Chapter 71 Waller Meets Amari
“Ugh!”...... The arms of Rudy Jones suddenly lit up with a dazzling yellow. Almost illuminating the entire area like a nightlight.
Zoom froze...... The feeling of having everything sucked out of him was terrifying. Worse still, he couldn't move his body.
At that moment, the Black Flash tried and failed to activate his abilities. Super speed didn't work. Phasing didn't either.
Zoom let out slight choking noises through his mask. He was unable to use his speed to distort his voice anymore, making his sounds more human lol rather than demonic.
The black eyes also reverted to their regular color.
“...... Zoom?...... No..... Hunter......”. The growling voice of Rudy Jones no longer sounded so inhuman. The light in his eyes seemed to reveal the understanding of a regular human being.
The same couldn't be said for his body, though.
The speed force within Zoom's cells were larger than anything he had ever absorbed. The more energy he fed on, the greater his physical changes.
In less than ten seconds, whatever human features he still retained quickly faded away as his body morphed into what looked to be a monstrous purple lizard man.
His hands grew bigger, darker and turned into claws.
“........ You're not from this earth, are you?...... Hehehe... Interesting.....”
Rudy Jones, now more monster than human, chuckled eerily. The continuous hunger that had plagued him for weeks now finally showed signs of being satisfied. Still, despite that feeling, his grip didn't loosen in the slightest.
Rather, he took advantage of his enlarged palms and wrapped Zoom's head in one go, leaving only his eyes vaguely exposed.
Zoom felt the dread of death envelop him. He could feel his physical functions declining rapidly, the current of electricity that always flowed through his veins fading away.
He was losing his speed.
This........ This fact almost made him lose his senses.
Ironic when you think about it. The Dark Flash, self-proclaimed fastest man alive who wiped out every other speedster on his earth, was actually getting his speed sucked away.
How rather tragic.
Rudy didn't care. He was focused on the new sets of memories that appeared on his mind at the moment.
Sifting through them, he saw and learned everything he needed to learn.
Who Zoom was, his abilities, his purpose, where he was from...... And of course......
Spikes suddenly sprouted out of his back as he continued to feed.
“Run!” Seeing the rapid and almost unbelievable plot twist, Michael screamed in utmost fright before running towards the exit.
His companion suddenly snapped back to his senses and ran after him.
Rudy paid them no heed. All it took was a matter of seconds.
Zoom, the greatest speedster of earth two, died full of fear and unwillingness. Worse still, his body was sucked dried, leaving only nothing but a shrivelled corpse left under the super suit.
The now almost four foot tall monster finally let go of the Black Flash after sucking all his life essence. He raised his new three fingered palm and clenched it into a fist.
Arcs of electricity flashed over his body as he felt the new power he had obtained, as well as its usage.
Speed. Wonderful, powerful, extreme speed.
His eyes revealed human cognition as he examined his situation. Ever since that incident, this was the first time that his torturous hunger had come close to being removed.
The brief sense of satisfaction, however, was fleeting.
He could feel it. This, wasn't enough. The hunger would soon return in full force and at that moment, he would need to devour more than he just did.
He needed more.......... Much more......
His body flashed with lightning arcs, and he disappeared from the room.
In less than a second, he caught up with the two fleeing doctor's he had previously asked for help. Without so much as a second thought, he grabbed both of them and absorbed their energy, turning them into mummies.
With a flash of blue light, he appeared outside standing in front of a car.
Looking at his reflection, a hint of emotion was reflected in the eyes of the monstrosity that appeared in his vision. But soon, that emotion turned to hatred and cruelty.
He...... He didn't ask for this. He never wanted to be like this...... It wasn't his fault.
No, it was his...... This was all his doing. He did this to him, and he should suffer the consequences for it.
The purple monster thought with unrestrained cruelty.
The picture of a man wearing red and blue tights appeared in his memory.
“Even on another earth, you're still famous. And…. Carry so much power… A walking, talking buffet......”
The monster took one last look in the mirror and turned his gaze to Star Labs. The whole facility was in chaos, nevertheless, he couldn't be bothered.
Absorbing the energy of these regular humans was akin to eating mosquito meat.
Compared to the Zoom guy he just dealt with, their energy would be less than a drop in an ocean. It wasn't enough.
Time-consuming and inefficient.
“...... But …. He will do...... Hehehehe”. These were the last words that echoed before the purple monster turned around. Covered in lightning for a split second, and vanishing the next.
His new destination .......... Well, you'll know soon enough.
............
“Is that him?”
“By the looks of it......”.
“Yep, pretty sure”.
“He's kind of cute”.
“You're....... Badass. You can call someone who murdered The Joker on live TV cute?”
“What's he even doing here?”
“He came in with Superman”.
“Does he work with the league now?”
“He killed someone. The league would never allow him in”.
The hushed whispers fell in my ears, amusing me slightly.
They were right about many things they said, though. Not like I cared anyway.
Ignoring the strange eyes and mutters of the passing military personnel, I walked forward with both hands in my pockets.
Honestly, some of their discussions caused me to wonder. What exactly am I now?
After all, I did kill the Joker for the whole world to see. Quite high profile if you ask...... Well…. Anyone.
“I should be considered a vigilante now right?” The concept was intriguing. I'm sure there's a debate about it somewhere on the web, but was I really?
Come to think of it, I'm a murderer surrounded by officers, or in the midst of officers rather. According to the law, I'm supposed to get arrested........ My ass.
Hahaha, so funny. Some of them are probably contemplating that thought as well. Arresting me.
“Sir, I found what you wanted. And an interesting addition that will pique your interest”.
“Oh...... Intriguing. Well then, let's see it”. Alice's words immediately did just that. Pique my interest.
A holographic screen appeared in my line of vision. It was a video......... Correction, a lot of videos.
Seeing this, I frowned.
“Put it on Hyper speed”.
“Yes sir”. And so, the videos immediately played out as if someone had pushed the fast-forward button and set it at the fastest speed.
I watched with relish. Slight surprise emerging on my features when I finished it all twenty seconds later.
“Interesting..... Interesting indeed”.
The videos consisted of many scenes. The two most important points were the time range and the people involved.
The video started from September 17th this year. Nothing peculiar if you just look at the date but considering that something special happened on that same day, it would bring a lot of theories.
September 17th, The day of the Central City Invasion.
That was one, the second was the people involved. Quite frankly, just two.
The first is the Main Protagonist, Rudy Jones, and the other is of course the movie antagonist, the indirect cause of the protagonist's suffering.
Clark Kent, AKA, Superman.
Hehehe ..... If this isn't interesting, then please, do tell me what is ....... Honestly, I do hope there will be a second episode. I want to see how things eventually play out.
Oh well, life goes on. Still, I was sure of one thing. The whole charade of Joker's death wasn't going to blow away easily.
I had stepped on a lot of people's toes and touched plenty of interests.
Soon, there would be someone dumb enough to use it as an anchor point against me.
Speak of the devil, and he will appear....... Soon. Just not right now though..... Probably sometime in the future. Presently, it was Superman.
I had just stepped outside the Star Labs building, pushing through the revolving doors and welcoming the sunlight when he appeared behind me.
“What do you want Superman?”
“You know something, don't you?”
Clark asked with his arms folded, a frown adorning his face.
“About this incident. I heard you…".
“Whatever you say supes. Besides, I know a lot of things”.
“You're talking about the breaches?”
“Meh”. I shrugged. “Once you read a guy's life memories and do some searching, they are hard not to notice”.
My reply was nonchalant. I never expected it to make Clark frown even deeper.
“They? As in, there's more than one?” His tone was slightly grave.
“Damn! You don't even know this?” My eyes were a bit wide with incredulity. “Brotherly, who's supposed to be protecting the world? You or me?”
Honestly, I expected them to at least know this by now. What the hell was the Justice League doing?
Or had nothing else passed through the breaches yet?
“You knew this all along?” Clark asked.
“And you should know the same”. I gestured towards the building. “Fake Flash over there should have filled you in on all the deeds”.
Clark's face was solemn.
“He did. Apparently attempting to break through your energy shield created some sort of singularity. In his words, a breach between world's. We've found one, I just didn't expect more than one”. Clark explained.
“Which reminds me, we need to accurately discuss about the energy shield surrounding your base”.
“And?” I could see where this was going.
“It can't stay”. Superman said with displeasure.
“FYI, I didn't create the issue, your league did”.
“Be that as it may, we can't have something like this happening again. Someone else might try getting in and that action might cause worse consequences. Like ripping space apart. The risks are too great”. He said with a matter of fact expression.
“Yeah...... No”. I replied flatly.
“This isn't.....”. He wanted to say more, but.......
Whoosh!
A streak of lightning appeared beside us.
“Superman, we got something”. Wally appeared beside us and reported.
“The military checked the facility entry records. There's one person whose ID was registered coming into the building but no subsequent exits were recorded. He wasn't among the list of injured or deceased either”.
Saying so, Wally handed over a tablet with the screen lit up. The picture that came into view was that of a white haired male with a height of 6'6”.
“Rudy Jones, apparently, he was a janitor here. Worked for two years. In the past few hours, no one has been able to contact him. Not his wife, co-workers, family members, nothing”.
“He has a family?” This was the first thing Clark picked up.
“Yes. Wife and child”.
“So you think this could be our guy?” Superman asked with a raised eyebrow.
“At this point, it's our only lead”. Wally said with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Nice work son. Take this data back to the cave and hand it over to tornado. He'll run the picture through facial recognition using the watchtower computer. You can head on back”. Superman said with a slight smile.
“Um...... Yes sir”. Wally said with a slight grumble in his tone.
Inwardly, he hated the way Superman and the rest of the league treated he and the team as kids. But what else could he do?
“Also...... Take Flash with you”. Superman said after a moment of thought.
Thinking of his parallel self, Wally looked a bit weird before nodding and dashing away.
“The little guys grow up so fast”. I said with a look of amusement.
“Don't change the subject. We aren't done here”.
“Actually, we are”. I said nonchalantly before looking towards the distance. In that direction, a black limousine was coming towards our direction.
“Cause right now, I have to deal with an unwanted guest”.
My words fell into Clark's ears, causing him to look over. Seeing the limo heading towards us, the Man Of Steel activated his X-ray vision. A second later, his face turned slightly ugly.
“I see”. He said, his frown renewed.
The car parked right in front of the Star Labs building and a man wearing standard a black suit with a wire attached to his ear came forward to open the door.
A second later, a rather fat thigh extended from the interior, out into the open for all those watching to see.
Looking at the face of the person stepping out of the Limo, Clark's frown deepened.
“Waller”. He uttered a single word.
It happened then, looking at the scene before him, Superman's ears suddenly twitched.
A high-frequency ultrasonic signal fell into his ears causing his expression to turn to one of worry.
“From what I can hear, you have something to deal with as well”. He wasn't the only one who could hear it.
This sound was something that only one person held within their possession on Earth.
Jimmy Olsen. Given to him by Superman himself in case he found himself in a life-threatening situation or an emergency that required Superman's assistance.
Clark took a look at me for a second before nodding. Then, he flew to the skies and disappeared, heading towards Metropolis.
As for me.......... Well, I have a meeting with a black, kinda ugly, fat lady. Not the kind of date a guy could hope for.