[Central City Shoreline,]
The air hummed with the residual charge of the Speed Force, ozone and salt spray mixing in a sharp, electric tang. Barry Allen was a blur of red lightning, his boots hammering against the wet sand as he pushed past Mach 1, then Mach 2. The world around him began to smear, colors bleeding into long, neon streaks. He wasn't just running; he was trying to punch a hole through time itself.
Jack Kadere watched him go, a lazy smirk playing on his lips. He didn't sprint. He simply moved, his body flickering out of existence and reappearing in the slipstream, a ghost haunting Barry's wake.
Barry felt the displacement immediately, a prickle at the back of his neck. He didn't dare slow down. If he stopped, even for a microsecond, the momentum needed to breach the time barrier would dissipate. He gritted his teeth and poured on more speed. The horizon ahead fractured, light bending into impossible geometries. A portal—a brilliant, blinding exit—was opening up.
Then, a hand clamped onto his shoulder. Iron-hard. Unmovable.
The shock ripped through Barry's concentration. The tunnel of light collapsed. Before he could process the contact, the world yanked backward.
Whoosh.
Gravity reasserted itself with violent prejudice.
Bang.
Barry hit the ground hard, tumbling across the sand until he skidded to a halt. He scrambled to his knees, staring up at the towering wall of water rushing toward the shore. It was a monster, a hundred feet high and roaring with apocalyptic fury.
"Why?" Barry shouted, panic clawing at his throat. "If I don't stop this, Central City will be wiped out!"
Jack Kadere didn't look at him. He turned his gaze toward the tsunami, his expression bored. The temperature plummeted. Frost spiderwebbed across the sand, racing outward from Jack's feet.
The roar of the ocean cut off abruptly.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
The sound was deafening, like a mountain range splitting apart. The churning wall of water froze mid-crash, suspended in a glittering, jagged sculpture of ice. The cold expanded rapidly, turning the churning sea into a solid plain of white that stretched to the horizon. It looked like a snapshot of the Ice Age, brutal and beautiful.
Barry gaped, his mouth opening and closing silently. The comms in his ear buzzed with Caitlin and Cisco's frantic voices, but the sound was just static against the overwhelming visual of the frozen ocean.
"Aren't you going to save them yet?" Jack asked, glancing back at him.
He turned and walked away, Black Siren falling into step beside him without a word.
The shock broke. Barry shot to his feet, vibrating with nervous energy. He blurred across the ice, finding Joe West and Mark Mardon exactly where Jack had left them. Mardon, the Weather Wizard, snarled, raising a hand to summon the lightning, but Barry was already moving. A single, precise strike to the jaw dropped him.
The hostages were secure. The city was safe. But the ice remained—a permanent, glittering monument that dominated the skyline for weeks. It became a tourist attraction, a macabre wonder that only S.T.A.R. Labs and the natural elements could eventually dismantle.
Jack led Black Siren away from the spectacle, the cold air nipping at their skin. He stooped casually, picking up a few discarded plastic bottles from the sand. With a thought, the atomic structure shifted. The cheap plastic transmuted into heavy, soft gold.
He tossed the bottles to her. They clinked heavily in her hands.
"Is this Deathstorm's power?" Black Siren asked, staring at the gold with wide eyes. "It's miraculous."
"Firestorm," Jack corrected, his tone dismissive. "And I've had it for a while. That should cover your expenses. Do whatever you want in Central City."
Black Siren nodded slowly, clutching the gold. It was a dismissal, clear as day. He didn't want a shadow.
Jack watched her walk away, then vanished.
[The Villa]
The Villa was quiet, save for the rhythmic thud of fists against a punching bag. Laurie was putting Thea through her paces, sweat glistening on Thea's forehead. Jack ignored them, heading straight for the Aerie.
He needed to shrink it.
Harrison Wells had provided the formulas, the theoretical framework for Pym Particles. The materials were trivial for someone who could transmute lead into gold. The challenge was the application. Using the Speed Force to accelerate the assembly, Jack constructed a prototype ray in minutes. He aimed it at a steel chair and pulled the trigger.
The chair didn't just shrink; it imploded, folding in on itself until it was the size of a marble, resting on the floor.
"The formula works," Jack muttered, picking up the marble. "Now for the hard part."
The Aerie was massive. Retrofitting the entire structure with shrinking technology wasn't a weekend project. It was tedious, repetitive work—the kind of thing that made his skin itch with boredom. He needed someone fast, someone with a scientific background who owed him.
Or could be made to owe him.
He turned to leave, the air crackling around him as he prepared to run.
"It's late," Thea called out, pausing her workout. "You're going out again?"
Jack didn't answer. He just vanished.
[Caitlin Snow's Apartment, T]
Caitlin Snow had just stepped out of the shower, the steam still clinging to the bathroom mirror. She was dressed in soft flannel pajamas, curled up on the sofa with a mug of tea. The TV droned in the background, a mindless crime procedural she wasn't really watching.
The air pressure in the room dropped.
Zzzzt.
Lightning tore through the small living space. Caitlin yelped, spilling tea on her lap as the sofa seemed to dissolve beneath her. She hit the floor hard, the breath knocked out of her.
When her vision cleared, she wasn't in her apartment. The walls were sleek, dark metal. Consoles hummed with blue light.
"The Aerie?" she whispered, pushing herself up.
Jack Kadere stood by the main console, typing rapidly. He didn't look at her.
"Help me research a formula," he said.
"What?" Caitlin scrambled to her feet, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Jack? You can't just—"
He swiped a hand, and a complex chemical schematic appeared on the massive screen. Velocity-6.
Caitlin leaned in, her doctor's eyes scanning the molecular chains. Her breath hitched. "This... this is a velocity serum. Where did you get this?"
"It accelerates cellular aging," Jack said, his voice flat. "It kills normal people and robs speedsters of their powers eventually. I want you to fix it. Upgrade it. Remove the side effects."
"I... I can't just do that," Caitlin stammered. "I've never worked with this specific isotope structure before, I need time, I need equipment—"
"If you don't know, learn," Jack cut her off. "I'll give you time. But not much."
Caitlin bristled, the fear giving way to indignation. "You can't just barge in here and demand—"
She stopped. Her voice died in her throat.
It wasn't that she didn't want to speak. It was that she couldn't. A cold, invasive presence slithered into her mind, wrapping around her motor functions. It was like being trapped in her own body, a passenger behind the controls.
You know what I can do, Jack's voice echoed inside her skull, resonant and terrifying. And you know what I will do.
He hadn't spoken aloud. His lips hadn't moved.
Panic surged, hot and sharp. Caitlin tried to scream, to run, to do anything. Her mouth opened.
"I will do it."
The voice was hers. The tone was calm. Resigned.
Caitlin stared at him, her eyes wide with horror. The presence receded, leaving her gasping for air, her hands trembling.
Jack shrugged, turning back to the console.
"Controlling you to talk to yourself feels like being schizophrenic," he remarked casually. "Hurry up. Tell me what you need."