Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ TTHS-City Musical: The Phantom of the City ❯ A criminal or a hero? ( Chapter 4 )

CHAPTER FOUR

Monday came, and you wouldn't believe the number of people that were so happy the office-complex was gone and the original buildings were restored. It meant that a lot for people had their old jobs back and were no longer in debt.

Other people were glad to see them back in business too as it meant their favorite stores were open again, and it was all thanks to the phantom, whoever he was.

The papers were already talking about him too, and even published a little song in the article about him…

Out of the night

When the full moon is bright,

Comes a stranger called The Phantom

This man of changes bane

Carves a P with his cane

A P that stands for Phantom

Phantom…

So dark, mysterious, and free…

Phantom…

Who makes the sign of the P

Phantom…

Phantom…

Phantom…

Phantom…

…PHANTOM!

Dick and his friends were reading the paper during a rest period at school that day. “Who is the phantom…?” Dick read from the headline. “It's incredible.”

Kori and Vic thought it was amazing too, but the goths was both amazed and disgusted. “Who is the phantom…?” Kato sneered. “He's nothing but a terrorist. A menace… A crook…!”

Raven agreed with her boyfriend. “I thought you guys hated the changes as much as we did.” said Kori.

“We do…” Raven said. “But I doubt what the phantom did is any better than the crimes already committed. He really could've hurt someone, and you saw what he did to Jackie's father.”

Jackie hadn't come to school because she was too emotionally depressed about her father being lost. “Well… yeah…” Vic said. “But at least he's alive, and he can find his way back.”

“And he did restore the buildings to normal, no one was hurt.” added Kori.

Raven and Kato didn't care, and still felt that the phantom was very reckless in his actions. The bell rang, and the goths headed off to class where hopefully they wouldn't hear anymore phantom-talk.

Kori and Vic didn't like the goths' attitude, but Dick assured them to just let it be. “We've got other things to worry about. I'd hate to think of Jackson's doing now.”

…

At town-hall, Jackson was still livid that his beautiful complex had been destroyed, one of his architects was gone, and with the other businesses back in action he would have to pay more money to finance things to keep them and the city going.

“What are you going to do now, sir.” asked Dodgers. “Do we shut down all our other plans.”

“What…?!” snapped Jackson. “Shut them down? Never…!” He wasn't about to let one masked man in a cape scare him. “I told you I became mayor because I don't scare easy. We continue our projects, and we'll start by ripping up that park… today.”

Dodgers complied, but he once again reminded Jackson about the phantom's warning. Jackson shot Dodgers a very furious look, and Dodgers got right to work to registering the demolition.

Jackson gazed out the window at the city. “I'll show that caped clown this is still my city.”

…

In school, Terra was in math class, and she had just gotten her test back. She flunked badly mostly because she didn't study, and also because she wasn't used to not seeing Garfield around anymore. He would usually be sitting at the desk beside her and receiving another perfect score, only to dive back into his books and completely ignore her.

She swore she could see him there, but the image quickly faded. Then she could see out the window from three stories up Garfield was across the street doing another one of his street-shows.

He was doing some card tricks for the by-passers and he dazzled them all with his talent. Terra couldn't help but smile, she never saw Garfield looking so happy before, and strange, she thought that by now he would have left the city as he planned to.

“Ms. Markov…!” the teacher said sternly yet calmly. Terra quickly snapped her head back around. “The math problems are on the board, not out the window.”

“Sorry, sir…” Terra said meekly and she did her best to concentrate, but Jillian, who wasn't absent saw what she was staring at. “She is into that kid!” she thought angrily. “I don't believe her.”

…

As for Garfield he already had made a ton of cash from his shows, but he was feeling rather bored in between performances. He gazed over at the Murakami School across the street. For a minute he actually missed it, but was still glad to be out. “I bet those slackers are still flunking their courses.” he said to himself.

He also wasn't sure, be he swore that her could see Terra thought one of the third-floor windows in the math-class he used to attend. Then he could see it really was her. She turned to gaze out the window again and gazed at him, she smiled but he just gathered his stuff and headed off.

Terra's smile faded, and she went back to her studies. “Why does he always act like that?” she thought to herself. “And why is it usually with me…?”

…

As Garfield walked down the streets with his props in his old book-bag his mind was still fixed on Terra. “What is her problem?” he wondered, “Everywhere I go… there she is, always invading my space.”

He just couldn't understand her, even with his genius IQ, girls would always be the biggest mystery of them all to him. “Maybe she's just as weird as me.”

Suddenly he caught sight of a line of demolition vehicles headed down a street. Then he suddenly remembered, “The demolition…! The park…!”

He remembered passing by it earlier this morning and none of the people were ready to leave yet and the city was ready for the demolition now? He had to stop this!

He dashed behind a dark alley, reached into his prop-bag and pulled out his phantom cape. Using an old magician's trick, one swish of the cape over him and he changed form his street clothes tot hat of the phantom, just like that.

Then he was off…

…

Indeed the people of the building hadn't had time to evacuate fast enough, when the demolitionists began to tear things up. The playground was the first that was to go. Lots of the children, who were home from school to help with their families' moving, were crying and screaming in sadness as everything was trashed. Then a big cement mixer was coming ready to fill up the pond, then didn't even bother to check and see if there was any life in the water.

The foreman of the work-crew apologized, but he had his orders from the mayor. “This is place is going down in ten minutes, ya a better get going folks. This is gonna get ugly.”

The people stampeded out like a pack of wild elephants, and no sooner had the last person fled did the men ready themselves to begin demolition. The wrecking-ball crane was ready. “Let a-rip!” shouted the foremen.He had to stop thi

The large iron-ball was swung hard, but when it made contact with the brick it just bounded right off of it like a balloon… because it was a balloon! The driver was shocked and confused.

The cement mixer was ready to pour, but instead of concrete it was just more water. The men were starting to have a bad feeling about this.

Some of the men even tried to start breaking the building down with hand-tools, but their crowbars turned into candy-canes and snapped, their saw-blades turned into paper-mache and busted themselves, and the dynamite they quickly rigged up only blew confetti and streamers. Then the men saw why. “The Phantom…!”

Who was standing by a large tree. “Having a party without inviting me? I'm upset.” He mocked. The foreman shouted “Get that guy, Louie!”

The bulldozer-driver rammed hard his controls and drove the bulldozer towards the tree where the phantom was, but the phantom just stood his guard and waved his cane, “ZA… ZOO!” and the whole thing vanished along with the driver and reappeared on the other side of the field chasing down the other men. “Look out!”

Some of the men screamed and ran away like frightened little girls. “Get back here!” shouted the foreman, “You're sweaty male workers for Pete-sake!”

The phantom was now marching towards the foremen and his remaining while tapping his hand at his hand like a crop. “You can go tell Mayor Jackson that you've failed.”

The foreman wasn't giving up and pulled out his gun from his vest. “Now who's got who? Ya spooky varmint…!”

The phantom was waiting for a moment to use this next trick. “Remember the first rule of magic…” He said as he waved his cane, and created two copies of himself. “Things are not always as they seem.” said the center phantom.

“You have one chance.” said the one on the right.

“Which of us is your real target?” said the left one.

“CHOOSE WISELY!” all three of them said together.

The foreman only laughed and shot at all three phantoms, but all three of them vanished in a puff of smoke. That's when the real phantom leapt from behind the foreman, and carved a P on the back of his vest. The foreman was shaking now. He had already used up all his ammo in just those three shots. The phantom poised his cane at him and said, “Now are you going to leave here, or am I going to get tough?”

The foreman could only run off with the rest of his men and even shout, “MAMA…!”

That's when the phantom used his magic to reconstruct the demolished playground, and with the building and the pond as well as the rest of the park still intact, the people of the area couldn't help but cheer. “Thank you Mr. Phantom.” The children all said as they played in their newly restored playground.

The phantom tipped his hat to the good people he had helped, and then he disappeared into the woods nearby, and while no one was watching, Garfield performed the old change-trick and was in his street clothes once again. “Another bad change averted.” He said, “And I didn't even have to teleport anyone.”

…

At town-hall Jackson received a phone-call that the demolition did not go through, and when he was told of why, he angrily slammed down the phone. “GRR...! That magical menace has interfered again!” he snarled.

Dodgers knew something like this would happen. “I told you it would, sir.” He said, but he was given another look of anger form his boss. Jackson couldn't believe this. Now the foreman told him to call someone else because he didn't ever want to be on the other end of the phantom's cane again.

Now seeing the phantom as more than just a nuisance, Jackson had an idea, and he held an immediate meeting with his council. “Perhaps it's time we raised the city's defense a little. I have strings I want you all to pull.”