Jack Kadere's reason for forcing Clyde Mardon to attack S.T.A.R. Labs was simple: he wanted to know whether Barry Allen shared the same Speed Force as him. Using the Speed Force both consumed and replenished energy — on balance, a wash — but the fluctuations between draw and recharge could still be detected, provided you were paying extremely close attention.
That ruled out doing it himself. It also ruled out passively waiting for Caitlin Snow to tip him off. Far better to choose the time and place, let Caitlin alert Barry, and observe from the outside.
Besides, watching someone get slapped around was always entertaining.
Fwsshh.
Yellow lightning streaked across the distance and vanished into S.T.A.R. Labs.
"There he is."
Jack stretched his awareness through the Speed Force, hunting for even the faintest ripple. Nothing. He frowned.
"Is the draw too small to register? Or is the recharge compensating too quickly for me to catch the fluctuation?"
He had no eyes inside S.T.A.R. Labs, but Caitlin would have briefed Barry on the threat by now. Jack settled in to wait.
Roughly half an hour later, Clyde Mardon finally arrived.
He planted himself in front of S.T.A.R. Labs and raised both arms. Wind spun around him in a tightening spiral, and within moments a massive storm began to take shape overhead, the sky darkening as clouds folded inward on themselves.
"Clyde Mardon!"
Barry Allen — red suit, cowl down, every inch the freshly minted Flash — appeared in front of him in an instant. The sheer scale of the storm forming above made him falter, his expression shifting from determination to barely concealed alarm.
Credit where it was due: Mardon didn't waste time talking. He clocked Barry's speed, registered the surprise, and immediately hurled a blast of concentrated wind straight at him. Whether it was pent-up rage or simple survival instinct didn't matter — the result was the same.
BANG.
Barry, green as they came in a fight, took the hit full-on and went tumbling across the pavement.
"Guys — what do I do?" He scrambled to one knee, pressing a hand to his earpiece.
"If he keeps building that thing, it'll tear the city apart," Cisco's voice crackled through. "Barry, you have to shut it down."
Great. How?
"What if I run the opposite direction around it?" Barry said. "Generate a counter-rotation?"
"Theoretically — yes, but the strain on your body could—" Caitlin started.
Barry was already running.
Fwsshh! Fwsshh! Fwsshh!
He accelerated lap after lap, yellow lightning coiling around the base of the storm like a living thing. The funnel's upward expansion slowed, its momentum bleeding off against his counter-rotation.
Mardon's jaw tightened. He thrust both hands forward, redirecting the storm's force directly into Barry's path.
First lap — Barry held. Second lap — his stride shortened. Third lap — a choked grunt, and he spun out, skidding hard across the concrete.
Moving fast enough to leave nothing but lightning afterimages, and Mardon had still tracked him perfectly. The man really did have a gift for humiliation.
The instant Barry went down, the storm surged back to full strength.
"Still nothing." On a distant rooftop, Jack closed his eyes and opened them again. "Not fast enough? Not enough draw? No — running at that speed would absolutely produce fluctuations. Which means..."
His mouth curved into a grin.
"What I copied is a separate Speed Force."
The implications cascaded through his mind one after another.
A separate Speed Force. That made him functionally identical to Bart Allen in the comics — a Living Speed Force, self-contained, self-sustaining. Bart had absorbed the entire Flash Family's Speed Force and merged with it, becoming the white-lightning embodiment of the force itself.
"My lightning hasn't changed color because the force isn't mature yet," Jack murmured, turning the idea over. "It's still growing."
Barry Allen's Speed Force, at full maturity, enveloped the universe in the form of the Source Wall and influenced time and space on a cosmic scale. Every speedster who tapped into it strengthened it further, and every speedster who died became part of it permanently — feeding the cycle whether they wanted to or not.
Jack's Speed Force was different. Whether the divergence came from some cosmic-level interference like the Source Wall's influence, or simply from the nature of the copy itself, his Speed Force existed independently. Its reach was nowhere near as vast as Barry's.
But that was actually the advantage.
Wherever Jack went, his Speed Force went with him. He wouldn't run into Wally West's problem from the comics — crossing into the Marvel universe and losing access entirely, having to come back to build a Speed Force battery just to function again. And even with that battery, Wally had ultimately lost to Quicksilver because the connection was too tenuous to sustain.
Though Quicksilver hadn't fared much better in reverse. No Speed Force access in the DC universe either, despite being plenty fast on raw ability alone.
"If it's truly independent... then I should be able to create my own speedsters." Jack's grin widened. "Speedsters connected to my Speed Force. And if they recharge it the same way Barry's do—"
Worth testing. Definitely worth testing.
While Jack's mind raced through possibilities, Clyde Mardon's storm had reached critical mass below. The funnel cloud towered over S.T.A.R. Labs, roaring, ready to drop. If Mardon unleashed it now, the entire facility would cease to exist.
Barry Allen had gotten back to his feet, but everything about his posture screamed defeat. He stood staring up at the storm with the hollow look of a man who'd already decided he couldn't win.
Inside S.T.A.R. Labs, Cisco and Caitlin shared a long, helpless glance. Being a superhero's support team sounded glamorous in theory. In practice, it meant watching your friend get beaten down through a monitor and having absolutely nothing useful to offer.
"Barry."
Harrison Wells rolled his wheelchair forward. He couldn't afford to let Barry fold — not here, not now. If Barry Allen died on this pavement, there went Wells's entire timeline. No Flash meant no future meant no way home.
So he did what he did best: he became the voice in Barry's ear. Calm. Measured. The words were spare, but precisely chosen — aimed at a man who had gone from ordinary to extraordinary overnight and hadn't caught up to that fact yet. Barry didn't lack power. He lacked belief in the power he already had.
Wells's words landed. Something shifted behind Barry's eyes.
"Run, Barry. Run!"
Barry exploded forward.
Fast. Faster. Faster still.
Yellow lightning erupted around him as he tore into the counter-rotation again, blowing past his previous top speed within the first lap. The storm's expansion halted. The funnel shuddered, thinned, began collapsing inward.
Mardon threw everything he had into it — wind screaming, debris whipping through the air — but the physics were against him now.
BOOM.
The storm blew apart. Wind scattered in every direction, and the dark sky cracked open to gray afternoon light.
Barry doubled over, hands on his knees, chest heaving. Sweat ran down his face. A grin broke through the exhaustion — raw, electric, the kind of relief that only comes after genuine terror.
The grin died when Clyde Mardon raised a pistol and leveled it at his head.
Barry froze.
"You're the Flash," Jack said flatly from his rooftop, staring down at the scene. "You just outran a goddamn tornado. You move as a streak of lightning — and you're scared of a gun?"
He pressed two fingers against the bridge of his nose.
"Are you kidding me."
---
Author's Note: Clyde Mardon — Weather Wizard — is adapted from the first episode of The Flash, Season 1. And yes, this is as good a time as any to acknowledge the show's most consistent pattern: Barry's power level fluctuates wildly from scene to scene, his IQ drops twenty points whenever the plot requires tension, and then he pulls through because someone gives him a pep talk. Every single time.