2.

This far from Coast City the storm should have been nothing more than a nasty weather report at best, or an inky black bruise on the horizon at worst. But he carried the storm with him, did he not? Carried it through the arteries of Amerika like a disease, bearing down on the beating heartland of this great, corrupt country.

Central City loomed before him, her great glass and concrete towers huddled together for protection against the on-coming storm and the dangers of the night. Even at this late an hour, thousands of lights peeped out from the cities windows, so scared were its inhabitants of the darkness that surrounded them. Even in a world like this, mired as it were in the darkest impulses of human nature, some deeper impulse still had them reaching for the safety of the light. Clawing at it.

Pathetic, mewling little creatures. How much he hated them.

If he wanted to, he could bring the full fury of the storm against them; a black, bloated fist to smash their city from the face of the Earth, to wipe away their precious, pathetic light. Heaven knows, he didn't need the fury of the storm, or the power of the night, to do that. He could tear Central City apart with his own two hands; had done so before to other cities, for lesser grievances, both real and imagined.

But not tonight. Not now. He was here for a different reason this night, with perhaps a more deadly purpose.

He was here for the Gathering.

Like the Gods of Old, the Crime Syndicate of Amerika had each adopted a city as their own, to protect and exploit however they saw fit. And it was through this cruel patronage that their chosen cities were allowed to fatten and grow, like tumours under the skin of Amerika.

Central City belonged to Johnny Quick.

But there had been more than one Johnny Quick, had there not? The original had been murdered by his apprentice; his blood drained and used to create the 'Speed Juice' that the new Johnnie Quick needed to maintain his powers, and through them his stolen position in the criminal hierarchy of this dangerous world.

At least, that was how the story went. That was the story as told by Johnny Quick – the new Johnny Quick, obviously. It was a good story. A believable story.

But it was just a story.

Because if the Speed Juice was made from his predecessors blood, how did Johnny Quick keep up such a continuous supply of it? Oh sure, there was the synthetic stuff that was cooked up by the mobs and governments of the world to give to him as tribute… but that was artificial, low-grade; the power it gave was nowhere near as smooth, the come-down far more severe than with the good stuff. The real stuff.

No, quite appropriately given the current circumstances, Johnny Quick needed blood. A constant, fresh supply.

The safe house was very well protected, hidden under multiple layers of lead shielding and miss-directing electromagnetic screens, designed to keep even Ultraman's prying eyes away. Its defense systems were such that they could have comfortably kept out a small army, if it ever came to that.

None of that mattered, however. No lock could keep him out. No door could bar him. The figure slipped through the darkness of Johnnie Quick's safe house, undetected, unseen and unchallenged.

He had always known what was kept here; he wasn't an idiot, no matter what some may have thought of him. But he had kept quiet about it, pretended to go along with the story Johnny Quick had told to hide the truth.

Electronic locks clicked over, tumblers slid into place; the final seal was broken. Three foot thick Promethium-Titanium alloy doors slowly creaked open before him, offering up their long guarded secrets.

Before him hung the desiccated figure of a broken man, dressed in a now filthy red body suit. Once it had clung to his well-muscled body like a second skin, but now it hung loose; the skin of a diseased and dying old man.

Entangling the pathetic figure was a spider's web of distinctly medical looking tubes and piping, each one carrying some fluid or another, either into or out of the living corpse that was string out before him. Water, electrolytes, food stuffs… And blood.

It had been the blood, you see, the blood had been the give-away. The blood was the key, just as it always was.

"Hello, Johnnie," the shadowed figure said, his smile felt more than seen in the darkness that enveloped him. "You know, you've really let yourself go, old friend. You look terrible."

The shell of the man that had once been Johnny Chambers, better known as the original Johnny Quick, tried to raise its head, to look upon this new visitor. For years, the only company Johnny Chambers had been allowed was that of his former assistant, come to leer and gloat and stick him full of new needles and tubes; to keep him like this, suspended between life and death, to drain him continuously of his Speed Force infused blood.

"Pu… please," the thing that had been Johnny Chambers managed to say; his voice was cracked and broken from disuse, sounding more like a death rattle than actual words. "Please… kill me…"

The other figure's smile grew even wider; wide enough to show some teeth, sharp animal canines which glinted even in the darkness he wore cloaked around him. "Oh Johnnie," he replied, a hint of laughter at the edges of his voice.

"That's just the start of what I have planned for you!"