Thanks for the awesome response to the first chapter and for the interest in this story! I generally like to individually respond to reviews on first and last chapters, but for some reason is not letting me see reviews on the site itself or respond to them-so, to all of you, here is a sweeping thank you!
After last night's episode I feel absolutely terrible about what I am doing to Barry in this story, but, alas, here we are. See you in hell, I guess.
Enjoy!
The triumphant slam of papers against the desk jolted Barry badly, but Cisco didn't seem to take notice.
"It's working," the scientist said. "I can't believe it. It's actually working."
Caitlin, however, noticed the way Barry had practically leapt out of his seat. "You feeling okay, Barry? You look a little tense."
"I'm fine," Barry said. In truth, he'd been so lost in his own thoughts he'd barely registered them coming into the cortex. "It's working, you said? Eliza's getting better?"
"She's showing progress, yes." Caitlin sat down in one of the swivel chairs and pulled her long hair back into a ponytail. "There's one vial left—I think two or three more doses will use it up, and by then I'll feel more comfortable about letting her off the hook. I'm going to stay here a while longer and monitor her, plus work on diluting the next samples." She nodded at Barry. "You should go home. You look exhausted."
"Compliments are sparse here, I see." Barry flicked the pencil he'd been toying with for the past hour in her direction.
"Don't act like you haven't been all lethargic the past two days," Cisco butted in. "Listen, I think the only way you're going to work that V9 out of your system completely is by resting."
"It's out of my system," Barry said. "Remember, blood transfusion?"
"How could I forget?" Cisco grumbled. He had an expressed fear of needles, which was why it had surprised Barry to wake up two days earlier with Cisco by his bedside, hooked up to the transfusion apparatus by a needle in the crook of his arm.
"Even so, it took a lot out of you," Caitlin said. "Go home, Barry. We'll take care of things here."
"Yeah, no offense, but you look comically undernourished and underslept," Cisco said. "Zoom's identity is weighing hard on all of us, not to mention the fact that you were literally forcibly drugged. Take the night off."
Barry chewed on his lip, then stood. "Fine," he said. "I think I'm going to go for a run."
Caitlin's mouth twitched downward. Barry could practically see her resisting the urge to look at Cisco again. "Anything on your mind?"
"Like you said: a lot." He shrugged his bag over his shoulder.
"Okay, but don't push too hard." Caitlin's words were lost; he was already out the door.
The first thing he did was change into his suit and ditch his bag near one of the less-used doors to the building. He was under no pretenses of going home anytime soon. Once he was suited up, he produced the hidden syringe, the one with a skimmed dose of V9, from his bag. He kept it tight in his fist as he ran. By the time he had made it to his destination, an empty field where he'd mistakenly ended up the first time the V9 had been in his system, the syringe was slick in his palm.
Scorch marks from his high-velocity stop two days before still burned black amidst the greenery. They were a glaring reminder of the fear, physical manifestations of the darkness that had torn through his being. Fear, anger, pain.
But also joy. And that, that was why he was here.
He'd rehearsed the moment many times in his head, following the action itself and then all of its possible reactions, but as he put the needle to his arm he was still enveloped by a consuming disgust.
Just do it, came a tiny, ghostlike voice in the back of his head. His voice, but colder. This will help you.
He'd rehearsed it so, so many times, but the sting of the metal and the rush of warm fluid into his bloodstream was more thrillingly horrifying than he'd ever imagined.
The syringe fell to the grass and he, too, toppled to his knees, crumpling under the pressure of every muscle sizing at once. This was a smaller dose than Eliza had attacked him with, but the symptoms somehow felt heightened, like finally getting a drink after days of thirst. First came that terror—he recognized the terror—of the sensation of being torn apart from the inside. Then the regret—why, why, why did you do this to yourself—
But that was his own voice, this time locked away, and the ghostly voice, now exceptionally solid, answered:
Because we're better.
He was better, and he knew it in the way he took control of the swirling sensations clouding him. Or perhaps not control, but a deep, deep understanding. He felt each sensation so acutely, and in doing so he understood each function, each rush of lightning, each piece of a once-unreachable universe that gave him speed.
And that: that was the joy.
He sped off, not necessarily in control of his body but understanding it, and listening to each of its becks and calls. He simply ran, and reveled in the feeling of running, and knew, for the second time in two days, that he was better, faster than Zoom. This was it: this was what being the fastest man alive meant. This was what it meant to push himself. This was what it meant to have the power to save his friends.
The power to protect them, and what was more, the power to make everything right again. Time, space, had no meaning when he tapped into this force. Eddie, Ronnie, his mom—their deaths didn't matter, because he could run back the clock and bring them back. Speed was at his command, time at his command, and he could do anything, be anything—
He let out a crazed whoop of joy as he tore across an ocean, any ocean. The lightning zinged within him, and salt and sea breeze brushed his face, and everything else but freedom melted away.
He wasn't sure when he'd last felt so happy.
He'd made it to an indeterminate stretch of land—what state or what country didn't matter, artificial borders didn't matter—when something not quite solid filtered through one of his ears.
"—arry? You there?"
Had he been in his right mind, it might have concerned him how long it took to put the voice to a name.
"Cisco." He slowed, gliding to a halt in the barren land but still throwing up sparks and flashes of lightning. He looked down. Some of the sand around his feet had turned to glass.
"Bro, where are you? I don't think the GPS is working."
"On a run, like I said." Also, under normal circumstances, he might have flinched at the sharpness in his voice.
"Sorry to bother you, I know we told you to go home—"
"—we wouldn't ask under normal circumstances, you really do need your rest—" That was Caitlin. Now that Barry was somewhat more grounded, the name came easier.
"What is it?"
"Two metas," Cisco continued apologetically. "One of them can create sonic booms. The other seems to be able to melt things just by touching them. They're working together, it looks like. They're wreaking havoc downtown. Things aren't looking good."
"You want me to stop them."
"That's…kind of your specialty." Cisco paused. "I think you can stop this sonic boom guy with a sonic boom of your own. Think you can go that fast?"
Barry reached for his earpiece. "I'll do it."
Both Cisco and Caitlin's voices burst through with more apologies, but he was no longer listening. He wrapped his fingers around the earpiece, tugged it from his ear, and clenched it in his fist. The pent-up annoyance sparked within him and manifested itself in deadly lightning that collected in his palm. In seconds, the earpiece was inundated with lightning and erupted from the inside out. The blackened, useless piece of metal dropped to the sand, but he was forty miles away before it touched the ground.
Downtown Central City reared up before him in two blinks. He slowed just enough to see the two metahumans. Sure enough, one was in the process of melting a building from the ground floor, while the other sped progress with visible sonic booms. Metal screeched, the building on the verge of toppling, a massive Jenga tower with a bottom piece removed.
Think you can go that fast? Cisco had asked. Barry, both the slow one shunted back and the ghostly one who had taken residence, might have scoffed. He was faster. Faster than anything. The sonic boom he created upon entry to the city was more than a sonic boom; it was sheer power, sheer destruction. Windows in a mile radius shattered. The meta who had created his own pitiful imitations flew backward and lay still.
Time slowed. The building, approaching a sixty-degree angle to the ground, appeared to freeze in midair. Barry began running again.
One sweep of the building revealed 352 terrified people. He started on the top floor.
Thirty-three seconds later, 352 terrified found themselves crammed together in a park one mile away, watching the building they had just occupied fall from a distance.
With the last civilian deposited, Barry circled back. The building was now at fifty-degrees, total collapse imminent. The metal-bending man stood like a statue, hands raised. Barry knocked him out with a single punch. The force of it sent the man backward, directly into the path of the fallen building.
In Barry's eyes, the building fell faster. He realized at once, with a kind of swooping in his gut, that the drug was wearing off. He looked coldly at the unconscious man in the path of the building, heard the shrieking of metal, and burst with a desperate sort of rush. He went to the sonic boom meta instead.
With the meta in his arms, he zipped away from the scene. If he listened hard enough, he could almost hear the thunder of the building as it sunk into the pavement.
Remember when I said Barry was going to go a little dark? Well, this is just the start, kiddos. Buckle up.
Thanks for reading, and please consider leaving a comment on your way out!
Till next time,
Penn