Chapter 143 – Still Human, Still Dangerous
Dante left the Cortex without saying another word.
The sliding doors whooshed closed behind him as he stepped out into the quiet hallway, his footsteps echoing faintly off the polished floors of STAR Labs. He didn't bother looking back. He could still hear the faint laughter and conversation from the others inside—Bart's hyper chatter, Nora's calm corrections, Barry's proud but confused responses. He wasn't part of that.
Not really.
He pushed open the main doors and stepped outside into the cool air. The sky above was a dull gray, clouds swirling lazily. He lit a cigarette and took a slow drag, letting the smoke curl out of his nose.
"Man," he muttered, gazing at the sky. "Life sucks."
He laughed under his breath, but there wasn't any humor in it. Just a tired edge. Just bone-deep weariness.
He turned back toward the entrance, planning to head inside again—maybe grab a drink from the fridge, crash on one of the couches—but then he heard it.
A sound.
Not loud.
Not sharp.
But familiar.
Like white noise dipped in static. Like the soft buzz of lightning without the storm.
He froze.
"Ohhh for crying out loud… really?"
He turned slowly.
Standing there, just a few feet away, was one of them.
A Godspeed clone.
Silent. Expressionless. The face was hidden behind the white mask, those glowing eyes pulsing faintly like a warning.
Dante sighed and dropped the cigarette.
"You guys never get tired, huh?"
The clone didn't respond.
It just charged.
---
Inside STAR Labs — Thirty Minutes Earlier
"Where's Dante?" Caitlin asked, glancing around.
"He left like half an hour ago," Cisco said. "Probably outside brooding or chain-smoking. You know, the usual."
Bart spun on his heel. "We should've followed him! What if—"
Nora interrupted, pulling him back. "Relax. If something happened, we'd know."
Barry looked between his kids. "So tell us more. About the future. About why you're really here."
Bart straightened, a rare serious look on his face. "It's Godspeed. He's ripping the future apart. But he's… incomplete."
Patty frowned. "Incomplete?"
"Yeah," Bart said. "August Heart—he doesn't have true, organic speed. He's using Velocity-9. Artificial stuff."
"Sounds familiar," Caitlin muttered.
"Exactly," Nora added. "The clones, the chaos—it's all based on fake speed. Velocity-9 is unstable, but in our timeline, August Heart found a way to refine it ."
Cisco's eyes widened. "So that explains the spikes in energy signatures lately."
"But August is missing," Nora continued. "We've searched for years in our time. No trace. Then we found something... a signal. Buried in time. Turns out, he's here. Somewhere. In this timeline."
"But we don't know where," Bart added, frustrated. "We need to find him before he gets full access to whatever he's building toward."
Wells crossed his arms. "Then it's a race against time."
And then—
BOOOOM.
It wasn't an explosion. Not a fireball or energy burst.
It was something impacting.
Something breaking.
The very earth shook.
Barry was already running before anyone could speak. Nora and Bart zipped after him in a burst of orange and blue lightning.
---
Outside STAR Labs
The scene looked like a bomb had gone off.
The pavement was shattered, massive cracks spiderwebbing out from a crater in the center. A parked car had been flipped. Light posts bent. Dust hung in the air like smoke.
At the center of the destruction lay a body.
A Godspeed clone.
Broken.
Twisted.
His suit torn and stained with blood, face swollen and crushed to the point it barely looked human. His helmet was cracked, one of the glowing eyes flickering erratically.
And standing over him—
Was Dante.
His shirt was shredded and soaked in blood. One arm hung limp, clearly broken. A long gash ran across his face, fresh blood dripping down and mixing with the dirt. His knuckles were skinned raw, his breathing ragged.
And yet he stood.
He stood.
Dante looked up at them, sweat and blood on his brow, his chest rising and falling like he'd just run a marathon through hell.
"Goddamnit," he groaned. "You guys really come this late?"
Bart was frozen.
Eyes wide.
Nora stared too, speechless.
Barry landed beside them, stunned at the damage. "Dante… what the hell happened?"
Dante dropped down to sit on the edge of the crater with a heavy sigh, reaching into his coat with his good hand to pull out a crushed cigarette. He tried to light it with trembling fingers.
No good.
His hand was too busted to flick the lighter.
"Spent the last thirty minutes trading punches with this Speed Barbie doll," Dante muttered. "Didn't even get a lunch break."
Bart walked forward slowly, eyes scanning everything—the crater, the blood, the bruises, the sheer chaos.
He looked at the clone again—destroyed.
And then at Dante.
Bloodied.
Broken.
But alive.
Victorious.
He was just a man.
No Speed Force. No power.
Just a human.
But somehow—he won.
Bart's heart thumped in his chest.
Respect.
Fear.
Admiration.
This was his uncle.
Not the version he knew from the future with black hair and a scar.
This was something even more raw.
More real.
"Dude…" Bart whispered. "You're… You're insane."
Dante chuckled, spitting blood to the side. "Tell me something I don't know."
Nora knelt beside him, gently examining his arm. "You need medical—"
"I need a nap," Dante said. "And a smoke."
Barry looked down at the Godspeed clone. "Was he saying anything? Doing anything different?"
"Nope," Dante said. "Didn't speak. Just attacked. But his speed—it felt different. Twitchier. Like he wasn't stable."
"Like Velocity-9," Caitlin said, arriving with Cisco and Wells behind her.
Wells narrowed his eyes. "This clone might've been testing something. A prototype for something greater."
Cisco walked closer, scanning the remains. "We need to analyze his suit. Get it to the lab."
"Do that," Barry said, then turned back to Dante. "You sure you're okay?"
Dante winced. "Never am. But I'm breathing."
Bart crouched beside him and grinned wide. "Uncle Dante… that was awesome."
Dante looked at him with one bloody eye. "good because I'm gonna pass out ."
And he did.
---
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