Chapter 145: Destiny

Barry let out a sigh of relief as he stepped off the train and found himself again within the city limits of Central City once more. Being in that sterile room with Kara… while he loved his sister and wanted to be with her as much as possible as she was healing, the idea of staying cooped up in one room all the time wasn't really appealing to him. Hadn't been, ever since he first got his powers. So, once he was assured by the A.R.G.U.S. medical team that they'd keep him apprised of her condition, he had left, with the promise to visit the following day and every day after. The benefits of being friends with a man who could make portals to just about anywhere.

He quickly headed towards the bus so he could make a beeline to S.T.A.R. Labs. It might've been faster just to speed over there, but Barry didn't like to use his speed out-of-costume unless absolutely necessary. There wasn't anything urgent for him waiting at the lab anyway, and would be nice to take the scenic, slow route for once.

Before Barry could get in line for the bus, however, he felt a vibration in his pocket. He took out his phone and saw it was ringing, with the Caller ID indicating that it was Joe trying to contact him. Barry frowned, and accepted the call. "Joe?"

"Barry. Are you back in the city?"

"Yeah. Is something wrong?" A gnawing feeling started to grow in his gut. Never a good sign.

Over the line, Joe sighed. "It's Ralph, Barry," he said solemnly. "He's dead."

It took all of Barry's willpower not to act on his instincts and immediately speed over to the address of the crime scene. Instead, he ordered a priority Uber and waited anxiously as it traversed Central City traffic to his destination. The only thing he could think of during the entire trip was Ralph, and the fact that he was dead, and that it may very well have to do with the case he had been working on.

I should've pressed him for more, Barry thought sourly, berating himself. No matter how mad he had been at Ralph, he had never wanted the other man dead. If he had known about the danger of the case, he could've kept an eye on the other metahuman, watched out for him. Maybe… but no. There was no guarantee Ralph would've accepted his help. What was done was done. All he could do to help now was comfort Iris when she found out and provide what information he had to the police so they could track down Ralph's killer. That is, if I don't find them myself.

The moment they arrived to the crime scene, Barry scrambled out of the car and headed directly to where the yellow tape was, shouting a 'thank you' to the driver along the way. He stopped just in front of the tape, to where Joe was waiting for him, looking solemn and a little red-eyed. "Barry," was what he was greeted with.

"Joe," Barry gasped, a little out of breath. "Where's…" his voice trailed off as he saw a body bag being zipped up and loaded onto a stretcher. He stared silently, wide-eyed, as the stretcher was rolled away to a police van. To the coroner's office, no doubt.

"He was found in an alley, stabbed multiple times," Joe answered his silent, unasked question. "Preliminary motive is a mugging gone wrong, but we won't know more until the autopsy is completed."

"How could anyone get the drop on him like that, or kill him for that matter?" Barry openly wondered. "Ralph was a good fighter and a metahuman. He wouldn't have gone down without a fight."

His foster father exhaled and put a hand on his shoulder. "I don't know, Bar. I just don't."

"BARRY! DAD!"

The two men whirled around to see Iris barreling down towards them, hair eschewed and eyes wild. Barry caught her before she could trip over her feet, and she grasped his arms like a lifeline. Ralph's former partner glanced up at both of them, desperation in her eyes. "Please tell me it's not true," she begged. "Please…"

Barry felt his sorrow permeate into his expression as he gave Iris a sad shake of the head. Iris turned to her father instead, hoping he would refute it, but one look at Joe was all she needed to see the truth. She put a hand to her mouth as the tears began to spill out. "I was a-angry…" she said, sobbing lightly. "I was mad, but I never… never…"

Her best friend pulled her into a hug, and began rubbing comforting circles into her back. "We know, Iris. We know."

That only caused her to sob harder.

It took several minutes for Iris to calm down. By the time she finally did, she was sitting at the back of one of the police vans, a cup of coffee in her hands and a warm blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Barry and Joe were both standing around her, trying to bring her some comfort with their presences. Iris glanced up at her father. "Who's handling the case?"

Joe looked at her daughter and let out another sigh. "Not anyone from our precinct," he admitted. "We're too close to the victim to be objective, so we're transferring jurisdiction to another precinct in the city."

It wasn't what either of his children wanted to hear, but they couldn't deny that the reasoning was sound. Barry exchanged another look with Iris, and then cleared his throat. "Are you still processing the crime scene? Including collecting testimony?"

A frown. "Yeah. Why?"

"We think we might have information on why Ralph died."

Joe's eyes widened, and he quickly took out his pad and pen. "Tell me," he urged them.

Barry started telling Joe everything, including how Ralph sought him out at the CCU campus and asked for his help with the investigation he was conducting, and his refusal to tell Barry any specific details about the case. He was careful to tell Joe about every detail he remembered, including Ralph offhandedly mentioning that the client was anonymous but paying well, and about how he asked for Barry's help processing some evidence. Barry had only agreed after confirming with Iris that it was legal for him to do so.

"We're going to need the evidence he gave you," Joe told him.

"I still have the vials in my lab. I'll send all of them to you immediately," Barry assured him.

The story continued with Barry's preliminary results of how the material was some kind of gas accelerant, and Ralph's strange reaction to that news. A few days after, Barry finished all the tests and called Ralph to give him the full results. That was the last he had heard from the other man, until Joe informed him of his death that morning.

"I should have pushed for more," the speedster insisted. "If I had known the investigation was dangerous, maybe I could have convinced him not to take the case or something."

But Joe shook his head. "No, Barry," the older man said firmly. "We don't know if this investigation had to do with his death yet. And even if it did, there's no way you or anyone else could've known he was in that kind of danger. Ralph was a seasoned investigator, he would've clued someone in if he knew that was the case. The only person responsible for Ralph's death is whichever bastard that killed him, and I promise you both — whoever that is, we're going to catch them."

Barry opened his mouth to argue, but a hand on his leg stopped him. "Dad's right, Barry," Iris told him. "It's not your fault."

Joe closed his pad and put it back into his pocket along with his pen. "I'm going to head back to the precinct and log your testimony in. Barry, you call S.T.A.R. Labs and ask them to send over the samples from your lab to the precinct so they can be processed. Then you and Iris head on home — I don't want to hear anything about you two working today, alright?"

His children nodded. Joe smiled, and pulled them both into a hug, one they returned desperately. "It's going to be alright," he said. "I promise."

Later that night…

Tommy had never been a particularly careful person.

It just wasn't in his nature, growing up, nor was there a need. He had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, with mountains and mountains of money at his beck and call. Whatever was broken could be fixed, or usually just replaced with something brand new and much better than before. If anything, that had been encouragement to be careless than careful, an idea that had persisted even into adulthood. He had learned to control himself better, but in the end, with no real consequences coming his way, he didn't see the point in putting too much effort.

All of that had changed after the Undertaking had been foiled and his father had been exposed as a domestic terrorist. Suddenly, the only thing Tommy could do was be careful. If he wasn't careful, then Merlyn Global's stock only plunged further and further. If he wasn't careful, he could be caught unaware and attacked by an enraged Glades supporter. If he wasn't careful, then all anyone would ever see when they saw him was his father.

Tommy had been forced to learn how to be careful, truly careful, during those several months he had endured as the new CEO of Merlyn Global. Something that had been refined when he had fallen under Talia's tutelage and taught the art of combat and assassination. As an assassin, you see, you could never be too careful, for one misstep could see you either captured or usually killed before you got to your target. An assassin was on a constant tightrope, performing a perpetual balancing act. All it would take was one little mistake, and they were falling, except there would be no net beneath.

Which was why he was being careful now. It had taken a lot to make this trip work, to make sure that it had gone undetected, that no one was suspicious. He had requested some leave from Oliver, citing the need for a few personal days, and Oliver, of course, accepted, because why would he ever suspect his best friend? And Malcolm, he barely had to make any excuses to at all — the man seemed to be walking on egg shells around him, eager for his forgiveness for keeping the truth about Isabel from him. Tommy, truthfully, might never forgive him, but he wasn't above using his father's desperation for his own ends.

An anonymous call using a burner phone, an untraceable payment to an off-the-books hacker named the Calculator, and a trip paid fully in cash with an air freighter later, he had found himself here at his destination, with the necessary supplies and materials to achieve his chosen objective. Nobody could trace him to this, otherwise the hell that would rain down on him would be so great Tommy would be lucky to make out of it alive. But if he did this… it would be worth it. So, so worth it.

The prison, unsurprisingly, was top notch and outfitted with some of the best security in the world. He had been studying the plans for days if not weeks and even then he knew it wouldn't be a cakewalk. He had to wait for precisely the correct moment to deactivate the sensors and scale the fences. It had taken all his training to dodge the copious patrols and evade the automatic security measures such as cameras and heat detectors. The entire time he was nervous, but when he found the cell he had been looking for, that feeling had turned into triumph.

Quickly, he'd slipped into the inside of the cell. The prisoner had sensed him and was in the process of waking up, but Tommy quickly drew the tranquilizer he had been carrying in his pack and jabbed it into his neck to knock him out again. Once that was done, he tied the guy up and stuffed him into the sack he had been carrying, before tying the sack to his back.

Escape had been much more difficult than infiltration, now that he was carry a two hundred pound-man with him. Only the fear of discovery prevented Tommy from just barging through the prison the old-fashioned way and leaving bodies in his wake. Nobody could find out it was him doing this.

It wasn't until he was in his car and driving away from the prison did Tommy begin to relax. And yet that last nerve continued to be on high alert up until he was inside his chosen, high-security base. He had succeeded. All on his own, with barely any support. He couldn't help but be proud of himself.

He got the prisoner he had broken out pulled out of the sack and mounted him on a chair, where he freed the bonds around his wrists but kept his legs tied together just in case. Just as well, as the tranquilizer was beginning to clear. The other man moaned as he began to wake up from his involuntary sleep, and slowly he opened his eyes, bleary and tired.

Tommy grinned.

"Joe Wilson, right? My name is Tommy Merlyn. You and I have a lot to talk about."

Elsewhere…

Her short flight to Metropolis saw her on nerves the entire time. Once she got there, she had quickly booked a hotel room and rented a car. Having already packed up toiletries and spare clothing for an overnight drive, Sam had then mounted the crystal onto the top of her rental's dashboard and followed the signal it seemed to be emitting. It always glowed whenever she went a certain direction, so that was direction she continued to follow, even as it took her into a barren desert wasteland.

She didn't know what she was going to do when she got too… well, wherever the crystal was trying to take her. She didn't even know what was waiting for her when she got there. All she did know is that it couldn't wait any longer. Whatever Sam was, whatever her connection she had to this crystal, it didn't like be ignored and was driving her insane. All the headaches and visions, the powers she seemly had — she needed answers. And this was perhaps the only thing in the world that could give them to her.

Eventually, her car broke down from the lack of gas, and she was forced to carry a backpack and continue the trip on foot. The farther she went, beacon grew brighter and brighter even into the darkness, providing a solid light for her to shine upon her way. And then, just before she could go any farther, a rumbling began, and she was forced to stop.

The rumbling grew louder and louder, trembling beneath her feet. Sam felt her anticipation and fear grow until, right before her very eyes, a massive… something began to jut out of the sand, made of dozens and dozens a gigantic, dark-colored spikes. They formed some kind of building, a fortress if she would have to guess, with a singular entrance. Something in Sam felt drawn to the building, and she knew.

This is it.

She stepped into the fortress and looked around. The place was dark, very dark and very ominous. There was technology inside, and looked advanced. Far too advanced for any other civilization on Earth. It took everything Sam had to choke down her sobs. Patricia hadn't been lying. She really was… was an alien.

How could she hide this from me? Why now? Will… will Ruby have powers like me, too?

There were so many questions that needed answers, and this was the place to start with. After another cursory look around, she found something: an apparatus, with a small hole in it. One in the same exact shape as her crystal. A key?

Sam swallowed, and inserted the key, pressing it down all the way. The apparatus glowed for a long moment, and then shot up something into the sky. It took a moment for Sam to realize it was light. One producing an image, a projection.

Before her now was a middle-aged woman, with dark hair. She was wearing some kind of cloak, and had her hood up, obscuring some of her features. She gazed down at Sam, before stepping off the apparatus and began circling her. Out of impulse, Sam reached out to touch her, but saw her hand pass through her. Definitely a hologram of some kind, and much like the rest of the building, far more advanced than anything currently on Earth.

"Who are you?" Sam blurted out. "Who am I? What… what is all this?"

The apparition observed her coolly. "I am all the answers you have been seeking," she said.

"Then answer me!" the younger woman suddenly screamed. "Please! Just tell me! I can't live like this any longer, I need to know!"

This got no response. Sam's emotional outburst left the woman unmoved. And then, she gave a sad sigh, shaking her head. "It is a shame you could not be awakened before the others were lost," the apparition lamented. "You will have only your own abilities. Oh well — it is doubtful there is anything on this primitive planet that can stop you."

That… that…

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, small and suddenly very, very scared.

"You wish to know what you are? Very well. You are a Worldkiller, of the dead planet Krypton, meant to rule over this plan and bring back our great civilization. Your awakening was delayed by several years thanks to that parasite," and this word was hissed, and it took a moment for Sam to realize who she meant: Ruby. "But no matter. You have awoken regardless. Now, it is time for you to fulfill your destiny."

"No," the word escaped Sam as the full weight of what was happening dawned on her. "No no no no no! You can't make me, I refuse!"

"You have no choice," the apparition responded coldly. "You are meant to Reign, and Reign you will."

She had to get out of here now. Sam turned away and tried to run, but it was too late. Red lights suddenly burst from every section of the fortress and struck her, enveloping her in crimson. Sam started screaming and screaming as every nerve within her was set on fire and her mind was enveloped with so much pain it was blinding her, making her numb to everything.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the lights ceased. Sam fell to her knees in front of the apparition, completely still.

And then she arose, her eyes glowing scarlet. The apparition smiled.

"I have awoken."

Woo. That was a doozy of a chapter, wasn't it? Ralph's body has been discovered mutilated, Tommy has broken Joe Wilson out of prison, and Sam has finally reached her terrible destiny. We've got one more chapter after this for this act, and it's going to be something for sure.

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