Speed Running Family, ch10.p3
masterpost cw: the JL are going into the GIW facility so there's mentions of experimentation. Nothing is too graphic though.
The GIW really are overconfident bastards.
Barry tries not to cuss about this whole thing around the kids. It isn’t that he thinks the kids haven’t heard cussing, or even that cussing doesn’t have its place. It’s more that he’s worried if he starts that he won’t be able to stop. The kids didn’t need to deal with his frustrations over this. They need him to be strong.
Most of the time.
Right now is about wrecking these overconfident bastards.
Barry can feel the anti ghost shielding. Moving through it is like pushing through a door strung with clingfilm. It slows him down, but it doesn’t stop him. Wally is fractions of a second behind him. Barry would have rather had Wally at the other locations where there would be less chance of being shot at, but there had been no convincing the Titans of staying away completely.
Wally takes the left path as Barry takes the right. Something about them coming through the shielding triggers the alarms. Something about them says ‘ghost. Barry tries not to think about it, because he can’t afford to think about it right then. They have a mission.
Locking the GIW out of their own armory is ridiculously simple. Again, overconfident bastards. He avoids taking out any of the agents just yet, just to cut down on panic. Next step was to find the security room. Wally made it there first. Two agents are passed out on the floor. Barry leaves the computers to Wally for the moment and focuses on securing the agents with zip ties. He uses their ties as gags. Which really, white suits? Overconfident bastards.
“Security room is secure,” Wally says. His voice is an even double through the comms. “Relay the time to breaching.”
“Five minutes,” Bats replies.
“Armory is locked up. There didn’t seem to be any exterior guards, but not promises,” Barry added. There was a soft noise of confirmation back.
Barry crosses his arms, foot tapping. Five minutes was an eternity for a speedster.
“Did you feel it?” Wally asks.
Barry nods. “Coming through the barrier? Yeah.”
Wally nods. “There’s also a feeling of, like, static shock when touching the goons.”
“I just thought that was the ugly carpet.”
“It is really hideous carpet.”
An eternity later, and far too much time staring at the carpet, the rest arrive. After grabbing the hard drive that they hope Technus has moved onto, Barry and Wally speed back to their teams and then forward again, mapping out the facility and taking the odd agent out as they go.
The full alarms are blaring now. The GIW are doing the equivalent of shredding the documents, except it’s trying to wipe data. There are Bats making sure to stop that. That one is easy. Harder is stopping the GIW from destroying the active experiments. From destroying the ghosts that they have pressed into cages and test tubes and machines that Barry doesn’t look too closely at but that turn his stomach.
Most of the human shaped ones rise with a wail as soon as they’re freed. Some vanish. Others swoop through the building. The ghost of a lunch lady embraces another that looks like a dock worker of some sort, but it’s hard to tell with the pieces that hang off him like dripping skin. Something large and white and furry attacks an agent.
Barry doesn’t stop them.
“Flash,” Wally says across the comms. “Left side, big lab.”
The strain in his voice is enough that Barry rushes to his nephew’s location, arms full of weird, blobular ghosts that rumble like purring cats. He’d been grabbing them out of one of the machines—at least grabbing the ones that weren’t… bits of green are stuck to his suit like mashed up jelly. The ghost coo as Barry zips at full speed.
Bits of green go flying as he slams to a stop next to Wally.
One of the blobs rumbles deeper and nuzzles Barry in a weird sort of comfort. Absently, Barry dips his chin down to shield it. He doesn’t look down. He can’t. His eyes are glued to what he’s seeing in the large tube in the center of the room.
“Is that…”
“…It looks like it, right?” Wally asks. His voice isn’t above a whisper. “Danny said they had his core, but I didn’t…”
“How could we?” Barry asks back. Ludicrously, Barry says the first thing that comes to mind. “We’re going to have to move. We don’t have enough bedrooms.”
Wally barks out a surprised laugh and covers his mouth quickly. It’s not the time to be laughing. Barry bites his lip to stop his own, slightly hysterical laugh.
The blobs purr.
The Flashes watch the floating figure in the tube. The figure that has Danny’s face, a glowing sphere in their chest, and fades to nothing before their feet can touch the ground.