Chapter 11: Overload
Central City was quiet for now.
No sirens. No breaking news. Just the gentle hum of city life. Barry Allen, however, wasn't fooled. The calm never lasted.
He had been chasing a new metahuman. No name. No known power. Just chaos in his wake.
When Barry found him, it was supposed to be another standard run-in. Stop the bad guy, save the day.
But this time, he was wrong.
The moment Barry made contact, everything changed. In a flash—ironically—his body felt like it had been unplugged. The rush of the Speed Force vanished. Gone. Like someone ripped the electricity from his soul.
He collapsed, barely managing to crawl out of the alley while the metahuman disappeared into the crowd.
He got back to STAR Labs on foot.
Tests, scans, simulations—nothing helped.
The Speed Force was still inside him. But it was dormant. Inert. Like a dead battery that refused to charge.
Barry stood by the lab window as the sky darkened over Central City. A storm rolled in slowly—clouds like bruises above the skyline. He couldn't shake the feeling that something worse was coming.
He was right.
Across the city, power grids shorted. Lights flickered. Electric buses died in the middle of the street. And in the distance—at the heart of the chaos—was Farooq Gibran.
Blackout.
He absorbed energy like a black hole. No one could stop him. And now, he was coming straight for STAR Labs.
---
The doors hissed open.
Farooq Gibran stepped inside like a shadow woven from storm clouds. His eyes sparked with electric rage, veins pulsing blue with stolen power. His footsteps echoed like distant thunder.
Barry backed up.
"I don't have my speed," he told Cisco and Caitlin, panic rising. "I can't stop him."
Wells wheeled forward, gaze steady. "Then we run."
"No," Barry said. "We fight. We protect each other."
Farooq didn't waste words. He raised a hand—and the lights exploded. Sparks rained down from the ceiling. Screens died. Power failed.
Barry grabbed a metal rod, trying to distract Farooq.
Cisco and Caitlin ducked behind a console.
Farooq's voice was deep and sharp like a lightning strike. "Wells… I know what you did to me."
Wells met his gaze. "You want justice? This isn't it."
Farooq raised both hands, gathering energy like a storm about to burst.
And then—
CRACK.
The air split open like a scream.
A thunderbolt slammed into the floor behind Farooq. Red lightning. Static in the air. The scent of ozone and burning rubber.
Dante Hart.
He stood there—unmoving. Red eyes glowing. A cigarette resting between his lips, untouched by the wind that stirred around him. His expression was calm. Cold. Like he was simply waiting.
Farooq froze.
He turned slowly, sweat gathering at his temple. His power—his confidence—suddenly shook beneath Dante's gaze.
Something primal whispered in the back of his mind: You can't win.
But Farooq wasn't afraid. Not yet.
He opened his hands, and the electricity surged.
He did what he did best—he absorbed.
He reached toward Dante.
Barry's eyes went wide. "Don't let him do that, Dante!" he yelled. "He'll absorb your energy! Don't—!"
But Dante didn't move.
He didn't speak.
He let it happen.
Farooq's hands crackled as Dante's red lightning began to stream toward him. It crawled along his arms like living veins of molten fire. His body lit up with the power—but it didn't stop.
It kept going.
And going.
And going.
Farooq's smile began to fade.
He groaned, stumbling slightly. His chest heaved as his arms convulsed. The red lightning was flooding him—not just powering him up, but consuming him.
He looked up at Dante in horror. "What… what are you?"
Dante looked down at him, eyes glowing like furnaces.
"Death."
Farooq screamed.
His body began to swell unnaturally, crackling from the inside out. Sparks tore from his skin, his veins glowing like overloaded wires.
Barry grabbed Caitlin and pulled her behind a steel pillar. "Get down!"
Farooq let out one last desperate cry, falling to his knees as the power inside him tore him apart from within.
But Dante moved—at last.
In the blink of an eye, he closed the distance.
His hand wrapped around Farooq's neck, lifting him off the ground like a ragdoll. Then, with no ceremony, no warning—he threw him into the sky.
BOOM.
A thunderbolt tore the heavens apart.
Farooq exploded mid-air—disintegrating into light and sound, a final flash of pain and fury, vanishing into ash that scattered across the storm clouds.
Silence followed.
The lights in STAR Labs flickered, then returned.
Barry peeked from behind the pillar, heart pounding.
Caitlin looked stunned. Cisco whispered, "Holy—"
Dante stood exactly where he had before. Smoke curled from the cigarette in his mouth. His red eyes stared at the place where Farooq had vanished, unbothered.
Barry stepped forward slowly.
"You let him take your power," he said. "You… you let him overload."
Dante didn't reply.
Wells rolled forward beside Barry. "He knew Farooq's weakness. Absorption without limits is suicide."
"He could've killed us," Caitlin added quietly.
Dante finally turned his gaze toward them. "Then I guess it's a good thing I came."
Barry wanted to argue. He wanted to scream. He wanted to say that this wasn't how things were supposed to be done.
But he couldn't.
Not this time.
Dante walked toward the exit without another word. As he passed Barry, he muttered just loud enough:
"You don't always need to run fast to stop someone."
And just like that, he disappeared into the night—leaving behind the smell of smoke, the crackle of fading lightning, and silence too loud to ignore.
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