Winds began to howl and the waves battered the shores. The weather took such rogue turn it had news crews scrambling to get coverage. Red Huntress was forced to ground herself and ride passenger on Tuckers hover Zoomer, which still had its difficulty with navigation.
"Danny are we sure this ghost related?" Tucker asked with his fingers pressed to his helmet communicator "aside from the initial alarm my scanners aren't detecting anything spooky, aside from this horror movie weather"
"Same goes for my gear Danny" Red huntress chimed in "even on the wide link net nothing is setting off any bells maybe it is just a sensor set off by the weather?"
Somewhere over the city Danny was scouting for anything or anyone who could have set off the town ghost beacons. Much like Huntress and Tucker said, he wasn't finding anything. That is until, the fire department and first responders came racing across voorhees drive. The high wind was keeping it suppressed but Danny could faintly make out smoke rising in town. "I got something" he told the others.
The church had burned and collapsed on itself and the fire was threatening to spread to the surrounding buildings. Fire fighters arrived and quickly went to work reeling out the hoses and setting up the water turrets. Tucker and Red huntress arrived first when a police officer came up to them "Ms. Huntress, this isn't ghost related no need for the town ghost exterminator" he said until realising tucker was with her "Mayor Foley, as I told Ms. Huntress this isn't ghost related so there's no need for team Phantom either" just as he finished a blue flash lit up the grounds with a long ice beam extinguishing the flames in a burst of steam. "Or if Phantom wanted to lend a hand I suppose" the police officer said.
Danny landed by the ruined and charred church to see if anybody was hurt when the fire chief approached him with an outstretched hand "thanks Danny, you arrived just in time"
"what happened here?" Danny asked.
"now that you've dealt with the flames we can begin investigating" the chief replied "we're a little under staffed here, we had to divert man power to camp crystal to coordinate a rescue, this storm raised a ruckus and left some campers stranded out in the middle of crystal lake with capsized canoes"
Danny scanned the area from sky to ground but nothing seemed out of the ordinary "Something about this just seems to…perfect" Danny said in a hush voice "a storm of this magnitude comes out of nowhere without warning, random building fire and scattered first responders I don't know maybe I'm just over thinking things just a little"
"Even in Amity, not everything is ghost related" the chief replied "Again thanks for the assistance"
Danny turned to Tucker and Huntress who both shrugged their shoulders "We could be wrong on this one dude, nothing indicates ghost" tucker said. His P.D.A screen started flashing random numbers "Danny it's the library, it's Ember"
"Ember? Why now" Danny groaned. Ember didn't fit, she was a rebellious rocker destruction wasn't her M.O. Not to mention after the disasteriod she cooled her jets on the world domination attempts and after Cujo trampled her realm and Danny got him out she was less hostile towards him in general. "I'll deal with Ember…why is she at the library ?"
"Danny what about us?" Huntress called after him. Not out of jealousy, but more concern about Danny going alone against a mind controlling ghost. "Danny?"
"this won't take long, see if you guys can find something about what…"
Danny was interrupted by Tuckers P.D.A blaring. "The wishing fountain and Krugers calzone" Tucker shouted.
"Desiree and lunch lady, both have agreed not to cause trouble but with this mess going on just check on them, Tuck go check on lunch lady she's been going to places who are short staffed and cooking, Huntress Des is only granting simple wishes unless the person deserves some bitter lessons, like Dash wishing to be a ghost boy and then being socially invisible for a week" Danny chuckled.
The three teens separated and raced off into their own directions. Danny arrived at the Library to find Ember floating through the shelves. Specifically the Amity local history section. "Ember" he whispered.
Ember looked at Danny and kept browsing "relax dipstick I'm not doing anything wrong just browsing" she coldly replied.
"In a library?" Danny retorted "I might be wrong, often i am, but something tells me you're not a read for fun kind of girl"
"Maybe I'm curious about local history maybe I like Pirate romance, maybe I want to read about Amitys colorful witch hunts in days of old" Ember shot back.
Danny folded his arms but kept floating behind her "any particular part of local history caught your interest?"
"buzz off Phantom, just because I said I won't kill you doesn't mean I won't beat you senseless!" she growled. Friendly or not Phantoms not a friend and didn't need to be prying in what wasn't his business. "Scram" she ordered.
"Nah I'm good"
"Phantom!"
"SHHH!" hissed the librarian.
Ember rounded on the old lady only for Danny to grab her hand and turn her back toward him "Believe me you do not want to pick a fight with Miss Belmont, that old lady has been shushing teens since the '80s and has no fear to use a phone book on them" he explained.
Ember yanked free from Danny "I'm a ghost Phantom, phone books can't hurt, OW!"
"SHH!" Mis Belmont hissed again.
Ember rubbed her head where the phone book hit "how is that possible?"
"told you" Danny chuckled. "Now what about what you're doing here?"
"Dipstick I mean it, Buzz off! Ember hissed.
Danny circled Ember cutting her off from avoiding him. "Ember, please just let me help you don't have to go into details, just a quick short answer" Danny pleaded.
Ember clenched her fists as she stared Danny down "I want to be friends Ember, I really do so if I can help you now I would like to"
A strong left hook came round and hit Danny square on the jaw knocking him into the bookshelf toppling the top shelf to the floor. "You tell anybody about this Phantom and I will end you I swear it. I will brain you with my guitar and hang you by your toes for the world to see" Ember growled.
Rubbing his cheek Danny stood upright again nodding in agreement "could have said that without the shot to the face" he groaned.
"Making sure you know I was serious Dipstick"
"Alright, you got it. This is between us" Danny agreed.
Ember looked left and right then up and down and all over she had visible fear glued to her face. "After you agreed to let some of us come through once in a while if we behaved ourselves. I got to thinking, maybe I could learn something about….about what happened to me" tears began to form forcing her to turn her back to Danny. "I died when was sixteen Phantom, I was supposed to go on a date and the jerk stood me up, I saw him on my walk home with his buddies in a parking lot bragging about it, I was a punchline Phantom, a cheap laugh" her voice began to waiver and her shoulders trembled "I went home, cried myself to sleep…" Ember began to cry. Weird as it was to see Ember McLain cry it made sense in this moment.
Something about her story sounded familiar, like another half of a story he heard recently "The house burned down didn't it?" asked Danny placing his hands on her shoulders.
Ember nodded. Falling back against Danny "yeah I woke up in the ghost zone…how did you know about the fire Phantom?"
Danny took a long deep breath before turning Ember to face himself "My dad told us a story from his school days, a guy he knew on the football team asked out a girl, who dad said was a bit of a loner, it was a prank and the guy didn't like being called out for it, tried to run dad over, ruined his boxing career" Danny explained. "Come on, google has a better chance of answering you" he lead Ember to the computer and typed in a few key words 'Amity, fire, 1985' two clicks later Danny had a news report dated about the fire at McLain homestead in Amity, Illinois.
"My stupid Dads stupid 9'mm family home video reels were the cause of the fire!" Ember shrieked.
"Nitrate reels were flammable and easily ignited and the smoke was extremely toxic" Danny read. Embers eyes fell to the floor, an act of unfortunate events nothing more. Her life ended from an unfortunate accident Ember wasn't sure how to process that information. She had been angry her whole afterlife thinking she died from her neglectful mother smoking in the living room, again, but just an accident. Of all things an accident.
"This isn't what I expected, but at least its closure" Ember sighed "look Phantom, thanks for the help in all this but this is where you and I are parting ways, I need to think things over"
"Oh my what a cute couple"
Danny and Ember both looked over to see an older woman staring at them "thanks but uh, we're not a couple" Danny stuttered.
"Oh, pity" the old woman replied "you two look so adorable together" she cooed.
"Ember placed her hand on Danny's cheek with a mischievous grin on her face "please should he be so lucky? He'd be my pincushion or my toy depending on the day of the week" she cackled. Which caused the old woman to avert her eyes in embarrassment and turn away.
"Pincushion, really?" Danny asked.
"Face it baby pop between us you'd be the bottom" Ember laughed. Before standing up "thanks Phantom, but we're done here" with that Ember disappeared into a whirlwind of flame.
"One of our better, less violent interactions" Danny breathed as he turned on his com "Tuck I'm all good here, Ember was browsing for a musician biography, Alice Cooper I think, how did you fair out?"
"Uhm, Danny lunch lady was just making pizza like you said….Sam was here, having food with a guy who looks like your idiot cousin Spike" came Tuckers response.
Danny paused for a moment. Sam and Spike, he wasn't sure how to feel about that but he had Valerie and knew when Sam found out it would be a war zone. He shrugged it off he wasn't responsible for either of them. "That's their business Tuck"
"Val? Anything to report on your end?"
"all good, couple kids got some candy and one air headed jock got some zipper trouble by the sounds of it sounds like she's keeping good to her word"
Dannny flew back into the sky as rain started to fall when the flash of lightning lit up the sky he saw it. A figure floating just inside the clouds. "guy in the clouds with a deer shaped head…not suspicious at all" Danny deadpanned. He rose higher into the sky coming to face the mystery character.
"I take it you're the one responsible for the weather?" Danny asked.
Armen looked at Danny with his searing red eyes narrowing on the young halfa. He looked human, yet appeared to be of the disembodied spectres he knew encountered in his life. "it would seem as though the village still lingers on the boarder of the living and the dead worlds" he calmly stated. "return to your own world boy, this village will soon be reclaimed by the god who abandoned it"
"Ok, Crazy religious speech and weird head gear this is new" Danny said "look Rudolph the skinless reindeer this is my town and I have a no destroying policy in effect so you need to go"
"move away child my powers far exceed your own in life I was a warlock in death I am a devil!" Armen snarled.
"Devils, deviled-eggs makes no difference buddy just pack your bags and scoot!" Danny taunted as he readied an ecto blast in each hand. "Leave on your own or leave in the thermos buddy, your choice!"
Armen rolled his eyes then extended his hand "such insolence" he muttered "Aquaria"
The water sprang from the bay like a larger than life geyser surrounding Danny then with a twist of his wrist Armen sealed Danny in a giant ball of water. "I was a warlock, child, now I return as a devil" his fingers began to close into a fist. Slowly shrinking the water prison around Danny. Who was now releasing charges of ecto beams trying to break the ball.
"I'm a ghost bozo, I don't need to breathe!" he barked.
Armen closed the gap between himself and Danny and began drawing sigils in the water "Lucinia"
"AAAHH!" Danny screamed. The water started emitting electrical shock pulses "AHAHAHAH!" the shocks grew in voltage with each discharge. Danny screamed in agony for what felt like hours when the shocking finally stopped. "that was five minutes boy, Aquaria is the displacement of water and time those five minutes you spent in there felt like hours didn't it, your body probably agrees you" he flexed his fingers and the voltage cranked up leaving scorch marks on Danny's face, blistering his cheeks. His screams growing in intensity he could almost smell his own teeth burning inside his mouth.
"Infar Nia" Armen's nails started glowing red before diving his hand into the water piercing into Danny's chest clawing away his suit and flesh. Leaving 4 long claw marks burned into his skin. Another wave sent the water prison flying back across the bay hanging over the town. "farewell boy" Armen then sent Danny plummeting back to the ground.
The impact created a crater deeper then Jack Fenton's appetite leaving Danny Phantom in a crumbled heap at the bottom. Soaked, burned and electrocuted Danny laid there almost lifeless but slowly breathing shallow breaths. This guy might be an actual devil.
His foe stopped moving, he was still existing in this world, so Armen hadn't destroyed him "very well boy gather your strength and try again if you can recover in time, I'll be waiting" he flew further away leaving Danny in a heap.