Ghost King Meets Batman

Enter Ghost

  [Edited April 25, 2023]

When the disguised demigod walked out of the blinding light, he saw the same group of teens standing in front of him. He hadn't been expecting a welcoming committee and was rather put off by all the attention. In retrospect, he should have expected this reaction-- it wasn't every day that the bat boys called in an outsider to help them do their jobs. Nightwing approached Ghost first.

"Ghost," his brother nodded to him, "we need you on another case." Nico decided to roll with the lie.

"Nightwing," he greeted, "Batman told me that you'd brief me?"

"I'll explain it on the way. We have to travel on a plane to get there. I know you don't like them, will you be ok?" The son of Hades figured that Zeus would be too caught up in whatever had locked down Olympus to bother with him. Or at least he hoped that he would be-- if not, this was going to be a very short mission.

"I'll be fine. Lead the way. We can do introductions later." Nightwing motioned for the consultant to follow him and took off at a brisk pace. Nico didn't put too much effort into keeping up. Instead, he allowed himself to fall a little behind and take in the mountain. 

He had to admit that he had been curious about where Nightwing and Red Robin spent their time when they weren't at the manor or the cave. Granted he had seen part of it in his dream, but this gave him a better picture. It was a nice base, though he would expect little else from Batman.

"Aqualad, Artemis, Kid Flash, Miss Martian, and I will head out to meet the others. The rest of you stay here and hold down the fort," Nightwing ordered, barely slowing his pace. The people he designated followed them to what Nico presumed was the landing platform. 

The demigod was confused when he didn't see a jet. Instead, there was a large red hunk of metal sitting on the landing platform. It took all he had not to gasp when that pill-shaped thing expanded into a full-sized ship. Ghost followed Dick up the ramp and onto the ship where he sat in one of the seats. Everybody else filed in and took their places. The green-skinned girl got in the pilot's seat.

It may have just been him, but Nico was shocked by the amount of technology on this ship. They had touch screens, voice-activated sensors, and it was even a telepathically operated ship. Maybe this was normal for people in the 21st century. To him, it was a bit overwhelming. He hadn't been around people who had normal childhoods. Even at Camp Half-Blood, they had limited access to technology. In truth, Nico wouldn't have known what was normal or not.

Once they were in the air, the briefing began, "Ok, Ghost. We are headed out to a crime scene where we need you to determine the cause of the death of some scientists. They had been working on a cure for some type of new poison. We believe that-- in order to keep the scientists from concocting an antidote-- someone had them killed. " Dick explained. Nico had never been involved in such an elaborate investigation before and he had to admit that it gave him a fair share of adrenaline.

"And we know they weren't killed by poison because...?" Nico started. He needed all of the information in order to create a clear picture of what had happened to the scientists.

"The poison causes people to bleed from the eyes and nose. The victims didn't show either symptom and chemical analysis of their saliva and blood show that no suspicious substances were in their system at the time of death."

"I see. Anything else I should know, going in?"

"No, we have a large team out in the field already so the scene has been secured. You shouldn't have any... distractions."

"We'll see about that." The consultant muttered under his breath. He was no longer in Gotham, monsters were a much bigger threat now. The gods never really visited Gotham, so there weren't many demigods there to attract monsters. Out here it was a different story. He would consider a monster attack to be a pretty big distraction. Nico saw many of the other team members exchange confused looks.