Thanks to Mustard Lady and roni16 for their kind reviews!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash or Made in Abyss (spoilers for the latter so read at your own discretion)
Chapter 10: And so it begins
Everyone was anxious but they had to act normal. A logical thing for the team to be doing would be trying to track the escaped bus-metas so that's what they did. Harry and Iris worked together to try and locate the bus-metas and occasionally pretend to contact Barry, Wally, or Cisco as if they were out in the city searching for clues. Meanwhile, Masuma stayed by Caitlin and Vicky patrolled the area.
It was another hour until something finally happened. Vicky had just completed another round of patrol outside the building when she saw something move. She immediately alerted the rest of the group by tripping one of the silent alarms. Vicky pushed over a nearby box containing old sandbags that were too worn out to be used for training in an attempt to get some dirt on the intruder. She was successful so she followed quickly behind her invisible counterpart, careful not to make any noise as she did so.
Back in the cortex, Harry and Iris pulled up the surveillance cameras to look in on the area from where the silent alarm had been tripped. They didn't see anything so they checked the other areas as well. Then, another alarm went off in the hallway leading to the cortex. They quickly shut down the camera and resumed acting like they were busy at work.
"Vibe, there was just a meta-human alert just outside of the city. Can you breach over everyone there?" Iris asked, speaking into the microphone. She then read aloud the coordinates to the A.R.G.U.S. training ground in hopes that the intruder would take that information back to DeVoe.
On the other end, Cisco replied, "On it," as he silently signaled to the rest of the team plus the new metas to get ready.
Suddenly, a stranger entered the room. Iris stood on guard as Harry grabbed his gun and Ralph blocked the stranger before he got too far, "Who are you?"
"I'm Jason. I go by Healer," responded the man.
Masuma and Caitlin, who was lagging behind, made their way to the cortex. "Wait! We called him here," Masuma said.
"Here? How could you call him here, this is a secret hideout!" Iris nearly shouted.
"I told her to call him," Caitlin said.
"Why?" Iris asked, exasperated.
"Probably because she has a serious injury," Jason responded. Iris narrowed her eyes at him.
"Hey, weren't you sick?" Ralph asked Jason suspiciously.
"I didn't feel like going all the way out of the city," Jason shrugged causing Ralph to scowl.
"More importantly, why didn't the alarm go off?" Harry asked as he made his way back to the computer. "We have a problem." Without offering an explanation, Harry ran towards the particle accelerator. Ralph and Masuma followed after him, while Caitlin, Jason and Iris went to look at the computer screen.
"Oh my god, the silent alarm went off in the particle accelerator area five minutes ago! Ruth's gone and Ghost seems to be battling the invisible intruder," Iris gasped. "But where's Ruth?"
"Quick, heal me," Caitlin said to Jason as she lifted up her shirt to reveal her injury.
"I actually am a little sick so this might not completely work," Jason warned. He held his hand over Caitlin's injured side. A green light spread over her skin and seemingly got sucked into her injury. The light turned orange, then faded out as Caitlin's injury slowly healed. In the end, there were scars where the needles had entered but the pain was gone. "Ah, see the scars shouldn't be there," Jason said, disappointed.
"Thank you," Caitlin said quickly before turning to Frost. When she did, the scars healed completely and Jason was left awestruck.
"Yeah I did not see that one coming," Jason muttered.
"What's going on? Who's he?" Frost asked Iris.
"There are two intruders in the building. One is invisible and the other is a woman who has some sort of meta-abilities but we don't know what exactly she can do," Iris answered.
"Great," Frost said sarcastically. "Okay everyone stay quiet and don't move."
Suddenly, there was a loud crash coming from further inside the building.
"What was that?" Jason whispered.
"What did I just say?" Frost whispered angrily.
There was a clatter as one of the tools fell off the desk on the far side of the cortex. Frost tried to shoot ice at the intruder but her attacks only succeeded in destroying the cortex. Harry, Ralph, Masuma, and Vicky followed soon afterwards.
"It's too late, he's gone," Iris said. "The reason the alarm didn't go off when Healer entered was because we didn't get a chance to reset it after the invisible intruder came the first time. I fixed that while you guys were downstairs and it just went off a minute ago signalling that he left."
"There were four of you, how could you possibly have let him get away?" Frost quipped.
"Uh I don't know if you noticed, but he was INVISIBLE," Ralph snapped back.
Harry looked at Ralph oddly, "Or you know, it's because we wanted to let him get away."
"Oh right, that too," Ralph said, acting like he knew that was the plan all along.
Frost turned to Iris, "I thought you said there were two intruders."
Vicky chimed in, "His powers seem to work the same way mine do - whoever he touches turns invisible too."
"Although it's not ideal that we lost Ruth too, we ran out of the serum so it doesn't really matter because we wouldn't have been able to get any more information out of her anyway," Iris said.
"Well, looks like Caitie's going to make a comeback. Works for me too because this whole plotting part is such a bore," Frost said as she strutted around casually. Then she stopped in front of Harry and looked at him oddly before shaking her head slightly and continuing, "Call me when things get interesting."
With that, Frost turned back into Caitlin. It was Vicky's turn to be surprised, "Oh I didn't realize you were the same person!" she exclaimed. Caitlin merely nodded in response.
Iris said, "And that's the way it should be. Let's do our best to keep everyone's identities secret from now on. Alright, I'm going to let the rest of the team know that DeVoe has probably been informed by now. Caitlin, how are you feeling?"
"Much better, thanks," she said and gave Jason a grateful look.
"Okay so you, Harry, and I will be in charge of helping out the others. Ghost, you're on perimeter. Elongated Man, you and Masuma are with us. Healer, you should technically be on the field but we have no way to get you there so for now just go get some rest in the medical wing. We'll call you if we need you," Iris ordered.
"Okay see I don't really know what's going on-" Jason began before being cut off.
"Just go," Masuma urged him while shoving him him away lightly. Jason obeyed and Vicky left to go on perimeter.
Iris called the others to inform them of the situation. It seemed that she had perfect timing because a few minutes later, Cisco's voice could be heard through the microphone as he said, "They're here."
The standby team jumped to life. Harry said, "List off anyone you recognize."
Cisco replied, "Kilg%re, Hazard, Black Bison, Fallout, Dwarfstar, and DeVoe. There are also five other people - I'm guessing the other bus metas - that I don't recognize."
"No just four. One of them is Ruth," Barry said.
"We still don't know what her powers are so that's five unknown powers," Harry said.
"One of them is probably the invisible guy," Caitlin pointed out.
"We might as well activate it now," Iris said to the other two without letting the others hear her. Caitlin nodded and grabbed the controller which activated the mini fly-like cameras that they had secretly sent with Barry when he left to rejoin the team.
"Whoa that's so cool!" Ralph said as he peered over Iris' shoulder to take a look at the live camera footage of the base. Iris glared at him to shut him up.
"What?" Barry asked.
"Nothing, Elongated Man and Enigma were just talking," Caitlin covered up quickly. "Flash, we need you to draw out DeVoe."
"DeVoe," Barry called out. "You're outnumbered. You might as well quit now."
DeVoe, who had flew in on his chair, landed about five feet away from Barry and chuckled. "Mr. Allen, it is you who should quit now. But I know that is not part of your personality. There is almost a 0% chance that you will so let's just skip the talk and move forward, shall we?"
"Fine by me," Barry said before charging at DeVoe. Anticipating his moves, DeVoe used one of his mechanical arms to smack Barry several feet away. Then, DeVoe waved his hand and the bus metas began their attacks.
Because they were somewhat anticipating this, the new metas who were working with Team Flash targeted specific bus metas. Yin, Yang, and Phendula targeted Fallout because their abilities allowed them to deal with radiation, Sonic targeted Dwarfstar because she would be fast enough to avoid getting shrunk, Maidabot targeted Kilg%re to try and balance out his technology manipulation, Freezeframe targeted Hazard so she wouldn't be able to inflict bad luck, and Chi and Tremor fought Black Bison because they would be able to keep her on her toes and effectively thwart off any statue that did come to life in case they weren't able to prevent it. Thunder went for the invisible man because he figured he could blast the man with snow or something to keep him visible. This left Tidal Wave, Mirror, Red, Kid Flash, and Vibe to take on the other four metas with unknown powers. Tidal Wave and Mockingbird teamed up on one of the metas who turned out to have vertigo abilities. Red targeted a slightly older man whose abilities were not yet apparent while Kid Flash took on a meta who could create mini explosives and Vibe took on a meta who could fly.
"Flash are you okay?" Iris exclaimed over the microphone. When Barry grunted in response, she looked at Harry and Caitlin she said, "We need to act fast. I'll cover Flash, Caitlin you get Vibe, and Harry you get Kid Flash."
After isolating the microphones so that they could only be heard by their respective person, the three of them prepared to give their commands. When she realized it would be too hard to do both, Iris reluctantly gave Masuma control of the bees so that they could have a better visual on the situation.
"Okay Flash, listen to me. I need you to trust me okay? Please just follow every command I give you and don't question it. This is part of the plan but I can't say any more," Iris said firmly. Caitlin and Harry gave similar directions to Cisco and Wally, respectively.
"Flash, look at The Thinker," Iris ordered as Harry ordered Wally to look at Ruth and Caitlin ordered Cisco to open a breach that led to Ruth.
"Ah so you think you've found my weakness," The Thinker said mockingly to Flash. "Well I should warn you not to underestimate her."
The next movements seemed to happen in slow motion. As The Thinker raised his mechanical arm to attack Barry once more, Iris, Harry, and Caitlin gave their next orders all at the same time.
"Create a lightning bolt," Iris and Harry told Barry and Wally, respectively.
"Blast DeVoe," Caitlin shouted at Cisco.
DeVoe swiped his arm towards where he anticipated to move but Barry and Wally moved to run around him in preparation of their lightning bolts. Before DeVoe could comprehend what was happening, Cisco blasted him, which knocked him backwards slightly.
"Now!" Iris and Harry screamed at the same time. Barry and Wally sent lightning bolts at a disorientated DeVoe who screamed in pain.
"NO!" screamed Ruth who rushed towards The Thinker. "YOU IDIOTS! YOU'VE KILLED HIM!"
"Don't worry, the lightning bolts weren't strong enough to be lethal," Barry said.
"There are still other bus metas on the loose," Harry reminded Wally who took off to help the rest of the team. Cisco and Barry stayed to deal with Ruth and DeVoe.
"No you don't understand," wailed Ruth. "His body has been deteriorating and he wasn't able to find a cure. Then that stupid bitch Marlize refused to help her own husband. She said it was too risky and that he should stop with his plan-" Realizing who she was talking to, Ruth cut herself off. Then she turned to Barry, fully enraged. "YOU," she screamed as she charged at Barry.
"Run away and buy some time," Iris said. Barry obeyed and waited for her next command. "Um well that's pretty much all we had planned. You can try whatever it was that you did back when you first captured her?" Iris suggested.
"Wait, we still need to know her power," Caitlin said to Iris.
"Get Mockingbird to The Flash," Harry ordered Wally who was in the middle of battling the vertigo with Mockingbird and Tidal Wave.
"I'm a little busy here," Wally managed to say. Even with the three of them working together, the vertigo bus meta still had the upper hand.
To Cisco, Caitlin said, "Can you check to see if DeVoe is actually dead?"
Cisco breached to DeVoe while Ruth was distracted with Barry. "His pulse is faint but still there. I'll cuff him and contact A.R.G.U.S. for help."
Suddenly Barry cried out in pain. While Barry was trying to figure out a way to get Mockingbird away from the bus meta without being disoriented himself, Ruth had managed to hit him square in the chest, sending him flying backwards. It was the same gun she had used earlier so Barry's speed was affected and he was disoriented.
"You'll pay for this, Flash!" Ruth snarled as she geared up to blast Barry with a different gun, one that he suspected was lethal.
Suddenly there was a rumble that caused Ruth to pause long enough for her to be overtaken by a speedster who tackled her to the ground.
"Thought you could use a bit of help," Tremor said to Barry as she helped him on his feet. Barry looked over to see Sonic holding down a furious Ruth.
"Watch out!" Iris screamed as she saw Dwarfstar take aim at The Flash and Tremor. He fired straight at the both of them so The Flash pushed Tremor away as he jumped back himself and the blast narrowly missed the both of them. "Focus!" Iris exclaimed.
"Right, sorry, still a little out of it," Barry said.
"Wha-How? We just finished cuffing him!" Tremor exclaimed as she sent another earthquake attack in Dwarfstar's direction, knocking him unconscious.
"Black Bison seemed to have escaped too," Sonic noted as she watched Chi battling her alone. "Kilg%re must have messed with the cuffs."
"Get off me," Ruth growled as Sonic continued to hold her down. Suddenly, Sonic was pushed off of Ruth with a great force. Then Ruth disappeared and Sonic was left on the ground looking shocked.
"Damn it! The invisible meta took Ruth!" Barry informed Iris.
Iris quickly attempted to see if she could see any signs of the two on the surveillance cameras but it was to no avail. "Okay don't worry about them; we'll catch them later. Focus on helping the rest of the team."
But when the three of them turned back to the battle, they saw that things were wrapping up. There were bodies scattered all over the place, and the metas on their side were delivering the final blows before cuffing the remaining bus metas. From what Barry could gather, it looked like they had won. Exhausted but relieved, Barry made his way over to the rest of the group to help with the damage.
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Iris, Harry, Caitlin, Masuma, and Ralph all breathed a sigh of relief. The craziness was over for now and they had all but two bus metas accounted for. That was definitely a huge win for them and they could almost relax completely. There was still the matter of dealing with the aftermath but the hard part was over.
A sleepy Jason stretched and yawned as he made his way into the cortex. "What did I miss?" he asked, earning a small chuckle from Caitlin which irked Harry slightly but he said nothing. Harry realized his difficult conversation with Caitlin was getting closer but he decided to push that thought away and cross that bridge when he got to it.
In case you haven't seen Made in Abyss, the plan to have people over the headsets give orders to the people actually there was taken straight from that show - I don't claim any credit for that either.