Hey everyone. Welcome back. Thank you to everyone who has spoken such kind words and offered reassurance to me for my last chapter. It means the world to me. This chapter I like much better because of the sheer absurdity of it. I'm sure you already know who's coming. Shoutout to my co-authors Brightburn1985 and ThomasMarieAmell2.0.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash
"Run that through me one more time?" Barry asked with his eyes closed. His head in his hands as if the news he was receiving had changed from when he last heard.
"There is no chain of command. Deacon's release shouldn't have been authorized legally. Even if it was, someone's gone through a lot of trouble making sure no one knows who made the call." Cisco said for what he hoped would be the final time.
"But it doesn't make sense. Why would that happen? What are they trying to hide?" Caitlin looked at Barry when he said that.
"What makes it seem like they're hiding something? Whoever they are," Caitlin asked.
"People don't usually go through that much effort to hide themselves unless they've got something in possession in need of being hidden." Barry answered.
"How about instead of trying to find the mysterious person who released Deacon, how about trying to find the man who was released?" Caitlin suggested. "If we find Deacon, it may lead to whoever released him. And what purpose that served."
"Joe says we can't send a search party after him, but we could try to find him with our facial scanner. I doubt it though. The guy stole billions of dollars without leaving a paper trail to where it could lead. Technology is his plaything. I don't trust anything with a screen to not be under the control of Deacon."
"Secret government agency?" Cisco piped up. "Recruited for a top secret division because of his powers and couldn't let it be known so they escaped without so much as a scratch."
Barry conceded the point. "I guess that's a possibility. His powers make Deacon far too useful in this digital age. I remember Felicity mentioning one of her ex-boyfriends had been recruited and was forced to fake his death so as to not attract any attention to himself."
"Yeah, but no fake death. Just a disappearance." Caitlin pointed out. "Deacon's gone somewhere. We just need to find him. If we do, we can figure out where all that money went."
"Marvelous. Truly a job well done. I couldn't have asked for better. Still, such a shame you were taken into custody, but the money you've liberated has more than made up for it." The man said.
"I apologize, I was not aware the witch would arrive. I should have anticipated the backup." Deacon apologized.
"Yes, you should have. But not to worry. There won't be another opportunity for that to happen." The woman came up behind Deacon and injected him with something. Deacon's eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed to the ground.
"So sorry about that, but you know what I always say. Failure is excusable. Detainment is not." The man turned to the woman. "Begin extraction immediately. His talents are too useful to let waste away."
"And the body?"
He waved dismissively. "Do what you will. Simply make sure there is nothing to tie him back to us."
"Of course my dear. And our next course of action?"
"We watch and enjoy. The time is almost upon us for the most powerful being in existence is about to be born. A being that will require pure chance for us to acquire but will prove invaluable. Of course extraction is always an option but I highly doubt it with concern to her."
"And what will happen should she prove too much to handle?"
"Assets are never irreplaceable. Never think otherwise. Even the queen in a game of chess must sometimes fall for the king to prevail. Isn't that right, my queen?"
The woman gulped. She knew what that meant. "Yes my love."
"The Flash shall handle her. We'll set our eyes on other potential assets. Other than that, business as usual."
The man let his eyes wander his vast space. Several people with blank expressions moved in and out. Glass tubes glowed on shelves filled with some type of substance, each with a label. Other people were in glass cells, completely unaware of their surroundings. Headbands sent electric shocks to their brains but none of them seemed to be in pain.
The man smirked at his underground empire. His collection. He couldn't wait for it to be complete.
The team found Deacon's body in the river. Analysis showed signs of several types of drugs in his blood as well as tiny injection marks. It looked as if it were an overdose. The trouble was figuring out how he'd gotten in the river, but it looked like somebody had found Deacon before the team did and dumped the body.
There was also the matter that Julian brought up. "You said Deacon was a meta right? Well his DNA should have been mutated. Dark matter in his veins gives him his powers. Just ran a check, it's as if half his DNA is missing."
Barry took the file offered and looked at it. Julian wasn't kidding. The bloodwork showed signs of mutations. Deacon was obviously a meta. Barry had a front row seat to Deacon's demonstration of power. But now it was showing those mutations to be incomplete somehow. There was no trace of dark matter in his system. That shouldn't make sense. The dark matter should have been combined with Deacon's DNA. It looked like it was mutated with dark matter, but the problem was it was completely lacking in it.
"That's weird. What could cause this?" Barry asked.
"That actually got me thinking." Julian said. "You told me that you've actually lost your powers before, right?"
"Yeah, twice." Barry confirmed.
"Well, if that's possible with you, it stands to reason it's possible with all the others. What if Deacon's been drained of his powers?" Julian suggested.
"Who could even do that? And why?"
"Do you really need to ask mate? Criminals with superpowers laying siege to the city. The whole world in fact. Metahumans are taking over. People can see that plain as day. Is it so incomprehensible that people are trying to find a way to get rid of them?" Julian rolled his eyes. "As for why Deacon, why not? Used his powers for his own personal gain. Maybe whoever did this managed to set up his release so they could test it out."
"That's a good point. But who could have the resources to pull this off? Everyone at STAR has been trying to find a way to safely get rid of meta powers since the beginning. The only confirmed case is me and that's because the Speed Force is different from dark matter."
"Well, I don't know what to tell you. What I can say is that Deacon didn't die by himself. Somebody did this to him."
Barry sighed. "It's a mystery. Something we're definitely going to have to look into. Thanks for this. I'll alert the rest of the team. By the way, since I have you here would you like to be one of my groomsmen?"
Julian smiled. "I'd be honoured. Thank you for asking." Julian offered his hand.
Barry returned the smile. He couldn't believe once upon a time he'd actually thought Caitlin fancied this man. Maybe in another life, she actually did.
Barry got sent to check out a bank robbery. After it had already been robbed, he was there as a CSI with the rest of the police department.
It was the strangest crime scene he'd ever seen and he'd witnessed a lot. There were witness accounts, but they all reported that they couldn't get any bars to make a call. The landline was down due to renovations as well. Which also explained why the security camera wasn't placed securely as it was instead dangling from the ceiling and couldn't get a clear picture.
The lock to the vault had somehow short circuited without any interference. People claimed a woman just walked into the vault without any trouble. She wasn't even wearing a mask to cover her appearance. But of course when people tried to stop her, all their shoelaces were untied and so they tripped, clonked their heads, and couldn't remember exactly what she looked like.
This should have been an easy case, but circumstances somehow just had to interfere and make things more difficult than they should.
"It's as if everything that could go wrong has." Joe said.
"Murphy's Law. It's just one of those days I suppose." Barry commented.
"Got anything?" Joe asked, hopeful.
"Nothing that can help. Fingerprints are a no go. A janitor that just started his shift after the robbery already wiped any potential fingerprints on the doors. No footprints. Shoes were extremely clean, but I still might find something if I can find one of hers. Witnesses confirm it was a woman, but nothing on definitive features." Barry replied.
"Any idea why the silent alarm didn't go off? You might have been able to catch her before she left." Joe wondered.
"It did go off. Just only after the robbery itself. It froze or something. Didn't start until the woman was well out of the vicinity." Barry answered.
"You don't suppose this was an inside job? Lots of coincidences. The wiped prints. Someone could have tampered with the alarm and the vault to allow her easy access. Pick a day when the security is at its most vulnerable." Joe suggested.
"It's a possibility, but both the vault and the alarm showed no signs of tampering. They just stopped working. We already interviewed the janitor who wiped the prints. He's an elderly man who's been working here for years. Not a criminal mastermind."
"A spot of bad luck I suppose. Nothing we can do about it now. Just got to wait and see if she ever comes up again. This has got to boost her ego enough for her to make some sloppy mistakes and when she does, we'll be there."
Except that wasn't the only one. Strings of daylight robberies over the next few days. Millions of dollars stolen right in front of people's eyes. Next to no evidence available and unreliable witness accounts.
Once is happenstance. Twice was a coincidence. Three times is a pattern. And they were so far past the point of three.
"Okay, I think we need to entertain the possibility that whoever this woman is, she's a meta that somehow can control Murphy's Law. As in everything that can go wrong around her, does go wrong, but leaves her in a positive way." Barry declared.
"That would not be the most absurd notion. You think this woman can control luck?" Caitlin said.
"No such thing as luck. To the simple mind, it's luck, but to the scientific mind, it's quantum fields." Julian explained. "Whoever she is, she projects a positive quantum field around her, spinning electrons positively around her, giving the perception of good fortune. And of course, for every action, there is an equal reaction. A negative quantum field appears causing electrons to spin negatively for others."
"So the better things go for her, the worse things happen to people around her." Cisco surmised.
"That's a rather simple explanation, but sure. That about sums it up." Julian shrugged.
"So what you're saying is, she's a walking-"
"Misfortune. Yeah." Julian interrupted.
"Misfortune?" Cisco scoffed, but then a serious look overtook his features. "Misfortune. Miss Fortune! Julian! You beautiful man, you! Welcome to the family." Cisco brought Julian into a hug, so overcome with emotion at the name.
Julian just kept still and waited for the moment to be over. "What just happened?"
"You came up with a name for our mystery woman. That's the Cisco Ramon rite of passage right there." Caitlin laughed at the uncomfortable expression on Julian's face.
"Yes. Alright, well can you please get him off of me?" Julian pleaded.
Now that they knew what they were potentially dealing with, they swept the database. If this woman was giving off good luck, that meant that anything bad, such as incriminating evidence, would be gone or inadmissible. They needed to find her through her good luck. She had to be spending that money somewhere. So long as her information didn't come off as bad luck, it may be a way to find her.
"Look at this. The lottery winner. Could just be a coincidence, but check this out." Caitlin pulled up several more articles. All of them concerning the lottery. All of them with the same woman. "Winning the lottery several times? Sounds like the kind of fortune we're looking for."
"Nice work Caitlin. When do these start?" Barry asked.
"Well the first few were more spaced out, but the first time she won was almost a year after the explosion." Caitlin reported.
"Her powers must have just started to show themselves. Spent the past few years fine tuning them. Once that was done, she decided to move onto bigger fish. Daylight robbery. What's her name?" Barry asked.
"Rebecca Becky Sharpe. And now that we have a name, we can start satellite facial recognition. Her quantum field shouldn't be able to reach our satellite." Cisco said. "Hopefully at least."
They managed to find Becky at Jitters enjoying a cup of coffee and scratching off lottery tickets. They didn't want to make her feel threatened and set off her powers so it was decided Barry would approach her himself.
"Excuse me, Becky Sharpe? Would you mind if I took a seat here?" Barry asked gently.
"That's strange. It's supposed to be my lucky day, but you're not my type at all." Becky commented.
Barry was so glad Caitlin didn't hear that this woman thought he was flirting with her. She'd probably come here and 'correct' her on that slight. Barry coughed uncomfortably. "No, that's not why I'm here. My name is Barry Allen. I work with CCPD. I believe that you're the one responsible for the string of robberies we've been dealing with."
Sharpe's eyes widened in shock. "How'd you figure out- I mean, what makes you think that?"
"Look I don't know why you would rob a bank since you're clearly doing well for yourself." Barry gestured to the jewelry on her body and the several scratch tickets on the table, "but if you just return the money you stole, I'm sure we can work something out."
"Since you're asking me to give myself up, I'm guessing you don't actually have any evidence tying me to the crimes. So I don't know how you figured it was me. But let's say, hypothetically, it was me." Becky said. "I might be willing to return the money. But that's not going to stop me. You're right, I don't exactly need the money, I just want to have fun."
"You are a metahuman. You realize that, right? Your powers influence your surroundings. Affecting chance. The more good things that happen to you, the worse things get for everyone else. Doesn't that bother you?"
"I do feel bad for them. But all my life I've been dealt bad hands. Lost homework, missing files, wrong coffee orders. One of my boyfriends cheated on me with a guy. Bad things have always happened to me, but I kept going. I didn't give up because I always knew someday Lady Luck would smile on me. And then the particle accelerator went off and it was like a godsend. Finally things were going my way. So if what you're saying is true, I do feel bad, but maybe it's just their turn." Becky stated vindictively.
Suddenly Barry felt something drip on his head. He looked up but another drop fell into his eye. He really hoped it was just water. Suddenly aware of his surroundings, he saw everything as a danger. A cup of coffee teetering on the edge of a table. A small dog growling threateningly. Steam coming from the machine at the back. Everything made Barry nervous. If this was the power of chance, Barry was very frightened at the level of control Sharpe was displaying.
"Besides, it's not like you can do anything to stop me." Sharpe responded and got up and walked away. As soon as she was gone Barry relaxed. How was he supposed to take her down?
Barry pulled out his phone. "Guys? I think we may need to rethink our strategy."
"So what do we do about her?" Caitlin asked.
"I don't know, but I sort of feel bad for her. Everything has gone wrong with her life but she persevered. If she just stuck with lottery tickets, none of us would have batted an eye." Cisco commented.
"Well, she would have been using her powers to cheat people out of millions of dollars, but I get what you're saying." Caitlin commented.
"She said she was just trying to have some fun. When simply winning the lottery wasn't enough anymore, she ventured to take more daring actions. I think what happened is that her powers got to her head. The belief that nothing could touch her and she was right. Multiple robberies. Hundreds of witnesses and we've got nothing tying her to the crime scene. She's potentially the most dangerous meta we will ever face." Barry states.
"But what can we do about it?" Cisco asked.
The loud beeping of the alarm caused all of their attention to stray. "What's happening? What's going on?"
"Multiple alerts all over the city. Lamp posts falling, traffic lights malfunctioning. The negative quantum field is expanding." Cisco reported.
"But that would mean the positive quantum field is as well. What could cause such massive amounts of luck?" Caitlin questioned.
"Any idea where Sharpe is?" Barry demanded.
"Facial recognition puts her in… a casino?" Cisco said.
"What's more lucky than gambling?" Caitlin pointed out. "She must be on a massive lucky streak if the negative field is practically encompassing the entire city."
"So what's going on with us?" Cisco asked. Another alert sounded though. "I just had to ask!"
"The accelerator. It's been turned on!" Barry alerted them.
"You need to dismantle that thing!" Caitlin shouted.
"This is not my fault this time!" Barry shouted. "If it weren't the accelerator, it would have been something else."
"Well it is the accelerator, so it is your fault for making it still fully functional."
"These things take time! I can't just dismantle it whenever I want!" Barry took a deep breath. "We can argue about this later. I'll try to stop Sharpe. You and Cisco try to shut down the accelerator." Barry announced and ran away to stop this at the root of their problems.
Cisco and Caitlin ran down to the accelerator. They started at the battery. Maybe they could cut the power before it could charge up.
"Get that panel open." Caitlin said.
Cisco started trying to pry it off, but it wouldn't budge. "Get it off!" Caitlin shouted.
"I can't. It's stuck." Cisco grunted.
"Can you blast it?" Caitlin asked.
"And risk the entire building falling on us? No thanks. Can't take any chances because right now, the odds are not with us. We'll have to try to manually turn it off."
Cisco went to the control pad that would control the accelerator. Cisco was tapping away at the screen.
"Anything?" Caitlin asked hopefully.
"Screen frozen." Cisco declared. "We're going to have to jury rig the controls."
Cisco started unscrewing the screen off to expose the wires, but the screws were too tight to turn. And then the screwdriver fell apart with the metal tip plunging into Cisco's shoe, into his foot.
"Ahhh!" Cisco screamed, hopping on his other foot, holding onto the one with the metal spear through his foot. "How is that even possible?"
Caitlin caught him and helped him sit down. "Okay, don't move. Hold on to that foot, but don't move the piece of metal. With our luck, you'll bleed out."
Caitlin tried her own luck and pulled at the screen, but the whole thing came off instead. Now they had nothing to try to turn off the accelerator. "I hope Barry's doing better than we are." Caitlin linked her phone to the comms to try to talk to him.
Incidentally, Barry was not doing well at all. The moment he got there was a good example.
The idea was just run in and slap the meta cuffs before anything could affect him. As he was getting closer he slipped on someone's spilled martini. As if he were in a cartoon, his foot slipped forward and he was airborne for all of a second before landing on his back.
The meta cuffs escaped his grasp and latched themselves on Barry's wrists, making him powerless. "What? How did that even happen?" Barry gasped at his restraints as they somehow tightened themselves.
"Barry, honey, sweet pea, please tell me you got her." Caitlin voice pleaded in his comms.
"No luck?" Barry sighed. He didn't know what to expect.
"Unless you're looking for the bad kind, in which case we've got it in spades. How's it going on your end?"
"Well," Barry looked at where Sharpe currently was. "I've got her in my sights. Just got to get over there."
"So what's the problem?" Caitlin was slightly dreading the answer.
"She's playing the slots and I might have slapped the cuffs on myself." Barry said sheepishly.
"Oh honey." Caitlin couldn't help but find a bit of humour in the situation.
"So of course, even if I do manage to get there, I've got nothing to stop her powers."
"You're just going to have to get out of those cuffs. Zoom managed to get out of the Boot. You should be able to somehow phase out of the cuffs." Caitlin pointed out.
Barry huffed. He didn't like the idea of learning from his enemies, but he supposes he's been doing that since the beginning. So he began to try to vibrate himself out of the cuffs. Not that he was having any luck at all.
"So how's it going with Barry?" Cisco asked, only getting half the conversation. "Did I hear something about cuffs?"
"Yes you did, Barry's gotten himself in a particular situation, but he's better off than us at least." Caitlin said.
"How's my foot looking?" Cisco lifted his foot for her to see.
"Bloody." Caitlin winced. "Very bloody. If this keeps up, your foot may be infected and if we don't treat it soon, we're going to have to…"
"No! I am not going to live the rest of my life with only one foot!" Cisco panicked.
"I didn't say that. You're putting words in my mouth." Caitlin denied.
"Get upstairs and get a med kit. I am not losing an appendage because of this." Cisco lightly shook his raised leg and groaned at the pain. "That was a mistake. I regret everything."
"Are you going to be okay if I leave you here by yourself?" Caitlin worried.
"This will just be today. Having two feet is kind of a big thing for life!" Cisco retorted.
Caitlin scrambled to her feet and rushed upstairs to get some bandages and medicine for the impaled foot.
Cisco tried to get himself in a comfortable position and leaned his back against the wall, still holding his foot in the air to lessen the amount of contact it could have with anything.
A feeling rose on his nose. The itchiness, the desire to scratch it. What harm could it bring? Cisco gave into temptation and scratched it and so the chaos began.
Cisco didn't realize his nail was chipped and so was sharper than it should be and scratched his nose deeper than intended. "Ow!" Cisco exclaimed, his jerk reaction from the pain forcing him to let go of his leg.
Cisco touched his face and his fingers proved his nose was bleeding, so he placed one hand to cover it. A shower of sparks appeared and Cisco gasped, trying to get away, but the hand he was using was the one that had been covering his nose, so it was slightly wet from the blood.
Cisco's hand slipped and caused his head to smack into the wall. The groaning from around him made Cisco nervous as he looked to the ceiling.
"Oh no." Cisco managed to mutter before a piece of the ceiling came crashing down on him.
Caitlin returned with a medical bag in her hand and saw Cisco laying on the ground with a giant piece of machinery near his head. "Cisco!"
Caitlin helped her best friend sit up. She inspected him and gave her analysis. "That cut on your nose looks worse than it is. A few bruises, a bump on your head, and a definite concussion. Thank god your foot didn't enter this mess though. What happened?"
"I scratched my nose," Cisco replied.
"Oh dear god," Caitlin mumbled.
"The accelerator." Cisco groaned out.
Caitlin looked to the Pipeline. They only had one option. "Let it go off."
And an explosion rocked the ground they were on.
A small shaking rocked the ground and it was as if the chaos of the world was silent. Barry managed to finally phase out of the cuffs he'd trapped himself in. He didn't question it at the time, but he figured Cisco and Caitlin managed to do something to stop Sharpe's powers, at least for a little.
Going fast so as not to waste any time, Barry headed straight toward where Sharpe was looking at the slot in front of her in shock. "I lost?!"
Barry slapped the cuffs on her without warning and breathed a sigh of relief. It was over.
"Oh, I suppose you got me," Becky lightly chuckled at her situation.
Barry nodded his head. He felt slightly bad because she seemed like a good person. She just let the power go to her head too much. But that didn't justify stealing millions of dollars. If anything, she was being resentful due to her own lack of luck before her powers and had become insensitive to others.
"I don't suppose there's any chance that you're just gonna let me go?" Becky asked hopefully.
Barry shook his head. She needed to go to some sort of rehabilitation centre. Her powers were the one thing people could not account for. Even if she didn't need training in her powers, she needed to learn some empathy for others.
"No? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised." Becky sighed. As she got up, she stumbled on something but quickly caught herself before she fell. She really wasn't kidding about her bad luck before her powers.
Barry led her away to CCPD where they would decide what to do with her. So long as she willingly returns the money she stole, she might be able to cut a deal with a judge for a lessened sentence and some mandatory therapy sessions. It was obvious she had a lot bottled underneath the surface waiting to get out.
"Miss Fortune has been detained. When shall we retrieve her my dear?" said the woman.
"In time. Miss Fortune won't be going anywhere anytime soon. She'll be released into my custody soon enough. I have plans in the meantime."
"You have your eye on another potential asset?" she asked.
"One that looks to prove useful in a tight bind. Of course we'll need to confirm he is who I think he is. We'll send someone for the grunt work."
"Immediately?"
"The sooner the better. I'd rather not waste my time if he proves to show no potential. I have no time for simpletons."
So that's that. I hope you like the new name I came up with for Sharpe. I just thought Miss Fortune was a better name than Hazard. Because you could think of it both ways. Fortune for her, and misfortune for everyone else. The scenes with Devoe are going to be leading up to the climax which I am very proud of, but you'll have to be the judge of that. And what happened to Deacon? Any guesses? It ties to what Devoe's plans are in this story.
I'll see you all next week. Goodbye!