Baltimare-11:30 PM
Two women, one stumbling slightly, the other walking with a certain degree of grace as they walked down the streets of Baltimare from a local bar.
“Vinyl, you know that much alcohol in someone’s system can kill, yes?” The more graceful of the two spoke up, a light accent permeating her speech. She brushed a few stray brunette bangs from her grey forehead. The black dress clung to her like a second skin.
“T-Tavee, y-you knouu I like livinnh on tha edge…” The inebriated woman giggled out, looking at her companion through her vibrant-purple glasses. She ran an ivory hand through locks of electric blue hair, toying lightly with a prominent horn. Her dress was much like her body, white with hints of blue and purple. Not a dress, but jacket and pants. A certain degree of infemininity could be gleaned.
“I think a big part of that is ‘living’.”
“Tavi”, or Octavia as her proper name was, chuckled as she looked to the sky. Luna’s moon had been raised while the two women were in a club. A few scattered clouds, light breeze, not too chilly. A good night.
“Hey, Tavi, you knou thish guy followinh ussh?”
Octavia cast a quick glance behind her. A man behind the two was toying with a cigarette. His charcoal skin was nigh-indistinguishable from his black jacket. The jacket’s hood was upon his head, but a few strands of cyanish hair stuck out beyond its placement.
Something about the man unsettled Octavia. Perhaps it was merely a sense of paranoia on her part, but Octavia nonetheless grabbed Vinyl’s hand and increased pace. She made an effort not to walk too fast, but nerves fought with her critical thought.
Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine, Octavia.
Glancing over her shoulder again, Octavia saw that the man was keeping up with them, and that he had four friends joining him in the chase.
Everything’s not fine.
“Tavi, was goin’ non,” slurred Vinyl in both drunkenness and confusion as Octavia sped up to a noticeable degree.
“Vinyl, don’t panic, but I think we’re being followed.” Octavia noted the panic seeping into her voice. Octavia heard footfalls behind her. She thought things like this were a myth, that they only happened in movies. Right?
Perhaps against her better judgement, Octavia pulled Vinyl into a dark alleyway, following it to a hypothetical safety. Four more men blocked their path.
“Ladies!”
Octavia turned. The charcoal man stood surrounded by his fellows. Octavia noticed two feathered wings stretching themselves out from behind his back. A pegasus?
Octavia tightened her grip on Vinyl’s hand, “I-I don’t want any trouble. So, if y-you could just-”
The man smiled, “Sweetie, I don’t want any trouble. I mean, I mean, boys, have I ever gone out seeking trouble before?”
The men murmured various negations, aside from a single crimson individual, “I mean, not unless they try anything. Then you do somethin’.”
Vinyl snickered, the pegasus put a hand to his temple, “Garble, what have we told you about facade?”
Garble coughed and made an exaggerated scowl, “I get you, Thunderlane.”
The pegasus made a noise of disbelief, “And what did I say about anonym-Fine, whatever, I’ll deal with you later.”
“Ladies,” Thunderlane forced a smile, “it’s like they said. I’m not unreasonable, I’m not violent. I’m just in a bad place in life.”
Octavia tightened her grip on Vinyl’s hand. Vinyl chuckled drunkenly, “Well, that’s not good.”
Thunderlane clapped his hands together, “See? She gets it! I’d like to get out of this bad place, but poverty is a pretty…constricting force. So, since you two seem so nice, I’m assuming that you’d want to help us out. A donation, perhaps?”
“D-donation?” Octavia recoiled slightly.
“Give us your money!” Garble shouted out. A smack sent him into silence.
“As my…” Thunderland cast Garble a look, “partner… said, we need you to hand over all of your bits right now- YAAHH!”
What exactly made Thunderlane yelp was made evident to everyone present. Out of seemingly nowhere, a creature wearing what appeared to be a black suit of some kind with white lightning bolt design here and there. The emblem on its chest resembled a lightning bolt of some kind. Its face was concealed by a horrifying mask, and its gloves ended in razor-sharp talons. Blue electricity danced all over its body as it approached.
”Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear you,” the creature said, his voice dark and menacing. ”I’m afraid I can’t allow you to harm these ladies. In fact, I’m gonna see to it that you never harm anyone ever again.”
Thunderlane chuckled, a slight shakiness to his voice, “Who and what the hell are you?”
”I have many names, like The Black Flash, for instance. But, my personal favorite, and the one I go by, is Zoom.”
Thunderlane and the rest of his gang chuckled, obviously amused by Zoom’s name. “Well, why don’t you just turn around and walk away. Go on, get the buck out of here,” said one of Thunderlane’s crew, a burly looking Earth Pony stallion.
Zoom gave a soft chuckle. ”How about I run instead?” the black-clad creature said. Next thing anyone knew, Zoom was directly in front of the stallion who’d just spoke, his whole arm impaling the stallion, who could only gasp from both shock and a lack of air before Zoom pulled his arm out, allowing the stallion’s corpse to hit the ground.
“What the hell are you idiots waiting for?! Kill the freak!” yelled Thunderlane with a certain panic in his voice.
Zoom chuckled, his smirk hidden by his mask. ”You may try,” he said.
Garble pulled a knife, pulling his arm back. It was as though the world had been slowed down to only a fourth of its natural speed for Zoom, who ducked underneath Garble’s thrust. He grabbed the dragon from underneath, pulling him into a choke-hold as the knife fell from Garble’s hand.
“Lemme go!” choked the dragon.
”Certainly,” said Zoom, before snapping the dragon’s neck as though it were a twig. A split-second later, Zoom phase-stabbed one of the dragon’s comrades, a unicorn stallion by the look of him, who stumbled into Thunderlane and tripped him up, causing him to smash his nose on the side of the wall, breaking it.
Octavia stared in shock. Vinyl was beginning to sober, if only by a margin, “Tavii, whass happenin’? Who’sss that?”
Octavia grabbed Vinyl’s hand and began to step back, something that Zoom couldn’t help but notice.
”Good thinking, toots! Get out of here, I’ve got-OOF!” said Zoom, before a thug hit him in the back of the head with a wooden baseball bat. The demonic being fell to his knees, coughing, “Y-you know, don’t hit the prisoner in the head. Gets them all dizzy, can’t feel anything else…”
The bat swung towards his head again, but a black-clad arm shot out and grabbed it in midair. Zoom pulled the bat from the Diamond Dog’s hand and began to viciously beat him so fast his actions merely looked like a blur, and continued beating the Diamond Dog even after he’d stopped moving.
Thunderlane picked himself up from the ground, the pain from his nose making his eyes tear up. He saw the two women staring in shock. Thunderlane growled, “You bitch!”
He ran at Octavia, who started to run off. Thunderlane tried to grab at her, but caught the hood of Vinyl’s jacket instead.
“Vinyl!” Octavia cried out.
“Freak! Get off Rover now, or this little one gets it!” Thunderlane pulled Vinyl into a choke hold, placing a knife at her throat.
Zoom stood up and tossed aside the remains of the baseball bat. ”Not entirely sure that’s gonna help him now,” he said moving aside to reveal the bloodied mess that was once a Diamond Dog.
“You animal!” roared Thunderlane in anger and pain.
“You’re one to talk, trying to mug people on the streets like you do,” said Zoom, sounding almost disappointed as he slowly approached. ” And those so-called cops who are supposed to uphold the law are no better. I’ve been in town long enough to know how they opperate. To them, the oath they swore to uphold the law is nothing more than a joke, all they care about is money and protection, rather than the greater good. This city doesn’t need scum like you or the cops.”
“What the hell do you mean?!” Thunderlane yelled as he pressed the knife harder against Vinyl’s throat, a thin line of red beginning to trail down.
“You don’t stand for anything…” Zoom said as he continued to walk closer, “You’re like little animals just surviving. You aren’t living!”
“Don’t get any closer! I’ll kill her, I swear to God!” Thunderlane cried out.
”Swear to me!” snarled Zoom. "You see, unlike you, I stand for something. I believe in something. I believe that this city needs someone who’s willing to take a life in order to ensure true peace and justice. That this city needs a true hero, one who can’t be bought, bullied, or negotiated with.”
Faster than a blink of an eye, Zoom moved in behind Thunderlane , phased his hand into the pegasus’ chest and crushed his heart, causing the pegasus to scream before he fell to the ground, dead.
”Someone like me.”
With Thunderlane dead, Zoom turned his attention to the victims of his victims. Octavia was holding a hand tightly to Vinyl’s neck, trying in vain to stop the river-like flow of blood. The knife that Thunderlane used to keep Vinyl prisoner was lying on the ground beside her.
“Move over, let me see what I can-,” Zoom said in a normal sounding male voice, before he was cut off by Octavia violently shaking her head, cradling Vinyl in her arms.
“Look, lady- well, you are a lady, right? Not some sort of weird alien?” Zoom said as he pointed to her face, “I mean, we don’t really have vibrant purple eyes and grey skin where I come from.”
Octavia held Vinyl closer to her as Zoom heaved a sigh. “Look, lady, if I wanted to hurt you two, you’d be dead where you stand. Now, let me have a look.”
Reluctantly, Octavia moved aside as Zoom took a look at Vinyl’s injuries. He let out a hiss as he examined the damage.
“Well, that’s not good,” muttered Zoom.
“What do you mean?” Octavia asked, a hint of panic in her voice, “Is it fatal?”
“Not by the looks of it, but… her vocal chords seem to be severely damaged. She wasn’t using her voice for her career, or anything along those lines, was she?”
Octavia shook her head violently as tears ran down her face.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” said Zoom. The very next second, police siren rang out, growing louder with each passing second. “That’s my cue to exit. See you around, toots.”
With a flash of blue lightning, Zoom was gone, leaving Octavia alone with her bleeding friend and the bodies of their attackers.
…
As he raced down the streets of Baltimare, Zoom took a deep breath. He could feel the air. Feel that wind on his face. He could feel the ground, his feet lifting him up and pushing him forward.
And the lightning.
Zoom could feel the lightning. He could feel its power. Its electricity pumping through his veins, crackling through him, traveling to every nerve in his body, like a powerful shock. He wasn’t himself anymore, his accident had seen to that. He was part of something greater, part of the Speed Force. And it was all his.
Zoom let out an exhilarated whoop as he broke the sound barrier, causing several cars to veer off the road and the windows of multiple builds to shatter from his sonic boom.
Ducking into an alley on the other side of town, Zoom took of his mask, revealing himself to be a human man with pale skin, short dirty blonde hair, and bright blue eyes. The unmasked Zoom laughed again.
“This is something else!” said Hunter Zolomon.