Spidey & Speedy - Central City Rush

Chapter 15 - Takin' Care Of Business, Every Day

"What?" she asks when she catches me staring.

"Well," I say, "you sure know how to pick 'em."

"Now I'm wondering if I'll acquire her powers or something," Liv laughs.

I'm about to ask how that would work, but then it dawns on me - she must have the ability to absorb people's abilities by eating their brains. Far from being disgusted by it - I'm pretty sure that was the same ability Sylar had on Heroes - I think it's pretty cool in her case. "You picked a good Rogue's brain to eat," I say. "That one, Plastique, she's a vet. A war vet, I mean."

"Ooh," Liv says, smiling broadly. "Well, it'll probably take a while for me to acquire any of her badass skills, but in the meantime..." She runs around, freezing more Rogues' legs as she goes.

Before long, I find myself masked-face-to-masked-face with my evil counterpart in yellow. "Eobard," I say. "Fancy seeing you here."

"I'm not here to hurt you today, Barry," says Eobard. "Quite the opposite, actually." He disappears just long enough to take down a pair of Rogues - Girder and Bug-Eyed Bandit, quite an unusual team - who are creeping up behind me. By the time he's done with them, they've been stabbed in the chest by his hand as he vibrates fast enough to penetrate their skin, muscles, and bones.

"Thanks," I say, ducking under the incoming sonic-gloved fist of another Pied Piper, "but I've got a whole bunch of loyal, cool people on my side already."

Eobard waves his hands around in super-fast circles, and the resulting speed force pushes the Piper away, sending him sprawling over the sidewalk. I swear, it looks like he's airbending, like in Avatar or Legend of Korra. I copy that same move and similarly repel another Captain Cold.

"Dammit, Flash!" he groans, getting off his ass as quickly as he can. "I'm the real one! Don't kill me; I'm on your side!"

"Prove it!" I yell.

"Your friend with the rainbow eyes made my sister cry!"

"Okay," I say. "So I guess Lisa must've told you. Believe me, I didn't sign off on-"

The real Rory and Lisa appear at Snart's side. The former tears off the fur lining on Snart's hood, then says, "Now you can tell us apart, huh?"

"Whatever you say," I mutter, attempting the airbending trick on another fake Heat Wave. The three real Rogues disappear into the crowd, and I turn back to Eobard. "Where'd you learn that move?" I ask.

"I glimpsed a future version of you attempting it on a metahuman with the ability to change his size," he says, running around a Golden Glider until she disappears in a flash of silver. "A disgusting individual, this man was. He mostly existed on a diet of radioactive waste and X-rays."

"How'd you do that?" I ask. "There's no way you could've run fast enough to open up a wormhole just now...right?"

"You'd be surprised," says Eobard. "It helps if you actually run around where the wormholes themselves are."

"And you know where to find them?" I ask.

"I've gone through enough of them that I know how to spot them at a distance," says Eobard. "And I know how to harness the power of the ley lines and open up many of them at once. Tens, if not hundreds."

"Then what the hell are we waiting for?" I ask, dropping into a crouch and preparing to spring. "Let's send some of these goons back where they came from!"

Another Hartley backs into my vision field, ducking punches from Grayson. "I heard that!" he grumbles, turning to glare at me. Big mistake - he gets his jaw socked by Grayson when he's not looking. "Ow!" he cries as soon as he can talk again.