Not sure if anyone's still reading this, but here's an author's note:

Yes, we're close to the final part. Wow. This whole story has grown into a monster, especially since I just wanted to get some stuff out of my head and my weird brain decided that hey, let's go into detail and no, you don't get to chicken out and just let it end vaguely or chicken out of dealing with how everyone reacts and acts.

As for this part, I guess it was never a secret with all the breachers that this is Zoom coming over to play. You also might have noticed: no Jay Garrick, no love story with Caitlin, etc. etc. etc. I'm only using the breachers, the name, and the outfit. The guy behind the mask is... well, go read the chapter. :)

I claim AU rights :P

Central City was only slowly getting used to having a new team of protectors, two of which had been criminals not too long ago. Mick couldn't care less. Len had long since come to ignore the looks and the distrust. The CCPD wasn't really warming up to them, but at least Captain Singh had managed to get it into the heads of his men and women to not shoot first.

Especially after Mick and Ray had stopped a bank robbery and Ray had disarmed a bomb.

Sure, the inside of the building had looked a little scorched and when the ice had thawed, there was water damage, but everyone had come out alive and the meta had been apprehended.

It absolutely drove home how much Heatwave and Cold had changed when the originator of the breaches as well as the army of metas coming through, was finally revealed.

The appearance of Breachers, of doppelgängers from another Earth to some of the people they knew, had increased. There were more and more of them and some had dropped interesting information. Someone had been sending them through to engage The Flash, to kill him, and only then they would be able to come home.

"It's like some kind of twisted hostage situation. Or an extortion," Harrison had mused. "They are forced into this against their will, desperate to get home, so they'll do whatever's necessary."

"Kill The Flash," Len had stated coldly.

"But none of them are strong enough," Cisco remarked and that had been nothing but the truth. "He's pacing them, like you suspected." He looked at Harrison.

"To quote Mr. Rory: he's fattening up The Flash like a Christmas goose. Those he sends here are just as much a victim as everyone who is hurt because of them. He uses their fear, exploits their weaknesses, doesn't stop at blackmail or death threats against their immediate family."

"Why does everyone want my speed?" Barry asked, shaking his head. "I'm not the only speedster. I'm just me."

Harrison exchanged a look with Len, smiling faintly. "That's probably why, Mr. Allen. You are you. And you have grown since that first ill-fated mentorship by my namesake. Well, the man who killed my namesake and pretended to be him. You are a very powerful young man. Now you are a powerful meta Sentinel with a shield, conduit and anchor."

"Blame the not-Guide," Len drawled.

Harrison smirked. Barry just rolled his eyes.

"How does he want to take something from me that's… well, anchored?" he asked.

"That, my young friend, is the question. He's from another Earth, so maybe his meta ability is to feed on the Speed Force."

Cisco's eyes lit up. "A Speed Vampire!"

"Do not name him, Ramon," Len warned, eyes narrowing.

Cisco held up his hands. "Hey, just saying…"

"No."

"Geez," he muttered.

"We need to close those breaches. Permanently," Wells decided. "Let's get on that," he told Cisco.

The engineer nodded. "On it."

When the mastermind behind it all finally made an appearance, it was almost anti-climactic; quite… disappointing, really.

"Tell me he doesn't look like a Speed Vampire" Cisco blurted, watching and listening to the proclamation from the very much deranged looking and sounding speedster who called himself Zoom. "With a really terrible name. And an even worse outfit. Man, his sense of dress isn't even melodramatic enough to warrant the name 'vampire'."

Len raised an eyebrow below his goggles. "You seem to attract them, Scarlet," he commented flatly, glancing at The Flash.

Barry's face was set into a determined mask, eyes glowing brightly with the electricity contained within him.

"Gonna send you back," Mick just said, studying the man in the black full-body suit. "And I'm gonna love setting you on fire while doing it."

"What do you want?" Barry asked coolly.

The fully masked face turned to look at him, blue, almost purple lightning crackled around him.

"You, of course. Your speed! I will be the fastest man in the universe the moment I have your speed! You will fall today, Flash!" While the mask covered Zoom's whole face, it was emotive enough to project a toothy grin. "You will die!" he promised. "All of you. And your speed will be mine. Real speed. True speed!"

Len tilted his head a little. "Real speed," he echoed. "As opposed to… artificial speed that can only be gained by drugs?"

The black speedster snarled, gloved, claw-tipped hands clenching.

"Hit the bull's eye at first strike," Snart added with a sardonic smile. "So you're just some drugged-up wanna-be speedster."

"You will all die," Zoom promised darkly.

"Better men have tried." Mick propped the heat gun against one shoulder, the gesture mirrored by Len. "Kinda didn't work."

Barry shot them a tight smile.

"I'm not a man," Zoom hissed. "I am speed! I am the personification of speed in every world! I am faster than anything this or any world has ever seen!"

There was a snap from deep within him and Barry felt the sizzle as the Speed Force rose like the vortex of power it was. Like it was reacting to the words. Barry ignored the sensation.

"Nope. You're a loser. A petty thief." Mick grinned darkly. "A manipulative bastard using others to do his dirty work. And a druggie."

The Sentinel's expression was lethal. His whole bearing was that of an alpha, projecting openly, to intimidate and to warn off whoever might foolishly think he would be easy to take down. Barry had never seen the other man in a protective mode, but this was one. A very heavily protective one. His own Sentinel side wasn't as easily riled up, but he knew the feeling, the need to keep everyone in Central City and everyone he knew safe.

"You, I will kill last to make it last," Zoom promised, blue lightning crackling over his black suit. "And I will enjoy it!"

The lightning looked unnatural. It felt unnatural, artificial and not the least bit connected to the Speed Force. Barry glanced at Len, who was studying their opponent with sharp eyes.

Mick snorted. "Loser," he growled.

"Okay, let's do this," Barry decided, voice low and intense. "I don't care who that is, why he does it, what the agenda behind it is. I want him gone from our city."

Mick's smile was malicious and downright hungry. The Sentinel was very much prepared to light everything on fire. Barry felt the thrum of the Speed Force, felt its reaction to the other speedster, and it was almost… angry. Well, not the human emotion but that of an eternal concept. It fluctuated around him, firmly anchored in Barry's very core, and he sensed its connection to his shield.

It wanted Zoom gone. He was an aberration, an artificial construct. He wasn't connected to the Speed Force, he had pushed his way in, taking what wasn't his. If it wasn't such an abstract thought, Barry would have categorized those sensations as anger or even something close to hatred.

"We'll send him back where he came from and seal the breaches," the speedster announced.

Zoom laughed darkly. "You cannot close them all."

"Oh, but we can," Cisco could be heard over the comms. "All fifty-two of them. We're already on it. Actually, we closed a lot of them over the past week and you didn't even notice, hm? For a speedster, he's slow. And I mean it. He might be fast, but Barry's faster."

As if that had been the cue, five Breachers appeared, all familiar faces from this Earth, but slightly different. None of them looked like they wanted to be here, but the way they were glancing at Zoom, the other speedster had something on them, using them, controlling them.

Barry's lips became a thin line. He exchanged a brief look with Len and the others, then nodded.

Time to get to work.

It was one of those battles that left Central City with quite some collateral. Zoom was truly fast, but as Cisco had announced, Barry was faster. Where Zoom had experience and control, The Flash had the unrivalled access to the source of all speed. Barry could handle it like no one else, thanks to the conduit effect and his anchor.

There was never any hesitation. There was never a faltering step.

Zoom was a hard and dirty fighter, using very underhanded tactics that resulted in quite a few blows striking The Flash, but Barry wasn't deterred.

Having a pyrokinetic trying to roast the suit off him distracted Zoom again and again, especially since Mick wasn't reduced to just his heat gun. He was fire. And he used it as an offense and a defense. Being able to turn into nothing but flames was a sight to behold and coupled with Ray's water powers and the cold gun, they were a force to be reckoned with.

Looking at the charred, black speedster, half the face mask hanging off a grotesquely scarred face, Barry wondered just who this man was or had been on his Earth. His obsession was bordering on the insane, for no other reason than trying to gain The Flash's speed. And Mick's taunts that he was nothing but a drug addict, how it had riled him up even more, made him wonder if that was truly how he had gained his speed.

"You can't beat me!" Zoom whispered harshly, blood dripping from his wounds. They didn't seem to bother him.

"I can and I will," Barry murmured, and then they were off again.

Running, racing, chasing, and Barry felt the Speed Force everywhere, boosting him, giving him unbridled access to everything it was. The yellow lightning that was his trademark had started to turn white at the center, indicating the intensity of the Speed Force around him. He felt it, how it pushed him, how it made him faster, his reactions within a fraction of a fraction of a second, and his mind seemed to cast out to the very energy he was connected to.

He had no idea how long they ran and fought, until the moment he made the conscious decision to catapult them into the Speed Force to spare Central City even more destruction. Zoom followed, like a mindless addict needing that one fix, drawn to the power that was The Flash.

He trusted in the team to handle the metas and close the last of the breaches. The Flash would be dealing with the puppet master behind the attacks.

Inside the limitless energy, Barry rounded on his opponent, sizing up the black-clad speedster. Half the mask was still attached to the face, the other half showing burned and bleeding flesh, like right out of a zombie movie. Blue lightning crackled and clashed with the speed energy around them.

Out of the corner of his eyes he thought he saw shadows in the distance of the endless energy field. Not far, not too close, following the fighters; circling.

Barry forcefully ignored them for now. It was time to end this.

xXXx

Thankfully no lives were lost that night.

At least permanently.

Len opened his eyes to a Barry who looked like he hadn't slept for a week. His face was ashen, the eyes burning with a fire that had nothing to do with the power inside him, the razor-sharp presence, and he was actually trembling.

"Scarlet," he murmured, feeling headachy and a little too shaky himself.

Actually he felt extremely sore.

Damn. Dying really wasn't better the third time around.

Time. Huh. No pun intended.

"You look like crap," Len added, still a bit woozy.

Barry gave him a weak, brittle smile. "Welcome back."

"What?" Len asked as he took stock and found he had all limbs attached and aside from some shakiness, he felt okay. If the headache would just go away, that is.

"Loser broke your back," a voice rumbled and he turned his head.

Mick was slouching in a chair, looking pissed off as hell, his features rougher than usual.

Oh. Right.

"He got away for a fraction of a second," Barry added, voice so strange and alien to Len's ears. "I lost him in the Speed Force for maybe a second or two and he… got to you."

Well, fuck, ran through his head. One second for a speedster was an incredible long time when he was inside the very energy field that sustained his powers. Time was nothing to them when they were speeding. Len had experienced this special kind of dimension often enough.

"Not your fault," he said out loud.

"Isn't it?"

Mick muttered something under his breath and it sounded rather uncomplimentary.

"Why are you here?" Len asked as the dizzy feeling finally cleared. He felt rather good.

"'Cause Red here didn't wanna leave," Mick growled. "And he was getting too twitchy and erratic for my liking. Also, until just now, it hadn't settled that you were like him. The regeneration crap is kinda freaky."

Len shot his partner a sharp look and Barry closed his eyes, running a trembling hand through his tousled hair. The Speed Force suddenly rose like a hellish beast from another world, twisting and reaching toward him, finally unleashed from whatever place Barry had locked it so tightly in. It washed over and around Len, hissing and whispering. Snart was the only other person than their resident speedster who could see or hear it.

Barry's eyes opened, lightning deep within the green irises, and he looked a little startled by the very present Speed Force energy between them. It died down as he let his shield settle its anchor, as the conduit worked off the unruly energy.

Decompressing.

"Everyone but Barry out!" Caitlin strode into the room, all business and no-nonsense.

She glared at Mick, who was refusing to budge, and Ray just shot his Sentinel a brief, imploring look. The man heaved himself out of the chair and met Barry's eyes.

Len was surprised by the silent exchange between the two Sentinels, one asking the other if it was okay to leave. Barry just nodded once, looking thankful. Mick remained a long second longer, then finally walked out.

Part of Len was clearly astounded. Another part was simply relieved.

The Speed Force had quieted down again. Barry wrapped a hand around one of his wrists and squeezed gently. His smile was shaky, surreal in a way, but he stepped back when Caitlin took over and started to check her time-reset patient.

Leonard Snart had died. Again.

This time in front of his eyes, killed by a psychopathic speedster with a god complex and an addiction to speed energy and whatever else he was taking, because the guy was certifiable. He had all the markings of a serious addict.

Mick Rory had never been a very emotional guy. Actually, he had seen himself as rather simple. He liked simple things. Food, sleep, sex, drink, though not necessarily in that order. He didn't need fancy, no frills, no lavish life-style, no extras. He did a job, played the muscle, the brawn, provided the fire power or the fists, sometimes just the intimidating presence.

It was also the way he had handled emotions. He didn't cry over spilled milk. He didn't live in the past. He didn't mourn loss, because he had lost too much to still mourn anything now.

Up until the day Len had sacrificed himself, denying the off-lined, broken Sentinel to end his sorry existence with something close to a heroic exit. The days, weeks and months after Snart's death had driven Mick into alcohol and tethering on the edge of the abyss, the siren call almost too much to resist.

No one had really paid him much attention, had treated him the way they had before. Mick was the gruff, rough, dumb muscle.

It was what many had always seen. It was the façade behind which the Sentinel had watched. Leonard had known there was more to Mick than met the eye, that he was sharper, quicker on the uptake, a lot more analytical than anyone could ever have guessed, and that he had an innate understanding when it came to machines and basic tech. While Rory couldn't explain how stuff worked, had barely enough of a grip on physics to pass eight grade science, he could assemble an engine in his sleep, especially if he had taken it apart himself before that.

This time, when Len had been killed by Zoom because the guy was completely off the rocker, Mick had given in to the surge of pure hatred inside of him.

Sure, they had been told about Snart's 'affliction', about being timeless, but he hadn't really give it much thought until now. And even if Mick had truly realized that it mean Leonard could come back from death, the immediate reaction to the violent death wouldn't have been any less… violent.

There was no mercy, just the fury and the fire. No reservations, just the need to avenge his friend's death. The Sentinel hadn't gone off the deep end, hadn't become feral, and Mick had felt his Guide with him all the way. Ray hadn't even tried to stop him from taking out the threat.

When it was over, when the flame inside him died down, he had almost felt serene.

Almost.

Len was back. Timeless, resurrected, reset, whatever. He was alive and well.

His Sentinel hadn't off-lined. He was still there, not feral, absolutely under control, just fighting all those conflicting emotions.

Because he now had a Guide.

Mick didn't startle as an arm curled around his waist. Ray's mind was open, surrounding him with a barely perceptible shield, and Mick turned in his embrace. He pulled his Guide close, centering his senses on the other man, grounding his very soul on him.

He had never needed it this badly before. Actually, he had never needed to balance his senses, had never been in such an almost feral zone. He had always powered through whatever had been thrown at him, but this… this had been too much.

Both just stood together, Mick with his eyes closed, simply feeling his bonded partner. He felt his anger slide away and exhaled softly.

"He's not dead," the Sentinel rumbled.

"No."

And Mick hadn't off-lined again. He was strongly present, his senses sharp and without a dull edge, and he knew it was because of his Guide.

Well, not just because of Raymond Palmer, but also because of the other Sentinel, who had been radiating his distress even though he was a self-contained and wouldn't ever have blipped on Mick's radar. But Barry Allen's emotions had been out in the open, for everyone to see, and Mick's Sentinel had reacted to that distress. He had set up camp in Len's room, together with Barry, and he wouldn't have moved an inch if not for Barry's wordless reassurance that he could leave them alone.

"The kid's going to be alright."

Ray smiled softly. "Yes."

Damn, he hated it when that happened. Those protective feelings that came from his genetic heritage. He also happened to like the younger man. A man connected to his oldest and best friend.

"Wish I could have burned the fucker," Mick growled.

"He's dead."

"Not dead enough."

Ray huffed a little laugh, truly amused, and Mick leaned back to glare at the other man. The smile only widened.

He decided to kiss that infuriating smile.

Strong, nimble hands slid under his Henley and over scarred and unmarked skin alike, tracing over the bumps as if reading Braille. Mick shuddered at the sensation, the touch amplified by his own abilities, his own heightened sense of touch.

Ray gently bit his lower lip when they parted, looking playful but not like he wanted to jump his Sentinel's bones. Those dark eyes were filled with understanding, with emotions. The empathic bond between them was strong and unwavering, relaying everything the other needed to know.

There was never any hesitation, never any doubt, and ever since he had allowed himself to have this, to follow his instinct and give in to what the Sentinel wanted, Mick Rory knew that Ray had never been in doubt about their connection, about the emotions involved.

Mick had never wanted a Guide. He had never needed one before off-lining. There had been brief spikes, but never a zone, but he had never given it much of a thought. Now, knowing what Len was, he suspected the anchoring effect had worked on his senses to a small degree. Snart hadn't been his Guide, but he had given the Sentinel something to unconsciously lean on. A kind of basic anchor that he hadn't even been aware of.

No, Mick Rory hadn't wanted a Guide, but here he was. With Ray. Ray had been different. Ray had been his Guide. He had claimed him, made him his and his alone. Touching, feeling, tasting, hearing Ray. It had been a long road, learning to trust, learning to follow instinct. They hadn't tumbled into bed together, locked away for days to initiate a bond. That was romance novel fiction.

Something Rebecca Silver used in her novels and something Mick had penned down for future novels already.

No, it had been a careful dance that had ended in very satisfying sex. A lot of it. Truly grounding himself on all that was this man and more. Ray wasn't a leash or a shackle. He was that irremovable fact.

He was the man he loved.

"I could go for a burger," Ray said lightly, that playfulness amplified by his smile and the expression in his eyes.

"Ribs," Mick decided with a rumble, pushing the softer emotions aside.

"Or that." Ray brushed his fingers over Mick's skin, the contact not meant to arouse. It was reassuring, calming, so very much wanted.

"No fancy stuff."

"The usual place?"

The usual place was a back-alley pub that wasn't a dive just yet, but wobbling toward being one. They had the best burgers, ribs and fries, but the ambience was questionable.

"Sounds good," the Sentinel agreed.

With a last kiss they parted. Ray's presence was like a rock, unwavering, absolutely firm, refusing to be broken or pushed away.

"Don't get all mushy on me, Haircut," he muttered gruffly.

Ray grinned. "Like what? Reminding you that yes, you have a pack? That you're not just a Sentinel with his Guide anymore? That you have a territory and people you protect? Or that you included another Sentinel into what you refuse to see as a family pack or tribe? That you see that Sentinel's family pack as an extended one of your own? That you downright adopted another Sentinel into your pack and see him as an equal? Alright, I won't mention that."

He had the audacity to laugh as Mick growled at him. Ray's whole being radiated amusement and teasing laughter.

Mick fisted a hand into the black t-shirt and drew him close, kissing those laughing lips. "Good," he rumbled.

Ray kissed him back, open and so very much full of warmth and lightness. "Good," he echoed.

The ribs and fries at the Hellhound Pub and Steaks were amazing as always. The homebrew beer was the cherry on top.