Disclaimer: The following is a nonprofit Fan based story; The FLASH and all related characters are owned by DC comics, the CW and anyone I may have missed.
A/N: I hope you all enjoy this chapter. I took a lot of inspiration from the recent comics with this chapter, though I've changed a few things up. There probably won't be a chapter next week but never say never.
The Flash: Moving Forward
Chapter 5: Paradox Attacks
The following morning Cisco strolled into the main lab whistling, but he stopped when he noticed someone who should have been there wasn't. "Huh. That's odd. Where's Dr. Wells?" He uttered to himself. He strolled over to the computer monitors and booted up the cameras while singing to himself. "~'Cause we could be Immortals, Immortals just not for long, for long.~"
"Cisco!" Cisco's ear's perked at the sound of his name over the intercom.
"Yes Dr. Wells?" he asked back.
"Cisco, come down to the Particle Accelerator! We have a situation." Dr. Well's voice said over the intercom, he sounded agitated and rather upset, yet still was a semi-calm voice.
A short while later Cisco was walking into the Particle Accelerator and saw Dr. Wells sitting there in his wheel chair in front of him was one of their jerry rigged cells; the front of it had been shattered completely.
"Oh, man…" Cisco whispered stunned "What happened here?"
"That, Cisco, is exactly what I want to know." Wells said as he turned his chair around. "Because right now we have four meta-humans on the loose, two of which are extremely dangerous, capable of harming Barry Allen or doing far worse to him."
Meanwhile Barry was leaning against the wall next to the elevator waiting for Caitlin to arrive. Soon after, she stepped out of the elevator.
"So, how'd you sleep Dr. Snow?" he began which startled Caitlin making her almost drop her coffee, which Barry speedily caught and handed back to her.
"Geeze… I thought you said you weren't going to do that anymore? And why are you asking about how well I slept last night?"
"I never said that." Barry answered taking a sip of his coffee. "As for last night I was just curious, 'cause I was up all last night."
"You were up all night thinking about what we'll tell Iris?"
"Only for about an hour, the rest of the night Hal and I watched several back to back movies; Top Gun, Independence Day, and Fast and the Furious 1, Pacific Rim, Back to the Future, and our absolute favorite"
"Let me guess, Star Wars?"
"No, we watched the Karate Kid, you know the original. Where the hell did you get the idea that Star Wars is our all-time favorite movie?"
"Call it a bad hunch I guess." The bio engineer replied "And do you honestly expect me to believe you watched six movies in a row last night? That would mean you're running on no sleep."
"Why do you think I'm drinking coffee?" Barry responded "I am literally running on fumes right now."
"Speaking of your sleepless friend" Caitlin looked over her shoulder and around for a quick moment. "Where's Hal?"
"Well, between the two of us, Hal isn't exactly a morning person." The fastest man alive replied "He's more of a sleep to noon and stay awake until four in the morning. He'll be here by this afternoon. We probably won't be here but he did promise to show Cisco how his ring works."
The duo walked into the main lab and they saw Wells sitting in his chair while Cisco stood next to him holding his tablet. Images of the cells within the Particle Accelerator were on the large monitors for their viewing. The cells where they had been keeping the bad meta's were all shattered, and all of those super powered bad guys were gone.
"Dr. Wells what's going on?" Caitlin asked before the handicapped doctor wheeled around.
"What's going on is that there was a break in at STAR Labs last night." Wells said noticeably gripping the arms of his chair tightly.
"What!?" Barry asked aloud "Are you guys OK? Was anything stolen? Don't tell me Cold's Gun was stolen!"
"Don't worry about the Captain Cold and Heatwave's weapons Barry." Cisco replied before swiping across his tablet to that live footage of the room, where said weapons were stored was on the main screen. "They're still locked up nice and tight. I checked them personally just after we discovered what happened."
"Though, there were a few things that were stolen." Wells said.
"What exactly?"
"All the data we have on Barry and his powers was down loaded and we're missing our inmates." Wells finished
"All of them?" Caitlin asked
"The Mist, Prism, Peek-a-boo, Icicle, Hell even Farooq's body was taken." Cisco said as he brought their profiles up on the monitor. Barry and Caitlin also got to see the footage of a red and black streak breaking open their cells and taking each one of them out of STAR Labs to places unknown.
"I thought they couldn't escape form the pipeline?"
"Like I said before, they can't escape. They were let out."
"By who?" Barry asked
"By Paradox." Wells replied. Cisco brought up the footage on the main screen and Barry watched as Paradox effortlessly infiltrated STAR Labs at impossible speeds and proceeded to break out all the meta-humans they had rounded up.
"How did he even know they were locked up here?" Caitlin asked
"You guess is as good as mine." Cisco said.
"Perhaps…" Wells began which got his three associates attention "perhaps…he's been following you Barry."
"Wha-"
"I'm not saying it's your fault that he got in here, but if he knows that it is you under the Flash's mask then there's no telling who he will attack to hurt you." Wells said. "Remember what Joe told you? The Reverse-Flash threatened to kill Iris, someone you're very close to. We cannot rule out that he know who you are, and where to hurt you!"
"If that's the case then we're all in danger." Caitlin said
"Not just us. Joe, Iris, Eddie, Linda, my Dad. They're all at risk. And the only one we can really warn about this break out is Joe." Barry voiced.
"You guys realize what this means? We have to catch them all over again. Two of them required extra help to catch." Cisco pointed out.
"We'll stop them Barry." Caitlin reassured him "We did it before."
"We will catch them all Barry." Wells reassured him. "First, Cisco and I are going to reinforce the Particle Accelerator and increase our precautions against enemy speedsters. When we're done it'll be just a matter of finding where they're hiding as well as what they'll plan on doing next."
"I think it's a safe bet to assume that The Mist and Icicle will be coming after the Flash in revenge." Cisco said. "Prism may just go back to robbing banks while Peek-a-boo might just be laying low considering what you told us about her. Don't worry; we'll work this out man." He patted Barry's shoulder in reassurance.
"Well, guess it's a good thing I decided not to sleep in this morning." All four of them turned to see Hal leaning in the door way, still wearing his piolet jacket. "When do we start?"
"We already did." Barry replied with a cocky grin.
Sure enough as predicted Roy G. Bivolo AKA Prism (as Cisco called him) AKA Rainbow Raider (as Caitlin called him) was seen at another back attempting to rob it. In a heartbeat the Flash was there ready to put him back in his cell.
"Alright Bivolo just turn yourself in quietly and no one gets hurt." Prism turned around. The only difference between now and the last time he fought the Flash was that he was now wearing a pair of goggles over his eyes, strange high-tech goggles.
"Oh it's the Flash. I was told you might come back for me. This time I'm prepared to fight you." He extended his hands and suddenly shot out a beam of energy that was all the colors of the rainbow.
Barry easily dodged out of the way and watched as the wall it hit turned red, then orange, then yellow, then green, then blue, then indigo then violet before returning to its original color.
"OK, that's new."
"Come on Flash! Make this more fun!" He fired another beam, this time hitting a mirror in the back which reflected the light back at Barry from behind, but the scarlet speed steer dodged out of the way once more. "Hold still Damn it!" He continued firing his beam but this time he jumped up and was on top of a rainbow.
"That's also new." Barry said before bolting out of the Bank with Prism in tow.
"Come Back Fl-" He was cut off when his head collided with a large green bar. He tumbled off his rainbow which dissipated and was unconscious.
"A man glides into a bar, ouch." Green Lantern said as he landed near Barry.
"I had it handled." Barry said as he stopped next to Hal.
"Really? From the way I saw it you would have been dancing with the devil if Cisco finds out you turned his suit pink."
Barry looked down and sure enough his suit was now violet in color. He hung his head before he began to run around in a circle. When he stopped his suit was back to its original red color. And Hal was hovering while Prism was being suspended by green light.
"Let's go, we've still got three of your meta-humans to catch." Hal said
The two super heroes quickly rounded up The Mist, which wasn't hard once they found him. Hal just formed a green sphere around the gaseous man and prevented him from spreading or escaping.
"OK, that one was too easy." Hal said as he and Barry watched Nimbus pound against Hal's sphere construct trying to escape. "Yeah keep trying buddy, you won't be getting out of that any time soon."
And a little while later both Barry and Hal were back at STAR Labs.
"Alright so it only took us two hours, but we caught two of our four missing Meta-humans." Barry said as they walked in.
"Nice job!" Cisco said as he high fived both Barry and Hal. "We got two bad Meta's in record time."
"It looks like the last two are laying low for the time being." Wells said to the two heroes. "I think you two deserve the rest of the day off."
"Really?"
"We all need a rest, after what happened this morning." Wells reaffirmed "We can't exhaust ourselves too much."
"Hal, you still owe me a ring demonstration." Cisco said as he put on his jacket.
"Yeah, no problem. I can show you my stuff over at the air strip."
"Sweet, hey you guys wanna come?" the mechanical engineer asked Caitlin and Barry.
"Uh, we'll be by later." Caitlin said "I asked Barry to help me move a few things back at my apartment."
"You are such a gentleman Barry." Hal said before he had his ring form air quotations. "'Helping her move things.'"
"Shut up Hal…" Barry grumbled "She just asked me to help her out and being a good friend that's what I'm going to do."
"Alright, whatever. Cisco and I will be over at the air strip if you need us." Hal responded before turning to Cisco, his ring glowed with power. "So how do you want to get there? Van? Race car? Jet? Or good old fashion flight?"
"As cool as all those sound I think we should take the lab van, we don't want to raise any unwanted suspicion."
"Fine, it's your call man."
"You ready to go Barry?" Caitlin asked as she put on her coat and grabbed her purse.
"Yeah." Barry replied as he fixed his jacket. "Where did you say we were meeting Iris again?"
"It's a restaurant down on the river." She answered "I figured that it would be public enough where she won't make too big a fuss and at the same time it'll be private enough for us to tell her what we plan to tell her."
"Good call." In an instant Barry unexpectedly scooped Caitlin up bridal style. "Let's go Dr. Snow." In a Flash the duo was down by the dock where the restaurant was located.
The restaurant itself was more or less on the deck of an old wooden ship, Captain Jay's Seafood Ship. And every hour it goes out for a half hour cruise so that its patrons can experience dining on the sea or river in this case since Central City is nowhere near the ocean.
"We could have taken my car you know." Caitlin said as Barry let her down. "We still have like fifteen minutes until the ship next heads out."
"That's too slow for me." Barry responded before he looked around at the ship. "So your plan was for us Iris and us to go out to lunch on a ship that shoves off the dock every hour, with very few people, so we can let her in on this?"
"Pretty much." Caitlin said. "Is it a bad plan?"
"Actually I think this'll work." Barry said "This way she can't totally avoid us while we explain ourselves." He took out his phone and looked at the time; 11:45 am. "Hey look at that, we're early." He chuckled to himself but Caitlin's look of 'why are you laughing now?' made him stop "Not important, so we have about fifteen minutes to kill. What should we do?" he asked
"I think we should go over what we'll be telling Iris one more time." She said "We don't want to say something neither of us wants her to know."
"Well OK, we'll go over what we'll say one more time." Barry looked over at the boardwalk. "Let's go down the board walk, it's a little more private."
For the next fifteen minutes Barry and Caitlin walked down the boardwalk and back. The whole time they discussed what they'd tell Iris, but soon their conversation morphed into the one of the events from the prior morning and more general subjects.
"I still can't believe Shawna and Cameron are still out there." Barry said putting his hands into his pockets. "After catching Nimbus and Bivolo so easily, we should have had them rounded up by this point."
"At least you had Hal helping you out." Caitlin added "You have to admit he's pretty handy with that ring." Barry just rolled his eyes.
"If you're so interested in Hal and his magic ring why don't you go out with him? He was certainly interested in you last night." Caitlin playfully slapped Barry's shoulder. "Ow!"
"How can you even suggest that Barry? I am an engaged woman!"
"Yeah I know." Barry shrugged before noticing Caitlin's change in demeanor. "Hey, if you don't want to tell Iris about Ronnie we don't have to."
"No, I think we should." Caitlin responded. "Had this been a week ago, I don't know how I'd respond. But now I feel much better talking about Ronnie, I know he's out there right now, probably saving people. It's kind of like with you and Iris. She wanted people to know the Flash exists and I want the world to know what Ronnie and Professor Stein are doing." Barry smiled at her sincere answer.
"Now you can't be mad at me for those roof top meetings I had with Iris." Barry joked. "Since she wants the world to know about me the same way you want the world to know about Ronnie."
"Yeah, guess I can't. If I did I'd just be a hypocrite." Caitlin felt her phone going off in her purse. Taking it out she looked at the caller I.D. and saw that it was Iris. "Hello? Hey Iris."
Over at Captain Jay's Iris was walking up the gangplank. "Hey Caitlin, we're still on for lunch and that thing right?"
"Of course."
"Well I'm at Captian Jay's now and I can't find you anywhere."
"We'll be there in a minute Iris." Caitlin's voice said
"We?" Iris asked
"Yeah, Barry and I are on our way there now. We're just coming down the boardwalk, we'll be there in a minute."
"Barry's with you?"
"Yeah." Caitlin responded "Didn't I tell you he was joining us this morning?"
"Um, I'm not sure you did." Iris's voice sounded slightly troubled. "But why is Barry joining us?"
"There are somethings that Caitlin can't tell you that I can." Barry's voice said through the phone, evidentially Caitlin had passed it off to him. "I kind of pestered Caitlin into letting me join you two for lunch. Are you mad? You're not mad are you?"
"I…I'm not mad Barry." Iris's head was filled with racing thoughts. Why had Caitlin told Barry about their meeting? Why was Barry insisting to join them? Did Barry know things about the Flash and the Burning Man that even Caitlin didn't know? If so why didn't he tell her? And who else knows these things?"I just kind of wished you guys gave me a heads up about this that's all."
"I'm really sorry to surprise you with this Iris." Barry said "It's just, there are some secrets Caitlin has that aren't her's to share."
"I completely understand Barry." Iris replied "I'll see you two when you get here, for now I'll get us a table. Okay, bu-bye." Iris hung up her phone as she walked up to the hostess.
"Hello" Iris was greeted with a cheerful personality. "Welcome to Captain Jay's. How large is your party?"
"Uh, there's three of us." Iris replied
"Alright, follow me to your table." The hostess grabbed three menus and led Iris to a table on the main deck.
"So how does your ring work exactly?" Cisco asked as he readied a Frisbee.
"Basically I will it to do something and it complies." Cisco threw the Frisbee and Hal shot it with a green energy beam. "Kind of like that."
"Man, we are going to have a great time with this." Cisco fanboyed as he readied a dozen other objects for Hal to blast, catch and in some cases race.
"So, Barry tells me you're the name guy." Hal said. "The guy that names all the bad meta-humans."
"Yup. Plus I make the toys." Cisco said full of pride. "Barry would be streaking all around Central City if I hadn't made him that suit."
"You have a great sense of style." Hal complimented "Otherwise who knows what Barry would be wearing."
"Here goes everything." Barry said as they walked onto the ship. When they got onto the deck they saw Iris waving them over.
Iris stood up and gave each of them a welcoming hug. "Thanks so much for meeting with me Caitlin."
"No problem Iris."
"To be honest I thought you would just start avoiding me like the plague."
"To also be honest, I thought I was." Barry gave Caitlin a look. "Well, there were some things that are really personal that you were prying into and Barry convinced me that we should talk about them since it should help both of us."
"Speaking of Bear, I thought you'd be hanging out with Hal all day today."
"That was the plan initially but I cleared my schedule when Caitlin called me about your lunch date. For all we know one of you two may need a shoulder to cry on when this is over." Caitlin and Iris gave him slightly annoyed looks for different reasons. Caitlin because it was a terrible lie and Iris just thought it was pathetic excuse.
"This was supposed to be a girls' day out thing." Iris said "How would you feel if I crashed your and Hal's boys day in?"
"That is the exact same thing I said to Barry." Caitlin threw into the conversation smiling. "I believe Barry said 'Hal would totally be okay with it.'"
"Hey!"
"It's the truth."
"That I can believe." Iris said sipping the coffee their waitress had brought them. "So what is so super-secret that it requires both of you to tell me?"
Barry and Caitlin exchanged looks before the fastest man alive spoke up. "Before we start, Promise you won't get too mad with us."
"Why would I get mad with you Bear?"
"Because this secret involves everyone we know. I don't want you to be mad or think that we kept this secret from you specifically."
"OK, I promise." Iris said.
"Ok, here it goes." Barry took a deep breath. "To be completely honest with you Iris, this is something I've been dying to tell you."
"You two are dating behind everyone else's backs." Almost immediately after she finished her sentence Caitlin was spitting out the water she was drinking and started coughing violently while Barry seemed to start choking on a piece of bread he just put in his mouth. It took both of them a moment to recover and answer the aspiring reporter.
"What!? No! No we aren't dating behind anyone's back." the bio engineer said quickly. "I have a fiancée Iris, and I wouldn't dream of cheating on him like this."
"Yeah, and I'm in a committed relationship with Linda. Do you honestly think I'd cheat on her? I don't want to do that to her!"
Iris calmly took a sip of her coffee. "I understand." She said "I was just making sure neither of you were." She put her cup down and turned to Caitlin. "Caitlin, you said you have a fiancé?"
"Yes, and before you ask he is tied to what you were asking me last night." Caitlin took a deep breath and sighed heavily. "God, where do we begin?"
"The beginning would be great." Iris proposed
"Ok, you know about the Particle Accelerator explosion right?" Iris nodded and Barry continued "Well, according to Dr. Wells the explosion unleashed a whole slew of unknown energies into our world. These energies bonded with an unknown number of people triggering genetic changes within their DNA."
"Could you explain that again in non-nerd please?" She asked
"The explosion gave people superpowers." Caitlin translated.
"So, like Tony, the Flash and your cousin?"
"Right." Caitlin responded "So far most of these meta-humans have been, less than friendly. And we've been helping the Flash catch the bad ones and lock them up."
"I was right! You are close to the Flash!"
"I only work with him." Caitlin replied "I'm just there to make sure he doesn't kill himself. I'd hardly call us that close. Besides I've got Ronnie."
"Who's Ronnie?"
"He's Caitlin's fiancé." Barry replied he glanced at Caitlin who nodded to him. "You probably know him better as Sam, or the Burning Man."
"So Caitlin, your fiancée is a super hero? That must be exciting."
"I guess so." Caitlin replied "I assume that's what he's doing. Last time I saw him he flew off." Iris gave her a funny look. "Yeah, my fiancé can fly."
"Cool, now I can see why you were so hesitant to tell me last night. I mean if I was dating or engaged to the Flash or one of these meta-humans like that Green Lantern guy I'd probably be acting the same way you were." She then smiled brightly with excitement. "You guys have to tell me all about him. What can he do exactly? Why did the military conduct an operation at Jitters when you two were there? Were they after Sa- I mean Ronnie? Wait, is that why you guys stayed at my dad's house? Wait, does he know about all of this? Who else knows about all of this?" She began to ramble off questions like a nonstop child on a sugar rush.
Caitlin looked aback when she was assaulted with an endless barrage of questions. "Uh, I can't really tell you any of those things, they aren't my secrets to tell." Iris looked disappointed "I can tell you that he doesn't go by the Burning Man, he prefers Firestorm."
"Now you can see why we lied to you when Caitlin and Ronnie stayed with me and Joe?" Barry asked.
"I get it." She replied "I totally get it. Since Caitlin is so close to Firestorm so she is a potential target for those trying to get to him."
"Which is the exact reason why Ronnie left." Caitlin said. She smiled to herself as she thought of the last words Ronnie spoke to her.
"He left?"
"Yeah." Caitlin replied kind of wanting this part of the conversation to end.
Iris caught her expression and decided to lay off the Ronnie subject. Taking another sip of her coffee she decided to continue to the main course in her opinion. "So, how close are you to the Flash exactly? You are clearly close to him if you're the one who stops him from killing himself."
"Uh," Caitlin and Barry exchanged looks before she spoke up. "We help him find the bad meta-humans."
"And in turn we help him learn more about his powers." Barry added. "Or at least that's what they do; I just help with finding ways to stop them."
"You know him too Barry?"
"More than you know Iris." Barry said under his breath. "Yeah, I help find the identities of any meta-humans they come across. Joe and I are their eyes and ears in the CCPD."
"So both you and my dad know who the Flash is?" Iris was getting agitated "And both of you had the audacity to tell me to stay away from him!" She started to raise her voice, but not enough to draw unwanted attention. "How could you Barry? I thought we were Best Friends?"
Seeing the situation escalating Caitlin reached out and took Iris' hands. "Iris, they didn't tell you because you would have been in the exact same situation I was in. They care too much about you to see you in any kind of danger. Think about it you wrote a blog about him and then you were kidnapped by Tony Woodward. I know him, I don't advertise it, like you and your blog, I stay in the background patching him up when he hurts himself and I was still abducted by Captain Cold and his pyromaniac partner."
Iris calmed down at Caitlin's words. She was right. Getting mad at Barry and her Father wasn't going to change anything; they just wanted to keep her safe.
This time it was Barry that took her hands. "Believe me Iris, I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you on day one." Barry took a deep breath before he was ready to reveal his biggest secret to Iris. "I've wanted to tell you that I-"
The Ship suddenly buckled and heaved hard to the right, causing everyone and everything to fall over. Glass shattered and wood creaked.
Immediately Barry was helping both Iris and Caitlin up. "You guys Ok?" He asked hardly noticing what was happening around them.
"I'm fine." Caitlin said
"Yeah…" Iris said nodding. "What was that?"
"Trouble." Barry replied.
"COME OUT AND FIGHT ME FLASH!" Barry recognized that voice almost immediately. No sooner had the voice yelled out to them that the ship's bow dipped low.
Caitlin and Iris gripped the nearest railing. They turned around and watched helplessly as Barry lost his balance and tumbled into the main cabin. "BARRY!" They both cried out in unison as he disappeared into the main cabin.
One Minute Ago:
Paradox stood atop the arch of the bridge that connected the Gem Cities across the Missouri River. He cracked his neck, knuckles and fingers before jumping up and down in anticipation.
"Alright let's draw out the Flash and take my new tricks out for a test drive." Ice crept all over his suited arms and spread down the bridge to the river. In mere moments the entire river was frozen locking half a dozen ships in the ice. Paradox grinned and dispersed in a thin cloud of red-black smoke before reappearing down on the frozen river.
He held out his hands and in one fluid motion gestured them up and almost in tandem all the frozen ships were raised into the air on unstable ice pillars.
"Heeheeheehee! COME OUT AND FIGHT ME FLASH!" He yelled as loud as he could
Present Time:
As Barry tumbled into the main cabin electricity raced in his eyes and in an instant he was out of the ship, back at STAR Labs, in his suit and standing in front of Paradox within a minute.
"You finally decided to come out to play."
"What do you want Paradox?" Barry demanded
"I just want someone I can test my new powers on." Crimson electricity crackled around his right arm and in a blur he fired off a stream of red lighting at the scarlet speedster, hitting him square in the chest.
Barry fell backward and clutched his chest in pain. "Oh man that one hurt…" Paradox rushed him forcing Barry to move out of the way as the evil meta-human punched the ice with a vibrating claw, causing it to break.
Back on the ship:
"BARRY!" Iris called out as she made her way to the entrance of the main cabin. "BARRY!"
Catlin grabbed Iris from behind so she wouldn't fall. "Iris please we need to get-" The ship lunged dangerously backward causing Caitlin to let go of Iris and slide more towards the stern.
Iris whirled around just in time to see Caitlin's head it a table. "Caitlin!" she called out to her friend." She wanted to make her way over to Caitlin but she couldn't just abandon Barry in the main cabin. Unfortunately for Iris the ship made the decision for her as the ship began to split in half under pressure with the stern of the ship beginning to fall towards the frozen river below.
Barry looked up to see the stern begin to fall. Panic swept across his entire body because he knew both Iris and Caitlin were there.
He tried to run there as fast as he could but Paradox teleported in front of him and tripped his legs, causing the Flash to stumble and collide head long into another one of the ice columns.
"Come on Flash, I half expected you to make this a challenge!" Paradox mocked. He fired several icicles mixed with electricity at Barry. The scarlet speedster quickly moved to avoid them but Paradox used his teleportation power to have his electric icicles teleport right into Barry's path, stabbing him in non-vital areas. "Now watch as I start to take away everything you love." He grabbed Barry's head and forced him to watch the ship Caitlin and Iris were on. The stern of the ship fell towards the ice at dangerous speed and Barry could only watch as he glimpsed Caitlin aboard it.
"CAITLIN!" he yelled trying to throw Paradox off of him.
Aboard the stern of the ship Caitlin closed her eyes and gripped the rail as tightly as she could while waiting for the ship to collide with the ice and eventual frozen water but it never came.
She opened her eyes and hovering not too far from the ship was Hal in his Green Lantern uniform. Green light was coming from his ring and held up the ship.
Hal had his arms folded across his chest. "I can't leave you two alone can I?" he joked "I turn around for one moment and here you guys are getting into trouble."
"Holy cow! It's Green Lantern!" a kid cried out happily.
"I LOVE YOU GREEN LANTERN!" One of the waitresses yelled to the green super hero.
"Settle down." Hal said "Let me just put you all down nice and safely. There are other people who need my help."
Meanwhile on the other half of the ship Iris was still looking for Barry, after seeing Green Lantern catch the stern, saving Caitlin, Iris returned to her task of finding Barry.
"Thank god Caitlin's safe." She said to herself as she stabilized herself using the door frames. "Damn it Barry, where the hell are you?"
"Damn, why is Green Lantern here?" Paradox demanded as he let go of Barry in that instant. "This ruins everything!" He threw his arms towards Green Lantern, firing off crimson electricity as he did. Hal maneuvered through the air avoiding the dangerous electricity.
"Looks like someone wasn't taught any manners." Hal's ring flared up before he created a large fist that swung at Paradox.
The armor clad meta-human teleported out of the way, reappearing behind Hal and grabbed him in a full nelson. "That ring of yours Green Lantern is quite troubling. How about I take some of it away?"
-Warning! Power levels at 73.58% and dropping-
-69.21%-
-52.7%-
"What?" Hal said to himself as Paradox began to drain him dry. "Get. Off. Of. ME!" Hall mustered up his willpower to force Paradox off of him in a brilliant flash of green light. "Ring how much charge do we have left?"
-48.11% Advice: Do not come into contact with his right arm-
"Good to know." Hal said as he swooped down and helped Barry to his feet. "You OK?"
"I'm fine." Barry said "but Paradox has some new tricks. He's got Farooq's abilities, Mahkent's abilities and Shawna's abilities."
"So he's a power sponge who has super speed, electrokinesis, cryokenesis and teleportation. He was just draining power from my ring just by touching me so it's quite possible he now has photokinesis. I've only got about half a tank left."
"How many people are still in danger?"
"Only your girlfriend and a few others. I got everyone else of these precariously placed ships when I got here."
"Thanks Hal. Now let's take this guy out." Paradox just smirked as the two heroes rushed him.
Paradox teleported between the two and punched Hal with an ice covered fist while he grabbed Barry with his mechanical right arm. Almost immediately Barry felt Paradox begin to drain the electricity from his body, just as Farooq had so many weeks ago.
Hal blindsided paradox with half a dozen green missiles, but Paradox teleported out of the way leaving Barry in their path. The speedster quickly moved out of the way as fast as he could, but now he was noticeably slower than before.
"You Ok?" Hal asked
"I'm slower…" Barry managed to reply. "He's siphoning off my powers just like last time."
Paradox turned to the both of them and smiled "I honestly would have thought that the Scarlet Speedster and the Emerald Knight would have been more than enough to take me down."
"So, what do we do?"
"First, take out his eyes. If he can't see he can't teleport." Barry said "Then we hit him with everything we've got, and hopefully don't let him touch you with that right arm."
"Sounds easy."
Meanwhile Caitlin was helping the other people with her get off of the severed ship's stern. It wasn't safe for any of them here, but all she could do was help these people.
"Quickly, we have to get out of here." She said
"Damn, my leg!" a Man complained clutching his leg. His leg was definitely broken since it was bending at an abnormal angle.
"Hang on" Caitlin rushed over to him and snapped two legs off of a chair. Using a torn table cloth the bio engineer created a makeshift splint around the man's leg.
"Thank you." He said
"Don't mention it." Caitlin replied "Let's get you out of her." She helped him to the lowest point of the stern and helped him down and then she went back to help anyone else. As she did she looked to see Barry and Hal fighting Paradox, and they were losing by the looks of it. She could only pray that they would succeed.
She pulled out her phone. "Detective West! It's Caitlin! you need to get down to the river right away!"
"I'm already on my way." Joe replied "Cisco gave me the heads up."
"have several ambulences come down here as well. I don't know how many were injured in Paradox's initial attack."
Together Hal and Barry rushed Paradox again this time Hal began to form a box around the mad meta-human the only direction he could teleport was up at this point. And just before paradox could teleport out of the obvious trap Green Lantern dissipated one of the walls behind him and Barry punched Paradox right in the cheek, rocketing him through the opposite wall and across the ice into one of the ice pillars.
Unfortunately the ice pillar Paradox collided with was the one that held up the ship Iris was still on. The Ice moaned and began to crack.
"No-no-no-no-no-NO!" Barry began to yell as he watched the ship fall down. He forced himself to run towards the falling debris. Every second felt like an eternity as he got closer. Seven seconds, that's all it took for him to reach it, just as the remainder of the ship began to splinter against the Ice and threaten to drown its passengers in the frozen Missouri River.
"IRIS!" Barry yelled as he ran through the crumbling ship in the fraction of a second. For Barry he was moving so fast everything else was at a standstill, even the light from Hal's ring as it formed a fist was moving slower than a snail. In that inconceivable amount of time Barry rounded up everyone still on the ship and brought them to safety just in time to see Hal knock Paradox on his back and restrain him with several large green chains.
"…Barry…?" Barry heard Iris whisper his name in her ear. Sure he wanted her to know who he was, but after this whole incident with Paradox Barry absolutely did not want her to know who he really was.
"It's OK Miss West." Barry reassured her in his flash voice. "He's safe, everyone is safe now."
"Ok, that guy was tough." Hal said as he wiped blood from his lip.
"Be careful Green Lantern. He can teleport!" Barry called to his friend as he put Iris and the other civilians down.
"Not likely." Sure enough there was a green band over his eyes, preventing Paradox from seeing the world. "It's all in a day's work Flash." Hal said to Barry. "Stop the bad guy and save the people."
"Barry? Caitlin?" the two heroes turned to see Iris coming towards them. "Where are Barry and Caitlin?"
"They're safe Miss West." The Flash replied with his vibrating voice. "They are on the other part of the ship right-"
Paradox wasn't done just yet he vibrated his body at the same frequency as Hal's green light and shattered the constructs. Standing up he extended his left hand towards Iris and fired off a large electrically laced icicle.
Hal saw it coming first and called out to the Flash as he pushed the Scarlet speedster and Iris out of the way. The icicle pierced into Green Lantern's right shoulder and discharged a fair amount of electricity effectively temporarily paralyzing his arm.
Barry flashed over to the beaten Paradox and kicked him in the face knocking him out once more.
"You Ok?" he asked Hal letting his voice turn back to normal.
"Oh my God…" Iris said as she starred at the Flash.
"Iris…I…I can expla-" Suddenly there was a deafening boom and a brilliant flash of light and Barry realized Iris wasn't looking at him; she was focused on what was behind him.
The Flash, Green Lantern and Iris turned and saw something they couldn't believe. Another Paradox was firing a large continuous stream of crimson electricity from his mechanical right arm into the air. This arc of lighting had proceeded to tear open what looked like a wormhole in the sky and it was sucking up the wreckage of the ship that Caitlin was still on, she had managed to get everyone else off but not herself.
"Oh no…NO!" Barry yelled aloud as he raced towards the ship, running right by the evil meta-human. His complete focus was on his friend who was being pulled into a wormhole to god knows where. Every step he took to get closer the ship rose a good five meters into the air. Barry started jumping on the debris just trying to reach the ship, even Hal created several platforms for Barry to jump off of but with his injured arm it was difficult to concentrate.
He stretched out his hand towards Caitlin, she reached out to him, looking at her face he saw several emotions; fear, desperation, concern, sadness, hope but they only brushed finger tips before Caitlin, and the ship disappeared into the wormhole.
"CAITLIN!" Barry yelled as he fell backward and through the ice below him into the frozen river.
Here ends the chapter
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