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Phantom 25
🕑 Added 2024-01-21 08:30:52 +0000 UTC“You have been gone for two days, dear sister,” Harry’s voice came from the air above her, and Kara gasped as she suddenly felt his presence above her simultaneously, the gentle, cold feeling of his magic washing her as she looked up. Besides her, Clark too did the same and out of the corner of her vision, she saw the way his face twitched for a moment as her brother stepped out of nothingness into the view, a familiar grin on his face as he stood upon the air, “Or have you grown up so much that you have forgotten your dear old brother?”
“Not when you are plastered on every screen and newspaper,” she rolled her eyes and licked the ice cream in her hand, glaring up at him with her heterochromatic eyes. “And it's not like you dropped in either. Too busy giving out interviews and flashing your disguise at everyone?”
“What can I say, fame has its perks,” he shrugged back, stepping down to the ground as he looked around at the park they were in. “Learning about superheroing from your cousin? How to bring down cats and help ladies cross the streets?”
“This cousin can very well hear you,” the man in question pointed out. Kara sighed as she heard the irritation in his voice—which was, to an extent, understandable—Her brother had certainly made no polite impressions with her long-estranged cousin. But, she needed to move past that, and the immature, egotistical, dick-measuring contest they had going on had gone on long enough. Sighing, she stepped in between them and grabbed both of their ears, pulling them close with enough force to make it clear that she was not joking around.
“Can you both stop trying to irritate each other and please get along, nicely?” She demanded, looking at Harry pointedly for a moment before she switched her stare towards Clark, nodding her head in the direction of the older man. “And he is a bit of a character, but stop letting him get under your skin every time. I am not asking you to be best buddies, but stop making my head hurt whenever you come in the vicinity of each other.”
“...Fine,” Harry rolled his eyes, pulling back from her hold and shrugging casually as he extended a hand towards Clark. “Harry Potter, it's a pleasure to meet you.”
“Clark Kent, or Kal-El as you call me,” the younger man replied, cautiously raising his hand towards her brother’s—as if he was expecting Harry to suddenly grow teeth and bite off his arm. “Once again, thank you for saving me from that Imperium back then.”
“I did what was necessary,” he replied, before his eyes flicked towards the Daily Planet’s building. “So, reporter?”
“It is not too much work, pays well, and I have an easy excuse for absences,” he shrugged back, waving a hand in the direction of the skyscrapers behind them. “Most of the time I am out of the building premises, and as for when I am inside, I can just make an excuse.”
“Yo-did you hear that?”
“A gunsho-where did he go?!” Clark blinked as Harry suddenly disappeared from his spot, before he shook his head and turned towards her. “Wait for me here, I will be back in a minute.”
“I am not a kid,” she rolled her eyes in turn, teleported away at the same time Clark shot up into the air. Arriving right above the spot where she could feel the faint traces of Harry’s magic, Kara winced as she saw her brother…who had just snapped a thug’s arm at the elbow as he pulled the man in the path of a bullet. Closing her eyes as the man below screamed, Kara sighed as she felt her cousin fly past her, the barely audible sound of his knuckles popping echoing like thunder in her ears.
“There there—it's not like you are going to die, the police and ambulance are already here,” he chided the wailing and gasping man kneeling before him, zapping the last shooter with a bolt of lightning…only for Kal-El to swoop in and take the man away at the last moment. Sighing as he floated the man crying before him towards the stretchers the medics had already laid out, he took a look around himself, his amused eyes hidden beneath his hood. “All done.”
“Thank you uh…Mr. Phantom?” One of the policemen spoke up as he looked at the three downed would-be-robbers, all of them with their arms broken, with the last guy also having a bullet wound in his leg. The next moment, his eyes snapped towards Superman as the superhero descended slowly towards the ambulance, the fourth guy dangling from his hand, his pistol held by the Man of Steel. “And Superman, um, thanks to you too.”
“Just get this one bandaged,” Harry waved off in the direction of the shot man as he turned around, looking up at the still form of his sister before he looked at her cousin, who was predictably, glaring down at him. “Please don’t tell me that I am about to get a lecture on breaking arms.”
“Not here at least,” Kara whispered in Kryptonese, before she teleported them all away with a snap of her fingers. Alighting down on the rooftop she had brought them on, Harry sighed and lowered his hood, creating a ward around himself and Kara to prevent cameras and people from capturing their features clearly as he turned towards the Kryptonians. She looked at him for a moment, before waving a hand in the direction of the sirens. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“You breaking the arms of those men!” Clark's eyes tightened as the younger man pointed toward the cars below. “First of all, you did not interfere in Metropolis. And secondly, what right do you have to break their arms?! We do not misuse or overuse our powers, nor do we go about breaking bones and beating people up!”
“Batman seemed to have missed that memo,” he shrugged, and given the tightening of Clark’s fists, the younger man clearly didn’t like the mention of the Bat of Gotham. Crossing his arms, Harry continued. “And so did I. Besides, what harm is it to you if a gunman gets his arm broken, maybe he will think twice the next time before aiming a pistol at a civilian.”
“The harm is in the fact that we do not use our powers to punish! We are not the law, and neither do we take it in our hands!” Clark shot back hotly, waving his arm at the city around them as he took a step closer. “We save, we protect—but we do not act judge and jury.”
“Fuck, here we go again,” Harry could only sigh as he looked up at the sky, the words spoken by the affronted Kryptonian before him reminding him of Dumbledore more than ever. Looking back at Clark, his mind flashed to all the times he had seen and heard Dumbledore’s second chances at play, from the Headmaster and wizards around him both. “You know, I knew someone who talked a lot like you a long time ago—turns out it is easy to be a pacifist when nothing can touch you…when you haven’t felt even an iota of pain or fear, or the realization of weakness that comes with it.”
“So you break the bones of everyone you meet because once yours were broken?!” Clark scoffed, crossing his arms as his eyes narrowed, and in the back of his mind, Harry couldn’t help but see another man in his place at that moment, the Kryptonian’s sneer far too similar to Snape for his liking—in the hindsight, it was impressive how within moments, Clark had channeled the spirit of the two men he hated and admired in equal measure
“Maybe I do, or maybe it's just the part of me that wanted to always help people,” Harry mumbled, his thoughts spiraling backward through time as every moment of those seven years seemed to flash by his eyes in a single second, culminating at the moment when Ginny’s eyes had lit up with that familiar, malevolent crimson. Hermione’s pained scream as Voldemort summoned her spine right out of her back. Neville choked gasps as his legs had been turned to bloody mist, and dozens of dead wizards and witches…all because of the wrong person being left alive. Snapping himself out of his thoughts, Harry turned towards Clark and gave him a small smile, “Or maybe I just have a problem.”
“The man is dead,” Alfred’s voice came over the comm link, and Bruce stilled for just a moment before he continued to climb the building, firing another cable at the gargoyle statue as he swung over the ledge. His oldest friend sighed over the earpiece as the sound of keys being clicked came over, and Alfred continued slowly. “The MRI scans have shown remains of a peculiar energy in his brain and blood, but it had gradually…disappeared over time...where should I disp-”
“Keep it in the cryo, I will signal the GCPD once I come back.”
“Master Bruce,” Alfred’s voice came over the link before it cut off, and the vigilante stopped on the head of the statue, staring out the foggy city before him. After the Phantom had disappeared into the wind, he had done his best to find out even a hint of whatever the elusive superhuman had found in the thug’s mind, but it was to no avail. Whoever the person at the head of this alien weapons trafficking was, they had covered their tracks well.
All the transactions were in cash,.meaning no digital trail to follow. All the vehicles he found were struck off the registry, and every warehouse or stash he had uncovered after hours of toiling was already scrubbed clean. Without the Phantom’s method of tracking a fucking hair of all things, he didn't have even a smidgen worth of leads to follow.
Until tonight that is.
One of his trackers had pulsed out a signal just a few minutes ago, the device reading a number of abnormal electromagnetic surges nearby. About five pulses every second for a full minute–and Bruce had a guess on just what awaited him in the lounge above. Pulling himself above the ledge of the window, he looked inside, the tinted glass barely allowing him to see the light of the chandeliers.
“Why can't it be simple for once?” He said into the night, changing the sight of his mask to thermal as he raised a finger to the pane. The world changed to varying hues of blue for him, sprinkled with spots of yellow and orange. His jaw tightened for a moment as he saw the still bodies on the floor, the low shade of yellow making it clear that they were not simply passed out. However, his attention was caught the next second by the man walking into the range of his goggles, and given the way his hands were positioned, Bruce knew he was in for a night of exercise.
Cutting through the hinges softly, Bruce entered the hall, thanking the fact that half the lights were already broken. Disabling the thermals, he took a glance around himself. Broken furniture. Shattered glass. Spilled liquor and dead bodies–along with the smell of burnt cloth and flesh. Holes the size of his fist were punched through literally everything, looking as if a 50 cal had been fired inside the hall indiscriminately—and it came with a burn effect too, if the burnt edges of the wounds upon the dead men were any indication.
“These pack a fuckin’ punch!” A voice exclaimed down the hall, and Bruce slowly shifted towards the podium, shooting a cable to the rafters above, “Far better than the carbines or the AKs! Who the fuck made this shit?!”
“Don’t know, but Hailey said that we have a new toy to field test,” another voice answered back, and the sound of furniture being shuffled acme from below as he softly alighted upon the railing. “Couldn’t have guessed it was a 4th of July firecracker though.”
“Could have done without the light show,” another voice grunted as the doors opened, and Bruce closed his eyes as he counted the footsteps, the conversation beneath revealing more and more of the events that had transpired tonight. Some local gang had booked the lounge and the penthouse for a meetup or something, to hide a deal that was supposed to happen—no doubt more of Penguin’s lackeys, but then, these men had ambushed them right from the front gates. Half a dozen guys had completely decimated about two dozen men, splattering blood and gore all over the place, and turning the hall into a horror movie set.
Running a gloved finger over the dusting of white near his feet, Bruce turned his eyes toward the Intergang, quickly deciding on a plan of action. Based on the damage these experimental rifles had caused, he couldn’t risk being pinned down or hit by even one of these things. While his armor could effectively tank bullets from ARs and shotguns, bullets of this caliber were a different matter entirely. And that left…raising his arm, he flicked his wrist, sending out three of his batarangs into the dark, the little red dots upon them blinking to life as soon as they hit the opposing surfaces.
Shooting a cable to the ceiling, he swung over to the chandelier, looking at the seven men below him once again. Two were taking every packet of drugs they could find into a bag, and two others were collecting the weapons strewn around the place. Out of the remaining three, two were talking by the bar, while the last was walking along the windows, humming a tune to himself.
Taking out a couple of smoke grenades from his belt, he dropped them right behind the men carrying the drugs and guns. Right at the moment the sound of the canisters impacting the floor echoed in the hall, Bruce jumped towards the furthest man, his fist cutting through the air towards the back of his head for a vicious haymaker. As the shouts of alarm and the hiss of smoke billowing out from the grenades came from behind him, Bruce pressed his thumb on his utility belt, and the batarangs behind him went off with a bang, lighting up the whole hall for a moment.
“FUCK, THE BAT IS HERE!”
“SHOOT ABOVE US!”
“THROW GRENA-uck!”
Pointing the rifle away from him, Bruce slammed his palm into the man’s neck, leaving him choking for air as he turned away and kicked the one behind him in the knees. The bone snapped underneath the force of his leg, and a punch to the temple silenced the screaming before it could begin. Before the man had even completely fallen to the ground, Bruce turned around towards the guy still gasping for breath, and grabbed his head with his hand, bringing it down to his knee swiftly. A sickening crunch echoed in the lingering smoke as the thug’s nose broke, and just like it had been the norm for years, another man lay unconscious at his feet.
“Fuck! Dwayne! Where are you?!” one of the remaining four men shouted, and Bruce watched as a bolt of purple light shot past him, blasting a chunk off the raised dais at the end of the chamber, “Shoot you fucking cunts! Fire until this smoke blows away, Jason will have our heads if we los-”
The shouting was cut off as his arm was bent and broken, the crunch of the bone being shattered coming right as the gun clattered to the ground. However, before he could knock the man out, glowing bolts were fired towards them, and suddenly, Bruce was holding a headless corpse in his hands. His eyes squeezed themselves shut as he flinched for a moment, feeling the gore slide down his skin, blood and brain matter splattering all over his front. However, the continued onslaught and the incoherent shouting of the remaining men broke him out of the momentary daze, and Bruce whipped up his cloak upwards as he dove away.
Keeping his lips sealed, he moved towards the three silently, seeing the silhouettes moving and firing about in the smoke amidst the flashes of purple light. Standing back to back in a triangle, they were shooting in every conceivable direction, and bit by bit, clearing away the already dying smoke. Fingering a batarang, Bruce looked at the body of the Intergang lying to his left, feeling the blood drip down his chin slowly.
The pillar he was hiding behind suddenly shook, and he peeked out from behind it slowly. He couldn't rush them from here, because the moment he hit one of them, the other two would be in prime position to shoot him. He was fast, and knew hundreds of ways to deal with three armed men, but that didn't mean he was going to risk getting shot by this reverse engineered tech. And if he couldn't rush them from the sides…that left only one option. Shooting a cable to the ceiling, Bruce picked up a piece of rubble and threw it towards his right.
“THERE HE IS!”
“BLAST HIM TO BITS! FUCK THE BAT!”
As a volley of bullets were shot towards his right, Bruce looked down at the three men. Now that they were not back to back, he could deal with them without being blasted by those ridiculously powerful weapons–and just who the fuck had made them? That they were capable of dishing out such destructive force without heating up and blasting themselves into bits was rather disconcerting.
Taking out two batarangs, he looked at the Intergang men again as he flicked his wrist. A moment later, twin shouts of surprise and pain echoed amidst the sounds of the firing and rubble being blasted. With their hands pierced to the bone by his blades, the men on the ;eft and right could no longer hold onto their weapons, a shot hitting the floor right by their feet as the guns fell to the floor. And just like the last time, Bruce didn’t waste a single moment, dropping down from the chandelier right as the moment one of them looked above. Spinning into his fall, he crashed his heel into the jaw of the man who had seen him first, while his other leg landed on the second’s forehead.
Grunting as he landed on the ground, he wasted not even an eyeblink in rounding around on the man cradling his hand to his chest, sending him into unconsciousness with a fist between his eyes. The next second, he pushed the gun of the middle man aside, feeling his whole arm jerk as a purple bullet pulse out from the modified barrel, shattering a hole into a chair a few feet away. Twisting the arm, Bruce drove his knee into the elbow, forcing a shout of the struggling thug as he kicked the weapon away. Twisting his torso, he flipped the man over his head and threw him into the one behind him, spinning on his heel to deliver a sharp roundhouse to the last remaining man.
In an instant, it was over as they fell to the ground, weak groans coming from the downed men as he stood above them all. Now that the hall wasn’t filled with the sounds of firing bullets and shouting men, he could make out the sirens in the distance, as well as the low beeping that was coming from somewhere near the entrance.
“Alfred, I am jacking into a system, install the virus quickly,” he spoke quietly, moving towards the sound, switching his eyepieces to thermal once again. The orange shape of a laptop is clear as day amidst the blue walls and flooring, “The police are already here.”
“You sound…troubled, Master Bruce,” the old man’s voice softly echoed in his ears as he turned around the doors, finding the laptop open upon a bunch of ammunition and weapon boxes, his eyes narrowing upon the empty spaces for the guns that the Intergang had brought. Pressing a button on his bracer, Bruce pulled a jack out of it and connected it to the USB port. A dialog box opened up upon the screen, showing his symbol upon it as Alfred uploaded the spyware, the man continuing in the same hesitant tone, “Are you injured? Shall I send in the Batwing?”
“...I am fine, but send the Batwing ASAP…there is a man dead here.”
“...Jesus.”
