Chapter 3
Bellatrix chose to attack Sirius first. Of course. He dodged but she gathered the sense to turn the street colder than it already was.
He slid and fell on the iced road. She chuckled, stomping towards him with surprising ease. The red masked vigilante body slammed her before she could reach him. Again, he appeared out of nowhere, having been right next to him one moment and fighting a villain the next.
Grim Reaper got back to his feet and watched her scratch his forehead with her mutilated hand. The vigilante was big and his powers seemed to help him attack but he was hopeless at dodging.
Red scratch marks bloomed by his forehead. Sirius ran forward and grabbed her by her shoulder. Finally, he could get a hold of her. She hollered in his ear before trying to elbow the vigilante in the throat.
The man blocked her hit with a ‘humph’ and tried to get her into a headlock.
“Oh don’t you dare!” She froze his arm solid.
Sirius exhaled from his nose. His breath created a puff of white because of the cold. She had clearly gone for freezing him solid. Her powers must have decreased after she created a winter wonderland out of an entire district.
He used his good hand to land a punch on the villain. She attempted to tackle him. Her hands were veined and thin but her nails were long like an animal’s. She had lost weight after she broke out of prison.
He noticed she was using her elbows and nails to make up for the lack of physical strength. She was much weaker than she was last time but she was making up for it.
He dodged by an inch. His foot slipped on the ice and caused him to slide along the street. He groaned internally.
His broken hand was still out of commission. It was starting to swell under the collection of jackets and the pain was excruciating.
“Grim Reaper! I-I can’t I’m so freakin’ sorry I-”
“Stop. Rosethorn, I get it. I really do. You had to save Frank! He's your fiance! It doesn’t even matter anymore anyway.”
“No. No it does matter…it does matter. I chose someone I cared about instead of choosing my teammates. Benjy, he-, I shouldn’t have done that. I messed up…I really…I messed up.”
“There was no way you could have saved all of us but you tried. You just chose to save Frank first.”
“No…No I’m a hero. I’m not supposed to be so biased…I’m not supposed to be so biased, or emotional. I’m a hero for Merlin’s sake!”
He was a hero. He was trained to manage his pain because he would have to deal with wounds and still remain fighting more times than imaginable.
He heard a faint crack in the distance and saw what he pictured to be the vigilante using his frozen arm like a baseball bat and swinging it at Dementis.
‘Suck it up.’ He told himself, ‘Now is not the time to be in pain.’
He took a shaky breath and slid back into action. His powers weakened and had little to no effect on people like Dementis, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.
“Aren’t you tired from fighting so much?” He exclaimed, turning all his focus to her so as to not affect his teammate.
Both heads turned to him. He barreled headfirst towards her. She dodged, only to be punched in the face by his partner.
“Owh!” Her mask cracked a little, “I’m going to end your life with frostbite.”
Sirius’ stomach dropped. The villainess wasn’t one to bluff. He’d seen her do it to countless heroes. Brave ones losing their lives, or worse, their noses, to her powers.
He eyed his teammate’s frozen club of a hand. Dementis brought on her powers towards the man. The vigilante was terrible at dodging.
Sirius gripped him by the frozen hand and pulled him away. She redirected her attention to him. The vigilante shielded them with his clubbed hand.
“Don’t do that! You’re gathering more ice!” He agonised.
“Worry about yourself.” He responded. He nudged his head to Sirius’ broken arm.
The man skidded in her direction. She cast more ice but he disappeared into thin air. Both the hero and the villain paused.
“Why are you confused?” Bellatrix snivelled at Grim Reaper.
The vigilante showed up behind her. He launched in the air and used his hand like a club. Sirius’ jaw fell open in half-laughter at the comedic sight and half-shock.
He clubbed her in the head with his iced arm. She screeched like a vulture and motioned her blood-soaked hand at his arm. The ice cracked and melted away.
Sirius stumbled back into the fight. He knocked her down to the ground with one swift kick. She was still grasping the back of her wounded head. He hoped she had a concussion.
The vigilante flexed his hand. He winced every now and then as he twisted his arm.
He walked leisurely in her vicinity. Everybody stood perfectly still for a second before she assessed her situation and sprung back into the fight.
She kicked Sirius' feet by her legs and knocked him down. He fell on his ass. His partner tried to body slam her only for her to roll away.
He fell hard on the iced street. He made a pained noise before slipping into the shadows once more. Her victorious grin melted off her face.
Grim Reaper stayed on the floor. This fight was getting nowhere. If he wanted to defeat her he needed something. A weapon to keep her in place?
His mind started reeling. The vigilante made a return and stepped on the villain’s injured hand. She howled in pain. He got to his feet and left in the opposite direction.
The vigilante made a surprised sound, “Hey where are you-”
Bellatrix grabbed his throat and pulled him to the floor. They both engaged in another round of fighting. From afar it looked almost comedic if it weren’t for the destruction it was causing.
Sirius could charm many things. Well, he could charm and manipulate people and their powers. But nothing said ‘shut the fuck up and sit still’ like a threat with a gun.
He took a sturdy iced pebble and threw it at a shady shop’s glass door. The shop’s sign read ‘Borgin and Burkes’. He’d heard rumours of the shop being a front for money laundering, trafficking, smuggling and other vicious crimes.
A shop’s owner had been caught dealing arms but the main owners always swore it was just the one shopkeeper. He’d heard James grumble about how that was all bullshit and they’d just chosen to hide their crimes better.
He hoped for his sake the shop really was illegal and dangerous as he walked in. He ran into the ‘staff only’ door behind the counter and hoped for the best.
The place was dusty and he supposed it must have been really dark if it weren’t for his night vision.
The room was full of huge cardboard boxes. A few of them had funky tapes of various colours with little smiley faces or hearts with arrows shot through them.
Sirius searched around, hoping for a secret area or such filled with weapons. He was panicking. There wasn’t much time. His teammate could only hold out for so long.
He sighed. This was pointless. He should just be rejoining and helping his partner. He almost headed back before pausing.
Why were only some of the boxes sealed? And why had someone overdone it with them? The boxes with the tape all had ‘CAUTION: FRAGILE’ written in sharpie. But Borgin and Burkes sold nothing that was fragile.
Borgin and Burkes sold clothes and trinkets. Wigs, wall decorations, nail paint, card decks that vaguely smelled like blood and marijuana. That was their deal.
He stepped back and ripped open a box with smiley faced tape. He beheld the sight in front of him feeling too shocked to comment anything.
Drugs. Laughing gas and plenty of other illegal substances he couldn’t name. Well, he understood the smiley faces now. He rushed to a different box. This one was bigger and was sealed in pink tape with hearts shot by arrows.
He unpacked it and, just as he had anticipated, there were weapons.
He selected a small pistol and checked if it was loaded. It was. He didn’t know if he should be thanking his luck, considering this was smuggling and illegal.
He ran back outside and was hit with a blast of cold air and shattered glass. His teammate was bleeding with small cuts and scratches everywhere. There was a darker red patch on his mask suggesting that he had been punched in the mouth.
The Grim Reaper swung back in action. Despite holding a gun, he couldn’t shoot Dementis. Mainly because he didn’t know how. Gun training was voluntary back in the training programme and he had not chosen it, something he was beginning to regret now. Partially because heroes weren’t allowed to kill villains unless given no other choice.
The Grim Reaper slid next to her while she focussed on the vigilante. He took the hilt of the gun and slammed it against the swollen back of her head. Her voice turned hoarse from the amount of times she screamed that night and a noise between a whimper and a hiss crawled out of her throat.
“Good shot!” His fighting partner called.
Sirius gave him a smile, forgetting the fact that his face was masked. Dementis took the opportunity. She grabbed his hair and yanked it as hard as she could.
“Fucking bitch.” He yelped. Strands of his hair came into her grasp.
The tall vigilante punched her in the eye. She knocked back and fell. Her mask cracked completely.
She sat upright in alarm. Grim Reaper and the vigilante cornered her as she backed up against a wall. Sirius held the gun and pointed it at the villainess. She crawled backwards, slipping and grasping at the floor.
They both cornered her into a wall and he could hear her muttering every crude word imaginable about them. The cracked mask stung to her skin.
She clasped one of the shards from her face and threw it at them with all her might, which from all her wounds and possible concussions, was about as powerful as a toddler throwing mashed potato at the floor from a high chair.
Sirius was heaving, struggling to catch his breath. He sat down in a squat and tried to align his breath properly. The man next to him stared.
“Are you alright?” The sandy haired vigilante asked.
He seemed genuinely concerned. Sirius just shook his head into a ‘no’, too exhausted to speak.
He saw Bellatrix’s mouth turn a fraction upwards. She had already damaged him permanently. She was satisfied with whatever came for her next.
“Well…What do we do now?” The vigilante probed.
Right. He didn’t know the protocol to follow to arrest villains.
The Grim Reaper put his head in his arms, sliding his fingers where his temples would be underneath the visor. He wanted to say something but his lungs would probably explode from the mere effort.
Awkward silence settled in the misty air. His partner slid next to him. Hesitant, he wrapped his warmer arm around his back.
Warmth set in Sirius’ chest. He should be questioning whatever this man thought he was doing or pull him away. But he chose to keep his mouth closed and kept his eyes on Dementis instead.
He swallowed and inhaled deeply before gathering the energy to speak.
“You have two options, Bella. You lift whatever you used to cause a power outage and walk peacefully to the dungeons when the heroes arrive, or you sit here stubbornly and get shot.” He snapped, “You choose which.”
“Oh, so I’m finally worthy of the dungeons now. What an honour.” She blurted.
The dungeons were different from normal prisons. Specially built for some of the more famous villains and vigilantes to be held captive for however long the Ministry deemed.
Dementis was a proud villain among the Death Eaters. Rightfully so, since she had been powerful enough to have fought three heroes and an instructor in the programme all alone and almost won.
But she had also done most of her work in the dark. Her actions made her more of an accomplice to other villains than make her her own masterminded criminal.
This, unfortunately, deemed her a ‘minor’ villain in the eyes of the Ministry. Going into a simple prison for blackmailers and regular ol’ murderers for the rest of her life was an insult to the hero she had killed and more than her ego could take.
Maybe that was why she had come to Hogsmeade alone after she escaped from the prison. She wanted to flaunt what she could do.
Her powers had decreased, however. She must have used most of her powers to freeze the entire district, and the unhealthy weight loss she seemed to have suffered didn’t help.
She had been less powerful than before and still held her own against two others. And yet, here she was sitting with her back against a wall because she was being threatened with a pistol.
“Congratulations. You have finally earned a life in the dungeons with the shit you’ve done.” He said through gritted teeth.
Sirens sounded in the distance. Grim Reaper and the vigilante both caught the sound and turned their heads like a pair of dogs.
Sirius didn’t reflect until much later, but that was not natural.
His power was charmspeak. Well, it was much more powerful than normal charmspeak because of what his god awful parents had done. It strengthened and involved his vocal cords and sense of sound to be…different.
He could hear noises louder and clearer than most. The siren noise was at a distance only he could hear. How did the vigilante hear it?
He didn’t consider it at the moment because Bellatrix had chosen the time to run.
She must have taken notice of their behaviour and decided she didn’t have any intentions to be involved any longer. Sirius yelped and got to his feet, the ice already dissipating.
For someone so battered and beaten up, Dementis moved fast. No! She was not someone who could get away.
They both ran after her in desperation but Sirius knew it was already too late. His lungs couldn’t take the exertion and the vigilante just wasn’t fast enough.
“Can’t you disappear in the shadows again?” He asked his partner.
He shook his head, “I’ve exhausted that power too much. One more and…well there’s a lot of things that could go wrong.” He replied.
(Fucking great. What kind of sick twist was this? No way a malnourished concussed woman was running so fast and the vigilante with the convenient power to catch her ran out of power boosts like a mobile battery at the time he needed it the most. It was almost like the author planned for her to escape from the beginning and the running will make sense later but she wrote herself into a corner with the superpowers so she pulled a theory out of her ass.)
He took a chance and shot his pistol towards her. His hands jerked back as the bullet launched. It missed her by a mile. Well, not really but it might as well have been considering how bad the shot was.
“You’ve never shot a gun before, have you?” A voice spoke in his ear.
Sirius had been so distracted with his thoughts and the nauseating feeling dissipating, making it almost worse than before as an after effect, that he had forgotten the vigilante he fought alongside of.
Wait. The vigilante he fought alongside of. In the rush of seeing Dementis terrorising the district, he had completely forgotten his partner in this fight was considered just as much of a criminal.
He would have to arrest him. But the thought of the vigilante getting behind the bars after not-so-indirectly saving his life in this fight put a bitter taste in his mouth.
“What? Do I look funny?” He glanced at his body that was covered head to toe in scratches and wounds. He suddenly acted self-conscious, although the scars didn’t affect his looks much in Sirius’ opinion.
He must be repressing a lot of pain. The hero realised with a hint of embarrassment that he had been staring.
“What’s your name?” He asked.
The vigilante spluttered at the sudden question, “ I-I can’t exactly tell you that.”
“I meant your vigilante name. You do have one, don’t you?” He pressed, not noticing the way the vigilante’s ears flushed.
“I-uh sorry, yeah, it’s-sorry. It’s Lunaire. My vigilante name’s Lunaire.” He stammered.
“Okay Moony-”
“Moony?” He interrupted, incredulous.
“First of all, do not interrupt me,” He commanded, sounding almost like Mary. It was hypocritical to say that as he had a habit of interrupting people and blurting out whatever he thought. “Second of all, Lunaire means ‘moon’ in French, last I checked.”
Lunaire paused, and he couldn’t read the man’s expression through his blindfold but he felt as though he was talking to someone he knew for years.
“You will have to leave. The heroes will be arriving soon and they’ll arrest you on the spot if they see you.” Sirius explained.
Moony paused,“And you’re letting me off the hook because…?”
“You did help me with Dementis over there and the civilians.” Sirius pointed out, “Just this once, I’ll let you off the hook.”
He couldn’t see the vigilante’s expression, but he had a feeling he was smirking underneath.
“Thank you.” He said.
Sirius felt himself smiling before he could help it. He got back to his senses as the sirens became clearer.
“You can thank me later, Moony. It’s high time you leave.” He ordered.
Lunaire nodded and walked off, before turning back to face the hero.
“And what’s your hero name, by the way?” He pried.
Sirius felt surprised he didn’t already know, but it had been six years since he last patrolled.
“It’s The Grim Reaper.” He said nonchalantly.
The vigilante stared at him blankly before letting out a laugh.
“Is something funny?” The hero frowned.
“Nothing. Nothing’s funny.” Moony shook his head, “I should get going. The heroes are getting closer.”