The streets of Central City had devolved into an absolute war zone.
Streetlights flickered and popped as a chaotic, high-octane chase tore through the asphalt arteries of downtown.
In the upper air currents, Jake punched through a thick cloud of swirling shadow blades, his dragon wings beating a furious, rhythmic tattoo.
One arm was clamped tight around Haley, who was still fast asleep against his chest, blissfully snoring through the apocalypse.
Because he couldn't risk her safety again, Jake couldn't fully shift into his massive dragon form—he was stuck in a half-transformed state, scales glinting under the neon signs, gritting his teeth against the biting wind.
Down on the pavement, Wally West was sprinting fast enough to leave scorched skid marks on the concrete, absolutely losing his mind.
"Are you kidding me right now?!" Wally shrieked, ducking low as a towering, multi-eyed shadow centipede lunged from a fire escape, its mandibles snapping shut inches from his hair. "I was supposed to be eating fries and screaming the lyrics to 'Hot Girl Anthem' in row three! But no. Instead, here I'm, playing track coach to a flying lizard and a literal zoo of Hot Topic rejects!"
Floating a block behind them, her face warped into a hideous snarl of pure malice, Gnathia shrieked commands at her surging army.
"I am going to peel you both open from skin to skin!" Gnathia's voice echoed directly into their skulls, screeching with demonic resonance. "I'll start with the boy in red, unspooling your intestines like cheap yarn while you're still screaming, and then I'll grind the winged freak's bones into dust, limb by agonizing limb, until—!"
"Oh, my god, lady, take a creative writing class!" Wally yelled over his shoulder, dodging a flurry of jagged shadow shrapnel by backflipping over a parked sedan. "Seriously! Write a horror movie script, pitch it to a studio, direct an indie film, anything! Stop narrating your weird murder fantasies to teenagers in the middle of a public street!"
"Shut up, Squirrel!" Jake roared from above, spinning his body like a stunt pilot as a flock of massive, razor-winged shadow bats dove toward him.
Jake snapped his head back, unleashing a searing torrent of crimson dragon fire that turned the lead bats into instant cinders, the smell of burnt sulfur filling the night air.
He banked hard, using a thermal updraft to slide between a pair of skyscrapers like Maverick in a jet fighter.
Behind him, a fresh swarm of imps shrieked, diving through the alleyways to swarm his flanks.
Wally, meanwhile, was executing a masterclass in chaotic heroics.
While his brain was screaming in sheer panic, his hero's heart wouldn't let him ignore the collateral damage.
Spotting a pair of terrified civilians frozen in front of a shattered diner window as a pack of shadow hounds closed in, Wally whipped around, scooped them both up in a single supersonic blur, and safely deposited them behind a heavy concrete bus stop before rejoining the sprint.
"Stay inside, order some takeout, do not look at the sky!" Wally shouted at them, before slamming right back into his stride.
Up ahead, Gnathia's eyes flared a blinding, violent violet.
She threw both arms forward, unleashing a massive, concentrated wave of dark magic energy.
The concussive beam tore up the street, shattering pavement and tossing cars like empty soda cans.
"Oi, heads up!" Wally screamed.
Jake twisted in mid-air, barely dodging the first two waves energy attacks.
But the third wave caught his left wing dead-center.
The impact was catastrophic.
A sickening CRACK echoed through the air as Jake's wing folded unnaturally under the kinetic blow.
"AAAH!" Jake screamed, his momentum completely obliterated.
He plummeted like a stone, slamming directly into the facade of a four-story brick commercial building.
He crashed straight through the reinforced glass and drywall, tearing through office cubicles before bursting out the other side and tumbling violently onto the asphalt below.
Glass, dust, and splinters rained down around him.
Jake coughed violently, spitting a thick mouthful of dark blood onto the street.
His vision swam, his nervous system screaming in white-hot agony.
Yet, even as his body threatened to shut down, his arms tightened instinctively around Haley.
The moment he realized he was going down, he had wrapped his bleeding, mangled wings entirely around them, taking the brunt of every wall, desk, and piece of concrete to keep her safe.
Haley groaned softly in her sleep, shifting against his chest. "Ugh... five more minutes, mom..."
"Holy Shit! Are you guys okay?!" Wally cursed, his boots kicking up a wall of sparks as he skidded to a halt beside them.
"Do we look okay?" Jake squeezed an answer through his mouth.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry," KF muttered.
"AAAAGGGHHHH,"
Gnathia's screech echoed closer.
A barrage of fresh energy beams was already locked onto their position, whistling through the dark sky toward them.
Wally didn't hesitate.
He dropped down, grabbed Jake's hand with a white-knuckled grip, and tore off at a desperate, stuttering sprint, dragging the half-dragon behind him across the asphalt as the street behind them exploded in a geyser of black fire.
Gnathia wasn't done playing.
Her fingers twitched furiously, channeling dark energy into the very architecture of Central City.
The shadows creeping up the brick walls and pooling in the alleys suddenly shuddered, expanding, stretching, and hardening into massive, writhing black tentacles the size of redwood trunks.
"OH, COME ON!" Wally yelled.
CRASH! BAM!
The giant tentacles whipped violently across the street from left to right, smashing lampposts to toothpicks and grabbing parked delivery vans to hurl them like baseballs at the fleeing heroes.
Wally dodged left and right, his speed dangerously fluctuating as the physical and mental toll began to mount.
Sensing their fatigue, Gnathia shifted tactics.
She amplified her dark magic, broadcasting a suffocating wave of telepathic static straight into their minds—projecting their deepest insecurities, failures, and darkest fears on a loop.
You're too slow.You couldn't save anyone tonight.You're just a kid playing dress-up.You let everyone down.
Jake gritted his teeth, shaking his head violently, forcing the dark whispers out with pure stubborn rage.
But Wally wasn't as lucky.
The psychic wave hit him like a physical blow.
The crushing weight of his inadequacies flashed behind his eyes—his fear of not living up to the legacy, his exhaustion, the feeling of utter helplessness.
His stride stuttered.
His speed plummeted by half.
It was all the opening Gnathia needed.
A massive shadow tentacle whipped out from an alleyway with blinding speed, catching Wally square across the chest.
The impact launched Wally, Jake, and Haley through the air like discarded toys. They smashed violently through the brick wall of a narrow alley, tumbling head over heels and crashing hard onto the opposite street.
Wally lay flat on his back, his chest heaving, blood trickling from his temple as his limbs twitched in shock.
Next to him, Jake groaned, his body locked in pain and shock.
Before either of them could draw another breath, heavy, rune-engraved shackles of dark magic erupted from the pavement.
They snapped around Jake and Wally's wrists and ankles, pinning them tightly to the ground.
Instantly, high-voltage streams of black lightning surged through the shackles.
"ARGHHH!" Both boys screamed in agonizing unison as the dark current tried to fry their nervous systems, muscles locking and spasms wracking their frames.
Gnathia floated down from the air, her feet hovering inches above the pavement.
A grotesque, triumphant grin stretched across her bruised face as she walked slowly toward them.
"Oh, that was a delightful little workout," Gnathia purred, her voice dripping with sadistic glee as she stepped past the writhing boys.
Her glowing, malevolent eyes locked onto the sleeping form of Haley who was beside Jake. "Now, let's see what this little pet is made of..."
"Don't... you... fucking... dare," Jake roared, coughing up more blood as he fought against the agonizing current, trying to lift his head.
Gnathia chuckled, raising a clawed hand to rip Haley away.
Suddenly, the air pressure in the entire city block plummeted.
The ambient temperature dropped instantly, followed by a sound like a tearing hurricane.
RRRRRRAAAAAARGH!
The roar of pure, unadulterated paternal and ancestral fury shook the foundations of Central City, rattling windows for blocks.
From the upper atmosphere, a massive, brilliant blue silhouette dropped like a blazing meteor straight forward.
It was Lao Shi, Jake and Haley's grandfather, in his majestic, forty-foot dragon form.
And riding fearlessly atop his scaled head was Fu Dog.
As Lao Shi descended, the wind around his massive frame flayed outward with ferocious velocity.
He opened his jaws, unleashing a devastating, compressed sonic wind blast directly at Gnathia.
The concussive shockwave hit Gnathia mid-stride. Caught completely off guard, she threw up her hands, desperately weaving a massive, dome-shaped shield of solid darkness to take the brunt of the assault.
The force of the wind attack shaved away the surrounding brickwork and blasted her skidding backward across the pavement.
When the dust finally cleared, Gnathia was huffing and puffing, her dark shield splintering as she glared up at the giant blue dragon with pure venom.
"HANDS OF MY GRANDKIDS, WITCH!" Lao Shi bellowed in a booming dragon-rumble.
Before Gnathia could react or recast a spell, the air directly behind her hummed with an intense, crackling electrical charge.
A scarlet fist materialized out of nowhere, moving vastly faster than the speed of sound—far faster even than Wally's punch earlier that night.
The fist connected flush with the side of Gnathia's face with the force of a particle accelerator.
CRACK!
Gnathia was launched horizontally across the city skyline like a rocket, disappearing over the horizon in a streak of bruised twilight.
As the residual static electricity and dust settled back onto the street, the scarlet speedster stood proudly in her place, casually flexing his arm and shaking out his knuckles.
The Flash was here.
Lao Shi landed heavily on the street, the pavement cracking beneath his massive claws before he rapidly shifted back into his elderly human form, his robes rustling in the wind.
Fu Dog hopped down beside him, tail twitching nervously.
"Jake! Haley!" Lao Shi shouted, rushing forward alongside Fu Dog.
The old dragon dropped to his knees, frantically inspecting the Long siblings, checking Jake's bleeding wings and feeling Haley's forehead and realized she was just asleep.
Meanwhile, The Flash zipped over to Wally, dropping to a crouch beside his exhausted protégé.
He placed a hand on Wally's shoulder, offering a soft, reassuring grin to break the tension. "Rough night for a jog, kid. Remind me to check your Strava stats in the morning would you?"
Wally winced, clutching his ribs, but let out a weak, breathless chuckle as the adrenaline finally began to fade. "Yeah, yeah... very funny. Remind me to ask for my coverage after this."
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AN: to read advance chapters, support me on patreon.com/badturtle_69