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Chapter 176: Where Is Darkseid? III

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He was definitely preparing to conquer Earth... Unfortunately, "I love animals. They're lovely lovely creatures, so..."

So he was about to show Gorilla city just how much love he holds for animals.

Gorilla Grodd opened his mouth, but no words came out of his mouth. Everything froze, each and every Gorilla across more than a mile around Ian stopped moving.

"You can keep up?" Ian murmured, eyeing the flash of resignation in Grodd's eyes, "No, only your mind can keep up... The sage force."

Grodd could see and comprehend Ian's actions, but he couldn't do anything about them. 

His mind was quick enough to understand what was happening, but his body wasn't even able to flinch before every single Gorilla across the city fell into a pool of blood of their making.

And only then did Grodd find himself able to move, and he would've been happy if not for the spear-like staff that took root in his chest, replacing his heart.

That and Ian's emotionless eyes, bored even as he waited for the sage force to be devoured into the second Vessel.

"How?" Grodd could only mutter weakly in disbelief. He did everything to keep the city hidden from the world, preparing to one day conquer it.

His bright mind complemented by the Sage force allowed him to predict many things, but not this...

"Hm? How?" Ian raised a brow, seemingly contemplating an answer, "Oh, now I remember how. It was... Dead. Well, that's unfortunate."

Before he could answer, Grodd died, devoured alive by the hungry staff, "The combination of the Still force and the speed force is a bit much isn't it? Suits me well..." 

Ian couldn't help but marvel at what he had just achieved. He first created a domain of still force, negating motion, or slowing it down to the point that everything seemed motionless.

Negating motion completely seemed to be quite the difficult thing even with Ian's incredibly potent Death force, but that didn't matter one bit.

Why? He used the speed force on top of the still force, so motion might as well have been deleted from the universal vocabulary at that moment.

Unfortunately, for the two forces to coexist together, and function perfectly, Ian found out that he had to use them as Roses of Deaths. 

If he uses the two forces from his staff, then they clash together, and they even try to cancel each other out.

But the Rose of speed combined with the Rose of still works perfectly. The forces even work together to become much more potent.

"The city could be useful." Ian took a tour around it, finding the city worthy of a small investment, so he gladly accepted it as a gift or a symbol of a miracle that once lived here, an intelligent race mysteriously eradicated for the greater good.

He went through the trouble of cleaning the city completely, getting rid of the bodies, and their blood. It took him a staggering one minute to do so with the use of magic and the speed force.

It was honestly surprising that Ian kept his composure and got rid of his traces, even going as far as casting a grand spell to hide the city. Someone in his place would jump at the opportunity to get the last cosmic force.

But Ian took his time, and only once he made sure nothing can do wrong in Gorilla city did he teleport to Central city, the home of his dear friend, the Flash.

Granted, the Flash has some kind of beef with him, but Ian was pretty sure it was just a misunderstanding.

And well, the opportunity to solve the misunderstanding has arrived, not of Ian's own volition, but because his target was imprisoned in S.T.A.R labs.

That combined with the fact that the Flash must've sensed the burst of energy since he's a speedster tells Ian that he should be waiting for him, possibly even have an idea of his goal.

Indeed, a second later, Ian found himself face to face with the Flash. He wasn't alone though as next to him stood another Flash.

The other Flash had a similar outfit to Barry. The only difference was that it didn't hide his ginger hair and much of his face. He seemed young, much younger than Barry.

Right away, Ian knew who he was, Wally West, named after his grandfather, is the only son of Rudy and Mary West. 

As a child, he developed a fascination with the superhero The Flash, having no idea that the speedster knew his aunt Iris in Central City.

One day, while visiting Iris at her friend Barry Allen's CSI lab at the Central City Police Department, Wally was struck by a bolt of lightning and doused in chemicals, similar to what happened to the Flash, which infused Wally with the power of a mysterious energy force called the Speed Force like his hero.

And now here he is standing next to his hero, ready and even excited to face who he knows to be a threat, an enemy that brought so much pain to Barry.

The man certainly seemed special. He wasn't wearing any special outfit like the usual villains Wally is used to facing, merely attired in a nice black tuxedo, suiting him quite a lot.

What's special about him was the staff hovering behind him. What's even odder were Ian's blurry eyes. They gave Wally a very weird feeling as if Ian doesn't have eyes like he was looking into his soul.

And Walley knew he wasn't imagining things because he could see flashes of orange and green in those blurry eyes from time to time, hell, he could even catch sparkles of blurriness appearing around Ian.

Those sparkles were so quick to go that he was barely able to catch them with his eyes.

"What?" Ian Innocently asked.

"You've deceived me. You lied to me and used me for your own selfish goals. You hurt someone close to me just to get me to do your bidding... Did you think I won't find out???!"

Barry was shaking, never feeling so emotional. He felt like he had rehearsed those words so many times, but when it came to it, his lips couldn't help but tremble in anger.

It turns out that having to watch the person you love grow younger and older at the same time isn't a nice experience, especially when the end result was a half-baby and a half-old woman... A dead corpse more like it.

"No, you knew I'll know, but you didn't care, did you? Why didn't you just stay out of my way and continue with whatever business you had with Batman??! Now!! Not even Batman will be able to stop me from what about to do!!"

"Nothing happened," Ian instantly responded before the Flash could act, making him a bit confused, "Whatever it is that you hate me for. It didn't happen. It's a mistake of your own doing. You've done something that shouldn't have been done, yet you blame me?"

Gaslighting 101 is in progress. Ian initiated a charity protocol in his mind and continued, "You made a mistake. Did I make you go back in time to change the past? Might as well be responsible for all the chaos in the universe then..."

Ian walked closer to them, pointing at the Flash in an accusatory tone, "It's all your fault. I had to do so many bad things because you've made that mistake! How do think that made me feel huh??!"

"What??" Barry was genuinly confused, or as Ian would call it, distracted. Even Wally was kinda distracted as he shouted, "What a load of bullshit!"

Silently, Ian achieved what he came here for. All he needed was a bit of time for his Death force to surround his target before he can teleport him into his dimension.

Barry did notice, but there wasn't much he could do by that point except for eyeing the empty cell behind him with deep undulating bitterness and outrage, "You son of a bitch!!"

The Flash did what he did best and started running, his hand already clenched, ready to punch Ian. Behind him, Wally followed.

A Flash of surprise passed in the Flash's eyes as he eyed something behind Ian. From a gap in space, in the very concept of time, arose something dark... Death with its hands extended to take Ian's life away.

Something odd and incomprehensible was about to happen, and Ian was at the very core of it all.