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[COLOR=#dbf220][indent][sub][B]Location:[/B] [COLOR=SILVER][I]Central City[/I][/COLOR][/sub][sup][right][b]Post #1.09:[/b] [COLOR=SILVER]Nora[/COLOR][/right][/sup][/indent][/color][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][color=#dbf220][sub][B]Interaction(s):[/B] [COLOR=SILVER][I]None[/I][/COLOR][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][b]Previously:[/b] [COLOR=SILVER][I][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4911634]Smoke and Mirrors[/url][/I][/COLOR][/right][/SUP][/color][/indent]


“Stuck in a mirror,” Thawne said, sitting down in the empty space. In front of him was a blurry, clear window. One he knew full well he could not break through. While he had never himself gotten caught in a stupid trap like this, he had used the technology before against The Flash. Perhaps this was some kind of irony. The sick revenge from the universe. Another trick from the strings of destiny. A turn of fate.

No, that was defeatist. He can escape. He always could. He was smarter than Mirror Master. Hell, he was smarter than everyone. How did Allen escape? He had friends on the other side. Kid Flash had gotten him out by vibrating on the outside at the same frequency as Barry did, creating a portal through. That was not gonna work. He didn’t have a partner nor was he strong enough for that exertion of power. His energy reserves were depleted. He sat down in the empty, dark void, the only source of light being the blurry mirror in front.

He tapped his arm. Gideon was alert to his touch. 
“Gideon. Show me records of Flash defeating Mirror Master.” Thawne ordered and Gideon showed the newspapers exclaiming The Flash’s victory over the Rogues. How Kid Flash saved The Flash in his first outing as a sidekick. Thawne swept past that clip, he already knew everything about that.
How the first mirror master met his untimely death at the hands of Captain Cold, and how the second mirror master was lost in the mirror world - only to return with greater power.

Nothing was useful to him. He was angry. He wanted to smash the mirror that had trapped him - but that was his only way out. Instead, he did something that once upon a time was a completely foreign concept to him, but now was something he had learned a few centuries ago, in the 1960s during the peak of the Hippy movement.

Meditation. Max Mercury always preached about the powers of the mind over the speed force. How aligning your beliefs with the speed force was how you got more powerful. Thawne believed in hard science. Power of conviction. Bending the force to his will, rather than following it like a current. It had provided him with advantages - and it even made him the conduit of the negative speed force upon his first death. When Barry snapped his neck after Thawne had murdered his wife and unborn children.

That was a weird Tuesday.


He focused on his breathing. Clearing his mind of the problem in front of him. The isolation of the mirror dimension did help with this. There were no outside stimuli. Nothing. For others, perhaps this solitude would’ve been maddening, but for a man who’s seen everything, nothing was a change of scenery. 

It brought him back. Not back to his past - the future. The memory of him murdering his brother when he tried to stop him from recreating the experiment that connected Barry Allen to the speed force. He saw and felt everything he felt at the time. From the weight of the microscope in his hand to the warm sensation of his brothers' blood splashing across his face. To the yellow blur cleaning up the mess when he was done.

But he remembers more. He remembered feeling pride in the young boy who had just bludgeoned his brother. He remembered grabbing the body and feeling nothing but disgust for the young man whom he had once called brother. It had been a weird sensation to remember being in two places at once. But at this point, it was one he was most comfortable with. Perhaps, even craved.  The problem was that he was in uncharted territory now. He was the Pathfinder now. The oldest of his being. Yet... He felt lost.

He had honestly felt lost since he lost her.

The woman he loved. The one who told him what he had to do after he had finally defeated Barry. Whenever he slowed down, his thoughts always returned to her. Thompson... Nora Thompson. The love of his lifetime. Of all his lifetimes. Ever since he first learned The Flash’s real name. Ever since he first laid eyes on her. Her blond hair, her soft smile. The way she treated him with kindness when everyone else only saw a monster. The way she was perfect - there were no imperfections to scrub away. There was nothing wrong with her.

And he would always come back to her. Come running back to her. More times than Barry ever learned. But she would always end up choosing another for him. She would always choose Henry. She would always choose the life of an Allen. Because destiny had already decided that Thawne would not win. Not ever.

But he did. When his own hands murdered Barry Allen, he severed the connection to the speed force. The universe was falling apart for a brief moment. As if he had beheaded gravity and limb split the strong and weak forces. There were no rules anymore, and at that moment, he thought he was free. He would steal Barry’s lightning - the last hope Allen had. And then he would go find his Nora. Once and for all.

But he doesn’t get that win. And somehow, he knew that, so many years ago when he for the first time was driven to finally finding his way into her heart. With a kitchen knife chalked full of her husbands' fingerprints. Before she died, she saw his face. She saw the man who she at one point had tried to love. Thawne knew she tried. She tried as hard as she could.

But there was not enough left of him to love. And for that, he had to kill her. It wasn’t just because he knew it would destroy Barry. It was because he knew he couldn’t live in a world where she wasn’t his.


The speed force reminded him of the man he had been when he was with her. Someone who had seen a glimpse of hope. Of compassion. Of belonging. Perhaps even love. It had left him with an ultimatum. Cease to exist, or take on the burden of being The Flash, which at one point in his life, lifetimes ago, had been everything he ever wanted. But now, he only wanted her back.

But just like Barry Allen had done the first time he went back in time, the universe spits in his face. He couldn’t have her. If he wanted to truly become The Flash, he would have to tap into this grief. This anger, this true sadness. Not the hatred that had fueled him for so long. He would have to not only think like The Flash. He would have to learn how to feel like The Flash.

Nora was his lightning rod. And everything he would do, he would have to do for her.
A sense of tranquility swept over him. He was at ease, and he could think clearly. The world slowed down, he felt more powerful than before. The speed force did agree with his state of mind. And he had an idea for getting out.

A feedback loop of energy. Barry had used Kid Flash as an anchor. Thawne was gonna use someone else. He got onto his feet and walked towards the mirror, putting out his hand, his hand resonating against the glass as he touched it. He found the correct frequency, the correct speed to move his atoms, and he sent energy from his body. Pure speed force energy. 

A tether. A line to pull him back into the real world. Scudder would feel the mirror getting hot in his pocket, and as he looked at it, the yellow energy would grab him, pulling him into the mirror, the mirror falling to the ground as Harkins got interrupted in the middle of his sentence. And as the mirror crashed to the floor, the red shade of the crimson comet appeared before him.

“Ah what the fuck?!” Harkins exclaimed as Thawne was flexing his hand, feeling his physical body in the real world again. 
“I did not enjoy that. Not one bit.” He said, more for his benefit than Harkins, putting his boot on the somewhat cracked mirror, breaking it into smaller pieces. Janking himself out had drained almost all the energy, and the hunger was back, worse even. 

Harkins was armed with the boomerang in his hand. Twirling it in his hand, charging at Flash while The Flash seems disoriented. A desperate attack against the far faster opponent.

Except, he wasn’t. The boomerang barely graced Eobard as he weaved to the side, putting his guard up. 
“Ay, not so fucking fast after all are ya?” Harkins taunted as he charged Eobard, who quickly jabbed at him, which while no longer at super speed was exploiting Harkins unguarded window. 
“Ow, fucking crickey. Maybe you’re a lil bit fast after all, bastard.”

He charged again and Thawne parried, blocked, dodged, sideswiped and counter-attacked. With every move, Thawne learned how to be more efficient. Harkins caught him once, in the shoulder, a surface wound, but a blow to Thawne’s pride. Thawne ducked under the swipe of the boomerang, delivering a body hit to the stomach, making Harkins bend over. Thawne felt the world take him over again, and while he had only been able to think of the feelings he had once felt for Nora, he felt his mind slipping back to the same hatred he was used to feeling.

Less of his thoughts were occupied with the days in the park, the kissing in the rain or her laugh and smile. Instead, his mind drifted towards the crying. The screaming. The begging. Her taking Henry as her husband, and finally her raising and loving Barry Allen.

He approached Harkins who was getting back up, grappling him, elbowing him in the face to knock him off balance, his arm found its way around his neck, and the other one locked the arm in place, choking him. 

“I’m tired of you, Harkins,” Flash spoke and Harkins struggled.

“Put a sock in it mate.” Harkins struggled to speak under the pressure of Thawne’s grip. But Thawne could not hear him. His mind was occupied remembering him pulling the knife out of the drawer. Walking towards Nora as she was crying on the floor. Hearing Young Barry running down the stairs.

“Gideon. Relevance to the timeline?” He asked the computer on his arm and the computer quickly blurted out a holographic file on Harkins, before chiming in with “Mr. George Harkins is non-essential to the timeline.” Harkins tried to speak but his ‘what the fuck’ was stifled.

“Music to my ears,” Thawne spoke, almost as if in a trance, his voice calm, but his mind occupied with raising the knife and aiming it at Nora’s heart.

His grip loosened and Harkins spoke. The knife pierced Nora’s heart and asher heart stopped, Thawne knew that his would never beat the same way again.

“You fucking cun-” and then his neck snapped in a spark of lightning. Harkins' body falling to the ground.

Thawne knew he was never gonna become Barry Allen. He wasn't the man Nora could ever love. He would never become a good man. But he knew he had to do this. He had to be The Flash. Because it was the only play left on the board.