9: Aion

U N D E R   A   S T I L L  green-lit sky, Atlanta was about to be plunged into a world of mayhem when its citizens suddenly saw two blurs of lightning zoom through the city with a hooded figure hovering after them.

Diana and Carol had ran a good distance away from the school where parents and children were in total confusion of what had just happened.

One moment, the skies had turned green then something had dropped from the heavens and onto the graduation grounds, then in a second, the figure was gone and now the principal was still wondering whether to continue with the ceremony or call it off.

The hooded figure was upon the two speedsters. It thrust both of its arms forward and a green blast of energy shot off like a fireball.

It hit the asphalt between the two speedsters, sending pieces of stone, tar and dirt flying in the air after the impact resulted in a shockwave.

There were a few cars on the freeway that had not been so lucky as they received the full blast of the shockwave. The windshields of the first two cars that were nearer to the point of impact shattered, the glass cutting and impaling the poor drivers as the vehicles reared and collided with the bumpers of the other cars behind them.

Diana had fallen and hit her back against the concrete partitioning on the freeway.

Carol on the other hand, had landed on top of one of the cars that had collided with each other. The shockwave had gotten to them despite their super speed.

About twenty feet away, a truck driver was listening to the tunes of some good old country music, oblivious of the situation outside or what lay ahead on the road.

He had seen the weird color in the sky of course, but nothing was going to stop him from transporting the two tonnes of containers loaded with gasoline all the way to Long Island in New York.

He had to get that additional tip for being early.

What was to be a twenty-hour drive was just about to get cut short when the eighteen-foot long trailer sped over the asphalt on that busy and fast lane of a road.

He was just tuning in to Dolly Parton when he noticed the pile-up of a few cars up ahead and dark smoke was rising into the air.

“What in the hell is that?” he spotted a hooded figure suspended in the air just above the pile up.

Being on a freeway, the trailer truck was moving at a hundred kilometers an hour, with an additional twenty given the driver was in kind of a hurry.

“Oh shit!” he quickly brought down his foot on the brake pedal.

The multi-wheeled trailer screeched and groaned, its tires raking against the asphalt but it was too late. There was no way he would stop the giant vehicle at that speed.

Carol, having been closest to the pile up, suddenly got up on her feet and was standing atop the car’s roof when the reeling truck came at her.

The trailer’s great and sturdy bumper crashed into the six cars that were in the gridlock, ramming into them and even that had not been enough to immobilize the large truck.

Carol felt the earth shake before she was thrown back from the car she had been standing on and was flailing in the air.

“Carol!” Diana called, instantly tapping into her speed and darted towards her falling counterpart.

She leaped and caught Carol in mid air before quickly getting back on the ground and speeding away to the other side of the partition.

“There’s still someone in the truck!” called Carol while they watched the trailer shovel the cars with its front end.

The force from the stationary cars finally began to overpower the speeding trailer when its long carrier loaded with gasoline tanks started to pivot forward.

Carol and Diana were about to dash and go get the driver out when there was a loud booming sound.

The pivoting carrier had unhinged from the head of the trailer and the large cylindrical tanks began to topple and roll out.

The moment the first tank had touched the ground, its integrity had weakened, followed by a spark from the friction created between metal and asphalt. The fuel spilled out and kissed the spark, igniting into a roaring flame that sent the head of the truck flying forwards, with the driver still inside.

At the same time, a green-blue trail of lightning had suddenly streaked through, passing the hooded figure that was still afloat, watching the destruction unfold.

Running ten times faster than the speed of sound, Natasha had cut through the freeway and had used the piled up cars as a boost to lunge herself in the air and land inside the head of the detached trailer just as the explosion was growing but to her it all seemed to be doing so in super slow motion as time had slowed at an exponential rate.

She was the fastest thing at the moment, working quickly to undo the driver’s seatbelt and grabbing him, she then jumped out of the trailer’s head and out of the way.

The explosion tore apart the pile-up, with gas tanks bursting open into flames until a large fire was then covering an eight-foot radius across the freeway.

“Are you OK?” the man was shocked to find a young girl with short blond hair dressed in a purple graduation gown asking her.

He nodded, too shaken to say a word. He was sandy-haired and from Virginia and had only heard stories of these people who could move so fast but was surprised to find a teenage girl was one of these said people.

Natasha then watched the man she had just rescued slowly extend his arm and point shakily.

Following his direction, Natasha saw what he was pointing at.

The hooded figure had hovered towards them.

“You. . .” it spoke and Natasha could feel its hidden face glaring down at her, “you have the power of the ancient gods in you.”

“Go, get out of here!” Natasha said to the truck driver who immediately turned and ran.

Not this again.

Natasha had grown accustomed to hearing those words.

The last time they had been uttered by Prometheus—the Titan that had unleashed literal hell on earth, believing that killing her would reveal the answer to the location of a lost mystical object of power.

“OK,” Natasha began, “let me tell you what I told your pal, Prometheus—I don't know anything about some prophecy about a magical element, so, why don’t you just fly back the way you came.”

Diana and Carol approached Natasha.

The figure then went on to take off its hood and its face became visible under the green sky.

Unlike Prometheus whose face was fiery and monstrous like a demon, this figure’s was human.

His skin was dark and had no hair over his head where strange markings like symbols appeared to have been tattooed all over.

His eyes glowed green just like the sky.

“A mortal endowed with such powers and yet being so quaint,” the figure spoke with a rich commanding voice, his eyes still fixated on Natasha. “So you have heard about the prophecy.”

“And what does that have to do with any of us?” Natasha pressed.

“Not just any of you but the one being who was capable enough to take on a Titan and destroy it.”

He was referring to Prometheus.

“My friend here was actually the one who killed him so, maybe you’ve got this whole prophecy thing wrong,” Natasha gestured to Diana.

“I know that,” the figure spoke, “because it is I—Aion—the god who controls both time and reality that I was able to see how the Titan fell after you wielded the power of the gods to weaken it.”

“What power of the gods?” Natasha was not following.

“The lightning that you used to strike Prometheus down,” Carol offered.

“But that lightning came from my dad. . .” Natasha’s voice trailed off.

“Exactly,” the figure identified as Aion responded. “Which makes you the Heir.”

“What?” Natasha shook her head, turning from Carol to Diana whose faces seemed as confused as hers.

“I don’t believe you!” she spat back at Aion. “You’re just here to cause more destruction on our world like all the others before you.”

Aion’s glowing eyes narrowed and his face was contorted into a grimace, impatience taking over.

“I don't have time for this—which is ironic even for me but I can see it inside of you even if you yourself cannot. It is buried deep within your mortal mind. The location of the last of the three Heralds that once combined will grant power to control the entire universe—the power of the Ultimate Speedverse.”

Aion’s deep voice was almost dreamy.

“So what?” asked Natasha, “are you too going to try and kill me to get whatever it is you're looking for?”

The god chuckled.

“No. I’m not as thick-headed as my predecessor,” Aion stretched out a hand, “he had the power of the second Herald—the Darkforce—and had failed but I have something much better.”

“Which is?” asked Natasha with incredulity written all over her face.

The three speedsters watched the god stretch out his other hand and a wave of green energy flowed and circulated around him until something began to materialize between his arms and in front of his chest.