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 8 Warning: Contains extreme graphic scenes. Mutilated dead bodies. Please be advised. You have been warned!
Chapter 8: Black and White
I could dimly hear Vandal Savage's pounding footsteps coming towards me down the corridor, but I couldn't look away from the Black Flash's eery gaze. It was standing right in the middle space of the holding cell, surrounded by unconscious speedsters. Apparently, I stood there for too long and the next thing I knew, Savage had his arms around my torso, pinning my arms to my sides, trying to crush the breath out of me. I had to tear my eyes away from the Black Flash in order to try and get out from Savage's grasp. Just as I managed to worm and vibrate my way out, the door closed with a hiss and an ominous click. As soon as I was out of his grip, I got away from Savage easily enough and sped up the side of the machine, grabbing onto a part that stuck out just above the clear, thick plastic of the cell.
"Ignorant child!" I turned my head to look at the smug Savage as he slammed his hand on a panel of the wall. Kicking up my speed, I braced myself for the explosion, but it didn't come from the machine I was hanging onto. Behind the thick doors, I heard the thump of an explosion in the corridor that led to the room. Savage had trapped us all with no way out.
"You're an idiot! Now you're trapped here too! If you activate the bomb this place could..." A sick smile stretched across Savage's face.
"That's the point. I may be immortal, but I am tired of constantly fighting you speedsters. There is someone else in this room, isn't there boy?" I couldn't help but glance at the Black Flash that Savage couldn't see. "You see, I have heard of this fabled "Black Flash". I hear that if you touch it, you immediately die. The grim reaper of speedsters. I wondered if it works for non-speedsters as well. Perhaps I might be able to finally find peace also." Hesitating, I looked at Savage again.
"Wh...wait a minute. Find peace? What, you...you want to die?" Savage pulled at another panel of the wall, revealing a number of buttons.
"Taking all of the speedsters with me."
I immediately let the piece of the machine go and dropped to the floor, racing to stop Savage from pushing any of the buttons. Slamming into him, I managed to knock him off balance and shut the panel again before Savage grabbed me by my red hair, pulling me towards the machine. As he dragged me, I put a good deal of speed in my arm and cracked the heel of my hand into his elbow, hearing a satisfying crunch before he let me go with a howl.
Crouching, I kicked at the shin bone in his right leg, but just as it connected, he tottered forward and fell on top of me, knocking the wind out of my lungs. Savage had me pinned under his bulk and started punching my ribs. I swallowed a pained yell as I heard my ribcage crack and creak from the punches and his weight on my smaller frame. One of his knees hit my left calf, driving my leg into the floor before I started vibrating under him. The sudden friction made Savage yell in pain as he got off of me, his clothes smoking before I scrambled back towards the other speedsters, needing to get them out before Savage could get back up.
Working feverishly with my partially collapsed ribcage and throbbing left leg, I vibrated into the holding cell and grabbed the first speedster that was there, working at the binding that held him up. I got only two down and through the holding cell when I heard the panel open and I streaked to Savage again, slamming his forehead into the wall and trying to drag him away from the opened panel.
I didn't get him too far when I felt a horrible shock go through my system. Falling to the floor, I only glimpsed Savage sprinting back to the panel with his stun gun before I streaked for the machine. My whole body screamed in agony, but I didn't stop. Vibrating into the machine itself, I crossed wires everywhere I could before vibrating into the cell above the bomb, coming out right in front of Impulse. I grabbed her small body, practically ripping the bonds off of her as I heard the click of the bomb below me.
Taking a vibrating leap through the holding cell with my cousin in my arms, I felt the heat as the bomb slowly went off behind me. I was still in midair when the pressure wave threw me across the room, slamming Impulse and I into the back wall. I could feel the back of my uniform explode with heat when I fell to the floor with Impulse still in my arms. Curling myself around my cousin, I managed to shield her as shrapnel flew everywhere including into me. It felt like an hour of burning agony but the blast only lasted a few seconds and the burning shrapnel fell for half a minute afterward. Then, it was all over.
I couldn't move my body; there was so much pain. All I could do was stare at half of the room that I was facing, feeling the tears roll down my face as I got a good look at hell. It was a pure miracle that the blast hadn't torn a hole through one of the walls or ceiling since there was no depressurization and there was still air to breathe. Other than that, there was nothing else good about the explosion. The walls of the room were a nauseating mix of black charred pieces and blood splatters. On the floor in front of me, I could see through my half-lidded eyes twisted, charred metal and pieces of the walls and ceiling.
It wasn't the damage to the room that had my tears rolling down my face. I wanted to scream at what wasn't even three feet in front of me. A severed, charred hand was twitching underneath a piece of twisted metal. Beyond the horrifying hand, I saw seven speedster bodies among the wreckage of the room in front of me. Two were twisted and mutilated, parts of them smoking. Three were on fire, choking fumes coming off of them. The last two were only burned torsos with heads attached, their limbs had been ripped off and strewn across the room.
Though I tried to keep it from escaping, a whimper came out of my throat just as the Black Flash came into my view, touching every body I saw. When he touched one of the ripped apart torsos, the hand in front of me stopped twitching. I threw up blood and stomach acid as the Black Flash touched the burning speedster closest to where I lay before looking straight at me. On instinct, I tightened my arms around Impulse, watching the Black Flash as it came closer to me. It crouched in front of me, flexing its black claws. There was nothing I could do to prevent it from taking me.
I knew it and it knew it.
It started reaching out for me with that creepy look of satisfaction. I said a quick, silent goodbye to Impulse and my friends. The black claw was only five inches from touching my head when a golden-gloved hand grabbed the Black Flash's wrist, stopping it. The Black Flash looked at who had its wrist and snarled as it backed away from me. A pair of golden boots with wingtips at the sides stepped between us.
"You and I both know it's not their time yet." The Black Flash roared at the man. "I know, but you're not finished with the others. Go about your business and leave the boy and young girl alone. Go on." Slinking out of sight, the Black Flash hissed as the man knelt down into my line of sight.
Where the Black Flash had red and black on its costume, the man had a shining gold and pure, almost blinding white. He had bright, kind blue eyes and a gentle smile on his face.
"You still have a long race to run, Kid. Don't worry. The speedsters the Black Flash touches will be coming with me." My eyelids drooped as pain overtook me. The last thing I saw before falling into blackness was the White Flash's smile.
Pain. Agony. Burning. Choking.
I didn't know how long I had been out for. My body felt like it was on fire again. Every nerve ending in my back was screaming as I felt someone hold me down to a cold table. Shirtless, I was on my stomach in a too-cold, bright room with people yelling out things I couldn't decipher. On instinct I started vibrating to get away from whoever held me, but that made the pain ten times worse. Screaming in burning agony, I was pushed back down to the table before an oxygen mask was placed over my nose and mouth as my breathing became staggered and I struggled in the grip of at least three people much stronger than I was.
Shaking like a leaf as something sharp was pulled out of my back, I begged whoever it was to stop, tears running down my face. It felt like days of torture but was actually more like two or three minutes before I barely registered a pin-prick in my upper arm. The pain started to lessen immediately but I was getting weaker at the same rate. With one last begging plea for whoever was there to let me go, I fell into blackness once again.
A steady, slightly fast rhythmic beeping sound started bringing me out of the total blackness I'd been in for far too long. There was an oxygen mask strapped around my head and over my nose and mouth, helping me breathe through my lethargic, rattling lungs. My once burning back had reduced to only a dull ache but my normally fast, clear thoughts were slow and very fuzzy which meant I must have been drugged up with an uncountable amount of pain medications. I could barely open my eyes I was so weak, but I managed to open them halfway. My eyes didn't want to focus correctly so all I saw were blobs of gray machinery and then two more human-shaped blobs I think were sitting in chairs near the bed I was in. One blob wore blue, red, and a little yellow while the other was in black and red with only a hint of yellow.
Superboy and Robin.
Neither of them were moving much so I assumed they had fallen asleep in the chairs. Closing my eyes again, my body relaxed a bit more as I coughed pitifully. Superboy must have bolted awake when I coughed since I heard him gasp and a chair fall backwards onto the floor. I felt his gentle hand on my shoulder and he whispered to me, almost afraid he hadn't heard me cough.
"Nick?" I forced my eyes to open almost halfway and I could see a huge, relieved smile crawl up his face. "Hey, buddy. Welcome back to the living world."
I let out a small cough again as I saw him nudge my cousin awake. Robin bolted to his feet, a batarang suddenly in his hand, ready to fight before he noticed my eyes open. Putting away the razor-sharp weapon, Robin stood beside Superboy, assessing my condition before turning to the door and leaving. Superboy noticed my hurt expression and scooted one of the four chairs in the room closer to my bed.
"He'll be back. We made Wanda get some sleep a few hours ago. How're you feeling?" I closed my eyes, trying to get enough energy for a full sentence, but my barely-there breathy voice didn't let me talk more than a few words.
"Weak. Wherem I?" I coughed a few times, feeling and tasting smoky scum coming from my lungs and scratchy throat.
"Med Bay in Titans Tower. You've been out for five days straight. Three days without the speedster sedative." I knew I was too weak to move, but I tried anyway. "Whoa whoa. Take it easy." His hand was on my chest, keeping me from sitting up. "Save your strength, you're still real weak. The League's doctors said you should rest at least for another three days. You'll be coughing for awhile from the amount of smoke you inhaled before being rescued and no one wants you to move too much cause you still have small pieces of shrapnel in your back." I groaned a little, relaxing in the bed again. "One of the League doctors volunteered to stay at the Tower to monitor you. They've been in and out every two hours or so to check how you're healing." I opened an eye again to look at his blurry face.
"How bad?"
"How bad are you? Pretty bad. Second and third degree burns on your back and on the backs of your legs and upper arms; those are only half healed. The left side of your ribcage was collapsed, they managed to fix that in the six hour surgery. Your lower left leg had a few fractures, but those are mostly gone. Lots of smoke inhalation that you'll be coughing up while you're awake. Most of the scratches and bruises are gone with the exception of the parts of your back that had pieces of shrapnel sticking out that they had to remove during surgery. There was also a lot of internal bleeding we think from the initial blast that...uh..." He stopped talking, suddenly looking nervous right before the door opened and Ethan came in out of costume with Wanda. Superboy moved out of Wanda's way immediately as she grabbed my hand, squeezing it gently.
"We were so worried that we'd lost you. When the League refused to tell us what happened to you and the speedsters, I feared the worst." I managed to focus my mind on what Wanda said and what Superboy didn't say.
"The other speedsters." Wanda looked back at Ethan as Superboy, taking a sudden shaking breath, left the room, excusing himself. My memories of that horrid room leaked through my fuzzy brain and I closed my eyes as the decaying face of the Black Flash came to the forefront of my mind's eye. Shuddering, I took a deep, rattling breath. "I saw it...the Black Flash was there. How many..." I felt Wanda's hand stroking my hair gently.
"Ssshh. That doesn't matter. You're here and you're alive." I looked to Ethan, knowing that my cousin would tell me how many speedsters I had failed to save.
"Please...tell me." Wanda glanced at Ethan as he sighed sadly.
"Out of thirty-four missing speedsters, only you, Impulse, and one other survived. Thirty-one casualties were reported." I closed my eyes, feeling the burn of tears. "The public heroic funeral is set at the Flash Museum next week while the private, civilian funerals are scattered within the next three weeks. I believe you should be healed enough to attend at least most, if not all of them."
I kept my eyes closed as the tears started to roll down my face as Wanda squeezed my hand gently, silently telling me that my friends were there for me.
Chapter 8 End
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