The Flash – Alternate Probabilities
Barry was running as fast as he could go but they were going to wear him down. He still had that natural health as a part of his youth, being only 17, but he didn't run as a habit. Maybe he should have, he thought. I can going jogging more often in the future - Every morning or afternoon or something. His lungs and legs were killing him but he kept on pushing.
Barry was running through the streets of Central City, Missouri. He had been here a few years so he knew some of the streets but mostly from the point of view of passing them while riding with his parents. He couldn't remember how to get to a better part of town from where he was. Every time he made a turn it seemed to get worse but he couldn't very well turn around and try a different street. They were following him. Why couldn't he keep his mouth shut?
He was headed to school that morning as normal but he heard someone getting beaten down one of the alleys. Maybe his brain took a break right then. Maybe he wasn't quite awake yet. Yes, that was probably it. He had to get involved. He thought that it was just some kids beating on another kid. He had seen that plenty of times back in Fallville. Jocks would beat up on some nerd. He had stopped them when he could. It was just something he did without thinking about it. He hated bullies.
It had been so much easier back in Iowa. He missed it. There was a decent amount of work and chores to do on the farm but people tended to leave each other alone. He missed the farm, the people, even the smell of animals. Of course now it was all mixed in his head with images of the fire. All the buildings burning down. Some of these burnt out buildings he was passing reminded him of the barn.
It wasn't jocks this time. It wasn't normal bullies. It was drug dealers with knives. He had interrupted the middle men beating on the low end dealer. The high end drug dealers had guns. At least there was that. Nobody could outrun a bullet.
So Barry Allen was running for his life through streets he didn't know with drug dealers running behind that he had paid way too much attention to their faces. Why did he have to stare like that at them after they pushed him down? Part of him was good with details and he started memorizing their faces without thinking about it. Why did he do that? They would have probably let him go and just settled for scaring him but one of them realized that he was memorizing their faces. Then the running began.
They were almost on top of him several times but he pulled away at the last moment. He didn't know where he was getting the energy to do this. Actually he was starting to wonder how he was still going. He should have collapsed by now. He glanced back and there was only half as many as before. He saw one stopped behind the others holding his side and hyperventilating.
Barry wasn't breathing hard anymore. His legs didn't hurt. He felt great! Maybe this was adrenaline or something.
In his distraction, Barry turned down a blind alley instead of a street. He pulled up and stopped at the back wall panicking. He found a couple of doors and tried their handles but they were locked from the other side. There was some trash cans beside each and lots of brick. There was no where to run to now.
He turned to look back at the end of the alley. Three of them were standing at the end, hands on their knees, catching their breath. They watched him and waited. He wasn't going anywhere.
Then one of them stood up and stretched. He popped his back, then his knuckles, then his neck. Then out came the knife. He came slowly, savoring the fear he saw in Barry's face. Barry tried to find a way around him and the drug dealer just slowly moved in the way as he came to show him that there was no space to get by him. The other two started moving in even with each other to make it perfectly clear there was no where to go.
Barry started beating on the doors but he stopped at backed away from the first thug when he go too close. Then he started looking for some kind of weapon among the trash. There was nothing. Then the thug had him against the wall.
"I'm too tired to tell you how stupid you are. So die!" said the thug. He shoved the blade at Barry.
And Barry blocked it.
They both looked down at Barry's hand. What?
So the thug pulled back and stabbed again.
And Barry blocked it.
He pulled back and reversed the grip on the knife. Then he stabbed down with his strength.
And Barry blocked it.
The thug grabbed it with both hands and started pushing with all his weight.
Barry was blocking it with one arm up.
"What the hell are you on?" he said.
The thug started trying to knee him but Barry slapped the knee back each time. The last time he slapped it back so hard that the knee went back and under the drug dealer forcing him face down on the ground.
Barry was stunned. He looked at his hands and back at the thug. Then he saw the other two running up to tackle him. They were flying forward with their knives out.
And Barry go out of the way.
The two thugs hit the wall and fell on the first guy. They groaned and started pushing each other trying to get up.
Barry decided he should get going so he turned and stopped. At the end of the alley there was a man standing there staring at him. He had a trench coat on and a hat but he looked like his father. But he was thinner and didn't have a beard. Or maybe he looked like his uncle? No that wasn't right either.
Barry heard the thugs were up and he turned back to defend himself. Maybe the new guy would help him out or call the police.
The thugs were surrounding him. Barry had lost his chance to escape.
"You aren't going anywhere. You can't use no kung fu on all of us at the same time." said the thug, apparently their leader, or their spokesman.
He watched their hands as they all stabbed at him together.
And Barry blocked it.
They stabbed again.
And Barry blocked it.
They stopped and stared at him.
"What they hell are you?" he said.
Barry looked at his hands, then at the thugs, "Fed up."
Barry punched them all, flinging them back, in a second.
Wow! He was like Spiderman or something!
They started to get up, holding their hands out. "We're sorry." "Don't kill us!" "Let us go!"
Barry looked at them and realized that he could really hurt them. But that wasn't him. He didn't go around hurting people. He wasn't a bully. "Get out of here."
They scrambled out of the alley and around the corner.
Barry just stood there. He didn't know what to do with himself. He looked at his hands, then at the wall, then back at his hands. He went over to the wall and tried to stick to it. No luck. Apparently he wasn't Spiderman after all.
So how did this happen? He started to feel foolish for thinking that he was a comic book character. Then he remembered the guy who looked like his uncle. He looked down at the end of the alley but there was nobody there. Maybe that guy called the police.
So what would he tell the police once they got here? He discovered that he had super powers and decided to fight crime? That was stupid. Maybe he should just head out of here. The thugs were gone. What would he be able to say to them?
Barry left the alley and started jogging home.
He stopped at a hot dog vendor when he realized that he was starving. He bought one and wolfed it down. It didn't seem to dent the hunger. He bought another. And another. His mom was going to be so mad when she finds out I was eating all these hot dogs before school.
Oh crap! School!
He started running down one street and then another but he realized that he was lost. I stopped and tried to get his mind to focus. What was he thinking? Maybe he should skip today. He was having too weird a day and he might hurt someone by accident. Maybe he should get home instead.
As he stood there on a street corner he saw some sort of creature come out of the corner of a building. It didn't come around the corner. It came out of the corner. The creature looked like someone had poured burnt cheese on a mastiff that was the size of a lion.
It moved oddly like it was sliding instead of walking along. It looked left and right but not like a normal head moved. It was like it flickered in different directions. Then it focused on something in the middle of the intersection.
There was a car wreck right then. A kid was talking on his cell phone and didn't stop at the light. A large truck was crossing at that point. The truck hit the car and swerved. Then it started to roll into more traffic and pedestrians.
Barry ran to pull the pedestrians out of the way. And succeeded!
He realized that he had grabbed six people and pulled them out of the way. It was just a blur to him, and he was sure to them as well.
He looked around and saw the truck slide to a halt on top of several cars. Barry ran up and pulled the door off the truck. Then he snapped the seat belt and pulled the truck driver out of the truck. He carried him over to the pedestrians he had saved and put him down.
He looked around to see what else he could do and saw the creature coming towards the car that the truck hit. He ran over and stopped in front of it. The creature looked at him for a moment and growled. Barry looked around for a weapon and saw a piece of metal on the side of the intersection. He ran over to pick it up and brought it back. The creature hadn't had time to make a step.
"Stay back!" he said. Some people were coming up to the car from the other side and stopped when they saw him holding the metal bar.
The guys stopped and held their hands up looking at him, "Alright there. It's okay. We just want to help him." They edged closer.
Barry looked at them and at the creature and realized that they didn't see anything. They thought that he was crazy. And maybe he was. Barry relaxed and dropped the metal bar. He was loosing his mind. Of course there wasn't any creature there. Maybe everything this morning was a hallucination.
The guys got around to the kid in the car. One of them said, "He's dead."
Barry looked around and saw the creature walking right through the other guys and bit something from the dead kid. Then it looked back at him and took off running. It ran directly into the corner of a building and disappeared.
He saw that strange uncle in the trench coat standing nearby and he was looking at the spot that the creature had disappeared. Then he looked back at Barry.
He had seen it too!
Barry got up, "Hey!" he yelled. He started running towards the guy. The guy turned and ran away. Barry tried to pour on the new speed. The other guy stayed ahead of him. He realized that he had jumped over an intersection out of reflex. He was starting to see everything as a blur. The other guy was actually glancing back and smiling at him. Then he started running faster!
They were both a blur, all the way back to Barry's house.
Barry stopped when he realized where he was. That guy just went into his house! Maybe he was some sort of relative.
Barry walked carefully in. The door wasn't damaged. In fact it had a key in the door. Barry stood there for a moment and pulled it out of the lock. It was painted with a little frog. He looked back and saw that one of the plants had been moved. It was their spare key!
Barry put it in his pocket and closed the door. He looked around and found the guy in his living room looking at the family pictures.
"About time you showed up!" the guy said. Then he chuckled to himself. "Sorry, speedster humor."
"What? ...umm; Who are you?" said Barry.
"You can call me Max." he said. "Max Mercury! I was going to go with Quicksilver but there was another one of us going by that name."
"Another one of us?" said Barry.
"Well normally I would say Speedster but in this case I will be more specific and say us. I am you from the future!" said Max.
"From the future?" said Barry.
"Oh you are not a quick one are you! Ha HA Ha!" said Max, "More speedster humor. Well I am not exactly you. I am another you. An alternate probability of you. Most speedsters are actually just different versions of the same person from alternate probabilities. Of course sometimes there are our children as well."
"So you are me from some other..." said Barry
"Universe" said Max. "Many of us have the ability to travel between probabilities. That is what most people call Time Travel. Actually there is no such thing as time travel as most people think about it. However there is no reason that you can't travel to a different point in a timeline of a different probability from your own. You just can't go back into your own probability. That would just create a new probability at the point which you appeared."
Barry looked at him confused. Then he went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of orange juice. Max walked in and looked around. "Looks a lot like my old house."
Barry finished his drink. "So why me? Why do I have these powers? What are my powers?"
"Well each of us is slightly different. We are different probabilities of each other after all. Some of us have hyper-processing. They live at an accelerated time rate from the rest of the world. Most who have that power can change their time rate at will. A few of us couldn't and lived our lives out in a second. One second you get your powers and then the next second you are dead. Poof! Can I have something to drink?"
Barry blinked for a minute and then got him a glass and poured OJ for the both of them. They drank for a moment, then Max continued. "Most of us don't have hyper-processing, which is a good thing. You will have to stop and make sure of what is going on so you can't stay at super-speed all the time, though there was a few of us who did. They just stopped all the crime in a whole city all the time. Usually that drives us insane." He held out his empty glass and Barry poured more.
"Some of us have vibrational control. In fact that is how some of us probability travel. We just tune our vibrational rate to a different time. However that is fairly rare as well. It is pretty useful since they can vibrate their way through things." He said and held out his empty glass again.
Barry picked up the bottle of OJ and saw that it was empty. Max frowned, "And I guess that you have noticed that our metabolisms run faster then most people."
"Is that where we get the energy to run so fast?" said Barry.
"No, don't be silly. There is no way we could eat enough food to convert into that much energy. " said Max "It's just a side effect." Then Max burped. "Sorry"
"So are you here to teach me how to use these powers?" asked Barry.
"Yeppers. I'm here to teach you the ropes." said Max.
"Do you teach all of us?" said Barry.
"Well no, not all of us. I teach some of us. Some of us end up with other teachers. Others figured out their powers on their own. Some are evil and I don't help them."
"Evil! Wait some of us are evil!"
Max nodded, "Yeppers. That is the real reason that I teach. I don't want more of us to decide to go evil. Most of us have a lot of hope and strong willpower but many of us have had too many bad things that happened when we were younger."
"So wait! You said that you could travel through time." said Barry.
"Probabilities."
"Whatever. My point is that you can go back in time and change those bad things." said Barry.
"Well, I tried. The problem is that every time that I did succeed there was a probability where I didn't succeed. I ended up just creating more probabilities of us then anything else." said Max.
"Why is that bad?" said Barry.
"Oh it isn't bad. It just didn't actually change anything for that other version of us. There was always that other probability where I didn't save them. It just became too frustrating. Plus I discovered recently that it was causing quantum demons to come out more after us, even normally during our day to day lives. " said Max
"Quantum Demons? Is that what I saw today? You saw it too, right?" said Barry.
"Yes, that was the reason that I approached you, or let you see me and run after me." said Max with a grin. "I focus on those of us that can interact with the probabilities and one of the connected abilities is the ability to interact with the quantum demons. That was how I knew that you were one that I need to train."
"So what are these things? I saw it act like it was going to eat something out of a dead kid but then it didn't."
"Oh it did. It ate his quantum potential. See there was another universe forming were that kid made it. Apparently he was going to do something major. So the demon ate that potential and that other universe was never formed."
Barry looked alarmed, "So that kid was some one important and it ate his life!"
"Well it ate his potential. He was already dead here, but there was a cloud of quantum uncertainty around him at that moment and things could have gone the other way." said Max. "Personally I think that they are some sort of natural process."
"What do you mean – natural process?"
"Well maybe it is natures way of trimming down the number of actual probabilities out there. There are a huge number already. Maybe they keep it to a manageable level instead of having every possible universe play out. They aren't there all the time and I don't know what signals them, except for him..." Max frowned.
"Him who?" said Barry.
"Well another version of us called Thane." said Max. "Basically think of him as the evil version of me. He goes out and finds other versions of us and messes with their lives so that we come out hateful and mean and then teaches the evil ones to use their powers."
"That's horrible. How could any of us act like that?" said Barry.
"Nature versus Nurture argument? I've seen evidence of both in my travels." said Max.
"So what does he do to those of us he messes with?" said Barry.
Max looks around, "Well you are living in Central City so you come from one of the probabilities where he burned down your parent's farm."
"What!? He was the one that burned down the farm?" yelled Barry.
"Yep. I stopped him from doing anything past that in most of the probabilities but there were some were I didn't show up and your family all died except for you. He would save you and then do other things to you later on. You are from one of the probabilities where only the first part occurred." said Max.
"So Thane tried to kill my parents?" said Barry.
"Actually he killed Mom and Dad several time in several different ways. I tried to stop as many as I could but for every one that I stopped there was another that I didn't stop."
"That's horrible!" said Barry. "So is he after me here?"
"Not that I can tell but he will eventually find this probability and go after you too." said Max.
"Well then let's get started Sensai! What do we do first?" said Barry.
Max said, "Do you have anything to eat?"
"Okay so the first thing that you need to master is your inertial shielding." said Max. They were standing in an alley.
"What is that?" said Barry. He was pulling his knees up to his chest and getting ready to run.
"It's a field around your body that you use to help control yourself when you run. It has a lot of other uses as well. You can use it to act as a personal shield. It also keeps you from injuring yourself or shredding your clothes when you run at high speeds." said Max.
"That sounds useful. Speaking of which, should I get some sort of costume? I mean, you know, to protect my identity, and all that stuff. You know, to protect my loved ones, and all?"
Max said, "We will get to that in a bit. Let me tell you about this first."
"Okay"
"So I want you to focus on the space around your body when you run. Sort of feel the air currents but then feel them stopping away from your skin." said Max. "Just run to the end of this alley and back five times while you do it. You can use the field to help you with traction on the ground and it lets you stop quickly."
"Okay," said Max, "Go!"
Barry started running fast. He got to the end of the alley before he really had a chance to think about the air currents. He slid to a stop and hit the wall with his shoulder. His head bounced off the wall.
"Ouch"
"Come back; keep going!" said Max.
Barry pushed himself off the wall and started running back. He started to feel the air around his skin. He turned around Max and ran back to the wall. He tried to not hit the wall this time. It was a softer hit at least. He shook his head and started back. This time he was able to feel the field around him better. He could feel it helping him dig in and grip the ground. He turned around Max this time without sliding at all. Then he ran back to the wall again.
He came to an immediate stop and just tagged the wall this time. He pushed off and ran back. On his way back from the wall the next time he glanced over at Max and noticed that Max's hands were blurring. He stopped in front of him and realized that Max was throwing rocks at him at high speed and he wasn't feeling it. The field was blocking them!
"Hey! I didn't feel those at all!" said Barry. "I guess I got the field to get strong enough to block them!"
"Actually I have been throwing them since you started running." said Max "You just have to focus your attention span."
"WOW!" said Barry. "So am I bullet proof?"
"Well you are basically redirecting inertia away from yourself subconsciously at this point. As you get better at it you will be able to block more and more but a lot of force directed at one point on you can still make it through. Strong enough strikes will get through such as explosions. You are also tougher then a normal person now. That will increase as well. You won't be able to stop a truck at high speeds at first but you will be able to stop smaller masses.
The problem lies in how much of the mass of the object is outside of your field. You can stop a rock or a bullet because they are completely inside your field before they hit you. A truck or a melee weapon will still hit you because most of it is still outside your field. Realistically hitting you with a melee weapon would be useless since you will be able to react to it so fast and you are much stronger then a normal person."
Barry thought, "So I could wear a paper shirt as a costume and it wouldn't matter?"
Max just covered his face for a moment.
"Fine! I will give you the costume, just so I don't have to see that!" said Max.
Barry smiled.
Max pulled out a ring. "This is a ring I got from the future. I have several different ones. This one will create a suit around you. Put it on."
Barry took the ring and put in on.
Max showed him his own. "Now turn it facing inward and press it with your thumb. That will set the biometric lock on it for you."
Barry did so and a hologram menu appeared in his palm. "Cool!"
"You can set what clothes you want to wear with the menus and change details. You can store several different sets of clothes in it. The cool thing about them is that you can reset them if they get damaged and they don't need to be washed. I have some traveling clothes as well as a few costumes." He opened his own and pressed the hologram and his clothes changed to a red shirt and a metal hat with wings.
"Um that looks weird." said Barry. He started messing with the settings and found one listed in there. "The Flash?"
"Yes, that is one of the names that you go by in a few other probabilities so I set that one in there for you as well as a few variations." said Max.
Barry pressed it and the Flash costume appeared around him. He looked at the red cloth on his arms and hands and then he could feel the mask on his face. "This is so cool!"
He tried another setting and the costume turned dark grey instead.
"That is if you need some stealth." said Max.
Barry pinched the material. "It's real cloth, not some kind of hologram!"
"Yeppers. I'm not sure what it is made of. I don't really have the science to follow what they were telling me about them. Some of us are better at that kind of stuff then I am."
"Can I make a cape?" said Barry. He was messing with his settings. He switched back to the red suit and added a cape.
"I don't recommend that." said Max.
"Why not? Super heroes should have capes!" said Barry and he went run around the block and back. His cape was in tatters.
"That is why." said Max, amused. "The cape will be outside of your field."
"Oh crap." Barry was holding his cape. It healed itself after a few moments. "Hey but it fixed itself!"
"Yes but that seems to wear out it's systems a bit. So will changing your clothes too many times too quickly. It will start acting slower for a while after that." said Max.
"Oh, sorry little ring." said Barry. He changed the settings on his suit to remove the cape. "So do I need to feed this thing or recharge it?"
"No, it gets it's charge from you as you move. Luckily it maxes out and doesn't overload with the amount of energy you have going through you." said Max.
"Cool, so what's next?" said Barry.
"Let's test out your top speed. Try to stay with me." said Max and he was off. Barry took off after him.
They ran through the streets of Central City, then Keystone City, then along the highways of the Midwest. Max tested him on sudden turns and stopping as well as jumping and his timing. Barry messed up a few times and ended up missing and rolling but then he got back up and took off again. He was even able to go into a roll and hand stand back out of into a dead run in one motion.
They crossed over to the West Coast and went up and down the highways. Then they went over to the East Coast and explored a bit. Barry was getting better at navigating and understanding what he was seeing at high speeds.
Max had him stop over in Florida.
"Okay I want to try something else. Instead of staying with me I want you to focus on getting to Seattle Washington yourself as fast as you can. We will meet up at that Doughnut shop we ate at about 10 this morning." said Max.
"Wait. I thought that was in Chicago." said Barry.
"No that was when we ate at noon." said Max. "Remember the one with the cute girl that you liked?"
"That was the diner in New York at 11. Wait. What time zone are we talking about?" said Barry.
"Just use your home time zone. Otherwise you will go nuts." said Max.
"So what do you have yours set to?" said Barry. He leaned over and showed him his watch.
Max showed him his but it was two hours ahead. "Okay let me set mine to yours while I am with you." said Max.
"Okay so the doughnut shop in Seattle. Ready?" said Barry and he took off.
Barry wanted to get there first and he focused hard on it. Just once he wanted to beat Max. Then everything changed around him. He felt like everything compressed and his body was charged with electricity. Suddenly he stopped and he was in Seattle!
That was much faster then he had gone so far! It was almost instantaneous. How did he do that!?
He looked around and Max wasn't there yet. He changed his clothes to something normal looking and went inside to get some food. He was hungry!
He came out and sat down. He was finished with his doughnuts when Max arrived.
"Wow! You have Lightning Form!" said Max.
"Huh? Is that what happened?" said Barry.
"Some of us can actually turn into lightning and travel at the speed of light! It seems you have that power." said Max.
"Can you do that?" said Barry.
"Nope! You go me on that one." said Max. "Let me go get some food."
"Get me something too!" said Barry.
Max came back out and found Barry eating Chinese food. "Oh, um, I went to China, but you can have some too!"
Max chuckled and sat down. "You're picking this stuff up pretty quickly." said Max.
Barry smiled, "Is that another speedster joke?"
Max laughed. "Really, you are doing very well. Some of us take a while longer to learn their powers and stay focused. Many of us just take off after we find out that we are different. A few of us see our powers as a way to run away from responsibilities. Those are the ones that turn evil, or at least amoral."
"I couldn't do that." said Barry.
"Well obviously you could because other versions of you did, but the point is that you have a stronger moral compass. I guess after doing this for a while I have a good feel for our minds. I saw that you defended yourself against those thugs this morning but you didn't really hurt them. You are definitely powerful enough to have killed them but you restrained yourself. That's a very important step. To have that line and not cross it is really important." said Max. "You are going to be faced with hard decisions. Just remember that that line is for you just as much as it is for the safety of others."
Barry thought about that for a minute. "So what should I learn to make sure I keep from hurting people?"
"Well most of us end up studying police procedure. Actually more then a few of us become police officers either directly or through forensics. But you should definitely study the law and understand people's rights and the procedures about evidence. You will not be able to stand in court as a witness and keep your secret identity so you will need to make friends with the police as much as possible and point out any evidence you find. Keep some small video cameras around so that if you see someone start to do something then you can record it. Just don't show off for the camera!" Max smiled.
Barry smiled around his Chinese food.
"You should also carry some plastic cuffs and some police hand cuffs. That way you can bind someone and go after someone else. You can come back and hand over any evidence to the police after you stop any others that you need to." said Max.
Barry heard his phone ran and wiped his mouth off. He started digging into his pockets and pulled it out. "Hello?"
A voice came over the cell phone, "Oh Barry! I'm glad it's you. Or I'm glad it's not you. Oh I don't know what I mean."
"Mom? Are you okay?" said Barry.
"Yes sweetie. I just got confused. Oh hold on, I dropped my keys." said Nora Allen.
Barry put his phone to his chest and said to Max, "It's mom. Hey do you want to meet her?"
Max looked at him oddly, "I have met her, she is my mother too!"
Barry chuckled, "Oh yeah." Then he put the phone on speaker. "Are you there?"
"Yes sweetie. I was just confused earlier. I got a call from the principle of your school. He said that you were not in school today. " said Nora.
"Oh um.. well yes... I did miss school. Something important came up." said Barry.
"Something more important than school? Well I would like to hear what was so important that..." There was a noise over the phone. "It's that man again. I thought it was you but it can't be you. You would be holding a cell phone. Where are you right now?" said Nora.
"Umm.. well I'm in Seattle Mom." said Barry sheepishly.
"Seattle what? Is that a store?" said Nora.
Max said, "What man is she talking about?"
"What man are you talking about Mom?" said Barry.
Nora said, "Well there he is again. How did he get ahead of me? He looks just like you but he has a scar on his face."
"It's Thane!" said Max and he stood up. "He's coming for her. We have to get to her!"
"Mom where are you?" Barry was frantic. "Where are you?"
"Oh dear, I'm..." There was a screeching noise and the line clicked off.
"Barry" said Max but Barry was already gone.
Barry Allen, the Flash, turned into lightning and crossed from Seattle to Central City at the speed of light!
Once he got there he started running up and down the streets looking for his mother. He caught glimpses of many people looking at him shocked but he kept on looking for his mother. He checked her work at the hospital and a few places that he had seen her shop.
Finally he saw her car. It was crushed by a tractor trailer at an intersection. He stopped and then slowly staggered to the door of the car. The windows were all broken. Tears were running down his face. He was staggering around numb and he peeled the door off of the car like cardboard.
There she was, covered in blood. Her hair was a mess. He reached in and pulled her hair back behind her ear. He eyes were starring forward, open and lifeless. Barry gathered her up and started screaming.
He rocked back and forth and thought about all his memories with her. He remembered all the times she took care of him and the few times she was sick and he took care of her till his father, the doctor, came home and checked on her. He remembered all the Christmases and birthdays and foods that she liked, and he screamed and he cried.
Max found him like that when he finally caught up to him. He walked over and held his shoulders. He started to cry as well remembering his own mother's death. He looked around and saw Thane standing there, watching. He was holding a small ball of light and Max knew that it was Nora Allen's potential. He knew that Thane had won again. This Barry would probably go insane with grief and become dark.
Max stood up and Thane looked at his with a smile on his face. He held up the shining potential. Somehow Thane had learned how the quantum demons were able to take potential from others but he couldn't eat it. He just held it there as a trophy. Max didn't know how long they lasted but he knew that he couldn't even touch it. He could see it but not touch it.
Thane mouthed, "I win again" to Max over the car wreak. He looked at the little light and back at Max. Then something strange happened. The light was being pulled out of his hand. It jumped back into the car wreck.
Max looked over and saw many fragments of probabilities shimmering around Barry and his mother. The car wreckage started changing. There was the sound of breaks and everything shifted back a few feet. The car reformed itself with only the front end damaged.
And Barry's mother reached up and hugged her son!
"That's impossible!" yelled Thane.
Max smiled, "No, just improbable."
Barry helped his mother stand up, "Are you okay? How is your back?"
"I'm okay, a bit stiff." said Nora. "That was close. If I hadn't started breaking when I did. But I was distracted by that man. There he is over there. Doesn't he look like you?"
Barry looked over at Thane and smiled. "No mom. He is nothing like me."