DC Comics Presents: Killing Roy Harper
Chapter 7: Kid Flash and Deadman
By: Christopher W. Blaine
e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com
DISCLAIMER: Kid Flash™ and Deadman™, as well as all other characters and situations contained in this story are ©2002 by DC Comics Inc. and are used without permission for fan-related, non-profit entertainment purposes only. This original work of fiction is ©2002 by Christopher W. Blaine and may not be reproduced in part or as a whole without the express permission of the author.
"Is the Speed Force part of Heaven?" Kid Flash asked. His attention was more on the angels flying overhead than on the person he was walking with. Ever since the destruction of his reality by the Time-Guardian, he had been running full speed in and out of time and space, trying to find where he belonged.
Deadman shrugged his shoulders. "Do I look like a freakin' architect? No, I'm a super-hero slash ghost! Look, if you want to discuss the building plans, I'll see if I can set you up an appointment with the Big Guy."
Kid Flash said nothing. He had instinctively been drawn into the Speed Force, that energy dimension from which all speedsters drew their powers. There was nowhere else he could have gone because the laws of Hypertime dictated that you could only exist in your own universe, your own reality. Any attempt to settle in another dimension resulted in a collapse of dimensional barriers and could lead to universal disaster.
"We have a meeting with Rip Hunter and some of the other time lords," Deadman snickered. Ever since he had died and been exposed to the reality of creation, he found many so-called temporal villains and heroes laughable. Their powers and abilities only worked so long as Deadman's boss allowed it. "Do you remember everything that Allen told you?"
Kid Flash nodded. When he had gotten to the Speed Force, prepared to accept his fate, he found a meeting of speedsters that he did and, in some cases, did not recognize. There was a Barry Allen, the man who had adopted him after his father had died, but there was also a Wally West, who claimed he was the real Kid Flash.
It had been Max Mercury, the self-proclaimed Zen master of speed that had solved the mystery and had explained how time, space, Hypertime and the Speed Force were interconnected. "After the Crisis, there was a need to reform the universe differently. The old way of vibrational boundaries had not worked, for the Anti-Monitor had proven how ineffective they were," Max had explained after Kid Flash had said he wanted to know the truth. "It was necessary that after the Crisis that all persons believed it happened a certain way, that the truth of the various Earths had to buried and put away forever. Who made this ultimate decision? Some say God or Allah, others say it was cosmic chance or the Easter Bunny. Regardless, this was why nobody remembered the true Crisis. It is easier to answer questions that are never asked."
Max had smiled at Kid Flash. "I know it's confusing, but the order that was necessary for life to continue required that there be one singular time line. However, if time wasn't allowed to stretch sometimes to relieve the pressure, it would collapse upon itself; that is why there is Hypertime."
Kid Flash had seemed more confused than before and Max opened his arms. "If time is the mind of God, a plan in motion, than Hypertime is his dreams. The Speed Force is the energy that holds it all together and that makes all of us speedsters guardians of a sort of not only time, but of creation as well. Why, I can't tell you, but I would say that Barry's original sacrifice greatly impressed someone…powerful."
Deadman punched the young man on the shoulder. "Hey, are you listening to me or not, doofus?"
"What?" Kid Flash said, turning suddenly to the ghostly super-hero. "I'm sorry, I was thinking of what Max Mercury told me."
"We're here, so pull your head out of your butt," Deadman said, pulling open a golden door. As Kid Flash entered, Deadman looked over at the Joker, who was scrubbing a sidewalk until it shined. When the Time-Guardian had revamped reality, the Joker had been given his sanity back and had been key in bringing needed information on the Time-Guardian to Barry Allen. As such, even though he was technically dead, he had been put on an administrative hold instead of being sent to a fiery end. "Keep working, Joker, you son of a …"
An angel landed in front of him, golden sword and shield reflecting the perpetual sunlight into Deadman's eyes. He looked up at Zauriel and shook his head. "Sorry, lost my head there for a moment."
The big angel said nothing and Deadman turned and entered the doorway.
"I've created a pocket universe…ahhhh!" the Time-Trapper cried out in pain as the Lord of Time punched him in the back of the head.
"No more pocket universes!" Chronos cried, adding moral support to the Lord of Time's explosive rage. "I heard about one the other day that was filled with nothing but alternate versions of Dumb Bunny!" The Lord of Time continued to pummel the cloaked villain and none of the other assembled persons made a move to stop it, until Deadman cleared his throat.
As the official representative of Heaven, he was the person in charge and held the most clout out of all of them. "Hey, calm it down," Rip Hunter called out. Grudgingly, but not before giving a final kick to the ankle, the Lord of Time backed away and sat back in his chair.
Deadman indicated a chair next to him and Kid Flash sat down. The table itself appeared to be made from pearl and the chairs were framed in silver with white silk cushions. Were it not for the gravity of the situation, every person present could spend a lifetime marveling at the beauty.
Two angelic guards stood next to the door, ensuring discipline for the meeting. Each and every single one of the group had managed to survive the Harper Incident by using their own abilities and powers. Rip Hunter was the first to speak. "You all remember when Extant approached us originally about the Time-Guardian?" He nodded to the black clad villain. Extant was very uncomfortable being here as he didn't believe in God. "Thanks to his warning, we were each able to plan ahead for the inevitable. There was no way we could prevent the Time-Guardian from killing Roy Harper, the real one, but now perhaps we can reverse his actions."
"As I was trying to say, through the use of pocket universes," the Time-Trapper started, head ducking from the expected blow that never came, "I have managed to secure several alternates of Roy Harper, thereby preventing a complete unraveling of Hypertime when we set things right."
"Hold it," Kid Flash started. He reached up and pulled back his mask to reveal the face of Roy Harper. There were several gasps and Per Degaton let out a particularly feminine scream. "What is the difference between the real Roy Harper and us 'alternates'?"
"Ace," Deadman said, indicating the well-dressed time enforcement officer, "would you care to explain to the youngster here?"
Ace Silvermane winked and flashed a smile that was brighter than the room they were in. "Alternates are simply projections of what the actual person could have been. Whatever dictates the creation of someone in the prime reality is beyond all of us…"
"Not me," Deadman offered, grinning at Extant. The villain gave him a one-fingered gesture in reply.
"But in Hypertime, people are based upon what could have been. You are as real as real can be, but your existence is dependant upon the actions of the primary." Ace seemed rather pleased with himself as usual.
"Rip," Chronos started, sipping at a diet generic soda. He had protested the lack of beer, claiming it couldn't be called Heaven if there wasn't any beer. "Why don't you explain the situation to Deadman and the kid so that we're all on the same page."
Rip Hunter stood up and pulled at his green tunic to straighten it. "The Earth-2 Speedy, we now know, escaped the Crisis through magical means. Believing that he was cheated out of a life that he deserved, he set about going through all of Hypertime to kill all of his duplicates before delivering the final blow by eliminating the real Harper. Doing this, that is killing the primary Harper before his time, upset the flow of time and allowed the Time-Guardian to manipulate the effects of the Crisis from a singular point. By preventing the Crisis Wave from completing its course, he stopped the reboot of the universe."
He picked up a glass of water and took a drink. "He now controls the prime universe; it has been reshaped to suit his needs. In effect he has become a god."
The angels stiffened at this comment and Deadman leaned back. "I wouldn't go that far. Anyway, how is he holding back the Crisis Wave?"
"The Speed Force," Kid Flash said, snapping his fingers. "I think I get it…"
"I think if we have a pocket universe…argh!"
The can of diet soda bounced off of the Time-Trapper's head. "Shaddup you!" Chronos sneered.
"He used the Speed Force to keep the wave back, probably by taking a Flash and putting them in a vibrational enhancer," the Lord of Time commented, rubbing his beard. "That would do it if it was Speed Force that could keep the wave back. That assumes of course that the Speed Force is a byproduct of the original Crisis Wave…"
"Yes!" the Time-Trapper exclaimed, hitting the table. "All we need to do is find this enhancer!"
There was a tapping at the window and the Joker stood there. "Duh! When I saw how the anti-matter was affecting Barry Allen, I knew if he ran to the Speed Force he would be safe!"
Deadman eyed the two angel guards and they left the room to drag the Joker back to his duties. "Who put that window there?"
Extant yawned. "This is ignorant. Where is your God, Brand? Why does he let these things happen? If the Speed Force is the thread that ties creation together, I'd say that Harper has untied God's shoes!"
The room got suddenly quiet. Deadman thought for a moment. "Extant, you're only here because you did the right thing by telling us about the Time-Guardian. However, I'd like to remind you you're in Heaven now and it has a protector named the Spectre."
Satisfied when Extant crossed his arms and scowled, Deadman turned his attention to the Time-Trapper. "You're the expert on universal misalignments. If we find this enhancer or whatever he's using to hold the Crisis Wave back, will time revert to normal?"
The Time-Trapper contemplated the question and then slowly nodded. "Not only that, but if past history can be used to show a pattern, doing so will prevent Harper from doing it again. Time is funny like that; you can mess it up several ways, but you can only use those ways once."
"No doubt we will all forget the true reason behind the Crisis, the past Earths, everything," Per Degaton added.
A blonde-haired man sitting at the far-end of the table smiled from above steepled hands. "Some of you monkeys will, but we of a higher existence…"
"Bite me, Neron," Chronos chided. "Just because you live in h-e-double hockey sticks doesn't give you any special say here."
"Perhaps, but allow me to give you a bit of advice: don't take a knife to a gun fight." Neron stood up and was gone with a wave of his cape. The air smelled faintly of brimstone and everyone waved the air in front of their faces.
"He means that subtlety won't work against Harper; he's got that Legion of Doom down there for a reason. He has some control over the heroes, but the Legion are his hammer. Neron is correct in that we'll need some serious firepower to go up against them." Deadman thought about it for a moment. "We can't count on anyone down there."
"Except the Joker," Per Degaton said, smirking.
"A lot of good that will do," Deadman said. "He's so sane now that he can't stand violence."
"I've created a pocket universe I think you should look at," the Time-Trapper yelled as he stood up and ran to the other side of the room. Chronos just giggled.
"You got something we can use?" Kid Flash asked the purple-robed villain.
"Oh, yes," came the reply.
"It looks like Earth, except it's so sunny," Kid Flash said as they walked down a path. Deadman had taken possession of some passerby. As a true spirit, he could not exist on any earthly plane in physical form. "I'd forgotten how much I love the sun."
Deadman looked up. "It's not a real sun."
The Time-Trapper coughed. "It is so; I grabbed it from a dying reality."
"You're as bad as Harper, you know that?" Deadman reached into his pocket and found some candy. He offered Kid Flash a piece. "So, you just started grabbing heroes and putting them here, Trappy?"
There was annoyance in the Time-Trapper's tone. "Yes. I recognized them as being heroes that simply did not belong, who had been destroyed in the Crisis, but were now back. They needed a place to live."
"Sounds like a god-complex," Kid Flash said as he chomped on the candy. "Any idea who the Flash is that the Time-Guardian has trapped?"
"Could be any number of duplicates. I'd say that Jay Garrick was too frail to withstand the process," the Time-Trapper began, speaking like a lecturing professor. "Barry Allen was an anomaly and he killed Wally West for daring to love Donna Troy."
"Hey, I just had a thought," Deadman said, smacking his lips as he enjoyed his candy. "Did you happen to bring any villains here as well?"
"Gotta go," the Time-Trapper said before disappearing.
"Damn it! That guy collects everything, I swear. He gets so worked up he can't tell the difference between the heroes and the villains! We've got to be careful."
"Different body, same programming and nothing got better!" Nightwing said as he matched his strength against the skeletal form of Brainiac. He pushed, his Kryptonian might battling the mechanical power of the artificial being.
"Resistance is futile; I shall achieve my goals regardless of you and the other heroes assembled here," the android replied in a monotone voice. There was a slight whirling sound as more micromotors came on line.
Van-Zee grunted as he realized he was losing ground. As Nightwing, he and his partner Flamebird had been the only costumed protectors of the bottle-sized city of Kandor. The city, shrunk and collected by Brainiac years before the destruction of Krypton, had resided in the Fortress of Solitude after Superman had liberated it from the robot. There, it had been exposed to red solar rays, which prevented Van-Zee from using the powers he normally would have had on Earth.
In other words, he thought as the android finally pushed him back, he was out of practice. He tumbled back, tripped over some wreckage and fell back on his head. He was not used to working without his partner and he briefly wondered where Ak-Var was.
Brainiac, satisfied that the immediate threat was removed, turned to eliminate the human identified as the Huntress. She had been the one who had originally sought to halt his programming. He calculated the exact amount force that would be required to crush her head as he walked past and made a slight deviation to his stride so that he would not waste vital energy by having to stop to orient himself.
A familiar pinging sound activated several subroutines. The exact tone and wavelength of the noise indicated that he was being shot at from a distance of 20.7 feet with a model Colt .45 caliber pistol. A link to his historical reference database determined that such a weapon was not found in the arsenal of modern police forces. That deviation from the norm in turn executed the commands that controlled his inquisitive executables.
A tall woman clad in white western-style clothing, pushed back her hat with the tip of a smoking pistol to reveal a mane of scarlet hair. "Y'all take another step towards that lil' heifer and I'm gonna put ya'lls beady red eyes out with some hot lead." She aimed a pistol in the other hand in Brainiac's direction. "I sweah, y'all 'bout the ugliest hoodoo thingy I've evah seen."
Brainiac scanned his memory banks but came up empty. His digital receptors took in every inch of the woman, recording her visage and vitals for future consideration. "Your threat is meaningless; you cannot harm this unit with your weapons."
"Hey, Brainy! Don't you know it's impolite to threaten such a hot chick!" Brainiac recognized the voice of Jimmy Olsen, the best friend of his primary enemy Superman. His priority programming determined that Olsen's elimination was necessary to complete at least 1,756 of the plans he had devised to eliminate the Man of Steel. A purple clad arm, stretched to a humanly impossible length of fifteen feet wrapped itself around the robot. Elastic Lad, one of many personas' Jimmy Olsen had assumed over the years, smiled and whipped out another elongated arm to envelope Brainiac.
The robot allowed Elastic Lad to do so and was about send a lethal electric shock through his own body to end the hero's life when something soft and moist struck his left eye. Before he could react, several more gunshots rang out.
"Override…" he began to speak. He had no need to actually voice his actions, but he had determined that there was a certain amount of psychological advantage to doing so. Humans were always so fearful of him when his voice reached a certain octave. Another wet missile struck his other eye and his internal radar picked up the form of a chimpanzee wearing a hat hopping up and down. Had he emotions, Brainiac would have pitied the simian. "Your pet's efforts are futile; spoiled bananas will do no damage to this unit!"
"Heah! That's a good one, mistah tin man," the woman with guns called out. "Those ain't exactly brown bananas he throwin' ya'll!"
Nightwing lunged up and struck Brainiac with a blow that would have leveled a small mountain. Elastic Lad let go at just the right moment, expecting the robot to go flying towards the moon. The android did fly, but small plasma jets kept him from moving very far. "Upgraded, eh?" Nightwing asked, taking to the air himself.
An electrostatic field burned the soiling covering his eyes and Brainiac changed from a calculated attack to brute force. His fist struck Nightwing hard in the face and a thunderclap rolled through the city.
Detective Chimp decided that the big metal man was too far away for his "unique" attack. He spied the fallen form of the human female in the short purple outfit and scooted over to try and pull her out of the line of fire. The chimpanzee grabbed the woman's hand and pulled her over the cracked concrete. She was not light, but he possessed more than enough strength to move her form. As he did so, he considered that now was not a good time to take a nap.
"Do you see that light?" Kid Flash asked, pointing over the trees at the edge of the park. A crimson burst lit the sky. "That probably isn't normal."
Deadman groused. "It's probably some unknown result of making a million pocket universes! What was he thinking?'
Kid Flash pushed Deadman. "Stop that! This is bigger than both of us and you know it."
"Some people try to use humor to alleviate the stress, kid," the dead hero replied. He turned his host body in the direction of the light and a second explosion confirmed their suspicions. "Well, I can't run there."
"You can fly, right?" Kid Flash asked. Deadman replied there was no way he could fly as fast as the young man could run. "What if you possess me?"
Deadman raised his eyebrows. "Are you nuts? It's one thing to take over a body and have a conversation; it's another to use super-powers! I don't have the experience…"
"When you take over someone, are they completely out of it? Quick man, answer me!" The irritation was obvious in Kid Flash's voice. "Oh, never mind! Just do it and let's go. The heroes we need may be over there!"
Deadman decided not to argue, as there was no time and instead leapt out of the host body and into Kid Flash's. Immediately, his perceptions changed and he saw everything in…speed. He had possessed speedsters in the past, but never had he experienced such a link to the Speed Force as in this individual.
He wondered if the experience was different for every speedster, for it was almost religious in nature. Boston Brand had died and that event was nothing like this. When he died, he had been cut off from life. Here, inhabiting Kid Flash's body, he felt truly alive. He now understood the allure of speed.
He started to run and in the blink of an eye, found himself standing in the middle of the Sahara Desert, or whatever the equivalent was on this planet. It didn't feel right calling it simply "Earth". Taking a deep breath, he tried to jog and found that his body responded quicker than he was used to. After five minutes and several trips around the globe, he had learned to at least run in the correct direction.
The Batwoman barely managed to avoid a concentrated barrage of laser blasts and found herself hiding in an alleyway with Detective Chimp and the inert body of the Huntress. She looked down and shook her head. They had spoken briefly before Brainiac had appeared in downtown Coast City. In that short time, she had learned that the woman was from Batwoman's future and was the Batman's daughter.
She understood that it meant that she and the Batman would never have become an item and that left a profound sadness in Batwoman's heart. As Kathy Kane, she had become the red and gold clad heroine in order to have fun, but it turned into something more after she had actually met the Caped Crusader. Huntress had indicated her mother was the Catwoman and for the life of her, Kathy could not figure out why Batman would have married a criminal.
Criminal's daughter or not, the Huntress had been the first to go after Brainiac when he started ravaging automobiles and storefronts in an effort to build something that Batwoman could not describe. Roughly spherical, it appeared to be a craft of some type, but she couldn't be sure. Like flies to honey, heroes had appeared out of nowhere, all drawn to the robot.
She knew that none of them had been here very long, for this was not the planet of her birth. There was more here than met the eye, but for now, any investigation would have to wait until they figured out some way of stopping Brainiac. "You have any useful suggestions besides throwing crap at him?" she asked the monkey.
Detective Chimp jumped up and down, screeching. He understood Batwoman perfectly, but there was no way for him to communicate to her. He turned his attention to a young girl in a bathing suit, hiding in the shadows. She was breathing heavily and looked pale. As he understood it, she needed water, but there was no way for him to move her to any with the large shiny monster trying to kill them.
"I agree," she mumbled. He had figured out that she could somehow understand him, as if she could see the pictures in his mind. "We must…wait."
Angry and feeling trapped Detective Chimp started pacing. The female with the guns, for he knew exactly what those were from his many adventures, came running into the alley and he could smell burnt meat. She was holding her arm as if she was wounded. "Kee-rap! That contraption is as stubborn as a damn mule!" She saw the condition of the Huntress and the girl in the swimsuit. "You ladies okay?"
Batwoman gave her a sarcastic look. "Do they look okay?"
The woman nodded. "Name's Cinnamon." She winced in pain and looked at her arm which sported a nasty laser burn. "Tarnation that hurts! Somethin' tells me I'm a long way from home."
Batwoman looked down at the pale girl. "Tula, we have to get you out of here now!"
"If we don't stop Brainiac…people will die," Tula offered with a weak smile. "If I could just hop in a swimming pool."
A yellow and red blurred moved past their vision and seconds later, the wind howled and bowled them all over. Kid Flash, controlled by the panic-stricken spirit of Boston Brand, ran towards a large robot with a huge head.
Deadman tried to stop, but saw that he was not going to be able to avoid running into the robot. A voice seemed to scream in his mind, telling him to vibrate through the robot. Deadman had no idea how to do that and just started shaking as best he could. His body passed through the robot and emerged on the other side. There, he had the clear path he needed to stop.
Brainiac's internal sensors detected a change in the molecular bonding of every component, as if something had passed a knife through the electrostatic charges between the atoms of his being. Even as his form exploded, he was surprised that he had no answer to his situation.
Kid Flash looked over at the young woman called Aquagirl and caught her smile as she lounged next to the swimming pool. They had all assembled in the home of a movie star that Deadman had decided to possess. For the past hour, as they tended wounds and other needs, Kid Flash explained the events of the Harper Incident, the destruction of time and the Crisis.
All of the heroes, except for Deadman and Kid Flash, had something in common: they no longer existed. The only thing that allowed them to be here at all was the Crisis Wave being held back and now Kid Flash was asking them to risk their lives so that the end result would be that they died.
"Of course we'll help," Nightwing said. He had already recovered as he had absorbed enough yellow rays in order to put him at full power. "But I disagree with your theory that we'll all die."
"It don't mattah to me, s'long as we make things right. I don't understand a thing ya'll is talkin' 'bout, but seems to me that it's the right thing t'do," Cinnamon said. Unlike the other women, she had refused to put on a swimsuit and sit around "like a desperate woman" as she had put it. Detective Chimp had taken to sitting next to Aquagirl who possessed limited ability to communicate with him. Huntress and Batwoman had marveled over the bikinis in the house and Deadman was strutting around in a pair of swimming trunks much too small for his large frame.
The only person who seemed completely at ease was Jimmy Olsen who was intent on trying to flex his muscles every chance he got. Aquagirl especially was not fond of being referred to as "babe", "chick" or "honey". "Saving the universe is just another day in the life of James Olsen, professional super-hero. If you want, Van-Zee, I'll put on my old Flamebird costume and we'll revive the old team."
Nightwing avoided responding to Jimmy and instead concentrated on dealing with the problem at hand. A cousin to the "Earth-1" Superman, he had emerged as the de facto leader of the group. "It seems we have a three-fold problem. First, we have to find out how the Time-Guardian is holding back this Crisis Wave. You have a theory, but no proof and we need to find that. Second, there is the Legion of Doom, which is going to protect what's holding the Crisis Wave back and the Time-Guardian himself.
"Finally," he said, rubbing his chin. "Even if we do all of this, there is nothing to stop the Time-Guardian from doing something again. Anyway, he killed the real Roy Harper, right?"
"Well, yes and no," Deadman called from the grill. He was putting some steaks on. "He's dead, but he's stuck in Limbo."
"Mr. Deadman, Bobo," Aquagirl said, referring to Detective Chimp," is curious. He understands what death is and he understands that life has to come from somewhere. He senses from you that you're both dead and alive and wants to know if whoever gave you your ability to not…" her face frowned as she concentrated on the monkey's thoughts. They were more pictures than words and so mammal-like that she was having trouble interpreting them.
Kid Flash interceded for her. "It's the same old question; why doesn't God intercede?"
Deadman started dancing as he sprinkled pepper on the steaks. "Take a look around, little monkey. Seems to me that the Lord works in mysterious ways."