The new storm, pt. 2
I arrived at the city limits of Keystone under the cover of fog. I saw that it was raining, so I pushed the clouds aside to let some sun shine through. Don't be fooled by my wicked disposition. I like people to have some manner of pleasantness in their lives. Out of the fog I walked like a mysterious stranger ready to burn the city to the ground. It certainly looked that way to the people in the two cars passing by me. It didn't matter that there were witnesses. All that mattered is that I accomplish what I came here to do.
I was relieved currency was basically the same in this time as I walked into a diner for something to eat. When living with the Rogues one doesn't have that many home-cooked meals, and I was glad to finally sit down and rest after the physical stress of galactic and temporal travel. The waitress looked at me funny. There were radiation burns on my clothes from the cosmic waves that I passed through outside Jupiter. "Sorry. I'm. training to be a firefighter" "Oh, ok. Well, what'll ya have?" I ordered a grilled-cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup, something Iris Allen used to make for me when I was much younger. As I began eating I thought about how cute the waitress was and remembered back to my old girlfriend during my days at the University of Topeka. Her father was a police chief, and I always worried that somehow she'd find out about my lineage and the fact that I'm a meta-human. Her father and I met and he recognized me from the computerized aging in the missing child photos at the station. Putting two and two together he realized who's son I was. I wish my mom had been alive to talk some sense into him. If she were alive I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. So goes fate, I suppose.
I looked out the window and saw in the distance some giant, lumbering beast making his way to this destination. In the sky there was the faintest falling star, so I took that, eased its way into the atmosphere without burning up and sent it crashing into the monster. I didn't want ANYONE to interfere in what I had planned for my father and the Flash. I finished off the sandwich and sat there for a moment. What will I do now? I have nowhere to go, no one to depend on like I did in the future. Should I just get things over with now? "Waitress, I'd like my check now" She strolled over to my table and set the check down in front of me. "Miss, I'd like you to do a favor for me." I felt a small group of clouds on the outskirts of the city and steadily pushed them in my direction, gathering strength and mass along the way. "Once the Flash gets here could you give him a message for me?" BOOOOOOM! A bolt of lightning obliterated a gas tanker near the city limits. "Tell him." BOOOOOOM! Thunder pummeled and killed the almost- conscious monster nearby, scattering the personnel responsible for cleaning it up. The electricity was flowing out my eyes for more of a sinister look, and just to get the point sent home. "That a tempest is here" BOOOOOOM! All the windows in the diner and in the building across the street completely shattered from the five monstrous bolts that hit in front of the diner simultaneously. The waitress was behind the counter, afraid for her life, and rightfully so. Ha ha! I'm a dangerous person after all! There are a couple shards of glass stuck in my face, but I'm feeling too good right now to notice any pain! Wow, maybe this is how Hal Jordan felt when he became Parallax. No. that's a little extreme. Sure, I may be able to do some of the things Hal had evolved into, but I'm not that crazy. All I want to do is kill my. oh, the police are here. Before I use a concentrated blast of wind to shoot me through the air to the top of the bank down the block, I set down the amount I owed for the grilled-cheese sandwich. I saw a blur of red as I lifted off. Must be him.
Just in case he saw me flying through the air, I laid down a five- mile long patch of ice to keep him busy. The Rogues base was in sight, and I touched down lightly, just in case there were any members I didn't know about with increased senses. It was meager, but destitute, just like what I grew up in. In fact this might be the place. I walked along the roof and found a glass-covered opening I could look through. Wow, they were all there. Mr. McCulloch, Uncle Leon, Murmur, that idiot Trickster, Girder, Magenta, and. dad. Plunder must be alive in this time, but I don't see him anywhere. Click. "Dammit" He was right behind me.
Plunder brought me in the base with a gun pointed at the back of my head. He doesn't know I could freeze him in place, but this is just too sweet of an opportunity to pass up. Plunder is leading an unknown trespasser with superior environment-manipulation abilities and untold homicidal aggression towards one of his comrades into the ratty building he would call home 3 years from now. An imaginary smile spread across my face when I noticed dad standing in the corner, looking all ominous with that sparkle stick of his pointed in my direction. Wow, so goes fate after all! "Who's this?" Uncle Leon scowled. Plunder shoved me to the ground at the feet of the Rogues true leader. That's how I always felt him to be, their true leader. Blacksmith always seemed too anxious to do evil, while Uncle Leon was always precise and calculating about it. Ha, too cool. "Found him spying on us on the roof" Murmur ambled towards me with that knife of his, looking a little impatient like he never killed anyone before. Oh boy, the damage I could do here. "Should we let Murmur play with him?" I was slightly worried about what I would allow Murmur to do, so I acted. "Let me kill the Flash for you". A chorus of snickers and giggles spread across the room like I said something funny. "What's so funny?" Uncle Leon picked me up roughly, his ice-cold fingers almost ready to throttle the life out of me. "What could you do that would convince us you're capable of this act?" "I can one-up Hurricane Loser over there" Dad looked smug when he heard those stinging words of mine. Electricity crackled from his wand as he made his way to my spot, standing face to face with me. God would I would to just take him out right now. Create a vacuum to suck all the oxygen from his lungs, dramatically increase the flow of electricity from his wand, or maybe even boil him alive in small pocket of heavy Sahara air. The possibilities are endless, but my energy wasn't up enough to engage in any such father-son scuffles. I traveled too far to get here. I needed rest.
"Turn on your television to CNN" Girder held me as Uncle Leon switched on their TV. "Special bulletin today. In Kentucky there was an unusual amount of thunderstorms in the area that had destroyed a large area of farms and crops, leaving many people homeless, injured, or dead. The strangest report came from the farm of Mr. Bob Carlson who had this to say." "Well, I walked out to my crops to see what sorta damage had been done and found what looked like cop circles. I wasn't sure what they were, though, cause neighbors would get these every so often, and these didn't look like the regular ones" The Rogues were looking upset and visibly bored. "What're we looking for?" Trickster whined. "Keep watching" A helicopter shot came on screen, showing just what these crop circles were. "Ladies and gentleman, we are just as baffled as you are. These are the first circles in history that actually form a word in English." PROOF? is what it said. Uncle Leon turned off the television and they were all silent. "Well, seems we have a meta-human in our midst". "A lot of us are meta-humans, Cold" Trickster said. He smacked him upside the head. "You know what I mean, rookie. So kid, what's your name?" I looked around the room at all these familiar faces, calm and reserved and ready to strike. The last face my eyes fell upon was of my father. "My name is Joshua Jackam"
I arrived at the city limits of Keystone under the cover of fog. I saw that it was raining, so I pushed the clouds aside to let some sun shine through. Don't be fooled by my wicked disposition. I like people to have some manner of pleasantness in their lives. Out of the fog I walked like a mysterious stranger ready to burn the city to the ground. It certainly looked that way to the people in the two cars passing by me. It didn't matter that there were witnesses. All that mattered is that I accomplish what I came here to do.
I was relieved currency was basically the same in this time as I walked into a diner for something to eat. When living with the Rogues one doesn't have that many home-cooked meals, and I was glad to finally sit down and rest after the physical stress of galactic and temporal travel. The waitress looked at me funny. There were radiation burns on my clothes from the cosmic waves that I passed through outside Jupiter. "Sorry. I'm. training to be a firefighter" "Oh, ok. Well, what'll ya have?" I ordered a grilled-cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup, something Iris Allen used to make for me when I was much younger. As I began eating I thought about how cute the waitress was and remembered back to my old girlfriend during my days at the University of Topeka. Her father was a police chief, and I always worried that somehow she'd find out about my lineage and the fact that I'm a meta-human. Her father and I met and he recognized me from the computerized aging in the missing child photos at the station. Putting two and two together he realized who's son I was. I wish my mom had been alive to talk some sense into him. If she were alive I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. So goes fate, I suppose.
I looked out the window and saw in the distance some giant, lumbering beast making his way to this destination. In the sky there was the faintest falling star, so I took that, eased its way into the atmosphere without burning up and sent it crashing into the monster. I didn't want ANYONE to interfere in what I had planned for my father and the Flash. I finished off the sandwich and sat there for a moment. What will I do now? I have nowhere to go, no one to depend on like I did in the future. Should I just get things over with now? "Waitress, I'd like my check now" She strolled over to my table and set the check down in front of me. "Miss, I'd like you to do a favor for me." I felt a small group of clouds on the outskirts of the city and steadily pushed them in my direction, gathering strength and mass along the way. "Once the Flash gets here could you give him a message for me?" BOOOOOOM! A bolt of lightning obliterated a gas tanker near the city limits. "Tell him." BOOOOOOM! Thunder pummeled and killed the almost- conscious monster nearby, scattering the personnel responsible for cleaning it up. The electricity was flowing out my eyes for more of a sinister look, and just to get the point sent home. "That a tempest is here" BOOOOOOM! All the windows in the diner and in the building across the street completely shattered from the five monstrous bolts that hit in front of the diner simultaneously. The waitress was behind the counter, afraid for her life, and rightfully so. Ha ha! I'm a dangerous person after all! There are a couple shards of glass stuck in my face, but I'm feeling too good right now to notice any pain! Wow, maybe this is how Hal Jordan felt when he became Parallax. No. that's a little extreme. Sure, I may be able to do some of the things Hal had evolved into, but I'm not that crazy. All I want to do is kill my. oh, the police are here. Before I use a concentrated blast of wind to shoot me through the air to the top of the bank down the block, I set down the amount I owed for the grilled-cheese sandwich. I saw a blur of red as I lifted off. Must be him.
Just in case he saw me flying through the air, I laid down a five- mile long patch of ice to keep him busy. The Rogues base was in sight, and I touched down lightly, just in case there were any members I didn't know about with increased senses. It was meager, but destitute, just like what I grew up in. In fact this might be the place. I walked along the roof and found a glass-covered opening I could look through. Wow, they were all there. Mr. McCulloch, Uncle Leon, Murmur, that idiot Trickster, Girder, Magenta, and. dad. Plunder must be alive in this time, but I don't see him anywhere. Click. "Dammit" He was right behind me.
Plunder brought me in the base with a gun pointed at the back of my head. He doesn't know I could freeze him in place, but this is just too sweet of an opportunity to pass up. Plunder is leading an unknown trespasser with superior environment-manipulation abilities and untold homicidal aggression towards one of his comrades into the ratty building he would call home 3 years from now. An imaginary smile spread across my face when I noticed dad standing in the corner, looking all ominous with that sparkle stick of his pointed in my direction. Wow, so goes fate after all! "Who's this?" Uncle Leon scowled. Plunder shoved me to the ground at the feet of the Rogues true leader. That's how I always felt him to be, their true leader. Blacksmith always seemed too anxious to do evil, while Uncle Leon was always precise and calculating about it. Ha, too cool. "Found him spying on us on the roof" Murmur ambled towards me with that knife of his, looking a little impatient like he never killed anyone before. Oh boy, the damage I could do here. "Should we let Murmur play with him?" I was slightly worried about what I would allow Murmur to do, so I acted. "Let me kill the Flash for you". A chorus of snickers and giggles spread across the room like I said something funny. "What's so funny?" Uncle Leon picked me up roughly, his ice-cold fingers almost ready to throttle the life out of me. "What could you do that would convince us you're capable of this act?" "I can one-up Hurricane Loser over there" Dad looked smug when he heard those stinging words of mine. Electricity crackled from his wand as he made his way to my spot, standing face to face with me. God would I would to just take him out right now. Create a vacuum to suck all the oxygen from his lungs, dramatically increase the flow of electricity from his wand, or maybe even boil him alive in small pocket of heavy Sahara air. The possibilities are endless, but my energy wasn't up enough to engage in any such father-son scuffles. I traveled too far to get here. I needed rest.
"Turn on your television to CNN" Girder held me as Uncle Leon switched on their TV. "Special bulletin today. In Kentucky there was an unusual amount of thunderstorms in the area that had destroyed a large area of farms and crops, leaving many people homeless, injured, or dead. The strangest report came from the farm of Mr. Bob Carlson who had this to say." "Well, I walked out to my crops to see what sorta damage had been done and found what looked like cop circles. I wasn't sure what they were, though, cause neighbors would get these every so often, and these didn't look like the regular ones" The Rogues were looking upset and visibly bored. "What're we looking for?" Trickster whined. "Keep watching" A helicopter shot came on screen, showing just what these crop circles were. "Ladies and gentleman, we are just as baffled as you are. These are the first circles in history that actually form a word in English." PROOF? is what it said. Uncle Leon turned off the television and they were all silent. "Well, seems we have a meta-human in our midst". "A lot of us are meta-humans, Cold" Trickster said. He smacked him upside the head. "You know what I mean, rookie. So kid, what's your name?" I looked around the room at all these familiar faces, calm and reserved and ready to strike. The last face my eyes fell upon was of my father. "My name is Joshua Jackam"