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Chapter 8: Ember, You Will Remember!
"That's right, people! Ember is back!" Ember had her guitar out, ready, and was blasting passer-bys with her pink fists of doom. Most of the people were screaming as they tried to find some sort of shelter from the ill-tempered ghost but whatever they managed to find was soon squashed by Ember.
This was the sight that greeted the Titans when they managed to get there. None of them had any time with which to categorize their new opponent as Ember saw them and immediately assaulted them with a cacophony of noise. All of them fell to their knees as they held their suddenly pounding temples, their eardrums ringing from the noise.
"Gee. You humans sure are dumb." Ember seemed disgusted at the cringing Titans as she idly strummed the strings. "Don't you know by now that if you hear a disturbance you should be running away from it and not towards it?"
"There's one small problem with that!" Robin managed to shout, getting to his feet. "Not all of us are humans!"
He whipped out his staff and twirled it around between his fingers. "Titans, show her what I mean!"
Beast Boy morphed into a ferocious green lion and roared viciously. He then transformed into a raven and flew up. Starfire's eyes were a solid green and her fists blazed with energy. Cyborg's arm was already in cannon mode and he was running after Robin. Raven was still at the back, intending to observe for the first few minutes instead of charging in headlong the way Robin preferred to.
Starfire engaged Ember in a small aerial fight, her starbolts being exchanged with Ember's pink fists. The two kept dodging each other's attacks and it seemed as if it would be a stalemate until Beast Boy landed on Ember, turning into a python and trying to squeeze the life out of her.
"Hah!" Ember first attempted to wriggle out of his coils but when that didn't work, she turned intangible and slipped out. Beast Boy's eyes popped wide open in surprise and he was about to fall to the hard ground when he transformed into a raven and flapped his wings frantically, staying in the air.
"Have a nice helping of music, dipstick!" Ember knocked Beast Boy to the asphalt by hitting him with a whirlwind of noise that made him transform back into his normal form.
"Your line sucks!" Cyborg shouted, beginning to shoot at the rock star. "Can't you think of a better catch phrase?"
Ember spent half a minute just dodging both Starfire's attacks and Cyborg's before she got fed up with it and sped over behind Starfire. The alien had no time to react before Ember sent a spinning kick right into her back. Unfortunately for Cyborg, he was right underneath the falling Tamaranean and received the full brunt of her fall.
Ember had no time to gloat over her small victory because Robin sent several small disks her way. They hit Ember and exploded on contact. The smoke hadn't even cleared when something fell to the ground with a loud crash. Starfire and Cyborg had recovered from the fall and both rushed over to the scene with Raven, Beast Boy, and Robin.
They couldn't even look into the crater before an explosion of energy threw them all back. Ember floated above them all, glaring down at them. Just visible was a block of ice, which she had phased through.
"You're so going to pay for that, dipstick!" Ember snarled, glaring figurative daggers right at Robin. Her fingers danced across her guitar as she prepared for a big attack.
Robin barely had time to jump back when a loud barrage of noise and multiple fists slammed into the ground where he had been just a moment before. It created a sizeable crater and Robin twisted his mouth when he saw it, fully aware that this ghost packed the same kind of punch like Technus. The only advantage with Ember was that her attacks became rather predictable as they had only seen pink fists and sonic barrages.
The boy wonder made up his mind on a half-formed plan. "Beast Boy, transform into something small but fast and get her from behind. We'll distract her from the front."
"Do you mind me asking what the point is?" Beast Boy asked. "You can't really keep her pinned with that phasing thing she's got going on."
"We'll deal with that when the time comes," Robin answered, taking out a couple of disks from his belt. "Just go! Starfire, help him out if he needs it."
Beast Boy morphed into a hummingbird, his tiny wings a blur as he darted forward and from side to side. Cyborg distracted Ember from noticing the green changeling's disappearance by shooting sonic blasts at her. In the meantime, Starfire had kept track of Beast Boy's progress and had her starbolts ready. Raven was standing behind them, not really having a job but observing until she felt she was needed.
'These ghosts all seem to have the same basic power,' she thought, seeing Ember turn intangible to let a sonic blast from Cyborg pass through her abdomen. 'Intangibility's one power I've seen all of them use. Not too surprising considering as how ghosts are all inherently intangible in the first place. But what about invisibility? Or is that just isolated to the Cake Ghost?'
Ember, meanwhile, had noticed Beast Boy's absence despite all the hindrances the other Titans were throwing her direction. She couldn't see him but decided to give him tit for tat by turning invisible. All the Titans stopped their attacks, momentarily stunned at Ember's rapid disappearance.
"Did she teleport?" Cyborg cried, trying to see her.
"No," Raven said grimly. "She turned invisible. Beast Boy had better not—DON'T!"
Her cry of warning came too late as Beast Boy had stopped flying for a quick moment in surprise. Raven took off before the others moved, fully intending on trying to determine Ember's location. She couldn't get a very clear feeling from the ground but knew that she was somewhere behind Beast Boy.
Out of nowhere came a sudden pink blast that hit the fluttering Beast Boy right in the back. Stunned, Beast Boy transformed back and crashed into Raven, throwing the two down into the asphalt. Ember reappeared two seconds later, smirking broadly.
"You thought you could get me with the oldest trick in the book?" she crowed. "Ha! You'd better pull newer and more original tricks out of that belt of yours, dipstick!"
"Come up with a better insult, ghost!" Cyborg snapped, shooting at her.
Ember bent double, letting it fly over her head. "That's getting old, too, dipstick!" She grinned widely. "You better take a look at your teammates. They seem rather…occupied at the moment if you catch my drift."
Against all logical reasoning, the three of them looked. What they saw made their jaws drop. Raven had gotten to her feet but was having trouble engaging in any sort of battle at the moment seeing as how Beast Boy was clinging to her neck.
"Get off," Raven said in a low voice.
"Don't want to!" Beast Boy chirped, grinning rather stupidly. Then, he suddenly planted a great big kiss right on Raven's lips, freezing all the Titans in their tracks in shock.
Raven herself had gone completely stiff, her hands frozen in midair and trembling in either shock or disgust. This merely lasted for a minute; her eyes glowed black and she threw Beast Boy back, wrapping black magic around him and pinning him to a lamppost.
Robin was the first to snap out of his stupor after that. "What did you do to him?" he demanded, glaring at Ember.
"He's under some sort of spell," Raven said before Ember could, wiping her mouth with a hand. "You four stay back for now. Let me take my shot at handling this ghost."
This time it was Starfire who started to protest. "Raven, perhaps that would not be wise?"
The dark Titan ignored her friend, taking off into the air and blocking her friends behind a dark shield of magic. She thought she had a good idea about what Ember's attacks were made of.
'Her attacks are predictable. Now I just have to see if my magic is capable of handling this particular kind of ghosts.'
"One on one, huh?" Ember asked, grinning smugly. It was evident that she thought this would be real easy. "You're pretty confident, dipstick."
"I don't normally agree with my friends but I have to say that your insult is getting really old," Raven commented, enchanting a car on the ground. She threw it at Ember. "Can you come up with some better insults?"
The blue Beatle flew straight through Ember as the ghost simply turned intangible. She was smirking when her form became fully solid. "You'll have to do better than that!"
'Obviously doesn't have much of a brain.' Raven dove to the side, the fist Ember sent at her crashing into the ground. 'But she does pack firepower.'
"That all you can do, dipstick? Dodge? This is just lame!"
Ignoring Ember's taunts, Raven cast another spell on a lamppost, bringing it up and around. She swung it like a baseball bat, fully intending on hitting a home run. However, she hadn't paid enough attention to what Ember was doing in the meantime and the mistake cost her. She was pummeled by a well-aimed fist just as her enchanted lamppost hit an unsuspecting Ember, smashing her into the side of a building. Raven didn't fare much better, crashing into a building on the opposite side.
She heard her friends' alarmed cries but paid them no heed, focusing on Ember's reappearance from the rubble of the wall. Raven latched onto a nearby hydrant and threw it at the ghost, sending water flying everywhere. Ember dodged the hydrant and shot Raven a loud barrage of noise. The Titan avoided it by sinking into the wall behind her, her black magic enveloping her body.
Ember whirled around, fully aware of how most surprise attacks tended to take place from behind. She wasn't disappointed, seeing Raven emerge from the ground near the end of the block. Her guitar aimed some more noise towards the teen but it was absorbed into a dark shield the Titan conjured. She didn't expect the sudden attack from behind and flew forward into the ground.
"You might want to watch your back," Raven commented dryly, having teleported from behind the black shield while Ember was occupied with watching her attack go to waste.
Ember merely growled, getting to her feet and hitting her strings once more. This sent a literal tornado of noise right at the floating Titan. Raven knocked it aside with a shield of magic but didn't notice Ember zipping up behind her. By the time she turned around with a car ready to throw it was too late as the rock star had already pounded her with a pink fist.
The car went flying wide and crashed into the black shield she had formerly erected to protect her friends. The pink fist crashing into her at such a close-range threw her halfway across the block and right into the intersection.
"You'll have to try harder than that, dipstick!"
'Great.' Raven managed to get to her feet, her arm up defensively in case of any further attacks. 'She's already getting back to the insults.'
"Your last attack went so wide that I didn't even see it!"
Raven narrowed her eyes, a quick plan forming in her mind. Her magic wrapped around a red car that was upside down and she flung towards the ghost, hoping that her idea wouldn't go to waste. She knew that Ember would most likely turn intangible but was banking on the fact that maybe her magic would do the job.
Her eyes gleamed with triumph when the car collided with Ember even though the ghost had turned intangible. 'Gotcha!'
"Oomph!" Ember went down with the car, hitting the street with a loud crash.
Raven knew it wasn't over yet, though. 'Wait for it…'
Ember phased through the red car, looking rather scratched up. The Titan noted that she was literally fuming, her hair flaring with the intensity of her anger. 'Note to self: Some ghosts have physical manifestations of their emotions.'
"You're going to pay for that, dipstick!" Ember snapped, her hand reaching for her guitar, which was also looking rather battered.
"Try it!" Raven answered, grabbing a blue Expedition. She brought her arm forward, the car following the motion.
"With pleasure!" Ember attacked Raven with a loud attack that threw the Titan off-guard and dropped the car to the ground, smoking.
Raven had expected fists, not the loud whirlwind of noise that drove her to her knees and left her temples pounding. Her hands flew to her ears, too late as her head was already splitting from an overload of noise.
"Gotcha!" Ember crowed, grinning broadly. "Maybe next time you won't be so confident!"
Raven fully intended on getting back up and fighting. Something wanted to prevent that, however. And that something came in the form of a large green gorilla who suddenly pounced on Raven and enveloped her in a gigantic bear—er, gorilla hug.
She instantly realized who it was and knew that all the shields she had cast before had fallen with the previous attack. "Beast Boy!" She started squirming, trying to get out of his death hug but it wasn't working. "Let go!" The headache wasn't helping matters either.
"Love troubles?" Ember asked sympathetically. "You should go in for couple counseling. I've heard it does wonders!"
Raven half-expected to see her friends right next to her any second now but hadn't expected the new and rather familiar voice. "And what would you know about healthy relationships, Ember? The last time I checked your boyfriend was a tiny ghost in a robot suit!"
Ember whirled around, instantly seeing the same white-haired ghost that Raven had seen appear out of nowhere mere seconds ago. "You!"
"Me," Danny Phantom said rather smugly. "Nice to see you haven't forgotten me. Although, I am sad to hear that you've already given out that awful nickname to some other people. Seriously, are you still sticking with 'dipstick'?"
'That's what he meant before,' Raven thought randomly, remembering his earlier comment about someone else calling him dipstick but that not being his name. She noted her friends running under the two ghosts and sliding to a halt next to her and Beast Boy. Starfire was in the air and had stopped flying upon seeing Danny Phantom engaging Ember.
"You're going down!" Ember declared, her eyes narrowing dangerously at Danny.
"I'd like to see you try, Ember!" Danny shot back, his smile growing dangerous.
Only Raven noticed the flickering green electricity at his fingertips and wondered what it would mean as Ember initiated the first attack. She still had a more pressing issue currently wrapped around her, however. "Get off, Beast Boy."
"Yo, BB!" Cyborg tugged at the green gorilla's arm, only to get a snap of the teeth for his effort. "Snap out of it!"
"He's under a spell!" Raven repeated. "Unless one of us can lift it, I'm afraid he's going to be stuck this way."
"You can't release it?" Robin asked, looking up at the aerial battle going on above their heads. Ember was currently on the losing side of it, poking Robin's irritable side. "Why is it that he's having an easier time of facing her?"
"In answer to your first: No, I can't release it because I don't know what kind of magic it is. Second: He's faced her before and therefore knows her weaknesses better than we do," Raven replied. Her mouth twisted in the shadows of her hood. "Back off for a minute."
Neither Robin nor Cyborg understood Raven's strange comment until her black magic pried Beast Boy's arms apart, freeing her. This lasted momentarily until Beast Boy morphed into a large python and wrapped around her, trapping her arms to her side and leaving her to steam in his "embrace".
"Terrific," Raven groused, figurative steam pouring out of her ears.
A loud shout from above made them all look up, except for Beast Boy. "Get out of the way!" They caught sight of Starfire barely being able to dodge an attack from Danny that had missed the intended target.
Danny was then next to Ember, holding her guitar in both hands. "Starfire, right?" He grunted slightly as Ember twisted to one side to try and get the guitar out of his hands. "I know that you can fight but I'd rather that you—ugh—"—Ember had kicked him in the side—"get down to the ground!"
Starfire hesitated shortly before following Danny's advice and landing on the ground, standing next to the other four Titans.
"Is Beast Boy fine?" Starfire asked rather anxiously, seeing the green python still wrapped around Raven, who had given up hope of escaping his grasp.
"Clearly not for now," Cyborg said. "Oh, look!"
Danny had gotten the guitar away from Ember and flung it into the distance, inciting the wrath of the rock star. She aimed to punch him right in the face but it was blocked by Danny's gloved hand. Then a sudden wince crossed his face, just as green electricity coursed out of his hand zapping Ember.
"Aargh!" Ember plummeted to the ground as soon as Danny had managed to wrench his hand away.
Her hair sticking out in various directions, the ghost glared up at Danny. "What did you do to me?" she demanded, her words coming out in a near snarl. "I can't feel my powers anymore!"
Danny looked torn for one full second before his features morphed into a determined countenance. "I did what I had to do," he said, his voice a monotone. "Now maybe you'll cooperate."
"What makes you think I will?"
Without another word, Danny grabbed the thermos on the belt at his waist and sucked the ghost in. The Titans heard a final shriek of fury before the ghost boy capped it, a stony expression still covering his face.
"What do you want us to do?" Cyborg asked quietly, glancing askance at Robin.
Their leader looked torn, locking eyes with Raven for a moment before sighing and murmuring, "Nothing for now. We need to talk without tossing threats back and forth."
Raven gave a firm nod, silent in her support for Robin's decision. Now if only Beast Boy would snap out of it…
Just as he reached his horrifying revelation, his ghost sense went off. He snapped his mouth shut, hoping Mr. Robinson hadn't noticed the blue whiff of air. The old man was really observant.
'Crud. Now I'll have to formulate some excuse.'
Still reeling from his unwanted epiphany, Danny was lost as he racked his brains for a plausible excuse that he could use to disappear for an appropriate amount of time. The bathroom excuse was slightly old and it would just seem weird if he was gone for half an hour…
He strained his ears, trying to hear any kind of disturbance that would signal a ghost attack. In the attempt of looking out the window, his eyes landed on the clock. He was extremely relieved upon seeing the glaring time of 12:25.
'A lunch break would be the perfect excuse!' he thought, opening his mouth to say something. But he then shut it, uncertain about how he should go about asking about his lunch.
"Is there something else?" Mr. Robinson asked, having seen Danny open his mouth and then shut it.
Danny scrambled for an excuse and landed on one. "Yeah. I was wondering if you hear anything?" It was a gamble but if it worked…
Mr. Robinson frowned, trying to find what Danny was talking about. "I'm afraid I can't hear what you're hearing." Then he pointed to his ear to signal that he was hearing impaired.
Danny wanted to bite his tongue off. "Oh. Right. Sorry about that."
Mr. Robinson gave a rather lopsided smile. "No problem. People tend to forget unless I advertise it, which I normally don't."
The halfa nodded, even though he was still searching for a good excuse to leave and transform. 'What if I ask about it in a roundabout way? I still don't know my schedule so that's a good point to bring up.'
Just as Danny was about to do this, a loud crash and a symphony of discordant notes blasted their eardrums. This was merely a prelude to what happened next: The whole front of the store exploded. The two would have been crushed had it not been for Danny's quick reflexes taking over. He grabbed the store owner and threw the two of them behind the counter. Rubble pushed the counter roughly towards the back wall, trapping the two in the small space between the wall and the space under the counter.
"Are you all right?" Danny asked anxiously, letting Mr. Robinson go.
The old man coughed in response because of the dust the crash had raised. "I'll be fine," he finally said. "Thanks to your quick thinking that is."
"It's nothing," was all Danny said as he twisted around to try and free themselves from the prison. Prying the side of the counter from the wall with his arms didn't work so he braced his back against the wall and shoved hard with his legs. The counter gave an inch but refused to budge after that.
"We should wait," Mr. Robinson suggested. "The Titans should be able to deal with whatever threat is out there."
Danny sincerely doubted this but kept his mouth shut. The Titans couldn't even deal with the Cake Ghost! He simply doubled his efforts, keeping in mind the discordant notes that he had heard before the explosion. There was only one ghost he knew that used music as a weapon.
When his side of the counter still didn't give, he suddenly got an idea. It would require a great deal of luck, something that he wasn't necessarily filled with.
'But it's still all I got,' Danny thought, determined. He turned to his new employer and asked, "Could you see if that side will budge any? I'm really stuck over here and it's possible that that side is freer."
Despite what he had said earlier about the Titans, Mr. Robinson nodded and began pushing, turning his head and taking Danny out of his line of sight.
'Now!' Danny summoned his intangibility power and focused it in the soles of his feet, turning the part he was touching intangible. With this done, he gave one big shove and pushed the counter right into whatever was blocking it from moving. Danny promptly dropped his intangibility, leaving the counter stuck in the middle of what seemed to be a bookshelf.
Mr. Robinson noticed the sudden shift. "Danny?" He saw the strange sight of the countertop right in the middle of the bookshelf and stared in shock.
"It budged!" Danny said weakly, not having thought this far ahead. Before Mr. Robinson could say anything else, he hurriedly went on. "You better stay here, all right? I'll be right back."
Without another word, Danny turned and scrambled out of the small space he had been given. What he saw rendered him completely speechless. The entire front wall of the antique store had been pushed inward, crushing the displays in the windows. Bookshelves, chairs, desks, and other furniture pieces lay strewn about on the floor. The countertop itself was pinned to the back wall because of a bookshelf and on top of that was a large piece of what had previously been a wall.
Danny swore softly before picking his way through the rubble. He heard grunts from behind him and picked up the pace, not wanting Mr. Robinson to detain him. He knew for certain that the Titans couldn't handle a ghost like the one that had caused this amount of damage.
Too late.
"Danny?" It was Mr. Robinson, having seen Danny make his way to the front of the store. "What are you planning on doing?"
The ghostly hero turned his head to look at his employer out of one eye, contemplating what he should say. "Taking my lunch break," he said finally. "Don't worry. I'll be back before"—he checked the clock which was lying on its side merely seven feet away—"1:30. Stay safe."
Ignoring whatever Mr. Robinson might have had to say, Danny jumped behind a bookshelf and part of a wall, turning intangible to phase through the rubble barring his exit. He emerged on the street to find the street clear aside from wrecked and smoking cars, streaming hydrants, missing lampposts, and gaping holes in the buildings. He ran now, about to turn into Phantom.
The bluish-white rings had already appeared and were starting to separate when something crashed right into the street before him, the rush of air throwing him backwards and canceling the transformation when his focus faltered in the shock. He flew through the air, roughly landing behind an upside down red car that was extremely dented.
"You'll have to try harder than that, dipstick!"
So it was exactly who he thought it was. Ember had somehow turned up here as well.
"Your last attack went so wide that I didn't even see it!" She was taunting someone.
Having a bad feeling about who she was taunting, Danny got his knees and peered over the top of the car, seeing a dark robed figure getting up from the mini-crater in the asphalt that was only several feet from the car he was behind. Above Raven—he had no doubt that it was her—floated Ember, smirking in gleeful triumph. Her fiery hair flamed—what else would it do?—and there wasn't a single scratch on her, although Danny knew that they had most likely healed.
Suddenly, the car he was hiding behind turned pitch black and rose up, seeming possessed by some supernatural force. Danny jumped back in alarm, only then seeing what Raven was doing. Her right hand was black as well; with a sudden movement, the car was flung forward straight towards the floating rock star.
Realizing that he was straight in the open, Danny turned invisible before anyone could notice his presence. The car that had previously been his refuge seemed to hit Ember but Danny fully expected it to sail through the ghost as Ember had already turned intangible. To his extreme surprise, however, the black car didn't do that at all.
"Oomph!" Even in her intangible state, the car had hit Ember directly, shocking both of the ghosts present.
'Note to self: Raven is a real threat when it comes to fighting,' Danny told himself. He watched apprehensively as Ember phased through the now red car, scratched up and fuming. 'Maybe she can deal with Ember after all.'
He started to doubt that when he heard the venom in Ember's next statement. "You're going to pay for that, dipstick!"
"Try it!"
He saw the same black energy cover a blue Expedition with Raven's challenge. 'She said exactly what I would've said. Maybe she can…'—Ember blasted Raven with a loud cacophony of noise and the car dropped to the asphalt like a stone—'…or maybe not.'
The Titan fell to her knees, her hands covering her ears as she tried to soothe the probable headache Ember's "music" had most likely given her. Danny could completely relate, having had the same headache himself multiple times after Ember had developed that attack.
"Gotcha! Maybe next time you won't be so confident!" Ember was wearing that grin that Danny absolutely hated. Good God…couldn't ghosts do anything other than constantly gloat over whoever they managed to strike down for the moment? Even Vlad—a half-ghost—loved gloating!
'If Raven doesn't get up in the next five seconds, I'm going to take care of her myself,' he decided firmly.
That half-hope was soon crushed when a large green gorilla suddenly flew out of nowhere and landed on Raven, enveloping her in a huge hug. Danny's eyebrows flew up in surprise.
"Beast Boy!" Raven wasn't very happy about it. "Let go!"
'All right. Time to get going. Raven's not going to be able to get out of Beast Boy's hug easily, I think.' Still invisible, Danny's transformation rings flew over his body, transforming him into his ghostly persona. He winced as his new power immediately made itself known, complaining about having been locked up for so long. He hoped no one had noticed the green electricity sneaking up on a fire hydrant and causing it to turn into a mutated ghostly version of one.
Just as he was flying up behind Ember invisibly, he heard her taunt Raven one last time. "Love troubles? You should go in for couple counseling. I've heard it does wonders!"
Danny decided that this would be an excellent time to make his entrance before Ember decided to further pound the two Titans below. And that would be with a quip: "And what would you know about healthy relationships, Ember? The last time I checked your boyfriend was a tiny ghost in a robot suit!"
"You!" Ember had obviously not expected to see him there. Not surprising considering as how they were probably not even in the same world.
"Me," was all Danny said. There wasn't much he could say to that anyway. "Nice to see you haven't forgotten me. Although, I am sad to hear that you've already given out that awful nickname to some other people. Seriously, are you still sticking with 'dipstick'?"
He half noticed the other Titans meeting up with Raven and Beast Boy. Starfire was flying on the ghosts' level, looking torn between them and her friends.
Ember soon grabbed his attention. "You're going down!"
"I'd like to see you try!" Danny retorted, smiling fiercely. He could feel power coursing through his veins, tingling under his skin and nearly making him shiver. It promised him that this fight would be easy, ridiculously easy if only he would—no! Danny's eyes hardened and he snapped back to real time, ignoring the ecto-electricity still whispering to him, if ghost powers could even whisper.
He'd snapped out of it on time, raising a shield to block the pink fist Ember blast at him. His brow furrowed when he saw the edges of it crackling a bit, as if electricity was imbued in it. He didn't have any time to deal with it, however, as Ember engaged his attention once more, trying to hit him with a cacophony of noise.
Danny dodged it by teleporting right behind Ember. He shot a ghost ray at her but it was blocked by Ember's guitar, which by chance had happened to swing around at the exact time he'd fired. Normally this wouldn't have caused a problem. But then, normally he wouldn't have had other people in the air with him that he didn't want to bring harm to. His ghost ray hadn't been absorbed by Ember's guitar: it had been deflected and was shot back at him.
His reflexes enabled him to dodge but Starfire wasn't so lucky. Danny saw in slow-motion the ghost ray head straight towards her; she floated there, motionless in shock or surprise—he wasn't sure which. It didn't matter.
He shouted at her: "Get out of the way!"
Danny's voice snapped her out of any stupor she might've been in and she barely managed to dodge, the ecto-beam clipping her hair. A split-second later and Danny had teleported right by Ember and grabbed her guitar, attempting to wrestle it away from her by sheer force. It was just too bad that all ghosts shared the same super strength because otherwise it would have been over seconds later.
A quick glance over Ember's shoulder showed that Starfire was still floating in the air. She had to get out of there. Despite the fact that he was very nearly out of breath, Danny spared some to try and warn her. "Starfire, right?" The small distraction nearly cost him the guitar when Ember twisted to one side. With a grunt, he managed to keep it in his hands and he continued talking. "I know that you can fight but I'd rather that you—ugh—"—Ember had kicked him in the side—"get down to the ground!"
Much to his relief, she only considered his words for a moment before landing and watching from the ground. Free from any further distractions, Danny raised his left leg and kicked Ember in the side. The sudden pain made her gasp and she loosened her grip on her instrument for a second, enough time for Danny to wrench it away and chuck it into the distance.
He had no time to celebrate over this small victory as Ember tried to punch him in the face. His training kicked in and he blocked it. A strange sense of déjà vu hit him then as he remembered what had happened with Technus. 'Blast it!' The electricity that had been running under his skin all this time suddenly spiked, making him wince in pain. At the same time, his new power decided to make an unwelcome appearance by zapping Ember.
Danny yanked his hand away as if he had been burned. But seeing as how he was the only thing keeping her in the air, Ember plummeted to the ground like a stone. "Aargh!"
If he hadn't been so shocked, he might've found it amusing that her normally fiery hair was sticking out in all directions and that her eye was twitching as she snarled at him. "What did you do to me? I can't feel my powers anymore!"
What should he tell her? That his power was out of control? That he had short-circuited her ghost powers for the time being? Or should he just play it cool?
'Play it cool,' Danny decided. 'That's how I normally act, isn't it?' It was getting harder to remember how he had acted before the whole Phantom incident, which had completely thrown his world off its axis. The one thing he couldn't remedy was his voice, which was coming out like a robot. "I did what I had to do. Now maybe you'll cooperate." He still had some questions to ask her after all.
"What makes you think I will?"
Quietly and decisively, Danny grabbed the Fenton Thermos and sucked her in, ignoring the shriek of fury she gave out. Capping the thermos, he glanced over at the Titans without moving his head, wondering what he should do about them. They hadn't attacked him yet, which he figured was a point for them. Unfortunately, he couldn't do anything as he didn't know them well enough to decide anything. It would have to be them who made the first move.
He could hear them confer but he didn't pay attention to anything they were talking about. He was only interested in the end result. Finally, he saw Robin sigh heavily and say something. With that, the other Titans relaxed, even if it was only minutely.
To make it easier, Danny landed on the asphalt, hooking the thermos back on his belt. Just as he did so, Robin opened his mouth to say something. It looked like this would go peacefully.
Then: 'Crud. I forgot about Mr. Robinson.'
Thanks to Marie Ravenclaw, Waterdog, musiclover9419, Copa-Phantom, Piece of Toast, Dragon260, Shiva the Sarcastic, dgirl101, DGirl101, stick fight3, starr1095, NitPicker Nerd beginer, x-whitemagic58-X, Ryoko the demon fox, SpartanCommander, AyaseFanGirl, FantomoDrako, Arcy911913, dpfic, lokoforsonic9559, and Ndasuunye for reviewing that last chapter! Sorry if I haven't replied to any reviews yet but I've been busy. I'll get started on that soon.
dgirl101: I think you reviewed twice if I'm not mistaken. Much thanks for that. :) I'm glad you're enjoying it so much.
NitPicker Nerd beginer: Like you said, Raven got those books because of a lack of information. She'll be reading them and updating her knowledge on spirits and ghosts. Thanks for pointing out your opinion on ghosts and spirits. I'll have to take your word for all the information that's out there. My head would probably start spinning. XD