A loud sound went off, polluting the room with noise that would otherwise be filled with the rain that flooded the room after! It startled the girl causing a gasp to emerge from her mouth. It was without a doubt a gunshot.
There was shouting and crying. The shouting was angry and the cries were bloodcurdling. But the shouting was getting louder.
The door to her room burst open. A man in a hoodie and a bandana over his nose and mouth rushed towards her! She screamed but didn't have many coherent thoughts running through her head. She was grabbed by the ankle and pulled out of her bed with her blanket!
"No!" She yelled, attempting to kick the man in the face. She got one decent shot, but that didn't stop the man.
He struck her and the phone was pushed out of the way, landing in a way under her bed that only allowed it to see a narrow view of the scene.
The girl was shoved to the ground by the throat! The man brought a knife to her throat.
"Stop struggling before you force us to bring down your value!" He screamed.
"This is over!" Another voice sounded from within the room.
"Who the fuck are y-!"
Another set of black boots rushed forward, with two audible strikes before he was sent to the ground. The knife was visibly broken. The girl, meanwhile, was taken aback. The new pair of footsteps began treading out of the room.
The girl, in response, rushed to grab her phone. She pulled herself up from the floor. She was breathing heavily now and looking around her room.
"I was… Saved. I don't know who the hero is but…" She began, flipping the camera which showed her rushing around to her door and looking out into her living room. The room had a couch, an older LCD television and a shrine dedicated to family. Some antiques from the family's home country were also visible but that wasn't the focus of the camera. It was the man clad in the black cape who seemed to tower over the two remaining intruders.
"You're going to tell me where you were about to take the girl." A deep voice began, "How much I hurt you will depend on how ready you are to talk. Make it easy for me if you don't want to go to jail with missing teeth."
"FUCK YOU!" One of the men pulled back a crowbar. It swung forward, but was met with the hero grabbing his swinging arm. At the same time, the hero also threw a leg upwards to an insane degree, landing square on the other intruder's nose and sending him to the ground writhing in pain.
The crowbar man tried to swing his other hand forward in a fist but was met with his crowbar hand being twisted unnaturally. He was sent to one knee with a groan. Then he was struck in the chest and sent straight to the ground without his crowbar. The caped hero turned back to the other man, who was only just getting up off the ground. He was holding his nose and blood was dripping from it.
"You broke my fucking nose! What the fuck!?"
The hero marched towards the intruder, who jerked around and was about to swing but the strike was blocked. A strike to the stomach and the clutching of the man's throat got him to stop in his tracks. He stared up at the clad in black and horned man.
"I'll break more if you don't start talking."
The man struggled, grasping at his neck more desperately for a second before whispering something that couldn't be caught on the phone's microphone. The hero eased a little.
"Thank you. Now you can take a nap." The hero headbutted the man, rendering him unconscious. The hero then turned to the camera. "It's safe now. You and your family are going to be okay."
The girl ran forward, the camera catching a glimpse of her family on the ground in the kitchen. There was some crying and black for the next few seconds. Eventually, the camera picked back up with the hero dragging the man from the girl's room into the living room. The two already in the living room were hogtied and the third man was only beginning to be hogtied. When he was done, he turned back to the family.
"I've already notified the police, they should be on their way." She looked more directly at the camera, "Make sure you save that livestream and show it to the police when they arrive. They'll want to know what these three were up to."
The man turned away from the family, moving back towards the girl's room. Before he could fully reach the room, the girl holding the camera picked herself up and put herself behind him.
"Wait, which hero are you?"
The man stopped, then turned back to the camera, looking past it and presumably at the girl.
"Batman."
He marched into the room. The girl tried to follow, but within the two seconds it took her to enter the room after him he was gone. Like he wasn't ever there to begin with.
The video ended. The police officer quickly wiped off his phone from the rain and placed the phone in the cruiser. On the corner of West 4th Street and Broadway was where around thirty men and women were arrested and six young women were being directed to find their families and return to a normal life for those who hadn't already experienced abuse. They were found in the basement, where the men from the video told police the trafficking ring was being held. None of the traffickers were dead, all would serve a long sentence for their crimes against those girls on top of the multitude of drugs found within the basement with them.
"The perp in the video definitely told that Bat Man character about this place." The officer turned to the hero on-site, "Believe me, I would have preferred someone we know and trust with this like you, but he got this situation handled and everyone's even gonna live to serve their sentences. Whoever he is, he's gotta be a professional." The officer chuckled before wiping his face from the rain. "You sure you don't know about him, Queen Maeve?"
The woman donning the Amazonian-esque leather armor shook her head with her arms crossed. "No, never heard of him. I'm just glad the girls are safe."
That's what she said, but some part of her was still frustrated. She had only just gotten the tip-off from Vought about the trafficking spot and was supposed to be the one to put an end to it. Whoever this guy is, this Bat Man, he's going to cause a stir with this stunt of keeping the bad guys alive. It will be a headache for me when I get back to Vought tower and they start.
The officer nodded, gesturing to the other officers, queuing he had to get back to work. Maeve nodded and waved her hand, letting him go to his duties. The heroine marched towards the girls that were saved and was given an idea. They were all currently in an ambulance that was on-site being checked on. They all had blankets on and underneath Maeve could see robes which were, to a degree, transparent. Underneath from what Maeve could see were the occasional bruise but overall they were mostly unharmed.
Nonetheless, they were shaken up.
Maeve approached them, but wasn't greeted with any reaction.
She cleared her throat, getting the attention of one girl whose eyes widened if only barely. Maeve tried for half a smile, which was received and got the girl to draw the attention of the others. There was one girl who managed to whisper Maeve's name, but it was faint.
Maeve began to climb inside, reaching for the doors to close them, "You'd think these guys would be sensitive enough to close this thing until you six had more covering yourselves." She remarked before the doors were finally shut all the way.
The first girl tugged on her blanket a bit more and looked downwards slightly, "I just… I'm glad to be out of there."
Maeve nodded, crouching down so they wouldn't need to put so much effort into looking up. The heroine scanned the girls, who were now darting their eyes back and forth between the floor and Maeve.
"I hear a hero saved you. But he didn't stay to see if you were okay?" Maeve asked, although the question that lied underneath was why he didn't stay for the PR.
"No, it wasn't like that!" The first girl, who seemed to be the one taking the role as the leader of the group, quickly darted back to Maeve. "He tied everyone up and made sure we were okay, but he left to go after the organizers."
"Organizers?"
"I guess there were a few people involved in setting all of it up. He got the information from one of the women the police arrested." The girl responded. She slumped back a little, "He's going to make sure none of it happens again. To anyone."
"Quite the hero." Maeve nodded, standing back up. She put her hand on the shoulder of the girl. "But he might need some backup. Did you hear who or where he was going?"
The girl frowned with a slight nod. "I think I heard West 15th Street."
"Yeah," the girl next to her added, "45 West 15th."
"Thank you, girls. You probably saved a few lives today." Maeve turned and opened the ambulance doors. She continued to climb down and close the ambulance doors. "And may have saved me an earful."
Maeve began in a sprint leading into a leap which took her into the sky and landing on top of the building where the girls were rescued from. As she landed, she pulled out her phone from a pouch on her waist and called the manager of the Seven, Ashley.
As she leapt over the first gap between buildings which was high enough to let her catch a glimpse of Washington Square Park, she landed and the manager picked up.
"What Maeve? I'm going into a meeting with the budgeting team in a few minutes and-."
"The people sale was already taken care of by the time I got there, Ashley!" Maeve interrupted, hopping over another street before immediately hopping across a corner of the park she saw earlier. "But it's okay, because I might be able to catch up to the guy that was there. He's following a trail to the ringleader and he's gonna try to take him out."
"So you're only getting the tail-end of it?! You'd better get that leader before he does otherwise you're not meeting your quota. And while you're at it, make it clear to the other guy why you don't upstage the Seven." Before Maeve could respond, the phone was hung up.
The heroine managed a sigh. She placed the phone back in her pouch and continued on her way until she was at the street across from the building which was her destination. From outside, she couldn't see anything in her view of the South side of the building due to the slanted side of the glass walls being polarized, but on the East side of the building was a small patch of a green lounging area which was perfect for her to get in from. The member of the Seven took steps back until she was on the edge of the building. Then, she began a full sprint.
One strong leap managed to get her high enough and gained her enough speed to get onto the building, but not without breaking through a sunroof and rolling to a halt right in front of the doors. She stood quickly and rammed straight through the glass with her wrist gauntlets blocking any shards from hitting her eyes.
Then she stood, waiting and listening for any signs of a struggle. She didn't hear any fighting, but she could hear some whimpering coming from within.
Maeve scanned the dark building, which had white floors and walls making up the many levels of the building. The levels were made like stairs, getting shorter as it reached the top of the building and all levels giving leeway towards the North and South sides of the building so someone could view the rest of the building down to the ground level on either side you were on if one were to lean against the railing. There was also a gap starting four stories up from where Maeve could see and lasting three levels where architecture was placed rather than the usual office spaces. It was probably also used to separate the normal workers from the higher-ups with the only way to travel between those floors being a single elevator on the North side.
The whimpering was coming from that direction, so Maeve ran forward and used the railing as a stepping stone to get her more vertical height up to that open area. She found the man amongst what she counted as eight men with military-grade rifles beside them when they were on the ground. Some weren't on the ground, however, as one man was hanging from the statue of David holding Goliath's head in an outstretched arm in the middle, being hung by his ankles underneath Goliath's head. Another man was partially in an air duct which the vent cover had been seemingly ripped from its bolts and hinges.
It unnerved Maeve in a way, and seemed like it would be more frightening as scene than some of Black Noir's handiwork if the people that were on the ground weren't breathing. But they were breathing, from what Maeve could tell. And the whimpering man had yet to be taken care of.
He was on the opposite side of the decorative level, holding a pistol in his hand rather than a rifle. He was looking up before he noticed Maeve. He pointed the gun at her.
"Is that you, freak?! Huh?! Stay away from me, please…" He finished with a faltering voice. It was clear he had been crying.
Maeve pulled out her sword, taking her steps forward. "I don't know who you were expecting with that gun, but you're not going to be able to kill me with it."
"Wait…" The main squinted his eyes, peering into the darkness and suddenly jumped. He straightened his already shaking arm, "No, no, no! You, too?! What the fuck is this?!"
"The time to talk," Maeve began, pulling her sword back and starting in a sprint again, "Or for you to die!"
But before Maeve could reach him, something dark like a shadow grabbed him from behind with one hand and knocked the gun out of his other before pulling him back and over the railing! Maeve continued to run forward to face the threat, and was treated with the man and the shadow flying back up and over the level the man was originally on. Above, she could hear glass shattering.
The heroine sighed, getting frustrated with being behind this mystery vigilante. She jumped up, bursting through the ground and floor of the upper level. She continued to do this until she burst into the second top-most floor of the building. She saw the shattered glass in front of her but neither the man nor the vigilante. She turned around, catching another man in a nice suit lifted off the ground in one arm of the shadow vigilante and the previous guard sitting on the ground, unconscious, in the other arm.
The man in the suit was looking at Maeve in desperation while the vigilante was still staring at the man in the suit.
The man in the suit reached an arm towards Maeve. "P-please, help me! Save me from this psychopath!"
The vigilante threw the man in the suit against the glass, causing it to crack and causing the man to fall on his rear. The vigilante turned to Maeve, which only made his shadow-like form grow larger.
"So, you caught up with me." He stated matter-of-factly.
"Just who the hell do you think you are acting on jobs like this?" Maeve tried to intimidate.
But his response came without pause, "Someone who's resolving something that should have been resolved long ago by someone with your resources."
The man in the suit began to stand himself up, "Why would Maeve of the mighty Seven be interested in a simple office manager like-?"
His comment was halted by the vigilante planting the bottom of his boot against the chest of the man in the suit. This sent him through the glass and stumbling to the ground in a groan.
Maeve was still pissed about the comment the vigilante made, however. "And what exactly needs to be resolved? How do you know he has any connection to the human trafficking down at Broadway?"
"The kidnappers in Chinatown told me about him." The vigilante stated while he nodded towards the man who had just been kicked. "But there was an information broker that told me about the kidnappers and the auction I stopped. The auctioneers at Broadway confirmed that he was the one behind the auction's organizing."
"Well, congratulations! You stopped the bad guy." Maeve clapped her hands slowly with a half-smile on her face, "So, why aren't you out of here already, Mr. I-Don't-Want-the-Spotlight?"
The vigilante didn't respond. Instead, he marched his way towards the man in the suit, who was only on his hands and knees. He was grabbed by the back of his head and slammed against the ground. His pockets were searched and a set of keys were pulled out. Then, he was promptly struck in the head again, no longer struggling as he was before.
The vigilante made his move toward the elevator. Maeve clenched her hand into a fist.
"You better answer or so help me!"
He didn't stop his march while he turned his head. "If you follow me, you'll have your answer."
Maeve groaned in a whisper. But she followed him. They reached the elevator, where the man pushed the button for the ground floor. When Maeve stepped into the elevator, she finally got a decent look at him through the dim lights of the elevator.
He was certainly a strange man wearing what looked like a simple dark grey compression shirt and pants with black gloves over his hands and the compression shirt with black combat boots over the compression pants. Over the pants was a brown belt with yellow pouches and what looked like the only high tech piece of equipment on him in the form of a gun with a hook in the barrel. He had a cape which covered a lot of his suit, either in the cloth itself or the shadows it produced. His head was also covered in another set of almost leather-like cloth which allowed parts of and around his mouth to be visible, but not much else. And with two horns on his head he certainly built his outfit for an intense workout and in an attempt to intimidate. Which, with how that criminal was reacting seemed to work despite how ridiculous the rest of the outfight was.
Needless to say, the Bat Man while mostly looking foolish was quite deceptive in those looks.
They had reached the bottom and the vigilante used one of the keys on a lock underneath the buttons. But he twisted it in the opposite direction. A gear seemed to turn and a small door unlatched next to the lock. The vigilante opened it and pressed the new button revealed underneath.
The elevator began to continue down further than ground floor, through a new door underneath the elevator and through what Maeve estimated were three extra levels of concrete to a basement lit only in red lights. The man beside the hero began his march inside what seemed to be a hallway.
But the hallways wasn't made out of walls. It was made out of metal bars. And what could be seen through the bars was the answer the vigilante was talking about.
More women. Some chained up, others so weak that chains didn't seem necessary. None with clothes, some with scars, and probably every one of them had bruises. The ones that had the strength to looked up at the member of the Seven and the man beside her were simply waiting to see what they would do.
Maeve sheathed her sword, raising her now empty hand to call attention to herself. "You're all okay now, everything will be fine! We're going to get you out of here."
The two continued down the path, leading to a control station. It was simply a computer monitor with a keyboard and a few extra keys next to the keyboard. The vigilante got to work on the keyboard, typing incredibly fast on it, which was astounding to Maeve considering the computer seemed to just be a screen with letters. No programs or anything.
When he was done typing, the last line of text read 'Secondary Device Access Granted' in red. The vigilante proceeded to tap all the keys except the last one, opening all the doors to the cages holding the women hostage. The vigilante proceeded to move forward back to where the cages were.
"The police are on their way, so we should set these girls free." The vigilante stopped and turned to Maeve, the only thing apart from darkness visible being the whites of his eyes, "Unless you're not in it to save people."
Maeve gave him a mean look, but she proceeded to march into their cells. She easily ripped through the metal shackles like they were paper mache, being careful about not puncturing the girls' arms with the rusted steel. She looked back to the vigilante from time to time, who seemed to be picking the locks almost as quickly as Maeve was breaking the whole shackles.
Maeve though he was a bit of an ass, liked to poke and prod, and generally seemed disgusted at her very existence. But she had to hand it to the officer from earlier that night. This Bat Man guy was very professional. He got the job done, beat the bad guys, saved the day, and no one died. Not a single person by his or anyone else's hands once he was on scene.
It was impressive.
Maeve broke the last shackle, turning back to where the vigilante was picking up a girl, no older than eight, bruised and emaciated without any clothes on her back. He placed her on the elevator floor, where some of the other girls began to hesitantly congregate around the two. He pulled a device from his belt, what looked like a knife without a handle but with a second blade in the shape of a bat. He picked up some of his cape, stabbing and cutting part of it off and placing it around her so she was fully covered. He picked himself up, turning away from the girls and letting them check up on each other.
He marched towards the back of the room towards the computer. But instead of looking at the computer, he started analyzing the wall. Maeve motioned to join him.
"Y'know," She stopped in front of the control station. "It's been a while since I've seen a job go down so well. Actually, I've never seen someone do something like you have."
He stopped to look back to Maeve for a second before returning to the wall, "You mean leaving people alive."
He doesn't mince his words. Maeve mentally groaned. She wanted to retaliate, to tell him that the people he spared were probably child molesters anyways, that they deserved to die. But with him, she had a feeling that he wouldn't listen to it.
He turned back to her, keeping his hand on a discolored spot on the wall. "Could you punch this brick? If you shatter it, the rest of the wall's integrity should go, too."
"Huh." Maeve chuckled with a frown. "What'd that wall do?"
He removed his hand, taking a few steps back. "You'll see."
The heroine stumbled towards the wall, reeling back her fist and sending it right into the stone! It all cracked, and with another strike a hole in the wall was created. It revealed a tank with the name of a chemical on it. Another secret hidden beneath another secret.
"So, that must have been what the button you didn't press was-." Maeve turned to where Bat Man once was, but he was no longer in the room. He seemingly vanished, and none of the children seemed to have any reactions. "...for. Son of a bitch!"
Maeve brushed the dust off her hand, strolling towards the elevator floor. As she reached the opening to the secret basement, she looked up to where the flashing of red and blue lights were visible. Above was the officer from before, who gave the member of the Seven a quick nod.
The women and children were collected and placed in cruisers, ambulances, and even a swat vehicle. They would all be returned to their families if they had any, or treated where necessary, which probably was mostly necessary. The police got busy handcuffing the men from the floors above. The ones that were awake kept muttering about a monster who picked them off one by one, about a Bat Man. Maeve went to work with the publicity.
But in the back of her mind, once she saw the cameras, created a curiosity about the Bat Man. Why didn't he talk with the journalists? She wondered.
To her, something like this as a debut especially would be a skyrocket in a hero's career! In fact, if he wanted to, it would be a one-way ticket into any superhero group apart from the Seven. Although, once she considered him, he didn't seem to want to work with others anyways. But even for Maeve, this might have been the biggest even in the year even amongst the Seven. The only person who could hope to top it was Homelander, who probably would by the end of the year if only to preserve his place as number one.
A nobody could get that close to topping Homelander? Maeve was able to manage a genuine smile throughout the interview with that one.
"Queen Maeve! How did you know about the human trafficking?" One reporter asked.
"It's a hero's job to save those who need saving." Maeve began, brushing her again-wet hair out of her hair. "But someone who needs saving means that there's someone who wishes to harm. So, I had exactly who I needed to ask about the bigger picture."
"The people want to know how and why you kept these criminals alive!" Another reporter's question managed to reach above the others.
Maeve nodded her head, "I was just going easy on them. But it ended up working out. Keeping them alive was the only reason I even knew the girls were being kept here, so I wanted to make sure there weren't any loose ends."
"So, why not just kill them after your questions got answered?"
"You must be working at this thinking that these perverts staying alive is a mercy. Trust me, it isn't. They'll never be able to live a normal life now that they have over thirty counts of human trafficking, kidnapping, violence against children, and sexually assaulting said children on their records. They're monsters. Now the world knows it and they will suffer as the perverts should."
"What about the Bat Man? He was another hero making his debut that seemed to be related to this case." Another reporter asked, pushing her way through the crowd. "Was he inside helping you take down these criminals and saving the victims?"
Maeve, for a moment, had her smile fade a little. She was now left with two options. She could take the credit right here, right now. This would be a huge boost in her numbers and might even throw Homelander off his high horse! On the other hand, the work the other hero put in, the fact it was because of him that Maeve even knew about this in the first place, it seemed like the right thing to give him the credit. Especially because Maeve didn't even really do most of the work. She was just there to unshackle the girls.
"He tipped me off about it, yes. But he wisely left this last portion of the job to the big leagues. I believe with his expertise he will be an excellent hero one day, but today is a victory for the Seven." Maeve responded, nodding to the reporters, "And of course, credit goes to the police for putting these turds behind bars and for helping the girls find their families who have been waiting for their girls to come home for so long!"
The rest of the time was spent taking pictures and posing with officers and even some reporters. If it weren't for the rain, Maeve probably would have signed autographs as well, but there wasn't as big of a crowd anyways for that same reason. Eventually, it was time for Maeve to leave the scene.
She marched back inside the glass building right on time to get a call from Ashley.
"I can't believe you spun it that way!"
Maeve mentally groaned again, "Yeah, I know. I can explain."
"Explain what? That you just made the news of the month?! Queen Maeve Saves Nearly Fifty Children with the Help of New Hero Prodige! This is huge!" Ashley exhaled, "Also, the whole 'no killing' thing, genius! People love when they see the justice system working as ideally as they've been told it should. You're already up four points!"
"Four?!" Maeve couldn't believe it. Her numbers already polled really high being the second best hero in the world. She would be lucky if she got two points up from her usual patrol. "Well, what about the other hero?"
"Yeah, keep a look out for him. If you have another opportunity to play nice with him, do it. And when you do, get him in front of the camera! Urban myths don't poll so well with the general public." That was the last words Maeve heard before the manager hung up.
She was almost relieved from the news, but a thought occurred to her. If Ashley were to push working with him for Maeve, she definitely would for the rest of the Seven aside from Homelander. They certainly wouldn't be too happy about being told to work with some random hero they don't even know the face of. This would definitely turn this vigilante into a nuisance. Maeve hoped that Ashley wouldn't do something so dangerous.
But she knew how corporatism works, which meant soon Bat Man would be a target of the Seven.