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Going Ghost! (Young Justice) Chapter 98: Against the Star Sapphires (4)
🕑 Added 2025-08-07 12:59:20 +0000 UTC[Third person POV]
Ghia’ta and Sam arrived at the grand, towering doors of the Throne Room. The soft hum of violet energy pulsated through the ornate crystalline structure. Ghia’ta raised her hand and knocked firmly, the sound reverberating through the chamber.
A muffled voice called from within, curt and clearly occupied. “Come in, Ghia’ta. What do you need? I’m busy at the moment, so make it quick.”
With a quick glance at Sam, Ghia’ta pushed the doors open. As they entered, the majestic room shimmered with hues of violet and pink, the walls etched with low light. The two guards stationed around the throne stiffened immediately at the sight of Sam, their posture changing as their spears sparked to life with concentrated energy.
“Hold your fire!” Ghia’ta shouted, stepping in front of Sam with her arms outstretched. “She’s with me! She means no harm!”
Aga'po, seated high upon the crystalline throne, narrowed her eyes. Her gaze was piercing and unrelenting, filled with confusion, suspicion, and cold judgment.
“What is the meaning of this, Ghia’ta?” she asked slowly, her voice laced with barely concealed disapproval. “Why are you protecting the one we have labeled a criminal?”
Ghia’ta stood firm, her hands trembling only slightly. “She is not a criminal. Not truly. She had her reasons—reasons that deserve to be heard. Please, Your Majesty, all I ask is that you listen. Just give her a chance to speak.”
Sam took a hesitant step forward from behind Ghia’ta. The guards’ weapons twitched, the glow intensifying, but she kept going, her hands raised slightly to show she meant no harm. Her throat felt dry, but she forced herself to speak, her voice shaky yet determined.
“I… I come willingly,” she said. “I’m not here to fight or flee. I came to present my case—to explain everything, so that maybe we can end this before people get seriously hurt.”
Aga’po’s expression darkened, her voice turning cold. “People are already hurt,” she snapped. “The boy who followed you—he’s done nothing but bring destruction and chaos to our world. My Corps have suffered because of him, and by extension, because of you.”
Her fingers tightened on the edge of her throne as her voice rose. “You are still wanted for the destruction of a sacred relic—a Lantern Ring. That act alone is worthy of severe punishment. So tell me… why shouldn’t I pass judgment on you at this very moment?”
Sam hesitated. Her heart thudded in her chest, and her cheeks flushed red. She looked away for a moment, feeling the weight of a thousand eyes on her. “Because… all of this was done in the name of love!” she blurted out.
Immediately after saying it, she cringed, a hand shooting up to her mouth as her embarrassment flooded in. ‘God, that sounded so cheesy,’ she thought. But despite how ridiculous it sounded out loud, she pressed on.
“My actions—the destruction of the ring—it wasn’t out of malice. It wasn’t calculated. It was out of desperation, out of… out of love. I know that doesn’t excuse everything, but it’s the truth. Everything Danny and I have done—however reckless—it comes from how deeply we care for one another.”
She took another step forward, standing taller now. Her voice grew stronger as she spoke, conviction rising with every word. “I didn’t understand what I was doing at the time. I still don't. I only knew that if I didn’t act, I would lose the connection I had with Danny forever. Destroying that ring wasn’t meant to insult your traditions or desecrate your relic. It was meant to preserve something just as sacred: our bond. Our love.”
A silence fell over the room. Aga’po remained seated, but her demeanor had shifted. She stared long and hard into Sam’s eyes, searching them as if trying to see into her soul.
Ghia’ta stepped forward, now standing shoulder to shoulder with Sam. Her voice was softer, more respectful, but no less earnest. “Please, Your Majesty. Let her speak her full story. If you hear everything, I truly believe you’ll understand why things happened the way they did—and be able to judge fairly.”
Aga’po’s eyes slowly shifted to her niece. It was rare to see Ghia’ta like this. Usually so composed, so quiet—yet here she was, passionate and unwavering. This was a side of her that intrigued the Queen.
“…Very well,” Aga’po said finally, reclining slightly as she crossed one leg over the other and rested her chin on her knuckles. “Since Ghia’ta is willing to vouch for you, I will listen. But be warned—I am not as easily swayed as she. Choose your words wisely, human.”
Sam let out a sigh, one mixed with relief and exhaustion. ‘How many times am I going to have to explain this story?’ she thought as she prepared to recount it all again—the accident, the decision, the consequences.
She told it all. Word for word, just as she had told Ghia’ta. And as she spoke, Aga’po slowly uncrossed her legs, leaning forward with a growing sense of disbelief painted across her regal features.
When Sam finished, the throne room hung in stunned silence.
“Are you insane?!” Aga’po finally exploded, standing abruptly. “What were you thinking?! The very purpose of the Star Sapphires is to preserve those bonds of love—and you willingly went on destroying yours?”
Sam’s face turned a brighter shade of red, her hands flying up to cover her face as her voice cracked with emotion. “That’s the thing—I wasn’t thinking! I was feeling! And falling in love is like losing your mind half the time!”
She groaned into her hands. “Ever since I came here, I’ve just been saying the most embarrassing things. I swear, I don’t even recognize myself anymore.”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A thunderous series of explosions suddenly erupted from outside the throne room, shaking the chamber and silencing everyone. The floor trembled beneath their feet, and bits of violet dust trickled down from the ceiling.
All heads snapped toward the doors. The guards reacted instantly, weapons raised and glowing with renewed intensity, their bodies tensed and eyes fixed on the entrance.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Something—or someone—was coming.
Suddenly, a pulsing green dot appeared in the center of the throne room’s heavy doors. It shimmered before expanding—burning with intense, focused heat. The metal hissed and groaned in protest as the green energy melted through, the edges of the hole glowing with eerie jade flames that hungrily devoured the material. The breach widened steadily, a fiery circle of destruction that illuminated the walls in an ominous glow.
“Defensive positions!” a guard barked.
Without hesitation, the guards unleashed a barrage of violet energy. Dozens of beams rained toward the opening, engulfing the entire doorway in blinding explosions. Smoke billowed out, thick and choking, swallowing the corridor in an unnatural darkness.
From within that smoke, bodies suddenly flew like ragdolls.
Female Star Sapphire corps members came crashing through the air, their forms limp and broken as they slammed against the steps of the throne. Bloodied and bruised, they landed with sickening thuds, their rings slipping from their fingers and clattering onto the polished floor. The sound of the rings spinning echoed through the chamber.
One of the women stirred, barely clinging to consciousness. She dragged herself forward, her body trembling, and placed a purple-stained hand on the lowest step. Her voice was weak, foreign, but filled with desperation as she looked up at Aga’po.
Sam couldn’t understand the words, but the horror in her tone needed no translation.
“Your Majesty… run…” the woman rasped. “He’s a monster… You aren’t safe… please… run… Get…Away…”
Her arm fell limp, her head slumped forward, and she collapsed completely, unconscious.
Aga’po stood frozen, eyes wide in disbelief. She stared down at the fallen warriors of her Corps, her body stiff, her mind refusing to process the fear starting to rise in her throat.
Then the guards moved.
Without waiting for further command, they shot into the smoke—violet auras blazing around them, shouting as they charged forward to meet whatever was inside.
“No! Stop!!” Aga’po cried out, rising from her throne in alarm. “Fall back—now!”
But her order came too late.
The smoke lit up with a chaotic mix of emerald and violet flashes. Explosions roared, echoing through the chamber like thunder. A heartbeat later, one of the guards was blasted back out through the fog, wreathed in green fire. Her body slammed into the wall with a bone-cracking crunch before sliding to the floor, motionless, her armor scorched and her skin marked with angry, sizzling burns.
A collective gasp filled the room.
Through the smoke, a silhouette came into view. A boy surged forth with primal aggression, his body colliding with another guard and taking her to the ground in a brutal tackle. The woman screamed, but the sound was cut off as Danny mounted her, his bloodied fist rising into the air and crashing down with a roar.
CRACK!
The ground beneath them fractured from the impact, jagged lines spiderwebbing outward as dust and smoke were pushed aside in a violent shockwave. The woman’s face caved inward beneath his blow, her mouth shattered, lips torn, her blood painting the floor and staining Danny’s knuckles.
He remained hunched over for a moment, breathing like a wild animal. Each breath rasped and growled, hoarse and inhuman. He looked like a beast barely holding itself together.
Ghia’ta staggered back, hand over her mouth. Aga’po stared in stunned horror. Sam’s knees buckled slightly as she clutched her chest, eyes filling with tears. She had to cover her mouth to muffle a sob, watching helplessly as the boy she loved stood unrecognizable—disfigured by pain and rage.
Danny rose slowly, unsteady on his feet. His body was a wreck.
His black and white outfit was torn in multiple places, hanging loosely off his frame. Deep gashes and angry purple bruises covered his skin. One of his arms—nearly severed—swung uselessly at his side, tendons visibly strained, bone possibly fractured or worse. Blood oozed from a hundred wounds, some fresh, others crusted dark.
His hair was damp with sweat and blood, clinging to his face, his face was covered in multiple colored blood, blood that wasn't just his own. One eye was shut beneath a straight laceration that ran from his brow to the curve of his cheek. The other eye—wide open—burned with fevered intensity, dilated and glassy with delirium. There was no focus in that gaze, only madness and rage.
He stepped over the fallen guard like she wasn’t even there, trailing blood with each dragging footstep. Each movement was slow, deliberate, but held the tension of an explosion ready to go off again at any second.
Then he raised a trembling finger—pointed directly at Aga’po.
“If you dare...” he growled, voice cracking from strain and pain. He made a swallowing sound as if trying to not choke on his own blood and said, “If you dare try to take Sam away from me…Then not even the Presence will save you from my wrath.”
Comments
DaiKenja
I believe that now Danny is not only getting stronger the more he is fighting, but he is also energizing himself with the energies of the emotional spectrum (anger, love, willpower and fear).
Vrati
Damn, Danny is one scary dude. He only had power and trained under Batman for less than a year and now he is able to take on an army of star sapphire. Batman would both be proud and paranoid of his powers. How many have he defeated? I don’t think Danny can win against the entire corp yet.
KingSpy25i .
Thank you for the chapter 🙏
