Quicksilver: Swift Vengeance (Teen Titans: Future Storm)
And now it's time. Time for the second half of the "Quicksilver" arc of Teen Titans: Future Storm. This one features elements of The Dark Flash Saga that featured in the last issues of Mark Waid's run on The Flash. Short version is, Mercury is dead and yet he is not. Why? Alternate dimensions and that's all I'll say for now.
Title: Teen Titans: Future Storm
Arc: Quicksilver
Chapter: Swift Vengeance
Fandom: Teen Titans (TV/comic hybrid)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Nil for the TV series
Wally, Bart, Max Mercury, Jace Lawrence, and Kid Flash returned to the timeline, Max Mercury supporting Jace and XS and X-Cel having returned to the 31st century.
“Who’s he?” Jay asked.
“Liberated from the Demon,” Max replied.
“Where’s Mercury?” Velocity asked.
“He’s . . . lost to us,” Max answered.
“What the hell do you mean?” Velocity asked, an uncharacteristic impatience showing in his tone.
“He used one of Black Flash’s time warps to run a race with her,” Max explained. “A race that cost him his life.”
“You mean the idiot ran all the way to the end of time with her,” Jenny Quick spat out.
“He reasoned that it was the only way to stop Black Flash,” Bart said.
A heavy silence passed over the speedsters.
“I should take Jace home,” Max finally spoke. “I’m certain his family misses him terribly.”
“I’ll give Ashley the news,” Wally said. “She deserves to know what happened to her daughter.”
“I’ll . . . I’ll go back to Carol,” Bart added with grim sorrow in his tone, speeding away.
“And the rest of us should go back as well,” Jay continued. “The world won’t stop because we lost one of our own.”
“Someone has to tell the Titans,” Blitz said.
“I’ll go,” Kid Flash offered.
With that decided, everyone sped off on their own paths.
“Ally was never a happy child,” Ashley explained to Wally. “Not since Hunter and I separated. She only got worse after he died. She became antagonistic toward everyone around her, always getting into fights with the kids in her school. She particularly had a habit of harassing any member of the Flash Fan Club she found in her school.
“When she got into college, she surprised me by majoring in metahuman studies with a particular focus on the history of speedster heroes and villains. I didn’t have very many illusions about what she was doing; she’d already marked you as an enemy and you know what Sun Tzu says about enemies.”
“Yeah,” Wally agreed tonelessly. “The original Batman practically lived by that guy’s book.”
“I wish things could have turned out better for her,” Ashley spoke, wiping away tears. “If we’d been able to save Hunter from himself, maybe Alison wouldn’t have followed in his path.”
“I know,” Wally murmured sadly.
Elsewhere in Keystone City, Bart returned to Carol, having changed back to his normal clothes beforehand.
“Bart?” Carol greeted hesitantly. “Why do you have that look in your eyes?”
“It’s Peter,” Bart replied.
“Peter?” Carol echoed, peering at him through her glasses. “Where is he?”
“He’s . . .” Bart started to say but didn’t have the heart to finish. He didn’t have to, as Carol understood what had happened to their son just by the agonized look in his eyes. They held each other tightly, tears seeping out of their closed eyes.
In Jump City, Kid Flash had explained everything to her cousin’s teammates. “. . . and that’s it,” she finished.
Samara quickly put her hood up so no one would see her tears. Raziel said nothing, his face as empty of expression as a wall. Inferno sighed heavily. Tears openly streamed down Nightstar’s face, as even despite all her Bat-training, she could not repress the natural instinct of her mother’s people to never hide their feelings. Bladefire pulled her in close and let her weep silently, tears seeping out of his own eyes. As for Beast Girl, she was in complete and utter disbelief.
“He can’t be dead!” she exclaimed tearfully.
“I felt it,” Kid Flash replied. “We couldn’t sense him anymore.”
“He can’t be dead!” Beast Girl repeated. “Not him!”
Kid Flash simply reached out and pulled the smaller girl into her arms. “I miss him, too, Terri. I miss him, too.”
Back in Keystone City, several of the Flash’s Rogues were hanging out in their favorite bar, which had been unofficially named “The Rogue Bar.” The Rogues in question were Captain Boomerang, Captain Cold, his sister Golden Glider, Trickster, Heat Wave, and Mirror Mistress. All of these Rogues had derived their names and gimmicks from the original bearers, now retired, deceased, or imprisoned. Some of them had unique twists on their predecessors’ names and equipment, like actual metahuman abilities. Captain Boomerang was capable of bursts of super-speed. Golden Glider could “skate” on the air and Mirror Mistress could manipulate reflective surfaces.
Right now, they were all just having a good time, drinking and exchanging stories. Whereas some of them were a little young for alcohol, they settled for soda. What they didn’t know was that they were about to receive the shock of a lifetime.
“Go ahead, Trickster,” Captain Boomerang drawled. “Tell us all about how you terrorized that little contingent of nuns back when you were in Catholic school.”
“It was real simple,” Trickster bragged. “I just set up little T-bombs around that big cross and I let the fuses run out on all of them. That cross blew apart like a high-caliber shotgun blows a guy’s head off! And all those little nuns and priests scampered about yelling that the Devil was coming after them!”
He laughed raucously. Captain Cold glared at him with disgust.
“Yes, I would agree that this is one disgusting piece of dirt,” a voice remarked.
The six Rogues turned . . . and saw Mercury, but he looked a little different. For one thing, he was taller by about two or three inches. Second, he was wearing a tarnished silver suit with a thick, lightning-edged stripe of blue so dark it could pass for black down the middle. Fingerless gloves and boots matching the stripe covered his hands and feet and a matching mask covered part of his head, leaving his hair, some of his forehead, and the lower half of his face exposed. The mask came with semitransparent silver-white goggle-like lenses over his eyes and tarnished silver lightning caps over his ears.
“Mercury?” Captain Boomerang wondered.
“Hey, speed freak, wanna drink with us?” Heat Wave offered.
“No thanks,” “Mercury” replied grimly before punching the table. To the Rogues’ surprise, the table obliterated itself upon contact with “Mercury’s” fist.
“What the hell?” Captain Cold exclaimed as he and the other Rogues jumped out of their seats.
“You wanna play like that, huh?” Trickster sneered, reaching into one of his pockets and pulling out four yo-yos all looped around his fingers. “Ok, player.”
Trickster shot all four yo-yos at the Mercury doppelganger, who bent backwards to avoid them. Surprisingly enough, the yo-yos looped around and came back at him. They twisted like serpents, binding his arms and legs.
“Got you now, bitch!” he yelled. “Now I’m gonna slice you like butter!”
“You shouldn’t broadcast what you intend to do to someone,” the Mercury doppelganger advised coldly. He vibrated out of the yo-yos’ grip. “Especially when you can’t do it.”
“Walking the dog, you motherless -” Trickster announced as he rolled the yo-yos on the floor, said yo-yos spinning so fast that they were like buzzsaws. Unfortunately, the Mercury doppelganger merely lent so much speed to the yo-yos that they burst into pieces. “What the crap? You were never able to do that!”
The Mercury doppelganger didn’t answer, merely watching as Trickster chewed some bubblegum. He blew it into a bubble and released, letting it float toward the dark speedster.
“Is that supposed to frighten me?” the dark Mercury asked.
“Just wait,” Trickster retorted.
“No,” the dark Mercury countered as he walked to the bubble and touched it. Instantly, the bubble exploded and covered him in acidic gum.
Trickster laughed. “You’re gonna be nothing but bones soon, and even that won’t be around much longer!”
The dark Mercury spun into a tornado, flinging the acidic gum off him in all directions, forcing the Rogues to duck or attempt to block it. Captain Cold created an ice barrier with his cold gun and Mirror Mistress held up a mirror as a shield. The non-Rogue patrons began to flee the bar, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire of the fight between the Rogues and this mysterious speedster.
“Just me and you,” the dark Mercury remarked.
“Guess what, ‘Dark Mercury’?” Captain Boomerang sneered, holding up a number of razor-edged boomerangs. “Not impressed.” He threw all the boomerangs at super-speed.
Dark Mercury caught every single boomerang with greased-lightning reflexes. “Guess what? Neither am I.”
He threw all six boomerangs at each Rogue, most striking with brutal accuracy. One lodged itself in Trickster’s shoulder. Another punched through Captain Cold’s ice barrier and stabbed him in the thigh. The third sliced Golden Glider’s face. The fourth embedded itself in Heat Wave’s arm. Captain Boomerang managed to dodge the fifth and Mirror Mistress used her mirror to warp the sixth away.
“Bastard!” Captain Cold yelled as he pulled the boomerang out of his thigh. He painfully rose to his feet. “We’re gonna jack you up. Make you hurt bad!”
“I’m so scared,” Dark Mercury deadpanned before charging him.
Captain Cold froze the floor beneath Dark Mercury’s feet as he ran. Unfortunately, Dark Mercury merely redirected his inertia into a brutal clothesline that knocked the icy Rogue down, rattling his skull.
Golden Glider skated on the icy patch of floor before launching herself into a flying kick aimed at Dark Mercury. He merely grabbed her foot and spun into a throw that landed her behind the bar. She fell into a wall of beverages, which poured all over her when her impact caused their glass containers to shatter.
Trickster pulled the boomerang out of his shoulder with a loud swear before lobbing it at Dark Mercury, who whirled and caught it.
“Nice try.”
Heat Wave used his uninjured arm to shoot his wrist-worn flamethrower at Dark Mercury. The platinum-haired speedster dodged the jet of flame and charged him. Heat Wave fired again, but Dark Mercury slid out of the way and stabbed the gasoline tank the pyromaniac wore on his back with the boomerang Trickster had thrown at him. He slashed the boomerang upward before pulling it out, leaving the gasoline to flow out of the gash he’d made.
“Damn it!” Heat Wave exclaimed. “You son of a bitch!”
Dark Mercury drew back his fist and punched Heat Wave, using the blow to set off a kinetic burst that knocked him into a wall . . . and unconscious.
Trickster threw a handful of T-bombs at Dark Mercury, who jumped out of the way and let them explode. He threw the boomerang at Trickster again, this time getting him in the chest.
“Stay down this time.”
Suddenly, a dome of mirrors formed around Dark Mercury and the images of Mirror Mistress and Captain Boomerang were in every one of them.
“Hello, Dark Mercury,” she greeted.
Every image of Captain Boomerang raised a boomerang. Every image threw his boomerang at Dark Mercury.
Boomerangs flew every which way at the dark speedster, all thrown at super-speed. Dark Mercury might have been insanely fast, most definitely faster than his predecessors at his age, but could he dodge boomerangs being thrown at him at super-speed from all sides?
The darkly clad speedster dodged the boomerangs like unholy lightning. Even as some managed to score glancing strikes, cutting his arms, sides, and legs, the cuts quickly sealed themselves. He sped through the mirror dome, smashing as many mirrors as he could reach.
“You’ll need to do more than that to stop us,” Mirror Mistress taunted.
“How about this?” Dark Mercury suggested, lunging into one of the mirrors and matching his vibration patterns to the patterns of the zone within the mirrors. Once inside, he began speeding through the mirror portals until he found Mirror Mistress and Captain Boomerang. “Let’s try this again.”
“This is my world,” Mirror Mistress stated. “You’re not welcome here.”
“Funny, I usually go where I please,” Dark Mercury answered before attacking.
Later that night, the Keystone City police had arrived at the Rogue Bar, only to find it wrecked and the six Rogues in varying states of physical abuse.
“Who the hell did this to you guys?” a detective on the scene, Janice Wendell, asked.
“Mercury . . .” Captain Cold replied. “I’m gonna make that speed freak pay for what he did to my sister. Gonna get medieval on his ass.”
The Flash had arrived at the scene a split second later.
“Liar!” he snarled, grabbing Captain Cold by the throat. “I won’t let you drag my - Mercury’s name through the mud!”
“I ain’t lying, Flash,” Captain Cold wheezed out. “It was him, but he was different. Taller. Wore a different costume. More vicious. None of you were ever that brutal with us.”
“Flash, let him go,” Detective Wendell ordered.
The Flash growled low in his throat and released the cold-wielding Rogue, allowing him to be wheeled into the ambulance on a stretcher like his five compatriots.
“It couldn’t be Mercury,” the Flash said. “He wouldn’t do things like this.”
“Well, it was definitely someone with super-speed that put these guys through the ringer,” Detective Wendell replied.
“You don’t get it, Detective,” the Flash stated. “Mercury’s dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Flash,” Detective Wendell spoke. “Truly, I am, but if Cold and his Rogues weren’t hallucinating, then either the kid pulled that resurrection trick you heroes tend to do from time to time or he didn’t die like you thought.”
“Or it’s someone else,” the Flash added. “Someone with the powers and obviously able to imitate Mercury physically.”
A week passed. In that week, the Titans held a private funeral on Titans Island for their fallen speedster. As with Starfire’s funeral, Titans past and present were there, along with their allies.
“Peter Maxwell Allen was the greatest friend and the greatest ally anyone could ask for,” Bladefire spoke. “For one thing, he kept everything in perspective. Not all of us had particularly happy lives, as I’m sure you can all attest to, but he kept us from brooding too much over that. He reminded us that we had more to live for than just beating up super-villains; that we were human too and we should act like it.
“His greatest trait, now that I think about it, was just the fact that he cared so much about everyone around him. When they hurt, he hurt. When they were happy, he was happy, and he made sure as best as he could that they were happy. He would always stick around a few minutes longer to console the survivors of a crime we were investigating and he would always check up on them every so often afterward to see how they were hanging.
“He was . . . precious to all of us. My mother’s people had a philosophy when it came to death: Don’t mourn the death, celebrate the life. Peter went out protecting the people he loved and we should always honor that.”
Meanwhile, in the city, Dark Mercury was routing Multiplicity, the son of Billy Numerous. The army of red-clad doppelgangers engulfed the darkly clad speedster, only to be viciously tossed off by a sonic boom. He redirected their motion so that they all slammed into each other, forcing them to recombine by way of manipulating the kinetic forces that had split them in the first place.
“Rob a bank with multiples of yourself,” he sneered. “If you had any brains, you’d rob several banks at once, not converge on one.”
“Shaddap!” Multiplicity yelled.
“No. You,” Dark Mercury retorted, throwing himself into a flying kick and pushing all his inertia into that kick, resulting in a rib-breaking blow once his foot landed.
Multiplicity yelled in pain. “What the crap, you son of a bitch? You broke my ribs!”
“I’ll break something else soon enough,” Dark Mercury answered coldly.
“I’m getting out of here!” Multiplicity yelled. “This ain’t fun no more!”
He began running, only to be stopped by police cars. The cops exited their cars, all pointing guns at him.
Dark Mercury was about to speed away when one of the cops spotted him.
“Is that you, Mercury?” he asked.
“Yeah, so?” Dark Mercury asked.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” the cop replied. “Your pals are holding a funeral for you on their island right now.”
“Is that a fact?” Dark Mercury asked with a darkly amused expression. He sped away.
The funeral service was wrapping up, the minister reciting a prayer for Mercury’s soul.
“Amen,” Dark Mercury finished with an ironic smirk on his face.
The assembled Titans turned to face the dark speedster.
“Who are you?” the Flash asked.
“Who am I?” Dark Mercury asked. “Who is but a form following the function of what and there is a certain degree of irony in asking the name of someone who wears a mask.”
“Who are you?” Beast Girl repeated, glaring in anger at the dark Mercury.
“You’re the one who tore up the Rogue Bar,” Wally accused.
“It needed tearing up,” Dark Mercury answered.
“Who are you and why did you take Mercury’s name?” Samara asked.
Beast Girl sniffed. “Mercury? Is that you?”
“Yes and no,” Dark Mercury replied.
“Quit being cryptic!” Beast Girl exclaimed. “You smell just like him! Look like him, too!”
“If that is you, Peter, then what were you thinking brutalizing the Rogues the way you did?” Max Mercury asked.
“Not Peter,” Dark Mercury replied. “Call me Pietro, if you don’t want to call me Mercury.”
A purple lariat bound the dark speedster’s arms to his sides while a blue blade was held to his throat.
“Whoever you are,” Nightstar hissed, “we will not let this pass.”
“Samara, Raziel, can either of you read him?” Bladefire asked.
“No,” Raziel replied. “We’re trying, but his mind . . . it’s like he’s erected a giant stone wall around his thoughts and we can’t pierce it.”
“The benefits of an accelerated mind,” Dark Mercury answered.
“I think I know what’s going on,” Max spoke.
“And what do you think is going on?” Inferno asked.
“Our battle with Black Flash and Speed Demon spanned time and space and several temporal anomalies were triggered in the process,” Max explained. “One of those anomalies may very well have brought him here.”
“So you’re saying he’s Mercury?” Inferno asked.
“Not the one we know, but definitely a version of him,” Max answered.
“You mind letting go of me now?” Dark Mercury asked.
Nightstar retracted the violet energy that formed her lariat into her body and Bladefire withdrew his energy sword.
“So what do we do with him?” Samara asked. “We don’t know him. He has our friend’s face and powers, but we know nothing of him.”
“I wouldn’t suggest you trust him,” the Flash replied. “In fact, I would recommend you not trust him. He’s spent the past week filling hospital beds in Keystone and Central with the local criminals and the police suspect that he’s been contributing bodies to the morgue.”
“Excuse me,” Dark Mercury said, raising two fingers to one of his ear-caps. “Hostage situation at Central Banking. I’ll be back.”
He raced away, running on the water as though it was solid ground. Kid Flash, Velocity, and Jenny Quick ran after him.
“Give us the money and nobody gets hurt!” the leader yelled.
“What do you want?” a teller asked.
“The money, you dumb bitch!” the leader shouted.
The police were parked outside, their cars arranged to form a barrier to anyone seeking to enter or exit without their permission. Snipers were on the rooftops, ready to put a bullet in the head of any robber that came out still intent on violence. The chief had a megaphone in her hands and was shouting into it.
“We are willing to negotiate, but first you must release the hostages unharmed!”
Suddenly, a blur of discolored silver and dark blue trailing lightning sped into the bank. Barely a second later had the bank erupted into gunfire. Windows shattered and the police could see a blur of motion moving around the gunmen.
“What the hell is going on in there?” the chief asked indignantly.
More blurs - scarlet and silver, black and blue, and crimson and silver - entered the bank amidst the gunfire. Within mere seconds, the hostages were no longer hostages, as they were all safely outside the bank and in the presence of the police.
The gunfire stopped and dead silence followed.
“Get in there,” the chief ordered the SWAT team. “Find out what’s going on in there.”
The SWAT team entered the bank, rifles ready. They found the four teen speedsters standing over the unconscious bodies of the bank robbers.
“Shouldn’t have wasted all those bullets,” Dark Mercury commented. “They might have actually stood a chance.”
“Put your hands up!” the SWAT leader yelled. “You’re all under arrest!”
“For what?” Dark Mercury asked. “These men are brutes. You don’t negotiate with brutes.”
“For interfering with a police operation, smart guy,” the SWAT leader replied.
“Actually, you couldn’t hope to arrest any of us here,” Dark Mercury said.
“Don’t lump us in with you, you maniac,” Velocity muttered.
“You three stay and hash it out with the police if you want,” Dark Mercury muttered back. “I have better things to do.”
He ran, moving faster than any police car could hope to follow even if the driver pushed the car to its fastest.
Jenny Quick sighed. “Maniac.”
“What was that, young lady?” the SWAT leader asked.
“Nothing, officer,” Jenny replied.
Later on, the three teen speedsters were in the chief’s office at the Jump City police station being reprimanded by her.
“This was a very sensitive situation,” she said. “At any moment, those robbers could have started killing the hostages. You’re lucky you’re so fast.”
“We were following someone else,” Jenny spoke. “Unlike us, this someone else has no compunction about breaking bones and if our suspicions are accurate, he’s perfectly willing to kill people to see his ideas of justice carried out. We hoped that our presence would serve as a dampener on his bloodlust.”
“It seems like your hope was in vain,” the chief said. “Those robbers won’t be in any condition to talk for a while. One of them might even be brain-dead if the head trauma turns out to be that bad.” She paused. “And where the hell is this person you were following? I’d like to have a word with him.”
“We’ll pass it on to him, but I doubt he’ll actually come in,” Jenny answered.
“That’s fine,” the chief conceded. “Just let him know if he’s not seen headed here the next time he rears his head, I’ll send Nova Blue after his sorry ass.”
“Sure,” Jenny answered.
The three speedsters walked out of the police station, enduring scattered dirty looks from various officers. They were under no illusions as to what the police thought of them. While metahuman heroes had been trusted and respected for the most part in their parents’ day, the growth of the metahuman population in the last three decades had engendered in regular humans a sort of xenophobic distrust of their super-powered brethren. As a result, the new generation of heroes had a slightly more antagonistic relationship with the police than their parents and predecessors had. Additionally, many police forces had developed a kind of “super-SWAT” specially designed to counter metahuman criminals - as well as heroes that went rogue, a regrettably infamous recurring event.
Once outside, the trio sped back to Titans Island.
“What’s going on?” Kid Flash asked Wally.
“The Titans are voting on whether or not ‘Dark Mercury’ can stay with them,” Wally replied.
Title: Teen Titans: Future Storm
Arc: Quicksilver
Chapter: Swift Vengeance
Fandom: Teen Titans (TV/comic hybrid)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Nil for the TV series
Wally, Bart, Max Mercury, Jace Lawrence, and Kid Flash returned to the timeline, Max Mercury supporting Jace and XS and X-Cel having returned to the 31st century.
“Who’s he?” Jay asked.
“Liberated from the Demon,” Max replied.
“Where’s Mercury?” Velocity asked.
“He’s . . . lost to us,” Max answered.
“What the hell do you mean?” Velocity asked, an uncharacteristic impatience showing in his tone.
“He used one of Black Flash’s time warps to run a race with her,” Max explained. “A race that cost him his life.”
“You mean the idiot ran all the way to the end of time with her,” Jenny Quick spat out.
“He reasoned that it was the only way to stop Black Flash,” Bart said.
A heavy silence passed over the speedsters.
“I should take Jace home,” Max finally spoke. “I’m certain his family misses him terribly.”
“I’ll give Ashley the news,” Wally said. “She deserves to know what happened to her daughter.”
“I’ll . . . I’ll go back to Carol,” Bart added with grim sorrow in his tone, speeding away.
“And the rest of us should go back as well,” Jay continued. “The world won’t stop because we lost one of our own.”
“Someone has to tell the Titans,” Blitz said.
“I’ll go,” Kid Flash offered.
With that decided, everyone sped off on their own paths.
“Ally was never a happy child,” Ashley explained to Wally. “Not since Hunter and I separated. She only got worse after he died. She became antagonistic toward everyone around her, always getting into fights with the kids in her school. She particularly had a habit of harassing any member of the Flash Fan Club she found in her school.
“When she got into college, she surprised me by majoring in metahuman studies with a particular focus on the history of speedster heroes and villains. I didn’t have very many illusions about what she was doing; she’d already marked you as an enemy and you know what Sun Tzu says about enemies.”
“Yeah,” Wally agreed tonelessly. “The original Batman practically lived by that guy’s book.”
“I wish things could have turned out better for her,” Ashley spoke, wiping away tears. “If we’d been able to save Hunter from himself, maybe Alison wouldn’t have followed in his path.”
“I know,” Wally murmured sadly.
Elsewhere in Keystone City, Bart returned to Carol, having changed back to his normal clothes beforehand.
“Bart?” Carol greeted hesitantly. “Why do you have that look in your eyes?”
“It’s Peter,” Bart replied.
“Peter?” Carol echoed, peering at him through her glasses. “Where is he?”
“He’s . . .” Bart started to say but didn’t have the heart to finish. He didn’t have to, as Carol understood what had happened to their son just by the agonized look in his eyes. They held each other tightly, tears seeping out of their closed eyes.
In Jump City, Kid Flash had explained everything to her cousin’s teammates. “. . . and that’s it,” she finished.
Samara quickly put her hood up so no one would see her tears. Raziel said nothing, his face as empty of expression as a wall. Inferno sighed heavily. Tears openly streamed down Nightstar’s face, as even despite all her Bat-training, she could not repress the natural instinct of her mother’s people to never hide their feelings. Bladefire pulled her in close and let her weep silently, tears seeping out of his own eyes. As for Beast Girl, she was in complete and utter disbelief.
“He can’t be dead!” she exclaimed tearfully.
“I felt it,” Kid Flash replied. “We couldn’t sense him anymore.”
“He can’t be dead!” Beast Girl repeated. “Not him!”
Kid Flash simply reached out and pulled the smaller girl into her arms. “I miss him, too, Terri. I miss him, too.”
Back in Keystone City, several of the Flash’s Rogues were hanging out in their favorite bar, which had been unofficially named “The Rogue Bar.” The Rogues in question were Captain Boomerang, Captain Cold, his sister Golden Glider, Trickster, Heat Wave, and Mirror Mistress. All of these Rogues had derived their names and gimmicks from the original bearers, now retired, deceased, or imprisoned. Some of them had unique twists on their predecessors’ names and equipment, like actual metahuman abilities. Captain Boomerang was capable of bursts of super-speed. Golden Glider could “skate” on the air and Mirror Mistress could manipulate reflective surfaces.
Right now, they were all just having a good time, drinking and exchanging stories. Whereas some of them were a little young for alcohol, they settled for soda. What they didn’t know was that they were about to receive the shock of a lifetime.
“Go ahead, Trickster,” Captain Boomerang drawled. “Tell us all about how you terrorized that little contingent of nuns back when you were in Catholic school.”
“It was real simple,” Trickster bragged. “I just set up little T-bombs around that big cross and I let the fuses run out on all of them. That cross blew apart like a high-caliber shotgun blows a guy’s head off! And all those little nuns and priests scampered about yelling that the Devil was coming after them!”
He laughed raucously. Captain Cold glared at him with disgust.
“Yes, I would agree that this is one disgusting piece of dirt,” a voice remarked.
The six Rogues turned . . . and saw Mercury, but he looked a little different. For one thing, he was taller by about two or three inches. Second, he was wearing a tarnished silver suit with a thick, lightning-edged stripe of blue so dark it could pass for black down the middle. Fingerless gloves and boots matching the stripe covered his hands and feet and a matching mask covered part of his head, leaving his hair, some of his forehead, and the lower half of his face exposed. The mask came with semitransparent silver-white goggle-like lenses over his eyes and tarnished silver lightning caps over his ears.
“Mercury?” Captain Boomerang wondered.
“Hey, speed freak, wanna drink with us?” Heat Wave offered.
“No thanks,” “Mercury” replied grimly before punching the table. To the Rogues’ surprise, the table obliterated itself upon contact with “Mercury’s” fist.
“What the hell?” Captain Cold exclaimed as he and the other Rogues jumped out of their seats.
“You wanna play like that, huh?” Trickster sneered, reaching into one of his pockets and pulling out four yo-yos all looped around his fingers. “Ok, player.”
Trickster shot all four yo-yos at the Mercury doppelganger, who bent backwards to avoid them. Surprisingly enough, the yo-yos looped around and came back at him. They twisted like serpents, binding his arms and legs.
“Got you now, bitch!” he yelled. “Now I’m gonna slice you like butter!”
“You shouldn’t broadcast what you intend to do to someone,” the Mercury doppelganger advised coldly. He vibrated out of the yo-yos’ grip. “Especially when you can’t do it.”
“Walking the dog, you motherless -” Trickster announced as he rolled the yo-yos on the floor, said yo-yos spinning so fast that they were like buzzsaws. Unfortunately, the Mercury doppelganger merely lent so much speed to the yo-yos that they burst into pieces. “What the crap? You were never able to do that!”
The Mercury doppelganger didn’t answer, merely watching as Trickster chewed some bubblegum. He blew it into a bubble and released, letting it float toward the dark speedster.
“Is that supposed to frighten me?” the dark Mercury asked.
“Just wait,” Trickster retorted.
“No,” the dark Mercury countered as he walked to the bubble and touched it. Instantly, the bubble exploded and covered him in acidic gum.
Trickster laughed. “You’re gonna be nothing but bones soon, and even that won’t be around much longer!”
The dark Mercury spun into a tornado, flinging the acidic gum off him in all directions, forcing the Rogues to duck or attempt to block it. Captain Cold created an ice barrier with his cold gun and Mirror Mistress held up a mirror as a shield. The non-Rogue patrons began to flee the bar, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire of the fight between the Rogues and this mysterious speedster.
“Just me and you,” the dark Mercury remarked.
“Guess what, ‘Dark Mercury’?” Captain Boomerang sneered, holding up a number of razor-edged boomerangs. “Not impressed.” He threw all the boomerangs at super-speed.
Dark Mercury caught every single boomerang with greased-lightning reflexes. “Guess what? Neither am I.”
He threw all six boomerangs at each Rogue, most striking with brutal accuracy. One lodged itself in Trickster’s shoulder. Another punched through Captain Cold’s ice barrier and stabbed him in the thigh. The third sliced Golden Glider’s face. The fourth embedded itself in Heat Wave’s arm. Captain Boomerang managed to dodge the fifth and Mirror Mistress used her mirror to warp the sixth away.
“Bastard!” Captain Cold yelled as he pulled the boomerang out of his thigh. He painfully rose to his feet. “We’re gonna jack you up. Make you hurt bad!”
“I’m so scared,” Dark Mercury deadpanned before charging him.
Captain Cold froze the floor beneath Dark Mercury’s feet as he ran. Unfortunately, Dark Mercury merely redirected his inertia into a brutal clothesline that knocked the icy Rogue down, rattling his skull.
Golden Glider skated on the icy patch of floor before launching herself into a flying kick aimed at Dark Mercury. He merely grabbed her foot and spun into a throw that landed her behind the bar. She fell into a wall of beverages, which poured all over her when her impact caused their glass containers to shatter.
Trickster pulled the boomerang out of his shoulder with a loud swear before lobbing it at Dark Mercury, who whirled and caught it.
“Nice try.”
Heat Wave used his uninjured arm to shoot his wrist-worn flamethrower at Dark Mercury. The platinum-haired speedster dodged the jet of flame and charged him. Heat Wave fired again, but Dark Mercury slid out of the way and stabbed the gasoline tank the pyromaniac wore on his back with the boomerang Trickster had thrown at him. He slashed the boomerang upward before pulling it out, leaving the gasoline to flow out of the gash he’d made.
“Damn it!” Heat Wave exclaimed. “You son of a bitch!”
Dark Mercury drew back his fist and punched Heat Wave, using the blow to set off a kinetic burst that knocked him into a wall . . . and unconscious.
Trickster threw a handful of T-bombs at Dark Mercury, who jumped out of the way and let them explode. He threw the boomerang at Trickster again, this time getting him in the chest.
“Stay down this time.”
Suddenly, a dome of mirrors formed around Dark Mercury and the images of Mirror Mistress and Captain Boomerang were in every one of them.
“Hello, Dark Mercury,” she greeted.
Every image of Captain Boomerang raised a boomerang. Every image threw his boomerang at Dark Mercury.
Boomerangs flew every which way at the dark speedster, all thrown at super-speed. Dark Mercury might have been insanely fast, most definitely faster than his predecessors at his age, but could he dodge boomerangs being thrown at him at super-speed from all sides?
The darkly clad speedster dodged the boomerangs like unholy lightning. Even as some managed to score glancing strikes, cutting his arms, sides, and legs, the cuts quickly sealed themselves. He sped through the mirror dome, smashing as many mirrors as he could reach.
“You’ll need to do more than that to stop us,” Mirror Mistress taunted.
“How about this?” Dark Mercury suggested, lunging into one of the mirrors and matching his vibration patterns to the patterns of the zone within the mirrors. Once inside, he began speeding through the mirror portals until he found Mirror Mistress and Captain Boomerang. “Let’s try this again.”
“This is my world,” Mirror Mistress stated. “You’re not welcome here.”
“Funny, I usually go where I please,” Dark Mercury answered before attacking.
Later that night, the Keystone City police had arrived at the Rogue Bar, only to find it wrecked and the six Rogues in varying states of physical abuse.
“Who the hell did this to you guys?” a detective on the scene, Janice Wendell, asked.
“Mercury . . .” Captain Cold replied. “I’m gonna make that speed freak pay for what he did to my sister. Gonna get medieval on his ass.”
The Flash had arrived at the scene a split second later.
“Liar!” he snarled, grabbing Captain Cold by the throat. “I won’t let you drag my - Mercury’s name through the mud!”
“I ain’t lying, Flash,” Captain Cold wheezed out. “It was him, but he was different. Taller. Wore a different costume. More vicious. None of you were ever that brutal with us.”
“Flash, let him go,” Detective Wendell ordered.
The Flash growled low in his throat and released the cold-wielding Rogue, allowing him to be wheeled into the ambulance on a stretcher like his five compatriots.
“It couldn’t be Mercury,” the Flash said. “He wouldn’t do things like this.”
“Well, it was definitely someone with super-speed that put these guys through the ringer,” Detective Wendell replied.
“You don’t get it, Detective,” the Flash stated. “Mercury’s dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Flash,” Detective Wendell spoke. “Truly, I am, but if Cold and his Rogues weren’t hallucinating, then either the kid pulled that resurrection trick you heroes tend to do from time to time or he didn’t die like you thought.”
“Or it’s someone else,” the Flash added. “Someone with the powers and obviously able to imitate Mercury physically.”
A week passed. In that week, the Titans held a private funeral on Titans Island for their fallen speedster. As with Starfire’s funeral, Titans past and present were there, along with their allies.
“Peter Maxwell Allen was the greatest friend and the greatest ally anyone could ask for,” Bladefire spoke. “For one thing, he kept everything in perspective. Not all of us had particularly happy lives, as I’m sure you can all attest to, but he kept us from brooding too much over that. He reminded us that we had more to live for than just beating up super-villains; that we were human too and we should act like it.
“His greatest trait, now that I think about it, was just the fact that he cared so much about everyone around him. When they hurt, he hurt. When they were happy, he was happy, and he made sure as best as he could that they were happy. He would always stick around a few minutes longer to console the survivors of a crime we were investigating and he would always check up on them every so often afterward to see how they were hanging.
“He was . . . precious to all of us. My mother’s people had a philosophy when it came to death: Don’t mourn the death, celebrate the life. Peter went out protecting the people he loved and we should always honor that.”
Meanwhile, in the city, Dark Mercury was routing Multiplicity, the son of Billy Numerous. The army of red-clad doppelgangers engulfed the darkly clad speedster, only to be viciously tossed off by a sonic boom. He redirected their motion so that they all slammed into each other, forcing them to recombine by way of manipulating the kinetic forces that had split them in the first place.
“Rob a bank with multiples of yourself,” he sneered. “If you had any brains, you’d rob several banks at once, not converge on one.”
“Shaddap!” Multiplicity yelled.
“No. You,” Dark Mercury retorted, throwing himself into a flying kick and pushing all his inertia into that kick, resulting in a rib-breaking blow once his foot landed.
Multiplicity yelled in pain. “What the crap, you son of a bitch? You broke my ribs!”
“I’ll break something else soon enough,” Dark Mercury answered coldly.
“I’m getting out of here!” Multiplicity yelled. “This ain’t fun no more!”
He began running, only to be stopped by police cars. The cops exited their cars, all pointing guns at him.
Dark Mercury was about to speed away when one of the cops spotted him.
“Is that you, Mercury?” he asked.
“Yeah, so?” Dark Mercury asked.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” the cop replied. “Your pals are holding a funeral for you on their island right now.”
“Is that a fact?” Dark Mercury asked with a darkly amused expression. He sped away.
The funeral service was wrapping up, the minister reciting a prayer for Mercury’s soul.
“Amen,” Dark Mercury finished with an ironic smirk on his face.
The assembled Titans turned to face the dark speedster.
“Who are you?” the Flash asked.
“Who am I?” Dark Mercury asked. “Who is but a form following the function of what and there is a certain degree of irony in asking the name of someone who wears a mask.”
“Who are you?” Beast Girl repeated, glaring in anger at the dark Mercury.
“You’re the one who tore up the Rogue Bar,” Wally accused.
“It needed tearing up,” Dark Mercury answered.
“Who are you and why did you take Mercury’s name?” Samara asked.
Beast Girl sniffed. “Mercury? Is that you?”
“Yes and no,” Dark Mercury replied.
“Quit being cryptic!” Beast Girl exclaimed. “You smell just like him! Look like him, too!”
“If that is you, Peter, then what were you thinking brutalizing the Rogues the way you did?” Max Mercury asked.
“Not Peter,” Dark Mercury replied. “Call me Pietro, if you don’t want to call me Mercury.”
A purple lariat bound the dark speedster’s arms to his sides while a blue blade was held to his throat.
“Whoever you are,” Nightstar hissed, “we will not let this pass.”
“Samara, Raziel, can either of you read him?” Bladefire asked.
“No,” Raziel replied. “We’re trying, but his mind . . . it’s like he’s erected a giant stone wall around his thoughts and we can’t pierce it.”
“The benefits of an accelerated mind,” Dark Mercury answered.
“I think I know what’s going on,” Max spoke.
“And what do you think is going on?” Inferno asked.
“Our battle with Black Flash and Speed Demon spanned time and space and several temporal anomalies were triggered in the process,” Max explained. “One of those anomalies may very well have brought him here.”
“So you’re saying he’s Mercury?” Inferno asked.
“Not the one we know, but definitely a version of him,” Max answered.
“You mind letting go of me now?” Dark Mercury asked.
Nightstar retracted the violet energy that formed her lariat into her body and Bladefire withdrew his energy sword.
“So what do we do with him?” Samara asked. “We don’t know him. He has our friend’s face and powers, but we know nothing of him.”
“I wouldn’t suggest you trust him,” the Flash replied. “In fact, I would recommend you not trust him. He’s spent the past week filling hospital beds in Keystone and Central with the local criminals and the police suspect that he’s been contributing bodies to the morgue.”
“Excuse me,” Dark Mercury said, raising two fingers to one of his ear-caps. “Hostage situation at Central Banking. I’ll be back.”
He raced away, running on the water as though it was solid ground. Kid Flash, Velocity, and Jenny Quick ran after him.
“Give us the money and nobody gets hurt!” the leader yelled.
“What do you want?” a teller asked.
“The money, you dumb bitch!” the leader shouted.
The police were parked outside, their cars arranged to form a barrier to anyone seeking to enter or exit without their permission. Snipers were on the rooftops, ready to put a bullet in the head of any robber that came out still intent on violence. The chief had a megaphone in her hands and was shouting into it.
“We are willing to negotiate, but first you must release the hostages unharmed!”
Suddenly, a blur of discolored silver and dark blue trailing lightning sped into the bank. Barely a second later had the bank erupted into gunfire. Windows shattered and the police could see a blur of motion moving around the gunmen.
“What the hell is going on in there?” the chief asked indignantly.
More blurs - scarlet and silver, black and blue, and crimson and silver - entered the bank amidst the gunfire. Within mere seconds, the hostages were no longer hostages, as they were all safely outside the bank and in the presence of the police.
The gunfire stopped and dead silence followed.
“Get in there,” the chief ordered the SWAT team. “Find out what’s going on in there.”
The SWAT team entered the bank, rifles ready. They found the four teen speedsters standing over the unconscious bodies of the bank robbers.
“Shouldn’t have wasted all those bullets,” Dark Mercury commented. “They might have actually stood a chance.”
“Put your hands up!” the SWAT leader yelled. “You’re all under arrest!”
“For what?” Dark Mercury asked. “These men are brutes. You don’t negotiate with brutes.”
“For interfering with a police operation, smart guy,” the SWAT leader replied.
“Actually, you couldn’t hope to arrest any of us here,” Dark Mercury said.
“Don’t lump us in with you, you maniac,” Velocity muttered.
“You three stay and hash it out with the police if you want,” Dark Mercury muttered back. “I have better things to do.”
He ran, moving faster than any police car could hope to follow even if the driver pushed the car to its fastest.
Jenny Quick sighed. “Maniac.”
“What was that, young lady?” the SWAT leader asked.
“Nothing, officer,” Jenny replied.
Later on, the three teen speedsters were in the chief’s office at the Jump City police station being reprimanded by her.
“This was a very sensitive situation,” she said. “At any moment, those robbers could have started killing the hostages. You’re lucky you’re so fast.”
“We were following someone else,” Jenny spoke. “Unlike us, this someone else has no compunction about breaking bones and if our suspicions are accurate, he’s perfectly willing to kill people to see his ideas of justice carried out. We hoped that our presence would serve as a dampener on his bloodlust.”
“It seems like your hope was in vain,” the chief said. “Those robbers won’t be in any condition to talk for a while. One of them might even be brain-dead if the head trauma turns out to be that bad.” She paused. “And where the hell is this person you were following? I’d like to have a word with him.”
“We’ll pass it on to him, but I doubt he’ll actually come in,” Jenny answered.
“That’s fine,” the chief conceded. “Just let him know if he’s not seen headed here the next time he rears his head, I’ll send Nova Blue after his sorry ass.”
“Sure,” Jenny answered.
The three speedsters walked out of the police station, enduring scattered dirty looks from various officers. They were under no illusions as to what the police thought of them. While metahuman heroes had been trusted and respected for the most part in their parents’ day, the growth of the metahuman population in the last three decades had engendered in regular humans a sort of xenophobic distrust of their super-powered brethren. As a result, the new generation of heroes had a slightly more antagonistic relationship with the police than their parents and predecessors had. Additionally, many police forces had developed a kind of “super-SWAT” specially designed to counter metahuman criminals - as well as heroes that went rogue, a regrettably infamous recurring event.
Once outside, the trio sped back to Titans Island.
“What’s going on?” Kid Flash asked Wally.
“The Titans are voting on whether or not ‘Dark Mercury’ can stay with them,” Wally replied.