Barry and Alicia found themselves getting ready for the rally that morning. After their talk with Hal and Iris, they ultimately decided on going, because A. they knew Hal and Iris were right, and B. they needed to accept that Ronnie and Carol sacrificed themselves and that it had been their choice to do so. As much as Barry grieved for Carol, he knew that he needed to find some way to move on. He took a deep breath and looked over at his girlfriend, who was in her white and rose gold suit, her domino mask on her face. Barry knew that Hal, Iris, Joe, Cisco and Eddie were all going to be there that day for them to support them. As much as this embarrassed Barry with all this attention, something that he was not used to, he was going to go for his family and friends that were there. Alicia knew that if Dick were here, he'd want her to go. Alicia clutched Barry's hand for support as they stood behind a stage area, hearing the cheering crowd. When they had arrived, they were shocked by the amount of people that were there. Little kids, teenagers and adults alike all there, some cosplaying as Angel and Flash, little kids clutching balloons and wearing t-shirts, teenage girls holding signs. There were a few people dressed as Nightwing. If Dick were here he'd probably be flattered.
Alicia could feel herself blushing when she noticed a little girl wearing a t-shirt that said, 'Fight like the Angel.' Who knew that Alicia would inspire so many little girls to be tough, beautiful and bold in their own right? Alicia thought at this point that she was being painted as the poster girl for feminism, something that she never thought of herself as. Her mom had called her the night before, telling Alicia that she, Massie, Paul and Dominic were going to be watching her on TV. Maybe that was part of why Alicia went to the rally, because she didn't want to disappoint her family. Oliver and Felicity had also called ahead, telling them good luck at the rally, and that they will be watching too.
"Barry, who thought the two of us, would have brought a crowd like this today?" Alicia whispered to her boyfriend as her eyes fell on another little girl, wearing a white t-shirt that said, 'Fight like a girl' with a rose gold cursive A on the shoulders, like a football jersey of sorts. In fact, that little girl was wearing a similar domino mask to Alicia's on her face, and she had her hair tied up similar to how Alicia's hair was.
"I never would have thought that you would be an inspiration for so many kids," Barry whispered to her. "I love you."
"I love you more." Alicia kissed Barry on the lips gently.
They looked out into the crowd, and they could see not only Hal and Iris standing next to each other with Eddie, but they also saw Cisco and Joe hanging back with the CCPD. They were also shocked to see Caitlin there too, a small smile on her face.
"Good morning, Central City!" the mayor boomed into the microphone. The whole entire crowd cheered wildly. "A year ago, our world changed. Our city became ground zero, for some pretty weird stuff. We got a new group of criminals, men and women who defied not only our laws, but physics and reason. In the process, we got three amazing heroes, one who had left to go and protect Bludhaven, New York. While Nightwing is very much missed, we wish him all of our best. But, today, we still have the Flash and the Angel, the superhero couple who have been going around saving our city! Our wounds run deep from the threats of the past year, and I know that you are all still scared of what's to come. But, the Flash and the Angel do not just protect us, they give us all hope. That's why I am proud to present the key to the city to the couple themselves, the Flash and the Angel!" That was their cue to get out on stage. Barry and Alicia walked out onto the stage together, hand in hand, the nervousness in their stomachs. However, when the couple looked out into the crowd, they saw Hal smiling supportively, giving them the thumbs up, and letting them both know that it was all going to be fine. Caitlin smiled widely as the pair walked onto the stage.
The entire crowd started to pump their fists in response to Barry and Alicia walking out on stage, chanting, "Flash and Angel, Flash and Angel, Flash and Angel," over and over again. Alicia and Barry just walked across the stage towards the mayor, who smiled brightly at them.
"Our doors will forever be open to the two of you," the mayor said, handing Alicia and Barry the key to the city, letting them know that they will always be welcome, and that they will forever be seen as heroes. Slowly, Alicia felt herself able to relax. Thank God she and Barry were behind masks, because they could conceal just how nervous they actually we feeling as of right now.
Before Alicia could take the key, they were both surprised to see a food vendor being tossed into the air. Hal turned around and saw it himself. Thank God his ring was charged, that he thought to charge it before leaving Joe's house, because if he hadn't, they would all be in trouble, even with the help of the Flash and the Angel. Barry quickly turned and moved the mayor to safety.
"Look out!" Joe yelled as the crowd started to disperse.
"We need to do something right now. We need to figure this out. Do you have any ideas?" Alicia asked her boyfriend.
"Sorry, honey," Barry said with a slight shake of his head. They noticed a man walking over towards them, wearing a black trench coat and a thick iron mask. Hal quickly ran around the corner to go and get his Green Lantern suit on. Once Hal made sure that there were no civilians around, he whispered the Green Lantern oath to himself.
"In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight," Hal said softly. "Let those who worship evil's might, beware of my power, Green Lantern's light!" His bright green and white suit instantly appeared on his body, and he was ready just in case Barry or Alicia needed him.
"The man and woman who saved Central City, hate to rain on your parade!" the metahuman shouted. From what Hal could see, the guy essentially had super strength. Barry and Alicia went at him like bats out of hell, but they went flying backwards. Hal caught them with a giant green hand before they went toppling onto somebody's car hood, and lowered them down gently.
"Hey!" Hal said in his Lantern voice. "Can I play too? I was there that day when they saved the city! And I happen to be the closest thing the Flash and the Angel have to a best friend!"
"And what do they call you?" the Meta asked.
"The Green Lantern," Hal replied with a confidant smirk on his face. Hal flew towards the Meta and formed a giant green collar around his neck with his hard light energy from the ring. He was confident that he could hold this Meta long enough until the police could apprehend him. The police officers were surrounding the Meta and shooting at him, but it only seemed to agitate the metahuman even more.
"Cisco," Joe called out. He knew that they needed to get this metahuman in their custody immediately and figure out what exactly was going on inside his body. That would have been Caitlin's department, but she currently wasn't there. "Cisco, use the boot!"
"Right," Cisco said, grabbing the piece of technology that he had built to wrap around the Meta's ankles to keep him in place. He grabbed the boot and threw it over to Joe. "It's locked and fully loaded!"
Joe grabbed the gun-like weapon and fired it at the metahuman's ankle, but when he did that, the Meta proceeded to grow bigger and bigger, like a giant. Hal tried to get more juice out of his Lantern ring to make the collar stronger, but he wasn't expecting the Meta to get his hands around the collar, break it off, and fling Hal backwards towards Alicia and Barry. Alicia jumped up and caught Hal before he face planted on the ground.
"Holy shit," whispered Alicia, rising to her feet. "The cops can't fight this. I have to get back in there. I think that something we just enough force should take him down. I think my strength combined with yours should work," she added to Hal. Hal nodded and dusted himself off. He proceeded to form a giant green monster truck and rammed it over the giant Meta human as Alicia flew in and punched the metahuman hard in the face, knocking his mask off, but she was shocked to see that this Meta looked exactly like Al Rothstein, who had died at the power plant the other day. However, instead of going down the Meta just grew even larger, towering over everyone, and then he crashed down. Hal formed a giant green shield to protect the cops from the aftermath of what was going on. He looked over at Barry, Eddie, Iris and Alicia.
"Are you guys all right?" Hal asked.
"Yeah, yeah, we're okay," Iris panted.
"Thanks for the assist, man," Barry said.
"This is why you two shouldn't do stuff like this without me," Hal said with a small grin.
"My only question is this: how is Al Rothstein even alive?" Eddie asked.
"That's what we need to figure out," Alicia whispered. "We need to go back to the lab."
"I'll go with you two," said Hal.
"No, GL, don't," Alicia said sternly, refraining from calling him Hal due to the amount of people around them.
Later, at the CCPD, Cisco, Joe, Iris and Eddie found themselves sitting at the computers, looking for any info that they could about the metahuman that they had been trying to stop at the rally.
"According to the coroner's office, Al Rothstein's body was in the morgue all night, so we can scratch off 'zombie attack,'" Cisco said after having hacked into the computers.
"Does Rothstein have a twin brother?" Eddie asked.
"Nope, he's an only child," said Iris with a shake of her head. "But, according to a report, the night of the particle accelerator explosion, Rothstein was actually on his honeymoon in Hawaii."
"So we're looking for a guy who is really strong, can grow twice his size, and happens to look like the man that was murdered?" asked Joe.
"I would think this Meta was really cool, if everything about him didn't just terrify me to my core," said Cisco.
"Is that what happened to you?" asked Eddie when he realized Cisco had had a terrified expression on his face when Rothstein's powers got stronger. "You looked really spooked there for a minute."
"Well, I just got a text from Linda, I asked her for some information," Iris said. "According to her, the hospital next to the rally, the X-ray and CT machines all failed at once. Was that because of something you did?"
Cisco denied it, saying, "I did not do anything that would cause that. I'm ninety-two percent sure." Eddie and Iris shot him a look. "I'll go make it a hundred, excuse me." He walked out of the precinct, knowing who he needed to talk to about this. Iris gave her father and her fiancé a look.
"Are you okay, Iris?" Eddie asked.
"We need to talk. Barry cannot do this alone anymore," Iris said. "Alicia included."
"That's their plan," said Joe. "And I don't know how to talk them out of it. At this point, I'm just trying not to push them further away."
"Well maybe Barry and Alicia have been so successful at pushing me, you and everyone else away, because we keep letting them," Iris said. "We should stop enabling them."
"I think that you just might have the right idea," Eddie said.
A/N:
Okay, I never thought that I'd be posting two chapters tonight, but, I just finished writing chapter five, so I decided to get this one up tonight.
Okay, so I have to say I really enjoyed the Elongated Man episode of the Flash from this week. Since I didn't do a YouTube video for it, I did a full blog post on it on my website, and I will have a blog review up for Arrow tomorrow as well, so if you want to check those out, my website is listed on my main page here on FanFiction.
Flashraven: next chapter, we will be meeting Hunter Zolomon masquerading as Jay Garrick, and our surprise character that I am adding in. In short terms, I decided to give Alicia her own villain who will be named Desdemona. The name Desdemona is Greek and means ill-fated one. I started thinking what's the opposite of an Angel who gives hope to so many people, who heals and brings comfort, and who seems to have a pretty good fate as of now in the present? So when I found the name Desdemona I thought it would be perfect, because this villain will have all the same abilities that Alicia has, just a lot more intense than hers are. I didn't want Alicia to have another evil speedster to fight against again, so I thought giving her a villain with her same power sets would be better than her fighting the evil speedster of the story.