Flash Back: Issue 1 Part 3

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"This is rather lonely," Cassandra commented as she followed along after Wally who was running at a normal speed. He didn't want to exhaust the young woman that had come with him, but at the same time it seemed like she had no problem keeping pace. He nodded looking at all the white around them.

"Feels like we're in a sketch book, or a newly painted wall," he smirked at Black Bat. "No wonder it's easy for kids to mess up white walls, it's like a blank canvas."

"Yes, but this one seems to go on for miles. Where is the perimeter?" Cassandra asked and Wally motioned before him.

"Just ahead, we should be running into a few people soon. They've made a camp over there."

"A camp?"

"Yeah," he slowed some as she fell behind just a little and he compensated to give her a break. "Jessie Quick, er… Liberty Belle is acting as head of it. There are six so far as I've found each one seems to be comprised of civilians and well the rest are JSA, or JLA, Titans, and some independents."

"And rogues?" Cassandra inquired mentally noting that there was no terrain. No hills, no dips, just flat land with no change at all to the environment.

"Haven't seen them, but I'm sure that if we're here, they're here too. Bet they're just biding their time till someone figures out where we are," Wally told her as he slowed and stopped. Cassandra looked ahead, and took a moment to take in the view. In the distance she could make out a rainbow of color. People were milling around, talking, laughing even and the sound was welcoming. She could see the bright colors of the hero's uniforms and the casual dress of the civilians. It was a startling contrast to the all-white landscape that they had been running though.

"So this is the camp?" she asked and Wally nodded crossing his arms.

"Yeah, it's not much really when you look at it, but its home for a lot of people. Liberty Belle and Hour Man have been keeping the peace, this is mostly Justice Society turf, but there are a few former Leaguers in there."

Cassandra nodded, she understood this idea quiet well given her past. She'd found her own way in Blüdhaven, and then that was taken from her by Slade Wilson, who wanted nothing more than to spite Dick Grayson. She'd made a home there, found friends, people that cared about her, and then it was all taken in a whim. It had taken time, she'd changed and nearly destroyed things important to her, thankfully she'd come back from the brink. Thankfully she had a family to fall back on, they were dysfunctional at best, but they were family, not so for others.

Those that were here could understand the pain she had gone though. She was sure others had lost their families as well when they were taken here. People were searching for one another, wanting to be reunited; maybe she could find a way to help them. All she could do was try, Batman would tell her that if he were here. Batman wasn't here, but she did have Stephanie and that helped.

"It must be nice having friends in the same place," she said to Wally as they made their way towards the camp.

"Yeah, I'm sure it is. But that doesn't stop the problem of why we're here and not where we should be." He told her and Cassandra glanced at him.

"And where should we be?"

"Home, our home," he explained honestly. "Gotham, Keystone, Fawcett, our cities, our towns. We shouldn't be in this place, and we won't be if we can figure out what's going on. Right now though, all we can do is find solutions to the major questions: how we got here, who put us here, is spying on us, and who the girl we found is."

Cassandra gave a short nod in agreement. His body language told an additional story. Wally had not found his wife or children as of yet. Each day brought more people, and there were probably smaller camps that they had not found yet.

"We need to bring everyone together," she said to him as they came up to the makeshift entrance of the camp, which were a few weapons that had been set up as an arch way. Capes, shirts, and pieces of skirts and other material had been used to create a border around the camp. Cassandra saw children running around with one another; parents had marked off their spots to sleep with shoes and other goods that had come with them. People seemed genuinely happy, but in a slightly somber way.

"You're right, we do, but how do we do that when we don't know how many are really here," Wally told her as he waved hello to man that recognized him. Other people noticed them as they entered and some people were shouting out to Cassandra with "Black Bat! We love you!" She didn't know what to make of that. She'd only been wearing the costume for a while now, but apparently somehow her reputation had gotten out. She gave them a smile from under her mask and a little girl squealed with excitement saying that the Black Bat had smiled at her.

"They seem glad to see you," Wally said to her and Cassandra nodded. "Not used to that?"

"We don't normally let ourselves be seen," she explained and Wally chuckled.

"You need to get out more." He led her away from the entrance and towards the center of the camp. Here and there she saw faces of heroes that she knew, some were from the Inc. team and they waved at her, came over and talked for a moment to see if she knew anything about the situation. Shaking her head Cassandra wished them luck but told them where she was if they needed to find her.

In the center of the makeshift town the duo stopped when they saw a conclave of heroes going over what appeared to be several pieces of paper lined up side by side. To Cassandra it looked like a map, but she wondered where the paper had come from. The group of nine that sat in a circle that consisted of: Ted Grant, known better as Wildcat, his son Tom Bronson, who'd taken the name Tomcat, Rick Tyler (Hourman) and his wife Jessie Chambers (Liberty belle), JJ Thunder sat with Maxine Hunkle (Cyclone), while Dr. Midnight and Atom Smasher took the last two seats, with Sandman, his trench coats sleeve rolled up, pointing to some drawings on the paper.

The group seemed in intense conversations when Wally walked up and cleared his throat. Jessie raised her head first followed by Rick, and smiled.

"So why didn't anyone tell me about this party," he joked as Jessie stood up.

"We would have, if there'd been any way to send you an invite," she motioned with her head over to the group. "I assume you know most of the JSA members."

Wally waved and said a round of hellos, then quickly introduced Cassandra to the group, as Black Bat. Tommy gave her a quick smile, which she reciprocated but wasn't completely sure if he wasn't trying to flirt with her. Her attention turned back to Liberty Belle as she motioned for her and Wally to join them in their little, as Wally put it, 'Pow-wow' and the two sat down to look at the map that was drawn before them. Rick Tyler explained as he pointed things out to the two of them.

"Circles represent camps; in the center is our little camp. We sectioned off the different locations that we know of. Your group to the south of us, Sir Justin's encampment to the east and the west is Big Barda and Mr. Miracle's group. You said to the south of your camp is one run by The Question, Renee Montoya right? There's also the ones held by the Creeper and Jade and Obsidian, both are on the east and west edges." He motioned to the lines that crisscrossed the pages. "Based on location we've figured out how far each is, and roughly where people appeared, they've been showing up steadily farther out and migrating to the camps. Word is that there might be some more, farther out past the ones we know of. After that we started to gage the distance to how far a wall might be, and based on the Doctors math, it's not looking good."

"Not looking good?" Wally inquired and looked at Dr. Midnight who took a breath and explained.

"I triangulated the distance between here and where the possible end of this world is. There's no way to tell for certain, but judging by how our camps keep moving farther apart...the world is growing in size."

"You mean it's expanding?" Cassandra inquired softly and glanced at him, "But why?"

"Not sure, something seems to be effecting it though," Wildcat chimed in and waved his hand over the map. "I'm not totally sure on all of it, but it's enough to get me thinking that maybe it's time to try to centralize our groups and then work on a way of getting out of here."

"If things keep expanding there is a chance that, like anything that expands over time, it will start to wear and get thin…" Jesse told them and Wally clenched his jaw.

"And it could collapse on us, your right." He stood up. "Do you have a guess how far it is from here to the wall you mentioned?"

"No," Jesse admitted and crossed her arms. "But I'm willing to see if you are."

"Alright…" he looked at Cassandra. "Would you mind staying here? I'm going to take a quick trip."

"I'll be waiting," Cassandra told him and looked at the map. She wanted to stay to examine map anyway. Wally smiled at her then looked at Jesse who gave her husband Rick a quick kiss before heading off with him to the exit of the camp.

"You have a bad feeling about this don't you," Wally inquired to her and Jesse nodded.

"This place, it doesn't feel bad, but some-things going on that we just can't explain. I've been trying to work out with Rick and the others a way to test what this place is made of."

"And?"

"Nothing so far, everything we would need is gone," Jesse admitted a scowl coming to her naturally sweet face. "We're going to need to figure out if the magic users can do anything, as far as we know most powers work at least for the physical aspect."

"So we should assume that the magic one works too. The fact that we can even tap into the speed force is surprising," Wally noted as they got to the gate. "Race you there?"

Jesse smiled, "Your on…3X2(9YZ)4A!"

In an instant both speedsters were off and running away from the camp and into the unknown wilds of Limbo.