Usual Disclaimers: Wally, Linda and all other well-known characters in this episode are copyright to DC comics, blah blah blah.

FDC Presents:

Issue #2

Bodies of water, Part 2.

By Bryan Albright

"aaaalllleeee....!"

Wally snorted and began to hazily look around.

"Wallleeee heeeeellllp!"

He blinked blearily and looked around even more.

'That's Linda's voice!' he thought.

Without taking notice ofhis surroundings, he sat up, and promptly leaned over and wretched.

"Oh, my head" he groaned, and put a hand up to the back of his neck.

Feeling something sticky, he looked at his hand and saw a red smear on three of his fingers.

'Great, I've probably got a concussion,' he thought.

Wally took stock of his surroundings. He was in a small boat,a dingy really, with 2 handles of oars still stuck in the oar-locks. The other ends of the oars were floating in the water not two feet from the boat. In the boat was a plastic thermos of water. "Can't really drink the water from that lake, you know, Wally" he remembered Linda saying as they were getting ready for their picnic.

"Umph," he grunted and reached for the oars floating in the water."Lets see what I can do with these."

He grabbed the thermos, dumping the water over the side of the boat. He took an oar and smashed it on the thermos, cracking it. Reaching down, he grabbed the thermos and straining, split it apart at the cracks.

"Oooh." He moaned and saw spots in front of his eyes, "I gotta watch what I do...man my head hurts."

Wally then took one of the paddles, and smashed it down on top of one of the sides of the boat, splintering the first few planks. He grabbed out four of the straighter pieces and set them aside. He smashed one of the thermos pieces again and it shattered into smaller pieces.

'There that's better,' he thought.'Now, how am I going to do this?' he wondered as he looked at what he had wrought.

He took two paddle pieces that fit together, and placed some smaller chunks of the plastic between them. Closing his eyes to just slits, he concentrated on moving the molecules of air around the plastic pieces faster and faster. The acrid smell of melting plastic filled the air, then POP! POP! POP! with the sound of rapidly popping popcorn, the air molecules began exploding.

"Damn. Pushed it too hard," Wally shouted.

But the desired effect had already taken place. The two pieces of oar were shakily held together. Wally then took 2 of the splinters of wood and some of the plastic and placed them on the side of the oars, just above the mended break. Wally again concentrated and, this time without the air exploding, melted the plastic, fusing the wood pieces to the oar. He then repeated the process on the other oar...accidentally shattering one of the wood shards when blood dripped from his head onto what he was working on and startled him. He cussed and decided he had taken more than enough time. Wally sprang his familiar red costume from his ring, and in a flash he had put it on. He then put the oars into the oar-locks and began to row.

The large man in dark tones leaned forward and scratched his chin.

"Hmmmm... he seems to be mastering his powers better and better with each try. I wonder what he'll come up with next." The man leaned back and thought to his glowing apparition, 'keep watch little one, keep watch.'

 

The Flash strained and just about passed out from his injury.

'Damn.' he thought and grabbed a rag from the floor of the boat, tying it around his head. 'That should help some,'

He began to row once again, this time adding momentum to the tips of the oars as he moved them, easing the strain of rowing. He picked up speed. Then more speed, easing the boat around to follow the sound of Linda's high pitched, near panicking voice, soon passing a boat pulling water skiers, startling them so much that they tipped and went down in a large splash of water.

He called out "Sorry" to the skiers and poured on the speed.

Faster and faster the little boat went, skimming across the waves. Then, almost without noticing it, the Flash was upon his quarry. Clenching his teeth, Flash rammed his little skiff into the spout of water, shattering the "hard water" column, causing both the monster-man and Linda to tumble into the lake. Linda came up first, and began swimming towards the boat.

With a roar, the monster man burst from beneath the waves. He glanced at Linda and flicked his fingers at her. A large hand of hard water erupted from beneath her, lifted her from the surface of the water and clenched around her, immobilizing all but one arm.

"I am Dagon, arch-nemesis of Aquaman, master of the great blue ocean, and I..." He was cut off as the Flash hurled a piece of the broken thermos at his face.

"Hey! How am I gonna drink my coffee on my way to work now?" Linda cried when she saw what the missile was.

Dagon ducked and the thermos hit him in the shoulder, as opposed to his face.

"Aaaargh! That hurt, little man. You die!!!"

And daggers of water sped towards the Flash. He waited until the last minute, then taking up goofy karate poses after each one, he dodged each dagger with ease.

"Hai! Keeya! Lo mein! Chow Mein! Ho chi minh!"

"Stop showing off!" Linda yelled, getting angry at Wally. "Just beat him and get me down from here."

The Flash sighed and stopped his goofy posing,

"Yes, dear."

Dagon growled and from its watery grave, a large, water laden tree trunk rose behind Flash. Hearing water dripping, Wally turned, just in time to be struck in the chest and flung from the boat by the tree.

"Woulph!" he cried, and just before he hit the water, another large hand, the mirror image of the one that held Linda, caught him.

Linda couldn't handle it any more, and began waving her free arm, her hand formed into a fist.

"Hey ugly! Yeah, you! Come over here and let me get my mitts on you!" She yelled.

At that, Dagon chuckled and turned his full attention to her.

"Not yet, lil' lady. My master has better plans for you," Dagon grinned.

With another wiggle of his fingers, two shafts of water shoot out of the water fist and, respectively, wrap themselves around her wrist and mouth, effectively immobilizing and silencing her. Then, hearing a splash behind him, Dagon turns to see the Flash in the water, the water-hand grabbing the very tree that knocked the scarlet speedster out of the boat.

"Now, how'd you do that?"

"I have my ways," the Flash said mysteriously and splashed water at Dagon who laughed, then stopped when the droplets of water pierced his scaly armor.

"Ow! Dammit what was that?" Dagon screamed.

The Flash smiled grimly, "I added a bit o speed to the droplets of water, and they punched right through your armor, like straw through an oak in a hurricane. And I've got more tricks where that came from!"

And he ducked under the water, swimming madly to the other side of Dagon. Dagon laughed and solidified the water around the Flash, and without really thinking about it, most of the lake.

"Idiot. He knows what I can do with the water, why'd he do that?" He peered through the water, looking at the blur of red and yellow frozen in it.

Wally, wearing only his skivvies, quietly pulled himself up on the hardened water, and stealthily crept up behind the villain. With an inarticulate cry, he vaulted up on the back of Dagon and began hitting him in the head and shoulders at super speed. Dagon reeled and began to topple over backwards. He landed atop Wally, driving the breath from him, knocking the back of Wally's head into the hardened water.

Wally blacked out for a few seconds, and when he awoke, he found himself shackled with solidified water bands around his ankles, knees, wrists and forearms. Dagon cocked his head, as if listening to something, nodded, and went over to Linda.

"Now it is time, schweethart!" and he grabbed her around the waist, shackling her as well with the solidified water bands.

He stomped away, heading to the north. After taking a few hundred steps, he stopped, looked intensely at a portion of air and threw Linda at it. Wally watched, struggling mightily against his bonds as he saw Linda fly through the air, a scream of pure rage welling up in his chest, only to die as he saw Linda disappear roughly a foot off the ground. He stopped struggling and closed his eyes. A soft hum filled the air, and Wally's fine features began to blur. The shackles holding him dropped through him and clattered on the hard water at his feet, then exploded as the molecules of water became unstable. Screaming incoherently, a wild look on his face, Wally began to run at Dagon.

Dagon, seeing the blur that was Wally, had no time to react, and was repeatedly pummeled by hard fists moving at more than twice the speed of sound. Mini sonic booms assailed his eardrums, and he was soon down. Wally, however did not stop his assault. The water beneath the two combatants softened, then became liquid again as Dagon lost consciousness, but Wally did not stop.

Moments later, a gold and green blur streaked through the water to the two combatants, one a bloody mess, one nearly naked with a bloody rag tied about his head. An gold blur that met a flesh colored blur in the blood-reddened water, and a voice spoke to Wally.

"Knock it off Wally."

Wally, startled, paused long enough to see figure in green and grey holding his wrist with his one good hand, the other, with a golden hook on the end of a forearm, poised to strike should he not comply. He also noted that his red costume is draped over one of the newcomer's shoulders.

"Stop beating him. The press gets ahold of this and you've ruined the rep you and Barry've given the Flash. Allow me to take care of this ...villian."

Benumbed, Wally nodded.

"Here, put on your costume. It will make dealing with the police," at this he points bearded his chin at the shore, "easier."

Again Wally nodded, and began to woodenly put his trademark red costume on.

Aquaman looked at the deep water, and concentrated briefly. In a few moments, an Octopus came up and wrapped its tentacles about the limbs of the still unconscious Dagon.

"I'll toss him in the dungeons of Atlantis and we'll deal with him for what he has done.".

"L..L...Linda?" Wally asked.

"Who's Linda?"

"Oh....thanks," said Wally, and began to trudge to wards shore, one hand holding the back of his head, the other curled across his ribs where the tree whacked him.

As he neared the shore, there was a blinding white flash of light, and a man dressed in a black suit, a black cape and a wide brimmed fedora, with white gloves and a turtle-neck tunic appears. His eyes and upper cheeks are hidden in the shadows of the brim of his hat, and the eyes have no pupils, yet the whites seem to glow with an unnatural light. There was a golden medallion hanging on a chain around his neck.

"Flash, this universe has a need of you," he said in an unearthly voice.

Wally didn't respond, and just kept walking.

"You will be required to return one Linda Park to this world."

Wally stopped and turned slowly to the man in black.

"You will have one chance."

Wally looked up into the face of the stranger.

"Do you take it?"

"Yes. Yes I do." said the Flash. "I'll do whatever it takes to find her."

"Not just find her, bring her back."

"Yeah, yeah. Fine."

"There is one restriction, you can bring only one thing with you, both into..."

"Yeah. Fine. Whatever. Let me go after her!"

"Wally..." began Aquaman, only to be ignored.

"Okay, what is it you would bring with you to this other dimension?"

"My speed, of course."

"Alright. I can grant you also this one small boon," and with that, the man in black swept his hand over Wally's ribs and the pain is gone. He touched the back of Wally's head, and in a flash of gold, the pain there too is gone. "Now step through this portal."

With a sweep of his blue highlighted black cloak, the stranger revealed the way to the other dimension. In a red and yellow blur, the Flash sprang for the portal and disappeared, the portal closing behind him.

A purple glow streaked towards the closing portal, and when the portal closed before it could enter it, turned on the man in black and cheeped in fury.

"Oh go away!" said the man and waved his hand.

With a soft bamf, and a smell of brimstone and sulfur the glowing apparition disappeared.

In his darkened room, the large man groaned in pain and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes.

"Now _that_ is someone whom I did not expect to have a hand in this."

He turned back to his book and again flipped a few pages, then cast a spell. An image of the black-cloaked Charon, the ferryman of the river Styx, appeared on the computer screen.

"Sir, all has gone as anticipated. There were two unexpected occurrences, however."

The image spoke in a gravelly voice, "Yes?"

"One: Aquaman appeared to help out the Flash, just when we had him where we desired. Two: The Phantom Stranger appeared and sent the Flash after Linda Park, accomplishing what I would have done anyways."

The image stroked its chin with one mottled hand, "Hmmm....if he interferes again, we may have to make some additional....plans."

 

Aquaman walked slowly up to the man in black.

"Phantom Stranger, did you just send the Flash to the world of the Dead?"

The Phantom Stranger nodded.

"Why?"

"Because it is not time for Linda to die yet. There are great deeds she needs yet do."

Aquaman nodded sagely, used to the riddles that the Stranger is so fond of speaking in.

"And does Wally have a way back from this world?"

"That is not known to me, Arthur Curry."

"Ah."

Aquaman turned to the still trussed up Dagon and concentrated quickly, suggesting to the octopus that it would be a good idea to take the villain to the world of Atlantis for him. After seeming to think about it for a few seconds, the octopus complied and the King of the Seas dove into the water behind the sea creature.

End of the Bodies of Water Story arc.

Next Issue

Send Comments to Bryan Albright- bryana@uswest.net

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