The woman was humming something under her breath as she stepped into the elevator, her phone going back into her handbag. Good call with her daughter. Maybe a few more outfits — it was a class reunion, after all. She was still working through the logistics of that when the elevator doors began to close.
They jolted back open.
The bald man moved into the elevator with the directness of someone who had planned exactly where he was going to stand. He positioned himself between her and the doors. She looked up.
Recognition arrived a half-second before terror.
"Judge Howard." His smile had nothing warm in it. "It's been a while."
"You—" Her voice caught. "You were dead. They said—"
"Almost." He tilted his head. "You said, at the end of the trial — 'May God comfort your soul.' I've been thinking about that." The smile settled into something final. "I thought I'd return the sentiment."
His body came apart.
What had been a man became a column of green vapor that surged toward her — and then the elevator doors opened behind it, and a gold bolt of light hit the cramped space like a camera flash.
Barry had spent approximately four seconds on the wrong side of those doors, internally composing what he would say to whoever designed elevators without exterior override panels. He had the bottle in one hand and his mask sealed properly and he watched the gas begin to fill the space around Judge Howard and threw the bottle directly into the cloud.
In Speed Force time, the small glass bottle drifted forward with the lazy arc of something moving through syrup, trailing a thin contrail of green mist as it passed through the cloud. Barry was already past it. He had Howard by the arm.
Thirty seconds later by normal time — closer to one, functionally — Judge Howard was outside the mall, braced against the exterior wall, gasping and confused and, critically, breathing open air. Barry was back in the elevator.
The bottle was still floating.
Its interior held a thin column of green mist, visibly concentrated, the cork hovering just below the mouth of the bottle. Barry reached in, plugged it, pocketed it.
He stepped back to the elevator doors and let time catch up.
The green vapor churned through the elevator for two seconds before it registered something was wrong. Howard was gone. The elevator was empty except for one person in a red suit standing at the doors.
The gas pulled itself back together. What resolved out of it wasn't just a bald man — it was a bald man whose trench coat, Barry now realized, was not fabric. It was more of him. The entire outfit was part of his body, reformed at will. He looked at Barry with the particular expression of someone who has just understood that the last several minutes have not gone according to plan.
"You're the one who took her."
Barry had been in the news enough lately that the recognition was mutual. The Flash — no confirmed photographs yet, just the accounts of several dozen rescued people assembling into a description: red suit, gold lightning, absurdly fast, appears from nowhere. The man in front of him had clearly been watching the news.
"She's out of reach," Barry said. "That's done."
"Kid." The man's voice had dropped. "Walk away. You don't want to be in my business."
"You going to gas me through the mask?" Barry let a beat pass. "I'm frightened."
On his monitor across the city, Jude made a small sound. "Born to cause problems," he said to no one in particular. "This person has a gift."
The bald man's expression did something involuntary and unflattering. His face had gone slightly red.
Barry recognized the look of someone who had decided they were no longer interested in leaving him alive and turned for the fire escape stairs.
The smoke followed.
"All you do is run." The voice came from everywhere in the stairwell as the vapor poured through the gaps in the railing. "That's your whole plan? Hide behind a mask and run?"
"Running from what?" Barry called back, already three floors up. "You? I'm barely trying."
He threw a punch at the reformed figure on the landing above him. His fist went through it completely, no resistance, like swinging at fog.
Right. Can't hit gas.
He kept moving. The strategy was limited — he couldn't hurt the man, couldn't contain him beyond the bottle sample already in his pocket, and if the meta decided to abandon the chase and start filling the stairwell with lethal concentration, the mask would help but the evacuation timeline would get complicated. The only useful thing he was accomplishing right now was keeping this particular very angry man focused on him and away from Judge Howard.
He could work with that for a while longer.
He cleared the bottom of the stairwell and went through the mall's service passage at a pace that left a brief streak of gold on the security cameras, and then he was outside, and then he was three blocks away, and then the service passage was empty and the vapor pouring out of it had nothing to chase.
Wells was midway back through the S.T.A.R. Labs entrance when Cisco's voice came through his earpiece. He came into the hall with the mild expression of a man who had been pulled out of a meeting and was waiting to find out if it was worth it.
"Cisco. Caitlin. This had better—"
Barry materialized beside him.
"—be good." Wells finished.
Barry held out the bottle. "I got a sample. Gas meta. Mall on Crescent — he went after a judge, I got her out. Cisco—" He was already moving toward the workbench. "I need you to analyze the compound. And I need to know how to fight someone I can't touch."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~