Old grudges and new, settled together.
Vandal Savage raised the Staff of Ra high, his hideous expression twisting further as he brought it down with savage force. Azure energy erupted outward the instant the staff struck, radiating in all directions.
Boom!
Everything in its path disintegrated—furniture, walls, debris crushed to nothing as the wave swept past Jack Kadere and detonated somewhere behind him.
He didn't bother looking back. His lips curled with mild disappointment. The Staff of Ra's power was thoroughly ordinary. Destructive, sure, but this was just an artifact. Jack possessed actual divine power. The blast hadn't even scratched him.
"This—this is impossible!"
Vandal Savage stared at the unscathed figure before him, struggling to process what he was seeing.
"Hello." Jack's grin widened. "My name is Impossible."
He vanished and reappeared directly in front of Vandal Savage, pressing a single finger against his forehead with casual precision.
Cold erupted from the point of contact.
Vandal Savage's face contorted in agony as he tried to pull away, but the chill had already invaded his skull, freezing the blood in his brain solid. Ice spread rapidly—down his neck, across his shoulders, encasing his torso and limbs until his entire body was locked in crystalline frost.
A human popsicle.
Jack flicked his wrist. Reality rippled, and a wormhole resembling churning storm clouds opened beneath Vandal Savage's frozen feet. He dropped straight through.
Thump!
The ice-bound body crashed onto the Aerie's deck, startling Caitlin Snow and Eliza Harmon mid-examination of cell samples.
"Who is this one?" Caitlin asked, eyeing the frozen man with wary curiosity as Jack dropped through the wormhole after his cargo.
"An experimental subject." Jack landed lightly beside the body. "His regeneration is extreme—can resurrect from a single surviving cell. Study his cellular structure and see if you can resolve the serum's drawbacks."
"Is he a meta-human?"
"Meta-human?" Jack snorted. "No. He's an ancient monster who's been alive for God knows how many millennia. We had unfinished business. Seemed like a good time to settle it."
He crouched beside the frozen form and began thawing him out. Vandal Savage could regenerate in under ten minutes—better to get Caitlin working on those cells immediately.
Eliza Harmon watched the process with wide eyes, still looking timid and uncertain without her second personality surfacing to cause trouble. Despite her obvious unease at being brought here, she started helping with the sample preparation without complaint.
Vandal Savage's cells proved genuinely remarkable under examination.
Jack had copied his regenerative ability, which theoretically meant his own cellular structure should mirror Vandal's. But when Caitlin had examined Jack previously, his body registered as completely ordinary—suggesting the copy transferred only the functional ability rather than physical alterations.
Not that it mattered. Even if his own cells worked identically, Jack had no intention of using himself as a laboratory specimen.
Within minutes, Vandal Savage's heart resumed beating.
Before the ancient immortal could orient himself, Jack cast a mind control spell. Vandal's eyes glazed over, and he became perfectly cooperative.
---
Daylight faded. Night settled over the Aerie.
Caitlin Snow and Eliza Harmon were both brilliant in their respective fields. In certain timelines, Caitlin had upgraded the speed serum on her own. Eliza had reverse-engineered an entire formula from partial data alone—Caitlin had once asked for her help on a single component, and Eliza had extrapolated the rest.
Caitlin explained the serum's mechanics and the cellular degradation problem they were trying to solve. Eliza listened with growing intensity. She knew what it felt like to be a speedster now. The memory of lightning in her veins, the world frozen around her—she wanted that back.
(Ignore it.)
Her dedication redoubled.
Jack had Laurie prepare midnight snacks, and the three researchers continued their work while eating, bent over microscopes and data readouts.
Dawn approached slowly. The eastern horizon lightened from black to gray to pale silver, first light bleeding across the sky.
Caitlin's excited cry shattered the early morning quiet. She spun toward Jack, barely containing herself.
"The data comparison is clean! All cellular markers are stable—we just need to run a live trial to confirm—"
Pfft.
Eliza Harmon jabbed a syringe into her own arm before Caitlin could finish the sentence.
Yellow lightning blazed to life in her pupils.
Her whole body trembled—not from pain, but from exhilaration. In an instant she became a streak of golden light, racing across the Aerie's deck, her thrilled shouts dopplering as she blurred past.
"Yes! Oh God, yes!"
She circled the ship three times in two seconds, then skidded to a stop in front of Caitlin, vibrating with barely contained energy.
"How is it?" Eliza demanded breathlessly.
Caitlin blinked, still processing the unauthorized self-injection.
"...Everything's reading normal," she managed.
Jack turned to Caitlin. "Do we still need to extract more of his cells as backup?"
She shook her head. "I'll cultivate fissile regenerative cells from what we have. As long as the culture survives, we can produce serum continuously." She paused. "Your Speed Force energy is still required for activation, of course."
"Then we're done with him."
Jack grabbed Vandal Savage by the collar and flashed out of the Aerie, running until they reached a stretch of barren wasteland far from the city. Rocky terrain, dead scrub, no witnesses for miles.
He activated Bette Sans Souci's copied ability—the power to transform matter into explosive force.
The transformation was meticulous. Every cell in Vandal Savage's body converted simultaneously. Skin, muscle, bone, marrow, neurons, blood—all of it became primed ordnance. Every single cell a bomb waiting to detonate.
Vandal Savage's resurrection required a physical carrier. Some part of him had to survive for regeneration to trigger. But if every cell in his body exploded at the same instant, with nothing left behind—no tissue fragment, no stray blood droplet, no surviving cellular matter whatsoever—
There would be nothing to resurrect.
Jack released the mind control and tapped his wristband. The Iron Man armor flowed over his body in sleek black-and-gold plates, sealing him inside.
Vandal Savage's eyes cleared. He took in his surroundings—the wasteland, the armored figure before him, the strange tingling sensation pervading every inch of his flesh.
"Whatever you're planning, it won't work." His voice was cold, utterly confident. "I cannot die. You know this. I've existed for fifty thousand years. Every method has been tried." His lips curved into something between a smile and a sneer. "So wait for me. I will come back. And when I do—"
Snap.
The faceplate clicked shut. Light ignited behind the eye slits.
Jack raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
BOOM.
The detonation was instantaneous and absolute.
Flames erupted skyward in a roiling column, mushrooming outward at the apex. The shockwave hit like a physical wall—superheated air carrying fire and force in every direction. The ground cracked and blackened in a perfect circle, vegetation incinerating for hundreds of meters.
The black-and-gold armor took the impact head-on. Stabilizing stakes deployed from the leg plates, driving deep into the scorched earth. Internal cooling systems activated, temperature regulators cycling at maximum capacity.
Jack felt nothing. No heat. No pressure. Just the muffled roar of destruction washing over him like a distant storm.
The explosion continued for what felt like minutes—rolling thunder and consuming fire. Then, gradually, the flames died. The air cleared. Smoke drifted upward in lazy spirals.
Jack surveyed the blast radius.
Charred earth. Melted rock. The faint smell of ozone and ash.
Nothing else.
He scanned methodically—thermal imaging, biological sensors, microscopic analysis of the debris field. Searching for any remnant. A limb. A tissue fragment. A single surviving cell that might serve as a resurrection anchor.
Nothing.
Vandal Savage was gone. Completely. Permanently.
"Not bad."
Jack nodded with satisfaction. The armor's damage readout showed negligible impact—some external scoring that would need repainting, nothing structural. The suit had performed exactly as designed.
He checked the blast zone one final time, confirming the total absence of organic matter, then engaged the propulsion system. Thruster ports ignited across his back and calves.
The armor rocketed skyward.
Mid-flight, acceleration increased dramatically.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Sonic booms rippled outward in rapid succession, visible shockwaves marking each threshold break. The sound barrier shattered behind him like glass as the black-and-gold streak vanished into the morning sky.
---