The Legends of Forever by Barry Lyga (books to read for beginners .txt) 📕

just when I thought things were freaky with the Legends . . . Then this stuff happens?”

“No one ever said being a superhero would be easy,” Barry told him, and grinned.

Wally chuckled softly. “You got any power bars? Maybe a chocolate milkshake?”

Barry produced two soft gumdrops and held them out. “I have a couple of Caitlin Snow specials. They’ll have to do.”

To keep up with speedster metabolisms, Caitlin had developed the gumdrops, which were gelatins made up of hyper-condensed glucose, proteins, and carbohydrates. They had an absolutely insane calorie count, with each gumdrop being roughly equivalent to a steak dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy, and creamed corn. Unfortunately, they tasted like motor oil sweetened with honey, but in a pinch, there was nothing better, nothing packed with enough energy to top off even a speedster’s metabolism.

“Oh, my favorite.” Wally grimaced as he took the two gumdrops and put them in his mouth. Chewing, his face contorted into the expression of a man eating a live rat.

Checking over his shoulder, Barry saw that Superman had managed to talk Mick down from his near dive into the evil embrace of Volthoom. Heat Wave still trembled with rage, but his eyes had returned to their normal color.

“Did I hear right?” Wally asked. “Are Sara and Ray dead?”

“And Oliver,” Barry said soberly. “We knew there was a risk, but I didn’t think . . . I didn’t think it would get so bad so soon.”

“We need a plan,” Wally said. “And we need it now.”

“The Time Trapper has left his machinery,” Superman pointed out, gesturing across the void to Needle. “We don’t know what that gadget does, but if the Trapper was working on it, it can’t be any good. I say we strike while he’s gone and destroy it.”

“Sounds good to me,” Barry said.

“We’ll need a distraction,” Superman said. “The Time Trapper isn’t just going to let us—”

“Distraction?” Mick growled. “Consider it done.”

“Wait!” Barry yelled. But Mick was already flying off into the night.

“I’ll go to the machine,” Superman said. “I still have enough power to get there on my own and destroy it.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” Barry demanded. “Sit around and twiddle my thumbs?”

“You need to figure out how we’re going to defeat the Time Trapper once and for all,” Superman told him. “And I know you will.” With that, he took off.

Mick soared through space, so focused on his target that he couldn’t even take a moment to marvel at what the ring allowed him to do. Volthoom was still screaming at him, still wheedling and insisting, but Mick pushed it away like a bad headache. His back teeth hurt from clenching his jaw so much.

There, just ahead on Egg, he beheld the Time Trapper, standing alone. As soon as Mick came into range, the creep turned, tilting that blank, black, hooded face up, as though out to watch some birds.

“You made a big mistake, pal!” Mick roared. “You pissed me off, and I’m your worst nightmare, a pyromaniac with the biggest flamethrower in the universe!”

And then, indeed, Mick had the biggest flamethrower in the universe. Volthoom complained, but Mick shoved him aside and forced the ring to do his bidding, assembling a massive flamethrower the size of a battleship. The thing glowed green and hung in the void like the world’s most twisted, violent Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. Mick built it from memory and loaded it with the most volatile mixture of flammable chemicals he could imagine.

“Eat heat!” he screamed.

The fire that blistered forth from the flamethrower was, of course, green, but it still burned hotter than hot. It was as though Mick had unleashed part of a sun on the Time Trapper. The sky lit up green for miles in every direction. Heat—almost absent from a Multiverse where even particles had slowed to a crawl and begun to condense—flared to life once more, one final gasp of life in a near-dead reality.

The heat was vaster and more fervent than anything Mick had ever experienced before. His breath came quick and hard as the flames licked the planetoid, scorching the surface, swallowing the purple hooded figure whole. Mick figured he could die happy now. He’d made the biggest fire the universe had ever seen, a fire to rival the sun itself. He cackled into the void as sweat poured off him. The ring felt like a band of molten lava on his fist, but he didn’t care.

The flamethrower ran out of fuel. Mick took in a deep breath and heaved it out. Volthoom was offering more power, but Mick didn’t think he needed it. He’d just thrown a planet’s worth of hot hell at the Time Trapper.

“That oughtta do it,” he whispered to himself.

Below, the vacuum made short work of the green flames flashing and flickering on the surface. Egg had been charred in its entirety, its surface gone black, crumbling and flaking off pieces like a log turned to charcoal.

And in the midst of it, a spot of purple.

The Time Trapper.

Impossibly, still standing.

Barry tended to Wally as best he could, given the lack of medical supplies available. He had a second transsuit with him and had put it on Wally before Mick raised him out of the sphere, and according to their emblem-to-emblem connection, Wally’s vitals were improving. No doubt thanks in part to Caitlin’s speedster confections, which were doing a good job replacing electrolytes, boosting amino acids, and just generally replenishing Wally.

But those physical aids were only part of the battle. Wally ricocheted between seeming all right and traumatized. There was no way to know how long he’d been in the Time Trapper’s device or exactly what it had been like in there for him. Barry understood Mick’s urge for revenge very, very well in that moment. If he could get his hands around the Time Trapper’s throat, he would have no compunctions whatsoever about squeezing for what the Trapper had done to his brother.

Speaking of the Time Trapper . . . Barry turned and craned his neck. Mick was