Post by C_Miller on Jun 20, 2011 21:49:52 GMT -5
Ultimate Flash #2
First Strike Pt. 2
Author’s Note: There’s a flashback in this issue that I wasn’t sure how to note it naturally, so it’s in italics.
The pull was strong. He wasn’t sure what was causing it, but all he knew is that he had no desire to stop moving. He felt himself move faster and continue to pick up speed. Looking behind him, he saw Central City disappear and Keystone City kept getting bigger and bigger in the foreground. Before he knew it, he was running through the Washington Mall and then Central Park. He ran across the ocean, passed the Eifel Tower, the Coliseum, the Pyramids of Giza, the Taj Majal and ran the entire length of the Great Wall of China.
In the blink of an eye he pulled around to Central City, where he had started, feeling more alive than he had in recent memory. He felt so good that he decided to do it again backwards. As he pulled out of Central City for the second time, he spotted a figure wearing a large red cloak and an expressionless gold mask standing in his way with his right arm held out in front of him. Suddenly all of the sound left the area along with any positive thought that Barry had in his body, leaving his blood run cold.
“STOP!”
Barry’s head came crashing down as he was sleeping against a palm tree, causing a falling sensation, which made him wake up. He shook his head quickly to try and snap out of the near hyperventilation and cold sweat he was experiencing.
“Agent Allen, you okay?” Iris asked him as she walked over to him and felt his forehead. “You’re burning up… and your hair is standing up on end.”
Lightly batting her hand away, he began to stand up. “Yeah, I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine… It was just a nightmare.” He wasn’t entirely sure if he was trying to calm her down, or rationalize it for himself. That wasn’t the first time he had seen that man. In fact, that was the same man who shot Iris in his dream yesterday…
“Well, look alive, Allen. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.” Iris quipped, as she helped him get up the rest of the way, to break the tension.
As could be expected, it was an extremely tense morning for all parties involved. Having your plane crash on a deserted island is bad enough, an escaped convict sends it almost to the brink, but then add a man who is rambling about lightning strikes and Island inhabitants named Max Mercury, it is enough to cause a mental break down.
The head marshal, who Barry had just learned was named Ron Spender, was discussing things with John Chambers while Barry, Iris and Danielle sat around waiting for something to happen. Barry looked over at Iris who was glowing purple in the early dawn light. He couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked.
He was snapped out of it when Hayden came walking over to the group. “Agent Allen, Agent Quinn, we’ve determined that he’s most likely mentally unstable and he’s probably not a threat. That said, Spender wants him to come along.”
“I can’t really argue with that. What do you think, Dani?” He turned to his partner, who was a hotshot criminal profiler and asked for her opinion.
She nodded her head emphatically. “I haven’t had a chance to spend too much time with him, but he seems harmless. That said, I don’t recommend taking all of the quote, unquote security forces into the jungle and leave him here with the rest of the passengers.”
“Agreed. He can come with Iris and I.”
Iris gave Barry a questioning look and he curtly gave her and downward nod, as if to say that he knew what he was doing. “So… when are we heading out?”
“As soon as possible, Ms. West. The sooner we locate and apprehend him again… the better,” Roger Hayden said putting a round of ammo into the bottom of his Glock 22 .40 Caliber Handgun.
***
Dr. Eobard Thawyne was running through the jungle and he had been running for the past several hours with only a couple quick breaks to catch his breath and take a drink of water. Though you probably couldn’t call it running. It was the closest thing that one could do while his hands were cuffed behind his back. However, he was still free. He chuckled to himself at the irony of the situation. Being in a plane crash was probably the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him.
Dr. Thawyne didn’t need anyone to tell him that he was a bad guy. In a world that was full of shades of grey, Thawyne was purely black and white. Yes, everything he did was in the name of science, but using others to test the limits of the human body is a bad thing, no matter how it’s spun. But at the same time, his only regret is that he was caught.
“Freeze, Thawyne!” rung out in the deep recesses of his mind. He didn’t have to be a psychic to know it was the voice of FBI Agent Barry Allen, his former student and research assistant. “It’s over. Surrender and no one’s going to get hurt.”
Dr. Thawyne turned around with a manic smile on his face. “My dear, Dr. Allen. How has it come to this?”
“I’m not sure, Thawyne. The genocide you attempted to commit in the Congo. Or how about when you started buying children of poor people to use as lab rats… Or when you cut the middlemen out entirely and started kidnapping poor people to run experiments on. I can’t let that continue!” Barry shouted without blinking, keeping the gun pointed straight at the mad scientist’s chest.
Thawyne laughed and spat towards Barry’s feet. “My dear Doctor, you of all people should know that there is no place for altruism or idealism in science. If nothing else, I should have taught you that.”
“That’s not true, Thawyne!”
“OF COURSE IT IS!” He shouted. The intensity of his voice nearly caused Barry to take a step back. “We are the better men. A class above. It’s our job to shape society and weed out those who are unfit for paradise.”
“Even if that person is you?” Barry shot back.
Thawyne flashed Barry a curt smile and bowed his head towards his former student. “You finally get it, Barry. Sometimes the only way we can attain paradise is to make ourselves unfit for it.”
Barry took a quick glance up and saw his partner, Danielle creeping overhead on a raised, steel walkway. He wanted to tell her to stop, but he couldn’t without alerting her position, so he continued staring straight ahead at Dr. Thawyne. “I’m sorry it had to come to this…”
At that moment Danielle jumped down from the scaffolding, on top of Dr. Eobard Thawyne, smashing him in the head with the butt of her pistol. “And stay down!” She screamed as she pistol-whipped him in the face for good measure.
Barry ran over and took his handcuffs out to slap them on Thawyne. “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say, can and will be used against you in the court of law...”
“Shut up, I know the laws just fine. But I’ll have you know that this is not over.”
Eobard Thawyne laughed again thinking about his last words to Barry Allen as he was dragged away by Federal Marshals. “Now who’s gotten the last laugh, Allen?”
Suddenly a yellow lightning bolt in the shape of a man appeared in front of him, causing him to stop dead in his tracks. A booming voice emanated from the energy source. “Professor Eobard Thawyne. Son of Yorick and Margo Thawyne. Former distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at John Hopkins University. Currently awaiting trial for Crimes Against Humanity. What are you doing here?”
“Um… my plane crashed… how did you know all that?”
The energy made a movement to spin around the scientist as if to further check him out and size him up. “I know everything about everyone who ends up on my island.”
“Your island? Are there more like you? Actually come to think of it, what are you? This could be a massive discovery for the scientific world… a being of pure energy… think of how we could solve the energy cri…”
“SILENCE!” The scream expelled pure kinetic energy, which was enough to knock Eobard down. “It is not the time for such questions. I need one thing from you right now… I want you to help me kill Barry Allen.”
Thawyne smiled as he stood up to face the energy being. “Now you’re talking my language.”
***
“So, Agent Allen? What got you into the FBI?” Iris asked as she looked around the jungle for any signs of Thawyne. Barry, Iris and John Chambers were given the center row of the island to explore, while Hayden’s group went around the North side of the Island and Spender’s group went around the South side. Danielle’s group was running parallel to them on the south and the last marshal was running parallel to them on the north. They had been hunting in the jungle for roughly two and a half hours and Iris was starting to get bored.
Barry could sense her boredom and let out a small chuckle. “What’s so funny, Agent Allen?” She shot at him with an accusatory tone
“Nothing… You’re kind of cute when you’re bored.” All the blood from his body quickly rushed to his face, causing him to blush. ‘Where did that come from,’ he thought to himself. “Erm… you should just call me Barry.”
Iris smiled at him with her eyes beaming. “Barry…”
“Dear God, Allen. Your entire life is about to change and all you can think of is flirting with someone who is positively beneath you.” Chambers spoke up in a condescending tone, with a voice that seemed like he was pretending that Iris wasn’t with them.
“Hey!” The two yelled in unison.
Chambers shook his head and continued to disregard them. “Everything you have done in your entire life has led you to this island. I can’t believe you don’t feel it.”
“What are you talking about?” Barry was beginning to get annoyed with the decidedly vague man.
Chambers again shook his head and just continued to spout off, “That’s not my place, Dr. Allen. We’ll get to Max Mercury soon.”
“Max Mercury? We’re looking for Eobard Thawyne!”
“Of course we are…”
Barry shook his head and turned to Iris. “I don’t have time for this.”
They continued the walk for a bit, looking around for any sign of Thawyne, to no avail. “So, you wanted to know why I joined the Bureau?”
Iris nodded emphatically, causing Barry to chuckle. “Well, I got my MD at the age of 22…”
“Oh my God, that’s insane. You must be a genius or something.”
“If only…” He laughed. “You know, I wouldn’t say I’m smarter than anyone else… just more driven. My Mom died of a brain aneurism when I was nine and since then I was driven to become a doctor.”
“And the FBI fits into this… how?”
Barry nodded. “Well, when I an undergrad, I was a research assistant to Dr. Thawyne… the FBI recruited me, assuming I could track him down.”
“So you gave up your dreams for this?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say I felt somewhat responsible… I mean he never told me exactly what he was researching, but I still contributed to it in someway… so here I am.”
Iris moved closer to him and wrapped her arm around his torso. “I’m sorry about your mother and Thawyne… any chance you’ll go back to medicine.”
Wordlessly, Barry reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out what looked to be a letter. “I was writing my letter of resignation on the plane… I’m not sure I even want to go back to medicine. It’s been almost eight years, but I know I’m done with the Bureau.”
“Your altruism astonishes me, Barry. You’ve been constantly putting your life on hold for pretty much your whole life… I don’t know if I could do it…”
“Don’t canonize me just yet, you barely know me.” He laughed again. “You know, I really never saw it that way… I guess I just kept getting caught up in my ideal view of the world… I don…”
Suddenly the three of them stopped dead in their tracks. In their path was now a giant temple shaped like an Egyptian Pyramid, with a Greek styled columned wall surrounding it with Roman Numerals on it. Atop what they could surmise as the main entrance was a stone carving of a lightning bolt. “What the hell?” Iris asked in shock.
John Chambers’ face remained calm and collected with the same smile that he had at the start of the journey. “We’re here.” Without skipping a beat he waltzed inside as if it were nothing. Iris and Barry looked at each other quickly and proceeded to follow him in.
“Dammit, my flashlight’s dead… must have hit it against something in the crash…” Barry held his hand out for Iris, making sure she didn’t get lost in the darkness.
“Barry, here’s a light… we should follow it.” He nodded reflexively, even though he knew Iris couldn’t actually see him.
They followed the light through what seemed like an endless hall and when they reached the end, they couldn’t have been more surprised. What they arrived at looked like a museum, but at the same time it had the distinct look of a bedroom, yet everything looked to be of a different time period. There was a computer that looked more high tech than anything he’d seen at the FBI, the King sized bed looked like it was out of the Victorian era and the desk was made of marble, giving in an Ancient Greek vibe. The whole room was washed in gold light, giving the room an entire sepia tone and antique feel.
At the center of room, a man wearing red robes with golden decorative piping that Barry could see was supposed to be lightning bolts. He had a long white beard with equally long hair, showing hints of the original blonde. “… Barry Allen… It’s been a long time.”
“Who the hell are you? How do you know my name?”
“My name is Max Mercury and I’ve been expecting you.”
To Be Continued...
First Strike Pt. 2
Author’s Note: There’s a flashback in this issue that I wasn’t sure how to note it naturally, so it’s in italics.
The pull was strong. He wasn’t sure what was causing it, but all he knew is that he had no desire to stop moving. He felt himself move faster and continue to pick up speed. Looking behind him, he saw Central City disappear and Keystone City kept getting bigger and bigger in the foreground. Before he knew it, he was running through the Washington Mall and then Central Park. He ran across the ocean, passed the Eifel Tower, the Coliseum, the Pyramids of Giza, the Taj Majal and ran the entire length of the Great Wall of China.
In the blink of an eye he pulled around to Central City, where he had started, feeling more alive than he had in recent memory. He felt so good that he decided to do it again backwards. As he pulled out of Central City for the second time, he spotted a figure wearing a large red cloak and an expressionless gold mask standing in his way with his right arm held out in front of him. Suddenly all of the sound left the area along with any positive thought that Barry had in his body, leaving his blood run cold.
“STOP!”
Barry’s head came crashing down as he was sleeping against a palm tree, causing a falling sensation, which made him wake up. He shook his head quickly to try and snap out of the near hyperventilation and cold sweat he was experiencing.
“Agent Allen, you okay?” Iris asked him as she walked over to him and felt his forehead. “You’re burning up… and your hair is standing up on end.”
Lightly batting her hand away, he began to stand up. “Yeah, I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine… It was just a nightmare.” He wasn’t entirely sure if he was trying to calm her down, or rationalize it for himself. That wasn’t the first time he had seen that man. In fact, that was the same man who shot Iris in his dream yesterday…
“Well, look alive, Allen. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.” Iris quipped, as she helped him get up the rest of the way, to break the tension.
As could be expected, it was an extremely tense morning for all parties involved. Having your plane crash on a deserted island is bad enough, an escaped convict sends it almost to the brink, but then add a man who is rambling about lightning strikes and Island inhabitants named Max Mercury, it is enough to cause a mental break down.
The head marshal, who Barry had just learned was named Ron Spender, was discussing things with John Chambers while Barry, Iris and Danielle sat around waiting for something to happen. Barry looked over at Iris who was glowing purple in the early dawn light. He couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked.
He was snapped out of it when Hayden came walking over to the group. “Agent Allen, Agent Quinn, we’ve determined that he’s most likely mentally unstable and he’s probably not a threat. That said, Spender wants him to come along.”
“I can’t really argue with that. What do you think, Dani?” He turned to his partner, who was a hotshot criminal profiler and asked for her opinion.
She nodded her head emphatically. “I haven’t had a chance to spend too much time with him, but he seems harmless. That said, I don’t recommend taking all of the quote, unquote security forces into the jungle and leave him here with the rest of the passengers.”
“Agreed. He can come with Iris and I.”
Iris gave Barry a questioning look and he curtly gave her and downward nod, as if to say that he knew what he was doing. “So… when are we heading out?”
“As soon as possible, Ms. West. The sooner we locate and apprehend him again… the better,” Roger Hayden said putting a round of ammo into the bottom of his Glock 22 .40 Caliber Handgun.
***
Dr. Eobard Thawyne was running through the jungle and he had been running for the past several hours with only a couple quick breaks to catch his breath and take a drink of water. Though you probably couldn’t call it running. It was the closest thing that one could do while his hands were cuffed behind his back. However, he was still free. He chuckled to himself at the irony of the situation. Being in a plane crash was probably the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him.
Dr. Thawyne didn’t need anyone to tell him that he was a bad guy. In a world that was full of shades of grey, Thawyne was purely black and white. Yes, everything he did was in the name of science, but using others to test the limits of the human body is a bad thing, no matter how it’s spun. But at the same time, his only regret is that he was caught.
“Freeze, Thawyne!” rung out in the deep recesses of his mind. He didn’t have to be a psychic to know it was the voice of FBI Agent Barry Allen, his former student and research assistant. “It’s over. Surrender and no one’s going to get hurt.”
Dr. Thawyne turned around with a manic smile on his face. “My dear, Dr. Allen. How has it come to this?”
“I’m not sure, Thawyne. The genocide you attempted to commit in the Congo. Or how about when you started buying children of poor people to use as lab rats… Or when you cut the middlemen out entirely and started kidnapping poor people to run experiments on. I can’t let that continue!” Barry shouted without blinking, keeping the gun pointed straight at the mad scientist’s chest.
Thawyne laughed and spat towards Barry’s feet. “My dear Doctor, you of all people should know that there is no place for altruism or idealism in science. If nothing else, I should have taught you that.”
“That’s not true, Thawyne!”
“OF COURSE IT IS!” He shouted. The intensity of his voice nearly caused Barry to take a step back. “We are the better men. A class above. It’s our job to shape society and weed out those who are unfit for paradise.”
“Even if that person is you?” Barry shot back.
Thawyne flashed Barry a curt smile and bowed his head towards his former student. “You finally get it, Barry. Sometimes the only way we can attain paradise is to make ourselves unfit for it.”
Barry took a quick glance up and saw his partner, Danielle creeping overhead on a raised, steel walkway. He wanted to tell her to stop, but he couldn’t without alerting her position, so he continued staring straight ahead at Dr. Thawyne. “I’m sorry it had to come to this…”
At that moment Danielle jumped down from the scaffolding, on top of Dr. Eobard Thawyne, smashing him in the head with the butt of her pistol. “And stay down!” She screamed as she pistol-whipped him in the face for good measure.
Barry ran over and took his handcuffs out to slap them on Thawyne. “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say, can and will be used against you in the court of law...”
“Shut up, I know the laws just fine. But I’ll have you know that this is not over.”
Eobard Thawyne laughed again thinking about his last words to Barry Allen as he was dragged away by Federal Marshals. “Now who’s gotten the last laugh, Allen?”
Suddenly a yellow lightning bolt in the shape of a man appeared in front of him, causing him to stop dead in his tracks. A booming voice emanated from the energy source. “Professor Eobard Thawyne. Son of Yorick and Margo Thawyne. Former distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at John Hopkins University. Currently awaiting trial for Crimes Against Humanity. What are you doing here?”
“Um… my plane crashed… how did you know all that?”
The energy made a movement to spin around the scientist as if to further check him out and size him up. “I know everything about everyone who ends up on my island.”
“Your island? Are there more like you? Actually come to think of it, what are you? This could be a massive discovery for the scientific world… a being of pure energy… think of how we could solve the energy cri…”
“SILENCE!” The scream expelled pure kinetic energy, which was enough to knock Eobard down. “It is not the time for such questions. I need one thing from you right now… I want you to help me kill Barry Allen.”
Thawyne smiled as he stood up to face the energy being. “Now you’re talking my language.”
***
“So, Agent Allen? What got you into the FBI?” Iris asked as she looked around the jungle for any signs of Thawyne. Barry, Iris and John Chambers were given the center row of the island to explore, while Hayden’s group went around the North side of the Island and Spender’s group went around the South side. Danielle’s group was running parallel to them on the south and the last marshal was running parallel to them on the north. They had been hunting in the jungle for roughly two and a half hours and Iris was starting to get bored.
Barry could sense her boredom and let out a small chuckle. “What’s so funny, Agent Allen?” She shot at him with an accusatory tone
“Nothing… You’re kind of cute when you’re bored.” All the blood from his body quickly rushed to his face, causing him to blush. ‘Where did that come from,’ he thought to himself. “Erm… you should just call me Barry.”
Iris smiled at him with her eyes beaming. “Barry…”
“Dear God, Allen. Your entire life is about to change and all you can think of is flirting with someone who is positively beneath you.” Chambers spoke up in a condescending tone, with a voice that seemed like he was pretending that Iris wasn’t with them.
“Hey!” The two yelled in unison.
Chambers shook his head and continued to disregard them. “Everything you have done in your entire life has led you to this island. I can’t believe you don’t feel it.”
“What are you talking about?” Barry was beginning to get annoyed with the decidedly vague man.
Chambers again shook his head and just continued to spout off, “That’s not my place, Dr. Allen. We’ll get to Max Mercury soon.”
“Max Mercury? We’re looking for Eobard Thawyne!”
“Of course we are…”
Barry shook his head and turned to Iris. “I don’t have time for this.”
They continued the walk for a bit, looking around for any sign of Thawyne, to no avail. “So, you wanted to know why I joined the Bureau?”
Iris nodded emphatically, causing Barry to chuckle. “Well, I got my MD at the age of 22…”
“Oh my God, that’s insane. You must be a genius or something.”
“If only…” He laughed. “You know, I wouldn’t say I’m smarter than anyone else… just more driven. My Mom died of a brain aneurism when I was nine and since then I was driven to become a doctor.”
“And the FBI fits into this… how?”
Barry nodded. “Well, when I an undergrad, I was a research assistant to Dr. Thawyne… the FBI recruited me, assuming I could track him down.”
“So you gave up your dreams for this?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say I felt somewhat responsible… I mean he never told me exactly what he was researching, but I still contributed to it in someway… so here I am.”
Iris moved closer to him and wrapped her arm around his torso. “I’m sorry about your mother and Thawyne… any chance you’ll go back to medicine.”
Wordlessly, Barry reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out what looked to be a letter. “I was writing my letter of resignation on the plane… I’m not sure I even want to go back to medicine. It’s been almost eight years, but I know I’m done with the Bureau.”
“Your altruism astonishes me, Barry. You’ve been constantly putting your life on hold for pretty much your whole life… I don’t know if I could do it…”
“Don’t canonize me just yet, you barely know me.” He laughed again. “You know, I really never saw it that way… I guess I just kept getting caught up in my ideal view of the world… I don…”
Suddenly the three of them stopped dead in their tracks. In their path was now a giant temple shaped like an Egyptian Pyramid, with a Greek styled columned wall surrounding it with Roman Numerals on it. Atop what they could surmise as the main entrance was a stone carving of a lightning bolt. “What the hell?” Iris asked in shock.
John Chambers’ face remained calm and collected with the same smile that he had at the start of the journey. “We’re here.” Without skipping a beat he waltzed inside as if it were nothing. Iris and Barry looked at each other quickly and proceeded to follow him in.
“Dammit, my flashlight’s dead… must have hit it against something in the crash…” Barry held his hand out for Iris, making sure she didn’t get lost in the darkness.
“Barry, here’s a light… we should follow it.” He nodded reflexively, even though he knew Iris couldn’t actually see him.
They followed the light through what seemed like an endless hall and when they reached the end, they couldn’t have been more surprised. What they arrived at looked like a museum, but at the same time it had the distinct look of a bedroom, yet everything looked to be of a different time period. There was a computer that looked more high tech than anything he’d seen at the FBI, the King sized bed looked like it was out of the Victorian era and the desk was made of marble, giving in an Ancient Greek vibe. The whole room was washed in gold light, giving the room an entire sepia tone and antique feel.
At the center of room, a man wearing red robes with golden decorative piping that Barry could see was supposed to be lightning bolts. He had a long white beard with equally long hair, showing hints of the original blonde. “… Barry Allen… It’s been a long time.”
“Who the hell are you? How do you know my name?”
“My name is Max Mercury and I’ve been expecting you.”
To Be Continued...
