Hello! I love all you people! It's great to see people enjoying this story. It's September now, so it's officially the last weekend before most people need to go back to school. Don't worry about that right now though. Just enjoy what's left and make the most of your time. Special thanks to my co-authors Brightburn1985 and ThomasMarieAmell2.0.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash
It didn't really take long for them to find The Folded Man, real name Edwin Gauss. He followed a routine that was easy enough to find once they knew what they were looking for. They brought him in just to make sure everything was okay and to ask him some questions in concern to his abilities.
"I mean, I can go pretty much anywhere when I set my mind to it. It's easier if I've been there before and know what it looks like for a frame of reference, but just knowing about the location is fine. Just takes a bit more concentration." Gauss informed them. "Other times, if I'm thinking too general, I'll wind up somewhere random."
"How did you find out about your powers?" Cisco asked.
"There was a man. I saw him in the streets outside my apartment. He was floating in a chair and there was another person on the ground. Then he opened a portal that took the both of them away and, I don't know, it spoke to me. Like I could feel some connection to the portal and next thing I know there's another portal opening up in my living room." Gauss said. "It sucked me in and next thing I know, I'm somewhere completely different. I thought it was some kind of storage facility because there were all these containers filling the room, but when I got a closer look, there were bodies inside. I saw two people though, a man and a woman. I thought if they saw me, they'd take me too so I just got out of there and came back to my apartment. And the rest is history."
The story got their attention. This might be where the Devoes were keeping all the metas. "That place, do you know exactly where that was?" Caitlin asked.
"No, like I said, I don't need to know the exact location, I just need a general thought about it. I was thinking about the man I saw, and I went to the man."
"Would you be able to go back there? Just open a portal to get there?" Cisco asked.
"I could. Never went back there though. Place was creepy,"
"We need to go there. A friend of our's might be stuck there and we need to get him out." Caitlin said.
"Sure, I can do that, no problem. Should we do it now?"
"Just one more thing," Joe said, taking some pictures. "The man and woman you saw, was it these two?" Joe showed Gauss the pictures of Marlize and Clifford Devoe.
"Well, I never got a good look at the woman, but him definitely. I saw him when he was still on the street in front of my apartment." Gauss identified Clifford as the man he'd seen.
"I don't understand," Barry pants after another gruelling session where he was subjected to various stimulants.
"You should put that on a shirt," Devoe remarked.
"You're a metahuman as well. How can you hold such contempt for these people when you're one of them yourself?" Barry asked.
"I do not despise those with powers, and I never proclaimed I was exempt from such judgements. I am like so many others, where I abhor humanity, yet do nothing to stop such things. It is simply more apparent in those who have been gifted with these extraordinary powers."
"I still don't understand," Barry shook his head.
"And there's the back of the shirt," Devoe rolled his eyes.
"There's a difference between not doing something and actively aiding in the creation of the darkest parts of history. Why go to such extremes?"
"Go where the cattle roam. There's no point in trying to stop it. It's like chaos. Sooner or later, it'll catch up. You can try. Try to catch the little things that seem out of place, but then there are just things that you miss or ignore and before you know it, everything is chaotic. Why fight it? Why go through so much effort when you know everything you do is all in vain?"
"That's where you and I differ. Because eventually the mess gets cleaned up. All it takes is a little bit of work,"
"But then comes every opportunity to destroy that balance. It's only a matter of time. Face it, human beings have a natural disposition to lean towards chaos. That's just what happens, and you can't stop it."
"I don't believe that to be true. 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' Edmund Burke." Barry said.
"Impressive. How do you feel about Galileo? 'All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered. The point is to discover them.' I have discovered all of them, Mr. Allen. Don't act like you understand me because you can't. You cannot grasp the understanding I have achieved, so don't try. Just try to stop me if you can."
Right before Caitlin and Cisco would enter the portal Gauss would create for them, Cisco pulled Caitlin away to the side to talk to her about what she'd don't earlier.
"I heard about that guy you beat up. Are you okay? If you need to sit this out, I can take Ralph with me and we can rescue Barry ourselves." Cisco stated.
"Why would you even need to ask that? I'm going. Barry is my husband, and I am going to rescue him. I need to do this Cisco," Caitlin glared at him.
"And did you need to beat up that guy so extensively? He's got three holes in his body and he was lucky he didn't need to amputate his hand when you froze it in a block of ice. He was just a normal guy,"
"You're telling me he didn't deserve it? He was going to rob me and shoot me in the face. Who cares about that lowlife? He was worse than the garbage on the streets. He was worthless."
"Maybe so, but he didn't deserve to be beaten so badly. You clearly won the fight. Did you have to make it so much worse?"
"He survived didn't he? As far as I'm concerned, he got what was coming to him. People like him don't respond to mercy. The only thing he would have responded to was brute force. If I had let him off easy, he would have continued doing the same thing to other people, and those people weren't going to be as skilled as I was,"
"You're angry, and I understand that. I'm angry too. Barry's my best friend and I want him back but brutalizing other people isn't helping."
"It helped in this case, didn't it? It led us to the Folded Man, who's going to bring us right to Barry."
"I mean for yourself. This isn't good for you. Hitting other people until they can't fight back, that's not going to make you feel better. If you were anyone else, I'd stop you, but you need to sort through your feelings. You have a problem and you should talk about it."
"My problem is my husband is kidnapped, and the person who I thought was my best friend is holding me back from getting him. What else is there to say?"
"Your feelings. You can't keep going like this Caitlin. You can't bottle everything up until it explodes. That's not healthy. You're going to push everyone away. This isn't something that can just be solved when we get Barry back. This is a problem you need to confront. Please,"
Caitlin regarded him with a look for a second. "If I did have a problem, not that I'm saying I do, but this is the last place to talk about it. Now let's go because the more time we spend here, the more time that psychopath has with my husband, and I am not going to let him have a second more."
Marlize approached her husband who was still studying The Flash. "We have a security breach. It appears the team has finally collected The Folded Man and they've come."
"I'll see to it. I'll be utilizing Subjects 1 through 7. Keep an eye on our dear guest here. I don't believe him to be comfortable." Devoe teleported off to deal with the intruders.
Once Marlize was sure her husband was a safe distance away she started rummaging through a desk, looking over vials for something. It seemed she finally found what she was looking for, two vials of something. One was red, the other was black. She then opened the container Barry was in.
"What are you doing?" Barry asked.
"Shhh. Don't speak. You need your strength." Marlize shushed him and hurriedly stuck him with a needle filled with the red liquid. The feeling was instantaneous and Barry felt alive for the first time in forever. The power beneath his skin buzzed with feeling. It must have been some adrenaline shot Marlize had given him because it gave him the power to phase out of his bindings, finally free.
"I'm sorry," Marlize apologized, tears streaming down from her eyes. "I didn't have a choice. He's my husband, but I couldn't stand it any longer."
"Come with me. My team and I can help you. We can keep you safe," Barry offered her.
Marlize shook her head. "No, there's no place safe, and I'm not worth redemption. Forget about me, you need to save yourself." Marlize suddenly stuck herself in the neck with another needle, this one with the black substance.
"No!" Barry tried to stop her, but her action took him by surprise and he was too late. The poison was already coursing through her veins.
"Just promise me you'll stop him. He's taken so much from others. Don't let him take anymore," Marlize whispered. Her knees collapsed and Barry caught her. "Promise me,"
"I promise. Clifford Devoe won't hurt another soul. I'm going to stop him. I'm going to be better than him," Barry agreed.
"William Faulkner says, 'Don't try to be better than others. Try to be better than yourself.'" Marlize gasped as her final breath left her.
Barry squeezed his eyes shut to keep the tears back. This wasn't the time. And she may have helped Clifford Devoe, but she was just as much his victim as he was. She didn't deserve this. Yet another person sacrifices themselves in order to benefit him. Barry was under no illusions Marlize was fully aware of what betraying her husband meant for her, which is why she escaped her punishment before he could.
Barry would honour her sacrifice, but he had to get out of here first. What did Devoe say before? Intruders? That had to be his team, and they couldn't have come at a more opportune moment.
Cisco and Caitlin stepped through the portal and took in their surroundings. "Where are we?" Caitlin asked.
"Have you ever heard of string theory?" a voice asked them. "We're in a pocket dimension."
The two superheroes turned to see one man, Clifford Devoe, floating above them in a chair while seven figures were on the ground, huddled in a protective semi-circle. A mixture of men and women, different races, and different ages. They ranged from a prepubescent girl to a middle-aged man. These people must have been taken prisoner and forced to serve Devoe.
"We don't have time for this," Caitlin muttered to herself. She raised both hands and began shooting an endless stream of projectiles at all of them. They'd all be down for the count. And hopefully they'd get away with just some light stab marks.
She shouldn't have expected it to be so easy because one of the men raised his hand, and it was like all the icicles hit a wall of water as they slowed down when entering their vicinity before coming to a stop, just hanging in the air. None of them managed to reach their targets. None of them flinched either. They were trained for this. That man had to have telekinesis, or some variation of it.
All the icicles came crashing down unceremoniously, shattering upon impact.
Cisco and Caitlin looked at each other. They had to go into this with the thought that all of these people were metas, and they probably were. Devoe wouldn't allow himself to work with people that didn't bring anything to the table. If any of them weren't metas, they'd have skills in other areas that put them on par with the others. It looked like they were in for a fight if they wanted Barry back.
They were outnumbered and outgunned if all seven of these people were metas. Not to mention they were going into this without any knowledge about their adversaries, whilst they were waiting for them. They had to create an advantage.
Caitlin raised her hands again, but instead of shooting icicles, she absorbed the heat of the area, generating a mist cloud, obstructing their vision. If these people were unable to see the two heroes, that would definitely help.
Cisco had his hands up, releasing subtle vibrations not meant as an attack, but as a form of sonar. It wasn't perfect, but it'd give him an idea of where to go. He grabbed Caitlin's hand and led her away, but it seemed it all was for nothing when a loud clap was sounded and the mist was blown away.
They looked to see one of the other men had their hands together. Super strength. Strong enough to create a gale force wind that dispersed the mist that hid them from their vision. It was reminiscent of Kara who utilized a similar tactic, but for the sound and not the force of wind generated.
Another man had glowing eyes that could have lit up a room, but nothing seemed to be happening. Cisco and Caitlin decided to make a break for it but that same man had somehow appeared in front of them. They tried to turn into a different direction, but there he was again. Looking from side to side, they saw they were surrounded by the same person and being closed in.
Finally, they tried to blast themselves out of the middle of the circle they found themselves in. They figured this man was like Multiplex, being able to create clones of themselves and these copies wouldn't really be able to feel anything. Unsurprisingly, Caitlin's attacks were stopped before they could reach a target, but as Cisco used vibrational energy, they were able to continue. But the copies simply continued as though his attacks were nothing.
But maybe it was the other way around. Maybe these copies weren't actually copies, but simply illusions. These things weren't real, they were simply in their heads and they fell for it.
Once they realised that, Cisco and Caitlin just tried to run through them and it was as though they weren't even there. They kept running and it seemed like they had actually gotten away. It disturbed them. There were seven of those metahumans and only two of them. They could have easily given chase, but they didn't. They didn't even seem worried even if they'd been brainwashed by Devoe. Weren't they tasked with stopping the two of them from finding Barry?
"Did we lose them?" Cisco asked, slightly out of breath after having been running to put as much distance between those bodyguards.
The answer came with a pop. At the sound, Caitlin tried to locate where the sound was originating but found herself alone. Wasn't Cisco right behind her? Where did he go? "Cisco?!" Caitlin called out. With another pop, Caitlin felt arms wrap themselves around her waist and suddenly it was like being squeezed through a tube. Caitlin fell to the ground, groaning at the uncomfortable feeling. One of them had to be a teleporter. It was the only explanation.
That was why they weren't worried. Because no matter where they went, the teleporter would always be able to catch them.
"Nice of you to join the party," Cisco said sarcastically. Caitlin looked up to where he was and saw that he was being held aloft by a giant tentacle from a giant octopus. A shapeshifter like King Shark, but this one seemed to be able to switch between their human and animal form seamlessly. Cisco's arms were restrained at his sides so he wouldn't be able to use his powers efficiently.
"Vibe, can you get out?" Caitlin asked her companion. This rescue mission was going disastrously.
"Frost, look out!" Cisco shouted in panic, but another tentacle had already wrapped itself around Caitlin's body and held her tight.
The two grunted in effort at trying to free themselves from the hands of their enemy, but one of the women came up to them, and with a calm voice said, "Stop struggling,"
Instantly, both Caitlin and Cisco stopped their attempts. Hypnosis, Caitlin dazedly thought to herself. Able to subdue them with her words. What power!
The final person of the seven came up to them. This one was the smallest of them all, and didn't look very threatening, but if this little girl was part of this team, both Caitlin and Cisco had no doubt she was powerful. They weren't sure how this team would fare against someone if they were honestly trying because it was just the two of them, but they hadn't been expecting to be detected so soon after arrival.
Two strings of pure white energy emanated from the little girl's chest and seemed to attach themselves to Caitlin and Cisco. Upon the moment of contact, they felt the fatigue. The heaviness of their eyes. The exhaustion. The little girl absorbed energy. She feasted on it. Could she absorb their powers too? That was a horrifying thought. Still, the command from the other woman refused to allow them to put up any fight. The compulsion to obey is too great.
Caitlin was faintly aware of an incoming sound. The sound of thunder, the crackle of electricity, and it was getting closer.
Everyone's attention was pulled towards the sound of the speedster coming. Several lightning bolts shot forward, but all of them were targeting one person. The little girl that was robbing Caitlin and Cisco of their strength.
Caitlin was slightly horrified. She didn't want to watch this little girl be burnt to a crisp, but luckily she didn't have to. All the lightning bolts struck the ground in front of the little girl. The explosion sent her flying through the air, disrupting her connection to Caitlin and Cisco. The girl flew into several containers, knocking them down and burying her under them.
Barry reached his friend and wife and vibrated his hand like a buzz saw and cut the octopus's tentacles that were restraining them. The octopus meta screeched in pain, but already the two severed appendages had begun to grow back.
Cisco and Caitlin dropped from the air but were still too weak to stand.
The hypnosis woman tried to step forward and resolve the issue. "Free-"
She didn't get the chance to finish because Barry had sent a quick strike at her throat, cutting her off. She choked and bent over, clutching her neck with both hands. Barry punched her again in the gut, knocking the wind out of her, to which she collapsed to the ground.
The strong man charged at him, but Barry easily dodged. He had to get himself and his friends out of here. Barry tried to make a break for the others, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the elderly man begin to vanish. In anticipation, Barry tuned-in to his surroundings. He could feel the energy in the area.
There! Something was coming behind him. Barry turned on the dime and sent a flying kick in that direction. It hit the man's side just as he appeared. It sent the man back and knocked into another. Two in one.
Barry finally reached Cisco and Caitlin, both slowly regaining their strength. Caitlin was pushing herself to her feet. Cisco was still struggling to get out of the grip of the severed tentacle.
Barry simply picked them up and looked to their exit. The portal they must have appeared through was still there waiting for them, but the remaining two metas were in their way. He had to get through them. Barry ran right at them. It was the best way to get to the portal.
One man raised their hands and Barry felt himself slow down. That man was somehow holding Barry back. The other clenched his fists and smashed them into the ground, sending a shockwave that tore apart the floor. The ground shifted, making it harder for Barry to traverse the area and knocking him around.
Barry didn't let that stop him. He phased his body, and Caitlin and Cisco's as well and they literally sank into the floor. Another shockwave rippled, but their bodies didn't react to it. Barry traveled under their feet, free of the hold of telekinesis. He popped them all back up behind them and jumped into the portal, which luckily closed behind them. They were free.
Caitlin and Cisco were lying on beds next to each other to rest and regain their strength. Barry had been embraced in a hug by everyone else, happy beyond belief that he'd returned home to them, safe and sound.
"What did they do to you?" Joe asked. He had to know.
"They kept me in a tubed container, like I was some experiment or trophy for him. They electrocuted me, trying to break me, but I never gave in. I knew you guys would come save me," Barry said.
"So much for a rescue. You were the one who had to save us. We might be dead right now if you hadn't escaped," Cisco said softly.
"Hey, don't say that. You guys led Devoe away. You kept his attention off of me, which gave me the chance to escape. If it weren't for Marlize though, all of us would be in containers right now," Barry assured him.
"What happened to the wife? She helped you escape? Can't imagine The Thinker is particularly happy about getting played," Ralph asked.
"She knew exactly what was going to happen to her for helping me. So she made sure she would never have to face that. She sacrificed herself to give me the chance to get away. I owe her my life,"
They all lowered their heads down for a moment of silence to remember the sacrifice of a woman who was strong enough to stand against her husband.
"So what's the plan now?" Joe asked. "We're not just going to let this guy go are we?"
"We're going to stop his entire operations. But it's going to take time. He's got too many connections. Going after him directly is going to be a mistake." Barry said.
"Couldn't you testify? You've been abducted by him. Surely that's enough proof to get an arrest warrant for him?" Ralph asked.
"Who is honestly going to believe that Clifford Devoe is capable of such a thing? A man confined to a wheelchair, and just lost his wife. An upstanding man who educates the next generation." Barry asked. "Even if we could convince a judge that he is capable, I can't testify without revealing the reason he kidnapped me, that being the fact that I'm The Flash."
"So it's a question of whether revealing your identity is worth sending this man to jail,"
"It wouldn't even be a guarantee. Even if we get the arrest warrant, there's a big chance he could escape before we get to him. No, this is a matter we're going to have to take into our own hands. We're going to have to be the ones to handle him," Barry declared.
"And what are we going to do when we catch him?" Caitlin asked dubiously.
"We'll let ARGUS keep him. Pick his brains for something. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Either way, we need to start planning."
In a close up of Barry's left eye, right under the iris, there was a tiny black dot. Transmitting everything he saw to another source.
Inside the pocket dimension that housed the operations of Clifford Devoe, Devoe was in the middle of the destruction that was caused by the escape of The Flash. Devoe was assessing the damage. His top unit had been taken out by the work of just one person. His wife had betrayed him and committed suicide for fear of his anger. His most prized possession had escaped his grasp.
For all of that, Devoe just had a smirk on his face. Things were finally starting to get interesting. He was impressed Allen had managed this much, yet expected so much more. No matter what Allen achieved, it was all designed by him. Every turn he thought he made, and Devoe would already be waiting for him there.
That was made apparent when one of his computers showed a live image of the Cortex in STAR Labs. It didn't have audio, but he'd still have an idea of what they were planning. Not to mention reading their lips if needed.
It was all coming to plan. The subconscious knowledge of his underlings implanted in Mr. Allen had made it much easier for him to fight and triumph over them. The perfect test. And the results proved what he'd hoped. The Flash was under his thrall, even if he had yet to realize it yet.
"I hope you're ready Mr. Allen," Devoe caressed the screen showing the perspective of Barry. "'Out of suffering, emerge the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars.'"
How about that? What'd you all think of that? Devoe's not out of the game just because Barry got loose. Or did he? Who can guess where I got inspiration for the 7 metahumans I depicted in the chapter? Well done to you.
So I hope you've all been enjoying season 4, because there's only 3 more chapters left before I go back on break. Sorry if that seems a bit short, but it's just the way it is. But don't worry. I have a special surprise waiting that'll hopefully keep you all occupied while I'm taking my break.
Till next time. Goodbye everyone.