Speed Matrix (Teen Titans: Future Storm)
The Titans come back to school and Mercury goes through some changes.
Title: Teen Titans: Future Storm
Arc: N/A
Chapter: Speed Matrix
Fandom: Teen Titans (TV/comic hybrid)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Nil
“This is not an easy decision for me. The five of you have caused me no shortage of distress just by your very presence. You are, to borrow a term from a government far wiser than I have been, persons of mass destruction, liable to endanger your more mortal peers. However, a certain Richard Grayson has fought tooth and nail to compel me to let you all come back. As I do not feel like being sued for being a ‘bigot,’ you’ve all been readmitted to this school. There is one stipulation for your readmission: no powers. No costumes and no powers. I see a flicker of flame or light, I hear the slightest wind, I feel the slightest dent in the walls - and none of you will be allowed to come back ever. Am I clear on this?”
“Are you exaggerating? ‘Cause the flicker of flame could easily be some kid trying to sneak a smoke.”
“I’m sorry; I had no idea this was comedy hour, Mr. Allen. And please, do not slouch in front of me. I expect you to be alert.”
The other four Titans looked uneasily at the two. One was a platinum-haired, amber-eyed sixteen-year-old boy dressed in a gray hoodie and blue jeans, known as both Peter Maxwell Allen and the speedster hero Mercury. The other was a brunette woman in her mid-thirties sitting behind a large mahogany desk, wearing unfashionably large glasses and dressed in a severe business suit, known as Principal Elizabeth Alderman. It was not a big secret that she disliked metahumans, particularly the teenage ones; “the power of gods in hormone-charged bodies,” she was fond of saying.
Currently, Peter Allen had bags under his eyes and was pinching the bridge of his nose. He forced himself into an upright position in his seat, glaring at Principal Alderman. “You know,” he said, “you’d probably not be such a bad person if you had someone in your life. You married?”
“Merrily divorced, not that that’s any of your business,” Principal Alderman sneered. “Any further inquiries about my personal life and you’ll be spending the first week of your schooling in detention. Anyway, I just called you here to make sure you know where you stand with me and in this school. Have a good day.”
The five Titans - Mar’i Grayson, Joh’n Grayson, Peter Allen, Terri Logan, and Jeremiah Crockett - filed out of the principal’s office. Once they had gotten some distance away from the office, Mar’i turned to Peter. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m chill,” Peter replied. “Chill as ice, that’s me.”
“You sure?” Terri asked. “Because you got bags under your eyes. You never have bags under your eyes.”
“I’m ok,” Peter answered. “I’m just feeling a bit out of it.”
In homeroom, Peter watched his new teacher with a vague amount of interest. His new teacher was a woman, a woman in her early thirties with long black hair and silver-green eyes. She was dressed in a creamy blouse and black slacks, which complemented her hair nicely. She was currently writing her name on the digital board via a stylus.
“As you can see,” she said upon finishing, “my name is Miss Winchester. I’m going to spend the next school year as your homeroom teacher and I’d like to get to know you before you all go to your first classes, so introduce yourselves.”
One by one, the students introduced themselves. It was all a blur to Peter, who felt it difficult to focus on any one particular thing. Usually, he could bring himself to focus, as long as he slowed himself down to match the speeds of the people around him. This time, it wasn’t a matter of mental acceleration; it was just a dull throb at the front of his head combined with drowsiness that prevented him from concentrating.
“You, with the bleached hair,” Miss Winchester spoke.
“Uh, me?” Peter asked.
“Would you like to introduce yourself?” Miss Winchester asked.
“Yeah,” Peter replied, rising to his feet. “I’m Peter Allen.”
As soon as he said that, he looked around and saw girls staring at him with lovesick expressions. “Why are you all looking at me like that?” he asked, but the only answer he received was shy giggles and blushes.
“It seems you’re very popular with the ladies, Peter,” Miss Winchester remarked casually. “Anyway, you may sit down now.”
Peter gratefully took his seat as the remaining students introduced themselves. After the homeroom period was over, he went on his way to his first class, which was a physics course. There was one reason he was looking forward to that course and that was his powers. The Speed Force might allow him to defy certain physical laws when using his powers, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t useful to learn.
Unfortunately, he found himself zoning out. Not by any will of his own or lack of interest on his part, but just because of the throbbing in his head and his drowsiness. The typing of his notes on his JCHS-assigned laptop was growing more and more sluggish. Finally, he just collapsed on his laptop and began passing out.
Suddenly, something awakened him, compelling him to snap into an upright position very quickly. “What the f -?”
“Dude, class’s over,” Schuyler answered.
“Aw, man,” Peter uttered. “Mr. Holbrook is going to kill me, isn’t he?”
“No, but he’s not gonna think that highly of you the next time he sees you,” Schuyler quipped.
“I’m glad you can make light of my pain,” Peter groaned.
“Come on, man, what’s wrong?” Schuyler asked.
“Nothing,” Peter replied. “I’m just a bit out of it, that’s all.”
The school day continued on in this fashion up until lunch. Peter would try his hardest to concentrate in class, but would ultimately fail due to his headache and drowsiness. The drowsiness would ultimately drive him into taking an unnecessary and impromptu nap, leaving his teachers severely inclined to hate his guts.
Finally, lunch rolled around and Peter was sitting at the lunch table with his fellow Titans. He had his chin on his chest and his hair hanging down. He looked as though he was sleeping or just too tired to keep his head up.
“What’s happening, man?” Jeremiah asked.
“What do you mean, what’s happening?” Peter asked with false nonchalance.
“It’s been happening for the past week or so,” Jeremiah answered. “You’re constantly tired, you’re hardly able to pay attention to a thing anybody says, and it’s a wonder you haven’t gotten yourself or someone else killed out on patrol.”
“I’m fine,” Peter said. “It’s just . . . I’m feeling a bit under the weather, that’s all.”
“Can’t you just speed that out of your system?” Terri asked.
“I’ve tried,” Peter replied. “It just comes back after I sleep.”
“Even if you wake up tired, shouldn’t you be able to get over it pretty quickly?” Terri questioned.
“Yeah, in theory,” Peter responded. “But it’s not just drowsiness. I have this throbbing headache and it makes thinking hurt.”
“After school, why don’t we take you for a checkup?” Joh’n suggested. “We can even bring in Dr. Mid-Nite for some help.”
“Sure,” Peter acceded.
“Your fangirls are squeeing in your direction,” Terri remarked bitingly, causing the young speedster to turn around and see girls blushing and giggling and squealing quietly around him.
“I don’t get what their problem is,” Peter groaned. “I never asked for fangirls.”
After school was over, the platinum-haired speedster found himself with a considerable amount of homework on his hands and a number of teachers who now hated his guts. The other Titans also had homework, but they probably didn’t have their teachers hating them for no good reason - unless those teachers held anti-meta ideologies. They greeted Samara, who was busy reading a medical textbook.
“How’s college treating you so far?” Jeremiah asked.
“Splendid,” Samara drawled before turning to Peter. “You’re sick.”
“I am?” Peter asked.
“That’s why we’re taking him to the infirmary,” Mar’i said, “so we can find out what’s wrong with him and how to make it better.”
In the infirmary, Samara and Jeremiah attached electrical nodes to Peter’s head and bare torso. Peter just grinned at Samara and asked, “Like what you see?”
Samara didn’t answer him, simply opting to use the machine to which the nodes were connected to run a diagnostic scan of his body and brain. Within a mere five minutes, the scan was complete and she turned even paler than normal, prompting Peter to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” she answered. “Your relationship to the energy that powers you has changed. You’re undergoing a form of mutation as we speak and your body is trying to adapt to it.”
“Mutation?” Peter asked. “Into what?”
“I don’t know,” Samara replied. “But the readings I’m getting are far unlike your regular readings, which indicate some kind of mutagenic process.”
That night, Peter found himself confined to his bed, which he conceded was a good idea. With how he’d been feeling as of late, he probably wouldn’t do much good out there. He had a cold compress on his forehead, but it wasn’t helping the headache go away.
If only Terri came in dressed like a nurse, he thought. I’d start feeling better right away. Without anything else to do, he allowed himself to pass into sleep.
Meanwhile, the five Titans were busily containing a prison break at Alcatraz, which had been revamped about twenty years ago as a prison to contain metahuman criminals. The prisoners were injected with nanites that would allow them to be tracked by the prison supervisors wherever they went, even if they were to escape. Additionally, the prisoners were kept in power-dampening cells specifically attuned to their powers. It was supposed to be foolproof and inescapable, but nothing that was supposed to be foolproof and inescapable actually was. It just took more tenacity, intelligence, and determination than the usual.
Firefly and Dr. Blaze were busy tag-teaming Inferno, both of them assaulting him with their flames, which he absorbed and turned against them. Beast Girl and Gemini were fighting each other in a flurry of shape-changing attacks, Gemini stretching her limbs into vicious blows and Beast Girl morphing into various animal forms to evade and attack. Samara and Hex were throwing shadow magic and hex magic at each other, but Hex spiced up her attacks with surprising bursts of speed that floored the partly demonic girl.
“How did you do that?” Samara asked.
“That’s a secret,” Hex answered teasingly.
Nightstar and Bladefire were fighting Multiplicity, who was multiplying himself constantly. Every time they struck down one of him, two more would simply take his place. Nightstar lashed out with her energy wire, slicing apart various Multiplicities, but Multiplicity-Prime just seemed to keep generating doppelgangers.
Suddenly, multiple blue-silver blurs raced into the scene, attacking the multiple Multiplicities, which found themselves dissipating against the force of the blurs’ assault. Multiplicity-Prime looked around him in confusion and horror as his doppelgangers were eliminated by the blurs.
“Oh, goddammit!” he shouted. “It’s that speed freak again! And he brought friends!”
Several of the blurs split off to deal with Multiplicity, while others moved on to fight the other criminals that had been set loose. Multiplicity tried to multiply himself again, but the blurs’ assault prevented him from doing so. Two more blurs interposed themselves between Beast Girl and Gemini and assaulted Gemini faster than she could follow, let alone react. Gemini tried to catch the blurs in mid-motion, but they were far faster than even she could extend herself. Other blurs attacked Blaze and Firefly, snuffing them out before they could ignite. Hex attempted to attack the blurs on her with hex waves and speed, but even if she could see who it was attacking her, she could not prevent it.
The blurs raced through Alcatraz, leaving criminals desperate for freedom bewildered by the speed and fury with which their dreams were dashed. Even the Titans were surprised by how easily the criminals were contained by the mysterious blurs, which departed following the re-containment of the prisoners.
“Gotta be a speedster,” Inferno concluded. “Nothing on Earth could move that fast without being a speedster.”
“Except who was it?” Nightstar asked. “It seemed to be more than one of them, but speedsters can move so quickly that they seem to be in multiple places at once.”
“It was more than one of them,” Samara answered. “Specifically, more than one of the same person. Those blurs were all guided by a singular mind, which makes me think that it’s a speedster who can duplicate like Multiplicity.”
“Like a hive mind?” Beast Girl asked.
“Yeah, something like that,” Samara replied.
“Whoever it was or whoever they were, we owe him-her-them a ‘thank you,’” Bladefire said.
When the Titans returned to their Tower, Beast Girl went to Peter’s room to see how he was doing. When she got there, she was quite startled to find him not in his bed or anywhere in his room. She immediately pulled out her communicator and flipped it open, calling the other Titans, who sped to Peter’s room.
“What happened?” Nightstar asked.
“He’s gone!” Beast Girl exclaimed. “Peter’s gone!”
Bladefire narrowed his eyes and flipped open his communicator. “I’ve instructed the comm. system to track Mercury’s communicator. If he’s out there, we’ll find him.”
“We might have a problem,” Nightstar said. “His communicator signal is moving rapidly, maybe too rapidly for us to catch him.”
“Where’s he going?” Inferno asked.
“He’s headed east,” Bladefire replied, looking more closely at Mercury’s communicator signal. “If the GPS is right . . . he’s gone to Keystone.”
“What would he want in Keystone?” Inferno wondered.
“We’ll worry about that when we catch him,” Bladefire answered.
In Keystone City, the Flash was trapped in a dome of mirrors created by Mirror Mistress. Each mirror reflected Mirror Mistress’s image, every single Mirror Mistress smiling maliciously at the Scarlet Speedster. The Mirror Mistresses held up laser handguns, pointing them at the Flash.
“Flash,” Mirror Mistress spoke, her voice seeming to come from everywhere. “Are you ready to die?”
“You do realize that if I match my vibrations to the vibrations of your mirror dimension, you’re not untouchable in there anymore, don’t you?” the Flash remarked.
“I won’t give you that chance,” Mirror Mistress answered before her reflections fired their guns at the Flash. The Flash ran, jumped, and flipped all over the inside of the mirror dome, trying to evade the laser blasts. Unfortunately, light moved at 186 thousand miles per second and that was a speed the Flash could not achieve while in such a confined space. Therefore, several of the blasts managed to strike him, much to his discontent and pain. The lasers formed a kind of tangled web, preventing the Flash from moving too much for fear of being hit, as they were all being fired simultaneously.
Suddenly, there was something else moving in those mirrors, blurs of blue-silver attacking the reflections of Mirror Mistress. The Mirror Mistresses attempted to fight back, but the blurs were moving too quickly for them to retaliate effectively. As a result, the lasers stopped firing at the Flash, who looked at the blurs with accelerated perception. His eyes widened in shock when he saw who they were.
What is he doing here? the Flash thought in bewilderment.
As soon as Mirror Mistress was knocked out of her mirror dimension (and just knocked out, period), the blur of blue-silver raced away. The Flash gave chase, determined to find out just what the other speedster thought he was doing. The blur continued to accelerate, however, moving faster than the Flash was willing to move in such a populated area. The Flash forced himself to accelerate, moving closer and closer to the mysterious speedster, who simply sped up again. Ultimately, the Flash was forced to concede the race to the other runner, but that did not matter. He already knew who it was.
By the next morning, Peter Allen awoke, feeling worse than he had when he went to sleep. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stumbled out of his bed, stripping off his clothes from last night and putting on a robe. He staggered to the bathroom and entered one of the shower stalls, throwing his robe over the side and turning on the hot water. He let the burning needles of liquid assault his skin, needing it to wake himself up.
Once he was finished, he reached for a nearby towel with which to dry himself off. After he was done with that, he put his robe back on and walked out of the shower, returning to his room to deodorize and dress himself. He came out of his room wearing a black-and-gray jacket over a royal blue shirt and black pants. When he reached the breakfast table, he found the other Titans waiting for him, all looking at him with very suspicious expressions.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You left the Tower when you were supposed to be resting,” Mar’i replied. “When we were containing a prison break at Alcatraz, you showed up and helped us, even when we told you earlier that you had to rest because we didn’t know if whatever changes you were going through were benign or harmful. Your father even called to say that you were in Keystone helping him defeat Mirror Mistress and then you ran away from him.”
“I don’t remember any of that,” Peter said. “I was sleeping.”
“Was that sleep-running, then?” Terri quipped bitingly.
Mar’i rose from the table and walked into the main room. “Computer, access Alcatraz Prison footage from the previous night, 10:42 p.m.,” she instructed.
Immediately, the supercomputer screen flickered to life, showing footage from last night’s attempted prison break. “Computer, slow down footage to one-twentieth regular speed,” Mar’i instructed. The footage on the screen slowed down tremendously, allowing the Titans to see slightly blurry multiple Mercuries racing around containing the prisoners.
“Those aren’t me,” Peter said.
“They sure look like you,” Samara remarked, “but you’re right. I would have recognized the mind behind those moves and you were never able to replicate before.”
“I think this has something to do with whatever’s changing you,” Jeremiah surmised. “I suggest you go see your uncle Max. If anyone knows enough to figure out what’s up with you, it’s probably him.”
“Good idea,” Peter agreed, “but I have to go to school.”
“With the way your powers are affecting your ability to focus, it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to go today,” Joh’n brought up. “Go to Max. We’ll try to cover for you.”
“Thanks,” Peter said.
While Mar’i, Joh’n, Terri, and Jeremiah went to school, Samara and Peter hung out at the Tower. “Look at it this way,” Peter commented. “You and I can spend more time together, least till your first class comes up.”
“That sounds good,” Samara answered with a small sigh. “I was wrong about you.”
“What do you mean?” Peter inquired.
“When we first started working together, I thought you were an impulsive, reckless idiot with too high an opinion of yourself,” Samara admitted. “Then that day when Terri showed us what that maniac Zookeeper had done to her, you hugged her. You looked upon her real self without flinching or revulsion. That’s when I changed my mind about you. You were still an impulsive, reckless idiot to me, but that wasn’t all there was to you. I followed you sometimes, while you thought you were by yourself, and watched you visit the families of people who got caught in the middle of our battles. You cared. Behind the bravado and the stupidity, you cared.”
Peter blushed. “I . . . never knew you thought that highly of me.”
Samara chuckled softly. “Another reason I changed my mind on you. You’re more humble than you act sometimes. Wanna meditate with me?”
“Sure,” Peter replied.
The two went to the top of Titans Tower, where Samara sat with her legs crossed. Peter mirrored her position and the way she held her hands, with the tips of her index finger and thumb touching. “The key,” Samara said, “is to find your center.”
“And I do this by focusing on a mantra, right?” Peter asked.
“Yes,” Samara confirmed. “Repeat after me: Azarath Terra Zaratha.”
“Azarath Terra Zaratha,” Peter repeated.
The two chanted, repeating “Azarath Terra Zaratha” lowly. As they chanted, Samara began to float off the ground, while Peter remained ground-bound due to the fact that his powers did not involve flight in any way. As he chanted, something else happened to him, though. That something was that he found himself once again disjointed from reality . . . and in a realm he recognized as the Speed Force. He saw the speedsters that had come and gone before him, including . . . the Gale Force of Hell. The sight of the demonic runner sent Peter scrambling to return to the real world.
“What’s wrong?” Samara asked.
“I was in the Speed Force,” Peter replied. “Or my spirit was. I saw Speed Demon there.”
“This might not have been such a good idea,” Samara admitted glumly. “I forgot you can traverse dimensions.”
“It’s ok,” Peter said. “Besides, you have to hurry or you’ll be late to your first class.”
Samara looked at her watch and saw that her speedy companion was right. “I suppose you’re right. Good luck, Peter. You may need it.” With that said, she disappeared into a black warp below her feet, leaving Peter alone with his thoughts. The snow-haired speedster accelerated down the façade of Titans Tower and ran across the river to and through Jump City, moving east until he was in Keystone City. Once there, he found his way to Max Mercury’s home, only to find that the eldest human speedster wasn’t there.
Stupid me, he thought. Of course he’s not home; he’s working. Cursing his impatience, Peter chose to sit on the couch and busy himself with channel surfing. “Soap operas, trashy talk shows, trashy reality TV, music channels that are mostly reality TV and celebrity crap, reruns of sci-fi dramas . . .” The young speedster paused and returned to the last channel, which had a rerun of a sci-fi drama about a crew of space pirates. “Hey, this isn’t so bad.”
Several hours later, Max Crandall - alias Max Mercury - returned to his home to find Peter sitting on his couch watching TV. “Peter, not that I’m not happy to see you, but shouldn’t you be in Jump City with the Titans?”
“There’s something wrong with me, Max,” Peter answered somberly.
“What is it?” Max asked.
“For the past week, I’ve been unable to focus, I’ve been getting headaches, and I’m sleeping my way through half the day,” Peter replied. “Inferno and Samara checked me out and they say it’s because my relationship to the Speed Force has changed and it’s affecting my body. Mutagenic changes, they called it.”
“I’ll try to see what I can do,” Max said. “In the meantime, turn off the TV. I need to be able to concentrate for this to work.”
Peter obediently turned off the television set and Max sat down, beginning to meditate. As he meditated, he reached out to the Speed Force. Normally, it took a level of deep meditation to touch the Speed Force, but this time it was right in front of him. He felt the lightning, just within arm’s length of him. Curious, he extended his Speed Force-granted extrasensory abilities to Peter, only for his eyes to almost open wide in shock. He felt the power of the Speed Force emanating from the boy as though it were pouring itself into and through him . . . and that was when Max realized the truth.
“Peter, I think I know what’s happening to you,” he said once he pulled himself out of his meditative state.
“What is it, Uncle Max?” Peter asked.
“The Speed Force is merging with you,” Max replied. “It’s not a complete melding; the lightning is still a separate realm, but your connection to it has evolved to such a degree that the Speed Force now channels itself through you. As it channels itself through you, it makes you a gateway for it, but it is a gate held ajar. The speedsters within can reenter the world through you, but only if your body contains their spirits.”
“That explains why I could be at Alcatraz last night without knowing,” Peter concluded. “One of the speedsters within the Speed Force took my body for a crime-fighting joyride. And that’s why my dad thinks it was me who stopped Mirror Mistress.”
“I understand if you feel violated,” Max said.
“Damn right I feel violated,” Peter answered sharply. “They had no right, no freaking right to take my body like that. You think you can help me commune with the Speed Force so that I can tell them what’s what?”
“I think you will be able to do that yourself,” Max responded. “The Speed Force is now part of you. You can reverse that connection to send your spirit into it to commune with those who have gone before you.”
“All right,” Peter said. “But show me how.”
Peter meditated, the same way Max did. He stretched his spirit beyond the confines of his body, focused on his center, and found himself being pulled into the Speed Force. It was just like he had left it the first time, an omnipresent energy surrounding him. He could see the deceased speedsters before him.
“Listen up,” he said. “I know you’ve been using my body. You’re probably happy you can go back out into the world for a while, but quit it. That’s my body you’re using and you need to ask permission about that kind of thing.”
A blond man dressed in a red-and-yellow costume with a mask that did not conceal his hair or the lower half of his face stepped forward, none other than Johnny Quick - father to Jesse Quick and grandfather to Jenny Quick. “We’re sorry, Peter.”
“He speaks for all of us,” Barry Allen, the second Flash, agreed. “We should never have taken advantage of you the way we did. We simply had no way of communicating with you and we were so happy to be able to interact with the world again . . . but that’s no excuse, not even if I wanted to see Wally and Bart and Iris.”
“I suppose I can forgive you,” Peter said. “You did a lot of good, while you were using my body.”
Suddenly, the young speedster heard evil laughter as chains of hellfire wrapped around his body. “What the hell?” he asked, as the other speedsters reacted in shock.
“Just the opportunity I’ve been waiting for,” a familiar demonic voice spoke, whirling Peter around to reveal his enemy’s face. It was none other than the Gale Force of Hell, a.k.a. Speed Demon. Stripped of a human host, he was nothing but a humanoid mass of writhing demonic energy. Nevertheless, that did not prevent him from having a very evil expression in his burning eyes.
“Speed Demon!” Peter exclaimed. “How did you get out?”
“Those fools couldn’t hold me,” Speed Demon answered. “I’m going to make them pay for that and you’re going to pay with them while I’m murdering your friends on the outside. I bet they’re back at the Tower by now.”
“Stay the hell away from them,” Peter snarled.
“What are you going to do, speed brat?” Speed Demon taunted before throwing the young speedster into the mass of his fellow speedsters. The demonic runner tore for the gateway leading him to freedom, followed by Barry and Johnny and various other speedsters. Unfortunately, Speed Demon turned out to be faster than they were and escaped into the world . . . and into Peter’s body.
In the material world, Max’s eyes widened in horror when he felt the speed aura around Peter. That wasn’t Peter’s aura . . . it was that of the demon who had possessed Jace. We are all in danger, he thought grimly.
Speed Demon-as-Peter Allen smiled evilly at Max Mercury. “I owe you a debt for imprisoning me,” he sneered as his speed aura formed into black motorcycle leathers with red lightning adorning them. Peter’s eyes, normally amber, were turned a hellish scarlet with glowing embers in his sclera.
“I’m not letting you leave here,” Max said, changing into his costume.
“And what makes you think you can stop me?” Speed Demon asked, crackling hyperkinetic flame forming in his hand. He charged Max with a swiftness equivalent to that of a supercomputer’s processing ability, ready to impale him with the ball. Max reacted quickly enough to grab him by the wrist and throw him into a wall. Speed Demon simply flipped off the wall and kicked Max in the head, disorienting him. He took advantage of Max’s disorientation, flooring him with a wall of punches and kicks in the space of one second. Just before the demon sped away, he spat, “Told you.”
Speed Demon raced west to Titans Tower, bursting through the door upon arriving. He dematerialized through the door, but he wasn’t careful about it, triggering an explosion that shocked the other Titans. Relying on their shock to keep them off-balance, the demonic speedster swiftly took down Nightstar and Bladefire. Inferno shot a wall of fire at Speed Demon, but Speed Demon sucked the kinetic energy out of the flames and turned it on the pyromancer, knocking him into a far wall. Samara lashed out at him with her telekinesis, but he slid through the attack and kicked her in the stomach, knocking the breath out of her. A green tigress lunged at Speed Demon, but the hellish speedster grabbed her by the wrists and fell backward to kick-flip her off him. The tigress shifted into a tiger-human hybrid and landed on her feet, her legs spread out in a split and one hand on the floor.
“You may move like him, but you’re not him,” she hissed.
“Glad you’re so astute,” Speed Demon answered mockingly. “To be honest, you I’m going to enjoy thrashing the most. I hate this boy. I hate him with a passion greater than that with which you could love him. Breaking you with his hands will torment him so . . . and I will enjoy every minute of it.”
The demonic runner dodged a purple optic blast and later a blue optic blast. He moved out of the way of an energy whip and thrown energy knives. A wave of flame shot forth at Speed Demon, which he sliced through. He whirled in that same motion to shatter a telekinetic attack from Samara.
“Nice try, all of you,” he spoke sarcastically, not even looking as he backhanded Beast Girl when she attempted a sneak attack.
“Computer, seal off the Tower,” Nightstar ordered. “Authorization: Nightstar.”
“Sealing Titans Tower now,” the voice of the Titans Tower supercomputer spoke, that speech followed by every entrance and exit in Titans Tower being sealed by gray barriers.
Speed Demon barked out a cruel laugh. “You fools think I’m trapped with you? I’m afraid you have it reversed. You’re trapped with me.”
“And we’ve got you surrounded,” Inferno answered. “I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you.”
What followed was the five Titans attacking Speed Demon from all sides, forcing the demonic runner into overdrive to defend himself. Writhing darkness clawed at Speed Demon, who jumped out of the way and into a kick from Nightstar. He flipped to try to regain control, only to be struck by a fireball. He weathered that well enough, only to be sliced by Bladefire’s energy blade. He speed-healed the resulting wound, only to be slashed by Beast Girl’s claws. Like with the wound from Bladefire’s sword, Speed Demon speed-healed that one. He snapped his fingers at super-speed, triggering a sonic boom that knocked the Titans off him.
Samara, seeing no other solution, engulfed herself in her soul-self and jumped inside Mercury’s body. To her shock, she entered a world filled with an omnipresent energy that was electrifying and surreal. She searched for Mercury, finding him in chains with the deceased speedsters trying to unravel the chains. She stepped into their midst, her form darkness given a humanoid shape resembling her normal visage.
“I can help,” she said. The speedsters parted to allow her near Mercury, sensing that she was no threat to them or Mercury. She touched the ungodly chains that bound him and dissipated them.
“Thanks,” Mercury said, drawing upon the energy surrounding him to form his costume. He charged toward the gateway that was technically his body and reached through it to pull Speed Demon back. In the real world his body just collapsed and passed out, while in the Speed Force he and Speed Demon were battling just outside the gate. “You see that gate? That gate leads to my body . . . my body. Got that?”
“Do you fools really think you can hold me?” Speed Demon asked as he kicked Mercury. “I will find another way to escape. I’m just too fast for the likes of you to actually confine me.”
“And that’s the attitude that cost you,” Mercury retorted as he jumped into the air and kicked Speed Demon repeatedly at super-speed. “You think, because you’re a demon, that you’re so much better than us humans. Guess what? It was humans that kicked your ass!” He accented that sentence with a fierce kick that sent the demon crashing into the midst of the human speedsters. “Learn some goddamn humility!”
Speed Demon prepared to attack, but Samara’s soul-self expanded into a giant raven that engulfed him with her wings. Speed Demon thrashed viciously inside Samara’s soul-self, but she would not release him. “What do you think you’re doing, wench?” he asked angrily.
“Sending you someplace you won’t harm anyone else,” Samara answered, disappearing from the Speed Force with the demonic speedster. Mercury jumped into the shadowy warp just before it closed, wanting to make sure that whatever Samara did with Speed Demon, it would put a permanent end to the threat he posed. The three of them found themselves in a barren dimension with a red sun.
“What is this place?” Speed Demon questioned.
“A place where you can no longer harm anyone,” Samara replied.
Speed Demon attempted to attack her at super-speed, only to find that he was far, far slower than he normally was. This allowed Samara to give him a backhanded smack that knocked him for a loop. An enraged Speed Demon tried to attack again, but Samara whirled into another strike that knocked him to the ground.
“I get it,” Mercury, now a ghostlike entity, said. “The Speed Force is inaccessible in this dimension. Therefore, Speed Demon is more or less harmless, but that means I can’t fight here, either.”
“Exactly,” Samara said. “He poses as much a threat as a normal human child would.”
“Can we go back to the real world now?” Mercury asked. “I don’t like being bodiless and I don’t like not having my powers.”
Samara would have smiled at him if her soul-self had had a mouth. Instead, she contented herself with an amused tilt of her head and took Mercury’s hand, engulfing him inside her and carrying them both back into the real world. In said real world, Mercury awoke in his normal attire and with his eyes their normal shade of amber, only to be fiercely hugged by Beast Girl.
“Is that you, Peter?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he replied, looking her in the eyes. “It’s me.”
The next morning, the Titans - sans a college-going Samara - had just entered the school building. Currently, they were putting away their backpacks and other assorted things in their lockers. While that was happening, Peter sped over to Terri and whispered in her ear, “Wanna do something fun?”
“Depends on what you mean by fun,” Terri answered softly.
Peter’s hands gently grasped Terri’s slim hips. “I think you can guess what I mean,” he whispered.
“Here?” Terri asked with a slight note of panic in her voice. “What if we get caught?”
“We won’t,” Peter replied.
Suddenly, Terri felt a shift in her perceptions. She looked around and saw everything and everyone moving very, very slowly. She would have mistaken them for being frozen, but her acute senses managed to detect some motion, albeit very slow motion.
“What did you do?” she asked, slightly frightened.
“It’s a new trick,” Peter replied. “I’m kind of a conduit for the Speed Force, so I can let it flow through me and into someone else. Look at it this way . . . it means we can have our fun and still be in time for class.”
Terri turned her head to look at Peter and smiled mischievously at him. “How about we do it right here? If we’re as fast as I think we are, then we should be invisible to everyone else . . . or does that scare you?”
Peter smirked and turned her around so that they were facing each other. He pinned her to the locker door and one of his hands reached up to stroke her flaxen locks. “Nothing scares me,” he retorted boldly just before capturing her lips in a heated kiss that quickly became more.