The next day Phantom left his room while walking on his injured leg and Megan immediately started freaking out. She flew over to him and as soon as she got to close Phantom took several steps back and she stopped. "You shouldn't be walking around, your leg is broken!"
Phantom was about to respond when Kid Flash ran into the room, "Why are you walking around?!" Phantom was once again interrupted when the rest of the team walking into the room. The only one that didn't tell him he should be resting was Robin and Phantom scoffed.
His eyes started to glow brighter and he took a deep breath, "Enough!" Some of Phantom's power escaped in the form of a cold wave which also caused the lights to flicker for several seconds. Everyone immediately shut up and Phantom calmed down but he still looked a bit angry.
"I can take care of myself calm the fuck down and shut the hell up." Before anyone could say anything the zeta tubes announced Batman's arrival and they all went to see him. Phantom flew since he didn't want to hear anyone telling him not to walk on his injured leg.
Batman looked at all of them before he spotted Phantom, "I need to talk to you Phantom."
Phantom raised an eyebrow, "What about?"
"We've received some strange readings as well as reports from several different locations. I need to know if you might know what's going on."
Phantom crossed his arms, "You'll have to tell me more then that." Batman handed Phantom several papers before he pulled up the information for the readings they got. He quickly read through the reports and looked at the readings, his eyes started to glow brighter.
"There's only one explanation for something like this, where is all of this happening?"
Batman brought up the location, "Care to tell me what you think is going on?"
Phantom shook his head, "I'll have to see it to know for sure."
"Fine, you'll all go and investigate, once you're done report back and tell me what you found."
"I can do this myself you know." Phantom looked completely neutral, this wasn't something that needed an entire team.
"Humor me, leave as soon as possible and try to stop whatever's happening if you can." Batman left and Phantom was deep in thought, it didn't take him long to fly off while still holding the reports. Not even half an hour later they were all in the bio-ship and Phantom was carefully reading the reports.
Aqualad looked at Phantom, "What do you think is causing whatever is happening Phantom?"
Phantom didn't even take his eyes off the report, "Hard to say without seeing it." Over an hour later they were close to where they needed to be and Phantom's eyes were still glowing brighter than usual.
They landed outside of the city and Phantom was the first out of the ship and everyone else followed. Phantom waited for them and they all went into town and wondered what was up with Phantom. They didn't know what it was but he was acting different, the glow from his eyes was also odd.
They weren't sure why they were glowing brighter but the glow was a soft glow, they weren't sure how to describe it. Phantom was too busy thinking to notice the team, if he were in his human form his heart would be beating faster. Once they finally got into town Superboy looked at Phantom, "What should we do now?"
Phantom was about to answer when a blue mist came from his mouth, the world seemed like it wanted to interrupt him every chance it got today. Phantom quickly looked away from the group and flew farther away so he was about twenty five feet away. Everyone was confused but they didn't get a chance to ask what was going on before Phantom was knocked off his feet.
A blur had hit Phantom right in the stomach which knocked him over and onto his back. Phantom took a second to recover from getting the wind knocked out of him before he looked at what had hit him. As soon as he did his eyes widened and and grabbed what had hit him and hugged it.
The thing that had knocked him over was a small glowing dog and it barked when Phantom hugged it. Phantom actually smiled, "Cujo! I never thought I'd see you again boy!" The dog barked before it licked Phantom's face and the teen continued to smile and he set the dog down.
The dog barked at him twice before spotting the team and it growled before it got bigger and they all took a step back. Phantom flew in front of the dog, "Cujo heel." The dog looked at him before sitting down and it seemed to smile at him before shrinking again. The dog jumped into Phantom's arms and the teen started to pet the dog and the other teens were all confused.
Kid Flash took a few cautious steps toward Phantom, "Uh, Phantom, what's with the dog?"
Phantom looked at him with Cujo in his arms, "This is Cujo, he's a ghost dog." Everyone stared at the dog before Phantom turned around so he could walk farther into town. "Come on." Phantom started walking away and everyone followed him, Cujo jumped out of his arms and walked beside him.
The team looked around while Phantom tried to find what he was looking for. Another blue mist came from his mouth before Phantom heard shouting and he looked around. As the seconds ticked by the voices got louder and more clear so everyone could hear what they were saying.
"It's him!"
"We found him!"
"He's okay, he's alive!"
Everyone was looking around now and Artemis started to get angry, "Show yourselves!"
Someone laughed, "Fine." Two figures appeared in front of the group and Phantom recognized them immediately.
"Johnny, Kitty!" Kitty smiled with a tear in her eye and she ran over to Phantom before she hugged him. The teens were surprised that Phantom didn't try to get away, he actually looked happy. Phantom hugged her back before she let him go and Johnny ruffled his hood which also messed up his hair.
He laughed just a little before looking at both of them, "What are you two doing here?"
Johnny smiled, "Looking for you kid, everyone's been looking for you since you disappeared. We're not the only ones that are here though, there's one more ghost wandering around."
Phantom wondered what he was talking about before he heard another voice, "Phantom?"
Phantom looked at where the voice came from, "Ember!" Ember smiled and she quickly flew over to Phantom before she hugged him and looked him in the eye.
"We've been looking everywhere for you, what happened, are you okay?"
Phantom took a step back and Cujo jumped into his arms again, "I'll have to tell you later." All of the ghosts nodded and Shadow appeared before he growled at the group of teens behind Phantom. Phantom smiled at Shadow just a little, "Don't worry they won't hurt anyone."
Kitty smiled at Phantom before she looked at him seriously again and a silent message passed between the two. Phantom turned to the team, "They'll have to come with us." They all wanted to object but the glares from all of the ghosts stopped them from doing so and they nodded.
The team flew in the bio-ship while the ghosts, along with Phantom, flew outside of the ship. Phantom held onto Cujo as they flew and Robin called Batman while they were in the ship, "Batman, we found something."
"What is it?"
Robin hesitated for a moment, he wasn't sure what to say, "You'll have to see for yourself." Batman nodded before he hung up and once the teens and the ghosts got to the mountain Batman came in using the zeta tubes.
Batman looked at the ghosts before his gaze stopped on Phantom, "Explain." Batman saw the dog in Phantom's arms and it barked at him but didn't do anything else. Cujo jumped out of Phantom's arms before he looked at Phantom and started barking, Phantom smiled a little.
He looked at the small group of ghosts, "I'll handle this." They all nodded before they disappeared and Phantom turned to Batman as well as the team. Cujo refused to leave his side since the little guy was attached to Phantom and didn't want to leave him again.
Phantom mentally sighed, this wasn't going to be fun, "Well here we go. Basically those reading were from a portal between the ghost zone and the human realm opening up. The ghosts that were with me came through the portal and people probably either saw them or strange things started happening because they were there."
Batman raised an eyebrow, "Why were they there in the first place?"
Phantom crossed his arms as Cujo looked at him with worry in his eyes, "They were looking for me."
"Did something happen?" Megan asked.
Phantom shrugged, "It's possible but they might have just been looking for me because of what happened the last time any of them saw me." Cujo barked at Phantom before jumping into his arms and licking his face before leaving to find the other ghosts wandering around the mountain.
Phantom smiled at the little dog before he looked at the group of heroes again, "I'm going to go find the others." Phantom flew away to find the other ghosts while the team went to the living room and Batman stood there and thought. Phantom found the other ghosts easily, they had all gone to a room where they could talk to Phantom in private.
Johnny looked at Phantom when he came into the room, Cujo wasn't far behind him. "Alright kid, what the hell happened?"
Phantom looked at all of them, "Tell me what's happening in the ghost zone first."
Ember sighed, "It's chaotic right now, they need you baby pop." Phantom felt bad when he heard that the ghost zone was in a state of chaos, he should have escaped sooner.
Kitty hugged him but he was numb and he didn't hug her back, she moved away from him. "Now tell us what happened." Phantom told them everything, as he continued Kitty started to silently cry and Ember looked pissed. When Phantom was done telling them what had happened Ember hugged him with a few tears in her eyes, she was still angry.
Phantom pulled away from her, "I'm guessing we need to go to the ghost zone as soon as possible." They all nodded and Phantom immediately looked serious, "What time will we be able to leave?"
"We were planning on calling Wulf so he could get us to the ghost zone, we can leave whenever we want." Johnny said.
Phantom nodded, "I've got to let the others know but we can leave right after that." Phantom went to tell the team, he wanted to get this done and leave as soon as possible. He needed to get back to the ghost zone, he didn't know what was going on but the looks on his friends faces told him that it wasn't good.