A/N: Happy New Year's, everyone! (Thank gawd, 2020's over...). This would've been a great Halloween chapter...but alas, it so happened to come out on New Year's instead...

I also...really had fun with this chapter, so...it's getting posted in parts. (^^"). They're all being posted at once, though, so you don't have to wait on any cliffhangers. Now you can tell all your other fanfic-author friends how nice I am, heheheh~

Part 1:

A long mine shaft stretched out in front of Jinx. The wooden beams holding up the structure creaked as a draft blew from the mouth of the doorway. Jinx blinked; normally her cat eyes could see in the dark, but this darkness was thick, shifting around her like a fog. A magnetic force was pulling her deeper inside the tunnel.

Her feet moved forward on their own accord and her hand brushed the wall, her vision only going out as far as she could reach. "Ouch!" She flinched, pulling back her hand. A black spider crawled on her knuckles, a pink bump quickly forming on her palm. She swatted the arachnid away. She's seen worse.

She made her way down the narrow tunnel. A familiar rustling alerted her to the rats before she even looked down; at least half a dozen raced past her, their worm-like tails whipping her ankles.

Jinx took a deep breath, but kicked them away. Nothing worse than what she saw living on the streets. But one of the rats clambered onto her boot. Its red eyes glinted in the dark—and it was as big as Jinx's boot. With a screech, Jinx kicked out her leg and the rat went flying—crunch!

Bones breaking. The temperature plummeted, and the hair on the back of her neck raised. Jinx hurried away, but she could hear teeth clacking as two bright red eyes the size of her head glinted. There was just enough light to make out the rodent, now the size of a bear, with teeth sharp as knives and spittle foaming from its mouth.

Jinx buried a scream in her throat, using the air instead to run. She could hear the monster crashing towards her, closer, closer—

Wait.

That wasn't a normal rat.

It was such a stupidly obvious fact, and yet the realization felt like a revelation to Jinx. Something was wrong. Rats clearly don't grow to be that huge, but then...was it a monster? Was this just the creation of another mad scientist? Something wasn't adding up.

She could feel its hot breath on her neck—

Jinx turned on her heel. The gigantic rodent knocked her back, its incisors an inch from her face. Jinx's eyes brightened, and with a burst of pink light, the rodent was thrown back. Too soon, it was lumbering back to its feet. But—something was wrong. At first she thought it was a trick of the darkness, but when it shifted forward into a clearer view, she realized—it had no head. Where its head should be was instead raw tissue pierced by jagged bone and oozing blood .

Jinx wanted to gag, wanted to scream—

—But no time; the monster charged at her.

She backed up, firing her hexes, as the tunnel rumbled. Each blast took off another piece of the rodent's body—its shoulder, a leg, stomach, and liver—until all that was left was a dismembered arm still clawing towards her on the ground. A final burst of light, and it was gone.

Jinx slumped against the wall. She looked at her hand. The bite from the spider was gone. Something was wrong. Rats aren't massive monstrosities; limbs don't crawl after you shoot them off; and spider bites don't disappear within minutes.

That's when it hit: this was a dream.

This was a dream. It must be; there wasn't any other explanation. If the rat and the spider were created by some mad scientist, she hadn't seen any sign of the scientist or their lab yet. These monstrosities came out of nowhere. And that didn't explain why she was in this mine…

...with no memory of how she got here.

She closed her eyes. Pinched herself until she winced. Opened her eyes.

Crap.

She was still in a stinky old mine.

Okay, so this had to be a dream, but it wasn't a natural one. She closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling around her. Yes, she's been around enough magic to sense it, and this place was overflowing with magical vibes. Someone must be behind this.

"JINX!"

She snapped out of her thoughts, her head jerking up at a voice too familiar. "Kid? Where are you?"

"JINX, HELP ME! I'M OVER HERE!" The voice reverberated through the dark tunnels.

"I'm coming, just hold on!" She started sprinting towards his voice. How'd he get here? Were they kidnapped together? Maybe this wasn't a dream, maybe they'd been drugged or—

"PLEASE, IT HURTS! JINX!"

"I'M COMING!"

She rushed ahead, and soon the tunnel opened into a cavern. At the end was the speedster. His leg was twisted up in the metal teeth of a bear trap. Even from a distance, she could smell the metallic tang of blood.

"WALLY!" She lurched forward, the tunnels closing in on her as the darkness thickened.

WAIT.

All her instincts screamed to STOP.

"Thank god you're here." Kid Flash's breath came out in a visible shudder as he fought through the pain, his voice strained. "What're you waiting for, get me out! Jinx?!"

She didn't move.

"How did you know I was here?" she said. "I didn't even know you were here."

"Wha-what? What are you talking about? Jinx, please, just get me out of here. It hurts."

Jinx took in a deep breath, trying to steady her rapid heartbeat. "How did you know I was here? Think about it. I don't know why I'm here or how I even got here. All I know is that you could be a figment of my imagination."

"Jinx, don't be ridiculous, I'm right here. You know I'm real, don't you? You love me."

And there it was. Kid Flash may be an incorrigible jokester, but even his jokes were lined with reason.

Jinx narrowed her eyes. "The real Kid Flash would know I don't take love at face-value. I have no idea who you are. If you're really him, then phase out of that trap yourself."

"W-wait! Jinx!"

She backed up slowly. The walls seemed to exhale and the darkness receded.

"Jinx, wait, p-please! HELP ME!"

Jinx wanted to curse whatever thing wore Kid Flash's face, but she couldn't spend another moment here. She ran away, his voice crying her name, echoing, even as the darkness lifted. She would find whoever made that cheap imitation of her boyfriend, and make them pay.

Shafts of light filtered through, and she could see the tunnel open into sunlight. In a second, she was out—and heard the most twisting, piercing sound, too human and too familiar. Then silence.

She fought not to look back, casting her eyes in front of her.

A desert stretched out before her, and in the distance, she could see a pinprick of a fiery light in the sky.

T*T*T*T*T

Hot Spot's head felt filled with static. He could feel the heat radiating off his skin, but not like he was powered up...like he was sick. It took effort just to open his eyes, and his vision swam.

Shadowy figures hovered over him, their voices muffled as if he were underwater. Only a few words were clear:

Fever.

Needles.

Disease.

The shadows' hands took up his vision, and he could only weakly bat them away. Their grips held him down, and the only thing that felt acute in his muffled state was the rapid beating of his heart.

"OWW!" A sharp stinging in his arm. He could barely turn his head, but he caught the glint of a needle as it plunged into his skin. A large syringe filled with a pus-colored substance slowly pumped into his blood—he could feel it. A coldness running through his veins.

What're they doing to him?

He tried to struggle, but the restraints pinning him down wouldn't give. He couldn't fight, couldn't run, couldn't hide—he was helpless.

He hated that feeling. Hated it so much.

A different type of heat collected in his gut. Filling him, making him stronger. With all the strength he could muster, he shoved the shadows off of him. The fire coursing through his body burned away the lethargy in his limbs, and all at once he felt himself cool as his external temperature matched his internal one. He let out a burst of flames, and the shadows were dispelled.

Relief flooded through him.

But it was fleeting.

The flames continued spreading, licking the dry air around him. He stared at his hands, his arms, his chest, trying to lock the fire away inside, but still the flames raged on, feeding off his skin. He couldn't stop it.

Ear-piercing screams.

His attention snapped to the shadows of people blurring past. Screams filled his ears; babies crying; people yelling for help. Too many people—all around him—so much panic, so much chaos— And he was the center of it. He was the monster.

Hot Spot stumbled back, his arms tight around himself, trying to hold in the surges of heat. But the ground cracked open, and walls of lava erupted from the fissures. He saw the shadows, as small as ants now, running away. But he knew, knew as much as he was being consumed alive by the flames, that there wasn't enough time.

He couldn't get them out, he couldn't save them—

NO! The flames erupted from his skin, festering and fissuring. He had to stop this! Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop stop STOP!

"I-Isaiah?"

His eyes snapped open. In front of him, his little sister gaped at him with eyes filled with horror. And yet she still stepped towards him, her expression concerned.

But the heat was spreading from his chest, erupting from his skin until his vision swam with red. "Nikki, run! Get out of here, go!"

She shrieked as the flames leapt at her. Her screams filled his ears and he could no longer see her face in the fire.

"STOP! DON'T COME NEAR ME!"

"Snap out of it!"

Another voice; the heat raged in his chest, and he growled, "I SAID GET AW—"

A flash of pink cut through the red, and he was thrown back. He landed with a thud into the sand. He moaned, the heat dissipating. His vision started to clear. Jinx's silhouette stood above him, her hands on her hips as her foot tapped impatiently.

"Did you just SHOOT me?"

"I did, I'm real, get over it. We have bigger problems to deal with."

He was about to snap back a retort, but then he realized—

The desert was whole again: no fissures, no lava, and no flames roiling from his body. Just a warm, low power up.

"Where's Nikki?"

"I don't know who Nikki is, but look around," Jinx ordered. "No one else is here. But that'll change if you don't hurry up."

Hot Spot looked around at the desert. He couldn't recognize any of it—the sand just stretched on and on into an endless horizon. His head thudded, and he felt like he'd just woken up from an awful dream.

"Where are we?"

"In a dream," Jinx said matter-of-factly. And that's when he realized her eyes were a warning glow, her hands out like she was ready to attack.

Hot Spot took a step back. "What're you talking about?"

"Someone put a spell over us," Jinx explained impatiently. "Or at least over me. I'm not sure if you're real." She sized him up and down warily. Not only was she armed, but she was also standing back a good distance from him. "All that I know is I'm real. You could just be another figment of my imagination sent to make my life more miserable than it already is."

"I should be saying that to you!" he snapped.

"I'm the one who just got you out of that mess! You're welcome!"

Hot Spot glared at her. He didn't know what exactly was going on, but he still knew when to be ticked off—even if he did have two glowing hands pointed at him. "If you think I'm not real, then why did you help me in the first place?"

"Well, you weren't actively killing me, so—" She threw up her hands in exasperation, stray pink filaments flying from her fingertips. "I thought I'd take my chances! Satisfied now?"

"No." Hot Spot scowled, getting up. "So you don't know if I'm real, and I don't know if you're real."

"Nope! But only you can be this infuriating." Her eyes finally reverted back to their normal color, although that didn't stop her from glaring at him.

"Thanks." But his brain was still ticking, his thoughts clearer now. "If one of us is under a spell or something, then maybe the whole team's under one. We're all in one, I don't know, dreamscape or whatever."

Jinx froze. Her expression was petrified, like he never saw before.

With no words, she turned and ran.

"Wait! Why are you running?" he yelled, chasing after her as she sprinted away.

"I saw Kid Flash earlier, but I sensed the magic," she managed to say in short bursts. "I thought he was part of the dream! But if you're real, and we're all stuck here together—"

She didn't waste any more breath. Usually he could outpace her easily when he flew; he didn't know if it was her panic or his disorientation, but this time he struggled just to match her breakneck pace. The desert blurred by, unremarkable and featureless. But then he saw it.

The fire. He tensed, his heart racing, before he realized it wasn't connected to him.

Jinx stopped in front of what looked like a mine, with its entrance engulfed in flames. Her expression was horrified. Steeling himself, Hot Spot charged into the fire without a word. The heat would've been searing to anyone else, but it felt only like tickles on his skin. He was fine. He was in control.

He shot down the tunnels, but could hardly see anything through the smoke and lapping flames. When he could, he turned over burning beams and sifted through the rubble. Soon, it became clear: there wasn't anything here. Not Kid Flash, or even a body; just burning rubble and ash.

Hot Spot headed back the way he came. Jinx immediately bounded up to him, oblivious to the smoke and flames still sputtering on his clothing.

"Did you find him?"

Hot Spot shook his head. "Nothing but soot in there."

"But he has to be in there—I saw him. Go back in there!" Her fists hit his chest, and the fire from the mine seemed to blaze more fiercely with each blow.

"HEY!" he shouted, grabbing her wrists, but then he noticed the tears streaming down her face. She tore out of his grasp, turning away.

"Hey," he said, his voice lower now. "I searched the whole place, and I didn't see him. You said yourself that you sensed magic around him. He was probably part of this dream or whatever, just to make it worse for you. The real Kid Flash could still be out there."

Jinx huffed, but seemed to have gotten herself under control. "Right… right, we can still find him."

He didn't know if she was saying that more to him or herself, but when Jinx lifted her head, it didn't matter that there were still tears on her face. She ignored them, her expression fixed in determination. The fire from the mines died down.

"Right. We need to find him and Argent, then get out of this nightmare."

"Scaring ourselves isn't waking us up," said Hot Spot. "Do you know another way of breaking this spell, or whatever's on us?"

Before she could answer, the world rumbled. They turned around to see the mine collapse in on itself, then shrink like it was getting sucked up by a vacuum. The ground below them curled up into sleek stone walls. By the time the rumbles had stopped, the mine entrance had been transformed into the gaping mouth of a cave.

"I'm guessing we move forward," said Jinx.

"This is totally a trap."

"Yep, but that's what heroes do, isn't it? Walk stupidly into traps," muttered Jinx. "Besides, do you see another way to go?"

Hot Spot turned around, but they were encapsulated by the stone walls. He touched one—solid—and then drew a fist back, firing up, before striking the wall.

"OW!"

"Why don't you try the other fist?" deadpanned Jinx.

Hot Spot growled, shaking out his sore knuckles. "I hate you."

"I hate you, too. Now let's get a move on."

T*T*T*T*T

Kid Flash didn't know why he was running, only that he was; so fast that the frigid wind blistered his cheeks. Then he saw her.

Jinx, on the horizon, turning to him. Even from afar, he could see her irises widen in terror at something behind him. He didn't turn to see what it was; his eyes were locked onto hers, as her arms stretched out, reaching for him. But she might as well have been worlds away.

RUN, RUN, RUN! FASTER, HURRY!

His legs ached, every breath felt like fire burning in his lungs, and yet no matter how fast he ran, she seemed to only grow smaller in the horizon.

Then a shadow fell over her. Kid Flash felt a scream tear through his throat.

He was sinking. Struggling against cold, wet sand, his legs weighing him down like cinder blocks, pulling him deeper as he watched Jinx disappear into the darkness—

—Only to find her unconscious in the quicksand beside him. "JINX!"

Waist-deep, he waded through the dense sand until he could grab her arm, pulling her limp form to his side. Her eyelids were closed, her mouth slightly parted, but so still, so unnaturally still; he couldn't tell if she was breathing or not.

He could feel themselves sinking. He forced his legs to move against the weight of an ocean tide, but it was in vain; the sand sucked them down relentlessly. He had to do something, think of something—there was always a way out, another option, a solution—his mind flitted with ideas as his legs beat against the pit.

But this was a problem he couldn't outrun.

The sand continued pulling them down, filling every crevice and indent of their skin until he could barely breathe from the dense pressure all around him, squeezing his chest, then his shoulders, neck, chin—suffocating, smothering, his heart trying to escape, thundering in his ears; he could feel everything. Jinx's warmth beside him, quickly dissipating; the cold, wet sand, the gritty particles filling every crevice and inch of his skin—under his fingernails, his ears, gathering in his eyelashes; the burning in his chest as his lungs screamed for air—

And his ideas died. He couldn't breathe, couldn't see.

His mind silenced as the sand poured in, blocking out the light. The only thing he could do—could think of—was push Jinx up above him, her head above the sand, even as the pit entombed him.

T*T*T*T*T

Argent wasn't flying. When she was flying, she could feel the air rushing past her and a tangible force propelling her motion, like little jets. No, this wasn't like that. She felt like she was made of drifting vapor: still and untouchable, with little control of where she went.

She hovered far above what she recognized as Keystone City. But the vibrantly painted buildings and the patches of green parks that gave the city life had all faded to an ashen gray. Fires raged throughout, too numerous for anyone to put out, while the smoke shrouded the skies in darkness. In the streets, emaciated children clung to their parents' tattered clothes, while screams and sirens sounded from all directions.

This wasn't the city she knew. This wasn't how it's supposed to be.

A beam of too-familiar red light shot off in the distance. Argent flew towards it. A woman with spiky red hair was zipping through the sky, a sadistic grin on her face as she shot red beams—the same as Argent's—at helpless civilians.

"Stop it now!" she ordered, but if the woman heard her, she didn't respond. A ray from the woman's hands sliced through the face of a building, and a broken steel beam came crashing down. Argent swooped in, stopping it with her powers before it could crush the people underneath. She set it down before flying up to the woman. The woman raised her hands at the same time as Argent's, and two pillars of light shot out from their palms, red light sparking as the energy collided.

Argent held her off—but then the woman laughed maniacally, and suddenly her beam of energy was enlarging as Argent's shrunk. Argent was feeding her power.

Argent jerked away, and meeting no resistance, the woman's beam sliced through the ground. From the ruptures crawled out a swarm of monsters made of red energy, quickly besieging the civilians.

This was bad.

Argent was only making the problem worse. She needed to get the others! Argent's hand went instinctively to her communicator, but when she opened it, the screen was dead. Guess she had to find them the old-fashioned way.

Argent rushed to the Keystone Tower as fast as she could. This time she could feel herself flying, a force propelling her body through the air. She burst through the Main Ops room, where she found Hot Spot, Kid Flash, and Jinx huddled by the computer console.

"Guys, we need to go now! There's a woman with my powers destroying—"

"Someone has to do it," Jinx hissed, not even glancing towards Argent. Her expression was tightened into one of anger, impatience, and...dread.

"Someone has to do what?" demanded Argent, but no one turned to look at her. That's when she noticed their expressions: they hadn't aged a day since she saw them last night, but an exhaustion had sunk into their features. She waved a hand in front of Kid Flash's face, but he spoke without reacting, his eyes glazed.

"She's still new," he insisted, but even the speedster sounded halfhearted. "Just give her another month and maybe—"

"She's already had six, and the number of casualties keeps climbing," Hot Spot said in a measured tone. Not angry, not stern, just...resigned. Like he was stating a fact.

Were they—were they talking about her? Argent swallowed. "Isaiah, I can- I can do better. Just give me—"

But he charged on: "She makes a mistake in the field, and someone gets hurt because of it. That's the truth."

"No one else should lose their life because a prima donna wants to play hero," said Jinx.

Argent flinched. She knew Jinx and her weren't instant BFF-material when they met, but she thought she had proved herself to the sorceress. She wasn't perfect, but she was trying.

But Argent looked at the screen showing the numbers of casualties closing in on the hundreds, each one a person whose life she made worse, not better. She was supposed to be helping people, not making things a wreck. She was supposed to—

...Supposed to…

The woman! There wasn't time for this! The city was under attack!

Argent whipped to the console and typed in the commands. Her team was ignoring her, but they couldn't ignore this.

BEGR-BEGR-BEGR!

Her team swerved to the monitor. Red text flashed on the screen, and on the map, a dot was blinking. "Another one," Hot Spot said grimly.

"I'll get her," Kid Flash said, but Jinx was already shaking her head.

"Leave her. This is her fault to begin with; we don't need her making it worse."

Even as the sorceress spoke, her words became muffled, like Argent was hearing them from underwater. The world blurred, before refocusing, and she suddenly found herself in a new location. One even more familiar. Everything was as she had last seen it. Not a picture frame or set of silverware out of place.

Her parents would never have let their house look anything less than pristine. But no...something wasn't right. Argent looked around her parents' house; she knew it so well she could picture it perfectly without even thinking.

And then she noticed it.

Her pictures—they were gone. All of them.

The photograph in the entryway of her parents holding up a baby Argent when she still had her mother's eyes; over the living room mantel, her parents beaming beside her as she showed off a trophy from her first Forensics tournament; and in the kitchen, Daddy holding up a marlin that was as tall as him, and Argent flinching away from the live, twitching fish on her first and last fishing trip.

All the memories were gone.

She drifted through the whole house, but she didn't find her parents until she went to the second floor. Her bedroom door was ajar. Through the crack, she could see her room had been emptied. The wallpaper looked new where her vanity was missing, her guitar case no longer leaned in the corner, her fluffy purple blanket and all her stuffed animals were stripped from her bed, and everything else she had picked to make the room her own were packed away in boxes labeled with her mum's precise handwriting.

Her dad stood looking out the window, his face unreadable, while her mum hovered by the bed, bent over and clutching Argent's favorite leather jacket with its black fur collar—the one her mum hated. But she clung to it as dearly as if it had been the first baby outfit she'd bought.

"She should've stayed here," Mum whispered, a tremble to her tone as she gingerly stroked the fur collar. "She should've come home."

"She shouldn't have left in the first place!" snapped Daddy. "She was never supposed to do this! She was supposed to get a good education, be a great woman—and then, then she tries to play super, and now the world's suffering from her ego!"

"Daddy, that's—that's not it," Argent whispered, the first words she said. The words were so soft she wasn't surprised they didn't turn around, if they could even hear her at all. "Please, Mum. Daddy. I was just trying to help."

But her mum only wept, while her dad said nothing at all.

Tears started to well in Argent's eyes, and the world turned dark, and grey, like the color was slowly being washed out. She failed. She failed everyone. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. She was supposed to help. She was supposed to—

...She always hated "supposed to."

Argent wiped the tears away, balling her fists. This wasn't what she wanted. But moping around wouldn't change anything. She was going to keep trying. She was going to do her part. She was going to smack some sense into this crazy, messed up world!

The scene dissolved, and she was suddenly back in the Tower. Her teammates were gone, but she wasn't here for them. They might've had every right to be mad at her; she didn't blame them. But she did blame someone else.

Argent barely waited for the door to open before she charged in. There she was: another Argent, alone in the corner, with only her electric guitar. The doppelganger was as perfect as if she was looking in the mirror, every hair and skirt pleat in place. But even as the other Argent shredded the sweetest chords on her electric guitar, the real Argent recognized that carefully sculpted expression that gave nothing away, save for the glazed, listless look in her eyes.

She was hiding.

Argent recognized the strangeness of this: of watching yourself like a character in a movie, and knowing you were self-destructing. It spooked her.

And made her angry. She blazed towards the doppelganger until she was only an inch away. The other Argent didn't react, but she didn't care.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING JUST STANDING THERE?!" she screamed, the air bursting from her lungs. "So what if things didn't turn out how they're supposed to?! Your best friends are cleaning up your mess, and you don't even have the decency to help them! YOU DON'T GET TO JUST SIT THERE!"

The other Argent played blindly on, but the real Argent felt like the energy was being sapped out of her. She sat on the edge of the bed, her hands fisting the covers. "I don't know what's happening or why I'm here or how the heck I screwed up so badly. I don't know. And...I'm scared that I can't fix it." She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. "But that's what being a hero is about, right? We don't know what'll happen, or if our actions will even help anyone in the end. But we keep trying anyways. Someone has to." She stood up, her boots landing squarely on the floor. She watched the other Argent, the defeated look in her eyes.

"I know we're not perfect, and we'll still make mistakes—a lot of them!—but I have to believe that all that effort will result in something good in the end. THAT'S KARMA!"

T*T*T*T*T

Argent jolted up. Where—where was she? She felt jittery, like she'd just run a marathon...or chugged too much caffeine.

She was—what was she doing? And where were her—

Friends!

They needed her help!

But… she looked around, and saw only a desert spread out before her in all directions. Where were they?

She flew into the sky to get a better look. All around, the desert continued into a hazy horizon with no end in sight. But then she spotted a flash of movement. A bright spot of yellow stood out from the dusty sand. She flew closer—it wasn't just a spot, it was a glove, its hand limp above the sand. She rushed towards it. Using both hands as she flew above, she gripped onto the gloved hand—almost jumping when it grabbed her wrist—and tugged, rearing back. Slowly, slowly, the gloved hand revealed an arm, then a shoulder, and finally, a head.

Kid Flash!

The speedster gasped, then coughed as she pulled him out. She had nearly gotten him out to his waist when his eyes snapped open—

"NO! NO! JINX!"

She almost dropped him. She dipped as he struggled against her, but she somehow managed to hold on until he was fully out, dropping him on solid ground.

But the speedster immediately sped to the edge of the pit, throwing his arms into the sand. "JINX, WHERE'S JINX?!"

Argent immediately flew above the sand pit and dove two large, shovel-like shapes deep into the sand, scooping it out and letting it pour onto the solid ground. She and Kid Flash immediately set to raking through it, her heart pounding loud enough in her chest she could swear he could hear it.

"I—I don't see her," she stuttered, but her words were but noise to the speedster as he kept shouting Jinx's name. The world around them seemed to shrink as the darkness pushed in, and Argent looked around nervously.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew Kid Flash back, and with it, the sand was picked up, blowing away until nothing was left—not a grain of sand, nor the body of their teammate. Kid Flash yelled, trying to catch at the sand, but even the fastest boy alive couldn't hold onto wind. When it blew away, Kid Flash collapsed, tucking his knees to his chest.

Argent could only stand there as the hero she looked up to broke down and sobbed. His back shook, and cries tore through him like a wounded animal. She felt cold. Numb. She never saw Kid Flash like this before—never saw anyone like this before. Even what she'd seen in that broken Keystone copy couldn't compare to this.

Her brain raced for ways she could help, what she was supposed to do—but...right now, they weren't superheroes. There was no clever solution or a powerful finishing move that could fix this. Just…them.

Carefully, Argent knelt beside her friend. Her hand was trembling, but she placed it on his shoulder anyways. Kid Flash instantly crumbled into her, and she let him.

His head was turned down as he sobbed, and she was grateful he couldn't see the tears spilling down her own cheeks.

T*T*T*T*T