Infinity Crisis Aftermath: The Brave and the Bold
Disclaimer: All characters belong to their owners. This is purely for fun.
Author's Note: Yup, another Infinity Crisis plot bunny I had to get out of my head. Also, this has spoilers for Infinity Crisis: The Inhumans. So, please keep that in mind.
Tana Moon was an ordinary talk show host. Until the Infinity Crisis. When the Kree attacked the Big Pineapple, she was given a powerful ring from another dimension. The ring allowed her to use her will to create solid light constructs. Now, she defends Honolulu as the Fearless Green Lantern!
My name is Ozel Ozlazur. I was born on Attilan, an advanced city populated by beings known as the Inhumans. When I came of age, I underwent Terrigenesis, the Mists revealing my genetic blessing for speed. Now, I help protect my adopted home of Honolulu as redemption for my past. I am the Fastest Woman Alive. I am...the Fabulous Flash!
Honolulu, Hawaii. Earth-199999
"GARGH!" A Vietnamese-American woman who seemed to be made of golden-colored sand yelled as she was blasted by a beam of emerald-colored energy. "I'm gonna suffocate you and make your bones into a sculpture!"
A Native Hawaiian woman flew down towards her. She was dressed in a slick green-and-black uniform with white gloves and green boots. The uniform had a chest emblem of a green ring with two green parallel lines on top and bottom of it in a white circle. Her body was coated in green energy.
Green Lantern. Real Name: Tana Moon. Birthplace: Honolulu, HI. Physiology: Baseline Human. Affiliations: None. Powers and abilities: No innate superpowers. Green Lantern Power Ring allows creation of constructs of solid light fueled by willpower and imagination, forcefield generation, hyperspace travel, and universal translator.
"Hi there, Quicksand." Tana smirked. "How you doing?"
"You aren't the Flash." Quicksand snarled. "And you certainly aren't that bitch Fisher!"
"Nope, but I know them." Tana nodded. Well, I certainly know Fisher. I don't know the Flash too well... "How did you get out of your little prison, anyway?"
"Your mother, that's who!" Quicksand snapped. "Now get the hell out of my way! I want Louise Fisher's head on a pike, and I want to make that speedy skank's skin into a rug!"
"Oh yeah, I was told about you." Tana smirked. "Diana Duong, right? You screwed up an experiment and got turned into Sandgirl."
"It's QUICKSAND!" Quicksand roared, blasting at Tana with streams of sand from her hands. "And it was FISHER'S fault! She sabotaged it because she was jealous of me! Jealous of me and my brilliance!"
Tana deftly juked and dodged the sand blasts. "Sure, Jan."
"QUICKSAND! GODDAMN QUICKSAND!"
A bank in Honolulu
"Alright, folks!" A man announced, pointing a gun at a teller. He looked rather unusual, as he seemed to be a faceless solid grayish-white figure. "It doesn't have to be messy, it can be nice and neat. All you gotta do is put the money in the bag, and I'm gone!" He heard a zipping noise, and saw the teller smirk. "You have got to be kidding me..." Clyde Gray, aka The Blank groaned as he turned around.
He saw a young woman smiling at him. She was blonde, wearing a purple costume with yellow gloves and boots with small wings at the heels. Around the waist was a yellow belt in the shape of a lightning bolt. The cowl let her golden hair go free, and the mouth was shown. The eyes had mirrored lenses. The costume was completed by a chest emblem of a golden lightning bolt slashing across a white circle.
Flash. Real Name: Ozel Ozlazur. Birthplace: Attilan. Physiology: Inhuman. Affiliation: None. Powers and Abilities: Superhuman speed. Inhuman physiology makes her slightly stronger and gives her greater endurance and reflexes/reaction time than the best human athletes.
"The Flash." Blank muttered.
"Hi ya, Blanky." Ozel teased, giving him a wave.
"You know you can't touch me, right?" Blank mocked.
"I know. I've faced you before." Flash nodded. She then smirked. "If you remember that I can't touch you, then you remember how I caught you last time?"
"...you don't have it."
"Yes, I do." Flash nodded. She pulled out a small device from her belt. It looked like a silver futuristic handgun with a satellite dish at the end of it. "This little disruptor will short out the belt that lets you do the things you do." The front of the bank smashed open as Quicksand was sent flying in.
"Oh. Hi, Diana." Flash waved as Quicksand slammed into Blank, and the two hit the wall.
"My ribs..." Blank groaned. Quicksand groaned and then glared at Blank.
"Did you touch my butt?!" She growled at him. Blank looked around at the pile of sand that composed Quicksand's body.
"Where would it even be?!" He groaned. Tana flew in.
"Sorry, wild burst there." The talk show host apologized.
"Aloha, Green Lantern!" Flash grinned.
"Aloha, Flash." Tana said with a wave. "Looks like we got a team-up."
"Oh, boy!" Ozel grinned, clapping her hands. "I wanted us to team up for some time nowGWAH!" A blast of sand sent the two heroes flying outside the bank.
Across the street from the bank, a figure watched this fight from a building through a pair of binoculars. The man was wearing a black costume with black boots and yellow gloves. The costume had a yellow utility belt and a red cape. The costume bore a chest emblem of a large yellow stylized bird with outstretched wings that went over the shoulders. The cowl fully covered the figure's face, with mirrored lenses over the eyes. The eyes were surrounded by yellow wings that crested past his head, making it look like two points at the side of his head.
Hmmm... The figure thought. I'll keep an eye on these two... He glanced at Green Lantern and Flash. They remind me of Spectrum and Blur. I wouldn't be surprised if these two are best friends like Jose and Stan are. I'll step in if it's needed, but for now, I'll just watch.
The two supervillains marched out of the bank.
"I know you're a friend of Fisher's, you speedy skank." Quicksand growled. She glared at Green Lantern. "And I know she sent you because that bitch is too much of a coward to face me!"
"Louise is working on a cure for you!" Ozel yelled.
"LIAR!" Quicksand snapped. "She turned me into this!"
"You didn't listen to her!" Ozel countered.. "She warned you those calculations were off!"
"She sabotaged my experiment!" Quicksand yelled. "She couldn't stand that I was smarter than her! So she made it so I got turned into a freak!"
"I take it that's not what happened." Tana whispered.
"Nope." Ozel shook her head.
"How'd you catch this chick last time?" The talk show host asked.
"Well, I-GWAH!" Both heroines got blasted with sand. Meanwhile, the Blank had recognized an opportunity when he saw one. The slippery thief fled with some of his ill-gotten gains. The man had ducked into alley and put down some of the money he had managed to take.
"Ho, man.." He groaned and took off his mask. The thief panted, tapping his chest like the action would calm him down." Who would have thought money could be so heavy?" He peeked out at the fight between Flash, Green Lantern, and Quicksand. He shut off his belt. "Yeah, I'll let the ladies sort themselves out. I'm outta here." He turned around and saw the mysterious new hero glaring at him. "The hell? Who're you?!"
WHAM!
"Ugh..." The Blank groaned as he fell unconscious.
"Nighthawk." The hero said. He then observed the battle.
"HRRRAAAAAAA!" Quicksand roared as she turned her fists into mallets and brought them down on Ozel...only for her to zip out of the way and cause the sandy ex-scientist to hit concrete. Tana created a construct of a futuristic vacuum cleaner, with four metal improvised tanks attached to it.
"Oopsie." Tana mimed accidentally pushing a lever on the construct. The machine whirred to life. The vacuum started sucking Quicksand into it.
"No! NO! NO! NO!" Quicksand screamed as the construct sucked her into it and filled up the four tanks.
"Keep those tanks separated!" Ozel yelled. "If she's all separated, she can't hurt anyone!"
"No problem!" Tana morphed the construct into four energy bubbles, each containing a tank. The Blank's unconscious body ended up in front of them. Nighthawk walked up to them.
"I take it this is one of yours?" He asked.
Flash raised her hand. "Technically, he's one of mine." She smiled. "Nice to meet you! I like your costume!"
"Uh...thanks."
"Who are you?" Green Lantern asked.
"Scans indicate his body's vibrational frequency does not match this universe." Her ring commented.
"So, you're from another universe, huh?" Tana smirked. The hero cocked his head in confusion.
"This...is not that odd to you?"
"Buddy, my ring comes from another universe." Tana responded, showing her power ring.
"Ah, I see. The name is Nighthawk."
"Nighthawk?" Ozel blinked. "That's a cool name."
"Sounds like something from the 1960s." Tana snorted.
"I would like to speak to you about something. Is there somewhere we can talk?"
Callista Aerospace, some time later
Nighthawk sipped his coffee. His cowl was pulled back, revealing that he was a bald Black man. Both Tana and Ozel had their masks off as well, as the woman who had this lab knew their secret identities. He looked around at the lab...and it's messiness. He examined a model of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module.
Huh, so the Moon Landing happened on the same day and time on this Earth. The extradimensional superhero mentally noted. He then realized that a lot of the items around the lab were themed around the Moon Landing and space travel in general.
"Doc Fisher is a nut for space travel." Tana explained. "She dreams of walking on the Moon one day."
Ozel nodded. "She's loved space her whole life." Nighthawk nodded in understanding.
A noble goal. I hope she achieves it. No woman has walked on the Moon in my universe yet, and it seems to be the same here. He then glanced at Ozel's forest green hair.
"Is that...natural, if I may ask?" The Avian Avenger asked the Inhuman.
"Yup!" Ozel nodded with a smile. "I was originally blonde like Louise. But when the Terrigen Mists revealed my genetic blessings, it was turned green."
"Ah." Nighthawk nodded. "Terrigen Mists, huh?"
"Yep!" Ozel nodded. "I was born in Attilan. When I came of age, I underwent the Terrigenesis Ceremony, where the Mists revealed my genetic blessing of speed."
"Attilan?"
"Uh-huh." Ozel nodded. "Home of my people, the Inhumans. It's floating on the ocean near Honolulu." Ozel jerked her thumb. "The Inhumans are descendants of early man that were experimented on by an alien race called the Kree."
"Really?" Nighthawk blinked. Ozel nodded.
"Do the Kree exist in your dimension?"
"...yes, actually." Nighthawk nodded. "In fact, that sounds like the origins of a group of people on my Earth called Utopians. They live on an island as well: Utopia Isle. One of my teammates in a super-team I'm a member of in my world is from there. She's called Power Princess."
"Princess of Power was taken?" Tana snickered.
Nighthawk shrugged. "She likes to claim the show was inspired by her."
"I've been allowed to attended Ozel's younger sister Arzel's Terrigenesis Ceremony." Louise said as she walked in. "It's normally attended by family, but I was allowed in her case because Ozel and her parents consider me part of her familial unit. Do you like the coffee, mister..."
"...Richmond. Kyle Richmond." Nighthawk said. "And the coffee is just fine, thank you."
"I take it you didn't come here to help fight crime in our dimension." Tana noted.
"You deduce correctly, Green Lantern." Nighthawk nodded. "I have come to warn you all. There is a great potential threat to your world."
"Great." Tana sighed. "First that Thanos clown, then the Kree decided to come raise Hell in Honolulu, and now this."
"What kind of threat?" Louise asked.
"First, let me tell you all a little story. On my Earth, there is a team of heroes called the Squadron Supreme. I'm a member of the group. One of the members is a man called Hyperion. He's arguably one of the most powerful members of the Squadron. Super strength, flight, invulnerability, atomic vision."
"Sounds like that guy I met in Houston." Tana remembered. "What did he call himself? Solman?"
"Starman." Her ring reminded.
"Thank you, ring."
"Well, sometime ago, my world encountered an evil version of him." Nighthawk sighed. "You see, my world's Hyperion, despite his godlike power, is one of the most noble, kindest men on my world. This version...lacked that nobility and empathy. He caused wanton destruction. A lot of it before my group was able to stop him."
"How were you able to do that?" Louise asked.
"Well, magic helped. Thankfully, Hyperion's no less vulnerable to that than anyone else. Your world has sorcerers, so that helps." Nighthawk answered. "But I would also like to give you something that can also help." He pulled a small lead box out of his utility belt and handed it to Louise. She opened the box and saw a red crystal.
"It's a crystal." The bespectacled blonde noted the glowing red crystal.
"It's Argonite." Nighthawk said. "The radiation from that crystal is poisonous to him. A little additional weapon if you will."
"I detect an additional lead box on your person." The ring announced.
"It's a shard of Argonite of my own." Nighthawk explained. "It was given to me by my world's Hyperion as a safety measure in case he ever fell under some sort of mind control or, God forbid, lose his way. And this is what my friend's insane counterpart looks like." Nighthawk showed a small device that projected an image of the insane Hyperion. The three women glanced at the insane man. The fiery red hair, gray-and-yellow costume, but most notably, his mad grin. It seemed abnormally large.
"Well, that's the grin of a man who seem like a sane, reasonable guy." Tana joked. Ozel giggled.
"Trust me, that grin has brought nothing but malice." Nighthawk said.
"We appreciate the warning, Mr. Richmond." Louise smiled. "I have a lab in Attilan as well. With more advanced equipment. I can analyze this crystal and try and find a way to duplicate it."
"I can have my ring take a look at it, too." Tana nodded. "Maybe it can figure out how to duplicate it."
"Excellent suggestion, Lantern 2814." The ring agreed.
"I do wonder one thing, though." Tana glanced at Nighthawk. "Why us? We're Hawaii-based. You'd think you'd give this Argonite thing to the Avengers."
"Indeed." Louise agreed. "This Squadron Supreme are essentially the Avengers of your world, I assume."
"Hyperion will be expecting the Avengers to have it." Nighthawk explained. "He won't expect a couple of local-level superheroes to have it."
"I'm still confused about one thing." Ozel added. "...who let Quicksand out? She was supposed to be locked up in her tanks."
"I called the police for answers." Louise said. "They said her tanks simply vanished. And then she appeared at the park."
"Who could pull that off?" Tana blinked.
"That's quite a mystery..." Nighthawk agreed, rubbing his chin in thought.
Location Unknown
"Huh." Lyla Michaels noted as she and the Monitor observed them. "That's...unusual."
"Indeed." The Monitor agreed. "Most worlds like that do not have Green Lanterns or Flashes." He smiled in bemusement. "And it seems they have become allies and friends already."
"Nice to see that tradition is still going on." Lyla agreed. "So, they passed the test?"
"Nighthawk-712 was a surprise addition to the equation, but ultimately..." The Monitor nodded. "They showed their strength. We will have to find a way to get them close to their Earth's premier team of champions: The Avengers. The group would greatly benefit from their membership..."
I used the title The Brave and the Bold for this one-shot as a reference to the 1999-2000 miniseries that focused on the Barry Allen Flash and Hal Jordan Green Lantern. I thought it would be appropriate this features a team-up between the Flash and Green Lantern of Earth-199999.
Quicksand first appeared in Thor #392 (June 1988). Her human name was never revealed in the comics, so I gave her the name Diana Duong.
The Blank first appeared in West Coast Avengers #2 (October 1984). I gave him the surname "Gray" as a bit of a pun, as his Blank form is grayish-white in color.
Tana's little joke is a reference to the original Nighthawk (Kyle Richmond) first appearing in Avengers #69 (October 1969).
This version of Nighthawk is African-American as a nod to the Supreme Power incarnation of Nighthawk.