Chapter 120: Faster Than a Bullet
Lawton was shocked.
Many people believed Deadshot's greatest pride was his marksmanship. That was true, but Lawton, as a top assassin, knew there was more to it.
For a truly top-tier assassin, what mattered more was intelligence.
You had to know exactly what you were up against, who you were meant to kill. What time, what place, and what situations you might encounter.
As the world's number one marksman, Lawton did his homework before every operation. He investigated the background of every target until he knew them inside and out. If he wanted to, taking out even the world's most prominent dignitary would be a matter of a single shot.
But Barry Allen?
All the data showed that he was just an ordinary investigator from the Central City Police Department, with nothing special about him.
That's how it was supposed to be.
Of course, shock was one thing, but Lawton's professional instincts remained. The moment he saw Barry flash behind him, he immediately dropped his large sniper rifle and raised his arm, the specialized gun barrel on the back of his hand locking onto the target.
A burst of fire erupted!
Barry was still clutching the nose he'd carelessly injured, lying on the ground. His pupils contracted, and the entire space in his vision was suddenly overlaid with an eerie filter. Streaks of lightning tore across the sky, and the surrounding scenery became illusory.
Once again, the bullets froze in mid-air.
He could even see Deadshot's gun barrel slowly rising from the recoil, the muzzle flash and a ring of smoke blooming sluggishly from the barrel, as the propulsive force painstakingly pushed Deadshot's custom bullet out of the chamber.
"You're running too fast."
Orin Vale appeared silently behind him. "In a state of superspeed, many laws of physics and common-sense habits are different. You have to learn to control it."
In fact, Orin Vale was already finding it difficult to keep up with Barry's speed in his Human Host state—and this was only Barry's first time entering a high-speed mode. He would inevitably grow even faster.
Time to record some data.
"Noted... I hope my nose is okay."
Barry rubbed his nose and slowly stood up. Streaks of lightning flashed before him, making Deadshot, frozen in his firing stance, and the slowly advancing bullets look somewhat ridiculous.
"So, who is this guy anyway? What's his problem?" Barry scratched his head.
"Deadshot, the world's most skilled gunman."
Orin Vale unhurriedly circled halfway around the motionless Deadshot, examining his iconic custom gun barrel and aiming scope.
"Seems like it."
Barry was astonished. "How did I get involved with such a dangerous person?"
"Who knows? But why don't you take him down and ask him yourself?"
Barry was startled by the thought. He glanced at Deadshot, who stood rooted to the spot as if in stasis, then at his own fist, his eyes flickering.
"What's wrong?"
"Uh... I don't know." Barry scratched his head. "It's just that I've never punched anyone before. It feels weird..."
"It's easy. Watch, I'll show you."
Orin Vale walked over to Deadshot's left side.
"In a state of hypervelocity, even the slightest movement will cause a powerful impact, so you don't need to worry about things like force or punching technique. All you need to do is this."
He extended a finger and lightly tapped Deadshot's cheek.
The fingertip sank into the skin, and the ripples from the high-speed impact spread across Lawton's cheek at a snail's pace.
"Is it that simple?"
"It's that simple." Orin Vale stepped back with a smile. "You try."
Barry looked at his own finger, walked forward, and gave it a try, eager and expectant.
He copied the motion, extending a hand, his fingertips wreathed in blue electric current. He slowly, carefully, extended his finger.
It gently sank into Lawton's face from the other side.
"I can feel it! The impact of the speed, the power at high speed... incredible!"
Barry was overjoyed, like a child who had discovered a new toy.
"Isn't this too powerful?"
He excitedly circled the spellbound Lawton, poking here and prodding there. One moment he poked a cheek, the next a stomach, then a thigh...
And so, Lawton's entire being fell into disarray.
For Lawton, who lacked the Speed Force or any super-speed of his own, everything happened in the instant he pulled the trigger. His index finger squeezed the trigger, and in the next moment, his entire right cheek felt as if it had been struck by a heavy hammer. His head had just instinctively started to turn left when he was shocked to feel his left cheek receive an equally heavy blow at what felt like the same instant.
At the same time, his shoulder, arm, stomach, back, thigh...
A string of combo attacks followed, and Deadshot's whole body twitched and convulsed bizarrely. After the spasms, he collapsed to the ground as if broken, lying prone with his eyes wide open.
It felt as if he had been surrounded by a hundred burly men, three layers deep, all taking turns "educating" him.
And it all happened within a few tenths of a second!
Outrageous. Simply outrageous.
He must have had eight lifetimes of bad luck to run into an overpowered individual like this.
"Whoa-ho-ho, this is totally cool," Barry said with delight, looking at his hands, which were still crackling with electric light.
Orin Vale silently recorded the reaction patterns of the Speed Force energy during Barry's entire string of actions. He had a premonition that this precious data would be a huge asset to his research in the future.
Completely disoriented, Lawton spat out a mouthful of blood as he lay on the ground.
"You... you're like this because of that lightning?" he asked, his eyes wide with disbelief, as if he couldn't die in peace without knowing the answer.
He had carefully gone through the target's archives before the assassination. Barry Allen seemed to be nothing more than a bookworm with an unfortunate childhood, who had gone to an ordinary school and joined the Central City Police Department in a perfectly normal fashion. The only thing that could possibly connect to the bizarre phenomenon before him was that electric shock from a month ago.
"Uh... maybe, probably, I guess so?" Barry wasn't too sure himself.
Lawton couldn't help but spit out another mouthful of blood.
"I have a cousin who was struck by lightning, too," Lawton said defiantly. "He developed a stutter."
"Oh, uh... I'm sorry," Barry said. "Of course, not for you, but for your cousin. As for you? You brought this on yourself. Who asked you to be a criminal...
"Anyway, why were you trying to shoot me, man? Did I do something to you?"
Lawton snorted heavily and said no more. Then, dragging his injured body, he suddenly leaped to his feet and threw a hand grenade, slamming it onto the ground.
Lightning flickered again, and with a cry of "Ah!", Barry once more instinctively entered Bullet Time.
"He's trying to throw a grenade! We have to run..."
"Calm down, Barry. At your current speed, you'd have time to run even after the grenade explodes... Besides, it's not a hand grenade, just a flashbang," Orin Vale, the unfeeling data-recording machine, reminded him from the side.
"Oh, right."
Barry turned his head to look at Lawton, who was once again in slow motion, and the flashbang in his hand, its pin already pulled and ready to be thrown.
"I suddenly have an idea!"
A childish impulse seized Barry. Trailing lightning, he zipped over, snatched the thrown flashbang, and stuffed it back into Lawton's hand, then helped him clench his fist around it, one finger at a time.
At such a high speed, Lawton naturally couldn't feel a thing. From his perspective, he had thrown the flashbang, immediately followed by a roll to take cover behind a nearby obstacle—a set of maneuvers as smooth as silk, incredibly cool.
Only after he got up from his roll did he realize with a shock that the pin-pulled flashbang was still in his hand.
Lawton was horrified and instinctively raised his hand to throw it again. But after tossing it and looking away, he found it was still clutched in his hand.
No matter how he threw it, it would bizarrely teleport back into his hand, like a persistent nuisance he couldn't shake off.
Lawton's face took on an expression of utter resignation. "I'm so screw—"
*BANG!*
The flashbang exploded in his hand, blinding Lawton on the spot.
His mind went blank, and a powerful ringing filled his ears. By the time the discomfort slowly subsided and the image before his eyes barely returned, he realized he'd been tied up.
"Now," Barry said with a stern face, "who sent you to kill me?"
Lawton stared at him expressionlessly.
"Not revealing client information is part of our basic professional ethics."
But after a pause, before they could ask the next question, Lawton changed his tune.
"However... this is a special situation, so telling you doesn't matter. It was a big, ugly, black gorilla."
"Huh?"
Barry raised an eyebrow.
"Dude, you really need to work on your excuses. At least come up with a decent one..."
*BOOM!*
A deafening roar drew everyone's attention. They all turned their heads to see a giant object, trailing blazing flame, falling from the sky without warning and crashing into the once-peaceful streets of Central City.
And there wasn't just one. It was as if massive fireballs filled the sky, setting it ablaze. Innumerable meteorites engulfed in fire struck the city's buildings and streets, rolling mercilessly after impact, pulverizing everything like a giant road roller. Gushing flames and thick smoke filled Central City as disaster swept through like a tidal wave.
They weren't meteorites, but spaceships.
The moment they landed and stabilized, they popped open with a *clank*, and from within those spaceships, the invaders revealed their ferocious fangs.
It was gorillas.
Countless gorillas, riding in meteorite-like spaceships, descending from the sky.
Barry's jaw dropped. He looked at the city below, now filled with gorillas, then back at the bound Deadshot before him.
Lawton pursed his lips.
"See? I told you."
***
*Four updates today, that's over 9,000 words. I'm empty, not a single drop left...*
(end of chapter)