The cool morning air swept against Danny's skin softly as he and Ember walked down the sidewalks through the quiet sleeping city of Amity Park. 4 a.m. on a Sunday was always deadly quiet as everyone was still dreaming in their beds, and so was he on a rare night or two. Usually, at this time, he was caught in a pitched fight with some vermin of the ghost zone variety.
But not tonight, no, He is instead walking side by side with one of the ghost zone's most high-profile entities. It was a nice change of pace for him, and frankly, he enjoyed it, and secretly Ember did as well.
The two walked for an hour until reaching the town park. Her eyes lit up and took Danny down the paths leading into a small wooded area.
"It's been forever since I've enjoyed a walk in the woods." She says as the leaves from the oak trees fall from above. "I wish I could feel the cool air against my skin again. I miss it, babypop."
"You're calling me that a lot, you know?" Danny points out as the wind sweeps through the trees.
"Shut up." Ember teases him. The leaves alls out of the trees and land in her open hand. She brings it to her face and trying to smell the scent of a fresh autumn oak leaf. But she could smell nothing and couldn't feel it in her hand either. It was a harsh reminder of the reality that she lived. A tear comes down her face and falls in front of Danny.
"Ember?" He asks her, concerned. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing..." She says, trying to mask her feelings. "Just... Just reminded of something I wish I could feel."
"The leaf?" Danny asks obliviously.
"Duh." She replies in her trademark rudeness. "I wish I would feel it again and the wind. I can hear it, but I can't feel it. I wish I could, and I honestly wish I could. But I don't know if..."
"Don't know if what?" Danny interjects. "Do these remind you of something you miss?"
"Yes..." Ember says, wrapping her arms around herself, signifying that she was trying to close herself to him.
"Ember," Danny begins with concern and apprehension. "You've been very open with me, and I appreciate it. But I'm still wondering-"
"I'm not using you. I'm not working for that creep, Vlad. AND I AM NOT LYING TO YOU!" Ember explodes but still keeping her arms wrapped around her. Her body language told a different story than what her flaming hair said. It wasn't aggression, but defense. Danny stops them, and Ember notices a change of demeanor that she never saw in the halfa before.
"I know your not." He says firmly. "If you were, Jazz would have told me. I trust you enough to walk with you, not in ghost form."
It was a slap to the face of Ember, and she couldn't respond to it right away. The situation was like this, and it was testing her mentally. Ember used to being cast aside and treated less than human, even before she crossed over. But she still couldn't shake the idea that she would get stabbed in the back by the 'Hero.' After all, she was the 'Villain.'
"What are you wondering about me?" Ember questions him sharply. "The nightmares? The guy who left me for dead? What is it then, Phantom?"
"What do you miss the most?" Danny asks her, silencing her. "What made you tear up right in front of me?"
Ember starts walking and, with a heavy sign, shakes her head. "Ember!" Danny calls to her as she walks away from him down the wooded path.
She starts to cry and runs down the path at a brisk pace. Danny follows and calls her name as he chases after her until they reach a small bridge crossing the pond near the end of the tree line. Ember sat underneath a large oak tree with her face buried in her arms, crying. "Ember?" Danny says as he approaches her.
"Ember." He says as he gets closer to her and the tree. "Ember?"
She sniffles but doesn't respond. Danny sits beside her as she cries, trying not to be on the receiving end of her eventual fury. But the wrath never came as, as awkward as it was for him, reached over to her shoulder and hugged her. Ember looked up, and without second-guessing, laid her head on him. She cleared her tears and wiped them on his shirt before saying one word: "Home."
"Where is home?" Danny asks her as he tries to process what is happening.
"Centralia..." She whispers. "Pennsylvania..."
The sun was coming up soon as the sky turned a dark blue, and the stars began to fade into the coming sun. "I haven't seen the sun come up in forever," Ember whispers as she lets go of the tension inside of her and wraps her arms around him.
"I haven't enjoyed it in forever." Danny agrees.
The amber light of the sun began to break through the sky, high lighting the cloud cover above them. The beauty of it impressed Danny and Ember as they cuddled under the tree.
"Danny?" Ember says.
"Yeah?" Danny replies.
"Thank you," Ember says, looking deep into his eyes. "Thank you for saving me, and thank you for talking to me. Just thank you for everything."
"You're welcome, Ember," Danny says with a smile. "Hey, you used my name. Haha."
The sun begins the rise over the city skyline sending orange rays to the pond turning it orange. It was beautiful, and it made Ember sigh with nostalgia and joy. She turns to Danny and gazes into his light blue eyes. For a moment, she could feel herself swimming in their warm waters. Was this the warm and tender that she sang about in her song? It was all so new to her, yet so familiar to her. She was in his debt for saving her, but there was something more between her and Danny, and she could feel it.
Danny gazed into her ghostly green eyes, nearly losing himself in them as well. 'I can't let myself get lost in her. I can't get close to my enemy. What would Paulina or Sam or Valerie think?' His mind grew silent, and he could feel a warm tingling feeling expanding through his chest and out through his fingertips. It was a feeling he only felt with Sam, and the fact that Ember, one of his enemies, made him feel the same way threw him off guard. But Danny didn't go back on his feelings, and slowly the two came closer to one another.
"DANNY!" The voice of Sam screamed from nearby, breaking up their moment. "ABOVE YOU!"
From out of the cloud cover came to the screaming battle cry of Valerie Grey in her red ghost hunting gear firing her lasers down at him and Ember. Danny quickly pulls Ember and himself behind the giant oak tree while the electric tearing of laser rifles echoes around them from all directions. "Stay here!" He tells Ember as he changes into his ghost form.
"I'll be back!" He tells her before he soars into the air to fight off the angry ghost hunter dodging her blasts from her laser rifle.
Shooting straight for Valerie, Danny is cut off from his flight path by another energy beam, this time from his 10 o'clock low. Another red-suited ghost hunter fires a salvo of ecto-lasers at him. And another from 4 o'clock high!
"Woah!" Danny shouts as he tries to dodge all the blasts at one. "At what point did you decide to bring friends?"
"Drones make the perfect partner for every ghost hunter!" Valerie replies as three more show up, firing bursts of energy beams at him. "Though you could just hide in the dark, huh?"
"I don't have to hide from a crummy shot like you!" He teases as he fires at the first drone he sees, sending it off into the opposite direction. "No more one-on-one chicken?"
Valerie grunts with rage, dives on him from above, and lets out a devastating barrage from all directions, causing Danny to plummet down toward the tree line for cover. Sam fires her ecto-pistol at the one in the rear, The honest Valerie, to throw off her ability to control the drones properly. The bursts of green ecto-plasma scream past her, almost knocking her off her board. From up there, she couldn't see who was firing at her. But she could see where it was coming from. She sent two drones down to the source of the blast and two more behind the source to cut off any way he could escape. Valerie and the remaining one remained in the sky to act as support if the Ghost kid ran.
"I got you, phantom!" She screams down below as her drones leap into action.
Sam ran toward the opposing side of the wood line on the ground to get to a better spot to cover Danny. She ran like it was the mad dash to freedom and, in her blind sprint, was thrown to the ground by a low-hanging branch. Her pistol skids in the dirt near a fallen tree, and she quickly crawled on all fours till she reached it. But by them, the first pair of drones jumped her and aimed. Sam doesn't give up and leaps over the tree just as the sound of lasers echos through the wood line. She snatches the pistol and, in one quick motion, pops out from the cover of the tree, ready to fire, but the drones are gone.
Puzzled, she scans around with the pistol drawn until spotting the wreckage of the drone lying on the ground in ablaze. "What the? Danny?"
"You're welcome!" Ember shouts, trying to hold herself up against a tree. "A little help here!"
"You? You did that?" Sam asks in astonishment.
"I'm serious; help me here," Ember replies falling to her knees. "That took a bit more than I thought it would."
Sam couldn't process it. None of it made sense...
She fires a burst above Ember, destroying two drones trying to jump her, then runs to aid her. "I think... I think we're even right?" Ember tiredly says as Sam throws her over her shoulder in a fireman's carry.
"You went for a walk too?" Ember asks her in a tired, almost drunken slur.
"Did those meds have something in them?" Sam counters.
"I've been asking that all day!" Ember chuckles. "No, I don't know. I might not be as hot as I thought I was. I need to rest."
"Don't pass out now; We have to get out of the line of fire before you can do that," Sam says as she watches Valarie and the last drone scream across the sky.
"You went for a walk, or are you worried about babypop?" Ember asks as Sam carries her toward the end of the tree line toward the entrance to the park.
"I don't know what to think," Sam says as they reach the beginning of the treeline path. Putting Ember against a nearby tree, she looks up into the sky to see that Danny had destroyed the last drone and squared up on Valerie. "Why? You've been trying to kill him for months."
"Never tried to kill him. Only get him out of the way so I can be the star I should have been when I was alive." Ember replies. "I never wanted to kill him either. He reminds me of someone I used to know back home. I was an outcast like him, like you..."
Before she could continue, Danny lands next to them with a tired expression on his face. "She was tracking us just a couple of blocks before the park," Danny says, breathing deeply. "Those drones of hers are intense when turning on this Nero interface program. It almost got me, but she ran away. We have to get out of her, both of you. You two OK?"
Both the girls nodded, "Ember saved me. She took out the drones, trying to jump me. I guess they thought I was you after firing at Valerie."
"Really?" Danny asked, surprised looking over at the now passed out Ember. "She did?"
Sam nods and picks up Ember while Danny takes the other side. "What are you doing out here? Last time I checked, you passed out on the couch."
"I needed fresh air too," Sam replies.
"It's because of her, isn't it?" Danny says, motioning his head toward Ember.
"Maybe," Sam said sarcastically. "It isn't like she's one of your enemies."
"She just saved your life, and You might as well be thankful," Danny replies rudely, shutting her down. "Besides, She's not as bad as you think."
'I was an outcast like him, like you...' Ember's words echoed through her head. They rang true with her with their innocents and truth. But could Ember be telling the truth about herself?
Sam gives a deep sigh and gives way, "She said she was an outcast like us back home. What was home for her?"
"Centralia, Pennsylvania," Danny tells her with a severe expression.
"NO WAY!" Sam says with excitement. "The real Silent Hill?"
"The very one," Danny replies. "We need to get back to my place. I need to sleep; we all do. We'll figure out the rest of this mess later."
"What do you mean, Danny?" Sam asks.
"Ember's telling the truth about everything. She and Jazz spoke, and so far, she's sticking to the story she told her." Danny replies. "But one thing I have to check.."
"What's that?"
"You up for a trip to Wisconsin?" He asks her as the sun breaks completely through the clouds lightening the new day.