The elevator chimed softly as August Heart stepped out into the brightly lit corridors of S.T.A.R. Labs. The sterile air smelled faintly of plants, and the distant hum of machines gave the place a sense of quiet urgency. This was his first official day on the job since receiving the unexpected offer from Dr. Harrison Wells a week ago. Despite everything that had happened, despite the loss and confusion, August felt strangely at home.
As he approached the main cortex, the wall mounted screens flickered to life with breaking news. A live broadcast showed Central City's downtown bank engulfed in chaos. Police sirens echoed faintly in the footage as the cops surrounded the Bank and barricaded the streets. The words "LIVE BREAKING NEWS" scrolled across the bottom of the screen and August snagged a remote from a nearby table and turned the volume up.
"-We'll now go live to the scene where our field reporter, Lilian Grey who is on the scene to give us the updates on what's going on." The camera switched to young woman standing in from of the Central City bank with squads of Police Cars surrounding the bank and waiting for the robbers to come out.
"Thank you, Linda. Standing outside Central City Bank, as you can see, the police have the building surrounding and there are SWAT teams standing by but the Police cannot move in on the bank as there are reports that there are hostages inside the bank, so at this moment in time, I believe the police is trying to negotiate with the bank in order to find out their demands at this time."
Suddenly behind the woman, a man walked out of the entrance of the bank, he was carrying bags that were filled with cash, if the notes floating out of the bag was anything to go by. The police immediately pointed their guns at him, telling him to drop the bags and raise his hands up.
The man complied and put down the bags, but as he raised his hands up, a gust of wind started swirling around his hand, it went faster and faster and then then it slammed into the blockade of squad cars blocking the entrance of the bank. By the time the winds died down, the bank robber was gone, leaving devastation in his wake.
The reporter on the screen was as shocked as the viewers, she gasped out, "Is this an act of god or man?"
August stared, transfixed. The footage was grainy, but the implications were crystal clear. Another metahuman. Another victim or product of the particle acceleration explosion.
The team which had just walked into the cortex were struck mute and silence reigned as the events that just occurred sunk in. August turned to the side; a complicated expression stuck on his face as he spoke to Dr. Wells.
"Dr. Wells, think the world is ready to accept that?"
There was no response.
He turned back to the screens, mind already racing. "The body has to be the conductor," he muttered. "Dark matter in the cells… maybe if we could find a way to neutralize the energy-"
Cisco raised an eyebrow. "Whoa, slow down, Professor X. What're you thinking? I can almost see lightning flowing through your brain."
"Cuffs," August said. "Meta suppressing cuffs. Devices that suppress dark matter activity in the cells and bloodstream - neutralizing powers before they can be used.
Cisco chewed thoughtfully. "You know, I like the way your brain works. I'm in. Let's get building."
They moved to the fabrication lab. August scribbled formulas while Cisco drew schematics. Metal clanked, lights flickered and sparks danced as they soldered, printed and re-calibrated. Hours passed in a blur of blueprints and burnt fingers. The prototypes were crude, but promising - silver cuffs with embedded micro-circuitry designed to emit a dampening field calibrated to trace amounts of dark matter and powered by Heart's Blood.
Later, while waiting for one of the cuffs' alloy casings to cool, August stepped into the med bay and found Caitlin Snow reviewing vitals on a tablet. She glanced up, her usual frown in place.
"You always look like you're carrying the weight of the world or like you're in perpetual mourning," August said.
Caitlin didn't look up. "That's because sometimes I am."
"Sorry," he said, suddenly awkward. "Didn't mean to…"
She sighed and set the tablet down. "I lost someone. My fiancé. Ronnie. He died the night of the explosion. He went into the accelerator to try and stabilize it. Never came out."
August nodded slowly. "I lost someone too. My brother. Not in the explosion, but… it doesn't make it any easier."
They stayed in silence for a moment. Two people bound by grief, loss and a shared desire to make something out of the ruins. In that quiet understanding, something unspoken passed between them. It wasn't friendship yet, but it was a beginning.
Later that night, August returned to the cortex. The Weather Wizard as Cisco had began to call him had struck again, this time at a jewelry store near the river. The news showed overturned cars and a thick fog swallowing the streets. The camera zoomed in on terrified civilians huddled behind squad cars as lightning danced across the skyline.
"How long are we going to keep reacting?" August muttered, clenching his fists. "How many people have to get hurt before someone does something?"
He remembered his brother's face—Jorge, smiling in his badge photo, proud to serve and protect. August had always admired his sense of duty. Now, he felt the same fire stirring in his chest, the same need to act.
He found Cisco still tinkering in the fabrication room. "I need something else," August said. "Something more than cuffs. I need a suit."
Cisco blinked. "Like… a superhero suit?"
August coughed, momentarily embarrassed. "I'm not saying I want to be a superhero," August said. "But I need to stop him. I need to try."
Cisco grinned, eyes lighting up with excitement. "Okay. Now we're talking."
They got to work immediately. August described what he needed—a suit designed not just for protection, but for function. It had to survive the speeds he was capable of, regulate body temperature, and protect against impact and friction. Cisco was more than up to the challenge.
By the time they finished, the lab was bathed in the soft glow of monitors and the blue hum of power cells. The suit stood gleaming on a nearby mannequin.
It was skintight, built with protective layers, heat insulation, and a flexible alloy mesh woven into the fabric. It was bulletproof, friction-resistant, and embedded with biometric sensors to monitor August's vitals. The primary color was white, with gold trims and a lightning emblem emblazoned on the chest.
Cisco had originally proposed a hooded mask, leaving the chin and nose exposed.
"No," August said firmly. "I want it fully sealed. No one sees my face."
The mask was redesigned—smooth, seamless, and white with gold edges, completely covering his features. It even came with a built-in voice modulator, altering his tone to something deeper, more commanding.
"Dude," Cisco said, eyes wide. "You look like a goddamn legend."
August stared at his reflection in the polished glass. For a moment, he didn't recognize the man in the mirror. But maybe that was the point. He wasn't just August Heart anymore.
He was just about to take it off for further modifications when Dr. Wells wheeled into the room, Caitlin right behind him.
"What do you think you're doing Dr. Heart? Do you know how dangerous what you're about to do is?" Caitlin wasted no time launching a barrage. She turned to Cisco. "And you too Cisco, I'm disappointed in you. I expected you to know better."
August took a deep breath. His face turning solemn.
"I think this is just the beginning, when you brought up that map, I could see that more than a thousand people were infected by dark matter in the Particle Accelerator that night. Perhaps they've been hiding it, using their powers in secret. But with this, they'll know they're not alone. More and more people like this will be coming out of the wood work. Since I woke up, I've been wondering why I got these powers, a few years ago, my brother was killed on duty. He joined the CCPD because he wanted to be a protector, to be the middleman standing in front of innocents against the things that would wish to harm them. I never understood that. His fervent belief in Justice, but now I do, if this isn't contained, Central City will become a haven of crime and lawlessness. What I'm trying to say is that I want to help, put my powers to use not just for research but for the good of the city that we all love." He said passionately, "I want to do something more with my powers, I want to protect lives and act as a symbol of hope for this City, be the middleman between them and whatever is against them."
All was silent for a moment and a myriad of emotions passed through Caitlin's face before settling back into the frown.
"Dr. Heart, you can understand my concern. There's so much about your abilities that we still don't understand. Going out there, risking your life, it will get you killed. You can still contribute here. Think of the groundbreaking discoveries and the good they'll do for everybody. I don't support this craziness of yours. If nothing else, think of your brother, would he want you throwing your life away like this?"
Saying this, she briskly walked out of the lab.
Dr. Wells removed his glasses, his eyes seemingly far away as he said, "I agree with Dr. Snow that it is very dangerous and you'll be at risk the moment you decide to do this, but a more selfish part of me hopes that by doing this you can make up for my mistakes and crime of releasing this upon Central City. All I can say is be careful Mr. Heart and there will always be help for you at S.T.A.R. Labs."
August extended his hand to the scientist. "Thank you, Dr. Wells."
The older man eyed August's hand for a moment, before shaking it. "You're welcome." He wheeled out of the lab.
Later that night, August returned to the cortex. Cisco was hunched over a screen, reviewing satellite data.
"I've got something," he said when August walked in. "Thermal imaging shows a pattern of temperature drops leading to a farm just outside city limits. Guess who might be hiding there?"
August didn't need to ask. He was gone before Cisco could finish the sentence.
It was late as August sped through the city, rushing to his destination in a blur of gold and white. Cisco truly was a genius—his suit was a marvel of science and design.
The wind rushed past as buildings became streaks of light. He moved like a bolt of lightning, the streets whispering beneath his feet.
His HUD flickered with real-time data—barometric pressure, wind speeds, and thermal signatures. He followed the storm's trail toward the farmland where the Weather Wizard's traces were last seen.
The farmland stretched out in eerie silence beneath the night sky, broken only by the occasional rumble of thunder. August arrived at the edge of the property, the wind curling around his boots. As he crept closer, he noticed a familiar vehicle—a CCPD squad car parked near the barn.
He narrowed his eyes and moved silently into the shadows, crouched beneath the swaying grass. Curious, he decided to watch.
"Why are we here, Joe?"
"Following my gut. That man at the bank, he might have been wearing a hood but he looked like Clyde Mardon. I'm not saying Mardon is alive," said Joe, glancing at his partner who shot him a look of disbelief.
Eddie was a good cop, but sometimes Joe missed the mutual skepticism that Chyre used to share with him. Joe sighed and continued. "But if he was, this was the last place he and his brother hid out." He pulled out his weapon clicking off the safety.
"Let's go then," said Eddie, drawing his weapon and flanking Joe as they entered the barn doors.
In the center of the room there was a man sitting on a stool, his back to them. A lamp hung dimly over the man, creating an eerie air about the place that chilled Joe to the core. The thought struck him that he hadn't been to the farm since the night of the particle accelerator explosion. Since the night Chyre died.
"Mardon?" Joe said, trying to hide the hesitation that crept into his voice. It couldn't be… "On your feet. Hands on your head."
"You got me." Mardon chuckled and stood slowly, his head turned ever so slight so Joe could properly see the profile of his face despite the darkness.
The sound of Mardon's oh so familiar voice sent a shiver up Joe's spine, not to mention the sight of the man's face. It was him. It actually was Clyde Mardon. His hunch had been right.
Joe glanced at Eddie who gave him an affirming nod. Eddie kept his weapon trained at Mardon while Joe holstered his own, reaching for his cuffs.
"The night of the storm, after S.T.A.R. Labs blew, after our plane went down and I woke up on the ground alive, when I saw what I can do. I understood." Joe watched Mardon carefully as the man continued to ramble on. "I am God."
"Shut the Hell up." Joe took a step toward Mardon, Eddie following his lead, as the bank robber and murderer stepped slightly left and away from the stool, his hands raised, but his back still to them.
"Turn around," ordered Eddie.
Mardon kept his back to him, his hands moving ever so slightly and wisps of some sort of cloud building in Mardon's hands. Joe started in fear seeing this. In the split second it took for Joe to register this, Mardon was moving, throwing whatever the stuff was backwards at the two police officers. Joe hit the wall hard, his head taking the brunt of the impact.
"Joe!" Eddie gasped, scrambling to recover. He raced to Joe's side in time to see his partner slip unconscious.
"Do you think that your guns can stop God?" Mardon looked drunk with power as he turned to face the two cops.
"Why the Hell would God need to rob banks?" snapped Eddie.
Mardon paused, surprised. "You're right. I've been thinking too small." Wind began to swirl around him, forming a tornado, tearing apart the barn.
And that's when August struck.
He came in like a lightning bolt, tackling Mardon mid-tornado. A burst of gold and white light overwhelmed the collapsing barn as August wrestled the Weather Wizard away from the storm's eye, slamming him into the ground. The impact created a shockwave that knocked out the winds.
Mardon tried to rise, conjuring another gust—but August had already locked the meta cuffs around his wrists. The glow in Mardon's eyes faded, the storm dissipating instantly.
Eddie stared wide-eyed as August stood there, masked and unreadable. "Who the hell are you?" he asked.
"No one you need to worry about," August replied through the voice modulator. "Get your partner medical help."
He blurred out of the barn before Eddie could ask another question.
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, August dropped the unconscious Mardon onto one of the medical stretchers. Cisco and Caitlin looked up in shock.
"That's him?" Cisco asked.
"Yeah," August nodded. "But he's too dangerous for Iron Heights. No prison can hold him."
Dr. Wells stepped forward, his expression unreadable. "Then we make one. The pipeline below the lab—we'll retrofit it. Temporary cells, one-way glass, soundproof walls. They won't know where they are or who's holding them."
Caitlin looked skeptical. "Is that even legal?"
"We're not ready to go public," Wells replied. "Until we are, this is the safest way to protect the city."
August looked down at the unconscious Mardon and nodded slowly. "One storm down."