Starling City: 2005
Living in the shadows of a family of geniuses was the perfect camouflage. While Caitlyn was busy being the "Miracle Child" of Starling Prep, winning every science trophy in sight, John perfected the art of being invisible. He sat in the back of the class, eyes glazed over, seemingly staring at nothing.
In reality, he was watching the world in slow motion. He watched the vibration of the fluorescent lights; he tracked the individual dust motes dancing in shafts of sunlight. To John, a forty-minute lecture felt like a week of isolation.
I need a challenge, he thought, his fingers tapping the desk at a frequency that would have shattered the wood if he weren't careful. If I don't feed this energy soon, I'm going to vibrate right through the floor.
The "hunger" in his chest—the black orb—was growling. It didn't want light or food. It wanted momentum.
The Museum HeistThe local news had been buzzing about a "Ghost Thief" hitting high-end tech labs and museums. No alarms were tripped, no locks were broken, and the security footage showed nothing but a localized blur that distorted the air like heat on a summer road.
Amateur, John thought as he slipped out of his bedroom window that night.
He didn't run at full tilt immediately.
He moved through the Glades, his feet barely touching the grime-stained pavement. He was wearing his "training gear"—a black hooded sweatshirt and a mask he'd fashioned from a high-tech compression fabric stolen from his father's lab.
He reached the Starling Museum of Natural History in seconds. He didn't break in; he simply vibrated his molecules until he slipped through the heavy steel of the loading dock door like a ghost through a sheet.
Inside, the air was cold.
There.
About fifty yards away, near the exhibit of ancient Babylonian artifacts, the air was warping. A man in a bulky, experimental vest was moving at incredible speeds—at least 200 miles per hour. He was grabbing gold coins and artifacts, his movements jerky and inefficient.
John's POV:
I watched him from the balcony. He wasn't a speedster. Not a real one. He was using a Kinetic Displacement Vest. It tapped into the Zero-Point field to accelerate his personal time, but it was noisy. To a normal person, he was a blur. To me, he was moving in a thick, slow syrup.
The black orb in my chest began to thrum. It didn't just want to stop him. It wanted his speed.
"You're making too much noise," I said.
The thief froze—or at least, tried to. To him, my voice must have sounded like a deep, demonic rumble because I was speaking at a frequency far below human hearing. He spun around, his eyes wide behind a pair of goggles.
"Who's there?!" he yelled, his voice high and distorted by his vest.
I didn't walk toward him. I stepped. One moment I was on the balcony; the next, I was standing a breath away from him. I didn't produce a sonic boom. I didn't even move the air.
I reached out and grabbed his shoulder.
"Let go!" the thief screamed, trying to vibrate away.
But the moment I touched him, the Black Speed Force flared. Jagged streaks of obsidian lightning jumped from my hand and crawled over his vest.
I felt it—the delicious, cold rush of pure kinetic energy pouring out of the machine and into my veins. The vest groaned, sparks flying as its internal batteries were drained in a nanosecond.
John's POV:
It was like drinking a gallon of ice-cold water after a trek through the desert. The energy from the vest didn't just fill me; it evolved me. The black orb in my chest expanded, glowing with a dark, violet hue.
The thief stopped blurring. He hit the floor hard, the vest dead and smoking. He looked up at me, his face pale with terror.
"What... what are you?" he wheezed.
I looked down at my hands. They were still flickering with black lightning, but it felt more controlled now. Heavier.
"I'm the one who decides how fast you get to go," I whispered.
I didn't leave him for the police. I took the vest. I stripped the high-frequency capacitors and the miniaturized processor. By the time the security guards arrived, the thief was tied up with his own belt, and I was five miles away, sitting on the roof of the tallest building in the city.
The EvolutionI looked at the components in my hand. They were primitive compared to the Speed Force, but they gave me an idea.
If I could build a suit that amplified this "consumption" effect, I wouldn't just be fast. I would be an Energy Vampire.
Barry Allen will run for justice, I thought, looking out over the dark skyline of Starling City. Eobard Thawne will run for hate.
I stood up, and for the first time, I didn't hold back. I pushed the Speed Force to its limit.
A massive wave of black energy erupted from me, but it didn't explode outward. It imploded, pulling the sound and light of the city into a vacuum. I moved.
I crossed the entire city in less than a second. No wind. No friction. No sound.
I am the predator in the silence, I realized.
The Next Morning"John! Wake up! You're going to be late for the math competition!" Caitlyn shouted, banging on my door.
I groaned, rolling out of bed. My body felt denser, stronger. I looked in the mirror. My eyes, usually a standard brown, had a faint, swirling darkness in the iris that vanished the moment I blinked.
"Coming, Cait," I called back, my voice perfectly normal.
I walked into the kitchen, where my mom was reading the paper.
"Did you hear?" Mary said, looking up with a worried frown. "That thief at the museum was caught last night. The police say he looked... drained. Like he hadn't slept in a month."
"Must be the stress of the job," I said, grabbing an apple and taking a bite.
Caitlyn looked at me, her brow furrowed. She walked over and poked my arm. "Since when did you get muscles, John? You've been sitting on your butt for months."
"I've been taking the stairs," I lied, flashing her a grin.
She rolled her eyes, but I could see the wheels turning in her head. She was a scientist; she noticed anomalies. And right now, I was the biggest anomaly in the world.
"Let's go, 'Muscles,'" she teased, grabbing her bag. "I have a trophy to win."
"And I have a nap to take," I replied.
But as we walked out the door, my eyes caught a glimpse of a black-and-gold car parked down the street. A man in a suit was watching our house. He had a small pin on his lapel—a stylized "Q".
Queen Consolidated.
They're watching us, I thought. Good. Let them watch. They have no idea what's actually living in this house.