Phantom Kid in the American Comic World
51. Mathison's Plan

"Barbara, what's with that look on your face?"

Mathison asked curiously as she ran across Barbara.

At this point, Barbara was still in tremendous shock and unable to respond.

"What do you see?"

Mathison followed her gaze towards the watchtower.

"HEY, it's the Phantom Kid!"

In fact, the fleeing Phantom Kid was not a Phantom Kid, or even a real entity, to be exact.

After she notices that Barbara is starting to get suspicious of him, Mathison has thought of some kind of action.

It was not until he saw the Red Magic spell that it could briefly create the illusion that the problem had been solved.

The effect of this spell was very simple and very weak; it created a ghost that cloned the previous action and lasted less than ten minutes

The ghost could not speak, could not move freely, and did not even have a physical body. So, Mathison could only control the direction of his running, otherwise, it would cause trouble if he directly passed through the trees.

Now, you might ask 'why didn't he make an actual clone?' Well, you don't think Mathison wants to? There are no such spells in Red Magic!

Not only that, even if there was such a spell, it would be impossible for Mathison to cast that spell with her current magic power.

That's why Mathison had to lure Barbara into chasing him so she could make a running ghost and choose a place to hide in the dense forest.

Since there were many trees that could obscure the view, he was not afraid to be seen if using his magic in the corner of a random tree.

And while using magic while wearing black clothes, the white ghost will definitely catch the attention of Barbara and Johnny, making Mathison's original form even less likely to be seen.

Now Mathison pretends to be surprised when she sees the Phantom Kid running away.

"Mathison, this is it, Phantom Kid it's really not you ..."

Behind him, Johnny had now caught up and laughed happily when he saw Mathison coming from the opposite direction.

His recent reduction was indeed true!

"What's? Ghost boy? Me?"

Hearing that, Mathison opened her mouth wide, pointed at herself, looked at Johnny with a strange expression, then at the torn-up Barbara, and then as if something had happened to her.

"I wonder how you've become so strange the last few days, clinging to me to see the Queen, coming to my house to eat, and somehow pulling my hand ... so you really thought I was the Phantom Kid", Mathison's tone was full of sadness and disappointment. 

  “We've known each other for over ten years.. and, still, you're so easy to suspect me? Is there a basic trust between the two of us? ”

“All right, all right, I was wrong. This is not the time to talk about it, Mr. Johnny. Pursue Phantom Kid, he's on the run!”

Barbara glanced at Mathison awkwardly before pointing at the Phantom Kid who was about to disappear at the end of her vision.

Without another word, Johnny chased after her.

"By the way, why did you suddenly come here alone?"

Barbara suddenly looked at Mathison, “I just remembered that you are also obsessed with magic, right? It matches the profile of the Phantom Kid. So, maybe what I just saw was another magic trick like that transformation?”

"You don't still suspect me of being the Phantom Kid, do you?"

A drop of sweat dripped from Mathison's forehead she didn't have a good feeling about the situation.

"Who said I came here alone, I just ran a little faster than the others."

Mathison took out a card from her pocket, in which it was written:

”Gentlemen and ladies who are happy to be here, the unexpected situation that just appeared has prevented you from seeing my appearance. 

I'm sorry for this, so I've decided to run a second show at the watchtower west of the central statue. Now I respectfully ask everyone who has received an invitation to be there at midnight. The Phantom Kid.”

Counting the time, it was almost midnight.

However, not long after those words came out of her lips, she heard a noisy voice.

There was a huge crowd on the street where Mathison ran, not as frightening as the tens of thousands of people in the square before, but at least thousands.

Why do these people happen to be here?

In fact, there was a short time between her and Barbara disbanding at the Queen's entrance and her appearance under Prince Charles' disguise, and of course it was impossible for Mathison to do nothing at that time.

He took advantage of that time to quietly insert the same card into the pocket or bag of this group of people.

Since all these people were standing on the outermost edge, they would naturally run out when the tear gas started to work, easily out of reach of the gas effect.

Of course, there are no complete guarantees, but at least many cards are issued by Mathison.

There are some people who don't come here.

The time was marked to prevent them from coming too early so even if someone came here first, it would not affect the situation, and even if the police saw them, it would not affect the situation, they would only be able to deploy their troops near the watchtower.

From the very beginning, Mathison had planned everything.

All signs point to the fact that Kid and Mathison are two people.

For some reason, Barbara breathed a sigh of relief.

"It seems I really misjudged you, Mathison."

Barbara said to Mathison in an apologetic manner.

”But I didn't expect Phantom Kid to investigate me so thoroughly, Uncle Cash, Daisy..

“Pavilion stone? What stone pavilion?”, Mathison asked flatly, rubbing her head.

Barbara's cheeks instantly rose into two red clouds. He almost forgot that Mathison didn't know about it.

It was the place where Mathison and Barbara first met ...

More than ten years ago, a little girl followed her father, who rarely went on vacation, to Robinson Park.

Then, as they were about to go to the watchtower, an old plot ensued.

The little girl was lost and separated from her father in the forest.

Fortunately, he did not face any danger, but instead found a stone pavilion hidden in the dense forest.

Then he saw a little boy in the pavilion clad in the wound of a pigeon. He was afraid to come out because he was hiding in the bushes.

He also noticed that although the boy gently dressed a wounded pigeon, his face was filled with sadness.

The little boy is Mathison, but pigeons are not the reason Barbara suspects Mathison.

After all, there are thousands of people who love to feed pigeons in Robinson Park and Mathison is just one of them.

It's just that everyone doesn't know that Mathison is secretly training pigeons.

At that time, Barbara was very curious about the very attentive and sad little boy.

Barbara did not appear in front of the little boy. Waiting until he left, he followed him out of the forest from a distance.

From then on, Barbara had to visit the stone pavilion whenever she came to Robinson Park with Gordon.

Sometimes she could see the boy and sometimes she could not, but whenever Barbara hid from the boy's sight.

Even after she grew up, Barbara would come here alone from time to time.

After a few months, Barbara learns that the boy has moved into her class and that they live on the same street.

Then the two became childhood friends as usual ...

Barbara always thought that Mathison did not know that she had been spying on him in the stone pavilion and Mathison never mentioned it.