E8: Flash #7

[jtisthekey]

The Multiverse Presents...

EARTH 8



Issue #7

Written by: jollyoldsaint
Edited by: Gabriel Vargas

[jtisthekey]

Jim Jibkinson worked in a box factory in the lawless city of Keystone. To desperate for pay to care, Jim took the job on the spot and only later recognized the true nature of the facility. Question marks were taped over half of the machinery and most of the building's doors. What tipped off Jim was that every box he handled contained counterfeit artworks.

His employer also acted as if he were the sole nemesis of James Bond.

During Jim's second week the building fell under attack. His best friend's legs were cut off by a thinner-than-paper man. The supervisor tripped onto a pile of spiked jumping jacks, and the employee of the month was lured by a small boy into a trap involving snapping turtles and a pool of sulfuric acid. Before Jim could learn of any of this, however, he was frozen from the head down by a woman in a very revealing outfit.

"I swear," swore Icicle. "Is this it? I was expecting some fun. This is the Network, right? Why are there hardly any armed guards? What a cheap criminal organization…say, why do you think Plunder had a change in heart? You don't buy his ghost story, do you?"

Chillblaine shrugged as he continued to freeze workers. Screams from the floor above distracted them both. "Hmm. Mirror's outdoing himself. Should we be able to hear that?" asked the nonchalant Icicle.

"Must be some shoddy workmanship..." Chillblaine shrugged as he finished freezing the manual labor.

"Eeek!" Icicle shrieked. On reflex, Chillblaine readied his gun. Seeing nothing, he looked at Icicle to see what was wrong. Noting where she was looking, his eyes went to a pinup calendar with her image on it.

Rolling his eyes, Chillblaine prepared to tell Icicle that it was bound to happen eventually. As his mouth opened, Evan McCulloch jumped out of a thin reflection in the laminated calendar. Looking at his tattered clothes and scratched body, Icicle jumped as Evan threw a ring at her. The Mirror Master then turned to the calendar, and after a brief chuckle and several coughs, he turned back to his compatriots.

"Thank Christ…shook the beastie and found you. Listen up… Plunder was right; they do have a goddamned demon-monster. Straight from hell… an’ god knows how it can follow me in the mirrors! You two have to go warn the others. I lost him in a glass world, but I doubt he’ll stick for long. Little s**te moves faster than you can imagine …well, what are you waiting for?! Get the hell outta here! The Candyman's in the ring, check my notes under interior reflective dimen-ah, s**t!"

A small monkey with three heads, four eyes, two mouths, and three arms was vaguely seen through the shine of the calendar. "Shoot the damn poster!" McCulloch shouted.

Chillblaine fired as Icicle asked what she was seeing. The unsightly being was soon trapped in a slab of ice, with half of its body still inside the poster. McCulloch grabbed Chillblaine's gun and continued to fire. Ceasing once the ice reached his foot; Evan started adjusting his own unique gun after he tossed Chillblaine's weapon aside.

Telling herself not to vomit after seeing the creature's third head, Icicle struggled to regain composure. "I-it’s got two mouths....and neither of them is in the right place. E-even though there are three right places. What the hell is thi...? Oh my god, is that a nose?!"

"Put a sock in and swallow," Evan urged the woman. "Then get the hell outta here! I'm gonna try the parallel splitter! You know, that trick that involves me, a mountain of ice, and everyone around me bein' screwed sideways!"

"Y-yeah," Icicle agreed. She shook her head and started backing towards the exit. "Good luck, Scotty...uh, Chilly, let's go find Foldy, Tricksy and Baldy. We’ll meet at the base."

Nodding, Chillblaine picked up his gun and bull-rushed the door. It broke apart needlessly as the large man kept rushing. Icicle made a ramp of ice to slide out the doorway in a similarly needless fashion.

Wishing he had some form of intoxicant, Evan took a breath. If he made a mistake, the best-case scenario involved the orientation of everything in a quarter-mile radius reversing. Like hell I'm going left-handed, thought McCulloch. Or that worst case, inside-out...and left-handed.

He cursed several times while judging the proportions of the ice.

***

[jtisthekey]

John Fox slammed his fist on the floor of the Clock King. He had lost all feeling in his right leg. Crozar III's fifteen genitalia, what was I thinking? Had to try that trick, just like the Whirlwind wanted...well, at least the nano-injections worked. Numb before I hit the ground, not bad for the cheap stuff. Then again, they would've been useful when that time jerk pummeled the triplanoid letter G out of me, or when I ran into that wall. But for just $5 billion, I’m amazed I had something that actually works!

Roy Bivolo paced the room he and John fell into. It appeared to be a storage area with a number of hexagonal crates piled against each other. The floor above had a clear view of the room, much to Roy's dismay. The hole in the ceiling was also the only major source of light. Roy strained his eyes to make out any sort of power switch. He found nothing.

"Nunca termina, eh? This nonsense is going to haunt me to my grave. So…John, Flash, or whatever you go by. I thought I heard snapping. You know, over the metal screeching, when you tore a goddamned hole in the ground. What kind of human wrecking ball are you?!"

With a centuries-old hand gesture, John pointed to his leg.

"What, they point with three fingers where you're from? What's...oh?" Seeing how John's skintight suit wrapped around his injuries, Roy slapped his forehead. "Okay, I can work with this...ah, hell, is that your knee-no, it doesn't matter. You're a hell of a guy, John, taking something like that without screaming, but we've gotta climb out of here…uh. Or I will. You stay here; I'll come back once I beat the hell out of everyone onboard."

As Roy stacked crates, the dark room's door opened. Roy sighed and silently walked towards the newfound door as the light fixtures switched on. Seeing a gold-skinned man with multi-colored flames sprouting from his head, Roy flinched. Right's pretty bad, hitting a freak like that might break it. Left... hmm…do I really think this is gonna work?

With a shrug, Roy threw his best left at the golden man. When his hand fell through a human-shaped rainbow, Roy flinched yet again. The rainbow returned to a semi-human form. The familiarity of this process paralyzed Roy. Seeing this, the golden man spoke: "Roy Giovanni Bivolo. It's an honor, truly. I wish we'd met under other circumstances, but these things never happen the way you hope. I sure didn't see myself here, back when I started all this…”

"Who are you?" Roy asked, swallowing hard. "What are you? You aren't the Rainbow Raider...you can't be! Barry Allen's dead!"

With an apologetic look, the golden man became a many-colored phantom once again. His voice echoed outwards, although his mouth could no longer be seen. "The linear men... my linear men, they mean well. It's just that...they don't understand. They can't. You see…we failed. We lost a battle during our ridiculous war to make sense of time, but we’re still here and if I’m not mistaken, Chronos knows why. I’m sorry, but that’s all I can say. Well, that and I’m in the middle of betraying my only friends in all of space and time. I hope you appreciate this."

The mysterious stranger began to glow intensely. Soon John and Roy could no longer see or hear anything. Roy cursed as he felt his breath leave him.

***

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Major Disaster held a card over his eyes as the sun shone brightly over Central City Park. "Explain again...why we are here while everyone else's in Keystone?!"

Plunder rubbed his forehead. "For the last time, the ghost who possessed my wife told me that a spaceship is going to show up over the edge of Central City. A rainbow will pop out the side of the ship which we'll follow to a couple of guys hell-bent on destroying our universe."

"And then we kill them." Major Disaster finished.

"Yeah, or more likely, we find out it's a trap and improvise. Even more likely, it's a dead man's prank, but before you remind me of how utterly insane this is, remember how you said you got your chaos vision."

"It was a Vietnamese shaman," the Major grumbled.

Plunder continued to rub his forehead. "Look, Paul, I trust you. Hell, I believe you and actually had men serving under you at one point in time, but for the sake of my sanity, just shut up and keep looking at that sky."

Paul Booker, otherwise known as Major Disaster, flicked the card he was holding. It flew in front of a boy riding a skateboard, causing the child to fall and injure himself. "Amazing how no one notices when we come here in costume," Booker noted.

Plunder pointed him to "The Den of Thieves," a themed restaurant. A pimply teenager dressed as Chillblaine held a sign pointing to the door. "Ah, right," Booker nodded. "The contracts, How much do we still make on royalties?"

Plunder sighed and formed a '0' with his hand. "Loopholes, Major. It can't be helped. We don't exist, you know, at least not according to the US government. We could've make our point by threat, sure, but why bother? We own the better part of a city, it's not like we're short on money."

The Major frowned, looking at his painted image on the restaurant window. "Hmm... I've been thinking about that. I mean, after we take care of the network, how far do we take this? Do we really want to be public enemy #1? Strange things have been happening...costumed vigilantes showing up all over the place. Maybe they're our counterparts. Overdue ones, granted, but what if we’re pushing our luck? I mean, look at Superman. They say he came back from the grave. What if he finally pokes around, eh? Finds our little dark spot in America...we can't fight someone like him! Anything else, we've got a shot against, but just thinking about someone like that gives me the shakes."

Plunder put on his helmet. "To be honest, Paul, I'm more concerned about voyeur ghosts than Superman. I told you about that monkey, right? The Network popped it full of drugs until it was twitching too much to stick a needle in. If we’re ready to risk that kind of freak, we’re ready for the world. So quit worrying and keep those eyes on the sky.”

Major Disaster complied with a grunt. "Uh…Plunder," the Major said as his eyes went skyward. "The threads… they're gone...I can't see anything! Can’t see how to part the clouds, how to make the next passing plane crash. There’s nothing!"

Opening the rucksack and holding his jetpack, Plunder glanced up expectantly. A floating ship the size of a small town was passing through a black hole in the sky leaving Major Disaster at a loss for words.

"I was not expecting that," Plunder noted. He slumped after a rainbow shot out of the ship spanning all directions. "Oh, that's just per-" A large pod ejected from the side of the ship, crashing into the street below. The sounds of panic and crashing cars soon enveloped the area.

Major Disaster flicked Plunder's helmet. "I'll never doubt again, but keep that godforsaken rocket in your sack; we can both walk that far."

***

[jtisthekey]

Chronos plunged his hand into the final mist soldier's chest, feeling the creature's flesh and blood change into vapor. Cracking his neck, Chronos tapped a machine under his suit. "Ship! Everything's in place. Open the second gate 12 nitronimers over nexus point B...hello, Rip."

Turning to his side, Chronos dodged a large red sword, jumping as the sword changed direction. After he snapped fingers in midair, Chronos' flying cloak wrapped itself around his attacker.

Rip Hunter snapped his own fingers as he was gagged by the cloak. The cloak tore in a line adjacent to Rip's fingers, leaving a thin trail of blood on his skin. Through the newly-made hole, Rip gave a shrill whistle.

Chronos hit a switch under his suit as the whistle began to rattle his skull. "The code is... date/age vs. Pop I!" The noise ceased, as Chronos expected. Rip froze in place, an unforgiving glare showing between the tears of the cloak on his face.

Feeling the mist around him shift, Chronos nodded. "The chronal mists of Nakkinani IV...I thought it was them. Fantastic. Good man, you’ve found your own eyes in the pause. Well, let's give this new ship something to remember. Take the gloves off and blink, Rip, we're about to make history!"

Rip's shrill whistle returned as his body regained a state of motion. The mist loosened the flying cloak, which was no longer moving of its own accord. Pulling off the cloak, Rip stopped whistling. After tossing it on the ground, he held up his fist. “Till time we master," Rip began.

"We'll kick the tide," Chronos finished. "As if I'd forget."

Nodding, Rip opened his hand. The mist swirled over it, condensing into a watery blade. Rip grabbed it and flagrantly twirled the weapon.

Chronos smirked and stretched his legs. "I admit... I'm impressed. After reaching here, I'd say...there's only ten minutes of my stoptime left. How much could you scrape up while your mist did your dirty work?"

"...Four hours." Rip uttered. He kicked his red sword up and grabbed it with his spare hand.

Chronos yawned and offered a taunting gesture. "Four hours? Hah. You were always too honest, Rip. Shame, really...if I was blindfolded, you might've had a chance."

-to be continued