QUICK REMINDER:Reminder: whenever you see ***, it marks a POV shift (1st ? 3rd person). It’s intentional.

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  The map blinked a furious red, screaming inside my skull like an air-raid siren.

  Thanks to my Perception 6.1, the world slowed instantly. When I turned my head, my ocur zoom caught a fleeting glint on a rooftop six hundred meters away—right in the “dead zone,” outside the five-hundred-meter dome of my Threat Radar.

  ***

  It wasn’t sunlight reflecting. It was the gaze of the apex predator—someone who knew about that weakness, down to an approximate range.

  Clint Barton.

  The arrow was already in the air.

  At that distance, physics said I should’ve seen a parabo—a graceful drop carved by gravity. But no. The arrow flew in a straight line, defying natural w, driven by a bow under monstrous tension and cutting-edge Stark tech.

  There was no whistle. No warning. Just silent carbon-fiber danger closing the gap at supersonic speed, hunting his body—while the arrow flickered with faint electric fshes.

  There was no time for conscious thought. It was instinct, amplified by superhuman stats.

  Leo’s body moved before his mind fully accepted what it was seeing. He thrust his right hand into the projectile’s suicidal path and, with a precise mental impulse, activated his strangest—and most underestimated—ability.

  {Active Skill: Portal Hands}

  The air in front of his palm warped.

  A fraction of a second before the diamond tip pierced his chest and detonated its payload, the arrow entered a tiny, invisible singurity that opened in space.

  There was no impact. No explosion. No sound.

  The projectile—traveling at supersonic speed—was swallowed whole by the void of his Dimensional Inventory. It went from a death sentence to an inert object, suspended in absolute nothingness, trapped like a fly in amber.

  Six hundred meters away, Clint Barton must have frozen.

  A shooter like him lived on two things: repetition and certainty. And his perfect shot had just vanished the moment it touched an open palm, as if the target were smoke.

  That single second of disbelief was the only window Leo could afford.

  Before Hawkeye could find his rhythm again and loose a second arrow, Leo dropped three military-grade smoke bombs at his feet.

  The canisters struck the concrete and detonated with a sharp hiss. A gray cloud—dense and expanding—swallowed the rooftop whole, erasing silhouettes and sightlines.

  "Definitely… time for ‘El Fantasma’ to die," he thought, a cold smile cutting across his face.

  The smoke bought him barely three seconds.

  But in a real hunt, three seconds were life.

  He jumped and ran. Parkour at full tilt. And it was there—already moving—when the [Tactical Map] hit him with an unpleasant truth.

  Natasha Romanoff’s red dot wasn’t advancing cleanly.

  It blinked.

  It appeared two buildings away. Blip. Vanished. Blip. Reappeared closer.

  Leo didn’t read it as teleportation. It was worse, because it was realistic.

  The map wasn’t “seeing” Natasha the whole time—it was losing her… and reacquiring her te. Every time she hugged a ledge, pressed to the edge of a chimney, slipped into deep shadows, or crossed zones with interference and cover, her trail went incomplete. Then, when she exposed herself just enough to move—when she had to cross an open stretch, pass near a civilian, take a lit route—the dot came back.

  It wasn’t magic. It was craft.

  Natasha moved like an elite spy: controlling the tempo, using the environment, forcing even a system with unfair advantages to “guess” between frames.

  It was one ghost hunting another ghost.

  Leo clenched his jaw and vaulted a metal fence.

  And then he noticed it: it wasn’t just her.

  The map showed other red dots that didn’t blink the same way. They were clumsier presences—more constant. Switching to 3D mode, Leo pced them as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents cutting off streets, closing routes, moving as if they had an external reference for his position.

  That changed the problem.

  If it were only Natasha, it would be a duel of shadows.

  But S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t send only shadows. It sent tools.

  In a mental whip-crack, Leo reviewed what his [Stealth Level 5] did for him: it erased sound, erased scent, erased optical presence… and yet the map showed convergence that was far too coordinated.

  He didn’t stay to confirm it. He couldn’t.

  He did the only thing an intelligent predator does when it suspects a net: assume the worst-case scenario and act.

  His weakness wasn’t noise. It wasn’t sight. It was heat.

  His body still emitted a thermal signature. To an infrared visor, a modern scope, a temperature-reading satellite… even a “ghost” could become a red smear moving across cold concrete.

  And if Hawkeye knew about the radar’s “dead zone,” then S.H.I.E.L.D. had done its homework. That meant technology. That meant eyes that didn’t rely on normal cameras.

  Six hundred meters away, Barton didn’t need to chase him on foot. He only had to keep him marked long enough for others to close in.

  If this kept up, Natasha would intercept him in two blocks.

  He needed a massive distraction.

  He couldn’t fight her there—if they tore his mask off, the game was over.

  "Alright, Natasha. You want to py with Fantasma… I’ll introduce you to his shadows."

  He pulled out the encrypted phone without slowing down and sent an S.O.S with coordinates to Vargas and Ophelia.

  There was no time to wait.

  Seconds ter, the route closed.

  Natasha nded on the rooftop in front of him, cutting off his escape as if she’d calcuted his trajectory in advance. Her electric batons crackled blue. She didn’t say a word.

  She didn’t have to.

  She lunged.

  But before her hands could touch him, the air whistled.

  Five figures burst from the side shadows, sliding between her and Leo. Elite mercenaries absorbed from old rival gangs, now trained and outfitted with stolen, modified Ats tech.

  All of them wore bck tactical suits.

  And most disturbing to Natasha: smooth bck polymer masks, identical to Fantasma’s.

  "What the hell…?" she murmured for the first time, braking her assault to block three knives thrown in unison.

  Leo didn’t need to look to know how this ended.

  His “Shadows” weren’t rivals for a future Avenger.

  Natasha moved like a cyclone—dodging, countering, breaking bones with surgical precision. In under ten seconds she’d already disarmed two and was about to wrench the third’s shoulder out of socket.

  But those ten seconds were all Leo had bought.

  He was already three buildings away when she lifted her gaze, off his direct line. She didn’t look back. She dropped to street level and cut toward a subway station where a crowd surged out like a human wave.

  That was his other bet.

  Hot bodies—dozens, hundreds—formed a perfect wall of thermal noise. Living infrared chaos. If they were tracking him by heat, let them find him now among a hundred identical silhouettes.

  Leo merged into the flow without breaking stride, lowering his heart rate, using his Stealth so even nearby eyes would slide past him as if he were part of the urban furniture.

  He found a dark, dead-end alley.

  One blink of the inventory: the suit vanished.

  A second ter, he stepped out adjusting his tie, hands in his pockets—once again just Leo Barrera.

  Safe—for now—he checked the [Tactical Map].

  The situation had escated.

  More green dots—his “Shadows”—appeared intercepting the Widow. And at a safe distance, two recognizable icons—Ophelia and Vargas—held position as civilians on the board, watching without exposing themselves, making sure the scene didn’t spiral out of control.

  But the numerical advantage didn’t st.

  New red dots converged on Natasha.

  S.H.I.E.L.D. reinforcements.

  The greens started to drop. Even so, the mission was done: Leo was already outside the net.

  Then he saw the final py.

  The green dots clustered around one of his men.

  And Leo understood immediately what they were doing.

  They were activating the [Guild Function: Shared Inventory].

  For Natasha Romanoff, the scene turned unreal in seconds.

  The mercenary she was about to subdue—the one she was one move away from spping cuffs on—didn’t retreat. The opposite. He stepped forward half a pace, as if accepting the hit that was coming. It wasn’t bravery. It was decision.

  He threw himself toward his own men.

  He needed contact.

  A hand on a shoulder, a firm yank on a forearm, a quick touch to the back of a bleeding teammate—and the moment he did it, the air around them seemed to glitch, as if reality refused to keep holding their silhouettes.

  They vanished.

  No theatrical fsh. No explosion, no new smoke. Just a sudden emptiness where, an instant before, there had been flesh, weight, and motion.

  Natasha clenched her teeth. Adjusted her stance. Calcuted. Looked for the trick.

  And then it happened again.

  A second man blinked out the moment he was touched. Then a third. Then a fourth. Each disappearance cleaner than the st, faster, more impossible. Like someone was “collecting” pieces off the board with an invisible hand—denying her even the satisfaction of a capture.

  By the time she tried to pivot tactics, it was already too te.

  The st one standing—the expendable—stayed just long enough to keep up the illusion that the fight was still on… and then he erased out of the air as well, leaving Natasha’s hands closing on nothing, surrounded by nothing but old smoke and cold concrete.

  Fantasma had escaped again.

  But this time, the message to S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t merely frustrating.

  It was terrifying: they weren’t hunting one man.

  They were chasing a legion.

  In the cold reflection of the tactical map, the unsettling part wasn’t the chase itself.

  It was how close they’d come to closing the trap.

  Seconds away from losing everything.

  Not for ck of power… but for too much exposure.

  S.H.I.E.L.D. had already crossed the warning line. The next move wouldn’t be elegant.

  Fantasma—as he operated on the street—needed to die.

  And there was one more detail, internal, just as dangerous if he let it rot: an unpaid promise… before that little future clown decided to explode on her own.

  Some time ter

  ***

  The rhythmic thunder of gunfire filled the underground shooting range of my new base in Queens. Despite the soundproofing, the vibrations of the heavy construction still underway on the other side of the wall mingled with the detonations, creating an industrial symphony.

  The smell of burnt powder saturated the air—thick, acrid, and yet strangely comforting.

  "Boom! Right between the eyes!" Harleen excimed, lowering her modified Glock 19 with a manic grin.

  The paper target, set fifteen meters out, now wore a perfect hole in the center of its forehead. Harley turned toward me, seeking approval with the energy of an overexcited puppy.

  "Did you see that, Fantasma? I’m getting better."

  I stayed at her side, reloading my tactical pistol with mechanical, precise movements, refusing to let emotion disrupt my rhythm.

  "Your aim is excellent, Harley," I allowed, seating the magazine with a dry click. "But your stance is still sloppy. If you fire a rger caliber with those elbows loose, the recoil will break your nose."

  She rolled her eyes theatrically, but corrected her posture immediately—tightening her shoulders and adjusting her grip. However, instead of firing again, she lowered the gun and turned to me. Her vibrant expression softened for a moment, letting the psychiatrist peek through from beneath the yer of budding madness.

  "Hey… thanks," she murmured, nervously fidgeting with her weapon’s safety. "I know the original deal was two weeks. And I’ve already been here three. Thanks for not throwing me out on the street."

  "You’re useful," I replied, my voice warped by the modutor. I didn’t look at her; I kept my eyes fixed on my own target. "And your loyalty has gone up according to my metrics. I don’t waste valuable resources."

  Harley let out a soft giggle. "So sentimental, as always."

  A comfortable silence settled between us. I kept firing: two to the chest, one to the head. Two to the chest, one to the head.

  While my hands ran the routine, my mind drifted to a technical frustration—my System. I couldn’t understand why the hell it still wasn’t registering my [Firearms Mastery].

  With hand-to-hand, I could expin it; I’d left it halfway and my style was empirical. But with guns… I had the theory perfect in my head and I was stacking up hours of practice now. I should’ve reached at least Level 3, or have progress decimals. I know the variety of weapons I use is limited, but not even unlocking Level 1? It was a logical failure that irritated me.

  Suddenly, I felt a gaze dig into me, slicing clean through my train of thought.

  I didn’t turn. I activated my augmented reality map instead.

  It was Harley.

  She wasn’t looking at her target. She wasn’t reloading. She wasn’t adjusting her grip. She was looking at me. Fixedly. Without blinking, with a stillness that didn’t belong to her… as if she had shifted from excitement to observation.

  Her eyes no longer held that chaotic joy from a moment ago. They carried something sharper now—clinical, unsettling—like she was measuring distances inside my mask. Like she was assembling an idea in silence.

  Leo felt a chill beneath the phantom-dark fabric.

  It wasn’t fear of betrayal. It was something else—the uncomfortable sensation of being studied as a “case” rather than a person… as if, somewhere inside Harley’s mind, a door had just opened, and she was about to step through it without asking permission.

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  sarbleinletter