2 01 - Eugene 'The Flash' Thompson
Chapter 01 - Eugene 'The Flash' Thompson
Written By Dr Armstrong
"Can I be excused for the rest of my life?"
- Spongebob SquarePants
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->Flash POV<-< p>
—Flash~!*
A grey-coloured blur with the occasional yellow streaks of electricity zoomed across the horizon, going beyond Mach 10 speeds as the sound barrier shattered completely, the wind rumbling as Flash pierced through it like a sharp needle going into a toddler.
The people walking around the city didn't seem to even register the Speedster's sprint across the states. They were still capable of somewhat seeing his mirage, yet they disregarded it as just a figment of their imagination or just unusual-looking winds.
Flash himself couldn't even fully comprehend what was happening, his mind and perception could not compute at such speeds, but the body itself was rapidly increasing its speed.
He could not stop running, it was as if he had been injected with a kind of super caffeine that forced him on a mad dash to seemingly nowhere.
In just a dozen minutes, Flash had run from his house in New York all the way to somewhere in...okay, he didn't know where. Flash had no time to play Geoguesser as another minute later, he was already in another state.
The lightning he had initially run from had been long gone, striking the ground somewhere behind him as it couldn't even dream of catching up to the newly-born Speedster.
Flash had a panicked expression as what seemed to be a Volkswagen had decided to make a turn.
The car turned left, seemingly intending to enter the nearby parking lot. Unfortunately for the car's driver, their left...would be his front.
'SHIT, SHIT, SHIT! Turn left, you bastard!' Flash cursed himself as he desperately tried to make a turn, realizing that at the speeds he was going, the impact would not just turn him into a gore scene, it would also send the car flying.
Actually, the car wouldn't fly, it would just be completely annihilated. But that wasn't the priority...
With no solutions in sight, Flash gritted his teeth before shutting his eyes, waiting for the impending crash.
But then...
'What the...' Instantly, Flash opened his eyes before accidentally making eye contact with one of the passengers sitting in the backseat.
A girl, it was a girl, though he could hardly see a glance at her features beyond the essentials, the features that stuck out like a sore thumb.
Her green eyes, and her being a soulless ginger.
Drinking from a plastic straw attached to a KFC Pepsi, Flash could see her widening her eyes before letting go of the Pepsi in her hand...
Yeah, that's gonna spill and get over the chair, too bad.
Unfortunately, Flash couldn't do anything to help as the next moment he got inside of her.
Saw the organs and everything, then shortly emerging again in less than a nanosecond.
Flash phased through the whole car as if it had only been a hologram, not feeling any kind of resistance beyond the deeply uncomfortable feeling of his particles moving out of the way.
He blinked in bewilderment, before looking back at the car only to realize he had already zoomed to another city, seemingly nonstop as his legs, which had already become a swirling tornado like that one Speedster bird from Looney Tunes, reached even more logic-breaking speeds.
'How did I phase through...? Huh, I guess that's how the Speedsters from those comics never have accidents...' Flash also realized that he had somehow managed to survive and endure the intense pressure that should have instantly killed him the moment he entered beyond Mach 10 speeds...
Even a super-reinforced drone-cum-jet would have a hard time not getting ripped apart, let alone him who didn't even get a bruise!
'So my body just phases through objects when I'm in super speed? That explains why I'm not feeling anything or tripping on any random rock...' But such a conclusion would birth another mind-boggling question.
If he was constantly phasing through solid objects, then why was he not falling to the centre of the planet...?
It could be that all of his body except for his feet could do this, but that would contradict the fact that his feet had also phased through that Volkswagen...
Flash decided to just call it superpower bullshit for now and returned his attention towards the mad dash.
'This is...isn't this the southern coast?' This wasn't just any part of the southern coast, it was a particular beach he had frequented with his little sister back in Elementary School before his family moved into Queens.
'Bikini...no, Betty Beach?' He tried remembering the name, but it just flew past him as he realized a terrible conundrum.
'Hey, that's the ocean I'm going to...SHIT!' Phasing through objects wouldn't be able to save him from the damn ocean, it would actually make it worse!
Briefly trying to change his direction, which may actually work, Flash stopped doing so once he realized another fact.
'I'm going beyond Mach 10, right now...that should be more than enough.' With that, Flash smirked.
Yeah, baby! He had watched the Incredibles. Right now, he should be even faster than the speedster son of Mr. Incredible! Flash forgot his name though...
He tried his best to redirect his steps so as to not experience phasing through another human again...Flash was lucky that his first time had been a girl, so there was no homo.
With his heart palpating rapidly, the ocean got nearer and nearer until...
—Flash~!*
...With that, his observation proved correct as Flash didn't even feel a change to the foundation he ran on. At such speed, conditions like whether you were walking on solid, liquid, or even gas became truly irrelevant.
He looked down upon the water, which like the wind, broke as the surface maniacally rippled and waved.
"Hasta La Vista, baby! HAHAHAHAA..." For the first time since his mad dash began, Flash spoke aloud, accompanied by howling laughter.
However, there wasn't anyone to hear his words, which was a good thing.
—Flash~!*
As Flash continued dashing atop the open ocean, he eventually realised that he should have just redirected his legs even if he could walk on water...
He didn't know where the hell he was going! There were no landmarks in the ocean, and he wasn't Jesus...
So there was a possibility that he would accidentally go in a circle whilst atop the ocean, if his super speed ran out at such a time, he'd just fall into the damn water!
There was also the possibility of getting lost in another continent, maybe being stranded on a desolate island, or just crashing into something way too big for him to phase through completely, like Mount Everest...
Flash looked back and was relieved that the coast was still very much visible, making a very unsymmetrical U-turn, he ran his way back to Balloney Beach, or whatever its name was.
—Flash~!*
Within a minute, he was already back in the city where he phased through the Volkswagen, though on another part of the block.
And another minute later, Flash was back on American soil. Coincidentally, he felt a rather sinking sensation in his heart.
'I feel like I just dropped something...' It was the unconscious feeling of having accidentally dropped something you were previously holding in your hand, which was weird because Flash wasn't holding anything...
'My speed...' Flash murmured under his breath as he found the surroundings to be much, much more comprehensible.
He was getting slower...
'Is the Speed Pump temporary? Thank God...' He had long made the connection of the Speed Pump being responsible for this uncontrollable mad dash of his.
But if it was slowly wearing off, would he lose his newly acquired super speed? Flash still remembered the asterisked warning written on the Speed Pump's can, about the whole 'maximum on-the-job performance' and whatnot.
Did 'maximum on-the-job performance' mean speed? It would make sense...then that must mean the Speed Pump's intended customer group would be...
Speedsters, otherwise the Speed Pump would just be called 'Power Pump' or something similar.
It was specifically targeted to increase on-the-job performance. For a Speedster, that would be...well, speed.
But Flash wasn't a Speedster—hell, he was just some high school kid...
His nickname of 'Flash' was given by his football team simply because he was the fastest quarterback in school, not because he was literally as fast as a flash of lightning...
Well, he really was now, but he had never been a real 'Flash', his true name was actually...Eugene.
So if he, who was only a normal human, got super speed from the Speed Pump. Would it also act as a kind of drug that could 'create' new Speedsters?
...Or was it because the Pump was supercharged with weird, spaghetti lightning?
'So many stimulating questions, yet so few answers.' This is what Flash would have thought were it not for the GIANT SPOON—
Thankfully, his continuously deteriorating speed was still more than enough to seamlessly phase through objects.
Looking back as to why the hell there was a random GIANT SPOON, it turned out to be just a metal sign built in the shape of a spoon, pointing to the nearby diner.
'Taco-Burger, what the hell is that?' He briefly glanced at the diner's wall side promo, which was painted in very bold colours, before shortly moving on to another city.
'This is New Jersey, right? I just get the vibe...' That was a good sign, it meant that Flash was getting closer to his hometown, which would be the best area to lose his super speed.
With no money and clothes tattered from the super speed, he'd just become a stranded homeless teen with no explanations he could give to the police as to how he ended up in another state, so it was better to get lost in New York, successfully reaching his house would be even better.
Yeah, that's right. Whatever protection that was keeping his body from getting harmed did not extend to his clothes...
At this point, Flash was just running around in his torn-up undies.
'I think I feel something down there...' He commented silently as his feet increasingly got hotter and hotter as he got slower and slower.
That's when Flash realized it, he was starting to feel pain—his super speed was coming to an end much faster than anticipated, heh.
Quickly phasing through dozens of trees, Flash ran through several parks before finally returning to his home county of Queens.
His speed dwindled to such a point, that Flash had become slightly visible, leaving obvious afterimages as he ran through the streets.
Realizing that being seen was obviously a bad thing, with how the government usually treats superpowered individuals not (directly or indirectly) working for them, Flash stuck to the low population density areas.
His feet were producing such heat to the point that he could literally feel the asphalt melting into his skin, scorching his flesh with second-degree burns.
However, Flash quickly found that at this speed, his mind could actually connect to his body, increasing the control he had over his own physical vessel to be much more solid.
Previously, it was like he had been driving a truck that was going at an uncontrollable speed whilst being chased by the 5-star GTA police force. He could turn the wheels, but there would have been a delay in the turn due to the vehicle simply being too damn fast for its own good.
But now, it was like driving a supercar on the highway. Fast but precise! He could accurately control his body's movements and direction with minimal delay.
Flash also became more aware of the surroundings to this fact. Now that everything wasn't just a hazy blur, he could see that streaks of crimson and yellow lightning were produced every time his practically burning feet touched the ground.
The lightning didn't hurt him for some reason—hell, he didn't even feel that they were there...
Decorative lightning, was he a Sith Lord or something?
As Flash gained more and more control over his limbs, the speedster gradually slowed down as his form became more visible, turning from a hazy afterimage into a speedy blur.
"Hey...that's my house!" From over the horizon, the Thompson house could be seen in all of its suburban glory.
'I don't want to lose my speed in some drug dealer's alleyway...' Flash muttered to himself as the mundane visage of his 2-story house reached his proximity.
It was better for him, a teenager not having carried a phone or any money, to lose his powers at home...rather than stumble into Bobby Black's heroin lab.
—Flash~!*
As Flash ran, he suddenly began turning before making a complete U-turn. Then another one of the same kind, then another, and another...
Flash ran in a circle, a perfect ring around his house's perimeter.
Dust was kicked up in a spinning motion as a huge tornado of dirt and stone began forming around the Thompson house...only to quickly dissipate back as the dust settled down.
An electric blur zoomed its way into the front door as dust and dirt followed it, the door to Flash's house abruptly opened as a figure in tattered clothes stumbled in with a sudden loss of speed.
Flash's form plummeted down with a very audible thud as he clutched his chest in pain.
"Ugh...felt like a damn heart attack." He muttered before getting up on one knee only to fall back down again as his burned feet looked worse for wear.
"Fuck!" He cursed as he glanced down at his lower limbs, the asphalt from several different roads had burnt their way into him, melting his skin and making him look like he had obsidian black scales running down from his knees.
"Uh, why didn't my legs just phase through the goddamn road!?" He was honestly quite frustrated as to why this occurred, speedster logic should have left his feet unharmed!
If this happened every time he 'super-ran', forget being some kind of super maestro, no way in hell was he gonna sacrifice his legs for the benefit of New Yorkers...
'Now...what the hell happened?' He thought as he limply made his way into the living room couch before lying down on his back.
He clutched his chest that had been exposed to the wind, the shirt that had once covered it was a shadow of its former self, courtesy of the lightning-charged acidic Speed Pump.
Interestingly, the Pump only melted his clothes away, the skin under the fabric had not been harmed by even a little. Rather, it seemed the Speed Pump had been absorbed into his being, from the pores of his skin.
However unharmed his chest was, his feet had unfortunately lacked the plot armour it had. The second-degree burns were very serious, he'd have to get this treated soon...
'I spilled some sulfuric acid on myself whilst working on a school science project' That would be his excuse to the doctor, but it wouldn't exactly explain the asphalt...
"At least, I won't have to go to school today..." The burns would be a great excuse to skip school.
Flash glanced around the house before adopting a grave expression.
The TV had exploded, the window was still broken...
"The storm's over?" Looking through the open window, it seemed like the storm had dissipated after his super mad dash.
"Super convenient..." He muttered with a raised eyebrow before getting up to pick up the mePhone that had been left out to record through his window.
22 minutes...
22 minutes have passed since he started recording with the mePhone. Quickly clicking the play button, Flash skipped the dozen minutes of nothing much happening to see if his phone had caught the mad dash on camera.
'Holy, I'm actually invisible...!' Of course, he was not invisible, but the only thing his mePhone caught prior to him suddenly appearing at the front door was a mere dust cloud.
Not even a blur, nor the coloured electricity that had been following his sprint could be seen.
Just what kind of speed would one need to achieve for cameras to become useless? Well, now he knew...
"At least, they wouldn't know who I am..." He was referring to the government, with how they handled Mutants and the like, Flash wasn't too keen on being a public superpowered individual.
He wasn't like Captain America, who was a soldier serving the nation or Mister Fantastic, who was literally the smartest man on the planet...
God knows what they'd do to his body, Spiderman really did make the right call being all mysterious and shit.
'Though they definitely know I exist, something suddenly breaking mach speeds without the use of flight? No way it was just the wind...' He couldn't really do much about it, he just had to pray that they didn't find out that whatever was running through the states was a resident of New York...
It was a Florida man, okay?
"Forget about that, now what do I do with...this?" Flash muttered as he stared down toward his injured feet, he wasn't too sure that the science experiment excuse would work.
Maybe it would work if Flash had been someone like Osborn, a guy who would have a valid reason to do dangerous science experiments in his home, but for him? It was totally out of character!
The doctor would 100% call the cops, or even worse, his parents!
"Speaking about cops..." He glanced at the broken window. Yeah, that's right, he had been wanting to call the cops earlier.
'Maybe I can just tell them that the robber injured my feet? Though why would it be burned...oh, officer, the guy threw a tub of boiling water at me! Would that be believable...?' Maybe it would explain the burns, but why would there be asphalt melted into his skin?
Well, Flash was just going to wash it off...good idea or stupid idea?
'I'm still fucking hungry...' A rumble in his stomach made sure he knew.
Walking limply through the kitchen, he opened the fridge only to wind nothing but the chilly winds of the cooler greeting him...
Oh, right. The robber stole all of his food, what a fucking bastard.
"Great...I'm just gonna get some pizza..." With all that had happened today, Flash honestly just wanted to lie down for a bit.
...But it wasn't like he had the speed to run away from his problems. At least, these problems weren't so life-changing...
Wait, it was life-changing, fuck!
--->Author's Note:
Thoughts?
Power stones, please. I'll give you cookies in return.
Yeah, this ain't the MCU if you haven't already realized, call it a new timeline or something, Earth-6969.
It's a mix between the comic universes as well as my own headcanon, gonna be wild, so strap in.
