Chapter 10: Shadows
'Sometimes I love my job.' Clint thought sarcastically.
Clint Barton AKA Hawkeye, was one of Shield's best agents. He was an expert at hand to hand and weapons combat but his specialty was things that could be done from a long distance. Spying, tracking, shooting, he could do it all. That was probably why Fury had sent him to trail after this 'Harry Potter'. Clint, while wearing casual clothes, had kept his distance and managed to follow him into a mall. Clint had entered the mall after him, he made sure not to get close, he could see just as good from a distance.
Clint decided to stay on the first floor when this Harry Potter went onto the second floor of the mall, Clint was tempted to go up to the second floor as well but it would be easier to be spotted if he was directly in the target's eyeline. Clint made sure to position himself so he stood in places where he could look up and see Potter, if Potter ever looked down then Clint would simply act like a regular shopper going about his business and if Potter went out of view then Clint would just use the thermal feature in his sunglasses to help keep track of him.
When he saw Potter leave the video game store he saw Potter enter a bathroom, Clint waited patiently, not really wanting to use thermal imaging to see a guy in a bathroom. Everything seemed to be going to plan, at least until it all went balls up about a minute later.
Apparently some assholes decided that today was a perfect day to burst into a mall and rob the place, most of the people had started running but a select few had been forced to stay as hostages. Clint was one of those hostages but as he saw it he allowed himself to be one of those hostages because, at the risk of sounding vain, the hostages had a better chance of surviving with him there.
Clint looked around and saw many hostiles, at least ten around him, plus he counted at least seven on the upper floors, they were all carrying various different guns. Clint was trying to work out a plan to take out the hostages but his priority was on getting as many civilians out of here as possible, preferably alive. As Clint was thinking up a plan the light went out and the mall became much darker, not dark enough to not be able to see anything but dark enough to make a clear difference.
"What the hell?!" One of the hostiles blurted out.
"It's probably a power failure." Another commented.
Any further response was cut off by a flash of light from the upper floor, followed by two more flashes of light, each flash at a different place from the previous one. The sound of gunshots was heard shortly after along with a scream.
"What the hell is that?!" One of the hostiles demanded.
"How am I supposed to know?!" Another snapped. Any further response was cut off by the sound of screaming as one of the hostiles from the upper floor fell in front of the hostiles, one of the hostiles became startled by the sudden drop and had accidently shot the hostile with his own gun. That hostile did not get long to think about the consequences of his actions as a beam of light headed towards him and he dropped on to the floor, Clint presumed the man was unconscious but did not know for sure.
Clint had seen that the beam had shot from above but the hostiles appeared to have not noticed yet, it was clear to Clint that they were not really trained. Another flash of light and one more hostile removed before the rest of them were able to realize that they had to start aiming upwards. They all started firing upwards,
"Did we get him?" One hostile asked as he reloaded only to be struck by a blue beam and knocked unconscious. This caused the others to put extra effort into their firing and they started shooting upwards again, Clint thought that with the amount they were shooting it was highly possible for them to hit something with pure dumb luck. Though apparently not as a another hostile went down to another beam, right after that the hostiles began firing upwards again and for the first time Clint saw anything in the darkness besides bright light.
He saw a figure standing in the darkness, the flashes from the gun fire allowed Clint to see him, Clint guessed that the person was male judging by his body shape. All Clint could see was that the guy was wearing a black hoodie, the hood was up and his face was covered entirely in darkness that didn't go away even when the light flashed against him. Clint only managed to lock on to him for about a second before he disappeared, he was gone so fast that Clint wasn't even sure if had seen right.
"Get a hostage!" One shouted before a small red beam blasted the gun out of his hand just as another hit him in his right leg and he fell to the floor, screaming in pain as he grabbed his knee.
"Stop!" The last remaining hostile shouted as he grabbed a random woman from the pile of hostages and pulled her to her feet before he wrapped one arm around her neck and pulled her in close, using her as a human shield while his other hand was aiming a gun at the side of her head, "Do anything else and I will shoot!" He yelled at the darkness.
Clint was close enough that he could easily sneak up and disarm the guy without anyone but the hostile getting injured, however he did not immediately do so as he did not want to be in the line of fire and did not want to be hit by whatever those beams were. Clint found it weird that even he with his vision, which was easily better than most peoples, could not find the source of the beams. Sure when he looked up he could see a beam but the beams looked like they were just coming out from the shadows. Clint was guessing that they came from the guy he saw earlier but he still couldn't see him.
"Let me go!" The hostile said as he began backing up with the woman while constantly looking all around in the hopes of finding whoever was attacking him and his friends. However he had only taken a few steps back when he suddenly felt the gun get pulled out of his hands and upwards before disappearing from sight.
The hostile did not get much time to think about what happened as a sudden burst of pain appeared in his back leg, painful enough for him to cry out and let go of the hostage, he looked down and saw blood coming from a cut on his leg. He cried out once more when another cut appeared on his face just before a beam hit him and he flew backwards before crashing into a pillar. He slid down the pillar and landed on the floor, unmoving.
The lights came back on and Clint saw all the hostiles unconscious while the second floor of the mall was shot up by hundreds of bullets. At that moment Clint had one thought in his head, he was going to have to explai