SSS Technology System: My Talent's Name Is D.E.L.T.A-Chapter 14: The Shadow Vigilante

"We have to kill him."

"What was that?" Dr Helen turned to him. "We? I have no interest in spilling blood to fulfill your desires Mr Victor, I was only deployed to help achieve Project V.E.X.A.M, anything else is nothing more than an inconsequential hassle."

"What?"His eye brows jerked a little. "That vigilante is a threat to Project.V.E.X.A.M, you can’t tell me it’s no coincidence that he’s intervened twice now. I know you think he poses no threat but we haven’t even begun V.E.X.A.M! Till we do, there’s no telling what’s going to happen."

Dr Helen closed her eyes for a bit and rubbed her temples.

Though she viewed it as unnecessary, he was right.

In the first place, how did the vigilante think to go down to the docks of all places?

If he truly got into the business to play hero, he would have searched for the most obvious places where crime rates were high, banks, stores, supermarkets.

Places of interest to rob, but he chose the docks?

It might have been a coincidence, but coming back twice?

"Fine, I’ll help you find your vigilante, but that’s it, anything more than that is no longer my concern."

"I’m fine with that."

"Hmph, you’re looking for a teenager within the age limit of 16-22."

"What!? You expect me to believe a mere kid is playing dress up!?" He refused to believe it, according to his man he sent to shadow the thugs, the vigilante managed to put Agent Alpha down on her ass.

It was going to take a lot of convincing for him to believe a mere kid could do that.

"Agents registered under Starcore D.E.L.T.A have been trained since childhood, what fully grown adult who isn’t registered has time to play dress up?"

"I don’t know, the Avengers?? The justice League?? Make it make sense!"

"You idiot, members of the justice league and avengers are either trained soldiers or billionaires with too much money on their hands. The vigilante uses a rope and smoke bomb and he works alone, if you had any braincells left from too much bloodshed, do the maths properly."

She closed the rear door of the van carefully before walking back into the warehouse, tugging firmly at her lab coat.

"Hey!"

..

[The next morning]

[Starcore Delta]

It was another busy day at Starcore Delta, the maintenance crew moved quickly from hangar to hangar, fueling the jets and servicing them, while higher officials barked orders from across their offices.

The head commander sat in his office with his legs crossed, and a phone held tightly in place by the side of his ear. His assistant stood in front of his table, awaiting his final judgement from the results of the call he was on.

His face remained neutral, even as he received one of the most alarming calls he’s had in ages ever since team Alpha returned from their mission.

"Understood, we’ll get every elite member we have on hand."

The phone line cut.

He placed the phone on his table, aligned his fingers and let out a soft sigh. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

This was one of the major problems Starcore Delta faced, and now he had to do something to fix it.

"It seems there’s been a change in plans, contact Agent Alpha and the rest of team Alpha, they should all to report to HQ effective immediately."

"Yes sir." His secretary replied and wasted no time in carrying out his orders.

"Wait." His voice brought her back, and she turned around almost immediately.

"Yes sir?"

"When are the new recruits supposed to come in?"

"Tomorrow sir, there are still loose ends needed to be tied up before the new recruits can officially come in."

"I see, you may go."

..

School was just as busy and more rowdy as ever, news spread like wildfire, and before Eric even knew it, the arrest of the three thugs had already gone public.

Classes were on hold due to the break and everyone was having lunch in the cafeteria, it was buzzing with excitement, contagious whispers and laughters flew around, trapping everyone in it’s grasp.

"Thank you." Eric expressed his gratitude to the waitress as he grabbed his tray of food off the counter and walked through the noisy cafeteria. He was used to this on several occasions, but today in particular was more noisy than expected.

’What’s got everyone so revved up?’ He thought as he glanced around the chattering hall.

Then his eyes fell on the four boys he beat up the other day, and a smile tugged faintly at his lips.

"Hey." He called out with a cold voice.

"Huh?" Their laughter dropped as they saw Eric. "You bastard.."

One of them got to their feet and squeezed his fist. "Who the hell do you think you are to approach us you street rat!"

Eric’s eyes glowed a faint blue, and the moment they saw it, they froze.

The boy sat back down, and their hands trembled so much they couldn’t hold their spoon right.

"I-I mean... W-What do you want?" He them stammered. Each glance of his face was a reminder of the overwhelming might they submitted to the other day.

And it was not pleasant.

"Relax, if I wanted to make you regret all you’ve done to me it wouldn’t be in somewhere so open. I just to know what’s gotten everyone so talkative... Well more than usual."

"I see." They all sighed in relief, but they dared not drop their guard down.

After all this was the same guy they spat on and nearly defile for as long as he could remember.

"I guess you haven’t heard the news huh? Well I’m not surprised." Carlos said as his trembling hands finally calmed down.

Out of them all, he suffered the most in that beat down

"Usually, but didn’t it spread a little too fast today of all days?"

"Yeah, you can blame Emily for that though."

They all turned to the girl standing in the middle of the cafeteria, handing out the school’s newspapers to everyone who passed.

"Oh, I see.." Eric muttered under his breath.

"I guess, she’s just doing her work, can’t blame her for that, she even gave us newspapers." One of the boys handed his newspaper to him with trembling hands.

"Thank God, you’re all respectable and normal when you behave like this." Ethan smiled and took the newspaper.

"But." His voice dropped, his brows furrowed, and all their hearts skipped a bit.

"Don’t assume you’ve been forgiven for your transgressions, when I have your time, you will pay for all you’ve done to me."

"Well then." His face returned to normal, then he turned and walked away.

"Damn it!" One of the boys slammed their fists into the table.

"That filthy bastard... He thinks he can get whatever he wants from us because we lost to him, we have to teach him a lesson he’ll never forget. And this time, we’ll break more than just his dignity."

Their school’s newspapers were filled with the events of the school, the upcoming prom, the sports festival with several schools all competing, but the one that stood out the most was the front page.

It was completely unrelated to school activities.

"Phantom? Who the fuck is that?" On the front cover of the newspaper, an article about how the Phantom meaning of had had singlehandedly saved two individuals while stopping the robbers the previous night.

"Apparently that’s what people are calling him, yunno, the shadow vigilante. And in all honesty I think it suits him, I mean he only ever works at night and he hunts crime."

He walked past a group of students chattering about the same issue, and he sat at the seat closest to them.

That was also the only seat that was empty. Experience taught him that none of these upper sector brats was willing to share space with someone like him.

"The Shadow Vigilante — Phantom huh, that actually has a nice ring to it."

"And get this, he already has a fan page! It’s called Phantoms. And I’m already his number 19 fan!" One of the girls screamed out unable to contain her excitement.

’For real??’ Eric’s brows jerked in disbelief, he already had a fanbase?

Eric looked up the page immediately, and to his surprise, they were right.

The Phantoms.

And it already had followers of more than 200 people!

"Damn..."

"Eric Kaiser." A voice snapped him out of his excitement, and when he turned around to see, it was his teacher — Miss Mary.

"Miss mary? What brings you here? Did I do anything wrong?" He couldn’t understand why a teacher was looking for him especially during the break.

"The principal wants to see you." She said with a cold voice, and her eyes especially were filled with disgust.

"What?"

Whenever someone of his status was called into the principal’s office, they were bound to be in trouble. But he didn’t remember doing anything.

Unless...

Miss Mary guided him from the cafeteria to the principal’s office, and as he shut the door behind him, he saw the principal at her desk, with Naomi, seated across from her.

"Naomi?... Oh... Fuck."