by Neil Gow (with Kell Carpenter)

Part Two

What has gone before?!

Jesse and Jennie have decided that life in LA is getting them down and have resolved to go on a road trip. Sadly, their sojourn to the south has resulted in them stumbling into a battle between their mentors, Green Lantern and the Flash and two villains, The Rival and Hazard. Needless to say, this is not a Good Thing.

A desolate town outside Las Vegas

 " Go on a road-trip, she said. Get out of our rut, she said. Get away from our problems she said..." Jennie-Lynn Hayden, formerly known as the superheroine Jade, fumes at her flatmate, Jesse ( as in Quick)

" mumppfh!"

" Oh I forgot, you can't speak can you? They had the forethought to tie you up by the mouth so you couldn't say your super-speed formula. Clever really, that they should pay so much attention to you and yet for me, they've honoured me with the common or garden rope. Oh how the mighty have fallen. One day I would have been up there with the 'power-dampeners to full' crew, now I'm a sucker for a couple of sheep-shanks and a granny knot! Hey you two!! I'm better than this!!!"

" jddddh!"

" Can you just be quiet! Geez! Some people just can't keep quiet can they?" Jennie sighs and continues her tirade of abuse. The two young women look comedic, sitting opposite each other in the dust of the abandoned town's main street. Occassionally, a dramatically appropriate ball of tumbleweed sweeps past them. A vulture shuffles across the roof of a nearby building. You get the picture? Great.

" I'm not sure who you are, but you better not be hurting my friend!" Alan Scott - the original Green Lantern - strains to break the flexible wooden ties that are holding his hands behind his back - the same ties that are incidentally connecting his hands to his feet. If only the tethers weren't wooden he would be free to save everyone but when the tethers were combined with the rather creative wooden box that his hands are encased in, he is rather helpless. Next to him, suspended in a strange column of flickering speed force, Jay Garrick flickers in and out of focus.

" Now now, you green turkey, that's no way to talk to someone with a little bitty gun that could blow your head off anytime she wanted to, is it?". The attractive red curls of Hazard fall down to touch Alan's forehead as she bends to talk to him face to face. " My grandfather spent years teaching me about probabilities and chance, but he always maintained that in all things, serendipity could take a hand. Imagine both of you stumbling on our little plot so soon, and then dragging these two fledglings into the fray as well?" She grins a rather wide and sick smile. " Talk about killing two birds with one stone?"

" You can't hope to get away with this?"

" Oh please! Spare me the Reader's Digest of Superhero Platitudes! We know we're going to get away with it because we already are. Mr Clariss is spending some quality time with your buddy The Flash there and he's - now let me get this right - attuning himself to the frequency of his speed force? Anyhoo, he's going to leech that old sucker of all his go-juice and then burn through Las Vegas so fast he'll be able to clean out every vault, casino, safe box and purse in the town before they even realise it gone. A few seconds later and it's be deposited in our account in Switzerland and I will never have to sorry about a run in my stocking again! Oh, yeah, the Flash will be severed from the speed force into the bargain, probably aging him enough to leave him a crumbled wreck in the meantime, but Hell, that's just the cherry on the cake, isn't it?"

" And what about the girls?"

" Let's see? They're the added extra. I haven't discussed this with Mr C. so don't take it as gospel, but I reckon there are a good few underworld types that would love to get their hands on them, for the right price, you understand. Now what them underworld types will do, I've no idea...use your imagination?"

Alan tries to lunge for her, but he falls fowards and lands face first in the dirt.

" I'll have my revenge, Green Lantern, oh yes I will..."

" I've finished. Any time I need it, I have his power. Soon, all of the money in Las Vegas will be ours!" The Rival runs his hand down the cheek of Hazard and nods. "This is indeed, a beautiful partnership."

" It is indeed, Mr C. It is indeed."

" Please m'dear, call me Edward. It's been so long since I heard someone's voice, never mind heard my own name." The Rival glowers across at The Flash, no longer suspended in the Speed Force and now a pile on the ground. " He left me alone on the fringes of the Speed Force, knowing that my powers were only temporary. Still, he forgot that I was and am, a scientist and I learned a lot of things when I was left there, like how to steal the force. When my powers finally returned and I could rescue myself, well, I was thrown into a world that I didn't recognise. Computers, space-flight, aliens and oh-so-many heroes. Still, some things never change. Money, revenge and stupidity. So please, call me Edward."

" Ok, Edward. So when do we do the dirty deed? When do we get the money?"

" Patience! Patience! Before we relieve the residents of Las Vegas of their winnings, what can you tell me about our two interlopers?"

" The one with the green-skin is called Jade. She's the daughter of Green Lantern, but from what I've read recently she's lost her powers. I've crossed her a couple of times - if it comes to it, she's mine OK? The other one is Jesse Quick. She used to be a member of the Titans? No, not a flicker of recognition."

" Quick as in Johnny Quick?"

" Possibly. Probably. Never really thought of it."

" And she is a speedster?"

" Oh yes. Not up to 'Flash' levels but she can move it."

" Excellent. Excellent."

" What are you looking so pleased about? Apart from the obvious?"

" You are young, Hazard, you haven't had decades of nothingness to plan your revenge. Obviously, I have. Our current set of circumstances provides us with a unique opportunity to exact some additional enjoyment from the suffering of our captives. First let me go and get some ... incentives, and then we will have some diabolical fun."

In the flicker of an eye, the Rival returns, with some empty containers. " As I'm sure Garrick will be able to verfiy, I was a pretty useful chemist in my day and whilst many things may have changed the basics for explosives have not." He wanders over and grabs Green Lantern by the jaw. " So, I have just spent the tiniest iota of the Flash's power to create and plant explosives all over Las Vegas. Not huge, city-levelling bombs, just small ones, large enough to maim say, a dozen people?"

" You swine Clariss!"

" You haven't seen the half of it yet. This setting, well, it's stirred something deep inside me. Maybe it was all those Saturday Matinees when I was in school? You see, Green Lantern, we're going to have ourselves a gunfight. A showdown. A regualr shootout, to see just who is the best hero here. You are going to match wits with the Flash's protege over there and the woman with the gaudy skin, who I'm told is your daughter, is going to have a throw down with Garrick."

" Never!"

" Oh well. I guess I'll just have to blow up some of my little parcels?" He raises a remote control. " Which one first? The Kindergarten or the Zoo?"

Alan Scott's eyes bulge and he strains in the dust. " No! No! Don't do it man!"

" Then you'll fight her?"

Reluctantly, Alan Scott nods. " Yes.."

Hazard leaps in the air. " Yes! Yes! Yes! You, Edward, are one bad man!"

" I know, I know. Some people have it and some people don't. I, young lady, have it in abudance!"

Jade here again. OK. Let's just take a step aside for a moment to look at the situation. Hazard, the grand-daughter of the Golden Age villain known as the Gambler, and the Rival, an old forgotten foe of the Flash, have hatched a plan to rob Las Vegas. How they got together and if there is any purpose behind this beyond avarice, we don't know yet. Their plan involved luring the Flash and Green Lantern into the fray because they both wanted revenge and they needed Jay's Speed Force. We stumbled along and now not only are they getting the money, but they're having some Sharon Stone style, girl on boy fight action. I love 'The Quick and the Dead.' Leo? What's not to like? However, this is as near to a western gunfight as I want to get.

Oh the standard rules apply. I'm stood in the middle of a dusty street - powerless, can I remind you - facing a rather groggy Jay Garrick. We both have to knock seven colours out of each other or Mr Nasty over there is going to blow up Las Vegas. Nice. If we try to escape, or we try anything clever, he pushes the button. It's your regular Catch-22 situation.

Hazard sits on the steps of a nearby building and announces to no-one in particular. " Ladies and Gentlemen, the first of today's bouts, a first one to die contest between, appropriately, in the green corner, the super-bitch formerly known as Jade. And in the red corner, the rather weak and frankly doomed ex-pin-up of Joggers Weekly, the Flash. Now make this entertaining, because if you don't please Steady Eddie over there, someones going BOOM in old Vegas. Now fight!"

Jennie and Jay look at each other, uncertain what they are supposed to be doing. Jay is staggered and shocked. He couldn't feel the speed anymore. Something has fractured his connection to the speed force. He is totally disorientated.

" Fight damn it!" Clariss waves the detonator at them, his thumb hovering over the killer switch.

Jennie raises an eyebrow at Jay and he starts to move, nothing near his true speed - obviously the speed force that the Rival had leeched from him was not returning like he had threatened - he was still damned fast, as Jennie throws herself to the ground to avoid a half-hearted punch. She rolls and throws out a leg as the Flash doubles back, catching him at the ankle and sending him stumbling.

" Boring! Boring!" Hazard fires off a couple of shots at the ground near Jennie. "Remember - we get to see blood, or it's dismembered kiddies!"

Jay rushes in and grabs Jennie, sweeping her off her feet and carrying her around in circles, apparently in some sort of headlock. In the embrace of the grapple, he tries to talk to her. " Jennie, we need to make this look real or these two psychos are going to kill a lot of people. Give me a few good hits and then let me take you out, OK."

Now Jennie isn't stupid and when one of the most experienced heroes in the world starts talking tactics with you, you listen. Indeed, after a couple of months exposed to Kiku's seemingly endless channels of wrestling, she was looking forwards to trying out some 'moves'. Jay slows down and Jennie pivots and hurls him forwards. She kicks him in the stomach and then punches him in the jaw as hard as she can. A spray of blood erupts from his lip and his head snaps back. He looks up, false anger burning through his eyes and unleashes a flurry of super-speed taps to Jennies chin, knocking her through the air and into a daze. Jennie, in her very best actress mode, swooned and then fell 'unconscious' "

" Go on then, kill her!" Hazard looks genuinely unhappy that she hasn't seen more.

" I've played your game, you've got your blood, but I'll never kill her!"

" He's right, Hazard. Garrick might be able to hit a woman but do you honestly think he would kill his best friends daughter?" Clariss laughs and waves his hand. Flickers of golden energy arc out and spin around the Flash, slowing him down. " Maybe you'll get more joy out of our next little contest."

Jesse stretches her arms and legs and jogs a little on the spot. That was probably the longest she had ever been still and not asleep since her father showed her how to access her hidden speed.

Across the street, Alan Scott stretches too, wiping the dried blood from his nose. He had seen the fight between Jay and Jennie and he hopes that she was alright. Jay would never have done anything to harm her - he was virtually her godfather!

" OK, you two, I can't be bothered with the preliminaries. Just get it on and one of you deliver the goods?!" Hazard looks bored and waves her Derringer in their direction.

Jesse mumbles her mantra and the speed force erupts around her as she sprints towards Green Lantern. Dust flies up behind her, obscuring the view of Hazard and the Rival. Green Lantern reacts in time and takes to the air, gliding out of her reach.

" We don't have to do this Jesse!"

" Yes we do, you old hasbeen!" Green Lantern is taken aback by the aggression in Jesse's voice. A real hatred. " I'm sick of paying lip-service to you and you're establishment cronies. I never got the call to the JSA, did I? I never made the cut!" Jesse runs in the patented Flash circle and the updraft catches Alan by surprise. He spun around and seemed out of control as he plummeted to the ground. Jesse leapt upon him, landing punch after punch, kicking up more and more dust. A huge cloud was billowing around them.

The scuffle continues... and continues. After a few more seconds, the Rival stands up and vanishes. Within seconds the cloud dust disappears to reveal Green Lantern alone.

" She's gone, Rival! She's faster than you thought!"

" You'd think so, wouldn't you? It just goes to show how little you know about me, hero. I'm the Master of the Speed Force now and that little bitch is just another extension of it." He disappears from view and then appears seconds later, with an unconscious Jesse.

" Is she...?"

" Dead? No, I need her intact. I need her speed. Hazard, we've just upped the ante. I want these fools to learn just how much power I have.."

" We have?"

" Yes, we have. You know the layouts of other casinos other than Las Vegas?"

" One or two ...hundred."

" Good, when I take this little girl's speed, we're going to hit them too. All of them. We're going to do the casinos, then the banks and then the palaces. We're going to take all their money and then we'll see what they say, eh? Oh yes .." He sweeps across the street and grabs the gun, turns and puts two wooden bullets into the stomach of Green Lantern.

" DAD!!!!" Jennie's scream echoes around the empty town.

" And now, for you two!" The Rival stands over the unconscious body of Jesse Quick and the frozen body of the Flash and draws his hands up into the air, wrapped in stolen speed force. " Your speed is mine now! MINE!!!!"

The Quick and the Dead Part Three - Green Lantern is bleeding to death, Flash and Jesse have been disconnected from the Speed Force, Jade is powerless and the Rival is hyper-powered. Will the world be at his mercy or will the heroes prevail? Find out in Kell Carpenter's Flash#5!

Next issue - Jesse and Jade have had their hands full with Hazard and the Rival, but what have Kiku and Dwayne been getting up to whilst they are away? Find out in the ultra-rare, once in a lifetime, 'Kiku and the Kid' #8!

Greener Pastures

Take care folks - all comments, good, bad or platypus-related to neil.gow@ncl.ac.uk