The parking lot of Big Belly Burger had become a particle accelerator of violence.
Flash was a blur of red and gold, locked in a deadly dance with Thawne and Zolomon. It was a personal fight—a battle of history and trauma. Thawne was trying to vibrate his hand through Barry's chest, while Zolomon was manipulating the flow of time to slow Barry down.
"You can't save everyone, Barry!" Thawne screamed, his red lightning arcing wildly.
"I can try!" Barry grunted, parrying Thawne's strike and sweeping Zolomon's legs.
Fifty yards away, Elias was having a very different kind of fight.
Elias vs. Savitar & Godspeed
Savitar was massive. He was less of a runner and more of a tank made of speed-metal. He swung a blade the size of a surfboard at Elias's head.
SWISH.
Elias ducked. He didn't just duck; he flattened. His body squashed and stretched like rubber, the blade passing harmlessly over his quills.
"You rely on armor," Elias taunted, popping back up. "Heavy. Slow. Compelling design, but impractical."
Godspeed flanked him. The white-suited speedster moved with a divine precision, creating clones of himself. Three Godspeeds surrounded Elias, throwing lightning bolts.
"Judgment comes!" Godspeed shouted.
Elias yawned.
He reached into his pocket—or rather, into "Hammer Space"—and pulled out a giant, comically large horseshoe magnet.
"Science lesson!" Elias chirped.
He activated the magnet (using his Chaos energy to magnetize it).
Savitar, being made of metal, suddenly jerked sideways.
"What is this sorcery?" Savitar bellowed as he was magnetically dragged toward the magnet.
"It's magnetism, genius!" Elias laughed.
He swung the magnet. Savitar flew through the air, helplessly attached to the magnetic field. Elias slammed the Metal God of Speed directly into the three Godspeed clones.
CLANG-CRASH.
The clones dissipated into white smoke. The real Godspeed stumbled back, looking confused.
"He... he threw Savitar at me," Godspeed muttered. "That's physically impossible. Savitar weighs tons."
Elias tossed the magnet over his shoulder (it vanished into thin air).
"I told you," Elias grinned, dusting off his gloves. "I run on cartoon logic now. You guys are fighting a Looney Tune."
Savitar scrambled to his feet, his armor dented. He was furious. His blue eyes burned with hate.
"I am the God of Speed!" Savitar roared. He began to run in a circle, generating a vortex of cold fusion energy. "I will freeze you in the Speed Force!"
Godspeed joined him, running in the opposite direction to create a vacuum seal. They were trying to suffocate Elias, to trap him in a pocket dimension.
The air grew cold. The pressure dropped.
Elias stood in the center of the vortex. His quills blew in the wind.
"Okay," Elias said. "You want to spin? Let's spin."
He crouched.
Archie Skill: The Atomic Spin.
In the games, Sonic curled into a ball. In the Archie comics, Sonic could vibrate his molecules to destabilize matter.
Elias began to spin. He didn't turn into a blue ball; he turned into a sawblade of reality. The sound was deafening—a high-pitched shriek that shattered all the windows on the block.
He launched himself.
He didn't hit the speedsters. He hit the vortex.
He cut the tornado in half.
RIIIP.
The energy field shattered like glass. Savitar and Godspeed were thrown backward by the backlash of their own kinetic energy.
Elias landed on the hood of a police car (which didn't dent).
"Is that all you got?" Elias asked, checking his nails. "I haven't even used a Wisp yet."
Godspeed panted, clutching his side. "He makes no sense. He doesn't tap into the Speed Force. He generates... chaos."
Savitar stood up, his armor glowing dangerously bright. "Then we stop playing."
Savitar raised his hand. The Philosopher's Stone—the artifact that gave him his power—glowed in his palm.
"I will rewrite your history!" Savitar shouted.
He fired a beam of pure white timeline energy at Elias.
Elias's eyes widened. "Whoa, okay, erasure beam. That's serious."
He couldn't dodge it. It was omni-directional.
So he caught it.
Elias held out his hands. He grabbed the beam of light. His gloves smoked. His sneakers dug into the police car.
"You can't catch history!" Savitar screamed.
"I'm a Paradox!" Elias shouted back, his green eyes flashing. "I don't have a history to erase!"
He squeezed.
The beam crumpled. Elias compressed the timeline energy into a glowing white ball in his hands. It was a ball of pure retcon energy.
"Here," Elias said, winding up like a baseball pitcher. "Return to sender!"
He threw the ball.
It hit Savitar in the chest.
FLASH.
Savitar didn't explode. He glitched. His armor flickered. He screamed as his timeline was scrambled. He turned from Savitar back into his human form (a scarred Barry Allen variant), then back to Savitar, then into a baby, then into a skeleton, and finally... he vanished.
Popped out of existence. Sent to the Speed Force prison.
Godspeed stared at the empty space where Savitar had been.
He looked at Elias.
Elias blew smoke off his finger gun. "Bang."
Godspeed took a step back. "You... you deleted him."
"I sent him to timeout," Elias corrected. "He'll be back in a few seasons. That's how comics work."
Elias blurred, appearing directly in front of Godspeed.
"Now," Elias tapped Godspeed on the nose. Boop. "Are you gonna play nice, or do I have to get the eraser?"
Godspeed looked at the Flash, who was currently holding Thawne in a headlock while kicking Zolomon. Then he looked at Elias, the hedgehog who defied physics.
Godspeed vanished. He ran. He fled the city, deciding that judgment could wait for another day.
Elias dusted off his hands.
"Two down," he called out to Barry. "Need a hand with the gruesome twosome?"