Getting ambushed by questions and hugs as soon as she walked through the door was not the way Anita had been expecting to be greeted when she walked in her front door. But that was exactly what happened.
She had barely put one foot in the door, before her brother was pouncing on her, practically squeezing the life out of her. Her dad wasn't far behind. He looked frantic. "Anita! Where the hell have you been? I've been worried sick! Are you alright?"
Anita pushed her brother off of her, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, I was just staying after school. What's with you guys? I've stayed gone for three hours before!"
Daren and Dad stared at her as if she had grown three heads in addition to the one she already had. "Anita, what are you talking about?" Dad asked, looking worried. He placed the palm of his hand over her forehead, checking to see that she didn't have a temperature. Anita scoffed and pushed him off. What the heck was wrong with them?
"You've been gone for a lot longer than just three hours," Daren told her.
Anita stared back at him, shaking her head. That couldn't be. Oculus had said three hours. He said he had brought her back the same day that he had taken her from. She was about to call her brother crazy and insist that he was wrong, but before she could Oculus burst through the door looking rather flustered, like he had run all the way here. He glanced at Anita, apparently not noticing her family yet. Trying to catch his breath and speak at the same time, Oculus said, "I was wrong. It's three days, not three hours."
Antia's eyes widened, and she screamed, "What?! But you said --"
"I know what I said! I was there!" Oculus said.
Anita's father glared harshly at Oculus. He stepped in front of his daughter, putting a protective hand up to shield her from the strange man. "Who the fuck are you?" he demanded, his voice booming, threatening.
Oculus flinched at his tone. This is what he had been so afraid of when he'd taken Anita on that little time jump. Parents could be so protective of their young. It's why he preferred not to be around them. Just to avoid confrontation and danger. "Erm...I, uh..."
"Dad! It's okay, he's harmless," Anita said. She moved around her father's tense form, as he looked like he might be about to deck Oculus in the nose. She really didn't need that. Anita stood in front of her father, knowing he wouldn't dare hurt her to get to the other man. "He's not some creepy. I promise. We just went traveling."
"What?" Dad hissed, glaring daggers at Oculus. Everything in his mind was being twisted so that it was much more inappropriate than it actually was. "Where?"
"It's...actually more of a when really," Oculus mumbled quietly. He flinched again, as Darryl's glare intensified. The father didn't really seem to care about where or when the duo had gone, he only cared that his daughter had run off with some stranger who was several years older than her; and in his mind she was probably coerced into it.
Daren's eyes lit up as he heard Oculus though. His young mind hadn't picked up on anything that could be potentially dangerous, as he was a bit naive for an eleven year old boy. "Wait, when? Like time travel?" He paused, then pointed at his sister, jealous. "Hold on, why does she get to go time traveling?"
Anita rolled her eyes. Darryl shook his head vigorously. "She doesn't! No one does. Whatever this is, it stops now."
Anita scoffed, throwing her arms out in protest. She stomped her foot childishly. "That is so not fair, Dad! He's not even a bad person!"
Oculus shrank away, as Darryl kept his death stare fixed on him. He looked very small under the other man's glare, but that didn't make Anita's father go any easier on him. Darryl would have chewed him out and then tossed him to the streets, but before he could they were interrupted for the second time.
The whole house shook violently, causing everyone to stumble quite a bit. From outside Anita heard a deep growl, which rumbled in her ear drums, forcing her to slap her hands over her ears. Daren looked at her, eyes wide, breathing a bit heavy. He had always been a bit sensitive to loud noises.
Anita ignore him and ran to the window to see what was happening, despite both her father and Oculus yelling at her to get away from it. She pushed back the curtain, gasping at what she seen going on over at their neighbor's house.
A massive, thirty foot being loomed over their house, a large chunk of their roof clutched in his big, meaty fist from where he had apparently ripped it off. He had sharp teeth as thick as mountains, a triangular fin poking out from his back, his skin smooth and grey. Beady eyes peered into the hole in the roof. He was a big shark man.
A round of gunfire shot off, the shots being so loud she could feel them in her bones. Daren yelped at the noise, cupping his hands over his ears and squinting his eyes tightly. Anita couldn't see who shot the gun though. The shark man started saying something, so Anita opened the window a bit so she could hear.
His voice was low, raspy, the way a villain might sound in a cartoon. The words were spat in a reverberating growl. "Where is the Flash? I know he's here! I can smell him!" More gun shots. The shark man bellowed out a earth rattling roar. "Where is he?"
From the corner of her eye, Anita spotted a flicker of yellow lightening. It was hard to see him from the angle she was at, especially in the dark. (When had night fallen? Anita could have sworn it had been daylight out when she'd first gotten home.) She ran for the front door, as she heard the Flash shout, "Right here!"
"Anita!" her father shouted, as she flung the door open and ran outside to get a better look. "Get back here, now!"
Anita ignored him. She dashed across the grass, the ground rumbling under her feet as the shark man stomped around to face the Scarlet Speedster. Skidding to a stop, Anita crouched behind a vehicle that had been parked on the curb.
"Flash!" the shark man growled. Anita could see him much better from the streets. He had abs and pecs like a human man. His arms looked human as well, except for the color; and he had legs like humans, too, except large, floppy fins took place of his feet. He towered over the Flash, making Central City's hero look little more than a puny ant at a picnic. "Zoom wants you dead!"
Anita wasn't sure who Zoom was, but she guessed he must have been a pretty nasty character if a giant man shark was taking orders from him.
The Flash shrugged, a bit out of breath. He didn't appear to care very much about the threat from the shark man. He must have gotten death threats a lot with his line of work. "Yeah, I know. Then, you get to go home, right? Well, guess what, man. The breaches that Zoom used to bring you here, they're all gone. I closed 'em all for good."
Anita figured the Flash must have been bluffing. Either that or he and his friends must have figured out a way to open them again later on, because Anita remembered Ralph and Julian saying something about breaches and how Cisco disappeared through one in the future.
"There's no more Zoom," Flash went on. "There's no way back to your earth." The shark man growled again, shifting his weight a little, apparently taken aback by the speedster's words. "You're gonna be trapped here for a very long time."
The shark man stood in the center of the road, a rumble escaping his throat as he glared down at the Flash. The Scarlet Speedster took that as his cue to jump into action.
He sped forward, circling the giant shark man, his lightening zipping behind him as he ran. Anita heard static as the electricity began charging up.
She wasn't sure what the Flash was planning, but whatever it was he never got to enact it. With another angry growl, the shark man whacked the speedster across the road, slamming him into the car Anita was hiding behind.
Anita jumped as the Flash collided with the vehicle, his body making a loud smack! She could have sworn she heard something snap too, like his bones were broken.
The shark man stomped over to the Flash, his massive form looming threatening, his footsteps shaking the ground below him.
Anita let out a soft whimper, as the shark man drew closer. Her hands shook, her blood turning to ice. Suddenly, it didn't seem like a very good idea to come out here.
She could see the Flash from under the car, on his back crawling away from the shark man, panting a little. Anita was pretty sure the shark guy was going to kill him. And if that weren't bad enough, a flicker of light brought everyone's attention over to the Dunet house.
Daren had evidently recovered from his noise sensitivity, because he had brought out his camera and was standing in the middle of the front yard. He snapped a few more pictures of the man shark, the camera flash blinding the thing for a moment, causing him to growl angrily.
Anita's guts twisted violently. Her arms and legs turned into jello; her throat closed up as she watched the shark man turn towards her brother, looking pretty murderous.
The Flash struggled to get to his feet, but he must have been hurt pretty badly because he was having a lot of trouble with it. Anita's father was shouting for the siblings to get back inside, but neither of them listened to him.
Daren froze, watching the shark man approach with wide eyes. Anita acted without thinking. She ran out into the street, picking up the largest rock she could find as she went; Anita tossed the rock as hard as she could, smacking the shark man on the leg harmlessly.
"Hey, Don Lino!" Anita shouted. "Stay away from my brother!"
Anita’s body was numb, as the shark man turned his beady eyes on her. She couldn’t move, her throat closing up on her. It felt like she was suffocating, frozen in place.
With the shark man’s gaze set on her, Anita began to realize just how dumb what she did was.
She didn't have any weapons or super powers. There was no way she could take on some monstrous beast like this. He would crush her in seconds, probably only needing to use one finger to do it.
Kind of wish I thought of that before calling him a character from Shark Tales, Anita thought uselessly.
Her knees buckled under her. Everything she had eaten in the last three days was threatening to spill out all over the ground.
The shark man sauntered over, raising one meaty fist to smack her.
Before he could touch her though, a gust of wind blew through Anita's hair, and in the blink of an eye both she and her brother were standing on the porch of their house next to their father.
The Flash stumbled to a stop in front of them, probably still a little disoriented from crashing into the car. He glanced at Anita, as he father frantically checked over her and her brother. “Don Lino?”
Anita shrugged, too shook up to form proper words at the moment. It didn't really matter anyway. The Flash turned away from her and back to the shark man a few seconds later.
It looked like they were preparing for a show down, but just then tired squealed on the asphalt. The shark man let out a low growl, first looking annoyed, then angry, then scared.
He glared at the Flash. "You might be fast, but not as fast as I am in water. You're never gonna find me, Flash!"
With that proclamation, the shark man charged down the street, leaving massive craters wherever his feet touched.
The Flash let out a tired sigh, as the beast took off. He looked like he wanted to chase after him, but instead he just sat in one of the chairs on the porch, only to shoot up a second later, looking at Darryl awkwardly. “Sorry, can I sit here?”
Darryl snorted. “Seeing as how you just saved my kids' lives, you can take my whole damn house if you wanted.”
The Flash nodded, still panting a bit from his injuries. “Okay. I mean…I'm not gonna take your house, but okay. Uh, yeah. Thanks…” He sat down. Who knew the Flash was such a bumbling nerd?
A second later, three cars sped down the road. Two of them went barreling through at dangerous speeds. The third abruptly pulled into the Dunet drive.
A man and a woman got out of the car, both holding pistols at their sides. The woman looked around the area, while the man called out to the Flash. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm good," the Flash called back, rubbing his shoulder. "I think he might have broken a few things, but I'm good." After a moment he stood up. He glanced at the Dunets, suddenly serious hero again instead of awkward geek. "So, I'm off to find a giant shark. Stay in school kids! And listen to your parents. And, uh, eat your veggies! Bye!" Or maybe not so serious...
He zipped off around the corner, the only sign he had ever been on their doorstep at all being that trail of yellow lightening he left behind.
The man and woman from the car had taken to talking to Joe West, who had since come outside. "Telepathic gorillas? Giant shark men? What's next big scary, homicidal crocodiles?" Mr. West was saying.
The man from the car glanced at the woman. "We don't have any killer crocs do we? Please say no."
"Yeah," Joe nodded. "Please say no."
The woman shrugged. "Not that I'm aware of, no."
The men simultaneously sighed in relief. That was all Anita got to hear of that conversation, though, because a moment later, her father was ushering her and her brother inside.
As soon as the door was closed, the siblings were being scolded. “What was that? You could have been killed! Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? You’re both lucky the Flash was here tonight, because if he wasn’t…” He let out a frustrated sigh. “Don’t ever let me catch you doing anything like that again, you hear me?”
Anita and Daren shared a look with one another. Daren was sort of shaken, but living in Central City one tended to get use to weird and scary situations. (They didn’t happen often in the suburbs, but every so often something strange would occur on their block, like their street was a magnet for weirdness or something.)
Anita had also grown accustomed to the weirdness, both because she lived in Central and because her short time traveling with Oculus was just as strange if not more so.
At the thought of him, Anita frowned, looking around to realize he wasn’t there anymore. He must have run off when all the chaos had started. That kind of stung a bit.
She shook her head, turning her attention back to her father. “Sure, Dad. You won’t ever see us do anything like that again.”
Needless to say, that wasn’t the last time the Dunet siblings did something stupid. In fact, it was the first of many dumb decisions they would make. After all, he hadn’t told them to stop. He just told them not to let him see them do it
So, we were a bit over due for an interlude. I'm not really sure, uh, what the heck this is but um...
On a whim I thought, "Yeah you know what? The Dunets can live next to the Wests, that'll be cool."
Then I thought, "Hey, you know what would be really fun? If the Dunet siblings had a show down with King Shark."
I'm not sure if the Flash episodes match up quite right with where I'm at in LoT but whatever. It's fanfic. We can pretend right?
Um... so yeah. That just happened. I'm gonna go re-evaluate my life now 😂