If Danny genuinely thought they'd get any work done, he was kidding himself.
Oh, sure, they'd pretended they would, to start with. Pulled out the book, run through what they'd already gotten, cursed the name of Lancer, yea, unto seven generations (Rosie's curse sounding weirdly authentic to Danny, but that just made it funnier). Putting music on to relax was a further proof against getting any work done.
Now here they were, lying on the carpet in the living room, nodding their heads gently to some Guns N' Roses, any attempt at Frankenstein entirely forgotten.
"Yeah, I think I gotta give it to Appetite for Destruction," Rosie said, shrugging the shoulder she had pressed against his.
"You mainstream shill," Danny replied, not bothering to open his eyes.
"Don't start channeling Morticia, Space Cadet. I swear, that much contrarianism has to be bad for you."
"Ah yes, I see the pot is once again calling the kettle black," Danny grinned, only to feel a pillow from the nearby couch whack him in the stomach. His eyes were greeted by the frankly glorious sight of a faux-outraged Rosie, with pillow raised like an axe prepared to strike, the light behind her making her hair look…
Danny gulped. Yeah, taking it slow with her was going to get harder, wasn't it? Baby steps, Fenton, baby steps. Find out if she's going to start ghost hunting before you start dating her this time.
He held his hands up in surrender. "I give, I give!" he laughed. "Fine, it probably is their best, but I still prefer Chinese Democracy."
"Now that's just straight up blasphemy," Rosie scoffed, shoving the pillow under her head instead.
"Call it what you want," Danny said, then paused before saying more carefully, "I don't think I really care what I'm supposed to like. I mean, everyone's supposed to like Paulina, but I think I prefer someone… different."
Rosie turned to him with a quizzical expression, before grinning at him. "That's the stuff, Space Cadet. Like what you like and screw the rest!"
Yeah, he was not cut out for subtle, Danny decided. He hauled himself to his feet regardless and wandered over to the stack of physical albums he had laid out for Rosie's arrival – yeah, digital was more convenient, but physical media was superior and he would die on this hill.
"Alright, what next… A Sound of Thunder, no, Alice Cooper, no… Oh! This'll be good. You get some good stuff and an Amity Park history lesson all in one!"
"… How do you mean?" Rosie's quizzical voice from behind him.
"You'll see," Danny said, pulling a CD with a blue flame on the front, entirely ignorant to Rosie's flabbergasted shock as she caught sight of it. "Don't tell Sam I've still got this, please, she would kill me and then smash it. But, you know, separating the art from the artist, I think it's really good!"
Rosie stared at him with gaping mouth before her jaw snapped shut and she gave him the most dazzling, breathtaking smile he'd ever seen from her before, complete, undisguised joy dominating her face.
"Tell me more!" She cried, dragging him back down to the floor, and pressing in closer than she had before.
Danny had the sense he'd done something right, but for the life of him he had no idea what it was, as he gave a quick history of Ember McLain and her music to Rosie.
"Ooooh, this one!" Rosie said, picking up a tome from one of the shelves. "Maintenance manual!"
Sam looked over at the book her new… friend? Yeah. Friend, she supposed. The book her new friend had picked up. "A Beginners Guide to Homunculi? Are you trying to tell me you've got a homunculus back home?"
"Pft. Nah, not at home," Rosie dismissed, grinning. "I'mma give this one to Paulina. Clearly her baboon homunculus is malfunctioning."
Sam couldn't help herself. She laughed.
It probably shouldn't have been a surprise to her that Rosie actually liked the occult bookstore. The girl was as off-beat as Sam herself was, not even slightly caring what anyone else thought of her. Except them, for some reason. She'd try to play it off, and act like she wasn't really all that interested. If it hadn't been for Danny asking Sam to push just a little, Sam wouldn't think she'd have even noticed. But, whenever Danny put out the offer to Rosie to try and include her, there was always a moment of shock at being included, then joy, before it immediately was squashed by a veil of indifference that was slowly growing thinner and thinner. She did care what Sam, Tucker and Danny thought of her, for all she tried to pretend otherwise. Sam was… unused to that.
Though she understood it.
"I'm pretty sure that one's too far gone. Put it down, start again," Sam replied, before something caught her eye. "Oh! The new edition of Medicinal Herbs! Dibs."
"All yours, Morticia," Rosie grinned. "Say, I was wondering…"
"Hm?" Sam hummed, but she knew where this was going. Everyone asked eventually.
"How accurate do you think most of this is?"
… Huh. Same ballpark as the usual question, 'do you think this is real', but with a crucial distinction. Interesting.
"Depends on what you mean by accurate, I suppose," Sam shrugged. "Does it work? Most of the more serious stuff in here on witchcraft and spells claims you'll know if it works, but it won't be 'chuck fireballs' at people kinda stuff."
"Why not?"
"… I guess that doesn't work? I don't know. Before the ghosts I'd have said most of the stuff here was more like… placebo effect, kinda? Like, I'd wish it were real, but it was mostly about discovering who you are and things about yourself that you didn't know. Just with a lot of candles, elaborate diagrams and chanting."
"So what changed?"
"Well, for a start, a genie ghost runs around periodically granting wishes," Sam deadpanned and Rosie laughed. "Hard not to look at that as magic."
"OK, yeah, but couldn't that be… y'know, ghost mojo?"
Sam hesitated for a moment, wondering if this was giving too much away. She was aware, unlike Danny and seemingly Tucker, that the more Rosie hung out with them, the more likely she was to find out Danny's problem of being occasionally and selectively dead. But, unlike a lot of other people who'd tried to insert themselves into their group, she actually liked Rosie.
That made watching Danny and Rosie… harder than it had been with Valerie. And harder to know what to do. At least she seemed as dense as he was, so far.
"There was a circus that came through, a while back," Sam explained, slowly. "Circus Gothica, ever heard of it?"
"… Rings a bell," Rosie replied darkly, giving her undivided attention to Sam now.
"Ah. Robbed you too, huh?"
"Something like that. Couple of guys I know got caught by them."
"Well, the guy in charge, the ringmaster, called himself Freakshow, he had this… artifact. A staff. Real world metal, quartz crystal treated with something weird on top."
"And?"
"… And it could control ghosts," Sam said quietly, not wanting the other customers to hear her. "Freakshow was a human, nothing ghostly about him at all, but he had this thing that I can't describe as anything other than magic. So now?"
Sam looked at the books she'd picked up and quashed the desperation talking or even thinking about this brought up.
"Now I'm trying to find something that'll help," she whispered, almost to herself.
Help the town, help the people, help stop the ghosts.
Help Danny, most of all. Even if he still hadn't noticed her like she wanted him to.
A hand dropped on her shoulder and Sam looked up to see Rosie looking concerned. Sort of. The expression seemed really unusual on her, like she wasn't used to being concerned about someone else and hadn't had practice making the muscles for it work.
"You'll figure something out," Rosie said, uncertainly. "I mean, if vibes count for anything, you're already halfway to a witch."
Sam smiled at that, involuntarily. "Good. I worked hard at it, you know."
She shook herself and started walking. "Come on, lets get these and then we can get to the obscure local talent albums at the goth coffee place."
Rosie whooped, drawing the ire of the other patrons and rushed to the counter to deposit her bundle of books.
Sam's smile faded as she watched her. Telling a joke to defuse a tense situation was the kind of thing Danny would do.
Sam didn't think finding another similarity between the two was very reassuring, just then.
"All right, hand me the graphics card and I think we're about done!" Tucker said, his voice muffled by his head being lost in a maze of wires and computer components.
"… Which one's that one again?" Ember asked, looking toward a frankly ridiculous amount of technical doodads arrayed on one of her tables. There was a slight chance that she may have severely overordered when she asked Tucker to build her a PC. Apparently the other three played games together pretty regularly, and she wanted to see what was so cool about them.
"Should still be in the box!"
Ember located the right box by luck more than any kind of knowledge of what she was doing. Tucker tinkered for a brief moment, before crying out in triumph and emerging. He turned to the rockstar ghost in disguise with glee and a small amount of smug pride.
"Well, she's your baby – turn her on!"
"You seem excited," Ember said with dry humour, nevertheless sitting down at her new desk with a ridiculously priced monitor in front of her.
"This is a big moment!" Tucker cried. "Your first proper computer, built by someone who knows what they're doing! I'm hoping it earns me a nickname."
Ember blinked. "What?"
"Come on, Danny's got a nickname, so does Sam. I gotta get one too!" He threw his arms out as he was talking, making all sorts of the over the top exaggerated movements. You'd be forgiven for thinking he was joking. But... it didn't quite disguise the hurt.
"I... didn't think it'd matter that much to you, to be honest," Ember confessed.
Now that she thought about it, it was a little weird he didn't have one yet. Sure, she and him didn't have all that much in common, so they'd hung out individually less. Ember didn't like to admit it, but she was useless with tech and not really interested in dating, or at least not dating someone like Tucker. But, the nerd was fun enough to spend time with too. Memes were new and frankly baffling, and she was kinda interested by this thing he called anime.
"Yeah, I… sometimes feel like I fall behind Danny and Sam for a lot of people, you know?" Tucker confessed. Ember didn't think the way he stared hard at the computer had anything to do with the way he loved tech at the moment. He rubbed the back of his head as his voice got quieter, "Tech geek in the background. So like... getting a nickname…"
"I can get that," Ember muttered. Her whole damn life was forever being behind someone, in the background, unnoticed. Well, OK, she wasn't gonna let him languish there if she could help it. "I'll see what I can cook up, but 'till then…"
She hit the button, and they both waited a tense moment before the monitor flashed to life and begin displaying logos. Tucker cheered and Ember indulged him in the high five he requested with a grin.
"The master at work! I promise you, this baby'll run anything you want it to, and all of it on the highest settings!" He enthused, pointing at what looked to Ember like random icons as the PC demanded she finish setting up some stuff. "Gotta say, I'm impressed how much you were able to throw at this. Never had such beautiful, beautiful components to work with. How'd you talk your folks into paying for it all?"
Ember had long since braced herself for this kind of question, so had an easy enough answer ready. "Easy enough when you don't ask 'em. They aren't exactly around anymore."
Tucker winced in sympathy. "Oh. Oof. Sorry, didn't know. So who are you…?"
Ember shrugged and faked some tension in her shoulders. "No one. Place is all mine, thanks to an emancipation order."
"I… Whoa," Tucker said, looking at her with a tinge of pity. Ember let the silence stretch out a bit, let it get awkward before Tucker coughed. "Uh. Anyway. You're definitely gonna want to get this game…"
Ember grinned. Yup, backstory worked like she thought it would. Too loaded a topic to talk about on the spot, so she didn't have to answer too many questions at once and probably contradict herself. Though if she just said she didn't wanna talk about it, the whole group had respected that so far. She shouldn't keep being surprised at respected boundaries, and yet.
Then she noticed the game Tucker was trying to get her to buy, and her eyes lit up.
"No way! We get to crew a pirate ship?!"
"Straight up!" Tucker grinned. "Me, Sam and Danny have been playing it for about a year now, but we've never gotten a fourth person so we could sail in the biggest ship! We need a new cannoneer, just saying."
Ember turned to him, and nodded her appreciation. "You know what? Great idea, Q."
"Nickname! I'll take it!"
Vlad Masters breathed deeply, steadying himself. This was the most volatile stage of the mixture, and it would not do to start the whole thing over again. Not to mention the more immediate consequences should he make a mistake.
So he would simply have to stick with the habit of a lifetime, and make no mistakes.
He held up a hand that sizzled with pink ectoplasm and muttered under his breath. An outside, and more importantly knowledgeable, observer would note that what he was saying didn't correspond to any known language on Earth, living or dead. And yet somehow it resembled all of them. It had taken Vlad quite some time to not get a headache every time he spoke what was only referred to in Infinite Realms grimoires as Ancient, and by various other names in the magical traditions of Earth.
As he chanted, runes inscribed on the otherwise normal metal lab table lit up in the same colour as Vlad's hand, one by one, and began to glow and pulse in time with his utterances, a buzzing feeling of electricity filling the atmosphere.
Until, at last, he was done. He lowered his hand, the runes faded, and the container at the centre of the runic circle glowed briefly before also fading to nothing.
Now. Time for the scientific method.
Vlad carefully lifted the bottle, which had contained a neutral gel up until this point, and reached for a cotton swab. A quick dip, a swift application to a nearby chunk of meat (that Vlad had, in a moment that he admitted might be called petty, stuck a picture of Jack's face to), and it was inserted into his special containment unit. An ecto-sealed chamber populated by the mindless entities of the Ghost Zone, almost formless, vaguely shaped like malevolent monsters, all claws and teeth. They were the greater proportion of that dimension, spirits who were unable to retain their identity, or perhaps never had one to begin with. Vlad was unclear, and truly didn't much care.
What he was clear on, however, was that these would be the types of entities that would swarm around the kind of breech he would create with the aid of Ms. McLain. So, though the book he'd studied had assured him it would drive these creatures into a frenzy, he had to see for himself.
His smile as the creatures tore the piece of meat bearing his enemies face to shreds was wide, and showed more teeth than perhaps was necessary.
"Plasmius."
Vlad did not allow his surprise to show. He hadn't heard Skulker come in. Watching the ectoplasmic beasts rip Jack's face apart had been… compelling, and he had lost himself in some fantasies. Not for the first time, he wished both he and Daniel had identical power sets – he didn't have anything like the early warning system his potential protégé had, and on more than one occasion it would have been useful.
"Skulker," Vlad replied, not turning from his tank. "The boy is… meddling again."
"You shock me," came the deadpan echo. "The whelp, pushing his nose where it doesn't belong? How could this have happened?"
"Spare me the sarcasm, it's unbecoming," Vlad sneered. "I need you to push things up a little. A quick assault, something to remind him his life is in danger at all times. If you can endanger or hurt the new girl he's taken to, all the better."
He heard the slight mechanical scraping as Skulker raised an eyebrow. "The goth girl? She hasn't done anything I've seen."
"Not her, you oaf, the other one. Probably wearing some cliché punk adornments."
"The fierce one? What does she have to do with this?"
"Do you need to know?"
"… I suppose I don't."
"Good. Payment is on the desk," Vlad said, waving his hand at a crate further away. "Don't let me detain you."
Yes, perhaps this would be the thing to make the McLain girl fall in line. He hadn't bothered since his last attempt to corral her, she was obviously not going to listen to straight-forward direction. A second brush with mortality tended to do wonders for ones motivation, Vlad had experienced.
During it all, Vlad's eyes never left the shredded picture.
"Alright, you made it!" Phantom cheered at Ember's arrival, and she tried her best not to smile at that. Someone being pleased she was there was… new, and she liked it.
"Well, didn't have anything else to do," Ember shrugged, sticking her hands in her pockets, and looking up at the Amity Park multiplex. "And who's gonna say no to some Japanese giant monster action?"
"That's the spirit!" Tucker replied, adjusting his glasses. "Glad to see some people appreciate the genre from the originators."
"Oh, shut up, Tucker," Sam rolled her eyes before looking at Ember. "Sorry. Ongoing thing with us. Tucker here's a weird nerd purist, 'only the ones from Japan count'. Me, I want my giant monsters to mean something, and Godzilla being a nature titan in the American films works better for me."
"I just like watching kaiju show up!" Phantom piped up, and Ember immediately pointed in his direction.
"That. Big monsters, please."
"Well, I think this one should hit all our boxes…" Tucker said, flicking through the films information on his device. "Big monster, obviously, from Japan to celebrate the anniversary of the original Godzilla, and it says here big G himself is more a metaphor for… huh. The state of post-war Japan."
"Is that why it's called Minus One?" Phantom asked. Ember had been wondering that herself.
"Guess so," Sam shrugged, her interest clearly piqued by the description. "And this is the black and white release, so you know. Artsier."
"Film not your medium, huh, Morticia?" Ember snarked with a grin. Sam scowled that special scowl that seemed to be unique to her, the 'you are right and I hate that' scowl. It was very distinct.
"Tucker's the cinephile among us," Phantom chuckled. "Or so he says."
"Oh, are we starting on the mafia movies again, Danny? Are we gonna start? Because I will if you wanna start."
"He didn't like The Godfather", Danny said in a stage whisper to Ember. She hadn't seen the thing either, yet (and no, she hadn't added it to her list just this second because Phantom indirectly recommended it, shuddup), but nevertheless played along and glared at the geek.
"I just said it was fine!" Tucker threw his hands up. "Organised crime stuff is not my thing, alright? Now can we please go see the big monster?"
"Movies are weird..." Danny muttered.
Rosie turned toward him with a bit of a sneer already forming on her face. "You're gonna have to be a lot more fucking specific than that."
Danny rubbed the back of his head. "I just never thought I'd really resonate with the main character of a Godzilla movie... or at least, the main human character."
Rosie let out a huff through her nose. "Well, fair, but what on earth do you have in common with him?"
Danny could say something like that he knew how badly one mistake could fuck up your entire life. How it felt like you'd never move past it. That it would forever haunt you like your own personal curse as it ruins the relationships between you and the people you care about. How it felt to put on a brave face when you weren't even sure if you were alive or dead anymore.
He could.
Instead, he smiled. "Well, I know very well what it's like to pick up some random street punk who cleans up well."
Rosie barked out a laugh. "Oh? And how do you know I clean up well?"
Danny leaned against her car. "Who said I was talking about you?"
"You been stepping out on me with other punks? Space Cadet, I thought we had something special."
Danny laughed, oblivious to the increasing distress on the face of Sam. "OK, fine, you caught me, you're the only punk I have eyes for."
"And don't you forget it!" Rosie smiled, not entirely joking.
"Igottago!" Sam burst out, before turning on her heel and rushing off to the bus stop. Danny raised an eyebrow at Tucker, who apparently knew more than he did, though the slap against his own face didn't answer any of Danny's questions.
Rosie scoffed and the car unlocked. "Come on, no point standing around in the cold."
"Ummmm…" Tucker intoned, Danny and Rosie turned to look at him, and Tucker thumbed in the direction Sam ran off. "Actually, I'm gonna go with Sam." He gave a half hearted shrug and gave them a wobbly smile. "Ya know?"
Danny did not, in fact, know. He wasn't sure why Sam was so insistent on not letting anyone know how rich she actually was, or why she ran off so quickly. His place was between here and her house, so it'd shave off close to an entire half hour off her trip home. Was it because she was crying? They were all crying after the movie, a Godzilla movie of all things…
"Sure thing," Danny said, despite his pure confusion. He gave Tucker a thumbs up, and Tucker turned and ran after Sam. Immediately after, Rosie started climbing in the car.
Danny opened the door and climbed in himself. Once he closed the door, he looked over at Rosie. Her painted lips were pulled into a playful smirk and her eyes were practically glittering in mirth. "So," She began, "would you fight a nuclear bomb for your adopted street punk?"
Danny tore his eyes away from her lips to look Rosie square in the eye. He gave her a grin that he normally only felt like he had when he was Phantom and said with all the seriousness he could muster. "Absolutely, and in a heartbeat."
Rosie rolled her eyes then started the car, at first Danny thought he might have pushed it a little hard, but then a blush started forming on her face, and she kept sneaking glances at him.
Apparently she believed him.
Good, cause he didn't want to wake up Pariah again to prove he could actually do it.
Sam leaned against the bus stop, pressing her shoulder against the metal. The frame was cold enough that pressing her body against it like this was beginning to hurt. Still though, she didn't move. Because the way she was standing hid her face from the rest of the world.
"Sam!" Tucker shouted running up to her. Figures the one time she doesn't want to see anyone, Tucker remembers that his lungs were not just for screaming in the middle of gaming matches. Tucker slowed as he approached, "Sam…"
"You hate public transport…" Sam muttered.
Tucker shifted, he was probably shrugging, she didn't care to look up to confirm. "Yeah, well, I wanted to check on you…"
"I'm peachy. Thanks."
"Sam…" Tucker trailed off, obviously not sure how to comfort her. "Look, with Danny's track record, Rosie's gonna wind up working for the Guys in White or something. Then the two of you'll fall back into the 'will they or won't they' dynamic you've both been tiptoeing the last couple years. You know how clueless Danny can-"
"Tucker, it's been three years," Sam cut him off. She didn't have the energy to raise her voice, but it silenced him all the same. She shifted to actually look at Tucker. "I can only say he's clueless so many times before..."
"... Before what?"
"Before it finally sinks in that he isn't," Sam said tonelessly. "At least not to himself. He knew he liked Paulina, he knew he liked Valerie, he knows he likes Rosie, and he acts on it. He never has with me. I think... I think I need to stop holding out hope for... us."
Tucker opened his mouth and closed it several times before all the energy in him just drained out and he slumped. "I'm sorry Sam…"
"Yeah… me too."
Ember tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and her legs felt a little shaky. She was not expecting that from Phantom. Phantom had been serious about fighting for her. That was something that was so easy to say but so much harder to prove.
But Phantom did fight for people. Apparently she wasn't supposed to know that, but…
Ember still wasn't sure what his angle was. There had to be something he was getting out of playing the hero. But, that didn't change the fact that unlike every other ghost, every other being, when Pariah showed up he didn't run away.
He ran towards Pariah and while she didn't know exactly what happened …
Fact was Phantom was still around and Pariah wasn't.
Ember thought about saying something, asking, just addressing that in some way, even if only to make a joke out of it to get rid of this tension in her chest, when Phantom yelled, "Floor it!"
Ember jumped, but did what he said, more an accident than anything else. The car lurched and Phantom grabbed the handle of the door, but also grabbed her arm. That was all she was able to process before there was an explosion.
Her entire world went white as the back of her car flipped over. Her eyes snapped open as a chill that she'd never forget washed over her. She looked down to see if she was gonna die again, but there was nothing there.
In fact, there wasn't even a seat belt.
Phantom pulled on her, dragging her along the roof of her car. "Come on, we gotta get out." He said firmly, but calmly. As if he pulled people out of crashed cars all the time. Ember felt her heart hammering in her chest as Phantom pulled her out of the car and brought her to her feet.
Ember patted herself down, trying to figure out why she literally felt death wash over her. "Am I…?"
"You're alright." Phantom said, his eyes looking over her. "But come on, we gotta get out of-"
Phantom cut off suddenly and dove at Ember, tackling her to the ground. The wind was knocked out of her, but she got see and feel the heat this time as a rocket crashed into her brand-fucking-new car.
Ember jumped to her feet and turned toward the bastard who shot at them. "You mechanical fuck! Do you have any idea how much that car cost?"
Skulker stared at her floating above them in the air with his stupid mechanical wings because he was too good for floating like the rest of the ghosts. There was a moment of silence and Ember thought that maybe Skulker didn't hear her.
"Woman," Skulker began slowly, "I just shot at you with a missile. And you care more about the car?"
"That was custom!"
Phantom grabbed Ember and started pushing her toward the nearest ally. "Okay, we get it, that was awfully rude. Now run!"
"Why are we running?" Ember shouted.
"You're running, he's after me!" Phantom shouted.
While Ember really wanted to take a piece out of Skulker's mechanical hide. She really didn't want to risk her life in a fight. So she had been more than willing to let Phantom be the one to beat the crap out of him.
She had been, up until taking five steps away from Phantom caused Skulker to shoot. Not at Phantom, but at her.
Ember's eyes widened as she looked at the smoking dirt in front of her. Phantom had pulled her back at the last minute. She whirled around to look at Skulker who was emoting a smirk in his stupid armor. "Now, now, can't have the bait running away."
Ember felt a fire well up in her chest. A fire she was very familiar with. When she started losing herself to the same old, same old in the Ghost Zone, this fire was what kept her from losing herself to mundanity and kept her sense of self intact.
Pure unadulterated rage at those who looked down at her.
Phantom pushed her behind him, her smaller body completely covered in the shadow cast by him. "Skulker…" Phantom uttered, and Ember shivered at the threat in that single word. It wasn't just her though she saw Skulker float back a foot and refocus on him. Phantom wasn't just upset.
He was pissed.
Phantom shifted slightly, making himself a smaller target while also still covering 'Roise' with his body. "Skulker," Phantom repeated, with a little less threat in his voice this time. "You have beef with me, but I swear to every ancient in the Ghost Zone if you hurt her, you can forget about existence."
Ember gulped, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. She wasn't sure if that was Phantom just grasping for a threat or something he actually intended. That wasn't something that was thrown about lightly, that was every sapient ghost's fear. To be reduced down to nothing. Where even the things that kept them going weren't important anymore.
Phantom skipped past all the typical threats and went right for the core.
Skulker, possibly instinctively, put some distance between him and Phantom. He raised his arms up and weapons popped out of his arms. "Well, that's for you to decide isn't it?" There was tremor in his voice that wasn't there a moment ago. "Think you can protect her and fight me at the same time?"
Phantom immediately yanked Ember to the side, throwing the two of them to the ground. Ember scrambled to her feet as Phantom grabbed what had once been a door to her car and was now instead a chunk of half melted metal, and whipped it at Skulker.
"You gotta run," Phantom said clearly, as if he weren't winded like her from dodging weaponry and hurling car doors what the fuck. "I don't know what his issue is, but he's gonna be trying to pin us down together." Ember opened her mouth to try and say something but Phantom continued. "I"m gonna jump out into the open. He'll love to take the shot at me. But once he does, you gotta put some distance between us. If you can get away, text Tucker, or Sam. They'll know who else to message for help." Phantom pulled the two of them down to the ground as Skulker shot more blasts into Ember's smoking car. "We got a code for this, tell them 'toast was jammed'. That'll explain everything."
Ember blinked. "How the fu-" Phantom jumped and covered her body with his. A flash of heat washed over them and Phantom grunted. A moment later, he had jumped off her. "Wha-?"
Ember was cut off as Phantom pulled a chunk of metal out from his side. "Run!" He shouted, before whipping the shrapnel at Skulker. His blood spun off it like the world's most metal sprinkler.
And he started running out into the open.
Like he said he would.
Ember turned and started running. Skulker turned to fire at her, she could hear his weapons powering up, but before the shot could actually connect there was a yell and the sound of crashing metal.
Ember turned to see Phantom had once again used the remains of her car as a thrown weapon against Skulker. She threw herself behind some poor schmuck's car as Skulker decided to ignore Phantom and instead shoot at her, blasting holes into the side of the car.
Ember only had twenty feet between here and the alley. She should have been able to make it easily.
Unfortunately, Skulker seemed to be prioritizing her over Phantom. Even if it meant getting a chunk of concrete to the face, he'd still shoot to pen her in rather than fully focus on Phantom.
Ember dove behind someone else's car as Skulker fired off another couple shots at her. The shots hit the car and rocked it. Ember covered her ears as the blasts triggered the car alarm. A follow up blast silenced it.
"Hope Ghost attacks are covered by their insurance…" Ember muttered as she peaked around the bumper of the car. She frowned as she watched Phantom duck under another beam of ectoplasm. For some reason, he wasn't transforming. He was fighting like he was some defenseless human.
Crash!
"Ow! Stop throwing things!" Skulker shouted.
"Stop being a bitch!"
Well, almost a defenseless human. Among other things, he had to be using some sort of ghostly power in order to throw the remains of her car doors at Skulker. Still though, he was struggling trying to fight Skulker while staying on the ground. Ember opened her mouth to tell him to stop playing around, but then she stopped.
No one knew Phantom was Danny, and for some reason, he was keeping it that way.
He wasn't transforming because she was there.
Well, that was easily solved, she just had to get the hell out of here, which she wanted to do anyways. Ember turned and looked at a nearby ally. It was quite some distance away, sure it was only a dozen feet or so, but she wasn't able to move an inch without Skulker shooting at her.
But Ember had the ability to teleport.
She hadn't tried to use anything ghostly since she'd been in this body. Hadn't wanted to. The power felt great, but it felt… dead. There wasn't really a better way to describe it. It was a rush of strength, of power, of energy, but it wasn't alive.
Ember let out a breath and mentally reached deep down into herself to pull on her ghost powers. It was easy enough to do, while she was alive now (or was in a body that made her seem alive) the feeling of her soul was always present. Maybe it was before she died, she just didn't recognize the feeling of it before. Regardless, she tugged on that power and-
Agony. Purple tinted agony.
Someone was screaming, but Ember couldn't tell who it was because the white hot pain that had preceded the numbness of death flashed through her body. It felt like someone was taking fishhooks and tearing her apart with them. Her throat started to burn and she realized that the one screaming was her.
But that was good. Pain meant she was alive. When she had died, she no longer felt pain. Not really. Not like this.
This was her dying again.
Suddenly the pain vanished, if it weren't for the fact that the asphalt was grinding into her face she would have thought she died again with how quick the pain vanished. She clenched her teeth and forced herself to sit up. She looked at her chest (which felt like it had a hole in it) but saw no blood or anything.
She then turned around, because the sound of fighting had stopped. Phantom was standing on the ground, his eyes wide in horror and his mouth agape. Ember checked over herself, but other than the ache in her chest (where she felt her soul) she seemed fine.
Could… Could she not use her powers in this body? At all?
Slowly Phantom's face changed; his eyes went from comically wide and blue to narrowed and glowing green, and his open mouth closed and turned into a nasty snarl. He whirled on Skulker who immediately flew back several feet.
Skulker looked between the two of them, he was as confused as Ember was as to what had just happened. Unlike Ember, however, he was now being directly threatened by an absolutely pissed Phantom.
Phantom took one step in Skulker's direction, and Skulker just turned tail and ran. Turning invisible just a few seconds later. Phantom straightened up and she could see his shoulders rise and fall as he sighed. He turned and walked over to Ember and held out his hand. "You alright?"
Ember took his hand and let him pull her up. She once again prodded the center of her chest. (And she swore she could feel her putting pressure on her soul). "I… think so?"
Phantom bit his lip and then uttered quietly. "I thought you were dying…" He straightened up again and Ember couldn't help but mirror him. "Come on, let's get outta here before my parents or the Guys in White show up."
Ember blinked and looked around her. The area around her looked like a bomb had gone off, or more accurately, been hit by a dozen rockets. Her car was still flipped over in the middle of the road, there was a hole in the ground that was rapidly filling up from the water spraying out from a broken fire hydrant, and all this was lit up from the sparks flying off several broken street lights.
"That's it? This is all over and we just go back home?"
Phantom shrugged. The smile on his face was weak, like he was forcing himself to do so, and Ember could see his shoulders slowly falling as the adrenaline left his system. "Welcome to Amity Park. First time?"
Phantom hesitated, before putting a hand on her shoulder. "What happened?" He asked softly.
"I… I don't know," Ember replied, just as soft and twice as confused.
She really, really didn't.
She'd need to look into this.
Hazama: So... when we started this fic we were originally thinking this would be 7 or 8 chapters. It uh... it definitely isn't gonna be 7 or 8 chapters. When we started this chapter Kilaknux said, "Let's do a quick montage chapter so we show what's happening over several weeks" and I said, "Great. We can do that! I can write some short sections." ... I wrote the longest part of this. Not only that, but I wound up going in and adding some short little tibits to some of the other sections, which pushed this over to be our longest chapter yet.
I swear I'm trying
Oh, I didn't write this part, but the part where Danny says physical media is better than digital is 100% true and accurate. I once was on a road trip and I was basically 4 hours out from any city and had no cell service. My streaming app, (which had let me download playlists) lost connection and decided to sign me out and delete the downloaded songs off my phone. Since then, I've been actually buying albums just in case that happens again.
Kilaknux: Yup. You'd really think I'd stop underestimating how long anything I'm involved in is going to be. I demand to organically justify everything that happens to the characters, how have I yet to realise this lengthens things.
That said, I think we did pretty good here! The first half is mostly me with, like Haz, some edits to later sections - pre-movie was me for instance. I wanted to get Ember one on one with the trio and see what their individual relationships are like. Ironically Danny's ended up being the shortest, but hey, if you've got an idea you can do in brief, go for it. And of course Vlad remains too easy for me to write for me to be entirely comfortable with. Seriously, it weirds me out how easily that flows for me.
The Sam and Tucker bit was also mine, although the context surrounding it has changed a LOT. It's also another little sad bit I'm proud of. As anyone who reads Fire and Ice (I'm working on it I swear) knows, I don't like separating Danny and Sam by making Sam out to be worse than she is, so this seemed as good a way as any to do it.
In case it wasn't especially clear, by the way, the game Tucker is recommending is Sea of Thieves, and the film is Godzilla Minus One. Both in my estimation are superb!