YJ- A Shot in the Dark (part 13)

"Surprising turn of events, wouldn't you say?" Slade taunted. "But then, if Lex Luthor is known for anything, it's not being unprepared."
"What is this?" Nightwing asked. Wally knew his friend's eyes were searching for even the slightest weak point, but their glass encasement had been meticulously made.
"A... chamber Luthor designed specially," Deathstroke drawled as he pushed to his feet, strolling closer to their cage and Wally could hear the crude smile in his voice. "In case he ever got the chance to see what made one of you speedsters tick... Or one of those Atlantian fish. The walls could have an elephant stampede over them and still be intact."
"This won't hold us forever," Wally pointed out, though his eyes were drawn to the fluctuations on one of the monitors as he spoke. Possibly recording them, judging by the spikes in the lights.
"Oh, I don't plan on needing to hold you in there forever," the assassin chuckled. "But, you see, that floor you're on? I press this button-" He picked up a small control box from a nearby machine and held it for the young heroes to see. "-and each panel will fill with an electric current. You slow down for even a millisecond and a good four thousand volts will shoot into anything touching the floor."
"I just spent the last three years running faster than time," Wally snapped, glaring as he folded his arms. "Pretty sure I can outrun your little toy."
"Yes," Deathstroke agreed with a chuckle. "But Richard can't."
Wally's stomach went cold and his eyes widened a fraction. Then he glanced at his best friend. Nightwing's expression was impassive, his jaw firmly set as he kept his eyes locked on Slade, but Wally knew him too well. The infallible Dick Grayson was scared.
"Even if you try to carry him," the assassin continued maliciously. "He'd die from the speeds you'll have to go. No matter what you do... you lose."
My life has turned into hell. Wally scowled, both at the assassin and the situation. It may not have been filled with fire and little red dudes with horns, but honestly it couldn't really have gotten worse.
"And once your energy runs out," their captor went on. "Let's just say, you'll know what a moth feels like in a bug-zapper."
"You sick son of a-."
"Still pretty theatrical, Slade," Nightwing interjected, retaining his grip on Wally's arm. "You know we'll find a way out."
"Perhaps," Deathstroke agreed again. "But you know me, Richard. I enjoy watching you work."
Just the tone he was using made wally's skin crawl. This guy was messed up. Made incredibly worse by the focus the assassin seemed to have on his best friend.
"Fine."
Wally's attention swung to the young man still holding him back.
"Fine," Nightwing repeated, keeping his gaze on Deathstroke instead of Wally. "You've got us. Let Artemis go."
It felt like electricity was coursing through his veins, sending a strange surreal feeling through him as Wally looked from his friend back to Deathstroke. It was a far cry from a fair trade, but if it meant Artemis would be alive Wally would deal with it.
The assassin mulled the idea over, regarding the men thoughtfully for a moment, before starting a low chuckle. Which grew louder, making Wally's blood boil.
"What makes you think you're the only one I'm after?" Slade asked. "Your little Miss Crock hasn't worn out her usefulness yet."
Nightwing's grip slackened in shock and Wally pulled away. Speeding across the space to the glass pane that kept him from giving their captor a right-hook. "I swear to God, Slade," he growled, settling for punching the glass instead. Nothing more than the thud of his fist came from it. "When I get out of this-."
"Miss Crock won't be the only one dead," Slade finished for him with a cruel smile. "And I'll be in the wind."
Wally glared at him, hardly noticing how his hand vibrated against the glass. But Deathstroke merely laughed.
"Flash, run," Nightwing instructed.
The speedster's attention snapped back to him. For a moment he wanted to shout at the younger hero-demand to know what he was thinking. But at the same point he knew that'd be useless. It was a testament to how well they knew each other that Wally realized that Nightwing was working on a plan. So instead, he grit his teeth and gave a solemn nod. Even though he didn't know what the plan was, he trusted Dick enough to go with it.
Not a moment too soon. Just as Wally turned his gaze back to the assassin, Deathstroke pressed the button.
In the instant it was activated, several things happened at once. The hum and crackle of electricity filled the air as the floor brightened. Wally took to a sprint just within the edge of the circular room, creating a strong breeze within the circular space as even the sound of the machinery slowed down. But when he looked to find Nightwing, he couldn't help laughing in disbelief. "Dude!" he shouted slowly so the vigilante could hear him. "That's brilliant!"
"Thanks," Nightwing gritted out, though it was slow to Wally's ears. He'd managed to pull himself up into the doorframe, pressing on the framework to keep himself in the air and safe from most of the electricity.
Deathstroke, of course, was impressed. "Bravo, Nightwing," he sneered, replacing the controller atop the machinery to clap from beyond the wall. "Let's see if you can keep that up until I get back."
Wally nearly missed a step. He wanted to stop just to shout in another attempt to keep him from Artemis, but a glance at the younger hero's strain to keep himself above ground made Wally gnaw the inside of his cheek. They'd get out of this. They had to.
For Artemis.
Using the thought as fuel when the door beyond the glass closed at such a painstakingly slow speed, Wally ran faster. He wasn't going to let her down.

. -. -.

Initially, she'd thought the random pricks of pain were from a combination of whatever Deathstroke did to her arm and being stuck in the pins & needles stage of falling asleep, but slowly she realized that it felt... different. Like an outside source more than nerves shorting out from lack of blood-flow. What sick trap had Slade left her in?
Artemis craned her neck to the point of almost painful in order to see the back of her chair, only made more difficult since one of her eyes was definitely swollen now, but she had to be sure. And she may not have been able to see all of it, but sure enough the chair had a broken edge to it. A sliver of metal that stemmed away from the seat with a point already coated with her blood.
She laughed, at this point she couldn't help it, though it sounded more like a huff of air. But she fought off the delirium. She couldn't give in to it yet, after she got out she could go into hysterics.
It hurt like hell to move her arms again, to reach just a bit lower to that jutting metal edge. She couldn't help wondering why he'd put her in it. Why had he tied her to a chair she could escape from? Maybe she'd just gotten lucky, and this chair was the best condition in this hell-hole. But Deathstroke wasn't so careless to have left her an opportunity like this.
Unless it was on purpose.
The thought chilled her to the bone, but stopping now was not an option. It hurt. And her movements were sluggish to say the least, yet she could feel the duck tape around her wrists giving way.
"Well," Deathstroke's voice announced over the sound of the door opening again.
Artemis quickly stopped moving, inwardly cursing for not having moved faster. But at least she'd gotten most of the work done. With any luck she'd just have to cut through a few more strands of the tape's hidden fibers and her hands would be free. Then maybe she'd be able to use the chair as a weapon until she could detach her legs from it. Hopefully.
"Even if one of them manages to get out, that should give us enough time," he informed her as he strolled back to the table of torture devices.
Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. "What did you do?"
Slade paused in browsing and turned to smile over his shoulder briefly. "Depending on your religion, I'm sure you'll have eternity to ask them yourself."
It was as though her insides had frozen over. As though Icicle Jr had just appeared out of nowhere to help out with her torture. He killed them, her thoughts screamed. He's killed them all because of you! Her eyes stung, but she blinked back the tears. This was not going to happen. To hell with being discrete. With one more movement, she'd cut her wrists free and curled forward.
Doing so brought a new wave of pain, but she had a new resolve solidifying and quickly moved to pick at the tape around her ankles. All Dick and Wally's effort wasn't going to go to waste and she sure as hell wasn't going to let their deaths go unanswered.
A hum of amusement reached her ears. "You've cut through the tape," Slade commented. "I would say I'm impressed, but we both know that's not true."
She couldn't have cared less even if he'd informed her that she was the first to ever attempt a second escape from his "care." It didn't matter, she'd managed to get her left leg free.
He pulled her back upright by her hair, drawing a cry that was as much frustration as pain, to make her face him as he put a jagged blade to her throat. "I was going to wait for an audience," he assured her. "But if you're going to be such an annoying amount of trouble, I have no problems giving the Devil his due."
"Then do it," she growled, though it was barely more than a whisper. "And you'll be the one following me down."
Deathstroke chuckled. "That's a tough promise to keep if you're dead."
"Not that tough."
It felt like slow motion, as Artemis let out a sigh she felt the slight tremor of air from an arrow rushing past her head. Slade recoiled and Artemis stared. The bright green of the arrow's feathers was too good to be true. She had to be dreaming.
"Let her go, Slade," the voice growled with a venom few ever heard.
Artemis's good eye darted to the rafters as her heart leapt with hope and anxiety. Ollie!
"Come on out, Queen," Slade shouted, glaring upward as well. A soft noise drew his attention to the far left corner of the rafters. Then another drew his gaze to the right. With a growl of irritation, he took hold of Artemis' hair again. "Join us and I may even let you say good-bye."
For a moment, the invite was met with silence. Then a bow clattered to the floor. Followed by a quiver half full of arrows.
Don't, she wanted to scream at him. Oliver, get out of here! But she couldn't even dream of using her voice for much more than a whisper, it even hurt to breathe. And judging by the look on her mentor's face, as he landed a few feet behind them with all the grace of Nightwing, he wouldn't have listened to her anyway.
"You got me," Green Arrow announced, raising his hands as he cast Artemis a glance-which only made his glare deepen as it returned to Deathstroke. "Now let go of my kid."
"Ollie," Artemis rasped, tears trickled from her eyes with no control now. "Ollie. Don't."
"Listen to her, Ollie," Slade sneered. "Don't do anything stupid."
"No," Artemis objected and put another effort into getting away, but Slade wasn't having it. With a firm yank he snapped her back against the chair, the force making her see stars.
"Hey!" Green Arrow shouted, reaching towards her but he stopped when Deathstroke held up one of his guns.
Deathstroke gave a slow chuckle. "There's a part of me that wishes I knew how attached you were to your protege years ago," he commented, twirling Artemis' hair in his hand. "How easily I could take down a corner of the Justice League's defenses with one little girl."
"Artemis," Green Arrow said calmly and she drew her eyes to his. "I'm going to get you out of here."
She nodded as much as she could with the assassin holding onto her hair, but Slade laughed louder. "Oliver, you should know better than to make promises you can't keep," he sneered. "Unless you simply mean to do clean up."
Green Arrow's attention returned to the assassin in a dangerous glare. "You know I don't have a clean ledger, Slade," he growled. "Don't think I'll hesitate to add you to the red."
"Oh I don't doubt you would," Slade conceded. "If you could manage it."
"What do you want from me, Slade?!" Oliver demanded, striding closer in his anger until he was just out of reach.
Artemis could feel Deathstroke's grim smile. "Your life."
"No!" she tried to scream even as the assassin's gun left her temple, turning instead to point at her mentor's chest. Then fired.

. -. -.

Houston, we have a problem! Wally's thoughts screamed as the scenery continued to spin past him. Not only was he starting to feel that dull ache in his stomach, warning that he really needed to think about finding food soon, but Nightwing wasn't going to hold on all that much longer. Even now, only what must have been three minutes later, the darkly-clad vigilante was narrowly avoiding the floor. And the muscle strain must have been brutal.
Think, Wally!
Artemis was somewhere nearby enough that Slade could come strolling in to deal with them but still be a threat to her. The glass could hold a couple elephants. In a stampede. Nightwing's strong grip gloves weren't holding him up well. On that note, if the surfaces were so slippery, how the hell was he even running?
Oh, right. Designed to test the Flash. As in Uncle-Barry-Flash, though. Not Wally. Which meant he just had to think of things that Uncle Barry wouldn't have thought of. Right.
For what had to be the millionth time, his gaze swept every corner of the containment cell. More like containment jar. Seriously, when he thought about it, this was probably the closest he'd ever seen to the inside of one of those hour glasses his mom collected. Was Luthor hoping Flash would run out of air?
Well, that was viable. But still that didn't make sense either. And why would you put something so fast they could create tornados inside of a glass bubble with electricity? That was asking for a disaster. Electricity on it's own, with stagnant air was fine-like a lightbulb. But throwing a speedster in there was more like working with Neon. Wait. Tornados.
Just because Uncle Barry could didn't mean that he would've-that'd put too many lives at stake. And Wally was willing to put money on the fat that Luthor had been banking on the Flash's dedication to preserving life to keep this idea from ever even forming. And curse the evil bald guy for being right. Even with everything on the line, Wally couldn't fully bring himself to do it. Plus, winter tornados could be ten times worse. Even if he didn't get it to a full-fledge cyclone, who knew what would happen when it met natural air.
Still, it wasn't like the facility was particularly close to civilization. And he was more than sure he was getting close to overloading the electric floor. To that end, he glanced behind him and his eyebrows rose a fraction.
Trailing along behind him in leaps that reminded him of cartoons, like a spirit was chasing after him or something. But it also meant that he was creating a very focused static charge. Oh what I'd give for that Static kid to be here now, Wally thought to himself as his mind quickly spun through a dozen or so calculations. But if I build up enough kinetic force and...
"Nightwing!" he called out, his eyes still examining the glass as he passed it.
"What?" was the drawn out answer.
"I've got an idea," Wally responded as slowly as he could manage. The pane he'd hit before, that'd be the most likely to shatter.
"What... kind?"
"Crazy," Wally answered, a mildly maniacal smile coming to his face. Then he reached up for one of the little metal wings attached to the cowl of his outfit and broke it off, exposing his ear and a portion of his hair to the wind he was creating. He had two shots at this, but he really didn't want to use more than one. "Get your breathing mask!"
Nightwing's response was an elongated swear as he slipped abruptly down the walls a little more in his attempt to get at his utility belt. Wally waited, running in what he'd have defined as lazy circles by this point, until his friend was at least close to ready. Then he snagged the younger hero on his next lap around and swung him onto his back.
Even with the sound being stretched out to his ears, Wally couldn't help chuckling a little at the choked gasp of surprise or the bitingly tight hold Nightwing's fingers eventually achieved on his shoulders. This was the dangerous part, the part that could possibly kill them, but if nothing else Wally knew that his friend didn't want to fall to Deathstroke anymore than he did. So there was really no other option.
Microseconds later, Wally was doing some intricate footwork in the dead center of the floor. Which gave the younger hero a chance to recover a little from his perch on Wally's back.
"Get ready," Wally warned, feeling like was doing some sort of strange Irish step dance.
Nightwing's grip shifted ever so slightly for a better hold, possibly unaware of what was about to happen, but ready for it none the less.
With a resolving breath, Wally dropped the metal wing.
The sound it gave off when the metal hit the floor was something like a cannon in a subway tunnel. Instantly the piece of metal was shot away from the floor with added force of the static pulse that propelled it towards one of the glass walls. Taking a moment to signal the hero one his back, Wally charged forward, following the electrocuted piece of his costume with a matched speed.
And the world might as well have exploded.
If the wing had been a cannon, following the metal to the glass (which cracked from the piercing force) and throwing themselves through it was more akin to adding a few bombs and the entire Walt Disney World supply of fireworks. Making his head ring and pound as the two heroes were thrown along with the shards of glass across the laboratory, causing more demolition to the surrounding Luthor Corp technology.
As soon as his feet touched solid ground again, Wally dodged the still flying debris from their explosion and sped out of the room. He was a good ways down this new hallway before he stopped to set his friend down. Slowing himself down to real time again, Wally felt panic crawling through him. Nightwing looked a little too pale and his breathing was a little raspy behind the plastic piece he held over his mouth and nose.
"Dick?" he asked, his voice coming out a little dry.
"Fine," Nightwing reported, his eyes blinking sluggishly behind the domino mask. "Go. Artemis. I'll follow."
Wally looked him over uncertainly, but gave a resolute nod before speeding away.

A/N: Wow! So much love from you guys! I promise, I'm going to finish this story soon enough! Though I'm afraid safety hasn't happened yet... And if you recognize the containment room, then you know what show I used to watch in College :D Happy Holidays, folks. Love to you all!