Ch.73

I was born in Starling city in the Glades. I started from nothing as a no name street urchin bastard of a whore who didn't want me. I was in and out of foster cares starting from the moment I could walk and talk. The less abusive or less sexually perverted homes were the easiest because I could take a beating like nobody's business and dish one out once I was strong enough.

By the time I was seventeen, I had a juvenile record that stretched from one end of the Glades to the other. I looked like Clark Kent from the last DC reality I'd been to and my extra strength made people want to follow me. I was a aberration, not fitting into any one crowd with my intellect, penchant for digging up trouble and brutal ways. Detective Lance saw me as another punk, but when I was arrested for beating my foster father into a coma at fourteen, his eldest daughter Laurel, saw me as a project that needed fixing.

She took my case pro-bono and I told them why I did it to their faces, both father and daughter. The horrors I described about what the pedophile had done and how he got away with it because he was the last stop for troubled kids and had friends in with the cops who paid him to take turns, how they killed kids and called them runaways when they got too old or tried to talk, all of it. I told them how I'd have killed him had detective jackass not stopped me before I'd have butchered the rest of those on the list, well, it didn't earn me a plus.

I looked at them coldly and told them the list of names including half the names on the police force that were in on it either by having fun with the kids, profiting off knowing or using the kids as drug mules and dealers in schools. I told them every detail so vividly, how they could collect and find the evidence I hid and how if I'm put in a cell with those that can get away with it, they'd try to have me silenced like they did several others.

I told Detective Lance that if they try I would kill everyone that tried and once I was out, he'd best shoot because I'd kill him for allowing it. I waved a hand. "Believe me or not, I don't care, juvenile hall, jail, prison, it doesn't matter to me where I go, but the rest have nowhere and once you make it public, they'll go missing, lie to protect their lives and cover the scars, bruises and mess they make to stay alive. The difference between me and them is that I don't fear anything, least of all death. As the foster parents like to remind me, I was born in the trash and left for dead, what do I care if I die? Death is an old friend we all must meet someday so I might as well introduce every sick fuck out there to him first before it's my turn."

I turned to Laurel. "After they're gone and I'm dead, perhaps it'll only be the good people like you left in the end and that I can smile about, even in hell."

I stopped talking after I'd given them everything down to audio recordings from a tape recorder I'd stolen and a hidden nanny cam I'd stolen as well. The evidence was inadmissible in court being that they were stolen and I was sent to Juvenile Hall where half a dozen attempts were made on my life within the first day. I got a bit cut up, but fourteen seventeen year old assholes looking to get paid were dead and while I looked pretty fucked up, all of it was defensive wounds on my arms, torso and hands.

Over the next six months, fifty more assholes died before they called me a serial killer. All the video evidence went missing of the events to back up my story and Laurel pushed for my release which ended in me meeting her then boyfriend Oliver Queen, his best friend Tommy Merlyn and several others. I was deemed too much of a danger to the rest by the time they pulled me from solitary confinement half alive from being routinely and brutally beaten by the guards who tried to finish off what the assholes had started.

Laurel wanted them prosecuted and I didn't care either way seeing as I was half savage and blind from the dark cell they kept me in. I nearly killed Oliver Queen when Laurel introduced him simply because the doctors she had looking me over touched a broken part of my arm and I'd lashed out. When I calmed down and managed to ask where I was and who was there, Oliver was pulling a scalpel out of his thigh. He went into surgery and Moira Queen wanted me executed as an example.

It took a full year before all that was settled and I wasn't killed. I may have earned her ire calling her a hypothetical stuck up snobbish bitch who thinks she's Royal and deserves whatever a long walk through the Glades gets her at night. Saying so to her face didn't earn me any points with anyone except maybe Tommy, but then again, I didn't give a fuck about them either. Saying it on national tv with reporters there, well, Oliver and Robert Queen weren't happy either.

Laurel managed to get the backup copies the judicial side of the facilities had been required to keep. The other copies had been deleted, but while I'd recovered she'd let the world know exactly what had happened and what was being covered up. A lot of assholes were up shit creek, well, the ones that weren't dead already. My body was a mass of scars big and small, but they weren't more than battle wounds and the cost of being sloppy in a kid's body.

Anyways, there I was banging Thea Queen, having been her guide to the Glades where I still lived. It'd been years and I had an apartment as an emancipated minor for more than a year. Her brother and father had gone missing with Laurel's younger sister, presumed dead at sea for years now. Thea wanted to do something to piss her mother off and I was the worst choice she could pick without becoming a whore in the glades to ruin the Queen name in mommy's eyes.

I knew why she chose me at first, yet we grew close the more time we spent with each other. She liked to get high, but beyond weed and ecstasy, I didn't touch the rest so when she wasn't with me at my place or sneaking me into her place for sex, she was with her girlfriend's doing harder drugs or stealing things. I turned eighteen just before Oliver returned and offered to take Thea with me elsewhere, anywhere, but she refused.

Still, we'd had one last night together before Oliver Queen was officially found. I left her tired in her own bed and full because we'd broken three condoms with how fierce we'd fucked. I left Star city officially a week later when the archer killed a few people and paid me a visit. He'd wanted me to help him and knew why I fought before and still had for so long. Hell, I'd brought down several gangs and dealers in the Glades over the years alongside their bosses in a brutal manor while leaving them alive.

He knew enough that he wanted my help and I told him I knew enough about him to know I wasn't going to stay. I stopped at my apartment door and told him as he stood by the window in a hood. "Protect Thea and save the Glades. I don't know how, but I've had the sense that the Glades as a whole were in danger ever since you went missing Oliver. Be safe and protect them if you can. I'm too tired to fight for a cause that doesn't believe in itself. All those I rallied, they all wanted to take over territories and run their own drugs and whores so I stopped gathering allies. I hope you can trust whomever you do get to follow you, but we both know I'm no follower and I don't play well with others."

He sighed saying he planned to protect them all. I shook my head. "Vengeance isn't a shield, it's a fire that burns both sides and leaves one hollow if they survive. This city needs a guardian, a symbol of hope, not a dark hand of vengeance. You aren't a protector yet, but some day you might be…the Green Arrow of hope."

I closed the door behind me knowing he'd leave another way and caught the first train out. Laurel had ensured the settlement she'd won for me all those years ago against the city was put in a trust. I bounced around until I ended up in central city, struck by lightning and in a coma for nine months. By the time I woke up it'd been two years since I left Star city.

I woke up in Star labs a week before Barry and didn't stick around to make friends. I studied up on the particle accelerator explosion and the dark matter it released, how it mutated certain people to give them powers. Within a day, I'd gathered enough evidence to bring to the police. I spoke with captain Singh of the central city police department. I told him it was ok if he didn't believe me, but that he should at least be smart enough to keep the file to understand if more incidents crop up or become too public to ignore.

I stopped at the door and told him that when he was ready to believe, he should invest in neutralizer cuffs to de-power the assailants that wreak havoc in his city or build similar inhibitors in cells so they can't escape. I set a second file down and told him that's what it was for, to keep the city safe just in case. I left after that and headed to renew my yearly apartment lease seeing as how I was in a coma. I made a suit of neon blue and studied my cells.

As it turns out, I wasn't a speedster, but I was a meta human from what I could tell. Yet I seemed to have no powers I could call up or understand. I studied the genes affected and spent the rest of the week comparing them to all my previous lives. All I could come up with was the fact that I had some sort of mutated adaptability gene related to survival.

Even my best technology couldn't tell more because neither it nor I had come across anything similar beyond one of Doomsday's genetics. It wasn't evolution, just some sort of extreme adaptability. When the weather wizard, Clyde Mardon, made his unique appearance, I was in the bank at the time and used the security guard's club to knock his ass out. The weather anomaly stopped instantly and I tossed the club back to the security guard before waiting for the police.

Captain Singh believed me then once he saw all the videos of what Clyde could do. Of course he got to see it up close in the interrogation room when Clyde tried to escape again as well, but I waited right outside with a club and knocked his ass out again. I tossed the club to captain Singh and told him. "The designs for the handcuffs and power dampening cells are all proprietary technology I had patented. You're free to look elsewhere for alternative solutions, but if you decide to go with them-"

I held out a pair of power dampening cuffs and he took them before cuffing Clyde. I held out a hand and told him as he shook that I fully intended to supe up the police tactical and body armor to face these kinds of threats and survive. He nodded wearily and asked if he should be worried about a man that was struck by lightning on the same day. I shrugged. "I don't know. There were two men struck by lightning that day and so far all I can tell you is that I've not really changed any beyond a nine month nap. Whether the other one is the same, only time will tell."

I smirked as I passed Barry Allen on the way out. All it took was bumping into him and I felt the change in me. As for Clyde, his weather tricks were mine now and I needed a place to practice. I ended up in an abandoned warehouse I soon bought and modified.

I worked with the police over the next few weeks while a company in my name, Ryan Frost, was made. Some of the immortals were coming out and helping set it all up. By some, I mean hundreds of them at a time which meant Frost Technology was fully up and running legally within a week. It was a small company at first that just made handcuffs and modified Iron Heights prison cells to hold all sorts of powered individuals, but soon it would be so much more.

A few weeks later I'd put on the blue suit and saved a bunch of people at high speeds. Being able to move with speed force in my body made things so much simpler. From putting out fires with my weather powers to moving as fast as the Flash, whom I'd ran into repeatedly, it was pretty fun actually. I ate energy bars especially designed for my body's needs.

Hell, there was a section of Frost Tech labs especially designed for testing my body and pushing my abilities to the limits. I learned faster than any computer and it almost felt as good as being Kryptonian did at times from what my vague memories tell me. On a side note, Thea Queen showed up at my apartment with a baby boy sporting my intense green eyes. I opened the door and let her in, asking the uneasy question. "Is the baby yours or is kidnapping a new Thea special?"

She snorted lightly. "Ours in fact, dumbass."

I grunted. "Words hurt, love."

She rolled her eyes and passed the kid off to me. "So does labor, get used to it because I have a lot to say."

I grunted and carried the now quiet baby to the living room after shutting the door. I tossed down a cube that formed into a rocking baby holder before setting him inside. He giggled as little lights and toys grew from it to amuse him. For a two year old, he was easily amused, but then his own mother was shocked.

She asked where I went and I told her. "I went on a journey of sorts. I tried too hard to fight the world and I learned in the end that the fight I was looking for was inside myself. I couldn't help change the world if I was unsure of my place in it. So I spent a year with a group of very nasty people in a monastery of sorts called Nanda Parbat. I left when I found they could no longer teach me anything and came here. Three months trying to find how I fit in ended with me being struck by lightning and in a coma for nine months. I woke up a couple weeks ago so I'm not surprised it took you this long to find me."

She grimaced and apologized but I waved it off. She sighed and said baby Alex was a result of our last night together just before I'd left. She explained that shit got bad and she thought it was the drugs at first until things got worse. She told me how Moira wanted her to get an abortion but she'd refused.

She said she'd looked for me and I winced, telling her that if I'd known, I'd have been there for her every step of the way. She sighed. "Ollie was there for me and for a time my ex, Roy, tried to be, but he knew he wasn't the father because we'd barely met when I found out. Hell, he tried even then but he just couldn't. Then mom, the Glades…everything just turned to shit."

I held her and told her to tell me later. She cried a bit and fell asleep in my arms. I put her to bed and fed, changed and put baby Alex down for a nap before spending some time looking up everything that happened. She came out a few hours later while I was going over footage of the funerals and the hunt for Malcolm Merlyn.

I told her Malcolm was trained like I was in Nanda Parbat. She sat down with me and I held her like old times, telling her about the league of assassins. I told her how Malcolm was league trained and code named Al Sa-her, the magician.

She asked if I had a code name and I grimaced. "Riah Al-Mawt. Roughly translated it means Winds of Death or Death Winds. I was so very good at killing that they said I moved like the wind and every breath was as if death itself was breathing down their neck. I don't like to talk about it and there's a reason I left them the way I did. I owe them nothing anymore and they won't bother me for fear of me picking up my blades against them."

I sighed and told her my life had become simpler when I was with them, but I'd refused to become their leader when it was offered and you don't refuse the Demon's Head without leaving the order. I told her I'd paid my dues and now I was just trying to help people without hurting anyone. I told her about Frost Tech which is how she'd found me. We'd talked about it for years since we'd first gotten together and now she was happy for me.

I told her it was small, but the company would grow. I asked if Alex was really my son or if she'd just wanted him to be. She flinched and said angrily that she hadn't been with anyone but me and hadn't even gotten to that point with Roy before he'd left. I grimaced and apologized, saying I hadn't meant it like that.

I cupped her face and told her I knew how close we were when I'd left and I'd just worried she might want me to be the father because Roy or whoever hadn't stuck around. I told her it didn't matter now regardless, I just wanted her to be here for me and not because she had to. She calmed down and sighed, saying we were both pretty screwed up. I smiled wryly. "True, quite the pair. I'm sorry about your mom by the way. I heard about it when I was looking for answers."

She flinched and I held her more saying. "Tommy was a good guy and the Glades…."

I grimaced before sighing. "The world really has gone to shit back home. There's a reason I got out. The Glades didn't want a guy who couldn't be corrupted by greed and the rich folks didn't want anyone telling the people of the Glades that it was their fault the Glades were slums. Starling city didn't want me and I couldn't stay without being who I was so I tried to find out how to be someone else. I killed the killer in me the day I quit the League and now I'm just a guy trying to do what I can to help those I can."

She said that's what made me special and laid her hand on my heart. We shared a kiss and then more, ending up naked on the couch as we spooned hours late. She asked what I'd done with my fingers and I told her about the power I gained from a nine month long coma struck by a dark matter enhanced lightning bolt. I told her how I could adapt and use powers that are used against me.

I explained how I've been using them to protect central city and how there was someone else as fast as me that could do the same, but the city was filled with people who had all sorts of powers so I was helping the cops catch them when I can. She looked into by eyes and said I was building a life here. Shrugging, I told her that she could stay, both her and Alex. I told her I needed a CEO of Frost Tech and Central City wasn't like Starling city, it didn't have a Glades or the hatred the videos showed of her family.

She said Ollie needed her and I shook my head. "Oliver is a grown man and you're your own woman. No doubt he'll want to see you, but trust me, he has his own things going on."

She frowned and I sighed before telling her I had something to show her. She said after she uses the bathroom because the last thing she needs right now is another pregnancy. I nodded slowly and told her I wouldn't mind if she were, because then I could be there for her like I should've been before and I hope to be now. She smiled and kissed me before telling me not a chance because it hurt like nothing else.

I grabbed her ass and picked her up for a kiss saying she would look sexy carrying my child. She said she looks sexy all the time especially when we'd just had sex. She headed to the bathroom swaying her ass and asked if I was joining her in the shower. She laughed when I disappeared and was in the shower asking if she was coming.

An hour later baby Alex was at Frost Tech being watched by a secretary and some security guards while I showed Thea around. I used my powers in the testing area before telling Thea how I got them, saying I'd met the streak or whoever somehow so I ended up with identical powers only my lightning was blue while his was yellow. I then whisked her off her feet and told the secretary to get baby Alex dinner and we'd be back before bedtime.

I took Thea to Starling city and she watched everything around us pass by as I searched the city before bringing us to Oliver's little bat cave as it were. I told her where we were when I set her down and her shirt caught on fire. I took it off of her and told her polyester and super speed don't mix. I disappeared and came back with a silk shirt she put on as Oliver, Felicity Smoke and John Diggle came in.

Oh boy was Thea surprised and Oliver was pissed only long enough to get slapped in the mouth by Thea for keeping secrets. She asked if I knew and I shrugged. "Only since the day I left the city. Now was the first chance I had to show you and prove it. Besides, I trust you to keep my secrets and I doubt Oliver here doesn't trust you."

He scowled at me and I shrugged before showing them my powers. I ended it by telling them where I'd been and what I'd been up to. Felicity asked about Barry who was struck by lightning with me. I shrugged. "If you're talking about the other guy Star Labs had under, he came out of it, but I don't know if he has powers or what those powers are if he does."

I held out a hand when Thea was done chewing out Oliver and I pulled Thea into my arms. She sighed and told Oliver I was Alex's father. That was an awkward conversation, but regardless Thea and I went back to Frost Tech and she told me her place was back in Starling city. She told me her life and her brother was back there so I told her that I'd like to visit her and Alex if she'd let me.

She told me of course before saying she'd originally wanted to talk me into coming back with them, but she could see that wasn't possible now. She and Alex stayed for a week, long enough for her to see me disarm a guy who could clone himself and tried to rob us at the Stagg industries announcement. I shot him and his clones in the legs before shooting the guns out of their hands. I told Thea to call the cops before the clones were sucked into the prime and I knocked him out with a boot to the head.

I set the gun down and waited for the cops who took our statements and arrested the clone guy with suppression cuffs from Frost Tech. Detective West questioned me personally and asked where I got my training from. I shrugged and told him the Middle East when I was on a walk about of sorts before I was comatose. I told him I'd gone to a monastery and they taught self defense until I learned they were a front for a rather nasty assassin training organization so I left.

He frowned and asked if I was joking before I shrugged. His partner wanted to know more, but I told him bluntly if I told him their name they'd find and kill him the moment the words became public record. I told him I left them for a reason and I'd rather it stay in the past than bite me in the ass. Still, I said that was the second meta human as Star Labs calls them, that's made an appearance since I'd woken up.

Detective West said they were aware while Detective Thawne asked how the body armor was coming along. I told him it was done and soon they'd have it once the tests are fully finished. I left with Thea and we spent a few more glorious nights together before she and Alex went back to Starling city. I gave the first twenty sets of body armor to the police and sold the rest to the city who was paying for it.

Seven hundred suits of full tactical body armor with all except jet pack and plasma repeater capabilities. They were fully functioning and inside it you could survive just about anything except maybe going into the sun or the earth's core. Even speed vibrating a hand through the armor was impossible because each suit had a meta human power dampener that had a range of five feet when activated so they could take down metahumans and common criminals alike.

There was a big press conference the mayor held to thank me and Frost tech for once again helping keep the city safe. The full specs on the armor were released and the city ponied up thirty-five million for seven hundred suits for all the precincts to start off with. More suits were being made to fill the demand and Frost tech soon went international, manufacturing and making suits for all the cities in America that could afford them.

Suits for firefighters were being made as well while the medical pills were soon released. From limb regeneration to physical healing on a cellular level, the FDA approved it with the warning label that those with cancer shouldn't take it. Beyond that it healed the body and most other diseases. The super vaccines were soon released once they were modified so most diseases, viruses and poisons known to man were now moot.

The medical pills still cost while the vaccines were free for diseases and viruses as well as cures by Frost Tech. All kinds of games, technology and things were released from Frost Tech by the time the next meta human, a man who could turn himself into a poison gas, made his presence known. True, he managed to wipe out a crime family, but he'd had to strangle the judge when his poison failed on her. I caught him and delivered him to the cops as the Blue Bolt, a name coined for me while Barry was still known as the streak.

I left a note on the captured meta about what he'd done and what his powers were. My clone was in the office keeping tabs on crimes while I ran around stopping fires, robberies and other crimes. When Leonard Snart showed up at the museum, I stopped him, knocked him out and left him for Detective West while his cryo gun was scanned by me and left with the detective. My clone got to work making another exactly the same while I scoured the city and found the flame thrower gun along with all the other weapons the dead weapons dealer had.

I dropped a tip to Detective West about the location of the weapons dealer so they could charge Leonard with murder. Weeks later I went to a bar on my day off and ran into Barry, Cisco and Caitlin. He complained about not being able to get drunk and I grunted, passing him a bottle of magic whiskey. One shot and he was fucked up while I drowned half the bottle before calling him a light weight.

Caitlin asked what it was and I told her. "Magic whiskey brewed in the immortal dimension. Thanks to Barry here passing on his speed abilities to me because of my own adaptive abilities, I gained a high tolerance for alcohol. Hence I had to think outside the normal realms to get drunk."

Cisco went wide eyed. "Magic is real?"

I gave him a droll stare. "Duh. You of all people should know that. The multiverse is real and an infinite number of possibilities make up all the realities out there. Of course there's magic, how else should reality not crumble under the strain of dealing with hell and heaven realms, angels and demons?"

I ate a cashew and told Caitlin she was beautiful, though cold like a snow flake. She blushed and I passed the bottle to Barry telling him he could keep the rest since it costs about as much as a sky scraper to buy. Cisco asked about the kinetic suits and I told him he should come work for me if he wants to learn about them because he could find so much more was out there for him. I tossed back a shot of tequila and grimaced. "That's definitely cheap. I'll be back, I'm heading to Mexico to buy the hood stuff."

Barry asked me to pick him up a burrito and I disappeared. When I came back, I set the burrito in Barry's hands and a bottle of tequila on the table. Barry sobered up and said it was me, that I was the blue blur or whatever. I nodded and told him to enjoy the burrito before pouring shots of good tequila. Caitlin tried one and coughed before I chuckled. "A few more and the worm and you'll be dancing on the bar. Take it slow."

I took seven shots before getting a beer. When Iris and Eddie came over, Barry introduced me and Eddie told them I was the CEO of Frost Tech. He asked what I was doing down from my ivory tower and I shrugged. "I'm off work."

He sighed. "Well, unfortunately there was a bombing on eighth so I'm on the clock. I've gotta go."

I shrugged as he and Iris left. Barry made an excuse and Cisco asked if I was going. I shook my head. "It's my night off, Barry can handle it. I've been at it ever since I woke up, trying to make the world safer."

I had a few more shots and talked with them about projects I've been working on from genetic splicing to make humans immortal or get rid of genetic diseases to making earthquake and sea quake inhibitors that prevent earthquakes and tsunamis. I told them all the coolest toys Star Labs never got around to making or inventing was found at Frost Tech nowadays. I told them solar energy capacitors, solar generators and solar reactors would soon replace all the world's nuclear, coal and fossil fuel power supply.

Cisco dropped his straw saying no way and I shrugged. "Believe. It or not, but the future is coming now and Frost Tech will be leading the way. Full genetic and brain mapping technology with identifying scans have been made. Cloning is a thing of the past when you can wipe out diseases the vaccines can't cure simply by making the human body immune to them on a genetic level. No more sickness, a thousand year lifespan, strength, speed, enhanced eyesight like a hawks, it's all possible and it's all happening. My own cellular makeup including what's happened to me has been scanned. The genes that make up my survival instincts and capabilities have mutated so when my body is confronted with new meta human abilities it adapts, copies them and I gain new abilities."

I waved a hand. "With a bit of research, I'm sure I can even have those same powers removed if I want, making me as normal as I was beforehand or-"

Caitlin finished. "Or making those afflicted like Barry the same. You're looking for a cure."

I nodded. "I'll keep my abilities for now, but one day I might want them gone. Still, those that are using them to commit crimes can be de-powered so even if they break out they can't cause anywhere near the devastation they can with their powers. Even better those that think their powers are a curse can be free of them entirely."

They got on the phone with Barry who asked how to save the guy, I told him how fast he'd have to go up and down the building running before asking if he needed help. He said he got it so I told him how to spin his arms to suck the oxygen and fire out of a room before telling him how to build up static and throw it as an electrical weapon if need be. Caitlin and Cisco looked to me and I shrugged. "I have a lab fully equipped with the latest tech and teams of scientists that come up with ideas to train in case of combat scenarios or emergencies. Creating after image clones, phasing through objects, making objects phase through others, things like that."

I ate a cashew and tossed back a couple shots before asking Caitlin if she'd like to experience sex where I can vibrate any part of me enough to make a nun blush. She asked how exactly and I told her with extreme stamina. Cisco called me a pervert and I shrugged. "I'm just straightforward. Lacks romance but to be fair, I haven't slept in months and I've spent those months learning absolutely everything about everything. Even my mind is beyond fast alongside my reading capabilities and memory retention. How else do you think a no name guy like myself built a multibillion dollar company in a few months?"

Caitlin asked. "You haven't slept?"

I shook my head. "My body adapted to see sleep as a weakness and I guess evolved like a shark's so that I'm always moving forwards. Doesn't mean I can't, I'm sure if I tried I could sleep or meditate at least, but I haven't felt the need to so I've gotten a lot done. Hence the night off."

I ended up giving Caitlin a goodnight kiss and telling her that if she wants to talk or just blow off steam with hot sex, no strings, I'd understand, but I was hoping the cold and delicate yet strong angel I saw when I woke up from my coma was willing to have something more when she was ready. For now though we parted and I gave her my card telling her I'd be there if she needed anything. The next evening she called saying she needed my help with a meta human that had bomb particulates fused with her DNA.

I gave her the address and told her to bring whoever, just not the army. I met her at the warehouse and they looked confused until I opened it up. "This is my personal lab and where I keep the best toys including a molecular DNA splicer. I don't like to advertise and I don't keep it on Frost Tech property because I don't want any corporate espionage assholes finding the toys I have and stealing the non patented designs."

I turned to see Harrison Wells in a wheelchair alongside Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon and Bette Sans Souci. I led them to the elevator and went down with them after a DNA scan, Iris scan, voice recognition and password both vocal and typed. A needle came out of the wall and stabbed me in the neck, getting a spinal fluid sample and I grunted as it confirmed everything. I told them there was a weight measure sensor as well that could measure my gait and judge whether it was me.

Cisco said I had some scary security and I snorted. "The building has all of my technology and ideas that are worth more than fifty billion times what the Forbes top one hundred are worth. This building is encased in a forcefield capable of keeping speedsters like myself and Barry out alongside a proton phase cannon with a dedicated orbital satellite weapon capable of reducing the entire block I own to ash. No one steals from me and lives. The proprietary technology in this building could save the world or end it a hundred times over if abused so precautions have to be taken."

Cisco said I was joking before asking me to tell him I was and I gave him a cold look. I told him as the doors opened. "Even the genetic splicer can be used to create unstoppable super soldiers for war and genetic diseases that could wipe out all life on earth. I don't joke when it comes to the safety of this world. I have a son that has to live in it after all and I'd sooner be dead in a smoking crater than risk his life, ever."

We walked down the hallway that lit up and heard 'We Own it' by 2 chains and Wiz Khalifa. We walked into the metal door that released and saw a robot dancing with a group of women. I rubbed my head head before speaking. "Forina, turn it off."

The music shut off and the women disappeared with the robot stopped. "Damn!"

I grunted. "Dex, you're supposed to be powered down, what the hell are you doing here?"

He stopped. "Ahh, about that, sorry boss. Powering down now."

His blue eyes went dark and a hologram of Morgana Pendragon appeared. "You were gone and I was bored."

I grunted. "Forina, you're supposed to be doing a diagnostic on your cerebral pathways. Do it now or we go back to hardware mode and I do it myself."

She flipped me off before disappearing, cussing like a sailor. I shook my head. "Give an AI access to the internet and they become a self involved hormonal teenager with the vocabulary of a sixteenth century sailor. I swear I've been called a cheap harlot more in one week than I've ever heard the expression in all my life and I grew up in the Glades of Starling city."

I flipped through the projects as the wall lit up and hundreds of rooms mimicking the dial moved until one stopped on the Ancient molecular DNA re-sequencer device. I stopped the bottom dial and words lit up before device types changed to the splicer. I pressed down and spoke. "I know you're not doing as I asked Forina so you can activate protocol seven and go to bed or I'll start on the hardware mode tonight."

I heard more cursing and the building kicked into lockdown, vanishing by the outside cameras view. Her core light went off after a last whore-bastard curse. I sighed and shook my head, telling them. "Never make an AI that can change it's own preferences on how to address you. They'll call you things you'd never want to be called when they learn how."

The wall opened and revealed a room with the splicer before Cisco asked how that worked. I asked if he was familiar with pocket dimensions and the stability of wormholes linking two spaces through a matter energy stream bridge. He replied with a frown. "No, that sounds like some next level Star Trek stuff."

I shrugged. "Well, teleportation is real, so is slip stream matter conversion through temporal distortions."

Barry and Bette asked. "Huh?"

I gave him a droll stare. "Time travel. You know, you'd be a lot smarter if you used your super speed to learn everything there is to know out there. You could be the smartest man in the world speaking and writing in every language and expanding the human race's knowledge of the universe. Like say, creating a time ship or star ships and teleportation pads. All of which are just small advances patent pending in lockup. Jeez you're lazy."

Cisco asked. "You have a spaceship?"

I shook my head. "I have hundreds of spaceship of just as many designs. Getting patents is a pain in the ass."

I grabbed a joint and made sparks with my fingers, lighting it before waving Bette Sans Souci. "Step into the circle and it'll be over quick and painless in a few minutes once I isolate the particulates and splice your genetic makeup. Trust me, you'll at worst have a headache and maybe have to rush to the bathroom which is over there."

I waved to the restroom labeled asshat's room. I facepalmed and growled that I was going to scrap Dex and Forina if only not to die of an aneurysm or ulcer. Bette stood in the circle and I activated it. Her DNA sequence down to the telomeres wash shown in a hologram.

I moved fast and isolated them before asking if she wanted the ability to be optional or removed entirely. She said she wanted to be normal so I took it all out and told her as I finished. "I dissolved the bomb particulates into base matter waste so you'll need to use the bathroom soon and deactivated the mutated expressed gene. It's still there, but so long as you don't go handling any ordinance it won't trigger. If it does, you'll have a choice what you want to explode or not and it'll take training and concentration to make things go boom. It's the best I can do without a viable genetic sequence from before the event."

She looked confused and Wells said. "He means he needs some hair or a blood sample from before the particle accelerator exploded. A pure source of untainted DNA to revert you back to your former self."

I shrugged. "Or clone her and transfer her mind to the cloned body and say fuck it all to the original. Whichever is simpler, though a fully cloaked human and a mind transference would cost about a hundred million dollars if she wanted it immediately. Speed growth of clones causes an extremely high risk of evolution in brain functions that can result in a dramatic increase in overall function up to a hundred times more active brain synapses."

Caitlin only spoke shocked. "Wow! Really?"

I nodded. "The way I do it, yes. There's a serum that incubates the newborn clone and it sucks it up like a sponge. From increased reaction speeds to more densely packed muscles and overall higher brain function which can include 3D, eidetic and photographic memory. Basically you'd remember every detail of your entire life and be able to go back in your memories and exam them from other angles."

I waved to Barry. "Want to see what you're made of?"

Caitlin said it could help them better understand what's happening to him so he agreed. Bette stepped out of the circle and he stepped in. She ran to the bathroom and I chuckled while recording Barry's genetic sequence. I told him he could step out and see it from our angle and he did.

He asked if that was really him and I nodded. "Down to the cleft chin and skinny jeans, I mean genes."

He said he didn't have a cleft chin and I smirked. "Oops."

He felt his chin and I laugh before taking a crystal out and passing it to Caitlin. "That's a recording crystal. I can give you an adapter to interface it with your computers later."

She thanked me and I shut the machine down before Bette Sans Souci asked why the mirror said fuck face on it. I growled and kicked a panel before cursing as I broke my toe. "Forina, you're going in a trash compactor and molecular shredder in that order! Dex, you're right behind her I swear!"

Bette asked if General Eiling could turn her back and I tapped my chin before asking. "Want me to put a genetic lock on your DNA? It'll prevent tampering though it'll make cloning to make yourself immortal impossible as well."

She said she could live with that and I hummed. "You'd have to come back here in person to get it removed when the serum that alters DNA to extend the human lifespan to a thousand years comes out. If not at best you'd only get an extra year."

She sighed. "I can live with that as well."

I shrugged and walked everyone out to the main panel. I flipped Dex on and growled. "Go get the genetic lock sequence code name Asgardian."

He ran off like his parts were on fire and came back with a syringe and vial. I took it and Bette Sans. "This is going to hurt and you'll feel nauseous for about an hour afterwards as the serum coats all your DNA with it's locked coded gel. Then you'll feel like a million bucks for a day or two. Side effects can last longer or shorter, it varies so do bare with it."

She nodded and I gave her a shot in the bone marrow of the thigh. She groaned saying it burned like an icy hot patch. I shrugged. "Must be how it effects you. I had the shakes like a drug addict for an hour while throwing up, hence the bathroom."

We left after I shut off Dex manually and Cisco said he'd take them. I gave him a droll stare. "I'd sooner shoot my own dick off. You built a cryo gun and left it unsecured to be stolen. Both Dex and Fiona know every project I've ever made large and small. Again, I'd rather nuke central city than let them leave this building intact."

He flinched and I led them out before asking Caitlin. "So, how does it compare to Star Labs? I know I didn't exactly give you a tour, but without taking the portal doorway it would take a month for the full tour. The lab runs about a hundred stories deep and has the entire dimensions of the block so we'd be here too long by foot unless I carried you."

She said it was impressive and asked what the designs for the splicer were. I sighed. "Some are for re-sequencing DNA, matter converters, cellular regeneration and reconstruction machines and stuff like that. Most work and the rest are in their testing phases. Busy, busy, busy and all that fun bleeding edge stuff."

We took a ride up and I got my scans and samples over with. Wells asked about the time machine and I shook my head. "Not a time machine, a time ship. It's about the size of a minivan it can go into hyper space, cloak and fire weaponized drones capable of phasing through shields or chasing a specific target through time, phasing through everything including the planet until it hits them. Like I said, everything down there is proprietary technology. It can jump to any current courses timeline and back as needed, but it has it's own dangers. Messing with time is just dumb, one fuck up and you're fucked. That's why it'll remain on the unpatented list. Still, it's useful for studying events and things like the birth and life cycle of stars or living species."

Barry asked. "So you aren't tempted to go back and change something in your own past?"

I shook my head. "To do so would kill everyone here in this timeline and all they've accomplished. Thousands of lives would be altered by a single small change, millions by a big one including my own. I'm not that selfish or dumb. Besides, I was born and dumped in the trash with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck in the dead of winter. Fuck the past, it's passed and I would rather be dead than relive it again."

They all winced and I put out my joint before opening the side door. I told Barry. "I trained with the League of Assassins for a year before I came here. One wrong change and I could be back in Nanda Parbat leading their dumb corrupt asses. I quit that life and gave up killing evil asses because I wanted to help the innocent instead of punishing the guilty."

Forina appeared at the entrance and handed me a file. I grunted saying I knew she was still on and listening. She said she didn't do it for me and I nodded before handing the file to Bette Sans Souci. Forina told her. "A new identity and bank accounts with everything you'll need to start over anywhere in the world. Your old life is yours as well with an official honorable discharge filed. If Eiling comes after you, I can have his life turned upside down and give him the identity of a cartel drug dealer or a terrorist. Just give the number inside a call and I'll hear it."

I scowled. "Her you're nice to?"

She shrugged. "She doesn't know how to destroy me. You I like calling an asshat whore bastard, it gives me a tingly feeling, like pleasure only more to see you angry."

I huffed. "I seriously need to fix your programming. I think I broke your emotional simulator or something."

She flipped me off and kicked me in the ass before vanishing. I closed the door and locked up as the building became visible again and a shield popped up around it. Cisco said I had to bring him back and show him all the best stuff including the spaceships. I shrugged and told him some other time perhaps.

Weeks later I was fighting an iron man when Barry told me Bette was dead, killed by Eiling but no one could prove it. I beat down and knocked out Tony Woodward, leaving him to Detectives West and Thawne. They thanked me and I left in a blur while they arrested the man. They'd needed help because while he couldn't hurt them in full armor, subduing him was a bitch and a half for them since they only had the cuffs to stop him for now.

I headed to Starling city to see my kid after that and learned Thea was pregnant again. I postponed her training until after she gives birth. In the meantime, I stopped a bunch of crime and helped team arrow catch an entire gang of bad guys. The cops all had kinetic armor there as well so it was pretty much a fair trade off since I upgraded the suits of team arrow as well and gave Felicity an emergency suit of her own that was a nanite watch activated.

Diggle had two particle magnums that could melt through pretty much anything in three or four shots or stun humans on the lowest setting. I gave Thea's apartment a full upgrade before giving her a suit and telling her how to work all the upgrades and security I'd added. She asked if I'd stay and I saw her new boyfriend or old rather, Roy. I shook my head saying I can't, but the Director position of the local branch of Frost Tech was hers if she wanted it, money, decision making and power.

She nodded and thanked me before I sighed. "It's a million dollar a month job and if you need to a quarter as much can be offered to your head of security of your choice."

She told me the baby was Roy's and I shrugged, saying I was happy she was living her life. I turned to Roy and congratulated him, telling him I'd kill him if anything happened to her and the kids regardless. I said so as matter of factly as if I were ordering pizza. He sweat dropped and I didn't care that he looked like a former brother of mine, Jackson.

He said he'd sooner die regardless and I shrugged, saying he'd get his wish then. I turned back to Thea who rolled her eyes and said that was uncalled for. I shook my head. "It's a fact. I'd go mad with grief and be worse than Malcolm and his undertaking. The Green Arrow would have to put me down if he can to stop me from turning this city or possibly this world into a mass grave. You were the best part of my life Thea and Alex was a gift I could possibly deserve, but God help this world if you're not in it before I die."

She called it sweet and I sighed before heading back to Alex's room. When I returned to Central City, I worked on getting the solar generators up and running with the solar reactors. Frost Tech began selling energy all across the states at half the former cheapest price. Soon everyone was switching over and getting a bonus on backup solar generators.

It made Frost Tech a ton of money and pretty much shut down all the competition. By the time Blackout, a meta human Cisco named, attacked a power station and took Barry's speed, all the old substations were in the process of being shut down. When Blackout came to Star Labs, I'd arrived to help out. Blackout tried to take my power and I dodged around him before throwing a baseball at his head.

He conked out and I slapped some cuffs on him before jolting Barry with my suit's internal power conductors. Thirty thousand kilojoules of electricity literally blasted him across the room before he got up and tried before failing. He said it didn't work and I shook my head. "You're wrong, it did. The problem is you're thinking before reacting and that's not how your power works. They're tied to your emotion and emotion isn't logical, it doesn't make sense, it just feels and is. Thinking literally clouds your mind and slows you down. You need to react, to want, to feel."

I moved around him faster and faster until the oxygen became thin. I began beating on him as I told him to fight back or die. When he said he couldn't, I told him I was trained to kill and I've done it more times than even I could count. I shoved a fist into his side and told him that I hit a body cavity, but the next one would be his heart.

I kicked him and Caitlin begged me to stop before I grabbed her. "Or should I kill your friends instead Barry? If you don't care if you live or die, do you care if they do?"

My vibrating hand went to Caitlin's throat and Barry moved faster than ever before, forcing me to dodge and block him until we slowed down. "Feel better?"

He shoved me saying. "You're an asshole!"

I shook my head. "No, I'm a realist. I just thought of all the lives you can and will save now that you have your powers back and measured them against the cost of you hating me. I'd rather you hate me than see them die because I can't be everywhere at once, Barry. Though if it helps, Caitlin was never in any danger. My hand was only vibrating as fast as a dildo when I had it at her throat. Blunt, but the truth. Unlike hurting you cause I know you'd heal, I wouldn't hurt her outside of the bedroom and only if she has a safe word."

Caitlin rolled her eyes and said I was an encourage-able flirt. I shrugged. "I just know what I like in a woman, strong, smart and fun. You fit my type perfectly."

She blushed a bit and Barry asked how long he was going to hurt. I tossed him a pill and told him to take it. He did and healed instantly before he dropped Blackout off at the precinct with a note. The next meta human was captured by the cops when he tried to affect them by eye contact while in their suits.

I spent Christmas in Starling city and played Santa with half the continent thanks to Frost Tech donations. New virtual gaming systems with three games per system donated to every house alongside learning programs with basics all the way up to college level degrees in everything inbuilt into the system. All the language learning programs for every language on earth except the alien ones I brought with me on it as well.

The kids got other toys as well, but every home had a virtual reality gaming chair and not just the rich homes either. When Christmas was over, I returned to Central city where I heard about the Reverse Flash. Then Snart broke out of prison and he alongside Mick Roary and his own sister, Lisa Snart, kidnapped Cisco to make guns for them by kidnapping Caitlin as well and threatening her.

They were found after the guns were made unfortunately and they were wearing kinetic body armor which made the job harder, but not impossible. In the end I had to wrap steel girders around all three of them and leave them for the cops to pick up. Cisco said they knew how the guns were made and I told him that short of killing them they'd just have to know it. In the meantime I took Barry's suit and upgraded it before giving it back to him and telling him all I'd added including kinetic energy absorbing technology and an internal temperature regulator, a face shield and rebreather for underwater or in space.

I told him to keep the upgrades to himself and consider them a secret weapon against his yellow enemy. He agreed and I stopped him telling him that I meant it, he should tell no one, not even his team. He asked what I had against them and I shook my head. "The less people who know a secret the less chance it's revealed. It's not that I don't trust them, but there's no reason to tell them unless they ask outright. Suffice it to say I'm a strong believer in the walls having ears."

He grimaced and asked where I was and I told him about Thea Queen, my son and the Christmas gifts I'd given to the entire country. I shrugged. "I'm not him if that's what you're thinking Barry. For one, the lightning my body produces is blue. For another, I hadn't set foot in Central city until a month before the particle accelerator exploded. Hell, you're older than me, at least physically. Mentally I must be a dinosaur by now."

He relaxed before smiling and saying I was a triceratops, dangerous looking but docile unless angered. I grunted. "More like a Spinosaurus, deadly on land and in water, but hardly a threat unless hungry. Still, thanks for you know, not calling me the guy that killed your mom outright."

He nodded slowly and asked about my kid. I told him he was two and a half now and it was our first Christmas together. I smiled at the memory before telling him he'd called me Dada for the first time. He asked why Thea and I weren't together and I explained how things went down which was bad timing all around before her newish old boyfriend got back with her and now she's pregnant with his kid.

I told him my life was screwed up and dangerous enough as is, but she was safe there now that the police force had kinetic armor and the will to take down anyone threatening their city with extreme prejudice. I told him that Frost Tech was taking a military contract to sell the suits to the military alongside upgrading their vehicles and base's security. I explained that Frost Tech wouldn't sell weapons to the military, but soon we'd be selling particle magnums to police which could work as stun guns or instant kill weapons capable of melting through all except force fields and force shield technology within three or four blasts at full power, less if it's just steel or titanium.

He asked if it was wise and I shrugged. "They already have the capacity to kill with regular guns. I'm hoping the new ones with a stun setting will make them decide stunning people for arrests is a better option all around. Plus if I control the charges, I can limit the chance of them being illegally sold to the public and stop or lower bullet manufacturing to make it simply keeper to have charges. In short I'm trying to make it harder for weapons dealers to actually have weapons to sell and lower gun violence on the streets by hitting the bottom line."

Barry nodded. "A worthy goal."

I shrugged. "Tell me that if it works. Once I'm done with this, Frost Tech will buy back all the police issued weapons and have them melted down into train sets for kids or something. One of many charities including cleaning up pollution that Frost Tech is working on."

I stayed out of the trouble with Wells's old apprentice coming back to haunt him. Still, Caitlin told me about Ronnie and I agreed to help her saying that I never would've flirted with her had I known about him. She said she hadn't known he was alive before telling me she liked the attention. I smiled wryly and told her that I would help Ronnie even if he was effected by the firestorm matrix and the particle accelerator simply to see her smile some day and mean it.

I made sure the world cleanup and restoration was heavily underway by the time a teleporting meta girl busted out Clay Parker, a big time known criminal. I caught her and she teleported me trying to get away until I teleported her into meta cuffs. Her boyfriend tried shooting me and my suit stopped the bullet. I knocked his ass out and dropped them off at the police precinct weaponless.

I searched the city for Professor Stein in Ronnie's body and it took all of a week to find them. I ended up saving a man when Stein asked him for help and went nuclear. Copying the power of firestorm was a horrible downside and unfortunately unlike Ronnie and Stein, I had no double to combine with so I was up a creek without a paddle and holes in the boat. I was able to slow it down when I fixed Stein and Ronnie, leaving them two separate entities with a firestorm matrix cube Stein held.

I nearly fell over and Ronnie caught me. I told them how to help me and when I was done with the transfusion, I told them. "Your cells are still primed by the particle accelerator explosion, but without a molecular splicer and firestorm in your system you won't need to combine ever again. Still, there may be downsides. The mind can adjust to things you'd never think possible and can become dependent on others. You may need to take it slow and keep in contact, speaking to each other regularly to keep sane for a time."

They looked to each other and Stein asked if it was firestorm affecting me. I grimaced. "It doesn't matter now. There's nothing either of you can do and it's not your fault. I chose to help you."

I pulled out the transfusion needle and told them. "I'll make sure you both get home safely."

Stein tried to stop me saying my condition should be rapidly degrading. I grunted. "I know what I'm doing doctor. I know my body's condition and I've stabilized it enough for now. I've bought myself a few months before the firestorm matrix in me becomes unstable. It's more than enough time."

Ronnie asked. "There's a cure?"

I shook my head. "For you, you're as cured as humanly possible. There's no cure and no way to do so for me. There's enough time to say goodbye and maybe do some last bit of good before my molecular structure falls apart and I become a destabilized nuclear fusion reaction on an atomic level."

They both winced and I smiled wryly. "I was born to die so don't worry about it. I helped two hood men and I've time to say goodbye to my kid, it was worth it. It's more than most people get and trust me, it's more than I have a right to ask for."

I gestured to Stein. "You should probably put that into a case."

I yelled for Dex and the surly robot came running before acting polite. He brought Stein a case and I filled them in on every that's happened. I told them that the safest place in the city or anywhere on earth was my lab. I gestured to the panel and Dex showed them the thousands of projects I had finished or underway.

I rested before taking them out which shocked them by the extent of my security. I took them to Star labs and let Caitlin run her tests on them after I asked them to not mention my coming fate. Barry took Stein home after all his tests and Caitlin smacked me for not telling her I'd been looking for Ronnie or that I'd found him. I told her simply that she'd asked for my help and I'd helped him.

Wells asked about firestorm and I told him it was secured entirely removed from them through quantum and molecular splicing. I told him they were stable and for now, entirely separate. I turned to Caitlin and warned her their minds may crave a bond because of the psychological effects of being fused so closely for so long. I told her that occasional meetings and phone calls should be enough to keep them sane.

I lit a joint and Wells asked. "So they're fine?"

I nodded and he asked. "What about you?"

I told him blankly. "I'm none of your business. I'm a survivor and my mutation will keep me alive until it doesn't. Trust me Professor, I'm damned hard to kill even without powers. With them you'd have to bring an army of powered individuals to bring me down plus power dampeners that would only work on me."

A week later they bugged me about time travel and my machine. Even Professor Stein was there so I explained quantum tunneling, the ways to time travel and time nodes. Sighing, I explained. "Time is like a river, with rocks changing and guiding the flow of time in peoples lives and the world as a whole. Some people that effect many lives like the Flash, are basically boulders and the events surrounding their lives that unfold effect countless lives in the ripple effects."

I waved a hand. "It's true, nodes can be effected and changed or removed, but it effects the entire river like throwing a boulder in to create a splash and diverting water or effects outwards. Say Barry went back in time and saved his mother. Those events would ripple out and like pulling a boulder from the river, the flow of the river would change. Countless effects would be undone. He'd never have moved in with the Wests and his father wouldn't have gone to prison, but that's not all."

I grunted. "His father was a doctor and his presence would've saved and effected lives, rippling outwards, saving or losing lives, those lives would do the same and so on and that's just a small aftershock. His mother would be bigger yet the biggest of all would be all the lives he effected as the Flash because that might've never happened and it certainly wouldn't have happened to him because he wasn't a CSI thanks to not having studied for years."

I shrugged. "All the lives he would've saved died, all the lives surrounding his very existence would be altered and since he personally effected his own timeline, no alternate reality would've been made. Effectively the rest of us would all die and be erased from reality, billions of lives lost as reality corrects itself and erases all that we are now. Sure, others like us would exist in the new timeline unless they were meant to die because of the ripple effects."

I turned to Barry. "But a person is the sum total of the events that effect their lives from each moment to the next. To change even the smallest thing would effect the entire timeline in a single persons life and change who they are. If one of your future selves went into the past, then his future is already erased. Billions of lives have already been lost by that single act. He may have been the flash, but he didn't experience the same things as you did so he isn't you anymore even if the blood match was the same."

I set down the joint I had and sighed. "He's likely dead or trapped here in the past without his speed now anyways. Fucking with your own time or something that effects your own future so much is the epitome of stupidity. Whether this reverse Flash is responsible or not, the effects are done and even if they somehow manage to survive and regain their powers or a way home, the odds are extremely remote to the trillionth decibel that they'd be able to return to a future they'd even recognize even if they found a way to go forwards in time."

I turned to Stein. "As for alternate realities, they exist and they're as infinite as the possibilities that effect the world on a global scale. You'd need an event that doesn't just effect a part of the river of time like a single boulder, you'd need something that changes the very flow of the entire river, like say the Nazi's winning the world war or dinosaurs surviving the meteors and subsequent super volcanic reaction that sent the world into an ice age. You know, big things that no one man can effect easily. Both theories are correct and wrong in their scope and no, I won't take you for a ride into the future or past. The very fact that someone's already screwed with time means the world isn't ready for that technology yet."

I turned to Barry again. "By the way, I've discovered that there are several sentient forces affecting the course of this reality. Chief among them is the speed force, the entity you and I draw our power from. Being that two speedsters went back in time I can extrapolate that it's possible under the right circumstances for us to do the same, so let me make it clear, the moment I feel you try to do so I will follow you and kill you if only to spare the billions you'd be killing. No one has the right to play God, no matter their powers. I won't warn you again. The moment you try your head will decorate these walls."

I looked to Detective West since he'd demanded to be here and Barry had told him my identity. "And anyone you love will follow you to your grave Barry, if you need that motivation."

Detective West asked why I'd even care since I didn't know him then. I snarled. "Because my son is in this time! I could give a fuck about the rest of this world if it comes down to it, but gods help anyone who fucks with time and erases him! Time is inherently unpredictable and anyone that says they can accurately screw with it is either lying or insane beyond reason, either way I'd rather kill them all and half the world besides if it means protecting the only god damn good thing that ever came from living my shit fucking life."

I moved and had his gun at his temple. "And if I have to butcher you and everyone you've ever met to keep him alive, I'd do it with a smile on my face and a song in my heart."

"I'm not like Barry, I'm not a good guy. I don't have the urge to save people for selfless reasons. I save people and help this world so my son doesn't have to grow up in the world I did. All I do, I do for him alone now. I have nothing else and precious little time so if I've not made my point clear-"

I turned to Barry who had my vibrating hand at his throat. "Then let me know now so I can get on with the blood, screams and death."

Detective West swallowed and said my point was made and there was no need for the rest. I gave him his gun back before telling Barry. "Some day you'll understand and on that day you'll wish you hadn't. I never asked for my power and I don't give a damn about it or the money. All of it is a means to an end, giving my son the best life he can get in this world. To that end I save as many lives and do whatever I can to help so long as it doesn't risk his life. This is my bottom line and trust me, there is no escaping my wrath even long after I'm dead if you think about going back in time after I'm gone."

Barry asked what I was talking about and Wells spoke up. "It's the firestorm matrix isn't it? Your body has become unstable. How long?"

I shook my head and leaned against the counter. "Two months, maybe longer, maybe shorter. The more power I expend the faster my molecules unravel. Clone DNA transfusion is keeping me semi-stable with a stem cell solution. Soon it will stop working and no, there's no cure even with all I know. My mind and body are better than anyone else's on earth so there's no one compatible for a fusion to stabilize myself. Even splicing is out because of how the powers in me have bonded together. If I try then cellular degradation will begin immediately."

I looked to the others before turning back to Barry and detective West. "Now if we're done here I'd like to finish my work and spend what remaining time I have with my son."

Wells asked where he was and Barry answered. "Starling City, Oliver's sister Thea is the mother."

I gave Barry a glare and punched him into the wall before growling. "If I wanted my secrets shared they wouldn't be secrets. Now stay down unless you want a cracked skull with the broken jaw."

Stein said I'd answered all his questions quite effectively. I took a marker and wrote down the quantum formula for time traveling. I tossed the marker to Stein and turned to Caitlin who was helping Barry. I left in a blur without another word, heading to my labs.

I spent my time in Starling city with little Alex, day after day and Thea asked what brought it on. I eventually told her what happened and what was going to happen in my death which was why I was seeing Alex as much as I can before my time is up. She cried a bit, but that might've just been hormones from her pregnancy. I played games with my little man and built Lego block castles.

He laughed and clapped when I did so at super speed. I had Thea and Oliver witness my living will and left them everything along with an orbital satellite station, technology, an army of scientists, warships for galactic and inter reality wars. I told them about the world shield and the anti magic shield, everything down to the layout of how to advance the human race towards a higher technological age. I told them I just wanted a better life for Alex than the one I had to live and to that end I'd do anything they needed me to until it was time.

The oceans were cleaned up, treasures pulled out and donated to museums, the air and ozone was clean even over Gotham and pollution had dropped ninety-eight percent. Forests were planted and regrown, world hunger and thirst was solved, trash and toxic waste was now all exclusively dealt with by Frost Tech recycling and quake inhibitors all around the globe prevented any more earthquakes or tsunamis.

Law, a program I built to help the police find criminals now had full support of the US congress. The cops all had particle magnums and the military had a full overhaul. Cars were getting a cheap conversion to solar power along with all public transportation vehicles. Hell, the police cars and military already had the conversion except the nuclear submarines.

Shield technology was being implemented on museums and other secure places. Hell, even rich people were allowed to buy very expensive low grade shield generators and personal shields.