At first, Nick Fury did not want to believe Tony's words. He just could not wrap his head around the idea of parallel dimensions and three visitors from those other dimensions just arriving and kidnapping Spider Man. But then he had taken up the man's challenge and called his own Tony Stark, only to find that man annoyed for Nick having called him in the middle of a very important experiment.
After he had seen the parallel between both Tony's, Nick turned to the visitors with a glare.
"Okay... You have a Tony Stark with you that is not our own. He may be a clone."
"No one can clone this much greatness." Tony answered with a smirk, then Steve rolled his eyes, stepped forward, and directed his words at Fury, "Believe me when I say I doubt anyone would be able to clone an ego as inflated as Tony's." Which immediately caused a squawk of insult leave Tony.
"But we are allies, Fury, even though we aren't from the same universe. Kid Flash and Deadpool took your Spider Man. We are trying our best to get them back. And when we have them, I can promise you Spider Man will be returned to you." The blonde soldier promised, taking another step forward towards the bald man.
Nick Fury looked the super soldier over for a second before he growled and turned away from them. Tony smirked because he knew the captain had gotten through to the master spy.
"Follow me." The man bit out before beginning to walk, not addressing them anymore after that.
"Hey... Is that..."
Cyborg had come to recruit Batman again. Deadpool had decided long ago that Batman was a dark m'fer that he liked. Sure, Batman didn't like him, but that was a small detail the mercenary was able to overlook because of the Bat's sheer awesomeness! And... Even though the man had shot him once in the head, the mercenary was completely sure it was because Batman liked him!
Right now the four grown men- Barry had full control of his powers again and Deadpool slightly underwhelmed by the speedsters power after having seen Ginger running around- stood around one another with Cyborg's hologram projecting all the people that would be helping them on their suicide mission.
He did not recognize a single person on the hologram. Not a single one other than...
"Creepy! Spidey!" Deadpool shouted out, interrupting Batman mid-grump to shove his way past the two heroes to stand right in front of the hologram.
Immediately Creeper perked up and jumped from the very back of the picture to the front, eyes wide and smile huge.
"My Cinnamon! How I've missed you, Captain!" Creeper gasped out dramatically, all the while Spider Man slowly made his way to stand beside the yellow skinned man.
"You guys have been here too?" Deadpool asked, more than happy to see his friends once more. Once they were all together, they could leave this evil universe. "For how long? I've been looking everywhere for you!"
"I've been here for about... How much time, Shazam Kids?" Creeper asked the children with a slight turn in their direction, but still keeping his eyes fixated on Deadpool's form. He didn't wait for an answer and continued to speak, "And Spider Man invaded Cyborg's secret space after an important meeting! But we're together!"
"Oh, it's awesome to see you guys again! I've been surrounded by these weirdos that have the heaviest conversations! One would think there's no tacos left in this world from how sad they're always acting!" Deadpool told his friend, then directed his look to Spider Man. "And are you okay, Spidey?"
"Yeah, I am, Wade. Listen, is Kid Flash there with you? I think we should get going."
Behind him, he could hear Cyborg question Batman and Flash just what Spider Man meant by saying they should leave, but Deadpool shook his head and ignored him to instead answer the spider, "He's not here. I haven't seen him at all... You?"
"We haven't seen him either, Captain Cinnamon." Creeper breathed out with a heavy frown, shoulders slumping and spikes on his hair seeming lower with his mood.
Deadpool brought his hand up to his chin at this and rubbed at it, "This does not bode well, Private Creeper. We can't possibly leave this place without Ginger. It just wouldn't be right."
"Not at all." Creeper agreed, then the Spider spoke up, "But do you at least have any idea as to where he might have ended up?"
The question only made Deadpool shake his head softly, "I'm sorry, Spidey. I've no idea."
Both Spider Man's and Creeper's faces fell at that and Deadpool could not help but feel horrible for that. But he couldn't lie to them. They needed to be honest with one another if they wanted to survive this hell.
And they would survive it. They would leave this place with Wally before any of them died. Deadpool just knew it.
"That sure was some fancy footwork, kid."
Before he had spoken up, I was busy inside of my own mind. The heavy burden of having been a killer was starting to build up on me and I knew that I was walking with slowed steps and sagged shoulders. Maybe he had addressed me because he knew that I was hurting inside. Or maybe he just wanted me to know that I had done a good job. But I was grateful for being taken out of my thoughts when I had.
"Thanks... The speed isn't too bad." I tried to smile at him, but the expression felt so wrong that I just allowed it to drop. "I.. Look, I'm sorry for being such a-"
"Don't say sorry, kid." Grifter interrupted me before I could really say anything, which made me look at him with a quirked albeit confused eyebrow.
He kept his flimsy mask over his face but I could tell that his face softened when he looked down at me. Then he looked away with a loud sigh and shook his head, all the while he brought his arm up and wrapped it around my shoulders.
"I may have been fighting for a long time, kid, but I still remember how it felt to be that young and dumb rookie that had never taken a life before..." His gaze was fixated on a point far from me, but I kept my eyes on the rubble of cities all around us as he spoke. "And I still remember just how traumatizing a first kill can be. Listen, Wally, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you to suck it up, that the Amazons deserved what they got."
I opened my mouth then, a sudden urge building up inside of me that told me to tell him that no one deserved to get massacred they way they had, but he raised his free hand to stop me immediately.
"War ain't fair, kid. Death isn't either. War doesn't care if you're five or one hundred and five, it will come to your doorstep with his best friend at his side and a hail of bullets. And believe me when I tell you this, what you did to the Amazons there was a thousand times more forgiving than what I've dreamt of doing to them."
His words were sincere and cold, but still held a faint trace of despair in them that allowed me to know that under the rough and calloused exterior Grifter was trying to put up, he was just another scared soul in the middle of a senseless war he could not wrap his head around. He was just another human being caught in a situation much too dangerous for him to try and decide what was right by morals rather than just survive.
"Knowing that doesn't make me feel any better for what I just did, Cole." I whispered to him, looking down at the floor beneath my feet to glare at it.
This rubble. This destruction. All of this chaos. I hated all of it.
"I know it won't." He admitted with a dejected sigh, then patted my shoulder. "Just remember one very important thing, Wally. You traded in dozens of the damned Amazon's lives for these five men. More than twenty wretched lives were snuffed in exchange for five hardworking lives with families that care about them. In my book, while it isn't right, it is one hell of a fair trade."
Once he said this, the leader of the group of five called to the back, where Grifter and I were, "Hey, capes, we're nearing the Rendezvous point where we are supposed to find the package. Should we follow or wait here?"
Capes. I remember when Len used to scream that out in pure annoyance whenever I pulled some prank on him. Or when Rory would curse Flash and I for having foiled his plans of evil... I missed the Rogues. I missed my Team. I missed my home.
"Let us go ahead. We'll meet with the rest of my team there and we'll have more people to make sure you guys get back home to your kids." Grifter instructed the man, who seemed to smile sadly before he turned away without another word.
He most probably had already lost his family.
"Come on, kid." Grifter told me, patting my shoulder once more before he retracted his arm from around me to head over to the five men under our vigilance. "Keep your heads down and your bodies out of sight. I don't want to have to come back to a sight of any more dead soldiers around me."
The man gave their different sounds of affirmation, then Grifted nodded at me and motioned for me to follow.
Once we got to the Rendezvous point, Grifted jumped onto the hood of a car to get better sight and told me that Lois Lane was where the package had been promised to arrive, and she was grateful for having been saved by the yellow blur that was our team member. Grifter had not gotten to see the speedy blur that had taken brutal care of the surrounding Amazons, but I had. And I knew that my survival in this world was even more difficult than I had initially expected.
Zoom was here.
Grifter's teammates asked about me once we had gone back to meet with the soldiers with Lois with us, and he had warmly given them an epic retelling of everything he had gone through ever since he had found me. I knew Etrigan from the small talks I had managed to have with Zatanna before, but Godiva, Mrs. Hyde, and Canterbury Cricket were all oddities to me. I had never even heard of them before.
Godiva greeted me with an aloof kind of warmth if that made any sense, Mrs. Hyde grunted much like Conner would have- and the thought of Supey Jr. being so far away from me just about brought me to tears on the spot- and the other two magical entities expressed their distrust of strangers before Cole had told them of the way I had helped him save the soldiers without any thought of my own personal safety.
From the way he explained who I was and what I had done, I was given the impression that Grifter was actually proud of everything I had done.
I wasn't sure why, but from what I had gathered of this dark world, there really wasn't much of a reason to fight on. Grifter's demeanor had gotten progressively warmer with the more time we had spent together. So, and I really could not understand why, I was beginning to get the feeling that he was a man that had previously not had anything to fight for other than to survive. Not only that, but he may have just found a brand new reason to survive.
To keep me sane and help me survive in this dark world.
If that was the case... I was not completely sure how to feel. But at least I knew I had one ally in this screwed up world.
Please review. We are getting very close to the end! I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am!