The metahuman taskforce stood in formation in the town square, waiting for the Flash to return with the group of metas who had killed the mayor. The members of the taskforce were clearly uneasy, fidgeting and looking around nervously. The fact that their cars were stocked with anti-meta weapons didn't seem to ease anyone's nerves. The weapons were a last resort, of course, as they had agreed to meet peacefully. But these metas were killers. Precautions had to be taken, in case things didn't go as planned. Who knew what motivation these people had had to kill?
As if on cue, the Flash appeared with two of the metas, a dark brown haired man with a leather jacket, and a long haired Chinese woman with devil-like red horns and a matching tail. Flames sparked to life in the man's hands as he spotted the police standing in formation, causing several of them to inch backwards. The woman just stared at them coldly, almost challenging. In a swirl of smoke, a light brown haired man materialized in the square along with another man and what looked like a huge wolf, at least the size of a small horse. The wolf took a deep breath in and made an expression much like a smirk, as if it could smell their fear. The taskforce became gradually more uneasy as the blue dragon swooped in, still looking intimidating despite having come in peace.
The dragon touched down heavily behind the others and folded her massive blue wings against her sides. Her gaze swept over her own group first, then her head swung around to look at the taskforce. Tail sweeping back and forth, she rose to her full height and flashed a menacing grin, filled with long, sharp fangs.
"Hello again," she spoke, her deep voice reverberating through the square. "Let's make a deal, shall we?"
(Flash POV)
Cisco's voice buzzed in my ear. "I've hacked into the traffic cams- we've got eyes on the square."
I heard Iris's voice next, sounding urgent. "Barry, be careful. If things get ugly..."
"It'll be fine, Iris," I replied. "We're here to compromise. Hopefully we'll reach an agreement and keep these guys out of jail."
I noticed Joe stepping forwards and silently cursed. I'd forgotten he was part of the taskforce.
Joe met my eyes briefly before focusing on the group. "My name is Detective Joe West. I'm head of the metahuman taskforce."
"Nice to meet ya," Jack replied, and Joe nodded at him quickly before continuing.
"We have agreed to meet here on peaceful terms for the moment, and I hope to keep it that way. However, we do need to know why you killed the mayor, and if you realized the consequences of that."
Mora stepped up this time, looking slightly irked. I remembered her ambition from earlier, and I silently prayed that she wouldn't do anything stupid.
"Firstly, we know all about consequences. Hell, we were prepared for death a bit earlier today. And as for our motive, well listen up, 'cause it's a good one." I mentally facepalmed at her sassiness, but kept following the conversation, not wanting to miss anything.
Alex and Mark butted in next, trading off telling about the metahuman kids. Meanwhile, i watched the faces of the police. I could relate to most of what I saw, namely the horror and shock radiating from the crowd. I knew what they felt like. After all this time, thinking you were fighting the good fight, only to realize that they'd been completely oblivious to tons of innocent lives being threatened every day.
However, I saw a few faces in the crowd that looked suspicious to me, but I just couldn't figure out why. Frowning, I kept that thought in the back of my mind as the group finished their story.
One of the officers responded quite angrily, saying, "You have no proof of this! You killed an innocent man!" Joe silenced him with a glare, but it was too late.
Callie snarled, and both Alex and Mark filled their hands with ice and fire. Mora's tail arched over her head like a scorpion, and Jack took a defensive stance. Lere's growl echoed around the square, and the police force instinctively reached for their firearms. Clearly they weren't as trusting as I had hoped, I thought as I prepared to run.
"No evidence, you say?" Callie growled, stalking forwards. "Those laws would have identified every meta in the city. Anyone could track down metas easier than ever and kill them! Is that not clear enough? In fact, your beloved mayor had every reason to hate metas! One killed his wife in cold blood, don't you recall? Do you not remember his attempts to militarize this very taskforce? He wanted metas dead, and these laws would have done it for him, with no blame at all! Metas would go extinct, destroyed by your precious, innocent civilians! Then, with no evil metas to worry about, how long would it take for someone to start seeing the Flash as a threat?" I jolted slightly at the mention of my name. "How long until your city's great hero would be hunted and killed, just for being the last meta? Is that what you wanted?!"
Lere spoke up, his tone the calmest I had ever heard it. "We were trying to prevent homicide. Killing one to save hundreds. A worthy cause, is it not?"
Joe took some time to respond. When he did, his voice was strong and decisive. "These innocent metas you speak of- how do you propose we protect them?"
"We have to team up," Mora replied, cutting right to the heart of the matter. A gust of indecision swept over the taskforce, murmurs of disbelief rising up from the crowd.
"Detective, surely you can't be considering working with these people!" A man cried out, gesturing to the group of metas. "They are killers! We can't just let them walk free!"
Joe leveled a stern gaze at the man, though I could see it lacked the normal amount of courage. This was certainly a difficult matter to deal with. "They were preventing homicide, officer. I understand your concern, but this is not an ordinary situation. Yes, they killed, but for a great cause. Without them, hundreds of innocents would have died."
The officer backed down grudgingly, and Jack took that as an invitation to continue the discussion. "You lot need to spread the word- PSAs, news articles- anything to explain the mayor's death and try to prevent the fear of metas. We've already established that fear is a huge factor in this whole mess, and if we can get rid of that, then we'll be off to a good start."
"We'll team up with the Flash to protect the people," Mark added. I was surprised by his offer, but nodded anyways, more than willing to help. "You guys keep looking for normal criminals, and we'll go after evil metas, and people targeting the innocent ones. We'll contact each other if things get really shitty. We've been doing this for almost two years now- if we work together, we can prevent even more deaths."
"However," Lere interjected, "Instead of killing them, we'll give any non-meta criminals to you guys."
The taskforce looked pretty satisfied overall, though I did spot some unsavory faces in the mix.
"What do you say?" Callie concluded, meeting Joe's eyes. "Deal?"
*timeskip brought to you by a lame-ass author*
(3rd person POV)
"SHIT, we gotta go!" Mark cursed, bursting into the cortex of STAR Labs. A pair of binoculars was hanging out of his pocket.
"The hell- what's going on?" Jack jumped at the sudden entry, dropping his pretzels.
"Those anti-meta fuckers from the meeting," Mora answered, entering after Mark. Her binoculars were hanging around her neck, and she seemed generally calmer, strangely. "Guess they've been looking for places we might be hiding, and they thought STAR was abandoned."
"Well, it sure does look abandoned," Caitlin commented. "As far as most people know, we went out of business after the particle accelerator." She turned to Jack, who had just finished picking up his pretzels. "Go get Cisco and Barry. Tell them we need to move." Jack nodded, disappearing in a swirl of grey and reappearing moments later with Cisco and Barry.
"We hid all the Flash stuff," Cisco informed the rest of the room. "Well, besides the obvious," he corrected himself, gesturing to the suit Barry was wearing.
"I'll teleport everyone to the apartment," Jack spoke up. "If our friendly neighborhood meta-haters see the Flash running away from here, we'll have some issues." He held out his arms. "Grab on."
Caitlin, Barry, Alex, and Mark held onto his left arm, while Cisco, Callie (in human form), and Mora grabbed onto his right, with Mora holding onto Lere's shoulder. Grey smoke enveloped them all, and they disappeared without a trace, seconds before their enemies stormed into the room.
The group landed heavily in the apartment, just barely avoiding breaking the coffee table in half. Alex, Caitlin, Cisco and Mora all fell onto the couch, not enjoying the aftereffects of the strange travel method. Barry and Mark staggered, but stayed standing, while everyone else was more or less unaffected.
"Okay, what now?" Callie asked, pacing again. She really needed to stop making a habit of this.
Just then, Barry's phone rang loudly, startling most of the room. The speedster pulled it out and looked at the caller address.
"It's Joe," he told the room before accepting the call. "Hey, Joe. You're on speakerphone."
"Hey Barry," Joe replied, sounding a bit out of breath. "I couldn't stop them from storming STAR... is everyone okay?"
"We're all fine," Mora interjected, having gotten up from the couch. "It's probably not safe to say where we are over the phone, but we got outta there before we were spotted."
"Good," Joe replied. "I've convinced most of the taskforce that you're not evil, but there are still a few out there looking for all of you, including the Flash. According to them, he's 'siding with fugitives' and needs to be stopped."
Caitlin took the phone from Barry, who was looking worriedly out the window. Mark and Jack started closing the window shades, not wanting to be spotted, and Alex and Cisco became the unofficial watchmen, looking for taskforce vehicles out of the corners of the covered windows.
"Is there anything we can do to help, Joe?" Caitlin asked. "You seem like you could use some help."
Joe sighed. "I wish you could, but it's safer if you stay hidden. Going out in public will just lead the anti-meta cops to you faster, and trust me, they'll be prepared this time. I've been managing to keep them out of occupied houses so far, but I didn't think they'd get to STAR so fast. It's only been an hour since the meeting, but they've been searching nonstop."
Caitlin wasn't entirely convinced. "But what about me and Cisco? We're not fugitives, so we could help you out-"
Joe cut her off. "You two should stay with the others, in case things go wrong and they need backup. I can manage over here, and Iris has been helping me out, so just stay safe until this whole mess is sorted out. I'll keep you updated, when I can."
With that the man hung up.
The next hour was tense. Both Barry and Callie wouldn't stop pacing, and Alex and Cisco had stayed right where they were at the windows, constantly watching for any sign of trouble. The rest of the group wasn't exactly relaxed, however.
"There's got to be something we can do," Mark insisted, pulling at his hair. "We started this whole mess, we should be the ones cleaning it up."
"Technically the mayor was the one who started it with his damn laws," Mora commented, coming out of the kitchen with a beer. She chucked some snacks at Jack, who tossed a few Twizzlers to Cisco and Alex. Mora sat down between Lere and Caitlin, putting her red Converse shoes up on the coffee table. "Mark's right though, we should be helping."
"How?" Caitlin pointed out. "We can't go out and fight them, because that'll prove that we're dangerous. And we can't talk it out either- we already tried that."
"Since when was it we?" Mora retorted. "Last I checked, you're not being hunted by the cops!" Caitlin bristled, but Lere broke in before she could respond.
"Hey! I know the situation is pretty shitty, but it'll only get worse if we're at each other's throats the whole time. You heard Joe- we're safest here, until this bullshit gets worked out. Got it?"
Before he could get an answer, Cisco got the attention of the room by saying, "Guys? Two police cars just stopped at the front of the street, a few houses down."
Everyone stopped fighting instantly, and a few people crowded around Cisco to look out of the window.
"It looks like they're checking each house on the street," Cisco continued. "We've got three minutes, tops, before they get here."
Caitlin stepped forward, confidence outweighing the fear in her voice. "Everyone gather round. I've got an idea."
(FYI: This is before Cisco becomes Vibe, so no one thinks he's a meta)
The taskforce officers took less time than Cisco anticipated, which made it even better that Caitlin's plan was a fast one. As the doorbell of the apartment rang, Cisco and Caitlin went to answer it, pretending to be roommates. Meanwhile, the rest of the group hid in the basement, only accessible from a trapdoor hidden under a rug in Mark's room.
Barry and Jack were very tense, as they couldn't afford to be distracted. Their roles in the plan were simple but vital. If a taskforce officer opened the trapdoor, then Jack would teleport everyone in the basement away, except for Barry. The speedster would then run into the house and get Caitlin and Cisco out, and possibly knock out the officers if there was a chance.
The people in the basement could hear the apartment doorbell ring, and the sound of footsteps as Cisco and Caitlin went to answer it. Muffled conversation followed, though the words were hard to make out.
The real tension began when the officers started searching the house. The group knew this would happen, but it was still nerve-wracking to hear the people who hunted them stomping around above them.
There was a loud bang as the door of Mark's room slammed open, and the group in the basement immediately silenced themselves. Jack held out his arms, and everyone except Barry grabbed on as quietly as possible. They listened to the sound of footsteps above them, and all seemed to be going well, until the trapdoor let out a creak.
Everyone froze, preparing for the worst. Someone must have stepped on the trapdoor through the rug, and Barry and Jack prepared for the trapdoor to swing open and officers to shoot.
Strangely, neither of these things happened, and it wasn't long until they could hear the officers leaving. Soon the sound of cars driving away was heard, and a grinning Cisco opened the trapdoor.
"All clear, guys!" He told them, practically glowing with enthusiasm. They climbed out of the basement and celebrated briefly, then Jack and Mora replaced Cisco and Alex on watch duty. Though the apartment had just been checked, the group wanted to be prepared in case the taskforce came back.
Two hours passed before Joe called them again, this time with good news.
"It's over you guys! We've convinced the taskforce to let you off the hook, for now. As long as you don't do anything stupid, you should be fine."
"Define stupid," Jack replied with a straight face, causing the rest of the room to crack up. Joe ignored the question. "Take care of yourselves. Now get out there and start helping people."
The group had a small celebration after that, in which Mora left a huge dent in their beer supply, and Mark managed to find three confetti poppers, all of which were used to prank people. Everyone was glad that the hunt was over, and it wasn't long before they headed back to STAR Labs, ready to protect the city that they had grown to love over the years.
In the not too distant future
A masked criminal burst into the Central City bank, the metal framework of the building bending towards him at his fingertips. The windows shattered, smashed by the bending metal, and the brick walls cracked and crumbled to pieces. Two sharp metal rods flew into the man's hands, and he leveled them at the people in the bank.
"Open up the vault, and no one gets hurt," he spoke, only to hear the static crackle of electricity as the Flash stopped in the remains of the doorway, along with a giant wolf and a woman with the horns and tail of the devil. In a swirl of smoke, a spiky haired young man appeared in the building with two men, surrounded by ice and fire. On the other side of the wide, wrecked window, a huge blue beast touched down, folding huge feathered wings. She pushed her head through the gap where the window was and turned her giant horned head towards the criminal, smoke rising from her nostrils.
"I'd surrender if I were you," the Flash spoke up. "Cause if you fight us, you'll have a really bad day. Also, the dragon might eat you."
The end
