Chloe followed the group in silence – she was desperately trying not to blurt something stupid, and now, it was twice as hard due to her clouded mind.
She was sober – soberer than she had been in days but the lingering high had yet to completely subside.
Getting a husband out of the blue, actually liking someone for once only to find out he had a threesome with her best-maybe-friends, falling between dimensions, and now being more weakened than she had felt in her entire life…
Things weren’t easy.
Chloe’s gaze flickered between Revive and Barry – she had had a small crush on Barry when she was a bit younger, and they have ended up together had the twins not come at an unfortunate time.
Revive was another story altogether…
Chloe could recall the years she spent waiting for him – that one encounter when she was younger was enough for the man to cement his image into her mind.
And they did get along.
And The Amazon Princess found that she was particularly perceptive to Revive’s moods… it felt unreal given how her utter lack of care for anyone is not an act.
‘How much of my feelings is me?’ Chloe questioned.
The suspicion echoed in her mind so profoundly that she lost sight of her outside environment, not coming to her senses until everyone came to a stop.
Barry stood on the mountainous peak, and Chloe was able to see the moment a shudder ran through Tectonic… she could tell because her perception allowed her to feel the tremble in the ground.
Everyone moved…
The world slowed and Chloe took a single step forward, appearing just behind Barry, next to Revive, in a split-second.
And she saw what was over the mountain.
A world devastated…
The skies were orange with hints of blue the entire journey from the lake but as soon as they were high enough to peek a greater distance, the skies became blotches of black and grey.
In the distance, there was an entire city shrouded in dust with massive skyscrapers leaning against each other to find stability.
And those were the buildings that didn’t collapse.
Large sections of the city were on fire… and even larger parts were black with rolling soot, telling everyone the fires had been burning for quite some time… possibly years.
Helicopters with Nazi Sigils darted across the skies, occasionally letting loose electronic cannons on similarly flying demonic monstrosities.
Chloe felt her heart inking – she was picking up something, something that demanded she move even before she recognized what it was.
The Amazon Princess warred against the urges.
She watched as thick clouds covered the horizon, made thicker by the grey smoke drifting from the raging fires on the ground.
Then the urge came back in full force.
Chloe heard it…
She recognized it…
The sound of slaughter spreading across the city a couple of miles away… a massacre was happening just below the hill.
Children screaming – their screams were shut off first…
The sound of a sword through flesh, and running and bullets, and then, no more running…
Weapons clashed with sharp dings… but, the sound of flesh tearing with such precision told Chloe that one side was doing the killing, and one side was doing the dying.
She could smell blood from atop a mountain over five miles away – that meant there was a lot of blood.
Revive turned to regard Chloe, and she regarded him in turn – their eyes met and just as Chloe could realize the cold rationalization in The Speedster’s eyes, he could realize the desperate need to be heroic in her eyes.
“Chloe…” He warned. “Do not…”
“They… they – they are being slaughtered,” The Amazon Princess's teeth ground so hard it was audible to everyone present, and she was already gathering strength in her legs – doubling the strength to perform an enormous leap. “God! There are children in the building – they are killing them!” She pleaded.
“You don’t understa—”
The Speedster didn’t even get a chance to complete his pleading… in a blur of movement, the ground shook and Chloe was a hundred meters away.
Then, with a great leap, The Amazon Princess shot into the clouds, disappearing from sight.
She felt the world spinning around her and Chloe took control of her surroundings – she wasn’t as strong but her body still remembered how to fly.
It took a bit of effort but Chloe managed to adjust her degree of falling – it would take her directly into the city.
A couple of seconds later, The Amazon princess exited the clouds, whistling wind passed through her hair, and a moment later, she collided with the ground behind a large skyscraper.
Cracks spread across the already cracked street, sinking deeper and deeper until a small crater had formed.
The Amazon Princess raised her head - the scene before Chloe was one of carnage.
Old blood stains on even older walls.
Soldiers – if they could be even called such after committing such monstrosities – had Nazi insignia plastered all over their uniforms – they held electrified knobbed maces that cooked through the skin with a glancing touch.
Sizzle…
Sizzle…
Chloe wasn’t ready for the sight – she turned to the side and barfed the only thing in her stomach… stomach acid.
Her barf was five sizzles long – five more people had died.
The world in Chloe’s perception slowed.
The Amazon Princess’s eyes darted left and right, trying to plan and plot who to save first but her mind was in shambles – she could not think straight.
A frenzied saver was worse than no saver… something Revive could have warned his wife about had she bothered to listen.
Pigtail, a dirt-smeared face, wrapped in a torn and tattered pink dress – it was a child, a girl.
She was about to be crushed by an electrified mace held by a particularly large soldier.
But the next second…
The soldier was flying through the air, shooting through the third-floor window of the nearby skyscraper.
To Chloe, it was an instant – she merely dashed forward and pushed with all the strength she could muster… and just like that, in a moment of utter necessity, she had killed her second person.
Black Star had technically been killed by Revive but the death still weighed on her… now there was another.
It didn’t weigh as much because her mind couldn’t reflect on the occurrence.
With a horse voice, Chloe could only spare the child one word. “Run!”
The girl was probably no older than The Amazon Princess when she first met Revive – for a moment, Chloe saw herself overlap with the child’s appearance.
Only, she had never worn torn clothing – she had always been taken care of, something she could only now appreciate.
For the first time in her life, watching the carnage around her happening in slow motion, Chloe finally understood what her dad meant when he said ‘Your powers are not for you! They are for those less fortunate than you.’
The female child bolted faster than a deer.
Chloe was dashing through the slowed world once again – she smacked the forehead of a soldier with a quick jab, flattening the man to the ground.
Another soldier had his leg shattered completely by a slight kick from The Amazon Princess – she was brutal but also careful not to kill.
The blows may have been her lightest but to the soldiers, it felt as if sledge hammers were being repeatedly dropped on their heads, hands, and feet.
Chloe’s feet were growing heavy – she was not her father, and she could not sustain superspeed for too long.
She didn’t know the proper breathing technique…
She didn’t know how must pressure to apply to the ground beneath her feet…
She didn’t know when to accelerate and decelerate, using the wind as a cushion instead of resistance…
What little knowledge The Amazon Princess had, she got from a brief tour into the Speed World by Revive – though, his abilities were too different from her own to allow everything to translate.
Chloe pushed and tightened her muscles, feeling a pang of pain ripple through her body – she managed to get to another soldier, smacking him across the face.
The soldier lifted from the ground, ramming into a bent traffic light a dozen or so meters away.
The Amazon Princess grew weaker with every other step.
A final push allowed Chloe to ram her shoulder through three Nazi soldiers, protecting the fleeing civilians from the bulk of the attack.
It had been barely a minute since Chloe arrived and The Nazi forces were down to three tanks and a dozen ground forces.
Her intimidation factor was doing most of the work.
The moment her perception returned to real-time, The Amazon Princess felt alarms ring in her mind and she just barely managed to cross her arms in front of her chest.
A thump and Chloe was on her back.
A thick slab of concrete had found her at her most vulnerable moment, then came a jab to the face.
Revive’s training kicked in.
Previously, Chloe only knew how to use her gift of flight to soar through the skies, but with a bit of Revive’s training, she could now use it to adjust her position at any point in time.
Her back raked across the ground, shifting down by a couple of inches as a fist impacted where her head had once been.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Chloe spun and delivered a kick to the back of the Nazi soldier who was standing above her.
And just as she had done, the soldier blocked the kick.
They separated.
It was with the few precious seconds of sizing each other up and down that Chloe realized her kick had done little to no damage to the Nazi soldier.
‘He is superhuman…’ She guessed.
Chloe blurred forward, throwing a punch from the hip as Sheldon had taught her – it was fast, faster than any punch she had thrown before.
The Nazi General – enhanced through brutal experiments and born in the cruelty of war – tilted his head to the side, dodging Chloe’s blow while responding with a brutal gutting punch.
A low boom echoed…
Chloe winced from the sound of the fist meeting her stomach before she truly felt the pain – both of her feet left the ground and for a split-second, her mind wandered into the darkness of unconsciousness.
Still, an Amazon’s instinct was truly miraculous – somewhere deep inside, Chloe knew that if she lost consciousness, she would die… there were no ifs, buts, or maybes.
This was the first time her life was on the line and something took over… a combination of Amazon instincts, Revive’s training, and maybe just a bit of Chloe’s original naivety.
Chloe’s eyes met The Nazi General’s and a fierce headbutt that rumbled like thunder echoed.
The Nazi General stumbled…
The Amazon Princess stumbled…
The combatants moved simultaneously – blurring as fists, knees, and elbows clashed against each other.
Loud booms…
A couple of seconds later, it became obvious who would emerge victorious – out of the two combatants, only The Nazi General was prepared to kill with every blow.
The next fist exchange found Chloe being hammered into the ground with three consecutive blows, shattering a sidewalk, the ground beneath it, and the drain beneath that…
The sewer water stunk.
Chloe’s mind ventured to the most random topics – she didn’t even realize when she had been pulled out of the sewers and tossed in the direction of the fleeing crowd.
Bones cracked beneath her body…
It was with half a mind that The Amazon Princess spun herself in the air, grabbing at every ounce of her skill to stop her momentum before more civilians were splattered against her diamond-like physique.
Two men and a woman had been crushed.
Panic ensued – those too slow to escape sunk to their knees and begged for anything to happen… but nothing did.
Chloe’s mind couldn’t focus on the fight – she could only stare at the pieces of bone and organs smeared across her clothing.
She was shocked…
But there was no place for surprise in such an intense battle – The Amazon’s Princess Klyntar cleaned her uniform in a split-second, growing stronger after consuming the human mush.
It was with this strength that Chloe was able to back away, slip onto her hands and wrap her legs around The Nazi General’s neck; then, she spun and launched The Nazi General through a mailbox and into a dilapidated café.
Her hips burned with the movement but thankfully, she had been to enough clubs and gyrated her waist to enough music that using her hips for combat had become second nature.
A sob…
Chloe was ready to pursue – to take down The Nazi General that she sure hadn’t died.
But a sob stopped her in her place…
Her logical mind told her that the battle wasn’t finished and she couldn’t be distracted but knowing something and actually acting on it were totally different things.
The Amazon Princes turned…
She saw the blood on the child’s pink dress, the frozen expression on the child’s face, and the blood on the ground – the child was staring at the blood spot as if she had lost someone dear.
‘She had…’ Chloe knew but she refused to acknowledge the fact for her mental wellbeing… but knowing was already shaking her sanity.
“Sorry… I … am- am—”
The Amazon Princess choked on tears as she spoke.
She had killed Blackstar – Revive had turned back time, and that meant Blackstar was already dead so the matter was confusing.
Chloe didn’t feel guilty about it… but now, she felt guilty about the deaths she never caused – they were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time and if anything, she had saved them a meaningless death at the hands of Nazis.
“Then, why can’t I believe that?” She muttered to herself in a daze.
“It’s okay…” The child suddenly whispered, removing her eyes from the bloodspot that may have been her mother, a father, or an older brother or sister.
Chloe was stunned.
“Mommy said we should always be prepared to go to heaven because—”
The sound barrier breaking reached The Amazon Princess’s ears almost immediately, it took another split-second for her mind to process what the sound meant – matching it to when her father arrived in a blur when she and Brandon got in trouble at kids – and it took another split-second for Chloe to stir into action.
But it was too late.
Her hand had only managed to reach the child’s arm before the child exploded in a shower of blood and gore – stomped into the ground by a lithe figure Chloe could identify as her own.
The lither figure clicked her tongue and flicked her left foot forward, casting away the blood, viscera, and other mush that had stained her footwear.
The Amazon Princess saw red – it was a type of anger unlike what she had ever felt before.
A loud boom echoed – Chloe didn’t even realize when she had thrown the punch, just that she had… and that she had held nothing back.
It was the first time in her life that she threw a real punch – a punch with her full power behind it… a punch meant to take the life of the person in front of her.
A second passed…
Chloe felt relief at the disappearing anger…
Another second passed…
Chloe felt the relief becoming another emotion but she couldn’t understand what that emotion was…
Another second passed…
Chloe felt her fist sore and could finally identify the emotion as tension, confusion, and surprise…
Another second passed…
Chloe realized the surprise was deep because the punch never landed – in front of her, The Amazon Princess met the eyes of a face like hers, just much colder and more arrogant.
Admittedly, she was more beautiful as well – a domineering sort of beauty that spoke in absolutes… even if the absolute was death.
The Amazon Princess felt the hand clench around her fist playfully but the playful strength still caused her bones to crack in protest.
In the palm of The Chloe of The Nazi Universe was The Amazon Princess’s fist.
“Wha—”
It had been blocked – her punch had been blocked by a greater force.
“Weak…” Nazi Chloe, a self-titled Empress, voiced her utter disdain for the level of strength behind the punch.
A crack and Chloe found herself kneeling in front of her better self… literally.
Her painful groans died in her throat when she met the Empress’s eyes – they were cold.
“What… how?” She muttered in a daze.
“Physically and mentally weak…” Empress noted, staring into the eyes of her Multiversal-Variant. “Is there anything else?” She wore evaluating eyes, though there was cautiousness hidden within.
Empress would never underestimate a variant of herself, even if most that appeared was considerably weaker than herself.
Nazi Chloe sniffed the air, catching a whiff of something on her Multiversal counterpart. “Drugs… still in that self-destructive phase, are you?” She chuckled.
“Why? Why? These people…” Chloe was a thin line away from hysteria. “How could you do this…”
“You mean this?” Empress turned her head toward the fleeing civilians and released two beams of red energy from her eyes, turning a dozen fleeing women, children, and her own Nazi soldiers into ashes in an instant. “I honestly think it’s fun…” She admitted.
“AAARGH!” Chloe found strength from deep within.
She tore her broken fist away from Empress, twirled in the air faster than a blur, and built the necessary momentum to launch her strongest blow yet.
It was a right hook…
A loud boom – the ground shook and smoke clouded the area for a dozen feet.
Yet, a small breath from Empress blew the wind away, revealing that Chloe’s punch had indeed reached her Nazi Variant’s face but…
“A bruise?” Empress snorted and tilted her head back into perfect alignment with her shoulders as the bruise on her cheek rapidly disappeared. “Is that the best you can do?”
Chloe was speechless.
“Let me show you how it is done!” Nazi Chloe insisted.
Empress raised her right hand high into the air – her entire stance was casual and there was even a playful glean in her eyes.
Her body was relaxed and she didn’t even bother to make a fist – when her hand came down and onto Chloe’s shoulder, it appeared to be a light Karate chop.
It wasn’t fast… but…
“AAAAAAHHHHHHH!”
Blood spilled from Chloe’s lips as the entire right side of her body shattered – thankfully, her shoulder took the brunt of the attack, leaving her with a shoulder that had all but caved into her chest.
It would be death for anyone else but The Amazon Princess was the daughter of The Utopian.
Still, Chloe knelt as her mind swam with the most random thoughts, anything to escape the reality of her pain and despair – what’s for dinner? What is the temperature of a laser that can turn people to ashes in an instant? When will I get another hit of heroin?
“I guess you’re jussssstttttttt ttttttthhhhhhaaaaaaattttttt wwwwwwwweeeeeeee—”
Empress’s words were spoken at the same speed but it was as if the world around her was slowing, stretching her words until her voice could not affect its surroundings.
The sounds were moving too slowly.
Revive appeared in a world of lightning – the uncontrollable energy arched on his body, split off from his body, and struck the surrounding environment wildly, and some of the lightning even rushed to Chloe, snaking along her arms and legs affectionately.
The Speedster clutched his chest in the frozen world and as he took another step forward, he knelt and the frozen world degraded to a slow world.
Chloe’s and Empress’s eyes moved a centimeter.
The Nazi-Chloe’s eyes were slowly widening as she recognized the face of The Speedster that had appeared but Revive wasn’t about to give the failed version of Chloe a chance to say anything.
The Speedster gritted his teeth, uncaring of the blood leaking from between the white gaps, and dashed toward Nazi Chloe.
Her arm was raised, preparing for an attack that would end Chloe… but now that Revive had appeared, The Nazi-Chloe tried to lift her feet from the ground, planning to launch herself into flight.
But The Speedster was, of course, too quick.
Revive knew there was no way to move someone as strong and as spatially locked as Nazi-Chloe – all-powerful beings learn to use their ability of flight even when they walk.
That made them especially hard to move, even with the assistance of The Speed Force.
But Revive had been a Speedster for long enough to come up with several techniques to even defeat a certain Kryptonian in a surprise attack.
The Speedster dashed past Nazi Chloe, pressing a hand on her shoulder and forcing her body to tilt backward ever-so-slightly.
Then, he repeated the action– this time, he pressed his hand to Nazi-Chloe’s forehead.
Then again…
And again…
And again…
The momentum in Nazi-Chloe’s body built to incredible extremes with each of Revive’s repeat actions.
The Speedster dashed past The Empress one more time, circled the nearby Skyscraper, snapping the necks of all The Nazis in his path, and finally, returned to Chloe’s side.
He brushed past his wife and was once again about to pass Nazi-Chloe – by then, her feet had left the ground and she was about to take flight.
Her body was moving six inches every second.
But Revive had already completed his preparations – this time, instead of merely passing The Empress, The Speedster slowed and launched himself into the air, wrapping his hands around Nazi-Chloe’s neck as he activated the accumulated momentum trapped in her body.
Then, Revive pulled himself and Nazi-Chloe to the ground with his lightning.
A massive boom…
The ground had started to shatter before the Superhuman Beings even touched it…
Lightning scorched a dozen feet… the lightning ran along Nazi-Chloe’s body, burning her and biting her as if it were alive.
The ground beneath Nazi-Chloe melted from the heat of the lightning burning through her.
Empress made it to the bottom of the crater after sinking through several layers of rocks and sewage and even then, the earth buried her deeper as the momentum of an unmatched speedster weighed Nazi-Chloe down more than any gravity could.
Then, the world returned to normal speed and Revive was blown away by the windy backlash of the deadly technique he had just employed.
Chloe broke through the strong winds and snatched The Speedster out of the air, just as he was about to meet the bullet-proof windows of the third-story of a Skyscraper.
Sadly, The Amazon Princess was also injured, and that led to a flight imbalance that caused her to take them through the seventh-floor window instead of the third-floor window.
The duo groaned.
Revive carefully slid out of Chloe’s arms and started picking glass shards out of his cheek – the only place unprotected by his Klyntar suit.
Thankfully, Chloe had taken the brunt of the attack, placing her body in harm’s way – she may have been stronger and tougher than The Speedster but she was also more severely injured.
“I told you to wait,” Revive groaned, limping around for a couple of seconds until his accelerated healing kicked in and he started to walk normally once more. “You are lucky she didn’t kill you.”
“She- she… she is so strong,” Chloe winced at the thought, standing as best she could with her shoulder and several ribs shattered and partially dented. “I don’t understand how she could be so strong…”
“She’s stronger than you on a normal day, much less when you just arrived in the dimension and have yet to regain your true strength,” Revive snorted, walking up to Chloe and forcefully pulling her into his arms as he placed a hand behind her head. “Don’t resist me – I am taking us out of here.”
The Speedster’s eyes mapped a trajectory that would require the most efficient use of his speed – he couldn’t go too fast… he had already spent considerable energy to stun The Empress.
Yes, stun… not kill.
And of course, Revive knew if he went too slow, then he would not be able to escape – not with Chloe in tow anyway.
“What about the people dying?” Chloe argued though she was not resistant to getting out of there – she didn’t even fight the sensation when her body started to vibrate at blurring speeds in preparation for their escape.
Revive’s hands found the perfect location on Chloe’s back to lessen the turbulence of the journey – thankfully, she was tough so her neck would not break.
The same could not be said for the others…
“Those people have been surviving Killer-Chloe and The Nazi for ten years,” The Speedster educated, not hiding the fact that he was familiar with their current dimension. “Trust me when I say, whether you showed up or not, those people would have been fine. You probably caused a lot more of them to die by showing up here and attracting that killing machine.”
Chloe was stunned into silence and the next second, her mind blurred.
The wind forced its way down her throat – it was like a sludge trying to crawl into her mouth.
Her eyes ached as her neck was elongated to the limits it would allow.
Compared to all the times before, where he had been gentle and kept Chloe wrapped in a layer of Speed Force, Revive was basically running his wife through a hell of speed.
And this was the reason why it took countless years and countless deaths for The Speedster to master how to run with Superhuman individuals in tow, much less normal people… which he could just still barely manage.
………………
A small crack of lightning.
A flicker of blue, violet, and orange.
The lightning danced north… then east… flickered to the south and then to west…
The cloud of Speed Force energy clouded a large area – just enough of a cloak to hide where the lighting would go next.
…
Kaitlyn, Austin, Barry, Janna, Jacinda, and the others flinched when Revive and Chloe appeared in a burst of lightning… they flinched again when they saw Chloe’s state.
She was bloodied… clothes dripping off her body as the Klyntar had taken the same beating of its host – possibly more given that Chloe wouldn’t be able to hold a candle to The Empress on her best day.
The left side of her body was bent unnaturally and The Amazon Princess was bruised in a way that could only be considered abuse… not that anyone would abuse the Utopian’s daughter.
“What the fuck!” Vera teleported to Chloe’s side, catching The Amazon Princess as she was about to fall. “WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED OUT THERE? QUICK! SHE’S DYING!”
Nobody cared when Revive dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes – they were all too occupied with the way half of Chloe’s chest seemed to cave.
As she struggled to breathe, they could literally hear the creaking of her ribs.
A rapid inspection of Chloe’s state started – it was only Jacinda, needing to curry favor with Revive to save Gabriella, who pulled The Speedster to a side and made him comfortably in his semi-conscious state.
Both Revive and Chloe lost consciousness at the same time.