Chapter Thirty-Six

Danville

Central City

United States

11:14 – Central Standard Time

March 17, 2007

Iris West Allen nearly jumped out of her skin when what sounded like a machine gun rattled against the front door.

"What on earth?" she questioned in surprise, pressing her hand against her chest.

Barry who was reading the newspaper nonchalantly replied. "Sounds like Wally."

"You sure?"

"He just knocked on the door."

"How can you tell that?"

"I know what super-fast knocking sounds like, trust me."

"Then I'll go see if it is. But if I get gunned down, I'm haunting you for the rest of your life."

Both of them were sat in the living room having their morning drink. She was having coffee, while Barry was having some fruit juice, mainly because coffee didn't sit well with him. He may have had his back broken by a supervillain, but he still had a connection to the speed force and it did not mix well at all with caffeine.

Iris stood up from where she sat on the couch and peered through the window, seeing Wally stood at the front door.

"You're right, it's Wally and he looks really agitated about something," she told him.

Barry lowered his newspaper. "I wonder what's wrong?"

"I'll go find out."

Iris made her way to the front door. She unlocked it and pulled it open. There was a gust of wind and Wally vanished.

"Wally?" Iris questioned, looking out of the door.

She briefly wondered where he had gone when Barry's voice came from the other room. "He's in here."

Iris pushed the door closed and locked it, making her way back into the living room. She looked at Wally who was sat next to Barry, the newspaper he had been reading had been blown all over the room with pages strewn everywhere.

"Slow down," Iris said, "Somebody might have seen you."

"I need help and I don't know who to talk too," Wally blurted out.

"Help with what?" Barry asked, putting down the only page of the newspaper he still had hold of. "Has something happened? You're not being pursued by the government, are you? All this trouble with the arrests and everything? Completely out of line they are after all we've done for this world."

He shook his head from side to side in a blur. "No, it isn't that." Wally then began to talk faster that Iris could comprehend. Judging from the look on Barry's face, however, it appeared that he could understand.

Barry raised his hand, not looking at all happy. "Stop." Wally did. Barry continued, "So Gina has gone missing?"

Wally nodded in affirmation.

"And you found her cell phone in an alleyway."

He nodded again.

"Just one thing that I'm really struggling to accept," Barry said, webbing his fingers, his jaw clenching.

"What?" Wally asked, confused.

"You didn't call her Gina."

Wally's eyes went wide.

"You called her Giganta."

Iris was shocked. "The supervillain?" she questioned.

"I can't believe this," Barry said, struggling to keep his anger in check. "You brought a supervillain into our house. And she knows you're the Flash?"

Wally looked down at the carpet.

"Oh, no, Wally," Iris said, feeling both disappointment and fear.

"Just when I think you've started to grow up," Barry admonished. "You've put your Aunt in potential danger, Wally. You know what a criminal would do if they got their hands on information like who you really are. You know the dangers. You don't wear the mask to look cool, it's the only thing that keeps you and your loved ones safe."

"I know," Wally muttered.

"Then why?"

"Because she's not a bad person. She wants to change."

"And if she's been manipulating you?"

"She hasn't-" Wally began.

His Uncle-in-law interrupted, "I know that you want to see the good in everyone, hell so do I, but you can't be stupid about it."

"I'm sorry," Wally apologised.

Iris sat down in her armchair, feeling a little faint. Wally had not only revealed his identity to a supervillain, but had brought her here to their house. She looked at Wally. She hoped he was right, that she had changed. If not, then she would be watching her back for the foreseeable future.

Barry broke the brief silence. "I think you should leave, for now, Wally," he said. "I don't want to talk to you."

Wally's hung his head and stood up to leave.

"No," Iris spoke up. "He's not going until we figure this out." Barry looked at her and opened his mouth to speak. She cut him off. "No, I don't believe that Wally would just tell her who he was if he didn't trust her."

"You know what Wally's like," Barry objected. "Far too naive for his own good."

"I know. I just need to understand why?" Iris said.

Wally answered. "Because I love her."

"But does she love you?" Barry questioned.

"Yes," he blurted out. "I mean I think she does."

"Why would someone want to abduct her?" Barry said.

"I think someone saw her with me. She erm, kinda carried me for a bit of fun while she was grown to maybe nine feet. This was a few days ago. People noticed. It was hard to miss."

"You as in Wally, or you as in Flash?"

"Flash."

"So you haven't totally screwed up," Barry derided. "Let's just say she was abducted and this isn't a ploy."

"It isn't," Wally said adamantly.

Barry glared before continuing, "Do you have any leads?"

"Only one. A blonde woman sat with her at a diner near where I found her phone. Apparently, this blonde sat down and shortly after Giganta left, she followed."

"That's all you have? That she was blonde?" Iris asked, certain that there had to be more than just that.

"She had a southern accent and large arms, perhaps a bodybuilder or something."

"Any surveillance cameras in the area?" Barry asked.

Wally's brow raised. "Maybe, I didn't check."

Barry pinched the bridge of his nose. "Wally, I hope you check if you have to change into costume during an emergency. Even if there's no one around, a camera might be watching."

"I check, don't worry."

"I do worry because you just told us you were dating a supervillain. How long have you actually known her? And I don't mean as enemies."

He didn't answer.

"How long has it been?" Barry repeated.

Still no answer.

"Your lack of response tells me that it was not long enough to justify revealing yourself to her."

"She's not a bad person," Wally almost shouted. "She's not, she has a good heart, I know she does. I love her and she loves me, I know she does."

"Oh, Wally," Iris said in sympathy. Her heart went out to him. She had only briefly met Giganta, as Gina, and she seemed nice. But her perception could have been deceptive.

Suddenly Iris groaned as a realisation dawned on her. Barry looked at her. "What?"

"I just realised that the name Wally gave us," Iris began. "Gina Gat. It's an anagram of Giganta."

Barry looked at Wally appalled. "You must think we're idiots."

"No, I don't," Wally said quickly. "I don't know why I brought her here. She found out who I was by accident and from there, things sorta just fell into place like it was meant to be, y'know?"

Barry looked at Iris knowingly. "Maybe I do." He looked back to Wally. "Look, we could keep at this all day, but it won't do any of us any good. If you really think she's been abducted, then go back to where you found her phone, as the Flash, and see if there's surveillance. If there is, then I'm sure they'll let you look at it."

"I will," Wally said, standing up. "And thank you."

"Don't thank us," Barry said. "I'm really disappointed in you right now."

Wally looked to his aunt for support. She bit her bottom lip. "Barry is right. We are disappointed, but you've always followed your heart over your head and so far it's done you well."

"Iris," Barry said in a warning tone. "Don't coddle him when he's messed up."

"I'm hardly coddling him," she defended. "Just pointing something out. Besides, he's a lot like you, which is odd considering you're only related through me."

"I was never this stupid," he rebuked.

"I beg to differ," she responded with a smirk.

"This is serious Iris. He brought a supervillain into our house, are you forgetting that?"

"No, I'm not. I just don't believe that Wally would knowingly put us in danger."

"Well, he has," Barry shot back.

Iris gestured to Wally. "I'll see you to the door."

The two of them left the living room and headed for the front door. Iris gripped the handle as she turned to Wally.

"I really hope you're right about her," she said.

"So do I," he replied, running his hand through his red hair. "I screwed up, didn't I?"

Iris pulled the door open. "I hope you find her," she told him sincerely.

"Thanks, Aunt Iris."

She leant forward and gave him a hug. "Good luck," she whispered.

She released him and watched him as he left the house and walked down the pavement and up the street before she closed the door and locked it.

Honestly, she didn't know how she felt about it. She honestly hoped he had found his soul-mate, but the logical part of her brain told her that he had put them in danger, that their lives might be irrevocably damaged by this.

Iris returned to the living room where she found Barry rubbing his face vigorously with his hands.

"Was I too hard on him?" Barry asked her. "Or was I not hard enough?"

Iris sat down on her chair. "You want my honest answer?"

"I wouldn't want anything else but your honest answer."

"I have absolutely no idea. I'm still processing what just happened."

"So am I," he agreed. He then looked out of the window, before glancing over at her. "So, do you think it's time to get a gun? Considering Wally may have just indirectly told every villain where we live."

"I don't want a gun in this house," she said firmly. "And besides what's a gun going to do against a woman who can grow to fifty feet? If she's still a bad guy, then all we can do is go to the league for help."

"I hope he realises the stress we're going to be under because of this."

"I'm sure he does," she said, leaning back. "But as I said, he's always followed his heart and it hasn't done him wrong so far."

"So far," Barry repeated.

Fate's Tower

Salem

United States

13:04 – Eastern Standard Time

March 17, 2007

Raven sat floating in the lotus position, her eyes closed, her breathing calm. For the first time in as for long as she could remember, she felt somewhat at peace.

All her life she had sensed her father. Sometimes, even while she was growing up, he would sometimes influence or even invade her dreams. Truthfully, she didn't actually know if it had been him all these years, or just her imagination. It felt like it was him. Taunting her, telling her that no matter how strong she was, eventually he would win.

The dreams had gotten worse and more frequent leading up to her being captured by the Church of Blood. Nightwing had come to her rescue, but she doubted he knew how lucky he was. The acolytes of Blood that had been there had been prepared to fight Raven, not a human with advanced martial arts and devices. If Blood himself had been there, then Nightwing would have been killed, or worse, turned into one of his thralls. That was the sad state of the majority of the church. A good portion of them were just slaves to Blood, controlled by him through their blood.

Here in this tower, it had taken far less time and effort for her meditation to begin to take effect. There was still her demonic side rolling about within her like a caged animal, but she was able to subdue it far more easily. Whatever wards Fate had around his tower were certainly better than the guardian circle she had made.

Having achieved better control over her emotions that she had done in quite some time, she left the lotus position, lowering her floating legs till they made contact with the floor. Raven opened her eyes to see Fate stood at the other side of the room she had been given, which consisted of a bed and a large bookshelf that held the books they had retrieved from Arkham.

"How long have you been standing there?" she asked him in surprise. She hadn't felt his presence, which for an empath was troublesome.

"Only for a few moments," he answered. "I have some questions for you."

"Go ahead, I will answer as best I can."

"You have been here for a few years now, correct?"

"That is correct."

"But I only began to sense him through you only a week ago, which means this hasn't always been the case, is this correct?"

"I've always sensed him," she told him. "But in the last few months, it has started to become unmanageable. That's why I made the guardian circle. To block him out."

"When did you first start sensing him?"

"I wouldn't say 'sense' him per se, that was a mistake to say. It was mostly just dreams. Even as a small child when I hadn't yet been told about him, I had dreams of him."

"What were the dreams about?"

"He mocked me most of the time. At first, I didn't know why I was having them. When I confided with Azar about them, that's when things changed."

"Changed?"

"I was forcefully separated from everyone, even my mother, Arella."

"Your mother was called Arella?"

"That was her adopted name," Raven told him. "Before she sought refuge in Azerath she was Angela Roth. I never was allowed to see her much, we were always separated. But it got worse. I didn't understand at the time. It was done because my emotions control my powers and Azar knew that with Trigon managing to appear in my sleep, that I needed to cut myself off from as many emotional bonds as possible, including all contact with my mother."

"How long did that last?"

"Until they were sure that I was fully in control of my emotions. Even then it was limited."

"Did your mother fight to see you?" Fate asked.

"She-" Raven stopped, looking at the floor. "I don't know if she truly loved me, or was there only because I was her child. There was never any indication that she fought to try and see me or even cared that much. I don't know if she came to see me because she loved me, or because she was made to."

A new voice spoke up. "That's awful." Raven looked over to see Inza stood by the door, a look of sympathy on her face.

Raven pulled her hood tighter over her face. She didn't want the sympathy, nor did she want to feel the emotion of it radiating off of the other woman.

"Could you not sense her emotions with your empathy?" Fate asked her.

"She was unreadable to me. A spell by Azar so that I would not be affected by her emotions."

"Why leave Azarath? Fate inquired. "It should have been safer than this realm by far."

"I had a dream or maybe it was a vision. Azarath was burning while Trigon stood over it laughing. I felt I had to leave to save them."

"It may have been a trick," Fate pointed out. "To get you to leave the safety of Azarath."

"Or it could have been a warning," Raven concluded. "I wasn't going to take the chance."

"How did you get to Earth?"

"A lot of research and deception. I wasn't happy to lie to them, but it was necessary."

"And once you got to Earth?"

"The dreams stopped. For a while. Long enough for me to think that maybe he didn't know where I was, that maybe I had evaded his reach."

"But they began again?"

"After a year, yes. At first, it was a one-off, a single dream, or maybe I should call it a nightmare. Then two months later, another. They were spread apart enough for me to think that perhaps it was just that. A nightmare. But they began to become more frequent for a time."

"For a time? Does that mean they stopped again?"

"I was on the west coast. I decided to travel eastwards, that's when they became less frequent."

Inza moved further into the room. "How long did it take to cross the nation?" she asked.

"A few years. I stopped off in a few places, though I was still fairly ignorant of this world and crossed into what you describe as the "deep south" which wasn't pleasant for someone like me."

"How do you mean?" Inza asked, becoming engrossed in her story.

"They are very religious down there and some of them figured out what I was. I was run out of several towns before I began to make my way further north."

"Did you have all of your books with you when you-" She trailed off as Fate raised his hand, gesturing for her to stop.

"You can have this discussion with her later, once I have finished asking her questions."

Inza nodded. "Of course, go ahead."

Fate addressed Raven, "When did you arrive in Blüdhaven?" he asked.

"Two years ago," she responded. "The city seemed like the perfect place for me to disappear. It was dark, foreboding. I did not foresee the Church of Blood getting their hands on me as I didn't know where they operated, or their existence when I arrived there."

"When did you first realise they were after you?"

"When they captured me and Nightwing rescued me."

"You had already met Omen at this point," Fate said. "What brought you two together?"

"We essentially bumped into each other. She sensed that I was different and I sensed that she was different. We became somewhat like friends."

"But not actual friends?" Inza asked.

Fate turned and looked at her. Inza bowed slightly. "Sorry."

He looked back to Raven. "You mentioned that Omen is an outcast. Why?"

"I shouldn't say."

"It will remain with us three."

Raven looked from Fate to Inza, then back again. She sighed. "You wonder why she wears the hood?"

"No, I did not," Fate responded. "Nor had I wondered why you wear a hooded cloak. I come across many people who wear many different types of garb daily which many would find strange."

"There's a story to it," Raven continued. "She can read minds, but by doing so, she takes on a little bit of the person's psyche she is reading. In passing, it's unnoticeable, but look at her face for too long and it starts to change, become unfocused, confused.

"Interesting," Inza breathed.

"This made her an outcast?" Fate said.

"Yes. Somewhat."

"Tell me, did the dreams begin to grow worse once you arrived in Blüdhaven? Are they worse now?"

Raven thought for a moment before answering, "They started to get worse before the Church of Blood got me. After that. Well, they got really bad. He, my father, talked to me in my dreams, told me what he intended of this universe. He told me that I was the one that would make it possible, that Azar and the monks were right when they said I was the bringer of the end-times." Raven pulled her hood even tighter over her head. "I used the guardian circle thinking it would stop them when I slept."

"You only slept inside the circle?" Fate asked.

"Yes, I only slept in the circle."

"That brings us to recent events I assume."

"It does. Lilith, Omen, she had a vision. She's precognitive you see, she can see the future. She saw Batman arriving to find me at Arkham where we were staying at the time. I went to ward him off at his cave under Wayne Manor, tell him to stop looking for me. Lilith then told me that the vision had changed, that it was now you that came to see me and that I had a fight with the magician."

"Zatanna?" Inza asked.

"She was fearful of me and reacted. We fought. That is all her vision said, so I don't know what the outcome would have been. That's when we made the decision to go to New York as she knew of a place I could hide for a short while."

"Titan's Lair," Inza surmised.

"Yes. We thought that they had all been taken into custody, like many members of the Justice League. However, Shebang was there. She quickly trusted us when we told her of our situation. She also had heard about Omen from Bumblebee."

"But you didn't tell her everything," Inza said.

"No, because I feared rejection. That's why I didn't tell Lilith that I was the daughter of Trigon either. She was the only friend I knew and I daren't risk that."

Fate nodded slowly. "That's all I needed for now." he turned to Inza. "You two may talk now if you wish."

He left the two of them alone. Inza smiled at her. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

A tiny, almost unnoticeable smile spread on Raven's lips. "Thank you, yes I would."

Inza rose up and stepped out of the room to make one.

Updated December 2017