Chapter 14
"Hey Chuck, can we get another round over here?" As soon as the barman acknowledged him, Captain Cold turned back to his compatriots and resumed their conversation. "All I'm saying is, if Wizard and Heatwave aren't able to return our calls, then letting them infiltrate this secret organization was a lousy idea."
"I'm not arguing, mate," Captain Boomerang said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "But considering we've no idea where they bloody even went, how're we supposed to find the boys and bring 'em back?"
"Hey! Maybe we could-"
Whatever Trickster was about to suggest went out the window when the bar's door opened, and everyone turned to see a redhaired kid with a wide grin wearing the old Kid Flash uniform. Behind him, barely holding back his own snickers, was the proper Flash.
Before anyone could say a word, the kid zipped forward in a yellow and red blur, eagerly asking Chuck the barman for enough food to feed three other people. The older speedster stepped in after him, closing the door and then leaning against the wall with an expectant expression.
Mirror Master was the first to recover. Sort of. "That- he- no. That's not- how?!"
"Seriously? That's the best anybody can say?" Rolling his eyes, the teenager started in on the drinks he'd ordered.
Trickster shook his head twice, before turning to point an accusing finger at Flash. "Since when do you have a kid?!"
"I don't," the scarlet speedster replied. "Fellas, meet a younger me from a neighboring dimension - he and his friends wound up here by accident and are stuck until the League can get 'em home again."
"And boy, are we gonna have some explaining to do once we get back," Kid Flash said with a grimace. "Which just means I need to enjoy myself as much as possible before that happens!"
Every Rogue in the room blinked, which just set Flash to snickering. "Yeah, I figured you guys would react like that."
-RL-
"We've got a fix on one of them," Luthor announced, striding into Grodd's private office.
"Excellent," the gorilla grinned, the light of greed shining in his eyes. "Send out our retrieval team."
-RL-
"Tfil nap ot retnuoc," the younger Zatanna said with a grin, her spell carrying the pan of fresh-baked crescent rolls out of the oven and over to a cooling rack on the countertop. A couple steps away, her older self was putting food away back in the fridge, while Zatara set the table in the next room over.
Suddenly, a harsh, unpleasant note began to chime through the house, prompting both the elder magicians to straighten in surprise.
"What's wrong? What's going on?"
"We need to leave," the grown Zatanna said, ignoring her alternate self's questions as she grabbed the girl's wrist. "Dad?"
"Coming." He joined them in the kitchen, giving his daughter a nod as he grasped the worried teen's shoulders.
"Watchtower, this is Zatanna, requesting immediate emergency transport for three." They all stiffened at the sound of the front door being broken down, before the world faded away into streams of blue and white light. A moment later, the trio were standing on the zeta platform in the Watchtower's main deployment hall.
"What happened?" Mister Terrific called down to them.
"Someone with ill intent set off my home's external alarms," Zatara answered, following his daughter's lead in heading for the elevator. "Their highest setting, too." Quite a few people looked at them in concern, but the elder Zatanna waved away their worry.
"We got out before they came all the way in," she said reassuringly. "But, Terrific, if you could take a look to see just who's invading my dad's house...?"
As the trio headed up to the mission control platform, the man did so, pulling up high-def imagery looking down at Zatara's home. He sucked in a breath when three supervillains appeared coming back out the wrecked door. "Killer Frost, Sinestro, Rampage, and Polaris. Oh, boy."
"We might still be able to catch-" Standing beside Mister Terrific, Booster Gold cut himself off when the four villains on screen were teleported away by a large disk of purple light. "Uh. Nevermind."
Zatara, arriving on the upper platform, narrowed his eye at the footage. "That was magic, but if appearances can be believed none of those people conjured it."
"None of them have magical ability, anyway," the elder Zatanna reassured him, also studying the repeating sequence with a sharp gaze. "Which means that our mysterious secret society decided to come after us for some reason."
"Me."
All eyes swung to stare at the teenage magician, who was staring at the screens with a rapidly paling face.
"We don't know th-"
"There's no other reason! Why else would the attack have come when all three of us were there? If they just wanted to go after Dad, then they would've struck when he was alone. If the target was you," she gestured to her elder self, "Then they'd have attacked when you were alone somewhere, not visiting another powerful magician. Logically, I'm the one they must have been after."
"...She does make a point," Booster Gold muttered in the following silence. The older Zatanna sighed.
"I know. But it means our problem just got bigger."
-RL-
"A race against Superman? Seriously?" Kid Flash snickered. "What, were you going slow on purpose to give him a fighting chance?"
"Something like that," his older self grinned, prompting several Rogues in the room to groan. "What? Come on, it was for charity, I had to make the thing at least a little interesting."
"And made yourself a target at the same time." Captain Cold crossed his arms with a snort.
"Weather Wizard nearly turned you and the Big Blue Dork into ice cubes, remember?" The Top added.
"Says the man who succeeded in tossing my off a cliff once when I was seventeen."
Top just waved a dismissive hand. "You were being annoying. Besides, it was only a twenty foot drop to the lake."
Flash turned to smirk at his younger alternate. "What did I say earlier? Weirdest villains out of everybody."
"Without a doubt! Say, where is Wizard, anyway? And Heatwave for that matter - I'd have thought you guys would've called them here with the others."
Not long after the pair of speedsters arrived, word had trickled out about the two of them, and any costumed Rogues not already present at the bar came nosing around to see if the rumors were true. Kid Flash didn't doubt that at least a couple of the ones there had made discreet calls to summon the more interested parties, too.
Both he and his elder self frowned when shifty expressions were exchanged amongst the crooks. Flash was just opening his mouth to change the subject when the communicator in his ear chirped and he reached up to answer it.
"Flash here... What? Are they okay?" KF looked on with growing alarm as the older speedster straightened. "Oh boy. Yeah, fine, we'll finish up here and head to the Metrotower. Right."
"What's wrong?" The teen asked as soon as the conversation clearly ended.
"The two Zatanna's were visiting Zatara and got attacked-"
"WHAT? Where?!"
"Old dude's retirement home in Florida. They're okay, teleported out in time, but Terrific wants us and the Supers back in League territory just in case any groups of villains attack again."
Kid Flash blinked, and scowled. "Seriously? We're in the middle of our home territory! Even better, in Rogue territory! There's no way any group of crooks would be stupid enough to fight us here. Right?" He addressed the question to the men lounging at various booths and tables, getting a resounding cheer in response.
"Little Flasher's right!" Trickster yelled over the din. "They're our jumped-up goody-two-shoes dorks to fight, and no one else's!"
The front door opened.
All heads turned to stare at Heatwave and Weather Wizard, both of whom looked like they wanted to be anywhere else in the world at that moment. "Fellas," the pyromaniac muttered, glancing from the elder speedster to the younger and back again. "We've got a problem."
A/N: So! I am now twenty years old, about to start a much needed Spring Break, and have finally come to the conclusion that I should never ever promise when a new chapter of something will be out until the story's already been completely written out.
And on another note, I got my best birthday present ever from my paternal grandparents - they paid to get me registered to attend the Texas Writers League Conference this summer, where I will (hopefully!) make some headway on getting my first novel published. My fan fiction writing's gonna be pretty slow on all fronts between now and then, as I focus on finishing and polishing the new draft and its illustrations, but fear not! I abandon NOTHING, and all my stuff will eventually be finished.
Until next time,
-Tri