Ruby knocked on the door. "Clark?" she asked.

No answer. It was midnight and Clark wasn't in. Just like every other night this past week she'd come to check on him. As if that wasn't weird enough, she hadn't been able find him even when she'd woken up early a few times. Like four in the morning early. Usually, Ruby wouldn't even imagine getting up before seven, but this was important.

Ruby walked back to her own room. Did Clark normally stay in the city the whole night? If so, how long had this been going on? When did he go to sleep?

There was no way he was getting enough sleep, and that wasn't the only thing that worried her. Ruby suspected something even crazier.

Clark wasn't eating.

He'd hardly eaten anything at her birthday party, and since then, she'd been keeping an eye on him. She couldn't rule out that he was eating quick meals by himself, but when she'd asked around, nobody in the dorm could remember ever sharing a meal with Clark except for during the party. Even on the weekends, when they spent hours with him, he never even seemed to eat a small snack.

Ruby walked in and saw Yang flicking through her scroll on her bed. Should she tell her about this? Even though she didn't have any proof?

Ruby plopped down onto her bed. No, not yet. Maybe Clark was okay without eating and sleeping. He was an alien, and besides, he didn't look like he was starving or exhausted.

She'd have to talk to him about it soon though.

\\\\\

With a rush of super-speed, Clark flashed into his Interference outfit and attached his gauntlets to his arms. It wasn't often that he had a chance like this. There was no need to hurry, but it was hard not to be excited.

He swung the door open and nearly ran down Ruby. Luckily, he managed to halt his speedy exit a few steps before hitting her.

"Eep!" she jumped back with a start. To her, it must have looked like he'd suddenly appeared right in front of her.

"Whoops, sorry," Clark said and stepped back. He pulled his mask off and asked. "Do you need me for something?"

"Yeah, um . . ." Ruby shuffled her feet. "Before that, are you about to go to the city for Interference stuff?"

"It is Interference stuff, but I'm actually going to a town called Pellina."

"How come?"

"A pretty big crime family was betrayed by one of their drug carriers, so they're changing their transport routes. They want to use the docks at Pellina, and if I can get there now, I can stop a lot of drug trafficking into Mistral."

"That sounds good. Do you ne-I mean-can I come with?" she asked, her voice strangely tentative rather than brimming with her usual eagerness.

Clark's brow furrowed. "Don't you have classes tomorrow?"

"Yeah, but they're later in the morning. I'll still get plenty of sleep before they start," she clasped her hands together. "Please? You know I can help."

She could, she'd proved that these past weeks. Her excellent range and aim made her a great way to get criminals to run and duck for cover instead of looking for the one attacking their stashes. Plus, as long as they weren't connected to any other buildings, she could wreck stashes on her own with fire Dust bullets.

"Alright."

"Yes! Just wait a bit, I'll get my stuff." She went to her room and he waited down on the first floor.

A few minutes later, she came down the stairs in her cloak and mask. "What about Jaune and Pyrrha? You think they should come too?"

"No, I think we should let them relax tonight," Clark said. "Plus, you remember what happened with Jaune. I think he could use a break with Interference stuff."

"Yeah," she said. The muscles in her body eased in relief at his answer.

Clark didn't mention it. "You ready to go?"

"Almost. How long is it gonna take to get there?" she asked.

"About two seconds," he replied.

"Okay, ready."

He picked her up at super-speed and they raced out towards Pellina. He had to be a lot more careful navigating during the night, since super-speed perception made the world seem a lot darker. It wasn't a big problem during a sunny day, but at night he needed to concentrate on his vision.

There were a good number of fields between Mistral and Pellina, which made the trip feel comfortably short even for Clark. At least, until the sensation of the vibrating crystal in his pocket hit him like a lightning bolt.

Immediately, Clark ramped up his super-speed and focused on the knowledge now at the forefront of his mind. The phantom was almost straight above him, at first about twenty miles up but shooting down quickly.

He looked down at Ruby. With his senses accelerated like this, she was as still as a statue, and he set her down just as easily as one. Then, he got as far away from her and the town as he could. He was still a few miles away from Pellina, which would hopefully keep it safe, but Ruby wouldn't be if she stayed with him.

Clark ran, but even with his training, he barely made it a mile before the phantom swooped down a few hundred feet above him.

Clark turned and faced him with his eyes burning red. One hand gripped full inch pellets from his gauntlets and the other held the crystal. The only reason he didn't attack was that the phantom was carrying Cinder. Even with Clark's aim, a ranged attack strong enough to bother the phantom would kill her.

Clark used his X-ray vision. He could feel his super-speed perception slipping away, but he needed to check for kryptonite.

There wasn't any. No lead either, but the phantom had several knives sheathed around his waist. They were the strangest things Clark had ever spotted with X-ray vision. The blades seemed normal at first and he could look through them without any trouble. The issue was when he tried to look insidethem. They became fuzzy, hard to determine and impossible to see into. Not impenetrable barriers like lead, more like a fog.

Looking inside Cinder, not through her completely, Clark saw the same murkiness spread throughout her body but most concentrated in her torso, just above her stomach.

He ignored it for now, boosting his senses again. However, it wasn't necessary, as the phantom came to a sudden halt in the air.

Clark went back to something approaching normal speed. Yet he stayed on guard in case the phantom charged at him. His hearing came back into focus, concentrating on the unique beat of the body just as durable as his own.

Cinder stepped off to the side and hovered, the air swirling around her.

"Hey Clark!" the phantom called out in an insultingly cheerful tone.

"What do you want?" Clark scowled and spoke at a normal volume. It wasn't like they needed to shout at each other when they both had super-hearing.

The phantom rolled his eyes and whispered, "Come on, you really want to be the idiot who gives away super-hearing?" Then in a louder voice. "Hey, what's the big deal? Not happy to see us?"

"Shut up! Penny and Velvet are dead because of you."

"Me?" The phantom pointed at himself as if confused. "The robot I'll give you, but the bunny girl? Last time I remember, she was with you."

Clark's fingers tightened on the metal pellets between his fingers. It didn't matter if they were crushed. With how hard he threw them, tumbling in the air barely even slowed them down.

The phantom grinned. "Ooh, that's a scary look."

"Enough," Cinder said, annoying the phantom with her interruption. "This isn't what we're here for. Tell him what will happen if he doesn't do as we say."

"Alright, see that little remote in her hand?" The phantom pointed.

Clark actually hadn't. His quick glimpse with X-ray vision had only been to watch for lead and had barely even caught the strange knives. "What's it for?"

"We've planted explosives in Pellina," she said. "Do as we say, or else I press this button and the town goes up in flames."

Clark took a deep breath. He couldn't act rashly, no matter how badly he wanted to ram his fist into the phantom's face. "Fine. What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing much," the phantom said. "Surrender and come with us quietly. If you behave, it won't even hurt."

So that was what they wanted. Clark eyed the remote but didn't dare risk shooting it with heat vision. The phantom could demolish the town without explosives anyway.

Clark's arms fell. They had him. "Alright, I'll come with you."

Immediately, the phantom whispered. "Hey, there's that girl you came with. We need her too, but I think I'll take a few limbs off first to make things easier."

"N-!" Clark didn't even have time to finish the word before the phantom shot toward her. In the next instant, Clark's eyes burned and blasted the phantom with twin beams of heat.

At the same time, the phantom did something wildly confusing. He shot his own heat vision, but not hot enough to be visible and not directed at Clark, but at Cinder. In a moment so brief only super-speed could discern it, the remote burned red and burst apart.

"Aggh!" She held her hand in pain and the phantom was knocked back by Clark's heat vision.

"What-

"So that's how it's going to be, huh?" The phantom yelled, his shirt vaporized. In a lower voice "Good. Now it's more interesting." Then he zoomed down at Clark.

Clark threw two of the pellets which launched upwards with fiery trails. Besides the phantom, they were the only objects that appeared to move to Clark's heightened senses. The phantom flit to the side and dodged both. So Clark held back until the phantom got closer to throw the next one. This time nailing him in the face.

It didn't do much more than make him jerk his head back and blink, but that distraction was plenty. Clark rushed forward and landed a solid punch, sending him flying into the sky.

Clark ran away, getting as far away from Cinder as he could so he wouldn't accidentally kill her. Even the pellets could be dangerous if they got within a few feet of her, and deflected plasma from heat vision would be worse.

"Nnngh!" Heat vision hit Clark's back, burning away his cloak, and threw him off balance. He rolled but got back to his feet in a millisecond. He'd only gotten a few hundred feet away, but that would have to do for now.

The phantom dived back down, but slower this time, more carefully. Clark turned to the side, getting into a stance that put his left gauntlet behind his body. He only had seven full-inch pellets left, he needed to make them last.

By the time he was a few feet from the ground, the phantom descended at a relaxed rate. When he landed, he spoke, forcing Clark to go back to near normal speed to understand him.

"You've picked up some new tricks. Nice," the phantom dusted off some charred metal from his cheek. "So have I." He suddenly shouted. "Cinder! You know the plan, stay back!"

Clark heard her muscles tighten, her heartbeat quicken. The order clearly aggravated her, but she obeyed. Flying away.

The phantom gave him a wide grin.

Clark went into super-speed. Sound became a constant, unchanging din and the light of the moon and stars faded. The phantom did the same. He stood as still as everything else around them, but his focused eyes showed that he was experiencing time at the same rate as Clark.

They stayed like that for several subjective seconds. Both too wary to approach and make the first move. Hesitant even to fire heat vision.

Clark broke the stalemate. He hurled a half-inch pellet at the phantom which was accompanied by a familiar bright trail. The phantom dodged it and rushed forward. His feet off the ground.

The phantom was frighteningly fast. Not so fast that Clark couldn't react to him, but when he went into super-speed like this, hardly anything moved. Even bullets crawled through the air at a snail's pace, and the phantom made them look like they weren't even moving.

Clark blocked the phantom's first punch, which sent him skidding back and forced him to concentrate to stay on his feet. The phantom followed him immediately, dropped down, and punched upwards. This time, Clark put hardly any resistance against the blow. If he got thrown into the air, he'd lose.

The phantom's fist shot up and through Clark's slackened arms. Surprising the double and giving Clark the chance to kick him in the side.

It launched the phantom up, but a second later he stopped midair and spun back down around to face him.

"Is this supposed to be a fight?" Clark asked, his expression grave. "If so, you and Cinder aren't escaping this time."

The phantom glared at him. Wiping the cocky look off his face was more satisfying than it should have been. "Don't count your chickens before they hatch, Clark."

With deadly expertise, the phantom whipped out one of the strange knives in his belt. Then, he shot down with its sharp blade held out.

Clark enveloped him with heat vision. Not enough to slow him down or bother him much, but plenty to turn the knife into slag.

The weapon melted in the phantom's hand, and he threw it aside without a care. He engaged Clark with his fists. Their short exchange proved what Clark had already been suspecting, he was better at hand-to-hand. With a resounding thud, his fist pounded the phantom's face.

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The phantom tumbled across the dirt and came to stop a good way away. When he got back up, his teeth bared, heat vision burst through the air.

The beams blasted Clark, almost knocking him off his feet, and he raised an arm to block them. The gauntlet burned away like a piece paper tossed into a roaring inferno, but the sacrifice was necessary.

The phantom shot towards him and cut off the beams mid-flight. With a flick of his wrist, he swiped at Clark with another knife. He managed to destroy it with heat vision.

But not the one that sliced into Clark's cheek.

Clark jumped back and pressed a hand just under his left eye. The cut wasn't deep, and it didn't hurt much, but the knife had pierced him.

He wasn't surprised. After all, why would the phantom use these knives if they couldn't hurt him? Still, very few blades had been capable of hurting Clark before, and actually being cut was a far cry from only knowing that it was a possibility.

"Impressed?" The phantom asked. He held his remaining knife behind him, protecting it from Clark's heat vision. In his free hand, he showed off a few drops of Clark's blood that he must have wiped off the blade. "It took some effort for Cinder to make this, you know. Turns out it takes a little more than 'magic-knife-making-spell' to make one that cuts us."

"Really?" Clark focused on keeping his voice calm and steady. "That's too bad, a little heat vision and you won't have any left."

The phantom chuckled. "Why do you think I brought Cinder along?"

Boom!

A gunshot rang through the night, surprising both Clark and the phantom. Immediately following it was the ting of a bullet ricocheting off a blade.

Clark recognized the weapon it had come from. Crescent Rose, and the voices behind him confirmed it further. His eyes widened, but he didn't dare look away from the phantom. Ruby! Instead of running from the fight she'd come straight to it!

The phantom looked off into the distance. "Huh, so that girl has a little speed. Looks like she'll be fine for a while, so just put her and the bombs out of your mind. What you should focus is me, here and now, with this." He gestured towards the knife behind him.

Clark went into a fighting stance but couldn't avoid listening in on the fight between Ruby and Cinder.

The phantom rolled his eyes. "Of course. I shouldn't have expected any different. Fine, I need more knives anyway."

The double raced through the air towards the two, leaving Clark behind. Clark tried to follow him, but after a few steps, he stopped and shot a blast of heat vision to push the phantom off course. It did, but he recovered and continued going towards them.

The phantom got to them. The area was surrounded by Cinder's flames, motionless to his and Clark's senses, and when the phantom approached Ruby, Clark's heart sank. However, instead of carrying out his earlier threat, the phantom grabbed her and hurled her into the distance.

Clark almost leapt after her without thinking but going into the air might as well be an invitation to capture the both of them. She'd be fine, she had aura and could control her movement with her gun's recoil. All Clark needed to do was keep Cinder and the phantom's attention off of her.

"Why did you interfere?" Cinder glared at the phantom.

"I need more knives." The phantom brandished the weapon. It would be easy for Clark to destroy it, but the double showed it off without a care. "I'm not waiting for you to finish with her to get them."

With a cross look, she held up a hand. The phantom blocked it from view, but Clark heard small flames flicker into existence and saw their light briefly illuminate the phantom's back.

Boom! Boom!

Clark ground his teeth then yelled. "Ruby! Go away! It's too dangerous!"

He'd put enough power in his lungs for the scream to reach her, but she still kept getting closer.

"The girl's proving a nuisance," Cinder said. "Why not deal with her first? Or even better, use her as a hostage?"

"Clark first, then the silver-eyed girl. That was the deal." A frightening glint reflected off the phantom's eyes. "And a hostage, where's the fun in that?"

The phantom raced down at super-speed, restocked with two more knives. Hopefully, that meant that Cinder couldn't make too many weapons at once.

This time, the phantom hovered a few feet in the air while he attacked. Clark couldn't kick up without opening himself up to attack, but the phantom could barrage him with his feet as much as he wanted.

Clark punched his foot, but a blow that would have normally sent him into the distance just made him moved back slightly while spinning like a top. The phantom could stop and reposition himself with ease, so Clark's attacks were hardly working. Meanwhile, the phantom forced him back with kicks and the occasional painful punch. It was almost impossible to land on his feet after each blow and figuring out the right amount of resistance to put into each block was a nerve-wracking guessing game he had to win each time.

Long tracks in the dirt marked Clark's attempts to stay upright. When he landed a blast of heat vision on center of the phantom's body, it gave him a moment of relief.

The phantom came back, hiding his arm in a way that meant a knife or a feint and Clark readied his heat vision again.

A feint, the phantom's hand was empty as he threw a punch. Clark ducked under it and made sure to keep his eyes on the phantom no matter what. The only experience Clark had fighting a knife user was Ren, and his style was wildly different from the phantom's. The phantom hid his knife from any opportunity Clark had to burn it away. He could match Clark's reactions, and used weapons capable of hurting him. Which Clark couldn't even expect to block with the gauntlet. The knives didn't seem especially strong, but with the phantom's strength behind one, both it and the gauntlet would be destroyed in a single hit.

The differences from what Clark was used to were daunting, but there were similarities which prevented him from getting eviscerated. The phantom primarily swung his blades through the air rather than going in for a stab, since he seemed to want Clark alive. Also, even when they were both moving at super-speed, Clark spotted the familiar twitches and positioning that telegraphed whether he'd slash up, down, or to the side. The way he held himself also hinted at whether it would be a feint or an actual attack.

Clark threw a handful of quarter-inch pellets. Their bright trails streaked through the air, only a mild nuisance to the phantom, but one shattered the knife in his hand. Clark had already destroyed one with heat vision before, the phantom only had one left.

Frustration lined the double's expression, and heat vision smacked Clark in the face. He raised an arm to block it and the crystal reflected much of the large beam. It faced away from Ruby and the town, so Clark didn't hesitate to use it this way.

The heat vision stopped, and instead the phantom slammed a fist against the ground. A crater appeared, spreading out through the dirt like a ripple on a pond surface.

Clark ran to the side. He couldn't risk staying to fight the phantom in such unstable footing. The phantom flew towards him, heat vision would only deter him for a moment, so instead Clark thrust the crystal forward as the phantom approached.

The phantom swerved around it and kicked. Clark dodged his foot, but the phantom slowed him down, and the slowly expanding crater caught up.

Clark's foot went through a part of the now fractured ground. He lost his balance, and the phantom's knife was only a flash before it sank into Clark's flesh.

"Aggh!" He bent over and a hand went to the knife in his left shoulder. A strong kick knocked the wind out of him. The crater suddenly shrunk, and he realized that his feet had left the ground.

Then, the phantom landed a hit on his back. When he'd been going up at such an immense speed, the pain from the sudden stop was almost like what it would be for a normal human to run straight into a brick wall.

Clark hit the ground with a thud and the phantom landed right by him. "Stabbed in the shoulder by a magic knife. Brings back memories of home, huh?" The phantom taunted, referring to Clark's encounter with the witch in China years ago.

Clark could barely hear him. The pain muted sound and sensation, and Clark didn't even realize he'd landed near Ruby until she screamed his name.

A bright silvery-white light washed over them. Ruby fell to the ground, nearly stopping Clark's heart until he heard hers beat. She was fine. Off to the side, Cinder cried out in pain, and the knife in Clark's shoulder dissolved.

"What the-

The phantom was distracted, his head turned towards Cinder. If he hadn't been, Clark never would have been able to get up quickly enough and slam the crystal in his face. Light shone again, this time blue, and shoved them in opposite directions. Clark had been prepared and stopped himself, and the collision seemed to have hurt the phantom more than him, since he was still sailing away into the distance.

Cinder had fallen to the ground, hunched over and gasping. Clark didn't waste a moment and flashed over. Whatever had happened had affected her badly enough that she couldn't keep her aura up. He knocked her out easily and then raced towards the nearby bay. He'd come here in the first place to go to Pellina's docks, and it seemed that the water was his only chance to beat the phantom.

He got a good thirty or so feet down without interruption. Even with super-speed swimming, when he could barely use his left arm he shouldn't have been able to get that far down before the phantom caught up.

The crystal must have hurt him bad. Clark normally felt like cursing fickle Kryptonian tech, but now he could kiss it. It was vibrating and glowing erratically though, which worried Clark, but he still needed it.

The phantom plunged into the water. The speed at which he forced himself down made Clark's super-speed dive look like the sinking of a statue.

Just before the double reached him, Clark grit his teeth and ignored the pain in his shoulder. His hands slammed together, and the shockwave burst through the water at a respectable speed even by their standards.

The phantom held his ears and writhed in the water. If he'd prepared for it, he would have ignored it just as easily as Clark was doing now.

Clark struck him with the crystal, and it propelled the phantom out of the water in a flash of blue light, pushing Clark back as well.

Then, it broke in two nearly equal halves. A crack ran nearly straight down the 'S' and he stared down at it in shock. Before, it had stood up to his enormous strength with hardly any sign of fracturing further. Had he pushed it too far? What was he supposed to do against the phantom now?

The phantom. Clark came back to his senses and shot up out of the water. He spun rapidly, scanning the distance for the phantom. Relaxing his super-speed, he listened for the phantom but couldn't find a trace of him.

There were plenty of places he could hide. Maybe he'd shot up high enough that the air wouldn't carry the sound to Clark. Or he could have been thrown out of super-hearing range.

Clark sank back into the water. The phantom could be hiding here as well but sound under the surface was too different for him to pinpoint the double from more than a mile away.

Giving up on his search for now, he swam up and ran to Ruby. She was still passed out on the ground. Her heartrate and breathing sounded normal and there was no torn clothing or blood, so his X-ray vision wasn't necessary.

He looked down at his shoulder and felt the cut across his cheek. The wound on his face had already started to close, but the one in his shoulder was still pretty open and seeping blood. Clark ripped off a piece of cloth from his pants, hardly any of it had escaped the phantom's heat vision. His shirt and jacket hadn't survived at all.

With one end of the strip in his teeth, Clark tied it across his shoulder. The cloth scratching his open wound didn't hurt exactly, but it wasn't a feeling he enjoyed either.

Clark then turned his eyes to Cinder. He couldn't expect Pellina to have the resources to imprison a normal huntress, much less a maiden. Bringing her to Mistral wasn't an option either with Lionheart's influence.

He'd have to call Ironwood and do it fast. It would only be a few hours until she woke up, and he wasn't willing to risk knocking her out again in quick succession.

Clark used Ruby's scroll, since he'd be lucky to even find liquefied remains of his own. Thankfully, Clark recalled Ironwood's number from memory.

"Who is this? How did you get this number?" The general answered with suspicion. The call was voice only, it seemed like the signal here wasn't good enough for video to be an option.

"It's Clark Kent."

"Kent? What is it? Did something happen?" With each question, the tension in Ironwood's voice rose.

"I just fought Cinder Fall and the phantom. She's unconscious, and since Lionheart can't be trusted, you're the only one we can trust to hold her. Is that fine?"

"Yes. Confinement similar to what we used at Beacon can be arranged. I'll send an address to the number you're calling from. Leave her there and I'll handle the rest. What about your double?"

"He's gone. I'll keep looking for him after I bring her to you, it'll be a few minutes."

"Understood."

The call ended, and Clark looked to the town. He still had to take care of the bombs, so he listened for the any of Cinder's allies, then locked onto where they were.

Before confronting them, he found a safe spot where he could leave Ruby. He set her down in an empty warehouse at the docks. At the opposite side of Pellina, he unceremoniously dropped Cinder in a convenient abandoned shack.

Just a glance at Cinder with her arms and legs strewn across the floor made Clark realize how he had her at his mercy. How if he wanted to, he could make her pay for the attack on Vale, for the deaths of his friends.

Clark stepped out of the shack and the asphalt street cracked under his foot. It was easy to repeat the lessons he'd been raised on. To say the words 'don't give into revenge', 'turn the other cheek', 'forgive and don't hold onto hatred', but it was so much harder to actually follow them.

And Clark couldn't. Cinder and the phantom had killed Velvet and Penny, and even though he knew that thousands of other people in Vale had died with them, those two were what nearly made him fall to his knees in tears. Even now, when he'd thought the pain had faded.

His sweet, kind friends would never brighten the world with their presences again. Penny, the awkward girl who'd struggled to find friends and had needed to hide the secret of what she was. She'd lacked the advantages of wonderful family and friends like him, but she'd still been able to smile and find joy in the world. Velvet had been a shy, wonderful friend with a surprisingly fierce protective streak that he'd discovered and admired all too late. They'd barely had the chance to try and become more than friends.

She and Penny were gone forever now.

That was what Cinder and the phantom had done. That was why he couldn't forgive them.

Clark's sorrow gave into rage once again. It was easier, he couldn't stand around feeling sorry for himself when the town was in danger, and rage was a powerful motivator. He raced to the hiding place where four individuals waited.

In an instant, he crushed the remote detonator in Emerald's hands and destroyed all their weapons. Torchwick's cane, Neo's sword and umbrella, Emerald's chained guns, and even Mercury's metal legs. Any Dust cartridges or bullet magazines were ripped off, and Clark only left him enough to do little else but walk.

"Where are the bombs?!" He demanded just after he slowed down in front of them.

"Holy shi-

"What the fuck-

They reached for their weapons and didn't even realize what he'd done until their hands met empty air.

The phantom burst through the wall. His eyes blazing red and flying straight at Clark.

Clark stared it down with contempt. It only took him a moment to realize that it was an illusion. The phantom wouldn't have flown through the wall that slowly, and this was missing the signature bodily echoes that matched Clark's own.

Clark's looked to Emerald and she screamed, clutching her burned hand. That amount of heat vision would only leave a red mark, hardly anything to complain about when he could do much, much worse.

"Where are they." Not a question, not even an order, but a threat of what would happen to them if they didn't answer.

Mercury laughed. A nervous laugh, but the sound still grated on Clark's ears. "Hey man, your buddy told us about you. If we keep our mouths shut, you're not going to do anything to us half as bad as what they'll do if we talk."

Clark shot forward and punched Mercury. He had his aura up, which meant he could take a bit of damage.

The mouthy bastard hit the wall, which collapsed from the force.

Crack.

The distinctive sound stopped Clark in his tracks. When it was followed by Mercury spitting up blood, he looked down at his hand.

H-he hadn't meant to put that much force into the push. It should have only been enough to drain his aura, to bruise at worst.

Clark looked back up at the other three. Their eyes bulged and their hearts beat in unison fear. "Where are the bombs?"

Torchwick answered. "There are ten of them all around town! We put them in hidden spots, but easy to reach in case we wanted to move them." He listed off their locations. His frightened heartrate and breath were too erratic to use to tell if he was lying, but reading his expression was enough.

"Take care of your friend." Clark said. Mercury had a broken rib, which hadn't seemed to have punctured any organs. Hopefully, that meant he could survive for a while. "Next time you try something like this, I'm not sparing any of you."

Clark sped off and dismantled all of the bombs they'd placed around Pellina. He didn't have the time to stay and investigate the Ionas' drug smuggling like he'd planned, so he immediately went to Ruby. He didn't want to risk her even being in the same town as people who would casually threaten the destruction of an entire town.

He carried her and ran back to Haven, but partway through the trip, he almost ran through a tree. He managed to slow himself down, but not fully. He bounced off the trunk and almost tripped on his feet when landing.

Clark set Ruby down and blinked, shaking his head. His vision was fine, but something was wrong. He felt unsteady, it was hard to focus.

His attention went to his shoulder. Blood was leaking out from the makeshift bandage, and he untied it. The wound had closed somewhat but it was still losing blood and making him even dizzier. He couldn't run at high speeds like this.

If he were alone and only running through the wilderness, he wouldn't have minded crashing into a few things, but it was a whole different story when carrying Ruby into Haven. He had to deal with this.

Clark sat down with his back against the tree and held up half of the crystal. He fired his heat vision and the visible beam reflected off it and onto his shoulder. He needed it to be visible even when aiming, he couldn't concentrate on looking in the infrared and cauterizing the wound at the same time.

It wasn't hot enough to hurt yet. Although like when he shaved, the hairs around the wound burned away. He shoved the other half of the crystal into his mouth. A few test bites showed it could handle the force, and he fired full-strength heat vision.

"Hnngh!" His scream was muffled by the crystal and he concentrated on it as long as he could. Maybe a few seconds, then he cut off the heat vision and leaned his head back. The bark splintered, but he wasn't in the mood to care about the lack of control over his strength.

It had worked. Part of the wound had turned red and shut, and now he only needed to do it one or two more times. He repeated the painful process, but twice his hands shook and all he accomplished was burning his shoulder. Even when he succeeded, he had to stop after a short while to recover his vision. He hadn't even used heat this intense against the phantom, since a minor burn wasn't worth the necessary second or two to get his sight back. Especially when they could cross miles in a single second.

After Clark finished, he laid his head back against the wood and waited a few minutes until he felt that he could trust himself to run again. To make sure, he made a few full-speed laps through the trees with tight turns. He was fine again.

He held Ruby in both arms. Fortunately, her slight weight wasn't enough to bother his shoulder. He returned to the dorm and set her down on a couch in the empty living room.

Next, he went back to Pellina and found Cinder still passed out. Clark grabbed her and headed north. In a matter of minutes, he was thousands of miles away in Atlas.

Normally, Clark would have taken longer to admire the sight. An enormous city with sleek, futuristic buildings hovering high in the air over the city below. It was snowing, and to him the snowflakes were frozen in the air. If he'd cared to look, they would have decorated the landscape with an incredible pattern.

But at the moment, the only thought on his mind was dropping Cinder off and returning to Pellina to find the phantom. The general was in a building on the ground half of the city, alone, and Clark brought her there and left without even slowing down.

At Pellina, he listened for the phantom again. Searching the area, stopping and starting like he had back in Vale when Velvet had been kidnapped. This time though, he turned up nothing. Wherever the phantom had gone was a mystery.

With that biting failure, Clark ran back to Haven.