FicWad

Chapter 30: Time to Kill Part II

Time continued to slowly and agonizing taunt Hailey as she was tied to the bell clapper. Her mind frantically searched for a way to escape her perilous predicament.

“Any second now,” thought Hailey, in an agonized voice. “If I only had something that I could use to loosen these straps, I might be able to slide out and to safety.”

Hailey looked down and saw her wand sticking out of her right sleeve just slightly. A sudden burst of inspiration struck her, if only she could shift her arm enough so she could point her wand at the straps, she might have a slight chance. Hailey tried to ignore a chance she could break her arm but she would be in for a lot more pain if she didn’t try it.

Hailey lifted her arm as quickly as she could and the wand slid out of her sleeve. Barely, she caught it in her hand. She turned her arm as much as she could, greatly straining the limited mobility she had. With a pained expression, she touched her wand to an area of the strap that she hoped that was not binding her body to the bell clapper in the City Hall Clock Tower.

“Diffindo!” cried Hailey and a jet of light flew from her wand into the strap. The strap was only sliced a few centimeters but it was enough for Hailey to slide her right arm out so she could slice the other end of the strap enough to pull her other arm loose from the strap, leaving her hanging by her ankles from the bell clocker.

Hailey hung forward by her ankles, still bound to the bell clapper and she began to panic as the bell clapper began to swing towards the bell. In a last ditch effort, Hailey twisted herself around, preparing to use one more last ditch effort to get herself free before she was crushed.

“REDUCTO!” screamed Hailey desperately, as she pointed her wand towards the bell clapper. Fortunately for Hailey, she blew the bell clapper from the clock just a split second before it would have struck the bell. She managed to pull her feet free from the strap before dropping to the ground and quickly rolling to safety, to avoid the large metal bell clapper from crushing her flat.

Hailey breathed a sigh of relief, as she looked up, realizing that she had came as close as possible to be killed. In a way this was a rather terrifying experience but in a small way, Hailey felt thrilled that she managed to find a way out of her nearly death expression without any external interference. Hailey felt extremely grateful that the bell clapper was slightly rusty and thus didn’t swing as fast as it would have, thus buying her a few more second, which turned out to be crucial to her escape.

Hailey rubbed her right arm, which was slightly sore from where she had strained it attempting to give herself enough mobility to free herself with her wand. Other than the normal bumps, bruises, and a slight headache, Hailey walked down the stairs away from the clock tower relatively unscathed. She recalled the last time she had been near this place as the Black Phantom and how she managed to lose sight of the hoodlum she was chasing when he went up inside the clock tower.

Hailey stopped short near the bottom of the stairs, suddenly realizing something. She put her arms out in front of her to steady herself and avoid falling on her face.

“It can’t be,” muttered Hailey to herself dismissively, before everything just hit her as hard as an open handed slap to the face. “Yet, all the pieces fit.”

Hailey’s mind harkened back to the night that Harry held the first meeting of his Voldemort resistance group. The night that the Black Phantom came face to face with a petty and rather inept criminal named Max Windsor.

A grubby looking thin man with stringy gray hair basically dressed in the most tattered clothing imaginable walked up to the entrance of a gas station with a frantic look on his face. He looked up at the large sign in front of the gas station, a sign that had a large red symbol shaped look a foot. He pulled the pair of bolt cutters that he had dug out of a trash can prior to this job. If he could successfully break into the gas station, he would finally be able to successfully commit a crime. Finally, Max Windsor would no longer be the laughing stock of the New York criminal underworld.

Windsor prepared to cut the lock but he heard a whizzing sound. A dagger parted his hair as he frantically spun around, holding the bolt cutters with shaking hands.

“Who’s there?” asked Windsor in a shaky voice as he had the bolt cutters in one hand.

“I could ask the same for you,” said a cool, female voice as Windsor turned around and began to back off at the sight he saw.

“You!” cried Windsor. “I’ve heard of you, Black Phantom. You foiled my plans to have those mercenaries assassinate Harry Potter as revenge for him foiling my attempted robbery. I lost to a seven year old, Phantom! Do you realize what that did to my reputation?”

The Black Phantom stood in the shadows, not responding.

“I needed to rob that gas station all those years ago,” said Windsor his hands moving wildly. “I lost my job, my home. Even my wife left me…for another woman I might add. I lost everything and I needed to do something to regain some semblance of dignity. But Potter just had to ruin my attempts to get back on my feet, now I became Max Windsor, the laughing stock of the entire New York criminal underworld.”

“I could care less what happened years ago, the fact is I caught you attempting to break and enter,” said the Black Phantom in a calm voice, as if she was reasoning with a temperamental two year old. “Now, I suggest you give yourself up.”

Windsor rushed forward, swinging the bolt cutters towards the Black Phantom’s head but she lazily side stepped it, causing Windsor to stagger around and the bolt cutters to fly out of his hand.

“No, you will never take me alive!” cried Windsor as he shoved the Black Phantom catching her completely by surprise before he sprinted down sidewalk, narrowly avoiding slipping on the icy roads that was accumulated from the recent cold weather.

Hailey sighed, why did criminal lunatics always have to do things the hard way? She quickly made her way after the fleeing thief, but he seemed to be rather quick for someone who looked as if he hadn’t eaten or bathed for weeks. Still, Hailey did her best to keep up with the villain as he turned. He appeared to be making his way towards City Hall so Hailey sprinted towards the building as quickly as she could.

Looking up, she saw Windsor sprint up the stairs towards the clock tower. Hailey followed as Windsor nearly tripped on his way up the stairs but the criminal managed to hang onto the wall for support. Windsor dashed through a doorway and slammed the door shut behind him. Hailey reached the door and attempted to pull it open, but the door refused to budge. She didn’t have her wand with her and wasn’t adept at wandless magic, so she reluctantly left the scene of the crime, hoping someone would catch up with Windsor.

It all fit! Chronos had talked about being the Lord of the Clock Tower and remarked that it would start where it ended. Chronos and Max Windsor were one in the same. Hailey could have smacked herself for not putting everything together sooner.

There was something that Hailey couldn’t figure out. Chronos had babbled on about pulling off the “clock caper of the century” before he left her for dead. Hailey didn’t have the slightest idea what Chronos could be up to on that front but she suspected she better find out soon, or Chronos would get away with his crimes. One thing for certain, Hailey had no time to waste and needed to find out what Chronos was up to.

Chronos walked up the pathway towards the building he was casing, ignoring the flashes of lightning in the sky and the ever quickening downpour of rain from the sky. The building appeared to have basic security features to keep intruders from breaking and entering. Other than that minor quibble, getting in and out with the priceless grandfather clock with the means to manipulate time would be done in no time at all.

From behind his back, Chronos aimed his crossbow with his second hand shaped arrow towards the electrical box that powered the security system. With careful precision, he fired the arrow straight at the electrical box before ducking quickly behind a large tree. The electrical box exploded, causing sparks to fly in every direction possible. Chronos cackled madly at the sight of the destruction he caused as the sparks ignited the tree. Ducking around, Chronos pulled a miniature pocket watch out of his pocket before twirling it around and tossing it at the door. The watch exploded, blowing a hole through the door.

Chronos looked around before he stepped through the hole in the door that he created. He pulled out his clock-zooka, aiming it carefully around the room. He was ready to attack at a moment’s notice, just in case anyone got in the way of his quest for the clock. From the kitchen, Chronos walked into the living room before his face broke into a wide grin as he spied the objection of his latest theft.

“Hickory dickory dock, I’ve just found my clock!” exclaimed Chronos before breaking out into another round of wheezy giggles as he pulled the clock away from the wall.

He craned his head and looked out the window, where he saw Tempus was sitting in the front seat of their getaway vehicle across the street. Chronos aimed his clock-zooka with a grin and prepared to do some more unnecessary property damage. He shot three clocks out of his weapon and blasted them right into the front door that it blew the door off of its hinges. Without wasting any more movement, Chronos pushed the grandfather clock out the door. He couldn’t believe his luck, as he encountered an empty house and he wasn’t detected. A nice little addition was by now the Black Phantom would be a mangled mess in the City Hall Clock Tower. The only thing which Chronos recalled with bitterness is he didn’t have a chance to gain revenge on Harry Potter yet for what Chronos perceived as his most humiliating defeat.

Casting these thoughts out of his mind, Chronos loaded the grandfather clock into the back of the van before he sprinted to the other side to make a swift get away before any cops decided to show up and give him problems. As the vehicle sped off, Chronos burst into a wheezy round of giggles, extremely happy at his successful night of deviance.

Shortly after the robbery took place, Hailey walked down the street, ducking into the shadows, before looking carefully around. It was definitely after midnight and she had an inclination that she had better get home soon, instead of running around in circles and trying to track down someone who was committing an unknown crime. Yet, Hailey rationalized that she had to find out what Chronos was up too and avoid throwing her hands up into the air in a gesture of defeat.

“I just need to keep my ears open for something odd and out of the ordinary, most likely relating to clocks and I might be able to get back on the right track,” muttered Hailey in a low voice to herself, as she peered around the alley way. Sure enough, on a display of televisions in a convenience store window, a rather interesting news special report grabbed Hailey’s interest.

“In yet another baffling incident that received word of just moment’s ago, the priceless and rare antique grandfather clock owned by New York City citizen Eustace C. Quetch has been stolen from his home this evening,” said the news reporter. “Police on the scene of the crime reported that both the back and front door were destroyed by some sort of clock based weaponry. This is just another theft of time related objects such as clocks and watches. The authorities are quite frankly baffled on where this mysterious thief will strike next. If you have any information on this baffling caper or know who is behind this, contact the authorities immediately. Do not, we repeat, do not approach the person or people responsible for this crime spree, as they may be extremely dangerous.”

Hailey stepped back as the report ended, with a thoughtful look on her face. Surely, the clock caper of the century couldn’t have been as mundane as something like a grandfather clock. There had to be something else, something that Hailey overlooked. If she could figure out what the missing piece of the puzzle was, she would better equipped to stop Chronos and whatever fiendish scheme he had planned.

Chronos looked over his prize back at his abandoned warehouse hideout. Looking over the clock, Chronos admired its craftsmanship and style before he picked up a crowbar and smashed the clock open. He shined a flash light inside the clock, slowly searching the clock for details of the ritual to give him the power to manipulate the fabric of time. After a couple of minutes, Chronos began to grow frantic. The detail of the ritual was missing from the clock.

“No, it has to be here!” yelled Chronos frantically. “All the signs pointed to this clock. There is no reason why it shouldn’t be here!”

Chronos stepped back, moving around the components of the clock, before pulling out a jagged piece of a crystal of some sort. The Lord of the Clock Tower looked at the crystal with a curious expression. Straining his eyes, the edge of the crystal appeared to have the letters “RR” etched into it in the tiniest visible writing possible.

“My Lord, is there something the matter?” asked Tempus who had walked into the room, causing Chronos to spin around in surprise, pointing the crystal at Tempus.

“No, Tempus, but there appears to be a problem as there is nothing of value inside this clock other than this shiny crystal,” declared Chronos in a defeated voice before he looked at Tempus who didn’t offer any response whatsoever. “Tempus, answer me.”

Tempus remained frozen on the spot, as if in some kind of suspended animation. Chronos looked at the crystal with a curious expression. An insane theory appeared in his mind and Chronos slowly turned around, spying a rat scurrying down the side of the warehouse. With careful aim, Chronos turned the crystal towards the rat. Sure enough the rat stopped, as if time had went to a sudden halt for the rodent.

Chronos broke into a loud, sinister round of giggles. The powers of this crystal weren’t quite what he was looking for. In fact, it was ten times better! Chronos made plans to loot the city of New York with his new power. He made his way out of the factory, ignoring Tempus who remained immobile from being exposed to the crystal. As far as Chronos was concerned, her not being able to move or talk was a noticeable improvement.

Hailey leaned against the wall of an apartment building. She had been looking around the city for nearly an hour and had yet to find even a hint of where Chronos might have been. Hailey was beginning to think that she had no hope in finding Chronos and it might not be the worst idea to go to bed.

With a shake of her head, Hailey cleared those defeated thoughts from her head. She was giving up way too easily. She had to stick with this, even if it was being really frustrating.

She jerked her head to the side suddenly with a brief second of a security alarm that quickly died as if something had disabled it. Hailey wouldn’t have heard it had she not been listening for something out of the ordinary but she sprinted over across the street. The moment Hailey reached that area, she saw Chronos standing in a jewelry store loading up a bag with a variety of priceless jewels while cackling madly. Hailey quickly ducked into a side alley, attempting to take Chronos by surprise.

Chronos cackled as he wrapped up his shopping. Sirens echoed through the street as a squad car pulled up. Two cops exited the car and pointed their guns towards Chronos who looked unconcerned.

“Freeze and put your hands in the air!” ordered one of the cops but Chronos seemed unconcerned. In fact, he broke out into a loud round of sinister laughter.

“You freeze!” retorted Chronos before whipping out the crystal and pointing it at the cops, stopping them completely in their tracks. Chronos sauntered over before slapping the immobile cops across the face a pair of times.

A second later, Chronos felt a pair of feet kick across the back of his head. Chronos skidded to the ground, surprised about being caught unawares. He popped up to his feet, looking around wildly.

“Who dares touch the Lord of the Clock Tower?” threatened Chronos looking around wildly before his eyes widened as he spotted the Black Phantom. “No! I killed you. You can’t be alive.”

Hailey didn’t respond, she just moved towards Chronos. She wanted to get this wrapped up soon and she lunged for Chronos. As Hailey moved forward, she saw Chronos point a crystal at her and she blinked. Chronos, who had just been standing there a second ago, had disappeared! She looked around frantically.

“People just don’t disappear in the blink of the eye. Even with apparation, you get some indication that they left from underneath your very nose,” muttered Hailey in a confused voice as she ducked down a back alley, hoping that Chronos was there but unfortunately he wasn’t.

Hailey narrowed her eyes, thinking wildly. Logical and rational thought wasn’t obviously one of her strong points but there had to be an explanation of why Chronos just abruptly disappeared. The only thing Hailey could think of, as insane as it sounded, was that he had found some method in rewinding time to the point where she had never caught up to Chronos. Hailey promptly dismissed this notion, as if time was rewinded, she wouldn’t have remembered coming face to face with Chronos tonight.

Hailey looked around one last time before coming to the conclusion that Chronos was not in the general area. There was one place he could have gone and Hailey hoped her theory was right because otherwise she had nothing else to go off of.

Chronos looked up at a demon has been plaguing him for many years. The gas station that he had tried to rob unsuccessfully on two separate occasions of his life, two occasions that turned out to be life altering events. The first one was getting foiled by a seven year old Harry Potter, an event that turned him from a regular man down on his luck into the laughing stock of the New York criminal underworld. He would never forget that horrifying experience.

The second encounter turned out well in retrospect and the only thing that it cost Chronos was his sanity. His first encounter with the Black Phantom had turned him into the insane criminal mastermind that stood before the world today. Still, despite all of that, Chronos wanted to successfully knock off this particular gas station that he had failed to on two separate occasions.

Chronos pulled out his clock zooka from behind his back and aimed it towards the door before he pulled the trigger. Three clocks blasted out of Chronos’s weapon, completely annihilating the door. Chronos stepped forward, looking around. There appeared to be no one here but he had his time stopping crystal at the ready just in case the police or anyone else tried to foil his third attempt in robbing this gas station. Chronos moved through the doorway and made his way towards the cash register, preparing to take the money within. It would be a small amount compared to what he stole so far tonight but it was just a matter of putting this demon from the past completely to rest.

Hailey snuck around outside the building, peering inside. Sure enough, Chronos had decided to come back to this old place. Pulling out her wand, Hailey vowed not to get caught off guard by him. She took aim and put a tracking charm on Chronos, just on the off chance that he gave her the slip again. Without further pause, Hailey rushed into the gas station but Chronos spun around to face Hailey, pointing the crystal towards her.

The next thing Hailey knew, she was standing in the middle of a deserted gas station.

“Damn!” cursed Hailey, looking around. Chronos had once again disappeared right before her very eyes but Hailey saw a flicker of something before he apparently vanished into thin air.

Hailey backed away from the scene of the crime and stepped into the shadows before she closed her eyes. Desperately, she went over the scene of her encounter with Chronos over and over in her mind before it hit her. Chronos had pulled out a mysterious jagged crystal and the second Hailey looked at it Chronos appeared to disappear.

There was only one logical explanation that Hailey could come up with in her mind. Chronos really didn’t disappear. Rather, the crystal had hypnotized her the moment she looked at it to believe that no time had passed during her encounter with Chronos. There was no other explanation that Hailey could think of which pointed towards Chronos disappearing in a flash right before her very eyes on two separate occasions.

Hailey lifted her wand up, spinning it around in every direction until it began to glow, picking up the tracking charm she placed on Chronos. She moved forward in the direction where her wand directed her. The wand glowed more bright as Hailey got closer and closer to Chronos.

Back at his rundown warehouse hideout, Chronos emptied out his loot, looking rather pleased with himself. He could rob every store in the city and no one could stop him because of the crystal. Not the Black Phantom, not Harry Potter, not the police, not even those mythical turtle creatures that Chronos hoped was a figment of his imagination. Chronos continued to unload his reward for a dishonest night’s work with a grin on his face. Time was on his side and no one could stop him now.

The doors blasted up and Chronos wildly spun around to see the Black Phantom walking into the factory with a determined look on her face.

“YOU!” yelled Chronos. “How could you have found this place? Witchcraft, it just has to be, witchcraft!”

Hailey didn’t respond as she lifted her arm up, putting it on the black facemask that obscured her face. Chronos reached down and Hailey spun her facemask around, cloaking her eyes and shielding it from any hypnotic effects from the crystal. This particular action illustrated perfectly what Harry was attempting to drill into both Hailey and Ginny’s head over the past few weeks. If your opponent had an advantage, you had to find someway to either completely nullify it or at least turn it into less than an advantage. Hailey just hoped her theory about the crystal was correct or she would be back at square one.

Chronos pointed the crystal towards the Black Phantom, preparing to once again freeze her in time. Much to Chronos’s horror, she moved forward slowly but not frozen in time. Chronos began to panic, frantically jabbing the crystal at the Black Phantom but no matter how much force he used to point the crystal, she appeared to not be effected by it.

“No!” yelled Chronos, shaking the crystal madly, frantically pointing it at the Black Phantom and completely spazzing out because its powers were not working as they should on the Black Phantom. “Work, blast it! My time is not up! I will not clock out!”

“Your time is up Windsor,” said Hailey as she moved towards the direction of Chronos’s voice, preparing to attack Chronos so she can wrap this up and call it a night.

“My crystal might have lost its powers but my clock-zooka is still functioning properly,” yelled Chronos in a triumphant voice, pointing the clock-zooka at the Black Phantom with the intent of blowing her completely away but she flung a shuriken out of her sleeve, knocking the clock-zooka out of his hand before grabbing Chronos by his throat and flinging him onto a table. Several of the watches slid off the table as Chronos quickly got to his feet.

Hailey reached down and picked up the crystal as Chronos shielded his face in shock. She tossed the crystal to the side dismissively before spinning her facemask back around.

“This can’t be happening!” yelled Chronos, before reaching frantically but he had misplaced his crossbow that he needed to shoot his razor sharp second hand arrows. He had a wide eyed look on his face and pulled off his goggles before angrily heaving them across the room right at the Black Phantom’s head. She managed to duck, causing his custom made goggles to shatter on the ground.

“Just give up, Windsor,” remarked Hailey in a bored voice as she looked at Chronos’s unmasked face as he began to look scandalized at the Black Phantom using his given name as opposed to his criminal alias. “It will be a lot less painful for you in the long run.”

“Windsor?” asked Chronos in a shocked voice as he popped up and punched the Black Phantom in the face as hard as he could manage. “How dare you bring up that? I am not Max Windsor, I am Chronos. The King of the Clock Tower, the Tyrant of Time, the Master of…”

“Neither of you should move,” said a cold voice and Chronos and Hailey turned around to see Tempus standing in the doorway, pointing a Triceraton laser blaster at both of them.

“Tempus?” asked Chronos in an uncertain voice.

“That’s right, my lord,” said Tempus nearly spitting the last two words. “I’m surprised that you haven’t caught on by now that I was only using you for my own gains. Waiting for you to get the crystal fragment I needed to present to my boss.”

“This is treason!” yelled Chronos but he couldn’t do much more then yell as both of his clock-zooka and his crossbow was out of his reach.

“No, soon it will be murder as I will kill both of you in due time,” said Tempus in a cold voice that was completely different then the immature demeanor that she presented earlier.

Hailey slowly aimed her wand that was once again stuffed up her sleeve towards Tempus.

“Accio blaster!” whispered Hailey in a low voice so no one could here her and sure enough the blaster yanked right out of the hands of Tempus and caused her to fall onto her face, catching her unawares. Hailey moved forward and kicked Tempus right in the jaw, causing her to drop to the ground. Tempus laid on the ground, knocked completely out by that one kick!

Chronos quickly moved over, grabbing his clock-zooka and fired two clocks at Hailey before the clock-zooka stopped, appearing to be out of ammunition. Hailey avoided the attack and knocked Chronos backwards. Chronos sailed over the table with the items he stole before he picked up two handfuls of watches and began flinging them like shuriken at Hailey.

“Take that!” cheered Chronos in a pleased, sadistic tone of voice but Hailey rolled to the side and reached to the side, grabbing the crystal in her hand.

Chronos looked absolutely horrified as Hailey pointed the crystal at him and time stopped all around him as he looked directly at the crystal.

“Impaled by your own sword, Windsor, such irony” said Hailey with an amused expression before shooting ropes from her wands, wrapping up Chronos tightly, walking past the crystal as it laid still on the floor and walked off to place an anonymous tip to the police of the location of where they could find Chronos and Tempus. After she did that, Hailey could call it a night and finally go to bed.

If Hailey had been a bit more coherent and less tired, she would have noticed two mysterious figures obscured in the shadows, watching her leaving Chronos’s hideout.

“Our boss will not be pleased with this turn of events,” concluded one of the mysterious figures, as he watched the Black Phantom leave.

“Indeed, the events of this evening were supposed to attract the attention of Harry Potter, so our organization could observe him more closely,” said the second of the mysterious figures with her eyes narrowed. “Our pawns will be incarcerated but it matters little. They served their purpose, even if Max Windsor’s was without his knowledge.”

The first shadowed figure pulled out a two way mirror before proceeding to contact his boss.

“Report,” said the leader of the organization curtly, his facial features not visible.

“A complete failure, Harry Potter’s curiosity was not piqued so we did not have an opportunity to test him for our plan,” reported the first mysterious figure in a cryptic voice.

“We must proceed to Plan B and take a more active hand before we meet face to face with young Harry Potter,” ordered the leader in a calm voice. “I must see the full extent of his abilities. If he passes our test, then our organization will approach him. If he fails, then so be it.”