Yes, I'm back! Just a couple days before Christmas, which I thought was appropriate, considering that this is a Christmas story. And yes, a certain Amazonian makes her debut in this one-she's mostly based off her DCEU counterpart. If anyone's noticed some of Ezra Miller's Flash in this Barry, that's no coincidence.
Thanks to LuciferRedeemed for the reviews; if you make an account, I can respond to you in person. As it is, Barry's relationship with the Doctor is not exactly definable-the Doctor is kind of his big brother, and kind of a father figure. If you really want to put them in a box (ha), the Doctor is more like a cool uncle, especially since Barry now has the memories of growing up with Henry. The ramifications of this will be explored. Anyway...
"Clark, hang these up for me, will you?"
"Sure!"
The young man, known to his family as Kal-El, sprang into the air and hung a bouquet of holly from the lintel, using the palm of his hand to hammer in a nail before dropping to the ground.
"Thanks," Sarah Jane smiled. "Did your aunt Diana say when she's coming?"
He cocked his head. "I think just a minute, actually."
Sure enough, a tall woman alighted on the drive moments later, skillfully avoiding the rose bushes as she dropped lightly to the ground and adjusted her jumper. She raised her hand to knock, but never had a chance. The door swung open, and a red-and-blue blur hit her almost before she could raise her arms.
"Hey, auntie Diana!"
She chuckled and wrapped her arms around the young man. "Hello, Clark."
"Hello Diana," Sarah Jane said from over his shoulder.
"How do you do, Sarah Jane," the other woman smiled. "You look well."
"Thanks."
Pleasantries exchanged, the two women made to move into the house, but Diana and Clark whipped their heads around, and a moment
later, Sarah Jane, too, looked up to see the TARDIS whirling through the air, wheezing and groaning.
"Oh my goodness!" Sarah Jane breathed, as the ship made a few more revolutions, nearly missed the roof, and slammed to a halt a few feet
in front of them, throwing up sparks. Moments later, the door popped open and an unfamiliar, spiky-haired man popped out.
"Sarah Jane! Perfect! And whoah, Wonder Woman! And…you. Short person. You look familiar."
"Clark," he introduced himself awkwardly.
"Hiya Clark. Sounds familiar. Hello, everyone! Listen, something….something important. Really important. What was it? Oh yeah. Merry
Christmas."
His eyes rolled up in his head, and Clark caught him before he could hit the ground. He looked up as Barry appeared in the TARDIS doorway,
his face grim.
-
Barry Allen was not having the best day, and even by his standards, it had been a weird one. Since waking up that morning in a fourteenth-century Japanese inn, he and his friends-one of whom a 51st-century suspiciously American-sounding Time Agent turned con artist, the other a 900-year-old Time Lord from another planet woven throughout Earth's history and mythology—had gotten embroiled in a civil war and barely escaped, before being kidnapped from the TARDIS and placed on a deadly game show. Upon losing said show, he was teleported again into a Dalek spaceship, before the Doctor and Jack had rescued him and sent him home against his will.
With Kara's encouragement, he'd…done something…and sent the Daleks away. Piloting the TARDIS away from the station, where Jack had left without so much as a goodbye, the Doctor had revealed that he was dying, but saved himself by exploding in a burst of golden light that turned him into a different body. The Doctor had then crash-landed them in Sarah Jane's rose garden, before staggering outside and fainting.
"Okay," he announced as he hoisted the Doctor's limp form over his shoulders. "This day officially cannot get any weirder."
In retrospect, he really should've known better than to give the universe a straight line like that.
Fifteen minutes later, the Doctor was settled in the spare bedroom, and Barry had been introduced to the actual, real-life Wonder Woman, who'd been invited around for Christmas by Sarah Jane. Upon meeting her, Barry had shaken her hand in a manly fashion and definitely not squeed. At all. Okay, maybe a little…
"So, how long is he gonna be out for?" Barry asked, gripping a steaming cup of tea.
"No idea," Sarah Jane shook her head. "I've only seen this happen once."
"Don't worry," Diana told him in her gentle French accent. "From what I know of the Doctor, he'll always be there in the nick of time, and not a moment before or later."
"So how do you know these guys?" Barry asked, and Diana smiled.
"Sarah Jane tracked me down in the late '90s," she explained. "Asked me to help mentor Clark and Kara in using their abilities."
"Cool!" Barry nodded. "So, uh, maybe you could help me, too? Because apparently I have superpowers now."
"What?"
"Yeah, I, uh, kinda got access to this weird semi-mystical energy source dimension thingy," Barry shrugged, holding up a vibrating hand.
Everyone stared.
"Right," Sarah Jane nodded. "Why don't you come upstairs, in that case?"
Barry sniggered to see that the Xylok supercomputer was draped with tinsel, and that someone had placed a Santa hat atop him.
"Hello, everyone. Good morning, Mr. Allen."
"Hey," the young man waved.
"Barry here claims that he's suddenly got super-speed. Mr. Smith, could you scan him, please?"
"Of course. Hold still, please, Barry."
"Sure."
He watched as a green cone of light moved up and down his body, tingling slightly. A wire frame model of his body appeared on the screen, and after a couple of seconds, the Xylok computer announced, "It seems that Mr. Allen is correct. I detect an enhanced physiology and accelerated metabolism. His DNA has been altered, and there are traces of dark matter and other kinds of energy in his system."
"Well then," Diana said, raising her eyebrows. "I think the next thing to do is to test your powers."
Barry, Clark, and Diana knelt in a line at the end of the street, while Sarah Jane watched with a smile from her driveway and K9 waited beside her. Barry shifted uncomfortably inside the red suit Clark had grabbed from his super-awesome secret fortress in the Arctic, and fiddled with the speedometer attached to the side.
"Ready…" Diana called. Barry dug his knuckles into the ground.
"Set…"
Orange lightning flickered across his eyes.
"Go!"
All three lunged. For Barry, time seemed to slow as the world around him vanished into a blur. Lightning crackled throughout his veins, the wind rushed through his hair, and with every step, he went faster and faster. Trees, houses, and street signs flashed past, and he could feel the ground beneath his feet, pushing him up, pushing him forward. He went a mile around the house in seconds, On his right, Diana, hair streaming out behind her, nodded and smiled. Between them, Clark shot Barry a competitive grin. He gritted his teeth and pushed himself faster, but Clark smirked and raced just a bit ahead.
His mom trapped in a whirling globe of crimson and yellow lightning, screaming, crying, his dad shouting, the lightning crackling…
The next thing he knew, he was skidding, then tumbling head over heels. All told, it had been about five seconds in linear time.
The other three gathered around him.
"Are you all right, Barry?" Clark asked.
"Yeah. Yeah, fine." He staggered to his feet. "I just…yeah."
"What's wrong?" Diana asked gently.
"I remembered," he muttered, wiping his forehead. "My mom…"
"Kara told me," Clark said gently. "She was killed by a man with yellow lightning, right?"
"A speedster," Diana told them as she helped Barry to his feet. "It's what you are now, Barry. Another one killed your mother."
"Yeah," Barry frowned as he thought back. "I don't…it's blurry. But there was a guy. Thawne…"
"You okay?"
"I will be, yeah. Thanks."
Barely had they returned home when there was a knock on the door.
"I'll get it!" Clark called, hurrying over. On the other side were several carolers dressed in Santa robes, with instruments, red hooded robes…and metallic Santa masks? One lowered his trumpet like a weapon, pointing it at Clark.
"Watch out!" Diana ordered, springing forward. Clark reduced the trumpet to scrap with a swing of his fist, then lunged, ripping away the mask, to reveal an equally metallic head.
"It's a robot!" Barry gasped.
"You learn something new every day," Clark noted, raising his eyebrows.
"Wait until you see a whole village full of alien robot imposters," Sarah Jane commented wryly. The teenage Kryptonian, moving as if he'd practiced this a hundred times, swiftly disposed of the other robots, so quickly that there was an almost continuous rattle of mechanical parts falling to the ground.
"That! Was! Awesome!" Barry enthused.
"The question is, why were they here at all?" Diana asked Mr. Smith, holding up a head with wires trailing out.
"These Roboforms are often employed throughout this galaxy as scavengers and mercenaries," the supercomputer answered. "Between the
Speed Force energy Barry gives off and the regeneration energy from the Doctor, it would be an all-you-can-eat buffet for many species."
"How many?"
"Roughly 3,427, give or take."
"Well, good luck trying to figure out who hired them that way," Clark muttered, crossing his arms.
"We'll just have to keep on guard," Sarah Jane announced. "Mr. Smith, keep up the surveillance. Eyes and ears wide open."
"I have no sensory organs, as you know perfectly well," the Xylok chided. "But I shall maintain constant vigilance."
"Just like Moody!" Barry smiled.
"Keep 'em peeled," Clark nodded gravely, and they exchanged a fist bump. The two women exchanged despairing eye rolls.
"You're pretty super, man," Barry told his friend.
"Yeah, not too bad yourself."
"Come on," Sarah Jane ordered. "You can help me get supper ready. That turkey isn't going to cook itself. And no, you may not use your heat vision."
"Heat vision?"
"Oh, be quiet."
"Scientists in charge of Britain's mission to Mars have re-established contact with the Guinevere One space probe," the newscaster announced as the family sat around the living room television. It was midnight, but between Barry having woken up less than ten subjective hours ago ("wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey," Clark had called it, then smirked as if he knew an inside joke), and Clark himself being a university student with the quirky sleep schedule to match, no one was feeling particularly tired.
"They're expecting the first transmission from the planet's surface in the next few minutes."
"Let's hope this goes better than that Mars mission back in the '70s," Clark noted. "Or was it the '80s?"
Sarah Jane smiled to herself, but didn't answer. As they watched, an image swam into view. Instead of rocks and dust, they saw alien faces appear on the screen. One growled something unintelligible.
"Right," Sarah Jane announced after a quick consultation with Mr. Smith. "Apparently, they're a race called the Sycorax. Scavengers, plunderers. They might well be responsible for the Roboforms."
"So what's our next move?" Barry asked.
"You two, bed."
"What?"
"But, mum…"
"Don't use that tone of voice with me, young man," Sarah Jane ordered. "Diana and I will monitor the situation. There's nothing anyone can do until morning anyway. Barry, I've made up the guest bedroom for you."
"Fine," Barry grumbled. "Thanks."
"No problem. Get some sleep."
Several hours of troubled sleep later, Barry rolled out of bed and wandered downstairs in search of coffee. Clark, who had an epic case of bedhead, looked up from his cereal and waved.
"Morning," he mumbled. Barry concealed a snigger, thinking of the other Kryptonian his age—though Kara had been born twelve years earlier, she'd arrived on Earth about twelve Earth years later, so it more or less evened out. Kara, too, tended to get pretty bad bedhead first thing in the morning. Though, in her case, it was just pretty adorable. He smiled to himself, thinking of the mornings they'd awoken in each other's arms. Waking up to her smile never got old.
"Good morning," Sarah Jane smiled. "Sleep okay?"
"I guess, yeah, thanks. What's the deal with those Sycorax dudes?"
"According to Mr. Smith, the ship is on its way here," Diana reported.
"Sarah Jane," the supercomputer called, as if on cue. "I'm receiving reports of people all over the world heading for any sort of high-rise building."
Although Sarah Jane was the only one without super speed, she was only the second to launch herself from the table and run upstairs. They watched as he played reports from all over the world of people climbing up to rooftops and standing on the edges.
"There is an energy discharge around all of them," Mr. Smith noted. "Some sort of psychokinetic control matrix."
"Is there any sort of connection between these people?" Diana asked.
"How many people did it affect?" Barry wanted to know.
"It seems to have affected roughly one-third of the world's population," the Xylok told them. "They are all family groups. Parents and children, siblings, but not spouses."
"Huh," Barry muttered, running his hands through his hair. "Any other connections?"
"None that are immediately apparent," the computer said. "But I will keep searching."
"Something that relates to families…" Barry muttered.
"Oh my goodness," Sarah Jane breathed.
"What? What is it?"
"Mr. Smith, check their medical records," she ordered. "I think it might be the blood type."
"That would make sense," Barry frowned, running his hands through his hair. "But how…"
"The Guinevere One space probe had a blood sample on board," she explained. "I think the Sycorax must be using it somehow."
"You were correct, Sarah Jane," Mr. Smith noted. "The records for the affected people show that they all have A-positive blood."
"And now one-third of the world is being held hostage," Diana noted.
"So what do we do?" Clark asked. "Can we block or stop the signal in some way?"
"Not without actually getting on board the spacecraft," Mr. Smith answered.
"All right then," Sarah Jane announced. "That's what we'll do. Do they have a teleport we can use?"
"Indeed."
"All right," Sarah Jane said. "Let's get the Doctor into the TARDIS, then we'll go onboard."
"Suit up!" Clark announced, and grinned.
A few minutes later, with the Doctor resting safely in the TARDIS infirmary, they assembled for battle. Barry wore his borrowed Kryptonian suit, rolling his shoulders. Clark, wearing his own blue suit, cracked his knuckles and looked at the upgrade Mr. Smith had just done to his phone. Diana loosened her sword in its scabbard. Sarah Jane had tied back her hair.
"Four to beam up!" Barry announced cheerfully.
"Hacking their teleport," Mr. Smith said. "Sending you now. Good luck!"
There was a bright light, a sensation of movement, disincorporation…and then the light faded, and he was someplace else. They had arrived in an arena, similar to ones he'd seen in pictures of ancient Rome, but inside what looked like a cave. Serried ranks of crimson-robed aliens looked down on them.
"I thought we'd be in a spaceship," Diana frowned.
"It is," Sarah Jane responded quietly. "The whole ship's made of stone."
"Heads up," Clark nodded to one alien, striding towards them. It growled something unintelligible. He looked at his phone, where Mr. Smith had put a kind of translation software for the Sycorax language.
"He wants to know if we represent the leaders of this planet."
"We represent the children of Earth," Diana said, stepping forward. "We wish to find a peaceful solution."
The leader growled something else, and she glanced at Clark's phone for a translation.
"No, we do not surrender," she said. Barry frowned, thinking back to his first adventure with the Doctor.
"We seek audience with the Sycorax under peaceful contract according to Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation!" he called.
"The what?" Sarah Jane whispered.
"Shadow Proclamation, it's like an interstellar law force. My aunt Alura worked with them," Clark whispered.
"Right, I knew that," Barry whispered back. The Sycorax, however, didn't seem particularly impressed. Clark kept up a whispered translation as he growled and snapped.
"We are the Sycorax, we stride the darkness. Next to us you are but a wailing child," the alien boasted. "If your planet cannot offer a champion, then your world will be gutted and your people enslaved."
"Very well," Diana said, stepping forward. The artificial light gleamed on her armor. "If you wish a champion, I volunteer."
The chamber erupted in screams and bellows.
"Then, for the sake of the planet, I challenge you to single combat. If I win, you will release all of those people and leave this world, never to return."
The leader growled something that seemed to be an affirmative.
Wonder Woman unlimbered her sword and held it up in salute, then swung it down into a ready position. The Sycorax did the same. The two young men and Sarah Jane moved out of the way.
"For the planet."
The alien growled something that presumably meant, "For the planet."
They closed.
The Sycorax leader was strong. He was fast. He was, as far as Barry's admittedly untrained eye could tell, pretty skilled. But Wonder Woman was stronger. She was faster. And she was far more experienced. Their blades clashed, danced, and clashed again, and though the Sycorax leader was taller, she pushed him back, deflecting or dodging his blows instead of blocking them outright, then finally slipping aside from a vertical strike and slicing his hand off. She rested her blade at his throat, and he growled something.
"I will not kill you," Diana said. "Leave this planet, and never return."
There was a long moment, then he solemnly bowed his head. After a moment, she stepped back and scabbarded her sword, turning back to the others.
"Wow!" Barry exclaimed.
"Well done," Sarah Jane smiled.
Clark just fist-bumped her, then his eyes widened. "Look out!"
The Sycorax leader had picked up his sword and was charging, blade upraised. Diana tilted her head slightly. Then, in one movement, she spun around in a circle. Barry blinked, and watched the headless corpse tumble to the ground as she carefully wiped off her sword and returned it to her scabbard once more.
"I gave you a chance," she said quietly. "You didn't take it."
The four of them shimmered back into existence in Sarah Jane's attic.
"Phew," Barry sighed.
"The ship is leaving Earth's atmosphere, and all of the victims are awake," Mr. Smith reported. "Well done."
"Diana did all the work," Clark waved a hand.
"As usual," she said with a small smile.
"Hey, that's not fair," he protested as they filed downstairs. "What about that thing with the Crimson Chapter?"
"The what?" Barry asked.
"Well, it was a couple years back…"
"So how's Kara?" Barry asked as they sat around the supper table that evening.
"Great, yeah. Misses you," Clark told him. "She's with the Danvers and...uh, your dad."
"Oh, right," Barry reflected. "It's weird...I have two sets of memories. I remember, I grew up with the Wests, with my dad in jail...but now that didn't happen."
"I have a professor at St. Luke's who would say "wibbly wobbly timey wimey," Clark smiled.
"Yeah, you mentioned. What's his name?"
"Who."
"Your professor!"
"Oh, him."
Sarah Jane smiled to herself as she reached over and topped up Barry's glass. "Drink up."
"Thanks," he smiled.
"Any turkey left?" someone asked, and Barry looked up to see the new Doctor leaning in the doorway, dressed in a new brown suit and long coat of the same color.
"Hello Doctor," Sarah Jane said, rising.
"Hello Sarah," he smiled.
"You've really done it again."
He shrugged. "Well, you know. Life's all about change and renewal."
"Very true," Diana nodded, shaking his hand. "Diana Prince."
"I'm the Doctor. Nice to meet you, Diana. You okay there, Barry?"
"Yeah. Fine," he smiled, just a bit too brightly.
"I still am the Doctor," he promised, looking his friend in the eye. "We still have so much to see. All those planets, and creatures and
horizons. I haven't seem them yet! Not with these eyes. And it is going to be…fantastic."
They smiled at each other, there at the kitchen table, the speedster and the Time Lord. "You're not rid of me yet, Barry Allen."
"Well then, Doctor," Barry said. "I think there's only one thing for us to do."
"What's that?"
"Let's have dinner."
And a very happy holiday season to all of you at home! So, yes, the Doctor is now back on his feet, the Sycorax are defeated, and Barry now has a super-suit made from Kryptonian fabric. To clarify: Diana is not actually Clark and Kara's aunt, obviously, it's a term of affection.
Also, Harriet Jones is still Prime Minister during and following the events of this story (having gotten the top job after Downing Street went boom and an emergency election was called), but because our proto-Justice League took care of the Sycorax so quickly, she never had a chance to get Torchwood to blow them up. That being said, a certain Mr. Saxon is waiting in the wings...
A brief in-between adventure will be up next, then Tooth and Claw (even with Barry's powers, New Earth would be pretty much the same, although please feel fee to enjoy the mental image of Cassandra running into walls at super speed), and this story will begin taking off in quite different directions from canon. See you soon!
