Disclaimer: I do not own any of the superhero legacies or code names that are mentioned at any time in this story, DC Comics does. Any character that is not in DC I have made up so please do not steal them without permission from me. All characters and situations are fictitious. Scenarios in this story (to my knowledge) have not been used in any run of DC Comics. I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 7: File IL: Speedsters
Something was off. I didn't feel a bed underneath me like the last time I'd woken up from speedster sedatives. Remembering my old Impulse training, I kept my eyes closed and stayed still, using my other senses to assess where I was. Laying on my back, I could feel cold metal surround me on three sides. It felt and smelled like I'd been put in a musty metal box. Opening my eyes by a fraction of an inch, I saw gray not six inches above my nose but something was strange about the metal box. Below my feet and above my head, I didn't feel closed-in. Craning my head up, I saw a grate two feet away. While I was unconscious, someone had shoved me into a ventilation shaft. A pretty tight one at that.
Wriggling carefully, I managed to eventually flip myself onto my stomach with my hands and arms above my head, dragging myself the little way to the grate and popping it open before pulling myself out of the ventilation into a windowless storage room. Holding my breath for a few moments, I waited to see if anyone heard the clatter of the grate, but no one came in to investigate. I felt for the cowl around my neck, looking down at myself and wondering who'd put me in the black clothes that were over my Kid Flash costume. I was out of the unfamiliar clothing and had the mask over my face again within a second, cursing whoever spray-painted my yellow boots black.
Taking a few slow steps to the door, I paused, hearing muffled voices on the other side of the sliding metal door. Kicking into speed-mode the moment I saw the door give a crack of an opening, I put the grate back onto the ventilation opening and scrambled behind one of the free-standing shelves. A black-clad, masked soldier came in, talking to another soldier that must have been walking past the door. The door closed behind the slightly shorter man as he went over to where the ventilation shaft I'd just crawled out of was. Right as the guy pried off the grate, I pounced, capturing the guy in a choke-hold from behind. He struggled spectacularly, reaching back and grabbing one of my wingtips before I managed to knock him out with a blow to the back of the neck.
After shoving the guy into the ventilation shaft head first, I stuck the grate back on and went to the side of the door, listening for any other guards. The hallway was quiet so I stepped in front of the door to let it slide open obediently. I saw another soldier slowly walking away down one side of the hallway, so I slipped out and down the other way, making it around a corner before the other soldier spotted me. As I sped through countless hallways at speed, I noticed there weren't many other people around for such a large, windowless place. There was also something very strange about the gravity of the place: I felt much lighter than I normally was. Could this be where the other speedsters had been taken?
I had two objectives running through my head as I went down hallways. Number 1: find out where I was. Number two: escape from said place. Most of the doors I came across opened automatically, but a cursory glance into the rooms gave me nothing to help me escape. Storage, cleaning closet, storage, storage, restroom, storage, restroom, cleaning closet, storage, bedroom, bedroom, bedroom, bedroom, storage, bedroom, bedroom. At least I know people are around here, but where are they? I must have woken up during some sort of skeleton crew shift.
Hallways led into hallways that led into other hallways. I finally hit a room through double doors that looked beyond promising. I'd stepped into a huge conference room that was elaborately set up for about 50 people. 3-D Projectors were on each side of the four walls pointing to the middle of the conference table while televisions hung all around the room. It reminded me of some sort of high-tech military debriefing room. Along with the projectors and televisions, there were pieces of glass in front of each seat that would project plans to the seats' occupants. Movement at the head seat's glass console caught my eye. Speeding to the other end, I saw the screen count down a few last seconds, and then saw the words "Landing Achieved" before the screen went blank.
"Wonder what that meant..."
Sitting in the head chair, I inspected the immediate area and found a clear keyboard attached and tucked underneath the table. Pulling it out, I pressed a few random keys to see if I could wake up the screen in front of me since I didn't see anything resembling a mouse. The screen in front of me came to life and I saw another countdown that simply said "Watchtower Defenses" above a one minute countdown. Could I be in the Watchtower?
Silently cursing my lackluster hacking skills, I started typing at the computer, trying to quickly see what it had on it. Less than five seconds later, I'd found a file simply titled "IL: Speedsters". There were only two presentations in the file: "Locations" and "Holding"; but there was another file next to the IL: Speedster file named "JL Watchtower". As soon as I clicked on the Locations presentation, the double doors locked and the room came to life.
The 3-D projectors lit up the middle of the large table with a see-through replica of the Earth with red and purple dots around the world. Not wanting to get caught watching something I probably shouldn't be, I fast forward the whole presentation as a chill went through my body. Whoever was behind this had charted the locations of speedsters around the globe for the last fifty years. Along with each speedster on the map came a breakdown of their abilities and fastest speed clocked at. On the many purple dotted speedsters, there was a large "Deceased" stamped over their picture, and the red dots had a "Captured" over the pictures. One of the many dots on Central City blinked from purple to yellow to red in a quick succession. The presentation ended on the blinking one. It was a picture of me from my Impulse days. A stamp over my picture read "Possible Unknown Kid Flash".
The Locations presentation started and ended within twenty seconds but the activation of the computer must have alerted some sort of security in the place cause as soon as I started the Holding presentation, something slammed into the double doors. I didn't get a chance to watch the Holding presentation since I stopped it but I did get to take a peek at what was in the JL Watchtower file and read a little on the plan to attack the Watchtower when one of the doors was wrenched open. Someone must have gotten a glimpse of me as I vibrated through the only other door that led out of the room. Alarms blared through the empty hallways as I ran, knocking anyone out that popped up. I managed to vibrate through another locked door and came face-to-face with an awesome sight. I'd found a closed-off control room with a window that looked out onto a desolate, gray landscape.
"The Moon?"
I put my hands against the glass, looking for the blue sphere that would be Earth in all the black of space. I could see the yellow-white glowing pebble that was the Sun, but I didn't see any blue. That meant I couldn't be on the Watchtower. The door that I'd gone through whooshed open and I spun around to face at least fifteen soldiers all with guns leveled at me. I stood right in the middle of the window, knowing if they actually tried to shoot at me, they might hit the one-foot thick window. Someone still in the hallway slowly clapped their hands.
"You've evaded capture quite well, boy." A face that seemed very familiar came into the room behind the soldiers. "And here I thought they'd been giving me petty made-up excuses about an unknown speedster." He held out his arms after the soldiers let him through. "Welcome to my Moon Base, Kid Flash. Do you like it? I built it specifically to hold your kind while my colleagues destroyed the rest of the hero community starting with the famed Justice League." I couldn't help but snort as I smirked.
"Destroy the hero community? Hold "my kind"? Keep dreaming, psycho." My mind kept trying to place him as the soldiers fanned out behind the guy.
"There is no place to run, boy. I know all of your speedster tricks. Come quietly and I will make your death less painful than the others'." My eyes narrowed, giving him a good glare.
"If you've hurt them, I swear -"
"I have not touched your fellow speedsters. They are all alive and doing reasonably well. So far. If you give yourself up now, I will lead you to them and I might even give them mercy." Looking around the control room as I grit my teeth, I glared back at the man, knowing I could get out of custody if I wanted with my speed.
"Let the other speedsters go free and I might give myself up."
The man smiled cruelly as he stepped back to a console and typed in a few things. One of the monitors turned on and I couldn't help but stiffen. On the screen was a large room, and in the middle of the room was a huge machine. Right in the middle of the machine, I could see over thirty speedsters hanging by their bound wrists in a cylindrical, clear holding cell, unconscious with the same knockout mask that Robin had gotten off of me over a week ago covering all of their mouths and noses.
"They are all still alive."
Not thinking about my own predicament, I went to the console to take a closer look when one of the soldiers wrapped their arms around my neck from behind. Within five seconds, two other soldiers had grabbed onto my wrists, wrenching my hands away from the arm around my neck that was cutting off my oxygen. I started vibrating like mad to get the three soldiers off of me when the leader slammed his fist into my abdomen, making me stop vibrating and fall to my knees right as the guy that had me by the neck let go for fear of falling to the floor himself. My arms were jacked behind my back by the two soldiers holding my wrists. The man chuckled darkly as I struggled on my knees before he grabbed me by my hair and forced my face up to look at him. I clenched my teeth, glaring up at his face.
"Let...go of me!" The man smiled as he lifted my head by my hair further up, craning my neck as I flinched.
"Foolish boy. I have battled all of your Flash predecessors. You are no match for me." His name finally came to my mind and I could tell that the fearful expression on my face pleased him immensely. "Yes, boy. I am Vandal Savage. And now that I have you, I can finish off the Flash Legacy in one fell swoop. I will finally achieve my peace."
Savage let my hair go as he stood to his full height before kicking me hard right in the stomach. Coughing and gasping, I could hear him start ordering the soldiers to get a mask and binders for me. One of the soldiers said that there wasn't room left where the other speedsters were.
"If there is no more room for the boy then we will make him watch the others die. I will kill him myself afterward." Another soldier came in and saluted, reminding Savage that the attack on the Watchtower had begun. I could tell Savage was smiling down at me before his boot was on the back of my head, pushing my face down to the floor as binders went around my ankles. "I am going to enjoy this. Get me a feed on the Justice League's Watchtower. I want the boy to witness history in the making."
After binders were around my wrists, two other soldiers pulled me to my bound feet, keeping me balanced between them as Savage smiled down at me. On all of the monitors, a shot of the Justice League's Watchtower Base showed small explosions going off over the whole structure. Soldiers cheered as debris from the Watchtower was propelled into the vacuum of space, along with a body or two. I looked away from the monitors, not wanting to see the raging battle but Savage grabbed my chin, and forced me to watch.
Only a few minutes into the battle, they lost the picture of the already mostly destroyed Watchtower to static. There was a collective grumble through the soldiers as Savage started barking orders at them. The two that had me started dragging me out of the control room and quickly down the hall. A minute and a lot of hallway corners later, the two that had been dragging me around stopped in front of a thick-looking door and gently put me down on my stomach. I started squirming on the floor, cursing at them before one of them put their hand on the middle of my back and the other one smacked me upside the head.
"Calm down, Kid Flash!" I stopped struggling, recognizing the voice of the one that hit me.
"R...Robin!? What-" The other one put their hand over my mouth.
"Not so loud, Kid." I could feel the bindings snap under Wanda's strength. "Do you want to get caught again?" Ethan smacked me upside the head again before Wanda broke off the bindings that still had my ankles.
"Dude, stop hitting me." Ethan narrowed his eyes behind the black ski mask he had on.
"That last one was for knocking me out in that storage room and stuffing me in the ventilation shaft." I smiled sheepishly at him but before I could apologize, he continued. "Now, the other speedsters are beyond this door and at the end of the long corridor. The door is locked but what I saw in the schematics of the base, the machine they're hooked to is a bomb ready to go off at the push of a button. The trigger button to the bomb itself is inside the room and only Savage has the means to unlock the doors. While W and I sabotage their "hero killing scheme" you need to vibrate through the doors and get the speedsters out before Savage has a chance to get in there and blow them and you to kingdom come." The three of us could hear people running down the hallway as Ethan shoved me towards the door as he and Wanda took off.
I vibrated through the thick door, and sped down the extremely long windowed corridor to the other set of thick doors. Taking a quick glance back where I came, I vibrated my molecules through the second door and stepped into the large room. Gawking at the huge machine in the middle of the otherwise blank-walled room, I walked slowly up to it.
"So this is why Savage disappeared over fifty years ago." I put my hands against the machine, wondering if I could somehow deactivate it before I felt a bone-chilling breeze at the back of my neck. I spun around, but didn't see anyone behind me. Taking a quick lap around the monstrosity, I didn't see any non-speedsters or even any computer consoles connected to the thing. Rubbing at the back of my neck, I backed up a little to get some momentum going so I could make it up to where the other speedsters were held. The moment I was far enough away, I could make out a sudden motion among my relatives.
Someone was moving! My heart soared before it fell right through my feet as the bone-chilling breeze went through me again. Right as the thick door began to open behind me and the outraged screams of Vandal Savage echoed down the corridor, I realized what was in the middle of the circular holding cell with my speedster relatives. Hope of a clean rescue mission was immediately blown out of my mind as it turned its head to look at me with those white, soulless eyes. Its rotting, masked face seemed to smile at me without lips as it turned its black and red costumed corpse body. Ice flooded my veins as I looked at it.
Death to speedsters.
The Black Flash.
Chapter 7 End
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