Day 3 of 100

Volume 1, Chapter 2

Location:
THE TIME SHIP WAVERIDER
(GRANT INNOVATIONS designation)
THE BREACH SHIP WAVERIDER
(ARGUS designation)

Even as he had received the request of their occasional allies, the Flash and Kid Flash, to escort them through the breach and into Haven – which turned out to be the resolution to the delivery of a message to be brought to the Green Arrow – Leonard Snart had been called on by ARGUS to be briefed about a situation that he and his team were to look in on. So, after dispatching two of them – Sharpe and Lane – to take care of the speedsters' crossing, the rest of them had made their way to headquarters to find out what they were needed for.

It was all part of the deal, whether the others knew it or not (and he intended very much for them not to know). Of the eleven of them on board the Waverider, only he knew that the 'breach ship' was in fact a time ship he had… acquired… in the far-flung future. It wasn't as though he'd set out one day and told himself 'here's what I need, a time traveling ship!' He wouldn't have even believed anything of the sort was actually possible if he hadn't been so suddenly and unexpectedly thrown into the future, just as this innovation in time ships was set to be unveiled to the world. Before he knew it, he'd stepped on to that ship, thinking maybe… just maybe… he could figure out how to fly the thing. An engine was an engine, wasn't it?

And, somehow, he had pulled it off. He'd made it back to his own time… and then ARGUS had to show up and snatch him up. Somehow, they had come to something of an understanding. He would get to continue occupying this ship, but he would do it while working for them. Bit by bit, he had come by his crew, and together they had been patrolling Breach Earth, ensuring no breachers went traipsing from quarter to quarter, making trouble, while also coming to people's aid where they were needed. It was not the path he had foreseen for himself, but by now he had sort of settled into the role. He took pride in the work that they did, whether he'd say it in as many words or not.

For the most part, they were left to their own devices. They had worked out something of a system for how they went about the various quarters of Breach Earth, minding the ones most likely to give or receive trouble the attention they required. But then, every once in a while, they would get called in for assistance back on Main Earth, called to escort back certain breachers who had made it across, or, like in this case, they would get called in to be informed of a potential or active situation the director wanted them to check out.

What they were brought in to investigate this time around involved water, which would have left them scratching their heads as to why they were called in, except it was water from Mist Quarter… pulled into War Quarter. That was something else. The thing was, they had already heard about this, very briefly some time before, and as it turned out it was exactly what they were thinking about, all going back to the night they were called in to intercept a trio of women out of War who'd crossed over and dealt with a pair of girls out of Mist, offering them a way to settle on Main Earth in exchange for water from their quarter. They had found the women, gotten the water back and disposed of it where it could do no harm. But by what ARGUS was telling them now, there had been successful exchanges, and this had all been going on for some time already. So they were to go and see what they could find.

Now back on the ship, they sat and stood around the bridge, the nine of them in wait of the return of Ava and Lucy. In the meantime, Leonard was surrounded by Winn Schott, also of ARGUS, police officers Ed Thawne and Quentin Lance, the alien M'gann M'orzz, and the four out of War Quarter, Ralph Dibny, Slade Wilson, Rip Hunter, and the amnesia-stricken one only known as Gideon.

They were all very familiar with the situation in both Mist Quarter and War. Four of them were from War and had escaped it in coming aboard this ship. They hadn't even been civilians, all four of them soldiers, fighting to protect their people. All but Dibny had been subjects in special projects, Hunter and Gideon with Project Horus, Wilson with Project Mercury. It had left the first two with the wings of hawks (and in Gideon's case, left her without her memories), and the last with speed vastly beyond regular human capability. All three of them had run from those projects in the end, which had put them in the path of Dibny, who had set himself the task of finding them and returning them to where they were seen as belonging, until he'd realized that 'away from the reach of the projects' was precisely where they belonged. And soon after that the Waverider had found them.

To this day, they had never returned to their home quarter, fearing capture despite being under the protection of ARGUS, despite having abilities – thanks to the projects they had escaped – which should have enabled them to stay far out of the reach of those who sought them out. Even so, they understood what the potential was, for a weapon of that kind to be brought into existence and unleashed on the people who, like them, had just been trying to survive in the place where they had been born. There was no doubt to it, whatever was happening out there, they wanted to get to the bottom of it.

Any trip to Mist was something of an ordeal. They constantly had to ensure that there were no weaknesses in the ship that might let the air in, and that their equipment – in case they needed to leave the ship at any time – was also good to go. Leonard had called for Cat, the ship's A.I. to run the usual diagnostic perimeters for Mist visits, and the voice was heard, confirming that the diagnostic was now being performed. This request had been made and just as quickly put out of mind by most of them around the room, all but one, who became so distracted thinking about it that he didn't hear until the third call of his name when he was asked about the status of their breathing equipment. He could only silently raise his thumb, promising he'd take care of it.

He'd sworn not to tell. Under the slightest of threats of chaotic discomfort, but he had sworn. He would tell no one about the fact that 'Cat' the artificial intelligence was in fact Catherine Grant, of the far future, whose company had been… would be responsible for the design and construction of their ship the Waverider. He'd only come upon her, ironically enough, after his inspections following their last visit to Mist had led to his accidental discovery of the hidden compartment where she had been living, hidden, for the last several years, since the ship had fallen into the hands of Leonard Snart. Somehow, she had managed to remain unseen for all this time, passing herself off as their A.I., and she would likely have continued to be this way if he had not come too close to finding her out and she'd ended up having to decide to reveal herself to him.

He didn't like the idea of lying to the rest of his team, but he also remembered how she'd sworn him to secrecy, and so here he was. He made no assumptions whatsoever as to how long he would manage to keep up this secret. He could already imagine himself at some point trying so hard to deflect away from the subject that he would steel up by accident…

X

MAIN EARTH, THE CITY BENEATH THE BREACH

It seemed as though the times where the two of them were in agreement weren't what they had once been. They weren't always at odds, no, and when they were Firestorm together they continued to do a lot of good around the city. But a part of being Firestorm together, they knew, meant that even when they weren't merged into one, there was always a part of them that was bonded. They could never be out of one another's minds, not since the first time they had merged. And that had been fine… at first, and for a long while. It was only recently that their disagreements started to grow more pronounced, that they came very close to causing problems for more than just the two of them. If it wasn't for the fact that they both needed one another to continue doing the work that so mattered to the both of them, there was almost no doubt that Barry Allen would be well rid of his Firestorm partner, Eobard Thawne.

Neither of them knew how they'd come to have these abilities they had, or rather the potential for them to have it. There really had been no sign of anything at all until the day they'd met, introduced by Eobard's old friend, Nora Allen, Barry's once estranged, now reconnected mother, where the slightest of introductory handshakes had caused a reaction between the two men, remaining a mystery until the following week, when Eobard had tracked down his friend's son and confirmed that he'd been just as curious about what had happened, almost happened. That was the day they had merged for the first time. Before long, in discovering what they could do, before the name Firestorm was ever on the table, they had felt the call of wanting to help those who might need them and, little by little, they had become the heroes… hero they could only ever have dreamed to be in the past. It had been good, it was good.

Except when they started to disagree on methods of dealing with criminals, with breachers causing trouble, except when Eobard – the passenger – wanted Barry to use more force when dealing with those people than he was ready or willing to use. After a while it got to be that Barry wasn't sure anymore whether he was doing his best to find a compromise, something, so that the two of them might continue onward, knowing it was both of them or none at all, or if Eobard had found a way to appeal to his bare minimum and to the consequence of their parting in order to get what he wanted.

Some would say, even within his own circle of friends and allies, that maybe this was just his trust issues, born out of that whole mess of a situation with his mother while he was growing up. And maybe it was. Except it sort of wasn't… He had Eobard in his head, as much as the reverse was also true. It meant that he knew the guy about as well as anyone could know a person, considering their predicament.

Today for example, just today… They had been in just the right place and time to rescue a worker from a fall, and that had been one of those moments where they were in total agreement, where Barry could easily recall everything they had done together since becoming Firestorm. And then not long after that, they had come across a breacher. There had been no doubt to it that this was what the man was. Some of them you could just tell by looking at them, looking how they behaved and carried themselves. This one came out of Dark Quarter, it was easy to see with how he moved, how the daylight clearly disoriented him, to the point of growing violent.

Barry had known, just by looking at him, the man was just frightened, and who wouldn't be, after spending all your life in a place that had no recollection of the sun, who spent their lives in permanent night, and then coming here, to their Earth, the brightness so foreign that it hurt your eyes… Barry saw this in him, and he wanted nothing more but to help the man, to get him where he might be helped. There was special equipment out there, to help people out of Dark adjust to the light, and once he had that… But all Eobard would see was the man as he appeared, crashing and careening, pushing people, yelling at them… He wanted more, wanted Barry to subdue him rather than reason with him. Even after having handled the situation and handed the breacher off to ARGUS, the merged Firestorm had gone off on his own, driver arguing with passenger.

That was the sight Kara Danvers was treated to, as she followed Seeker. A fire headed man talking animatedly to himself. The breach hopper had claimed she knew some people here on Main Earth who could come in handy as they offered their services to the team from the Waverider, and this was where she had taken her, to find the first.

"Who's he?" Kara asked, still baffled as she watched the man with the head on fire talking to himself. Somehow, she didn't see him being much use to them, unless they wanted to accidentally set a building on fire.

"Well he is Firestorm," Seeker gestured to the burning man. "Actually two people merged together." Kara went on looking at him now, and after a moment she understood. He wasn't talking to himself; he was talking to the other one.

"Doesn't sound like they get along too well," she pointed out.

"They have their moments," Seeker shrugged before motioning for Kara to follow her, walking in the direction of the one-sided argument. "Fellas, a word?" she called, and as Kara watched, the Firestorm man flared up and, after the flames dissipated, there stood two men. One of the them, the younger one, had been the face of the combined form she'd seen, so that had to make the older one 'the voice in his head.' Whatever they'd been arguing about, they put it aside for now, though something of it remained just there on their faces.

"What are you doing here, Seeker?" the older man asked, and Kara guessed he didn't care for her very much. Seeker went on without giving that undertone much attention.

"Kara, meet Barry Allen and Eobard Thawne, also known as Firestorm," she introduced. After a moment, Kara reached out her hand to the young one, Barry.

"Kara Z… Kara Danvers," she corrected herself quickly. Even after two years being back, two years of her having left Kara Zeta back in War Quarter, she still had to remind herself of her true name, her original name. "Black Siren," she tacked on, in hopes of distracting away from her slip up. They wouldn't understand the turmoil it left in her mind, attempting to reconcile who she had been in War, and who she'd been in those years she could not remember, and who she was expected to be since her return, who she wanted to be. She wasn't about to get into that with the two of them standing before her.

"Hey," he'd nodded in greeting, momentarily letting go of what remained of his argument with his partner. "So how do you two know each other?" he asked, indicating Seeker.

"Gave her a ride home once and she owed me," Seeker told him, cutting to the chase. "There's a situation brewing. I thought the two of you might be able to lend a hand, that is, if you don't mind helping a lot of people back on Breach Earth," she told them, her gaze turning to Eobard. Was that their issue then, that he didn't like breachers? Kara looked at him now, and she could already feel herself readjusting her stance. Growing up as she'd done in War, knowing to keep a look out for people you didn't know, people you couldn't say 100% you could trust… That was what kept a lot of them alive. Seeker would have known that, too, so if she mistrusted the man, then Kara would have to keep that in mind.

For the time being, they had to focus on the situation at hand. Reconvening at a nearby café, the four of them had taken a table, where both Seeker and Kara relayed what they had seen, and heard, and what they planned to do, what they needed Firestorm for. It had not been long that Barry sounded ready to join them and, to his credit, Eobard had not been far behind. They could see he understood the potential dangers this thing with the Mist water could create, and now that he knew, like the rest of them, there was just no way he would sit back and do nothing while the Waverider team and ARGUS did or didn't manage to rectify it.

"So what happens now?" Barry asked.

X

THE BREACH SHIP WAVERIDER

Agents Sharpe and Lane had returned, though they made it known that in due time they would have to go back and collect the two speedsters they had dropped off in Haven. Until then, they had been briefed on the situation they were due to look into. The prospect of flying into Mist, and the ongoing need to look after the Flash and Kid Flash over in Haven, left Leonard Snart to consider his next step carefully. Once they went into Mist, there was no telling how long they would be there, and at the same time there was something about the existing chain of events with the message passed from Breach to Main, the involvement of the Green Arrow, and now this crossing of the speedsters that told him this just might turn into another thing they needed to keep an eye on. This left him with only one option. Half the team would have to stay behind, stay close to this Flash situation, while the rest of them went on toward Mist.

They were going to need more people than this.

TO BE CONTINUED (tomorrow, in volume 2)