CHAPTER 19: THE TIME TRAP
Eobard Thawne, unmasked and furious, wasted no time. His yellow lightning crackled around him, a tangible manifestation of his rage and his desperation to return to his own time. He lashed out, striking at Barry with incredible speed, aiming not for defeat, but for distraction. He needed an opening, a temporal distortion large enough to create his escape route.
[SYSTEM ALERT: REVERSE-FLASH – INITIATING TEMPORAL EXODUS PROTOCOL. DETECTING FOCUSED QUANTUM FLUX. PROBABILITY OF TIMELINE INCURSION EVENT: 99.8%. INTERCEPTION CRITICAL.]
The message screamed through Adam's internal interface, an urgent directive from the Immortal System. On the S.T.A.R. Labs screens, the flux lines glowed an angry red, indicating the temporal fabric was under immense strain.
"He's trying to open a breach back to his time!" Cisco shouted, vibrating a force field that momentarily knocked Thawne back. "He's using raw Speed Force to rip a hole in the timeline!"
"We have to stop him!" Barry roared, engaging Thawne in a blur of red and yellow lightning, their fists and feet a whirlwind of kinetic energy.
Adam moved, not directly towards Thawne, but towards the critical points the system highlighted on his internal HUD. He knew a direct confrontation with Thawne was not the system's preferred method at this juncture, not if he was to acquire the specific power needed for Arc 1's conclusion.
[SYSTEM DIRECTIVE: INTERFERENCE PROTOCOL – ACTIVE. MINIMIZE REVERSE-FLASH TEMPORAL SIGNATURE. UTILIZE MINOR PYROKINESIS FOR DISTRACTION. DEPLOY MIRROR MANIPULATION FOR OPTICAL REFLECTION.]
Adam's hands flared with faint heat. He focused, lashing out with controlled bursts of flame, not at Thawne, but at the conduits Thawne was attempting to reconfigure in the lab. A targeted fire pulse severed a crucial energy line, causing a cascade of sparks that momentarily diverted Thawne's attention, forcing him to shift his focus from Barry to the damaged equipment.
"What was that?" Thawne snarled, his eyes blazing, momentarily caught off guard.
"A distraction," Adam replied, his voice calm amidst the chaos, as he subtly twisted the air around him, forming a warped, reflective surface from nothing.
[SYSTEM WARNING: TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT FIELD – HIGH CONCENTRATION. AVOID DIRECT CONTACT. UTILIZE MIRROR REFLECTION FOR RE-ROUTING.]
Thawne, seeing an opening, sped towards a specific console, planning to route massive energy into the nascent temporal vortex. As he reached it, Adam, guided by the system's precise coordinates, flickered. He created a small, perfectly angled mirror surface just as Thawne made contact. Thawne's hand passed through the illusion, causing the energy he was channeling to reflect back onto another, less critical, part of the console, scattering harmlessly.
"He's disrupting his energy flow!" Caitlin yelled, realizing Adam's strategy. "He's not fighting him directly, he's… confusing his temporal calculations!"
[SYSTEM CALCULATION: REVERSE-FLASH TEMPORAL JUMP PROBABILITY – DECREASED TO 4.7%. OPTIMAL INTERVENTION. MAINTAIN EVASIVE MANEUVERS. LIKELIHOOD OF REVERSE-FLASH FATALITY ON HOST – 87.3%. NOT OPTIMAL FOR CURRENT OBJECTIVE. AVOID.]
Adam could feel the system's cold logic guiding his every evasion. It was a dance on the razor's edge. He needed Thawne alive, but contained, for the eventual acquisition of the Negative Speed Force Echo. Dying now, by Thawne's hand, was not the calculated moment.
Thawne, increasingly frustrated, turned his full wrath on Adam, a yellow blur intent on neutralizing this unpredictable factor. Adam's Mirror Manipulation skills flared, creating multiple reflective copies of himself, each shimmering, ephemeral. Thawne tore through them, each dissipated image causing a ripple of confusion in his super-speed senses.
"He's too slippery!" Thawne roared, finally landing a glancing blow that sent Adam skidding across the floor, the Immortal System immediately reporting the minor impact and Adam's perfect avoidance of a lethal strike.
[SYSTEM REPORT: HOST IMPACT – NON-CRITICAL. DAMAGE: MINIMAL. OBJECTIVE: ACQUISITION OF NEGATIVE SPEED FORCE ECHO. REQUIREMENTS: SPECIFIC FATALITY EVENT. PREPARING FOR FINAL PHASE.]
Barry, seeing Adam in danger, pushed his speed even further, finally cornering Thawne. Cisco launched a powerful sonic blast, and Caitlin, as Killer Frost, froze Thawne's feet to the floor, holding him in place.
Thawne raged, a caged animal. "You may have delayed me, but you can't stop me! I am the future, Flash!"
Adam, slowly getting to his feet, watched the imprisoned Thawne. The system was now shifting its focus, preparing for the ultimate, horrific directive. The Time Trap had worked; Thawne was contained, and Adam had survived, but only because the Immortal System had a far more brutal, strategic death in mind for him.
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