Chapter 29 : The Fastest Man Alive - Part 3: Worlds Collide
June 2016 — National City Power Station
The lightning bolt that hit me should have turned my body to ash.
Megawatts of electricity—enough to power the city for a week, compressed into a single devastating attack—slammed into my chest with the force of a freight train. The world became white. Hot. Infinite.
Lightning Logic screamed.
ABSORB. CHANNEL. SURVIVE.
I didn't think. Didn't plan. Just acted.
The electricity poured into me, flooding through pathways that I hadn't known existed until that moment. My cells became capacitors. My nervous system became a superconductor. Every fiber of my being converted to the single purpose of containing the apocalyptic discharge Livewire had unleashed.
It hurt.
It hurt more than anything had ever hurt. More than the gauntlet in my father's factory. More than the three-day migraine after fighting Indigo. My body wasn't designed to hold this much power—but it was holding anyway, adapting on the fly, becoming something new to survive something impossible.
"WHAT—" Livewire's voice reached me through the electric haze. "HOW ARE YOU—"
I couldn't answer. Speaking required neural pathways, and every neuron in my brain was currently occupied with the task of not exploding. I could feel the overflow building—more energy than I could safely contain, looking for an exit.
Ground. Need to ground.
The concrete beneath my feet cracked as I drove my hands down, palms flat against the earth. Lightning Logic found the grounding system—massive copper cables running deep into bedrock, designed to safely dissipate exactly this kind of catastrophic discharge.
I pushed.
The electricity roared through me and into the ground, a waterfall of pure energy finding its proper outlet. The air around me ionized. The station's lights exploded. Somewhere distant, I heard screaming—my own voice, I realized dimly, expressing what my body couldn't contain.
Then it was over.
I collapsed to my knees, smoke rising from my clothes, skin tingling with the ghost of a million volts. Livewire stood frozen across the station floor, her expression caught between rage and terror.
"What are you?"
I looked up at her. Managed to smile through the pain.
"I'm the guy who just absorbed everything you had." I forced myself to stand. Legs shaking. Vision swimming. "And you're out of power."
She lunged at me—purely physical now, no electricity to fuel her attacks. I deflected her fist with vector manipulation, redirected her momentum, sent her stumbling into a transformer housing that I'd calculated wasn't carrying current anymore.
"That was for Cat Grant."
Supergirl crashed through the roof.
She'd been tracking Livewire through the sky, waiting for the right moment to intervene. Now she saw me standing over the weakened villain, electricity still crackling across my skin, surrounded by the aftermath of an impossible survival.
"Winn?" Her voice cracked. "What did you—how—"
"Long story." I gestured at Livewire. "She's drained. Containment should hold this time."
Kara moved on autopilot, securing the villain with DEO-issued restraints. But her eyes never left me. Neither did the news helicopter's camera, hovering outside the shattered station windows.
Neither did the crowd of civilians who'd gathered to watch.
National City Power Station — Exterior
"Is that... the IT guy from CatCo?"
"He absorbed the lightning!"
"Did you see that? He was glowing!"
The crowd pressed against the police barricades, phones recording everything. News drones circled overhead, their operators clearly unable to believe what their cameras were capturing.
Barry arrived in a flash of red lightning, Silver Banshee secured in his grip. He took one look at me—smoke still rising from my singed clothes, electrical discharge leaving visible burns on my arms—and his eyes went wide.
"Dude. Dude."
"I know."
"You just—that was—" He set down Banshee and grabbed my shoulders, examining me like a science experiment. "Your readings are off the charts. Whatever you absorbed, it should have killed you."
"It almost did."
Kara landed beside us, her cape shielding me from some of the camera angles. "We need to get him out of here. The DEO can—"
"It's too late for that." I watched the crowd, the cameras, the undeniable evidence of what I'd done. "They all saw. The whole city saw."
"Winn—"
"It's okay." I met her eyes, trying to project a confidence I didn't entirely feel. "We knew this might happen eventually. At least it happened while I was saving lives."
A reporter pushed through the barricade, microphone extended. "Sir! Sir, can you tell us what just happened? Are you a metahuman? How long have you been working with Supergirl?"
More questions followed, shouted from all directions. The noise became a wall of sound, as disorienting as Silver Banshee's screams.
Barry stepped in front of me. "Hey! Back off. Give the man some space."
"Is the Flash protecting him? Are you part of a team?"
"How did he absorb that much electricity?"
"Does Supergirl have an official partner now?"
Kara's hand found mine. She squeezed once, firm and reassuring.
"Later," she told the crowd. "He'll answer questions later. Right now, he needs medical attention."
She lifted me off the ground—bridal carry style, which I would have found embarrassing if I wasn't so exhausted—and launched into the sky before anyone could stop her.
The last thing I saw before the clouds swallowed us was Barry giving the cameras a cheerful wave.
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