CHAPTER 18
Barry arrived not a moment too soon as everything exploded around him. He kept running and running. He could feel the searing heat, but he didn't stop, creating a vortex around the warehouse, containing the blast radius. He couldn't breathe because of the heat and smoke but he pushed on. An entire Earth depended on him; he couldn't stop. He let out a scream as he pushed himself to go faster and faster, the vortex, sucking out the oxygen and containing the explosion. Finally, after several agonising minutes, the heat resided, and the explosion was contained. He did it. He actually did it. He collapsed on the ground out of exhaustion, his clothes pretty much ruined and half burnt off. Sebastian still had his Flash suit.
Barry allowed himself a smile of relief, but his celebration was premature. He suddenly felt the terrible splitting headache he had felt before and cried out in agony as he saw Tremor's form in front of him. Her cruel face was bloodied but she had her signature look of hatred and Barry just knew there was nothing they could do now. She didn't even have to speak. She moved aside to show him the crumpled forms of Santana, Kurt and Iris on the ground and she kicked Iris in the stomach for good measure. Iris screamed out in agony as Barry looked on helplessly.
"You know what to do," Tremor told him as she immediately severed the connection. Barry had no choice. If he didn't activate the device, his friends would die. If he did activate the device, they would still die. He was out of options. He had no choice but to obey.
Barry sped to Tremor and saw her positioned to blast his friends. He tried again to appeal to her.
"Please. If you do this, innocent people will die. I'll do anything you want. Please don't do this," Barry said. Tremor looked at him for a moment before sending an energy blast through Iris's arm. She screamed as her bone fractured. Barry tried to rush forward but the look in Tremor's eyes stopped him.
"You know what I want. Unless you want Iris to suffer in agony, you'll do as I say. You may have found a way to stop the explosion but you're not getting out of this."
"But I can't –," Before Barry could continue, he noticed Sebastian nodding vigorously behind Tremor. He mouthed to Barry to "do it". He didn't look afraid at all, in fact, he looked confident. Barry resisted the urge to smile. Sebastian was one sly fox all right. Barry turned to look at Tremor, feigning helplessness and defeat.
"All right. Fine. I'll do what you want."
Tremor released Iris and walked closer to the device. Barry nodded to his friends as a goodbye. He wished he could thank them properly, but this was the only way. Somehow, Sebastian had managed to attach the dampener to the device, and he was instead going to bring Tremor and himself back to Earth-1. Barry began to run, and he could feel the vibrations in the device starting up as he picked up speed. He braced himself to run through a portal, but a portal never came. Instead he heard agonizing screams coming from Tremor, she seemed to be clutching herself in agony as blast after blast of energy was released from her. Barry couldn't stop running even if he tried, he seemed to be locked in place. Somehow, instead of absorbing the vibrational energy of this Earth, the device was absorbing the energy from Tremor. Before Barry could fully process what was happening to her, there was a final burst of energy and Tremor disintegrated, reduced to atom. She was no more.
Barry could finally stop running and he collapsed out of breath on the ground. Kurt, Santana and Iris rushed towards him. He looked at them, unsure how to feel about what just happened.
"She…she's dead. Wells tricked us. He killed her," Barry said, barely managing to get the words out.