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The G.I.W were horrifying.
They hadn't seemed that way when Danny was a kid, untrained, a small underfunded mostly unknown section of the government. That changed with the emergence of metahumans, aliens, and vigilantes.
Now the previously known Ghost Investigation Ward, or those Guys in White as Danny and his friends had snidely passed them off as, were one of the government's largest forces. They expanded their reach far beyond just ghosts. They had their hands in the development of controlling technology (no matter how much they claimed it to be preventive, it wasn’t, it was a cruel punishment for those unable to understand or control their abilities), and their claws in detaining such peoples.
Danny’s focus had largely shifted from protecting Amity Park to protecting the ghosts who came through in a desperate attempt to fulfill their Obsessions. Now he would be the first to admit that they didn’t always do it in the safest manner, but most of the time they had just forgotten how squishy humans could be. Ancients, Danny himself sometimes forgot and elbowed Jazz too hard when she visited.
But all in all, most of the ghosts weren’t dangerous. Danny had learned a lot about Obessions since he was fourteen and falling face first into an immensely complex world he didn’t understand. The G.I.W didn’t recognize that. They only cracked down on all things they deemed unnatural, and the fear people had from all too frequent attacks and invasions merely fed the paranoia. The group received more funding, employees, weapons, and popularity.
Danny had asked Jazz’s seven year old what she wanted to be when she grew up, only for her to aim a blinding grin up at him and answer that she wanted to fight with G.I.W to protect the world.
He had flinched back in shock. Jazz later explained that her school had been attacked and Jazz didn’t think she was old enough to explain what the G.I.W. really did. People said they were just like the police but for non-humans. People praised them.
Danny had lost too many friends to the organization. He certainly took them seriously now.
It's not as if he doesn’t see the point. Some ghosts are dangerous, just like some aliens or metahumans. Just like people could be dangerous. And he certainly couldn’t be everywhere at once. Sam and him were settling down, thinking about kids, talking about a life together.
The problem was in that the G.I.W wasn’t humane. They tortured ghosts. Mutilated them. Too many times had Danny arrived just in the nick of time and had to rush them off to Frostbite.
It was agonizing. He was the High King of the Infinite Realms. He was the fabled Ghost King. He was the bridge between the spirits and supernatural, and the humans and mundane. He had been doing this since he was fourteen years old, for ancients sake!
And still his people suffered. It has gotten worse too lately. Freakshow had made it out of jail. He had a cult following now, people who believed that he could tame ghosts of their unwieldiness. His ghosts had recently attacked several museums, banks, high end stores, and other such places.
Freakshow blamed it on the unruly nature of the ghosts. He said that it was lucky he managed to regain control of them in time before they hurt anyone, but that it was just such a shame all those valuables were lost.
Danny scoffed, heat rising in his chest. He really wasn’t making Danny’s job any easier. Ghosts were getting restless as a whole, unnerved by the sudden visceral hatred people began holding for their kind. They ended up doing stupid things, pulling pranks, things that didn’t actually hurt anyone but just served to heighten the fear.
Danny sighed as he floated up to the Justice League’s headquarters. He couldn’t use the zeta beams in his ghost form because the radiation he already had messed with the zeta radiation that did the actual transporting.
Normally it wasn’t a problem he almost always was eager for an excuse to stargaze, especially from such a fantastic view but he just didn’t have it in him today to be anything but annoyed at the long trip up.
He trudged through the halls, already five minutes late for the monthly Justice League meeting. They normally gave him a bit of leeway, considering everyone else could get there in seconds and he had to fly way too many miles before he even caught a glimpse of the base.
He hoped they would have a quick meeting today, he needed to pick up some orange juice from the grocery store. Sam kept insisting he was going to get a vitamin C deficiency.
He entered the meeting room and slid into his seat without notice. Glancing around the table he could see that Batman wasn’t here yet. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. For all that the man insisted everyone not waste his time, he sure seemed to waste a ton of theirs.
He lightly tapped his fingers on his knee, mind wandering as he waited for flying-rat man to show up.
Danny paused.
…Maybe he did need an attitude adjustment.
When the man finally did stalk into the room, cape billowing like another dungeon bat from pop culture, he put the PowerPoint presentation up on the board (Because yes, the Justice League meeting were just as boring as any other office meeting). Danny straighted, determined to at least try to prevent his attention from wandering.
“Amada Waller is pushing to have a new law passed restricting powered children from mixing in with the other kids in their classes and at recess. That’s our main discussion point but we also need to rereview property damages and how to avoid them as some people seem to have forgotten.” Batman began without preamble. At least Danny could always count on him to not want to be here.
The meeting crawled by. People debated how much they should really be able to affect the government's decisions and whether they should stick their nose into politics or just focus on saving people. Others argued that these laws concerned them and since they had largely come about due to them, they had an obligation to protest as representatives of their people.
Danny just thought that the country was going to the doghouses.
Again.
Just how many crises? Crisisi? Doesn’t matter. Just how many crises could the world take? He certainly never thought this number was even possible.
Slowly but surely the debates wore to a close and the plans on how to combat the new law were formed. Batman moved on to chewing people out for property damage, which Danny thought was a little funny considering a couple of his kids (sidekicks? Partners? Team members?) blew up a ton of buildings last week, most of them not in Gotham. How they managed to coordinate the explosives across multiple states, Danny didn’t want to know.
That was a lie. He wanted to know. He wouldn’t do anything with that knowledge, because he had to be a responsible adult or something. But he was definitely curious.
“Now the last thing on our agenda. Phantom-”
Danny snapped back to the real world at the sound of his name.
“Ghosts have been running rampant. It's spread beyond Amity Park now. Something has to be done and we don’t have any feasible methods of dealing with them besides you and the rest of Justice League Dark.”
Danny took a breath. Yeah he could see where the Dark Knight was coming from but what did he want him to say? He couldn’t order all of his subjects to never interfere within the mortal world, the world would stop working. Weather would cease, plants wouldn’t grow, people would stop dreaming, it would be a disaster. And that's ignoring how terrified his people are of him becoming a tyrant like Pariah Dark. Revolts would only succeed in getting more people hurt, and successful revolts in possibly even more relaxed policies about human contact.
“I have given you technology to detain any harmful ghosts until I can collect them.”
Batman shifted his stance slightly. Uh oh. He only did that when he was really annoyed and squaring up for a fight.
“You have given us a thermos inspired by the movie Ghostbusters that looks as though it was built in your basement. It has limited range and is too big to feasibly carry around all the time. We need another solution. Preferably one more permedant.”
Danny felt his hackles rising. “What exactly do you mean permedant.”
“I mean that you seem to throw them back into your realm without any form of due process and allow them to roam free without penalty. If you won’t stop them in your ‘Ghost Zone’, then a solution needs to be found for Earth.”
Danny raised an eyebrow. “And what would you have me do? The legislation preventing intentional harm to mortals is new. The majority of ghosts only leave their haunts every few hundred years. Although even with that the majority of your ghost ‘attacks’ are time displaced people doing things that weren’t unreasonable in their time. While we are making efforts towards educating the population it will take time.”
“And the people of Earth should suffer for their negligence?”
“No they shouldn’t, but I only have so much power.”
“Which is exactly why we should have-”
Green Arrow cut Batman off, “What he means is how do we get rid of ghosts? Not protective measures like whatever salt shit Constantine suggests. Something to end the problem.”
Danny could feel the tight leash he had on his temper slipping.
“You mean how do you murder a ghost?” He snorted, “Not by using salt, that's for sure. Ectoplasmic spirits are much too strong for something so weak.”
“No, no, no. Not murder, I’m sure they didn’t mean killing a ghost. Just a more efficient way to take care of them should they come into our cities. Right guys?” The Flash protested, hands held up in the universal sign for stop.
Green Arrow ignored him. “It's not murder if they are already dead.”
Red clouded the peripheral of Danny’s vision. He took another deep breath and forced it to recede. He had to remain professional. He could be the bigger person, sure. “Ghosts isn't the correct technical term. Spirits is, and not all of them have lived a mortal life. Those that have, have already lost their lives, you’re right. There is no way to knock them out, subdue them in the way that you are talking about.”
Danny could see he was losing several people’s interest, like he always did when he tried to explain ghosts but he persisted anyway. He couldn’t control grown adults toddler like attention span.
“Ghosts are made of energy, ideals, and emotion. You are right in that they are not alive. They cannot be killed in any way that you would think of the word. That does not mean they cannot be Ended.”
Danny continued, “To be ended means to have lost any chance at any kind of semblance of life. Their soul spends eternity in pain, wandering the abyss, unable to find a single tether, to enter any form of any afterlife. It is a torture beyond our imagining. I will not subject my people to that because you are concerned about a scenario that has not happened!”
“So you say, but-”
“Do not interrupt me.” Danny stood, rising to his full height of 6’4”. “You speak about which you do not know. If you intentionally murder one of my subjects due to an accident, or ignorance there will be severe consequences. Namly war between our two worlds.” Distanly Danny recognized the icy points of his heavy crown digging into his skull as it materialized with the rest of his kingly attire on his person.
The room dropped to a more comfortable temperature, for him at least, as he made sure to look everyone in the eye. Adam apples bobbing and quick nods greeted him. Shadows receded back to the corners of the room. Funny, he hadn’t even noticed they had started writhing until they stopped.
He sat back down and grinned. “Ghost laws tend to mirror Hammurabi’s ideas more than modern day. You know, an eye for an eye.” He paused. “Except in this case the agony a spirit would experience couldn’t be quantified so who knows what the people would demand.”
He looked around the table again. The League looked stunned. He supposed he was normally fairly quiet so it wasn’t outside the realms of possibility for them to be surprised.
“Now if that's all, I do have an actual empire to run so if you’ll excuse me.” He turned intangible and sunk through the floor, speeding back to Earth as he tried to calm down. He had just threatened the Justice League. Shit. He had just threatened the Justice League.
He was only a representative from Justice League Dark. Sure he was the most commonly sent representative (the only one who wanted to go), and he was friendly with the majority of them but they were still the Justice League. He slapped his palm against his forehead and sighed.
Now he had another task to add to his already too long to-do list. Make war plans against his co-workers and people he believed to be friends. Ancients he envied Aurora right now. What he wouldn’t give for a hundred year nap.