run_barry | The Great Escapes

Since Yamato offered to come to Central City and help with the epidemic crisis, things have been crazy, but handling them has been a whole lot easier now that Barry isn't operating alone.

He even got some rest in, on Yamato's orders, and they've got a bit of down time as far as emergencies in the city go so they're using it to work on other problems.

While Yamato recalibrates the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite to track the new meta they suspect is behind a whole bunch of the crime, and a death-trap or two set for Barry, Barry is getting his science nerd-amateur virologist on, trying to find a cure to the bug that has so much of the City down; including his team.

Sitting at a desk in the Cortex, Barry works away with a microscope taking notes on a tablet. Beside him are several boxes of chicken nuggets which he's working through, with a few empty ones already in the waste bin nearby.

In the middle of the space on the floor GP the porg is munching on shrimp treats while bopping around an inflatable S.T.A.R. Labs beach ball.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Robot Girder follows Yamato, its movements aren't exactly fluid, but when it hauls back to throw a punch the swing at Yamato is swift, and it has a follow through punch ready to throw with its other arm.

Back in the alley Barry is working to be quick himself. Yanking open the cab door, Barry uses it for cover as he jumps inside, slides across to the driver's side and throws that door open as a shield while he jumps back out and speeds around the back of the truck.

The man back there almost has the door open and Barry hits him in the jaw with a speed punch. Watching the man fall, Barry is just turning around to deal with the two with the guns up front when he gets struck in the face with a fist out of nowhere.

Hitting the ground he suddenly remembers about the one on the right in a blind spot.

Yamato weaves around the punch, letting it pass by him, and even if he's still terrified on Barry's behalf, he still can't help but grin wolfishly.

He ducks under the follow-up punch, although it's close enough to ruffle his hair, and lashes out in response -- a quick strike of his knife towards Robot Girder's neck. He doesn't expect it to do much damage if it lands, he just wants to test the robot's reaction time, and just how sturdy and flexible its joints are.

The robot pulls back a touch slow and the knife glances off of metal paneling.

In retaliation Robot Girder draws back for another punch, marching forward to try and crowd into Yamato's space before throwing the blow.

Barry meanwhile has a bad guy looming over him, and with the gun fire stopped he can assume there are two more now coming around the transport to join him.

Looking up at the man Barry realizes there is something he can do in this situation, but he hasn't actually ever tried it for real. Still, Yamato isn't back in his ear yet so something must be happening, and in less than five seconds others are going to be coming around to kill him and let more bad guys loose so...

Bracing himself for a moment Barry then moves, kicking out in a leg sweep X had shown him. His motion and aim is a little off and he doesn't quite catch the man's ankle properly, but it does enough to knock him off his feet and Barry is quick back onto his.

"Holy cow that worked," he says, stunned. His momentary elation is ended when one of the men with guns finally rounds the truck and sees Barry. Immediately the gun fire starts up again.

Well, he expected that. Still, it's useful data.

With the robot moving forward and not a lot of space to maneuver in, the best Yamato can do is turn his face with the punch. That redirects most of the impact, but it's still a metal fist colliding with his face at high speed, and there's a slight spray of blood from a split lip, and Yamato stumbles to one side as the force of the blow rattles his brain around.

"Not bad. But you're telegraphing too much," he growls, backing off, although he's still grinning. "And I don't have time to give you a boxing lesson today."

He's moving forward again immediately, moving to jump on one of the consoles and spring off it and around Robot Girder, landing behind it.

He's moving as soon as he lands, trying to use one hand to wrap his belt around one of Robot Girder's wrists, and the other to drive his knife into the gap between two metal panels where Robot Girder's arm meets his shoulder.

If he gets both the wrist caught in his belt and the knife wedged in, he fully intends to follow up by dragging the wrist back and pushing the shoulder forward, jimmying the knife deeper in, trying to rip the arm clean off. He's plenty strong, and he has every intention of using that strength and the leverage the knife and belt give him to tear through the arm.

Edited Date: Feb. 4th, 2019 06:12 am (UTC)

Robot Girder makes a grab for Yamato and just misses. Committed to that movement, the robot can't get turned around in time to prevent Yamato from getting behind it.

Yamato snags its wrist and the knife drives home, and Robot Girder struggles trying to keep its arm from being ripped off.

Weapon still in its other hand, the robot tightens its grip on the lightsaber hilt which hums to life with a 'PSHEEWW!', a blue-green shaft of light extending out. A moment later and the device shudders and the hum turns into a 'ZAAARK!' and the shaft of light shoots off as a bolt of energy which explodes against the far wall before the hilt itself blows up, taking off Robot Girder's hand.

In the alley Barry moves to duck around the transport again, but the second gunman comes around that corner. With mere heartbeats to think, Barry suddenly remembers he's not actually boxed in this time. He's got plenty of room to run, and so he does; abandoning the transport for the moment and racing away down one of the alleys and around the corner.

A few seconds later and he comes running in from behind the first gunman, having raced around the block and down another alley. Knocking the man out from behind. Barry uses the same trick utilizing the transport this time, racing around the vehicle to come in behind the last man and knock him off his feet.

Doing a quick headcount to confirm that's everyone, Barry nods to himself satisfied. With all the gunfire happening he also takes a moment to inspect the truck, and gives a rap on the side.

"You guys all okay in there?"

Yamato grins a little wider when he sees Robot Girder's attempt to lightsaber him backfire, although he has to grimace and turn his head away as the explosion singes him.

He keeps pulling on the wrist and pushing on the shoulder, digging his heels in to keep Robot Girder from dragging him off his feet, twisting and pushing in the knife until he eventually hears the tearing of mechanical inner workings, followed by the arm coming loose enough for him to rip it away and toss it to one side.

"Just so we're clear, CC-Computer-Dude, if the Flash has a single bullet hole in him when I next see him, I'm going to do the same thing to you."

And then he's darting around to the front of Robot Girder, moving to drive the knife as deep as it will go in between the metal plates around its neck and, if he can get it in, following up with a hefty punch to the handle to drive it all the way through and, hopefully, sever the neck entirely.

Edited Date: Feb. 4th, 2019 06:12 pm (UTC)

"No, you can't, this stupid-- "

Robot Girder flails around ineffectively while its arm is ripped off. Short a hand and an arm now, it doesn't do any better fending off Yamato's frontal attack.

Metal shrieks and sparks fly as the knife drives in. Robot Girder takes one final swing at Yamato with its missing hand, then topples backwards.

Over the speaker Camera Commander gives an angry shout as his pawn goes down.

Still cutoff from the comm-link, Barry has his ear pressed against the transport vehicle, trying to hear any responses from inside. What he hears instead is an angry shout from behind.

"All right, FREEZE!"

He doesn't have to turn around to recognize Eddie's voice, and Barry can't help heaving a sigh.

"Oh, come on," he breathes to himself, holding in place for the moment as he tries to figure out this new situation.

Yamato leans out of the way of the swing, and watches as Robot Girder goes down. After a moment, he touches his split lip, wincing. "Ow, ow, ow, ow. Ow."

He puts his belt back on and settles at the console again, bringing his wrist computer up and starting work on getting back into the systems. Now that it has Yamato operating it again, his computer's cracking program is much less of a blunt instrument and rather more effective at the task it was designed for.

Yamato, for his part, remains focused on it, methodically trying to work his way back into the system.

GP waits for a long minute to ensure the coast is clear, then comes out of hiding to wander over and inspect the downed robot.

The screens on the console don't switch over to any new images, perhaps indicating the Commander's attention is elsewhere. Instead the monitors remain on the glitching view from the robot, which is now GP's face getting up close and personal to Robot Girder's camera.

With Eddie's gun trained on him, Barry tries to work out his options.

"Get on the ground, now!" Eddie commands.

"Detective, you don't-- " Barry starts trying to explain, but then a loud bang on the transport door from the inside cuts him off. It's followed quickly by another and Barry jerks.

The next set of events happens in a rush. Barry's flinch sets off Eddie and he fires. Pain bursts loudly in Barry's bicep even as he moves to get around to the back of the truck again. Barry gets there just in time to have the door burst open and slam him in the face, knocking him to the ground as the criminals in back spill out.

On his back and dazed, Barry tries to gather his wits about him and make out all the shouting going on.

"Careful, GP. It might still be able to kick or something," Yamato murmurs.

Without the distraction of the fight, he can feel panic welling up in him again. He keeps it under control as best he can, working as quickly and methodically as he can. He can't much tell if he's getting much pushback from the Commander, and with the displays still trained on the robot he's not really able to gauge how much progress he's making.

He tries getting the comms back online first, but he has no idea based on what he's seeing on the displays as to whether he was successful or not.

"Flash, you there?" He asks, testing out the connection. "Sound off if you can hear me."

Edited Date: Feb. 4th, 2019 07:18 pm (UTC)

GP blinks at Yamato, squawks at the robot, then toddles away.

"Yamato?" comes back the dazed reply from Barry. Still on the ground, Barry reaches up to rub his head which causes a sharp pain in his arm. "Oh, OW."

That spike of pain does force clarity and Barry sits up, looking around frantically.

"Yamato! The transport-- everyone's out!"

At least Barry's talking, that means he's not dead. Yamato relaxes a little, but only a little. 'Alive' doesn't mean 'uninjured,' after all.

"I'm still working on getting cameras back here, but there's only so far and so many directions they could go," he says, and now that the comms are back, he starts working on getting the cameras back, his voice going flat. "Be methodical. Go in a grid formation, over a five-hundred meter radius from your position. If you see one, grab them."

It's a makeshift solution to a bad problem, and not a very good one, but it's the best Yamato can offer while he doesn't have cameras. He focuses as much of his attention as he can on getting those back next, working frantically.

"What the hell happened? Are you alright?" Barry asks, finally getting to his feet.

He tenses, ready to run, and then gunshots sound and Barry turns his head.

"Eddie."

Swarmed by some of the men from the truck, Eddie fires his gun into the air as he struggles to keep it from being wrestled away.

Quickly Barry moves, slamming into the group of men and knocking them back before swooping up Eddie. Once again he takes the detective to safety, this time at the mouth of an alley five blocks away. He practically drops Eddie on the curb thanks to the weak grip in Barry's injured arm.

He doesn't pause to try to talk to Eddie this time, just keeps running until he can duck around the corner and stop to inspect his bloody arm.

"Dude, Eddie shot me." And it's a whole new experience in Not. Fun.

"Everyone here is fine," Yamato says. "Did you know that Cisco made a new, better version of Robo-Girder that can move around and actually fight decently? The Commander took control of it. It's been dealt with."

He pauses, glancing over at Robot Girder, with its arm six feet away from its body, its other hand in pieces, and its neck barely hanging by a few pieces of metal with a knife embedded in it.

"Cisco is going to be pissed."

He scowls when he hears what Eddie did. "Are you okay? If you need to retreat, then retreat. We can think of some other way to get all the escapees back behind bars."

Yamato's not actually entirely confident that that's true, but he'd rather let the mission fail completely than risk Barry's health any more, and the best compromise he can think of is to leave it up to Barry's judgement.

"I know he had been working on one, but I told him I wasn't going to fight any more of his robots," he replies, surprised at what Yamato had to deal with.

There is still a fair chance Cisco will be pissed.

"I'm sure he'll get over it," he offers to Yamato hopefully.

Looking over the damage to his arm, and considering the situation, Barry shakes his head.

"Yeah, I'm okay. It's just my arm. The bullet is still in there, though." Which means his body isn't going to be able to heal itself until he can have it pulled out.

"I'm going after the escapees." With that he starts running, going back first for the men he'd saved Eddie from.

"I'd happily fight it again if he rebuilt it. I was, er, in a hurry this time."

He didn't get a chance to appreciate everything the robot could do! It's very tragic.

"Okay, I'll work on getting the cameras back and then see if the scan managed to get any results," he says. "And I can treat your arm when you're back. Just try not to make the wound any worse."

He doesn't sound all that happy about it, but there aren't a lot of good options here, and it is Barry's call.

It takes him a few more minutes of working, but he eventually starts to get spotty, glitching camera feeds of the road, and the roads around it. He starts running through the footage, trying to locate what directions each escapee went in.

"Better you than me," Barry notes about the robot, and that's true for a variety of reasons.

The group of men Barry had left have taken to running, but they haven't got far when Barry catches up to them. One thing Barry learns right away, he's not so great throwing left punches. Still, with speed on his side and the men unarmed, Barry manages to take them down.

Borrowing a shirt sleeve from one of the downed men, Barry uses it to bandage his arm and calls back to Yamato, "I'm fine. Can you at least get me a count of how many were on the truck?"

"What's wrong with Cisco's robots? He's made great progress with them."

Because, obviously, the only problem Barry could possibly have with them is that they're not advanced enough, right?

"Sixteen," he rattles off, when Barry asks his question. He'd kept count when he was altering the schedule, after all. "It was pretty packed. Judging by the cameras, at least three fled east through the alleyways, and maybe four headed west through the alleyways on the other side. I'm still trying to track the others."

"Well, I've got four here. So... twelve left." Great. Doubly great, Barry realizes, "The truck they used to block off the alley is gone."

That's an obvious issue, but for now Barry decides to work with what info they have and go after the knowns on foot.

Choosing west, Barry heads in that direction first.

"And there's nothing wrong with the robots, I just don't like getting knocked around by the tin man." The first Girder-bot had definitely done more harm than good for Barry.

"Good news about that is I can probably track it," Yamato says. "It's a huge truck, it stands out, after all."

He starts doing just that, cycling back through the camera footage until he gets to the truck leaving. That doesn't tell him much about where it is now, so he starts running through footage in order, tracing its path.

"That's fair," he says, about the robots. "Getting punched by a solid metal fist can do a lot of damage, and if you lose, y'can't even say the better man won, because the better man is a robot."

"Alright, let me know when you find it," he calls back, zigzagging through alleys searching.

He comes across the first two he's looking for while they're trying to break into a vehicle. One man is calling for the other to throw a brick that he's holding and the man does.

Both of the men are stumped when the brick seemingly disappears. Before either of them can fully process the situation, Barry delivers a hard knock to the back of each man's head and that takes them down.

"Yeah, don't I know it," he says about being punched with metal fists, then adds, "Ten left."

Dropping the brick he snagged, he starts running again after the other two that fled this direction.

"Will do. And, er," he pauses, a little awkwardly. Then: "Sorry. This was my plan, and it went off the rails, and you got hurt because of it."

Yamato kind of wants to punch Eddie for that one. A little. A lot. A statistically implausible amount of times.

"I'm trying to get the scan back online, too, but it's taking a while."

"Dude it's not your fault," Barry assures Yamato. "You get us back up and I'll run down these guys, and then we'll catch the jerk in charge."

Firmly believing that all that is possible, Barry pushes out a little more speed; ignoring any lagging feelings to uphold his end of wrapping this situation up.

He catches up to the other two runners and deals with them with minimal fuss, then turns around and rushes off to try and track down the three who fled east.

"By the way, how did you handle the robot?" he asks, curious.

Yamato makes a brief noise of acknowledgement, although whether he agrees or not is, perhaps, not entirely clear from his tone.

"I tore off its arm," he says, somewhat distractedly, to Barry's question. "And then mostly severed its neck."

He does not take any responsibility at all for the exploded hand, that one is entirely on the Camera Commander.

Behind the mask Barry's eyebrows lift.

"Damn, Yamato. Cisco might not be mad at all, that's pretty hardcore."

Flashing past the empty transport truck, Barry heads down the alley opposite the one he just ran.

"By the way, if that grunty noise is you not agreeing with me you're totally wrong. And that is something I'll fight you on." Possibly even literally, if it came to that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Profile

Barry Allen

March 2021

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Page Summary

run_barry - (no subject)

Style Credit

Base style: Abstractia by chiming
Theme: Pulse by chiming

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jun. 30th, 2025 03:30 pm

I think it chose you

The Great Escapes