How would htp!Tango go with the bit from Limited Life episode 4 when he's running from everyone?
How would it be different from the actual scene?
(not canon to HTP ofc because the timelines don’t match up but HEY i like angst)
"tango!" skizz calls desperately, peering out over the ocean. he could’ve sworn he’d heard tango’s voice when he came this way, but the range of amplification their voices get from the proximity mod can be a little tricky sometimes-
“skizz?”
tango’s voice crackles out of skizz’s communicator; he must be in range, after all. but skizz doesn’t relax just yet. crouching by the water’s edge, he scans the waves intently. his grip tightens around his axe.
"alright, where are you, dude?" he asks, voice low. he keeps the horizon in his periphery; he can just barely make out the horde of yellow names off on the distant shore, digging and searching for tango.
“r- right below you.” tango’s voice is shaky; probably from the adrenaline. being hunted by almost the entire server isn’t exactly a picnic. “where- is impulse with you? or- or etho?”
skizz shakes his head, even though he knows tango can’t see it. “no dude, they’re running interference, okay, but it won’t be long before the others see me over here.” he swallows. “you gotta let me kill you.”
there’s a brief silence.
“okay.” tango’s voice is barely audible. the tone of it gives skizz pause; that sounds like more than just nerves. “okay, o- okay, fine, i’m- i’m fine with that.”
“are you?” skizz asks, his brows furrowing.
“i…” there’s a shuddering exhale. “i don’t- i’d rather it be you, if- if i’m honest. the others, they might…” he breaks off, making a distressed sound in the back of his throat. “y- you know.”
there’s definitely something wrong. skizz’s heart is starting to pound, but he keeps his voice steady. “alright, yeah. this is gonna stick it to them so bad.” he lifts his communicator up and peers through its lens. “can you give me a quick tag, buddy?”
tango doesn’t reply, but skizz sees the flash of a gamer tag beneath the ocean before it vanishes again. tango’s not taking any chances, apparently. not that skizz can blame him.
“you’re pretty deep underwater, dude,” skizz informs him regretfully. “and i don’t- ugh, i don’t have my stupid shovel.”
tango inhales sharply. “i- i can’t- uh, can you…?”
“okay,” skizz murmurs. he knows tango won’t be harmed by water like a real blaze, but it’s uncomfortable even on the best of days and that’d be a lot to ask of him right now. “alright, i’ll come to you. stay put, okay?”
“okay,” tango whispers.
“there a hole for me, buddy?” skizz asks, putting his axe away.
“yes.”
“alright.” skizz straightens up, folding his wing tightly against his body. even one wing will cause a lot of drag underwater and he’s already not looking forward to soggy feathers. “i’m on my way, just hang on.”
taking a deep breath, skizz dives into the ocean.
salt stings his eyes as he swims towards the sand at the bottom. it’s darker down here than he’s expecting for midday, only the faint glow from his halo allowing him to see. he starts digging as soon as he reaches the bottom, hoping he’s in the right place. he’s acutely aware of how long he can hold his breath for and the last thing he needs is a stupid drowning death to steal even more time from him-
a figure enters his field of vision, making him jolt. it’s scott, his freshly yellow timer barely visible in the deep. still holding his breath, skizz equips his axe.
scott actually rolls his eyes. “i’m not gonna kill him, don’t worry.” his voice carries well underwater, and he doesn’t seem to have trouble breathing. must be due to those recently acquired gills of his.
well, that’s fortunate. skizz nods quickly and puts his axe away before resuming his digging. to his surprise, scott floats down next to him and starts helping, his webbed fingers making easy work of the sand. after a couple seconds, they’ve cleared enough sand for skizz to see a hold in the underlying stone, with a faint light beyond it. lungs burning, skizz dives for it.
he makes it through right as the first damage hits him, head breaking through the water with a gasp. kicking against the current, he finally emerges from the ocean. gravity once again takes hold of him. he flops onto the damp stone floor quite ungracefully, his wing heavy and pulling him slightly off-balance.
skizz hauls himself to his feet, dripping wet and catching his breath, and looks around the cave tango’s carved out for himself. it’s tiny, with just three blocks between them, and lit only by the glow of tango’s blaze rods. they’re redder than usual and roaring with flames, whirling above his head in agitation- the way a blaze spins before it starts shooting fireballs.
tango himself doesn’t seem to be doing any better. he’s crouched against a corner, his arms wrapped around his knees, claws digging into his skin. his pupils are blown, so much so that it almost makes his wide eyes look completely black. his chest is rising and falling rapidly, and the noise that comes with each breath sounds disturbingly like a blaze. his mouth hangs slightly parted as he pants, lips drawn back to show his sharp teeth- like a wolf does. but there’s no ferocity in his expression; just sick fear.
altogether, the sight sends a chill down skizz’s spine. it’s like he’s looking at an animal; a cornered, terrified, wild animal. there have been things in the past tango’s reacted strangely to, sure, but skizz has never seen it this bad before. god, he wishes impulse was here.
“hey, tango,” skizz says softly.
for a moment, tango just stares at skizz. then his eyes dart to the side, to the hole in the stone. belatedly, skizz realizes what’s got tango so concerned.
“scott,” he calls carefully, keeping his gaze on tango, “just uh, just stay out there, okay, dude?”
a dark shadow passes by the hole before vanishing. “you’re fine, just get on with it!”
skizz swallows. he stays where he is. “tango, buddy, you okay? talk to me.”
tango’s gaze cuts back to skizz. “is martyn…?”
“no, no martyn,” skizz assures him.
tango takes a shaky breath. “i killed him,” he says hoarsely. “he- he’ll want revenge. and- and the other yellows- you have to kill me, before they find me. skizz, please.”
“hey, hey, hey, it’s alright,” skizz soothes, despite the way his heart feels like it’s twisting itself into a knot. he never thought tango would fear the other players so badly; these are his friends. “you got it. what do you- uh, how do you want me to do it?”
“TNT?” tango asks quietly. “if you light it…”
“alright, yeah, i got some TNT,” skizz says, rummaging through his inventory and pulling out a block of it. “here, uh- you wanna just take that?”
warily, tango teaches a clawed hand out and takes the TNT. he sets it down right in front of him, flush against his folded knees.
“tango?” skizz prompts gently, pulling out his flint and steel. “i need to hear you say it, buddy.”
tango shudders. “do it,” he whispers, turning his face away. “you can kill me, you- i- i just want it to be over.”
“okay, thank you,” skizz murmurs, taking a cautious step forward. “that’s right, dude. after this, it’ll all be over. i’ll come find you at spawn, okay?”
“okay."
“i’ll see ya there. now, count to five for me?"
tango swallows. “one…”
skizz lights the TNT. the sound of sizzling fills the air as the TNT starts to flash.
"t- two..."
putting the flint and steel away, skizz turns and dives back through the hole, into the ocean. tango's voice still sounds from his communicator.
"three..."
kicking madly, skizz swims towards the surface, where scott is waiting.
"four-"
BOOM.
skizz breaks the surface, gasping for breath. he glances back down and sees a new crater at the bottom of the ocean, water and sand churning into a froth. treading water with one arm, he holds his communicator up and looks at the chat.
Tango blew up.
scott gives skizz a sidelong look. "i know how hard it is to let a teammate kill you," he says, his voice low, "but that seemed..."
"scott, buddy," skizz says tiredly, heading for the shore, "keep this between us, will ya?"
~
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All Father Thor, King of Asgard,
A new ruler of Hel has been chosen, the fearsome King Phantom, defeater of Pariah Dark. It is time for Asgard to prepare to pay the dues required to keep peace between the realms of the gods and of the dead. Bring the terms of your surrender to King’s Phantom’s representative on earth, Daniel James Fenton of Amity Park.
The Noble Scribe of King Phantom,
Ghost Writer
*****
“Okay so let me get this straight,” Tony Stark, Iron Man and Avenger said. “Ghosts are real.”
“Yes.” King Thor Odinson, Asgardian and god of thunder agreed.
“And they’re evil.”
“A bit of an oversimplification, but yes.” Prince Loki Odinson, sometimes villain and would be planet invader, answered.
“And the ghosts have had one ruler, the most powerful ghost in existence. And that new rulers are chosen by combat, meaning that every new ruler is more powerful than the last.”
“Yes, you’ve got the idea.” Thor said looking down at his knees for a moment.
“And since ghosts are so evil and so powerful, that means that their ruler is practically an unstoppable force of destruction.”
“Doesn’t it sound delightful?” Loki asked, to which he received a glare.
“So, for the past 10,000 years, at least, Asgard and plenty of other realms have been paying taxes to the ghost king to avoid a war. A racketeering scheme.”
“I don’t know what a racketeering scheme is but yes, the ghost peace treaty does require that Asgard pay the ghost king gold and magical weapons every century and if we fail to pay that price, then the peace treaty will be broken and Asgard will likely be forfeit.”
“That’s a racketeering scheme!”
“Well then yes.”
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. It was clear the man’s headache was only growing stronger as he walked through the information the two gods had dumped into his lap this morning. Thor and Loki both had rushed into his lab and started babbling about world ending threats and how they might possibly be absolutely screwed.
“So, now there’s a new king. Which means a new peace treaty has to be signed.” Tony said the words ‘peace treaty’ in the same way he’d say ‘nuclear bomb’ or ‘Steve Rogers’.
“I thought you said it was a racketeering scheme?” Loki asked.
“Shut it.” Tony hissed.
“A new treaty must be signed.” Thor repeated, trying to keep the three of them on track.
“And since the last king Pariah Dark was so powerful that he made the entirety of Asgard tremble, you’re pretty sure this new king, Phantom, is probably worse.”
“Pariah Dark had the power to suck entire planets into the afterlife, destroying them,” Loki said looking at his nails. “Stands to reason that a ghost powerful enough to defeat him could do much, much worse.”
“Right. Fantastic!” Tony practically shouted.
“I don’t think anything about this is fantastic.” Thor admitted, he was ignored.
“And according to you Asgard has been paying the ghost tax for both their realm and ours since we were under Odin’s protection. And since Hela and Sutur destroyed your entire planet and your entire people are refugees, now we have to figure out how to keep an ultrapowerful ghost from wiping out our home without any way of paying him.”
“Technically we don’t know if Phantom is a ‘he’.” Loki pointed out unhelpfully.
“The letter literally says he’s a king!”
“Could be a title. What do the dead have need for gender?”
“This is not the point of this discussion,” Thor cut in before an argument about the usefulness of gender and the concept of a female king burst forth. “We’re here to figure out how to make peace with King Phantom without resulting in a war that would destroy our world and our peoples.”
“We don’t even have Earth’s mightiest heroes anymore.” Loki said, referencing the painful results of the civil war and the Accords.
“We’re fucked.” Tony decided.
“Yes,” Thor agreed. “We probably are.”
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So, in John Constantine's backstory he accidentally sends a kid to hell.
Which I think is a big part of his backstory, but we'll get back to it.
So, Danny got crowned king of the ghost zone which is a lot of work.
thankfully there are other beings (Hades, Hel, Lucifer, Anubis, over assorted angels, and so on) who rule their own little sections of the afterlife to rule while still answering to the ghost king.
Made everything a lot easier for him, but as king he was expected to inspect those sections at least once.
Which was fine, he could spend a day or two checking things out.
And this is where the kid Connie sent to hell comes in.
During his visit through hell, he notices an innocent soul that wasn't supposed to be there.
The soul had died a long time ago, hell wasn't really made for the living, but they were still trapped.
He of course takes them with him when he leaves.
The kid asks if he could help them tell Constantine that they're out of hell since he was looking for ways to save them. (They know since demons are loudmouths and the demons wanted to use the fact, that no matter how hard John tried he would never be able to rescue them, to hurt the kid.)
Danny agrees, because how hard could finding a sad British trench coat magic man be?
Cue hero's from around the multiverse waking up, after taking a hit, to a white haired and green-eyed eldritch horror asking them "Do you know John Constantine?"
Turns out finding a sad British trench coat magic man was incredibly hard, who knew?
And even when they did find a John Constantine the kid said it wasn't their John Constantine, how the kid could tell Danny had no clue.
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Sanctuary
Buzz...
Buzz...
Buzz...
'Hel-' 'I told you I was okay mom, you need to stop texting me so much.' Danny? 'I'm still at the library near Nightingale Drive but I promise I'll be home soon.'
Dinah was out of her chair and hurrying towards the nearest teleporter before he could finish speaking and inadvertently startling a few nearby heroes as she pushed past them.
'Dinah?'
'Dinah, what's happening.' Oliver called out when he noticed her leaving.
'Danny, a kid I've been mentoring just called using one of the codewords we came up with for emergencies.' And it must have been bad if Danny was calling her this late at night but at least he was using the phone she got him so it only took a few seconds to pull up his location through the built in tracker.
Huh...
What in the world was Danny doing in Star City?
It didn't matter. Not right now. She'd ask later but for now she was busy punching in the right coordinates while Oliver ran to grab his own gear.
-_- -_- -_-
It didn't take long to find him. The kid, Dinah's boy was hiding in a coffee shop a few blocks away from the library he was using for his cover story so Oliver stayed back for now and watched from his hiding spot on a nearby rooftop as Dinah hurried into the shop playing up the role of a worried mom.
She was good at it.
Nobody gave her a second glance as she pulled the kid into a hug while muttering soft reassurance that doubled as codewords. He knew some of it meant danger and alone but he was too far away to make anything else out and Dinah angled the kid in a way that kept him and anyone else watching from reading their lips.
And he got it.
He really did.
From his bloodshot eyes to the sway in his every other step it was obvious from just a glance that the kid was dead on his feet. He'd more than likely been running for a while now and was one soft breeze away from collapsing so the last thing he needed was a complete stranger coming out of nowhere and questioning him but that still left Oliver with a dozen different questions as he listened to Roy going over everything they could dig up on such short notice which wasn't much.
It looked like somebody had gone through a lot of trouble to erase Amity Park's existence but a few things managed to get through like news covering the Fenton's home being raided by the government and Vlad Masters' very public, very messy custody battle with the older sister. Both of them were seen accusing each other of everything and anything, screaming insults and overly creative threats, and on more than one occasion the police had to pull Jasmine off of Masters who kept paying her bail but there was nothing explaining the hows or whys behind everything going on.
I know it isn't much but I just had the thought of Danny's parents getting arrested for whatever reason really but I'm going with their change of heart after a reveal gone right for this prompt. They shut everything down and stop making weapons that can actually hurt magical beings and a lot of influential people don't like that leading to a police raid while Jazz is away and forcing Danny to reach out to Dinah who could be his anything really from one of those online therapists to a godmother who tries to help him figure out his powers.
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