8: Pink Death

S H E   H A D   B E E N  eyeing the screen of her phone for the past eleven minutes or so, her mind having been lost in thought, probably drifting back to a time when she had been in the middle of recovering from a traumatic past. A time when she had made a friend, a sis—

Her thoughts were cut short when her phone began to buzz, vibrating on the glass table.

For a moment, her heart had skipped a beat as she had thought that the person she had been thinking of had finally decided to call.

But it was not that person. No. It was another contact that showed up just above the contact of that person: Kimberly Grace or as she had called her—Kim.

The memory of her was still clear, as if it was yesterday when they'd met at a local town bar in Texas.

Diana Roberts had just left Atlanta after getting out of the Darkforce and ended up in Texas, completely lost and alone when she had then stood up for a waitress and had beaten the shit out of some drunk men using her powers.

A new friendship would then grow between her and the waitress until they were practically sisters.

But that had been twenty years ago when she had decided to leave for the sake of protecting Kim.

Twenty years.

She could have at least texted her or something and had been about to do that when she got the call while seated in her condo.

Picking up the phone, Diana found that it was from Dr. Katherine Patterson.

"Katie?" 

Seconds later, Diana was moving to the window where she looked outside and saw what the scientist had just told her.

The skies were green, with no trace of blue or white anywhere.

"What's going on?" she asked, still looking outside.

'We're not sure but Carter has traced some kind of temporal inter dimensional isotopic energy coming from North Atlanta High and we think it's being caused by. . .no. . .wait—' was the response from Katie with her slight British inflection as the line went dead before she could finish.

"Katie."

"Hello."

Hanging up, Diana was about to shut down her phone when her eyes met the other contact again.

Later

Again, circumstances had pushed her not to reach out.

The tall, hazel eyed woman with long auburn hair that she had cut on her right side so that the red locks were flowing down only over her left temple, with the right side shaven and leaving a soft scarlet patch, giving her an air of power and a certain viciousness—the viciousness that had earned the infamous title—Lady Death—that she had used in the past to terrorize an entire city but also to later help protect other parts of the world.

Now, she had just responded to a call and it seemed as if there was about to be more protecting to do which is why she went on to don her red leather super suit but unlike the other fleet-footed heroes in the city, she never wore a mask to cover her identity.

Everyone knew who she was, not to mention she was still classified as a wanted criminal inside the walls of Atlanta but so far, she has been more than discreet to avoid colluding with the APD, at least until the time was right.

But time was running out; not for her but for the entire planet even though nobody had any idea at the moment.

Carol was hurtling through the streets, pink lightning trailing off of her body when she met up with her scarlet counterpart.

"Crazy day, huh," she began when Diana stopped in front of her.

"Yeah, well, we can agree we've both seen crazier," Diana grinned, looking up at the green sky.

"You don't think Prometheus is back?"

Diana shook her head.

"Red was more of his color," Diana responded, looking up at the neon-green sky, "plus I skewered him with a lightning sword and there's no coming back from that."

Carol nodded in agreement, recalling how the off-world fire-breathing Titan identified as Prometheus had set foot on their planet barely two years ago and how they had all fought him, finally destroying him in the end, with Diana Roberts delivering the final blow.

Together, the two speedsters bolted off along the road.

Everyone and everything was frozen in time, not making the slightest of movements save for the pink and red streaks of lightning that flashed past and into the vicinity.

"What the hell happened here?" asked Carol when she walked through the people and children dressed in graduation gowns, all of them still like a paused video playback.

She had been surprised to find a frozen Jenna next to Carter and Katie.

Katie had a phone in her hand which Carol guessed must have been the one she had used to call her and Diana with before ending up in a time freeze.

Suddenly, Carol felt a hand clasp tightly over her mouth before she was whisked away only to appear standing behind a large building block at the school.

She turned to find Diana with an index finger over her mouth.

"What did you do that for?"

"I think we found what Katie was talking about," Diana pointed.

Following the direction of her gaze, Carol was then looking at some sort of hooded figure standing somewhere in the middle of the frozen crowd.

There was a green aura of energy circling around it and where it stood.

"What is it doing?"

"I don't know but it clearly missed our grand entrance."

They approached for a closer look and that's when they saw them.

Barely a foot away from the figure, stood the frozen body of Natasha, who appeared to have been trying to attack the figure as her right hand had been extended outwards almost clenching into a fist.

Then there was a boy right next to her with his mouth half open like he had been yelling. It was Lucas,then just less than half a meter behind them were the frozen bodies of Marcus, Carmen, Henry and Cassie.

The six of them appeared to be standing right inside the circular patch formed by the green wave of energy and looking closer, Carol was able to notice something else.

"Their eyes, they're glowing."

"I've seen this before," Diana noted the green hue in their eyes. "Back when I was trapped in the Darkforce."

"So what are you saying? They're in some kind of trap?"

"Probably under this guy's control. Whoever he is."

The figure still hadn't seen them, only until they made their move.

Pink lightning had flashed right past it and it had raised its head, quickly turning into the direction of the flash to find a woman standing several feet away.

"There's more of you!" it spoke with a hint of surprise but with an overall higher power.

One of its hands was then raised towards Carol's direction, probably about to freeze her in time as well when there came a sharp hissing and crackling sound of electricity from behind.

Distracted, the figure had been too late to realize what had just happened.

Behind him, Diana had shut her eyes, concentrated hard like she had been taught in over ten years of training in Nepal. She had felt her life force take a form of its own, channeling the power she had mustered over that one decade—the Chi—channeling it with the Darkforce that was her speed until a pathway manifested. A super powered  telepathic pathway, powered by billions of joules of lightning that allowed part of her consciousness to travel all the way through the field of green energy before dissipating itself into all the frozen bodies inside the circle, starting one by one with Marcus, then Carmen, then Henry, then Cassie, Lucas and finally Natasha.

It only took a second to snap the minds of the six teenagers back to reality, using her consciousness and speed to free them from their dreamscapes turned into time loops.

The green wave of energy faded away just after Natasha and her friends jumped as if they had all awoken from a dream.

The hooded figure snapped, turning around to the spot where Diana had channeled and watched as red lightning sparkled all over that spot until it morphed back into her.

"All of you have wits!" the figure spoke, "no wonder that fool Prometheus perished at your hands! It is almost as if you're all. . .connected. . ." he turned to where Natasha was standing, eyeing her with looming interest when he added the latter.

"Alright, let's fall back!" called Carol as she and Diana suddenly bolted off, disappearing from the school.

Natasha and the others then watched the figure rise up in the air and vanish in a blast of green energy.

"What just happened?" asked Cassie, still shaken from the experience in her dreamscape.

"They're leading that thing away from the school," Natasha replied.

Just then, some noise came from behind them.

"It's the people," Lucas added, "they're turning back."

"Which means we should also get going," chimed Carmen to Natasha, signalling her to follow Diana and Carol before everyone at the school who had been frozen resumed back to normal.

With that, they watched Natasha burst off, speeding away and leaving a trail of green-blue lightning behind.

"Did anybody else have a wacko dream or was it just me?" Marcus asked, wide-eyed.

Cassie looked distraught and edgy, instinctively placing one hand over her neck. Lucas and Carmen were not better off either.

"You have no idea," responded Henry with a shudder.