Member
Retired
Ezekiel
Half Pint
Cyberlad
Mao Mao
mattmanganon
Roman
Marik
Location: Star City
Post #1.12: Crisis 1.02 - Infection
Being affected by the swarm was... An experience. Your senses were all cranked up to eleven, your emotions ran wild, yet not at all. As if your brain had been unplugged and you were simply operating on feral instinct - the only true feeling you had left was anger. Pure, raw, unadulterated and unabridged. A feeling that was incomparable. Overwhelming, to say the least. A Hurricane of anger, fear and confusion. Where all you can think of is your directive - destruction. Tearing everything, and everyone you see limb from limb.
Thawne was twitching as the virus infected his mind. His body flickering at super speed, lightning surging around him from the speedforce, the color changing from his new yellow to the red he was shrouded in for so many years. His eyes shot open with red light and the world stopped. For the first time since he got here, since he killed Barry Allen, he felt angry. Truly angry. Perhaps more like himself than he had before his final showdown with Allen. He wasn't driven by principles, or ego now. It wasn't about being better, smarter or faster.
It was pure, it was simple. He couldn't think, not coherently. All he could feel was the rage, at everything. Gideon was trying to make contact with him, sending out electric pulses through the suit. Trying to reach him with her voice projected into his ear. Nothing worked, he wasn't responding. Not anymore. She had done the calculations. 3 million people lived in Star City. If Thawne's objective was the same as the other infected, he would reduce that number to zero by the end of the day.
Thawne began moving. Faster than before, he blasted through the city, without a word. Without a thought, he didn't turn on the first person he saw, but he wasn't controlling his speed, tearing up the concrete pavement as he ran. Shattering windows, knocking over people and smaller objects. Making Cars bounce as if they had been hit with something heavy as he ran past. Somehow, Thawne had a sense of direction, in spite of being infected. The Obelisk. The drone pointed him to it directly, even though it was sending signals to go in the opposite direction, the will of the ancient time traveler would shine through. With a primal, almost feral anger, Thawne let out a shout as he approached the Obelisk, crashing into it, at the base, running all the way up it to the top, striking it, clawing it and scratching it, tearing up the entirerty of that well, the debris falling everywhere. When he reached the top he used it as ramp to leap towards the nearby skyscraper, his feet touching the glass window of the scraper long enough to use it as a springboard, frothing from the mouth and screaming something incoherent, the feral Thawne pushed off, shattering the glass across the entire side of the building as he did so, lightning engulfing him.
With his one hit, the hit the Obelisk in it's center of mass, forcing the tower to crash down into a mess of debris. As he came to the ground, he cleared enough distance almost instantly. Trying to head for the biggest swarm of people he could find, when he was suddenly stopped. His suit was sending out electrical chocks directly into his brain, freezing him temporarily, he was fighting Gideon's assault.
Perhaps it was Mr.Allen's programming that shone through, but backup routines were launched and Gideon started running the self-destruct protocol built into the suit. Her calculations weren't certain that it would kill Thawne with the current level of speedforce in his system, but it could slow him down long enough that the heroes of this time could defeat him, while lowering the casualties.
But as the symbol on the suit began overheating, about to electrocute the man inside of it as he was fully taken over by the swarm that had infected his mind. He began moving. His hand traveled to the back of his head, his face still twisted into a demented smile, his body surging with energy. His hand was quivering when he touched the bug on the back of his head, flicking it with his index and middle finger, disintegrating it. His body immediately recovered, forcing him onto one knee on the asphalt.
"Cancel the selfdestruct protocol, Gideon." Thawne told the AI, calmly.
"You're okay, Professor?" She insisted, if she could be worried, there would be a sense of worry in her voice.
"I am." Thawne responded swiftly, standing back up and surveying the scene around him. The infected had not appreciated him taking down the second spire, and they would be mobilizing to defend the others better than this one.
"That's.. Lucky, Professor." Gideon confirmed and Thawne shook his head.
"I make my own luck, Gideon." He spoke softly, a new horde making their way to him, and he calmly grabbed the other half of the energy bar.
"It's not wise to try and control me by forcing me to feel the same feelings that turned me into who I am. All it managed to do was piss me off." He finished the bar and turned his gaze towards the next Obelisk, pulling up the map on the holographic display on his arm, confirming his destination.
The 100 or so infected would come sprinting at him in the same ghoulish way as the others. Thawne would step off the ground in a blast of lightning, the sonic boom knocking them to the ground.
The next Obelisk fell before the Horde noticed Thawne, only knowing what had happened as the lightning bolt-insignia like the one he wore on his chest, was etched into the collapsing tower as it fell. He was making a point. Barry wouldn't have hogged the glory in this way, but Thawne figured that if his goal in this timeline was to establish the legacy of the Flash - he didn't have the time to beat around the bush. As big of a splash as possible was required.
He would prove he was the superior Flash. Nay, The Flawless Flash. And the way he would do that would be to not just take down the Swarm, but also free the people of Star City.
"Gideon, use the signals recorded from the suit from t he drone that was infecting me and locate all of the drones in the entire city."
"Done. Putting them on the holographic map now." As soon as the dots began appearing, the Speedster rushed through the city, destroying each and every single drone. The en-devour took a few minutes but the swarms were mostly focused in big areas, he was doing his best to leave the host unhurt, unlike the first people who had attacked him.
The Technicians monitoring the swarm could see their map of the operational drones go dark in big sections, like a wave, being unable to make heads or tails of what was going on over in Star City, while the battle in New York was still raging. As Thawne had freed the people of Star, he stopped. His body quivering, surging with energy, like an overcharged battery. He felt dizzy.
"Gideon, where's the remaining towers?"
"You have destroyed the droids, why destroy the towers?"
"They will still detonate if I do not disarm them." Thawne said swiftly. Upon hearing a soft buzzing in his ear, until Gideon popped open the map again.
"It would seem someone called has already done that. It would seem that the people of this century aren't so helpless without your guiding hand after all."
"Was that sarcasm, Gideon?" Thawne asked, an eyebrow raised and his voice stern.
"I am not programmed for Sarcasm." The artificial intelligence responded, coyly.
As people were coming back to their senses the people saw the Scarlet-clad hero in the middle of the small park where he had stopped, and they got closer, connecting the lightning bolt on his chest to the one that had appeared on the Obelisks shortly before they were destroyed.
"Wow, it's that.. Flasher guy!" One 30-something guy said and pointed, cheering. His clothes dirtied.
"It's The Flash, dipshit!" A younger man shouted back, his face covered in blood from the fights he had been in earlier, his ear was bleeding.
"He saved us!"
Thawne looked around him and had a confused grin on his face. Still feeling the fatigue, energy looking like lightning sparking off him.
"Do I smile and wave?"
