A/N: This ending is maybe a little rough, but I'm fairly proud of it. Not as cool as the show probably, but we'll see in about 45 minutes. Enjoy!
The plan starts with a camera.
Specifically, Iris's TV news friend's camera. Because Barry needs to go big.
It's that evening when they do it. In the interim, the Mates and the S.T.A.R. Labs team make their preparations.
Everything's set up perfectly when Barry, voice disguised and face blurred, nods to Erica. She turns on the camera.
"Central City!"
Though he can't see any of them, Barry imagines that all over the city people cease what they're doing to look at the nearest television screen. Maybe they murmur to each other, "The Flash is back!"
"You've heard a lot of rumors about me in the past week. That I'm gone. Maybe that I'm dead."
Through his vibrating features, Barry smiles. "I've been in some trouble, but I want to reassure you: the Flash is very much alive. Not only that, but I have some allies, who you might have seen running around the city in maroon and silver."
He's certain Zoom is on his way, so Barry finishes fast.
"And Zoom?" He grins. "We're coming for you."
Barry zips offscreen and shuts off the camera. "Hide, quickly," he urges Erica. Zoom will probably go to S.T.A.R. Labs, but Barry doesn't want anyone else to get killed.
And then Barry's off, back to S.T.A.R. Labs.
It's time to defeat Zoom, once and for all.
Jay watches Barry's announcement on the precinct screens. How is he alive?
He grits his teeth and resists the urge to kill all the metas around him. He's recruited a total of ten now, not counting the two who died. Should be enough to stop the Flash.
"We're going to S.T.A.R. Labs," he growls at them. "If any of you let one of those three Flashes slip by, you're all going to pay the price."
He's gone. The Mates, all of them that could end up in Zoom's path in the few short hours they had to get recruited, look at each other, nervous.
"Let's do this," Rosco says. He starts spinning, soon resembling a tornado, and tears up the precinct floor as he leaves.
The others follow, using their powers to speed their way. Yes, they're all going to S.T.A.R. Labs.
But they're only planning on stopping one speedster today.
Wells despises this plan. Totally and completely.
It's not that he doesn't think it'll work—it's better than anything else they've come up with. The combined powers of three speedsters, ten Mates, Snart, Ramon, and Snow will undoubtedly be more than enough to stop Zoom.
No, he hates that he, along with the other non-metas, will be confined to the time vault for the duration of the process.
Which means Jesse will be on her own.
Well, for some value of 'on her own' that includes fifteen other people. But he can't help her.
That fact, combined with the fifty-some hours since he last slept, makes him unbearably irritable. He can't seem to stop spewing sarcasm at the others in the time vault with him. Joe, Iris, and Henry look increasingly annoyed.
"Stop it," Iris finally demands. "Zoom hasn't even shown up yet, and you've already made me want to kill you more than him."
"I've got my gun, I should be out there." Wells lifts said gun and continues to stalk back and forth along the length of the time vault.
Joe shakes his head. "We put Wally and Jesse in here because we didn't want Zoom using them against us. Right now, as much as I hate Wally and Barry being out there, we're the ones Zoom could use. We can't take that risk."
"I know, I know." Wells finally sits down on one of the crates lining the room. "If we don't hear anything within an hour, though, I'm definitely going to be using this gun."
"If we don't hear anything within an hour, I'll encourage that," Henry says. He's just as anxious as Wells and has had about the same amount of sleep, but keeps much more quiet than the other man.
Cisco's voice suddenly intrudes over the intercom system. "He's on his way."
The time vault falls silent. They wait, and hope the next voice they hear through the system won't be Zoom's.
Jay bursts through the doors of S.T.A.R. Labs and heads immediately for the Cortex. He doesn't care who he sees first—they're going to die.
As he reaches the entrance to the Cortex, though, ice suddenly bursts out to block the door. The coating is solid and thick enough that, when Zoom bursts through it, it sends him crashing to the floor.
It takes him a moment to get to his feet, not in the least because he hopes the ice might have come from Caitlin, but then he's headed straight for where it originated and it's not her, it's that Captain Cold, and Jay is so ready to kill him.
A streak of red and lightning intervenes. Not Barry—it's that shorter one, who's got a new, darker red suit. With the redesign, Jay realizes she's a girl. Who?
Whoever she is, she flies at him. Zoom superspeed-steps out of the way, still intent on killing Cold.
His momentary distraction was enough time for the man to fire again, though, and a glacial amount of ice piles up on Zoom's chest.
The girl Flash circles around and knocks Zoom to the floor, then gets Captain Cold out of the room. Zoom gets to his feet and races after them, rubbing his hands over the ice to melt it.
As he chases them down the hallway, another blurred speedster, this one in silver and still not Barry, comes the other way. Zoom prepares to push right past him, but the Silver Speedster pulls the trigger of some weapon and then runs.
It's the boot, that stupid cuff that disabled his speed earlier. Jay smirks. The idiots at S.T.A.R. Labs didn't think that he'd figured out how to circumvent it. His imprisonment lasts for all of one moment before he uses the electricity of the speed force to short out the circuitry and he's free.
He races to the end of the hallway and glances in both directions. Which way did they go?
Doesn't matter. One way or the other will work.
He chooses right and only makes it a few steps down the curving hallway before he has to stop, startled and confused.
Two of his metas. He struggles to recall their names. Blacksmith and Magenta.
Their presence would be fine, but for their posture when they see him.
Their arms are crossed. Expressions fierce.
He's about to ask them what they're doing, but he only gets half a syllable out before the metal of the floor shoots upward, forming a wall in between them.
Zoom growls under his breath. They've betrayed him. Trying to block him, give the Flash—Flashes—enough time to escape.
He starts toward the wall, intending to phase through and kill them both, but finds himself unable to even reach the wall.
Magenta. Some sort of magnetic repulsion.
No time to waste. If he can't kill them now, he will later. First, the Flash.
He spins and runs, wishing he'd spent more time getting acquainted with the floor plans of S.T.A.R. Labs. There's nobody left on this floor. Down or up?
Up, though there's only the roof left. It feels more appropriate, some sort of confrontation on the top of the city.
But when he gets up there, despite knowing perfectly well that the sun hasn't set yet, all he sees is darkness. No lights from the city, no stars, nothing but pure black.
A blast of some thin, air pressure-like force hits him, shoving him bodily back down the stairs.
One of Starfinger's five powers. And the darkness had to have been Shade. Two more of his metas.
It's not just the two metal girls.
They've all betrayed him.
Jay realizes how easy it was to find and recruit all these metas. They must have been planning this from the beginning. They must have been working with the Flash.
It's impossible for him to fight those two, though. On the roof, in the dark, Zoom could easily run off the edge of the building without realizing.
Back down the stairs, then. There are still six more of his metas that he hasn't seen. If they're working in pairs, it should be an easy process. Kill one, drag the other back to the Cortex, use the intercom to threaten death if the speedsters don't surrender.
Zoom's suddenly disoriented, and skids to a stop in the middle of the hallway. He doesn't need to be on this floor. He doesn't know how he knows it, but he does.
A speedster runs past him, not interacting with him at all but heading down the stairs. Zoom follows, and the speedster vanishes at the bottom of the flight.
An illusion. Spellbinder. And the distraction—Psierra.
They're herding him.
A huge empty building with his metas scattered throughout, none of them directly fighting him, all of them driving him to—
Where?
He doesn't want to play.
So when he sees Folded Man and Eel at the end of a hallway, he doesn't stop and turn around.
He runs straight at them.
The Folded Man immediately flattens himself into two dimensions, and Zoom has to reroute quickly to avoid slicing himself on the razor-keen edge of the meta. Instead, he turns toward Eel, whose only power is unbelievably slippery skin.
Eel drops, surprisingly quick, to the floor, sliding underneath him. Jay spins and is about to kill him, no need to gain hold, he just has to phase a hand through his chest, and then a pulse of who-knows-what tears through him, vibrating his bones inside his body and throwing him backwards onto the floor.
It's Cisco, wearing the Reverb glasses and holding out a palm in his direction.
Zoom gets to his feet and is ready to slaughter them all, starting with Cisco.
Another blast of air hits him from behind, Top, spinning fast enough to create a vortex that drags Zoom inevitably backwards.
Top ceases his spin and the change of air pressure throws Jay twenty feet backwards. Before he can get to his feet, the air above him coalesces into iron, courtesy of Dr. Alchemy, he's sure. The block drops on his chest, knocking his breath from his lungs and giving the five metas enough time to run off.
Jay throws the weights off and starts after the traitorous metas—
But then the two speedsters run by in the opposite direction, past Zoom, and the wind from their passing proves they're not a Spellbinder illusion, and Zoom remembers he has higher priorities than revenge.
He wants all these Flashes' speed.
So he follows. If they're herding him, it doesn't matter. He follows them.
Into the basement of S.T.A.R. Labs.
It's a room he hasn't seen before. A huge, raised pedestal is the center of the room, commanding all the attention.
The two non-Barry speedsters split, one going to the left of it, one going to the right, and stop on either side of the final Flash.
The real one.
Barry.
Standing directly across from the entrance to the room. Not running. Not fighting. Standing.
Jay races toward him, not caring about the pedestal, going straight across it.
And he bounces back.
Some sort of containment system. Now that he's hit the edge of it, the sphere shimmers into visibility, a bubble encasing him within the confines of the pedestal.
Zoom lets out an inhuman roar. He's. So. Close. Barry is right there, alive again somehow, two other speedsters with him, and he's too close to give up now.
He pounds against the invisible barrier. Harder. And harder.
It fractures. Cracks. And he's ready to give the final blow when—
"Jay."
The voice comes from behind him. It's soft, it's hesitant, and it's heartbreakingly familiar.
He turns. "Cait?"
She waves at him and smiles. Behind his mask, Jay's expression sours. Everyone else has betrayed him today. She's on the Flash's side. Always has been.
But he's hesitated for too long already.
Caitlin raises her hands.
And a huge blast of ice spirals out of her hands at him.
He doesn't move in time.
And everything goes a very blueish shade of black.
It's over.
The Mates and Flashes and assorted others collect again in the Cortex. Stunned. Proud. Victorious.
Hugs are exchanged. Congratulations disbursed. High-fives and grins and fist-pumps, and, from Barry to Iris, a very intense kiss.
It's over.
Barry's back. Speed reinstated. Breaches closed. Caitlin rescued. New speedsters trained. Metas allied. Loose ends tied.
Zoom defeated.
City safe.
Rupture healed.
