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For all our power, helpless.

There is nothing worse than being unable to help a friend, nothing worse than hearing the call for help and being able to do nothing. Could we have done something to help?

I'm no longer sure, was it fate? Does fate exist? Or do we fool ourselves into thinking that what will be will be? That the outcome is pretty much set and only the details change?

I suppose in a way they went out like true heroes, not of the costumed or vigilante variety, but as those who laid down their lives to help those who couldn't help themselves. For all their faults, for all the blood spilled over the years, for the tears, for the joy, for the triumphs and failures, they both went out trying to save the helpless. They went out not in a glorious fight, but in the tragedy that claimed the lives of twenty-seven others though not in vain, for their efforts saved over a hundred more. Not as vigilantes, but by being those willing to run into danger just to help others.

I still remember the tears in the desperate call for help, but we couldn't help, I couldn't help. We were unable, I was unable to help the night John Diggle and Oliver Queen died, unable to help as Felicity called desperately knowing we were the only ones fast enough to get there but we couldn't, we just couldn't.

Maybe fate exists, but if it does, it is a cruel power. As we were held in check, downed by injury and circumstances to stand by as they died, just over ten years ago. The mind is amazing, amazingly cruel, as my mind becomes less linear, the memories of pain and loss becoming inevitable wells in its landscape, inescapable as I try to focus on my task.

Our night had been almost disastrous, we almost lost our entire team and when Felicity called, begging for help, we were unable to even answer, so focussed on just keeping ourselves stable and alive. We had taken down the latest criminal gang to infest the city, why Central City attracted these vermin I have no idea, was it our fault? Was our team a challenge to take down, to become the big dog in criminal circles? But our success cost us, none of us died that night, but the cost was to the heroes of Star City, our friends, our colleagues, our mentors.

In taking down the Raven Lords, we suffered, it was painful, they had managed to take half the team out the fight in the first few moments. Even now as I remember the aftermath, in the medical rooms of Star Labs, how close we were to dying and that only the intervention of the then Captain Joe West, his SWAT team and the quick thinking of Harry Wells had ensured we didn't that night.

The Lords had managed to recruit a metahuman of their own and got their hands on some advanced technology, technology which they turned on us. I've give them credit, they gave it their best shot and they almost succeeded. Without the help of Joe, SWAT and Harry, we likely would have died.

I think of all of us, Wally was in the worst position, Wally who had taken to his role as hero like his father to being a cop. Only he liked the acclaim a little more. He suffered horribly at the mere touch of the metahuman the Lords had recruited, one touch and the vibrant speedster had faded away, nourishment and energy leaving his body, his speed draining what was left away. He collapsed in pain and disorientation, the confusion evident on his face as to what was happening. And the meta seemed to be able to keep him awake, as his body attempted to cannibalise itself, Wells was screaming at him to stop trying to move, to just stop, to try and slow down the degradation. We never found out the name of the meta as three of the SWAT team took it out with shotguns as it stood up away from Kid Flash (though he was no kid anymore, he just couldn't shake the name), the emaciated hero starting to scream in pain. Even after as he had been returned to Star Labs, the pain was evident on his face as Iris managed to get IVs and nutrient packs into him under the verbal instruction of Wells. That changed him that night, I don't think he ever got over the experience, I don't think any of us did really. And through it all Wally was awake, he could not rest, could not do anything but feel the pain.

I later learned that Joe and Wells had arranged for the metahuman remains to be incinerated, neither wanting that power to fall easily into the hands of others.

Cisco was as badly hurt as Wally, just more conventionally and in some ways he was luckier, he lost consciousness. You may not think it lucky, but the wounds on his body from the in close beating he took from the Lords were horrific. Vibe had tried to portal into the factory the Lords were in, timed to match when Kid Flash, Frost and I entered. The portal opened and as he emerged the Lords forced it shut, the resulted shockwave knocking him to the ground. He didn't have a chance, the Lords were around him, kicking and beating, holding his gloved hands flat and immobile rendering his blasts useless as he succumbed to the pain. From my position in the lab, I could see Wells and a Doctor we were associated with operate on him. Internal bleeding, ruptured spleen, broken bones not to mentioned the head trauma. Joe and SWAT had managed to save him, though at the cost of two of their own. That night had been bad, really bad.

Even now, I feel the fear, some ten years later of what could have happened that night. Or is it still happening? No, it was then and this is now, the now I am in.

I suppose Frost and I came off the best, at least once Wells got us over our panic at the outset, and though we did manage to help take out the Lords by the encounter's end we were so exhausted it was all we could do to keep each other alive. As I said, the Lords were prepared, as soon as Frost and I appear a grenade had been thrown at us, normally this wouldn't have phased us, I could bat it away, Frost could freeze it dead but this one went off far earlier and a energy wave struck us.

After the wave hit us, it wasn't immediately obvious what had happened. As we started to go to the aid of our friends, it happened. Frost started moving slower as if she couldn't move her limbs, the world slowed down becoming fuzzy around me, sounds becoming distorted. Frost yelled a warning to me, I couldn't understand her words, she becoming slower and slower and as it turns out I was getting faster and faster. The panic slowly moved across her face, unsure about what was happening, I could see it happening in painful slow speed, each muscle and twitch, her eyes slowly widening, the moisture in her eyes glassing over. I found out later that I had started to disassociate as I moved faster and faster while standing still, my speed starting to split me apart.

Frost, Caitlin, a look of panic etched on her face had almost stopped moving even in comparison to the slow world around me. I couldn't focus properly, everything was too slow and too fast, my thoughts were racing, I saw bullets standing still, the blood from Vibe's wounds hung in the air, the meta harming Wally in ultra-slow motion and I couldn't do anything. I was moving faster and faster but not going anywhere.

Then came Harry, through our communications, our suits had fed back the data of what was going on to him. He couldn't get Caitlin to understand, he couldn't pitch it correctly so that it would work through what was happening to her, he tried, I could hear the strange sounds coming across the comms as he did. She would have grasped instantly what needed to be done.

Suddenly I could understand him, he was telling me to get to Frost, to speed her up. I didn't understand, I tried to ask him, I spoke but I don't know if anything intelligible came out. He started again, he told me that we only had a short window until I wouldn't be solid enough to do anything, that he couldn't understand me and was having to speed up his words to get me to hear them. He told me to speed up Frost, to save Caitlin so that she could save me.

I was able to move so fast, a small push was enough to send me careening into the immobile Frost as the world around just stood still.

Screaming, I remember screaming, there were two screams, Hers and mine.

Harry's voice then came through clear to both of us, he had deduced that the grenade sent out a short range energy burst to amplify our powers. Hers amplified so much that she began to freeze herself solid, the matter in her body falling to such an energy state that it would kill her and collapse in upon itself, mine moving to such speed that it couldn't maintain coherence and I would essentially atomise myself. He stated, though he later admitted it was a gut instinct rather than any sound reasoning, that the contact with each other would help to stabilise us until a solution could be found or the effects wore off.

The screams were us getting back all the nerve impulses that had been disrupted, my speed stopping her from turning into essentially a statue, her cold slowing me down enough to avoid becoming a gas.

Harry warned us not to let go, not to separate, as the strange energy was still in our systems. If we let go, the process would continue.

So we clung to each other, the world coming back into focus for me, I saw the downed Cisco being taken out by the medic, Wally being dragged away by a SWAT team member, the Lords emerging to confront Joe and the remaining SWAT team. Caitlin made a small movement, she saw the two Lords appearing from behind crates near us, their guns coming up.

We turned and turned from that point on, maintaining the contact but it became a dance. My speed moving us around the floor as we swept through the Lords, her other hand touching guns and rendering them useless. It was a dance without music, with no discernable rhythm but the SWAT team members after said that it was one of the most beautiful and haunting things they had ever seen. We danced together, my lightning surrounding us keeping her moving, her ice coating us keeping me solid, the glow emanating from us a light yellow blue as we waltzed through the Lords. As we twirled, it was glorious, our powers merging, our movements in sync. In the years that followed I wondered if that was the closest people like us got to experience the bonding that is part of Firestorm.

The Lords broke quickly, SWAT taking them down as we moved through the factory. As one Lord broke past a SWAT member, Frost create an ice ball which she pressed into my hand, it launched at such speed as we moved. The ice ball smashed into the leg of the fleeing Lord, smashing his arm and tumbling him to the ground. The ball ended up embedded in the wall sixty feet away.

But as quickly as we started it ended, we fell together, we had expended so much energy. Harry could be heard telling Joe to bring us all into Star Labs, that Doctor Mistral was being called in, Iris had the medical bays setup. And above all he stated do not let Frost and Allen let go, otherwise we will lose them. It was all we could do, to hold onto the other's hand. We were so tired but if one of us faltered we would both perish. I couldn't let her die, and she couldn't let me die not after all we had been through since the particle accelerator explosion.

Joe helped, he managed to fashion a binding on our wrists that kept us in contact as we slumped in the police van screaming towards Star Labs. Iris was worried over the comms, her friends, her brother, her husband were all injured.

I don't remember much between the van and lab. I remember seeing Iris tend to Wally, Cisco being operated on. As I said, I think Frost and I got off the best, at least we had a shared experience, someone to talk to that understood what was going on in a visceral sense. We talked quietly with each other, huddled together on a medical cot. It was four days before we were stable enough to be separated, the energy causing it dissipating away before Harry could come up with a solution. I think our understanding of each other grew even more those four days, an increased closeness between us. I miss Caitlin, the Lady Frost.

As we sat huddled together, the others being tended to, we heard Felicity come over our comms, pleading for help. Wally, ever trying to help, moved pitifully to try and get up, Iris gently holding him down, brother and sister with matching sorrow in their eyes. Frost and I tried to get up, but the energy wasn't there anymore, we could hold each other together but anything more any we would be gone. Cisco, perhaps mercifully, unconscious did not hear the anguish in her voice though Harry did, his face turned to stone, as he understood that no one could help, for all our powers, for all our intelligence, we were spent. All we could do was listen as our friend asked for our help.

Felicity begged us to get to Star City, that John and Oliver had entered a burning building to save civilians, that they weren't there as the Arrow or any of their other identities, and that now she had lost track of them, that comms weren't working. That they were just John and Oliver, that for all their disagreements and faults, they had to help the helpless.

We listened, we apologised pitifully for not being able to help, that we had nothing left to give. Caitlin and I clung to each other, we tried one last time to speed away, but it failed, all our energy was needed just to stay alive.

Joe walked into the labs, anguish across his face, obviously he was worried about us, but his demeanour soured even further as Felicity's voice echoed in the room. Then Curtis' voice came across, he had managed to get to the building but couldn't do anything, nothing he had would help and the entry points were all blocked. He was helping to herd the survivors that John and Oliver had got out the building to safety. The panic in both their voices increased as an explosion came across the communications.

Joe's phone buzzed and possibly to try and take his mind off what he was hearing he looked at it. He switched on of the lab monitors on, using the computer to bring up a live feed from the news.

I looked at the screen, an entire block of flats were engulfed in flames. A reporter was mindlessly spewing out a report, but across the bottom scrolled information, the former mayor Oliver Queen and his long time associate John Diggle were now missing in the building after rushing in to help those inside. We saws the explosions. The building began to collapse, it began to happen in slow motion. Felicity was incoherent over the comms, we could see on the screen Curtis attempting to get everyone nearby away. Of John and Oliver we saw nothing.

If only we hadn't taken down the Lords that night, if only we had waited or gone earlier. If I or Wally could have moved, it would have been over in seconds, if we could have gotten Frost there she could have solved it easily, if, if there are always ifs. But then there were no ifs.

Only that John and Oliver were dead. Not in some glorious battle with super-villains or aliens, but in a simple act of heroism. They died to save others, no fanfare, no costumes, just doing what they thought had to be done.

Both were men of character, both mentors to the younger generation, they were the first of us, neither had metahuman powers but stood against anything that came their way that threatened that which they held dear. We may not always have agreed but there was always respect.

Now they were gone, their lives over but in doing so they saved a hundred more. Those lives continued, their legacy that day.

Felicity had gone quiet, Curtis too. Then we heard the comms go dead.

Around the room, only the surgery on Cisco was audible, quiet and antiseptic. Joe and Iris clutching to Wally's hands, tears welling in all their eyes. We had just witnessed the end of friends, however remotely viewed, listened to another lose her partner and friend. All while we could do nothing, while we were unable to bring our talents to the fore. Caitlin and I still clung to each other, unable and unwilling to let go of the contact.

I think Felicity never got over that day, her bubbly manner became subdued, her focus even sharper. I wondered, still do wonder, if she blamed us for not being there to help.

It wasn't a criminal plot, it was an accident. For months, people thought it had been a plot to kill Oliver and John, or some insurance scam, but eventually it boiled down to an accident. John and Oliver saved people and paid a price, we all paid a price that day. We aren't gods, but having power and be unable to help became a special kind of hell.

Cisco took three days to awaken and four months to finish physically healing.

Wally took a month to get back up to strength.

Caitlin and I were stable after four days.

But I don't think any of us really recovered from that day.

The day John Diggle and Oliver Queen died.

Feedback or comments welcome.