He moved toward the remaining armed figures, six of them now converging from different points around the loading dock, weapons raised.
*Fwoosh! Fwoosh!*
Two energy blasts arced toward him. James's enhanced reflexes let him track the charge-up microseconds before firing, dodging the first cleanly and taking the second across his shoulder plate, the impact staggering him half a step, heat bleeding through the suit's insulation in a way that promised a serious burn if it had connected with skin.
*Boom!*
He closed the gap on the nearest gunman and drove a strike into his midsection hard enough to lift him off the ground and send him crashing into a stack of crates.
Rolled immediately into a second exchange, catching a rifle stock aimed at his head, twisting the weapon free, using his own enhanced strength to bend the barrel into uselessness before discarding it.
Two more came at him from either side. James dropped low, swept the legs from the one on his left, then drove an elbow up into the one on his right as he rose, catching him under the jaw hard enough to end the exchange in a single motion.
*Thud! Thud!*
Behind him, he heard footsteps. Genuinely deliberate, unhurried footsteps, which from Flash was apparently a novel and uncomfortable experience judging by the muttered commentary accompanying them.
"This is so weird. Walking. I don't walk. Nobody's clocked me walking anywhere in a year."
"Focus," James said, dealing with the fifth gunman, catching an incoming punch and redirecting it into a throw that put the man face-first into the warehouse's concrete floor.
The sixth gunman broke and ran for the interior rather than continuing to engage.
James let him go. The priority was the emitter, and Flash was almost within reach of it now, moving at a deliberate human pace that clearly cost him something internally to maintain.
Flash reached the tripod and, with no further ceremony, ripped the central housing apart with his bare hands, sparks scattering across the loading dock as the containment field's hum died mid-note.
"That's satisfying," Flash said, shaking out his hand. "Okay. Now can I use my actual speed?"
"Go."
He vanished. James's enhanced hearing tracked the displacement of air moving through the warehouse's interior, three distinct impacts registering in under two seconds, and then Flash reappeared on the loading dock holding two more disarmed weapons, expression significantly more satisfied than it had been thirty seconds earlier.
"There we go. That's more like it." He looked at James properly for the first time, taking in the suit, the helmet, the general shape of him.
"Sovereign. Gotham's other guy. I've heard about you. Batman mentioned you during that whole Apokolips mess a few weeks back. Didn't expect you to just show up in my city at midnight."
"I had intelligence suggesting this cell was more dangerous than it looked. Wanted to confirm it directly."
"Well, confirmed. That field thing was genuinely a problem. First time in a while something's actually managed to slow me down like that." Flash tilted his head slightly.
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