With Morality Like a Polynomial

Do I Throw My Clothes in The Fire?

He sped up the side of the building, grabbing as many people as he could. Plucking people from by broken windows that had been shattered, pushing them from the path of debris.

Eventually the tower had to hit the ground, Barry could only go so fast without making things worse and he couldn't save everyone. He took a moment, hitting his league communicator to call the watchtower.

"I need as many people as possible in Central now, dunno what the situation is quite yet but I've got two skyscrapers down and I'm expecting more. I'll update once I have more info."

The speed force lurched once more and Barry watched a yellow blur of colour streak through reality before physically glitching, spazzing out and ripping holes into the air as it disappeared and reappeared.

What the hell.

Barry headed for the blur, trying to keep up. It was faster than him and kept disappearing and vibrating at too quick a speed for Barry to figure out what it was.

The blur shuddered once more, the speed force surged, and the air turned hot. Barry watched as the blur appeared once more and rammed into the base of another building. The side of it rippled, the windows shattering, the concrete cracking, the metal creaking. And the tower began to fall, debris shaking loose and dropping from the top.

Barry grabbed hold of as many people as possible from the street to remove them from the danger zone. The blur was no longer disappearing, now merely speeding around, unable to stay still and vibrating like crazy.

The tower continued to fall, and Barry continued to try and pluck people from its path.

As it reached a degree of about 45 from the ground Barry heard another boom and looked up to find Superman holding up the building, the metal creaking and beginning to curl around the man of steel as he pushed back.

"go after the speedster," Clark ordered over his own communicator.

Barry nodded well aware Clark could see it from where he was courtesy of super sight.

The blur flashed by once more and Barry gave chase.

He had no idea, no clues or guesses as to who this was. Some distant thought hypothesised as to one yellow-clothed speedster, but Barry shut the thought down quickly.

Wally was dead. Had been for ten years. This was not Wally.

The blur seemed to have no destination in mind, it almost seemed as of it just couldn't stop. It was slowing, ever so slightly, losing velocity as it continued to move through the real world, faced with friction and solid mass.

Barry's current guess was that whoever this was, they'd been trapped in the speed force. What he was feeling was their escape and they were now working off the aftereffects. Barry had been in the speed force himself, it wasn't overly enjoyable, and he knew that the withdrawal was less than comfortable.

But he wasn't fast enough. He just couldn't catch up, and eventually he lost the yellow blur and had to admit defeat.

A wall, cold, hard, slamming into his face, he was going slow enough that it didn't crumble beneath the force and he was relieved by that for a few moments before he was too busy throwing up.

He stumbled further, managing to recognise that he was walking down an alley between an apartment building and a corner store. There were a few dumpsters lining the sides and at the end it opened to a car park. It was still dark, the sun slowly creeping towards the horizon and beginning to bleach the sky. His foot landed in a puddle and he shook it off, lost his balance, fell over, shuddered as the cold hit him once more, then shuffled back to the wall and curled in on himself.