The two of them sat watching the game on TV nervously, completely absorbed in the action. They didn't seem to care about the demons that might appear around them at any time.
Martha shook her head helplessly and turned to walk into the kitchen to prepare fried chicken for them. This had become a little habit since Marcus arrived—whenever they watched games together, they always liked to eat fried chicken and yell at the screen.
He was obviously someone with superhuman powers, but he seemed no different from ordinary people in moments like these. If you ignored Marcus's strength, his behavior was almost the same as any regular human's.
Soon, the delicious smell of fried chicken drifted out of the kitchen. Martha walked out carrying a large plate. Besides fried chicken, there were also their favorite French fries and fried onion rings. The food was topped with mayonnaise and ketchup, and there was even a bowl of grilled cheese on the side.
"Oh, this looks amazing, Martha. You've worked hard," Marcus said, picking up a piece of fried chicken from the plate. He laughed and gestured to Martha before taking a bite.
The fried chicken Martha made tasted great, and Marcus had even taught her some cooking techniques, which made the flavor even more tempting.
"Ha! Home run!"
Jonathan suddenly shouted excitedly, holding up his fried chicken.
The Red Bulls player was still running the bases on TV, but Jonathan was already celebrating. Home runs like this one—where the ball sailed completely out of the park—weren't seen often in games, which was enough to make everyone excited.
"Did you see that? Those guys from the Motor Oil team are useless!" Jonathan said, looking at Marcus with a proud expression on his face, as if showing off how good he was at judging teams.
"Haha, yeah, that was pretty rare," Marcus agreed with a grin. "Even across all the worlds I've been to, you don't see home runs that clean very often."
Hearing Marcus's words, Jonathan laughed even louder. He raised his glass and gently clinked it with Marcus's, then drank his beer.
In Central City
A yellow lightning bolt was moving back and forth between city blocks. The lightning was quickly traveling between supermarkets, as if someone was doing massive shopping at super speed.
"Is this the Flash kid that Green Arrow mentioned?" Bruce muttered to himself in his fighter.
He was surprised when he saw the speed readings detected by his aircraft. This person's speed was incredible—no wonder Oliver said it was about Mach 2.
After analyzing for a moment, Bruce quickly detected where all the lightning tracks intersected. It was a single-family house in a residential neighborhood.
"Found you," Bruce said, steering the fighter toward that location. This person was very fast, and he needed to make contact with him.
Of course, assessing the guy's abilities would also be important. For the safety of Earth, Bruce didn't fully trust anyone—even himself. He'd even created contingency plans specifically for himself, just in case he was ever controlled or compromised.
Barry was happily eating hamburgers and pizza. He'd bought these from a store six blocks away using his super speed—they were freshly made and tasted great.
"After I finish eating and recharge, I should start renovating and painting the house," Barry said to himself, glancing at the various building materials piled up nearby.
These tasks might be a serious problem for others, taking days or even weeks. But for him, with his super speed, it would be pretty easy. He was a speedster—so far, no one had been found who was faster than him.
For others, work that took a whole day or several days could be completed by him in just a short time. And that was even considering waiting for paint to dry. If he didn't need to paint, it would be even faster.
Actually, as a speedster, he could finish all this food instantly if he wanted to. But he didn't do that. He enjoyed savoring the delicious moments brought by the food. His reaction speed was far beyond ordinary people, which made his perception completely different. While ordinary people just swallowed hamburgers and pizza in one bite, he could taste every flavor carefully and even had time to guess the origin and cooking method of each ingredient.
Knock knock knock
Someone was knocking at the door while he was enjoying his food.
"It's so late—who's here?" he wondered, stuffing all the remaining burger into his mouth and chewing at super speed. He swallowed it almost instantly.
"Coming!" he called out, and in a flash of lightning, he appeared at the door.
He opened it to find a muscular man wearing black armor with a bat symbol on his chest, staring at him with an intense gaze.
"You are..."
Seeing this outfit, a name instantly popped into Barry's mind: Batman. The Dark Knight of Gotham was pretty famous. After all, this man had made Gotham—known as the city of sin—stable for many years. If murders were everywhere in Gotham in the past, the city was much better now. At least there were no more murders happening on the streets in broad daylight.
But why did the Dark Knight of Gotham come to Central City? And why was he here at Barry's door?
This puzzled Barry. Could it be that a friend was playing a prank on him?
He looked at Bruce seriously, studying his figure, height, and chin, trying to find useful clues. This person didn't look like anyone he knew. There were some tall and strong people among his friends, but he was sure he'd never met the man standing in front of him.
"I'm from Gotham. You can call me Batman," Bruce said, introducing himself.
Is he really Batman? Barry was stunned, and his doubts grew stronger. Why would the Dark Knight of Gotham come to see him specifically?
It had only been a short time since he woke up from his lightning-induced coma. Even if he had some fame as The Flash, it was impossible for anyone to know his real identity, let alone attract someone like Batman to come meet him personally.
"Hello, my name is Barry Allen," he said, not mentioning anything about his super speed abilities. He didn't want to reveal his secret identity.
"I think there's something you didn't tell me? For example, your super speed," Bruce said directly. He came here to work with this young man, so there was no need to play games.
But his words made Barry freeze. His identity should be well hidden. Except for the people at STAR Labs, no one else should know about it.
"You..." Barry started.
"Are you going to ask me how I know?" Bruce said with a slight smile, glancing inside the room. "Aren't you going to let me in?"
"Oh, okay! Please come in..." Barry led Bruce into the room, his mind full of questions. He picked up a slice of hot pizza and handed it to Bruce. "Have a piece. I bought this from the pizza shop six blocks away."
"Thank you, I'm a little hungry too," Bruce said, taking a bite. He raised his eyebrows slightly—the pizza tasted pretty good.
After finishing the slice, Bruce looked at Barry. The young man was obviously not in a good state after having his identity revealed. He seemed very confused about how it happened.
"Don't be too surprised. I came here specifically to find you, and..." Bruce reached up and took off his cowl, revealing his true face.
"You are... the boss of Wayne Group!" Barry couldn't help but exclaim when he saw Bruce's real appearance. He had thought about Batman's identity before, but he never imagined it would be the super-rich man from Gotham—the boss of Wayne Group, one of the wealthiest people in the world.
"Haha, you know me. Seems like I'm still doing pretty well as a public figure," Bruce said with a smile, picking up another piece of pizza.
The age difference between them was at least twenty years—Barry could be his son. He didn't need to hide anything from this young man.
"The reason I came to you is because of your special abilities. Your super speed will play a very important role in what's coming," Bruce explained. Then he told Barry in detail about the demons.
The explanation left Barry confused as a young man. He wasn't really questioning whether demons existed, but rather whether the STAR Labs explosion had affected all of America.
In Barry's opinion, these so-called demons should all be metahumans affected by the particle accelerator explosion at STAR Labs.
"Well, can I see one of these demons you mentioned? I think they might be metahumans," Barry suggested.
"Metahumans?" Bruce was caught off guard. He didn't know about metahumans. After all, the only people with powers he'd encountered were demons, the teacher Marcus, Superman, and now Barry.
"Yes, metahumans. How do you think I got my superpowers?" Barry didn't wait for an answer. "I was struck by lightning during the particle accelerator explosion and woke up after being in a coma for nine months."
"And according to STAR Labs' research, the explosion affected a huge area. Many people, like me, gained superpowers in that explosion. We call these people metahumans."
This explanation made Bruce suddenly understand. He'd heard a little about the STAR Labs explosion—after all, it was a major experiment that shocked the world. Such an explosion would naturally spread news throughout the country and even globally.
But metahumans with superpowers weren't the same as demons. Weapons and tactics that worked on demons might not be as effective on metahumans.
"I understand now, but demons and metahumans aren't the same thing. Demons are real and have been around much longer. They appeared in Gotham twenty years ago," Bruce explained.
Now Barry understood—the demons Bruce was talking about were real and had existed before metahumans appeared.
After figuring this out, Barry became silent. If demons were real, this was actually pretty scary. He was already dealing with metahuman criminals. Now with demons added to the mix, even as a speedster, he wasn't sure he could handle everything.
Seeing Barry go silent, Bruce stuffed the last bit of pizza into his mouth, put his mask back on, and stood up to look at Barry.
"Come with me to see something. You'll understand after you see it."
He walked out the door, and Barry followed subconsciously. He wanted to see what this Dark Knight—who was about his father's age—was going to show him.
Outside, Bruce walked to an open area, and suddenly a ladder appeared from thin air.
"Follow me. You'll understand after seeing this," Bruce said, waving at Barry before boarding the invisible Batfighter.
Barry quickly climbed up the ladder onto the aircraft. Before he could look around at everything, he saw Bruce approaching with a transparent container. Inside was a strange bull head with fierce, long horns.
"Why does this bull head look so weird?" Barry asked.
"This is what I wanted to show you. It's not an ordinary bull head—it's a demon's head. This is what they really look like," Bruce explained.
Bruce's words shocked Barry. Is this strange bull head really from a demon?
Looking at it carefully, Barry noticed the differences. The head looked somewhat like a bull's, but it was off. The skin was thick like a crocodile's hide. The horns weren't smooth like normal bull horns—they had obvious segments like ram horns. Most importantly, the mouth was full of sharp fangs, making it look fierce and terrifying.
Except for the general shape, nothing else about it resembled an actual bull.
"Is it really a demon?" Barry asked.
"Of course it's real. This demon was chasing Green Arrow in Star City. I killed it, and Green Arrow chose to join our team after that," Bruce confirmed.
Hearing that Green Arrow—someone he'd asked for help before—had also joined Bruce's team, Barry was silent for a moment. Then he decided to join too.
"Can I tell other people about this? The people from STAR Labs have been helping me a lot," Barry asked.
"That's up to you, as long as they're people you trust. This isn't really a secret—we just don't want to cause widespread panic," Bruce said.
Beep beep beep...
"Barry, where are you? There's a metahuman crime happening in west Central City. A new metahuman has appeared," Cisco's voice came through Barry's phone, alerting him to trouble.
"Well... I have to go catch someone," Barry said apologetically.
As soon as he finished speaking, Barry changed into a red outfit with lightning bolts on his ears and chest.
"Let me introduce myself again, I'm the good neighbor of Central City, The Flash!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~