The Dark Knight moved.

She did not charge. She walked, the great sword low at her side, and her armored feet came down on the concrete one heavy step at a time.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

The wolf broke off to the left, low to the ground, bones glowing under its hide and green light steady in its eyes.

James stayed where he was with the stream running in his hand.

He let them watch her come.

The men gave way.

One stepped back into the side of a car and flinched at the sound he made. Another raised a weapon and could not hold it level. A third was muttering something fast and low that was not an order.

"Hold the line," the leader of the crew snapped. "He’s one kid—"

"That’s not a kid," the muttering one said.

Then he lost his nerve. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

He pulled a pistol, leveled it at the Dark Knight, and fired.

CRACK.

The round hit her breastplate and flattened against the black metal. It dropped and rolled across the floor.

Tink.

She did not slow down.

The man fired twice more. Both hit. Both did nothing. The Dark Knight kept walking, and the gun started shaking in his hands.

[grimreaper_99]: DID THAT BULLET JUST BOUNCE OFF

[skelly_andy]: monkaS monkaS monkaS

[tower_dublin]: thats not a summon thats a WALL

[viewer_0451]: why are there GUNS who brought guns to this

[poggers_pat]: CHAT why is James in a car park with armed dudes 💀

[Sadge_enjoyer]: i got a bad feeling about this one

[clipper99]: CLIP IT CLIP IT NOW

The number on the feed kept climbing. James kept the lens on the men.

The broker had backed against his own car with both hands half up. He had stopped giving orders. The rest of the crew kept edging toward the cars behind them.

Langford did not move with them.

He stepped forward instead.

"Stand down."

His voice carried across the level, flat and even. He did not reach for a weapon. He did not look at the Dark Knight.

"You are pointing a corpse at a royal representative. On foreign soil. Live, in front of the whole world." He let it sit. "Put it down, and there is still a version of tonight where you walk out of here."

James looked at him and said nothing.

Then he spoke past Langford, to the dead.

"Take the exits."

The wolf moved before he finished the words.

It crossed to the ramp in one burst and turned at the bottom, side-on, filling the only way a car could climb out. Then it shifted again, faster than its size should have allowed, and dropped across the mouth of the service corridor at the back.

Both ways out, closed.

The men were inside now. Inside the level, inside the lens, with nowhere to drag this that the camera could not follow. The wolf understood the order without the reasons, because the command link was running and James’s will moved through it clean.

The Dark Knight reached the first guard.

He swung a baton at her head, a full hard swing. Her free hand came up and caught his wrist in the middle of it.

She closed her fingers.

CRUNCH.

The wrist went. The baton dropped out of dead fingers and rang on the concrete. She kept her grip, turned at the hip, and threw him off his feet.

He hit a pillar shoulders-first.

CRACK.

He slid down it and did not get up.

The second guard was already moving, a short blade low in his hand, and he drove it at her side.

The blade hit the black plate of her forearm and skated off.

TANG.

She stepped inside the swing before he could pull it back. The pommel of the great sword came up into his chest and lifted him onto his toes. The air left him in one sound. He folded over the blow, dropped to his knees, then onto his face.

The third had a riot shield. He set it in front of him, braced low, both arms behind it.

She raised the great sword in both hands and brought it straight down.

CRACK.

The blade split the shield from the top edge to the grip and carried into the arm behind it. The man screamed and threw himself back, stumbled into two of his own closing from behind, and the three of them went down in a tangle of dropped gear.

She did not chase them. She drew the sword back, let it hang low, and turned to face the rest.

Two more had been edging in from the side. They stopped where they stood. One looked at the split shield on the floor, then at the man slumped against the pillar, and lowered his baton. He stepped back. The other matched him, and they kept backing until a car stopped them and there was nowhere left to go.

It had taken seconds.

James’s uncle ran.

He went during it, not after, low and scrambling with one hand on the wall and the splinted finger held against his chest. He had seen his guards going down. He had seen Langford square up to his nephew. So he made for the side exit while everyone else was busy dying.

The stream turned with him.

The whole feed watched the man who owned Ganner Corp crawl along the wall, away from the thing he had paid for.

The wolf saw him.

It came off the corridor in one streak across the concrete and reached him before the door.

It bit down on his leg above the knee. Not a clean bite. It clamped and held, and the pressure ground in.

CRUNCH.

His uncle hit the floor screaming.

"Get it off—" His voice broke high. "Get it off me, please, somebody, please—"

He clawed at the concrete. The wolf did not let go.

James did not move toward him. He let him scream on the open feed, on the floor, where ten minutes ago he had stepped out of a car wanting to teach a lesson.

[tower_dublin]: WAIT THATS THE GANNER CORP GUY

[grimreaper_99]: bro that’s literally the owner of Ganner Corp????

[poggers_pat]: caught in 4K LULW

[viewer_0451]: he had a woman KIDNAPPED and now he’s crying on the floor

[dub_dee]: a billionaire begging a skeleton wolf was not on my bingo card 💀💀

[skelly_andy]: that’s James’s own family doing this???

[clipper99]: CLIP EVERYTHING this is a literal crime live