Chapter Text
Tommyinnit was having a shitty day. He seemed to be having a lot of those lately. He wondered what he did to deserve it. Nobody as pogchamp as him deserved this many bad days.
He thought back to the beginning of his day. He’d woken up on the floor instead of on his bed, with a sore shoulder, an aching back and Tubbo’s nasty foot in his face. Not a great start. Then, when he’d gone to eat breakfast, he’d realized they’d run out of cereal, and that if he wanted to have some, he’d have to go to the store and buy some. Which wasn’t something he and Tubbo could afford at the moment. So he went without breakfast. So yeah, his day had been shitty since the start.
He had hoped to turn his day around with a nice and simple evening patrol, but apparently that would’ve been too much to ask. So now he was sprinting across rooftops and over alleyways, dodging and weaving as bullets whizzed past his head and left small holes in the cement underneath his feet.
When he’d seen that store being robbed, he’d only seen three guys in there, with black hoodies, ski masks, and small handguns, which would’ve been something he could’ve handled easily. But what he hadn’t seen were the other three guys, with bags full of supplies from the back room, and guns loaded and ready to shoot at Tommy the moment he landed his first punch. No matter how awesome, strong, handsome and pogchamp he was, six guys with guns was a little too much for him to handle all on his own. So he had opted to turn and sprint out of there as quickly as he could.
And apparently, scaring the vigilante off and getting away with their robbery wasn’t enough for them. No, they had to chase him four blocks over the tops of buildings, trying to shoot him the entire time. Where were their manners?
The long time he’d been running, along with all the parkour and dodging, was starting to tire him out. His chest was burning, and his legs were turning to jelly. He couldn’t keep this up for much longer. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder to see the robbers gaining on him. He dove to the side as a bullet whizzed past his ear, and let out a curse as he scrambled to his feet to continue running. Why the hell were these bad guys in such good shape?
They were way too close to him now. There was no way he was going to get out of this one. His mind scrambled as he desperately tried to think of something to do. Unfortunately, he was not great at thinking of plans. Usually he just ran in without one and got extremely lucky. No, scratch that. He was extremely smart and intelligent and strong. Luck was never a part of it!
Either way, his mind was blank. The earpiece that let him talk to Tubbo was long gone, having fallen out of his ear sometime during the chase (Tubbo was going to be pissed, but that was a problem for later). Ranboo was busy with his patrol, and Tommy had no way to contact him. There was no way he could come and save Tommy’s ass the way he had in the past (Well, as well as Ranboob could save someone’s ass. He was a bitch). For now, all he could do was keep on running.
Apparently, the robbers weren’t a fan of his plan. The unreasonably tall one in the lead fired a shot that grazed the outside of Tommy’s right leg. Tommy collapsed with a grunt, his hands coming up at the last minute to save his face and teeth from a really expensive and shitty collision with the pavement. He hissed as the pavement tore open his hands and the knees of his pants. That was going to hurt later. If he was even alive later. He rolled over with a groan as the robbers stopped, and the same one that shot him shoved his gun closer to Tommy’s face.
“Woah there big man! You’re being a little too aggressive there. I hardly touched you guys!”
Another robber behind him squawked in protest. “You broke my nose!”
Tommy looked at him as he held his nose, blood dripping through his fingers and onto the ground. So maybe he had touched them a little bit.
“Besides, there’s a big bounty on your head Theseus”, the man who had shot him said, spitting out Tommy’s vigilante name as if it were the most vile thing he’d ever heard. “There’d be a considerable reward for whoever got your head”.
So that’s why they’d been chasing him.
Tommy screwed up his face in an exaggerated expression of thought. “So who’s gonna give you the reward? I am in possession of Theseus’s head, so I might have to get in on this”.
The robber in front of him faltered, pausing for a moment before gathering himself and saying, “I’m not telling you that!”
“So you don’t know”, Tommy said. “It’s okay big man, everybody forgets things now and then. Well, except me of course. I’m Theseus! I’m Big T! I’m pogchamp!”
Another robber behind them, one with a long tear in his right sleeve cried out, exasperated. “I don’t understand half the words coming out of your mouth right now!”
The robber in front of him shushed the man with a wave, then turned his attention back to Tommy. “Of course I know him!” he yelled. “I just don’t want to get my ass killed by telling Theseus, the famous vigilante, the business of a major crime boss!”
“So you agree I’m famous”, Tommy retorted. “You’re a big fan”.
The man sputtered in confusion. “No!”
“It’s okay big man. It’s nothing to be ashamed about. I’m pretty pogchamp!”
The man hesitated, before shaking his head and cocking his gun. “No, I’m in charge of this situation. I don’t have to answer to you!”
Tommy gulped, suddenly being reminded of his deadly situation. He had been stalling to make a plan, but had gotten so caught up in the argument he’d forgotten about the plan making bit of his plan. He was suddenly aware of the pool of blood underneath his leg, and the headache he was starting to get. The gunshot wound had been worse than he’d thought. He didn’t have much longer before he was too weak to save himself.
The robber shoved his gun right up to the hard plastic of the mask that covered the lower half of Tommy’s face, and right as he was about to pull off his brilliant plan that he had definitely come up with, the gun was pulled out of the man’s hand, and he went flying backwards, all done by some invisible force. The other robbers started shooting around frantically, as they realized what had happened at the same time as Tommy. He grinned as the other five guys were knocked to the ground and a form shimmered into existence.
The Phantom was here.