Flash Duel

by Mega Ghost

When the particle accelerator exploded, lonely Yu-Gi-Oh player Jack Harper is suddenly in possession of a real Millennium Item. But when he discovers he has the power to summon flesh and blood duel monsters with their own minds and personalities, he decides he's in for more fun than he's ever had in his life. That is, until Yami Bakura appears, as real and alive as anyone else.

11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The Rescue of Jessie Quick – Part 3

In the control room of Earth-2's S.T.A.R Labs, Barry, Caitlin, Harry, and Cisco all stared at the man they knew as Jay Garrick in stupefied horror. The voice which had come from the mouth of the man they had believed to be their friend and ally, was unmistakably the voice of their enemy.

"Jay... is Zoom? I don't believe this. It can't be true!" Barry thought to himself.

Looking about at his friends and fellow Team Flash members, Barry could discern the same disbelief in their eyes as well.

"Now do you guys see?!" Joey asked imperiously.

"If that doesn't prove it, I don't know what will." Tristan added.

"Ngh!" Jack suddenly grunted.

"Jack, are you okay?" Mana asked, moving close to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Gar- Zoom's hard to hold."

Recovering from the shock of the revelation, Harry rushed from where he had been standing, his face a mask of fury.

"You son of a bitch!" He yelled.

Harry raised his right hand, balled in a fist. Before he could connect with his target, Barry super-sped in front, blocking him.

"Harry, stop! There has to be some kind of explanation for this, okay? This is Jay! He's been helping us from the beginning. He cannot be Zoom." Barry stated emphatically.

"Oh, please, Allan, open your eyes!" Kaiba declared angrily. "Look at the facts. If this guy has been helping you from the very beginning, then he was in the perfect position to mislead you, feed you false information, and know everything you learned about him. Not only that, but I've gone over all of Wells' and Cisco's data. Only someone with super-speed like yours can modulate their voice like that, and according to all records, that man is supposed to have lost his."

"Guys, maybe instead of arguing, we should get him somewhere he can't break out. Just to be safe." Téa suggested as she moved closer to Jack and her friends.

"I'm with Téa on this one. This guy's really fighting to try to free himself." Jack said.

Without prompting, Mana summoned her magic staff to have at the ready.

"I've got some meta-cuffs I brought with us. Just hold him for another minute." Cisco said, and ran out of the room.

"Hey, Yugi, your deck. One to keep him in place." Jack said to him.

"Spellbinding Circle?"

"You got it, pal."

Yugi removed his deck from his duel-disk and began to leaf through it. Just as Yugi found the desired card in question, Jack felt Garrick's mind lash out harder, and gain a foothold of control back. With a modicum of freedom restored, Garrick reached out to grab at Yugi. He did it with a fast flurry, but while it was still within the realm of normal human speed, the threatening intent in the move could not be ignored. Before Garrick could take hold of Yugi, Téa used her dancer's agility to send a spinning, roundhouse kick into the side of Garrick's face, putting him on the floor.

"Don't you dare touch, Yugi!" Téa shouted with menacing force.

Staring down at the prone figure on the floor, Barry's mind was working at the super-speed of his body to try to coalesce the apparent evidence against his preconceived idea of Jay Garrick. His mind went back to the previous year of his life, when he had first become the Flash. He thought about the first Harrison Wells, who, in reality, had been Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash. Barry remembered how the revelation that Dr. Wells had in actuality been his enemy working against him, manipulating him for his own ends had stung, how it had angered him. Everything bad which had happened to him in life, the death of his mother, the imprisonment of his father, his being comatose for nine months after the particle accelerator explosion, so much of what had happened to Central City in the following months, it had all been because of him. The festering wound of that betrayal had been why he had wanted to trust Jay so much when he had come along. Barry had wanted to believe there were other speedsters who were like him, and not like Thawne. Reminiscing on the past at that moment, Barry realized that Wells' impact had been the reason he had been so determined to distrust Jack as much as it had made him trust Jay. A precursory wave of guilt overcame him for the possibility that he may have again had it all backwards all along, treating his enemy as his friend, and his friend as his enemy.

"Jay?" He asked quietly, the pleading in his voice evident.

"Barry, help me! He's crazy. He's making it all up. You know me. You know I lost my powers. You know that Zoom stole them. How could I be Zoom? Why would I have helped you and trained you for all of these months if I were trying to hurt you?" Jay asked.

The guilt in Barry's mind made a sharp metamorphosis into anger. The situation was looking more and more all too familiar.

"Jack, let him go." Barry said.

"What?! No way!" Jack declared.

"Barry, are you really that naive?! It couldn't be more clear!" Tristan shouted.

"He is Zoom, Allan. We need to contain him while we have the chance!" Harry said.

Cisco then came back into the control room with a pair of power dampening, meta-cuffs in his hands. Detecting the even further heightened tension in the room, he stopped to look about at everyone.

"What's going on now?" Cisco asked no one in particular.

"I need to know. I need to know it for myself. Jack, you have that card to hold him right? Between it, my speed, and Mana's magic, we should be fine. Let him go." Barry said.

Jack studied Barry's face acutely. The animosity between him and the Flash had begun from nearly the first moment they had met. Jack had never understood why it had developed. All Jack knew was that Barry's visible contempt for him had caused him to respond in kind. Even though they had not much liked each other, they had fought together. Jack knew that Barry took his hero business seriously, and usually did what was best for the service of saving someone. At the moment, he was not sure he trusted Barry's judgment on the situation, but it sounded like he was going to test it for himself, and Jack thought he saw enough resolve in the other's eyes. Besides, as Barry had said, he had his card ready, and Mana by his side, both of which he did trust implicitly.

"Alright."

He cut off the magic of the Millennium Ring, and Garrick was released. Everyone tensed as Garrick sighed with relief and stood up. Jack deposited his card into the spell/trap zone, and Mana held her wand at the ready. Garrick groaned and stretched his neck from side to side.

"Thank you, Barry. I knew I could count on you."

Barry took a step closer to Garrick and stared him down.

"Barry?" Garrick asked with questioning suspicion on his face.

In a burst of speed too quick to be seen except by the lightning trails left by their movements, Barry vibrated his hand at super-speed in the same way as the Reverse-Flash, darted it at Garrick's chest, aiming for his heart, and Garrick intercepted it with the same velocity. They stopped moving, and Garrick's face was dark with fear, shock, amazement, anger, and loathing all at the same time. An instant later, Harry had his laser rifle up against the side of Garrick's head.

"Don't move." Harry ordered with quietly intense malice. "Ramon."

Cisco stepped up to the scene and bound Garrick's hands behind his back with the meta-cuffs, cutting off his access to his powers. Everyone looked to Barry to see the reaction from the one who had trusted him most.

"Why?" Barry asked simply.

"I have my reasons."

"And I'm sure I'll hear all about them." Harry said, pushing Garrick towards the door to the hall after he was bound. "You and I have a lot to talk about."

Harry turned to look at the others.

With dread seriousness, he issued, "Don't interrupt me."

He then shoved Garrick through the archway, and they were lost to sight around the corner. Barry turned to look at his companions, lighting most upon Yugi, Tristan, Téa, Jack, Mana, Joey, and the Kaiba brothers.

"How did you know? How could you tell?"

"Just kind of an instinct. I don't know, maybe we got a nose for dese things. We've had our own wackadoo pretendin' to be a friend of ours. I guess more den one if you count da spirit controllin' Bakura." Joey said.

"Speak for yourself, Wheeler." Kaiba said. "My business sense told me he was lying from the moment he stepped in here."

"I just, I can't believe it. I can't believe that Jay's really Zoom." Caitlin said just above a whisper.

Her words seized the attention of Cisco and Barry. They were more hurt than they were surprised. What only the fellow, original members of Team Flash knew was that in the months Garrick had been helping them, Caitlin had developed burgeoning romantic feelings for them. Both men thought it must have been how Garrick has portrayed himself as a tragic hero. As someone who had fought, taken damage, taken pain, been defeated, stripped of his powers, but continued to fight on in any way he could.

"I can't even imagine how she's feeling, knowing it was all just an act." Cisco thought to himself.

"Ugh!" Came a grunt from the side of the room.

All those present turned their heads to see the Serenity Wheeler of Earth-2 glaring at him.

"Maybe I should have taken my chances on my own! If you people can't even see an enemy among yourselves, how the hell are you going to help me find Reverb?!" She harped.

"Okay guys, come on, she's right, let's get it together." Yugi said, breaking the new tension. "We've still got to find where Harry's daughter is and then go get her."

"Yes, Yugi's right. We still have a job to do, and we need to proceed carefully. We can't assume that just because we've captured Zoom, the danger's over. We don't know what could be waiting at wherever Jessie is." Mana said.

"That's true. After all, Bakura is here too, and we don't know what he's up to." Barry stated plainly.

"Wait, what?!" Jack exclaimed. "Bakura's here?! But, how do you know that?"

"Out at that motel where Tristan and Yugi were being kept, we found evidence of a duel monster." Cisco said.

"Yeah, there was one alright." Tristan chimed in. "Big old flying monster busted in and snatched Reverb out of there."

"It could only have been Bakura, cause it was a Fiend type, and he's the only one who can control them." Yugi said.

"Bakura's here." Jack muttered to himself, putting his hand to his chin in a gesture of thinking. "But why? What could he be after? Something's going on here. It's no coincidence, him being here along with all of us and Zoom at the same time. Wait, Zoom."

Jack paced a short, eight-foot path, back and forth for a few moments, thinking.

"All the meta-humans on this Earth, in this city are afraid of Zoom right? No one can touch him, so they all work for him. Harry told us that." Jack said, half asking the group at large, half thinking out loud.

"That's true. Nobody except my Reverb, that is. He always said his powers could kill Zoom if he could create the opportunity, and he was working on it. He was planning on using your friends as bait to maybe finally do it." Serenity said.

"He said he could kill Zoom? But, how? He's me, and I know my powers. I couldn't do it." Cisco said.

"Oh, please! There's is a world's difference between you and Reverb. It's so obvious, I knew you weren't him the second I saw you. But, why you look like him, I have no idea." She declared, her tone laughing at the absurdity of the comparison.

"Serenity, what are his powers? It could help us help you to find him." Mana said.

Serenity considered the matter for a moment, and then gave a sigh of anger and resignation.

"Reverb's powers are complex. On the lowest end of the spectrum, he can use objects to get visions of things that happened in the past, or that might happen in the future."

"See? My powers." Cisco interjected.

"But that's his weakest ability!" Serenity countered nastily. "The reason he said he could kill Zoom is that he can fire blasts of concussing vibrations from his hands. He could shatter someone's nervous system so that they died within a split second. Given an opportunity for the blast to connect, not even a speedster like Zoom could recover from it."

"Wait a minute!" Yugi exclaimed. "When we were at the motel, Serenity, you mentioned Bakura's name. You know something about him."

"That's right. You said that Reverb mentioned something about him." Tristan added.

"I don't know that much! Just that Zoom told Reverb that if a guy called 'Bakura' happened to come by, to jerk him around and then send him off without anything."

"Zoom and Bakura are working together. That's the only reason Zoom wouldn't tell his subordinates to simply kill him and be done with it, or why Bakura might even ask for something in Zoom's name instead of simply taking it. That's what those instructions imply, anyway." Kaiba said.

His superior voice and attitude made it plain that Kaiba thought this should be obvious to everyone involved.

"That ain't good folks. If Bakura's workin' wit Zoom, den da whole ballgame just changed up big time." Joey said.

"Okay, here's the plan for right now." Jack said, taking command. "Mana and I are going to reinforce S.T.A.R Labs to hopefully block out any millennium or card-based magic. Cisco, we know Jessie is being kept in a cave or something like it, so you and Kaiba keep using Harry's program until you find where he took her. Kaiba, don't get huffy, cause this is your end of the deal in getting Harry's interdimensional data, and building your own for your ends."

Kaiba scowled hatred at Jack and gave a small growl under his breath, but said nothing.

"Barry, when we have a location, go scout it out, but do not go in. With Bakura involved, there could be any number of traps ready and waiting for us. I'll need pictures of the entire layout and anything else you can give me. Téa, why don't you, Yugi, and the Pharaoh see what kind of anti-meta-human weapons Harry has in stock? You guys may need some when we go in. Joey, Tristan, I want you guys working with Serenity here. She's our only link to Zoom's network, and we need to know how many more metas we might be going up against today and what they can do."

"I am not doing anything with that bastard!" Serenity yelled, pointing at Joey.

"That's too bad, cause we've got a lot to do, and only so many people to do it all. You want help finding your criminal, murderer boyfriend? This is how you're getting it." Jack said sternly.

Serenity's eyes blazed, and she glared at Jack, searching for words to hurl at him and get her out of it.

"Oh... fine!" She declared, finding no adequate argument to make.

"Good. Now, also, Mokuba, I want you to compile a list of all of the best places that Reverb might be hidden within the city. You've seen the evil Bakura as much as anyone, so you can guess how he would think. Caitlin, take a rest for a while, you look like you need it. Anyone have any objections to this?"

No one answered.

"Okay. Let's get to it. Day's not over yet, and we've still got a fight ahead."

Everyone then dispersed to do their various jobs.

OOO

On the fourth floor of his nightclub and illegal casino, Duke Devlin unlocked Killer Frost from her restraints. She grunted with aggravated fury as the cuffs came off.

"Wow, K, didn't think anyone short of Zoom could get the best of you." Duke said.

"This one was a speedster, too!" She shouted defensively.

She pushed herself to stand upright, and shoved Duke away from her a step.

"So, what are you gonna do? You made it sound like Zoom really wanted that guy, whoever he was." Duke said.

"I'm gonna go get him back, or Zoom will have my head!" She declared.

"I'm all for you not getting dead, but do you even know where to look?"

Killer Frost began to stalk swiftly towards the elevator, followed by Duke.

"Part of the instructions we all got said they would be with Harrison Wells. They'll be at his over-bloated lab." She said.

"Anything I can do to help? I wouldn't mind getting on Zoom's good side. I have some idea for business plans I'd like to discuss with him sometime." Duke said.

Killer Frost stopped, turned, and looked at him.

"Do you have any explosives on hand?"

OOO

It had been thirty minutes since Garrick had been revealed. Directly after taking him from the control room, Harry had guided Garrick down to the pipeline, and into one of the power dampening cells. Harry was at the moment locked into the cell along with the man who had taken his daughter, trying to get her location out of him. Despite being securely sealed within the cell, Harry had not removed the cuffs from Garrick's wrists. He was not taking any chances. Harry put his right fist into Garrick's cheek with a wide arcing hook punch.

"Is she alive?!" Harry demanded.

The hard interrogation had been going on almost ever since the two had become alone. With his powers suppressed, Garrick's speedster healing was not functioning. He was bleeding from several cuts on his face created by Harry's strikes. Harry dragged Garrick to his feet by the collar of his clothes and then sent his knee into Garrick's stomach.

"Is she alive?! Tell me!"

Harry waited for several moments for his captive to respond. Garrick said nothing. Harry pulled him by his collar again and planted another fast, two jabs into his left temple.

"Answer me!"

Garrick merely looked up at him with silent, stoic resoluteness. Harry backed off as far as he could within the confines of the cell. This wasn't working, but he could not just stop. He had to know. Harry picked up his laser rifle from where he had set it against the corner. He aimed it right between Garrick's eyes.

"You already made me murder one man. For threatening my daughter's life, if she isn't alive, I swear I'll be the last thing you ever see in this world." Harry said with a quiet menace of absolute certainty.

At that moment, for the first time since Harry had begun, Garrick reacted. He gave a small, smug smirk. Harry scowled back with both fury and confusion just before the door to the cell opened, and Barry was roughly pushing his rifle down off of its target.

"Harry! What are you doing?!" Barry shouted.

Harry looked at the younger man. Barry's eyes were swimming with anger, surprise, and just a touch of resentment and fear. Harry didn't respond but instead opted to brush past Barry and leave the cell. He found Caitlin standing just out of the way on the other side of the door. He took up a position opposite from her.

"What's going on, Barry?" Garrick asked in a slightly hoarse voice.

A bit of blood-laced spittle ran out of his mouth as he spoke, and he tried to wipe it as best he could with his shoulder. Barry did not answer. Caitlin then entered and knelt to one knee in front of Garrick. Without a word, she removed a sterilized syringe from the small case she had brought with her, found a vein in his exposed throat, and then injected the needle with the deftness of the doctor she was. She withdrew a supply of blood into the vile, all the while taking careful pains to not make eye contact with the man in front of her. Her task complete, Caitlin stood up and left. Garrick then turned his gaze to Barry, who was trying to appear strong and in control, but had a baleful questioning in his eyes. Reading for himself how Garrick could see what he was thinking, Barry dropped the pretense, and spoke with as much measure to his cadence as he could.

"Why? Just tell me why. Why pretend to be a hero while working against us the whole time?"

"You have something that I need, and you weren't just going to give it to me."

"But why act like you were helping us?!"

Garrick smiled evilly.

"What better power, better control could there be than to give the people hope for their lives, only to rip it away at just the right time? That feeling is like nothing else. You couldn't possibly understand."

"That's it?! That's why you did all of this?! Why you're Zoom?!" Barry howled.

"Some people are born to be prey, and some are born to be predators."

Barry turned and left the cell. He couldn't take any more of it. Outside, Harry hit the controls as soon as he cleared, and the door rolled shut and secure again.

"What's the blood for?" Harry asked.

"Now that we know who he is, I want to take another look at him. See if there's anything I missed before." Caitlin said.

Barry said, "Harry, what you did to him in there-"

"I would do again without hesitation." Harry broke in sharply. "It's for my daughter, Allan."

"I know. I just want your daughter to find her father as the man she remembers when we get her back. That'll be important to her, trust me."

"I suppose that's fair enough. Allan, stay here until I come back. I want to check something. Something Garrick just said may have been more telling than he meant." Harry said.

"Yeah, sure, Harry. And if I have to leave, I'll let you know."

"Have to leave?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. We decided that when Kaiba finds Jessie's location with your program, I'd go and scout it out, take pictures, and such. It's for Jack to use his strategic mind on it." Barry answered.

"Right, that's not a bad plan."

Harry took a step to leave, but then held back, half looking at the cell over his shoulder.

"It's okay, Harry. I won't let him go anywhere." Barry said with cold sternness.

An assenting grunt came from Harry's throat, and he departed.

OOO

Outside in the parking lot, Jack and Mana were fulfilling their tasks. Mana was kneeling at the perimeter of the property. She was using her right index finger to draw an invisible pattern on the ground. When she had finished it, she tapped it with a flourish of all five fingers, and the design alighted with glowing, neon green colored magic. A streak of light shot forth from the rune, and in the perfect center over S.T.A.R Labs converged with eight other like streaks.

"Okay, with that, if anyone other than you, I, or the Pharaoh crosses this line, I'll sense it straight away." She said as she stood up.

"My turn then." Jack said.

He took the card he had been idly holding in his hand since they had started and inserted it into his duel-disk.

"I activate 'Magic Barrier.'"

Rising up from the concrete of the lot came a translucent dome of energy which encompassed the whole of the lab, and then turned entirely imperceptible.

"And with that, no outside magic can reach the interior of the building. I think that's all we can do for now. We should know the second if Bakura tries anything on us while we're here."

Jack turned to head back inside, but stopped when he felt Mana's slender hand gripping his arm.

"Wait a minute. I want to talk to you before we go back inside."

"Okay."

"Jack, about what happened when you were stabbed earlier. I was really scared. You have no idea how scared I was that you might die."

"I know. I was scared too. And I know what you're getting at. What you said to me in our bedroom before we left."

Mana's eyes widened for the briefest instance before she smiled, with just a little sadness to it.

"I should have known you'd know. After all, there's no other human who knows me as well as you do." She said.

"And what else would you think about but the warning about me getting hurt, the second I got hurt?" He asked in a light, joking tone.

Mana gave a small giggle to that.

"You know, I have to say, when you're right, you're right. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were magic." Jack said.

Her giggle increased in volume and heartiness.

"Don't make me laugh!" She replied between breaths. "I wanted to talk to you seriously."

"I know, but you were so worried about me for the last few hours, I just really wanted to see that smile of yours again."

Mana playfully punched him in the shoulder.

"You big idiot!" She said with a loving smile.

Without prompting, as natural as anything, the couple moved into each other and embraced in a tender hug.

"I was so scared, Jack. If that shard had gone just two inches further down..."

Light tears began to trickle down her face.

"I was too, Mana. I put on that show for Zoom to drive him off, but inside, I was nearly panicking with the pain and adrenaline."

"If you had died, I would have been sent back to the Dominion of the Beasts. I wouldn't have even been able to say goodbye to you."

"Well, you can worry a little less now." He said.

The two pulled apart just enough to look into each other's faces without letting go of their embrace.

"I'll admit, these last few months helping out Team Flash, was kind of a rush. Yu-Gi-Oh wasn't the only thing I watched as a kid, and it was fun to pretend to be a cartoon hero. Even had the costume, courtesy of Cisco. But, that ice shard was a wake-up call, and probably just the one I needed. It's not a game, this." Jack said.

"So, you're going to be more careful from now on, right?"

"More than that." He replied. "Thinking back over the last few months, between the crap with Barry, and what happened between us for that one month, I haven't liked the whole 'hero' business that much. I think that once we stop Bakura, we'll stop altogether. Part of it we can even start now. No more patrols, no more helping them with the meta-humans. We'll just focus on Bakura, and once he's taken care of, we'll go back to how we were before. Just you and me, and only doing hero stuff if we happen to come across crimes and we're alone."

"Jack, while I'm glad to hear you say that, I think we should discuss it a little more. If you enjoy doing this, I don't want you to stop just because of me."

"It's not just because of you, Mana. I've thought about this more than once. Truth is, I've been scared out of my mind more than once doing this stuff, I just didn't let myself think about it. The ice shard was just the icing on the cake. I also got scared when you started to help as well. It just, it isn't something I want to keep doing. I'm not a cop, I'm a duelist, a card player."

Mana studied his face for a time that felt longer than the few seconds it encompassed. She gave him a tired but alleviated smile.

"You have no idea how much better that makes me feel. I was really getting worried that you might lose yourself in this stuff." She said.

"Hey, I don't need to play 'hero.' I don't need anything else as long as I've got you."

Mana giggled lightly. "I love you, Jack."

"I loved you first."

The two kissed, sealing the deal between them.

OOO

In the lounge area of S.T.A.R Labs, Joey, Tristan, and Serenity were doing their parts. For thirty minutes, Serenity had been telling them everything she could about the meta-humans in the city who were under Zoom's thumb.

"Okay, so these guys Sand Demon and Atom Smasher, what is it they do again?" Tristan asked.

"I've told you twice already! For both of them!" Serenity shouted hotly from across the table.

"We're just doin' our jobs, Serenity. We got to know this stuff for when our pals go out there." Joey said.

"You could get most of this from Wells! He'll know more about meta stuff than I do!"

"Harry's busy, and you got us, so that's it." Tristan said.

"Ugh!" She grunted.

Serenity then angrily tore her leather jacket off of her shoulders.

"It's so hot in here!"

She flung the jacket halfway across the room, whipping it by one of its sleeves. Underneath, she was wearing a blood-red tank top that hugged her frame suggestively. The shoulder holster with her Colt 1911 Tactical was visible.

"Uh, do you really tink ya should be wearin' somethin' like dat?" Joey asked.

"Excuse me?" She asked with a clear threat to her tone.

Tristan physically flinched away in his seat a little from her frigid glance.

"Hey, Tristan, I saw some soda machines somewhere in da hall out dere. You wanna go find 'em and get us some drinks?" Joey asked.

"Yeah, okay, sure."

Tristan stood up from the table and left the room. Once his friend was out of earshot, Joey turned his gaze back to look at the girl across from him. The whole thing was so weird for him. It was Serenity, and she technically both was and was not his sister. She looked every bit like his Serenity except for a few things. Her demeanor made her look like she was older, although Joey didn't think she was any older than his sister. Her eyes were meaner and angrier than Joey had ever seen his own sister's. Every time she looked at him, he was left with the distinct impression that she hated him more than anything else. Joey was not sure of what he could say to her, but he thought he had to try.

"Hey. Can I ask you somethin'? Not about dis. Kinda personal."

"Are you trying to get yourself shot?!" She yelled.

"Look, I'm just tryin' to help you out! You're my sister, kinda, and you look like you're upset about somethin'."

"Oh, please! You never cared about me before! Not once!"

"Come on! I've never even seen you before today! I'm from a different dimension. I haven't done anything to you."

"It doesn't matter! You're still him! You sent me there!" She screamed with all her might.

Overcome by the ferocity of Serenity's outburst, Joey said nothing for a full ten seconds. He recovered with a blink of his eyes, and he looked at her with inquisitive eyes.

"Wait, your broder sent you somewhere?"

Serenity blanched, realizing that she had revealed more than she had wanted. She leaped from the table and haughtily stomped away, moving towards the far window looking out to the city. Joey followed her.

"Hey, look, I don't know what went down between you and your broder, but I'm not quite him. Whatever happened, if ya want to, you can tell me." He said.

She hesitated a moment, then turned to face him, as angry as ever.

"Oh, fine! I've been wanting to have this out with you for a long time, anyway! When our parents split up, and we had to live with just Dad, I know he was strict, but you changed! You became so obsessed with being good, and following the rules, and doing what you were told. Whatever he told you to do, you'd just do it without question, like you were afraid he'd send us away or something if you didn't! You even tried to get me to do the same thing, and for years, I did, because I looked up to you. But, as we got older, it got worse. You started trying to keep me from doing things you thought might make him mad. You even went so far as telling on me to teachers and stuff if I did something that went against the rules. It got to the point where I had to sneak around you to do anything fun. Because of how you acted, breaking the rules ended up becoming more and more fun. It gave me such a thrill, but, an innocent one, like any kid might feel. Yeah, I escalated, getting to the point where I was starting to do actual crimes, but I wasn't hurting anyone! Then, it happened. I got busted for boosting a car and joyriding. All you had to do was lie to the judge. My lawyer told you that! All you had to do was to say that I was with you when it happened, and I would have been home free!" Her voice then quieted, becoming more restrained and pained. "You... you have no idea how scared I was during it all. Getting arrested, being processed, the stupid social workers, all of them telling me what could happen to me. I was terrified, and I was counting on my big brother to get me out of it! But you told them I hadn't been home that night, that you had no idea where I'd been. Afterwards, you actually said it had been the right thing to do, and I had to learn what it meant to break the rules! I was thirteen, and they sent me to juvie because you wouldn't stand up for me! It may have only been for six months, but you have no idea what happened to me in there. How those other girls who were real criminals in the making tortured me. How I was... touched by the male guards. All because you wouldn't just tell one lie to save your little sister! After that, when I got home, I hated you. I couldn't stand the sight of you! I ran away just so I wouldn't have to see your stupid face ever again!"

Her tirade completed, Serenity turned away from him, her breathing increased from her shouting, and a flush to her cheeks. It had been years since she had thought about the full story. It was so painful for her, she had never even relayed the entire story to Reverb.

"You're right." Joey said. "That guy's a tool."

Not having expected anything but silence and quiet retreat after her outpouring, Serenity was not prepared for this response. She twisted to look at him again, total bewilderment floating in her eyes.

Joey said, "A choice between tellin' one lie and my baby sister's freedom and happiness? Get outta here! That shoulda been da biggest no-brainer of that jerk's life! If I'd been there, I woulda been lyin' my butt off!"

Serenity's eyes widened. Nothing he said could have been farther from anything she had expected. She had no words.

"Look, I'm not gonna try to tell youse how to live your life, cause I'm not your real big brother, and that clearly wouldn't cut any ice wit'chas anyway. Ya clearly done some bad stuff, but you love this Reverb guy, and love's a good thing, so, I don't know. Maybe you could change, try to be better. You take a quarter of the effort you been puttin' into gettin' your man back into anything else, you could do it no problem. Probably be a good one up on your Joey, too, to really make somethin' of yourself. Just think about it."

At that moment, Tristan returned from his trip to the vending machines with three cans of cola in his hands. He did not say anything as walked back to the table they had all been at and set them down.

"What da ya say? Get back to it?" Joey asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure." Serenity answered in the calmest, most neutral voice she had used yet.

They went back, sat down at the table, and continued the debriefing in a much more peaceful atmosphere.

OOO

Harry entered the makeshift medical lab which Caitlin had established off of the main control room. He found her looking back and forth from the lens of her microscope to a laptop beside her. She was in deep concentration on what she was doing.

"Snow." Harry said to greet her.

Caitlin looked up at him. Her face was as stony and expressionless as Harry had ever seen on her, but her eyes betrayed the fact that she had been crying.

"Garrick's blood. What did you find?" He asked without any preamble.

She just stared at him for several seconds as if she had not heard him.

"Snow?"

Caitlin shook her head gently. "Oh, right, the blood. I, uh, I think I've figured out now why Zoom's been after Barry's speed this whole time."

She turned away from Harry, looked at the table for a moment, picked something up, and turned back to him again. She held it out for him, and Harry took it from her, scrutinizing the vile in his hand keenly.

"Velocity-6?" Harry asked.

"Yes. I found traces of it present within Jay's blood, but much higher than a single dose. It's also different. It isn't velocity-6. The compound in his blood is identical in most respects, but from what I can tell, it's an earlier version of the drug than you first presented to me."

"An earlier version?" Harry mused. "I guess a speed-enhancing drug wasn't my original idea after all. What's it doing in his system?"

"How the Speed Force interacts with the physiology of the body is still somewhat unknown to us, but from what I can see, the formula present in his blood permanently boosted his speed instead of giving him a temporary increase. It does make what I believe to be the present Speed Force function faster, making him faster in the process, but there's a problem with it. I think it's the way his body was artificially enhanced, but it's eating away at him. His cells are degenerating, losing molecular cohesion to each other. If I'm interpreting the data correctly, eventually, his cells will lose so much cohesion that he'll just disintegrate."

"Which is why he needs Allan's speed, and why he was so adamant about making him faster without the drug. He needs a powerful enough injection of untainted Speed Force to revitalize his speedster healing and save himself. It makes sense." Harry said.

"That's how I see it. It means he was manipulating us from the very... start."

Caitlin's voice broke on her final word.

"And he purposefully got close to me in case I could find another cure for him. It was all an act. The first man after Ronny died... and-"

She cut herself off, angry tears beginning to form in her eyes. Even Harry, trying to stay as emotionally detached from everything until he had Jessie back could tell that she was fighting to keep from breaking down.

"You shouldn't blame yourself, Snow. Zoloman's very good at this. He's been at it for a long time already." Harry said.

"I guess, but- wait, who?"

"Hunter Zoloman, also known as Jay Garrick."

Harry turned on the tablet he had with him and handed it to Caitlin. The screen showed the picture of a disheveled, long-haired Jay who looked to be several years younger.

"Unlike yours, serial killers are not a common occurrence on my Earth, so they tend to stick out in memory. Hunter Zoloman killed twenty-three people before he was caught and sent to Saint Perez Hospital for the Criminally Insane. That's where he was the night that my particle accelerator exploded."

"How did you figure out who he is?" Caitlin asked.

"I said that he gave more away than he meant to. What he said in the cell before. 'Some are born to be prey, and some are born to be predators.' So now, we finally know just who it is we're dealing with. He doesn't have anywhere else to hide." Harry said.

"I just, I feel like I could have prevented this. If I had looked more closely at him, or not allowed myself to feel for someone so soon after my husband's death, maybe I could have identified this sooner."

Harry turned to leave, having no interest in aiding the doctor in her unreasonable self-reproach. He stopped after a single step. They might still need Caitlin's medical expertise in the wake of the coming rescue attempt, and she wouldn't be at her best if she was wallowing in her guilt. Besides that, he had been working with the member of Team Flash for close to seven months, and he had always respected Caitlin for her intellect and professionalism.

Keeping his gaze forward, Harry said, "We all do things we're not proud of when it comes to love. It happens sooner or later. It can't be helped, can't be stopped. You made a mistake, but you didn't do anything wrong. Try not to beat yourself up about it, because we still have work to do, and there's no time to coddle you and hold your hand."

He left without another word. Even through her stress, Caitlin managed to crack a thin smile of gratitude at Harry's words, and amusement of the brush-off he had tacked onto the end to try to not appear too sentimental.

OOO

In the storage center between the control room and the pipeline, Téa and Yugi were still going through the crates of Harry's anti-meta-human weapons.

"Here's something." Téa said, pulling a rolled-up blueprint out of the crate.

She took it over underneath an overhead light and unrolled it on top of another crate. Yugi joined her to look at it. They read over the schematics for two full minutes before speaking.

"If I'm looking at this right, these are plans for what I think is some kind of steam gun to dry up the skin of someone called 'Killer Shark.'" Yugi said.

"So, do you think this guy is some kind of shark thing, or just has really bad skin chapping when he dries out?" Téa asked.

They both shared a good laugh over that.

"Okay, so, what all do we have so far?" Téa asked.

"So, we've found that shield watch thing which is supposed to repel telekinetic attacks. We've got those kinetic grenade things that Cisco brought with us. We found that one gun which said it was supposed to redirect sonic blasts, the steam gun now, a bunch more of those laser rifles, that exoskeleton suit thingy, and that one thing which looked like a metal monkey's paw and the schematics said it was for containing radioactive fire." Yugi said.

"Alright. I'd say we've done a pretty good job so far. Why don't we check one more crate, then we can call it."

"Sounds good to me."

Feeling the slightest bit tired and not wanting to further aimlessly search through the aisles of shelves and containers, Téa scanned around herself. They had opened very nearly every crate around their area for a fifteen-foot radius. The only one not too far away was a single unopened box on a high shelf, eight feet away.

"That one's as good as any." She said.

She and Yugi walked over to it. Téa stretched for the crate, but she couldn't quite reach it.

"Ugh!" She grunted. "Where's Tristan and his long arms when you need them?"

"Don't stress yourself, Téa. Let me get you a crate to stand on." Yugi said.

"No, it's okay. I think I can get it."

With the tips of her fingers brushing against the bottom of the crate, it slowly started to inch out of its space. Téa stepped up onto the tips of her toes to try to get a better grip. The crate was near to be out far enough for her to grasp it properly when Téa's foot slipped, she suddenly lost her balance and fell back onto her butt. Just above her head, the crate she had been pulling, teetering on the edge of balance, was captured by gravity and fell.

"Téa!" Yugi shouted.

He jumped in front of her and shoved the falling container out of the way with the side of his left arm just in time. It clattered to the floor with the loud thump of heavy weight.

"Yugi! Are you okay?!"

"Yeah, I'm alright. I don't think anything's hurt anyway."

Yugi sat down on the floor beside her.

"We need to be more careful. It'd be too ridiculous to travel across two dimensions just to be killed by a falling box." He said.

Téa smiled, and she gave a light laugh. They enjoyably laughed together for a few seconds before quieting again.

"So, I think with that, we forget about one last box." Yugi said.

"Yeah, agreed."

As they stood up, a thought flitted across Téa's face.

"Hey, Yugi. What do you really think about all of this? Everything we're doing, with the dimension traveling, and weirdo supervillains. I know it isn't much of anything new for us, but still, this is different than anything that's happened to us before."

"I know what you mean. In some ways, it isn't much different than what happened to us when we had to us when we faced Marik or Dartz, but in others, it couldn't be more so. We don't have superpowers back in our world, or, we don't have any which aren't achieved through magic, and the only way to try to take it from someone is to duel them. We haven't much had to deal with physical danger before." Yugi said.

"Except for shadow games, and this is even worse than those. When you guys have been forced to play shadow games before, you at least had a chance to control what happened by controlling the duel itself. This fighting stuff we're doing now, it's random and chaotic. There's no way we can know what's going to happen or that one of us won't be hurt or worse."

Her face grew sallow and fearful as she spoke. She looked down at her feet with the weight of the possibilities pressing down upon her.

"Hey, Téa." Yugi said.

She lifted her head again to look him in the eye.

"Things are a little more dangerous for us right now than they have been before, but I don't think you need to worry too much. We've got Jack and Mana. They're part of the gang now, and with their magic, we've got an even greater team. Plus, there's Barry and his super-speed to help keep us from getting hurt, so don't get upset. You're the one who's always saying we're friends, so we look out for each other."

Téa smiled, and the worry in her eyes evaporated away.

"Thanks, Yugi. I guess I needed that. Now, we should probably clean all of this up a little before we rejoin everyone else." She said.

Yugi nodded his head, the spikes of his hair bobbing with the movement. Without discussing the logistics of how they were going to do it, the two of them first moved to where the crate which had nearly caused an injury had come to rest.

"Um, maybe the Pharaoh should put that back. He is taller." Yugi said.

"That's probably a good idea." Téa said with a small laugh.

The eye symbol in the center of the Millennium Puzzle shimmered with golden light, and the Pharaoh appeared. He bent down and picked up the crate by its side handles, and due to being three inches taller than Téa, had no issue whatsoever in replacing it from where it had fallen.

"Thanks, Pharaoh."

"No problem, Téa."

The two continued working to clean up the mess. While working, Téa felt herself becoming calmer and calmer over the prospect of the danger they faced. The Pharaoh's presence always did that for her. Whenever he was there, his cool air of authority and integrity made her feel like they really could deal with whatever came their way.

"Téa." The Pharaoh said.

"Yeah?"

"That talk you had with Yugi a moment ago, I heard all of it. I wasn't eavesdropping, you understand."

"Yeah, I know. Kind of hard to have privacy sometimes when you share a body, I guess." She said.

The Pharaoh smiled. "Yes, quite. I want you to know that I share your concerns over the current situation. I'm very worried about one of these speed people or other meta-humans harming or even killing one of our friends. I know-"

His voice trailed off, and his face momentarily clouded with the pain of memory.

"I know that I didn't do so well the last time. I failed in my duty to protect Yugi from harm. I just want you to know that this time, there is nothing I won't do to protect all of you. That includes Barry and his team as well. I don't want to see anyone get hurt."

"You still feel guilty about that, don't you? What happened with the Orichalcos." Téa said.

"I don't think there will ever be a time when I don't regret that. If I hadn't allowed the darkness to contaminate me and played that accursed card, then Yugi wouldn't have taken my place and spent the time trapped within the Orichalcos that he did."

"No one blames you for that, you know. Especially not Yugi. It was a bad mistake, but it was just a mistake." Téa said.

"I know that, and you'll never know how thankful I am for it. But, like I said, this time, I will protect Yugi and everyone else. I won't let anything happen to you."

Téa smiled warmly at him. She knew that he meant it and that he would do everything he could. Téa knew that sometimes she was preachy with her speeches about the importance of their friendship and how they all were always going to be there for each other, but she did mean it every time, so it didn't bother her. She knew that the Pharaoh had taken her words, and everyone's unwavering support to heart, and that it had forged an iron bond between them all. It made Téa very happy to know how much they all meant to him.

They went back to work. Toiling beside the Pharaoh, Téa's mood kept improving, and she felt happier and happier. They had the storage room a quarter of the way cleaned back up when Mana walked in.

"Hey, how's it going down here?" Mana asked.

"We've made some decent progress, and only needed an ambulance once." The Pharaoh said.

Téa gave a cute, girlish giggle in response to the joke.

"We found several different weapons and other things that might help us." Téa said.

"That's good, because Cisco and Kaiba just came up with the location, so Barry left to scope it out. Pharaoh, Jack's with Joey, Tristan, and Serenity in the lounge. We're having a meeting to see if everyone agrees on the strategy. Jack will refine it when he has some location-specific details, but he wants to get everyone's rudimentary jobs worked out first." Mana said.

"That's excellent. It'll be good to save that poor girl and bring this long day to a close." The Pharaoh said.

"Yeah, let's go. And Pharaoh, thanks for reassuring me." Téa said.

She gave him a look of purest affection, and the three of them left the room. As they walked down the hall, Mana slightly behind the other two, she noticed how Téa kept turning her head to say small things to the Pharaoh, and how Téa continued to give him grins showing clear contentment and happiness. Mana smirked to herself, remembering how Téa had blushed when the Pharaoh had seen her holding the bras in the Penthouse earlier.

"Think I might do something about this. I've never had friends I could help to match up before."

OOO

Ten minutes earlier in the control room, Cisco, Kaiba, and Mokuba had all been working at their individual tasks. Kaiba was keeping an eye on the code of the speedster tracking program while also pouring over all of Harry's data on the multiverse and interdimensional travel. Using his highly trained eye and intellect, he was skimming over the files without missing anything he considered to be of importance to getting home.

Internally, Kaiba was fuming at the whole thing. He may have been doing something productive, but in actuality, he was just babysitting Harry's stupid program in case it developed a bug. It was all so stupid.

"At this moment, I should be in my office working out the issues for the next Kaiba Land park! I shouldn't be in a different universe helping people I couldn't care less about with problems that have nothing to do with me! This is all the fault of Yugi and his pack of losers! Every time something draws me away from my company and my real life, they're always involved! If I didn't need to defeat Yugi to reclaim my title as the greatest duelist in the world, I'd never have anything to do with them again!"

"Hey, Cisco." Mokuba said.

Kaiba watched his little brother walk from where he had been working on a laptop.

"I used a map of the city, public records of both high class and abandoned areas, and everything we know about that evil spirit inside Bakura to come up with the list. When Jack comes back, this is every place where it's possible Bakura might be."

"And that's the worst of all!" Kaiba screamed in his mind. "If those childish wannabes want to believe in their delusions about saving the world from dark magic and ancient spirits, then that's their issue, but they're corrupting my brother! They keep drawing him more and more into their fantasy world, and he seems to be starting to actually believe it! I've got to get him away from these people before he loses all contact with reality!"

"Thanks, Mokuba. We may have to take an extra day or two after we save Jessie to try and deal with Bakura, and this will help." Cisco said.

"I'm not sure yet about these Team Flash people. They seem like they might be slightly more intelligent. At least they actually work with the real world of science and technology. Even if Wells isn't the greatest scientist, he may still be able to help us. All I have to do is figure out how to create one of those breaches back to our own dimension, and Mokuba and I go back to our lives." Kaiba thought.

The computer beeped, and Cisco rushed back over to his station, moving with the excitement of possible progress.

"Got it!" Cisco cried. "Finally got a speedster path which traces to an abandoned mine ten miles outside of the western city limits. Seems Ja- I mean Zoom went there a few hours ago, probably to check on things. There isn't another heading away according to the rate of decay of the electrostatic wake, so he didn't leave using his speed. He must have thought he could keep us distracted well enough to keep us from finding it."

"That's great! That means everybody can go save that girl now." Mokuba said.

Cisco took his smartphone out of his pocket and unlocked it.

"I'm texting Barry, Jack, and Harry letting them know we finally have the location. If things go well, Harry might have Jessie back within an hour."

"Harper! His audacity is not to be believed! He first humiliates me by defeating me at Duel Monsters, and then he compounds the insult with what happened earlier!"

Kaiba then ceased his mental ranting as the facts of the matter reasserted themselves on his mind.

"I suppose that Harper did technically save my life. Still, though, that doesn't change the fact that Harper is just as deranged as all the other geeks. He thinks he can summon living duel monsters and that he's dating one of them, for the love of sanity! And to make matters even worse, I now owe him, and there's nothing I hate more than being indebted to anyone!"

In a sudden burst of light and a cracking, snapping sound, Barry was standing in front of all of them in the center of the room.

"Hey! You said we got Jessie's location?" Barry asked.

"Yeah. Sending the coordinates to your phone right now." Cisco said.

Barry took out his phone and looked at the screen.

"Got it."

He then used his super-speed to run a fast circle around the room, and come to a stop in front of Cisco again, but with his Flash suit donned. Barry leaned in closer to Cisco over the back of the computer station to speak a little more confidentially.

"Hey, Cisco, do you think I should just go in there and get her myself? We have her location, and Zoom's locked up downstairs. I'm not sure we need to scope it out and let Jack make up a plan." Barry asked.

"I might agree with you under normal circumstances, but not with Bakura in the mix, dude. You might not be able to appreciate this, never having watched Yu-Gi-Oh, but Bakura is one of the most clever and manipulative villains in anything, ever. His being real, being here, and being in cahoots with Jay makes me wary. We have no idea what kind of traps Bakura might have waiting for us there, and Jack's shown an ability to think on the same level as him." Cisco responded.

Barry's face tightened in thought. He didn't like the idea of leaving their plan of battle entirely up to Jack. He didn't trust Jack.

"No!" Barry yelled at himself in his head. "I have to stop that. Even though I've been terrible to him, Jack's been helping us since we met him. He saved all our lives a couple of times, and he hasn't asked for anything in return. We can depend on Jack. We can trust him."

Barry then said aloud, "Yeah, okay. I'll get the info he wants, and then we'll all do the plan together."

Cisco smiled at his friend. "Good thinking, pal. We all gotta work together."

"Right. I'll be back in a few."

Barry flashed out. After he was gone, Kaiba groaned in his throat from both aggravation and the relief of one less person being in the room.

"I still have to recover what's rightfully mine from Yugi, but aside from that, once this is over, no matter what happens, Mokuba and I are never having anything to do with his little group or these new people ever again!" Kaiba thought as he returned to Harry's data.

OOO

Jessie Wells was searching for a way to try to get out of the cell she was trapped in for the umpteenth time. She had lost count of how many times she had tried so far. She had to get out of there. Zoom had taken her months earlier to get back at her father, who was often publicly outspoken about his efforts to try to stop the super-fast murderer. Jessie had to get out of there. Every single day, Zoom came back to make sure his prisoners had not escaped and to reaffirm the terror he instilled within her. He had hurt her. It had never been in any way which caused any permanent damage, and she had always been attended to so that she could heal properly, but it still hurt, it was still torture.

Jessie checked the back wall for an avenue of escape. She looked once again for the tiniest kind of crack, gap, or hint of an opening between the panels of the metal lining the wall for her to exploit. She already knew it was no use. There was no way she could get herself out of the cell. Between the metal on the back wall, and the steel bars on her other three sides, which despite their age were as strong and firmly in place as ever, she could not get out. That was not easy for Jessie to except, that there was nothing she could do. Her dad had raised her to use her head, to work for the things she wanted, and to never give up.

As it had countless times before, the thought that she could not help herself in the slightest caused a fresh wave of horror to sweep over her. Despite his promises, Jessie had always known that sooner or later, he would kill her. She knew that his promise of letting her go when her father had done something for her was nothing but a sadistic attempt to give her false hope. Jessie had been able to see it in his eyes, in the silent, leering smile they projected.

From across the space of the mine shaft which was her prison, Jessie heard a low rhythmic tapping for not the first time. She turned to stare the distance of the room to the other cell, and the person who has been her only companion throughout the whole ordeal. Thirty feet directly opposite of Jessie was Zoom's other prisoner, and a unique prisoner by way of the differences in his situation. Jessie could tell it was a man from his body type, and only his body type. For reasons she had no understanding of, Zoom had put his other prisoner into a metal mask which concealed his entire face, and obviously could not be removed by its wearer. Unlike her, the man was in a cage constructed of four walls of thick, shatterproof plastic of the same type which was used to construct industrial aquariums for zoos and other purposes. Jessie had no idea who the man was or why Zoom was holding him, as the mask on his face prevented speaking. For what seemed to her to be the ten-thousandth time, the man was rapping his knuckles against the glass in a certain way and staring across at her.

"What?! What is it?! I don't know what you want!" Jessie cried out, her tone filled with pain, sorrow, and fear.

She couldn't keep herself from snapping at her cellmate. Communication was impossible, and she could not understand why the man kept tapping the glass as he did. It worked against her mental state just a little more, adding an element of irritation to an already unbearable situation.

From the darkness beyond the light filtering in through the covered windows, Jessie heard something she hadn't expected. It was the sound of a door opening and closing. An entirely ordinary sound, but she had never heard it in all the time of her confinement before. Whenever Zoom came in, he would be standing in front of her in an instant, holding her attention entirely. This gave Jessie a sudden, overwhelming hope that someone normal might have by sheer providence entered the room.

"Hello?! Is someone there?!" She called.

Slowly emerging from the dark came the image of a young man. He could not have been any older than his late teens at the most. A mane of pure white hair traveled halfway down his back, and his brown eyes were looking straight at her. Jessie's heart leaped and she was overwhelmed with relief and happiness, feeling tears beginning to form in her eyes from the magnitude.

"Oh, thank god! Please! Get us out of here! We've been held here by Zoom for months! Hurry! He could be back at any time!" Jessie shouted.

The young man stood in front of her cell, in the same spot where Zoom himself always did. He made no move to free either of them. He just stood there and smiled at her.

"Don't worry, Miss Wells. You'll be reunited with your father quite soon. I guarantee it." The young man said.

For a long moment, Jessie could not understand. The young man was doing nothing. He could see the danger they were all in by just being in the room, but he was doing nothing to help them. Twenty whole seconds passed before the truth settled upon her. It was the young man's eyes. Jessie hadn't noticed before, but his eyes were the exact same as Zoom's. No, his eyes were worse than Zoom's. She wouldn't have thought it possible, but his eyes were vastly, catastrophically more cruel, more sneering, more delighting in her torment and helplessness. Looking into the eyes of the young man before her was like staring into the proverbial abyss itself. With the same force with which it had risen in hope, Jessie's heart fell in despair and fear.

The young man reached around behind himself and came out with what looked like a deck of playing cards. He casually leafed through the cards until he found the one he seemed to want. His smile grew even more malicious as he pulled it from the deck.

"Let the games begin."

OOO

In the control room of S.T.A.R Labs, the twelve various members of the two teams had gathered. After reviewing the satellite images of the terrain, and Barry's reconnaissance, Jack had put the finishing touches on his strategy and laid it out for everyone.

"So, everybody's clear on the plan?" He asked the group.

"Pretty clear." Barry said. "I deal with any Zoom forces and keep them from getting to anyone else."

"Jack and I will be giving you card support and will be on the lookout for in case Bakura shows up." The Pharaoh said.

"While I lead the children into the mine itself to help me look for my daughter." Harry said.

"Hey! We got names, pal! It's Joey, Tristan, and Serenity!" Joey shouted.

"And I'll be going with you for additional backup, just in case." Mana said.

"I'm only going along because if Zoom was working with this Bakura guy, then Reverb could be there!" Serenity stated.

"Meanwhile, Mr. Kaiba, Mokuba, Caitlin, Téa and I will be waiting back at the vans, watching the feed from the satellites and giving what kind of support we can." Cisco said.

"Alright, then this is it. Let's go get-"

Barry's words were cut off as an explosion rocked the building and blew in all the glass of the windows above them.

OOO

Killer Frost's aim for throwing the block of C4 had been perfectly placed, shattering the windows above where she had guessed they would be. She had remembered from television interviews with that Doctor Wells how everything in the building could be controlled from one room, and had assumed that that was where they would likely be gathered. She wasted no time in moving forward, using an ice beam from her hands to attach another charge of explosive to the front doors. They detonated a moment later, clearing the entryway and allowing Killer Frost to drive the motorcycle she was straddling inside.

She piloted the bike through the front reception area, passing all of the self-aggrandizing displays detailing the scientific accomplishments of S.T.A.R Labs. Her plan was as simple as it was driven by desperation. She was going to recapture the Flash. Zoom wanted him, and she'd lost him. Zoom did not tolerate or forgive failure, and Killer Frost had no intention of giving him any reason to be displeased with her. She had seen him run laps around moving bullets before catching them and walk through walls as if the rules of solidity did not apply to him. Even if she managed to get herself to the other side of the planet before Zoom could discover her failure, she had no doubt that there was no place on Earth she would be able to hide for long if Zoom wanted to kill her.

Finding the door for the stairwell next to the elevators, Killer Frost used her powers to blast it open. She drove her bike up the stairs, heading for the floor she had been able to tell correlated to the windows she had destroyed from the outside. There was no way she was going to fail. She couldn't fail. Her life depended on it.

OOO

Mana lifted herself from her prone position on the floor, her head throbbing from the concussive force of the explosion. She sat up and looked around the room at all of her friends and acquaintances. No one looked injured or greatly hurt. The Pharaoh had a couple of cuts across his face, and Cisco had apparently hit the side of the desk in his fall, which would result in pain in his ribs and a terrible bruise at the least, but otherwise, everyone looked okay. Mana breathed out a deep sigh of relief for it. Acting on pure reflex, in the swiftest act of magic she had ever achieved, Mana had called forth her staff and conjured a barrier to protect them all from the explosion itself and subsequent flying glass.

"Is everyone okay?!" Barry asked.

"Still in one piece." Joey said.

"Alive." Tristan said.

"I don't think I'm too hurt." Cisco said.

"Still here." Harry said.

"I'm okay too." Téa said.

"Can you people do anything right?!" Serenity screamed hotly.

"I second the question!" Kaiba shouted as he glared at everyone with unmitigated contempt.

"Look, we're all okay! What was that, anyway?" Jack asked.

"C4 charge." Harry said. "Judging from the amount of damage and singeing of the walls. It was probably-"

Harry was suddenly drowned out by the shrill whine of an incoming motorcycle engine. Less than a second later, Killer Frost appeared, charging through the archway on a Japanese sports bike. The villainess immediately shot a cold blast at Barry before even coming to a stop. Barry used his speed to dodge the shot to his left, traveling twenty feet in the space of a heartbeat. Killer Frost's bike collided with the work desk in the center of the room. She rode the momentum, stepping onto the top of the desk and jumping off of it onto the floor.

Mana fired a blast of magic at Killer Frost's feet. It caused several strings of vines to spring from the floor and try to entangle her. Killer Frost used her ice to construct a dagger, sliced through the vines before they could trap her, and rolled to her right. Fighting with the ferocity and fearful intuition of a cornered animal, Killer Frost created an ice path at her eight o'clock angle, slicking the floor where Barry had started to run at her. Touching the ice patch, Barry almost instantly lost his traction and went crashing past her into the distant wall. Taking advantage of her momentary opportunity, she fires an ice beam and froze Barry's entire body to the wall.

"Inferno Fire Blast!" Jack shouted, activating his spell card.

Killer Frost saw a giant fireball of red and black flames come at her from seemingly nowhere. She quickly created a small wall of ice in front of her to shield herself from the blast. The magic fire struck the ice and blew it apart. Killer Frost was shot backwards, landed hard on her side, and rolled over herself.

"No! No! NO!" She screamed in her mind.

OOO

Down in his cell, Hunter Zoloman was quietly fuming to himself. How had it all gone awry? Luck had opened the doorway between the two Earths and provided him what he needed to save his own life. He had worked his way into the confidences of Barry and his friends to the point that they believed everything he told them without question. He had even considered it as a further stroke of luck when the kid, Jack, started helping them because it placed Barry's distrust firmly nowhere near himself. Zoloman had placed himself perfectly to steal Barry's speed and cure his condition.

It had all gone wrong when that Bakura guy had contacted him. Bakura's powers had dazzled and astonished him. No matter how Zoloman ever worked the scenario in his head, he hadn't been able to conceive of a situation where he could take Bakura's powers without executing a plan to outmaneuver him. It had both aroused Zoloman's imagination and inflamed his fury that Bakura's powers were capable of rendering him immaterial with the flick of a card, and there seemed to be nothing he could do it. The personality which claimed to be a millennia-old spirit possessing the body of the teenage boy never had his defenses down, and Zoloman had tested with various muggers and a couple of Earth-2's metas. No matter how the approach was carried out, none of them had been able to get close to Bakura without setting off one of those hidden, preset spell or trap cards of his. Through this, Zoloman had ascertained that the only way he could possibly take Bakura's powers for himself was to ambush him when he would be otherwise occupied. Meeting Bakura had increased his ambition, and he would still take those powers for himself as soon as he got free.

As his internal dialogue wound itself to a close, and Zoloman began to work out his plan of escape, it suddenly presented itself. Unbidden, a breach tore open in front of him, against the interior side of the cell door. Zoloman could not understand how this could be. There were only two breaches that had not been closed by Barry and Wells, and they were in fixed locations. A partial explanation and further surprise manifested itself a moment later when Bakura stepped through the breach into the cell.

"Hello, partner."

Bakura lifted his Millennium Ring a few inches from his chest, the ancient necklace glowed with light, and Zoloman's meta-cuffs detached from his wrists. Zoloman stood up, resisting the almost unconscious urge to rub at his irritated wrists. He was not going to show any weakness in front of Bakura. Barry and his friends were prey, but Bakura was every bit the predator that Zoloman himself was.

"How did you know I was here?" Zoloman asked.

"They may have discovered the Shadow Ghoul, but I still have my methods of keeping an eye on these fools."

"What are you doing here?"

"We still have a plan to fulfill. I've assembled your forces, and everything is ready. You've distracted them admirably, and I believe that one of your subordinates is weakening them upstairs as we speak." Bakura said.

"'Distracted them?' What's that supposed to mean?"

"You are a convincing liar, Zoloman, I'll give you that. But, Harper is a professional duelist, and half the game is knowing when your opponent is attempting to deceive you. Frankly, it was inconceivable that he wouldn't eventually figure it out."

"And what have you been doing all day while I've been dealing directly with them?" Zoloman asked.

"As I said, I assembled your meta-humans for one. I've also been making sure all elements of the final plan are in place. All traps, all spells, all points of ambush. Everything is ready."

"So, then why come back for me? If you're so well prepared, then why not go ahead without me?"

Zoloman saw Bakura's eyes flash something then. It was a fleeting look of anger and displeasure. Bakura quickly hid it behind his usual countenance of smug, authoritative sovereignty.

"We're partners, Zoloman. We have a deal to help each other succeed. I'm merely keeping up my end of the bargain." Bakura said.

He kept his face straight and flat, but internally, Zoloman was smiling broadly and mockingly. What Bakura meant and was trying to cover up was that he was not as massively powerful as he claimed to be. He couldn't deal with both Harper and a speedster like Barry at the same time, not to mention all of their friends who would be trying to help as well. Bakura needed Zoloman to win, which meant that Zoloman's plan for stealing his powers was guaranteed to work out. Zoloman softened his expression just enough to make it look like he was accepting the given explanation as the truth.

"Of course. I never should have doubted." Zoloman said.

With that, he followed Bakura through the breach.

OOO

Getting back to her feet within a second, Killer Frost swung her left arm in a sweeping motion, sending sharpened shards of ice hurling in Jack's direction. Mana responded by aiming her staff at Jack and causing the floor to rip itself up into a thick slab. The shards shattered against it harmlessly.

"Raaaah!" Killer Frost howled in frightened rage. "I have to get the Flash! I have to get him!" She thought to herself.

So distracted was she by what she needed to do, she never saw Tristan's right-cross before it connected with her jaw. Joey double-teamed her by slamming his own right into the other side of her face, sending her head jerking along the arc of his fist. Cisco then ran up and bashed her over the forehead with his tablet computer.

Super vibrating his molecules to phase through the ice encasing him, Barry escaped, grabbed onto Killer Frost, and super-sped her away. He ran her down into the pipeline and threw her into a cell nearby to Garrick's. With the door closing down on her, Killer Frost aimed her hands to use her powers again, but nothing happened. The door sealed, and Killer Frost made eye contact with Barry, looking very much like a caged animal.

Barry sped away. Before going back to the control room, he decided to check and make sure that Garrick was still there. He arrived only in time to see a breach collapsing in on itself inside the cell. Just as Barry had feared, Garrick was gone. He then returned to everyone else, coming to an instant stop in the middle of the room just in front of the desk.

"Is everybody okay?" Barry asked the group at large.

Everyone confirmed that they were.

"Good. I put Killer Frost down in the pipeline. She shouldn't bother us again." He said. "Garrick's gone."

For more than five seconds, everyone in the room just stared at Barry, unable to accept what he had just said.

"What?!" Harry finally snapped out. "How?!"

"I saw a breach in his cell. I don't know how it could have opened." Barry reported.

"Reverb." Serenity said.

The group's attention shifted to her.

"Reverb's been talking a while about being close to figuring out a new power. He thought he could maybe make one of those portal things."

"Then that means that Reverb's back with the bad guys again." Cisco said.

"Not necessarily. We know he was taken by Bakura, and Bakura can steal other people's powers if he defeats them." Téa said.

"Wait! You mean he could be-" Serenity shouted, unable to finish the thought.

"Ya don't got ta worry about that yet." Joey told her. "Could just be that Bakura wanted to get Reverb out of da way, and it ain't like he's da only way to open a portal."

With that reassurance, Serenity's face hardened again to its usual look of resolution.

"Of course, this means you geeks will have to fight both of them instead of just one. Not that it makes any difference to me." Kaiba said.

"It's not that bad. The plan can stay the same. All it means is Barry, you'll have to focus more on Zoom while I look for Bakura. I can summon out more monsters to help us too. Pharaoh, you're going to have to stick close to me. I'm still not sure how far I can extend my magic to let you use the same effects." Jack said.

The Pharaoh nodded his head.

"And don't count us out. Yugi and Téa found plenty of tech stuff downstairs that can let us help you. You know you're not going in without us." Tristan said.

"Fine. It's settled." Harry said. "The plan doesn't change. Get the weapons loaded up and be careful about it. We leave in twenty minutes."

OOO

Exiting the breach, Zoloman found himself in one of the antechambers of the mine he had utilized for months. The room was lit more brightly than he had ever kept it. The first thing he saw was Reverb standing four feet to the right, lowering his closed fist.

"How did you open a breach?" Zoloman asked Bakura.

"I did that." Reverb said. "I've been practicing the power for a while."

"As you can see, just as I said, I've assembled all your forces for the ambush." Bakura said.

Looking through the room, Zoloman saw that Bakura was telling the truth. Many of the meta-humans Zoloman forced to do his bidding were present. There was Deathstorm, Black Siren, King Shark, Sand Demon, Atom Smasher, and Reverb's older brother, Rupture. Simultaneously realizing that no one but Reverb had yet to see his face, and that they would all instantly recognize him from his guise as the former Flash of Earth-2, Zoloman began to vibrate his whole body, blurring and obscuring his appearance. Zoloman internally smiled to himself. The collected subordinates he knew would be more than enough to deal with Bakura.

"Do they understand the plan?" Zoloman asked with the voice of Zoom.

"I've thoroughly informed them of the situation." Bakura relayed.

"Why isn't Killer Frost here?"

"Unfortunately, she will be unable to join us. The fool made the rather regrettable mistake of attempting to reclaim the Flash all by herself. As a result, she's a bit tied up at the moment." Bakura said with a nearly laughing voice.

Zoloman was not sure what to make of the younger man's tone. It was filled with enjoyment for Killer Frost's failure, but Zoloman thought he detected something more. There was a glint in Bakura's eyes, as if he were amused by something more than Zoloman was aware of. Before Zoloman could think more acutely on the matter, Reverb stepped closer to him to speak.

"Sir, we have your, um... attire ready and waiting for you."

Reminded of how he was somewhat exposed at the moment, Zoloman realized that Reverb would have to die. Reverb had seen his face. He could identify him as Jay Garrick, the Flash. Zoloman couldn't allow that. Still, his death could wait until after the coming fight. Zoloman might as well get one final use out of him before he put him down.

"Good. Have everyone go to the designated rendezvous. I'll be there shortly." Zoloman said.

"Yes, sir."

Reverb left to tell the others.

"I'll be going to my position as well." Bakura said. "By tonight, we'll have everything we want if all goes according to plan."

With that, he departed as well.

"Don't worry, kid. I intend to make sure it does." Zoloman thought to himself.

OOO

All the various members of Team Flash and the Yugi gang piled out of the van. Barry had run ahead of them to secure their initial position. For ten minutes, those who were going in prepared themselves. Mana had switched to her card picture accurate, Dark Magician Girl outfit. Even though he had decided the superhero life as Barry did it was not for him, Jack was also suiting up in the armor Cisco had made for him. Harry was running a final check on his laser rifle and loading a harness over his jacket with grenades and other weapons, making Jack compare it to a similar scene from a famous Schwarzenegger movie. The Pharaoh was stacking his deck in a specific way to get his most desired cards quickly. Tristan, Serenity, and Joey standing off to the side, having nothing at the present to do after Serenity had made sure her pistol would work properly. Téa was standing next to the Pharaoh, holding another deck out, which he took and placed in the deck carrier on the back of his belt.

"Pharaoh, where'd you get the new deck?" Téa asked.

"Jack allowed Yugi and I to build it from his collection. It should come in handy." He replied.

"Is everyone ready?" Barry asked.

No one said anything, but they all gave quiet looks of affirmation.

"I think that confirms it. Still, a couple of preliminaries first." Jack said.

Jack picked up his jacket from the floor of the van and removed from the interior pocket several cards he had placed there for this occurrence. He played his first card.

"Activate 'Giant Trunade.'"

The spell card fulfilled the effect of its printed text, causing any and all set spell/trap cards to return to the hand of their owner, efficiently disarming them.

"That takes care of any little non-human surprises waiting for us. Now-"

Jack removed his first card and played a second in its same slot with a fluid, practiced motion.

"'Sacred Defense Barrier' on the Pharaoh." He declared.

A shimmer of light briefly encircled the Pharaoh before disappearing.

"There. That should give you pretty decent protection from anything coming at you." Jack said.

"Thank you, my friend." The Pharaoh said.

"I love dat stuff." Joey said happily.

"Yeah, so where's our magic protection?" Tristan asked.

"She's right here." Mana said lightly. She then said a little more seriously, "Jack only has one of those cards, and we're probably not going to be seeing any action, anyway."

"Okay. Everyone be careful. We don't want anyone getting hurt today." Barry said to the group.

With that, the small band set off for what they knew to be a dangerous, possibly deadly confrontation.

OOO

Zoom, Rupture, Reverb, Atom Smasher, Black Siren, King Shark, Sand Demon, and Deathstorm were all crouched down behind a clump of trees. They were thirty feet back from where the treeline ended, letting out onto the top of a high rising hill that looked out at the entrance to the mine. Zoom was staring out at a specific point with a combination of joyous anticipation and seething hatred. He was staring at the back of Bakura.

This was it. The culmination of all of Zoom's planning for stealing Bakura's magic powers and making them his own. From the moment Wells had betrayed him by refusing to carry out the theft of Barry's speed, he had known that the stage had been set for something like this to happen. His plan was as simple as it was brilliant. He and Bakura had plotted out exactly how they would take the Flash and his compatriots. They had worked out together exactly from where they would initiate their attacks.

Zoom had originally believed that Bakura would attempt the same as he was currently doing; launching a surprise attack when the other was most preoccupied. He had revised that assumption when Bakura had freed him. His original plan had been to outmaneuver Bakura by placing himself and his meta-humans where they could flank him, working under the belief that Bakura would try to flank their position. Zoom did not think he had been wrong about that, but that Bakura had simply decided to save his treachery for a more opportune moment, likely being directly after they had beaten their enemies.

"He's not as smart as he thinks he is." Zoom thought with scolding amusement.

In his mind, Zoom was thrilled with the prospect of what he was about to do. Not only would he be able to bring about a reign of terror like the universe had never seen once he had Bakura's magic and be the most supreme being on Earth, but it was also the sheer pleasure he would feel from murdering his ally. Ever since they had first begun working together, Zoom had barely been able to tolerate Bakura's attitude. The younger man never ceased to project an aura that spoke to how he thought himself to be cosmically superior to everything else. Every single word that came out of his mouth was dripping with smug, self-satisfying, and self-important preeminence and jeering contempt for everything else. This was where Zoom showed why he was the one true alpha predator.

Zoom broke into a super-fast run and within milliseconds, he was behind Bakura, standing askew to the younger man's right shoulder, and holding Bakura tightly with his right hand across Bakura's chest.

"I challenge you." Zoom rasped in his demonic voice, invoking the ritual of the duel.

He then vibrated his left hand in the way only a speedster could and stabbed it through Bakura's back to crush his heart. Nothing happened. Zoom did not feel his hand pierce flesh, blood, or anything. Bakura then slipped from his grasp as if he were nothing more than a ghost, took two steps, turned, and looked back at him. The look on Bakura's face was just as snide and mocking as it had ever been.

"I'm sorry. Were you expecting that to have a different outcome?" Bakura asked.

He then gave a single, derisive bark of a laugh before vanishing into thin air. Zoom's mind reeled. He'd been tricked. But, how? He had followed Bakura's progress every step of the way. Worked to know every move he made and be one step ahead. He had no idea where he had made his mistake.

"Be ready for anything!" Zoom shouted at his minion troops.

All seven of them had come out from their hiding places. The same as had happened with Bakura a moment earlier, his soldiers all evaporated away to nothingness. Within an instant, Zoom was all alone. Out of the corner of his eye from behind, he detected a small burst of light spark, and then fade away. Following the course of it, he spotted a single Duel Monster card on the ground near his feet and looked down at it. It was a trap card that bore the name "Illusion."

Caught completely unaware, Zoom was unable to dodge the laser shot which connected with his back. It knocked him down onto his stomach. Jumping back to his feet and turning to look, Zoom saw that the two teams of goody-goodies had stumbled upon him. Wells' rifle was trained on him. He was outnumbered, and with the combined powers of Barry and Harper, was genuinely in danger of losing.

OOO

Barry, Serenity, Tristan, Jack, Joey, Mana, the Pharaoh, and Harry had been walking their chosen path to get to the entrance of the mine. They had all decided they wouldn't take the direct route to the entrance, deciding it was the most obvious place for any traps to be sprung. They had chosen to walk through the woods to the east of the mine in a crescent-shaped arc. Traveling under the concealment of Mana's magic, they had all felt confident in their ability to approach unnoticed.

They had been halfway there when they came across the last thing they had expected to. It had been Serenity who had spotted and pointed him out to all of them. Zoom was just standing in the middle of a clearing at the top of a hill looking out over the main route to the mine entrance. Although it was difficult to tell through the cowl, Zoom's body language suggested to everyone that he was distressed and confused. Before anyone could react to stop him, Harry's eyes went wild with bestial fury, his higher judgment momentarily overruled by his hate for his enemy. Harry's mind simply washed over with all the animosity which had been building for so long as it seized on the presented opportunity. Harry raised his rifle and fired, the blast shattering the auric field of Mana's mafic, collapsing their camouflage.

The laser struck Zoom and pushed him forward off of his feet. Recovering with super-speed, he regained his feet and turned to glare at them. He, Jack, Barry, and the Pharaoh all stared each with tension as thick and palpable as London fog. The classic stand-off was in full effect, both sides waiting to see which would make the first move.

"I think he's all alone." Jack said.

"Cisco, is there anyone else around here?" Barry asked over his coms.

From S.T.A.R Labs, Cisco responded, "Not according to satellite thermal scans. It's just you guys and him."

"Hey, guys, come on! We gotta get ta Jessie and Reverb, remembuh?" Joey said.

"Yeah, come on, already!" Serenity yelled.

"You can't win, Jay! Not this time! Not all alone!" Barry shouted angrily.

"I require no assistance! I am all I need!" Zoom rasped back.

Zoom then took the initiative. In a hazy blur of motion which seemed to move both to the right and left simultaneously, in less than a second, there was not a single man before them, but four. Four Zooms.

"What the hell was that?!" Jack shouted, too surprised to keep it to himself.

"Time remnants are so very useful, and so easy to create. All you have to do is go back in time one second." Zoom said.

The pressure continued building, rising like the mercury of a thermometer directly exposed to a heat source. Mana thought that she had to be the most apprehensive about what was about to happen. She had four, ordinary, people with no powers to take care of, and that number was going to increase when they fulfilled their goal within the mine. She knew she had no chance of dealing with one of the Zooms out in the open like this. They had to get inside the mine. Confined spaces wouldn't hinder a speedster much, but it would do something, and that could give her the slight edge she needed.

Barry's foot twitched minutely, flinching rapidly up and down. The Pharaoh held his right hands over his deck, ready to pull his cards while Jack had his poised to activate a preset spell/trap.

Across the way, the Zooms all had their lightning sparking across their bodies. In the background, the scene reminded Tristan of an American, old west shootout, the participants preparing to draw.

One of the Zooms then dashed forward, and the battle began. Mana first used her magic to initiate a short-range teleportation for her and her group. They vanished in a flash just as Zoom was less than an inch away. He continued without stopping, heading towards the mine and his quarry.

"Magical Explosion!" Jack shouted, hitting the button on his duel-disk at the same time.

A blast of energy detonated amidst the remaining Zooms. Having predicted the action, the three Zooms were already running. All three of them charged the others. Barry grabbed the Pharaoh and Jack and sped them to safety. Thanks to the shared Flash-time while moving at super-speed with Barry, the Pharaoh was able to draw a card from his deck, finding it to be one he had taken from Jack's collection. It was perfectly suited to buy them a second.

"Activate 'Trap Hole!'"

The Earth opened beneath the feet of the three Zooms, swallowing them all instantly, buying the three of them a few seconds. Barry stopped, letting his two passengers off.

"You guys okay?" Barry asked.

"Yeah, thanks." Jack said.

Both he and the Pharaoh wasted no time in drawing cards from their decks.

"Pharaoh, try to stick close to me. I'm not sure of the furthest I can project the field for you to share my powers." Jack said.

"Understood. Now, I summon Dark Magician and Obnoxious Celtic Guardian!" The Pharaoh said.

The two sorcerer monsters appeared before them in bursts of light.

"I summon Speed Warrior, and Strike Ninja." Jack said at the same time as the Pharaoh was summoning his monsters.

The six-foot-tall, dull silver-colored body of the Speed Warrior, and the five-foot-ten, muscularly lithe Strike Ninja entered the world.

Jack then played two of his spell cards.

"I use 'Speed Spell – Speed Force' on Strike Ninja, and ' Speed Spell – Speed Energy' on Barry Allen."

"Wait, what?" Barry asked.

The Flash then felt a charge of power coursing through his body, coming from nowhere. Barry was always aware of the Speed Force flowing through his veins, allowing him to accurately sense the enhancement to his powers from Jack's magic. Barry looked at Jack with an expression that combined gratitude, and a possibly reproachful surprise.

"Either yell at me or thank me later, they're coming back." Jack said.

He was right. The three Zooms came running out of the hole back onto the level ground. Jack thought the trap hole must have gone deep, as they had been granted seven whole seconds to work. The Zooms rushed all of them, and the heroes split up to deal with their opponents.

Barry accelerated to his top speed in two-tenths of a second, Zoom closing the gap in no time at all. To Barry's surprise and satisfaction, he found that Jack's card had done its job. He was equal to Zoom in speed in every way. The two raced away from the mine, traversing through the surrounding woods at breakneck velocity. The two were equally able to evade trees, jump over rocks, upturned roots, and find the most level gradient, all while moving at speeds upwards of two-thousand miles per hour.

Zoom closed in on Barry's left and attempted to elbow him in the side of the head. Barry ducked his head away. He tried to throw his own right fist, but Zoom caught the balled hand and used the momentum of his punch to grab hold of his arm and throw him into the trunk of a massive, centuries-old oak tree. Barry was dazed, made groggy for a split-second. His vision regained focus just quickly enough to dodge a super-fast right-jab. Zoom's fist dug itself into the wood of the tree, evoking a small outcry of pain from its owner. Barry moved to plant a punch into Zoom's kidney, but Zoom pivoted his elbow, sending his hand crashing down to deflect the blow with the side of his fist. Zoom then snatched his other hand out to take hold of him.

Barry sailed out of his reach and reset his course for the city. Zoom instantly followed after.

OOO

The two remaining Zooms dashed at the Pharaoh and Jack. Dark Magician immediately fired off an orb of offensive magic at the right-hand Zoom. Zoom jumped, flipping over the blast, which impacted and exploded on the ground behind him. Obnoxious Celtic Guardian dove forward, trying to protect the Pharaoh. In the blink of an eye, before he could even begin to swing his sword, Zoom was behind Obnoxious Celtic Guardian. The evil speedster rammed his shoulder into the back of the powerful, elfin warrior, pushing him to the ground. Zoom then seized the monster's sword, planning to pin Obnoxious Celtic Guardian to the ground with it. Zoom stood over him and thrust the blade down. In the minute milliseconds between the thrust and the intended penetration, the sword broke apart, bursting out as a cloud of butterflies.

Zoom turned his head to see the Dark Magician aiming his staff in the correct direction. Dismounting Obnoxious Celtic Guardian, Zoom cut a beeline straight for the Pharaoh. If he could kill the holder, then the monsters and anything else to be possibly done with those infuriating playing cards would be rendered moot. While still moving at super-speed, Zoom began to vibrate his hand to stab and crush his heart. The speedster's hand shot out to inflict the lethal blow, but was bounded off by an unseen energy field four inches from the Pharaoh's body. Except, not all the way. The tips of Zoom's fingers penetrated the shield by half an inch before being deflected. A quarter of a second after the failed assault, the Pharaoh was wrenched off of his feet into the air. Looking up, Zoom saw that he had been magically lifted by the man in the purple robes and the ridiculously pointy hat towering over his head.

OOO

At the same time, sixty feet away, Jack and his company were contending with their Zoom. Following the same course of thinking as his counterpart, Zoom first attempted to make a straight assault on Jack himself. Before reaching halfway, the instep of a foot connected with the right side of his jaw, sending his face scraping into the dirt as he tumbled to a stop. Zoom glanced to see the armored form of Speed Warrior standing a short distance away. Zoom sped back to his feet and ran forty-five feet to his left. Speed Warrior kept pace, traveling parallel with Zoom, staying in front of him. Zoom repeated the process, moving to the right, only to find the same result. The duel monster was fully capable of matching him.

A moment later, Zoom's speedster reflexes barely allowed him to dodge a kunai knife aimed for his right kneecap. Turning, he saw Jack's second monster, a man dressed in a more ostentatious version of traditional ninja garb. To Zoom's preeminent surprise, the Strike Ninja blurred towards him with the velocity of a true speedster. Zoom struck his hand down just in time to block a handheld kunai looking to perforate one of his kidneys. They were going for incapacitating strokes instead of killing blows. The fact that they were preventing him from winning only served to infuriate Zoom further.

Strike Ninja flipped the knife to hold it backhanded and used his enhanced speed to try to slash a diagonal line up Zoom's torso. Zoom took a step backwards to avoid the cut, only to be suddenly falling backwards. Zoom could feel what had done it. A tripwire, obviously strung discreetly between the two nearest trees. While still falling, Speed Warrior rushed up and swung his arm down to punch Zoom's head into the ground for a double impact. Before the punch could reach its target, Zoom unleashed a trick he had kept close to his chest until then. He twisted his whole body, creating a spinning momentum, and used his super-speed to turn himself into a living tornado. Strike Ninja and Speed Warrior were both instantly flung away by the gale-force winds.

Continuing to spin and whirl, Zoom directed himself in the direction of Jack. Zoom's swirling vortex of his body tore through the trees and ripped up the earth along its course. He was aiming to rip Jack in two. Jack, having already activated one of his preset cards as soon as he saw the tornado form, performed a super jump, leaping forty feet up and out of danger at just the right moment. Hovering in mid-air, he drew, looked at, and played a new card.

"Activate 'Blackwing Bombardment' on Zoom!"

Shooting forth from the graveyard of his duel-disk came a wave of black razor-sharp feathers. Zoom halted and turned himself to look, only for several of the feathers to slice through his suit and skin before avoiding the full cloud of flying weapons. As Jack landed, he saw Zoom seemingly run away. He thought for a second that maybe this incarnation he was presently fighting might have decided to call it quits and just bailout, but he knew instantly that he was not correct in that assessment.

Out of sight of his enemy, Zoom ran a wide circle at a radius of three-hundred feet wide, traversing the path again and again and again. After lapping the course a hundred times in less than a minute, Zoom ran back towards Jack and hurled his right arm forward, throwing his lightning trail at Jack.

Jack himself had no fear of this attack. Not only did he have Cisco's suit to protect him, but he had never deactivated his "Mirror Wall" trap, making all attempts at harm from Zoom useless. What Jack had not considered was that his summoned monsters would not count on his being prepared, and would try to defend him instead of sticking to offense. Speed Warrior ran into the path of the lightning and took the full force of the blast. He was taken right off of his roller-skate-clad feet and launched backwards, colliding with Jack himself and putting them both on the ground.

OOO

As the Pharaoh touched down on solid earth, he drew and instantly played a new card.

"Paralyzing Chai-"

Before the Pharaoh could finish, Zoom had outstretched his arms and begun to spin them in oppositely rotating concentric circles, creating two cyclones of wind. The twin tempests lashed out, striking the Pharaoh in the chest, ending his assault, and sending him flying hard into the trunk of a tree.

Dark Magician flew down like an eagle dive-bombing his prey, holding his staff out in front, charging a blast of magic. Zoom waited until Dark Magician fired the blast, and then blurred over to where Obnoxious Celtic Guardian was just regaining his feet, dragged him back to the same spot, and used the monster as a living shield to intercept the destructive magic. The elfin swordsman was then so weakened by the battle, he vanished from the world, returning to the Dominion of the Beasts. Dark Magician could not stop himself in time to not enter proximity. Zoom threw a punch into Dark Magician's head with a speed of four-hundred miles-per-hour behind it, burying the sorcerer's face into the dirt with a force like a pile driver. The speedster then pelted his enemy with innumerable punches, all delivered with the same maliciousness, all moving too fast to be seen by the normal, human eye.

When it seemed like Dark Magician was unconscious, Zoom shifted his intent back to the Pharaoh. This incarnation, who was simultaneously the original and a separate Hunter Zoloman, had the sudden inspiration that what he had failed to steal from Bakura, he could maybe steal from the young man in front of him. Zoom super-sped to the Pharaoh and used his shoulder to ram into the side of the shield protecting. The Pharaoh was slammed into the flat face of a boulder protruding from the ground and grunted with pain. Zoom stood in front of him.

"I challenge you, child."

Zoom once again vibrated his hand and stabbed down into the Sacred Defense Barrier, holding the Pharaoh in place by pushing down on the magic barrier with his other hand. He was not thrown away as had happened before, but his fingers only entered the previous same half of an inch. Zoom kept at it, knowing that sooner or later, the shield would either have to give out, or his deadly hand would slip all the way through.

OOO

Minutes earlier, Mana, Harry, Joey, Tristan, and Serenity all appeared within the main entrance to the mine. Joey and Tristan both nearly doubled over, their faces showing clear signs of intense nausea.

"Ugh! Can we go back? I think I left my stomach back dere." Joey said.

"Sorry, guys." Mana said with real apology. "I know those kinds of jumps take some getting used to. If it makes you feel any better, Jack threw up his first time."

Tristan held a hand over his mouth for several seconds, looking on the brink of following through with the sickness he was projecting outward. He finally took it away after a clear and silent battle and stood up a little straighter.

"How come you two look fine after that anyway?" Tristan asked with no little annoyance.

"I've made enough breach jumps to not even feel that." Harry said blandly.

"And there's no way I'm letting something as stupid as my stomach get in my way now of all times!" Serenity harped. "Now man up, already!"

"You know, maybe you should consider goin to manners school or somethin' once all this is ovah." Joey said offhandedly.

"What was that?!" Serenity barked, her face becoming even more grim and threatening.

"Just a suggestion. Not orderin' youse to do anything."

"CHILDREN, PLEASE!" Harry roared.

He then strode with purpose towards the old freight elevator on the back wall.

"Ramon, give me the thermals. How many people are in this mine?" Harry said into his comms.

"Give me a second. The satellites have to recalibrate the scan slightly to see the whole mine." Cisco replied.

The others all followed him. Moments before they would have gotten to the doors to the next room, the sound of crunching metal made them all turn to look back. One of the Zooms had come after them and had just rammed through the ancient, rusting doors to get in. Without prompting, the five of them all rushed the last few feet into the hall. This Zoom did not super-speed to catch them, but took his time, walking normally. Harry shot several laser bolts from his rifle, none of them finding their mark. He then took one of the grenades he had brought, pulled its pin, and hurled it.

Zoom then super-sped, caught it, and threw it back over his shoulder, where it detonated harmlessly. At the same time, Mana used her staff to make the ceiling and walls bend and fold inward as if they were being sucked in by the strength of an implosion. The entire entrance to the mine collapsed in on itself, enclosing them within the hall they had run into.

"There, that should do it." Mana said.

She turned to walk with the others, but a noise like a whirring power tool caused her to look back again. What she saw was the gloved hand of Zoom emerging from the debris, followed by more of the man at an unobstructed pace. Mana turned back to the others and gave a sheepish, self-reproachful little smile.

"Oops! I forgot speedsters could do that."

"Go! Go!" Harry yelled at them.

He stepped forward and placed on the ground a device that looked like a metal golf tee. It spread an energy shield that encompassed the breadth of the hallway they were in milliseconds before Zoom reached their position. Zoom kept his body vibrating to phase through, but he quickly found that he could not effortlessly step through.

"That'll hold him, but not for long. Run!" Harry commanded the others.

The five of them sprinted down the hall as quickly as they could. Harry spoke through his comms again.

"Ramon! Give me those thermal results!"

"Okay, got it! There's three thermal signatures in there besides you guys! Two are in one place, and the other is separate. The closet are the first two. In the direction you're heading now, take next right in the hall, and then a left after that, and then it should be a straight shot to them." Cisco replied.

"Harry, you and Tristan, you take dat way! Serenity and I'll get the otha." Joey said.

"Wait! We shouldn't split up!" Mana protested.

"Then you go with them! I can take care of myself!" Harry snapped harshly.

Mana's face showed her pondering it for a few seconds, and then steeling itself as she nodded her head.

"Don't worry, Mana. I'll take care of him!" Tristan declared.

The blonde sorceress gave a weak smirk in response.

"Just be careful, Tristan." She responded after a beat.

They reached the turn Cisco had specified, and the one group became two.

OOO

Barry and Zoom cleared the forests and entered the city. The two navigated through the cramped city streets at speeds upwards of five-hundred miles-per-hour. They crisscrossed between the cars on the streets, in and out of alleys, dashing through the small spaces separating pedestrians. It all created a zigzagging, crossword pattern of trailing lightning on the ground.

Zoom grabbed Barry and pushed him hard into the side of a black Escalade, crushing the SUV's body a quarter of the way in on itself. Barry momentarily doubled over but then used his lowered position to plow his shoulder into Zoom's stomach and ram him into a car parked on the opposite side of the street. Barry straightened up and planted a super-fast left-cross, right-cross, and uppercut into Zoom's head in one second. Zoom blocked the final punch, sent an inverted punch of his own into Barry's solar plexus, and put his elbow into the left side of Barry's jaw. Before Barry could fall to the ground, Zoom grabbed him by his suit and pulled him close in.

"I will not die, Flash! I'm going to live! And if you were me, you'd be doing the same!" He rasped angrily.

Barry phased himself out of Zoom's grasp and ran away to reconvene himself. Barry didn't have to turn his head to know that his enemy was in pursuit again. It was an inevitability. Barry wasn't sure what he was going to do. He wasn't a killer. He knew that. No matter the evil the man he knew as Jay Garrick had done, Barry couldn't bring himself to take another person's life, which left the question of how to deal with him. The obvious solution would be to just capture him and lock him up in Iron Heights, keeping his powers dampened. Even though that was still technically possible, it had been made even more complicated by Zoom duplicating himself with his time remnants, as he called them.

"There's nothing for it, I guess. I'm just gonna have to bring him in like any other criminal. Even if there are four of him now." Barry thought.

That still did not solve the problem of how to immediately deal with him, but at least it was a decision made. Barry needed some way to knock this one out for long enough to get the meta-cuffs on him. He thought about the super-sonic punch, but he would need a five-mile, relatively straight shot at Zoom to pull it off.

"Or do I?"

He had an idea, but it would be tricky to pull off. Barry began to scan his surroundings. He had to find the right pair of buildings to pull off his new plan. Heading towards the interior, downtown area of the city, Barry looked back over his shoulder to check on Zoom. What he saw at first confused him, and then filled him with fear and a new, different determination.

As soon as Barry looked back, Zoom diverged from chasing him, and ran up the side of the skyscraper on his left. After reaching an elevation of twenty stories, Zoom ran horizontally across the face of the building. He dug his hand down into the windows as he ran, causing shards of glass to be set on a deadly path for the civilians below.

Barry pulled the fastest, sharpest u-turn of his speedster career yet and poured on all the speed he could muster. Barry ran back and forth along the length of the affected area, grabbing and carrying people to safety. Just before he could get the last bystander, Zoom reentered the fray, tackling Barry to the ground. It was only the fact that the Speed Force caused his brain to function as fast as his body that allowed Barry to realize that Zoom's hand was already vibrating, and he was looking to amputate his legs. An efficient way to forever disable a speedster.

As Zoom plunged his hand down, Barry responded with a move he had taken the time to learn from Oliver. Barry reached out, grabbed Zoom's hand at the wrist, and then pulled the other man forward across his body. Barry wrapped his left arm around Zoom's right shoulder, making sure to keep the hand in the proper place, lifted his right arm into the air, and then swung both his arms and his hips. The effect was quick, spinning the two of them so that Barry was on top and Zoom was beneath him. From his newly elevated position, Barry rained punch after punch upon Zoom's face. He had to make Zoom at least groggy, just a little out of it for about a minute for his idea to work.

Once Barry thought he had achieved this initial goal, he moved Zoom out into the middle of the street and moved on to the next step. Barry ran up the face of the skyscraper to his right, the same one Zoom had used to cause his distraction. After reaching what he thought to be a sufficient height, Barry turned and ran back down. He repeated this process with the building on the opposite side of the street, and then the first again.

In his ear, he heard Cisco ask excitedly, "Barry, are you doing what I think you're doing?!"

He normally would have needed five-point-three miles to build up the speed he would need to pull off a super-sonic punch, but not with what he was doing. By running up the sides of the buildings, Barry was having gravity assist him, minutely increasing his speed every time he turned downward again. After twenty seconds of repetition, Barry heard the wind around him silence, and knew he was moving faster than sound.

Barry exited his final lap, heading back for Zoom. He could see that Zoom was a few, scant moments away fully recovering thanks to his speedster healing. Barry pushed off into a jumping, flying, super-sonic punch which connected squarely with Zoom's temple. Zoom immediately fell unconscious. Barry took a few moments to catch his breath, and then took the meta-cuffs he had kept with him the whole time and slapped them onto Zoom's wrists.

"One down, three to go." He thought.

With that, he took hold of the prone form of his enemy and set off to rejoin his friends.

OOO

Zoom's hand had penetrated the Pharaoh's shield up to halfway across the palm. The Pharaoh's head was only just starting to clear. Dimly, in the back of his mind, he could hear Yugi's voice crying out.

"Pharaoh?! Pharaoh! Get up!"

The impending death of Zoom's hand crept forward another quarter of an inch. Through the Pharaoh's half-opened, dazed view, the two minds who inhabited the one body could both see that the magic shield Jack had given them was beginning to crack and shatter. Out of the corner of their shared eyes, both Yugi and the Pharaoh could see that the Dark Magician was beginning to recover, but that it wouldn't be fast enough to aid them if they didn't do something themselves.

To save their lives, Yugi was about to forcibly switch with the Pharaoh when something happened which both delayed that action, and made it even more necessary. Unseen by Zoom, behind his back, Téa appeared, holding a big rock in her hands over her head. Without a word, she brought it bashing down onto the evil speedster's head. Momentarily disoriented, Zoom staggered off of the Pharaoh. Yugi instantly took control and rolled away. He quickly drew, looked at, and played a card in quick succession.

"Activate 'Knight's Title!'"

An aura of light then encompassed the Dark Magician. It transformed his robes into gleaming, dark purple, metal armor, and his magic staff into a long broadsword. He had become the Dark Magician Knight. The metamorphosis revitalized the monster, allowing him to stand straight and newly unmarred. Yugi drew from his deck again, trusting in the heart of the cards to give him what they would need to dispatch their enemy.

"I play, 'Spirit Sword of Sealing!'"

Dark Magician Knight's broadsword disappeared and was replaced by one with a human skull as its handguard, and a blade of glowing, blue, pulsating energy.

Zoom, now recovered, turned murderous eyes onto Téa. Téa froze beneath the stare of those eyes. She was a brave girl, but the malevolent intensity of that gaze had such a frightening and hypnotic effect, she couldn't do anything except remain still. Téa had the thought that this must be exactly why deer often stood stock still in the face of oncoming car headlights. Zoom took one menacing step in her direction.

"Hey!" Yugi shouted.

Zoom turned to look at the young man, and Yugi's voice also had the effect of shaking Téa from her stupor.

"I'm the one you want, remember?! Leave her alone!" Yugi demanded.

"What?! Yugi, no!" Téa shouted.

It was too late. Zoom had already made his decision and was speeding towards his chosen prey. Yugi knew this would happen. The idea he'd had was the riskiest he had ever come up with. It was just the kind of gamble Joey would have taken without blinking, he thought. But Yugi believed in his monster. He trusted that the Dark Magician Knight would come through.

The Dark Magician Knight had suspected what it was that Yugi, the holder of the Millennium Puzzle and vessel of the Pharaoh wanted him to do when he had equipped him with the Spirit Sword of Sealing. That suspicion was confirmed as soon as Yugi began shouting, and Dark Magician Knight knew what he had to do. With barely a tenth of a second wasted between decision made and action invoked, the sorcerer turned swordsman flipped the Spirit Sword of Sealing so that he was holding it backhanded. He lifted the sword over his head and threw it like a javelin with the accuracy of an Olympian athlete and all of his strength. He hadn't aimed the sword to hit Zoom where he had been, but where Zoom was going to be. Dark Magician Knight had aimed the sword at Yugi.

The magic weapon had been sent flying half a second before Zoom even started moving. Yugi turned and began to run as soon as he had drawn Zoom to him instead of Téa. It wouldn't do much with Zoom's super-speed, but Yugi thought it might make the little difference needed. Yugi felt in that moment like his mind was functioning as fast as Zoom's feet. Yugi could almost hear every individual footfall of Zoom as he closed in. Yugi could hear the sword whistling through the air. The two sounds both became so close they overlapped and joined together. Still running, Yugi turned his head to look over his shoulder. Zoom was only three steps behind when the villain suddenly stopped, ripped the Spirit Sword of Sealing out of the air by grasping its hilt, and sent it soaring back at Dark Magician Knight.

"Just as I hoped." Yugi thought.

He dove forward, landing on his stomach, reached out as he continued to slide, and retrieved a card previously lost by the Pharaoh. Yugi played it while still sprawled on his front.

"'Paralyzing Chain!'"

Yugi felt the hand of a grown man viciously take hold of the back of his neck. Fear that he had been too late, that his ruse had failed him saturated his entire being. He thought his neck would be snapped at any moment. It never came. After what felt like an eternity, but was only three or four seconds, Yugi removed himself from Zoom's hand and rolled over onto his back to see that the speedster was encased head to foot with magic chains that were prohibiting any movement. Just as Yugi had hoped, the chains were even preventing him from vibrating his molecules to phase his way to freedom. Despite their stationary posture, Yugi could see that Zoom's eyes were howling with rage and disbelief.

"Yugi!" He heard Téa shout.

She was suddenly on her knees beside him, looking him up and down with stock worry.

"Yugi, are you okay?!"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Téa. Really. That was a close one, huh?" Yugi asked with a smile.

"A close one?! I think I had a heart attack!" She responded.

"Sorry about that, but it was all I could think of to keep him from getting both of us."

"And I'm glad of that." Téa said. Her voice lowered, and her demeanor became calmer. "You're really okay, right?"

"Yes, I am."

Yugi thought he detected a change in Téa's cadence when she asked her next question. He thought her voice sounded a touch more caring, but more repressed somehow, as if she were trying to keep her concern from being obvious.

"And the Pharaoh?" She asked.

"He's fine too. I'm not sure if he'll still have some kind of lingering, psychic headache or something the next time he takes over, but he's okay." Yugi said.

"Thank goodness."

Téa exhaled a monumental breath of relief, and then her control broke, and she pulled Yugi into a nearly crushing hug. Yugi hugged her back.

"Don't take risks like that again, you hear me? The gang couldn't survive if something happened to you." She said.

"But I had you there to back me up, so it all worked out, right?"

She gave a small sound which was halfway between a laugh and a sniffle.

"I'm always here for you."

OOO

From the safety of the S.T.A.R Labs control room, Cisco, Mokuba, and Kaiba watched the confrontation unfolding at the mine through thermals and spy camera live feeds. Kaiba had to admit that even though all the computers he'd seen since this newest interruption to his real-life had begun were laughably obsolete, the satellites seemed to almost be up to snuff. Even more to his surprise than when Zoom had created three duplicates of himself, was the happenstance that two of them had now successfully been dealt with, and one by Yugi all by himself.

"Oh yeah! That's two down, baby! That's the King of Games for you!" Cisco shouted happily.

Kaiba internally bristled at the sound of Yugi's title. It was a title that was rightfully his. Every bit as much as he worked and plotted for the takeover of KaibaCorp to ensure his and his brother's futures, he had worked to become the best Duel Monsters player in the world. He had refined his strategies, polished his deck, had only the best cards possible, and knew how to make them work together. Even though Yugi was the only person to have ever defeated him in a duel, he knew he was the superior duelist.

"Except, that isn't true anymore. Harper beat you as well. One person able to defeat you could just be a lone, worthy rival, but can you really claim to be inherently better than everyone else when there are two, separate people who have beaten you?" Kaiba's mind asked himself.

He instantly, furiously pushed the notion aside. What utter nonsense. He was Seto Kaiba. At twelve years old, he forced one of the richest men in his world to take him and his brother home, and then stole his company away from him. He had taken a multi-million dollar weapons manufacturer and transformed it into a multi-billion dollar gaming empire. There was nothing he couldn't accomplish through hard work once he set his mind to it. He may have been defeated by Yugi and Harper in the past, but all those were nothing more than flukes. Lucky draws allowing them to win in the last nothing moment, and nothing more sensational than that. All their talk about "magic" and "the heart of the cards" was nothing more than rambling hocus pocus, and he refused to ever indulge in their delusions.

"Barry, you better find Jack when you get back. From what I can tell here, he could use some help." Cisco reported.

"Got it! I'm almost back now!" Barry replied.

"Seto, I know this isn't where you'd like to be right now, but all this is kinda cool, isn't it?" Mokuba asked.

"This is a waste of our irreplaceable time, Mokuba. Nothing more."

"I know it's an imposition on us, but Seto, I mean-"

Before Mokuba could finish his sentence, a breach came into being beneath their feet, and the three of them all fell into it. In an instant, they found themselves in the same woods outside of the mine they had been watching on the screens a moment before.

"What the?!" Cisco squeaked, looking back and forth around them.

"Mokuba! Stay close to me!" Kaiba ordered his brother.

Kaiba carefully scanned their immediate vicinity. This was no accident. He knew that for some reason, they had been purposefully transported there.

OOO

Inside the mine, Joey, Serenity, and Mana had come to an intersection in the hallway.

"Cisco, which way do we go?" Joey asked over his comms.

No answer came.

"Cisco, ya there man?"

There was only silence from the earpiece.

"Nothin'!"

"Figures!" Serenity griped.

She pulled out her Colt 1911 and rocked the slide back, forcing a bullet into the chamber.

"How're we gonna find whoever it is now?" Joey asked.

"I think I can take care of that." Mana said.

Mana closed her eyes and held her staff out, extended in front of her. Among the many aspects of magic she had trained in was a skill to give her spatial awareness of the environment around her. It worked by keying in on the energies of nature flowing around all things, analyzing how they were affected by the things they touched upon, and discerning what the objects were by those changes. She had never used it whenever she and Jack had needed to fight, because it required so much concentration, so much tuning out of the physical world for a short time, that it would put her at too much risk during a battle.

The silence of the hall helped to accelerate the process. Mana, connected with the forces of nature flowing from the Earth. From how the energies were affected, she could feel the stone of the foundation under her feet, the plaster and wood of the walls surrounding them, the rats and roaches scurrying invisibly around them, and the flesh on Joey and Serenity's bodies. She had to restrain herself from jumping at feeling the bugs and their disgusting, dirty little legs and exoskeletons, but she did not leave that space. With her mind, Mana traveled down both the left and the right halls. The first proved to have nothing more than defunct heaps of slowly rusting mining equipment at the end. In the second one she mentally explored however, she detected the presence of a human tied up inside of a wooden crate.

"To the right!" Mana declared as she came out of the trance.

They all set off. At the end of the hall was an ancient door with a single, flickering light-bulb hanging overhead, and a padlock over its knob which looked as strong as it did old. Not even breaking stride as she did so, Serenity lifted her pistol and put three rounds into the lock, making it shatter and clang onto the floor in a hundred pieces. Joey then lifted his foot and kicked against the latch as they reached it, breaking the door in easily. The interior of the room was dank and musty, the walls had faded to a colorless pallor, and it was lit just barely through a single, grime-covered window. Mana led them to where she had sensed the body. It was in the furthest corner from the light. It had a lid which was placed caddy corner on its mouth and weighted down with six cinder-blocks.

It took Joey a not inconsiderable effort to push the lid aside, but he did it. The cinder blocks clattered away with ear-splitting clacks as they struck the cement floor. From inside the crate, the bound and gagged form of Cisco Ramon looked up at them.

"Reverb!" Serenity shouted.

She holstered her gun quickly and moved to try to tip the crate over. It wouldn't budge.

"Help me!" She commanded.

Joey stepped to the opposite side and pushed as she pulled.

Mana said, "Guys, I could just float him out, and-"

She was cut off by them making the crate start to tip, and then lowering it onto its side.

"Okay, we can just do it that way." Mana commented.

Serenity shifted herself to the mouth of the box, reached in, and dragged her boyfriend out with a loud grunt. She didn't even think of asking the others for help at this stage. Once Reverb was three-quarters removed from his improvised prison, Serenity sat him up and took the rag out of his mouth. He gagged and spluttered for a few seconds before looking into Serenity's brown eyes with both love and pride.

"Hey, Serry. I thought you might find me." He said.

For the first time, Joey and Mana saw the hard-bitten exterior of the Serenity of Earth-2 break down. Her face softened, she smiled, and her eyes welled with forming tears.

"I thought you were gone. I thought you'd be dead."

She flung her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

"Baby, I love you too, but if you maybe wouldn't mind untying me first." Reverb said with a hint of irritation.

"Oh, right! Sorry."

"Here." Joey said.

He handed her a pocketknife he'd had in his jeans.

"Wait, isn't that?" Reverb asked Serenity.

"It's a weird story. Just ignore him, and don't kill him. Never mind what I asked you to do if you ever saw him." She responded.

Reverb studied Joey as Serenity cut through his ropes, but his eyes ultimately relented.

"Fine, whatever. I'm wiped anyway."

"Okay, now that we've got him, let's get to the others. Zoom must have gotten through Harry's shield by now." Mana said.

She raised her staff, and with a burst of pink light, invoked another short-range teleportation.

OOO

Harry and Tristan followed the directions given to them by Cisco and soon found themselves at a large, sliding, metal door. Harry had expected to find it locked, but it slid easily along its track. It opened to a dark space lit from the outside about ten feet in. Only halfway through the darkness, Harry saw the large cage positioned against the far wall, and through the bars, Jessie. She was alive. In the most rational part of his mind, Harry had acknowledged the fact that he could easily find her dead when they arrived, and it had both terrified and inspired him to work.

"Jessie!" He shouted and rushed forward unthinking.

Jessie lifted her head from her sulking, and her eyes widened in amazement.

"Dad? Dad!"

She jumped to her feet and pushed herself against the bars of the door, overcome with joy and unable to believe she was really being saved.

"Get back. Get back!" Harry ordered her.

Jessie backed up several steps, and Harry obliterated the door lock with one laser blast. He tore open the door and threw his arms around his daughter.

"Jessie! Oh, my Jessie Quick!"

"Dad, this is you, right? You're really here?"

"I'm here, baby. I'm here." Harry lifted her chin to look her in the eyes. "I am so sorry this happened to you, and that I couldn't get here any faster."

"That doesn't matter. I just want to get out of here." She said.

"Let's go." He said.

He turned to leave, holding her hand, and it was then that Jessie first noticed Tristan.

"Hi." Tristan said with a slight wave.

"Never mind him." Harry said.

He pushed past Tristan, still holding onto Jessie. They hadn't taken five steps when there was a flash of blue, and Zoom was standing before them.

"Wells." He growled.

Harry pulled Jessie behind his back and lifted his rifle with the other hand.

"How touching. Father and Daughter, reunited at last." Zoom said.

Harry tightened his finger over the trigger. Zoom turned his gaze on Tristan.

"You must be one of Harper's friends. One from Bakura's world." Zoom said.

Tristan clenched his fists. He knew it wouldn't do any good if Zoom chose to kill him, but it was all he could do.

"I gave you every opportunity to end this amicably." Zoom told Harry reproachfully.

"You were never going to let her live." Harry shot back.

Zoom let out a low, demoniac laugh which sounded both as hollow as it was filled with real mirth.

"You finally figured that out. I had planned on allowing you to live with the pain of failure, Wells, but now I think you and your daughter can just die together."

From the sideline, Tristan couldn't take it anymore. He had to do something. He raised his balled fist and stepped to clock Zoom across his face. In the space of a blink, Zoom altered his position to be eye to eye with Tristan. Tristan froze, his fist still cocked for use.

"I have no reason at the moment to kill you, child. You would do well to maintain that status quo." Zoom threatened him.

Just then, a wholly unexpected flash of light intruded itself into the scene, and Zoom turned his head to see Harper's girlfriend, two of his friends, and Reverb standing near to the door. Reverb's presence surprised him. The man looked pale, drained, and exhausted. Zoom could see rope burns on Reverb's wrists, and marks on his face, probably from a gag. So, Bakura had created an illusion of Reverb and his other lieutenants while the real Reverb was tied and hidden away. Could that mean-

Zoom's thinking was broken by a fist colliding with his jaw. Tristan, reading the surprise and pause in Zoom's body language had decided to take the advantage. Harry followed Tristan's example and began firing his rifle into Zoom's chest. The laser, pulse blasts struck the speedster and pushed him back a step. Harry kept it up, sending shot after shot, trying to prevent Zoom from recovering enough to retaliate. At the same time, Serenity pulled her pistol and fired one of her .44 caliber rounds. While Zoom was not able to escape Harry's onslaught, he was still able to move his hand quickly enough to catch and deflect the conventional bullet.

As Harry began shooting, Mana noticed the man in the other cage in the room. It was the metal mask obscuring his face which had gained her attention. He threw his shoulder against the door of the cage. Mana understood that he wanted out, but it was what he did next that allowed her to see why. He motioned his hands through the air around his head, indicating the mask, and then pointed to himself, and gestured outside his cell. He was saying he could help. Mana nodded, used her magic to rip the door of the cage open, and followed it up by making the mask disassemble itself and fall away. The man underneath the mask was revealed to be in his late forties to mid-fifties, and had a strong face with steely eyes. He nodded once to Mana, and then super-sped over to Zoom, ramming into him hard.

The older man stomped on Zoom's chest once he was down, but Zoom was finally able to move freely again. He took the older man's ankle in both hands and ripped him off balance, making him fall to the floor. Zoom recovered his feet, and still holding the ankle of the older man, stared down at him.

"Garrick!" Zoom hissed. "I should have done this a long time ago!"

Before he could do anything, another of Harry's lasers struck him in the chest, forcing Zoom to give up his grip.

"Magic girl, his feet! Old man, his hands!" Harry commanded while sending a second, nonstop barrage of shots.

Mana understood, and used her magic to make the moisture in the air of the room condense at Zoom's feet, and then freeze into immobilizing blocks of ice. At the same time, the older man got back up, sped behind Zoom, and grasped both of Zoom's hands with his own, pulling them back, and vibrating his own molecules as a counterforce to prevent Zoom from phasing away. Without prompting, Serenity fired her gun again, putting three slugs into Zoom's stomach.

"Serenity, no!" Joey yelled and pushed her gun off its course.

"Enough of that! Magic girl, keep it up, don't let him break loose! Spiky hair, bring me my bag!" Harry ordered.

"My name is Tristan!" He said haughtily while still doing as told.

"Tristan, yeah, right. I won't forget it again. Tristan, you and your friends take my daughter out of here."

Joey began, "But, what are you gonna-"

"Just do it!" Harry barked.

Seeing the sternness set in his face, Joey and Tristan both decided to do as asked.

"Hi, Jessie, I'm Tristan. Let's just wait outside for a minute."

"Yeah, Serenity, you and Reverb too. Let's go." Joey said.

The two of them led the other three quickly but carefully out of the room. Harry lifted his bag, rummaged in it for a second, and removed a set of four capped syringes bound together by a rubber band. Each vile was filled with a blue liquid. Harry walked right up in front of Zoom.

"I think you know what this is." He said to Zoom. "Using what Snow found, I was easily able to identify your original formula and produce a batch. I thought it might be handy if a circumstance like this came up."

Harry's voice then dropped an octave and became cold with the fury of a man who had been harmed in the place he valued and guarded most dearly.

"You took my daughter, and held her prisoner here, torturing her, for months."

"Harry, wait, what are you gonna do?" Mana asked.

Instead of answering her, in a fluid motion, Harry uncapped all four syringes, jabbed them into Zoom's heart, and pushed on the depressors, flooding his system with a fresh, unstable batch of Velocity-6. Zoom's body tensed like steel coils instantaneously.

"You might want to let go now." Harry said to the older man.

The older man let go just as sparks of lightning began to streak all across Zoom's body.

"What did you do?!" Mana shouted as she took a step forward.

Harry intercepted her, took her arm, and held her back.

"Don't. It's already too late, and he deserves it. You know he does." Harry said.

Mana didn't know if she accepted that anyone deserved to be killed as Harry had just done, or if she even really would have helped such an onerous man, but she knew Harry was right in one regard. It was too late, and she couldn't think of a single spell or bit of magic that could help.

Zoom's feet broke loose of their frozen prison, and Mana, Harry, and the older man all took a step back. Even though he was now free to wreak any havoc he might want, Zoom made no move against them. He aimlessly staggered around the room, almost the same as a drunkard who had become nearly too intoxicated to remember how to walk. Out of nowhere, Zoom suddenly hurled himself into the distant wall at super-speed, bouncing off of it rancorously. Zoom repeated the process, going back and forth like a pinball in an arcade machine in a seemingly insane abandon.

After thirteen times slamming himself into the walls, Zoom came to a halt on his knees in front of Harry and Mana. He glowered up at them with a hatred fueled by obviously racking agony. Mana could see different parts of his body vibrating super-fast, but involuntarily, out of sequence with the rest of his body. The lightning arcing over him had increased to the point that most of Zoom was not visible through it.

"Wells!" Zoom howled his demoniacal voice. "You may have won this battle, but you will still die in agony! I may die here, but I am not yet dead!"

Zoom's blue lightning then increased once again, and Zoom roared with pain. There was a popping sound, a puff of light, and Mana noticed that one of Zoom's fingers was gone. The next popping sound half a second later removed a further three fingers, then nine in total, then his feet, and his ankles. Mana watched in horrified fascination as Zoom disintegrated both swiftly and slowly, consumed by his power. When his molecular disassembly had consumed enough to leave Zoom nothing but an immobile torso and head, it finally finished his work. Zoom gave one final snarl of hatred, and the last of him atomized away.

"Come on, let's go." Harry said.

He turned to leave, and rediscovered the older man who had also been Zoom's prisoner.

"Who are you, anyway?" Harry asked.

"Jay Garrick. The real Jay Garrick, from Earth-3." He replied.

Harry said nothing in response. Reaching the door, he looked back into the room one last time and saw that Mana was still staring at the spot where Zoom had died.

"Magic g- Mana. I think Harper and the others could still use your help." He said.

Hearing this, Mana snapped herself out of her daze. As much as she was overcome by what she had just seen, she knew Harry was right. Jack was fighting one of the Zooms right then, and he could probably use her help. Mana didn't yet know what to think about what Harry had just done beyond that she didn't like it, but that would have to wait for a later time. She turned away from the spot and left without looking back.

OOO

Outside, at the same time as Mana was just beginning her scan of nature to find Reverb, and the Pharaoh had still been pinned by his Zoom, Jack had been trapped under Speed Warrior. His monster seemed to have been knocked unconscious by the blast. Because his right arm was stuck between his own body and that of Speed Warrior's, the position he had landed in, and the weight of the monster's armored body, Jack couldn't push Speed Warrior off of him.

The Zoom Jack was fighting came to a stop eight feet away from him. Zoom's eyes trailed along the visible parts of Jack's body, settling on the cards presently active on his duel-disk. Jack looked up with the most confident smile he could plaster onto his face.

"I really must have gotten under your skin. I would have thought you'd have gone after Barry." He said.

This one he was fighting was the original Zoom. The one they had been knowingly and unknowingly dealing with all day. Jack wasn't sure how he knew this. Maybe it had something to do with his trying to control the other's mind earlier, but he knew this one was the genuine article.

OOO

Zoom did not respond to Harper's attempted taunt. He was looking keenly at the cards in the duel-disc's spell/trap zone. Those cards were Jack's only real source of power, and so if he could remove them from the equation, Harper would be helpless to stop him. The problem was that Zoom had already learned at the cost of a significant portion of his speed that if he attacked Harper, and that one card was still in play, it would happen again. There was no reason to think Harper had deactivated it if it would work every time, as had been implied.

"If I attack him, it'll just..." Zoom's thought trailed off as an inspiration came. "But what if I don't attack him?"

OOO

Jack could tell that some kind of idea had come into Zoom's head. He got the same look in his eye that Jack had seen in so many of his opponents during his Yu-Gi-Oh tournament career. It was a look that said they had figured out a workaround to a problem.

Jack hadn't known what form Zoom's solution would take, but he would not have guessed at what happened. Instead of super-speeding over, or possibly trying some other trick only a speedster could do, Zoom walked over at the pace of any ordinary person. Beside Jack, Zoom silently knelt to one knee without a single hint of any intended hostility in his body language. Jack then understood, and he had to commend the cleverness of it. Mirror Wall worked to protect Jack every time he was attacked, but he wasn't being at the moment. Zoom's lack of aggression worked to bypass the effects of the trap card entirely. With an equally nonthreatening deliberateness, Zoom removed the cards him his spell/trap zone one by one.

"Just another moment, Harper." Zoom rasped.

He said it mildly, as if what would follow were of no consequence or interest to him in the slightest. Jack began to worry. He could possibly use his own Dark Magic Attack, or maybe even Mind Crush on Zoom once his cards were gone, but he needed his hand free to use either move, and in the time it would take him to say the words to invoke them, Zoom would be able to kill him before he could finish.

Jack searched his mind for an answer to this problem, for a new strategy to save him. Zoom had removed the third card from his spell/trap zone, and Jack had nearly been on the point of despairing when he noticed something. It was something that would turn everything around again, and he had forgotten about it in the light of his current predicament. More importantly, it was something Zoom had forgotten about as well.

Sticking to the role he needed to play, Jack changed his expression to one he hoped would show defiance with a fear creeping into it. It was the face he thought Zoom would be expecting to see. When the last of his spell/trap cards had been removed and tossed aside, Zoom moved onto the three monster cards. He pulled up Speed Warrior's, and the very instant the monster began to vanish and return to his world, a smoke bomb exploded at Zoom's feet. The haze giving him enough cover and time, Jack shot his right hand forward.

"Dark Magic Attack!"

The color of the world temporarily flashed negative, and Zoom was sent flying away. Jack breathed a sigh of relief, grateful for the brief moment to recover. He had thought he was about to die for a second there. The smoke started to clear, and he found Strike Ninja standing next to him.

"Thanks, pal. That was a close one." Jack said.

Strike Ninja replied in Japanese, but it might as well have been English for how well Jack understood the words of all duel monsters. The ninja then held out his hand, and Jack accepted the assist back to his feet.

Over a hundred feet away, Zoom recovered from the last hit he took. As he stood up, he took note of a pain in his left knee. He could tell right away that it would put a slight asterisk on how he would run, and even though it wouldn't be by much, the fact of it both angered him and caused another feeling he had not felt in years; apprehension. He couldn't let this continue any further. To hell with trying to take any magic powers. Zoom knew that if he didn't end this soon, he might be in real danger of being thwarted for good, and he would not let that happen. He was going to live, and he was going to remain free, no matter the cost.

From his position, Jack watched Zoom get to his feet. He exchanged the deck in his duel-disc for one on his belt. He drew out a quick four cards all as one with the nimble, practiced flurry of the professional he was. He showed the cards to Strike Ninja, who nodded with understanding, and Jack set them all in the spell/trap zone.

From across the distance, the three combatants all stared each other down, knowing that what was coming would be the conclusion of the entire, long day. Zoom charged them, and Strike Ninja started off with equal velocity, the "Speed Force" speed spell still active upon him. Strike Ninja pulled a kunai and threw it, aiming to bury it in Zoom's stomach for a crippling, but not immediately fatal wound. Zoom swatted the weapon away with ease and was thinking that instead of using his head to crush the monster's heart, he would vibrate his foot instead to smash its brain. He didn't get the chance, for as soon as his hand had reached the limits of its extension as he batted the throwing knife off course, Strike Ninja took hold of his wrist and got around behind Zoom, placing his other hand on Zoom's shoulder, executing a perfect arm lock and holding the speedster in place.

"Activate 'Assault Cyclone!'" Jack yelled.

A tornado of air began to form and swirl directly over Zoom's head. Before it could land and damage him further, Zoom phased out of Strike Ninja's grip and sped away to his ten o'clock bearing. Zoom turned his head back to look to see what would happen to the ninja, but seeing nothing, refocused ahead, and found an iron cage open and welcoming him like a hostess in a five-star restaurant. He was already too close to just run around it, so Zoom was forced to spin his arms to create two mini twisters to propel him into a jump over the cage. Coming down on the other side, he found the foot of Strike Ninja, already striking with the speed of a deadly snake hidden beneath a rock. The kick connected with a force that felt like the collision of a freight train at full bore with a compact, economy car. Zoom fell to the side, and Strike Ninja pounced on him quickly.

Strike Ninja had been inches away from delivering a punch that was sure to bring the battle to a close when Zoom pulled a speedster trick he hadn't yet before. He hurled his arm as if he were throwing a hook punch, and the trail of lightning behind it arced into Strike Ninja's body, shocking him into incomprehension. Zoom then got up again and made a beeline for Jack.

Zoom began to vibrate his hand while still in flight to his target. He wasn't planning to crush Jack's heart anymore. He was going to rip it right out of Jack's chest. The only thing that saved Jack's life was his foresight. Among the four he had drawn from his deck was a trap card called "Dodge Roll." Jack had activated it at the same time he set it with the other three. Its magic took control of his body and made him jump and roll away to safety when it sensed that he was in danger. It worked in just the nick of time too, as Jack could feel Zoom's hand making contact just as he was moving.

Jack was safe, but only for an instant. The same as most of his cards, Dodge Roll only worked once every time. If he wanted to use it again, he would have to take it out of the duel-disc and replay it, and he didn't have time for that. It was a combination of intuition, common sense, and plain, simple knowing which made Jack aware that Zoom was already turning at speed to finish the job. This was it, he had nothing left, and no time to draw any fresh cards. Jack's mind searched with the same rapidity as a speedster's for a solution, but came up with nothing.

"I'm sorry, Mana. I hope you won't be too hurt." Jack said to himself, certain this would be his final thought.

OOO

Barry got back to the mine, finding that the battle had left the immediate vicinity of the primary entrance. Things were happening fast. It had barely been five minutes since they had first happened to see Zoom standing by himself, looking nonplussed.

"Cisco, how's everyone doing?" Barry asked through his comms.

Five seconds passed with no answer.

"Cisco?"

No answer.

Knowing he couldn't afford to wait any longer, Barry set off for the last spot his friends had been, still dragging the unconscious Zoom he had fought along with him. At the exact spot where he had left the others, Barry dropped and left his package. The fight had moved off, as he couldn't instantly see any of them.

Barry was about to start again when a rustle of grass and branches gained his attention. Yugi, Téa, and the Dark Magician emerged from the woods to his left. The Dark Magician monster looked different from when Barry had last seen him minutes before, and was dragging the Zoom they had fought. Barry was taken aback by how this Zoom wasn't just phasing out, but chalked it up to the weird Millennium magic he had been forced to get used to. He sped over to them to give them a hand.

"Are you two okay?" Barry asked as he took hold of a chain length.

"Yeah, Yugi took care of him." Téa said brightly.

"She's just saying that." Yugi said. "Truth is, she saved me, and we were lucky."

"How's everyone else doing?" Barry asked.

"I think most everyone's been too busy the last few minutes to apprise the rest." Téa said.

They placed the immobile, chained Zoom next to the one bound with meta-cuffs.

"Cisco isn't responding to me now, but he said Jack could use some help not a minute ago." Barry said.

"The Pharaoh lost sight of Jack not long after we started. I think he was in that general direction." Dark Magician said and pointed with his sword.

"If Jack's in trouble, you should get to him now. We'll catch up as soon as we can." Yugi said.

Barry nodded, and flashed away. It only took two seconds for him to cover a distance of five hundred and fifty feet to a clearing on the other side of an outer clump of trees. He saw Jack with his back to Zoom, and the speedster making a hundred and eighty-degree turn, his intention clear. Barry was in time. He still had a chance. Barry dug deep, pushed himself, and summoned every ounce of speed and power he possessed. Just as Zoom was thrusting his hand out for the final, killing blow, Barry reached them and rammed his entire body into Zoom, knocking him off course and sending him crashing into the ground head first, the earth billowing up against him as he dug in. Jack looked at Barry, his countenance showing exhaustion.

"Bet you're glad to see me for once." Barry said.

Jack smiled and gave a small, grunt of a laugh.

"We're not done yet." Jack said.

He drew from his deck. The second card out of the three he picked made him smile again.

"Feel like doing some real teamwork?" Jack asked playfully.

Barry smiled back. "Sounds good to me."

"Then get running, Barry. Round and round."

Barry understood and set to running. For his part, Jack walked as quickly as he could away, putting distance between himself and Zoom. When he reached what he thought would be an adequate margin for safety, he made his move.

"I play 'Makiu, the Magical Mist.'"

A thick, damp fog settled itself down around Zoom for a fifty-foot radius. As Jack waited for Barry to finish up his part of the strategy, a sound like clapping thunder rang out from behind. Looking, he saw that it was Mana's group, and that they had recovered Jessie and Reverb.

"Jack, are you alright?" Mana asked him as they approached.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Watch what's about to happen." He replied.

They all watched as Barry circled them over and over again, and then when he was ready, he came back and threw his lightning, just like Jay had taught him.

"Try and catch this one." Barry thought as he slung it.

OOO

Zoom groggily dragged himself to his knees, his head throbbing. Where the hell had Barry come from? How could the other him have possibly lost to Barry? Zoom decided that once he had taken Barry's speed and saved himself, he would subject the kid to the slowest, most painful death he had ever inflicted yet.

He placed his hand on top of his right knee, intending to push himself up, but his grip slipped, and he tumbled back onto the ground. For the first time, Zoom noticed that he was in the middle of a haze as impenetrable as the thickest London fog. The air inside of it was moist with condensation. His entire body was slick with it.

Seconds later, Zoom saw an orange-yellow spark of light permeating the fog, and he knew what was happening. Barry's lightning splintered into a million pieces, and through the easy conduction of the moisture in the air, traveled everywhere. Zoom never had a chance to evade it. The electricity tore into his body with the force of a bull elephant charging an enemy.

OOO

After a few seconds of a light show which would put any DJ act to shame, the spectacle within the mist settled and died away. The fog itself then began to evaporate away, fading to oblivion. Zoom still laid in the crater his body had created. His suit was singed and partially melted away in places, his face was half exposed and displaying bad electrical burns. He was taking such deep, but ragged, harrowing breaths that he sounded as if he had only one lung.

To everyone's surprise, he was still conscious, glaring at them with eyes that were still resolute, but showed a note of defeat within their depths. They displayed that Zoom was very near his breaking point, and despite having the will to go on, did not see any options for either victory or retreat.

Jack, Barry, Mana, and Harry all took several tentative steps closer to their enemy. They needed to bind him like his duplicates, but had to be cautious about it. Steps away from Zoom, something happened which introduced another unexpected factor to an already fraught equation, changing everything yet again.

"Hey, guys!" A familiar voice called out.

Everyone collectively turned to see Cisco, Mokuba, and Kaiba approaching them.

"We got breached here somehow. What's going on?" Cisco shouted.

"No! Get back!" Barry shouted.

It was already too late. Seeing this development for the prime opportunity it was, Zoom used some of the little strength he had left to dash over to the newcomers. Before anyone could respond, he snatched Mokuba, and went a further sixty-five feet before stopping, needing to catch his breath again. Zoom crouched down behind Mokuba, using him as a human shield to almost completely obscure his body from the others.

"Mokuba!" Kaiba shouted. He clenched his fists with an anger escalating with the velocity of an ascending space shuttle. "Zoom, you bastard, let him go!"

"Don't do anything stupid, you've got no place to go!" Barry yelled.

"Dat ain't right! He's just a kid! He's got nothin' ta do wit any of dis!" Joey shouted.

"Zoom, you don't have the strength left to fight us anymore, and we won't let you take him hostage. Be smart about this. You can maybe find a chance to escape later on." Jack said.

Zoom, for his part, knew they were right. He did not have enough strength to fight any further, but they were underestimating him slightly. He still had enough left in him to get away, albeit at a much slower pace than normal for him. At his current energy levels, Zoom knew he couldn't outrun Barry straight up, so he needed to cause a diversion for all of them to focus on, and that's where the boy came in. Besides that, they needed to be hurt a little for what they'd done to him today. Without a single word or indication of what he was planning, Zoom vibrated his hand, and stabbed it through Mokuba Kaiba's stomach.

"Barry!" Mana shouted.

Barry needed no orders to blast off towards the villain and his newest victim. He reached Mokuba a split-second after Zoom ran away to make his escape. Barry picked up the young boy and carried him off, aiming straight for S.T.A.R Labs and Caitlin.

"Mokuba?" Kaiba asked no one.

Harry, Jessie, Reverb, Tristan, Joey, Jack, Mana, and Serenity all looked at him. The horror plastered on Kaiba's face was like nothing any of them had ever seen. It was an expression of the utmost incredulity, melancholy, and spoke of abject failure.

OOO

"Mokuba." Kaiba thought. "My brother. My brother... stabbed! This can't be happening! My little brother cannot be stabbed! He can't die in some alternate dimension we'd never heard of before! Not after everything I've done to try to give him the life he deserves! Zoom, that bastard! The coward doesn't have the courage to face reality when he's beaten, so he hides behind a child! Damn him! How dare he harm my brother?!"

Kaiba felt his despair morph into rage for the offender, and he was filled with a monolithic need and desire for revenge against him. How could he do that?! How could he revenge his brother upon the departing criminal right then?!

From the deepest depths of his mind, Kaiba felt something. It told him that vengeance on his enemy was possible. The sensation was profound, powerfully, anciently cyclopean, and familiar. Kaiba could feel a voice calling out to him, telling him what to do, and it only took a moment for him to realize that the hail was coming from his deck. It was a voice he knew well. Kaiba's rational, modern mind then disengaged like the flicking of a light switch, and he acted on pure instinct.

OOO

The Millennium Ring ignited with intense, impassioned light. Jack looked down at his hand in shocked surprise. He could feel the magic pulsing and pushing outwards, but he wasn't doing it. Jack's head shot from side to side, scanning everyone present. The only power of the ring which anyone but him could utilize was the power to make cards real, and only if he allowed it, usually. His gaze finally settled on Kaiba, the billionaire duelist activating his duel-disc.

It made sense. Kaiba could deny it all he wanted to, but the truth was that he had been a magician and ally of the Pharaoh in his previous life. Kaiba's connection to the ancient Egypt of his home planet was still strong, including a less powerful, but remaining linkage to the Millennium Rod, which he had wielded. Jack thought that had to be why his ring was reacting. From the look of unbridled rage on Kaiba's face, Jack thought Kaiba's spirit was reaching out and touching the part of his ring which was the Millennium Rod, triggering its power. Jack's face then fell in horror as a realization hit him like a steel girder falling from the top of a construction site.

He thought, "Oh no! If he's going to use my card power, then that means..."

He watched Kaiba pull a small, metal case from his inner jacket pocket. It was only thick enough to hold a few cards, and Jack knew exactly what ones would be housed within it. Jack tried to cut off the flow of magic, commanding the ring with all the mental force and control of it he had built over the years. It didn't work. The emotion pouring from Kaiba's spirit was too strong to be blocked out. What Jack knew was coming then happened.

"I summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon!" Kaiba declared.

The dread dragon materialized, its white scales gleaming and reflecting the sunlight in diamond shimmering beams. The creature bellowed its earthshaking roar, the sound conveying the absolute, awesome power of the beast into the very bones of everyone present, making the truth of it undeniable.

"Uh, Kaiba, what are you doing?" Yugi asked nervously.

Jack's mind was working feverishly to try to find a solution. He knew what was about to happen, and could only imagine the destruction it would bring about. Blue-Eyes White Dragon in the regular game had a strength of three-thousand attack points, and Jack had learned that the points written on the cards often translated to their true potential when in physical form. If Blue-Eyes unleashed the full force of its attack, Jack was certain it would carve out a swath of devastation reaching all the way to the Atlantic ocean, possibly further, and they were in Missouri. Millions would be killed, and Kaiba himself was too far immersed in his rage to realize.

"Blue-Eyes! Wipe him off the face of the Earth with your White Lightning!" Kaiba commanded.

The dragon opened his mouth, and the crackling, obliterating force began to charge.

"Hey, Kaiba! I don't think you should be doing this!" Tristan yelled.

"Is that one real?" Harry asked.

"Kaiba, stop! You could hurt people!" Téa added.

"What do I do?!" Jack screamed in his mind.

He couldn't let a duel monster be responsible for the kind of loss of life about to happen. He cared about almost all monsters greatly, and didn't want them to be vilified and hated. Only having a few seconds, Jack pulled out his whole deck and scanned the cards, holding them in both hands. Dragon Capture Jar? Not in this deck. A card to return Blue-Eyes to Kaiba's hand, and hence, the Dominion of the Beasts? Not in this deck. Jack thought it was hopeless, that the worst would happen. He then spotted a card that could make the damage minimal, if any at all. It would need a little assist, but it could work.

"Yugi! I need to do something with you, and I need you to trust me!"

Jack didn't wait for a reply before giving his instructions mentally and played the card.

"Activate 'Shift!'"

The trap card did its job and caused the specified people to switch locations, sending Yugi away, and bringing Zoom back to stand in his place. Blue-Eyes' attack was on the brink.

Before Zoom finished materializing, Jack was shouting, "Mana, send him vertical!"

She hesitated the briefest instant, but then understanding dawned on her face, and she knelt down, touching the top of her staff to the ground. Zoom stood among them, and then, like a fighter pilot triggering the ejector seat, the speedster was skyward bound, propelled by an ever-expanding mound of earth erupting beneath his feet. Blue-Eyes White Dragon, having been able to sense the direction of his target the entire time thanks to the magnitude of animosity Kaiba was focusing, detected the change in Zoom's trajectory, and adjusted his head accordingly.

"This is for my brother!" Kaiba screamed.

The dragon fired his White Lightning attack just as Zoom reached a nearly ninety-degree angle overhead. The blast was a concentrated stream of pure annihilation. It changed the surrounding air pressure, making everyone on the ground feel as if they were submerged deep beneath the ocean. It found its mark, and enveloped Zoom in its searing brilliance. The attack went on, piercing through the clouds and hurtling into outer space with a velocity that the engineers at NASA would gladly sell their souls to reproduce. When it finally dissipated and the skies were clear, there was not a thing to be seen. Zoom was dead.

Jack fell back onto his butt and elbows, not panting, but breathing hard for the wavering adrenaline surge.

"Is... is it over?" Cisco asked with a touch of tension, waiting for another shoe to drop.

"I think it is." Harry said.

Tristan, Joey, and Téa approached Kaiba with slightly hesitant nervousness.

"Hey, Kaiba. You alright there, man?" Joey asked sympathetically.

Kaiba did not reply directly. All he did was remove the Blue-Eyes card from his duel-disc. He replaced it in its case, and the case into his pocket. He then looked up at them with the same stony disinterest his face normally displayed.

"Barry would have gotten him there in like a minute. I'm sure Mokuba will be alright." Téa attempted to be consoling.

Kaiba said nothing. What he did instead was to walk over to Jack, still sprawled on the ground, Mana kneeling beside him.

Kaiba said, "Harper, I don't believe for one second that you have magic, or that she's the Dark Magician Girl, or any of the rest of it. But, if you somehow can get me back to that lab, and my brother faster, then I demand you do it now!"

Jack and Mana both looked at each other, communicating silently. They both knew Kaiba better than he thought, and better than he would accept. They knew that at least, in this case, his brash antagonism was only out of fear for his brother's life. Jack nodded and held up his right index finger to buy himself a moment.

"I'll bring Yugi back here." Mana said as she stood up.

Jack collected the cards he had dropped in his frantic search a minute before and stacked them neatly. Once that was done, he took one of the decks still on his belt, put it into the duel-disc's deck slot, and placed the one he had just rebuilt into his belt.

"Hey, uh, Kaiba, you know I'm all for getting back there fast too. I mean, we all care about Mokuba, but we do have to take care of the other Zooms too. Bring them back with us." Tristan said.

"Uh, I don't think we have to worry about dat, guys." Joey said.

He pointed to where the two Zooms had been piled, and both were gone.

"They must have escaped while their progenitor was getting disintegrated." Cisco said.

"None of that matters! Harper! Get me back to that lab now!" Kaiba roared.

Jack did not say anything back to that. He wouldn't hold Kaiba's harsh words against him. He knew that was just how Kaiba was, and Jack thought that if it were him, and Mana was in that state, he would probably be just as disagreeable. Jack then took the card from the bottom of the deck, knowing it to be the "Teleport" spell card he would need. The process had only taken a minute, and when Jack looked up, he saw that Yugi was back, and they were all ready.

OOO

Having snatched the grievously injured Mokuba Kaiba, Barry had run him back to S.T.A.R Labs in thirty-four seconds flat. He stopped on a dime in the lab control room, just outside of Caitlin's makeshift medical lab.

"Caitlin!" He shouted.

She turned from her computer screen towards the desperate alarm. Her eyes locked onto the bleeding boy instantly.

"Oh, god!" She declared. "Take him to the lounge! It's the only place with tables big enough for me to operate. After that, go to storage and bring me back all the blood, blood plasma, antibiotics, disinfectants, propofol, and other sedatives you can carry. I have to get my instruments, and I'll be right there."

"Got it!"

Barry flashed away, Caitlin grabbed the box with all of her surgical tools, and ran herself. Two minutes later, both she and Barry were in the lounge, with the bleeding, dying Mokuba spread out on a table before them. Caitlin had just finished quickly and crudely sanitizing her hands with pure alcohol, and she slipped them into surgical gloves with the help of Barry.

"Is there anything else I can do?" Barry asked.

"Two things. There's a vile on the desk I was working at that I forgot. Bring it to me. After that, keep everyone out of here. I have a feeling they'll be back sooner than expected." She answered.

Barry did as asked, fetching her a vial of bluish liquid from the desk. After that, he closed the doors to the lounge, and locked them behind him. He knew she was right, and that he would have to keep the others out. That guy Seto Kaiba may have been several years younger than Barry himself was, but still, he had an authoritative, imposing stature to him, and this was his brother. Barry thought it might get a little ugly, but that was just part of the process. Whatever happened with the older Kaibs brother, Barry sincerely hoped the younger one would be okay.

OOO

An hour later, Kaiba, Cisco, Mana, Yugi, Joey, Jack, Téa, and Tristan were all standing around outside of the S.T.A.R Labs lounge, waiting for the results of the surgery. Harry and Serenity were not there, each attending to their loved ones. The tension of the battle had not left them in the least when they had returned to the lab. As soon as they had returned, Kaiba had made a beeline for the lounge after Cisco had used the internal cameras to find out where they were.

Kaiba had blustered up to the lounge door, demanding to be let in. Barry and very much everyone else had tried to point out the obvious fact that Kaiba couldn't interfere with the operation, but he wasn't thinking straight. It had nearly come to blows, with Kaiba shouting his contempt for them, along with many insults. Mana had been on the verge of using her magic to make him go to sleep for a little while when he had yelled louder than ever for everyone to give him some space, and then had settled down after they had all taken a step back. Having regained control of himself, Kaiba had leaned back against the wall and settled his gaze on the crack of the door.

It had been an agonizingly long sixty minutes for all of them. No one dared to speak, and were all thinking the same thing. They were all consumed with the dread of the possible, and filled with the confusing pain of not knowing whether they had suffered a loss or not.

"Hey, Mana." Téa whispered.

She couldn't stand to not say anything any further.

"Yeah?" Mana replied with equal quietness.

"I'm worried for Kaiba. I mean, that's Mokuba in there. He's like the only person in the world Kaiba genuinely cares about."

"I know. I have no idea what he could be like if Mokuba-"

Mana cut herself off, unable to finish the thought. She may not have personally known Mokuba for very long, but like the rest of her new friends, she did know plenty about him thanks to the show. He was such a cute little guy. He was a kind, honest, forthright, sensitive, and caring boy. He didn't deserve to die like this, and at such a young age. The idea that someone so innocent could die made her want to break down crying.

She looked at Kaiba. He hadn't taken his eyes off of the door for half a second. His posture was ramrod rigid, and his face showed nothing, but even so, Mana could tell he was extremely distraught. How could he not be? Her thoughts were then interrupted by the door to the lounge finally opening.

Caitlin stepped out into the hall, her clothes covered with an amount of blood that fell somewhere between what might be typical, and deeply worrisome. Dr. Snow instantly had the undivided attention of all nine people. No one needed to ask the obvious question.

"He's going to be okay." Caitlin said.

The sigh of relief from all present coincided with each other. The very air in the room itself seemed to grow purer, as if it had just been cleansed of a horrible pollution. The only person who did not show great satisfaction at the news was Kaiba himself. His face remained implacable.

"I stopped the internal bleeding, and released the pressure to his brain. Once I'd gotten him out of immediate danger, I gave him an injection of our newest speedster drug, Velocity-8. The temporary powers will speed up his healing, and allow him to make a full recovery." Caitlin said.

Everyone looked at Kaiba, waiting to see if he would show any gratitude, or even any emotion at the news that his only family was safe and well.

"I'd like to see my brother now." Kaiba said in an almost toneless voice.

"Of course. He's asleep right now, but you can see him." Caitlin said and stood aside.

Kaiba entered the lounge and pointedly shut the door behind him with a gentle slam. The implication was clear. The brothers were separate from the rest of them, and Kaiba wanted it to stay that way.

"I knew he'd be okay!" Joey enthused.

"I'm so relieved! I was so scared we'd lost him." Téa said.

"Tell me about it! I haven't been so stressed since we dueled against Nesbit in Noah's world." Tristan said.

Jack, completely exhausted, moved a little away from everyone else, leaned against the wall again, and slid down to sit. He looked out the window, seeing the light turn from afternoon to the first golden rays of sunset. Mana and Yugi stepped over and sat down as well, Mana right next to Jack, Yugi across from them against the opposite wall.

"It's been a long day, hasn't it?" Mana asked.

Jack smirked. "That may be the biggest understatement I've ever heard."

"But it made you smile." She replied.

She then sighed, the weight of everything that day coming home to settle upon her as well, and she rested her head on Jack's shoulder.

"Hey, Yugi, about when I used that card to switch you and Zoom." Jack said.

"No, it's okay. I understand. There wasn't time, and I think I can imagine what might have happened otherwise."

Jack nodded, grateful for not having any bad blood between them. He leaned his head against Mana's, the two of them supporting each other. He delighted in the feel of her soft, silky hair caressing his cheek. It had been a long day, and he felt sure that they'd have some fallout to deal with. He certainly didn't feel proud about everything they had done. Still, with Zoom gone for good, things would get better.

OOO

An hour earlier, Hunter Zoloman flew out of the breach, slamming into the marble wall with the force of a bullet. The portal had appeared in front of him just milliseconds before that blast, whatever it had been, would have ended his life. Pulses of pain jolted into his brain from where the blast had just started to scald his back. He could smell the scent of cooked meat coming from himself, causing overwhelming nausea he couldn't control. Zoloman ripped the cowl off of his head, and hurled up everything in his stomach. It wasn't anything more than digestive acid since his super-fast metabolism had consumed everything else.

Once the final stream of liquid and the accompanying dry hacks had ceased, Zoloman pushed himself into an upright sitting position, requiring the wall behind him for support. Zoloman wheezed like an elderly asthmatic. He couldn't stand up, and he knew it. He had nothing left. Just making himself sit up had caused every muscle in his body to shriek in thunderous protest, demanding to be allowed to rest with unarguable authority.

He looked around the space he had entered. The first thing that caught his eye was the picturesque windows giving an arresting, high-rise view of the city. He recognized a couple of buildings, telling him he was still in Central. He was in someone's apartment. It looked to be a penthouse that had to have cost a small fortune. The main area which he was in was spacious, with lavish, leather furniture, hardwood floors, a grand piano in one corner, and an art deco decorating scheme which all spoke to great wealth.

"Hello again." A familiar, sneering voice came from the side.

Zoloman turned his head, the simple action causing fresh waves of agony to erupt within him. As he had known it would be, Bakura was there, sitting in a plush swivel chair, looking at him with evil, laughing eyes.

"Do you like this apartment? I do. The man who inhabited it previously was a quite highly feared assassin who fancied himself an artist at heart. I'm sure the Shadow Realm is currently having a wonderful time turning that predilection against him." Bakura said.

Zoloman did not respond to this. He had no interest in who Bakura had killed, or whatever he had done to the guy, just to obtain a temporary residence. There was only one question on Zoloman's mind that he wanted an answer to.

"How?"

"It was all rather simple, really." Bakura said naturally, having obviously expected the question. "Zoloman, you manipulated a city into thinking there was an epic struggle taking place between a hero and a villain. You also rather skillfully for some time convinced the simpletons of Team Flash into believing you were on their side. As a result, you thought you were smarter than most, and on par with me. Such a fool.

As soon as your plan to force Wells to secretly steal the Flash's speed failed, it was so easy to make you dance just how I wanted. I knew you'd want to keep those fools well within your sight, which meant finding some excuse to join them here. I had to keep you from making a move against them until the right time, so I used a little trap card on Wells. A card called 'Inspiration.' I think you can imagine what that did. Speedster tracking. Quite handy, wouldn't you say so? It made it so that you were greatly curtailed in what you could do to impede them.

At the same time, simply working against you was not my only objective. I sent a couple of my pets to fetch one of your subordinates. Reverb, it was. I have use for his powers as well, so once I had him, I took them. Not directly, mind you. I needed to send him back unharmed to keep Harper and the other fools in the dark, and that would mean leaving his powers intact as well. I used the 'Cloning' trap card to make a full copy of him, stole its powers, and then simply killed it."

In his mind, Zoloman felt like throwing up again. How smug could one person possibly be? The look coming from Bakura, and his tone of voice, all speaking as if Zoloman were nothing more than an ant he had enjoyed toying with. This had really all been just to mess with him? Had it been for laughs? Zoloman thought that this was wrong, that he was forgetting something which should be glaringly obvious, but his mind was hazy, and he wasn't thinking clearly.

"Once I had what I needed from Reverb, I simply left him to be found in your mine. Properly scuffed up for effect, of course. Back to the matter of you, though. As I said, I knew Harper would figure out who you really were. You never did work on him sufficiently, and his instincts are far sharper than that of Allen's or the rest. You getting yourself caught and locked up after foolishly returning was frankly an inevitability. Then, there was the matter of freeing you. You were so confident that you were on the same level as me, that all I had to do to put you at ease to carry forth your own machinations was to simply feign a look of unease, and then act as if it had never been there. Your feeble mind filled in the blank just as I wanted it to.

You were so convinced that I couldn't take all of them by myself, that I needed assistance, that you allowed yourself to believe I'd really assembled your forces and only meant to turn on you after it was over. So pitiable. How I deceived you with your subordinates, and the likeness of myself, I don't think I need to go into. You figured that part out for yourself, at least. You fought so hard, you and all your duplicates. You might have gotten away if it hadn't been for that poor choice to run the younger Kaiba brother through. Curious, isn't it? How they happened to appear there when they had been in S.T.A.R Labs."

Bakura sneered even wider if that was possible.

"Kaiba's reaction was entirely predictable. His younger brother is his greatest attachment to this modern world, and with that threatened, he subconsciously called on his ancient heritage to avenge the injustice. I was a bit surprised by what Harper pulled off. I didn't care after all if Kaiba's dragon killed a few million, or the entire eastern seaboard. In fact, I was planning on feeding those souls to the shadows, just for good measure. Nevertheless, my goal was achieved. I weakened you to your present state, and Harper, Allen, the Pharaoh, and the rest of the fools all believe you've perished."

Zoloman groaned, the exhalation causing another twinge of pain. Damn it, this kid loved the sound of his own voice. He just wanted to get on with whatever was next.

"So, what now?" Zoloman asked.

Bakura's face changed. It shifted from its wickedly amused expression of superiority to one of puzzled surprise. But, it was a sham. He could see that Bakura's eyes were still reveling in their triumph every bit as much as they had been.

"Zoloman, I'm shocked. Have you forgotten already? It may have only been an illusion, but it was me you were talking to. You initiated a challenge."

Zoloman's eyes widened, and his heart grew cold. His sickened abhorrence to listening to Bakura talk changed to stalwart fear at the speed of light. That was what he had forgotten. The thing which should have been so obvious. The rules of Bakura's magic were simple. To steal the powers of anyone else, he first had to defeat them in a duel, a challenge, and that challenge had been given. Bakura had beaten him, had thrashed him, and had nothing left to do but claim his prize.

"I... I'm not faster than Barry anymore. My speed won't make you superior to him." Zoloman tried.

He knew his attempt to make himself unappealing was desperate and lackluster, like the protestations of a criminal who had been caught red-handed beyond any shadow of a doubt, but he had nothing else. He couldn't move, couldn't run away. Even then, he was trying to force himself to run, but his muscles were locked and wouldn't cooperate.

"Don't concern yourself with such petty details. I've already seen to that. The accumulated speed force from you and your two remaining duplicates together equals your original power. Besides, you do have more pressing matters at the moment, or, have you failed to notice just what it is you're sitting on?" Bakura asked with laughing jeering.

Zoloman looked down at his feet and saw that he was sitting on what looked like the back of a huge Yu-Gi-Oh card. It looked the same as the card he had stood before when Bakura had first approached him. The card with the evil, hungry eyes peering out. The card he was sitting on now, the middle of it suddenly bulged up, raising his feet off the floor in the process. The entire front of the card lifted, and something began to crawl out. At first, all Zoloman could see was a pair of silver horns working their way forward, then came the head beneath him. It was brown, covered with a smooth, hard material that would have spoken to something metallic if it didn't have the unmistakable look of an organic element to it. Zoloman knew that it was an insectoid exoskeleton.

"I did warn you of how dangerous the Man-Eater Bug can be." Bakura said.

Part of Zoloman's mind registered how Bakura's voice could not sound more pleased or more like he was enjoying himself if it tried to, but it was only a small part. At least ninety-five percent of Zoloman's brain was focused on the murderous insect dragging itself out from under the card. When it was free, it stood at a height of eight feet. Its horns did not even have an inch of clearance from the ten-foot ceiling. The monster, for it truly was a monster, that word no longer holding the connotation of a mere generic term, glared down at him. It was salivating. Its mouth hung open dumbly, but its eyes focused on him as if he were the signature, preeminent dish in a five-star restaurant. The final intelligible thought Zoloman had been able to sense through the blackening din of his fear, was that it would take his head first.

OOO

A/N:Well, here's the newest chapter of Flash Duel, and the conclusion to "The Rescue of Jessie Quick." Except, it isn't quite over yet, is it? I really want to thank everyone reading this note, because if you are, it means you've read this far. I especially want to thank everyone who has followed and made this story a favorite of theirs. I'm very glad that my writing entertains you to that degree. As always, I'd love to hear from anyone who might want to talk about the story, or this new chapter, whether you leave a review or send me a private message. Thank you for following this story, and the next one will be up as soon as possible.

PS:I've released my first real book. A graphic novel called "The Unstoppable Dark Storm," featuring an original character of mine. A hard-hitting anti-hero. It's action-packed, and not a bad read if I say so myself. If anyone would like to know more about it, feel free to send me a message.