Phantom blankly stared at the blood surrounding him. His hand reached up to absentmindedly touch the gushing wound across his throat, feeling the slow healing begin as his ectoplasm fused with the body’s circulatory system. It was not a pleasant feeling; there was blood and dirt mixing and drying on his skin. He took a breath (and wasn’t that a novel feeling after years of not being able to?) and looked at the kneeling cultists surrounding him.
Feeling the weight of his stare, one of them hurriedly spoke: “Your Majesty! We’ve not dared to hope that you would answer our request, but you have graced us with your presence. For that, we are humbly grateful. We have—”
“This was a child,” Phantom noted. His voice was hoarse, the vocal chords repairing themselves as he spoke. He knew that the body was young, fresh and soft in a way that spoke of inexperience. It was nothing about a physical feeling—the actual physical state of the body, but it was a feeling nonetheless.
The cultist blinked. “Ah, we do not know the exact age of Red Robin. But, surely you are pleased, Your Majesty? The younger the vessel, the more time you may have to guide the world.”
“A vessel,” Phantom repeated, rolling the word around in his mouth, tongue feeling foreign. In the back of his mind, he thought he heard a tinny amalgamation of voices. He forgot how limited hearing was. (Forgot how quiet it was when the Infinity in his head was muffled.) “Vessel. Ves-sell. You have given me a child for a vessel.”
There were shifts among the cultists. “We are aware it is not the most dignified vessel for you, Your Majesty,” a new one said. They faltered for moment as Phantom turned his gaze towards them. “But he is one of Gotham’s most significant vigilantes! Surely, his body is fit enough to contain you?”
“You slaughtered a child. . . to contain me.” Phantom’s voice was cold, a quiet danger in his voice. “You thought you could contain me, the High King of the Infinite Realms? The audacity you have rivals the king before me. I do not require a vessel. You slaughtered a child for something I did not need.”
The air grew heavy. Out of the corner of his eye, Phantom saw one of the cultists fall limp. A flinch went through the rest, and multiple people started quietly gasping as it got harder to breathe. “Your—Your Majesty,” the first cultist choked out. Phantom made sure to keep his own breathing level, consciously keeping track of every breath the body needed. It would not be good if it died just because he forgot to breathe.
Phantom continued: “The only reason this body has not died is because I am now inhabiting it.” Distantly, he realized that all background noises had stopped. It was now only him and the quiet wheezing of cultists. “To assume that I, the High King of the Infinite Realms would require a vessel, would condone a child vessel, is a crime worthy of death. This child’s blood stains your hands, and so your blood will pay it back in full. Only out of respect of this child, I do not use my own hands to do this.”
The average human body was not able to withstand a high level of power. The most it could take would be the power of a Being. Frost started to cover the floor, and the cultists began pleading Phantom to stop. He did not; the child probably pled for his life too. The cultists did not stop, and so neither would he. Just as the last person dropped to the floor, hair frosted over and blue in the face, Phantom heard a window shatter. He did not look away from the cultist, but he did hear a deep voice start to talk.
“Red Robin.” More footsteps from the window area, all different levels of noise, all different people. “Red Robin, report. What happened?”
Slowly, Phantom turned to look at the people who just came in. All were regarding him with caution, the closest being a large man in an all black vigilante suit. After Phantom took note of their outfits, he looked at the body he was inhabiting, seeing the suit he had ignored earlier. He looked back up. “You are his team,” he said. After a moment, he corrected himself: “You are his family.”
“And you’re inhabiting my brother’s body,” a man with a black and blue suit stated, smiling. It was not a nice smile. “We heard over the comms.”
“Comms,” Phantom said slowly, rolling the word around like he did with ‘vessel.’ “Comms. Comm. Com-mun-i-cation. C—”
“Who or what are you?” a man with a red helmet harshly interrupted. His hand rested on a holstered gun that Phantom eyed in idle interest.
“I am Phantom, of the Infinite Realms.”
“Why would they summon you? What is your purpose here? Is Red Robin still in there?” the black-clad man from earlier asked. On the last question, a note of desperate urgency bled through. Ha. Bled through.
“Red Robin is your son?” Phantom asked.
There was no hesitation. “Yes.”
Phantom looked at him. Looked at the sweat lining the man’s exposed jaw; he could easily imagine the man running towards the warehouse as he listened to his son bleed out. “I am keeping his body alive.” He tilted his head up, exposing his neck and therefore the blood caked slit of his throat. It was wide enough that they could see a sliver of muscle throbbing beneath. “My ectoplasm is bonding to the body, accelerating the healing. Once the body is fully healed, I will leave.”
“You will not!” a child demanded. Another child, his mind crooned, a young one.
Phantom paused and looked at the people staring at him with grief barely hidden in their eyes. He took in their ready stances, the determination filling their frames. Oh. “You misunderstand,” he soothed. “Once the body is healed, your Red Robin will inhabit it again. While I heal this body, I will have Fright Knight search for his soul. It might take a while.”
“Fright Knight?” the child asked.
“A friend.” Phantom smiled at him. It only seemed to anger the child further.
“Why?” the blue-clad man asked. It was not a question. “How long will it take?”
He thought for a moment. “The body can be healed relatively quickly,” he informed them. “Red Robin’s soul will be the real determinator. Newly departed souls are. . . fragile. Some do not form at all. The time it takes relies entirely on their willpower, resilience, purpose. What is the time dilation here relative to the Realms?” Phantom mumbled the last sentence to himself.
“Red Robin has high levels of all three,” the black-clad man informed him, clearly wanting Phantom to give them a specific time frame.
“Mm. Then, at most—considering the time dilation—three months. At least, two weeks. Time here moves faster,” Phantom politely told them.
“And how do we know you’re not just trying to save your own skin?” the red helmet demanded.
Phantom blinked at him. “If you know a magic-user, they can verify. Anyone who knows more than the basic magics know this: an Ancient has no reason for a vessel.”