When Flashes Clash, Chapter One

Once upon a time, two boys had sat together on the shores of reality and looked out at what lay beyond.

This was the Seegs, an endless flat ocean of searing glaring rawness whose terrible white stretched far past the dark horizon where bolts of lightning played. No-one in this galaxy or any other could say for certain whether there was truth in the folk-song that described the Seegs as the place where the universe ended. All that was known was that those who stepped into it never came back.

The boy with fair hair and pinkish skin had looked on the Seegs and seen chaos. There were dangerous forces that must be controlled. It was the duty of the strong to stand together and do this, making a power of themselves, whereby all other presences which posed a threat to the weak might be challenged.

The boy with black hair and ebony skin had looked on the Seegs and seen order. If existence was to be comprehended, then that which was not existence must be understood too. It was the duty of the wise to maintain such delicate balances, respecting always their especial nature, thereby ensuring that all that was might go on.

That day, two different lives discovered the paths they would follow. That day, a friendship was rounded.

And that day, in honour of the primal electricity on the borders of their vision that ever unto eternity flashed, the two boys chose the name by which they would be known.

There were some who said that what began then ended with Dimension Borg and the Solidity. Others might have argued it continued in a different form, its girl-leader and young members of a generation not thought of when those boys sat before the Seegs. Nevertheless, some tiny part of that which the two friends shared must have stayed alive until this moment, as they faced each other a pair of mighty grown men across the fuming sky and battle-noise of a war-torn city light-years from home. For if this ineffable something of the first Flash Club had not remained so long, it could not have died at last when Lightning and Storm-Sky looked on each other thus.

They would speak of it. In due course.

Lightning threw back his cape and thrust one fist aloft. The blow did not end at his hand but shot heavenward beyond it, a ball of seething coruscating thunder cannoning at Storm-Sky. That one brought his arms to his breast and clove out of empty air a radiant crescent singing with fundamental energies which he bowled at Lightning’s volley in return. Each athlete set off at once in his projectile’s wake, Lightning ascending, Storm-Sky descending, steeling themselves for collision even as their powers struck likewise. Incandescent blowback roared and flamed from the impact-zone, pulverizing the iron framework on which Lightning had stood, and where one of the many Mini-Flashes he had recruited in happier times poised meekly still.

Flashtease however was not sorry to see the vantage-point go, for he’d become anxious about all the Earthlings down on the road who were able to see up his tunic. Dutifully flipping and twirling into the explosion’s shockwaves he let them carry him safely to the nearest rooftop, whereupon he completed his descent with a final double-somersault and skidded to a halt on the soles of his feet.

“Worst possible time for ride-up,” Flashtease muttered, giving himself a much-needed adjustment. “Half the planet must know by now I don’t just have freckles on my nose… ”

Then a second stray blast reminded him there were greater concerns, as once again he was propelled breathless to environs that might offer more shelter from the clashing titans overhead. That pair had closed and were lighting up the sky, hands ablaze and trailing golden blurs behind them as they hammered and darted and blocked, their endless motion weaving a bright cocoon about the circling combatants. Nor were Lightning and Storm-Sky the only ones launching at that minute into open hostilities over a principle betrayed, for deep beneath the planet’s surface four loyal Solidity cyborgs designated Electromagnet, Technomancer, Breakpoint and Conduit were turning their wrath on another mechanical quartet made up of treacherous Space-Screamer’s elite bodyguards Steelstreak, Cyclotor, Audio-Wave and Drilldome. These latter robots, programmed for absolute devotion to their cowering master, did not so much as require his frantic shrieked commands to charge selflessly before him into the path of the stampeding foes. Thus it was that at the bottom of a steep-sided subterranean shaft hundreds of feet below street-level, the grey and gold of Space-Screamer’s soldiers met with the blue and bronze of Dimension Borg’s in a reckoning from which no circuit or cog could hope to emerge unscathed.

Cyclotor, spinning like a whirlwind to whip up deadly air-currents that slashed like blades, dealt the first blow to lumbering boxlike Conduit and toppled him from his tank-treads. Conduit’s weather-controlling comrade Technomancer however knew just as much about hurricanes, and a roaring crosswind issuing from his outstretched palms counter-twisted Cyclotor crazily off-course. He cut into the rock-face while Drilldome, charging with head lowered and the massive conical diamond-tipped bit atop his skull revolving frenziedly, looked set to do the same to one of Technomancer’s crew. It was Electromagnet who checked this fearsome advance by thrusting forth the giant twin prongs in which his right arm ended, and like his namesake steered the ferrous Drilldome away from him and into the side of the shaft. This surface was the one whose geological structure had been altered long ago by Dimension Borg, such that it was impenetrable to any and all instruments including Drilldome’s point. Mercilessly Electromagnet bore down, driving his adversary head-first against the unyielding cliff as if to split the drill then crumple his cranium like a tin can against the rock.

Audio-Wave came to Drilldome’s rescue, first disrupting the magnetic field with high-frequency sonics from the transmitters built into his hefty shoulders and shins, then wading in to throw his vast physical strength around and bludgeon the aggressor aside. All this commotion was playing out amid wild strobe-lights cast by the leaping four-legged Breakpoint whose armour seethed with eldritch flame, upon whom Steelstreak was attempting to draw a bead with his formidable firepower. Lethal searing beams lanced across the scene, as the damaged robots picked themselves up again and again and with untiring mechanical single-mindedness engaged the nearest hostile and resumed their mission of dismantlement.

Space-Screamer, wishing nothing more ardently than for them all to destroy each other, lit his belt-jets. Protected from the Dimension Borg robots by covering-fire courtesy of the very servants he was abandoning, he swiftly completed the vertical ascent using his technologically-enhanced vision to weave in and out of the invisible giant hoses that snaked down the shaft and were clamped to its foot. For Space-Screamer knew that as long as this unseen apparatus remained in place, his masterplan might yet succeed. All he needed to do was reach the galactic trans-mat unit that sat waiting in the city, likewise masked from every view but his. Not only would this device spirit him back in an instant to his dominions on the other side of the cosmos, but it would transport along with him the unconquerable powers of The Four Heroes which were locked in the bedrock at Nottingham’s subterranean core, and these were the means by which Space-Screamer intended to rule his galaxy again.

He scrambled onto pavement and hastened for the shadows of derelict districts at once. Far above Space-Screamer in the war-choked firmament, Lightning finally broke off his battering of Storm-Sky’s defences and ducked under the other’s swinging arm, to leg-lock his fellow Flash and force him rooftop-wards in a relentless dive. Storm-Sky arced his free foot up into Lightning’s jowls and escaped the hold even as concrete loomed below. Lightning landed first on the office block’s summit, and in the fleeting seconds it took him to regain his bearings Storm-Sky powered into his upper body and gripped fast in a lock of his own. The latter’s momentum carried him the remainder of the way, bending Lightning backward almost double in the process, such that as Storm-Sky’s soles touched down on the roof his opponent’s were lifted clear in turn. Heaving with all his Herculean might Storm-Sky bore Lightning’s bulk up and over his head and down again, to finish in a body-slam that shook the building from penthouse to foundations.

Following up on this fall Storm-Sky dropped at once, ready to drive his elbow into the prostrate one beneath him. Lightning however was well-named, and recovered with speed enough to raise both knees to his chest and put his feet between himself and Storm-Sky before the blow could strike. After no more than a single breath had passed between the counterparts Lightning straightened his legs on sinews of steel, and Storm-Sky was pushed flailing to the heavens.

He came down again through the side of a multi-storey car-park, cracking open its barrier of cement and tumbling out of sight. Lightning picked himself up and leapt across the divide, his cloak streaming back as he hurtled to press home his advantage. Then from out of the breach in the car-park wall a Buick flew at him, thrown fender-first by Storm-Sky from within. Lightning deflected its chassis with his forearm, only to be met full in the flank by an airborne SUV as Storm-Sky made his second pass. An instant later that one exited the opening like a guided missile and the two Flashes engaged again, closing face-to-face this time as together they spiralled back towards the city.

In that direction, but further on down than they were headed, Conduit deployed his high- pressure waterspouts to blast the long-suffering Drilldome against one of the shaft-sides untainted by Dimension Borg’s sinister work. With his dented bit still revolving Drilldome bored through the cliff-face and burst out again a short distance along the one tunnel that led away from the battle-site. His three companions quickly rallied to him, recognizing that their faction had inadvertently become the first to claim new ground, and seizing at once the opportunity to lure their enemies to terrain of their choosing. Thus the Space-Screamer robots commenced a strategic withdrawal, Dimension Borg’s quartet stalking in pursuit but kept at bay by Steelstreak’s lasers and Audio-Wave’s sonics, while Drilldome’s burrowing and Cyclotor’s destructive twirls cleared routes to new tactical positions behind them. Gradually the clanking cacophony of robotic warfare receded from the shaft and faded away.

Much like the contretemps between Lightning and Storm-Sky, this altercation had boasted a private audience of one. Carrie however, unlike Flashtease, was long past worrying about her modesty. Slumped forgotten in a bare rocky crevice, her pretty head and white-feathered wings drooping low, she had scarcely even registered the mechanical mayhem going on all around. Now as the last of the din dwindled along the passage there was nothing left for Carrie to do but lie there still, and no sound but that of her breathing steadily becoming fainter and fainter.

END OF CHAPTER ONE