Whoosh.
The Iron Man armor shot upward and banked hard over the rooftops. Jack Kadere ran through the checklist mid-flight—thrust output, response latency, joint articulation, stabilizer feedback, power draw across every system. He pushed the suit through sharp turns, sudden stops, vertical climbs, and controlled dives, cataloguing each data point against his calculated projections.
Five minutes later, he touched down in the workshop.
"How is it?" Laurie asked from the doorway.
"Exactly what I predicted." Jack stepped out of the armor, rolling his shoulders. "Performance is solid, everything functions within expected parameters. One problem—energy drain is too fast. Needs work."
He activated the Speed Force before she could respond. Red lightning blurred around the armor in a tight orbit, tools and components flickering in and out of visibility. When he stopped, the armor looked identical from the outside, but its interior now housed several compact charging units wired directly into the power cell.
Jack could discharge electricity into them himself—fully topped off in under a minute.
The limitation was obvious: that trick only worked for someone who could generate electricity. But he already had a broader solution in mind. He could miniaturize Aerie's energy matrix design into something portable. The missing piece was a container capable of withstanding that kind of energy density.
Mercury Labs had one. Second only to S.T.A.R. Labs in the city, and they were sitting on tachyon particle technology.
In the show, the Reverse-Flash had stolen that exact technology—and staged that ridiculous performance in the process, beating himself up as Harrison Wells to cover his tracks. The Reverse-Flash attacking Doctor Wells. Same man, both roles.
If the Reverse-Flash needed tachyon particles, then Jack had every reason to get there first. Something to handle soon.
Swoosh!
The armor launched out of the garage again. No testing this time—just flight. Just the raw satisfaction of being airborne in a suit he'd built from scratch in a week.
The Speed Force was faster, no question. But the Speed Force kept you on the ground. This was different. The city spread out below him in miniature, streets and rooftops and the crawling lights of traffic shrinking as he climbed. The sheer breadth of the view—horizon to horizon, the curve of the river, the skyline catching late sun—was something superspeed couldn't replicate.
A yellow streak caught his eye.
Jack tilted the helmet's optics downward. A bolt of lightning was tearing along the streets far below, weaving between blocks at high speed.
"The Flash?" Jack banked slightly, tracking the streak. "Did S.T.A.R. Labs pick me up? Their sensors are good enough for that." He watched the trajectory for another few seconds. "No—he's not heading toward me. He's going somewhere else entirely."
Jack grinned behind the faceplate and changed course to follow.
Barry's speed had improved considerably over the past few weeks, even if his combat sense hadn't kept pace. The first-gen armor couldn't match him in a straight chase—the gap in raw velocity was too wide. But tracking his heading was simple enough. A few minutes of following the general direction, and Jack descended toward a residential street where the yellow lightning had stopped.
He landed on a rooftop overlooking the scene below.
The Flash was blocking a woman's path on the sidewalk, talking fast.
"Bette—Bette Sans Souci. Wait. Don't go yet, just listen to me. I'm here to help you."
She clearly had no interest in listening. She turned and walked the other way.
Barry shook his head. "Does it have to be like this?"
Fwsshh. He blurred forward and reappeared in front of her again.
Bette Sans Souci flinched. Then, before Barry could react, she reached out and pressed her fingers against the lightning emblem on his chest.
Her eyes went wide. "Take it off—take it off now!"
She pulled her hand back and turned to leave. Barry looked down at the emblem. It was glowing—a faint, pulsing light radiating outward through the material, building in intensity.
He looked at Bette. He looked at the emblem. He ran.
He made it half a block before the suit detonated.
BANG.
Smoke billowed across the street. Scraps of red fabric and scorched polymer rained down in every direction.
Barry Allen crouched on the pavement in his shorts, singed and panting. He turned to look back at Bette Sans Souci with a mixture of relief and exasperation—and then froze.
A suit of red and gold armor was descending from the sky directly behind her.
The Iron Man armor touched down on the sidewalk between Bette and the nearest intersection, metal boots clanking against concrete.
Bette spun around, eyes narrowing at the suit. "Are you with him?"
"Him?" Jack Kadere glanced past her toward the half-naked Barry Allen and laughed. The armor split open and Jack stepped out, casual as stepping off an elevator.
"Jack Kadere!" Barry shouted from twenty yards away. His mind raced—where did he get that armor, why was he here, was he after Bette too, what was he planning—and his body answered before his brain finished the questions. He broke into a sprint toward Jack.
Jack's mouth curved upward. He extended one hand, almost lazily, and a bolt of red lightning arced from his palm and struck Barry mid-stride.
Barry grunted and staggered. His legs locked. A pulling sensation hit him immediately—deep, marrow-level, as if something fundamental was being drawn out through his skin. The orange lightning that crackled across his body shifted color, bleeding from gold to bright yellow, and then the yellow light streamed out of him entirely, flowing in a visible current across the gap and into Jack Kadere.
Bette Sans Souci stood to the side, watching. She hesitated for a beat, then looked down. A fist-sized chunk of concrete lay near her foot. She picked it up. The stone began to glow in her hand, light pulsing through hairline fractures in the surface. She wound up and threw it straight at Jack.
Snap.
Jack snatched it out of the air one-handed.
BANG.
The stone detonated in his fist—point-blank, no distance, full force.
Barry collapsed to the pavement, drained, and stared at Jack through the dissipating smoke.
The smoke cleared.
Jack stood in exactly the same position, arm still extended, hand still closed. The palm that had been holding the stone when it exploded showed no damage at all. Not a scratch, not a burn, not even reddened skin.
Bette stared.
"You—"
She could turn anything she touched into an explosive. She'd been an EOD specialist before the particle accelerator—bomb disposal, military-trained, steady hands under pressure. Courage wasn't something she lacked. Her immediate instinct was to look for something bigger to throw.
"Bette, don't!" Barry called out from the ground, struggling to push himself upright. "He's dangerous—you can't hurt him."
Bette shot Barry a glance, then turned back to Jack. Her jaw set. "I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. But don't come looking for trouble with me."
She'd intervened because The Flash obviously wasn't a threat—and because, a moment ago, it had looked like he was in danger.
"Bette, wait—don't leave, I can help—" Barry tried to take a step and nearly buckled. He caught himself and looked down at his own hands. No lightning. No crackle of energy beneath his skin. Nothing.
"My speed," he said quietly. Then louder, staring at Jack: "My speed is gone. You—did you just drain my Speed Force?"
"Back to square one for you," Jack said to Barry, then turned to Bette. "Plastique or Bomb Girl—which do you prefer? I just absorbed the Speed Force from his body. Pulled it right out of him. Took away his super speed entirely. So—"
"So you could absorb what's in me too?" Bette cut in. She took a step forward, the wariness in her face cracking open into something raw and unguarded. "You could take this away? I wouldn't have to worry about everything I touch blowing up?"
"Quick on the uptake," Jack said with a short laugh. "So the situation's flipped, hasn't it? I'm not here to start trouble with you. You're the one who needs something from me. Your ability didn't come from the military—it came from the particle accelerator explosion. And right now, I'm the only person in this city who seems capable of making you normal again."