DC Legends of Tomorrow: The Glitch: Glitching Through Time

Ch 26: R.I.P. Glitch

"Clarity!" Rip yelled rushing over to her side. He was about to place his arms under her to carry her to the medbay, but he froze as Clarity spoke up.

"D-don't...don't touch me." Clarity warned holding up her hand to stop him from coming any closer. Mere seconds after her warning lightning started to dance across her skin in waves, her eyes glowing brightly as her powers activated. With her free hand she gripped her head her hand fisted into her soft brown hair the white headband fallen off her head onto the floor beside her.

"The Pilgrim....Gideon scan Clarity's timeline! Scan it now!" Rip ordered as he knelt by her side. He wanted to help her somehow, but he couldn't so much as touch her while she was using her powers.

"Ri-Aw-an" Gideon tried to reply, but her voice became staticky and fractured.

"Gideon!?" Rip called to the Ai confused, not sure what the Ai was trying to tell him, but she didn't respond this time. In fact, something seemed to be wrong with Gideon as well. She appeared to be glitching like her creator. Rip turned his attention back to Clarity.

"Clarity, Whatever you're doing to Gideon with your powers you need to stop it. Stop it now." Rip told her.

"I...I'm not doing anything..." Clarity gritted out pain evident in her tone.

"Clarity, you're hurting her, Hell I think you might be killing her right now" Rip admitted to her.

Clarity let out a painfilled gasp her eyes starting to water. No...she wasn't doing anything to Gideon was she? Clarity didn't think she was, but Rip sounded completely sure that the Ai was suffering as much as her right now, possibly even worse.

"Clarity, you need to stop using your powers!" Rip urged her.

"I can't....I can't..." Clarity denied shaking her head. Tears falling from her eyes from the pain. It hurt too much, everything hurt. Her brain felt like it was on fire, she couldn't stop.

"You have to! If you don't stop using your powers both you and Gideon are going to die." Rip said trying to convey his urgency without any of the panic he felt. First Ray and now Clarity?

Clarity bit her lip closing her eyes.

"Clarity please you're not even trying. Please just try....you've gotten so much control over your powers since we first started this mission. Don't just throw all that progress away right now." Rip pleaded.

"I'm sorry..." Clarity told him.

"No...no don't be sorry, Clarity. I know you can do this. Just stop using them, just for a minute. Long enough for me to get you to the medbay and for Gideon to track the pilgrim. Just for a bit...." Rip said trying to be encouraging, but that seriously was not one of his strong suits.

Clarity sucked in a breath. She couldn't stop using her powers. Not because she didn't want to, but because she literally couldn't. That was like asking someone who just cut themselves to stop bleeding, or asking someone who just broke a bone to have it magically be healed a second later. Her lightning surging across her skin like this was simply her body's way of trying to protect itself from further harm. There was no real way she could shut it off. She wasn't some kind of machine with an off button. So, with that thought in mind she knew what she had to do.

She couldn't stop the lightning and shut it off, so she just needed to direct it somewhere else. Clearly something was happening to Gideon so she couldn't direct her lightning into the ship because that might just make things worse for the Ai and she didn't want to do that. She couldn't direct it into anyone else on the team because that would probably kill them, Jax and Stein might be able to survive it if she did, but she didn't want to do anything that would hurt anyone else. That left one thing that Clarity could do, one place that she knew wouldn't hurt anybody else.