Chapter One

Nodding his head in thanks, Barry paid for the pain au chocolat and walked out into the narrow French road, humming to himself as he devoured the treat. While his high metabolism could be a pain in the butt sometimes when it came to things like the amount of food he was forced to consume, the deal was sweetened - no pun intended - if he got to eat his heart out in Paris. After a quick promise to Joe to get him something when Barry had mumbled his breakfast plans, he had sped off to grab breakfast from Paris. For a place famous for its pastries, it was kind of a shock that Parisians didn't make donuts. After mentally calculating how much he could carry, Barry spun into yet another shop and purchased more croissants than was strictly necessary, figuring he could supplement them with fruit and cheese from Joe's fridge.

As he was trying to maneuver his way into an alley dark enough to give him a running start in the general direction of the Atlantic Ocean without being seen by any passersby, his phone gave a little ring. Shifting the warm rolls to his left arm, he fished his phone out of his pocket and pressed it to his ear.

"Hello?"

It was Joe. "You still in Paris picking up breakfast?"

Barry nodded even though Joe couldn't see him. "Yep, about to head back. I should be there in a few minutes."

"We have a crime scene that the captain wants you at ASAP. Some Central City University kid was found murdered - burn marks found everywhere around the body and the dispatcher said that the guy who found the body said it looked like a whack job did the killing. No idea what he meant by that, but it doesn't sound good. Singh wants everyone in on this case and the culprits found and made an example of."

With a murmur of assent, Barry hung up and quickly stopped by another small cafe for a noisette, figuring he would need it at this rate. Taking a small sip of the hot coffee before any of it had the chance to spill, he jogged until he was out of sight and then streaked toward Central City in a flash of light, struggling to keep his load in his arms and out of the ocean.

WHATDOYOUCALLAPOORLYDRESSEDPARTICLE

After a quick stop at Joe's house to drop off the majority of the food he had bought, Barry finally made it to the crime scene, running the last stretch without the aid of his powers and making to the abandoned and half burned house just a few seconds before Singh lost it. Barry ducked his head away from his boss's glare and headed straight for the body in the middle of the floor, handing Joe one of the three small croissants he still carried along the way. The body was modestly hidden with a tarp, but even so, there were clear burn marks around the body scorched into the floorboards.

Even more noticeable, however, was how Barry's coffee tried to float up his nose as he got within a few feet of the body. Barry gawked at the liquid, quickly shoved the lid back on, then looked back down at the scorch marks.

"Can you explain that?" Captain Singh suddenly asked, seeming to have taken control of his disdain of Barry's tardiness so he could get some answers out of him.

Barry glanced over at him then back at his espresso. "It's not good..." he offered lamely, trying to think of how to explain the phenomenon. He decided to just play dumb for now and explain later. "...whatever it is."

"Brilliant observation Mr. Allen. That's the kind of deduction I pay you for," said Singh, rolling his eyes.

Barry carefully set down his coffee cup, avoiding the hot coffee that was coming through the hole in the lid and floating through in the air, then crouched near the body. He pulled up the tarp and found that the same burn marks that littered the ground were also covering the young victim. Cause of death could be the burns, but was probably something much more sinister. Barry didn't like the feeling this gave him... Not at all.

Joe was suddenly crouching next to him, making Barry jump a little. "What do you think?"

Barry took a breath. "I think I'm gonna throw up. I feel all...tingly."

The pair stood, Joe giving Barry an odd look. "Like 'oh gosh a dead body' gonna throw up or...?"

Barry just shook his head, unable to explain it. All he knew was that he had goosebumps and his stomach couldn't decide whether it was doing flips or not. "Nevermind. Not important. We're gonna need help on this one; it looks like a meta kill. The burns don't seem deliberate like a brand or heated weapon, but their patterns indicate that they were caused by some form of electricity. That-" he indicated the slowly falling coffee "-is clear evidence of some...freaky stuff. Other than that, I'm not sure of much else."

Joe nodded along as Barry spoke. "Okay then. Keep working with what you have here for now, then call in S.T.A.R. Labs. I'll talk to Singh."

Barry nodded once before turning his attention back to the victim, looking for the cause of death and any evidence that could lead him and the police to the killer.

ATACHYON

"I feel like I need to go re-read my hiring contract because nowhere in my job description does it say, 'Break into the morgue to poke dead bodies,'" grumbled Cisco as he hefted a flashlight to help Caitlin see what she was doing.

Something resembling the barest hint of a smile graced Dr. Wells's lips. "I think the section that states that you will be pushed to explore the boundaries of science covers it."

"Plus, we aren't breaking in," added Barry, who was seated at the coroner's desk, studying the photographs and test results from the crime scene. "I let you in."

"With a key you swiped."

"I prefer the term "borrowed.'"

Dr. Wells ended the argument. "We need to take a look at the body ourselves. If this is a meta killing, then we might be the only ones who can identify it as such. Opinion, Caitlin?"

Caitlin pulled back the ribs from the cadaver, then frowned, and began prodding the heart tissue before replacing the layers of muscle and tissue. "Cause of death is definitely blunt force trauma. No doubt about it. But the scars and burns - most people would rule this as caused by a fire. However, as someone who has spent an extensive amount of time with a lightning victim-" she leveled a look at Barry "-I would say these were caused by lightning. But there is something unusual about it..."

"Like what?" inquired Barry after a moment's silence.

Caitlin hesitated. "If you get struck by lightning directly, it affects you differently than it would if you were holding on to something that got hit by it, or if you got hit and whatever you were holding also became a channel for the electricity. The burn marks are consistent with what you would call a side splash; the lightning was hitting other objects, too. But if that were the case, he would only have a single burn mark. The burns are more consistent with a direct hit."

Barry cocked his head in confusion. "But his internal injuries suggest a side splash. Most direct-hit victims end up with organ damage or bone splintering. Or superspeed, I guess."

Caitlin shrugged. "I really don't know."

Dr. Wells rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "So, we have to operate on the assumption that lightning, for some odd reason, was striking other objects all around him, as he was lying unconscious? "

Cisco raised an eyebrow. "Maybe we have a meta with the ability to control lightning?"

"Why not just hit the guy directly if he wanted to kill him?" Barry pondered aloud.

"Beats me," responded Cisco with a yawn.

"We will think more clearly with fresh minds," said Dr. Wells firmly. "Once we sneak out of the morgue, lets go home, shower, and get some rest. Agreed?"

The other murmured in agreement and began packing their stuff. As Barry got up and stretched, his phone went off, vibrating in his pocket. The noise startled all of them.

Barry quickly silenced the device by answering the incoming call. "Hello?"

"Am I interrupting anything?" Felicity answered on the other end.

Barry glanced over at Caitlyn who was still packing away the cadaver. "Not really, we've just finished up in the morgue," he said as-a-matter-of-factly. "What're you guys up to?"

"Lots of things... Ray's finally getting his suit to work, but other than that, I could use some good news from cheery Central City. Who's the meta this week?"

"Oh. Well, we're not sure of anything yet, but we do know that lightning is involved," Barry replied. "There's a bunch of weird burns on the body and probably tachyons somewhere because of the floating liquids." He raised his voice slightly as he brought that up, half directing the comment at the rest of his team. Cisco pointed at him with a snap.

"Is that Barry?" asked Oliver in the background.

"Cool. Yeah, it is," Felicity responded, directing the first comment at Barry and the second at Oliver. Barry held the door for Dr. Wells while Felicity gave Oliver a quick update.

"That sounds kinda familiar," Oliver said curiously.

"Wait, what'd he say?"

Oliver's voice got clearer; Barry assumed he had taken the phone from Felicity. "What kind of weird are the burns?"

"Caitlyn says that the burns are consistent with a direct hit from a lightning strike, but the lack of internal injuries says otherwise. Have you seen this somewhere before?" Barry explained.

"No, but I've heard about that somewhere," Oliver said. "I've been looking into the League of Assassins recently...long story why...it's an ancient group of assassins that act and fight like they live in the 12th century, and I heard whispers of strange deaths that occurred in countries close to Nanda Parbat, where the League has their headquarters. I was never sure if they were actually related to the League itself or not. Nobody ever took responsibility, and it's not exactly unheard of to have weird deaths in the area, but most of the locals said that the bodies were burned by lightning, but wouldn't speak of it anymore...something about it being bad luck to speak of such occurrences. Representatives sent by surrounded villages to bury the victims claimed that water started floating whenever it got close to the victims."

Barry nodded slowly. "Huh... Can you e-mail me any articles about that? That's too similar to be a coincidence."

"Sure."

Felicity took the phone back. "Weird."

Barry smirked. "Generally, yes."

"Well, I guess I'll let you get back to that," Felicity said. After exchanging farewells, Barry hung up the phone and turned to the rest of the team who were all looking at him with curiosity, silently prompting him for details.

"Oliver has some information about some similar deaths from a while ago, so hopefully that could give us something to go off of with our own investigation."

"It certainly could," Dr. Wells remarked.

"Did he happen to say if there were any suspects in the killings?" asked Cisco.

Barry shrugged. "Something about a group that call themselves the League of Assassins. But basically, we still don't know anything for certain. We know tachyons are involved, we now have something that looks like it could have ties to an international killer, maybe. We have a dead body that had to have been killed by a meta, but we have no idea what the meta's actual powers are."

Cisco planted his face in his hands. "I felt so much more productive before you said all that."

Dr. Wells whipped out his tablet. "We can calibrate the STAR Labs satellite to send an alert if it detects large quantities of tachyons concentrated in one location. That should give us a heads up just in case our serial killer decides to kill anyone else, and will hopefully alert us in time to save whoever the victim happens to be."

"In the meantime," Cisco practically announced, "I am going to eat Thai food and get some sleep because I don't know about you guys, but I am exhausted."

"Sounds like a plan."

A/N: *passes out. Man this was hard to write. The villain is someone from the comics, so points if you guess it. Just for the record, the cadaver lab scene is from experience, which *long story* meant that it would eventually make it into the story. Collaborations are harder than I thought. At one point, Mumble had to tell me to go to bed and get some help. Hope you enjoy!

-2whitie

Yay for revamping old villains! :D I know nothing of this experience and am not so sure I want to know, so I'm just gonna assume it was for anatomy and not ask for details. YAY FOR COLLABORATION, our ideas coexist perfectly, speed force unicorns and Wells doing aggressive wheelies at midnight and all. And you seriously needed some sleep... When I of all people am 10,000% done with your fake spanish, it's time to seek psychiatric help. ;)

-Mumble

Cover Image was manipulated by Mumble; for the sake of obeying CC licenses, the two stock images used can be found at the following addresses:
tinyurl dot com slash nw5cqbh
tinyurl dot com slash nc5pt2u