Chapter 12 - The Hunt Begins

After pretending to leave, Jason stayed nearby to monitor the situation. Wheatley was still inside with the mother-daughter duo and was acting as his eyes and ears.

Minutes after he had left, the police arrived in a black and white car that had the word 'police' on the sides, and he watched from a nearby house's rooftop as one of the two police officers went inside to retrieve Saki's father while the other talked with Saki and her mother.

From where he was standing, he heard the entire conversation clearly. The police had asked for details regarding what happened and when *he* became the topic of conversation; the officer questioned them what they knew about him.

Of course, they couldn't tell the officer much. All they knew about him was his appearance, what he did to their father/husband, and that he was a simple stranger who heard her screams and helped. This is because during the conversation Jason had with them, he controlled the conversation so that it was mostly about them and the situation.

There was no need to be so cautious, but he knew the police would ask about him, and he didn't want to deal with the trouble that would've come with that.

He was a complete ghost in this world. Not a single government here had data or any information on him, so that meant any form of a search for information about him will lead only to them asking questions. If he had stayed to wait for the police and the police figured out that he wasn't in their system…

Jason frowned at the thought.

He'd rather stay off the grid. From his experience with governments in general, they didn't like it when they didn't have information or control over a dangerous individual within their governance. So for now, he wasn't planning on giving any government any semblance of control over him anytime soon.

After asking more questions about Jason and receiving not a single answer to any of them, the police officer stopped, shoved his notepad inside his pocket, and went inside. From his body language, Jason could tell that he was slightly frustrated by the fruitless interrogation.

A moment later, both officers came out, dragging the still unconscious, but thankfully completely clothed, body of Saki's father. The rope that was used to immobilize him was nowhere to be seen and a pair of handcuffs restrained his arms.

'The old man's still asleep, huh? Probably threw him with too much force, but he deserved it.' Jason scoffed.

Saki had shut her eyes and looked away from her father as she held her mother while her mother stared at her husband with a mix of rage, confusion, and sadness on her face.

The officers put their father/husband in the back seat and drove off after tipping their hats to the mother-daughter duo, who watched the car until they could no longer see it. With that business done, both of them went back inside.

Jason jumped and silently landed on top of their house's rooftop. 'Wheatley, how's the extraction so far?'

[It's going well so far, but it's not speeding up at all, unfortunately. Still gonna have to wait for more than half a day.] Wheatley commented. [Oh, and by the way, I just did a scan and more of those things from before are headed this way.]

A pair of blades flashed into existence within Jason's palms. Tendrils of red electricity ran up and down the blades. 'I'll take care of those. Just focus on the extraction.'

Jason's lips curved up in anticipation. He still hadn't fully tested out his current physical capabilities, so having some enemies he could go all-out on was an opportunity he wouldn't waste.

As if on cue, a gigantic yellow bear with razor-sharp teeth and claws, covered by the dark energy, stomped towards the house.

Jason waved at the bear. "Hey Winnie the Pooh. Sorry, but we're all out of honey. Maybe if you come back tomorrow, you'll get some."

The bear roared at him in response.

"No? That's a shame, cause this isn't going to end well for you."

In one smooth motion, Jason tossed both blades into the air, making them spin, and stepped off of the roof, landing on the ground with barely a bend in his knees before holding both hands out, catching the falling blades.

He rose to his full size, his feet firmly planted on the ground and his breath steady. He waved his sword in a beckoning motion with a wide smirk on his face.

"Come get some."

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Moonlight peaked through the gaps between the dark clouds covering most of the moon.

For hours, Jason had killed any phantom that came to the house, and when day turned into night, the amount of phantoms that popped up increased tremendously.

However, he found this to be no issue. Even when he started fighting groups of two, three, or more, his body did not tire. In fact, he merely likened it to a warm-up at that point and he had quickly gotten used to fighting phantoms despite the large variety they had.

To him, the phantoms were just bigger, fluorescent-colored animals. Even the dinosaurs and aliens he'd killed in the past were more deadly.

But it should be that way since he was now stronger, faster, more agile, and more durable than his previous self. Now, no matter the size or type of phantom that came, they weren't able to touch or even graze him if he didn't let them.

Jason stabbed the sword behind his shoulder without looking, piercing through the center of the floating dog's wide open jaw. The phantom vanished after a chime.

'And that's one more. That was the 57th phantom of the day.'

Just as he was about to go hunting for more phantoms nearby, Wheatley's voice echoed in his mind.

[Jason, I have good news! The extraction's finally done.]

'Really? That's good.' The blades disappeared from his hands. 'Return and download any new information you have into my mind.'

[Roger that.]

He felt Wheatley return and a stream of information flowed from him and into his head.

Wheatley had extracted far more energy from Saki than the old man he had eliminated. A hundred times more energy, to be precise, which was good progress towards being able to track the source in this world. Despite Joe closing the portal that leaked the energy, there was still something in this world producing it.

Furthermore, based on Saki's memories, her father started acting strange around her around the time after he had killed the old man, which was last night and he really only took action when her mother left, leaving him and Saki alone in the house.

'Hm. Does that mean our actions from last night triggered something? There isn't anything else that could explain why Saki had been possessed by the energy so suddenly. There was also that comment from Bishamon about the number of phantoms increasing and becoming empowered.'

[But why would all those be triggered by killing one man?]

Right… Why would that happen? Unless, of course…

'Remember what you and Joe said about the energy only coming from something primordial or a god?'

[Yeah. Where are you going with thi — Oh. I see now.] Wheatley nervously said. [Um, please tell me our actions didn't disturb and catch the attention of whatever being leaked that energy.]

'That's *precisely* what I think happened. It would explain the spike and spread of dark energy. But I don't think we'll have to worry about that being coming for us because we'd probably be dead by now without even knowing how we died if that happened,' Jason concluded.

[… Phew. And all is right in the world again. Well, not really, but you get my point. So what are your plans now, Jason?]

Jason leapt to a rooftop and began making his way towards the city by sprinting.

'I don't know for sure yet what my plans are, but there's one person I want to find today.'

He still remembered the face of the man that approached Saki in Joe's vision of the future.

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Within Tokyo, Jason sat on a table inside a cafe with a slice of chocolate cake and a cup of coffee next to his WayneTech laptop. He sat in a corner of the cafe, eating his cake as he used the combination of Tokyo's surveillance system — which he accessed through illegal means — and his own facial recognition software to find the man in the vision Joe showed him.

Based on his memory, he had created an accurate 3D-rendered image of the guy's face for his software to search for. Now, all he had to do was wait. If he were able to use the Batcave's supercomputer, this would've only taken a few seconds at most, but the WayneTech laptop he had was no slouch and was probably still better than any modern computer in this day and age; only surpassed by existing supercomputers.

As Jason waited, he thought about what he was planning to do after this. Aside from clearing up the anomalies and finishing his business with the man in the vision, he had nothing else to do. Maybe he could continue what he couldn't finish in Gotham and clean up the streets, but this wasn't Gotham. There was no Joker, Penguin, Riddler, or any of the supervillains.

And he couldn't go spar with Dick or the others anymore. They would usually welcome a good fight in order to train or to just spend time with each other when they were on good terms.

Jason drank one last sip of the bitter coffee before putting it down with a sigh. 'I wonder where my life will lead to now that Gotham doesn't exist.'

It had been his number one goal to clean Gotham of the filth lurked in the dark, but now, there was no way he'll be able to fulfill that goal.

He had no one to talk to anymore and without Wheatley, he would've been all alone.

As he took a bite out of the slice of chocolate cake, the screen suddenly flashed with a positive confirmation.

[Looks like you found him.]

With one look, he memorized the details of where and when the man was last detected by the surveillance system, stored his laptop, and ran out of the cafe, but not before shoving what was left of the delicious cake in his mouth.

It was time to hunt a rat.

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Author's Note:

What do you think? Comment any feedback you have and as always, thanks for reading!