Barry Allen watched Jack Kadere's gaze lock onto the spot where he'd been standing a fraction of a second ago. Watched the man's arm extend in slow motion, reaching for empty air. His own fist was already an inch from Jack's face.
One more instant. One more instant and he'd send this mugger flying.
Barry had never been much of a fighter—always the scrawny kid, always picked last—but with super speed? He could picture it perfectly: the punch connecting, the body ragdolling through the air, maybe a nice trip to the police station afterward...
Then Jack's eyes moved.
He glanced sideways at Barry. Made eye contact. A strange smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
How—
Barry's jaw dropped. The arm that had been moving in slow motion suddenly accelerated, whipping toward him.
SLAP.
The frozen world snapped back to normal speed. Barry flew backward, hit the wall hard, and slid down. His face felt like someone had taken a meat tenderizer to it—swelling, throbbing, half his vision blurring.
Through the ringing in his ears, he focused on Jack Kadere. Red lightning crackled across the man's body.
"It's you!"
That color. Barry would never forget that color. The night his mother was murdered—the blur that had circled her, the flash of crimson that had haunted his nightmares for fifteen years.
"You killed my mom!" He launched himself forward, fury overriding pain.
The world froze again as he tapped into the Speed Force. Yellow lightning arced across his suit.
Jack glanced down at his own crackling aura. "Huh. Same color as the Reverse-Flash. Weird."
He backhanded Barry across the alley.
CRACK.
The wall cratered on impact. Barry groaned, tried to push himself up, and collapsed. Unconscious.
Jack had copied the Speed Force—and with it, Barry's experience using the Speed Force. Which meant basically none. He hadn't even bothered stacking the ability; swinging too fast while Barry was still mid-charge would've just been awkward.
Even at identical speeds, Barry Allen was no match for him.
Jack looked at the unconscious speedster for a moment, then blurred into a streak of red lightning and vanished.
---
WHOOSH. WHOOSH. WHOOSH.
Gale-force winds ripped down the street. Skirts flew up. People shrieked and grabbed for hats and bags. A red blur zigzagged between cars, around corners, through intersections—there and gone before anyone could process what they'd seen.
---
Inside the Aerie, Jack dropped into the pilot's chair and exhaled.
"Fast."
He grinned. Base speed was around 370 kilometers per hour—roughly what Barry had clocked immediately after gaining his powers. Fast enough to vanish in a blink. He'd tried doubling it briefly, but the sudden acceleration without any muscle memory made control impossible. He'd had to dial back.
Still nowhere near light speed. The speed of light was 300,000 kilometers per second. And in the comics, Wally West had once hit thirteen trillion times that. At those numbers, "fast" stopped meaning anything comprehensible.
Speed itself didn't concern him. Experience and proficiency would come with practice, and once they did, stacking would make him the fastest thing in the DC universe. Period.
What interested him was the color.
He'd copied Barry's Speed Force. It should have been yellow. Instead: red. Reverse-Flash red.
Had Barry actually been the Reverse-Flash in disguise? No—that didn't track.
Jack frowned, letting enhanced memory sift through comic lore. Speed Force colors corresponded to tiers: red was the slowest, then yellow, blue, black or white, and finally gold. But that still didn't explain why copying a yellow speedster had produced red lightning.
A separate question: Was his Speed Force connected to Barry's? When he used it, he could feel the energy—simultaneously draining and regenerating. If he observed Barry using the Speed Force while keeping his own dormant, he could check for fluctuations. See if they shared a pool.
If his copy was independent, that meant two Speed Forces existed in this world.
That would be interesting.
"Copying inexperienced abilities is a pain in the ass." Jack stood and activated the Speed Force again, red lightning crackling around him as he worked on control.
---
S.T.A.R. Labs.
Caitlin had been about to leave—she had plans tonight, after all—when a gust of wind blasted through the lab and Barry materialized in front of her.
Bruised. Bleeding. Barely standing.
"Barry?" She rushed forward. "What happened to you?"
Cisco and Harrison Wells turned from their stations, equally stunned.
"I found him." Barry's voice shook with adrenaline. "The man who killed my mom. I just ran into him—red light, it was a red light—"
"He has super speed like me." Barry gripped the edge of a console for support. "And he was faster."
"That's impossible." Wells cut in immediately, voice sharp.
Everyone looked at him.
Wells paused, visibly collecting himself. "What I mean is—Barry, the odds of someone else having your exact abilities and being faster are astronomically low. At least at this stage."
"But I saw him." Barry insisted. "Right after I left here, some Asian guy tried to rob me. I didn't think much of it at first, but then he moved—same speed as me, maybe faster. Twice. Both times he hit me before I could react. Then I blacked out."
His eyes went distant. "The lightning was red. Exactly like that night."
Asian.
Caitlin's stomach dropped. She thought of Jack Kadere. It couldn't be that much of a coincidence.
Could it?
Wells adjusted his glasses, expression grave. "I still don't believe in coincidences, Barry. But if this person exists..." He met Barry's eyes. "I'll help you find him."