Chapter 2
Worried about Roy?
Wally. It was my choice, not Nightwing's. It'll all be OK.
You remembered…
You need to stop worrying so much. We'll be OK.
The voices continued in the darkness just as much as they had in the light.
Life since the mole incident had been… decent, for Wally for about a year now. Roy had been having a hard time adjusting, and Dick and himself hadn't seen him much, but the Light and all the shady business associated with them seemed to be on the backburner. They weren't acting up as much, and as such, the Team had been called for much less activities than in the past. It meant that Wally could focus more on developing his life with Artemis, fighting alongside Uncle Barry and, well, high school. It was not to last.
Everything changed once the Fleets moved in from Gotham, and Wally's life was turned upside down by something almost entirely different to an organization bent on world domination…
Wally?
Yes?
You busy? I'm sorry for disturbing you, but it's urgent.
I'm working on an AP Lit paper right now. What's going on? Is it the Rogues again?
No, not the Rogues. Definitely not the Rogues.
Uncle Barry, what's going on?
Do you remember the new drug I told you about? The one the triads have started porting in from an unknown buyer. Vel-
-ocity nine, yes.
It seems that speed-drunk gangsters aren't our only problems anymore. Normally a dosage of the drug just exposes the user to a small boost of speed, of energy, as we've seen with the triads by the docks, but…
But what Barry?
Someone's found the drug, and it seems they've either tailored it to their own purposes, or have simply started overdosing. You know the "Bloody Hand" murders on the news? Unconnected bodies, the murder weapon untraceable, no fingerprints?
It matches a speedster, doesn't it.
Yes…
Could it be Thawne?
No. He was dealt with before your time, and besides, these murders lack his signature style anyway. Wait, how do you even know about that?
Iris told me.
She shouldn't have. You aren't ready to be exposed to that story.
As if being on a covert team of superheroes doesn't already expose me to stuff like that all the time?
Touche. Still… Thawne was a different breed.
Anyway, back on track?
The residual energy I sensed while autopsying the bodies… it… matched us, in a weird way. It was like a speedster, but different. That was how I knew it was the drug. It'd be easier if you could come over here. You'll have all the time in the world when you get back to do your paper, and you know it.
On my way.
"Hello, Wally."
His eyes opened to reveal an alien world, a galaxy of light. A floating form, half wreathed in stars, shimmered before him. Wally could barely make out the vague shape of a helmet in its midst. A very… familiar helmet.
"... Nabu?"
"Yes. It is I."
"You're not Hunter."
"No, I'm not."
"Are you going to help get me back?"
"No. It is not my place. As the Lord of Order, I must ensure inertia to be maintained. Only a being of chaos could offset you from your current path."
"Great, just great. Finally, in this godforsaken place, I find someone who could actually help me, and they're just here to gloat."
"I am not here to gloat, West. We have a connection, from the time you last wore this helmet. Why else would we be speaking now?"
"I don't frickin' know. Aren't you the god in this situation?"
"It was a rhetorical question."
"Well, that was a rhetorical answer!"
There was a deep breath of silence. The golden helmet and billowing cape became clearer amid the stardust across from him.
"It is not my place to fight your demons for you, West. This is but one of the many folds of the realm you are in, a land that is not my domain at all, but someone else. Many beings inhabit the holes in reality. Even if I would hold the desire to help you, I would not be able to. Tell me,tWallace Rudolph Wes, do you know what the Ancient Egyptians thought of your last name?"
Wally scoffed. His middle name sounded ridiculous coming from the being's lips.
"I never much cared for magic or superstition. It never mattered to me, being a Physics Major and all."
"Ah, but you understand faith now, don't you? My former charge must have said something about his time with me while you talked."
That sure shut him up. Doctor Fate continued.
"It is always good to understand the past, no matter how the foolish might deem it unnecessary."
"Sure." His life just kept getting worse and worse, didn't it.
"The west was a place of two things, Wallace. The sun set there in the sky, and it is believed that is the final destination of the dead. The end of all things, but also the beginning of a next chapter."
"So it's my fate to die here. For all I know, I'm already dead."
"You did cease to exist in their reality, yes. However, it is not your fate to die, but rather to fight. The sun dies in the west, only to be reborn in the east in all its glory. In the darkness, the sun god Re fights Apep, Nak, Sebau. Apep was his mortal enemy, the godless serpent, an old sun god himself who lost his former place in the heavens."
The stardust swirled around him, closer than Wally would have ever liked. The helmet was upon him.
"Rise, Wallace West. Fight your demons, take control of your fate, and rise."
Wally awoke slowly, only to find himself in that white space again. Shit. Something was different, though, something big that he couldn't quite place. Wait…
He looked down.
He wasn't running anymore.
He wasn't running anymore!
A voice from behind him broke through his brief triumph.
"It's rude to keep your host waiting, you know."
Wally turned around to see, inexplicably, two lawn chairs set up in the middle of the white space around an picnic bench. In the seat, smiling with a bowl of freshly scooped chocolate ice-cream, sat Hunter himself, stuck in the very same ugly patchwork piss-yellow suit that he had died, fresh bloodstains still streaking its surface.
Why did death make no sense?
"Fun." he said, taking a seat across from the greatest mistake of his life. He took the extra bowl of ice-cream, and started shoving the stuff in his mouth.
Might as well roll with it, he decided.
AN: I guess we'll see how this goes. Don't expect a linear plot.