Here it comes...

I know this feeling. Know it like the back of my hand. I've done this a lot, you see.

I've been knocked out. Someone hit me, I went unconscious, and now my brain

is slowly starting to turn itself back on. It's like waking up in the morning on a Saturday, without the alarm clock, where your mind slowly goes from pure, black, thoughtless sleep to seeing that light come in through the window and finding your head on your pillow. It's exactly like that when you wake up after a beating, except you slowly experience pain in every one of your muscles as your body remembers, "damn... that hurts..." You feel each piece of pain until you officially wake up and your entire body feels like a drumset that's been given to an A.D.D.-afflicted eleven year old for a birthday gift.

Ah.... there's that first sliver of light. My eyes are opening. At first I can just see it, but then it reaches all the way back into my brain and seems to literally stab at me. I can feel the outside of my face and I twitch my eyebrow involuntarily. I stop immediately. It feels like every muscle in my face was hardwired directly to my brain. Every jerk of my eye or twitch of my nose sets off a wave of jumbled pain in my mind. Beneath my head, my shoulder fades from a dull numbness to an annoying soreness to a burning sensation. I can't move my arm at all... Oh! Wait! My finger moved! Yes! Yes it did. ...I think.

My ribs feel terrible, and every breath feels like I'm dragging sandpaper across them. My ankle feels like it's not even there and it's been simply replaced by blinding anguish.

Overall, I'm starting to think I got off pretty light.

"Rise and shine, sleepy head," a voice calls from above me.

"Mom?," I ask without really thinking about it. Actually, I can't even tell if I spoke it or just thought it. If I did speak it, it probably just came out as a garbled, "Mhrm?" I hope so, at least.

"What's that?," the voice asks. More distant. It's speaking to someone else. "Did he just say "Mom?"

Slowly I open my eyes, ignoring the pain that comes with it.

When I can finally make out the face above me, I screw my eyes shut

instantly. No. No way. I give up. Just let me lay here and die. I know I"m supposed to be a great hero, but I officially give up on life. God, take me now. Bart Allen, a.k.a. Impulse, has saved me twice in less than a week.

Oh, God...

"Wally, we need you to wake up, son."

Max Mercury. Great. Max is here to see it too. Now all I need is my old high-school football squad and their cheerleader girlfriends to see me and my humiliation would be complete.

I pry my eyelids open and reach out my leaden arms. The old man and the young boy lift me up off of my spot on the floor. I'm in a sterile, white cell with one door in the corner. Four guards lie unconscious on the ground next to it.

"It worked," Max tells me as he props my body up over his shoulder. "Jay found the coordinates for the facility where they're manufacturing the Zoom drug. We scoped out the facility here. It's a base. This is the administration center where the distribution of the drug is facilitated.

I take a second to just breathe. Clear my thoughts. Rest my body.

"That means Professor Zoom is here too," I say.

"What's the plan, Wally?," Max asks me.

"You guys take off. Jay's dismantling the production base. I want you two to take this place apart, piece by piece. I'm going to find Professor Zoom. We're going to shut down every aspect of this operation and hit it so hard it never resurfaces again."

Max Mercury and Impulse are out the door without a second. I lean up against the wall and fight down the blaring sirens going off inside my head. I need to clear my thoughts and think straight. I have too. It's my job. Because I'm Wally West....

Faux DC presents

The Adventures of Wally West, The Fastest Man Alive

#12
Chasing Shadows Pt. 4

by Jonah Rite

I take off out the door running at what would be, for any normal human being, full speed. For me, it's nothing. I beat my legs, knowing that any second guards will be storming down on my head, keen to my escape. But I'm running at a tenth of my natural speed, because for some reason, the super speed that makes me me, is gone. It's been ebbing and fluctuating for over a month now, and I have no idea why. And now, stuck as I am in a battle where the stakes couldn't be higher, with enemies all around me, the power seems to have completely dried up and left me. I have a tremendous task to accomplish and right now, I'm just an average guy in a bright red costume.

As a kid, a freak accident involving a bolt of lightning and a batch of chemicals gave me the power to run at speeds faster than wind or lightning. I used that power to fight evil as the Flash, and I still do, to this day. Years later, I discovered that my freak accident may not have been an accident at all. I learned of a source of energy known as the Speed Force. It appeared as though this energy, for a yet unknown purpose, reaches out and chooses champions to use it's power to pursue justice. It gives those who can tap into it super speed.

We think. You see, there's a lot we don't know. It's still really just a theory. I mean, it sounds sentient, but no one's ever talked to it. We don't know why it chooses the speedsters it does. We also know that bad people can tap into it as well, gaining the power of heightened speed. The only justification I have for it's existence is that I think I've tapped into it. Since I've learned of the possible existence of the Speed Force, I've used it to amplify my speed powers, running faster, sharing my speed with others, using it to jump back and forth in time. I almost joined it once. Max Mercury believes that when someone runs fast enough past the speed of light, they can enter the Speed Force and become one with it. I hit that speed, but came back because I couldn't bear to be apart from my wife, Linda. I hear I'm the only speedster to ever do so.

I think that's what happened to my uncle. Barry Allen, the Flash before me. He died using his powers to destroy a machine that would have eradicated the Earth.* He made it possible for Earth's heroes to destroy the universally powerful Anti-Monitor. It's my belief that he ran so fast he left our plane of existence and entered the Speed Force.

*In the "Crisis on Infinite Earths"- Jonah "Righteous" Rite

But I have to wonder. I had started to think I was "mastering" the Speed Force. I considered myself a manipulator of this energy. But in the end, it still "chose" me. And it "chose" Barry. Who does it choose to be it's champions and why? And did it "choose" the original Professor Zoom or any of the thousands of speed-powered villains I've fought? When it boils down to it, if this thing has thoughts and motivations, I have no idea what they are and I have absolutely no way of knowing whether I'm using it to my advantage or whether I'm being jerked around by some nameless cosmic power.

My breathing is already ragged and hard as I push my tired body down a mass of boring walls and doors. Rows and rows of completely average cubicles fly by me as I run for the door leading upstairs. It's funny how even at my retarded acceleration, I still see everything whip by me in a blur. The entire room moves behind me as a dull system of brown doors set against gray walls. My feet make weird noises as they pound the cheap carpet.

The door slams and echoes up through the cold, concrete stairwell as I charge the stairs. Five floors later and I'm huffing and puffing. The directory on the far wall says that the Executive Office is on the farthest corner of this floor, in 501. Considering I'm dealing with both a CEO and a super-villain, I already know the numbers are meaningless. I'm looking for a pair of big oak door with brass handles in the furthest corner with the best view. I plow through the maze of confused people in little cubicles and find the digits five-oh-one plastered across a big set of doors.

Oak and brass, right one the money.

To a professional crimefighter, this is the lowest feeling in the world. To be right on the brink of a challenge you have to overcome, with all the odds against you and no ace up your sleeve. Someone's on the other side of that door. They probably have a speed advantage on me that puts them a sprinters distance beyond every move I make. They also probably know I've left my cell and that I'm coming. With that, I shout above the chaotic din behind me that every pocket-protector-ed intern in this building had better clear out while I wipe the floor with their boss. Then a golden boot is raised and I kick the door in.

The thick, heavy door crunches as it collides with the adjacent wall. My vision follows the gray carpet forward, taking in a long wooden table surrounded by plush chairs. At the far wall is a large Plexiglas window that looks out onto the massive expanse of land surrounding the building. Rolling green hills and highways cover the landscape and the skyline of Keystone City is just a dot, as far back as the eye can see. Keystone City. My city. The one that he's single-handedly eroding as we speak. The afternoon sun, just now beginning to set, streams in, reflecting off the window and casting the entire room in a bright, mellow haze. My eyelids flinch and shut briefly at the invasion.

And in the center of it all, framed there with perfect symmetry, my enemy sits. At the end of the table, with the biggest grin I've ever seen on a face, Professor Zoom's golden body reclines in a magnificent chair. His blood red boots are propped up on the table and his hands rest behind his head. A black circle, pierced by a crimson lightning bolt, rises and falls with his chest as he breathes.

"Your mother is going to be SO disappointed in you!," I quip from across the room, jabbing a finger in his direction.

His smile fades. "Shut up, West. You barge into my office with major injuries, a drug-induced hangover, and absolutely no powers, but I still have to listen to your flippant attitude?"

"What can I say? I must not respect you that much."

Oooh, that got 'em.

His eyes narrow.

"I know who you are," I continue. "You weren't exactly subtle when you were beating the crud out of me the last time we met. You're Wallace West. My double from an alternate reality. You're that "Flashaman" character the Zep was looking for when he pulled me into his realm.*"

* In The Flash #9, available right here at FDC by the talented Doc!-

Jonah

"Well, it wouldn't take a detective," he shrugged.

"But why? Why all this? I was under the impression you were some kind of hero."

"And when you met me...," he mused, bringing up a hand and gesturing with it, mildly, "you would have been right. Why, Wally? Because I decided to pick a winner. Think about it. Anyone can be a "superhero" really. Anyone can save people. But how many bad-guys actually win? How many kill the hero and complete the evil scheme? The path to fame is just that much quicker and so much more rewarding."

"That's it? I mean... you were a good-guy and then you just... decided to switch sides? That's it?"

His lips curved into a mean scowl and one of his hands twitched, tightening and releasing on his leather armrest. "You ever felt like nothing, West?"

"You know... nope, nothing really jumps to mind."

"Well, you're about too," he snarled. Bone cracks across my face and I only open my eyes in time to collide with the side of the room. My weak body attempts to stand, but a yellow blur delivers a side-kick to my gut that knocks me backwards. The same foot strikes again and again, pinning my quaking body to the wall. Bits of plaster chip off and fall around my shoulders as I ricochet back and forth in little arcs... unable to move.. Unable to think.

I move my hand to block but he just kicks my hand into my chest, jamming the fingers. For one split second, I find myself back in the fields of Kansas, playing catch with Uncle Barry. I'd cry out as I grasped for the football, only to have it jam my fingers in just the same way, sending an electric jolt of pain through my hand. It hurts now, the same as it did then.

My feet lose contact with the floor as a strong hand grabs me by the chest and hefts me up into the air. In one second I feel myself flying and in another I feel wood on my back and a stinging in my back. I know I'm splayed across the conference table, but something blocks me from doing a thing about it. The weight across my stomach tells me he's taken the advantage. Five knuckles from a right fist dance across my cheek, before another set hits me against the temple. Blow after blow crashes into my soft face. The speed of his punches only increases as he pummels me. It becomes a syncopated rhythm that builds and builds, punctuated by percussionistic bangings against my head.

My legs shoot up as I rock back, taking Professor Zoom with me. Startled, he flips right over, onto his head. It probably doesn't hurt that much, but at least he's off of me. Without even a thought, I use my low center of gravity to make the most of my position, pushing up with both hands into a sort of donkey-kick to the man's face. This is a whole new type of fight that I've never been in before. I have to adapt and I have to adapt now. So I add to my mental notebook as we go along. Note number one: Since I can't move fast, I have to think fast. I'm not going to capture the high-ground or create any kind of distance between the two of us, so I have to use every moment to my advantage, lashing out from whatever position I find myself in and using as few movements as possible, to save time.

I have a technique that might aid me in not dying. The thought actually gives me a sense of pride for a moment as he catches my foot in his hand and whips me at the opposite wall, which my limp body bounces off of, landing with a thud on the floor. My body jerks, snaps, and falls again as he kicks me in the side.

I reach my hand out blindly to try and find something to grab ahold of, but nothing's there. I just lay on the ground, bleeding. All over his carpet.

Ha. Take that...

...Jerk.

He lifts me up, holding me in the air. My head bobs and it takes all my effort just to look at him.

"Get wise, you idiot!," Professor Zoom shouts. "You're not the Flash! You're Wally West. You're a hick from Kansas who got some powers by accident and decided to put on a costume. Nobody chose you! Nobody cares about you!"

"Don't be surprised... I know all about you. We're practically the same, you and I. And whatever I don't know from experience, I've been told. For instance, I know that on your world, you thought the Speed Force was some presence out to protect you..."

He brought my face closer to his. "God... it must burn you up inside that I'm using it to kill kids. You're on my world now. You've got no friends, no powers, and no one to pull your butt out of the fire when I rip your skull open. You're alone. Enjoy the feeling. I learned to."

He rears back his fist and I just wait for it. While the maniac was talking, I figured out a second mental note to add to my list. And it's not a pleasant one. He likes to use multiple attacks in succession. When he punches, he's only thinking of the second punch. Not the space in-between. If I let him hit me once and I can roll with it enough, I might be able to score on him.

I'm going to to need to think up a #3 pretty fast...

He drives a fist into my face and every tooth in my mouth feels like an individual earthquake. My body torques backward and I use the momentum to rock up into a strong, solid uppercut that dices him right across the jaw. His toes leave the ground and he flies back, knocking over a chair on the way.

Two legs shake beneath me as I stumble to my feet. "Zoom," I manage, weakly. "Stop hitting... yourself."

"Jokes?," he blinks. "I am about... to kill the Flash himself... and desecrate his legend across the cosmos. And you're making jokes?"

Two hands clap against my ears and instantly alarm claxons go off in my head.

"I will beat you and beat you until you show me the respect I deserve, do you hear me? I will make you beg to worship me!," he screams.

My senses drag me along sluggishly as he punches me again, knocking me to the side. He cuts in to me with an uppercut that sends me straight upwards. I take the abuse again to land a scissor kick to his face in midair. Without a pause or breath he's upon me again, backhanding me across the base of the skull, which I turn into a karate job to the side of his head. We dance like this. My head reeling, my perceptions about as slow as they can be. I'm not capturing the high ground. I'm only fighting to skirt the edge between "certain death" and "almost death."

I can't win this way. It's not just that my powers are turned off. Or restricted from me. They're gone. As crazy as this Professor Zoom is, I know he's right. I've been abandoned.

And nothing could get any worse.

"Ah. Mr. West. And Mr. West. I see things are proceeding nicely."

The beating stops and I sag to the floor. I force my vision to pierce through the red haze clouding my sight. A tall man stands in the doorway, dressed in expensive leather shoes and black pants. A double-breasted, black jacket sits on his red, silk shirt and matching black tie, pristinely. Slicked-back, ink-colored hair turns into a thin beard and moustache. His face is smooth and handsome, but slightly wrinkled. Age. He must be somewhere in his forties.

He's familiar too... can't.... think....

"I know the look in your eyes, friend. Yes, we have met before. As it seems you have enough problems to worry about at the moment, I will spare you any difficulty. I am the Zep. Otherwise known as, the Speed Force."

Jay Garrick, the original, golden-age Flash on this parallel Earth, ran at full speed in full costume now, his disguise discarded and forgotten. He bolted across rolling green plains, a lone figure in blue pants, a red shirt with the typical lightning bolt insignia, and a shiny metal cap that glinted in the sunlight. Clenched in his left fist was a dossier of important schematics and blueprints.

Weeks, he silently cursed himself. For weeks, the most dangerous stimulant yet invented had been sifting in through the cracks of Keystone City, and he had completely missed it. Not until the enormous over-supply erupted into violence and chaos had he even been aware.

How, he asked himself. How could a drug epidemic creep up right under my nose?

They had hid their operation well. Thorough, but simple, with little to no cloak and dagger-act visible. In a large forest preserve a few miles out of Keystone, a few acres of land had been purchased. They surrounded the territory with a big metal fence and hung signs that warned against trespassers. In the center of the area a small river ran through a deep ravine. At it's base, a large complex was built into what looked like three large turbines. The building was large, and powerfully gray like some great war-machine. It clanged and whirred loudly, even from the Flash's position on the rocks high above it. It would have taken months to build, but with a work crew amplified to super speed, the load was decidedly easy to bare.

He paused a moment to glance over the layout of the complex once more before setting the papers on the ground under a rock. A slight booming sound erupted as he burst off down the hill, descending in a cloud of dust and rock. The water hissed as he lightly skimmed the top, alerting every guard on the outside to his presence. Most were too dumbfounded to move. He picked up a guard sentry wearing a simple blue-uniform with a nametag and cap and tossed him into the air, moving along as the man fell to the ground with a thud. He ran to the right, jumping into two surprised men with fists outstretched, sending one into each face, then barrel rolling straight back into a standing position, with all the grace and assurance of a cheetah. A guard with a long black rifle charged him from the left, hurtling along at a hundred miles per hour, but Jay Garrick simply threw his leg up into a roundhouse kick, connecting with the side of the guard's head and hooking it, bringing him straight down. Guns sounded and bullets scorched the air coming towards him, but he was already gone. They struck the ground pointlessly as he fended off a rush of two guards who barred his way to the door. He feinted left, letting one man punch the other in the face, then reached over his own shoulders, grabbed the remaining assailant and flipped him over his shoulder, judo style, into the water.

The fight was over and Garrick was in the doors so fast he silently longed for a stopwatch that would look good with his outfit. Screeching alarms rang and the tremor of discordant voices came from another room, but he ignored it. One directive had been given and that was all that was needed. Tear down the operation, brick by brick.

He charged through a glass door with the Zoom insignia framed upon it, and raced the flying glass shards to the floor. He was in a long room, crowded with cubicles and copy machines and paper flying everywhere. Executives ran about, terrified, attempting to purge or move what important information they had. The lips on Jay Garrick's old face turned into a smile. It was futile for them. He had already picked up all the information he needed. Evidence incriminating every one of them was contained on a CD laying on the desk of a high-ranking prosecutor at the District Attorney's office. All that was left now was the physical work.

Or, "the fun part."

More men, burly and gruff-looking, emerged from the doors surrounding the office. They leveled their rifles and as the Flash looked around to gauge the situation, he heard the simultaneous "C-clack" of a dozen high-powered rifles being cocked at once. It sounded like the cracking of knuckles on a hand with too many fingers. The world moved very slowly for one second.

"Everyone down!," Jay screamed, to get the attention of the office workers. He dove forward, pulling a young man and a woman in business clothes down with him. They screamed and covered their heads as bullets whizzed above them, ripping through plastic walls and obliterating computer consoles. There was no one sound in the air but chaos. The Flash pushed off the ground, ducking his head down as he ran to the side of the room. One rifleman collapsed with a "whuff" as he punched the man in the gut. He knelt down and grabbed the gun, clicking the safety "on." He waited, on the ground with his back pressed to a cubicle, trying to guess at what existed in the world around him.

Like a shot, he sprang upwards, jumping onto a desk, crunching someone's family photo beneath his boot. His eyes found the wall furthest him and he whipped the gun foreword. It spun in a perfect circle, dizzyingly fast, crashing painfully against the face of one unlucky guard before ricocheting off into a nearby guards face. Bullets flew from his gun as he fell, obliterating a section of the ceiling and raining plaster down on everyone's head. Undistracted, another volley of gunshots was fired dead-on at exactly the spot where he stood. He dropped backwards falling back to the floor as bullets sailed passed him, scant feet above his body. He hit the ground and rolled into the next cubicle over as bullets were poured into the other one.

He took in his surroundings. To a low-level employee it was a faux-office. To Jay Garrick, the Flash, one of the greatest superheroes of all time, it was no less than a full arsenal. He grabbed a porcelain cup reading "#1 Dad" and whipped it into a man's face across the room. He flew back into the wall and collapsed. With a tug on its electric chord, he hurled a computer into another guard close by. A pencil sharpener followed soon after, striking a sentry in the neck and sending him gasping to the floor. In one second, the Flash held a bookcase worth of binders in his hands, in the next it was an impenetrable storm of papers scattered into the air. The remaining six guards looked through the sea of files desperately, before a red and blue figure flew through, kicking two men in the face, before racing around the other corners of the room and taking out the last set of guards.

As a blonde man with a crew cut was dropped onto the carpet, the doors burst open and guards flooded in at incredible speeds, guns drawn, but an opposite set of doors was already swinging shut behind the invader.

He ran through the hallways, sifting through blueprints in his head. Left, right, left, left, right. Through the main door, down the hall, left at the coffee machine.... no, right at the coffee machine, he thought as he turned in a full one-eighty and took off again, past a white, plastic coffee-maker that no one had refilled.

A set of heavy metal doors took the stalwart champion to a large laboratory that, at first glance, seemed miles wide. People milled about in yellow lab-coats, with the familiar black lightning bolt adorning their breasts. The room was cold and futuristic, mixing efficient black plastic with ugly gray machinery. There were tables everywhere filled with multi-colored vials. Bigger containers of Plexiglas on the walls held large amounts of blue chemicals. Little dials and display screens were everywhere, feeding the scientists the information needed to sustain a deadly disease.

"Show's over, folks," he quipped, dashing past a lab-coated official to a pump on one section of the wall. Fingers, as strong as they were old, wrapped around the black rubber and wrenched it from the wall, spewing forth a stream of thick, blue liquid. It splattered as he ran across it, moving from wall to wall, orchestrating chaos each time he stopped to take a break. Alarm claxons began to blare and a flashing red light covered the room.

Suddenly, his head whipped to the side as a scream rose over the wail of the alarm. A doctor's yellow coat fanned out around him as he leapt through the air, with some sharp instrument in his hand. The spiked, lean end of the silver tool glinted red as it stabbed forward, nearly missing the Flash's ribs. He feinted and let the man rocket forward into a plastic table which crumbled beneath him. He knelt known and knocked the man solidly on the side of his head, sending him into unconsciousness. He sprang up and lashed out a devastating backhand into the nose of another scientist, who had foolishly him, without even the turn of an eye.

The man fell to the ground, clutching his bloody nose. The Flash eyed every remaining employee in the room. A sense of calm commanded his face. He reached out with an invisible sense of confidence and authority and tested the will of every man in a 20 foot radius.

After the first one ran out the door, the room couldn't empty fast enough.

Doors collapsed beneath his boots as he took to speed once again. Corridors passed by him faster now, an unintelligible blur of doors and stairs and labs and offices. Workers dove to get out of the way. Guards poured in from every orifice in the building, but their bullets only nipped at the trail of his heels. Always one step ahead, the Flash pushed through, catching a guard by surprise as he broke through a door or elbowing some watchman in the face as he whizzed by.

Finally, after a long hallway, which now lay decorated with the groaning bodies of dozens of the organization's finest defenders, a heavy, wooden door bounced in Jay's line of vision. He reared up as he ran, replaying the blueprints in his head. This was his door.

The door splintered, cracked, and shattered outward into a million pieces, faster than the eye could register as a leg exploded through it, outstretched in a perfect flying sidekick. He landed strongly on both feet, inside the largest factory he had ever seen. Easily larger than two football fields, the indoor plant was dimly lit. It expanded out before the viewer's eyes to dizzying proportions, the presence of so much shadow increasing it's size all the more. It existed on a multitude of levels, with webs of metal thatch work tracing every side of the huge room and connecting to each other through the use of large, steel ramps. Floorlights dotted the way and where any would stop, crackling sparks would shoot out from some shoddily-made piece of machinery and take over the job.

A hundred feet below him, more scientists and many more guards milled about monstrous vats of glowing liquid. They churned in gigantic, greasy, metal containers which groaned as they performed their function. Wheels lurched, pumping the chemical through rubber tubes. Like the legs of some ghastly spider, with an abdomen too impossibly fat to allow movement, the tubes extended from every vat to run along the room, pushing more chemicals through as needed.

The alarm continued to sound, flashing red into the murky blackness, its piercing volume turning into a dull roar which echoed throughout the cavernous space. Instantly every gun and every scope on those guns were trained on the lightning bold adorning his chest. He glanced once. Guards running in from the left. He glanced again. Guards from the right. He jumped upwards, clenching one fist around a handrail and spun downward over the platform in a wide arc. He let go just short of crashing into the bottom of said platform and flung his body down to the platform below, where he crashed into the metal with his hip. A fusillade of bullets struck the air where he had just existed, ricocheting off the wall as all those close by ducked.

He winced, the wrinkles at the sides of his eyes clenching and then releasing beneath salt and pepper eyebrows, and stood, taking off once again, down a shaky ramp. He ignored the pain in his side, pressing on through a wall of three heavily-muscled sentries, bowling them over like children's toys. He pulled into a sharp left turn and looked behind him. Three other sentries, rifles at the ready, chased him at super speed. They rushed forward, almost on top of him as they cocked their guns.

A grunt was the only thing to escape the Flash's lips as he jumped straight upward, grabbing for a handful of metal grating above his head, then flinging himself backwards and over the side of the railing. Bullets clanged noisily off the girders and the sentries only stared confusedly as Jay sailed through the empty space, wind rustling his tunic as his body fell down through three levels of the factory, before crashing and rolling onto a metal platform below.

One guard, the only one intelligent enough to analyze his trajectory, met him at the bottom, but was swiftly dispatched with an uppercut and three well placed punches. Jay took only a second to catch his breath. A storm of guards rushed him from in front and also from in back. He checked, but there were no platforms above or below him that he could reach. He was naked, waiting on the middle of the bridge in the exact center of a huge gap of space and for one second, he entertained the notion that he was Armstrong or Aldrin, alone with only the moon beneath their feet. As both waves of armed personnel rushed him, he only snapped upwards, stabilizing his feet on both handrails, and flipped up and backwards, enjoying the momentary suspension of gravity's rule as he glided over the two teams crashing clumsily into each other. He landed on the chest of one unlucky man and hopped directly off, continuing his journey down the ramp.

The factory was a furious torrent of activity as people stumbled over each other to stop the intruder. He charged down on ramp and down another, moving so fast his colorful form seemed to stretch out and then fade behind him. The black-clothed muscle-men would try to stand in his way, but each could be seen flying off the ramps and platforms as the cannonball that was Jay Garrick decimated each one. One high-ranking official stood on a large, sputtering machine with a bullhorn and attempted vainly to coordinate the efforts of his team.

"He's trying to get to the bottom! Look at the easiest path down and try to predict his direction you idiots!.... There, he's on level 4C! Shoot in a perimeter around the light.... no, not all in the same place! He's moving!..... Level 2B! Now, shoot! Shoot!... For God's sake there's a hundred of you jack-" His lips continued moving, until he blinked and realized he was talking obliviously to his empty hand. He only realized his situation in time for a light speed knee to his gut that forced him to his knees.

The Flash sped on with the bullhorn in his hands, pulling a long, thick, grossly oversized wrench from the hands of a defeated opponent. He blazed through the workings underneath one of the vats processing the Zoom drug, hacked at the many structural supports propping up the container. He bashed the braces sloppily, throwing his muscle into each one like a lumberjack. Wherever a storm of bullets would fly towards him, he would evade. Wherever a group of guards would attack him, he would knock them away.

An abrupt creaking that boomed through the entire refinery stopped everyone. The hulk of metal slowly groaned as it's side began to tip. Jay raced out to the center of a an open space on the floor in front of the chemical bath as it very slowly turned, tugging painfully on the screws that held it in place. Liquid Zoom splashed clumsily over the side as the bath unhinged itself off of one support, then rocked back, falling off of one another. Suddenly, the entire contraption screamed in metallic agony as it fell off of all its support beams and crashed loudly to the ground, tilting fully over and spilling an ocean of chemical out onto the factory floor. It spewed out in a rush, knocking over tables and machinery, washing through the cracks of certain gadgets, causing sparks and explosions of smoke, and the whirring of dying computers.

As the worst of the sound faded, Jay stood in a mass of the drug up to his ankles and shouted into the bullhorn. "My name is the Flash and this is already over! We've dismantled your entire operation! Whoever still wants to fight... can."

And for those who did, he was happy to oblige.

No way! The Zep? The kooky old guy I met in another dimension?*

*In The Flash #9- Jonah

How's that for "out of left field?" So when he dragged me into his corner of the universe by accident, he was actually looking to hook up this Flashaman/Prof. Zoom idiot with his criminal organization! He seemed so nice...

"I sincerely hope you appreciate the meticulous planning and skill it took to bring you here... I thought I'd bungled it all when I pulled you into my domain by mistake," he gloats as he steps forward, placing a very nice shoe right on my back. And presses down.

"But you were nowhere near smart enough to figure it all out, even when I had you standing right in front of me, like some slack-jawed little hick." "Who...are...you?!," I choke out, despite the leather sole crunching into my spine.

"I am the one and only Speed Force, m'boy. I used to exist as simply a random gathering of power. I would ebb and surge, occasionally branching out at random times to strike people from millions of different universes and grant them their powers. I did it for you, I did it for your uncle, and I did it for a billion different versions of both of you on parallel Earths. I wasn't conscious at the time. I had no idea what I was doing or who too. I could have, but I didn't. Are you familiar with Particle/Wave Theory?"

He looks down at me questioningly, as if he really expects me to answer. "Of course not. You're from Nebraska. Silly me."

Got to admit... it stings.

"It's the idea that light can exist as both a particle and a wave at the same time and has only to choose whether to exist on a certain plane of reality as one or the other. In much the same way, I experienced the acts of speedsters who my power had motivated to do good and I experienced the acts of those who chose to do evil. I became conscious at the realization of this... dichotomy. I gained the ability to make a choice. And I chose Evil. You see, I don't just have power. I am power. And I can control every person on every Earth in the multiverse. There's no limit to how far my power can extend. You have no idea what that kind of potential feels like."

"The...drug?," I gag.

"Merely a favor to my accessory, Mr. Zoom, here. It was his idea. He wanted to ruin his world this way, so I helped him."

"And why...me?"

"Ah, the million dollar question!," he exclaimed, clapping his hands together, while adding another few pounds of pressure to my throat. "Because your universe is where it all comes from. I originated in your area of the cosmos and thus, you have the strongest direct link to the power I gave you."

"I want it back. And I want you dead. It took a lot to get you here. I had to pick a universe with characteristics so similar to your own that you wouldn't notice the switch. I enlisted the aid of this universe's Mirror Master, then killed him one he'd served his purpose. The Amazo robot was a little touch of mine as well. I've been sapping your powers the entire time, too. Creating the need for you to speed up to the point where you'd hop universes. And the fact that you're powerless now? Also me."

"You see...," he leaned in closer, stepping on me until I'm sure I can feel my face turn purple, "you have something of mine. I'm taking it. It's almost gone now. So why don't you just lay back, close your eyes, and kiss all these nasty circumstances goodbye."

Right then I feel the spark inside me. The little flicker of energy that tells me the fight isn't over yet. I still can't believe I'm fighting the very source of my powers... but at least I know he doesn't have complete control over them. Or me. I don't know for how long, but my super speed just kicked back in... I can feel it. And this jerk's going to feel it too.

Out of nowhere I start to vibrate, surprising the Zep and upsetting his balance enough that his leg slips off me and I can breathe again. Without a thought, I'm on my feet, at about half-speed, but still better than I was just a second a go. I get one sweet backhand right to the crux of his well-trimmed, over-gelled skull and he doubles over. I prep to drop my fist in a hammer strike on his back, but he whips around and catches my fist, snapping my body so fast that I can't slow the judo-flip over his back.

I crash into the floor and stand, but Professor Zoom is already barreling in on top of me. He shoulders me in the gut, throwing off my balance, then with a "whoosh" he's got a big chair in his hands and he's swinging it directly for my face.

The crack against the side of my jaw is excruciating. I can hear it inside my brain as my body carries itself backwards into the wall-sized window. I hear the crack of glass and, for a second, I imagine myself shattering through and falling to a very sharp, painful death. But when my eyes open, all I see is two stunned villains staring at me as I lean against a window that is quickly splintering in a web of cracks around my body. The surface creaks and the cracks grow ever wider at the push of my weight.

I need not mention how very scared I am right now.

Zoom is the first to act, grabbing another chair and hurling it in my direction. Neither of these guys wants to clock me at super speed and risk flying out this window with me. As the chair flies for my face, I throw myself into a hasty, life or death somersault off to my left. The chair barely misses my hip and as I twirl away. The entire wall goes to pieces. The crisp sound of splintering glass fills my ears, followed by the rush of wind as a million shards of window go careening towards the ground below. The wind, louder than it would be otherwise since we're at such a high level, rushes through the room and blows over my skin, pulling me towards the bare window.

I race forward, eyes intent on Zoom and he braces for my approach, anticipating the attack. I jump, thumping one foot down on the desk, launching myself towards him, then up and over in a fake out only attemptable by true masters. I feel both sets of eyes, knowing that they're watching me. I sail through the air towards a wall, in neither of their directions, kicking said wall with one foot, then spinning out and landing the most beautiful tornado kick of my entire life to the face of the Zep.

He cries out, falling backwards onto the ground and I reach out a fist to sock Zoom in the jaw as he rushes me blindly. The air snaps like a towel as the Zep pops himself into a standing position, already recovered. He's upon me in no time, but I feel the same spark as before, but this time more. Way more! Something lights every muscle in my body on fire and my heart starts to beat so fast it sounds like drum solo going off in my chest. The Zep attacks, but I see him think about, wind up for, and deliver each blow. He moves so slowly to my mind's eye that it's like watching a tape jammed in the VCR.

I casually bring up a hand to knock his fist away. Surprise slowly moves across his face and he throws another punch. I parry and return, cutting through the air to knife-hand him right in the stomach. He pulls back and I have time to watch every muscle in his body twitch as he sends a volley of kicks aimed at every part of my body, but with my speed amped up as it is, I knock each one away with one hand and not so much as a thought.

And I even have time to block a few of Zoom's punches as he tries to surprise me, before rearing back on one leg and sending as devastating a kick as I can muster into his solar plexus, then his neck.

The poor guy collapses into a heap on the floor and I turn back to the Zep. And in that turning back, I feel the world slip away. In an instant, the spark is gone, and every fiber of my being feels like it's coated in thick sludge. I'm easily moving at 1/4 my average speed and the Zep figures it out in time to smack me so hard I fly up into the ceiling and plummet to the ground like a big sack of nothing.

Both of them converge, kicking me, beating me senseless. It takes their boots crashing into my weary legs and stomach to tell me what I've been feeling in the pit of my gut. These surges and drops in speed. They're the last throbs of my momentum energy leaving me. It's true... I'm facing the very power that makes me the Flash... and I don't have a prayer.

The alarms had gone off a while ago. A young, round clerk in a blue business shirt pressed his ugly tie against his prominent belly as he fearfully jammed whole stacks of paper into a shredder and jammed his fingers against a series of buttons. He didn't even notice the burst of air that brushed against his sweaty face, so intent was he on purging his files, as protocol required in the event of an emergency. So focused was his mind on salvaging his career from what looked like the collapse of a criminal empire, with which he felt his ties were only minimal, that he somehow missed the red, white, and blue streak that passed across his field of vision.

He stared blankly at the shredder as the paper disappeared, the machine whirred, and yet no sliced information emerged from the other end. Sweat gathered underneath his collar and he banged his fist against the plastic contraption.

"Come on.... come on! You stupid-," he urged.

The shredder only beeped in indignant protest.

"Office tools are the least of your worries right now, friend," came a voice from the doorway in front of him.

The strong, slightly aged voice hit him like a slap in the face and his eyes slowly rolled upwards to officially guarantee how much trouble he was in. When he saw Max Mercury and Impulse standing in the doorway, each holding manila folders crammed full of loose papers, the clerk took an instant to mull whether or not the weekends he had been putting in at the gym recently were enough that he could take two superheroes.

"Is that the last of them?," the thin, brown-haired boy asked as he looked up towards his mentor.

The older figure, a strong, well-built man with muscles straining against his white/navy uniform, thumbed the files in his hands and smiled. "That's all of them."

He directed his voice to the dumbstruck clerk in the corner. "We pulled every piece of incriminating evidence in this place. Every name, every address, every shipping post. Trust me... your janitor's going to jail for this one. Now why don't you come with me?"

The terrified engineer's body shifted awkwardly as he was hefted into the air. He raised his hands to his face, desperately trying to hold onto the lunch he had taken fifteen minutes ago, as the hero known as Max Mercury whizzed him out one hall and down three flights of stairs to a congregation of people, some with varying amounts of bruises, that sat outside on the grass. All office people, clad in white shirts and more bad ties, sat, looking very unhappy next to the inconspicuous company lexicon by the parking lot. They watched, looking very unhappy as they did, their former place of work destroy itself from the inside out. Glass shattered in a steady line from left to right and then back again down the floors, and they could hear the crashing destruction of everything that had once resided in the building from their vantage point outside.

Many of those younger people in the crowd were already dialing expensive cell phones for their lawyers as Impulse raced out onto the lawn, his large mess of hair whipping in the wind behind him.

"Dismantled. Destroyed. Demolished," he reported. "Everything from top to bottom, boss."

"Good work. Now, grab a cell phone off of one of these idiots and call the police. I don't want anyone slipping away."

Without a moment's hesitation, Impulse was gone. Only Max Mercury remained, alone for a moment as the green grass licked at his ankles.

God I hope you're okay in there, Wally, he hoped silently.

I am not okay.

My face is puffed and disgusting beneath the mask of The Flash. A trickle of blood slides down my swelled, red lip and one eye is a bloated, purple mass that just barely remains open. Waves of pain travel a long road up my spine to an abrupt stop at the base of my skull.

Stick with it West, come on! Don't give into that dull, complacent feeling. Focus. You are still in control. Focus.

I blink my one good eye and slowly the constantly shifting form of Professor Zoom solidifies from six images, to four, and eventually to one. Then, that one image punches me in the face, really hard, and I go completely loopy again.

He backs off, but I immediately feel my weight suspended in the air again. Fists clench around my uniform at the abdomen and at the chest and I finally begin to understand how strong The Zep really is. His expensive suit bunches comically at the shoulders as he hoists me up into the air and sends my body plummeting onto the big desk. The furniture groans as I collapse on top of it with my full weight.

I catch a glimpse of him jumping up to meet me. He's smiling. Really wide. The guy's toying with me. I throw a weak kick from the ground as more of a gesture of resilience than a real attack. It's clumsy, awkward... slow. He catches the ankle like a glove around a ball and pulls, kicking me in the thigh as he twists. The scream blasts out of my mouth before I can stop it. I can't hold it in.... the burning coming from all over my leg. It's the first time I've cried out in this entire battle. He turns the leg at an unbearable angle and I clench my teeth to phase out the pain. At least it doesn't sound like anything's broken.

It's a small comfort, but at least I know I can let him abuse my leg for a few more moments before the damage becomes serious. I also know that by the way he's focusing on the leg and he's stopped all other attacks and movement, that he's slipping. The fact is in his eyes. The man's enjoying himself too much... enjoying inflicting injury on someone else. I take the advantage his sloppiness gives me and snap the other leg outwards, sweeping his feet out from underneath him. He swoons back and downwards, his head striking the side of the desk with a thick "crack." Dazed, his limp body sags to the floor. I roll back, setting my shoulders and head against the surface before I even hear Zoom move from behind me, because it's obvious he's just going to charge again, like he's done each time. I leave myself open. By the time he invades my space, I already have the tough, segmented soles of my special, synthetic plastic, gold boots planted squarely on his chest and my legs, still singing in anguish, give him the old heave-ho.

The look on his face as his momentum carries him back into the wall is more priceless than my actually landing a hit.

The taught, sinewy body of the second Professor Zoom rises from the floor slowly. He shakes, loosening his body. The Zep groans on the floor beneath me, telling me that he's out of the fight for at least a few minutes. Zoom's body language, however, sends a clearer message. He doesn't need anybody to absolutely tear me apart right now and he knows it. His feet shift, causing a crackle of the debris on the ground underneath him. His lips curl back into a confident snarl- a mean, evil twisting of the mouth into two downward turned hooks, that pulls at the wrinkles on his cheeks. I'm struck by how much, with the mask on, he really doesn't look like me. We share a face. We share a body. But we use both differently and anyone could read from a mile a way that this guy is one thing and I am another.

He spins in a whirlwind that catches me and shoots me, for the second time today, head first into the ceiling. The effect jars loose a light hanging above us and it swings downward, sparking, supported in midair only by a few small wires. By the time I land on the ground, he's already jerked the impossibly heavy table up and flipped it in my direction. Like a ten year old on his bike, cascading very fast down to the bottom of a very steep hill, I wince, embracing the sensation of a two hundred pound piece of office-ware crashing into my body. But I don't watch it.

When my eyes open, my entire body stings and I can feel my brain moving inside my skull. I'm carved into the wall, the cracked plaster creating a cavern around my form, which is sandwiched between the perimeter of the room and a massive desk. I push and push, but there is absolutely no energy in my arms. Dust is in my eyes, nostrils, and mouth. I can't breathe.

Light shines through as Zoom pulls away part of my cage. The Zep shakes his head as he pulls himself into a sitting position, recovering in the middle of a room that has been completely decimated. Above us, the light shifts and creaks on it's wires. Scattered chunks of everything lie everywhere. The collar of the Zep's shirt is slightly stained with blood in the back.

"I am going to beat you until you no longer feel pain," Professor Zoom grimaces. He grabs my arm and twists it behind my back forcing a cry once again from my bloody lips. His other hand tightens into a knife-hand that he swings directly into the space between my ribs. The strike hurts, but it's the way he continues to press on the bone and batter it that really kills. The villain arches up a leg, placing his foot against my stomach. Both hands lock around my wrist in a death grip and though I try to struggle, it's really more just like shifting back and forth in place. No point at all.

I avoid the look in his eyes that I know is there as he tightens his grip on the wrist.. and pulls, sending is foot into my stomach at the same time. The leverage stretches me out and I make a "whulf!"-sound as the air runs racing out of my lungs. He yanks on the arm in one quick jerk, like there's no tomorrow and the shock of anguish drives spikes through every muscle in my body. Muscle breaks and tears and I clench my eyelids together as my shoulder dies of agony. Every tendon in my body feels like it's been hot-wired to a car engine. I hear a pop and soon I can't feel my arm anymore. He smacks me in a backhand across the face and I collapse on the ground, completely ignoring the world around me. I fight to focus. I fight to breath. I can feel the carpeted floor beneath me, but only with one hand. For a second, I honestly fear that he's pulled it right off, but the shoulder's just been yanked out of it's socket. The joint burns with a low, icy fire. Everything hurts now. It just hurts.

I feel a boot on the back of my neck. Professor Zoom stands above me, like some great, towering Titan.

"Had enough, Flash?," asks the Zep. He rises fully now, wavering just a bit as he walks. "I've already beaten you. Of that, I'm sure you're aware."

He steps to the left. "I created you."

He steps to the right. "I will un-create you."

His foot drives into my cheek and the world turns a kaleidoscope of funny colors. "Know this in your last moments... that you were wrong to rise up against your master. You were wrong to ever think you could beat me. And you were wrong to ever put on a costume and play hero with your uncle and condemn yourself to the thousand false hopes and dreams of an idiot."

He kicks me in the face again.

"I have seen, touched, and tasted infinity. I have experienced so much more than you can ever comprehend and I've only learned one thing. There is only one thing that really truly exists on this or any other Earth. Power. I have that power. I am that power."

"Said that...already," I groan. But my voice is so weak he doesn't even hear me. In fact... I don't think I actually said it.

He rears back to kick me another time. For the last time. I see it arch back and I know this last drive straight into my skull is going to kill me. But as it swings down, I barely even notice it starting to travel at an even slower and slower rate. By the time it really hits me, I can hear his leg cutting through the air in a low, bass tone, just like in any movie. Every image and shape around starts to fade, their colors turned up and amplified like a TV screen until everything becomes one big, coalescing light that warms my face. There is no spark this time. I just think about my hand and I feel it move, strong with life once more. My muscles become smooth and relaxed underneath skin that is covered head to toe in goose bumps. I begin to stand. Static electricity coats the room. Every fiber of my hair stands on end.

For a second, the world is so bright I actually have to look away.

There is a power in the truth. A kind of boundless energy that comes from knowing one thing can be either completely wrong or completely right, when the odds are fifty-fifty and the outcome is one hundred percent and there are no shades of gray to confuse the issue. I've been beaten. I've been abused. I've been defeated. But more than that, I've been taunted, and for every second he's taunted me, and all the sense he's made, nothing the Zep has said sat completely right with me. It turns out a man is capable of telling all by himself whether he was a mistake or not...

...It's very comical watching him lash out with that leg, only to kick his two-bit lackey, who is currently faltering for balance, right in the shin. Zoom jerks his leg upwards, cradling it and hopping about like a complete Third Stooge as the Zep looks around, confused.

"Yoo-hoo, boys!," I whistle and both stunned faces turn to me.

Yeah, Wally.... milk it for all it's worth. "Let's have a very brief discussion, involving all present parties, about how you've beaten me and how you are the awesome power that will uncreate me."

They look at my face in wonder. Then the direction of their stare turns to the big leg of the destroyed table that I now hold in the palm of my hand.

I refuse to even offer another word. It would just spoil the moment. I only want to revel in their complete hopelessness as long as I can. I can't really do that as much as I want though, so I just try to channel as much pure joy into swinging my arm, releasing the gargantuan chunk of wood into the air with all the power of super-enhanced speed that I employ. It warbles like some terrible bird as it spins above their heads, cutting a swath through the empty space and then again through the tiny wires that are the only thing supporting that big, heavy light fixture above them.

It crashes down on top of them in a way that looks very painful.

The wind flowing in through the broken window stings my face, which is still lacerated all over, but it feels kind of good.

It's the force in my back that slams into me and knocks me too my knees that doesn't feel so great. Nothing hurts more than the upset at the end of a hard-won battle.

I roll my head up to see an athletic-looking black girl in a black and gold variation of the zoom costume, digging through the crunched metal and glass to pull out the Zep. The teen looks even more beat up than any of us. Bruises cover her face and I can see her wince under the strain it puts on her to heft the Zep's body into her arms. Blood mats his hair, but I can't tell the point of origin. His head bobs and his eyes flutter. He looks at me, half-conscious.

"Next time... West...," he manages.

The girl reaches down to a golden, metal belt and thumbs a dial. The air behind her crackles and explodes into a bright blue and orange vortex that swirls above the ground. I make a move to stop her, but her finger flips open a compartment on her belt containing another button.

"Wait!," she bellows in a surprisingly strong voice. "Don't even move. I'm taking The Zep and we're leaving and if you even move to stop me, I will blow this entire place sky-high! I swear to God!"

The authority in her voice falters. Big, white eyes waver in fear... panic. God, how old is she?

Impulse bursts into the room behind me, followed closely by Max Mercury. "Wally, I'm sorry! We tried to stop her!"

She takes one more glance at us and starts to move towards her portal. Suddenly the pile of rubble underneath her shifts and a person who looks just like me, barely dressed in the tattered costume of Professor Zoom, crawls out from the metal.

"Wait... wait.... Master!," he sputters, blood sliding down over his lips and down his chin in a thin trickle. "What about me?"

The voice brings the man known only as the Zep slowly back to full consciousness. "You....you....you?! I tried to bring you up from nothing.... but it's worthless. You are nothing. The very definition. You're a joke... something that couldn't make it as a hero, a supervillain, or a man. This-"

He motions to the girl. "This is the new Professor Zoom."

"And you are an embarrassment I don't want to remember." He doesn't even look at the broken man beneath him. A hand gesture is all it takes. A red spark erupts between the two.

"No...," Zoom whispers.

"No!," he screams as his back twists at a horrible angle. His body glows as red lightning snaps and slithers up his body, through the sinews in his neck, and out his mouth, flowing as a stream into the greedy palm of the Zep. Smoke billows from his body and when the ugly display is over, Wallace West drops unconscious. Powerless.

The kid takes her chance and jumps backward with her mentor. They're swallowed up and gone in an instant. Like they were never there.

Max bends down on one knee to check the vital signs of my double. "I can't believe it was him," he sighs, shaking his head. It's kind of nice to know that even this twisted version of me once held the same friends that I call my own.

"Well, it looks like we've taken care of- WHOA!," Impulse barks mid-sentence. His eyes are huge beneath those yellow goggles of his.

"What?," I ask. "I- WHOA!"

Holy!! My body shimmers, sparkling in red and gold. Lightning wraps around me, surrounding my body in light. I-...I-... What's going on?!

"Flash!," Impulse cries and tries to reach for me, but I slip right through

his grasp.

I glow, pulsing brighter, then softer.... I can only stare at my hands as they become more and more transparent. Eventually, I just disappear.

A million years pass before sensation and experience wake my mind from whatever non-state I was in. It's bright here. But a soft brightness. It doesn't irritate. It doesn't invade. It's the soft light of memory. I float here... drifting on the tide in a sea of light.

It's all I do. It's all I can do.

Floating...

Floating...

Where am I?

"Hey there, son."

My eyes snap open the second I hear the voice behind me... or... in front of me... or... whatever. I see myself, clouds of light washing over my costume, which, I discover, is fixed. My body feels fine, knitted together, washed and revitalized, even after the beating I took. But that voice.... it can't be.

"It always was a pain in the neck pulling you out of bed in the morning."

I turn around. It is.

Barry Allen.

He smiles at me, and cocks his head with this little "what?" expression on his face and for a moment, I really think I'm going to break down and cry. I can't believe it. His entire form is an ebbing golden shadow. It's corporeal and traced in lightning, but it still looks just like him. Every detail is exactly as I remember it, down to the wrinkles just at the side of his eyes, the broad jaw, the reserved blonde hair. The way he grins like he was the best uncle to every little boy in the world.

He walks towards me, but I guess, based on our surroundings, it's kind of pointless. His presence just moves forward and grows slightly bigger, but he's not really walking. The man's out of costume. It's just Barry. Dressed in slacks and a button-down t-shirt, with a lab coat over it. Exactly as I saw him dressed for most of his life.

"Oh my God...," I whisper. That's all I've got. It's him. He's back. "Is it really-"

"Yeah," he nods, stopping me. "It's me. Mostly. Kind of hard to explain."

We stare at each other. Silent.

Still silent.

....Still very silent.

"Ummm...," he looks nervous, unsure. "So?"

"What the hell is going on?!," I shout and my voice carries throughout the limitless expanse around me. It pierces the ambience, bounces, echoes, and keeps going.

"I felt like you were ready for me to explain some things to you, Wally. You ready?" he winks. "They're good."

"They'd better be. I can't believe you're alive."

"I'm much more than alive, Wally. See, I watched you, fighting on that other world with this... this "Zep"-guy." I wanted to clear something up, even though it seems like you figured part of it out on your own. You're right... he's not the Speed Force."

"I am."

"What are you talking about?"

"Let me start over.... I... by the way, it's good to see you kid."

I can't help it. The indignation, the confusion. It's gone. I'm just so glad to see my uncle. "It's good to see you too, Uncle Barry."

"Now, from the beginning," he continues, and claps his hands. "You know how I became the Flash. I was just a police scientist, working with chemicals, when a freak stroke of lightning exploded just the right combination at just the right time, and I gained the ability to travel faster than any man alive. It had happened like that to Jay Garrick before me. He became the Flash and that inspired me to take up the same mantle, to fight injustice."

"I had a full life and a full career, and I was happy, right up to the end of it. You were there for the Crisis, Wally. You remember it. You have to understand, for me, that was the worst thing I'd ever faced. The Anti-Monitor wasn't a bank crook. He wasn't a deranged, costumed character. He was supreme. Absolute. A being of pure destructive energy that sought nothing less than the complete eradication of everything that existed. He wanted to destroy the very concept of existence. To end it all. And what's even more unbelievable... he actually had the ability. He could have wiped out the Earth, like it and the sum of all the lives that had lived upon it, never mattered."

His glowing yellow face looked away. "I was scared for a long time there, Wally. Separated from you... from everyone. They held me captive and messed with my senses and there was a point where I honestly thought everything I'd ever known and loved was going to be eradicated."

"I... never knew what it was like. I mean... I could only guess, when...," my quiet voice, barely able to form phrases. It breaks my heart. I don't know what to say.

"I was always sorry I couldn't be there with you for the end of it."

"That's just the thing, Wally. It came down to two choices for me. The end. Or hope. There, at the lowest possible point in my entire life, I realized that even at the end of everything, hope was the answer. One spark to light a fire in darkness, as it is. But it wasn't until I had taken my chance, beat the Psycho Pirate, and escaped captivity that it really hit me. I was racing along the edge of a machine that was built to tear apart the heart of creation when I realized that I was racing the collapse of time and space itself. That the universe was splintering and shattering around me and I was outrunning it. I'd done it before. Run to other times. Other dimensions."

Barry looked at me desperately, like he was trying to pull me along on some idea I wasn't grasping. It was weird, watching this ethereal image of him, straining with his words and ideas just the way he would when he was... well, alive.

"Do you get it? I was the hope, Wally. I realized that even if the Anti-Monitor succeeded, I could outrun him and live to fight the battle somehow else."

"When the machine was destroyed, I had gone too fast. Used too much power. Like Max, I catapulted myself right out of the universe... this plane of reality... and sent myself skyrocketing to another one. But along the way, I hit something."

He stretched out an arm and indicated the area around us. "What the Zep told you. There was a little bit of truth to it, at least. The Speed Force existed as a pocket of energy, lying somewhere, uselessly, on the edges of all possible worlds. Something happened... I don't really know what or how. I hit this power and tore through it. And there was a split. See, most of me... Barry Allen, The Flash, the man, went on. I landed on another world*, took up a new life there. I uphold truth and righteousness, same as always, except with a different crowd of people. I'm happy there, Wally."

*The Flash currently resides in the MV1 Universe, a partner fan-fiction

site, at www.marvelvolumeone.com. He is an active member of The Champions.

- Jonah

"Um.... I'm happy for you... I guess. But you're really confusing me with

this double-narrative thing."

He sighed and laughed a little bit, silently. He ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah... Yeah, I know. Just give me a second. When I passed through this nameless power, I knew that I couldn't let go of something. I couldn't just leave my world, and all the other ones, behind. You see, there needed to be someone... should it ever happen again. There needed to be a champion so fast, that they could outrun the end of everything. One last wildcard, to be a bastion of hope when the situation got as bad as it possibly could. I left apart of myself behind... My concern, my need for a fail-safe if there ever was another Crisis. It was my connection to the world I came from..."

"The way I cherish you, and Iris, and everyone I've ever known. That got left behind and imprinted on this source of energy. I became the Speed Force. I can extend through any point in time and any direction in the multiverse, and on each possible, imagined universe... I create heroes. That's my new job. To bestow power upon champions that will give hope to the world. And one special champion who can tap into the full power of the Speed Force, when needed, to outrun the collapse of time itself, if need be."

Wherever I am, I don't think I need to breathe. Still, I open my mouth and gasp when I realize I haven't taken a breath since he started talking. It's funny. I'm the Flash. I'm a big hero. Great. I save the country. I save the world. Sometimes I save the universe. It happens. I can wrap my brain around that. But there are still sometimes when I realize I've reached a whole new level on the mountain and the fifteen year old, dopey kid from Nebraska just looks at the view and goes "holy crap"....

"And that's... that's me?"

He gives me a look and then... and then he laughs....

Hey, wait a minute....

"Who said it was you?"

"What?" I shoot. "Of course it's me. Right?"

"It could be anybody. Anybody that has even the possibility of existing. One man or woman that is only a dot among the multitudes. One possibility among an infinitude of candidates. Kind of a mind-blowing concept, I know. I'm sorry."

"So, it's not me?"

"I'm saying it could be."

"But..."

"There's a lot of applicants for the position, junior."

Well... Yeah, I have to stop and scratch my head at that one. I honestly don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

"You should know though... You were the first one I gave the power too. Random lightning struck you. Just like me. Just like Jay. But I was there. I gave you the same power I would eventually give to the rest. The power to tap into and use the Speed Force. I was with you at the beginning. And I've been with you ever since. I'm always helping out. And, actually, I kind of think you already knew that."

"Well, yeah," I admit. "But I was a lot more Sunday School about it."

"So you did it for Max, too, right?"

"Yup."

"And all the others?"

"Yup.

"What about the bad guys? Zoom. The Zep?"

"There are other ways to punch in. Stuff I don't even know about. The Zep is just another idiot from another universe, who found a way to sap his own kind of Speed Force. But, trust me," he confided, grinning. "The guy's got nothing on me. Although, I'm surprised. He was kicking the crap out of you until you finally let me pull your butt out of the fire."

"I... had it covered....," I try, but the attempt is pretty weak. And it's nice to have someone save me for once. Especially him.

Good God, it's him.

Suddenly, I start to get a weird feeling again. I look back to my hands. Fading. No. No! Not now!

"Wait!" I shout. "I've got so much to ask you!"

"I know you do. But that's not the way it's to be."

"No!" I protest. My feet start to grow dimmer. "Is that all the afterlife is? Just jumping too another universe?"

He taps his finger against his temple and winks at me again. Stupid... cocky idiot. "Now, that would be telling."

My legs start to feel light and tingly. "What about this "wildcard." Who is it? Where do they come from? When?"

"That would also fall under the category of "magician, revealing his tricks."

"Yeah, you're a fat lot of help, you know that?"

He extends his arms like he's defensive. Lightning crackles between his outstretched hands. He shrugs his shoulders. "You know, you'd think this would be enough."

"But... God, Barry," my stomach is fading. "There's so much I want to talk to you about. So much I have to know."

He looks at me seriously now and the fading slows. The connection's all in the eyes. My mentor. My uncle. My father. He looks at me as all of these things right now and all I want to do is look at his face a little longer. "You don't "have" to know anything more than you already do. And someday, there will be all the time in the world for us to talk. For now... I'm proud of you. Every day you put on the costume. And for everything you accomplish out of it. Be happy. Be good to your wife. I knew I made the right choice the second I made you my prodigy."

"And know...," he stopped. "That I think of you. And miss you... on that other world. And here."

I give up and watch as my body turns into little less than a subtle, yellow shadow.

"I know," is all I can say.

He smiles at me one last time. "It's time to go home now, Wally. For real."

And the world around me, pulses, shines brighter than anything... and disappears.

Flash Lettercol

Well. Here we are, then. I've finally finished my first story arc on "The Flash." I hope all of you reading out there enjoyed it, because I had a blast and this story turned into something way more fun than I thought it would be. I'm grateful of the opportunity to take a story that's been built up and added to by so many writers and take it and say something about what I really think the Flash is. I love this character. He's one of the best bottom-line, archetypical representations of the hero I've ever read. I've read the Flash since I was a kid and it's a thrill to add my own twist to the origins, as well as the future of the character. I really, sincerely hope someone will read this and tell me what they thought, good or bad, at jonah_rite@hotmail.com. I love nothing better than seeing someone's thoughts, long or short, on a completed story.

For anyone who's interested, my favorite scene to write in this issue was the Jay Garrick scene. He rules.

Starting next issue, Wally West is back in Keystone City where he belongs. He's reunited with his wife, his powers are back and here to stay, and it's time to get back to business. Keystone's champion has a lot of work ahead of him if he wants to catch up. I've got an all-new villain to introduce and I'm planning as much classic Flash action as possible. So I hope you read and enjoy. Also, if you'll spare me a few plugs, go check out Higher Learning and the Martian Manhunter, two of FDC's newest series. They're hot, amazing, original work and I think they should definately get some reading and reviewing. Also, The Spectre #9 and The Brave and The Bold #209 are out this month, by yours truly, and the latter is plotted and co-written by the talented Mikel Midnight. So give those a read too.

And finally, this issue is dedicated to the passionate and talented artist, Jim Aparo, who died July 19, 2005. Jim Aparo was a staple of DC Comics for decades and an exceptionally skilled comic book penciller who worked even up until his latest years. As the primary artist on almost the entire run of the Silver Age series "The Brave and The Bold," Aparo drew some of my favorite comics starring Batman and The Flash. He will be missed by all of his many fans.

That's all for this month. Peace!

-Jonah Rite-