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Going Ghost! (Young Justice) Chapter 49: Ghost Painter
🕑 Added 2025-05-01 20:31:47 +0000 UTC[Third Person's PoV]
“Nice… Real nice,” Danny muttered as he floated near the edge of the narrow branch road, peering down into the abyss that stretched endlessly below.
“Shut up,” Dick replied, clearly flustered, his arms crossed as he stared down alongside him. His cape swayed gently in the unseen wind, ruffled more by frustration than breeze.
They had spent what felt like hours navigating the twisted, maze-like network of roads, branches, and bizarre intersections. Each time they hit a fork, they were forced to guess—left or right. Most choices led to the same outcome: a cliffside ending in an empty void. At least five times they’d had to backtrack and try a different direction, retracing their steps in silence or mild bickering.
And now here they stood, at what was clearly the last unexplored path. The end of the line.
“This was the final shot,” Danny said with a flat tone. “No more forks. No more mystery turns. Just... this.”
Danny paused for a second before his lips twitched with the faintest smirk. “I want to hear you say it.”
Dick scoffed and turned on his heel. “I’m not saying it.”
“Oh come on. Would it kill you to admit you were wrong—just once?”
“Yes. It would. It would kill me, painfully at that.”
“Drama queen.”
“We’re not even sure the path going up is any better than this one,” Dick countered. “Could be the same story. Dead ends and disappointment. Again.”
Danny floated alongside him, hands tucked behind his head, legs crossed in the air like he was lounging on an invisible couch. “A great man knows when to admit his faults, you know.”
Dick let out a tired groan. “Too bad I’m neither great nor a man.”
Danny’s eyes widened. “Wait, is this your coming out moment? Because if it is, just know I support you one hundred percent. No judgment. Nothing changes between us.”
Dick stopped walking and took a slow, controlled breath before responding. “I meant I’m still a growing teen, you nincompoop.”
Danny snorted. “Who the hell still says ‘nincompoop’ in the 21st century?”
They continued back toward the clearing where they had fought the zombie horde not long ago. As they drew closer, Danny grabbed Dick by the shoulders and began carrying him. Dick’s arms were crossed and his expression was blank.
“Hopefully we don’t have to refight that horde,” Dick sighed, letting himself be carried.
“Oh God, don’t jinx it,” Danny groaned. “You think this place works on ghost-monster spawn rates or something?”
“You’re the ghost expert,” Dick replied. “You tell me.”
As Danny carried them forward, he reached a fork, the past leading to where the arrived and the way the dismissed earlier, upwards. Danny turned up the winding road that coiled upward like a serpent.
They flew for a couple of minutes, the path evening out before Dick suddenly stiffened.
“Hey—what’s that?” he asked, pointing to a distant stretch of path far above them.
Danny slowed and followed his gaze. There, hovering far up one of the twisting, elevated roads, was a small, faint figure. It was so tiny at first that it looked like a floating piece of cloth caught in the wind.
Danny squinted. “I see it… hold on.”
Dick pulled out a pair of pocket-sized binoculars from his utility belt and handed them over. Danny took them with one hand while keeping his other arm on Dick to hold him steady.
As he zoomed in, his eyes narrowed. The ghost was… peculiar. Unlike the other spirits and monsters they’d encountered, this one looked more like cartoonish—small, rounded, almost childlike. A white sheet covered its body, and atop its “head” sat a small, black beret.
In one stubby hand, it held an artist’s palette. In the other, a large, thick brush that swung side to side as it floated gently along the road.
“That’s our way out,” Danny said, his tone firm with certainty.
Dick blinked. “And how, exactly, did you come to that brilliant conclusion?”
“We were sucked into a painting,” Danny explained, eyes still locked on the figure. “That ghost is clearly a painter. No way that’s coincidence. He’s gotta be the key.”
“…That’s actually reasonable. Let’s follow him before he disappears,” Dick said, snapping the binoculars shut and stashing them again.
“Just to make this quicker,” Danny muttered. He let go of Dick and immediately dove into his body, possessing him in a flash of green.
Robin’s white eye lenses flashed neon green as Danny fully took control. The air rippled around him as supernatural energy surged, and with a sudden burst of speed, the possessed Robin rocketed forward like a missile, his cape fluttering violently behind him.
The winding road blurred around them as Danny flew at breakneck speed, weaving between the forks, trying to predict which path would lead to the ghost. Every second counted now—they couldn’t afford to lose sight of their only lead.
Soon, Danny—still overshadowing Dick’s body—spotted the Ghost Painter floating just ahead.
“HEY!!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the empty, twisting branch-path as he tried to catch the ghost’s attention.
The small ghost glanced over its shoulder at the sudden noise, eyes widening behind the black holes of its sheet-like face. Without hesitation, it yelped and bolted forward, holding its beret in place with one hand and its palette in the other.
“Wha—just wait a minute, will you?!” Danny shouted again, caught off guard by the ghost’s sudden speed.
But the Ghost Painter only jumped in fright, its little form trembling as it squeaked out in a panicked, high-pitched sob, “Leave me alone!!”
From its eyeholes, oversized tears began to pour like leaky faucets, trailing behind it as it sped off like a weeping bullet.
“Aww…” Danny muttered unconsciously, taken aback by the ghost’s cuteness despite the situation. He quickly shook himself out of it. “We just want to get out of here!” he yelled after it.
But the crying had become too loud, too hysterical. The ghost either didn’t hear or didn’t care.
With a determined grunt, Danny extended a glowing green hand. A shimmering force field shot out and enclosed the Ghost Painter in a bubble mid-flight, stopping it dead in its tracks. As it hovered, stunned and flailing, Danny phased out of Dick’s body.
Dick stumbled as control returned to him. He groaned, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose as he tried to orient himself. “Could you not do that without warning next time?” he muttered.
When he finally looked up, he saw something strange: inside the force field, the little ghost had calmed down just enough to dap his brush in the palette and wave its brush. With a quick flick, a magical door materialized inside the bubble—and with a dramatic slam, it exited through it. The shield shattered like glass the moment the door shut behind the ghost.
Danny cursed and zipped forward to intercept, cutting it off mid-path. The ghost came to a screeching halt in mid-air, panicked again. It turned tail to flee the other way—only to freeze when Dick slammed his bo staff down in its way.
It looked between the two boys—Danny hovering to one side, Dick blocking the other—and all it saw were two terrifying shadows trying to trap it.
The ghost shrieked, flailing its stubby limbs. Then it quickly turned to the side, dipped its brush into the palette, and with a bold stroke, created a brand-new branch road that stretched into the distance. Without wasting a second, it bolted down the newly painted path.
Both boys let out matching sighs and gave chase.
“I blame your ugly mug for scaring it,” Danny said grumpily as he followed behind.
“I swear, Danny,” Dick growled, “I will throw you off the side of this abyss and find a way out on my own.”
They surged forward—just in time to see the Ghost Painter glance over its shoulder again, its brush already glowing with energy. With a fluid, sweeping motion, the ghost painted a massive green wall directly in their path.
Danny instinctively moved to phase through it, but Dick grabbed his shoulder. “Don’t! It might’ve accounted for your ghost powers!”
“Good point!” Danny shouted back, balling his glowing fists.
With a war cry, he punched through the wall with a single, earth-shaking blow. The bricks shattered into glowing green dust. They surged ahead—only to see the ghost create another path leading away from the main road with a quick flourish of its brush.
Then, with another swift stroke, it dragged its brush along the path it had just created. To Danny and Dick’s alarm, the road began to vanish behind it, fading into black as if painted over with the void’s color.
The path crumbled beneath their feet.
“Damn it—!” Danny yelled, and Dick immediately latched onto him. With no time to waste, Dick fired his grappling hook toward the remaining ledge of main road and braced them as it caught hold. The two of them dangled over the abyss like ornaments on a thread.
“He’s going to be annoying,” Dick muttered, already gritting his teeth as he slowly reeled them back toward solid ground. “A ghost that can practically manipulate reality. Just fantastic.”
“Tell me about it,” Danny sighed, unable to fly across the void without support and leaving Dick to pull him up.
Grunting with effort, Dick hauled them both toward the ledge. Danny grabbed onto it and used his ghost-enhanced strength to climb over before turning to help Dick up.
Once safely on the path again, the two immediately broke into a run, keeping a cautious but steady distance from their target.
“We need to think of a plan,” Dick said, glancing at Danny. “We can’t just keep charging in like this.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Danny said, jogging beside him.
“So do I,” Dick replied with a smirk. “Looks like we already picked up on his weakness.”
Danny grinned. “He has to stop briefly to dap his brush agaisnt the palette before he paints. We could be wrong—but we can work with that.”
“Exactly,” Dick agreed, tightening the grip on his staff as they increased their pace. “Let’s see how creative this painter really is.”
Comments
KingSpy25i .
Thank you for the chapter 🙏
Morg535
The Austrian Ghost painter.
Bryan Vargas
Oh course he's not... this is going to help him unlock another power though
Ugly
Imma be so annoyed if he doesn’t absorb that power
Bryan Vargas
Freakshow would be a different kind of nightmare 😫
Green223
Where's the Reality Gauntlet when you need it?
