After The Flash: Mirage

Craterview was a scrap town on a mesa. It was heaven for outlaws. They dealt drugs, sold guns and smuggled supplies into the joint. No one was there to protect it, and it was carnage. Every time fliers were dropped from the sky, they had arrest warrants for at least one hundred scrap parts, all for the weekly murderer. People were usually killed on Thursdays and Fridays in the night. Other than that, Craterview was a nice place to live. Radiation wasn't too bad, no mutants entered the town and they had endless amounts of supplies in the storage unit below. But one day, in the Summer, a group consisting of seven men entered the cliffside bar.

"I'll take a beer, in a glass." Glasses were the most likely way for someone to get radiation poisoning. This man wasn't messing around. His six cronies stood behind him, shotguns strapped to their backs, they all wore leather jackets and sported sharpened knuckle dusters. The bartender poured the best beer he had into a glass and slid it across the table. The man caught it, and sipped at it. He waited for a moment. No weird taste to the liquor. It was fresh. He finished the drink and dropped two scrap parts - equivalent to eight pre-war dollars - next to the bartender.

The man wore a dark overcoat, a black cowboy hat, sunglasses and a scarf. No one had ever seen his face apart from his gang and anyone who knew him before the war. Underneath the headwear, he had a near enough clean shaven beard (scruffy stubble, if you like), his hair was dark brown, with shades of lighter brown on the edges of the strands. His eyes were a baby blue colour, and his teeth were a mix of white and yellow. He had a scar on his chest, and dog tags dangled from his neck. A hospital tag was wrapped around his wrist. He was shot by a soldier on a battlefield in Korea and was taken home, where he remained until the Flash came along.

He stood up and was pulled back down by one of the bartender's customers. "Who the fuck do you think you are, turning up to this town with your guns, acting like you're above everyone else? Huh? Explain to me what the difference is between you, and us."

The cowboy looking man took his sunglasses off his face, and pulled his scarf away from his mouth. "Who am I? I'm Wade Semtex. I was born in Texas, moved to San Francisco when I was nineteen. I met my wife a year or so before I moved, she gave me two children. Best kids I could ever ask for. And they died. My wife vanished. City blew up. Along with all my hopes and dreams. My luck died along with humanity. The only reason I came here is because I was looking for something. I came here as a kid, left my prize possession behind. My rock. My god damn rock. It looks like a crystal, but nah, it's a feckin' rock. And don't tell me any different or I'll have my knife to your throat. It would be nice to have something in my hand, something I lost so long ago, on the shore of a radiated lake, in a valley, in the middle of nowhere. I'm staying here because the few people still living here seem nice. Then there's the mutants. Dunno how long it's been since the Flash, if that's what folks are callin' it these days. So, yeah. I'm Wade. And I don't give a shit about who you are, you worthless asshole." And with that last sentence, a bar fight began. The civilian rose out of his seat and went to stab Wade with a screwdriver. One of Wade's men (Clide) pulled his shotgun off his back and fired at the screwdriver-weilding mad man. The man flung through the scrap walls, and Wade immediately began to pick up the scraps to keep as currency. Clever thinking. Everyone else in the bar attacked the seven strangers and the bartender ran out into the streets, whailing like a banshee. One of the customers was shoved through a window, onto the bridge below. He smashed through the wooden planks and held on for his life, shouting for help.

Wade pulled an assault rifle off of his back and swung it around, hitting anyone he could. He ordered his gang to move back and began to fire on the civilians, putting a swift end to the fight.