Chapter 10: Symbol Rising
August waved to the group of particularly pretty girls standing by the entrance of the park. It seemed like they were celebrating a birthday, evident by the party hats and balloons strewn around. It was his birthday as well so he was in a very good mood. He smiled towards the girls again. They looked to be about sixteen years old with pretty ribbons adorned on their hair.
The girls caught his smile and waved back, members of the group cooing, "Oh, how sweet!" And, "Isn't he just so adorable?"
He puffed out his chest, making them squeal louder, and he flashed them a very wide grin. "Hwappy Bwethday!" He, of course, was able to speak perfectly fine, no baby talk, but this was an easy way to make the girls swoon. As expected, they didn't disappoint, they squealed again, going on and go about cute he was. He just smiled and walked home reminding himself to brag to his brother, Jorge, who had never had much luck with girls.
…
In the darkness of a house, a man with the title of 'reverse flash' to most of the people aware of the supernatural stood up.
Squish.
Eobard looked down to his boot, the expensive leather stained with blood. He had stepped on something… was that… a hand?
Looking at the room with bloodstains all over, he ignored the gore and his yellow suit stained with blood, instead focusing on the bloodied lump at his feet.
Eobard Thawne couldn't kill him now, not yet. There had to be someone present, an audience that had to watch it happen. Or it would have all been for naught. And 'The Professor' never did anything for naught.
…
August skipped down the road to the little apartment he shared with his brother, holding a single red rose in his hands. A short girl with blond hair who was blushing something fierce had thrust the rose towards him.
She was pretty, he decided, although she was a bit shy; after he'd taken it, she'd giggled and run off blushing to the roots of her hair.
August hummed, twirling the flower as reached the apartment, walking over to the entry of the house.
Something… was strange.
His brother was supposed to be home, so why was everything so dark and quiet… almost empty.
…Maybe he was throwing a surprise party! For him! Well, he didn't think they had that kind of money to spare, but, still… that was a nice thought.
Resuming his skipping, he made his way towards the house and opened the door, only to find hell.
It was awful. August felt a chill run down his spine as he opened the door to his house. Dried blood stained the floors and the walls of his home, leaving dark patches of unevenly colored wood in place, and the air had a metallic tinge to it, a constant reminder of the death around him.
August's face paled considerably when he saw- and heard something big and heavy fall down. Feeling around the walls for the light switch, he switched on the light and then hurled out his meals from the last two days.
It seemed like Jorge had decided to surprise him with a party after all, judging by the various decorations strewn in place and the Cake at the center of the room covered in blood. The invited guests were in different puddles of blood, their eyes, glassy and unseeing. August vomited again; his entire body racked with terror which subsided a little when he did not find his brother among the deceased.
"Brother? Jorge...?" August's voice echoed in the house. It seemed bigger than it really was to him at that moment.
A low moan, a guttural sound, travelled from another room. "Au-a...au…gust…"
August stayed silent; his heart racing too loud for him. He took small steps toward the other room, "Brother…?"
A growl came from the room. August stopped, clenching his fists tightly. His hair was plastered on his sweat drenched forehead, warm puffs of air travelling up his face from his harsh breaths.
He placed his fingers on the cold knob, slowly turning it. It creaked open, each creak tightening the noose around his neck.
The first thing he saw, was the red lightning, it was crackling angrily like venomous serpents, shrouding the blurry shape of a figure in yellow, with glowing red eyes.
He looked down and saw that this figure held his brother up by his hair, his brother looking so bloody, it was like he had been tortured.
Then he saw the figure raise a hand, a hand that started vibrating more than was humanly possible, the lightning on his body congregated to that hand and while looking him in the eye, the man in yellow plunged that hand through his brother's back.
xxx
August woke up screaming.
Rushing to the bathroom and heaving over the toilet seat, he pondered this issue. He had been having these dreams ever since he had killed that man at Stagg's event but it had not been this intense like this night.
He had killed Leonard Snart, was that the reason this was happening. Was it some form of PTSD? He didn't want to think so. He didn't want to think that these deaths bothered him, they were sum, the worst of the worst and he had simply killed them before they could kill someone else.
So why couldn't he sleep, without seeing his brother's dead eyes staring at him, judging him.
Seeing that it would be impossible for him to return to sleep for the remainder of the night. He put on his clothes and sped off to STAR Labs. His apartment was just not suitable for the kind of work he wanted to do, and he wanted to be out of that confined space.
For a while now, he had been focused on upgrading EVE and had managed to get her to a point where she was reliable to assist him in his work, boosting his productivity and efficiency.
He logged into her core network and input a string of codes that will monitor Central City reporting anything out of the ordinary, as well as tap into the frequency of the police radio allowing EVE to monitor their calls and report events.
Listening in, he discovered that majority of the calls were about a gang, the GST gang operating out of New Brighton. He decided to research this GST gang. They called themselves the Grass-stained thugs and they were the terrors of New Brighton; the cops were helpless against them and they had kids hooked on dope as their clientele. Seeing this information struck him. He had felt that he was making a difference, putting away the metas before they could harm the innocents, not knowing that to the people of Central City, it didn't matter who was doing the hurting. What mattered was their safety.
Suiting up, he sped over to New Brighton, perching himself on the roof of their club, a little device in his ears allowing him to listen to all sounds around him ensuring that he wouldn't be caught by surprise. He hacked into the Police database and brought up all the files they had on the gang.
The leader was a guy named Castor, a tall mean, muscle head. He was the main suspect for four murders the past year alone and was known for his ruthlessness. He did have one weakness though, and that was his fondness for women.
He needed to bring down this gang without letting result into a shootout, because that might involve innocents. He also needed to make sure that the ones that would remain would not pick up the pieces and attempt to reform the gang, and the only wat to do that was to put the fear of him branded deep into each of them.
The loud music from the club was grating on his ears, especially with his amplified hearing but he soldiered through, he found an air duct and let himself in. Normally, he'd just speed in and handle it, but he needed to get evidence first, or they'd be let out with just a slap on the wrist and lightning and strong wind was not really compatible with being covert.
He managed to find his way to a quieter part of the club, the rooms without windows in the heart of the building. He peered through the vents; he could see people stripped bare to their underwear packing in what looked like small bags of cocaine. Guards surrounded them with sub-machine guns. Looks like the drug distribution was done here as well.
He took some pictures, by tapping the side of his head, allowing the cameras in the suit to preserve the image and kept crawling till he came upon a room where a couple of thugs in green sat around smo0king weed with a tall man sitting on the couch with a girl in his lap and a gun by his side.
'Castor' he realized and he listened intently, taking another picture.
"… day by day, That Cotton-mouth's getting greedy" Castor snorted, "Man, does he think I run a bank down here, always fu****g asking for more?"
His boys cheered him on like mindless sycophants, stroking his ego even further.
"Alright, enough of this sh*t," Castor grumbled getting up, "that fu****g Mexican expects the drugs tonight. We need to pack up the sh*t and move. You guys ready yet?"
"Almost, boss. A few more minutes." Lackey #1 replied.
"Great. Show me." Castor said as he and the others left the room, switching off the light.
August quickly shimmied in reverse and followed him into the drug packaging room.
Castor yelled a lot and got his people moving. The moment the last box was packed they all moved downstairs and he got out as well.
He climbed out onto the roof, sighing into the cool night air. He ran to the roof edge and found a large van parked in the back. Castor and his crew put the drugs in there and got on. They took off into the night and he knew he had to follow.
He took a running start and leaped off into the air with lightning flickering around him briefly. He landed safely and then sticking to the shadows, he tailed the van.
He followed the van all the way to the harbour. They stopped before a warehouse, number 153, and waited for the doors to open. The moment it did they drove in, and he snuck in by opening the sky light and landing silently, sticking to shadows.
He saw a Mexican man in a nice suit waiting for them. A suitcase by his side and guards around him.
Castor got out of the van with his men loading out the drugs. "It's here."
"I'm sure," the Mexican spoke with a hint of an accent. He handed Castor the case, "your payment."
Castor opened it and examined the money, "all right, we good."
"The Old man would like to extend his gratitude, it was very hard to get the...medicine we needed into the city, what with the recent blur running around the city." August gasped softly. Already? He didn't expect that even when he was still regarded as an urban myth to most of Central City that the organized crime would have already started measures against him.
He took out the camera and began to film the scene before him. If he ever went against this Old man, this will be great evidence to put him away.
"Keep giving me cash and I'm a happy fish amigo," Castor grinned, "anything else?"
"The next shipment?"
"Same time," Castor shrugged, "oh, and I want double."
The man sighed, "Mr. Castor, we are already paying you three times what this stuff is worth."
"Take it, or leave it," Castor spat.
"Or else?"
"Or else I'll sell to someone else," Castor smirked, "I heard Cottonmouth got his hand on some dough, maybe he could help me out."
The man in the suit sighed, "I really wished you hadn't said that...very well," the snapped his fingers suddenly his men aimed their guns at Castor and in seconds tore him into pieces.
August did nothing. Still carrying on with filming the scene, while he could have stopped it and pulled Castor out from the bullets, Castor wasn't an innocent. He was scum and he had no obligations to save scum from their type. In fact, the more was taken out, the happier he would be.
The GST gang members couldn't do a thing. Before even one of them could drop the bags of drugs they were carrying and draw their weapons, Castor was dead and the steaming nuzzles were pointed at them.
"Next time, don't be so greedy," the man spat on Castor's corpse. He turned to the people staring at him, "who's in charge now?"
Lackey #3 stepped up, he gulped, "I am."
"I expect the shipment to be delivered at the time next week. Any mistakes and... well, you already know," he walked away with the drugs leaving behind the money and the corpse.
August stopped filming. It was time. He fiddled with his mask, turning on night vision and then He threw something in his hand and the lights went out in the warehouse plunging everyone into darkness.
Looking at the group from a corner of the building, he saw the guards surround the Mexican, raising their guns while trying to get out their phone to serve as a light source.
With a burst of speed, he knocked out all the phone lights, returning the darkness. Gunfire filled the air, the guards seemed to be in synch with each other, even in the darkness, spraying gunfire in all directions and covering each other as they edged slowly towards their vehicles.
He vibrated his vocal cords, "Your first mistake, you should never have come to my city" his voice was rough and hoarse, the vibrations giving it an otherworldly quality bringing terror to all that heard it.
The guards replied him with another spray of bullets, "You don't know who you're messing with. Leave now and all will be well, otherwise…" The Mexican was threatening him, only to be cut short by a bolt of lightning passing by him and suddenly the guard on his right was missing. And the voice sounded again sounding right beside his ear.
"Your crimes have brought fear, death and Civil unrest to my city, I find you guilty!" there was movement to his side again, and without wasting time, a spray of gunfire followed, nothing… the left side, more gunfire, then a thud, bodies hitting the ground, lightning all around and then just as the Mexican was about to run away, all be damned. A pair of glowing balls of lightning appeared in front of him. Where those… eyes? He gulped and tried to run but his body was frozen resisting his commands and then he knew no more.
The lights came back on. The Mexican was knocked out and tied up while the guards were all on the ground dead from friendly fire it would seem while the GST gang were all knocked out and bound together. Taking off his mask, August looked at them with an apathetic gaze and lifted his hands to the emblem on his chest.
"EVE, call the police, send them the recordings and pictures and then tell them to come pick up these ones here." He spoke.
"Yes Sir." She replied.
August looked down at the bodies again, perhaps he would be tormented by nightmares for the rest of his life, but if it would let a child somewhere sleep a sound sleep without worries then it's a cross, he'd gladly bear.
Speeding away, he zoomed through the city, till he stopped at the top of one of the tallest buildings overlooking the city. Looking below, he thought to himself;
'The idea of Godspeed is to be a symbol. Not just hope, because hope can betray you. More than that. Something incorruptible. Everlasting. A symbol that all criminals would see and dread but when the people look up, it would be an assurance that there was a buffer between them and the night. Someone fighting so that a little boy and his brother would have a birthday party filled with warmth and laughter. He would be the root in the darkness, so that the People of Central City, could sit under his shade in the light.
When he got back home, he had no more nightmares.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
emjason
emjason This is somewhat shorter than I usually write, but I am running out of data and so I have to cut this short. From the next chapter, I'll talk about new inventions, his new philosophy causing a rift with STAR Labs and possible dissolution of the Team. keep tuned and add this to your library.
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