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Ever since Danny had his coronation, summonings had become somewhat of a common experience. More than he liked. It wasn't as though he hadn't grown used to it quickly - his ability to adapt was one of the reasons he had even made it past the whole "guess I just survived my own death" shock in the first place - but he absolutely hated how it sometimes snatched him away from what was left of his life.
Like a really good sandwich, for example. Which he had intended to eat, damnit!
Anyways. At some point the summonings were just part of his normal routine. So much so that not getting summoned was a lot more worrying that just randomly disappearing at any given time of the day.
Like from in front of his sandwich.
He'd gotten over that incident. Just by the way. It was fine. It was cool. Totally. Yeah, really. He had just eaten something else after returning. No biggie. He wasn't feeling salty about it, shut up.
Right. So: Summonings, not sandwiches. You get the picture. Moving on!
He soon learned that summonings could be very different. Some were funny to look back at, like being summoned into a slumber party and him telling those girls to "be gay, do crime, touch some grass" before vanishing in his panic over what to do. Some were unpleasant, like being summoned into the middle of a stinky swamp. Some felt nice, a soft tugging at his core and warm magic guiding his form to the new location - while others were downright painful, all sharp yanks and throwing him through time and space. Some were polite, with a cute little altar and nice greeting. Some were rude, lacking both an actual greeting and any compensation for getting there. Or regard for what he might do with his time.
Certainly not eating a sandwich anymore, that's for sure.
You should get the gist of it, right? They were very different, depending on who summoned him and what they thought a proper summons should look like.
Danny was really grateful his summoning circle didn't require blood, at least. Though he wondered just who'd spread the runes and incantation to summon him all around the world. Not exactly something he was grateful for. You'd think the summoning circle to the literal king of ghosts would be a little more… mysterious. Hidden. Secret. But it wasn't.
At some point, he started to keep a little note book with him. It was a nice one he'd gotten from an online shop called paperblanks. He'd gotten a black one with white lace optics on it and magnetic claps - and with just a bit of ectoplasm worked into the lace, it looked nice and spooky. Like an important, creepy, ancient book. And if he wrote in it with a feather pen, well, that was nobody's business but his own.
Hey, let a guy be dramatic! It fit the whole mood of a summons anyways.
This book he kept with him was used to write down reviews of those summonings. Right then, right there. He loved the confusion they felt when he did that, it was a little bit of petty revenge for being summoned away from whatever he'd been doing in the first place.
Most summonings got a review that was at about 4/10, some of the worse ones got a 2.5/10 or something. There was one summons that got a solid 8/10. That one'd been nice. He'd gotten a bagel and a doughnut out of it and they were really nice. Surprisingly nice for someone who wanted to off a beloved hero, actually…
Huh.
Anyways, his rating weren't that harsh, if you asked him. So when one group managed to get 0/10, he definitely remembered them.
That summons started with being conducted in the middle of the night. When Danny wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, since he was finally done with his homework. Next up, it felt sticky. Sticky and dirty and generally not very nice. It was like using a garbage disposal like a slide, and he really didn't like that. Also, it was loud. Like, really loud. Dozens of voices chanted the incantation in unison, which honestly made them almost more creepy than Danny himself.
Well, maybe not. Considering that he was a literal ghost and all that, and they were only just some weirdly dressed people talking in sync.
As soon as he'd fully appeared, all of their voices just stoped. A large group of people stood around him, all dressed in black like ninjas. Expect for this one dude, who glared at Danny. That dude was wearing a green cloak. Well, why not?
Since none of them were saying anything yet, Danny took the time to look at where he was.
Now. First impressions are important and all that. This was the first impression this weird group got of Danny: A teen clothed in regal attire looking around, grimacing and loudly whining "Eww! What the- Why?! That's nasty. The fuck? Ew, ew, ew!"
There might have been better first impressions, but he had to admit that it was pretty accurate for him. So.
"Ruler of Death," the man with the cloak exclaimed as if he hadn't even heard Danny or noticed his obvious discomfort with what he'd just noticed, "you will serve me. With you by my side, the League of Assassins shall-"
"Yeah, gonna stop you right there!" Still trying to get over his disgust, Danny held up a hand without looking at the man. "First of all: No. Secondly: I think the fuck not. And lastly: What the hell, man?" As he finished, he pointed to the large pool of blood beneath him. "You do know there's no blood needed for my circle, right?"
"Hmph!" The man scoffed. "You shall do as I say. Now! Grant me immortali-"
Danny sighed loudly. "Are you even listening to me? I said no. Also: Why is there a pool of ghost blood in your… cave… thing-y?" He looked around. Was this a cave? Well, whatever.
"You will listen to-"
"Hate to disappoint - well not really, but y'know." Danny shrugged, floated upside down. "But you gotta read up on how this whole thing works. Cause that ain't it, idiot."
The man scowled, seemingly electing to ignore Danny completely now and not just his words. He motioned for someone behind him to being him something. And Danny didn't know what it was, but he knew that it wouldn't work. So he wasn't really worried. Instead, he pulled out his notebook and made a show of writing down their rating.
"League of Assassins… 0/10." He harshly underlined the rating multiple times. "You know what? Fuck this, I'm out." And with that, Danny vanished and flew home.
It was a long flight. Assholes.
The next time they summoned him, they at least didn't do it right on top of the weird blood pool. There was one close to Danny, though, and he didn't bother hiding his disgust at the sight.
"I already told you that I won't give you immortality or whatever. I wasn't really listening."
Again, the old man ignored Danny.
Rude.
Rolling his eyes as the old man blabbed some theatricality, he took a look around. They really didn't learn from their mistakes, did they? He gave a long, suffering sigh. When the old man shivered from the cold it brought, well, that might have been the slightest bit satisfying for Danny. A little plus on the side.
"You know," he drawled bored as he flew in lazy circles above them, "it's bad enough that you don't even have any offerings when you do this. But seriously? Not even a binding spell? Not even an itzy-bitzy one? Now, that's just insulting. You are aware that I'm a king, right? Like, I'm a ver powerful entity. There's nothing stopping me from taking this little gathering apart. You know that, right?"
His answer was an arrow to the chest. Which immediately passed through him, not doing anything other than creating a dent in the floor. Danny raised an eyebrow at them, very much not impressed. "As I was saying" he continued, eyes turning back to the man in question "you're being a bit rude, old man.
The old man didn't answer, instead bringing out an old looking thing from his coat. He started chanting… something, apparently very convinced that it would do something. Again, Danny raised an eyebrow.
"Remember how I told you how to read up on how these work?" Danny sighed, waving a hand to freeze the whole group to the ground for the next hour or so. "Yeah, you read the wrong book. Moron."
After informing the geezer thusly, Danny once again pulled his disappearance act.
It didn't work for long, though.
The next time, they were not near the blood pools, which Danny kind of appreciated. A lot. What he didn't appreciate was the sigil drawn with said blood on the floor, or the rose petals carelessly thrown about. Normal roses. Not blood blossoms. Just some random ass red flower petals. Like for a date.
"Sorry, but I'm not interested in ancient, disintegrating, brain-dead zombie-wanna-be's. And especially not romantically. So I'll have to decline whatever this is."
The man looked iffed at the thought, and Danny felt a bit smug at that. He looked around as the man started his rambling again, some weird old book inside his hands.
"Still no sacrifice, huh?" he noticed with a sigh. He'd just been about to eat dinner. And now it'd be cold by the time he got back. And he had a test in the morning. He'd really need those few hours of sleep tonight, please and thank you. Shaking his head, he watched as the old man gave some orders, still looking at Danny like he was some thing and not a person. He growled a bit, seriously annoyed now. "Oi, geezer. Are you senile or something? Gone deaf with age? I already told you that this ain't how this works."
The man didn't even acknowledge Danny. Bristling at that, he just flew away. Fine. Fine. Two could play that game.
So that's what he did the next time he got summoned: He just blew a raspberry, used a bit of power to mess with their lair and flew home.
And the time after that.
And after that.
And the one after that.
And- You get it.
It was only when something changed that Danny actually hesitated. And, sure, they'd changed stuff up a bit every time, thinking some other strange thing would get him to obey their will and make them all powerful as he joined their ranks of evil and twisted logic, yadda, yadda, yadda. But this time? No, this time they actually did something entirely different.
This time, there was a child. A child with black hair and green eyes and shoulders squared as he tried to hide how scared and upset he was.
"What" Danny asked, temperature dropping several degrees "is that?"
To his surprise and horror, the child stepped forward, offering up a sword to Danny. "I am Damian al Ghul and I offer myself up to you as a sacrifice to-"
His anger growing, Danny turned his gaze back to the old man. "I said" he growled, all traces of kindness and mirth gone from his voice "what. is. that?!"
The old man kept calm, even then. And it made Danny angry enough that his grasp on his more human form was starting to slip. "My grandson has offered himself" at that word the child behind him felt incredibly upset, Danny could taste it, and he stored that information away for later "as a sacrifice to bind you. Now you will have no choice but to serve-"
Growling, Danny grabbed the old man and threw him against the cave walls. "Hey, child?" He hissed, voice turning everything but human. The child startled, air tasting like nervousness. "Close your eyes." It was only when Danny glanced behind him that the child actually did as ordered.
And then, Danny let his grasp on his humanoid form slip. Scales, feathers and tails grew, parts of him became nothing but ice and mist and his eyes and mouth melted into a void showcasing the cosmos. In all his eldritch glory, Danny focused back onto the old man. The old man who'd tried to offer up his grandchild to him.
"I have been merciful with you so far. If I wanted to, I could show you horrors beyond what your mortal mind could ever comprehend. I could hurt you in so many ways. And I could make you beg to join my kingdom. But I won't do that. Because I don't feel like it." He flew forwards, an intangible hand grasping the man's heart. "Just remember: I could rip out your vital organs whenever I want to. So do not give me a reason."
Changing back, he noted with satisfaction that his little trick had worked on the old man. He looked scared. And, well, Danny just liked to play around and help people. So he didn't really like scaring the shit out of others, not even crazy fruit loops with too many magic items. But this time, it had felt really good.
"These summonings will stop now. Or else" a forked tongue slithered past Danny's lips "I will stop being polite. I'll be just as fucking rude as you have been."
When no one reacted to that, he turned around and scoffed. "Your rating is so not going up…," he muttered to himself.
With that, he flew away again.
And it worked. The fruit loop didn't try to summon him again. And, well, that was one annoyance gone. Good for him. Go Danny! Really, he had enough on his plate. What, with the Justice League calling him in more, and finals coming around again…
It was only a year later that he saw the old man's face again. In the watchtower no less. On a presentation slide in one of Batman's super complicated, super boring debriefs. "Urgh!" He couldn't help bur groan from where he flew above the other Leaguers. "I fucking hate those guys!"
For some reason, that gained him the attention of the entire league all at once.