AN: Hello my lovelies!~ I JUST finished this chapter XD I just couldn't write last night, but it's still on time!~ :D To my readers of Awkward Conversations, I regret to inform that I don't have a new chapter for it this week. I hope this isn't too awkward or bad. I don't have a lot of experience writing fight scenes. XD Enjoy!~
Knowing it would confuse them, Danny had decided to rely on his sensitive hearing in his predicament. He hears Ember's first and reacts to the chord by throwing up a shield on that side of himself. It was a chord he didn't recognize, meaning she had gotten some equipment upgrades as well. At the same time, he swipes his other hand with a drawn-out ectoblast. His blast hits the rockets, but they're still coming at him, so he brings his shield around to over himself the rest of the way, opening his eyes to keep a better guard up.
The chord and missiles hit the shield at the same time and do something Danny hadn't expected possible. They freeze his shield around him. He hears a triumphant cry from Skulker outside the white ice bubble around him and Ember laughing as well. Danny focuses on the ice around him, reaching out towards it with his own ice-wielding powers. It refuses to bend at first, but he pushes against it with his energy harder. Ember and Skulker have gone quiet, so Danny suspects they're watching and waiting to attack the moment he gets free. If they did so right now, they would just be helping him.
Danny grinds his teeth and gives the ice another shove, but it barely cracks it. He lets off the ice powers, thinking. He had made the shield of ectoplasm... so it was still there as well, right? He feels a small, constant drag of energy seeping from him to answer his question. He draws the shield towards himself against the inside layer of ice. This time it works, the inside layer splintering and snapping until it's all in the bottom of his shield. He then redirects the shield, shoving it outwards. It succeeds once again, throwing the ice away from him in chunks. He grins and lets it drop, wanting to laugh at the faces of his two foes.
Skulker is the first to react, pulling an ecto-grenade from his shoulder strap, activating it, and tossing it towards Danny, who merely goes intangible and remains as such as it explodes on the ground below him, covering the trees with sticky, purple goop. He returns tangibility just in time to get slammed with Ember's punch chord, which throws him downwards into the goop.
"Aw, man! Do you people KNOW how impossible it is to get this dry-cleaned?" he complains, ignoring the slight pain from the hit and landing. He gets up and shakes most of it off of himself, but it stains his gloves slightly. He lifts his head to glare at them for it, but instead has to dive to the side to avoid Skulker ramming into him. He backs himself straight into Ember who gets him in a headlock with her guitar. He catches it before she can contain him all the way and starts heating up his hands with ectoplasm. She yelps and rips away her guitar before it can melt. He redirects the heat into ectoblasts, one behind him so it hits her stomach and the other in front to take out the gun that had just risen from Skulker's suit.
'Skulker and Mom should trade tips on carrying weapons,' goes through Danny's mind, but he doesn't have time to laugh at himself as he dodges a plume of fire from Ember then yet another missile from Skulker. He shoots a blast of ice at Ember, hitting her guitar. She screeches and starts trying to melt it with her hair as carefully as she can. While she's distracted, Danny rockets upward then loops around, gaining speed before slamming himself into Skulker's chest. He pushes him into a tree and forms an extremely hard icicle with a flattened end in his hand. He jams it into the side (ignoring Skulker's protests and attempts to push him off) and maneuvers the protective head off of Skulker's suit. It tumbles off onto the ground. Danny lets go of his hold on the rest of the suit and scoops up the fallen fake head. He reaches to his belt with his left hand then freezes when nothing is there. He starts patting around his belt with both hands. To his dismay, his thermos isn't there.
He internally curses his own stupidity, but pulls Skulker out of the remaining bit of his suit anyways.
"Curse you, Phantom! You will rue the times you have done this to me, I swear it! I shall make you pay before putting your pelt on my wall!" he squeaks at Danny. Danny switches to holding him with by one foot to prevent being bitten (as he had done so before) and tries thinking of how to get him back into the Ghost Zone. He's thinking so hard, he forgets he wasn't fighting just one ghost and only remembers when he kicked in the side by a pair of steel boots. He cries out on the impact as it snapped several ribs and instinctively lets go of whatever he's holding to try grasping the pained area. Skulker lands with a tiny thump before being picked up my Ember rather gently.
She says something to him, but Danny doesn't hear for trying to breathe. He's used to ribs and other bones breaking, but it didn't help him breathe better whether he was used to it or not. The pain subsides enough for him to regain his senses mostly and just in time to avoid being punched in the face. He quickly directs ice energy to the area around the ribs, dulling the pain enough to focus again. He starts fighting hand-to-hand with Ember.
It takes almost three hours of the two going at it before he finally encases her in a floating shield, Ember now too worn out to gain enough power to break it. Skulker had been officially down for the fight for about ten minutes now. Danny still doesn't know what to do with them, though.
"Where can I take them? I have nothing to tie them up with. I don't have a Port-" Danny stops in his thinking aloud and smacks himself in the head. He picks up the unconscious Skulker and has the globe around Ember move behind him. He floats calmly back to Vlad's mansion and into the hidden lab, unlocking the Portal, and tossing Skulker through. Ember's glaring at him, but he smiles sweetly at her before forcing her through as well. He closes and locks the Portal back before letting the energy around her subside.
He waits several minutes to make sure they aren't coming back out then returns to Skulker's broken suit. He starts destroying it, making sure it couldn't be put together again. The longer it took Skulker to get a new suit, the longer Danny could go without his antics. It was worrisome to know the cyborg ghost had no objections to getting help from his girlfriend at least. Though he's beaten her every time, he had never really fought Ember enough to know all her fighting styles, making it more difficult on him. He uses his powers to lump all the broken pieces together and takes them into the house for more proper disposal as Sam would kill him if she were to ever find out.
A pang of loneliness slams into at the thought of his girlfriend. What had she thought when she read his letter? Does she love him back? Is she mad at him now or does she just miss him? The questions continue to swirl around his head as he cares for his mess and eats again before he finally just drops his head to the table and starts hitting it against the wood repeatedly. After about the tenth time, he just leaves his head down. He stays that way for several minutes before picking himself back up and standing.
"I can't keep doing this. I just need to keep busy.. yeah, that'll work. Right?" He sighs at not knowing his own answer before walking out of the mansion and taking to the sky once again. He forces his head to clear and just enjoys the flight, watching the sky change colors as night sets in. It's around ten when he gets back home. He listens outside the Op Center for several minutes, retrieves his chair from its hiding place in the garage, and settles himself down, not quite tired yet but having nothing else to do. He leaves his other items in their hiding places in case Dani comes back up. He's still not sure why she had slept in here this morning, but it would probably be a while before he could find out.
There's suddenly a shout from below him. He jumps at it and looks at the floor, despite knowing he couldn't see anything through it. Something's going on inside the house... and it probably isn't good. He goes invisible and intangible then lets himself drop through the floor until he pauses in the kitchen where he meets an.. interesting scene.
I hope that fight wasn't too terrible XD And, yes, the cliffhanger was necessary~ :D F, F, & R!~