DC Comics Presents: Killing Roy Harper
Chapter 9: Detective Chimp, Cinnamon and Aquagirl
By: Christopher W. Blaine
e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com
DISCLAIMER: Detective Chimp™, Cinnamon™ , Aqualgirl™ and all other related characters and situations found in this story are ©2002 by DC Comics Inc. and are used herein 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.
Author's Note: This story references events that occurred in the original work "Tell Kara I Love Her" by Christopher W. Blaine. This story is available at the author's website (http://darthyoshi.topcities.com) or on FanFiction Net under the author Darth Yoshi.
"Marriage changes a man, Walter," the Time-Guardian began, once again relating his thoughts to the captive in the energy cage. Walter West, the Dark Flash, simply scowled; anything more would hasten the effects of the energy absorber he was trapped in. "You see life as something beautiful, something to be cherished and I suppose I have to ask myself if what I am doing is the right thing."
Walter maintained his silence and instead concentrated on the situation he found himself in. He was used to these little visits by the Time-Guardian, or Roy as he preferred Walter to refer to him as. It was easy to just block out his words and nod every once in awhile. Just to get a rise, sometimes he would shake his head, making the self-titled master of the universe believe that Walter was actually listening.
Being a speedster, Walter West could tap into the Speed Force, a dimension that provided speedsters with the kinetic energy, energy that could be harnessed a million different ways. Walter was using his abilities to hop between dimensions on a search for his home reality, where he would stand trial for murder. That was fine, because Walter West was no longer insane and he wanted to face justice. The madman that held him captive, however, had no desire to face justice, fate or destiny. Here was a man so in the grip of madness that he dared to defy Creation.
Brainiac 5, or at least the version of that hero that had existed prior to the Crisis had originally designed the apparatus that he was powering with his Speed Force link. Walter had encountered that disturbed man several months ago. Brainiac 5 had been using alternate versions of the Flash as living batteries to power a force field to hold back the Crisis Wave from one little portion of reality. Within this limbo, he had trapped the soul of Kara Zor-El, the Supergirl from Earth-1.* (* for more information, the author strongly recommends referring to the author's note at the beginning of this story)
Walter had beaten Brainiac 5 and managed to free Kara's soul, but it seemed as if the Time-Guardian had stumbled upon the idea. This was a more sophisticated set-up, but Walter assumed that the Time-Guardian had access to better materials. Now, instead of needing hundreds of speedsters, all that was needed was one healthy one that could be milked slowly.
"Do you know what Donna asked me the other night after we made love?"
Walter could not resist the bait. "Can Walter come over so I know what a real man is?"
There was a slight arcing of blue lightning from Roy's fingertips and he looked as if he were going to say something threatening, but he simply took a deep breath. "I see that you still have that defiant streak, something I suppose torture will not remove." Roy walked over to a table where the Master Jailer sat. He had been the one to come up with the energy cage. "You are quite certain he cannot get out?"
The Jailer shook his head. "Not in a million years; the intensity of the barrier increase with more force that is put against it. In other words, the harder he pushes, the harder it pushes back."
"It better hold him," Roy said as he turned his attention back to his prisoner. "There is no hope, you know that don't you?"
Walter shrugged. "Says you, buddy, but you keep forgetting something."
"What is that?"
"Every time one of you two-bit time conquerors comes along to try and rewrite history, you get knocked on your butt. You don't get it, do you? Time is not like silly putty, you can't shape it into a ball and bounce it wherever you want." He leaned a little more towards his captor. "There is always a check valve in the system, making sure that time flows in the right direction. Somebody is coming to help me, wait and see."
"The Roy Harper Institute of Energy?" Tula asked, looking across the roadway. The building she was describing was a large modern complex of steel and glass, with a statue of Speedy, the chairman of the Justice Society of America, out in the front lawn. "No wonder he revealed his identity to the world; it was the only way to get everything named after him."
"Arrogant cuss, that is for sure," Cinnamon said as she checked her pistol again for what seemed to be the millionth time. "Do we have ta sit next ta the monkey?"
Tula looked into the back of the van that they were in and saw Bobo, the Detective Chimp, sitting back with that Sherlock Holmes hat on. She used her limited telepathic rapport with him to see what was one his mind. All she got back was the image of a banana. "He's hungry and so am I, plus I need to get into some water before I dry out."
The scarlet haired gunslinger holstered her sidearm and crossed her arms over her chest. "He's always hungry and you run around everywhere in y'alls underwear. How can ya dry out?"
Tula smiled and started the van up. It was funny that out of the team, she was the only one who knew how to drive and she lived in the ocean! Pulling into traffic, she turned on the radio, a device that Cinnamon thought was the greatest thing since hollow point bullets. Bobo, on the other hand, didn't seem very impressed with Tula selection of music.
As they headed towards the highway on-ramp, Tula began to go over the details of their mission in her mind. Two weeks before, Nightwing and the Huntress managed to rescue the Psycho-Pirate from the clutches of the Legion of Doom. The Pirate had been kidnapped by the Time-Guardian to serve as the blueprint for the new reality that had been created when the Crisis Wave had been pushed back.
The Pirate, relieved to be free and only wanting to go back to his quiet asylum, had been a fountain of information. The Time-Guardian had been stretched to his limit by controlling all of the world's super-heroes. His control was incomplete, however, and every time he would have to re-exert some control, a little of reality would become awry. In order to fix things, the Time-Guardian relied on the Psycho-Pirate's memories. The Pirate had been a partner of the Anti-Monitor and therefore was the only living being to know, literally, everything that was different between the pre- and post-Crisis universes.
He had told them about the Institute and how the Legion of Doom members that had guarded the Pirate had talked about a special prisoner being kept there. Nightwing had deduced it had to be a Flash, someone who could control the Speed Force. Only the Speed Force seemed to be able to alter time and therefore, he theorized, it was the "antidote" to the anti-matter wave that had been unleashed.
If they freed the Flash, then the barrier would come down and time would revert to normal. Of course, Tula and everyone on her team, the now proclaimed Time Wardens, would die in the process. Everyone except Deadman and Kid Flash. The ugly truth was that most of the members were nothing more than by-products of Creation gone the wrong way. The Crisis Wave had set the universe right, at the expense of trillions of alternate realities. By doing what they were doing, the Time Wardens were committing suicide, but what other choice did they really have?
Tula did not want to die, but her entire life had revolved around her boyfriend, Garth, also known as Aqualad. In the new universe, he was married to someone else and had a child. If she truly loved him, then she would die to grant him that happiness.
It was the same with everyone else. Nightwing had a wife who no longer existed. If he remained alive, he would be alone, the last Kryptonian. He said he couldn't live that way, that he did not have the moral compass to keep him from going insane from loneliness.
Some of the others were having their reservations, however. Jimmy Olsen discovered that in the new universe, he never became a super-hero or anything else. He was just a reporter and the dullness of the life rubbed him the wrong way. The Batwoman was another. In her reality, she was never more than a pale imitation of Batman. Now, she had a chance at greatness. She could be a super-hero now and live the life she had always dreamed of. That was a hard thing for her to give up.
After fifteen minutes on the highway, they turned off and headed to the hotel where they had a room rented. Tula drove the van into the back so they could unload Bobo without drawing suspicion. As soon as the door was shut, Tula went straight for the shower. Cinnamon was left alone with Bobo. Both eyed each other with suspicion. For Cinnamon, treating a monkey as an equal went against everything she had been taught in Sunday school. For Bobo, he found her red hair to be a warning of a hidden fierceness. Slowly, he watched as she sat down on one of the beds. As she kicked off her boots, the chimp held his nose. "Y'all is one to talk, the way ya'll sit in ya'lls own poop!"
Bobo screeched and went over to the refrigerator. He always loved these things, especially the way they kept food so fresh. While he didn't mind it when ants got all over a piece of fruit he would leave outside, it was nice to get really fresh food whenever he wanted it. As he closed the door, Tula stepped out of the shower, rubbing a towel in her short brown hair.
Tula picked up on the image of a gorilla without hair and Bobo's puzzlement. The chimp went and grabbed his large magnifying glass and came back to examine her drying skin. Cinnamon cursed as she watched the monkey go over every square inch of Tula's nude body that he could reach. "Lord have mercy, child!"
Tula shook her head. She had grown up with the animals of the sea. "Curiosity is natural. Because I can talk with him and understand him, he naturally thought I was an ape, too. Because I have very little body hair, he doesn't understand."
"Ya'll let every lil' monkey that's curious see ya naked?" Cinnamon asked, grabbing a pillow and putting it to her chest.
Tula ignored her and tried to form an image in Bobo's mind about where she came from and how body hair interfered with swimming. He seemed more confused and she got the impression that she had told him she was a fish. She patted him on the head and took his magnifying glass away. Her superior Atlantean strength allowed her to easily overpower the full-grown chimpanzee. "I suggest we get some sleep. We will be going in under the cover of darkness."
"Ain't that when it always happens?" The cowgirl pushed the pillow away and stood up to remove her jacket. After that she sat back on the bed, her had resting on her pistol.
"Doesn't matter. They'll see us coming from a mile away if we go in during the day," Tula remarked as she climbed under the covers of her own bed. Bobo simply sat down at the foot of the bed, contemplating what his next move should be.
He knew that Firehair and Fishmonkey were worried about getting into the big building, but he didn't understand why they were scared. Trying to outrun a hungry lioness, now that was scary. There were worse things than getting caught, being eaten was at the top of that list.
He wanted to help, but Firehair treated him like an unwanted mate and Fishmonkey acted like he was stupid. Sure, he was interested in her but only because he skin held no marks of battle or any other sort of imperfections that seemed so prevalent on humans.
He sat there for many hours, listening to the two females snore before he made his decision to strike out on his own. Firehair was an atypical female. There was too much rage in her and he did not trust her. He heard her mention something about the death fo her father, and Bobo knew that humans placed much more value on family connections than chimps did.
Humans were like that, he sighed as he picked up his magnifying glass and grabbed some bottled orange juice. Humans took everything to an extreme, no matter what it was. Hunting, gathering, mating; it didn't matter. Every human wanted to lead the group, every human wanted to be looked upon as special and every human seemed to have a sad story. The jungle is not harsh and the jungle is not easy; the jungle is merely that, the jungle and thinking anything else was simply a waste of time.
He wanted to pat Fishmonkey's…Tula's hand, but he dared not. Though she did not treat him with the due his intelligence granted, there was no malice in her. She, too, was sad, but for an entirely different reason. She had lost her mate, and Bobo understood that a good mate was hard to find. After you go through all of the rituals and beat out all of the other suitors, to lose your mate was a sobering experience. Bobo had never been able to get a mate; whenever he was exposed to other chimps once he reached his season, they reacted to him as if he were a human. His scent was all wrong; his mannerisms were too different and nothing he did would change that.
Bobo had no death wish; it was a term he had heard so many times before. Bobo just wanted to make all of the confusion stop. Life was supposed to operate on a clock and that clock wasn't working right. He felt no sense of duty, though he did feel kinship to some of the humans he found himself with. His actions would protect them and bring bad men to justice. He understood bad. He understood justice. These were things that you could not eat, touch or smell, but you knew what they were.
The sun was just starting to come down as he hopped into the driver's seat of the van. He had watched Tula enough that he was sure he could drive the vehicle. It was not beyond his ability because he wasn't like the other chimps. Someone once said he was a human trapped in a chimpanzee's body. Bobo often wondered how true that was.
The van would not work again, Bobo decided as he watched it explode. Several vehicles were stopping up on the bridge he had run off of and he felt embarrassed. It was a feeling he had not known how to define until he saw it in humans. He knew he should have been able to drive the van better, but he had gotten confused when he had reached for the radio to turn it down and hit the windshield wiper controls instead.
At least he had fallen into a tree line that led all of the way behind the big glass building that he wanted to get in. Bobo reasoned that he could get in; stalking at night was a trait he had perfected quite well.
In thirty minutes, the sun was down and the nocturnal animals were questioning him about his mission. A stray dog had laughed at him, calling him a human-lover and the birds assailed him with insults far worse than that. They could not understand why he would want to help the humans. "They destroy everything and have no respect for our territory," a feral cat had screeched just before Bobo dispatched him with a swipe of his hand.
It was all the same anti-human rhetoric he had heard for years. They hated the humans but allowed them to domesticate them. They took offered food and even performed in shows for them. Bobo's attitude became grim as he approached the rear of the building.
If he worked it just right, he could get across the open field without being seen, but his instincts told him of unnatural things hidden in the well-manicured lawn. It was the security devices, he was sure; humans were ultra-protective of their territory. He reasoned, though, that if he were caught on camera, the disbelieving humans would be in disarray for several minutes. How often does a monkey run across your back yard?
He took off at a run and sure enough, several lights kicked on, momentarily blinding him. He howled and brought his arm up to shield him as he ran to the cover of darkness in the building's shadow. Several voices could be heard shouting and Bobo was surprised that the security teams had reacted so quickly.
"Over here! The monkey is over here!" someone yelled.
Bobo ran over to a window on the first floor and pushed on it to see if it were open and was glad to see it was. He scooted inside just as the sound of running feet reached his ears. The monkey did not wait to see if he was being followed as instinct kicked in. He ran and looked for a way to go up. It was always easy to come back down.
He found a stairwell and bolted up it, knocking over a security man who had not been watching where he was going. The man yelled and tumbled end over end down the stairs, his gun cart wheeling onto the floor below. Bobo jumped into a tree that had been planted in the lobby of the building and began moving up to the safety of the branches. At the top, he grabbed onto the hand railing of a balcony and swung himself onto the floor proper.
Bullets tore the air from beside his ears and he ducked. His eye caught two more security men lining their sights up on him, but the monkey was not about to stay still for them. Staying still meant staying alive many times in the jungle; it meant certain death in the man's world.
Bobo ran down a side passageway, losing control of his bowels as he did so. His fear was way up as he realized that he had done something very foolish by coming here on his own. What had he been trying to accomplish? This was a man problem, not a chimp problem.
"Son of a…" someone yelled behind him before slipping in the small present he had left on the floor. More swear words followed and then several shots that buzzed his ears. Bobo gave a cry for aid, again his natural instinct kicking in.
Just as he was ready to turn the corner, someone grabbed him by the back of the neck and tossed him to the ground. Bobo saw that he was a tall man in a costume like the Flash, a hero well-known to the monkey. Only this wasn't the Flash he knew, this was the opposite in every detail. Bobo could see the brown smudges on the man's costume. "You little, filthy monkey," the Reverse-Flash said as he reared his fist back.
Bobo's world went dark after the blow struck.
Cinnamon smiled as another guard went down under her steady fire. "Shucks! These hombres ain't nothin' but a thing, sugah! I got plenty of bullets; ya'll go find your monkey," she called to Tula.
Aquagirl dispatched another guard using a blow to the chest. Her enhanced strength forced the guard to his knees as his lungs deflated. "No killing!"
"Sugah, if I was interested in killin' the yokels, they'd be dead," was the reply.
Tula nodded and started to move to the center stairs. When they awoke to find Bobo and their van gone, Tula had been furious. The burning wreckage on the side of the road as they had passed in a stolen car had not done anything to make her feel better.
As they had drawn near the Institute, they had noted the commotion and had figured that Detective Chimp had made it okay. "I can't look for him right now; I have to find the Flash!"
"Here's a Flash for you, baby-boobs," the Reverse-Flash said as he slowly walked down the stairs. His uniform, normally a bright yellow, was stained with what appeared to be dirt and blood. "Come here and let papa see what's under the wetsuit."
"In your dreams, pervert," Tula said as she straightened up. The guards were now holding back, some of them moving farther away in anticipation of the coming battle between the heroes and the villains.
"Now, hold on, if anyone is a pervert around here, it's me," the Master Jailer said as he stepped out of a side room. Tula noted that the door seemed to be made out of a metallic substance she wasn't familiar with.
The Reverse-Flash stepped onto the lobby floor and cracked his knuckles. "Two bitches to try and do a man's job. Hell, even sent a monkey too."
"Where's Detective Chimp?" Tula demanded.
The villain laughed. "Aw, do you miss your boyfriend, sweetheart? I'll tell you what, you and Red there give me a little sugar and maybe I'll tell you."
Tula searched her memory for information regarding the Reverse-Flash. Wally West, the Kid Flash from her reality, had told her that he was a homicidal maniac, who derived pure please out of the suffering of others, especially anyone connected to barry Allen, the second Flash. He was faster than thought, faster than Tula's metahuman reflexes. "Yes, I miss him. Where is he?"
Pointing up, the Reverse-Flash smiled. Tula and Cinnamon both looked up to the ceiling. There, strung from a rafter, was the bleeding and lifeless body of Bobo. His blood was running down and disappearing as it fell onto one of the balconies that hung over the lobby. Tula's eyes watered as she tried to establish a telepathic link with him.
In her mind came pictures not pf pain, but of a life of happiness and of an acceptance that the cycle of life was being served by his death. There were no specific images of any people or places, but just a general warmth and a hope of jungles yet to come. When he died, she felt it.
Tula didn't know if her telepathy had radiated outward, but suddenly she could pick up the rage coming from Cinnamon. Normally, her powers only allowed her to talk with animals, human brain patterns were too complex for her to link in with. Extreme emotional disturbance could change that. "Mistah, you just made the biggest mistake of y'alls life."
"Red, you can't even think you're fast enough," the Reverse-Flash smirked.
"Let's see," Cinnamon said as she pulled off her jacket and adjusted her gun belt.
"No!" Tula cried out, but Cinnamon held up a finger to quiet her.
Turning her attention back to the Reverse-Flash, Cinnamon challenged him. "That lil' monkey was a pain in the butt, but he was a good lil' monkey. Y'all had no right ta do that to him." She stood with her legs slightly apart and a hand on her gun. "Guess we'll just have ta settle this the old-fashioned way."
There was no call to draw; everything happened in the span of a second. The gun went off, but Cinnamon didn't know it. Her brain was already scrambled eggs by the time she pulled the trigger. The Reverse-Flash stood next to the falling body, his right hand vibrating. It had passed through her skull and simply turned the insides of the cranium into so much soup.
He then turned to Aquagirl. "Time to die, bitch."
"Oh, crap," the Master Jailer said silently.
The Reverse-Flash was about to speak when the pain hit him and he looked down. Blood was pouring out of a wound over his heart. His eyes went wide as his mind tried to reason how, but the answer would never be known. The only person who could have provided it was now dead on the floor.
Tula turned her back to the Reverse-Flash, feeling nothing as she heard the body hit the ground and marched right over to the shocked Master Jailer. Her muscles barely flexed as she hauled him up with one arm. Her dark Atlantean eyes looked like pools of death to the criminal. "Hey! Hold on! You're one of the good guys!"
"You will take me to the Flash. You will help free him or I swear, I'll drag you into the open ocean and put you in a jail I'm the master of."
"Are you sure about this, Tula?" Walter asked from inside his cage.
Tula, with a firm grip on the Master Jailer, nodded. "I understand what will happen once you are freed."
"This is suicide! You can't make me do this!" the Jailer protested. Tula shrugged and bounced his forehead off of a panel. The criminal sank to the floor.
She heard the guards trying to get through the door leading into the chamber. "I have to hurry."
"I'm sorry. If I thought for a second that my staying here would help, I would. It only serves the Time-Guardian, though," Walter offered.
"I can't live like this. I can't go on without Garth and my friends." She started to cry now. "I have to make things right. I just wish I could have lived, too."
"You'll always live in my heart," Walter promised.
Tula smiled and then reached down to pull the lever that would remove the energy cage from around the Dark Flash. She did it without hesitation, afraid that she wouldn't be able to and she closed her eyes. There was a whooshing sound and then a roar and her stomach began to turn and she vomited.
She still refused to open her eyes, even though the wind was getting fierce and she felt as if she were burning up on the inside. She prayed that death would come quickly so she could forget all of it. Better to have never lived than to have lost your love she said in her mind.
When the sounds stopped she opened her eyes, wanting to see what awaited her on the other side. The muscular legs of the Dark Flash greeted her. "This isn't right," he said.
"What the hell was that?" the Time-Guardian screamed as he bolted up in his bed. Donna reached over and grabbed his arm.
"What is it dear? Are you okay?"
He looked around and then called upon his time vision to replay the last few moments so he could see what had awakened him with such force.
His powers didn't work.
He tried to shift his body into limbo, but he remained in the bed next to his shivering wife. He looked down at her and tried to perceive the future life of their son that was growing in her womb, but all he saw was the slight roundness of her belly.
The Time-Guardian began to shake, his fists clenched and turning white. So many times he had reacted this way and his anger would unleash itself upon a thousand realities, returning them to the dust from which they sprang. This time it was different, though.
Now he was shaking with fear.