Chapter 20: Wrath in Human Form
The training had started.
But it wasn't what Barry expected.
There were no treadmills. No forcefields. No gadgets or technical talk.
Dante trained Barry like a soldier. No—like a weapon.
Every morning at STAR Labs started with Barry running. But not with his speed. No speed force. Just pure, brutal, exhausting human running.
Mile after mile until his legs burned.
Then came the weights. Heavy enough to make Barry collapse more than once. Dante didn't care.
"You fall," Dante would say coldly, "you crawl. You stop crying about it."
Then came the focus drills.
Barry would be forced to meditate in complete silence. To feel every breath. To listen. To react without panic. Dante didn't train the body alone—he trained the mind.
"You think running fast makes you strong?" Dante asked one night, as Barry lay on the floor, sore and exhausted. "Power without control is chaos. You want to beat Reverse Flash? Then stop acting like a scared kid."
This was how the week went. Brutal, relentless, unforgiving.
And yet…
Barry started to change.
His mind grew sharper. His movement more fluid. He was still learning, but he was beginning to understand the edge Dante lived on—and how it could be used without losing himself.
But on the fifth day, everything shifted.
Caitlin didn't show up.
Barry noticed first. "She's not answering her texts."
Cisco frowned. "I've been calling her for the last thirty minutes. Nothing."
That was enough to make Dante pause.
He stepped away from Barry and looked at Cisco.
"Where is she?"
Cisco swallowed, trying to stay calm. "I—I don't know."
Then, suddenly, every screen in STAR Labs lit up.
Even the backup monitors.
A city-wide hijack.
The feed flickered and then came into focus.
It was a video. A live feed. Low quality. Shaky.
Caitlin sat tied to a chair. Her lab coat was torn, and blood was smeared on the corner of her mouth. Her breathing was shaky, but she was alive. She was strong. Not crying. Just… waiting.
Then a voice.
"Hello, Central City," Leonard Snart said, stepping into frame, his cold gun resting on his shoulder. "Or should I say… hello, Flash."
Beside him stood Mick Rory, holding his heat gun and laughing like a pyromaniac child.
"We've got your girl," Snart continued. "And we've got demands."
"Real simple," Mick added. "Flash shows up… or the doctor gets turned into ashes and ice cubes."
Snart smirked at the camera. "Your move, Scarlet Speedster."
The screen went black.
And STAR Labs went silent.
No one moved.
Then something shifted.
The ground trembled slightly.
A low, thunderous rumble filled the air.
Red lightning sparked around Dante's body—sizzling and dancing like a wild animal. His breath slowed. His pupils shrank. The energy around him cracked like a storm being born.
Cisco stepped back. "Uh… guys—?"
Barry ran up. "Dante?"
But before anyone could say another word—
BOOM.
A sonic burst erupted as Dante vanished in an explosion of red lightning.
The force shattered a window. Monitors flickered. Equipment shorted out.
Barry, Cisco, and Wells all stumbled back.
"He's gone," Cisco whispered. "Like—really gone."
Wells stared at the lingering red sparks in the air, eyes wide. His hands trembled for the first time.
"What the hell just happened?" Barry asked.
Wells muttered, "You just saw wrath in human form."
—
The people of Central City would later say they heard it before they saw anything.
A roar like thunder, building and building.
Then windows began to shatter. Car alarms screamed. Birds scattered into the sky.
And then they saw him.
A blur of red lightning tearing through the city. Moving so fast it shattered air itself. The streetlights burst one by one behind him.
Some swore they saw a demon.
But it was Dante.
His eyes glowed crimson. His hair stood on end, completely engulfed in living lightning. It wasn't just speed. It was rage. His entire body shimmered, wrapped in a storm made of fury.
He wasn't looking.
He was hunting.
Street by street.
Block by block.
Every alley. Every rooftop. Every dark corner of the city was scoured in seconds. He left behind trails of scorched pavement. He didn't stop to talk. He didn't ask for help.
He searched.
And as he ran, the red lightning grew brighter—flaring like a signal in the sky. A warning.
To anyone who dared hurt the people he cared about.
Caitlin's bleeding lip had been the last thing he saw.
And that was all it took to snap the leash.
He was no longer the quiet, cigarette-smoking man in the corner.
He was death on fire.
A burning force of vengeance moving faster than human eyes could track.
And the moment he found them—
Captain Cold and Heat Wave would realize what it meant to take something precious from a man like Dante.
They wouldn't get a trial.
They wouldn't get a second chance.
They would face something they could never prepare for.
Wrath itself.
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