Vigilantes

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The break-in team at the resort stood in the front entrance tunnel. The Hit Wizards stepped back when a spell grazed the earthen wall and blew a small chunk out of it, sending dust into the tunnel.

"This is so troublesome," sighed Warlunt. "I didn't understand it before, but now I understand why this guy has gotten so much onto your nerve. How should we proceed with this."

Sirius stared at the spells that passed by, and they were indeed a complication that he hadn't thought he would see here. He had read about the materials prepared about the Invisible Vigilante in detail— everything from the choice of victims, the frequency and timing of appearance, his magic, his attire, to what little interaction people had with him. Not once in that profile did Invisible Vigilante work with others, especially not controlling people to do his bidding. But now, they could potentially be facing an entire resort of people, all ordered to attack them.

"How much of a problem is this for you," he asked.

Warlunt nonchalantly shrugged, with his team showing similar expressions. "They're civilians. . . not really an inconvenience. Yes, we will have to be a little careful about who we shoot at, but we are going to be in any danger. The only problem that may arise is that while we are being careful with our spell, the possibility of Invisibility Vigilante jumping in, and we might not nail him with the first spell." He looked to his team provocatively and smirked, "I won't be making that mistake, though. . . don't know about you guys."

"We will clear it all out before you even get to see any actions," scoffed one of the Hit Wizards.

Sirius clapped his hands and got everyone's attention. He didn't want this to turn into a muscle-brained competition. "Whatever you do, I don't want any hostage casualties. A little scuffing is fine, but nothing that will come bitting us in the back in tomorrow's newspaper." He turned to one of his Juniors, "Have you informed the other teams?" He got a nod in return. "Good, then let's move in."

Warlunt stepped behind the earthen wall that had been taking damage for a minute now but still hadn't crumbled due to the difference in skill between an untrained civilian and a masterful Hit Wizard. He took one breath before stepping out of the wall and calmly registered the attacker as a resort employee. He blocked a spell before drilling a red hot stunner into the Imperiused person.

His team moved past him and stationed themselves on both sides of a hallway entrance. Warlunt walked into the hallway with his subordinates, ready to give cover; he stopped at the head of the hallway and spotted four people— two guests and employees each— and with a single flick, a wave of magic radiated out, and the four people settled for the floor as their beds.

"Clear," he stated. "Split out, be in pairs. Marcon with me."

The Aurors and Hit Wizards spit up and start covering ground around the scenic and high-end resort. Very quickly, the Imperiused people began dropping by the coordinated and quick effort of trained professionals, and everything was going very well with excellent efficiency until the teams found the Invisible Vigilante.

Warlunt silently unlocked the door to the laundry room of the resort. He gave the signal to his pair, and both of them shuffled into the damp room with clothes being washed with magic.

"No one's here," said the Junior Hit Wizard with Warlunt as he cast a revealing spell in the room.

Warlunt pointed to a narrow sheet metal door in the room's back wall. The Junior pointed his wand at the door and was about to unlock it when the door burst open, and a black-clad masked figure burst out with a wand blaring. . . only to be hit by two Killing Curse in the chest.

"Well. . . that's that," Warlunt disarmed the dead body and cast binding spells just to be extra sure after two Killing Curses. The Invisible Vigilante was said to be unpredictable, and he had enough magic to spare.

"Let's unmask him; I want to see how he looks," said the Junior.

"Go for it," Warlunt also wanted to see.

The Junior walked to the body and flipped it on its back. He gave Warlunt one glance before snatching the mask off. ". . . What?" he sputtered in shock. "A woman?" Behind the mask wasn't a man as they expected; instead, they found themselves staring at a young woman with freckles that stared at them with half-open dead amber eyes. "Sir, I-I thought the Invisible Vigilante was supposed to be a man."

"I thought so myself; everyone did," Warlunt frowned with his arms crossed. "But it seems it was a woman all along. With that voice modulation, clothes that covered the entire body, the pronoun usage, and the behavior. . . everything directed towards it being a man rather than a woman." He sighed, "Let's bag her up and take her to the front; we can declare this Op over and head to Hogsmeade."

"Yes, sir," Junior took out a black patch and let it go; by the time it reached the ground, the patch had turned into a full-size body bag.

They navigated their way out by following the same path they had taken, pulling along all the unconscious people they had stunned. When they got near to the front, they heard a commotion. "It looks like everyone has returned," Warlunt smirked. "Let's go rub it in Black's face."

However, when they reached the resort entrance, they were stunned to see half a dozen more standard-issue body bags placed in a line. Warlunt's heart skipped a beat; his eyes shifted all around the place, counting the Aurors and Hit Wizard that had entered the resort. . . and no one was missing.

"Black," called Warlunt, with a bad bubbling inside him, "what is this? I don't see anyone missing."

Sirius rubbed his face with his hand. "You got a body bag with you, which means you took out the Invisible Vigilante, didn't you?" he sighed.

"Yeah, surprisingly, it was a woman."

"Yeah, that isn't the Invisible Vigilante," Sirus pointed at Warlunt's body bag and then the six others, "and neither are these guys."

". . . What?"

"We woke one of the resort employees and asked him to identify the people we shot down," Sirius pinched between his brows. "We ended up killing resort employees and guests."

The air was knocked out of Warlunt's lungs. He turned to the body bag behind him, which he carried the young woman's body. "Y-You mean. . ."

"We think that the real Invisible Vigilante escaped right after we saw him and left behind the Imperiused people— some of them were dressed in the Invisible Vigilante's outfit," Sirius groaned and seemed sick by the time he finished.

Warlunt himself had paled when he realized that he had killed an innocent person. He turned when he heard a despairing voice. ". . . W-What I have done?" The Junior Auror with him was staring at the body bag with a horrified look on his face. 'Ah, that's going to be a long time with a mind-healer,' he thought. 'Same for me,' and the thought of how awful it would be.

"We have to report this," said Sirius. "Scrimgeour is not going to like this at all."

"He won't. . . but his dislike for the Invisible Vigilante is stronger. I think we can get by and still get to be part of the Hogsmeade Op. With that scale, they will have to call us no matter how this turned out."

"But do you think it is wise to let these men participate at Hogsmeade," Sirius turned to look at the man; many of them had dark expressions on their faces. "All of them are physically fit, plenty of magic in their tanks. . . but their mental state, I'm worried about," Sirius' own face was paler than usual. "I don't know if it will be wise to send them to Hogsmeade. After all, it won't be as easy as this; there will be real Death Eaters— if they're not careful, they will be wiped out."

Warlunt scrunched up his nose in displeasure. Sirius had a point; as much as he wanted his trusted men beside him on the field, he couldn't put them at risk. "They won't like to be excluded from the Hogsmeade Op. . . so how about we put them in the command center. . . this way, they would be safe and won't feel like they're being excluded," he suggested.

". . . That seems to be the best option."

Warlunt and Sirius looked at their team members, who were proceeding with their work but at such a sluggish pace that, if not for the current circumstance, they would've been chewed out thrice over.

"I hate the Invisible Vigilate," said Sirius.

"If I see the real one, I'll use Cruciatus instead of the Killing Curse," responded Warlunt with an edge. He sighed, "Let's go for a drink when all this is over— with the teams, all of us."

Sirius hummed in agreement before asking, "Why do you think he did this? Even if we blame him, we still need to figure out the reasoning behind this? This doesn't match with his profile. Why aggravate us? Why use us?" The Invisible Vigilante never had a problem with doing the job himself, but today, he had done something so out of character.

"Maybe he didn't want to dirty his hands with children's blood and used us to do the job. As for the one he killed, that kid wasn't a saint even if he didn't have a record."

"Then why put employees in his attire? They weren't related to Death Eaters, we checked. Why put innocent people to death. I just can't make sense of the situation."

"To be honest with you," Warlunt pursed his lips into a line, "I don't care right now. I want to go to Hogsmeade and take care of that first. I'll volunteer my time to hunt his arse down."

"I'm already on the task force," said Sirius, "leading it, currently."

The rest of the affair was quiet as the body bags were secured and sent to the morgue while the unconscious people were woken up and sent to St. Mungos to recover from exposure to Imperius Curse. They sealed off the resort after a thorough check, and the scenery was vacated, leaving behind a couple of Junior Aurors who had never entered the scene.

In the distant sky, they didn't notice a black-clad masked figure on a broom that observed them for the entire time they were there.

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Quinn frowned as he looked down at the town center. There was a building that could fit all the people inside, and right now, the town hall was being used as the hostage holding center. He could see it from the roof upon which he was that it was heavily guarded by Death Eaters. It wouldn't have been a problem if that was it, but he knew from sneaking into the mind of one of the Death Eaters just out of guard rotation that the Dark Lord was inside with the hostages.

He bit his lip. He couldn't do anything about it for that reason. He decided not to take any action, leaving it to the people whose job it was to rescue people. Instead, he began looking for his first genuine target of the day.

"Serpensortia," he whispered for a pit of snakes to emit out of his hand. He stared at snakes of different shapes and sizes, and after a moment, they slithered away.

The bait had been set.

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Quinn West - MC - Screentime, please.

Sirius Black - Senior Auror - Not having a good time.

Warlunt - Senior Hit Wizard - Push it aside and move on.

FictionOnlyReader - Author - Mid-terms next week, time to grind. See you guys in a bit.

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The link is in the synopsis!