*POV The Dark Knight *
The Caped Crusader narrowed his eyes, staring at the two unconscious children with complicated feelings; the situation had escalated far beyond what he had originally imagined.
He lifted his head, his eyes closed, facing the sky, taking a long, deep breath before exhaling. The events leading up to this would never have prepared him for this sort of outcome.
***
There were rumors about mysterious lights coming from a certain location, which just so happened to be an orphanage. The fence was easy to climb over; there were no safeguards and basically no one watching the fence.
The land it occupied was massive, practically an estate; the snow withered and covered trees that filled the area, their bodies swaying slowly in the dead silence, which made the place seem like a small forest of ghosts.
He could understand why people would avoid this place; in a single word, it was… off-putting. No one would want to spend any time here if they had a choice, which made it even stranger that an orphanage would be standing in a place that even locals think is cursed.
He looked at the orphanage building piles of snow and suggested that someone had at least been occasionally clearing the snow so it didn't block the doors, though they had been doing it rather lazily.
He moved closer, touching the wall of the orphanage with his gloved hands, narrowing his eyes. The building style was old; few buildings were constructed like this. His closest comparison was Wayne Manor; perhaps he would inspect the blueprints once he got back.
He looked up, judging by the reports, the light would have to be coming from somewhere high up for it to be visible. Considering the distance of the orphanage from the wall, it could only be the top floor.
He would be going up.
A faint glow was coming from the highest window on the eastern side of the building. It didn't look strong enough to be seen from such a distance, but its presence was undeniable, which was all the dark knight needed.
He couldn't make out anything from the window, so he had to find another and get in from there.
The building was eerily quiet, like it was empty; the signs of poor maintenance were also quite easy to see, but it was clear people lived here, or they did until very recently. He could see faint footprints.
He soon came upon a locked reinforced door, which he opened with almost no effort, stepping into the room; his eyes widened in shock. Scientists, an experimentation room, thugs with weapons.
Those were the kind of things he had expected, but what he had seen instead was much stranger.
***
The room was filled with people simply standing still, gazing aimlessly into the distance "They don't seem to respond to stimuli". He muttered as he brushed past them, and they simply stood there, like meat statues.
They seemed to be crowding around something; he immediately and carefully started making his way through them, trying as much as possible not to knock them over.
When he got close enough to see through them, he caught sight of a small single bed, with a young girl in nightwear lying on the bed with her eyes closed as she peacefully slept.
The dazed people all suddenly moved their heads, fixing their gazes on the girl in front of them. Her skin began to glow; a small formless mass of light extended from her chest. 'What the'
The light began to twist, shaping itself into a pair of long, delicate hands that placed themselves down on the mattress and began to push downwards, dragging more and larger amounts of the shapeless mass of light out of the girl's body.
It rolled into a ball, retracting both arms. The orb of light began to pulse, swelling until it was large enough to fit an adult before it began to shrink, forming the faint outline of a person, a silhouette of pure light.
The silhouette soon became a blonde young woman in a similar night dress and skin that emitted a dull ethereal radiance.
'I suppose I just found the Ghost.' Batman commented internally. The hovering woman slowly opened her eyes, which appeared to be filled with nothing but endless light. She turned her head, looking over the unmoving and dazed people around her.
Blending in with the crowd, he watched her carefully, shifting his gaze between the luminescent specter and the girl on the bed who had now changed into a fetal sleeping position.
The wraith moved its hand; the room seemed to distort, stretching out at certain places, bending and twisting. She moved her other hand and the dazed humans suddenly began to move, aligning themselves along the walls.
She soon found something wrong.
And screamed.
***
She lunged at him, her fingers elongating and her nails curving into claws as she swiped at his face, aiming for his neck. She was fast, but it was still within the manageable range.
This was what he had assumed.
Her body sank into the floor the moment she touched it, reappearing from behind him and attempting to pierce through him, which he avoided, if just barely.
She moved through the walls like she was swimming, pouncing at him from any angle she could find, at times attacking from multiple places at once,
He felt dizzy.
The room's proportions were all wrong, which stressed his sense of space. Judging from her movements, what parts of the space she had augmented were difficult to see, as she didn't seem restricted by the illusions she herself had conjured.
She nicked him now and then, with some of her clones being intangible, the distance being wrong and simply by virtue of her superior maneuverability.
She grabbed him by his neck and pushed him through the door, dragging him across the ground as he struggled. He backhanded the specter, whose grip momentarily loosened, her face cracking slightly, as he immediately made a hole in the floor and dived down.
Hurriedly placing a hand on her face, the cracks on the specter's face started to close as she frowned, her hair lifted briefly, breaking into small orbs of light that floated around her head. She stared at the hole in the floor and whispered something as they rushed towards the hole
Small orbs of light followed him through the hole, releasing beams of light that would sweep over objects before moving on.
Blending in with the shadows, he moved carefully through the building, avoiding the light sentinels as much as he could.
'The woman is just a projection herself; fighting her directly won't work. ' he looked around 'I have to get to the main body'
***
In the end, he never made it to the main body and had come very close to being a modern fossil as she punched a gaping hole through the floors and collapsed an entire room; it was a shocking display of power 'But can she keep it up?'
Waiting for a few seconds, he noted no probes, no follow-ups, and no signs of the specter 'I guess not then'
He turned his attention to the young tech boy he had shielded from the blast; he had not been in the room with the other thralls. It was the boy he had met a few weeks ago. The Dark Knight assessed him.
He looked slightly emancipated; a slight tremor came from his body, scratches on his forearms, signs of him nibbling on his fingernails, which suggested anxiety and extended isolation.
Rising to his feet, the dark knight noticed the boy wince in pain. "Are you alright?" He asked, and the boy shook his head, telling him that his leg had been injured.
Quickly applying a mild anesthetic, he made sure the boy was carefully following him. The young boy inquired about the destruction he just witnessed and simply shook his head, "She shouldn't be able to fire another blast like that soon".
The boy appeared visibly surprised, after which he drifted into thought and spaced out. He brought his face closer and inspected the boy carefully, questions appearing in his mind.
Questions like 'why wasn't he enthralled?, what made him different from the others? He didn't have the answer to those questions quite yet, but he would in time; for now he had to get the boy out of here first.
Snapping out of his daze, he flinched and took a step back in surprise "You spaced out; are you okay?"
After assuring him he was fine, he shared his understanding of the specter's main body, which matched what he had seen before coming to this floor.
Spotting a light down the hall, the dark knight had moved them behind the large reception desk. The pulsating orb's light was accompanied by the sound of slow but clumsy footsteps. Glancing briefly at the boy, he found a hint of recognition on his face. 'Someone he's familiar with? But he appears uneasy'
A rat-like man had stumbled past them, a small orb of light hanging in a lantern at his waist. He looked over the desk briefly before turning to stare into the destroyed room. He rolled his
Head on his neck, muttering something incomprehensible.
The lantern's light grew brighter, spectral tendrils extending into the room briefly before retracting back into the lantern.
'What is that?' The dark knight watched in silence as the rat-like man began to slowly walk out of the hall. The boy visibly relaxed his arm, hitting something as he let out a small exclamation.
The Rat man's steps stopped,
The lantern's light dimmed and began to flicker, the watchman's head beginning to vibrate violently before turning a complete one hundred and eighty degrees, and he began to morph and shift into a sort of glowing flower.
The hall began to twist and stretch, the walls melting like wax, reshaping themselves.
He picked up the boy and broke into a sprint, as the human flowers' distorted voice entered their ears.
"I FoUnD YoU". He could hear the clumsy footsteps approaching, yet when he looked, all he could see was the grotesque glowing human flower extending its pale flesh colored roots and slamming them against the ground.
"Oh God, oh God please please". The melting hall compressed inwards like a creature taking a breath, before lunging at them all at once, drowning them in wax.
***
He had soon been separated from the boy, with the boy being knocked outside the building completely. Where he now fought with the human flower man.
It had restrained him and knocked him unconscious, at least what it had assumed, as I dragged him back into the orphanage in silence.
Now having returned where he started, being tossed down to the floor, he carefully observed the room whilst feigning unconsciousness. The boy was safe; if anything, he seemed unharmed, a welcome development.
The thing that had brought him, however, had walked away to a neon vine cocoon and began to break away into particles.
It's as I suspected; he was a projection as well'
Next, he watched the blonde ghost fuse with the girl on the bed, which had confirmed another one of his suspicions; however, it was time. He made his move, slipping free of his bindings and positioning himself to hit her with a sedative. If he struck her before she could register it, her ability to split into the blond specter might just fail.
***
The plan had gone completely awry.
The orphanage was destroyed and wouldn't be able to be used within a short period of time, or even in the foreseeable future, so it would be best to move the boy to another institution, preferably one under Wayne Corps.
As for the girl, she will need to be placed under rehabilitation by specialists; her abilities are dangerous, even to herself and would need to be taken care of by specialists, and hopefully she would grow to overcome this incident as she aged.
'I'll also need to find a way to keep them out of the news. Media publicity wouldn't do them any good'
Having made up his mind, he carefully lifted both children and quietly disappeared into the night.
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at [email protected]/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.