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[Young Justice+FFXIII] Blinded by Light
As some of you know, I live for crossovers. They're the kind of thing that make me squeal because I love it when universes collide - and so this plotbunny came to mind a few months ago. It wouldn't stop gnawing at me, so I figured I might as well show y'all what I have so far and see if it's worth writing about.
A quick couple of notes for those of you who are interested in how I laid out the characters: Earth-16 already messed with the normal timeline, so I took my own liberties for this fic. Kon's supporting cast, Simon Valentine and Sujan Mehra, have became part of Clark's supporting cast (and thus viable for fic-writing purposes here). The blond archeress - she is an archer, despite her love of Vanille's fishing rod - is either Mia or Cissie, I'll let you figure out which one it is!!
Nora, instead of Hope, has been chosen as the lone XIII canon character to become a l'Cie, mainly because I felt bad for her canon story. (Other XIII characters WILL appear later on, but not as party members like Nora.) If this bothers you, I'm sorry, but it's a decision I'm standing by---and because I could, Nora Estheim is now Dr. Nora Estheim.
That being said, I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think, since I don't know if I should write more. :)
Title: Blinded by Light
Rating: PG (may go up to PG-13 later)
Fandoms: A crossover between animated Young Justice and Final Fantasy XIII
Universe: A modified Earth-16
Summary: On a whim, Kid Flash decided to follow Cheshire into the Vestige (a place he technically wasn't supposed to visit) to reclaim whatever it was Cheshire stole. On second thought? That might have been the dumbest decision Kid Flash ever made in his life.
It had started out like any other normal day. Cheshire'd been on the loose on his turf - Central City, no less! - and Kid Flash had been assigned to keep up with her. Well, less like assigned and more like "he saw her, she was clearly up to no good, Batman's orders be damned, HE'S FOLLOWING HER."
Keeping up was the easy part. Figuring out why she wanted to venture out to the edge of town was the hard part. Kid Flash pressed his lips together as he ran forward and ducked behind a giant crate. Up ahead, nothing remained but a giant skyscraper, thrown into the ground hundreds of years ago. He glanced around and watched Cheshire slowly move towards it. Wait, she was headed for the Vestige? That giant skyscraper that came crashing down from another planet hundreds of years ago? It was the one building that he'd always been told to avoid, even as a little kid!
Why the he---why the heck was she going there now? Supposedly, whoever ventured out towards the Vestige never came back. It wasn't like he'd faced worse before, but urban legends usually existed for a reason. For just a millisecond, Kid Flash hesitated before stepping forward. Tightly pressing his goggles against his eyes, he took a deep breath. Now or never, if he just---if he just stopped thinking. He ran, right behind her and straight into the Vestige's heavy doors before they slammed shut.
Kid Flash frowned as he glanced over his shoulder. Dangit, he'd have to find another way out later. Not like he could worry about it now: he had other priorities, like inspecting the layout of the land and figuring out just where Cheshire disappeared to. It didn't take a genius detective like Robin to realize that this place was in horrid condition. Sure, it had technology unlike anything he'd ever seen before (except maybe those Amazo), but it had long since rusted away and flaked off onto the ground. Right beside those run-down piles of rust, pristine crystal statues stood at the head of the lobby. Upon approaching them, KF couldn't help noticing their shine. Compared to those rust buckets, they sparkled and glimmered and felt... almost life-like.
He shivered, cautiously touching one with his gloved hand and pulling back. When it didn't move, he released his breath and moved on. For a moment, he felt like those statues were watching him. Watching... waiting... ready to spring to life at any moment. Why did that thought even enter his mind in the first place? God, the Vestige's condition must be getting to him.
Noticing a tall, sturdy staircase at the end of the room, Kid Flash decided to take that first step and ascend to the top. He could barely make out the wry grin on Cheshire's mask... and sure enough, when he reached the top, his enemy was waiting by another door. Ever-so-gracefully, she descended a step and circled him. "Don't you have somewhere to be, little boy?"
He flinched - it'd been a while since anyone'd gotten this close - before regaining his laidback composure, "Just here to stop you. Why would you even be here, anyways?"
Her mask didn't betray a single emotion, oh, but her voice was laced with the biggest smirk he'd ever heard in his life. "Isn't it obvious? I'm----"
That's when the ceiling above them caved in. Two adults crashed down onto the tile floor and nearly toppled Cheshire and Kid Flash along with them. Lying face-first onto the ground, KF coughed and scrambled to see just who'd interrupted their conversation.
One of them, a woman old enough to be his mother, carefully brushed off the dust from her (no longer white) lab coat. Kid Flash immediately noticed the stetoscope lying around her neck and the identification card neatly pinned to her breastpocket. The tall, dark-skinned man next to her immediately helped her rise to her feet before he looked back at Kid Flash and Cheshire. Judgment colored his voice as he sighed, "Figures we'd run into costumed freaks here."
At the same time, Kid Flash and Cheshire retorted, "Excuse me?!"
They exchanged frigid glares with each other. Kid Flash huffed, turning away from Cheshire... but she merely shook her head before she pulled a dagger out from the edge of her sleeve. Dangling it before the interlopers, she purred, "Then perhaps you'd like to tell these freaks why you're here in the first place."
The stranger sighed, pushing the knife down with his gloved hand and motioning towards his companion, who'd simply started towards the ten foot tall stone doors. "Dr. Estheim needed some mythril for a patient. I'm the idiot stupid enough to protect her."
"Don't call yourself that, dear!" The woman called, motioning for the older guy to follow her. "We'll be out shortly, so don't worry about us."
Kid Flash opened one eye, despite his reluctance to even look in these idiots' direction. "... It's not you I'm really worried about."
Did people even listen to popular opinion these days? KF knew he wasn't be one to talk, considering he just ignored a freaking urban legend, but he couldn't help worrying over that doctor. She clearly knew what she was doing, but coming out here? To the Vestige? What good reason could she possibly have? Ugh, he wasn't going to get answers just by standing around the Vestige. Once Dr. Estheim and her partner left, he could get right back to work and snatch whatever Cheshire stole this week.
"For once," Cheshire remarked as the doors slammed shut, "I might actually agree with you."
"What?" Kid Flash swerved to face her. "You mean about those people and their inability to read directions?"
Cheshire lifted up her mask just to blankly stare at him. "Like we've got room to talk."
She had a point. Kid Flash pressed his lips together for just a second before zooming straight to her. Without warning, he effortlessly rifled through her pockets---only to be greeted with Jade's hand tightly gripping his wrist. She growled with the anger of a thousand suns, "If you even think about---"
"About what?" Kid Flash taunted. "Is this museum piece really that important?"
He jumped, turning towards the stairs and descending the first step, "Then come and catch me." Adjusting his goggles, he began running... only to crash straight into something mid-way. Kid Flash fell straight onto his backside and stared up straight at the most grotesque thing he'd ever seen in his life. It couldn't possibly be human, what with its gaunt face and sunken holes where eyes once were, but it lingered around the hero long enough to send shivers down Kid Flash's spine. Coupled with its gross, brown-tinted, gooey... skin(?), the only resemblance to human life was its ability to walk on two legs.
"Wh-what..." Kid Flash stammered, stepping back up a stair and cursorily glancing at Cheshire. "Behind you!"
She confusedly stared at him, "Behind me?" Following his order, she then swerved to face yet another one of the grotesque creatures. Pulling out her throwing knives, she stabbed the creature's neck and ran towards the opposite side of the room, back towards Kid Flash. The whole situation felt surreal: they were surrounded by incredibly inhuman beings with only each other to count on. Except... he couldn't trust Cheshire; she would run whenever she could.
So Kid Flash attacked first. He punched one of them, straight in the gut, only to have the creatures' skin bind itself to his glove. Its skin was cold to the touch, as if it'd been decaying and dead long before now. KF stared at his glove in horror before willing himself to attack again. And again. And again.
"What do these things even want?" He murmured, staring at them with disbelief. "I don't think they're even aliens."
Cheshire's knives and throwing darts had long been soiled with brown gooey... skin? It wasn't the right word for something so disgusting. KF couldn't place his fingers on just what to call it, but all he knew was that he had to attack. If he didn't, there was absolutely no way he'd come out of this place alive.
With all of his energy, Kid Flash continued the assault on the creature. He didn't know how long he'd been punching - long enough that he could feel sweat dripping down his forehead - but after what felt like eternity, it finally toppled to the floor and crumbled into dust. The others ignored their fallen bethren and continued the onslaught. Kid Flash stepped back, nearly avoiding Cheshire, before he pushed forward and charged into the fray. Aqualad would've called his recklessness foolish, for it wasn't a strategy or any kind of tactical move, but what else could Kid Flash do? He'd never even heard of these things before, let alone seen one!
"I think we need to run," Kid Flash said in-between breaths after the next few went down. "They're starting to surround us."
Cheshire silently nodded, holding her arms out wide as she gutted the rest of the creatures to make a path for them. "Head for the door!"
She didn't have to tell him twice. Kid Flash zipped past the army of the brown goo and immediately began inspecting the door. Noticing the marks where Dr. Estheim and her partner pushed through, KF placed all his weight onto his hands and pushed the door forward as much as he could. "A little help here?"
"Fine." Cheshire sighed, using the rest of her weight to help him. The doors gave way, allowing the two to just squeeze by the incoming army. KF then leaned back against the door and promptly slammed the doors shut behind them. Looking forward, Kid Flash immediately noticed yet another staircase - this one was spiraled - and two wings on each floor. Just how big was this Vestige? And just what was it planning to carry out in the first place?
To make matters even weirder, the whole building felt airy and open-ended, like they'd planned it on purpose to be this vast, giant space for hundreds of people to roam without running into one another. KF turned towards Cheshire, to say thanks, before blankly remembering that he still had Cheshire's artifact on him. Without a second word, he ran towards the staircase as fast as his legs - and this building - could take him. He could barely hear her yelling after him.
Was she giving him a warning...? Nah, couldn't be: Cheshire was all about the awkward flirting and the mind games that usually ended up with some poor hero (usually Red Arrow) in the hospital. Kid Flash screeched to a halt in front of yet another set of metal doors - this time, these doors were gold-edged and much more ornate - and stared above him. The ceilings of this place, in contrast to the rest of the building, had absolutely no decoration whatsoever. Probably because they were so high up: no one could easily clean them, let alone decorate them, unless they could fly like Superboy or M'gann.
Where was he supposed to go to get out of this building now? He couldn't just turn around; he'd still have that massive army to face. Nor could he just cut a hole through--he didn't know how to vibrate through solid walls like Uncle Barry could. That was a skill he'd yet to master, despite the hours of practice. At this point, the only place he could go was back to wherever Dr. Estheim and her assistant were. He needed to warn them about the army and about finding another way out... they were stupid, but Kid Flash wouldn't put their lives on the line because of their lack of intelligence.
After a thorough search of the room - which included five rusted robots, one beleagured crystal statue of some tall guy, an abandoned fishing rod, a recently-broken glass beaker, and one gold bracelet - Kid Flash finally found them at the edge of the right wing, near a tall window. Dr. Estheim knelt near the ground as she precariously sifted through the metals left behind eons ago. Her partner stood beside her silently the whole time, though he noticed the superhero first.
Dr. Estheim began, "Doesn't look like he's here---"
It was the assistant who noticed him first. "What do you want, Kid?"
Kid Flash narrowed his eyes. "Just trying to save your lives. You know the way you came in? That's sort of not an option any more."
Now that he'd properly gotten attention from both Dr. Estheim and... whatever his name was, KF wasn't quite sure what to do with it. "Sujan," Dr. Estheim began, rising to her feet. "I think that covers just about everything."
So that was his name! Sujan followed his boss, but not before picking a necklace off the ground and handing it over to her. "Here," He said, carefully tucking it in her pockets. "You should be more careful with this."
"Whatever," Kid Flash huffed, turning to leave. "We can take our sweet time and die, or we can..."
He hesitated upon hearing an inhuman wail. It instantly grated on his nerves, not unlike his old History teacher's fingernails against a chalkboard. To it - and honestly, the empty air around them - Kid Flash zoomed off and waved his fist in the air, "Just knock it off already!"
Sujan murmured, "And to think, we've got to follow him out of here."
As if this day hadn't been going well already. Kid Flash cursed under his breath before leading the way back towards the staircase, back past the robots and the fishing rod and the---
"Simon!"
The Simon? The statue had a name? KF stopped mid-step as Sujan rushed over to the statue and tightly gripped the statue's crystalline fingers. "Don't worry, Simon, we'll get you out of here."
Dr. Estheim's entire face softened as she approached Sujan. Gently placing a hand on his shoulder, she murmured, "I know you will. But right now, we should probably figure out a way to---"
"No way," Sujan insisted, breaking free from his boss. "I'm staying with him and that's the end of that."
"Dude, even if you die here?" Kid Flash interrupted, waving his hands in the air at them. "I don't know why you're crazy enough to name that statue after a person, but..."
Sujan glared at KF. With a loud 'hmph,' Sujan then lovingly inspected the statue and carefully traced his fingers down the statue's shoulder, "It's okay, the hero doesn't know any better..."
Dr. Estheim smiled sheepishly at Kid Flash as she sidestepped the forlorn couple, "It's a long story... but that's actually Sujan's fiance."
"Fiance...?" Kid Flash tilted his head to the side. "Wait, you mean the guy was gonna get married to that?!"
"Well, yes," Sujan rolled his eyes. "That's not too hard to believe, right? That two guys would willingly marry---"
"Dude, there's gotta be some law against you marrying a statue." Kid Flash retorted, folding his arms and standing on the very tips of his toes to seem as intimidating as possible. "I mean, come on... that'd make you crazy."
Dr. Estheim couldn't hide her laughter. Despite his frustration (and slight exasperation at the kid), Sujan couldn't help snorting every so slightly at her. Wordlessly, he reluctantly released his grip from Simon's hands and followed the two back towards the large glided doors. "Crazy, huh?" Sujan couldn't help asking. "Guess I could live knowing that one of the world's weirdest heroes thinks I'm crazy..."
His insult might have backfired spectacularly, but Kid Flash found that he was oddly at peace with the idea as he stepped forward and pushed the glided door open. "Only for marrying an inanimate object. It's like the news from Florida: you never think people're stupid enough to go through with it," KF chuckled as he and Sujan walked through and passed another dizzying row of crystal statues.
"Those poor people," Dr. Estheim murmured as she glanced over at two in particular.
They knew something about those crazy statues and the robots that Kid Flash didn't. Now he was starting to doubt the good doctor's original excuse: she wouldn't really be looking for mythril in a place like this. No, maybe... maybe she was just as interested in the crystal statue as Sujan was. But why? Weren't they just as weird to look at as those gross gooey things?
The sound of metal awkwardly clashing against itself disrupted his thoughts. "Um..." Kid Flash began, pointing ahead towards the totally open set of doors. "Shouldn't we check that out?"
Then, without further consultation from either Dr. Estheim or Sujan, Kid Flash ran ahead and zipped towards the source of the strange metallic clacks: a teenage girl hitting against one of the largest machines he'd ever seen in his life. She continued battering her fishing rod against the machine, despite the effort dealing absolutely no damage, until Kid Flash loudly stomped on the ground and called, "Hey!"
"Hey what?" The girl frowned, casually glancing in his direction as she continued to beat on the machine. "Can't you see I'm trying to ask the statue for my friend back?"
"Is that what they call it these days?" Kid Flash teased, folding his arms as he walked away and leaned against the wall. "I don't know, sweetheart... it doesn't look like it's working."
For a stubborn girl, she was awfully cute, with her long blond hair carefully tied up in a ponytail and her icy blue eyes boring holes straight into the machine's circuitry. She shot him one of those frosty glares before continuing to work on the machine's outer layer, "It has to work! He said it would work!"
He? Kid Flash opened his mouth, to ask who it was, but he could feel something crawling up his sleeve---
"Cheshire." He gritted through his teeth, tightly gripping her hands as tightly as he could. "Just what do you think you're doing?"
"Only reclaiming what's rightfully mine," she whispered in his ear. Attempting to break free from his grip, she spun him around and nearly pinned him to the wall. "You think I'd leave here without it?"
"Aaaand you two are back to dating," Sujan announced as he and Dr. Estheim walked through. "I thought heroes and villains weren't really into that though?"
Kid Flash grimaced, punching Cheshire back against the opposite end of the room, "Shut up Sujan!"
"He's in an energetic mood," Dr. Estheim responded, more matter-of-fact than with any emotion whatsoever. Out of the corner of his eye, Kid Flash could see the machine sizzle with electritcity. The entire room shook under his feet; even Cheshire fell to her knees in complete shock. The girl - the one he'd just met - even stepped back with slight horror as the wires sprung up from the floor and lashed out at her. She jumped, but strangely enough? She didn't run away.
Instead, she moved her fishing rod back and assumed an offensive stance. "Finally," she grinned manaically. "It's about time I got answers!"
The whole mood felt like something in one of Robin's sci-fi video games: everyone - even Dr. Estheim - assumed weapons as wires struck out against them. The girl had her fishing rod, Sujan equipped his brass knuckles, Dr. Estheim tossed her collapsible boomerang against the wires and managed to fell two of them, and even...
Even Cheshire had her throwing knives. But what did Kid Flash have? His bare knuckles and nearly uncontrollable speed? That should work against the machine. It had to work! What else could they do but beat the thing into submission? The Vestige was too old for power outlets; whatever this thing was running on, it wasn't very plausible.
As fast as he could, Kid Flash punched the central hardware again. And again. And until his knuckles started bleeding. He didn't have a choice! That thing was going to beat him up, and there was no way he could deal with that, Cheshire was going to steal back whatever she stole in the first place, and then he'd have to deal with Batman, and then Red Arrow would get all jealous because Cheshire flirted with him and not Red Arrow and---
And the machine's wires just completely consumed Kid Flash. He gulped, catching another breath of air before that thing squeezed him into submission. He couldn't die now! He just couldn't!
His entire life flashed before his eyes: strange images with numbers, a strange creature flying off into the sky and destroying things, the Seattle Tower... were these even things he'd seen before? They were all so vivid, so fast, so... so colorful that he was sure he was supposed to glean something from it.
The last image - a giant creature with two horns that stretched so wide and so far, and wings that spread over whole cities - burned sharply in his mind. Kid Flash screamed (not unlike a little girl) and then collasped to the ground. The next time he opened his eyes, he gazed up at the burning, hot, open sky before him... and then at all the sand that surrounded him.
"Huh...?" He murmured, rolling to the side and slowly - ever so slowly - rising to his feet. The others from the fight before all lay beside him, each in various states of unconsciousness. Without meaning to, Kid Flash whispered, "Wh-Where am I...?"
Sujan greeted him from his perch on the brick wall and motioned for Kid Flash to sit beside him. When the hero refused, Sujan then grimly nodded towards the vast path of destruction and ruin behind them and pointed straight at the highway path sign. "Kid? Welcome to Miami."
A quick couple of notes for those of you who are interested in how I laid out the characters: Earth-16 already messed with the normal timeline, so I took my own liberties for this fic. Kon's supporting cast, Simon Valentine and Sujan Mehra, have became part of Clark's supporting cast (and thus viable for fic-writing purposes here). The blond archeress - she is an archer, despite her love of Vanille's fishing rod - is either Mia or Cissie, I'll let you figure out which one it is!!
Nora, instead of Hope, has been chosen as the lone XIII canon character to become a l'Cie, mainly because I felt bad for her canon story. (Other XIII characters WILL appear later on, but not as party members like Nora.) If this bothers you, I'm sorry, but it's a decision I'm standing by---and because I could, Nora Estheim is now Dr. Nora Estheim.
That being said, I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think, since I don't know if I should write more. :)
Title: Blinded by Light
Rating: PG (may go up to PG-13 later)
Fandoms: A crossover between animated Young Justice and Final Fantasy XIII
Universe: A modified Earth-16
Summary: On a whim, Kid Flash decided to follow Cheshire into the Vestige (a place he technically wasn't supposed to visit) to reclaim whatever it was Cheshire stole. On second thought? That might have been the dumbest decision Kid Flash ever made in his life.
It had started out like any other normal day. Cheshire'd been on the loose on his turf - Central City, no less! - and Kid Flash had been assigned to keep up with her. Well, less like assigned and more like "he saw her, she was clearly up to no good, Batman's orders be damned, HE'S FOLLOWING HER."
Keeping up was the easy part. Figuring out why she wanted to venture out to the edge of town was the hard part. Kid Flash pressed his lips together as he ran forward and ducked behind a giant crate. Up ahead, nothing remained but a giant skyscraper, thrown into the ground hundreds of years ago. He glanced around and watched Cheshire slowly move towards it. Wait, she was headed for the Vestige? That giant skyscraper that came crashing down from another planet hundreds of years ago? It was the one building that he'd always been told to avoid, even as a little kid!
Why the he---why the heck was she going there now? Supposedly, whoever ventured out towards the Vestige never came back. It wasn't like he'd faced worse before, but urban legends usually existed for a reason. For just a millisecond, Kid Flash hesitated before stepping forward. Tightly pressing his goggles against his eyes, he took a deep breath. Now or never, if he just---if he just stopped thinking. He ran, right behind her and straight into the Vestige's heavy doors before they slammed shut.
Kid Flash frowned as he glanced over his shoulder. Dangit, he'd have to find another way out later. Not like he could worry about it now: he had other priorities, like inspecting the layout of the land and figuring out just where Cheshire disappeared to. It didn't take a genius detective like Robin to realize that this place was in horrid condition. Sure, it had technology unlike anything he'd ever seen before (except maybe those Amazo), but it had long since rusted away and flaked off onto the ground. Right beside those run-down piles of rust, pristine crystal statues stood at the head of the lobby. Upon approaching them, KF couldn't help noticing their shine. Compared to those rust buckets, they sparkled and glimmered and felt... almost life-like.
He shivered, cautiously touching one with his gloved hand and pulling back. When it didn't move, he released his breath and moved on. For a moment, he felt like those statues were watching him. Watching... waiting... ready to spring to life at any moment. Why did that thought even enter his mind in the first place? God, the Vestige's condition must be getting to him.
Noticing a tall, sturdy staircase at the end of the room, Kid Flash decided to take that first step and ascend to the top. He could barely make out the wry grin on Cheshire's mask... and sure enough, when he reached the top, his enemy was waiting by another door. Ever-so-gracefully, she descended a step and circled him. "Don't you have somewhere to be, little boy?"
He flinched - it'd been a while since anyone'd gotten this close - before regaining his laidback composure, "Just here to stop you. Why would you even be here, anyways?"
Her mask didn't betray a single emotion, oh, but her voice was laced with the biggest smirk he'd ever heard in his life. "Isn't it obvious? I'm----"
That's when the ceiling above them caved in. Two adults crashed down onto the tile floor and nearly toppled Cheshire and Kid Flash along with them. Lying face-first onto the ground, KF coughed and scrambled to see just who'd interrupted their conversation.
One of them, a woman old enough to be his mother, carefully brushed off the dust from her (no longer white) lab coat. Kid Flash immediately noticed the stetoscope lying around her neck and the identification card neatly pinned to her breastpocket. The tall, dark-skinned man next to her immediately helped her rise to her feet before he looked back at Kid Flash and Cheshire. Judgment colored his voice as he sighed, "Figures we'd run into costumed freaks here."
At the same time, Kid Flash and Cheshire retorted, "Excuse me?!"
They exchanged frigid glares with each other. Kid Flash huffed, turning away from Cheshire... but she merely shook her head before she pulled a dagger out from the edge of her sleeve. Dangling it before the interlopers, she purred, "Then perhaps you'd like to tell these freaks why you're here in the first place."
The stranger sighed, pushing the knife down with his gloved hand and motioning towards his companion, who'd simply started towards the ten foot tall stone doors. "Dr. Estheim needed some mythril for a patient. I'm the idiot stupid enough to protect her."
"Don't call yourself that, dear!" The woman called, motioning for the older guy to follow her. "We'll be out shortly, so don't worry about us."
Kid Flash opened one eye, despite his reluctance to even look in these idiots' direction. "... It's not you I'm really worried about."
Did people even listen to popular opinion these days? KF knew he wasn't be one to talk, considering he just ignored a freaking urban legend, but he couldn't help worrying over that doctor. She clearly knew what she was doing, but coming out here? To the Vestige? What good reason could she possibly have? Ugh, he wasn't going to get answers just by standing around the Vestige. Once Dr. Estheim and her partner left, he could get right back to work and snatch whatever Cheshire stole this week.
"For once," Cheshire remarked as the doors slammed shut, "I might actually agree with you."
"What?" Kid Flash swerved to face her. "You mean about those people and their inability to read directions?"
Cheshire lifted up her mask just to blankly stare at him. "Like we've got room to talk."
She had a point. Kid Flash pressed his lips together for just a second before zooming straight to her. Without warning, he effortlessly rifled through her pockets---only to be greeted with Jade's hand tightly gripping his wrist. She growled with the anger of a thousand suns, "If you even think about---"
"About what?" Kid Flash taunted. "Is this museum piece really that important?"
He jumped, turning towards the stairs and descending the first step, "Then come and catch me." Adjusting his goggles, he began running... only to crash straight into something mid-way. Kid Flash fell straight onto his backside and stared up straight at the most grotesque thing he'd ever seen in his life. It couldn't possibly be human, what with its gaunt face and sunken holes where eyes once were, but it lingered around the hero long enough to send shivers down Kid Flash's spine. Coupled with its gross, brown-tinted, gooey... skin(?), the only resemblance to human life was its ability to walk on two legs.
"Wh-what..." Kid Flash stammered, stepping back up a stair and cursorily glancing at Cheshire. "Behind you!"
She confusedly stared at him, "Behind me?" Following his order, she then swerved to face yet another one of the grotesque creatures. Pulling out her throwing knives, she stabbed the creature's neck and ran towards the opposite side of the room, back towards Kid Flash. The whole situation felt surreal: they were surrounded by incredibly inhuman beings with only each other to count on. Except... he couldn't trust Cheshire; she would run whenever she could.
So Kid Flash attacked first. He punched one of them, straight in the gut, only to have the creatures' skin bind itself to his glove. Its skin was cold to the touch, as if it'd been decaying and dead long before now. KF stared at his glove in horror before willing himself to attack again. And again. And again.
"What do these things even want?" He murmured, staring at them with disbelief. "I don't think they're even aliens."
Cheshire's knives and throwing darts had long been soiled with brown gooey... skin? It wasn't the right word for something so disgusting. KF couldn't place his fingers on just what to call it, but all he knew was that he had to attack. If he didn't, there was absolutely no way he'd come out of this place alive.
With all of his energy, Kid Flash continued the assault on the creature. He didn't know how long he'd been punching - long enough that he could feel sweat dripping down his forehead - but after what felt like eternity, it finally toppled to the floor and crumbled into dust. The others ignored their fallen bethren and continued the onslaught. Kid Flash stepped back, nearly avoiding Cheshire, before he pushed forward and charged into the fray. Aqualad would've called his recklessness foolish, for it wasn't a strategy or any kind of tactical move, but what else could Kid Flash do? He'd never even heard of these things before, let alone seen one!
"I think we need to run," Kid Flash said in-between breaths after the next few went down. "They're starting to surround us."
Cheshire silently nodded, holding her arms out wide as she gutted the rest of the creatures to make a path for them. "Head for the door!"
She didn't have to tell him twice. Kid Flash zipped past the army of the brown goo and immediately began inspecting the door. Noticing the marks where Dr. Estheim and her partner pushed through, KF placed all his weight onto his hands and pushed the door forward as much as he could. "A little help here?"
"Fine." Cheshire sighed, using the rest of her weight to help him. The doors gave way, allowing the two to just squeeze by the incoming army. KF then leaned back against the door and promptly slammed the doors shut behind them. Looking forward, Kid Flash immediately noticed yet another staircase - this one was spiraled - and two wings on each floor. Just how big was this Vestige? And just what was it planning to carry out in the first place?
To make matters even weirder, the whole building felt airy and open-ended, like they'd planned it on purpose to be this vast, giant space for hundreds of people to roam without running into one another. KF turned towards Cheshire, to say thanks, before blankly remembering that he still had Cheshire's artifact on him. Without a second word, he ran towards the staircase as fast as his legs - and this building - could take him. He could barely hear her yelling after him.
Was she giving him a warning...? Nah, couldn't be: Cheshire was all about the awkward flirting and the mind games that usually ended up with some poor hero (usually Red Arrow) in the hospital. Kid Flash screeched to a halt in front of yet another set of metal doors - this time, these doors were gold-edged and much more ornate - and stared above him. The ceilings of this place, in contrast to the rest of the building, had absolutely no decoration whatsoever. Probably because they were so high up: no one could easily clean them, let alone decorate them, unless they could fly like Superboy or M'gann.
Where was he supposed to go to get out of this building now? He couldn't just turn around; he'd still have that massive army to face. Nor could he just cut a hole through--he didn't know how to vibrate through solid walls like Uncle Barry could. That was a skill he'd yet to master, despite the hours of practice. At this point, the only place he could go was back to wherever Dr. Estheim and her assistant were. He needed to warn them about the army and about finding another way out... they were stupid, but Kid Flash wouldn't put their lives on the line because of their lack of intelligence.
After a thorough search of the room - which included five rusted robots, one beleagured crystal statue of some tall guy, an abandoned fishing rod, a recently-broken glass beaker, and one gold bracelet - Kid Flash finally found them at the edge of the right wing, near a tall window. Dr. Estheim knelt near the ground as she precariously sifted through the metals left behind eons ago. Her partner stood beside her silently the whole time, though he noticed the superhero first.
Dr. Estheim began, "Doesn't look like he's here---"
It was the assistant who noticed him first. "What do you want, Kid?"
Kid Flash narrowed his eyes. "Just trying to save your lives. You know the way you came in? That's sort of not an option any more."
Now that he'd properly gotten attention from both Dr. Estheim and... whatever his name was, KF wasn't quite sure what to do with it. "Sujan," Dr. Estheim began, rising to her feet. "I think that covers just about everything."
So that was his name! Sujan followed his boss, but not before picking a necklace off the ground and handing it over to her. "Here," He said, carefully tucking it in her pockets. "You should be more careful with this."
"Whatever," Kid Flash huffed, turning to leave. "We can take our sweet time and die, or we can..."
He hesitated upon hearing an inhuman wail. It instantly grated on his nerves, not unlike his old History teacher's fingernails against a chalkboard. To it - and honestly, the empty air around them - Kid Flash zoomed off and waved his fist in the air, "Just knock it off already!"
Sujan murmured, "And to think, we've got to follow him out of here."
As if this day hadn't been going well already. Kid Flash cursed under his breath before leading the way back towards the staircase, back past the robots and the fishing rod and the---
"Simon!"
The Simon? The statue had a name? KF stopped mid-step as Sujan rushed over to the statue and tightly gripped the statue's crystalline fingers. "Don't worry, Simon, we'll get you out of here."
Dr. Estheim's entire face softened as she approached Sujan. Gently placing a hand on his shoulder, she murmured, "I know you will. But right now, we should probably figure out a way to---"
"No way," Sujan insisted, breaking free from his boss. "I'm staying with him and that's the end of that."
"Dude, even if you die here?" Kid Flash interrupted, waving his hands in the air at them. "I don't know why you're crazy enough to name that statue after a person, but..."
Sujan glared at KF. With a loud 'hmph,' Sujan then lovingly inspected the statue and carefully traced his fingers down the statue's shoulder, "It's okay, the hero doesn't know any better..."
Dr. Estheim smiled sheepishly at Kid Flash as she sidestepped the forlorn couple, "It's a long story... but that's actually Sujan's fiance."
"Fiance...?" Kid Flash tilted his head to the side. "Wait, you mean the guy was gonna get married to that?!"
"Well, yes," Sujan rolled his eyes. "That's not too hard to believe, right? That two guys would willingly marry---"
"Dude, there's gotta be some law against you marrying a statue." Kid Flash retorted, folding his arms and standing on the very tips of his toes to seem as intimidating as possible. "I mean, come on... that'd make you crazy."
Dr. Estheim couldn't hide her laughter. Despite his frustration (and slight exasperation at the kid), Sujan couldn't help snorting every so slightly at her. Wordlessly, he reluctantly released his grip from Simon's hands and followed the two back towards the large glided doors. "Crazy, huh?" Sujan couldn't help asking. "Guess I could live knowing that one of the world's weirdest heroes thinks I'm crazy..."
His insult might have backfired spectacularly, but Kid Flash found that he was oddly at peace with the idea as he stepped forward and pushed the glided door open. "Only for marrying an inanimate object. It's like the news from Florida: you never think people're stupid enough to go through with it," KF chuckled as he and Sujan walked through and passed another dizzying row of crystal statues.
"Those poor people," Dr. Estheim murmured as she glanced over at two in particular.
They knew something about those crazy statues and the robots that Kid Flash didn't. Now he was starting to doubt the good doctor's original excuse: she wouldn't really be looking for mythril in a place like this. No, maybe... maybe she was just as interested in the crystal statue as Sujan was. But why? Weren't they just as weird to look at as those gross gooey things?
The sound of metal awkwardly clashing against itself disrupted his thoughts. "Um..." Kid Flash began, pointing ahead towards the totally open set of doors. "Shouldn't we check that out?"
Then, without further consultation from either Dr. Estheim or Sujan, Kid Flash ran ahead and zipped towards the source of the strange metallic clacks: a teenage girl hitting against one of the largest machines he'd ever seen in his life. She continued battering her fishing rod against the machine, despite the effort dealing absolutely no damage, until Kid Flash loudly stomped on the ground and called, "Hey!"
"Hey what?" The girl frowned, casually glancing in his direction as she continued to beat on the machine. "Can't you see I'm trying to ask the statue for my friend back?"
"Is that what they call it these days?" Kid Flash teased, folding his arms as he walked away and leaned against the wall. "I don't know, sweetheart... it doesn't look like it's working."
For a stubborn girl, she was awfully cute, with her long blond hair carefully tied up in a ponytail and her icy blue eyes boring holes straight into the machine's circuitry. She shot him one of those frosty glares before continuing to work on the machine's outer layer, "It has to work! He said it would work!"
He? Kid Flash opened his mouth, to ask who it was, but he could feel something crawling up his sleeve---
"Cheshire." He gritted through his teeth, tightly gripping her hands as tightly as he could. "Just what do you think you're doing?"
"Only reclaiming what's rightfully mine," she whispered in his ear. Attempting to break free from his grip, she spun him around and nearly pinned him to the wall. "You think I'd leave here without it?"
"Aaaand you two are back to dating," Sujan announced as he and Dr. Estheim walked through. "I thought heroes and villains weren't really into that though?"
Kid Flash grimaced, punching Cheshire back against the opposite end of the room, "Shut up Sujan!"
"He's in an energetic mood," Dr. Estheim responded, more matter-of-fact than with any emotion whatsoever. Out of the corner of his eye, Kid Flash could see the machine sizzle with electritcity. The entire room shook under his feet; even Cheshire fell to her knees in complete shock. The girl - the one he'd just met - even stepped back with slight horror as the wires sprung up from the floor and lashed out at her. She jumped, but strangely enough? She didn't run away.
Instead, she moved her fishing rod back and assumed an offensive stance. "Finally," she grinned manaically. "It's about time I got answers!"
The whole mood felt like something in one of Robin's sci-fi video games: everyone - even Dr. Estheim - assumed weapons as wires struck out against them. The girl had her fishing rod, Sujan equipped his brass knuckles, Dr. Estheim tossed her collapsible boomerang against the wires and managed to fell two of them, and even...
Even Cheshire had her throwing knives. But what did Kid Flash have? His bare knuckles and nearly uncontrollable speed? That should work against the machine. It had to work! What else could they do but beat the thing into submission? The Vestige was too old for power outlets; whatever this thing was running on, it wasn't very plausible.
As fast as he could, Kid Flash punched the central hardware again. And again. And until his knuckles started bleeding. He didn't have a choice! That thing was going to beat him up, and there was no way he could deal with that, Cheshire was going to steal back whatever she stole in the first place, and then he'd have to deal with Batman, and then Red Arrow would get all jealous because Cheshire flirted with him and not Red Arrow and---
And the machine's wires just completely consumed Kid Flash. He gulped, catching another breath of air before that thing squeezed him into submission. He couldn't die now! He just couldn't!
His entire life flashed before his eyes: strange images with numbers, a strange creature flying off into the sky and destroying things, the Seattle Tower... were these even things he'd seen before? They were all so vivid, so fast, so... so colorful that he was sure he was supposed to glean something from it.
The last image - a giant creature with two horns that stretched so wide and so far, and wings that spread over whole cities - burned sharply in his mind. Kid Flash screamed (not unlike a little girl) and then collasped to the ground. The next time he opened his eyes, he gazed up at the burning, hot, open sky before him... and then at all the sand that surrounded him.
"Huh...?" He murmured, rolling to the side and slowly - ever so slowly - rising to his feet. The others from the fight before all lay beside him, each in various states of unconsciousness. Without meaning to, Kid Flash whispered, "Wh-Where am I...?"
Sujan greeted him from his perch on the brick wall and motioned for Kid Flash to sit beside him. When the hero refused, Sujan then grimly nodded towards the vast path of destruction and ruin behind them and pointed straight at the highway path sign. "Kid? Welcome to Miami."