Kid Flash could be almost invisible in the dark, with the speed from his father and stealth learned from his mother. So when he rounded the corner and saw the pair cornering this poor girl they honestly didn’t know what hit them. An unseen force knocked their heads together and the pair crumpled to the ground. Lexy was in hysterics, screaming and crying.
Kid Flash stopped and checked the on the two men. They were splicers. Something mammalian, sometimes it was hard to tell beyond that, but the one looked distinctly feline. The other a rodent maybe. He checked their pulses and made sure he hadn’t hurt them so badly they needed immediate medical attention.
“It’s alright, Ma’am, I’ve neutralized them,” Reese said in his most gallant and professional voice as he turned to Lexy.
She screamed in horror, “Keep away from me!” as she crouched in the corner of the ally.
Reese went over to her side, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s ok now,” he said with a soft grin and in a far more genuine voice then his first.
“Get away from me,”she screamed as she leapt across to the other alley, pulling out a tiny can of pepper spray and spritzing it in the hero’s face.
Kid Flash yelled and jumped back, throwing himself against the opposite wall, writhing in pain. “Oh god! I was saving you! Geez!”
Then he heard it, a growing noise over Lexy’s sobbing and his shrieks of pain. Foot steps, many footsteps. At least 5, maybe 6, different pairs, all of vastly varying size and shape. More splicers! Reese had to protect the girl, but now his eyes were burning, and it wasn’t like she’d showed much appreciation. But heroes don’t decide who need their help. This was his duty, it was that simple. So he tried to relax, calm his nerves and drown out his burning eyes, her gasping sobs, and focus on the ever approaching feet.
“Relax, Reese,” he remembered his mother saying in her deep, rich, rough voice, her hands tying the sash around his eyes. “Trust your instincts. It won’t always be enough to be fast. You must also be accurate and have a strong sense of your environment,” she had said. He tried to remember, the two men lying in the middle of the alley way, how were they lying, where was Lexy, where were the fire escapes, the trash cans, any windows, any doors… “Listen to your senses son. Feel the world around you. You have an ability you haven’t exploited yet; you can know their moves before they make them. A form of precognition.”
The splicers began pouring out of the surrounding alleys, only 5, but all it would take was 1 to hurt this girl. They were all males. What kind of animals they’d spliced with hardly mattered. All he needed to know were their sizes and strengths. He targeted the largest one first. Crouching down, he took off through the middle of the alley at the behemoth of the group and just a moment before passing him by, the young speedster, shot his arm out, stopping on a dime and clothes-lining the guy.
One down, four more, make that three, as he heard one pair of shoes stop, turn tail, and run.
A pair of the guys had stopped and stood before him. They were fiddling with something. He didn’t know what but he had enough suspicions that he ran forward grabbing the one by the throat and hitting a button on the side of the large garbage bin, it opened with a creaky howl and he threw the man in, punching the button again to slam it shut. Then quickly, the guy was down, fiddling with the object it made an electric crackling sound as it kicked on and Reese sensing the swing coming turned and ducked then as he stood back up grabbed what seemed to be something like an electrified nightstick from the assailant and jabbed him in the stomach.
The guy crumpled to the ground and Reese stopped catching his breathe. He turned to Lexy once more but she was gone. The fifth guy! Reese thought in horror, where did they go, and what could he do? He was still pretty well blinded so he focused on what he could remember… the fire escape! His hands were on it before he’d even finished the thought. He should have remembered to stay aware of his surroundings. He should have paid more attention to her. As he moved up onto the roof, he heard the skittering of feet at the opposite ledge. He burst across the roof, throwing up a cloud of dust and dirt, Reese pulled back his fist and nailed the man in the chest.
Stumbled back but the splicer grabbed Kid Flash’s arm as he did and dug claws into the flesh. Kid cried out in pain, letting it break his concentration. The villain released his arm and delivered a powerful kick to the young hero’s stomach. Reese fell to his knees, putting his hand on the ground, he realized he was kneeling beside a seemingly unconscious Lexy.
“Now, don’t you touch her,” snarled the splicer. “That whore is for me, I’ve paid her enough at the club, she owes me more then a little dance and touch.”
Kid Flash twitched a little, his anger and disgust growing, dulling all pain and thought. “She’s not a whore,” he said low and quiet.
“What?”
“She’s not a whore,” he said, shaking his head as he heard another of the splicers climbing the ladder.
The leader turned and began exchanging words with his cohort, bragging about his new conquest.
This might be Kid Flash’s only chance now. While his back was turned, he could strike, but Lexy might be left vulnerable again… there was only one choice: Run. So he grabbed the unconscious girl in his arms and before the lesser gang member could say a thing, Reese was running, tucking Lexy in close to his chest leaping from roof to roof. The splicers tried to follow but lost track of the pair before crossing a full two blocks.
“Too fast for you,” a female voice adked from the darkness.
“Who,” questioned their leader, looking behind them and seeing a silver haired woman.
“I have a deal for you,” the woman stated.
* * *
