Chapter 19: Baby, I Hate Your Guts

She wasn't lying about this, at least.

Kara was currently in the Foundry, overlooking the information on the flash drive Waller had handed to them before they departed from A.R.G.U.S.'s Starling City base. It had been two days since that confrontation, and while Oliver, Barry, Kal and herself were all happy to have Slade back with them permanently, the elation they would've felt was dimmed by the overarching threat of the missing Fort Rozz prisoners.

What information A.R.G.U.S. had managed to glean from Fort Rozz itself was minimal, and overall useless since they dealt with actual structure itself – a structure that was abandoned by its former inhabitants and guarded zealously by the U.S. Federal Government. Amanda, had, however, managed to acquire a partial list of the prisoners that were still alive and imprisoned on Fort Rozz when it crash-landed on Earth – information that not even Jor-El had. Jor-El had access to the entire database of prisoners, but obviously some had died during their incarceration, information he did not have since communication between Krypton and Fort Rozz was so minimal, thanks to the workings of the Phantom Zone. At least with Waller's list, incomplete as it was, they wouldn't be searching for someone who was no longer among the living.

Kara was broken from her thoughts when a distress beacon activated on another monitor. There was an attack in progress at Kord Industries. Barry was back in Central, and Oliver was helping Slade settle in her new condo, and then was planning on going hunting later. She had promised to take care of any major crimes or emergencies for him in return.

Well, that's my cue.

"Here you go. Driver's license, state ID, U.S. passport – everything you need to pass off as a legal U.S. citizen for the time being." Oliver handed over the manila folder. "Oh, and a credit card. Don't worry about paying the bills – I'll handle that."

"Oliver…" Slade half-heartedly admonished.

"You're family Slade, and I'm filthy rich. Let me do at least this much for you." Oliver cut him off, clearly not taking no for an answer.

Slade chuckled. "I see you still got that bleeding heart of yours."

"Pumping blood right in my chest." Oliver smiled back. "Now, it's time for me to go. Kara's taking care of any major emergencies, so I can go hunting."

"Hunting?" Slade raised an eyebrow.

"Starling is corrupt as they come, Slade. Convincing the elite to give back what they stole is the least I can do. And occasionally, there are some criminals that continue to slip away and need to be put down. The one I'm dealing with tonight is that particular type."

"Oh? And who might that be?"

Oliver shrugged. "Cyrus Vanch. Laurel's been pissed lately about how he managed to get off on a technicality. I figure I might as well do her favor and take care of him permanently."

Barry whistled as the elevatordescended downwards. He knew it was late for him to come here but Caitlin had called him in, asking for a favor. He entered the Cortex, and paused. The bio-engineer was sitting in a chair, reading something intently on the computer.

"Caitlin."

She jumped. "Barry! You scared me."

"What are you reading there?" he ignored her slight reprimand, moving forward to look at the screen. F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. That sounds ominous, and certainly not something a bio-engineer like Caitlin would be working on.

Caitlin sighed. "Barry…I need your help."

The Girl in Blue flew to Kord Industries at breakneck speed, but gradually slowed down as she got closer to the main building, careful not to alert any of the intruders with her presence. She descended to the roof, landing softly on the concrete so not even a crack would appear. A scan of her supervision indicated that none of the thieves were outside the building, on the lookout, so that was something at least, as strange as it was.

Either these guys are confident that no one can stop them, or they're amateurs of the highest order. Perhaps even both.

She located a heating vent on the roof, and removed the cover. Carefully, she entered it, stealthily moving in the vents to where she could hear movement with her superhearing. It wasn't long until she made it to the main laboratories, where a woman was there, clearly not there for good intentions judging by how she was pulling out every drawer with unrestrained savagery.

"Where is it!" she growled in frustration.

"Why don't you tell me what it is, and I can help you look for it?"

The woman turned, and saw the last person she wanted to see. The Girl in Blue.

She scowled. "The other Kryptonian."

The Girl in Blue, having barely registered her words, acted on instinct and moved to the side, dodging a breath of what was clearly poisonous gas. She turned her head sharply towards the woman. She's an escapee of Fort Rozz. No chances, then.

She moved, vaunting her body into a spin and performing a leg sweep, knocking the woman down to the ground. Before the Fort Rozz escapee could get up, the Girl in Blue slammed her foot down on her ankle, shattering it. She screamed in pain, but got not quarter; a moment later, her upper body collapsed to the ground, her neck snapped in two.

The Girl in Blue left the body where it was and started searching the building. She could hear the sounds of the dead woman's cohorts, all searching the many laboratories for something. They have to be other escapees. They're working together.

The Hood, the Streak, A.R.G.U.S., and herself had all assumed that the escapees had spread themselves throughout the world, just searching for a place to hide and/or find their way back to the stars. But if they were all working together…

She entered each room where she could see and hear movement. Different aliens, all with powers, were there, rifling through the compartments for something. They all attacked her on sight, and she summarily killed them all in return. The Girl in Blue was thankful that Waller had the foresight to forward her number to their phones (which were heavily encrypted, of course) – she couldn't imagine how the police would deal with the sight of such strange corpses. She would have to call A.R.G.U.S. over to take care of the bodies once she was done.

There was no more movement in the upper floors, as far as she could tell. All that was left was the main lobby. She flew down the stairs, and gently pushed the door open, wincing at the creaking sound. Immediately, the other thieves – two in total – appeared. The Girl in Blue blinked. Her memories of Krypton grew more distant by the day, but if she remembered correctly, they were wearing the uniform of Kryptonian soldiers. Which meant…

She ducked, dodging two beams of heat vision. The Girl in Blue flew fast, stealth no longer a priority, and grabbed one of the Kryptonians by the waist and driving his back down into the concrete, hard, forcing him to turn off his heat vision. She moved to the side as the other Kryptonian tried to hit her with his heat vision, only to strike his cohort instead. She smirked beneath her veil as the man in the crater winced and groaned in pain.

The standing Kryptonian ran forward with his super speed, trying to take her head off with a series of well-practiced blows. The Girl in Blue blocked them easily, then retaliated with a hard uppercut of her own. He involuntarily flew upwards, and she exceeded his ascent, clasping her hands together and throwing the two-handed fist downwards with all her strength, striking the top of his head and burying deep in the concrete beneath. Before he could get up, she was upon him, and with a flick of her wrist, the Kryptonite knife appeared in her hand, before she lodged it into his throat.

Preparation. Perhaps the most important lesson the League imparted to me. She thought victoriously. Now, for the other one. She yanked out the knife in one smooth move.

But before she could deal with the other one, even more Kryptonians appeared. She blinked as she watched four other Kryptonian soldiers, including one with a scarlet-lined uniform, entered her sight, surrounding her. They were about to move, only to stop as they truly took in the scene, staring disbelievingly at her and the bloody knife in her grasp. The Girl in Blue took advantage of that, once more using her super speed to knock them all down to the ground. One managed to recover in time and engaged her in hand-to-hand combat.

He was more skilled than the Kryptonian she had just killed, but he was still nowhere near her level. She blocked every blow with her forearms, and then kicked him right in the chest. He skidded backwards, and suffered another kick for his trouble, this time to the chin. Quickly lowering her leg, with a final spin and twist, she stabbed Kryptonite knife right into his heart. He gurgled, before going limp.

Her head snapped backwards when she heard a series of small booms. The Kryptonians had departed, taking with them their unconscious comrade and leaving the deceased for her to deal with.

The Girl in Blue surveyed the scene, and sighed. Reaching behind her, in one of her suit's many hidden compartments, she found it: her phone. Time to call Waller.

The Hood stood on the ledge of one of many of Starling City's high-rise buildings, watching the speeding cars below.

The hit on Cyrus Vanch had gone well – an arrow was in his heart, and many of his goons were heading to the ICU. He had left the girlfriend alone, simply knocking her out, so she wouldn't interfere. He had no doubt she would attach herself to another of Starling City's criminal element soon enough, so he had attached a bug to her phone just in case.

He hoped Laurel could relax a bit more now that Vanch was dead. Now that was over with, he had some time to spare, so he was planning to deal with any street crime that he happened across. Of course, that no longer seemed possible. He turned around, having long since noticed the presence behind him.

A member of the League.

Slightly confused, the Hood spoke, careful to keep his voice disguised. "What does the Demon's Head need of me?" he asked in Arabic. When his fellow assassin failed to respond, he narrowed his eyes.

And then, the League member fled.

Warning bells rang in the Hood's head as he pursued what was now clearly either a rogue member of the League or someone trying to frame them and turn him against them. Clearly, whoever this assassin was, had not realized that he was also an ally of the League and a former member himself. A miscalculation on his part, undoubtedly.

They jumped, rooftop to rooftop, continuing their chase until it finally seemed they could run no longer. The rogue member stopped his escape, turning back, and grabbed the bow on his back along with an arrow in his quiver, and fired. The Hood, having just landed on the same roof with a roll, stood. With ease, he plucked the arrow from its flight and span, notching it in his own bow and firing. The rogue member, stunned at how his attack was countered, barely managed to catch the arrow and prevent it from piercing an eye. Eying each other wearily, they charged.

This man was certainly League-trained, this much the Hood could tell. He was very well-trained, in fact. Easily on par with the top-tier members of the League, perhaps even on the same level as Nyssa and his other two companions. Unfortunately for him, however, the Hood had long since surpassed that level.

He beat back the rogue member, blocking his blows and, when an opening presented itself, grabbing his arm and twisting it to the side, before driving his elbow downwards in a harsh arc onto the captured limb. The rogue member grabbed his arm and stumbled to the side, wincing at the pain. The Hood showed no mercy, grabbing the man by the collar and, with another spin, tossing him off the roof.

When the Hood look downwards to the alley below, there was no body on the concrete. The rogue member was gone, almost as if he were never there.

Definitely League-trained. The Hood concluded grimly.

"Caitlin…how did you even hear about this project? I've read through it, and this is the kind of stuff that is both revolutionary and at the risk of being weaponized by a rogue general like in the movies." Barry commented as he continued perusing through the files. Caitlin, standing in front of Barry on the other side of the monitors, clicked her teeth.

"Cisco helped me." she admitted. "Barry, a couple of weeks ago, I ran into the Burning Man."

Barry quirked an eyebrow. "The Burning Man?"

"The Burning Man." Caitlin confirmed. "I saw his face and…he's Ronnie."

"Ronnie? As in your fiancé Ronnie, who died when the Particle Accelerator exploded? What does he have to do with F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M.? Unless…" Barry looked down back at the screen, frowning contemplatively.

"I did some research and came up with this. I meet with one of the authors of the paper, a student named Jason Rusch, and he told me about how the government confiscated it after they were denied further funding and were threatened to be shut down by the university. The other author, Professor Martin Stein, was planning on attending the Particle Accelerator activation to acquire backing from S.T.A.R. Labs from an old friend of his, who was also attending, but that same night, he disappeared." she explained, rubber her arm. "And when I met Ronnie again, it seemed like he recognized me, but at the same time, he didn't. I can't help but feel that this is all connected, but…"

Barry narrowed his eyes, his mind working on overdrive. "This project's main focus is on transmutation. Unzipping particles on a sub-atomic level and making new elements from it. If Stein was planning on acquiring further backing for his research, he would need to prove the validity of it, the idea that it was worth pursuing this avenue of study. So, he would bring part of the physical project with him, most likely. And if that's the case, when the Particle Accelerator activated, and say, this physical object was to somehow escape its case…"

Caitlin listened to him in disbelief, in awe of how easily he connected the dots. From what she had managed to collect from Dr. Wells, and Barry himself, she knew he was a genius in his own right, one that would've had his own bright future had he not been stranded on an island. But she had no idea that he was this intuitive. Her mind, however, cut off that line of thought as Barry closed in on his final conclusion, already making her own connections.

"You think Stein and Ronnie merged into one person?" she asked dubiously, though her heart started to race. Though she didn't voice it out loud, she had also been starting to draw on this conclusion, but even after encountering metas, she still had a hard time believing it. But if Barry was also theorizing this…

"It's the only explanation. Ronnie's body was supposedly incinerated by the explosion, but Stein was nowhere near the direct blast, so his body should have never disappeared. Then, Ronnie shows up on video as the Burning Man." Barry explained automatically, continuing to scroll through the project, completely ignoring Caitlin's expression of disbelief. "Ronnie trusts you and S.T.A.R. Labs. If it had just been fear of his own new powers, he would've come here eventually because he knew you would help him anyway you could to control them. But he didn't, and remained on his own for over a year, and when he did finally appear to you, you said it seemed like he recognized you, but at the same time didn't. If he merged with Stein, then their minds would be fighting each other, each trying to take over Ronnie's body and move forward with their own agenda. Stein's mind, being older and more experienced, would inevitably win the struggle, but Ronnie's presence would still be there, trying to influence him. Hence, Stein would be drawn to you, Ronnie's lover and fiancée, but would only recognize you on an instinctual level because it wasn't him that knew you but Ronnie." He spoke his steady stream of reasoning and finished with that conclusion, never noticing Caitlin's expression turn to one of awe.

When Caitlin did not respond, Barry looked up, blinking. "What?"

"You're brilliant." she bluntly stated, before tears started gathering in her eyes. "Then Ronnie…"

"Ronnie's alive." Barry nodded, and with a show of compassion, took Caitlin's hand. "And I'm going to bring him back to you." Caitlin looked at him, and smiled watery.

The moment was broken, however, when a beeping sounded. The document on F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. disappeared, and was replaced by a distress beacon from Mercury Labs. A break-in.

"I've got to deal with this. We'll talk more about this later, alright." Barry told her, and, without waiting for a response, disappeared in a flash of yellow lightning, grabbing one of his suits, which rest on a model in the Cortex, along the way.

The Streak sped his way throughout Mercury Labs' main building, stopping when he caught sight of the thief. His breath caught in his throat.

The Man in the Yellow Suit.

He was vibrating, blurring his visage, but there was no doubt in the Streak's mind who he was. The man stared at him with scarlet-eyes, and with a trail of similarly colored lightning, disappeared. The Streak gave chase.

They ran throughout the city, dodging cars and pedestrians, leaving large gusts of wind in their wakes. Much to the Streak's distaste, the Man in the Yellow Suit was faster than him – not to the point that he couldn't see him, but enough to keep ahead in their little race.

Eventually, they found themselves in an empty football stadium. The Streak said nothing, staring hard at the monster who ruined his life thirteen years ago.

The Man in the Yellow Suit stared back, continued to vibrate, before he moved. The Streak jumped to the side, skidding slightly as the Man in the Yellow Suit sped around, no doubt trying to entice him into a running fight. The Streak refused to take the bait, knowing he wouldn't stand a chance with the difference in speed. Instead, he allowed his perception to slow – while the Man in the Yellow Suit was fast enough that he couldn't catch up to him, he wasn't fast enough for the Streak not to predict his attacks. Every time the Man in the Yellow Suit tried to ram himself into him, the Streak moved away, using his own speed to make distance. It was a close thing, but the Streak moved just fast enough to dodge, within fingertips away, causing his opponent to stumble slightly from his momentum, each time.

Eventually, realizing that the Streak wasn't going to play his game, the Man in the Yellow Suit stopped moving. They had another stare-off, before charging right at each other and engaging. Again, the Streak allowed his perception to slow. The Man in the Yellow Suit's blows were fast and furious, and it took him total concentration just to predict their general direction and block them, leaving him unable to retaliate with a blow of his own. This exchanged continued for quite some time, until the Man in the Yellow Suit unexpectedly stumbled to the side, his red lightning dancing around him.

"Not now." he muttered, grasping his head. The Streak, uncaring of his predicament, took advantage, using his powers to land a barrage of punches to the torso of his enemy, finishing it with a right cross. The Man in the Yellow Suit, realizing he had underestimated his opponent, fled. The Streak was tempted to give chase, but the lack of feeling in his arms dissuaded him, as had the bruises from where his rival had managed to land a few hits.

He rubbed his arms, and winced at the pain. It seemed he too had underestimate his opponent to some degree, or at least his own pain threshold. He breathed in. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. He reminded himself, before fleeing the scene.

Another day, then. Dad and I have waited this long. We can wait a little longer.

Yes! Done! We're getting to the really good parts, everyone.

Yeah, Kara is a beast. Of the Fort Rozz escapees, only Non, Indigo, and Astra really stand a chance against her in skill, and even then, I'd give her the edge in each fight. Oliver is far more skilled than Malcolm at this point, which is why the tension from that storyline isn't going to come from the fight but from the Undertaking itself, and its background. Barry is the only one who had issues, but the way I developed his character, I made it so had somewhat of a chance against Wellsobard. Barry doesn't fight like a traditional speedster, which will be explained in the following chapter.