Chapter Text
As Phantom turned everyone intangible (they were also still invisible) and dove into the building, Oracle explained more of the situation to Hood to catch him up with the other two vigilantes’ plan. Red Huntress used a laser to target every camera she spotted, providing a signal to Oracle marking the invisible team’s location as they floated through the labyrinthine halls.
“The blueprints Tech gave me show two overlapping security systems within the building. One is entirely closed circuit, but apparently Tech and Red Huntress have infiltrated this building enough times that they’ve worked out an efficient strategy for Huntress to wire the two systems together to give Tech, and therefore myself, access to the closed circuit. All of the labs within the building are secured only by the closed circuit, making them entirely inaccessible to me until she patches the two systems together, so the first target is the server room that operates the closed circuit. Then I can deactivate the security on the closed circuit and locate the specific room that Ellie is currently in.”
Hood tapped the side of his helmet twice to confirm he understood, knowing the sound would knock into the communicator.
“Oh, that reminds me, Tech also explained how their team communicates while in stealth mode, as he called it. Red Huntress’ suit is connected to her via mental link, so she can communicate through the comms or text just by the power of thought.”
“Sup,” Red Huntress’ voice came through the comms, despite her not saying anything out loud right next to Hood. The same message appeared in red text on Jason’s HUD, likely Oracle’s doing to streamline inter-team communication.
“The PDA on Phantom’s belt is specially designed to react to his specific energy signature, so he can, and I quote, ‘pseudo-psychically,’ unquote, communicate via texting app on the device. He doesn’t need to look at it to read it or type anything out, it works purely by physical contact. It also has a text-to-speech app to connect to the comms if necessary.”
‘Gives a whole new meaning to ghosting.’ appeared in lime green on Jason’s HUD at the same time that a synthetic voice assaulted his earpiece. He glanced over at Phantom to see him smirking. Hood rolled his eyes at the terrible pun.
“Hood, while you’re also in stealth mode, you can text stuff out on your holographic wristband to communicate to them.”
Given that Phantom was dragging Hood around by the shoulder, both of his hands were free to do just that.
‘So I’m the only one that doesn’t have psychic powers?’ He typed out.
Lime green text (Phantom, he realized) quickly scrolled through Jason’s HUD, ‘Technically nobody here has psychic powers. It’s just extremely creative ecto-manipulation.’ Thankfully Phantom didn’t see the need to use the awful voice synthesizer.
A moment later, more green text scrolled through, ‘If you’re feeling left out, Tech might be able to make something similar for you, since you also have an ecto-signature.’
‘No shit, psychic texting? I’m down for that.’
Of all the side-effects that Jason associated with being resurrected by the Lazarus Pits, mind-texting was certainly not one of them. This day just kept getting weirder and weirder.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Tech’s voice came through the comms with a bit of a chuckle, just as the trio stopped in an unassuming white room bisected by a blue energy shield. Behind the trio was a single door, probably the proper entrance to the room, and in front of them beyond the shield was an identical door, the only other exit. In the center of the shield was what looked like a bastardized airport metal detector, though the shield was visible within its threshold, forcing anyone who traveled through it to go through the shield as well. The obvious security checkpoint was also guarded by three agents, all on the same side of the shield as the infiltrating trio.
‘This is the entrance to the server room,’ flashed in green across Jason’s HUD.
Phantom let go of Red Huntress, and she faded out of Jason’s view almost entirely, barely more than a red and black shadow. If the GIW Headquarters weren’t so obsessive about everything being eye-blindingly white, he would have probably lost her entirely to background detail.
‘Phantom and Red Hood faded out even more on Red Huntress’ camera. Why?’ flitted across Jason’s HUD in orange text, probably Oracle.
‘I’m invisible under my own power instead of Phantom’s,’ red text followed, ‘I’m trying to maintain the same energy frequency so we stay visible to each other, but it’s a bit more of an art form than an exact science.’
‘We’ve had to practice a lot to get even this close,’ green text added, ‘Hood, as soon as I let go of you, you’ll be visible and grounded. We can each target one agent to knock them out at the same time. Oracle, lock the entrance door so no one else can get in from that direction if alarms start going off.’
Huntress targeted the agent farthest from the other two, and Phantom maneuvered Hood behind another agent, tensing up to dash (fly?) to the third agent the moment he let go of him. Huntress and Phantom nodded at each other when they were ready, then looked to Red Hood. He nodded back.
Phantom let go of Jason’s shoulder, and warmth flooded him, feeling similar to walking out into warm sunlight. At the same exact moment, he dropped the last inch to the floor, full weight of his body bearing down on him again. Because Phantom had given him a moment to explain what to expect and to mentally prepare for it, he didn’t hesitate in the slightest to knock out the target agent from behind. On either side of him, two more agents fell to the ground in near perfect synchronization to his own target. Red and Phantom were completely invisible to Jason for a few seconds before fading into view just behind their own fallen targets.
He had to give them props for being just as efficient as himself. Jason was a trained assassin, after all, and they were keeping up with him.
No alarms went off. It felt too easy. But maybe that was normal when you could bypass half the security by literally flying right through the building?
Huntress wasted no time at all, immediately approaching the control panel of the weird metal detector checkpoint gate. A cable snaked out of Huntress’ suit at her wrist and sort of just adhered to the control panel. Apparently that was enough to gain access, because she was typing away one-handed on a holographic wrist-band almost eerily similar to his own. It must have been on the closed circuit if Oracle couldn’t shut it down remotely.
Jason was about to pull out zip-ties to restrain the agents, but Phantom beat him to it by icing all three of them in place on the floor.
Okay. Now he was gonna have to add cryokinesis to Phantom’s list of powers.
“They won’t freeze to death?” Hood asked.
“Nah,” Phantom answered easily as he leaned over the nearest agent and stole his earpiece, crushing it, “They incorporated heaters into their suits when they found out I have an ice core. They’ll stay nice and toasty warm while the ice refuses to melt. Touch it.” Phantom immediately covered the agent’s mouth with some sort of Lazarus Green energy, effectively gagging him, and moved on to the next agent.
Jason looked at Phantom strangely, though with the hood it probably seemed more like a deadpan glare, then knelt down to brush the ice. Surprised that he couldn’t feel the cold through his glove, he took it off and touched the ice with bare skin.
It was cool, but not cold, to the touch. Furthermore, because it didn’t melt from his body heat, it felt like polished stone.
“Weird, huh?” Phantom added as he moved on to the last agent and Hood put his glove back on, “Their paranoia was unnecessary. I wouldn’t let them freeze to death. No matter how much they deserved it.”
So Phantom was a bleeding heart type?
Red Huntress huffed in disagreement, “I would. You done showing off, Ghost Boy? I’ve shut down the motion sensor and the alarm, but I can’t do anything about the shield until we have access to the mainframe. It also looks like it’s been upgraded.”
“The shield?” Phantom asked, “Are you able to get through?”
“Only one way to find out,” Red replied, carefully placing her gloved hand on the shield, “No, it’s sensitive enough to block the suit.”
“Can you power it down any further?”
“I’ve already reined it in as much as I can. I’d have to doff it, and I’m not doing that in front of an unknown.” Huntress argued while gesturing at Hood.
“I can turn around?” Red Hood offered.
“No, there’s still one more step before doffing the suit,” Phantom argued, “Doff a glove and try shoving your hand through.”
Immediately, the glove of Red Huntress’ suit seemed to almost liquify, absorbing straight into dark skin. Only Jason’s extensive vigilante experience was what allowed him to recognize nanobot behavior for what it was. Once Red’s arm was bare up to the elbow, she shoved it through the energy shield until it was stopped by the solid clank of the armor still covering her upper arm hitting the barrier as if it were completely solid.
“Are you able to don the glove like that?” Phantom asked.
“Why?” Huntress asked impatiently, “So I can be stuck with my arm partway through the shield?”
“If you can don it again, you can doff it again,” Phantom patiently replied.
Red Huntress re-donned the glove, which reformed right back up to the shield. She looked like she was about to retort about being stuck when her shoulders suddenly relaxed in realization, “Is this how you keep getting past the Fenton shields?”
Jason recognized the name, having been plastered on about two thirds of all published works in the field of ectology, and nine tenths of all weapons circulated within the same niche field.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Phantom replied with a large grin, eyeing Hood for only a brief second, “Do you think you have enough control to slide through?”
“Yeah, I can do that,” Huntress replied, “Just give me a second, I need to concentrate.”
It took about ten seconds for Huntress to get through the shield, apparently able to doff the suit only in the exact location that it intersected the shield, preventing Hood or anyone else from seeing her identity. Jason idly wondered what ability Phantom had that allowed him to do the same thing. Clearly he wouldn’t be sharing it with the rest of the class.
Once cleanly on the other side, Red Huntress disappeared. Phantom moved next to Hood and grabbed his shoulder again, turning them both invisible once more. Huntress still wasn’t visible, presumably she could also turn herself intangible and had already gone through the door on the other side of the security check-point.
‘There’s six agents in here, most I’ve ever seen in the server room at one time,” red text pushed through, ‘Give me a couple minutes to connect the two systems together, then Oracle can disable the shield and all three of us can take them out at once.”
About a minute later, with no word from Red Huntress, one of the agents began to stir. Phantom eyed him, but otherwise didn’t move.
‘ One of the agents in here is waking up,’ green text said.
‘I’m working as fast as I can. Besides, you already gagged and muted them,’ red text followed.
‘ Hood, do you want to remain stealthy or do you not mind if they can see you?’ green text added after another moment of silence.
Hood thought about it for a moment. If Phantom had to keep him invisible, he was effectively taking both of them out of the fight, but Phantom probably wouldn’t be offering if Red Huntress couldn’t fight alone. Jason could easily take all six men alone - after all, he had been planning on storming the base without any back up from the very beginning. The only real concern was how badly he could be affected by the GIW’s unique brand of weapons, but from Phantom’s description, it sounded like they were massively less dangerous than traditional guns and bullets, which could only make things easier. Really, there wasn’t any question in how he wanted to handle the situation.
‘ I want them to know they made their last mistake when they trespassed on my territory and stole a little girl.’
‘Spoken like a true ghost,’ green text followed, and when Jason looked at Phantom, he was giving Hood a knowing grin.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Jason typed out and then eyed Phantom critically.
Phantom made the motion of chuckling, remaining completely silent, ‘You’re territorial AND you have a revenge scheme. All you need is an obsession and then you’ll have the ghost personality trifecta.’
‘I thought you said obsessions were disproven,’ red text butted in.
‘No, I said they’re a stereotype. But like all stereotypes, there’s a grain of truth to it,’ green text answered.
Huh. Did that explain the Pit Rage?
‘Well that’s good, because I was about to throw down about Boxy.’ red text answered, ‘I just finished, btw.'
‘Honestly that just sounds like a typical Gotham rogues personality,’ Hood typed out, slower than the others and really wishing for mind-texting powers.
Phantom threw his head back in silent laughter, then curled up on his stomach with his free hand as if he had just laughed a little too hard.
‘Phantom I can FEEL you laughing,’ red text accused as the shield within the threshold of the metal detector collapsed, signaling oracle's access to the security system.
‘Who’s Boxy?’ orange text interrupted.
‘The Box Ghost,’ green text answered, and was then immediately repeated by red text. Jason could imagine them answering out loud over each other if they hadn’t been in stealth mode.
‘A parody all unto his own,’ green text added cryptically while Phantom carefully pulled Red Hood through the strange metal detector, leaving behind three very confused agents who had no idea how they ended up gagged and iced to the floor.
Once Hood and Phantom phased through the door, Jason spotted Huntress’ faded red and black silhouette leaning against the nearest server. Behind the group of servers along the far wall were six computerized workstations, some strange hybrid of tech support and security feeds, all occupied and completely oblivious to the invading trio.
‘I’m ready to lock up their computers the moment you start fighting so they can’t call for help or set off any alarms,’ orange text announced, ‘let me know when you’re in position.’
Phantom grabbed Red Huntress with his free hand so that all three could float up directly behind the agents without being heard. Honestly, ghost powers really are the perfect stealth tools. Three heads nodded and Phantom sent the message.
‘Now.’
“Hey, what just happened-'' one of the agents started to ask before Hood promptly knocked him out, now visible since Phantom had to let go of him again. Hood then knocked out the second agent before he could draw a gun. To his left, Huntress had knocked out one agent and was invisibly toppling the second, who couldn’t figure out why his scanners couldn’t track the ghost attacking him. To his right, Phantom had also successfully knocked out the first agent, but was struggling with the second, who managed to draw a gun and was competent enough to use his tracking equipment to aim at Phantom, who to his credit, was dodging rather well. Hood hit him upside the head and knocked him out - apparently the agent was so focused on tracking the invisible target that he totally missed the completely visible one a few feet away.
It still felt too easy.
The trio dragged the bodies onto the floor so that Phantom could gag and ice them properly, and then they quickly crushed all the communicators. Basically, the same treatment as before. If it ain't broke, don’t fix it, right?
“ I’ve disabled the rest of the shields and I found Ellie,” Oracle stated over the comms once the fighting was done, “ We might be too late. ”
Phantom’s entire demeanor changed. Before he had clearly been on e͟d̅g͞ē, although joking about to relax the tension, but now he looked absolutely f̲̲̲͟͟u̠̅̄̿̅r̲̠̿͟͟ī̱̿̄͟o̠̲̿̿̄u̲̲̠̿͞s̳̠̱̄͞. The Pit did a small somersault at the sudden change, as once again Phantom was in ‘d͟a̠͞n̲̿g̠̅͞e̿̄͞r̠̄̿͞ō̠̳͟ū̠̱̿̅s̳̲̿̿̿ ̲̅̄͞͞e̠̲̠̳̿͟l̠̄̿̿͟͟d̲̳̅̄͟͞r̠̲̄͟͟͞i̳̠̲̲͞͞ṯ̲̠̲̄͟c̠̳̿̅͟h̄̅̅͟͞ ̳̱̄͟͟c̱̠̅̿r̳̳̄̅e̠̅͞a̱̲̿t̳̿u͟͞r͟e̳’ territory.
“Lead me to her,” Phantom ordered immediately, grabbing Red Huntress and Red Hood without warning and going stealth mode once again. Neither of them fought back, this would be the fastest way to her after all. In less than a minute of flying through walls and floors and Huntress pointing lasers at cameras to continue marking their progress to Oracle as she dictated directions, they entered into an operating room.
The room itself was quite large, housing an operating table, multiple agents, several racks of tools, and a large amount of high tech equipment tucked away against each wall. Seven agents stood around the operating table, three on each side and one at the head, all wearing some abhorrent parody of surgical garb right on top of their pretentious white suits. Two more agents guarded the only door to the room.
On the operating table, restrained at each limb and her neck, was the black-haired girl from the security footage hundreds of miles away and ten hours ago. All seven agents leaned over her on the table with clinical fascination, their clothes, tools, the table and the girl absolutely drenched in far too much blood to come from one little girl. She lay there, sweater, shirt, and skin cut and peeled open, all of her insides exposed to the world as the agents poked and prodded at each organ and tissue.
She wasn’t breathing, her heart not beating, nothing moved, and her eyes were glazed over with pain frozen into her expression.
Ellie was very, very dead.
The Pit b̲̲u̳̿ṟ̿ṉ͟e̳̅ḏ̿ in Jason’s chest with a heat he only experienced in the worst moments of cleaning up the child trafficking rings in Gotham, only for the sensation to be eclipsed by the p̄l̠u̅m̄m̅e̠t̳i̠n̠g̠ ͟t̄ēm̿p̄ēr̲a̿ṯu͟r̲e̠ of the room. As if being reminded that Jason was being carried by a d̄a͞n͟g͞e̱r̄o̳u̅s̱ ͟p͞r̅e̲ḏa̅t̄o̅r̠ , the Pit snapped out of its directive to a̱̳v̱͞e̲̳n̲͞g̳̅e̅̄ the girl to focus on Phantom’s r̠̄̄e̲̿̿a̱͞͞c̄͟͞t̳̱̿i̅̅͟o̠̲̲ṉ̠͟.
Jason warily eyed Phantom as the Pit w̱h̳i͟s̲p̿e̅r̳e̳d̳ to him that Phantom’s reaction was almost exactly the same as his own.
H̠̄͟e̱̅̅ ̅̄͞c̱̄͟a̠̿̅n̠͟͞ ̱̳͟s̳͞͞a̲̠̅v̠̅͟e̱͟͞ ̠̠̳t̠̄͟h̳͟͟e̱͟͞ ̱̠̅g̿͞͞i̠̅͟r̲̅͟l̳̱̄.̲̠̄ ̳̿͞P̳͟͞r̳̿͞o̲̿̅t̠̿͞e̳̿͟c̳̅͟t̠̿̄ ̠̠̅h̿̄͟i̠̿̅m̄̅͟.̲̱̅
“Reds, cover me!” Phantom whispered as he pulled them into the room, letting go of Red Huntress to position herself against the left-side agents, and practically dropping Red Hood onto the right-side agents in a surprise attack. Phantom immediately hit the agent at the head of the table with a beam of ice that launched him into the wall behind him and glued him in place, then immediately turned around and gave the same treatment to the two agents guarding the door before they could aim their guns at him, blocking the only entrance to the room with both of their bodies and a few feet of ice. With three Lazarus Green energy beams, he gagged each of the iced agents, and turned his attention to Ellie on the operating table below him.
At the same time, Red Huntress body-checked the first agent with her hoverboard that had appeared out of nowhere, knocking him to the ground as a taser materialized in her hand which she used on the second agent. The third agent had enough time to pull out a gun, but Huntress immediately knocked it out of his hand with one arm and punched him in the face with the other, knocking him out instantly. The first agent tried to shove her hoverboard off of him, disrupting Huntress’ balance, but she signaled the board to electrocute him as she hopped onto the floor, which had the added bonus of knocking out the agent that had been tasered by virtue of being in physical contact.
On the other side of the table, Red Hood landed with his full weight onto the first agent, making sure to knock his head into the ground to knock him out, then swept the feet out from underneath the remaining two agents. The second one hit his head on the edge of the operating table, pathetically knocking himself out along the way, but the third caught his balance and swiped a scalpel from the tray of tools next to him. Jason wrestled it out of his hand and twisted his arm in one motion, cleanly snapping it, then shoved the agent to the ground when he was in too much pain to retaliate.
“I’ve seen some pretty fucked up things during my career, but this really takes the cake,” Hood jeered as he pounced on the last agent and slammed his head into the ground, knocking him out.
When Jason had finished with his three agents, he made a quick visual sweep of the room and was immediately impressed that Red Huntress had knocked her three agents out in the same amount of time that he had taken care of his. Danny had already frozen the remaining three agents and had collapsed onto his knees on the operating table over Ellie’s legs, completely oblivious to the blood soaking into his strange hazmat suit. He looked desperate as he held a glowing green hand over Ellie’s opened chest, directly above her silent heart.
“Phantom,” Red Huntress said softly as she reached over and closed Ellie’s eyes, “I don’t think she’s coming back from this one.” A small quiver in her voice betrayed the anger Huntress was probably actually feeling.
The way Huntress had worded that pulled at the Pit. Has Ellie already been through a similar experience? How many times has she been rescued by Phantom or Red Huntress?
Phantom shook his head, and Hood couldn’t quite tell if it was out of denial or determination, “Her core is still intact. Get the restraints off,” He ordered as he reached for the metal strap around Ellie’s neck. It seemed to shock him when he touched it, but he refused to let go, breaking it open with brute strength and tossing the fragments off the table.
Huntress snapped back into action and reached for the arm restraint next to her without hesitation, so Hood wordlessly decided to copy her. If both Phantom and Red Huntress believed there was a chance to resuscitate her, he might as well help give them every extra second he could manage. His hands stung the moment he touched the restraint, but Hood powered through it like Phantom had to wrench them off of Ellie.
As the Red Vigilantes pried open the arm restraints, Phantom reached into his stomach and pulled out a large metal box and quickly set it next to Ellie’s head and opened it, revealing first aid equipment.
What the fuck? Did he have a pocket dimension inside of himself or something? That box looked like it was larger than Phantom’s beanpole of a stomach. Hood narrowly avoided blue-screening as he moved to the leg restraint. Phantom just kept getting weirder and weirder.
Phantom already had a needle and glowing white thread in his gloved hands when Red Huntress broke the last restraint mere seconds after Hood finished with his. He nodded determinedly even as he threaded the needle, “I just felt her core start humming again.” Huntress’ shoulders relaxed ever so slightly at the news.
“Shouldn’t those be sterilized?” Oracle asked before Phantom could start working on Ellie, “And what about CPR?”
“Don’t need to,” Phantom answered as he carefully pulled Ellie’s bloodied skin closed and made the first puncture with the needle, quickly and expertly working his way up the surgical cut. “Hood, can you restrain the agents? This is gonna take a while.”
Didn’t need to sterilize the needle and didn’t need to do CPR?
(How would you even do CPR on an open vivisection wound?)
But at the same time it sort of made sense? Hood and Oracle came into this case learning all about ghosts after all, and they had already determined that at the very least, the GIW considered Ellie to be a ghost. Maybe she was more of a zombie than even Jason was? Maybe she didn’t need a heartbeat or to breathe to survive? Maybe she looked dead every time she was unconscious? Jason fought the urge to grip his chest and check for a heartbeat.
Hood turned to confiscate the knocked-out agents' weapons and comms and restrain them, as they’d likely wake before Phantom was finished. He prioritized Huntress’ targets first, since she stayed with Phantom, providing an extra set of hands to hold Ellie’s wound closed as Phantom sutured it. Hood knew that his targets would stay knocked out for a few minutes, but didn’t know enough about Huntress to guess at how effective she had been. He had seen from the corner of his eye that she had tased at least one of her targets, which shouldn’t have even knocked him out. That alone meant that her weapons were not standard, which also meant he had no way of guessing exactly how effective they were or how long Huntress’ targets would remain prone.
He worked on the tasered agent first, punching him in the nose when Jason realized he had escaped being bloodied up by the surprise attack. If anyone asked, the agent had stirred ever so slightly. It’s not like his video cameras were working at their best right now.
“You sure she’ll… wake up from this?” He heard Huntress ask as Hood drug the second agent, sans all weapons, to the nearest wall to restrain him against the equipment there. This had been the one that Huntress had body-checked with her hoverboard, and Hood hadn’t seen what she had done to knock him out, as he had been on the ground on the opposite side of the operating table from Jason. However, looking at him now, the blood on his scrubs was curdled and burnt, fabric of both the scrubs and the suit underneath was scorched in several places, and he had the overall stench of fried skin and burnt hair. He hadn’t been tased like the other agent, but full-on electrocuted.
This agent had been physically touching the tasered agent where they had both fallen to the ground, and although the tasered agent didn’t look nearly as bad off (which Jason had already rectified), he may have taken some of the shock, which might explain why he had stayed down for more than a minute between the actual fight and Hood restraining him.
Phantom continued working silently, but when Hood had a chance to glance back at the two working on the operating table as he made his way to the third agent, he was slowly nodding in answer to Huntress’ question as he worked.
Everyone stopped and stared at the frozen over entrance for a brief second when there was a loud bang behind it. The door had been blasted open and the warped faces of several agents could be seen through the partly-transparent ice. The two guards trapped in the ice mumbled in shock behind their gags, probably some desperate effort to be rescued instead of becoming collateral damage.
Right, they still had their comms, not that they were much help to them right now.
“They won’t be able to get through the ice,” Phantom said as he returned his focus to the surgical patch job he was doing on Ellie.
‘They’ll target a wall once they give up on the door. Oracle, keep an eye out for that,” Huntress’ voice informed both Hood and Oracle through the comms, despite Hood not hearing her physically speak. It was kind of creepy, to be honest.
“And risk hurting one of their own?” Hood asked out loud as he restrained the third agent (the one Huntress had knocked out with a single punch, he would need extensive reconstructive surgery to fix his nose and half of his face, Jason was impressed), as he didn’t have time to stop and type a response despite the others probably not wanting to risk the agents who had been iced instead of knocked out from overhearing, though he did turn off the voice distorter and spoke quietly inside his helm so the agents probably wouldn’t overhear him.
He had been spreading the agents out along the walls as he was restraining them to the mechanical equipment and shelving throughout the room, so that they’d be out of arm's reach from each other and thus unable to help each other escape. If that positioning could also be used to hold them hostage, it would buy more time for Phantom to work on Ellie.
“ They don’t care about collateral damage,” Huntress immediately answered, again without speaking. Well so much for that plan. That probably explained why the iced agents were silent until after the attack on the door, despite probably hearing the plan through the comms.
But if they killed themselves, that meant Hood couldn’t be blamed for their deaths. Batman might not approve, but he wasn’t here, and the fuckers would get the same treatment from Red Hood as the child traffickers he eradicated back in Gotham.
Which is to say, Jason was prepared to be as excessively brutal as he believed he could get away with.
“I locked every door in the compound the moment you guys entered the operating room,” Oracle informed through the comms, “Most of them are still busting down doors to regroup. I’ll let you know if they start targeting one of the walls.”
Hood quickly moved around to the other side of the operating table to take care of the three agents he had knocked out. One of them (the one that hit his head on the operating table) was starting to stir, so he kicked him in the head with a steel-toed boot, knocking him out again. Hood then kicked the other two just for good measure.
All three iced agents started moaning behind the gags in pain.
“All of the agents just ripped out their communicators. I’m assuming that was you, Hood?” Oracle announced.
“I pocketed the comms instead of destroying them,” Jason answered quietly into the comm, smug amusement clearly audible now that the voice distorter was turned off, “I was hoping they were locked open and would start a positive feedback loop.” He glanced towards the remaining two unconscious agents that he had yet to remove the comms from, making sure the noise hadn’t woken them up. It didn’t look like it had. With any luck, they were now both deaf in one ear, along with the iced agents.
“Clever,” Tech’s voice echoed through the comms, reminding everyone that he was still listening in, “I’ll have to remember that trick. Maybe I can get the B team to copy it with the agents stuck in town.”
Phantom had finished sewing the main cut and was working on Ellie’s left collarbone when Hood finished restraining the fourth agent and glanced towards the operating table. It had barely been a couple of minutes since he had started sewing her up, and the main cut had been nearly a foot long.
Emergency medical aid was a valuable skill set in the vigilante business, but that level of speed bothered Jason by its implication of Phantom being very well practiced at it. He tried to convince himself that it was just easier because he was technically working on a dead body that wasn’t currently bleeding out of the wound he was closing up. That didn’t make Jason feel any better about the situation. Would she even wake up, or was this all a desperate but ultimately lost cause?
Hood moved to restrain the fifth agent as Oracle’s voices came through the comms, “One of the agents is placing C-4 against a wall. I believe it’s the north wall of the room you're in.”
“Which way’s north?” Hood asked, practically shoving the agent into the equipment behind him as he cuffed the concussed man to a heavy shelf.
“If Ellie were facing to her right,” Oracle clarified. That was the side of the room that Red Huntress had cleared. Hood sprinted across the room, slowing only for a second to kick the last agent still on the ground in the head one more time (hopefully he’d have permanent brain damage when this was all said and done), and pulled every loose item off of the walls and shelves and tossed them onto the floor underneath the operating table. It wouldn’t do to have surgical equipment flying off and stabbing everyone due to the blast. Red Huntress turned away from helping Phantom to do the same with all of the loose trays of surgical tools surrounding the table.
“Hood, move!” Phantom called and Jason dove away from the wall while Phantom covered it in a foot of ice, freezing in place all of the larger equipment and two of the agents that had been restrained, their heads barely poking out.
Seconds later, they heard a loud boom, shaking the room briefly, but the ice held even as the wall behind it cracked and crumbled, protecting everyone in the operating room and even both agents stuck in the ice. Phantom paid no heed to it as he returned to Ellie’s sutures with renewed zeal. Hood returned to the last unrestrained agent, quickly shaking him down for weapons and restraining him against one of the two remaining unfrozen walls. Huntress was once again holding Ellie’s cuts closed as Phantom finished off with her left collarbone.
Before Phantom started on the cut under Ellie’s right collarbone, he looked up and around the room to survey the damage so far. With the flick of his arm, he covered the wall he was facing with a foot of ice, enveloping two more agents alongside the very first one that he had iced when they had first attacked. Hood, having finished restraining the last of the agents, returned to the operating table, and Phantom swept his arm toward the last remaining wall, giving it and the last two agents the exact same treatment. With every agent now iced, he shot a gag at every one that didn’t already have one, then grabbed the edge of the operating table and froze all of the loose equipment underneath into a single solid block.
With every possible hazard now taken care of, Phantom began stitching up Ellie’s right collarbone, the last open cut from the vivisection.
‘Hood, can you take over for Huntress here?’ Phantom asked via text.
“How come?” Hood asked quietly, even as he reached his gloved hands over Huntress’ and gently held the wound shut as Phantom continued sewing. He already had blood all over himself from handling the bloodied agents, so he pointedly didn’t complain about getting even more blood on his gloves.
‘She needs to collect all the ghosts currently held in the facility before we leave,’ Phantom answered again via text. Both Red Vigilantes wordlessly nodded, and Huntress faded completely from view even as she slipped intangibly through an un-iced patch of floor.
“This is a lot of effort to go through if she doesn’t wake up,” Hood quietly stated as he helped Phantom by holding Ellie’s wound shut. Every instinct in him screamed that it wasn’t right, her skin was cold, clammy, she wasn’t bleeding or breathing. She was by all accounts dead, and none of this mattered. And yet still, the Pit w̱h̳i͟s̲p̿e̅r̳e̳d̳ to keep trying, she was d̄i̠f̅f̄e͞r͞e̲n̠ṯ, she would pull out of it. Pull out of Death itself.
Phantom's focused expression morphed into a thin-lipped grimace as green text appeared on the HUD, ‘she’ll wake up.’
Hood glanced over Ellie’s bare-chested body, completely still and caked in blood underneath Phantom’s hunched form as he expertly worked away on her. While his emergency aid was professional, his position over her was far from it, although Jason couldn’t find it in him to fault Phantom for it. Huddling over her was a strategically sound position, allowing him to immediately drop on top of her and cover her from stray attacks as his teammates took down the threats. Not that it had actually come down to that yet. Jason was a trained assassin, and Red Huntress seemed to be nearly as efficient as himself. With Phantom’s strategic use of cryokinesis, it would likely be a few more minutes before the Guys In White attempted attacking the floor or ceiling.
“You sure?” Hood pressed. Phantom didn’t look wildly desperate, which meant he likely had a reason to believe he was right. It would help greatly if he would just explain that reason.
‘I’m leaning pretty heavily into the idea of sending her with you,’ green text continued as Phantom continued sowing, refusing to explain, ‘The rest of my team might disagree, but I think it's honestly the best option. Will Batman be okay with providing refuge in his territory for a meta-adjacent?’
Jason almost huffed in amusement at the term meta-adjacent. Is that what we’re calling the dead now?
Actually it kind of had a nice ring to it. Though maybe living-adjacent would be more accurate.
“Batman’s ‘no metas’ rule is mostly a scare tactic,” Oracle interrupted, “It puts on the appearance of a scorched earth mentality against anyone that might try to threaten Gotham. As far as Ellie’s concerned, she’s a child and she’s running away from government-sanctioned human experimentation, and that’s all that will matter to Bats.”
‘I know Batman can be pretty paranoid. When Ellie’s running on full cylinders, she’s nearly as powerful as I am, and would be more than capable of figuring out all of your identities in mere hours. Will that change anything?’
‘Invisibility and intangibility, right?’ Oracle asked as Phantom tied off the last of the stitching, “It looks like the suits are going to attempt the opposite wall now.”
‘Yeah’ Phantom answered via green text, as he held the needle in one hand that promptly burst into green flames, burning off the bloodstains on both glove and needle, then returned the needle to the emergency kit. With his other still-bloodstained hand, he gently touched Ellie on the side of her stomach, turning her intangible, and all of the grime and bloodstains on her torso (and on his remaining glove) fell through her onto the torn up clothes still underneath her. Phantom grabbed the bloodied clothes before letting go of Ellie, wadding them up in his hands, which then burst into green flames, disintegrating the entire heap.
Ellie, along with both of Phantom’s arms, looked completely clean, in stark contrast to the bloodied table they still sat on. A thin layer of ice crept across the surface of the table to prevent the blood from further spreading, then Phantom floated up a couple of feet above Ellie, his entire body bursting into green flames for a few brief seconds, burning off the last of the bloodstains. He landed back down on the table over Ellie, the same position as before, and immediately reached for a tub of ḡl̳o̅w̿i͟n̿g̱ ̲g̿r̳e̲e̅n̠ ̲c͟r͞ēa̳m̿ inside the emergency kit. It was the same color as the Lazarus Pits, but that was also the same color as Phantom’s eyes and his green energy attacks, so maybe it was just a ghost thing.
‘Hood, grab my shoulder. I want to turn us all invisible now so the goons can’t watch what I’m doing,’ Phantom ordered.
‘If Batman considers that a problem, she can stay with me,’ Hood typed out, using the hand with the holographic wristband to stay in contact with Phantom so he still had a free hand to type, immediately feeling the familiar cold wash over him at the moment of contact. Talking would have been faster, but none of them wanted to risk the Guys In White hearing that Ellie was potentially going right back to the same exact place that they had just captured her from. ‘I’m not about to abandon a kid just because she’s too clever for her own good. B can fucking deal with it.’
“I agree,” Oracle added, “I’d be more than happy to take her if necessary. Nightwing would take her in a heartbeat too. But as long as she’s willing to follow a few ground rules, it shouldn’t be a problem for Batman.”
Phantom smiled ruefully as he listened to Oracle’s response and gently applied the Lazarus Ghost Green cream onto Ellie’s sutures, ‘Doesn’t Nightwing work in Bludhaven? I don’t know if her ecto-signature would be masked there.’
Red Hood was somewhat surprised about how up to date Phantom was with Batfamily intel. It wasn’t like Nightwing being based in Bludhaven was secret information, but on any given night there were about equal odds of him being found there or in Gotham. The public was fairly divided on which city he currently called home. That Phantom mentioned it at all meant that he was either keeping close tabs on Nightwing’s movements, or was at least hedging his bets regarding the most common locations he was sighted.
“At the very least, Nightwing would be more than happy to run interference for me and Hood if it meant helping Ellie,” Oracle amended, “It looks like the suits gave up on breaking in. Apparently your disappearing act convinced them that you decided to leave the moment you finished stitching Ellie up.”
‘I’m honestly not even that surprised that they’re stupid enough to fall for that,’ Phantom’s green text responded.
‘How do you know so much about the Batfamily, anyway?’ Hood typed out.
‘Tech makes it his business to keep up with the latest goings-on of any vigilante or super that could potentially wreck my shit, and then he drills me on it to make sure I’ve memorized all his intel. The list is short, and the entire Batfamily is on it.’ Phantom put the weird glowing green cream away in the emergency kit and pulled out a bag of gauze.
Well that explained why Phantom immediately recognized Red Hood. He wasn’t exactly well known outside of Gotham, and even within it, his reputation wasn’t that great. That was by design, however, as he was more concerned about making sure the gangs of Gotham clearly understood that he was far more dangerous than Batman could ever dream of being, and that didn’t exactly scream ‘trustworthy’ to most of the public, even if the residents (including the homeless ones) of Crime Alley trusted him completely. He had assumed Phantom was willing to work with him simply because he wore Batman’s insignia, but now it was far more likely that Phantom was clearly aware of Red Hood’s exploits and actually approved of his methods. After mentally reviewing the conversation, Jason realized he had the perfect opportunity to ask Phantom exactly how much he really knew.
‘So despite the fact that we’re on your ‘must avoid’ list, you still trust us to help Ellie? And me specifically?’
Phantom raised a brow at Hood as he gingerly pressed the gauze pads onto the green cream covered sutures, ‘You’ve taken down child trafficking rings, quite brutally I might add. I’m guessing you came here because you initially thought it was another ring. You’re not going to hurt Ellie because it’s not in your nature, and if Red Huntress and I weren’t here and you managed to storm this place alone, and didn’t just assume she was already dead when you found her, you would have taken her back with you anyways.’
That was… clinically logical, even mostly correct. Again, Phantom reminded Hood of Batman, or really of every member of the Batfamily. He was a natural detective and a good judge of character. He was efficient and creative with the use of his powers and kept a clear head despite being in a very clearly emotional situation.
Honestly, Bruce would either love him to death (heh) or Phantom would manage to get on every last one of his nerves. It could easily go either way. Probably both.
“Wait, hold on,” Oracle interrupted, “You said the list was short, but the Batfamily is pretty large. Is there anyone on the list that isn’t a member of the Batfamily?”
Phantom silently chuckled at that (he was very skilled at staying silent when invisible, Jason noted), ‘Members of the Justice League that are magic users, like Zatanna and Constantine. The Green Lanterns. Wonder Woman, but I’m convinced that’s just because Tech has a secret crush on her. We also keep close track of Superman, but mostly because it would ruin EVERYONE’S day if he managed to get overshadowed by a ghost. There are a few others. The Batfamily is about half the list.'
And there was another similarity with Batman, namely keeping a constant eye on Superman.
‘Tech has good taste,’ Hood typed and sent before he could chicken out, though partly it was to distract from the fact the Phantom had just revealed a lot of cards to them. Phantom had finished up with the gauze and returned the bag to the first aid kit, then grabbed the largest ace bandage in the kit.
“Finally someone agrees with me!” Tech announced through the comms. Phantom was wrapping the bandage around Ellie, turning it intangible and reaching through her to get around her back instead of lifting her up off the table.
‘Nobody else on your team likes Wonder Woman? I find that hard to believe,’ Hood teased.
“Phantom and I are the only guys on the team, everyone is straight, and Phantom’s a prude,” Tech deadpanned.
Phantom practically deflated as he sputtered, somehow still managing to stay completely silent, ‘I am not! I just have a very vindictive girlfriend and I’d like to not die a second time!’
Jason found it very difficult to stay silent while laughing. How did Phantom do it?
“I’ll be sure to let her know you said that,” Tech goaded.
‘Tech, no!’
“Tech, yes!”
By now Phantom had finished with the ace bandage and had a very pitiable expression on his face. He reached into his stomach again and pulled out a large red NASA sweatshirt, large enough for Phantom himself to drown in, and intangibly dressed Ellie in it, pulling at the fabric in several places to make sure it was on properly. ‘Time to wake her up. Red Huntress, how you doin’?”
“Got ‘em all. They had Wulf, he said he’s been here a few days. We’re on our way back to you now,” Red Huntress answered.
‘Go to the roof, we’re heading up now,’ Phantom ordered as he grabbed what looked like an epi-pen filled with Lazarus water out of the first aid kit and tossed the entire kit back into his stomach. ‘Hold on tight, Hood.’
Phantom lifted off of the table, floated horizontally a few inches above Ellie. The lack of gravity spread its way through Jason and he instinctively grabbed onto Phantom tighter, scrunching the fabric of his hazmat suit into his fist. Jason started tilting sideways with Phantom, and he didn’t really like the feeling. Phantom gingerly wrapped his arms around Ellie, careful not to squeeze her tight and only lifting her up as he returned vertical after ensuring that the weightlessness had fully consumed her body. Jason also returned upright with Phantom.
With only the warning of the familiar sensation of intangibility washing over Jason, all three of them shot up through the floors of the building until they reached the roof and Jason was glad that he had held on more tightly.
Phantom carefully rested Ellie on the rooftop, and Red Hood let go of Phantom as he was far enough from the edge of the roof to not be spotted by any agents from the ground. Before the warmth of solidity could fully pervade him, the Pit somersaulted just as another wave of cold rushed out from his arm, and Hood turned to see that Red Huntress had grabbed him in that exact spot. That alone surprised him, but he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the ḡi̠g̅ān̠t̠i̠c̠ ̿w̱e̲r̅e̿w̄o̅l̅f̱ ̄c̲r̿e̳a͟t̅u̱r̲ē standing on the other side of Huntress fade into his view as he was dragged back into invisibility.
“Fucking shit!” Hood exclaimed, barely keeping from shouting. Phantom snorted and Huntress huffed in amusement. The werewolf creature at least had the good sense to look a bit a̅p̄ōl̲o̿g̠e̅t͞i̿c̳. “Wulf, I presume?” Hood asked once he caught his breath. The werewolf nodded.
Hood decided the best course of action at the moment would be to just ignore the giant green sweater-wearing invisible werewolf and focus on Ellie instead. Unfortunately, that was a bit difficult because she and Phantom looked like barely more than silhouettes on the rooftop, so Hood did the the most logical thing he could think of and grabbed Phantom’s shoulder once again. The cold energy radiating in Jason’s body that kept him invisible seemed to change currents, originating from Phantom now instead of Huntress, and both Phantom and Ellie resolved more clearly into view, appearing almost completely solid.
Having laid Ellie back down on the roof and stolen a quick glance back and Hood when he once again grabbed his shoulder, Phantom took the Lazarus water epi-pen he retrieved earlier and stabbed it into Ellie’s chest, turning a tiny portion of the sweater intangible to prevent damaging it, then tossed the empty pen back into his stomach and pressed his glowing green hands against Ellie’s torso.
Everyone watched and waited for several seconds. The Lazarus green energy that seemed to practically leak from Phantom’s hands looked as if it was being absorbed into and under Ellie’s sweater, practically pulsing as it was drawn into her.
(Could Phantom’s hands be described as glowing if they were invisible? They were glowing from Jason’s perspective, but nothing on the roof seemed to reflect the green light. Were they invisibly glowing? Was that an oxymoron?)
Finally, after about a minute of waiting, light exploded from Ellie’s waist, traveling up and down her body. After Jason blinked the spots out of his eyes, in the place that Ellie once laid was a white-haired, green-eyed girl, a near perfect gender inversion of Phantom, staring confusedly back at Phantom. She wore a black and white suit made of similar material to Phantom’s strange hazmat, with matching white gloves and boots, and matching ‘D’ logo on her shirt.
“Danny?” Ellie asked, a bit slurred. At the sound of her voice, all tension within Jason’s body and within the Pit immediately relaxed. She was alive… conscious. Living-adjacent? Well, she woke up, at least. Like Phantom - Danny? - said she would.
“Hey, Ellie,” Phantom answered back with a warm smile, offering a hand to pull her up into a sitting position. As soon as she was up, she embraced Phantom in a hug - wincing terribly as it doubtlessly pulled her new stitches - knocking him off balance and forcing him to float awkwardly. When she finally let go of him, she immediately noticed Red Hood standing behind Phantom.
“Red Hood?” Ellie looked at him surprised, then turned out a large smile, “You found me!”
“You knew I was looking for you?” Hood asked, honestly surprised.
“Well, no,” Ellie looked away shyly, “I knew I was in your territory, and I knew that you protect the kids in your territory, so I was hoping if I made a big enough scene, you would… show up?” She looked nervous, as if hearing her own logic out loud suddenly made it embarrassing.
“Well congrats, kid.” Hood answered with an audible smile, tugging at Red Huntress slightly when he used the arm she was holding onto to ruffle Ellie’s snow white hair. She practically (literally?) beamed from the attention. “You made a big enough scene and I showed up.”
“Huntress! Wulf?” Ellie exclaimed as her eyes landed on them in turn.
“You got quite the rescue party, Ellie,” Huntress responded.
“How you feelin’?” Phantom asked.
“Exhausted,” Ellie answered somewhat dramatically, “What happened?”
“Later,” Phantom answered, “Right now, we need to put as much distance between us and this facility as possible. Huntress, you take Hood. Wulf, follow us. Ellie, do you want me to carry you?” Huntress let go of both Hood and Wulf, disappearing almost completely from view (Wulf disappeared completely). Hood could only see the vague silhouette of Huntress hopping a foot into the air as her hoverboard rematerialized underneath her, then she held out an offered hand to Hood, pulling him up onto the hoverboard behind her. Huntress snapped back into clarity as the cold currents of invisibility changed sources once again, while it was now Phantom and Ellie’s turn to disappear almost entirely.
“Yes, please,” Ellie meekly answered after trying and failing to float up off of the roof. Phantom knelt down to pick her up and Ellie wrapped around Phantom’s front like an overgrown koala.
“Hold on tight,” Huntress warned as she directed Hood’s arms to wrap around her torso. The entire party shot off into the forest south Amity Park, only slowing down to touch ground after several miles.
They made it out, infiltration and extraction one-hundred percent successful. Ellie, a little girl that Jason had witnessed via security camera getting abducted inside of his own territory and spent the last ten hours tracking down, had been rescued. She was a lot worse for wear, but she was awake and talking, and very very grateful for the save.
Now it was time to figure out what the hell was going on in the small town of Amity Park, Illinois.