Chapter Eight:
The Day That Never Comes, Part 8 Singing in the rain
11:44 PM UTC
Apace, Danny flies out of the restaurant once again to encounter with Ember waiting for him above in the rainy greened sky.
- What 'sup weather girl? Feeling like singing in the rain?
- You call that a joke?
- Well if you didn't like that, maybe this will be a hit – states, punching her with a giant ecto-energy fist.
- That joke was even worst – says G.A.S.P.E.R.
- Shut up.
Promptly, Ember assaults him with a giant skeleton hand, slamming him to the ground.
Danny halts just seconds before hitting the ground and flies straight to Ember, leaving a green energy contrail behind him, but he is stopped by a giant thorax made out entirely of ectoplasmic energy that appears out of the blue.
- Wow… Just… wow… - says Danny astounded by the image lying right in front of him.
Standing before him, there was a 50 meters skeleton composed by green ghost energy, wearing a worn leather vest and pants; controlled by Ember's music.
- That's… quite a trick the one you have there – utters Danny between nervous chuckles.
- And you know what the best part is?
- That he is a good guy? That he is my biggest fan? Got it? Biggest fan? I'm good.
- Oh no, this babe is bad to the bone! – claims, playing a chord in her guitar.
Following her musical command, the skeleton strikes Danny with all its strength.
– See? That's how you make a joke.
- How? By knocking people so they won't notice how bad it was? – asks Danny trying to stay away from the skeleton's punches. – Isn't that just bullying?
-Don't know, don't care.
Ember starts playing a new song with her guitar to control her skeleton's movements until it finally captures Danny with both hands.
Danny tries to escape but his efforts were useless. The skeleton's grip was way too much for him.
- Ok, what you gonna do now? Squeeze me like a zit?
- That's actually a good idea – states Ember with a big smile in her face. – But no, I have something much better waiting for you.
- A whole day in a spa?
- A day in a spa?
- What? I've had rough week and I can't feel back anymore.
- Well, let my friend here give you a backrub then.
The skeleton raises its hand and smashes Danny against the floor.
- There goes my neck – said Danny sore in mockering tone as he tussles to break free.
- You can quit that now. This babe's grip is a hundred time stronger than you.
- Well if can't break free, then I'll just have to let myself go with the wind – Danny turns into a blue mist and slips through the skeleton's hand. – I guess you didn't see that coming, eh? – asks reforming his body, floating in the skeleton's face.
This promptly smashes him with both hands like a fly.
- Ok, I gotta remember not do stand in front of a giant again – says Danny to himself, dizzy. - In that moment, the giant skeleton roars releasing a swarm of enormous skeleton-like mosquitoes. – Oh, no mosquitoes. Why does it have to be mosquitoes? Why?! – asks with desperation, flying away from the swarm and shooting them one by one.
- Mosquitoes? What are you talking about? – points out G.A.S.P.E.R.
- Really?! Can you see the big mosquitoes swarm coming at us?
Danny flies away from them, when, out of the blue, a wall of mosquitoes appears in front of him, blocking his way out. Quickly, Danny is surrounded by thousands of mosquitoes with red glowing eyes.
- I assume this suit doesn't come with a giant repellent, does it?
- This isn't Cleft the Boy Chin Wonder's suit. But instead it can tell you things aren't real.
-What do you mean?
- I mean this - said opening a window with a zoom in of the ghost bugs -, there is nothing there. Whatever you're fighting isn't real. Is in your head.
- Of course. I'm such an idiot. Her main power is hypnotic music. This is clearly her hypnotism improved by her new guitar. Please tell me the big guy is also a fake.
- Sorry, he is real.
The ghost mosquitoes fire a powerful red ghost ray from their eyes at the same time, and even when they're not real, their blast is felt like the fire of the sun.
- I thought you said they were fake?
- They are. Her music has hypnotized your nervous system so it could feel whatever illusion she makes as real whether you know is real or not.
- Well, you're linked to it. Do something!
- I can turn off you pain receptors and clear your optic nerves from the fake signals so you can only see what's real. But you still have a skeleton of 164 in the loose who wants to eat you.
- You are a half empty glass kind of software, aren't you?
- Maybe, yes.
- I'm so changing your programming. Now, how do I deal with a giant skinless dancing Evil Ernie made out of ghost energy?
- Did you know that the shinbone is actually a very fragile bone? Is like the most fragile bone of all.
- Is that so? And what am I supposed to do? Punch it till it cracks?
- You haven't tried that? Besides it's been standing there motionless since it puked those bugs. Weird right?
- Yeah, pretty weird? You know, I think I'm gonna try to hit that thing, no pun intend.
At full pelt, Danny hurls aiming for the shinbone, creating a giant ecto-energy bat with nails and the words "kiss it" written on it.
Danny bludgeons the bone so hard that it cracks at the very first assault as his muscles ache and his bones rattle to its marrow. He has never hit anything that hard before in his entire life, as well as he has never heard anything roar as hard as the giant skeleton when he struck his leg, and yet, he swings his bat again and again, every time, even harder and harder than before until the bone shatters to pieces.
The monster falls on his one good knee trying to capture Danny with his left hand but he smashes the hand as soon as it moves.
- You know, that's why I always drink three glasses of milk every day – he swing his bat one last time to break the skeleton's skull.
Gathering all the strength of his muscles, he pounds the skull so hard that the shockwave blows the windows from every building near them and the whole skeleton is torn asunder.
- Ha! Looks like there was nothing to fear about this guy – states Danny gloating promptly over his victory.
- You shouldn't celebrate victory so fast.
- Huh?
- Look at the bone pieces.
The smile on Danny's face fades quickly before the most unexpected sight.
Each bone splinter turns into a ghost skeleton that hustle at him, forming a large skeleton swarm.
With hands sharp as knives, they follow him as a pack of hungry wolves unhinged for his blood.
- Why I can't catch a fucking break?
- Oh, don't worry, you will. I'll make sure of that.
- Damn it, this is worst than "Doomed: The Inferno Protocol". I hate those assholes who came up with the idea using the horde mode – Danny complained about the game while trying to escape from the horde that was on his tail, cracking several skulls with his bat. – I so hate the horde mode. Agh, these things are stronger than they look – comments, struggling to break free of their grasp – it's like playing that stupid game over again.
Before he can realize, Danny is overwhelmed by the awful amount skeletons and is dragged down to the bottom of the swarm.
Ember smiles, watching from above, how her horde of skeletons buries Danny, with great ecstasy before what she has accomplished.
- I guess you've reached your limit, dipstick – states Ember gloating herself, but her joy goes as she gazes at the pile shuddering and exploding from the bottom with a great green blinding light.
- Oh trust me darling, I'm far away from reaching my limits, haven't you read the title? – asks Danny in a powerful repulsion field, bursting like a supernova, destroying almost all of Ember's skeletons - I'm UNLIMITED! Now, if that was the last thing in your bag of tricks, you should be looking for your lover boy Skulker to help you. No wait, he is with your best friend now. And who's there to blame him, her new body is much hotter than yours. I should now.
- That's it! YOU ARE DEAD! – shouts Ember enraged with her eyes glowing red and her hair blazing strongly.
Turning her guitar's neck into an ecto-shotgun, she starts shooting at will, powerful pink bolts of ecto-energy.
Moving gracefully in the air with swinging movements, he dodges every single blast, moving forward his enemy, and shoots her at blank point range in her face.
Severely injured, the rock star falls unconscious, with her face scorched.
- Wow, looks like she is what you call a glass cannon. This must be why she didn't really fight me before… Gas, run a complete scan on this. Tell me how does it work.
- Why?
- Technus said she was the reason why they were so powerful at the pier. That she was their powersource since she could enhance other ghosts powers and he enhanced that ability. I need to know how he did it.
- Well, here is how he did it: the seventh string in her guitar turns the kinetic energy into ghost energy - said playing a simulation on the lenses -, which fuels the guitar itself, and her. When using her empowering music, she feeds her teammates…
- Using the energy she gets from her guitar. And the more music she played, the more power she had not only for her mates but for herself. Very tricky. Though it seems she wasted all in the big green guy. You know what I realized when I was inside the skeleton's pile?
- That you are claustrophobic?
- Ok, you know what else I realized down there?
- That there are better kinds of superhero suits than the spandex ones.
- No. I realized that they're playing along to my plan far too well. Soon, you gotta start a search for any ecto-signature in the area.
"Three ecto-signatures located" reads a heads up display with the location of all three on a map of the city.
- That's weird. It says two of them are right behind me. Oh shit!
Danny turns around and sees Skulker who has been pointing at his head with an ghost-sniper rifle at his head for the last three minutes, in a top roof behind him.
- Here you are, the kid who wanted to be a ghost. Let's see how good you are dodging an ectoranium laced bullet pointed right at your forehead.
Skulker pulls the trigger and fires his gun aiming for Danny's head. The hammer hits the needle; the explosion of gunpowder pushes the bullet out of the gun barrel followed by a strong roar that tears the sky, flying in rotational and translational motion, leaving a green trail behind it. Straight to its target it flies safely and secure in the air during its journey looking to tear the flesh of its prey.