Breathe.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or other relating characters.

Chapter Two: Re-Learning

Ember sat in the skull-shaped house's entrance, watching Skulker spar with Danny.

It turned out it wasn't just personal memories that Danny had lost; he had also forgotten how to fight. He could launch the basic ecto-blasts from his hands and go intangible, but he couldn't do anything special. No ice powers, no duplicates, and no ghostly wail. Even his hand-to-hand combat needed some serious brushing up on.

The kid would still panic when his legs became a spectral tail and was stumbling around like a middle-schooler lost in a fight.

What Ember found most fascinating was the fact that Danny could not remember he was half human. She and Skulker had no intention of telling him, and the boy seemed content with being a ghost. He didn't even seem to know of the human world, or at least if he did, he never said anything about it.

Danny clumsily ducked out of the way when a net came flying at him.

"Come on, whelp. What happens if someone attacks you in real life? You can't always rely on your dumb luck." Skulker reeled the net back into the storage compartment. He wanted to teach the boy how to really fight! Even when he had all his powers, the boy's victories were still mostly in part to his never ending luck.

"I'm trying!" Danny took deep breaths. They had been practicing for hours now and he was exhausted. First they trained with physical strength, then throwing punches, then kicking, and now dodging attacks. He just wanted to lie down for a while.

"Alright, we'll call it a day." Skulker said. No point in pushing the boy just yet. Once they got into the more ghost-related attacks he wouldn't be so easy on him.

Danny threw himself on the ground, happy to be off of his legs. How did he end up as Skulker's apprentice anyways? It doesn't matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't remember. Even though, he had a feeling weren't lying to him. He could very vaguely remember Skulker and Ember; he knew it had something to do with fighting, so being his apprentice sounded about right.

"Come on, kid." Ember stood over the collapsed Danny. "Let's get you inside." She held out a hand to him.

"Thanks, Ember." Danny took her hand, allowing her to help him up.

Ember headed in with Danny behind her. Regardless of everything he had done to her before, she didn't really mind having him around. He was kind of sweet actually. Sometimes he would follow her around inside the house to help with various chores; it was like having a little brother who wasn't as annoying as Youngblood.

Besides, with him around, she wasn't stuck with the job of skinning the animals Skulker brought home for dinner, a most unpleasant job indeed.

Stirring, while humming a tune to herself, Ember prepared Skulker's latest catch into dinner.

Danny was with her, cutting up some vegetables in silence. He was lost in thought. This seemed familiar. He had once been in a kitchen doing the same thing with someone else who was like a sister figure to him. It was so close! Who was it? Why couldn't he remember? It was driving him crazy!

"Hey, Ember." Danny set the knife down and turned to the flame-haired ghost girl. "Do you know where I'm from?" He just had to know, it was killing him being completely clueless about himself.

Yikes, where had this come from? "No. Why do you ask?" She kept her voice even, not wanting to give away that she really knew something.

"I was just remembering doing something like this somewhere else." Maybe he was trying too hard to remember, it was just mixing up things he actually knew with things he was trying to find out.

Ember hoped the boy wasn't starting to remember everything so soon. If he did get all his memories back, he'd remember what his parents did to him; it would devastate the boy all over again.

"What about my family? Did I have any?"

"Not that I knew of."

Not that she knew of? She had never met his family? Someone had to have given birth to him, so he did have a mother and father at one point. If she didn't know of them, he must have met her without them. Had he run off on his own? He was only fourteen, how long ago could he have left? "Ember," Danny called her once again. "How long have I known you?"

"Danny, is something bothering you?" Ember asked, tactfully avoiding his question.

"Sorry, it's just, I can't piece everything together. It's like there's this huge chunk missing that I can't find." Seriously, wasn't the sky blue? When did it turn green? He remembered the sky being green sometimes, but how? The sky didn't just randomly change colors. Maybe he was losing his mind…

"Danny, look." She put her hand under his chin, making him look at her. "Don't worry about all of this, okay? I'll take care of you, so just relax. Everything will come back to you in time." Which will be never, hopefully.

"Yeah, I guess I'm just worrying too much." Danny rubbed the back of his head. Maybe it was pointless, but he still wished he could remember.

"You better get back to those vegetables; the meat is almost done cooking."

"Oh, right!" Danny picked up the knife and resumed his work.

Hey, I did say the chapters would be shorter than usual. Don't expect mile long chapters, but you can expect longer chapters for the next two.

I hope you guys are enjoying this so far.

Yeah, Ember's a little OOC. *Puts on Sunglasses* Deal with it!

Review Please!