“I’m going to be irritatingly blunt, Alfred,” stated the Question. “Do you believe Harvey Dent killed Bruce?”
“Master Bruce has… Had… Faced Two Face hundreds of times. And in none of those confrontations did Dent kill him. Nor had the Joker, or Ivy, or any of the other monsters he faced on a nightly basis. Even at his lowest, Master Bruce always succeeded.”
“I’ve got say, I always thought either the Joker or old age would get Bruce in the end,” sighed Oliver Queen, as he took a gulp from a cup of coffee. “Seems we got proven wrong. Seems like we really do have a mystery on our hands.”
Blue Beetle turned to Alfred. “Is the Cave computer still operational?”
“Yes, it is Sir.”
“I’m going to go check some things out, they might help clear some details up for me.” He stood, and then headed toward the Grandfather clock in the hall way.
“I’m coming with,” started Vic, as he too stood up. “I want to check some numbers.” The duo vanished into the Cave below, leaving Oliver Queen and Alfred Pennyworth alone in the large front room with the fire crackling.
“Dick’s taking it hard. Most of the kids I’ve spoken to are. It’s strange.” Oliver placed his mug on a coaster on a chest of draws behind the sofa. “I hadn’t realised how much the original Titans looked up to Bruce. Roy too.”
“They looked up to Master Richard, Sir,” Pennyworth took a sip from his own cup of tea. “Any man that can raise a boy like that into the person he became…”
“Yeah, I get you. Hey, I got to ask, how are you going to explain… Bruce Wayne’s death?”
“He had been planning a solo climb to Everest for years. Training hard for it, too. He finally had time to set off for it, and he will go missing in three days. Rescue workers working in conjunction with members of the Justice League will not locate the body. They think an avalanche swept him into a chasm.” He shrugged awkwardly, so unlike the loyal attaché to the Wayne family. “These things unfortunately do happen.”
Oliver said nothing. Then a voice sparked into his ear.
<Ollie! Ollie, get the hell out of there!> Green Arrow span around at the voice in his head, confused.
“Hal? Is that you?”
<Wally’s gone off the map! We think the Society got a hold of him! And now we’ve got our sensors going crazy in Gotham! There’s a speedster approaching the Mansion, and he matches Professor Zoom’s biometric readings. The League is on thei--> The transmission was cut off suddenly.
Queen grit his teeth and looked around. “Come on, Alfred,” Green Arrow grabbed Pennyworth, and hurried toward the Grandfather clock, opening it swiftly.
“What is wrong?”
“We’ve got trouble incoming. A speedster.” He closed the passage shut after they were inside. “Beetle!” he shouted as he ran down the winding staircase, “activate cave defences, we’ve got a Zoom!”
“I got the call too; we were just waiting on you. Cave forcefield activated!”
“Thank God for Kryptonian tech,” mumbled Vic Sage, as he looked around. “The League’s on their way. We’re no match for Zoom.”
FRRRRRZAACK!
A wall exploded and the shimmering blue forcefield bent inwards, toward the group. A yellow blur vibrated quicker than the eye could follow, and then suddenly the entire forcefield matrix exploded in a flurry of sparks and electricity.
“Dent started the revolution, heroes, and I’m here to continue the trend,” hissed Professor Zoom, his body flickering with golden light. “I’m going to wear your skins as a summer coat.” His chest suddenly exploded with blue light, and he buckled over, and Pennyworth, Queen and Szasz turned to see Blue Beetle holding his BB Gun, the muzzle of the weapon crackling.
“He talks too much. Let’s MOVE!” Beetle and Question dove atop Zoom, and held his arm back, and GA aimed his bow carefully. He pulled back the string and then fired, the arrows piercing the back of Zoom’s ankles, causing him to howl in pain. The Question hit the speedster in the face again and again, and Beetle fiddled with a device in his utility belt, and pulled out a small metal rectangle, and latched it onto the villain’s neck.
“RRRRAHHHH!” He screamed as he punched Beetle and Question to the side, and then began to heal his wounds. His tendons reattached themselves with a wet snap, like a whip, and he trudged toward Arrow, the heroes’ attacks simply passing through him like a ghost. “You… Will…” Buckshot flew through Zoom’s body, and he turned slowly, to see Alfred Pennyworth holding a blunderbuss. “Heh.” He ignored the manservant and kept trudging toward Arrow. “Before I was so rudely interrupted, I’m going to… Kill…?” He paused. “No. That won’t…” He clutched his head. “Thoughts…” He looked up, and stopped vibrating. “Linda?” Green Arrow’s fist slammed into his face, breaking his nose.
"You don’t get to talk about anyone!” He followed through with an uppercut that fractured the villain’s jaw. “Not now, not ever!”
Beetle grabbed Arrow by the shoulder, “his voice, listen to his voice!”
The Question grabbed his hat and then looked at the others, “It just rose an octave. He was faking it… The mask, get the mask!”
Arrow pulled off the villains mask, and gasped. “Wally, what the hell?”
“He’s been brainwashed, we need J’onn!” Wally thrashed around, blood dribbling from his nose. “Where the hell are they?”
<We are here, Oliver,> whispered the Martian Manhunter, as he phased into the cave, and grabbed the Flash’s thrashing head. “Removing foreign thought processes.”
Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern swooped in from the underwater river below the cave, protected by Hal Jordan’s ring. “We caught the tail end of that, Ollie,” shouted Jordan, as he began to run diagnostic on West, “we’ll sort this out.”
“Oh, God,” grunted the Flash, as he looked at the yellow costume he was wearing, “this isn’t, this isn’t, this isn’t right.”
“It’s ok, Wally, we’re here to help.”
“I can feel my connection to the Speed Force,” he gasped, as he frantically pushed the Martian Manhunter away from himself, “It’s wrong, my body is working wrong, instead of healing me, it’s… Building up.” He stared at Oliver Queen. “I don’t know who did this to me, all I remember was… Shadow, and a mocking… He was mocking Jay!” And then he was gone. Hal Jordan grabbed Oliver Queen in an emerald bubble and latched onto the yellow sleeve of Wally with an green chain, and they were shooting across Gotham, then Metropolis, then Star, then New York, then England, then Amsterdam, pulled along by Wally’s wake.
“Slow down Wally, you’re going to burn yourself out,” screamed Green Arrow through cupped hands. “Please, slow down!”
Wally couldn’t turn away from his path. He just kept running, a yellow blur to all those empowered to look.
Hal’s eyes opened wide. “Oh. God. My ring just completed its diagnostic. His body isn’t processing the Speed Force correctly, instead it’s just… Oliver, he’s going to explode.”
“Come on Hal, do something! Do something, dammit!”
“I can’t, but he… He is…” stuttered the man without fear. “If he stops running he’ll blow up. If he keeps running he’ll blow up. If he vibrates his molecules he’ll rip a hole in the world. And he knows it.”
They were over the ocean when Wally began to run in circles on the surface of the water. He looked at Oliver and Hal, floating near him, made immaterial by the ring, his eyes full of tears. “Look after Linda.” And then he simply stopped. In that instance, his body ceased to exist for a second, vanishing in a flash of red as the Speed Force reclaimed all the power in his body, and a ripple was sent out across the world. The water began to boil all around, and then suddenly shot up in a massive plume, higher than Ollie could see. The sea settled, and only a few pieces of yellow costume remained.
“Oh, son,” whispered Oliver.
