Hello and welcome to my new story, this is going to be a longer project of mine, a multichapter story about my DC universe original character. :) Because my character is not strictly from the Arrowverse universe, neither is this story, so not everything can be necesserily Arrowverse canon, but I'm trying to keep it neutral. :) I hope you enjoy reading this. :)
Flash: The Serpent's Tale
Chapter 1.
December 11, 2013
It was a pleasant night, albeit a bit chilly, with the beginnings of a storm rising up on the slowly darkening sky above Central City on that fateful day, as the city gathered in front of the enormous, concrete building, to celebrate what was meant to be the greatest scientific accomplishment of the last several decades. It was meant to be something glorious, something the city has bonded over as thousands of people came to witness what many of them considered simply to be a good show, others understood it to be a miracle, and some feared it was nothing but a recipe for a disaster, and yet everyone has gathered here to present to it, to see the launching of the newly finished S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator and what change will it bring to the fast approaching future.
Among the many people who came here was also a certain young man named Barry Allen, the youngest member of Central City Police Department, who was not just a very competent forensic scientist, in fact some of his fellow officers would readily call him a regular Sherlock Holmes, but he was also quite the science geek himself, and being here tonight has been a bit of a dream come true, not only because of the potential progress this night could bring to every possible, and not just purely scientific, field out there, to humanity's general knowledge of the world, but also because it was a chance for him to finally catch a glimpse of a man who has been somewhat of his idol for the last several years. Dr. Harrison Wells was a truly brilliant man whose efforts to bring about new advancements and progress for the benefit of all humanity were truly spectacular and way ahead of everything the world has accomplished so far and Barry considered the man to be a genius at the very least.
And so it was an absolute thrill to see the man step on the stage to the sounds of excited whistling and clapping of many hands, wearing an expensive suit and a huge smile on his face and Barry had a hard time keeping his own excitement in check as he stood there with his best friend, Irish West, who herself wasn't as enthusiastic about the concept as he was, but, as a good friend, was quite happy for his own happiness, and listened with him as dr. Wells spoke of the many changes his particle accelerator will bring into the world. And so it was a rather unpleasant interruption when a man, who didn't seem much older than Barry himself, shoved into Iris, and ran off with her bag, along with the laptop inside it. And as Barry ran to a hurried rescue, he had to appologize as he pushed through the crowd and suddenly slammed into a young, blond woman who didn't seem to notice him as she stood and stared, quite fascinated, at the stage, before he sped of, not knowing where this night will eventually lead him. And as the clouds gathered up in the sky and opened up to shower the darkened city with rain, the ground shook as a wave of energy swept through the city, and a lonely lightning found its mark as destiny began to take its course, following a one man's journey towards an uncertain future.
October, 2014
It was now almost a full year since the night the particle accelerator exploded, and since then, many things have changed. Everyone had a slightly different opinion as to how much exactly or which one of those changes affected them most, but for the team at S.T.A.R. Labs, it was definitely Barry Allen. The young man, who fell into a coma for nine months after being hit by a lightning, and came back not only alive, but with literal lightning in his veins, able to run at speed that was barely perceivable to the human eye, and that was probably only because he wore a bright red suit that was hard to miss, was now the centre of everyone attention and concern.
There was dr. Harrison Wells, who, after the particle accelerator explosion, was seriously wounded himself and ended up, according to the doctors, in a wheelchair for the rest of his life with his damaged spine, but that didn't stop him from wanting to help other people, even though no one seemed too eager to accept his help anymore. A lot of people died that night, and many more, as it seemed, came out of that night changed, some in a good way, but most of them were bad, and so it was the Flash, much to his annoyance at first, who took it upon himself to capture and help contain them, even though it hasn't been a very successful campaign so far when it came to capturing them alive.
Then, there were two of Barry's new friends, dr. Caitlin Snow, a brilliant and beautiful young bio-engineer who suffered probably the greatest loss of all of them, loosing her own fiancé, who sacrificed himself trying to save the city, and Cisco Ramon, a mechanical engineer whose brilliant toys and innovations, along with his good humour and cheerful demeanor always kept the team's mood up even in the darkest of times. Together they formed a crime fighting team, rebuilding what was left of the particle accelerator into a make-shift metahuman prison to contain those who chose to use their newfound powers to hurt others.
It was now only a few weeks after they first started with all this, and it seemed like their work to catch all the metahumans created by the explosion last year was going to be a long one. But that particular week has started rather normally, as dr. Wells has once again surprised everyone by devising a new way to train not only the speed of Barry's body, but also of his mind, by making him play chess, ping-pong and Operation with him, Cisco and Caitlin respectively, at the same time. It was one of those instances when Barry was intentionally annoying everyone in the room in his desire to show off, and so it was, perhaps, for that reason mostly that dr. Wells was wearing such a smug expression on his face as he announced his victory, even as the Flash sped off to stop an ongoing robbery.
Unbeknown to the Flash, that robbery was to be the start of one of the most interesting relationships in his life, but at that time, it was just his very first encounter with a new enemy. The thief's name was Leonard Snart, son of a corrupt policeman, quite famous himself among Central City's police force as a man who was excellent in planning out his crimes, because he knew precisely how this game of cops and robbers worked. Snart was as ruthless as he was cunning, a man who did not hesitate to threaten a life to get what he wanted. And unlike his petty underlings, he wasn't scared to take a risk in order to win.
And so, when the Flash managed to foil Snart's plan to steal the famous Kahndaq Dynasty diamond, an enormous stone with definitely quite the price associated with it, it was without a doubt that he would try again, and so it was, for now, left to detective Joe West, the man Barry regarded as his second father for a very long time, and his partner, Eddie Thawne, to watch over the museum where the diamond was currently stored. And sure enough, it didn't take Snart too long to make his move, boldly showing his face in the museum for everyone to see, drawing for the attack not only the two detectives, but also the Flash.
However, as Joe West moved for the proverbial kill, it was pretty apparent that Snart was not joking this time as he brandished a high-tech cold gun that would make even mr. Freeze proud, freezing the nearby road, causing an approaching police car to nearly kill the detective, and then casually strode inside a nearby theatre. Following them inside the building, the Flash had his hands full as Snart shot his gun at the surrounding civilians repeatedly, blasting them with a stream of deadly fast-freezing liquid, giving Barry a hard time as he tried to save them all.
And then, in a moment that, in a terrifying way, slowed down inside Barry's mind as he tried desperately to stop what was about to happen, Snart turned as he saw a security guard coming from the theatre hall, raised his hand with the gun and fired, and this time, not even Barry's fast legs were enough as the bright stream shot through the air, aiming straight at the man's chest. And yet, suddenly, almost at the last moment, there was a movement to his left as someone else run forward, jumping across the aisle and pushing the guard our of the way, and a thud sounded as the man fell to the ground, along with a loud, female scream and the Flash looked down in a slight shock. There was a young woman there, lying and whimpering on the ground, half of her right arm enclosed in ice. She looked at the Flash and tried to smile, but her face contorted in pain and as Joe ran inside the hall to help with the guard, Leonard Snart being long gone at that time, the Flash did not hesitate as he took the woman into his arms and ran to S.T.A.R. Labs.
Several hours later, he watched, still in his Flash costume, as the woman slowly woke up in the medbay. He stood there and smiled at her as she opened her eyes, winced, and then promptly tried to sit, but he gently pushed her back down. "It's alright, you're at S.T.A.R. Labs." he said. "You were caught in an ice blast. I had to bring you here as fast as I could so you wouldn't lose an arm. Do you remember that?" he asked and the woman nodded, as she looked down at the bandages covering her from the hand up to her elbow. "Thank you." she said gently, looking up at him. He noticed that she had very light, blonde hair, her eyes a soft, grey-blue colour. "How long was I out of it?" she asked, as she reached over to a small table next to the cot, and put on the thin glasses that she found there.
"Just a few hours." sounded a voice from behind them as another, brown-haired woman came in then, followed by a cute-looking, Latin American man who looked very sombre as he stared at the woman on the cot. "You were in a lot of pain, so I gave you a mild sedative to help you sleep it off." the woman with the brown hair continued. "Fortunately, we managed to remove the ice in time, so the tissue damage was not too extensive, but we will keep these bandages for a while while you heal, ok?" she said, making her newest patient nod as the Flash stepped closer.
"You know, what you did back there was very brave. You saved that man's life." he said appreciatevely and she nodded, sitting up slightly as a few more pillows were placed behind her back to make her more comfortable. "Yes, well, I hid in the hall when I saw the man coming in the theatre, but when I saw him aiming for that security guard, I knew that I had to help." she replied, and then she grinned. "I was really, really hoping that I'll be able to do that without catching the blast myself, but I wasn't that lucky I guess." she shrugged, and winced at the pain shooting towards her shoulder. "I'm Adrianne." she added. "Adrianne Blake."
The Flash smiled and shook her left hand gently, before speaking: "It's nice to meet you, Adrianne. I'm the Flash, and this is Caitlin and Cisco. They work with me here at S.T.A.R. Labs." If she was slightly peeved by his reluctance to tell her his real name, she didn't have time to voice it, because just as she took a breath to speak, there was a soft, whirring sound coming from the hallway, as an older man in a wheelchair, with short, dark hair and striking blue eyes, moved into the medbay and the others wordlessly made way for him to move through. "Ah, welcome back, miss… Blake, was it? You gave us quite the scare back there. Fortunately, the Flash brought you straight here, rather then a hospital. I'm not sure if any doctors would be able to deal with this level of cryopathy. You're lucky not to have lost your arm."
"So I was told." said the woman known as Adrianne quietly, staring at him, and there was something of a slight shock in her eyes as she inspected the man in front of her carefully, her eyes studying his face. The Flash had to smile as he saw what he recognised as the same look of amazement he himself had when he finally found himself face to face with the man, through almost similar circumstances, though in her case, there seemed to be a sort of reverence even, carefully hidden as she smiled. "Thank you." she said at the end as she shook the man's hand as well. "You must be dr. Wells, I've heard… and read a lot about you." she added cheerfully.
"Well, I hope you haven't read anything too recent. Though all quite deserved, I'm afraid there's little that Central City has to say about me now that is positive in nature." he remarked, and she sighed, her smile gentle. "Things like that happen sometimes, dr. Wells. I'm sure you didn't mean for the particle accelerator to explode." she said cordially as she looked into his eyes. "That much must be clear to everybody. And what you do here, well, that I think will be enough to redeem the mistakes you made." she said kindly, earning a grateful smile from him.
"That's very nice of you to say, miss Blake, and I can promise you we are certainly doing our best. Speaking of that, though you've stumbled upon our secret by means of unavoidable circumstance, I'm sure I don't have to stress the importance of you keeping quiet about all this. Should even the knowledge of our involvement with the Flash escape the confines of these walls, it would mean a lot of trouble for our cause." his voice was kind, but his eyes held a lot of meaning behind them, and she felt slightly self-conscious looking into them as she nodded. "Of course," she said. "I am rather good at keeping secrets." She gave him a reassuring smile and he stared at her for a while more, making her slightly uncomfortable.
"Very well, then." he said at the end, appearantly willing to take her word for it. "We will keep you here for a few more days, until we can remove those bandages. In the meantime, if you need to call your family or your workplace, anything you need, we'll be happy to accomodate you. You truly are a hero, miss Blake." dr. Wells smiled warmly, but then his voice turned cold as he glanced at Cisco. "Without you, we wouldn't have been able to prevent such a stupid, needless tragedy, though it pains me to see you almost paid the price instead."
With that he wheeled out of the medbay, followed by the Flash who didn't say a word as he passed by his friend, and Adrianne looked between them as she noticed the change in the atmosphere. Before she could've asked though, the young man named Cisco stepped closer, looking rather distraught as he approached. "I… I must apologize." he began, looking at her sadly with his brown eyes. Caitlin, who stayed behind too to check on her bandages, glanced up at him with pity. "The cold gun that you were hit with, it was mine. At the beginning, when we started all this, well, when we first saw what extraordinary powers the Flash had, I wasn't sure what to expect, so I wanted to have a precaution in case something… went wrong. I made this gun in case he needed to be stopped, and then it was stolen right under my nose. Now B-the Flash," Cisco choked slightly at his words as he stopped himself from saying the Flash's true name, which she mercifully overlooked as Caitlin gave him a stern look. "Now the Flash is mad at me and he has every reason to be. It's my fault that the guard nearly died, and it's my fault that this happened to you." he looked down, unable to look her in the eyes, but then he felt a soft touch as she reached over with her good hand to lightly tap his shoulder and smiled at him kindly.
"It's alright." she said. "I think, were I in your shoes, I would have done the same. I mean we live in a crazy world, right?" she chuckled lightly. "I'm sorry if the Flash is angry at you right now, but, I spend some time living in Gotham and trust me, whatever you can imagine that could go wrong is quite possible in that place, so it's always a wise decision to be careful." she smiled, and Cisco returned the smile timidly. "So don't worry about it." she continued. "If nothing else, trust me, I'm sure there will come a time where you'll be able to say 'I told you so', but right now, if the Flash truly is your friend as much as you are his, he will forgive you." she sighed tiredly as she laid back down, putting her glasses back on the table. "I think I'm going to sleep a bit more now." she said as she closed her yes, and Caitlin looked at her kindly, pleased at the way this almost stranger was trying to make her friend feel better, before the two of them left the medbay to let her have some rest.
ossssssso
Lying beside the train tracks, among the wreckage of the train that Snart just destroyed in an attempt to get himself rid of the Flash, Barry Allen hissed in pain as the cold blast hit his back, covering his middle with ice. He rolled onto his back to look up at his attacker, but it was hard to move at any speed as the burning cold slowly seeped through the fibers of his suit. Snart was looking at him with a serious expression, his eyes behind the protective glasses as cold as the weapon he was holding, and he was about to pull the trigger, when the clear, angry voice of Cisco sounded from behind him, along with the mechanical sounds of a machine powering up.
It was only thanks to his enormous luck that Snart was, indeed, no mechanical genius, and he didn't seem to see through Cisco's ruse as the young scientist waved what was, in fact, just a little embellished vacuum cleaner from one of S.T.A.R. Labs' closets and called it a weapon, but it seemed to work as Snart left the scene in peace. He did not, however, relinquish the stolen diamond, and he hardly lost any of that smug expression on his face, which made this victory a lot less glorious than Cisco hoped it would be, but he was still happy, for it seemed that the Flash was, once again, willing to trust him. And as the members of Team Flash celebrated their reunion and their renewed friendship, the thief vanished from the scene, thinking that he managed to get away with his crime. What he didn't know however is that he was being followed.
About an hour later everyone returned to S.T.A.R. Labs and it seemed like the day was saved. While it was impossible to use the same trick they used before to track down Snart again, Barry, who has indeed finally forgiven Cisco for creating the weapon who put his and other lives at risk in the first place, was confident that they will catch him eventually. However, just as Felicity, their friend from Star City, set out for her journey home and everything seemed to finally calm down, Caitlin walked into the Cortex and, in a slightly worried voice said: „Hey, where's our guest, Adrianne? She wasn't supposed to leave the medbay yet..."
Having their hands full with Snart during the last few hours, nobody had any idea how to answer that question, and even dr. Wells, who was, of course, left behind due to his condition, was confused, as he was watching over things in the Cortex all this time, but didn't see anyone leave the medbay. But before anybody could spring into action, a figure appeared in the doorway. „I'm right here." The blonde woman standing there said, as she leaned on the wall, smiling, a small, black bag slumped over her left shoulder as she tried not to put pressure on her right arm.
„Damnit!" Caitlin shouted angrily as she moved around the console, grabbing the injured limb and checking the bandages carefully. „What were you thinking? You're still under observation, you can't just waltz out of here when you feel like it." she said accusingly and Adrianne sighed as she looked around the room and saw the rest of the team's shocked and slightly dissapointed faces. „Alright, I'm sorry for scaring you." she said apologetically. „But I can make up for this. I actually brought a gift." she added, almost proudly, and slowly, she reached into her bag and pulled out an object from the inside. And as she placed the object on the console, everyone gaped at it in wonder and shock. It was the Kahndaq Dynasty diamond.
The Flash recovered first. „That's the diamond Snart stole!" he exclaimed. „You got it back?" he asked, and Adrianne nodded, a little nervously. „Yeah, a may have overheard Cisco telling you that Snart was at the train station, so I may have... borrowed one of S.T.A.R. Labs' cars and followed you there. I saw the exchange between you and Snart, I saw how Cisco saved you, which was really awesome by the way, and when Snart left, I followed him back to his lair. It's an old warehouse at the south edge of town, but I doubt he'd still be there, surely he must have realised by now that the diamond was taken by someone.
While everyone was still slightly confused, the looks on their faces turned into happy ones and Cisco even patted her on the shoulder in praise, but it was dr. Wells who decided to voice his concerns, and his voice was nothing short of suspicious. "Well…" he began and everyone turned his attention to him. "As fortunate as this turn of events is, it does warrant at least one important question, doesn't it?" he said slowly, piercing the young woman with his blue eyes.
"How exactly did you achieve all this? Miss Blake, I highly doubt that mr. Snart, a criminal of some professionalism, would let such a treasure out of his sight for even a second, and even if he did, getting close enough to take the diamond without being spotted would be nearly impossible, so… what exactly are you not telling us?" Wells asked, looking at her sternly, and as everyone looked at her once again, the same question in their eyes, she sighed and lowered her head slightly. "Ok, there is something I haven't told you. I… I wasn't sure how to approach this, but…" she paused. "The thing is, Snart couldn't see me… I guess it would be better if I just showed you." she said, and then she closed her eyes and in the next second, she was gone, seemingly vanished into thin air.
"Wow," exclaimed Cisco, as he carefully waved his hands through the seemingly empty space in front of him until he touched something solid, while Caitlin said in surprise: "No way, you can turn yourself invisible?"
"Not completely invisible, just partially. Look carefully around this area." Cisco replied as he outlined the figure standing before them slowly. "Fascinating." spoke dr. Wells, whose face changed from suspicious to intrigued as he wheeled to get a closer look. "It appears that somehow, miss Blake's body is able to generate some sort of force field around itself that can bend the light in a way that can make her almost invisible to the human eye. You can see where the light bends if you look for it, but if she stands completely still and moves very slowly, it would be easy to miss her being there, even at a close distance. She is, for comparison, sort of like a chameleon… this is truly incredible, miss Blake." he spoke directly to her as he saw her shift a little. "Am I assuming correctly that you received this incredible ability from the particle accelerator as well?" he asked, and in the next second, she appeared before them again, and she nodded, looking at him with a small smile.
"That's right, dr. Wells. I actually moved to Central City shortly before the explosion, and while I couldn't stay for long, I really wouldn't miss the launch of your particle accelerator. I'm not an expert on science, but it has always been one of my interests." she said, and he brushed off the praise as he motioned for her to continue. "Anyway, when the explosion happened, I was in a pharmacy, buying some stuff I needed, when suddenly, the ground shook, and when I looked outside I saw a giant wave of energy as it blasted through the city, and I tried to find some place to hide." she frowned slightly as she remembered.
"I found myself in a small lab, but then the wave hit, and it knocked me of my feet and I fell straight into a shelf filled with some kind of chemicals, I couldn't really tell you what was there, but everything spilled right at me, I could feel it burning through my clothes and into my skin, and whatever the mixture was, whatever it did, it made me into this." she gestured at herself, before she turned towards the Flash with a slightly pleading look in her eyes.
"When I found out about this, I didn't know what to do. Eventually, I decided I wanted to use this ability to do good, but I am not a superhero like you, and I was afraid to do this alone. But then, when I saw you in that theatre, when you saved me after I helped that guard, I wanted to do something to help you too, and so I did. And I would like to continue helping you, if you would have me. I know that I'm gonna need training and discipline and responsibility and all that, and I will follow your lead, but you guys here are amazing, and I would really love to be a part of your team." she stared at the Flash, her eyes cincere as she made her case.
The Flash looked at her for a second, and then, in a gesture of trust, he raised his hands and removed his cowl, showing her his face. "Then welcome to the team, Adrianne. I am Barry Allen." he smiled and she stared at him in slight surprise. "Hey, I remember you. You ran straight into me the day of the explosion when you tried to chase down that thief." she spoke, her voice amused, and he suddenly laughed as a look of recognition passed over his face. "Yeah, right, I though you looked a bit familiar. Sorry about that, again. Wow…" he breathed, as he thought about it. "Guess we were really meant to meet, huh?" he smiled and she returned his smile with one of her own, before she laughed happily as she heard Cisco's excited clapping.
She then shook hands with everyone, accepting their welcomes gratefully, before Caitlin began ushering her back to the medbay for a thorough examination. But right before she left, she couldn't help but overhear a conversation as dr. Wells spoke to Cisco: "Well, that was a rather fortunate end to your little mishap, wasn't it?" he said and she turned her head around as she heard the darkened tone of his voice, watched as the older man took hold of Cisco's arm in a rather steely grip, the look in his eyes even harder. "Don't you ever do anything like that again, do you understand me?" dr. Wells spoke quietly, and she saw the fear on Cisco's face as he concurred, and as dr. Wells moved away without saying another word, she stared at him in shock. But then, as Caitlin called after her, she turned, and the corner of her mouth lifted in a small, amused smile.