Chapter 108: Defeat

In the midst of all the chaos now enveloping Central City, one thing had been lost to all the main players. The camera Vibe had used to film the exposure of Zoom's identity had somehow managed to keep running in spite of the massive explosion that had just rocked the entire city. It had kept running even as it started bouncing around the ground, taping everything it saw and transmitting it to the receiving monitors that had managed to maintain a connection through it all.

So, as the Justice League would later find out, Central City had a front-row view to the Flash's death. They saw him struck by lightning. They saw him disintegrate. They saw him fade away.

They saw him die.

And with that, they began to lose hope.

Iris West's world came to an end on a rainy night in her apartment. She had been resting from the recent hostage situation she had been in, trying to heal while anxiously waiting for news on her best friend's rescue, only relaxing when she heard his voice over the phone over an hour ago. Since then, she had been surfing channels on the television, trying to keep her mind off the situation with Zoom. There was nothing she could do to help now.

And then, the feed cut out and showed the Justice League facing off with Zoom. Iris collected one of her throw pillows into her arms and hugged it tightly to her chest as she watched them restrain Zoom and unveil him as Hunter Zolomon to the world. While she didn't outright cheer, she did don a wide smile on her face. Finally, the Flash's name was cleared. Barry could return to openly protecting the city again.

Then the world exploded, sending her couch tumbling forward. She barely managed to hold on from falling with it and aggravating her admittedly minor injuries. But that had only been a small victory. Iris only got up in time to see the lightning strike. To see Barry fade from existence. To see Barry die.

Iris West's world ended on a rainy night in her apartment.

It would take a miracle to bring her back from the brink.

"Canary! Canary!"

"Arrow?" Laurel groaned out as she sat up, rubbing her head and sore back. She glanced up at Oliver, who was holding her by the shoulders. "What happened?"

"An explosion of dark matter," Oliver explained, "Zoom had the collector prepped to explode before we could get the location out of him."

Laurel bit back a curse. "But doesn't that mean—?"

"FLASH!"

Both of the Starling vigilantes whirled around to see Kara wailing over something in her hands. With great horror, they realized it was a charred red suit — Barry's suit. And Barry was absolutely nowhere to be seen. Oliver immediately sprang to his feet and ran to his sister, taking the suit out of her hands to look at it himself. When he saw the Flash emblem on it, he collapsed to his knees, holding a hand to his masked face as tears threatened to spill from his eyes.

"He can't be gone, he can't be gone, he can't be gone…" Kara kept on chanting, her arms wrapped around her chest as she sobbed.

"Sister…" Oliver dropped the suit to pull her to him.

"He's our brother!" Kara cried into his chest. "He can't be gone!"

All around them, the Justice League slowly recovered and took notice of the situation. One by one they stood up, eyes either trained on the charred suit of their seemingly deceased teammate or at said teammate's inconsolable siblings. Some like Laurel, Mari, and Cisco, looked to be on the verge of tears themselves. The rest had solemn looks on their faces.

"What a shame."

The heroes froze as Zoom spoke up, grunting as he got to his feet, the gallon of speed dampener still coursing through his veins. "I was hoping to keep him alive as my trophy. Watching him fall apart as I conquered his world was supposed to be the point of all this," the serial killer lamented.

That earned him glares from everyone present, with Kara roaring with rage. She broke out of Oliver's strong embrace and charged at her enemy, flying at powerful speeds, fully intent on snapping his neck. So intent, in fact, that she failed to take notice of the breach opening behind Zoom — or the sight of Black Canary's doppelganger walking out of it.

Zoom managed to get out of range just as his top lieutenant blasted his would-be killer with her sonic scream. Kara stopped cold as she tried to block the powerful sound out of her ears, and was forced to retreat when she realized it was insufficient. Super hearing was often a blessing. This time, it was a curse.

The rest of the Justice League had also been blasted back by Black Siren's song, each already greatly winded by the explosion. J'onn tried to intervene, morphing himself so he lacked eardrums, only for Deathstorm to hit him with some fire blasts. When Reverb appeared along with the rest of the evil doppelgangers and a mass of people that Oliver and Kara recognized as A.R.G.U.S. prisoners, and added his vibrational blasts to the scream, they had no choice — they had to retreat.

Vibe quickly opened a breach to S.T.A.R. Labs, physically gesturing everyone over. Kara shot her heat vision on the ground, forcing Zoom's gang to step back and finally stopping Black Siren. Thoroughly woozy, she too followed into the breach, along with Oliver, who was carrying Barry's suit. The last two to leave, the breach closed for good.

Black Siren smirked, wiping her mouth with her gloved hand. "I've been waiting to do that for over a week. So worth it."

"Should we go after them?" Reverb asked, glancing at their leader.

Zoom hummed for a moment, removing the arrows from his back and grunting as the pain faded away and the effects of the dampeners finally began to diminish. Then he smiled. "Let's."

The breach led everyone back to the Cortex, where the rest of their group was waiting. As the breach closed behind Kara and Oliver, the latter immediately took charge, still clutching the remaining scraps of Barry's suit in his hands. "We need to leave," he rasped out, "Zoom will regain his speed soon, and after that we're all dead."

"We can put S.T.A.R. Labs on lockdown—" Hartley started, only for Oliver to shake his head furiously.

"We'll be sitting ducks if we do that. We need to leave Central City entirely if we want to regroup."

"The Hall of Justice?" Mari suggested, wincing as she grabbed her ears.

"The Fortress."

Everyone glanced at the shaking Kara, who was staring far away at nothing. "The Fortress," she repeated, voice trembling. "We'll be safe there."

"What's the Fortress?" Ronnie asked, and similar confused looks were on the faces of the non-Leaguers.

The Leaguers, on the other hand, were nodding along. "Cisco," Oliver barked out, "vibe Kara now."

Cisco scrambled over and obeyed, eyes glazing over for a moment before he blinked back into attention. Then he quickly shot his hand forward, opening another breach where the old one had closed. "Everyone in!" Oliver ordered the moment it was opened, and no one was in any position to argue. Everyone entered the breach one by one, with Oliver and Kara being the last to exit, just like before.

With everyone gone, the breach closed, and the Cortex was empty, as if no one was ever there to begin with. This was the sight that greeted Zoom as he sped into S.T.A.R. Labs, searching for the last obstacles to his quest for world domination. He tilted his head at the realization, before shrugging.

They would come back, he knew. But it didn't matter — he'd crush them either way.

Barry. Barry. Barry.

Barry, when he first came back home. Barry, when they went to that bowling alley they always used to go when they were kids. Barry, biting into his first burger from Big Belly Burger in years. Barry, when she first found out he was the Flash. Barry, when they first reconciled after his crippling beating at the hands of Zoom. Barry, protecting her from that assassin that had invaded her apartment.

Barry, disintegrating into nothing. Barry, dead again.

Iris was almost grateful for the call from her father that had occurred right after. The wheel under her hands, the thrum of the engine, the sight of the street — all of it was stopping her from completely and utterly breaking down from the sheer enormity of the loss that now weighed upon her. Her best friend was dead again, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. The same feeling she had felt when Barry had "died" all those years ago, amplified tenfold.

I should have never pushed him away. I should have spent as much time as could I have. I… Iris swallowed down a sob. With Barry, it never seemed enough. That there always some kind of regret there. I should have been a better friend.

She arrived at the hospital, trying to navigate through the sheer chaos that was surrounding the building. It eerily reminded her of the night the Particle Accelerator exploded, where so many had been hurt in the aftermath. She had been one of the many officers tasked to help contain it all, and Iris was certain that had she not been on leave due to the recent hostage situation she had been a part of, that's exactly what she would be doing instead of meeting her father here.

Her father. Joe. Henry. How was she going to tell either of them?

The man himself appeared before she could ruminate on that terrifying prospect, looking haggard and tired, a cut above his eye that had long been treated. Iris stared at him — what had happened?

"Iris, thank God you're here," Joe breathed out, "I didn't know how to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

Joe didn't say anything, just took her by the hand and guided her to one of the rooms and allowed her to look through the window. Iris froze when she saw who it was, her hand falling to her mouth in genuine horror. Not him too.

Her ex-boyfriend Eddie, her dad's partner, was lying unconscious on a bed with various tubes and wires sticking out of him. Only the rise and fall of his chest was any indication of life. Above him, doctors were writing down observations and debating with each other, no doubt over his condition.

"What happened?" Iris asked, ready to collapse.

"The explosion," Joe explained, eyes glassy, "It absolutely wrecked the precinct and sent everyone flying. Eddie was no different, but he had the misfortune of his head hitting one of the filing cabinets along the way. Apparently, the hit was hard enough that it caused some damage, put him in a coma. The doctors don't know if he'll wake up."

A coma. Iris might have broken up with Eddie a few days ago, but that certainly hadn't meant she had stopped caring for him, loving him. A part of her would always love him, even if their relationship was over for good. They had spent too much time together for anything less. And now… now he might not wake up, ever again.

First Barry, now Eddie. Two of the most important, if not the most important people in her life these past few years, and Iris had lost them both in different ways. She had heard people could die of a broken heart, and if this is how they felt before they went on to the next life, then she could very much believe it.

"Ralph is injured too," Joe quietly told her, wrapping his arm around her, a stabilizing force. "Broke a leg. But he'll make it through. They're keeping him overnight for observation."

There was that at least. A meager comfort, but something to hold on to. Iris didn't know what she would do if she had lost Ralph too. He was her partner. They had been through a lot together this past year, and he was one of her only friends. Losing him too… Iris didn't want to even think about it.

"It makes me glad that Wally and Francine are over at Keystone City," Joe sighed, "And that Barry went on that trip with Oliver and Kara right before all this went down. I couldn't imagine losing them too."

Barry. Iris let out a sob, and then buried her head into Joe's chest. Her father held her close, muttering comforting words, like back when she was a child, before it all fell apart between them. It was a soothing balm, but a double-edged sword. It reminded her of the truth lodged in her throat, a knife that would cut her father's heart in two. Without haze of anger, she remembered how much Barry's first death had torn apart her father, had torn apart Henry. Henry had tried to commit suicide. And now, with this, Iris might as well kill them both herself.

Iris West had barely managed to live ten years of her life without Barry Allen. How was she supposed to live without him for the rest of her life? How were any of them? Losing him once had nearly destroyed them all, and here and now, in this dark hour, she had no reason to believe it would be any different.

Barry… Iris wept.

"Kelex!" Kara barked out the moment the breach behind them closed, "Block any and all foreign spatial distortions until instructed otherwise."

"As you wish, primary user Kara Zor-El," the small robot synthesized as it zipped around the mass of bodies.

All around them, the Justice League and their allies were observing their new stronghold. It was a beautiful place, carved out of ice and spanning high and wide. There was technology, far more advanced than anywhere else on the planet, even S.T.A.R. Labs. Had it not been for the dire situation they were in, they would have all been excitedly chattering over their new location.

"What is this place?" Dante whispered absentmindedly.

"The Fortress of Solitude," Laurel answered back, also in awe. "Kara's personal base in the Arctic."

While the Justice League had been informed about the existence of the base, as had Slade, none except Oliver, Barry, Kara, and Kal had ever visited it. This was mostly due to its remote location and the difficulty of traveling there. Another reason, however, is because it was also designated as a possible back-up base in case the Hall of Justice was ever compromised. A place to retreat to, in case they needed to regroup.

Like now.

It wasn't long before the awe faded. As the glum and depression settled in. Slade joined both Oliver and Kara, taking the charred red suit from Oliver's lax hands, clutching it hard as he stared at it with his one eye. Kara began to quietly sob again as she held on to her older brother's arm. Oliver observed the broken demeanors of his friends and teammates, of his lover, of his family, and closed his eyes.

We lost.

I win.

Hunter Zolomon of Earth-2 had a satisfactory smile on his face as he stood in front of S.T.A.R. Labs, the stronghold of his defeated enemy. It truly was a shame that Barry was dead, that Hunter couldn't take him as a trophy and break him like he had desired since he first started this endeavor. But S.T.A.R. Labs, the place where his enemy had situated himself and poured so much work into alongside his friends was certainly a fine consolation prize. As was the sheer chaos he had thrown Central City into, the screams of fear and horror. Of course, unbeknownst to the people of this earth, the worst had yet to come.

Milling around him were his lieutenants: the ever-dependable Black Siren and Reverb, the obedient Rupture, the sadistic Deathstorm and Killer Frost. And surrounding them were the escapees from the A.R.G.U.S. bases his lieutenants had been interred in. Barring one, of course, Doctor Light, aka Linda Park of Earth-2. She had tried to escape after the bases had been demolished, but Reverb had caught up to her and finished her off. It wouldn't suffer to have traitors, after all.

Just as well, he wouldn't do to have his big moment without a captive audience. While the Justice League would've been preferable, this was a sufficient substitution. Hunter felt his smile grow even smugger as two of the escapees dragged forward a bedraggled, African American woman in dirtied clothing.

"Amanda Waller, Director of A.R.G.U.S. and secret backer of the Justice League," Hunter intoned, lifting the woman's chin up, "I've heard much about you."

"Go to hell," Amanda spat out.

"Not anytime soon. And even then, we'd probably be meeting each other there, wouldn't we? I've seen what you've been up to Waller. You're a monster like me."

"Maybe so, but at least there was purpose to it all," Amanda retorted angrily. "You're just doing this to get your rocks off."

"True," Hunter shrugged. "But does it really matter in the end?"

Amanda stayed stubbornly silent, refusing to dignify that question with an answer.

"Nothing going to answer? That's fine," Hunter smirked, and then his eyes turned pitch black. "You're just here for the show."

With that said, he took the remote Reverb was now offering him, the trigger device where all his plans laid. He put on his mask with his other hand, becoming Zoom, the Speed Demon, once again. He clicked the button on the remote, activating the breach devices, and watched as his ambition finally came to fruition.

All around the outskirts of Central City, hidden in various, remote spots, breaches from Earth-2 opened. His army of metahumans, who had been anxiously waiting from the other side for this moment. Many were laughing, cackling, wringing their hands gleefully. Some were showing off their powers, throwing blasts of various substances and energies into the air. Others, like a gigantic half-shark, half-man, were roaring, waiting for the carnage to initiate.

Zoom reveled in it all. After months of hard work, of toiling away as an underpaid college professor and playing nice with a bunch of airheaded brats, his goal had finally been fulfilled. His army was here, and nothing would stand in its way.

The Invasion of Earth-1 had, at last, begun.

The Darkest Hour of the entire fic. The moment I've been waiting for. This is the grand finale of Arc IV, and these next few chapters will not disappoint, I can assure you. After this, nothing will ever be the same.

Poor Iris. This arc has been horrible for her, hasn't it? Finally on the road to reconciling with Barry, only to watch him beaten up and nearly killed by Zoom, attacked in her own home, learning about her best friend's past as an assassin, held hostage by Reverb, watched said best friend get kidnapped in front of her, breaking up with her long-time boyfriend, watching said best friend "die" on live TV, learning said ex-boyfriend is in a coma... Will it get any better for her? Well, let's just wait and see.

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