow them, to let the space current carry him along, let his body grow and stretch, ectoplasm flowing into a more natural shape. He can feel his body changing, but he doesn’t have time to follow the stream, he doesn’t have time to explore. He needs to get back home. 

But now that he knows where this is he can portal directly to this location next time. He can follow the creatures to where they’re going, or trace them back to their origin. 

He’s always loved space, always wanted to visit distant planets and stars. But now there’s an entire ecosystem, probably multiple ecosystems, he’ll be able to explore.