That afternoon Danny came straight home from school, went upstairs and dropped his backpack on his bed. He fished out a couple of school books and artfully arranged them on his desk. Then turning on the radio and setting the volume a little high he walked over to the door, listened closely for noise in the hallway before turning the lock on it. He plopped down on the chair at his desk, pulled up the bottom drawer and took out a Fenton Thermos. His parents didn't know he had a supply of them hidden in his room and he didn't intend for them to find out. Just one of the complications of having a secret life as a ghost.
He set the thermos down on the desk, leaving the draw open in case he had to hide it in a hurry. A tap stirred a voice from within the Thermos. "Take Heed! For I am the Ball Ghost, defender of all things round and bouncy..." the voice broke off then continued in a soft, whiney tone, "let me out of here, Danny. Please? I'll be good."
"I'm sorry, Rollo. I know you keep your promises but it would set a bad precedent if I let you out after catching you red-handed haunting a building when you weren't supposed to. All the other ghosts will be claiming the right to be let out if I catch them doing something wrong." Danny had rehearsed this speech all afternoon at school. He spoke softly so the loud radio would drown out his voice. "But..." he dangled, "I could let you out with a warning if you'd help me with something."
"Oh, please," Rollo, the Ball Ghost said. "I'll do anything to get out of here. it's so small and... unround."
"Tell me who told you you could haunt the Groove Town Record Building."
There was a long pause. If ghosts had lips Danny could imagine Rollo licking suddenly dry lips, maybe tugging at his ectoplasmic shirt collar. "I can't tell you that?"
"Sure you can." Danny reminded him. "It was the ghost of Patty Melt, wasn't it?"
There was a long pause because the ball ghost answered and even then he spoke in a low whisper that Danny could barely hear over the loud radio. "How did you know?"
"Isn't it obvious? Now tell me where I can find her?"
"But if I tell you and you show up there she'll know I told and then she'll hurt me."
"I'll -"
"You can't protect me all the time when I'm in the Ghost Zone."
Danny had to concede the point. He thought for a moment. Finally he addressed the thermos once again. "Rollo, you know I'm going to find her eventually. Patty's not done with Groove Town Records so sooner or later she's going to do something and I'll be on her trail. Now I could put her in there with you or - I could let you out before I put her in there. Which would you prefer: sharing a thermos with Patty or being on the outside while she's on the inside?"
There was a a variety of grunts, growls and snarls from the thermos. It rocked a little bit as Rollo flung himself from side to side. "You're mean, Danny Phantom. You are so mean. I'm never going to talk to you again!"
All told, Danny considered that a mixed blessing.
"Where's she at?"
"There's a storage room on the third floor of the Hard Rock Museum and Cafe."
Danny slapped his forehead. How could he have not thought of that. Where else would a rock and roll themed ghost go but to a rock and roll themed restaurant.
Rollo must have head Danny slap himself because he anxiously called, "Danny? Danny? Are you alight? Speak to me? Tell me you're all right and will let me out of here!"
Before the ghost could get any more hysterical Danny hit the release button on the Thermos. The lid popped open and Rollo slowly drifted out of the container. He looked anxiously at Danny for a moment then a cold, stern frown settled on his face. "I'm not talking to you," he reminded Danny.
"Thanks, anyway," Danny said, knowing that Rollo couldn't hold a grudge long. He turned ghost and slung the now empty Fenton Thermos over his shoulder and digging in the drawer where the thermos had been, added a couple other items. Reaching in again he took out a set of Fenton Phones which he hung over his ears and adjusted for the speakers to fit into his ears. His parents had designed them for communications in the Ghost Zone, but since they believed that their Ghost Portal did not work had never gone through to try the 'phones out. Not only did the Fenton Phone work it had the added feature of filtering out ghost sounds, which in practical terms meant that they blocked any hypnotic messages from Ember's playing. Danny remembered all too well how she had made him fall in love with Sam, nearly causing their deaths in the process. He didn't want her hypnotizing him again.
He turned off the radio and unlocked the door. "I gotta run. So see you later." He paused for a second, not sure how to tell Rollo to get out of his bedroom. "Don't let my father find you here," he finally decided. "You know he's the crazy one in the family."
There was a faint "whoosh" as Rollo hurled past him.
[I]
The Hard Rock Cafe was located in mid-town Amity Park, in a renovated warehouse. The old building had been covered in glossy tile, a giant guitar was outlined in neon lights along the front of the building. His parents had taken there once when one of their favorite old bands had come to play and sign autographs. The meal was OK but seeing his parents dressed like nerds in twenty year old clothes had been embarrassing. The store-room on the third floor that Rollo had mentioned was easy to find. Aside from a suite of offices at one end of the building, the rest of the third floor was all storage.
The sun was shining through a row of windows on the street side of the building so he didn't need the flashlight that he had brought along. The room seemed to be divided into two parts, The part nearest the service elevator was filled with neatly stacked chairs and tables, had boxes on shelves and the shelves were in a tidy, straight line. Farther away things were just dumped on the floor in a higgly-piggly pile. From the broken chairs there Danny assumed that this was the pile waiting for an order to be hauled away to the junk yard.
Danny pulled out an Fenton Finder, made sure that it was set so that it wouldn't detect his own ghostly presence then swepted the room. There was no ghost present but it indicated that one had been here recently. Danny had hoped to find the ghost of Patty Melt here and have it out with her before supper. With a sigh of disappointment he followed the Finder to the strongest reading of ectoplasmic activity.
This was in the far corner. For Danny it was easy to tell that a ghost had been living here. There was a pile of clothes laying on top a broken chair. It's missing leg had been replaced with a pile of old menus. Ghosts, being dead, envied the living, and took comfort in anything that would connect them to the living. At least that was Danny's theory. They liked to "sleep" - if that was the right word for it - in old clothes. They would merge with the fabric for hours of rest. Danny had never really felt the urge since when he felt tired he just turned human and slept on his bed. But from all his dealings with ghosts this was something he had learned.
Facing the chair was an old leather jacket on a hanger. It was black with lots of silver studs and fringe hanging from along the sleeves, and across the breast. Beside it was a non-descript electric guitar resting on a cradle. Both looked like they'd been stolen from the Rock museum. Beside it was a square plaque with a 12 inch disc of simulated gold. Moving in close to it Danny could read the name on it: Patty and the Powercats. It was all he needed to be convinced that he had found the hideout of Patty Melt.
He was looking at the jacket to see if there were any identification when his breath momentarily turned frosty white.
He turned, raising an ectoplasmic shield instinctively just as a massive bolt of green fire smashed into him.
"Keep your hands off my stuff!" a familar voice shouted. The bolt of ectoplasm had momentarily blinded Danny. He squinted through stinging eyes at a vague female shape. "Now get out of here and forget I was ever here!" the ghost said, playing a quick melody.
"Ember?" Danny hazard as his vision began to clear. "What are you doing here?"
"I said get out and forget I was ever here!"
"Sorry, can't hear you!" Danny said. He tapped his ears. "Fenton Phones."
"I said to leave my stuff alone!" Ember said and this time a thundering gout of flame leaped from her guitar. Danny had a shield up but the blast just sweep him up and threw him across the room to smash painfully into the brick wall behind him. Danny dropped to the floor, dazed for a moment. Where he had hit was a spider-web of cracks in the plaster in the shape of a teen-age boy.
"Your stuff?" Danny questioned as he picked himself up off the floor. "I don't see any of your stuff here. Al I see are things Patty Melt swiped.
"It's my stuff! Mine!"
"I'm pretty sure that that jacket and guitar belong to the restaurant," Danny said, strength coming back to him rapidly as it always did when he was a ghost. "And the plaque clearly says "Patty and the Powercats."
"It's mine!" Ember insisted.
"What, are you stealing stuff from other ghosts now?" Danny asked as he walked up to about fifteen feet from her. "I came here looking for the ghost of Patty Melt. I don't need you scaring her away."
The ghost's face spasmed. "What did you say?" She asked in a dangerous voice.
"I came here looking for Patty Melt. You know, of Patty and the Powercats? Got screwed over by Groove Town Records, then took a swan dive off the Prentice Building. I was told she was hiding here."
Ember's confused look toward belligerent. "What are you talking about?" she demanded. "This is my place. No one else is allowed here."
"What?" Danny said, confused. "Then what did you do with Patty Melt?"
"There is no Patty Melt. There is just me! Me, Ember McLain! I have always been what I am!" she screamed. "The Ghost of Rock and Roll!"
Danny edged closer to the ghost. He didn't like speaking to her over long distances, and he felt that closer in he could get in a blow that would weaken her long enough to be sucked into the Fenton Thermos. "Oh, come on," he said just to be talking while he moved. "Roll and Rock didn't exist fifty years ago. How could you have been a ghost of rock and roll before rock and roll existed?"
"Rock and roll will never die," Ember muttered but she looked confused, perplexed by what Danny was saying. From time to time her face would spasm again, a shudder that seemed nearly to rip her body apart.
"I'm sorry, Ember, but Patty Melt very much did exist. She sang songs that were real hits, appeared on posters and stuff. You on the other hand - no record of you existing at all."
The female ghost seemed to pale with the mention of each name but her face displayed only confusion. "I'm Ember. Ember McLain! You got that punk? Ember McLain!" she shouted.
"Look, I'm not after you, although my sister wishes you would come back to the PET'EM meetings. I came here looking for the ghost who tried to destroy the Groove Town Records Building. As long as you're here she's not going to show up."
"Who?" Ember was grimacing like she had some kind of monster brain-freeze.
"I told you, Patty Melt."
"There is no Patty Melt!
"Then who blow up the Groove Town Record Building?" Danny was getting concerned by Ember's behavior. She was twitching and snarling in ways he had never seen before.
"He had it coming." She said, at last, in a weak voice.
"Who?" Danny asked.
"He- ... " she paused in confusion. "He..." she began again weakly.
"Colonel Greenbrier," Danny suggested.
"But you never worked for him. It was Patty ... Are you saying that you were Patty Melt?" Danny asked.
"I am who I am!" Ember shouted again, throwing some ectoplasm his way. Danny brushed it aside easily. There was no force behind it.
"Then why did you try to blow up the Groove Town Record Building?" Danny was curious what her answer would be.
"I... I... I have always been." she faltered. She rubbed her forehead as if she had a headache. Then looked up and focused on Danny. There's was an infinite depth of hate and anger in them. Before Danny realized that she had changed, Ember exploded with a blast of green fire like nothing he had seem before. He tried to ward it off with a shield but the shield blew away. He tried to brace himself against the force but the gale of rage was pushing him off his feet. He tried to slid sideways off of the line of fire but it was taking all his strength not to be dashed against the wall again and crushed under her anger.
There was a solid blow against his head and Danny went down. He could see her flame tipped boots standing next to him. "Ember!" she was scream. I am Ember McLain. Say it, pig, SAY MY NAME!"
He could sense that she was swinging back with her guitar and threw a shield over himself. The guitar bounced off but Danny could still feel every ounce of energy in the blow, spread over the length of his body. The guitar thudded against him again and again. At some point Danny passed out.
