Chapter Twenty-Eight
(Brief lyrics in this chapter are from the song "RemEmber" by Ember McLain.)
"What do you mean you're not alive?" I stammered out, all of us staring at him, "You're sitting right here! We can see you, and touch you, and -"
"I'm - was half ghost, right?" he said and Sam and I nodded. Of course, Catherine and Alyss didn't know him before he died, "Well, Danny Fenton is who you saw die, which means I'm all ghost now. Permanently Danny Phantom. Shortly after I turned fourteen, my parents had built a machine designed to be a portal into a ghost zone. When it didn't quite work, my folks quit, but when Dani and I took a look inside, I pushed the power button, and there was was a great big flash. Something happened, and we ended up as half ghost. Honestly, I'm glad for that accident, or I wouldn't be here talking to you."
I didn't say anything, but instead peered outside the nearest window. Lao Shi had managed to contact the fairies, and they were helping rebuild the town, again. Meanwhile, many Nesidy citizens were helping pick up the dead bodies littering the ground. I suddenly lost my appetite and shoved my sandwich towards Alyss, who greedily took it.
Danny then stood up and said, "I have to go see my family, so I'll see you later?"
"I'll go with you," Sam automatically said. I didn't blame her for not wanting to be away from him. A part of me wanted to stay by his side.
"Okay," I said getting up to give him a hug, "I'm glad you're here, Danny."
When he and Sam left, the sisters and I still sat at the table. I stared at the glass of iced tea before me and made random shapes in the condensation.
"Sooooo, Aralyne," said Catherine, and I looked glanced up at her. She had a sneaky grin on her face and asked, "what do you think of Tulio?"
I felt my face turn red. "What do you mean?" I muttered.
She suddenly made a crude gesture and I almost died of embarrassment right in my seat. Catherine laughed at my reaction. Once she had calmed down, I felt the flush recede.
"I'm kidding," she said waving her hand at me, "But seriously, what do you think of him?"
"He's... good-looking, and smart, and brave, and... he surprises me," I admitted.
"How so?" asked Alyss.
"I don't know. It's almost like he knows me better than I know myself. It's kind of strange." I bit my lip and thought of how he was always taking care of me and trying to protect me, and my heart fluttered.
"Now here's another serious question for you," said Catherine, "Would you marry a man who was rich, or poor? A prince or a commoner?"
"I don't think money or social status matters," I said going back to making shapes in the tea glass's condensation, "What does matter is how much he loves me, and how much I love him. Anyways, I doubt I'd find anyone for me here in Incantationen." It didn't escape my notice that the sisters exchanged knowing glances. I really hoped they weren't going to try and set me up with Tulio.
A drum solo started to play outside.
"What in the world?" said Catherine as we all exchanged confused looks. We rushed up to the nearest window where a truck with a sound-stage on it drove up in front of the Benbow Inn, with large amps and a black banner reading EMBER in purple letters. It skid to a halt.
The amps blared with the drum solo. With a flash of light, the stage filled with billowing purple smoke. As it dissipated, a pale teenage girl with flaming blue hair stood on the stage wearing black clothing, and holding a guitar. There was another flash of light and cloud of purple smoke, and a blue skinned male sat at the drum set, playing a beat. Two more purple clouds went off and revealed two other backup members, one guy playing a purple ax, and the second one playing a green guitar in the shape of a skull.
The girl started playing her guitar and sang.
"Yea-ah!"
The others started playing as well.
"Oh-oh-ah!
Oh-oh!"
Alyss, Catherine, and I ran outside to get a better look at what was going on. We weren't the only ones, either. Every teenager on the block came forward as well, cheering.
"Hello, Nesidy!" the girl shouted, and everyone seemed to be entranced by her, "Tell me who you love!"
The crowd of teens chanted and pumped their hands up and down. "Ember! Ember!"
I stared at them all in surprise. I didn't know that Incantationen had teen idols.
The girl - Ember's hair began to surge into more intense flame. She grinned and said, "That's it, babies! Say my name! Are you ready for a little youth revolution?!"
Looking around, I found Danny and Sam standing not far, the former looking confused, and the latter, miffed.
"We love you, Ember!" someone shouted out.
"That's because I fill a void in your empty lives!" Ember replied, and I scoffed. Conceited much? I hated pop stars that acted like they were God's gift to the world!
"You're right, Ember!" another person shouted.
Danny's ghost sense went off, which surprised me and I ran his way. "What is it?" I asked.
His eyes shifted about warily. "I don't know... Uh-oh."
We all followed his gaze to see Phoebus cutting a path through the crowd, his sword out. "Attention, freakishly dressed teen idol! I order you to cease and desist!"
"Desist this, grandpa!" Ember exclaimed turning a dial on her guitar. She strummed once, and a strange sound came out from the instrument. Purple rings zoomed out from it, expanding in a wave over the teens. They closed their eyes with bliss as the wave passed over them. When they opened their eyes again, they were red and glowing.
"Oh, no," I gasped.
Several kids turned around and looked at Phoebus with demonic red glares. The man was alarmed and came to a halt. Ember sneered.
"Ember's a ghost?" Danny said, "I gotta save Phoebus!" He jumped into the air and flew off.
A crowd of kids walked toward him all zombie-like, making me shudder. This was almost like when Kida came after me! Great, first a zombie attack less than two hours ago, and now this. Couldn't I get a bit of rest? Danny observed everything from overhead.
As the possessed kids went for Phoebus, Danny flew in to put his hands on Phoebus's back, turning the two of them intangible. A small mob of zombie teenagers rushed through them. As soon as they were gone, Danny released the older hero, and headed for the stage.
"Now to knock the pop princess off the," the ghost boy stopped and we all realized the stage, Ember, and her band had disappeared, "charts?"
All of the teenagers were suddenly back to normal, if not a little disoriented. Annoyed, Danny rejoined us.
"Hey! No encore? What's that all about?" someone from the crowd said.
"Guys, I just found these!" Catherine exclaimed running forward with a stack of magazines. I didn't even notice she had left. She read the titles of each magazine out loud as she passed them around.
"I ROCK. NEW SMOLDERING SOUND." There was a picture of Ember holding up the rock on fingers. "MUSIC NEWS: EMBER!" Ember with her guitar on a background of purple flames. "HOT: Here's Ember." Ember holding her guitar. "CHART: Ember is on FIRE!"
"She's everywhere!" Alyss said looking at a magazine with Ember's face on it.
"Who is she, exactly?" I asked.
"I'm going to guess she's an evil mind-controlling spirit from another dimension?" said Sam crossing her arms over her chest.
"Yeah, but the same thing can be said about Siren," Danny remarked, and surprisingly, I was hurt by what he said. As evil as she was, Siren was still a part of me, even when I tried denying it.
"Hey, everyone!" Paulina (from Danny Phantom of course) exclaimed running into the crowd wearing Ember merchandise, "Ember's giving away free concert tickets at Bucky's Music Megastore!" The teenagers suddenly ran off, cheering and I finally realized a great deal of them were wearing Ember apparel.
"Ember! Ember! Ember! Ember!"
"I still don't get why we're not affected by Ember's music," said Alyss thoughtfully and I shrugged.
"Come on, let's get to the music store," said Danny taking mine and Sam's hands. Catherine and Alyss turned into bluebirds and the five of us flew off over Nesidy.
As we headed for our destination, Danny was focused forward, Sam admired the town below us, and I looked up at Danny, inhaling slightly. The sun outlined his form and I had to admit he was incredibly good-looking. Too bad neither one of us had those kinds of feelings for each other, and besides he had Sam, whereas I had... no one.
Almost as if he knew I were staring, he glanced back at me, a bit confused. "Are you okay, Aralyne?" I flushed and quickly looked away, but was fully aware of Sam shooting me a suspicious glance.
"It's just really nice up here, that's all. Flying's nice," I replied looking over at the two bluebirds beside us. Catherine and Alyss exchanged knowing glances and shook their heads at me.
"Danny, look out!" Sam exclaimed. Too late. He and I faced forward in time to slam into a giant cardboard cutout of Ember. The three of us fell and landed on our backs.
"Falling stinks," I groaned out releasing his hand.
The sisters reverted back to their human forms and stood above us.
"You guys okay?" Alyss inquired helping me back up onto my feet.
"We need to get inside," said Catherine helping up Danny and Sam. We found a door on the roof, and entered the music store. We were up on some sort of catwalk and could see everything below us. There was an arch that read "BUCKY'S" with a banner over it reading "EMBER" in big, purple letters. Two giant cutouts of Ember were on either side of the door, one strumming a guitar and the other was looking over the crowd with an evil expression. Teens were all over the ground and on the various floors and balconies cheering as Ember's music played.
"Ooh, Ember!
So warm and tender!
You will remember my name!"
There was a tower of video screens filling up the bottom row, left to right, showing Ember singing on her microphone.
A purple plume of smoke erupted on a balcony and cleared to reveal Ember standing there. The crowd of teenagers below us broke out screaming. Surprisingly, I saw, Jazz Fenton down there as well. What the hell?!
Ember was holding a bunch of yellow tickets in her hands and threw them out into the crowd. The bits of paper sailed through the air.
"Tell! Me! Who! You! Love!" Ember shouted out.
"Ember! Ember! Ember!"
Ember, held tightly on the edge of the balcony, smiling with the adoration. She leaned back, holding out her fists as her body began to glow green and her blue hair surged to up into a huge column of fire.
"Something tells me they're not gonna love seeing their idol sucked inside the Fenton Thermos," said Danny pulling the thermos out of his pocket.
"I think we can distract them," said Sam with a smirk, pulling four red sharpies out of her pocket. She handed one to each of us girls. Running down the catwalk, we stopped at the giant cardboard cutouts, Sam and me at one, and the sisters at the other. We began drawing on the wooden Embers.
Below us, the teenagers kept cheering, but it suddenly stopped and there was a large collection of gasps right as we finished our work: red markings of glasses, a mustache, and a goatee on Ember's face. I grinned, admiring our art.
"Hey everybody! Look, it's Ember McLame!" Catherine shouted out.
I glanced down to see Ember was irritated. "Oh great. Some critics." She smirked. "Maybe you'll like my new song better!" She turned one of the dials on her guitar. Before she could do anything, Danny charged in through the air, and shot out green ghost rays from his palms. She was knocked away by Danny's energy blast, shrieking.
"Hey! Do you take requests? How about Beat it?" Danny suggested.
Ember, floated up into the air as she held her guitar at the ready. "How about I just lay down a few power chords instead, dipstick!" She strummed her guitar, sending a wave of green skulls after him.
Danny tried to unscrew the lid off the thermos, but was struck by the green skulls. He was knocked aside with the thermos flying towards the girls and me. It landed on the catwalk not far from me and started rolling away. I ran for it, and leaped off the catwalk right as it fell towards the crowd and caught it in midair. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Now I was falling with the thermos.
"Aralyne!"
"Oof!" I grunted when I felt two pairs of hands grab onto my ankles. So glad I decided to wear leggings under my skirt today! With a sigh of relief, I glanced up to see Catherine and Alyss leaning over the rails, holding on to me. As they were pulling me back up, I decided to watch the fight between Danny and Ember.
Ember was floating near the ceiling giggling evilly as she strummed again. This time her blue hair wrapped all around her in a flame spiral as she vanished from view. The spiral thinned away into nothing. Danny flew in just as Ember disappeared. Turning around, he searched for her.
Finally, the sisters pulled me up to safety, and below us, the crowd of teens were still cheering on their teen idol.
Danny phased through the roof, and us females followed him through the door leading from the catwalk. We were in time to see him confront Ember.
"Dipstick? Ho ho. Funny," he said flying towards the female ghost and trying to wrestle her down. Their hands shook with effort. "Who writes your insults? The same hack who writes your songs?"
The crowd had followed us outside, screaming Ember's name. Ember's ponytail flared up once more, and she grinned widely. She pushed forward and Danny groaned with the effort of keeping her at bay.
"Chanting... makes her stronger," Danny grunted out.
"You got that right, baby pop," Ember sneered, "And the more kids chanting, the stronger I get!" She finally pushed Danny aside.
The ghost boy flew through the air, wailing. He slammed into the giant Ember cutout, snapping a rope that kept it up. The cutout fell over, landing face-down with the hips keeping it on the roof, and the torso, arms and head were hanging off it.
"And if you think I'm strong now," said Ember evilly, floating before Danny, "just wait until midnight when my concert goes global, and the whole world's chanting my name! Then you'll all be my slaves!" As she said her last word, she strummed another power chord, unleashing a red sound wave that knocked Danny away, screaming. He landed on his back at the edge of the cutout's hips.
"Get away from him!" I shouted running forward with the thermos. Ember was still floating in the air, as she looked back at me. She smiled evilly.
"Aw, teen love! They say it never lasts, but nothing distracts teenagers more than hormones. And I need to keep you busy for the next eight hours…." She turned a dial on her guitar. "I have more than just music for you. Now that they're chanting my name my music can affect you!" She strummed her guitar and a multitude of pink hearts sprang out at me and Danny. "How about a love song!"