Chapter 2: The Catalyst
The morning air over Central City carried a tension that few could articulate, and even fewer understood. Inside the gleaming halls of STAR Labs, Harrison Wells adjusted the cufflinks on his lab coat, the faint reflection of the accelerator glowing in his glasses. He had spent decades engineering this moment, preparing the city for a leap into a new era of science—or calamity.
"Today is the day humanity moves forward," Wells began, voice calm but carrying an electric undercurrent. His team of scientists, the finest minds in the world, nodded dutifully, though the tension in their expressions betrayed their own doubts. Ronnie Raymond, always the skeptic, shifted his weight nervously. Caitlin Snow's eyes flickered toward the glowing chamber that housed the accelerator, the hum of power vibrating through the building. The culmination of years of theoretical physics, particle acceleration, and experimental risk lay before them like a sleeping dragon.
"Everything's nominal," Caitlin said, though her voice betrayed the faintest tremor. "Power grids are stable, containment fields are aligned, and the calibration of the particle vectors is complete. But Harrison…" She hesitated. "Even if we're within parameters, the energy amplification is unprecedented. There is no true precedent for this."
Harrison's gaze did not waver. "Caution is the companion of mediocrity, Dr. Snow. We are not here to maintain the status quo. We are here to define the possible." He lifted a hand, gesturing toward the accelerator's core, a lattice of crystalline conduits shimmering as electrical currents danced along their surfaces. "Once we activate, history itself will bend to our observation. Nothing can stop us."
Ronnie muttered under his breath, "Except every possible disaster scenario you've ever ignored…" but he knew better than to voice it further. Wells' expression was sharp enough to cut steel; argument beyond that point would be… unwise. He was going to propose to Caitlin after today.
Outside STAR Labs, time itself seemed to pulse. A ripple of potential futures tugged at reality's edges, and in one of those threads, a figure moved faster than light could keep up. Reverse-Flash's eyes burned with crimson urgency as he accelerated, phasing into a state that left the present moment behind. The impending accelerator explosion threatened to unravel temporal threads in ways even a speedster could not withstand. "Not today," he whispered. His form blurred, leaving only a distortion in the city air as he vanished from the immediate present.
The one left was only a speed clone. The possibility of his negative speed force being affected by the explosion was too great to risk. After all the speed force chose Barry during the explosion he would return after it was over to play the part of the crippled Harrison wells.
In another alley, far removed from the gleaming labs but watching it nonetheless, Astrix Snow crouched low. He had spent the week meticulously preparing, mapping every patrol, memorizing every security camera, analyzing every structural weakness of STAR Labs. The city was alive with unknowing chaos, and Astrix moved like a shadow in harmony with it. No system had answered him, no gods had intervened, and yet he had learned to make his own way.
He exhaled slowly, the faint mist of his breath mingling with the chill morning air. "Synara," he said. "Prepare a mobile unit. All relevant data on the original timeline, multiverse probabilities, and the accelerator event. I need it fully operational outside the lab." He had shared all his knowledge of the timeline line of flash from the series to prepare for everything that could go wrong. SYNARA had prepared for even other speedsters from the future interfering with the plan. That's why they probably for success was so low.
For the first time, a soft glow flickered on his wrist device—a crystalline projection coalesced into a slender, humanoid hologram, faintly blue, with analytical eyes that reflected the world in streams of data.
SYNARA v1.0 – Mobile Core Activated.
Integration complete. Probability mapping initialized. Timeline vectors accessible.
Astrix nodded once, approvingly. "Good. Minimal footprint. No signatures. You follow me. We move carefully."
Back inside STAR Labs, the tension escalated. Harrison Wells(speed clone)activated the accelerator sequence, a cascade of lights and energy waves spiraling outward from the crystalline core. Ronnie Raymond gritted his teeth, trying to recalibrate the containment protocols. "We've got a feedback loop forming!" he shouted. Sparks arced across the control panel. Caitlin's hand flew over the interface, her fingers dancing as she attempted to compensate. "Energy amplification is exceeding expected thresholds! Harrison, we can't stabilize it!"
Harrison, unmoved, merely glanced over his shoulder. "Focus, Dr. Snow. You underestimate the precision of this construct. Every variable has been accounted for."
But the numbers didn't lie. Even as Harrison spoke, the containment field shuddered. Energy began leaking from minor fissures in the lattice. Warnings flashed in red, screaming for attention no one could afford to give. The hum of the accelerator crescendoed into a roar, and the air in the chamber seemed to vibrate in anticipation—or fear.
Outside, Astrix Snow moved like a phantom. He had scaled the side of STAR Labs, avoiding the cameras by leveraging shadowed recesses and calculating every angle of approach. Rain slicked surfaces reflected the neon chaos of the city, but his crimson eyes scanned with precision. He was not here for spectacle.
He crouched at the edge of the roof overlooking the accelerator chamber, where the raw pulse of energy painted the sky in shades of blue and violet. He quickly entered and deployed the mobile unit's controlled by SYNARA He could feel it even from a block away—an almost conscious awareness of kinetic potential, a hum that resonated deep inside his bones. Astrix lowered himself to a crawling stance, whispering, "Synara, deploy mobile unit with full timeline integrity. I want the multiverse encoded."
Just as anticipated the timevault was unstable due to the particle accelerator and even SYNARA was able to force her way in. He quickly entered rushing to Gideon's podium and connecting to Gideon's interface and assimilating with gideon. She first asked gideon to copy her data to an external drive and then assimilated with it. He ordered the partial gideon from the main interface to delete this information and if and only if impossible to destroy to hide it from all who asked for it.
He waited and waited it was not according to the plan but he couldn't interrupt it took 15minutes which of ai like these those were like millions of years just to show how much more gideon was. This was only possible since surprisingly gideon had no protection eobard left it that way so as to pull flash according to his plan. If gideon were to resist SYNARA would lose faster than Jarvis to ultron. But SYNARA had only extracted the data and was ready to integrate but they had to move first.
A compact device separated from the wrist projection, folding like origami into a handheld form. It hummed faintly, alive with intelligence, carrying every calculation, every possible contingency across the seven-day timeline.
SYNARA Mobile Unit: Online. Data sync 100%. Temporal and multiversal probability vectors ready.
Astrix nodded, gripping the device. "Perfect. We move out of the chamber carefully."
The accelerator's core pulsed violently. Harrison Wells' confidence remained, but even he noticed the first fissure of reality as the machine exceeded design tolerances. Sparks flared like fireflies in a storm, and the lattice shimmered with unstable energy. Ronnie's voice cracked over the intercom. "We can't contain it! If we don't shut it down manually—"
"Shut it down?" Harrison's voice cut through like steel. "Do you hear yourself? We are on the brink of transcending human limitation. If I wanted safety, I would have worked in a small lab in Canada, not here."
Caitlin's eyes widened as the containment field began to ripple outward. The machine's power spread like a visible shockwave. Some of the monitors flickered to white before stabilizing; others gave off high-pitched alarms that pierced the ears like a scream.
Astrix knew he had seconds. Seconds to cross the street, cross the threshold of STAR Labs, and position himself close enough for Synara to integrate her knowledge. He ran.
The moment he stepped into the alley adjacent to STAR Labs' front entrance, the first wave of energy struck. It wasn't slow. It wasn't forgiving. The shockwave rolled outward, shaking the ground, bending metal grates, cracking concrete. The wind tore at his coat, ruffled his midnight hair, and carried the smell of ozone and electricity.
He tried to dive for cover, but the wave caught him mid-step. Pain lanced through his body as the energy surged, twisting reality around him, bending time itself in ways his mind barely comprehended. Crimson eyes widened in shock as the acceleration of the wave compressed moments into fractions of an instant. He felt the world twist violently, the city screaming in his ears.
Then everything went black.
When Astrix awoke, he was lying on the wet asphalt outside STAR Labs, his coat soaked, hair plastered to his face, and rain dripping from the jagged edges of his coat. The world hummed again, but it felt… wrong. Small details had shifted. Neon signs flickered at impossible angles. The hum of the city carried undertones of distortion. The event had passed, but the reverberations lingered like a memory that refused to fade.
Synara's mobile unit blinked softly beside him, half-buried under debris but operational. Its analytical eyes projected in the faint blue glow, streaming data at impossible speeds.
SYNARA: Timeline integrity compromised. Event timestamp: accelerator detonation confirmed. Probability of present continuity survival: 87.4%. Multiversal data preserved.**
Astrix struggled to his knees, gripping the device. The city sprawled around him, intact yet fractured in ways only he could perceive. One week before the accelerator explosion—and now, somehow, he had lived through it.
He exhaled slowly, muscles trembling. "Good. That's a start."
A glance at the horizon revealed a familiar chaos: sirens blared in the distance, emergency personnel racing toward the epicenter, unaware of the catastrophe that had already occurred—or was still unfolding in other strands of probability. Astrix's crimson eyes narrowed, not with fear but with calculation.
He would not die here. Not as a side character. Not as a footnote in some narrative crafted by fools.
The AI beside him pulsed softly, as if acknowledging his resolve.
SYNARA: Next objective? Full analysis of accelerator remnants and emergent anomalies. Adaptive strategy initialization recommended.
Astrix's lips curved faintly, not a smile, but satisfaction. "We move," he said, rising to his full height. His coat fluttered in the wind, hair dark as the void, eyes red as the last light of a dying star. "Time to rewrite how the world sees tomorrow."
Above him, the storm clouds parted just slightly, revealing slivers of dawn over Central City—a city that had almost claimed him, but failed.
A dark figure watched as astrix left limping into the night. The figure stood at the top of starlabs " interesting"and with a flash of lightning disappeared.
Astrix not getting far collapsed in a familiar alley and loses consciousness.[ Astrix astrix!! Get up please]
End of Chapter 2