"Wally, are you okay?" Joe asks frantically.
Wally gets to his feet, rubbing his head. "Yeah, I'm fine." He runs around the tree, but the meta is gone. "Should I come back?"
"Yes. There's no use going after him if we don't know how to stop him," Wells replies.
Wally starts back to S.T.A.R. Labs, a little disappointed in himself.
When he returns, Cisco watches his vibe come to life as Wally, across the Cortex, removes the Flash mask. "Cool," he mutters to himself.
"Sorry," Wally says. "I guess I wasn't fast enough."
"Nah, you were plenty fast enough," Barry assures him. "It just takes practice."
"I ran into a tree."
Barry laughs. "Don't worry about it. I once ran into the stream of a gun firing absolute cold, and one firing absolute heat. At the same time. It happens. Hard to control speed when everyone's trying to kill you."
"You'll do better next time," Iris assures Wally.
"Did you get a look at his face?" Cisco asks.
"He was wearing a mask."
Wells nods. "If he's going after something at Mercury Labs, this… Plant Master might have a connection to them. Cisco, start checking for any other Mercury Labs employees who went missing after the particle accelerator explosion."
"Already on it," Cisco says. "And, by the way, we are not calling him the Plant Master. This is why we don't let the supervillains name themselves. I'm thinking… Floron."
"Floron?" Barry raises an eyebrow at Cisco. "Usually your names make a little bit more sense."
"Hey. Floron is a perfectly good name. It's like flora, so, plants, plus, it has the on ending, which clearly makes it sound cooler. See: Voltron. Megalodon. Tachyon."
"Whatever we're going to call him, how are we going to stop him?" Wells asks.
"Well, maybe if I don't run into a tree next time, that'll help," Wally says.
"If Caitlin were here, she would figure out how Floron is doing all of this," Cisco says.
Everybody looks away, mostly at the floor. They take a moment to collect themselves.
"Cisco, have you gotten the results about Mercury Labs employees?" Joe asks finally.
"Um, yeah." Cisco checks the screen. "There are a few employees who still haven't shown up after the accelerator exploded. They were reported missing."
"Cross-reference them with anyone working on plant-based projects," Wells says.
"Right, of course." He types for a moment, and then a name and picture pop up on the screen. "Jason Woodrew. He worked at Mercury Labs and was doing some tests on plants, trying to alter their genetic makeup to make them more resistant to diseases and pests."
The image is a Mercury Labs ID picture of a man with long blonde hair and a bright smile. No sign of him becoming a building-destroying meta.
"Have there been any other sightings of… Floron… recently?" Barry asks.
Cisco spins in the chair to face Iris. "You're the one with the blog about metas. Any tips?"
Iris pulls out her phone and scrolls through emails and PMs sent to her blog account. "There are a few vague accounts of something to do with plants," she says. "They didn't have any detail and seemed unreliable, so I ignored them. I get a lot of false reports by people who are just trying to get featured on the blog. But I'll forward the Floron ones to you."
"Barry and I should head over to C.C.P.D. They'll want us for this new meta case," Joe says. He gives Iris a good-naturedly disapproving look. "And don't you have a job, Iris?"
"Yeah. Probably ought to go every once in a while if I don't want to be fired."
"I'll go… something," Wally says. "I just need a few minutes."
Barry recalls how he ran off when first dealing with his powers. All the way to Starling City to talk to Oliver Queen. "Take as much time as you need."
"In the meantime, Cisco and I will try to locate Floron," Wells says.
"And figure out how to save Caitlin," Cisco adds.
The team splits.
Barry isn't used to walking in on a metahuman crime scene and seeing it for the first time. The sight is even more shocking than Wally described: all of the marble floor is shattered, and the interior of the building is, other than the occasional glimpse of sterile white walls or furniture, indistinguishable from a jungle.
"Wow. Metahuman?" Barry asks Captain Singh, feigning ignorance. "I could take some of the plants back to my lab and see what I can figure out. Is it a meta?"
"It looks like it. Do that, but first help Joe talk to the witnesses. Apparently the Flash showed up, but the metahuman escaped."
Barry and Joe nod. When Singh walks away, they look at each other and smirk. Both know they'll learn nothing new from the witnesses.
But off they go to interview them anyway and pretend they know nothing about what just happened.
Wally runs back to Joe's place. He wants something familiar, something normal, so he heads out back to his car.
When he gets there, he remembers. The car was struck by lightning. There's no way it'll work now.
He climbs inside and tries to start it. Nothing. It's dead.
Maybe something can be salvaged, at least. He opens up the hood and starts examining the parts.
Weirdly, everything seems to be in perfect condition. There's a scorch mark that's imprinted a black lightning pattern on the top of the red car, but other than that every part is perfectly in order.
The car just doesn't run.
He reenters the car, sticks the keys in, and looks at the dash for a moment.
His gaze shifts to his hands. Wally recalls how he somehow transferred speed to Barry.
Would that work with an inanimate object?
Wally knows cars. He knows how they work, how they drive, how to push them to the limits of their abilities without endangering the vehicle. He knows cars.
He reaches out again to start the car.
This time, white electricity flows through his hand and into the ignition.
The car starts.
So he's off to the street races.
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Cisco puts on the glasses again and tries to vibe Caitlin. He's not entirely sure why he does it anymore—he knows exactly where she is and what her situation is—but that's not going to stop him from doing it.
Jay's back, bringing her food. It's not that bad, considering that she's a prisoner. Looks like Chinese.
"Why are you doing all of this?" Caitlin sounds exhausted, but she takes the food. "Why take me if you're just going to keep me in this cell?"
Jay looks at her. "Because I can, Caitlin. Because the Flash isn't around to save you." He starts to walk away.
"Do you think I would ever love you again?" Caitlin calls after him.
Cisco grits his teeth. "No, Caitlin, don't say that!"
He watches, terrified, as Jay turns back.
In an instant, Jay's in front of her, in full Zoom getup. Caitlin stumbles back a step, but still glares bravely at him, crossing her arms. "Well?"
"I don't take prisoners for their love." Zoom looks at the man in the iron mask, a cell away, and then back to Caitlin. "I take them to prove a point. And you, Cait, prove that I've beaten the Flash."
"You haven't beaten him," Caitlin promises. "They're going to stop you, Hunter."
Cisco, more than seeing it, feels Jay grow furious. He pulls off the Zoom mask.
If it were in the real world, Cisco would be squeezing his eyes shut so as not to see what happens next. Here, the only way he could avoid it is leaving the vibe, and he can't leave Caitlin.
But all Jay says, in a voice colder than Killer Frost, is, "Don't call me Hunter."
He zooms away, leaving Caitlin alone but for the man in the iron mask and an invisible Cisco.
It's the middle of the day, but Wally always knows where to go to find street racing, twenty-four hours a day. Around this time of day, it's a seedy back alley in the bad part of town. A smaller group than usual, but that's all right.
He races.
And, with his newfound abilities, wins every time.
He'd win anyway, he's sure, but that doesn't stop him from adding little jolts of speed into the car, revving up its power and velocity.
When he gets out of the car after a particularly impressive win, a gorgeous brunette comes up to him with an almost flirtatious grin.
"That was pretty cool," she says.
"Thanks," Wally says, acting casual. His heart is beating fast, but not because of the adrenaline of racing nor the exertion of running. She's beautiful. "What's a girl like you doing out here?"
She smirks. "Isn't that a little stereotypical of a question? I could ask what a guy like you is doing here, but I guess with that kind of talent, it's pretty obvious." She laughs. "But to answer your question, I'm on the run."
"From the police?" Wally isn't sure how seriously to take her answer. "No, wait, let me guess—you're an international spy who's wanted on three different continents."
"How'd you know?" She laughs.
While she's laughing, Wally figures he better take advantage. "You want to take a ride in the fastest car in the city? We could see how quick it gets to Jitters, have some coffee."
"You asking me out? I guess that car isn't the only thing that moves fast." She's still smiling, so Wally takes that as a good sign.
"You have no idea." Wally opens the passenger side door for her.
She gets inside.
Wally mentally fist-pumps and gets into the driver's side.
"I'm Wally, by the way."
"Jesse."
A/N: Last night I scribbled out plans for the rest of this story across eleven post-it notes. Guys, this is gonna be awesome. I'm planning on writing a lot very quickly, so it'll be done by Tuesday—I won't want to directly contradict canon when it inevitably tears apart this fic. This might mean I upload five chapters on Tuesday. We'll see!
By the way, you can thank mjf2468 for everything past the first chapter—she encouraged me to keep going and so I did! Plus, she writes awesome Arrow fanfic. Check it out.