Dan stops his breakneck speed when a fleet of fighter crafts come between him and the flagship. Wonder Woman comes to a stop beside him and glares at their opponents.
"Pretty bad odds." Wonder Woman comments. Dan scoffs.
"For you, maybe. I can handle these pricks by myself." Dan sneers and earns himself a sharp glare from the warrior woman.
"Knock yourself out." Green Lantern calls as he arrives after Superman. The big boy scout looks at Dan with worry. Dan smirks wickedly as his hands alight with green energy.
"My pleasure." He purrs in a low voice. He waves his hands together and the fighter crafts pull together into a massive pile because of Dan's telekinesis. His smirk grows darker as his red eyes glint with sinister joy. From his hands a large torrent of flames explodes and disintegrates the ships all together. Too distracted by Dan's merciless display, the heroes didn't notice when Green Lantern flew ahead. The white haired man turns to face the aghast heroes with a smug expression. "What's the matter, princess? You look like you've seen a ghost," Dan mocks crudely before continuing onto the flagship with a cackle.
He creates a large hole with an ectoblast and flies in, followed by Wonder Woman and Superman. The three make quick work of the bridge officers and the only female of this group picks up a sword and strides through a door, shoulder brushing roughly against the ghost's as she passes him. He actually snarls at her, getting ready to grab and chuck her before realizing she's his 'ally'. Superman follows her, shooting Dan a wary look, but staying silent. The ghost scoffs. He looks around to make sure there are no more enemies to fight before following after the heroes.
"What happened to Glowstick?" Dan inquires, finally taking notice of his absence.
"I assume he went ahead," Wonder Woman replies, stopping in her walk as she notices there are two different paths leading to engineering. "Take your pick, spirit." She urges, obviously wanting to go in the opposite hallway that he chooses. The ghost rolls his eyes and floats into the left hallway, hearing Wonder Woman and Superman go down the other. Not even the boy scout wanted to be near him. Dan chuckles under his breath. He is almost falling asleep with how easy to defeat the birdmen are. He pauses in his flying when he sees a barred door and peers in to find the redheaded birdwoman from before inside and behind a forcefield.
"Well if it isn't the traitor," Dan mocks, looking from her to his destination. The woman looks up at him. "Your own people don't even want you. How pathetic." She looks down with shame. He goes to leave her but when he turns his head away, from his peripheral vision, her form changes to that of a younger redhead female that he knew all too well. "Jazz?" Dan utters before he can stop himself and whirls to face her. The aberration is gone; the birdwoman in its place. Red eyes continue to bore into her while she doesn't seem to notice. With a clench of his jaw, the ghost groans. "Fuck! Ok, alright. Fine, fucking nosey old man." Dan grumbles, letting more curses loose as he punches the control console to the woman's cell. The woman looks up ag him in surprise as the forcefield is lifted.
"Why did you free me?"
"Fuck off," Dan warns, glaring at her before stalking off with angry strides. The woman exits the cell and looks at the retreating back of the broad shouldered man. She wasn't paying attention to him in the batcave but he now had her attention. She could see he trained his body. She would even admit that he was even more muscular than Superman and Batman combined. A little too muscular. Her eyes trail to an abandoned mace of the fallen hawkmen that the man had just taken care of. She shakes away the pity for her fallen brethren and follows after the angry blue-green skinned man.
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Dan makes it to the control room just in time to see that a much buffer birdman had just brought down the blunt part of his axe like a club across Green Lantern's forearm, shattering the bone. With a scream of pain, John fell to his knees. The birdman-who Dan's deciding to nickname Big Bird-then delivers a wicked uppercut, sending Lantern across the room where he lays still. The ghost watches the fight closely, wondering to himself if he's finally found a worthy opponent.
As Big Bird raises his axe for the finishing blow, a female voice from beside Dan calls out. "Hro! Enough!" Big Bird and Dan turn to see it's the birdwoman the ghost freed.
"Hoe?" He mutters to himself, wondering if he heard her correctly. Big Bird's gaze ignores Dan and goes straught to birdwoman. The traitorous Leaguer walks toward Big Bird, until they are inches apart.
"The fight's over. You're a soldier, not a murderer."
Big Bird pauses for a moment, then delivers a vicious backhand, sending her to the ground. Dan doesn't even flinch since he was expecting it.
"I'm a fool!" he shouts, "For ever loving you!" The ghost sighs, over the soap opera and flies at Big Bird, tackling him to the ground. He pins his wings down with his knees and let's loose a flurry of punches. Big Bird blocks with his left then uses his right to swing blindly with his axe and hits Dan on the side of his head with the bluntside. The force is strong enough to throw the ghost off the bird. Big Bird rolls onto his knees but before he can stand, he's sucker punched in his left side and is sent rolling towards a wall. He crashes with a sick 'thwack' sound and his right wing bends in a weird way with a snapping sound. He lets loose a pained hiss and clumsily stands while bracing himself against the wall.
"Who... what are you?" He inquires in a deep raspy voice. The air had been pushed from his lungs from the surprisingly strong hit. Dan smirks like a hungry animal and his red eyes twinkle with sadistic enjoyment.
"I'm the last thing you're going to see." Dan replies evenly before flashing his sharp fangs. He then turns to the two who are just watching with wide eyes. "Stop acting like Magikarp and shut the fucking shield off already, dipshits!" He orders which gets their butts in gear. Dan's head snaps forward when he hears a battle cry as Big Bird rushes forward. The ghost is hit right in his left temple and his head swivels to the left while his vision blurs for a second. He collects himself for a fraction of a second before being uppercutted and sent stumbling backwards.
Dan shakes his head and straightens his posture as he faces the angry bird head on with narrowed burning red eyes. His pupils are tiny slits-like a snake's. Speaking of snakes, his forked tongue slips out from his lips and is covered in blood from biting it by accident because of the uppercut. His pissed scowl slowly twists upward as he rushes forward, his pupils going from slits to blown wide from adrenaline. He was excited. For the first time in a long time. With a powerful roar, Dan lights up his fists with baby blue ectoplasmic fire and starts pummeling Big Bird. It didn't take long until Big Bird was on the floor, bloody, burnt in some places, and broken. With swelling eyes that showed promise of ugly bruises, he looks up at Dan.
"Well," he croaks, "aren't you going to finish me?" Dan smirks and readies himself to do just that but as he takes a step forward, a mind splitting headache forces him to his knees as Clockwork's voice shouts in his mind. 'NO KILLING!!!'. The ghost let's out a long groan before collecting himself and standing up, nursing a throbbing head. Big Bird hacks a cackle. "What? Too afraid to bloody those silky white gloves?"
Dan growls animalistically. The bird made it really hard to reel in the urge to kill him. "Shut. Up." He orders. Big Bird starts to laugh like a complete psychopath until Dan the not so friendly ghost kicks him in the side of the skull hard enough to knock him out but not kill him. It payed training his body to be precise. "You two done yet?" He inquires, flying over to birdwoman and Green Lantern. Dan finds that the African-Anerican male had manage to get through the shields of the control but was struggling to push down the lever. That is until the winged woman place her hand over his, and adding her strength to his own. Together, they deactivate the shields around the bypass. The ghost rolls his eyes. "Fucking finally."
Dan's eyes catch something and he looks to the left to see that there's a TV screen in the control room showing the bypass. He floats over to it which catches the other two's attention and they go to stand a couple feet away from him but stil see the Watchtower turn the Bypass into a crater. The woman gives them both a satisfied smile before she looks down at the floor with a sad, guilty expression. The ghost ignores her, eyes glued to the screen. His pointy ears twitch when they hear several footsteps approaching.
Dan whirls around to face the load of Thanagarian soldiers that entered the room. The three get into defensive stances and Dan snarls. Suddenly, cries of pain from the back of room cause everyone in the room to turn. Standing over the unconscious forms of several Thanagarians, bloody and bruised but still determined to fight, was Wonder Woman! The ghost's eyebrows rise upward as his snarling features slacken to surprised awe. He found Wonder Woman even more beautiful covered in blood and fresh from a fight.
"Who's next?" she demands, raising her sword. As more of the soldiers began to charge, a voice rang out.
"Stand down!" Charred, bruised and beaten nearly to a pulp, stood Big Bird. Dan was actually impressed to see him still standing after their short brawl. "Lower your weapons." The soldiers quickly obey.
"Commander?" one of the birdmen asks.
"Our mission is a failure." Big Bird went on. "There's no more reason to fight. Let them go." He ignores the incredulous looks from both his soldiers and the heroes and limps over to the birdwoman. "I hope you're proud of yourself. It'll take years for us to rebuild elsewhere."
She stares at him, unflinching. "Then you'd better get started." With that, she, Lantern, Wonder Woman march out of the room. Dan stays behind and turns burning ruby eyes on Big Bird.
"What are you looking at, earth scum?" Big Bird snaps. Dan scowls and his fists light up with green fire.
"Not much, wingless." The ghost sneers.
"I have my wings, you fool-" Big Bird cuts off into a loud scream of pain as his wings are ripped from his body by a duplicate of Dan. The small army of men that entered, gasp in horror and glare at the clone. Green electricity fills the room as Dan recalls his clone before using his Ghost Stinger to electrocute everyone in the room. They all cry out as powerful bolts ricochet through their skeletons. Dan stops and their smoking bodies hit the floor. They're still alive, as per Clockwork's demand of not killing anyone.
"Like I said, wingless." Dan sneers with a cruel smirk before stalking off after the three that just left.
WAYNE MANOR, THE NEXT DAY
Dan and Shayera, what he learned to be the birdwoman's name, were waiting in the den of the Manor while the Justice League discussed its future and their traitor's future in the dining room. She was sat on the couch watching the news and Dan was reading a book from the bookshelf next to the large flat screen television. It was some mystery book that he didn't bother to read the cover of. It seemed like the type of book his younger selve's older sister would like. The ghost throws the thought away and continues to read, criticizing the protagonist's every choice. The television showed hundreds of Thanagarian ships leaving the planet. The reporter went on to thank the Justice League for what they did to save the world. Even going as far as thanking the League's new 'friend'.
Dan's eyes actually lift from the page when the reporter speaks of him. "This new ally seemed almost as powerful-if not more so-as Superman. He made quick work of most of the fleets' ships, as you can see some of the wreckage behind me," the reporter gestures behind her and indeed there is large heaps of metal from crushed ships. Dan smirks viciously, "Just who is this ally? And where did he come from? Is he here to stay? We'll go over to Hank for interviews with the public on their opinion of-" Whatever else the reporter was going to say is cut off by the screen going black.
Shayera turned off the TV and is now looking at her feet. "They've been in there a long time." Dan scoffs and goes back to reading his book. They spent the last few hours in silence and he liked it that way. He didn't do friends. She looks at him and presses her lips together. He feels her gaze but continues to read, ignoring her. His ears twitch when he hears chatter at the entrance of the manor.
Five new voices, a pair of silent footsteps, and Alfred's voice can be heard. Dan tilts his head subtly, trying to eavesdrop.
"Hey Alfred! Wow, the place is a mess." An upbeat male's voice comments.
"Yes, Master Dick. Some Thanagarians weren't polite when they paid us a visit." Alfred replies, following by the sound of a broom sweeping the floor.
"Yikes. Need help cleaning up? I mean, I can'tdo much but I can-" A female voice speaks up next but is cut off by Alfred.
"No, Miss Gordon, do not fret."
"Alfred, where is father?" A young voice inquired curtly.
"He is in a meeting with the League, Master Damian. He has guests in the den as well so please stay away from there."
"Is it that new guy!?" An excited and young female voice inquires.
"Correct, Miss Brown."
"Can we meet him?" This Miss Brown continues.
"I don't think you want to do that." Before Alfred can explain that statement, he gets a call from Bruce. "Yes, right away sir." He then makes his way into the den and Dan is back to reading for real. "Excuse me Miss Hol," Alfred says as he enters the room. Shayera stands, apprehension on her face. "They sent for you."
"Thank you, Alfred." The butler nods, and leaves the room. Shayera shoots Dan one last look before entering the dining room. The ghost sighs, his breath lifting his white bangs. He was politely told to wait in the den but his patience was wearing thin and he was bored out of his mind. With a final huff, he shoves the book back in its place on the shelf and exits the room to float down the hall. When he enters the large entrance area of the manor, where the shattered glass is, he finds Alfred sweeping while a group of young individuals hang around. The youngest is helping Alfred.
"Its him!" A young blonde woman exclaims, pointing at Dan. Alfred whirls to face him and his eyes widen.
"Sir, Master Bruce asked you to wait-"
"Don't care." Dan snaps, cutting the butler off. He twirls a finger in a bored manner and green energy surrounds the remaining glass shards before lifting them up threateningly. Everyone tenses up. The ghost smirks before dumping the glass in a nearby trashcan.
"Thank you, sir." Alfred nods politely. The white haired ghost rolls his eyes and lands on the floor softly. A large black dog crashes into the room and starts barking crazily at Dan.
"Titus?" The youngest male inquires curiously. Dan eyes the dog lazily before opening his mouth wide and letting his forked tongue wriggle at the dog with a terrifying hiss. The dog whimpers and lowers itself to the floor, its ears pinned backwards and its tail between its leg as it quivers under Dan's gaze.
Dan scoffs with a sneer. "Pathetic," He spits before stalking off. He passes the den and Shayera exits it just as he's a foot away from the door.
"They want to see you." Shayera informs before walking off. A few minutes later, John Stewart exits the den as well and beelines after her. Dan rolls his eyes and enters the den, then the dining room. The League all sat at the long dining table, watching him closely.
Flash leans forward dramatically with a teasing grin. "What will we do with you?"
Woo! Cliffhanger. Sorry but I really need time to map out exactly what happens next. I mean, I have ideas but none are solid. Next to update will be Hellfire. I'm almost done with that next chapter so woohoo! Carry on my wayward readers and stay hellish!
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~Cas✌