Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Teen Titans: Future Storm ❯ Terminal Velocity ( Chapter 13 )

 

“Teen Titans: Future Storm”

Arc 3: “Quicksilver”

Chapter 3: “Terminal Velocity”

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Most of the super-speed heroes you will see in this chapter do not belong to me; I'll explain more on them at the end of this chapter. The Titans in this story largely belong to me with the exceptions of Nightstar and Mercury, the former belonging to DC Comics and the latter belonging to Marvel and DC via the Amalgam franchise.

Author's note: The review for last chapter showed me a hard truth; a lot of you reading this arc have no idea what the bloody hell the Speed Force is. Granted, those of you who don't know don't know because you only watch the TV series and haven't bothered to get into the original comics. Nothing against you for that; the comics sometimes get overcomplicated, so I'm going to take the time to explain.

The Speed Force is an extra-dimensional energy field that grants people that aren't naturally fast super-speed. In addition to granting people super-speed, the Speed Force also imbues them with a protective aura that shields them and their clothes from the effects of friction and wind resistance, which is why no speedster ever burned up running at supersonic speeds. Furthermore, the Speed Force doesn't grant its power to beings that are already naturally fast, like cheetahs or yellow sun-charged Kryptonians, or beings that derive speed from divine sources, like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel.

And now it's time we concluded the first part of this arc.

The Flash and Wally West stared down their antithesis.

“Ally?” Ashley uttered. “Is that . . . you?”

“Yes, mother,” Black Flash answered. “And these two will pay for what they have done to us.”

“Alison, stop,” Ashley spoke. “You don't have to do this.”

“West murdered Daddy,” Black Flash growled, her words running together. “He pays.”

“I didn't want to kill your father, Ally.” Wally spoke. “I had no choice; he would have killed Linda.”

“And for your wife to live, my father had to die?” Black Flash asked.

“I didn't mean to do it!” Wally exclaimed. “If you want to kill me, bring it on, but leave the Flash alone!”

“No,” Black Flash answered. “You will all suffer. You will all die.”

“How did this happen to you, Ally?” Ashley asked.

“Remember my coma?” Black Flash asked. “It happened when I broke into the Flash Museum and found the blueprints for his Cosmic Treadmill. I understood the technology well enough to create a time-travel device of my own, although I had to cannibalize the Treadmill's tech to do it. Little thing fit around my wrist like a watch. I intended to go back and prevent that bastard Grodd from breaking my father's back, but it turned out that I didn't understand the technology as well as I thought. The damned thing short-circuited and fried me.

“When I woke up, I discovered that I now existed outside of time. My body was in the same space as everyone else, but I was out of sync with the timeline. I could move faster than everyone else, but I wasn't really moving in space; I was moving through time.

“I remembered an old legend of you speedsters. It was the Black Flash, the form Death took when she came for your kind. I took the identity, as a symbol of what I would be to you: death.”

“You want to kill us,” the Flash spoke. “Why? To avenge your father?”

“He only wanted to make your predecessor better,” Black Flash answered. “Only wanted him to be a better hero, to push himself harder to protect innocent people.” She whirled upon Wally. “And you turned around and murdered him!”

“I didn't want to,” Wally spoke. “I didn't even intend to kill him. I just wanted to stop him from killing Linda.”

“Well, it's too damned late to say `I'm sorry,'” Black Flash growled. “So it's time for you to die.” She turned to Ashley. “Get away from here, Mom. I don't want you to see what I'm going to do to these two.”

Wally grabbed Ashley and scooped her up into his arms bridal-style, running to his house with her. He gently lowered her to the ground.

“What's going on?” Barry West asked, looking up from his hand-held video game.

“That's what I'd like to know,” Linda agreed.

“No time to explain,” Wally replied. “Just keep Ashley safe.”

He sped away, wrapping the Speed Force around himself to form it into the red-and-yellow garments that were his trademark as the Flash.

The third Flash ran once more.

Outside the Zolomon residence, Black Flash triggered a sonic boom that sent Bart Allen flying. The fourth Flash landed roughly on the street, just as a car was passing. He quickly vibrated his molecules, turning himself immaterial just in time to prevent himself from becoming street paste.

“Can't fight here,” he muttered, running away from the residential neighborhood as Black Flash gave chase. He was perfectly aware that she could outrun him if she felt like it, but she was keeping just behind him. Desperately, he extended his mind into the Speed Force, reaching out to the other speedsters. S.O.S.! Black Flash is attacking!

Bart! Max Mercury exclaimed. I would help you, but I have my hands full with Speed Demon!

Bart swore to himself and ran to the quarry where Max and Speed Demon were facing off. Max looked like he was in bad shape, while Speed Demon was relentlessly bringing the pain to the eldest human speedster.

“Leave him alone!” Bart exclaimed, doing a hyper-fast body slam on Speed Demon.

“Worry about yourself, Flash!” Speed Demon exclaimed as the red-clad speedster was pulled off him and thrown into the quarry wall by Black Flash.

“Working together, I see,” Max remarked before running to Bart. “Are you all right?”

“I'll be fine,” Bart replied as he rose to his feet.

“Bart, do you notice anything strange about the way Black Flash moves?” Max asked.

“She's not moving through space; she's moving through time,” Bart replied. “I'm guessing little hops back and forth in the timestream, so she's literally ahead of us by seconds.”

“Not just that,” Max said. “I see distortions in her wake.”

“Distortions?” Bart asked.

“Of time,” Max replied. “She's opening holes in time.”

“How does that help us?” Bart asked.

“You'll see,” Max answered.

“Quit talking and die,” Speed Demon growled, generating a ball of hyperkinetic flame. He punched the ball and it splintered into twenty-five smaller orbs that flew at Bart and Max, who dodged them at super-speed.

Suddenly, a series of sonic booms struck the two villainous speedsters.

“Hey,” Wally West greeted, garbed as the Flash once more.

“Wally,” Bart greeted in relief.

“One more makes no difference,” Black Flash snarled, charging the three heroic speedsters. Before they knew it, a flurry of brutal punches and kicks brought them down. “See?”

“See this!” a voice exclaimed, as several blurs of motion attacked her and Speed Demon. Black Flash and Speed Demon might have been faster to a degree than most speedsters, but they weren't just fighting one speedster; they were fighting several. Eventually, they were able to adjust their perceptions to see who was attacking them.

The leader appeared to be a man clad in a navy-and-silver variation of Bart Allen's Flash costume. Accompanying him were Jenny Quick, Velocity, Jenny's mother Jesse Quick (in a scarlet-and-yellow leotard with thigh-high red boots, elbow-length red gloves, and yellow goggles), and Jay Garrick, the original Flash.

“Blitz!” Max exclaimed.

The navy-clad speedster looked at him. “Hey.”

The man under Blitz's mask was none other than Thaddeus Thawne, the clone-slash-twin brother of Bart Allen, created in the 31st century by the enemies of the Allen bloodline to destroy the last descendants of Barry Allen - Bart Allen and Jenni Ognats. However, Thad had rebelled when he witnessed the compassion Bart and his allies had for each other, contrasted by how his creators treated him as nothing more than a weapon. He and Bart had become allies, both of them training under Max Mercury and eventually growing as close as brothers.

Finally, Speed Demon caught Jesse's punch and twisted her arm until it wrenched out of her shoulder. Jesse forced her arm back into place and accelerated the healing process until she was back in fighting condition.

Jenny sped away from the scene of the fight . . . only to come back with a vicious right cross that dislocated Speed Demon's jaw.

“How?” he managed to ask.

“Circled the globe to build up the momentum for that,” Jenny replied. “Of course, you wouldn't have guessed that since you think all of us human speedsters are so weak compared to you.”

Meanwhile, Blitz and Velocity were double-teaming Black Flash, both of them holding her off with impossibly fast strikes. Velocity's strikes were considerably smoother than his father's, but Blitz's strikes were more effective due to his years of experience in such fights.

Black Flash growled in anger and set off another sonic boom, throwing father and son off her.

“Did you see that?” Max asked Bart.

“Yeah,” Bart replied. “It's just like what we do.”

“Not quite,” Max amended. “Time distorted again when she used that attack. My theory is that she's creating warps in the time component of space-time that manifest in the space component as sonic booms.”

Before Max could elaborate on this, Black Flash attacked him, Bart, and Wally. All three speedsters accelerated as much as they could without passing into the Speed Force, but Black Flash was still faster and her combat skills were nothing to laugh at considering the “velocity” at which she was moving.

Suddenly, blurs of blue and red began attacking Black Flash.

“Leave-our-fathers-alone-bitch!” a voice shouted.

Black Flash sped up her perceptions again, seeing just who was attacking her.

“Mercury and Kid Flash,” she sneered. “Don't you know that you'll just get beaten again?”

“Not this time,” Kid Flash retorted as she landed a kick on the time runner. Just as she was about to attack again, Black Flash grabbed her by the throat.

“Let's see,” Black Flash mused with a cruel smirk in her tone. “Should I choke you to death? Or should I simply break your neck like your father's beloved predecessor did to his Reverse-Flash?”

Mercury sped to Jay and took his winged helmet, throwing it like a discus at Black Flash's head. Kid Flash vibrated out of the time runner's grip as Black Flash was struck hard in the head by the helmet. Mercury raced to Black Flash and began striking her at various angles, taking advantage of her disorientation. Unfortunately, Black Flash recovered quickly and caught his ankle just as he was about to land another kick on her. She twisted and he twisted with her into a kick with his other foot that struck her in the head, which loosened her grip enough for him to slip loose. He followed up with a series of insanely fast strikes, which ended when Black Flash grabbed his wrist and slammed him in the gut with her knee.

“Mercury!” Kid Flash shouted, body-slamming Black Flash hard enough to force her to let go of her cousin. Kid Flash grabbed Black Flash's arm and spun into a toss that landed her on the ground. With a lithe twist of her hips, Black Flash rose to her feet.

“Time to end this,” she snarled, raising both hands in the finger-snapping position. Unleashing a double-handed sonic boom, she blew away everyone in the vicinity, which was basically most of the heroic speedsters and even Speed Demon.

Mercury looked at Black Flash and saw a distortion near her. “What's that?”

“A hole in time,” Max replied. “Every time she uses her powers, she creates distortions in the time component of the space-time continuum.”

Mercury drew in a breath . . . and ran away.

“Where is he going?” Wally asked.

“Wait,” Jay replied simply.

Soon enough, a blue blur returned, slamming Black Flash into one of the warps created by her powers.

“What is he doing?” Kid Flash asked.

“He's mine!” Speed Demon roared and sped into the same warp. The other speedsters raced after him, but only Wally, Bart, Max, and Iris were able to make it through before the warp closed.

“Crap,” Velocity muttered.

“They better be all right,” Jenny uttered.

“You took the words out of my mouth,” Jesse agreed.

The Flashes, Max Mercury, Kid Flash, and Speed Demon arrived at the scene of a brutal battle outside of time. Neither Mercury nor Black Flash were holding anything back, fiercely pummeling each other. For each blow one would land, the other would retaliate in kind. Black Flash was still faster, but Mercury had the superior fighting skill and experience.

Speed Demon immediately lunged at Mercury, his fist vibrating. Bart raced after him, knowing what that vibrating fist meant.

Mercury barely evaded the punch in time, leaving Black Flash to take the hit. The black-clad time runner cried out in pain as the vibrating punch warped her into near-insubstantiality.

“What the hell just happened?” Kid Flash asked.

“Speed Demon's molecular vibrations must have messed with her temporal vibrations,” Wally replied.

Suddenly, black clouds gathered in the featureless sky above the speedsters and lightning struck from those clouds.

“What in the crap?” Mercury wondered.

“Time storm,” Max replied.

When the time storm finished, two very familiar figures had landed before them. One was dressed in a costume resembling Wally's, only the eyes weren't covered by lenses, revealing that they were blue. Additionally, his lightning belt was straight instead of resembling two lightning bolts connecting and his ear-caps and boots were winged. The other was dressed in an identically designed costume; only the colors were reversed, yellow and red instead of red and yellow and a black circle instead of a white circle.

“Oh, no,” Wally uttered when he saw the yellow-clad man.

Bart was looking more at the red-clad man. “Grandpa?”

“Well, Barry, we've found ourselves in quite a conundrum, haven't we?” the yellow-clad man remarked.

Barry Allen, the second man to bear the mantle of the Flash and the mentor of Wally West, glared at his opposite.

Speed Demon laughed, garnering the attention of both the second Flash and his reverse.

“I get it,” he spoke. “Disrupting the stability of Black Flash's time-speed created a temporal flux that brought you two here.” If he could have, he would have smiled evilly. “Professor Zoom, would you like to help me and Black Flash in bringing hell to your enemy's legacy?”

“Don't mind if I do,” Professor Zoom replied with a savage smirk on his face.

Barry Allen zoomed to his protégé and grandson. “You two make good Flashes. See you changed the outfit a bit.”

“Yeah, Grandpa,” Bart said. “We like having our own style.”

Barry gave an appreciative glance at Kid Flash and Mercury. “And you've had kids, too.” Speaking directly to the two young speedsters, “I'm sure you've done your parents proud.”

“You have no idea,” Wally spoke with a smile.

“We'll catch up later,” Max said. “Right now, we take care of them.”

“Six on three,” Black Flash rasped. “I consider those good odds.”

“I think I like you, woman,” Professor Zoom remarked.

Max and Barry fought Professor Zoom, while Wally and Kid Flash battled Black Flash, and Bart and Mercury took on Speed Demon.

Professor Zoom threw his entire weight behind an eight-hundred-mph punch that would have shattered Barry's jaw if Barry hadn't caught his wrist and turned his momentum against him, throwing him into the ground. Zoom just got up again and rushed Barry again, only to get punched by Max Mercury.

Wally and Kid Flash tag-teamed Black Flash, who retaliated with swift, brutal strikes. She punched Wally four hundred times in the space of four seconds, cracking several ribs. Kid Flash jumped on her back and began beating her at the speed of sound. Black Flash merely grabbed her and flipped her over before dropping her in a brutal power slam.

“Iris!” Wally exclaimed, leaving the healing of his ribs unfinished to attack his distaff opposite. He began punching her with the speed and fury of a hurricane. “Do what you want to me, but leave my daughter out of it!”

“She's in it already,” Black Flash retorted as she blocked Wally's attacks. “You brought her into it simply by bringing her into this world.”

“She's innocent!” Wally yelled. “I'm the one who killed your father, so take out your pain and anger on me!”

“Gladly,” Black Flash smirked as she tore into him. “Unfortunately, just killing you won't be enough. Your entire legacy has to be destroyed.”

Bart and Mercury double-teamed Speed Demon, who was clearly not pulling his punches. He dislocated Bart's shoulder with one punch and jostled Mercury's insides hard enough for him to cough out blood.

Mercury ducked into a low sweeping kick to knock Speed Demon's feet out from under him, but Speed Demon simply stomped his ankle, nearly breaking it.

“Peter!” Bart exclaimed, tackling Speed Demon.

“Want me to dislocate your other shoulder, Flash?” the demonic runner asked cruelly.

Bart retaliated with a punch to Speed Demon's flaming skull. The hellfire singed him, but it was worth it to clock the bastard.

Unfortunately, this seemed to only make him angrier. With a demonic howl, the hell-born speedster delivered a series of brutal punches at supersonic speeds, causing the fourth Flash to cough up blood all over the inside of his mask.

Mercury saw the fabric of his father's mask darken with horror in his shielded eyes. Despite the pain in his ankle, he body-slammed Speed Demon, allowing Bart the chance to pull up his mask and regain his breath. Once he did that, he forced his shoulder back into place and speed-healed it.

Speed Demon rolled them over so that he was on top and began throttling Mercury, who vibrated into intangibility and re-solidified to brutally kick his hellish rival. Unfortunately, that kick had come from the foot that had an injured ankle, causing him to collapse in pain.

“That was stupid of me,” he muttered as he began speed-healing his ankle.

“Yes, and you're going to die for it,” Speed Demon replied as he summoned a hyperkinetic fire orb. This time, instead of splitting it into twenty-five smaller “speed bullets,” he threw the orb as it was. Mercury was barely able to roll out of the way before the orb obliterated a sizable portion of ground.

“We need help!” Kid Flash exclaimed.

“And I know just where to get it,” Wally answered. “Hope this works.” He vibrated his fist and swung it at Black Flash, who merely bent to the side to evade and twisted into a death grip on the third Flash. “Iris!”

Kid Flash vibrated the molecules of her hand and charged at Black Flash, intending to impale her through the back. Unfortunately, Black Flash seemed to anticipate this and spun into a back kick that knocked her younger counterpart back.

Wally vibrated out of Black Flash's grip and spun to punch her in the gut. Black Flash was able to block that, but Kid Flash surprised her by slamming her vibrating fist into her back. Again, the time runner screamed in pain as her temporal vibrations spiraled out of control.

“You think this'll work?” Kid Flash asked.

“It has to,” Wally replied. “We might have the numbers, but these guys have sheer brutality on their side and two of them are faster than we are.”

Another time storm started and when it ended, two females were standing in the midst of the battle. Both of them were dark-skinned, but the younger of the two seemed to be considerably lighter. Both had amber eyes and hair tied in ponytails, but the older female's hair was brown and the younger female's was black. The older female was dressed in a blue running suit with a thick white stripe down the middle and a yellow symbol on her chest. The younger female was in a black running suit with a thick blue stripe down the middle and a similar yellow symbol on her chest.

“XS!” Bart exclaimed, addressing the older female.

“X-Cel!” Mercury exclaimed, addressing the younger female.

The two female speedsters looked at the father-and-son duo. “Bart, looking good,” XS remarked. “But what's going on here?”

“Your fool cousin thought bringing you here might save his sorry life,” Black Flash hissed, her words blurring together.

“Black Flash,” X-Cel spoke. “The logs in the 31st century don't speak well of you. If they're accurate, you're a dangerous maniac who might be even worse than your father.”

“My father died trying to make him better!” Black Flash roared, her words simultaneously blurring together and dragging out as she pointed at the third Flash.

X-Cel laughed. “Better? You call attempting to murder his wife and children making him a better hero?”

At this point, Max, Barry, and Professor Zoom took notice of the newcomers.

The Reverse-Flash smiled maliciously. “You woman speedsters . . . all so pretty. As pretty as Iris . . . or Fiona.”

“Leave them alone, Thawne,” Barry snarled.

At this point, it descended into a hyper-speed free-for-all.

Speed Demon viciously attacked the heroic speedsters, unleashing hyperkinetic fireballs that destroyed sections of ground when they missed and accelerated the molecular vibrations of the speedsters to painful levels when they connected, as Wally found out the hard way.

He screamed as the unholy flame seared his molecules and accelerated them beyond his control.

An enraged Kid Flash attacked the hellish runner with hundreds of punches and kicks thrown in the space of seconds. Speed Demon simply blocked her attacks as X-Cel jumped on his back. He fell backward, only for her to flip off him and twist into a kick that would have brought him down if he hadn't grabbed her ankle and dragged her behind him.

“Ooh, monstrous,” Professor Zoom complimented with a savage smirk on his face.

Barry broke off his battle with his opposite number to run to Wally. He shoved his hands inside Wally's painfully vibrating body and attempted to use his own vibrations to stabilize his successor. Unfortunately, it backfired and the flame threw him back.

Max tried next, using his vibrations to concentrate the flame and draw it to him.

“Speed Demon!” he shouted as he held the flame in his hands.

“You think you can control my power?” the demonic speedster challenged arrogantly.

Max snarled and sped toward Speed Demon, holding the flame like a knife. Speed Demon simply stood there with his skull tilted, not even attempting to avoid the charge.

“Uncle Max, look out!” Mercury shouted.

Max finally saw the reason Speed Demon hadn't bothered to dodge - he had a vibrating flame knife of his own ready for the eldest human speedster. Speed Demon lunged to attack, but his knife found its mark in the gut of the younger Mercury.

“PETER!” Max, Wally, Bart, Iris, XS, and X-Cel cried out in horror as the platinum-haired speedster collapsed in agonizing vibrations.

“Why?” Max asked his protégé.

“Why not?” Mercury managed to answer simply.

“Hold on,” Max said as he knelt beside Mercury. As Max worked to heal Mercury's injury, the other heroic speedsters attacked Speed Demon.

The five, along with Barry Allen, piled on Speed Demon, assaulting him from all angles. While Speed Demon was faster, there were six human speedsters and one of him, not to mention that they were all attacking him at once, so a few hundred punches made it through every now and again.

Black Flash jumped into the fray and began savagely beating the speedsters. “Weakling!” she roared at Speed Demon.

“Savage little girl, isn't she?” Professor Zoom commented.

Suddenly, he was attacked by two blue-and-white blurs. The Reverse-Flash attacked back, accelerating enough to see that his attackers were none other than Max Mercury and Mercury.

“I'm all better now,” Mercury snarled. With a single kick - from his uninjured foot this time - he propelled Professor Zoom into a sonic boom generated by Black Flash to knock the heroic speedsters off her. The Reverse-Flash was caught in its wake and that cracked open a hole in time, drawing him back into the timestream.

“That's my cue to leave,” Barry said. “I hate abandoning a fight, but I have the feeling you'll be fine without me . . . and Professor Zoom is too dangerous to be left alone.” He jumped through the same time hole and reentered the timestream.

Black Flash growled and continued attacking the remaining speedsters.

“How the hell do we stop her?” Kid Flash asked. “We can't steal her speed because she's running on time, not kinetic energy!”

“Time,” Mercury replied. “That's how we stop her.” He lunged at Black Flash, grabbing her tightly and running for the time hole.

“Mercury, what are you doing?” Bart Allen asked.

“Stopping her the only way that'll work,” Mercury replied.

Black Flash thrashed fiercely in Mercury's grip, preparing to use a sonic boom to throw him off her. Mercury grabbed her mask and ripped it off, then removed his.

“Look at me!” he yelled. “This vendetta you've got against us . . . it's destroyed you. You're nothing but a murderous monster now!”

As he said this, he charged into the time hole, running into the timestream with Black Flash. But he wasn't returning to their era.

He was running down the path of the very timeline itself.

“Where are you taking me?” Black Flash asked, her glowing red eyes staring wildly at him.

“Somewhere you can't hurt anyone anymore,” Mercury replied grimly.

In a logical universe, Mercury should have been blasted into some far-flung era by Black Flash. However, Mercury wasn't operating on logic. He was operating on desperation, which was the only reason he could have made such a move.

He continued to run down the timeline, barely looking at the events passing him by. He had one destination, which he believed would be the only way to contain someone of Black Flash's nature.

Never mind that it would mean the end of them both.

Finally, Mercury could see it - the large, gaping maw of nothingness that waited to consume the universe when it reached the end of its days.

“No!” Black Flash exclaimed in horror, renewing her struggles.

Mercury simply held on tighter, taking the blows Black Flash landed on him as he continued racing toward that mouth of black nothing.

Then they reached it . . . and knew no more.

Meanwhile, in the zone that existed outside of time, Max fell to his knees in sorrow.

“I can't sense him anymore,” he uttered.

“I know,” Wally added mournfully. “I can't sense him anymore, either.”

“You mean . . . he's . . .” X-Cel spoke, unable to finish her sentence.

“Ha!” Speed Demon exclaimed. “Fool mortal! Threw his own worthless life away to save your worthless lives! Not that it matters, because you're all going to die, too!”

“Shut . . . UP!” Bart roared, charging Speed Demon at Mach 10 and landing a blow that would have surely taken any human's head off their shoulders. He followed that blow up with hundreds more, each one landing ferociously on the demonic speedster.

Finally, Speed Demon caught his punch. “I let you have that because you were grieving. But my leniency doesn't last long.” He punched Bart in the stomach, setting off a kinetic explosion that threw the fourth Flash into the wall separating the combatants from the timestream.

Kid Flash, Wally, XS, and X-Cel piled onto Speed Demon, unchained fury evident in their attacks. Speed Demon simply laughed maliciously as they pummeled him before setting off a hyperkinetic explosion that threw them all off him.

Max Mercury began walking toward Speed Demon. “Leave him to me.”

He summoned the knife of hyperkinetic flame as he walked toward the hell-born runner, who just stared him down.

“Max, what are you doing?” Wally asked.

“What I should have done sooner,” Max replied simply.

“Come on, old man!” Speed Demon roared. “I'm not afraid of you!”

“You should be,” Max answered tonelessly, never ceasing his steady walk.

Speed Demon watched him closely for any signs of wavering or uncertainty. To his consternation, he found none.

I'm the Gale Force of Hell, he thought. The fastest on Earth, in heaven, or in hell. No one can match me. No one. I shouldn't be afraid of this fool mortal.

But he was and no self-pep talks would change that.

Finally, Max was directly in front of him.

Speed Demon glared at him, silently challenging him.

“Nothing but bravado, demon,” Max spoke. “You're afraid, but you don't want to admit it. After all, you're the Fastest Demon in Hell, so you shouldn't be afraid of a mere human.”

“Shut up,” Speed Demon growled.

“Why?” Max asked. “You know it's true.”

“Shut up!” Speed Demon repeated, louder this time, and he aimed a killing punch at Max's head, which the eldest human speedster ducked. He moved to the side and stabbed Speed Demon with the hyperkinetic flame knife, eliciting a scream from the hellish speedster. “What are you doing?”

Max twisted the knife, pulling the demon's essence into it. As the process continued, the flame of his skull and hands exhausted itself and soft, pinkish flesh emerged on them. Eyes emerged within sockets, molten gold in color, and soft, thin lips rimmed his mouth. Red-streaked, slightly spiky black hair grew on his head.

Finally, Max pulled the demon's essence out completely, leaving behind a young man of nineteen, collapsed on the ground and dressed in a denim jacket over a red shirt and khaki pants. The essence writhed and struggled in his grip. Max ran as fast as he could, building up the velocity he needed to approach the Speed Force. This time, he wasn't trying to finally enter its embrace . . . he was imprisoning a dangerous force.

As soon as he saw the Speed Force wall, he raced closer to it as the core of evil in his hand struggled even more fiercely. Max slammed the demonic essence through the wall.

“Barry, Johnny, you two better take good care of this monster for me,” he muttered before returning to the zone where the other speedsters were waiting for him.

“So there was a human in there?” Kid Flash asked.

“Yes,” Max replied. “He traded his soul for that of someone he loved, and damned himself in the process. Up to a certain point, he tried to use the power for good, but the demon's will overpowered his own.”

“What's his name?” XS asked.

“Jace,” the former host of Speed Demon replied. “Jace Lawrence.”

“We'd all . . . best be headed back to our own eras,” Max replied.

“Besides, I'm sure the Legion of Superheroes misses you,” Bart added to XS and X-Cel.

“Yeah,” X-Cel answered sadly.

Back in Keystone City, another time storm had begun. Lightning crashed in the blackened skies.

“Hey, the weather report didn't say anything about a storm tonight!” a passerby shouted.

When the storm stopped, a figure stood in the middle of the street. His features were obscured by the darkness, but the familiar shape of lightning caps emerged from where his ears would be. A car drove toward him, the headlights illuminating tarnished silver and blue so dark it could easily pass for black. The driver slammed his brakes to avoid running over the mysterious figure, but by the time he was able to stop, the figure was already gone.

End Notes: Mercury is dead. After all, who survives the freaking end of time/the universe? Or is he? You'll just have to wait as this arc further develops.

Now to explain the numerous speedsters that appeared in this story.

Wally West you'll definitely know if you watched Justice League or read The Flash. Bart Allen you'll know if you read The Flash, Impulse, Young Justice, or the first 32 issues of Geoff Johns' Teen Titans. Jay Garrick is the original Flash and you'd know him if you read The Flash or JSA (Justice Society of America).

Barry Allen is a little more complex, so all I'll say is that he's the Flash that came before Wally and is essentially the patron saint of the Flash family. Professor Zoom/Reverse-Flash is Barry's time-traveling foe and the inspiration for Hunter Zolomon's Zoom.

Jesse Quick is a rather obscure character, as she is one of the few female speedsters and hasn't gotten nearly as much exposure as her male counterparts. Jenny is her OC daughter.

Blitz is Thaddeus Thawne, a.k.a. Inertia, Bart Allen's evil clone from the Impulse comics. In my continuity, he turned good. Velocity/Adam is his OC son.

Max Mercury is a speedster who came to the present via repeated jumps in time from the past trying to reach the Speed Force. Throughout the Impulse comics, he was a mentor to Bart Allen, until he got himself possessed by Jay's Reverse-Flash, the Rival, and his spirit stuck in the Speed Force. In my continuity, that never happened; he simply leaped into the future again.

XS is Bart Allen's cousin from the future, which happens to be where he was born as well; he was just brought to the present because his super-speed was accelerating his aging to the point he'd live his life in the space of weeks if not days. X-Cel is a character from the Amalgam Universe, just like Mercury, only altered to fit the DC canon.

Since Speed Demon is an amalgam of Flash, Etrigan, and Ghost Rider, I decided to go with the idea of what might have happened if the Rider's human host hadn't been able to overcome his demonic alter ego and transplanted it to him.

Black Flash, as I've stated before, is half-original. The look is inspired by the actual Black Flash, as she stated herself, but the powers are based on Zoom's. Basically, the character of Ally Zolomon is all that really belongs to me when it comes to Black Flash.

The Iris Professor Zoom spoke of is not Iris West, the daughter of Wally's incarnation of the Flash, but rather Iris West-Allen, the aunt of Wally West and the wife of Barry Allen. Fiona is another love interest of Barry that emerged after Iris West-Allen was seemingly killed (she got reborn in the 31st century).

Anyway, that's all out of me. See you next chapter.