Warning: Dubious medical/scientific knowledge

Chapter Nineteen: A Visitor

"…The Amity Park Police Department has received new information regarding a potential ghost invasion. We are currently disseminating this information to relevant parties, including Mayor Jones. This 'ghostly army' is set to arrive in two week's time, but it is our belief that if we act quickly, we can be ready. We are currently setting up a plan in order to protect Amity's citizens, including using Casper High's nearly finished ghost shield as an evacuation point.

"We ask that you remain calm. This is nothing we haven't faced before, and likely we will be more prepared than we have in the past. The Fentons have generously elected to provide the Department with weapons and other equipment. They have said that those who feel they too need equipment will have access to it.

"We will be able to give you more details tomorrow. I ask that you be patient with us. I can now take questions.

"Yes, you."

"Lieutenant Valdez, would you be willing to share this unknown source with us?"

"For their protection and privacy, I am not at liberty to say who gave the Department this information. Rest assured, the source is very trustworthy. You there in the front."

"Do we have any estimate for the size of this army or how it might compare to other invasions we've faced in the past?"

"We believe it will be similar to Pariah Dark's—if not worse. Unfortunately, we don't have any specifics."

"Have you considered evacuating the city entirely?"

"We have. However, we think it may overly disrupt daily life if we were to do so. We also consider the ghost shield to be the safest place during an invasion. And there is no guarantee that the ghosts simply won't leave an empty Amity and make their way to the nearest place and wreak havoc there. We are the best prepared and equipped to handle an invasion, and with everyone's cooperation, it is my belief that we can see this through."


"Hey, Dann-o, have you seen any of the ghost shield parts lying around?" Danny's dad called as he came up from the lab. Danny was sitting on the living room couch, trying to do his homework. He'd become tired of trying to concentrate with Technus periodically making noise beneath his bed. While he'd almost gotten used to it—this was what he imagined sharing a room with a sibling might be like—he didn't feel like trying to muddle through English as he listened to the ghost mumble.

Danny looked up. His dad was sweaty, red marks from his goggles making odd patterns on his face. His hair was mussed, too. He must've been working on something—presumably the ghost shield.

"Ah, no," Danny said. He hadn't spoken to either of his parents in days, not since they'd revealed their feelings about his ghost half. It was painful to be reminded, painful in a way it hadn't been for a long time. He thought he'd adjusted to their… opinions. It was clear he hadn't.

"Strange." His dad flopped into the armchair to the left of Danny. The half-ghost willed himself not to flinch. He consciously relaxed his grip on his paper; he'd almost torn it. "Some of our mainstays are gone. Four, it looks like. I must've put them somewhere and forgot." His dad sighed. Danny knew he was always absentmindedly misplacing things. Well. Sometimes he was. Other times, it was Danny "borrowing" useful equipment or hiding dangerous weapons.

He would've felt bad about it, but he wanted to be vaporized to ash as much as the next person.

"How long will it take to put the shield up now?" Danny asked. As much as he believed the mainstays had been used purposefully, the school's ghost shield was a good fallback, as he'd suggested to Lieutenant Valdez. He was just glad she'd seemed to have received his message loud and clear. Although he could still feel the weight of responsibility around him, dragging him down, it felt marginally lighter.

He'd take what he could get.

"Not long," his dad admitted. He rubbed his face, scratching at the indentations left by his goggles. "Since the school kicked the GIW off the project, everything's been going a lot smoother. We'd been pretty overdue with that shield, but we're a little more on track now. Making a shield this big was never in even our wildest dreams. Do you want to hear about it?" His dad was getting excited; that was never a good sign.

"No, I think I'm good—"

"Great!" His dad began to gesticulate. "Well, first was figuring out how many anchor points we needed, and that took a lot of trial and error, especially because if we got the number right, sometimes the angle was wrong, not to mention the material—"

"I, uh, just remembered I left some of my homework upstairs," Danny said. His dad looked crestfallen, but the half-ghost just… couldn't. He'd been hoping to spend an hour by himself doing something normal—without ghosts. He gathered his things and started up the stairs. After watching his parents struggle, though, he was very thankful that Technus had figured out the number of mainstays and angles for them; the process sounded exhausting. "Sorry, Dad. Maybe tomorrow?" His dad perked up at the suggestion, though Danny couldn't say he had any desire or intention to follow through.

What was the point of bonding with someone who would only betray him later? Why put in the effort when his dad was only going hurt him? Whenever he talked to either of his parents, all he could hear was the conversation they'd had, overlaying reality and overwhelming him.

want to cure him…

He turned his back on his dad and went up the stairs.

Once in his room, he placed his unfinished English homework on the desk. Getting it done had probably been a futile hope, anyway. Pointless. They had less than two weeks before the Empress arrived; how much did school really matter? Never mind that he'd wanted to take his mind off of it for a measly sixty minutes.

He itched to go train, but he didn't want to do it when his parents were home and awake—there was too much risk he'd be caught. Besides, he'd learned his lesson. He'd been exhausted when he'd shown up to fight Kitty and the Red Huntress, barely able to teleport the four times he'd needed to. He couldn't keep pushing himself like he had—even if it was the only way he seemed to get any sleep.

He still couldn't believe he'd managed to convince her. Valerie had been so bull-headed for so long; it had all he'd been able to do start a brittle truce between them those months ago. It hadn't taken much to shatter it, either. But this—she seemed to believe him. Not just about the Empress, but about the dog, too. For the first time ever.

He could hardly believe it. It was surreal in his mind, having both his parents and Valerie on his side. It was made all the more unreal by the fact that everything else in his life was turning to mush. How had these things—his ghost-hating parents and ghost-hating Valerie—remained solid? Maybe he wasn't a real ally to either of them, but he could count on them when it mattered.

Or he hoped so, because it was going to matter very soon.

Glancing at his shut door, he pulled out Dora's letter from where he'd stashed it inside his desk—not in the drawers. It was crinkled at the edges—he'd read it and re-read it almost obsessively. He needed all of the information he could get. He and Dora had traded a couple more letters (Danny had found himself growing rather fond of Volant), but her first one remained the most informative. And the most frightening. They'd had to do it infrequently; Danny was afraid the GIW agents who were monitoring him might figure out what was happening. Because even with the agency on the brink of collapse, they seemed determined to take him down with them.

At least Dora was doing well. She'd reported that Kitty was adjusting too, which Danny was pleased about. The half-ghost had asked Sam to drive out to the woods and release her. He and the ghost didn't have the best relationship, but she'd been so torn up about Johnny…

He jumped when he heard knocking at the door, and he almost groaned; he didn't feel like talking to either of his parents right now. Or anyone.

"Hey, Danny, can I come in?" It was Jazz. He breathed a sigh of relief, his shoulders slumping. That was better, he guessed. The half-ghost sat in his chair.

"Yeah," he called. The door opened. His sister didn't look well, though she wasn't as disheveled as Sam, Tucker, or Danny himself. Her face was paler than usual, and bags hung heavy below her eyes. She'd been up late looking at their parents' blueprints for anything that might help them against the Empress. Danny helped, sometimes, but he didn't have the head for it like she did.

She smiled tiredly at him, stepping into his room and shutting the door behind her. Her nose wrinkled. "It smells really stale in here. When was the last time you dusted? Or opened the window?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Should I do that before or after the GIW capture me and the Empress invades Amity?" Danny rolled his eyes. She was right; his room wasn't—and never had been—the cleanest. But it wasn't his fault (it was maybe a little his fault). "And I'm not taking any chances with someone on the street hearing me talk to the monster under my bed."

Jazz sat on his bed. "No need to be so snarky. It was just a question." Her eyes narrowed as she searched his face. It was her analyzing look—the one that usually came before some kind of interrogation, typically about his health. Have you been eating enough? Sleeping enough? You look way too thin, you don't need to be passing out again!

"What is it?" he asked, trying not to sigh. He had so much occupying his thoughts—the last thing he needed was an inquisition.

"Lieutenant Valdez took your letter well," Jazz commented. Danny knew this familiar tactic. Draw him in, and then, once she'd gotten him talking, bam. Catch him off guard with a topic he didn't want to discuss. "In fact, everyone seems to be taking your warning well."

Danny frowned at the generalization. "Some aren't. Mom and Dad aren't. The GIW definitely aren't." He tried to think of where she might be taking this conversation. Had she discovered his late-night training sessions? He hadn't done one the past couple of nights, but… his sister was like a bloodhound when it came to his health. Sometimes it was endearing. Other times it wasn't.

"The GIW are lame idiots, anyway," Jazz said, shrugging. "Besides, there are rumors the police might be arresting some of them soon. Then they'll really be out of your hair." That doesn't help with the ones currently outside my window.

"Maybe. But right now they're in my hair. Like lice." Jazz made another face and glanced around, as if a giant louse might spring out from his covers and straight onto her head. Danny resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. They'd both gotten lice when they'd been younger, and the experience had been much more traumatic for her (possibly because she'd had longer hair).

"Gross, Danny. Anyway, I wanted to ask you if that was what was bothering you," Jazz said. She waited expectantly, like she was waiting for him to recover from something. He still didn't quite understand.

"Nothing's bothering me." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, nothing's bothering me more than usual." Jazz's eyes softened as she seemed to sense his insecurity. I'm not lying, he thought stubbornly. What I said is true.

"Are you sure? Because you've been avoiding Mom and Dad pretty hard lately. You almost fled the room the other night when Mom asked if you wanted spaghetti for dinner. I was just wondering if it was the fact they didn't believe you—or if it was something else. Well, because they didn't believe Phantom." She watched him carefully, as though she were the scientist and he were her test subject. He didn't particularly enjoy the analogy.

He scowled. It was a good guess. "No. I told you, I'm fine. I just… didn't want spaghetti that night." Jazz cocked her head and raised an eyebrow.

"I see." She twirled a piece of hair between her thumb and forefinger, looking contemplative. "You can tell me. I won't make fun of you if, even if it's something dumb." She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. She knew Danny wouldn't be getting upset if it weren't serious.

"I said nothing's bothering me. Can you just drop it, Jazz?" he asked, trying not to snap or plead. If his sister sensed that she was close, she'd pounce. He had to remain calm.

Jazz let the hair fall back to her shoulder. "You were just… You seemed so hopeful about them changing their minds when you went to the questioning. And I was, too. But now…" She rubbed her face.

"They did change their minds," Danny said. It sounded hollow to his ears, like he'd gutted the insides of the words before they passed his lips. They were nothing but skin, flapping in the air between them. "They aren't hunting me anymore, right? I'm happy." He couldn't look at her eyes. If he saw the emotion there—the concern and caring—he might break and tell her. And he didn't… He couldn't bear the shame of having someone else know his parents thought he was diseased. Them wanting to tear him apart hadn't been… It hadn't been better, but he'd gotten used to it, at least. This was new. He still felt like he needed time to process before telling anyone.

"You aren't." He glanced at her, and her face was sad, all lines and creases. "And it's okay if you aren't happy. We're so close to—to everything. But you shouldn't bottle it up. It's not good for you."

"I'm not bottling anything up," Danny insisted, crossing his arms. He wasn't some shaken-up coke can, prepped to explode. And he had no reason to be this—this frustrated. His parents were no longer hunting him, he had another (tentative) truce with Valerie, the police were on his side… The Empress was coming, but everything else was going okay. Not well, necessarily, but some parts were better than they had been. "I promise."

Jazz remained unconvinced. There was a stubborn, iron-like set to her jaw. "If you don't want to tell me, fine. But please don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying!" Danny protested, throwing his hands up. "And we have bigger things to worry about right now!" Jazz peered at the papers in front of him—the unfinished homework, Dora's crinkled letter. Danny tried not to flush.

"Yeah," she said sarcastically, gesturing to them. "It really looks like you're busy planning." She bit her lip. "Look, Danny, we do have important things to worry about—but your mental health is also important."

Danny snorted, sending her a dark look. "What psyche book did you pull that line out of?"

"Why do you always think I'm just spewing back up things I've—"

"Could you two keep it down?" Technus's intangible head poked up from the middle of Danny's bed. The ghost held up an equally intangible book, making it hard to see. "Some of us are trying to read." Danny glowered at him.

"And some of us, Technus, are trying to have a private conversation." As much as he wanted to send the ghost out of the room, he couldn't risk his parents coming across him. He'd asked Technus if the ghost wanted to go with Kitty to Dora's makeshift camp, but he'd declined. Danny had considered insisting (he didn't particularly enjoy the arrangement), but the ghost had been so adamant he was afraid Technus might try and come back. That would've posed more of an issue, especially with the GIW still crawling around outside his house.

He looked back at Jazz.

"If you won't tell me, will you at least tell Sam and Tucker?" she pleaded.

"There's nothing to tell," he said. He turned away from her and toward his desk, hunching over the papers. Really, he didn't even know why he was hiding it. Except then he'd see her look of pity. He'd have to hear her defend his ghost-half to his parents, arguing that he was as human as anyone, there's nothing wrong with him! And he didn't want to deal with that. Not when he had other things he had to do.

"Alright." She sighed, defeated, and got up to leave the room. She paused at the door, looking back at him. "If you change your mind, let me know." Then, she left, and closed the door behind her.


Over the next week, Danny felt stretched, pulled thinner and thinner until he thought he might snap in two. He couldn't get it out of his head that Dora's and Technus's estimates were wrong, that the Empress was coming early… He was a nervous wreck, constantly looking over his shoulder and jumping at shadows. He couldn't sleep, could hardly eat. If she comes now, we're dead, he thought. His parents had only just finished the ghost shield, and who knew if the police were really prepared?

It was a Thursday night, as he was trying to sleep, that Danny's ghost sense went off. He groaned, wiping a hand across his face, before realizing where exactly the ghost's signature was coming from—the lab. He flung off his sheets and stood, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He recognized the signature and wondered why he wasn't hearing any loud crashes.

Technus floated upward through Danny's bed, hovering just over the covers. "What is it?" he asked. "You are disturbed." Maybe his ghost sense wasn't refined enough to detect her over the Portal's signature—not that the half-ghost cared enough to try and puzzle it out right now.

"It's fine." Danny yawned. Funny. Now that he had things to do, he felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over him, like it had been waiting for the best—or worst—moment to pounce. "I need to go do something. Stay here."

His naked feet barely made a whisper as he padded down the stairs. In his hand he held his Fenton thermos—just in case. He listened carefully, but he still couldn't hear anything. When he made it to the first floor, he noticed the lab door was closed, which wasn't unusual. He pressed an ear up against it, wanting to know what exactly he was getting himself into, and heard a disgruntled, irritated, "Fuck." Something clanged.

Well. It didn't sound like she was making trouble—though it didn't sound like she wasn't making trouble either. He eased the door open, and it creaked. Another curse met his ears. Danny descended, green light washing over him as he entered the lab like some alien sun. He shivered at the feeling of so much ectoplasm, his core vibrating happily next to his thumping heart.

"Ember?" he called to the empty room—for it had been her he'd sensed. The lab seemed intact: the Portal was closed, nothing obviously broken or trashed, and his parents' work appeared untouched. "I know you're there—you can drop the invisibility. It's just me."

The ghostly pop star suddenly materialized into view, her flaming ponytail smaller than usual. Her guitar was slung across her back, and she was clutching her abdomen, green ectoplasm leaking from her fingers. She looked oddly deflated, and she wasn't floating—a sure sign she was out of energy. She'd been attacked, possibly chased. The Empress was the most likely candidate. Danny set the thermos deliberately on the table next to him, watching her closely. She smirked at him.

"What, taking pity on me, babypop? It's a wonder you manage to defend this stupid city at all," she eyed him up and down. "And pink pajamas? Wouldn't have pegged you for the type."

She was in no shape to properly fight, like Kitty had been. At least she hadn't been destroyed like Johnny. Apparently he was running some kind of ghostly refugee center now. It was still so surreal to the half-ghost—all these enemies coming in from the Zone, making nice. Ember had made his life difficult before, what with trying to brainwash everyone and being a general nuisance. But it wasn't like he could send her—or Technus or Kitty—back to the Zone. They'd be destroyed, wiped from existence. So he'd help them—help Ember—even if his every instinct was telling him to attack, telling him it wasn't safe. And he'd do it in his pink pajamas, if he had to.

Danny crossed over and began rummaging in his parents' drawers. They always kept a heavy-duty first-aid kit down in the lab, in case one of their experiments went sideways. "The things you don't know about me could fill a book," he said. Bandages, alcohol wipes, a rag, antibiotic—did full ghosts have to worry about infections? Well, it wouldn't hurt—gauze, medical tape… and ecto-dejecto as a pick-me-up. His dad always kept some around so he could start improving the formula.

"Yeah, whatever." Ember observed him closely as he gathered the materials to fix her up. "You know, your ghost sense has gotten a lot better. I remember when you used to just wander around looking for us." Danny didn't reply. "Um, you're taking this surprisingly well. I thought we would've… y'know… been duking it out by now." Danny stood up, cradling the supplies in his arms.

"Do you want to fight?" he asked, gesturing as well as he could to her wound. "Because I'm guessing you just escaped from the Empress and aren't interested in doing our normal routine. I could definitely capture you and throw you back in the Zone if that's what you want—"

"No!" she protested, stepping backward. Realizing she was back-pedaling toward the Portal, she quickly changed direction. Danny stood where he was, his lips drawn into a thin line. "Don't put me back there!"

"I wasn't planning on it," he said, moving closer. "But I do plan on patching you up and sending you somewhere safe—if you're okay with it." Ember narrowed her eyes at him, suspicion lurking in every shadow of her face. She looked like she wanted to cross her arms or bring out her guitar—neither of which she could do with both her hands pressed to her injury.

"Why?" she demanded.

Danny shrugged, setting the supplies down on a nearby clear spot of table. "Because I'm a good person? I don't know." He leaned against it, as if in challenge—are you so scared of me you'd deny yourself treatment? Her eyes continued to be trained on him, as though he were some dangerous animal. He didn't appreciate the look—she, after all, was the one who instigated the fights.

"Fine," she said, conceding. She came closer. "But I'm doing it because it's what I want to do, not because it's what you suggested, dipstick. I don't take orders from you." He turned his back on her, the picture of unconcern, and began unwrapping the gauze. Oh, I should probably wash my hands, he thought. He'd bandaged himself a few times, but generally it was Sam taking care of everything. He walked over to the sink. "What the hell are you doing? I thought you said you were going to help." Ember sounded irritated.

"You're welcome to get an infection." Danny paused, and then said, more thoughtfully, "Can ghosts even get infections?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Ember, having deemed the current situation safe enough apparently, moved her guitar off her back, propping it against the table. Then, she leveraged herself up so she was sitting on it—another bad sign. She hadn't levitated up.

"You're the ghost," he shot back.

"You're the half-ghost," she said. "With ghost-expert parents or whatever it is they do." Danny immediately soured at the mention of his parents, and he scowled at her as he dried his hands and moved back over.

"So, are you going to tell me what happened or am I going to have to guess?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. He wet the rag, trying to think if there was anything else he needed.

"You already guessed. It was the Empress. Well, one of her lackeys. She's too high and mighty to come to me herself, but what can you expect from someone calling themselves 'the Empress'? Fucking pretentious. Anyway, I said no—didn't feel like being some minion, at my master's beck and call. Then I blasted 'em and ran. I'm glad your portal was unlocked, though you might want to lock it, if you know what I mean." Right. Danny had planned on turning it off anyway—and after he was done here, he'd do just that.

"Move your hands," he instructed. She did, and winced as he began cleaning her injury. It looked like she'd been stabbed, but the blade hadn't hit anything important—not her core or any major nerve centers. "Did they follow you?"

"I lost them," she reassured him. She practically growled as he brushed against her wound. "Could you fucking not?" Her hand twitched, as if she wanted to reach up and get him to stop.

Danny ignored her. "I don't know if you can get an infection—you don't know if you can get an infection. We're not taking chances." He wasn't about to try and help her only for her to "die" anyway. She stayed quiet, accepting if not admitting that he was right. Danny thought it was strange that she didn't know, but possibly the microorganisms in the Zone—if the Zone did have microorganisms and not something else entirely—were different from microorganisms on Earth. What passed for her immune system, Danny knew, was completely separate from what passed as a human's. Danny's ectoplasm had no recognizable white blood cells in it, after all. He wondered if the yetis would know.

"I never would've pegged you for a mother hen, either. You're full of surprises," Ember said. Danny rolled his eyes. He finished disinfecting the area and placed the bandage over the wound. It had mostly stopped bleeding, so he didn't apply much pressure—that would come with the gauze. He simply taped it in place.

"Have you heard from any of the other ghosts? Or about any of the other ghosts?" Danny asked.

Ember's mouth pulled down in a sneer. "Why should I tell you? You haven't been to the Zone in ages—wouldn't have thought you cared about what happens to us lowly ghosts. Not that we needed your fucking help." She waited for him to respond, but he didn't.

The half-ghost was tired. Tired of people accusing him of not being good enough—because he wasn't good enough, even when he'd done his best. The city had thought he was a criminal for the longest time, and the ghosts—his enemies—had, for some reason, been expecting his help, never mind that he'd had other things happening—things specifically designed to keep his attention from the Zone. He'd done exactly as the Empress had wanted, like an animal following an obvious trail to an equally obvious trap. And he'd been caught before he even realized what had happened, bars springing up around him.

It was a terrible thought—that he wasn't good enough. It was one that haunted him, kept him up late, wondering. Everyone seemed to think it, even the enemies he'd been fighting for years.

Danny placed the end of the gauze at the wound. "Lift your arms up," he said. She complied hesitantly, still waiting for him to defend himself, and he started winding the gauze around, making sure it was tight enough to keep her injury from bleeding more. She'd probably have to go into stasis when she got to Dora's, but with the ecto-dejecto and his limited first-aid, she'd make it no problem.

He didn't know how to convince her to cooperate with him. It was a miracle, in his opinion, that they had even managed to accomplish this with everything they had between them. Though he supposed Technus, Kitty, and Valerie should've clued him in that it was possible.

Finally, Ember seemed to grow uncomfortable enough to break the silence herself. "Walker joined her, the crazy bastard. So did Spectra and Aragon. A lot of the others, if they couldn't make it to the human world, went to the Far Frozen. I know Skulker, the Ghostwriter, and Wulf did—maybe Pandora. Now that Dora's kingdom's fallen, it's the only place left standing. They've been beating her back, but I think it's only because she hasn't been focusing her full force there." She said the words grudgingly, as if frustrated that Danny's reticence had dragged them from her lips. The half-ghost finished wrapping her, and she let her arms fall.

"That's good, I guess," he said. "That so many have escaped." Even if Skulker was a creep who wanted to skin him, Danny didn't believe destroying him—otherwise, he wouldn't have simply tossed the ghost back into the Zone.

Ember's lip pulled back in a half-snarl. "Again, why the fuck do you care? All you give a shit about is your precious Amity Park and your precious humans."

"I'm sorry. Next time, when you throw me through a brick wall, I'll be sure to ask how your day's going," Danny said, running his hands through his hair. Maybe they'd only had the opportunity to come through because he'd been dumb enough to turn the Portal on—he had been a monumentally stupid fourteen-year-old (and a not much smarter sixteen-year-old, it seemed), but Ember had made her own choices, too.

And Danny couldn't forgive her for putting so many people in danger—not when his core thrummed protect, protect every time he saw an innocent person about to be hurt or killed. Just like he couldn't forgive Technus for what he'd done. Whenever he saw the ghost, he couldn't help but remember how he'd started this entire mess.

Ember, unlike Technus, didn't look chastened at all. "Yeah, whatever, dipstick. Make your lame excuses." She got off the table, a little unsteady on her feet. She gripped the table. "Where exactly is this 'safe place' of yours?" Danny emptied the ecto-dejecto from its syringe into a cup his parents kept by the sink.

"It's with Dora. And it's not a 'lame excuse.' If you guys hadn't been making my life a goddamn nightmare here, I might've been able to figure out what was happening with the Empress sooner," he said. He handed her the glass and began cleaning up the supplies.

"The fuck is this?" she asked, sniffing it. "And the fuck are you talking about?"

"Technus exposed me as half-human," Danny said bluntly. Her eyes went wide—apparently that wasn't common knowledge in the Zone. "And it's enhanced ectoplasm. You'll like it."

"That was dirty, Phantom," Ember said, gazing into the ectoplasm. She took a sip. "There are some lines the rest of us tried not to cross." As Danny tossed the dirty rags into the biohazard bin his parents had set up, he tried not to let himself twitch.

"You crossed plenty of others—I don't see why this one should've been off-limits," Danny accused. He didn't look at her, focusing on putting everything away. "Brainwashing, nearly murdering people. You definitely caused a lot of injuries."

"That was just for fun, babypop. Fame was calling my name," she dismissed easily, taking another swig. "Revealing your big secret would've spoiled it all." Fun. Fun. What was it with his ghostly enemies and having "fun" by causing mayhem in the human world? People were more delicate than ghosts—even if Technus hadn't remembered that, Ember should've.

"Yeah. Fun," Danny repeated dully. He put the first-aid kit back in its drawer and straightened, running a hand through his hair. He remembered bruises and scrapes, an arm so badly sprained he could barely move it. Fun.

"Hey, you know the only place we can party like that is here the human world," Ember said, draining the last of the ecto-dejecto. She placed the empty cup back down on the table.

"Is it?" Danny asked sarcastically.

"Hell, yeah. If we'd tried half the things we tried here in the Zone, the Observants would have our asses in the Banished Lands faster than they could say 'brainwashing.' But they don't give a shit about what we do in the human realm." That… kind of made sense, actually. No one in the Zone cared about what other ghosts did as long as they did it in their own territory—and getting more territory could be difficult work. Nobody cared about Walker because he only jailed those in his portion of the Zone. But for Ember, who probably didn't have as big a lair… If she'd wanted to "take over the world" by brainwashing everyone, she couldn't have done it in the Zone. That would've been too much trouble.

"But I should care about the Zone, even though no one in the Zone cares about the human realm?" Danny asked. Ember put her guitar across her back again, her ponytail burning brighter than before.

"God, you can be an irritating little shit sometimes," she said. "But you're half-ghost—we're not half-human. You see?" Danny did see, and he didn't like it. Was this what the other ghosts thought? He'd felt guilty that he hadn't gotten to the Zone in time. Guilty that he'd fallen for the Empress's plans. Johnny had been wiped from existence because he'd been too wrapped up in his own problems, blinded by them. And he saw, in his mind's eye, Dora's people fleeing, stained in ectoplasm, fear on their faces. But Ember was being ridiculous.

"Oh, so it's like I owe you," he clarified.

"Exactly!" Ember exclaimed. The half-ghost glowered at her, willing her to understand how unfair she was being.

"But for me to owe you, you actually have to give me something first," he said. "And all you've given me is a lot of pain and suffering." He rubbed at his eyes. Now that she'd been cared for, he could point her on her way to Dora's camp and be done with it.

"You're so dramatic, dipstick," Ember said. Danny wanted to point out that he was not the one with a fire ponytail and skull-shaped boots, but he wanted her to leave more. He definitely didn't want to spend another thirty minutes arguing about which of them was the most dramatic. She tapped her chin. "You know what's weird about all this?"

Everything? Danny wanted to ask sarcastically. Instead, he settled for a neutral, "What?"

"How soon this happened after Pariah Dark. I mean, what are the odds two crazy-powerful tyrants pop up within such a short amount of time? And it's just—I can't put my finger on it, but I feel like I should know more about the Empress than I do. I feel like she's closer to Pariah Dark than we think she is," Ember said. Her eyes were far away, and suddenly Danny remembered Technus saying something about how the Empress had been oddly familiar to him.

But what does it mean? So many mysteries, so many questions. The answers only bred more unknowns, like an infestation he couldn't get out. The half-ghost thought his head might explode if he tried to figure it out tonight. He needed sleep. Really, he needed a break. But he'd take what he could get.

"Anyway." Ember seemed to snap back to reality, her eyes losing their unfocused look. "Thanks for the assistance, babypop—not that I needed it. If you could just point me in Dora's direction?" She hovered off the ground in anticipation.

"It's west of here, I think," Danny told her. "In the woods. You should be able to sense them even when you're a ways off—there's a lot of them. And be careful. There's GIW outside my house."

"Right." Ember nodded. She smiled crookedly at him. "Good luck, I guess." Then, turning intangible, she shot through the wall. Hopefully she'd get to Dora's safely. Danny would send the queen a letter asking about it. He sighed, sagging now that he didn't have to keep up appearances. His eyes felt dry and irritated.

But he still had one more thing to do before bed. He looked up at the Portal and wondered exactly how he was going to shut it down.


AN: I am unsure what rank of police officers usually give press conferences, but I just had Valdez do it bc whatever am I right (If you know, please tell me)? Thanks as always for the response! I really appreciate the reviews, favorites, and follows. Next chapter's gonna be a doozy. Stay safe out there. Questions: What did you think of Valdez's press conference? Is Danny hiding what his parents think from Jazz, Sam, and Tucker an understandable action? What did you think of Ember and that whole interaction? Do Danny's emotions in this chapter fit with how I've characterized him so far?