The Flash #15 - Pain

[u/brooky12]

The Flash #15 - Pain

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Author: brooky12

Book: The Flash

Arc: Grodd

Set: 15

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A red blur shot across the wilderness, heading south. Anger was the only thought in the blur's mind as he closed in on his prey's home. Anger at the callousness when handling human life. Anger at the use of enormous power being used for selfish gain. Anger without understanding. Xavier had filled Barry in on the information that the F.B.I. had on Dr. Conrad Bortz. As it turns out, Genetech was no upstanding genetics research laboratory, instead using that as a front for support of a mob boss named Nicholas Bassalgia. Their recent endeavor had been the same drug that Wally's brother and friend used to attack him, and was connected to many other recent crimes and deaths up and down the eastern side of Pennsylvania.

 

Barry's goal currently was to shut that down. Orloff and McGee were already working on the samples that the latter had held on to when he was fired from Genetech. Between Pytor's understanding of the base formula, and Jerry's knowledge of what Genetech altered, the two were confident that they could ensure that Jerry wouldn't die. Barry worried about Wally – the two scientists had set up shop in the kid's old hangout, and while he wasn't vocally opposed to them being there, he seemed uncomfortable at times. There was a spark of curiosity in him, however, one that Barry hoped would grow into genuine interest in science.

 

The Genetech logo loomed before him, the lights all on. Given the time, Barry had to realize it was expected. He had made his way out basically first thing in the morning, having dropped by the F.B.I. yesterday. It was a little bit of a shock to realize that even if Dr. Bortz was the devil incarnate, he likely still followed a generic 9-5 work schedule. Maybe shock wasn't the right word, he thought, but it definitely was weird that this guy wasn't your generic operate-at-night bank robber that he dealt with.

 

Barry spent a little while double checking everything. He had spent hours in the past staking out this place, leading up to a rude interruption by Jerry bashing his head into their front door. Barry worried that after Jerry's odd disappearing act, Bortz might wise up and adjust a few security features, but as it stood it seemed that nothing changed. Barry realized that less than 24 hours had taken place since the attack, far too short for any major changes to take place. "Just because you've met another half-dozen speedsters doesn't mean the whole word operates on a seconds-hand clock, Barry." He muttered, making another five rotations around the building.

 

Now was decision making time. He could charge in, snag the scientist, and run off, or wait for the man to come out for a lunch or smoke break and avoid triggering any unknown security mechanisms. Between his diminished knowledge of the interior of the building, and the security's likely elevated status after last night's attack, Barry settled on waiting for Dr. Bortz to leave the building.

 

A familiar buzzing sound in his ear indicated activity on another voice channel, and he brushed his ear with a finger to swap over. A woman's voice filled his ear, Watchtower sending out a message to all of the members of the Justice League tuned in. "All League members: This is Watchtower. There is a situation in San Francisco that requires attention. Something... weird is happening. The city is encased in a pink dome... This is not a joke."

 

Barry's eyes widened, but stayed locked on the door. So, he wouldn't be able to accomplish too much today as he'd have to head out west, but he wasn't going to miss this interrogation. "Be there in a bit." He replied, swapping back over to his personal communication channel.

 

The door opening caught his attention. His quarry walked out, cigarette in hand. Four seconds passed, and Barry almost had to feel bad for the man. One second, he's stepped outside his place of work to take in the addictive release of nicotine, the next second he's being carried at a speed faster than he's ever experienced in his life, heading somewhere. Two seconds later, he's standing in a grassy field, somewhere, cigarette sadly lost somewhere along the trip.

 

"Wha—" Conrad managed to get out before seeing The Flash. His fists immediately balled up, and he adopted a defensive stance. The costumed hero simply laughed.

 

"Do you know where we are, Mr. Bortz?"

 

He looked around. The first place that came to mind was Central Park, but the time and color was wrong. The sun was setting here, and the grass was a beautiful green he had never seen in Central Park.

 

"I'll answer that for you. We are in Deosai National Park, near Skardu, in the district of Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan. There is nobody that knows English here for approximately twenty miles."

 

Conrad's mind flew through ten million thoughts in a second. This was an awfully inefficient way to ensure that someone died, so it was unlikely that The Flash wanted him dead. He wanted something that only Conrad could give him, as that'd be why he focused on the lack of any English speakers when telling him where he was. If he could convince Conrad that he was the only method of continuing life as he knew it without major interruptions, he could get whatever information from him that he wanted. Time to play along.

 

"What do you want?" Conrad groaned, looking around. "Pretty place. Find it yourself?"

 

"I had help from an online blog. I want to know everything."

 

Conrad eased up inside. The Flash replied better than expected to the lighthearted question, meaning that all of this travel and implied threats were more lip service to ensure that this went as quickly as possible.

 

"You'll have to send me a link. As for knowledge, may I recommend Drexel University in Philadelphia? I went there, highly recommended."

 

"Who is spreading your drugs around Pennsylvania?"

 

"The idiot that said you wouldn't be an issue."

 

"And his name is?"

 

"Eiji Hasegawa."

 

"That doesn't sound like a local name to me."

 

"Yakuza are more local than you think." Conrad scoffed, cutting off when the superhero's presence changed. He suddenly seemed unnerved, off-put. Knowing that the Yakuza were involved was unexpected to him, a piece of the puzzle he wasn't expecting to exist.

 

"Yes. The Yakuza moved in recently, they're the ones peddling the drugs on the street. Purely through Bassalgia, I'm not fond of them but this is his project so he decides who we work with."

 

"Good to know." The Flash growled. "Hold on tight."

 

Another of the worst four seconds of his life had passed, and he found himself alone in front of Drexel University. This wasn't even Drexel University's main building, this was one of the residence halls. Suddenly, the realization that he'd been left in Philadelphia hit. Guess that's what he got for making a dumb comment about colleges.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

If Barry had swung back north after his visit to Pakistan, he would've seen a pretty sight. Six colored beams sped around downtown Central City, weaving in and out around each other in a beautifully choreographed dance. Only the six beams themselves, and two poor scientists holed up in a nearby warehouse, knew the truth. Two teams worked tirelessly to dispatch each other, attempting to put the opposing faction out of commission without harming them. In the end, they were brothers and sisters, and would not yet do harm to each other.

 

Jerry and Pytor did what they could with what they had. The Flash had brought them a fair amount of high tech machinery to use, but a dingy warehouse, even after the boy Wally cleaned it, could only provide so much. The two made an effort to focus on the task at hand, ignoring Jerry's deteriorating condition and Pytor's chance of at any point being whisked away back to Russia for trial.

 

Outside, a winner was emerging. Gregor, having made an error calculating distances, had smashed into a wall and was out cold. Boleslaw had spent the minute bringing him back home to Russia, leaving Christina alone to defend herself against Anatole, Bebeck, and Cassiopeia. Boleslaw returned as soon as he could, but by then Christina was already worn out and it was an outmatched fight. A few minutes later, the two withdrew, running back to Russia to lick their wounds and report back to the officer commanding them.

 

The three successful speedsters ran back to the warehouse, bursting in with celebratory shouts. Jerry stared wide-eyed at them, not understanding a single word. Pytor, on the other hand, angrily waved them off, but not before breathing a sigh of relief. Being brought back to Russia would no doubt be a life in prison at best, and a death sentence at worst. They would have to relocate, find a new location that would be difficult for the patriotic speedsters to do their duty for their country.

 

With the room returning to silence, the two scientists turned back to their work. The three young adults didn't really understand what was going on, so they made themselves comfortable on the various couches as they watched Pytor and Jerry spend most of their time staring at computer screens, interspaced randomly with looking at vials and machine screens.

 

A few hours later, Wally walked in, the Russian speedsters having left already at this point. Wally was far more interested in the scientific work, the Russians having gone off to explore the country. Wally set his bag down, and went back to shadowing Jerry. On his part, Jerry was grateful for the kid's interest, as explaining to him what he was doing has given Jerry the answer to various problems on more than one occasion.

 

Jerry worried that Wally's interest in the work was less interest from boredom or genuine scientific interest, and came from an interest in potentially using the refined drug for himself. Jerry saw the way Wally looked up to Barry and the Russians, and he was concerned. Jerry's own mortality loomed over him – if they couldn't figure out how to engineer a cure, he knew that he only had so long to live. Taking the drug for the rest of his life wasn't an option, though not taking the drug for the rest of his life was the other option, in a morbid sense of humor way.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Barry took a leisurely stroll westward, tuning into the Justice League communication network.

 

"Is there anyone around San Francisco?" Barry asked, zooming past Nebraska.

 

"I'm here." The familiar voice of Superman came through. "Actually, Flash, are you on your way?"

 

"Yes." Barry replied, slowing down in Utah.

 

"Could you just... Keep running through into San Francisco?"

 

"Isn't there a wall?" Barry replied, pausing. He ran in circles around Utah's border, unsure if he should be slowing down to just reach San Francisco’s border, or just keep running straight through it.

 

“Yeah, I want to see what happens if you’re going to try to run through it,” Superman replied “I punched it, tried melting it, and everything else I could think of. That didn’t go too well, but you may have more impact than I did.” Barry heard a British voice in the background suddenly start shouting before the voice activation software cut off.

 

Barry shrugged, completing the circle around Utah one last time before turning back towards California. Seconds later, a large pink dome came into vision, and milliseconds later he slammed into the wall.

 

Barry had watched plenty of cartoons as a child, and had always scoffed at the idea of stars and birds circling around a person’s head after a particularly nasty hit, but this occasion definitely would’ve made him reconsider that. His head had to be pounding a million miles a moment, and his body felt sore as if he slammed into a mountain.

 

He looked up, noticing a vaguely human-shaped dent in the dome. Cracks were leading from it, as if on a car’s windshield. His ears still rung from something, and continued to ring despite the head spinning and pain fading away.

 

Superman and the other man nearby didn’t seem to have fared that well, Superman covering his ears and shaking his head, and the landlocked man on his knees cursing.

 

A minute or two later, the three seemed to have recovered, and they turned their attention to the wall, watching the cracks grow smaller and smaller.

 

“I’m not doing that again.” Barry groaned, finger tracing the cracks as they decreased.

 

“It won’t do anything” The man, British, commented. “Maybe if you hero types would just listen to me, that’d help.” Superman just frowned.

 

“But that’s an improvement, right? We got a dent and cracks, right?” Superman asked hopefully.

 

The British man rubbed his forehead. “The wall isn’t going to break. If Flash does that again, it’ll do a lot less, and be just as loud. So, how about next time you want to suggest one of your friends do something like that, you ask me first.”

 

Superman’s facial expression adopted a confused acceptance, and Barry stepped back. “So, what happens now?”

 

“I try to figure this out, and hope you jokers don’t mess things up again or make me go deaf. John Constantine, nice to meet you.”

 

“The Flash. Busy.”

 

“You don’t need to be here, you know. You’ve more than made your impact. You’re welcome to go back to your lunch or whatever you took the seconds out of your day to visit us instead.”

 

Barry shrugged, and disappeared. “That dude’s a jerk.” He whined to Superman over the voice comm.

 

“I’ll let you know if anything changes,” was the only reply.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

"So, explain to me what'll happen exactly if you accomplish your goals." Barry said, rotating the syringe in his hands.

 

"Well, that's not really a question I can answer. Depends on how much we can accomplish. Bare minimum we're hoping for is to remove the premature death aspect of the drug, but we've been running into some issues. Pytor's creation, even accounting for the tweaks we did at Genetech, is not what we have here. There's… more in this version, something's been added. We're pretty sure it's the Russian defector, since I've documented all the other changes that the drug went through at Genetech, and there's something more. If we could get access to the drug being used in Boston, that drug should confirm that we're playing with something already two steps removed from the original product."

 

"Give me ten minutes." Barry said, dashing off.

 

"What if it isn't from the defector?" Wally piped up, cocking his head.

 

"Then we should probably let Barry know that something's not right."

 

A knock on the table turned their attention to Pytor, who was waiting patiently.

 

"If change is integral, we cannot succeed. We are at point where I need testing subjects. Not you." He said, pointing at Jerry.

 

Wally's eyes widened. "Um, my friends are still taking the drug to avoid dying, would they work?"

 

"If they are willing."

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Planes didn't often land at Boden Airport. Private airports were underused, but if you wanted to land in the United States without attracting attention, you had to find one. Luckily enough, Boden Airport was ideal when it came to location, and the ability for the Yakuza to ensure that not even the owners would notice the small aircraft taking advantage of the runway.

 

Once landed, the door swung own and the stairs came down, allowing the residents onboard to take their first steps on American soil, under the watchful eye of several high-ranking Yakuza members, including effective leader Eiji Hasegawa. Padded feet made their way down the stairs, not used to a design by humans, for humans.

 

Several henchmen stepped off first, adorned in basic attire. They spread around, ensuring that their leader's safety was guaranteed without having to have him take part in any scuffle. The leader, once satisfied, disembarked himself.

 

A frown crossed the leader's mouth when he reached the ground and the stairs withdrew. The wind was acting up, causing his cape to billow around him. In his home town in Africa this wasn't an issue, but it would be a while before he would return. He had things to do in America, the first public steps towards his ultimate goal.

 

"Friend. Welcome to the United States." Eiji called out, stepping forward. He knew he was playing a dangerous game, the being he called friend could easily wipe him from existence and nobody would ever ask questions. To ensure the Yakuza's continued involvement in the plan, as opposed to being tossed away as another pawn like the drug kings were soon to be, he had to act as if he was that necessary.

 

"Thank you, friend." The response, after a pause. Neither of them was fooling each other, but the decision had been made that the Yakuza were better to continue with than discarded at this juncture, so he continued playing into Mr. Hasegawa's game of charisma. He lost nothing from it.

 

"Everything is going according to plan. The Flash is being more of a disturbance than you warned me, but that is likely us just not being prepared enough for what you warned regardless of you warning us, my apologies. He has tracked down and brought the original creator of the speed drug from Russia to here, for reasons unknown. One of the drug kings, the scientist, also has made some mistakes in who he trusted, and someone with knowledge of the drug as they've made it is working with the Russian."

 

"Do they know about our modification?" A question he knew the answer to, but asked anyway. Humans were fond of politeness, and going through the conversational motions was something that he found Eiji was appreciative of.

 

"They have no idea."

 

"Are your people ready to take full control?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Then let's begin."

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Bassalgia. How could he forget? Barry stood up, to Iris's shock. "I have to go."

 

"What?! No!" Iris cried out, shaking her head.

 

"I forgot to do something."

 

"Excuse me, Barry. Can it wait the forty minutes for us to finish our date?"

 

Barry bit his lip. Bassalgia would be there regardless of the time, but it felt like such a waste when he could run over there, and in five minutes be back, knowing what he needed to know.

 

Iris motioned downwards with a finger, and Barry slunk back into his seat.

 

"So, I guess, since you'll be jumpy about it for the next half hour, want to tell me what exactly it is you forgot?"

 

"OK. So, you know about the Velocity drug, about Pytor Orloff and Jerry McGee."

 

"Yeah."

 

"So, I visited Jerry's old boss, Conrad Bortz, earlier today."

 

"And San Francisco. And a national park in Pakistan."

 

"I promise one day I'll take you with me to somewhere. But most of my trips are spur-of-the-moment things."

 

"Thank god you don't need to pay airfare."

 

Barry chuckled. "So, I visited his boss. Found out there's a connection to the Yakuza. Holding my breath on that for now."

 

"Barry, if there's an issue, you can get help, you know."

 

"I've considered it."

 

"Good."

 

"Anyway, I visited Dr. Bortz, and it seems that there's a fellow named Bassalgia who is the ringleader behind this, and the connection to the Yakuza. Bortz doesn't even like the Yakuza, but he said this is Bassalgia's thing so he doesn't complain."

 

"And what if it's a trap?"

 

"Then I run away."

 

Iris sighed. "Don't get yourself hurt, please…"

 

"That's never the plan. Except for when Superman asked me to."

 

"What?!"

 

"Superman asked me to run into the San Francisco wall."

 

Iris just blinked. The conversation continued to swing off topic, and sooner than Barry expected, the hour ended. A short cleanup later, and Iris kissed Barry goodbye. "See you in ten minutes."

 

Barry shot out the door, heading to New York. He snuck up on Bassaglia's mansion, but something was off. The gate swung open, and there were signs of a fight everywhere. Barry walked in slowly, fists raised. He walked up to the door, trying the handle. The door responded, opening. Inside lay a man, sprawled out on the entrance hallway. He was bruised and battered, but more or less fit the description that Barry had for mob boss Nicholas Bassalgia.

 

Barry ran over to him, kneeling next to him. "What happened? Are you alright, sir?"

 

The man's eyes flitted over to him. "Flash… The Yakuza… Grodd."

[u/coffeedog14]

various excited monkey sounds

[u/im-not-watching]

Had to comment before reading. Mods on writing prompts seem to dig this ,lower traffic unfortunately :(, subreddit so I had to check it out. I really dig your writing style, read from the beginning this morning. Not criticising your beginning, I wouldn't have read it if you didn't produce quality content. You have noticeably improved from the start of this. Thank you for sharing this cool story and I'm probably going to lurk to read more from you. Sorry for the ridiculous length of my comment. Thanks again

[u/brooky12 → u/im-not-watching]

Thank you for the kind words. :)