Ghost in Gotham

Chapter 25: Finally!

Whoa, is this a short update that only comprises of two scenes? And is the author too lazy to make it any longer and will promise to make the next chapter longer but will probably only be 100 words, or more, longer? Yah, probably.

Danny's POV

I was slightly taken back by the request, but I complied. Maybe she'll apologize and I'll forgive her. The whole situation had me thinking of why I should apologize to her. I know, from some perspective, she could be not directly at fault. If I don't look at the whole conflict at all sides, I'll never discover the right decision.

"Yeah, sure. Talk to you later, Dick." I waved at him, following Ember as she led me to a room.

The room was a nice blue color, with boxes scattered throughout. The light was dim, and only lit a portion of the room. Clearly, it was a storage room. The sound of the loud music grew slightly faint. 

"Look, I know this isn't the best time to apologize, but I know I should. I just wanted to say, I'm sorry. It's fine if it may take time for you to forgive me but I just wanted to tell you that I have to take responsibility for all of this," she rambled, continuing to apologize and explaining on why she should apologize.  She was fiddling around with her giant safety scissors as she did so. It was plain to see she was nervous.

"I forgive you," I said, cutting between her rant. She froze for a second, snapping her head to my direction. Her eyes widened in confusion.

"B-but I did all of these wrong things! You shouldn't forgive me this easy!" she spluttered.

I took a deep breath, my saliva growing icy because of my nervousness. Or maybe it's just because Ember's next to me and my sense just suddenly acted up. "All this time you took recognizing your mistakes, I was recognizing mine." Ember looked baffled at my words, but I continued on. "I shouldn't have yelled, avoided, or straight up ignored you. I should have had a civil conversation with you and work things out without doing anything rash." The words I told Dick slammed back at my face.

Ember slowly started to cry, her painted-freckles getting messed up because of her tears. "I-I deserved it, I did... I did something wrong so I  have to get p-punished for that. I'm the one at fault!"

I gave her a kind smile and took out a handkerchief from my pocket,  rubbing her tears away. "You made a mistake, everybody does. I made the mistake of not thinking before, anger shouldn't overcome everything. Don't seek penance when you when you're not the one at fault. Now stop your crying before you ruin all your makeup." Ember cried more, leaning against my suit. She probably left a bit of makeup on my shoulder, but I didn't care. I hugged her back, dropping my red push-pin cane.

On the inside though, I was seeking penance. I was mad at myself for staying mad at her, and I'd probably beat myself up afterwards.  It was a stupid reason just to stay mad when I could confront the problem and face it head-on. I was a coward like I always am. Spooky may mean the world to me, but I have to consider other people's feelings as well and work through them. What a terrible person I am.

After a good cry, she lifted her head from my shoulder. Her makeup was runny and sure as the ghosts there was a splotch of makeup on my suit.

"Look what you did, you stained my suit. This was very expensive I'll have you know." I joked, cracking a light-hearted smile.  I picked my can back up and leaned on it slightly.

Ember gave me a smile in return. "Stop being such a dork," she laughed, punching me lightly on my shoulder. "It should be easy to rinse off, don't be a baby." We laughed together.

After the laughter subsided, "So do you want to go back to the party? I mean, these costumes aren't going to show off themselves." She nodded, and we both left the storage room, returning to the loud music.

After a bit of chatter, we both saw Aster running around in a state of panic. As he ran by us, I grabbed at his shoulder and turned him in my direction.

"Why are you panicking all over the disco?" Ember yelled, which only sounded like an inside voice with all the music.

He went off with incoherent rambling that made barely any sense to the both of us. I slapped his cheek, not too hard, which got him too quiet down.

"Slow your speak, Aster."

He took a deep breath, "I'm part of the party committee that planned the party. I was in charge of music and now the band I hired called it quits because they broke down and now if I don't provide an actually good live performance my position the party planning committee will  be gone and then I won't have any happiness because the most exciting part of my day was helping out in the party and it's becoming so stressing and things got so-"  his words gradually sped up as he talked.

"Ssshh" I shushed him. "We'll help you. Not sure you know, but I use to be a band partner with Ember. We weren't a band really, just a group that'd play sometimes." It was partly true, back in the Ghost Zone me, Ember, and Indi would go and play around the Ghost Zone. Ember was bass and singer, Indi was the drummer, and I'd be on the keyboard and might sing a few times here and there.

Aster's glassy eyes lit up.  "Really? Oh, thank you thank you thank you! But you'd have to sing on stage!"

Ember scoffed, "A stage's no problem, it's the instruments that are the problem."

He quickly nodded, wiping his eye a bit. "There's a bunch of instrument behind the stage. It's like the instrument room. So you'll play?"

I couldn't bear to say no to his face. I was in debt with this guy because of his kindness of taking care of Spooky, not to mention having his sister take care of Spooky while I was at this party, of course I'd do it. I said my response and he quickly led me and Ember to the back of the stage to where the instruments were.

"So you know songs and stuff, right?" We both nodded. "Perfect, you can sing any song you want as long as it's not kiddy or boring or dumb, you'll be up at 10 o'clock, so 'bout half an hour of practice." He instructed and then left. An hour and a half already past? Time sure flies when you go to a party.

I walked over to the keyboard and turned it on. It was slightly smaller than what I was used to, and the keys were made of cheap plastic, but it would work. The keys sounded fine, though it was slightly bad quality.

I saw Ember tsk as she surveyed the instruments. "None of these will do! This one's plastic, that one's out of tune, and the string are all wrong in this one!" She pointed out each imperfection in the basses, guitars, and ukeleles. She always had a higher standard of instruments.

"All the songs I know require a drummer, what now? " I complained, Indi was always required to be there, I wonder if that's why they weren't playing together as much? I mean, without a keyboardist (me), they'd only be able to play a specific set of songs. Every component was needed for a band.

She pulled a mischevious look. "Simple, we have the ability to clone ourselves, might as well use the power." I silently agreed with her, remembering that we had powers. Multiple complications could come from it.  It really was a problem that needed to be addressed if we wanted a drummer, but I was too stupid to look anymore deeper into it and just ignored it.

"And your bass?"

She reached into her pocket, which she surprisingly had, and took out a keychain. It suspiciously looked like her guitar, but miniaturized. That was until I realized it was her guitar.

"Whoa, how do you  enlarge it?" I asked, honestly curious.

"Simple." She threw the keychain to the ground, breaking it. I flinched a bit, but then it looked as if the spirit of it came from the inside of the keychain and formed a full-sized bass. She dropped the giant baby-blue scissors and picked up the axe (not an actual axe).

"Cool, ain't it?" Ember always found a way to surprise me with new things. That's what I like about her, she was a constant surprise. Never a boring moment around her. Even with years of ghostly experience and all sorts of magic, I was still stunned at the whole ordeal.