[Third Person Pov]
Danny, Robin, and Ember arrived swiftly at the towering building of Gotham Records, the city's iconic music label shrouded in the perpetual gloom of evening fog. Without hesitation, the trio turned intangible, their forms shimmering as they phased straight through the solid walls. They materialized silently inside a dimly lit corridor on one of the upper floors, the air thick with the faint scent of polished wood and stale coffee.
Framed photographs of legendary singers and gleaming vinyl records adorned the walls, serving as both decoration and a subtle reminder of the label's storied—and sometimes shady—history.
"So, where to now?" Ember asked, her fiery hair flickering faintly as she glanced around with sharp, cautious eyes, taking in every detail of their surroundings.
"Next, we head to the server room," Robin replied coolly, his voice low and precise. He activated the miniature computer on his wrist with a quick tap, the holographic display flickering to life and casting a blue glow across his masked face. "If there's any digital trail on what happened to those missing girls—the ones connected to this label—it's bound to be locked away in there. Security logs, contracts, emails... everything."
"Or perhaps the manager's office would be smarter," Danny pointed out, floating a few inches off the ground with his hands on his hips. "Not everything important gets recorded digitally these days. There could be physical files, handwritten notes, or—"
But his words died in his throat as all three of them froze in place. The sound of approaching footsteps echoed from around the corner—sharp, efficient clicks of heels on the tiled floor.
A middle-aged woman, one of the building's secretaries by the look of her neat blouse and ID badge, rounded the bend carrying a precarious stack of manila files in her arms. She nearly collided with the scene before her: two spectral teenagers and a caped vigilante standing motionless in the middle of a restricted hallway. None of them moved a muscle. Danny and Ember slowly faded into full invisibility, leaving Robin completely exposed.
He forced a stiff, awkward smile and raised one gloved hand in a half-wave. "Hi," he greeted, his grin strained.
"Hi…" the secretary replied subconsciously, her brows furrowing in deepening confusion. She took a hesitant step back, adjusting the files in her grip. "I don't think you're supposed to be up here—"
Her sentence cut off abruptly as her eyes rolled back and she crumpled to the floor with a soft thud. Danny flickered back into view right behind her, lowering his hands with a sheepish expression.
Robin let out a long sigh of relief, his shoulders relaxing just a fraction.
"Well that went well. I'll hide her body somewhere safe," Danny offered quickly, hoisting the unconscious woman over one shoulder with ease.
Before he could take more than a step, another figure turned the corner—a custodian in a gray jumpsuit, bulky headphones looped around his neck and a mop bucket trailing behind him. The man stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the absurd tableau: a young vigilante, two floating ghosts, and one of them casually carrying an unconscious secretary like a sack.
He blinked once, slowly, as if rebooting his brain. Then, without a word, he spun on his heel. "Nope. I don't get paid enough for this shit," he muttered under his breath, already retreating the way he'd come, eyes fixed firmly on the floor ahead.
"God damn it…" Danny groaned, stretching his arm like it was made of elastic rubber. It elongated impossibly around the corner, fingers snagging the back of the custodian's collar and yanking him back into view with a startled yelp.
The man sighed wearily, resignation etched across his face. "Why me… I knew I should've asked for that raise last month."
Danny reeled him in like a fish on a line and delivered a single, surprisingly gentle slap to the side of his head. The custodian's eyes fluttered shut, and he slumped unconscious to the floor beside the secretary.
"I already have the full layout of the building downloaded," Robin announced, his tone all business as he glanced at his wrist device once more. "I'll handle the server room. You two check out the manager's office—the one where Ember signed her contract. We'll rendezvous on the roof in exactly thirty minutes. Stay sharp." With that, he melted into the shadows and vanished up into an overhead air vent, moving with the silent efficiency of a trained ninja.
Danny glanced down at the two unconscious employees, then grinned mischievously. He stepped forward and overshadowed the custodian, his ghostly form merging seamlessly with the man's body. The custodian's eyes snapped open, now glowing faintly green. "Alright, you overshadow the secretary, and we'll sneak inside like this. Easy."
Ember stared at him, utterly bewildered and dumbfounded. "...Why? Why would we do that?"
"Duh, so we can be inconspicuous!" Danny exclaimed, sounding rather proud of his own cleverness as he adjusted the custodian's collar with borrowed hands. "We'll blend right in. No one will notice a thing—two regular employees just going about their business."
"Danny," Ember said, her voice dripping with pure exasperation as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "We're ghosts."
"So?" Danny asked innocently, tilting the custodian's head in genuine confusion. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"We can literally turn invisible whenever we want. We can walk straight through walls. We leave no fingerprints, no footprints, no evidence at all!" Ember exclaimed, throwing her hands up before face-palming hard enough that the sound echoed down the hall. "How much more inconspicuous do you possibly want to be?!"
"Fine, fine—if you want to be all boring about it," Danny grumbled, pouting as he released the overshadowing. The custodian slumped back down harmlessly. "No fun allowed, I guess."
"What's going to be really boring," Ember shot back, her patience with her ghostly friend wearing dangerously thin, "is my fist in your face if you don't stop behaving like a total dumbass. Let's just go invisible and get this over with before you have to knock anyone else unconscious."
"So mean…" Danny mumbled, still sulking as he bent down and began shoving the two unconscious employees into the nearby storage closet. He carefully maneuvered their limp limbs inside, making sure they weren't twisted at odd angles, before gently closing the door with a soft click.
"Don't do anything naughty in there, you two," he whispered at the closed door, waggling his eyebrows.
"Seriously?" Ember asked, staring at him with a perfectly straight, unamused face.
"What? You've never heard of five minutes in heaven?" Danny shot back with a mischievous grin that stretched ear to ear.
"I'll give you five minutes of heaven, you brat," Ember grumbled, letting out an irritated scoff as she narrowed her glowing eyes.
"Ember, you naughty girl~" Danny teased, acting bashful by cupping his cheeks with both hands and batting his eyelashes dramatically. "At least buy me dinner first!"
"Huh—Oh." Ember froze midway through processing her own words, her pale cheeks suddenly flushing a bright, embarrassed green. She spun around quickly, but not before launching a flurry of punches at Danny's shoulder and arm. "You. Stupid. Brat!" she exclaimed with each attempted strike, her voice a mix of frustration and lingering blush.
Danny cackled wildly, twisting and weaving his intangible body to dodge her attacks with effortless grace.
The two of them faded into full invisibility as they continued their playful scuffle, phasing straight through walls and floors in a swirling descent until they finally rematerialized inside the quiet, dimly lit manager's office.
"In here," Ember said at last, glancing around the empty space. The office was surprisingly spacious, with dark wood furniture, shelves lined with platinum records, and a large desk cluttered with paperwork. She hovered near the center, scanning the room. "So what exactly are we searching for?"
Danny reached into his utility belt and pulled out a small, sleek handheld computer. Its screen glowed faintly as he powered it on. "We're looking for any files or information on where these missing girls could have been taken or disappeared to. Contracts, schedules, suspicious emails—anything that doesn't add up."
"Right…" Ember murmured, studying the photos and names of the missing girls that Robin had provided earlier. Her expression grew more serious as she committed their faces to memory.
The duo quickly split up. Ember dove straight into the tall metal file cabinets along the far wall, rifling through neatly organized folders with ghostly efficiency. Meanwhile, Danny plopped himself into the large leather office chair, spinning it once for fun before yanking open the desk drawers and rummaging around with far less subtlety.
"Did you find anything?" Ember asked after a few moments, raising an eyebrow as she heard Danny making quite a bit of noise.
"Yeah," came Danny's muffled reply from behind the desk. When he lifted his head, he had five different lollipops already crammed into his mouth, their colorful sticks jutting out at odd angles. He triumphantly held up an entire jumbo bag of them. "I found candy!"
"Danny, c'mon now," Ember said, maintaining her straight face even as the corner of her mouth twitched.
"What?" He shifted the lollipops around in his mouth with a grin. "You want some?" He lifted the bag toward her invitingly.
"No… Maybe… give it here." Ember flew over and perched herself on the edge of the desk, reaching into the bag with a resigned sigh.
Just then, the office door swung open. The manager stepped inside, freezing mid-stride at the sight of two ghostly teenagers casually rummaging through his belongings—one sitting on his desk and the other half-buried in his drawers.
"Ughh, what kind of sicko makes a lollipop root beer flavor?" Ember grimaced, now with a whole bunch of candies stuffed in her mouth as well, her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk.
Both Danny and Ember froze instantly, staring wide-eyed at the manager.
"Thiff nnsnt waaah tht luks like," Danny tried to explain, his words coming out in a completely garbled, candy-muffled slur, cheeks bulging comically.
The manager stood there with hollow, dazed eyes, wearing a slightly crooked beanie with a white tag still sticking out from the folds. "Ember? What are you two doing in my office?"
"Emba? Whoose Emba?" Ember asked, looking around the room with exaggerated innocence, her own cheeks equally puffed. "Mai nome sinder."
"Heh, nice wan," Danny chuckled around his lollipops, earning himself another swift punch to the arm from Ember.
Before the manager could react, Danny suddenly shot forward like a blur, flying past Ember and snatching the suspicious tag straight out of the man's beanie with lightning speed. He yanked all the lollipop sticks from his mouth in one smooth motion, holding them fanned out between his fingers like Wolverine's claws.
"Robin, there's no need to search anymore," Danny announced confidently into his communicator. "I know who took the girls." He held up the small device triumphantly.
"What?" Robin's voice crackled back a second later, sounding both surprised and skeptical. "How?"
"It was the Mad Hatter," Danny declared, examining the mind-control tag closely. "I just found one of his mind-control gadgets."
While the manager beside him clutched his head, groaning in sudden dizziness, "Huh… ugh… my head…"
"Man, I'm such a great detective," Danny said smugly, flashing a wide grin before shoving all the lollipops back into his mouth at once with a satisfied slurp. Ember just groaned and buried her face in her hands, though a reluctant smile tugged at her lips despite herself.
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