Cisco fully understood the line between monster and hero.
Sometimes you could jump rope with that line.
They were opposites.
Having the ability to literally destroy the earth blurred that line a little.
Flash.
The STAR Labs came crumbling in on top of everyone.
"I can't control it!"
His fingers trembled like the earthquake.
Barry spoke to him over the speaker com, "Cisco, stay calm! I'm heading right ov-"
A scream.
Flash.
He chose this.
Chose to become a force against evil.
To help save Central City.
To become...The Vibe.
To just loose control and focus.
It was hard to trust anyone after Dr. Wells killed him in the alternate time line.
(The blood on his yellow suit was spreading...)
But Caitlin helped him move on.
From the lies.
The betrayal.
"Forgive me Cisco...but to me, you've been dead for centuries."
"His hand! It's vibrating!"
"I don't understand. What do Dr. Wells and the Reverse Flash have to do with each other?"
Flash.
The nightmares, however would never end.
They were apart of him somehow.
Cisco saw through the very vibrations of the universe.
He saw what should have been.
What wasn't.
What changed.
What was.
What would happen.
It was all there for him to see.
To remember.
To feel.
The hardest thing for him to accept was maybe they weren't nightmares.
Maybe they were memories.
If the Latino was sure of anything it was that the echoing screams of alternate timelines would never, ever exist.
And neither would this Dr. Ivo.
Who honestly made it hard to sleep at night...
The Vibe costume was truly his best creation.
The psionic weapons on his arms helped Cisco guide and aim his vibrational abilities.
But not even the power to tremble the earth topped seeing what could have been.
Like how Wally really had red hair.
Berry was a blonde.
Too weird.
And Caitlin should have never met them at STAR Labs.
Honestly their own little pocket dimension made him uncomfortable.
It gave him a headache.
There was so much they didn't understand.
His foot pressed down on the gas.
He ran a red light.
The hero didn't care the big clunky STAR Labs van was noticeable.
Saving Wally West took first priority.
"Come on pal, stay with me!"
The teenager in the passenger seats eyes were swollen shut.
'What did she do to him?'
The Vibe kept looking at him with worry.
He tried jostling his frozen shoulder.
"I'll say it now, Caitlin you're a !##!"
The tires screeched as he made a tight corner.
Having your biggest and closest best friend in the whole world turn into a supervillain was an enlightening experience.
It aged the latino in ways you couldn't imagine.
Naming Caitlin was the hardest thing he had ever done.
A killer.
Killer Frost...
His masked eyes closed for a second, painfully.
Caitlin sat with him and Arsenal at the night club, "We haven't been taking this seriously. It's all been a game. We give the bad guys code names."
Flash.
"I think the fact we go up against metahumans made it all kinda clean. Like the fact that they have these powers makes what they're doing less..."
"...Real." She finished for him.
Flash.
"Don't you dare die on me Wallace West! Or I'll steal and sell all of your vintage action comics!"
A light wheeze.
"Y...would...d're."
"Oh I would pal! Now stay awake. We're almost there."
The city's youngest hero chin fell.
The decoration on the dash board fell off.
Cisco couldn't breathe.
Flash.
"How do you guys do it? How do you guys live like this? Where anyone you care about can be struck down?"
Flash.
"I've grown incredibly found of you Cisco."
You strive to be a hero every single day.
And to watch the one person that mattered become something so dark so...evil.
It went down to the matters of the soul.
Caitlin was...INSANE.
And there was turning back from that.
Not even time travel could save her.
His face crumpled, turning purple and tears started to fall like rain.
Flash.
"WHY?! Why are you doing this Caitlin? To us? To Barry?"
Her haunting ice blue eyes turned to stare back at him.
Cisco screamed and hit the steering wheel.
Flash.
"I'm sorry...but it isn't a game this time Cisco. Barry took something from me I can never get back," her face showed a surprising level of grief, "You can call yourself a hero all you want. I'm no longer the same naive Dr. Snow."
Flash.
He wanted to help them.
Help Dr. Wells...
Help...her.
Then Barry changed every thing.
No...Reverse Flash did.
With the particle accelerator.
Kid Flash grew paler and paler.
Flash.
"The dark matter took my best friend!"
Barry's eye brows scrunched and his eyes watered, "Cisco...it...took mine too."
The two men stood in the underground prison system at STAR Labs.
Grief explored Cisco's face, "No...no, IT GAVE YOU POWERS. They meant something to me Barry! THEY MEANT EVERYTHING..." A broken sob, "And..." A breathless tremble, "And, they both tried to kill me."
Sobbing in the present slowly ate away at his memories.
The van tore into the nearest parking space.
The Vibe grappled for his seat belt, reaching for Wally.
He felt cold.
Cisco couldn't feel anything else.
Hands trembled.
He grabbed the small meta and ran inaudibly through the ER.
This wasn't it.
It couldn't be it.
He was barely fifteen!
The sidekick had hardly begun to experience girls yet.
Wally came to the city looking for his idol.
An idol that turned out to be married to Iris.
Kid Flash was unexpected and a pure joy to welcome by everyone including the villains.
Even Captain Cold watched out for him.
The mere fact Caitlin would try and murder the kid on sight...
Was unimaginable.
Ronnie's death.
Getting trapped by ARGUS.
Nearly dying after attacking Barry...
Through all of the pain, the loss...and resentment...it just made Cisco want his best friend back.
The Vibe stumbled...
Nurses and Doctors surrounded them.
"I used to play this game in my head. What would I give up for just one more minute with him?"
He couldn't breath.
"My house, my career, the rest of my life. Today, I got that minute. And I wished I hadn't."
The whole world tilted and went dark.
The superhero clutched on tighter to Wally West.
"Seeing him like that, what he's become...Dear God, I wish he had just died that day."
"Please..." Cisco said faintly, "Save him."
End Chapter Three