Author's Note: So, this chapter was actually really fun for me to write, even though writing the little action/fight scene was a little harder than I thought it would be. I blame it on having to include so many people in it. Haha! Anyways, I really worked hard to get this chapter up so fast. I have a busy schedule coming up for the next few days, so I'm not going to have a lot of time to work on the next chapter; it won't be up nearly as fast, which is why I wanted to get this one out. Anyways, the only important thing about this note is really just to say that I changed up Nathan Bliss's backstory a little bit to have it fit. Barry has never faced him in the show, so I had to switch things up a little! But, that's all! Enjoy! Review! ;)

The second that the screaming started, Barry stiffened, his bloodshot eyes searching for where the noise was coming from. From his current position, he couldn't see what was happening, but he could tell that it was close. Iris, who had clearly heard the commotion as well, met her best friend's eyes with her own pleading ones.

"Barry, don't," she said, already seeing the gears turning in his mind, his heroic instincts automatically kicking in. "Please."

But the terrified screams continued to ring out, and she could already tell what he was about to do by the apologetic look on the speedster's face.

"Iris, I'm sorry," he said, giving her hands a quick squeeze as if to try and reassure her, but she could not be reassured. Especially not as she watched him blow past her in a rush of golden lightning, back up the stairs to the Cortex. Seconds later, he ran past her on his way back out, the blur of red inside the golden lightning signifying that he had changed into his suit. And then he was gone, and Iris was struggling to hold back the panic she felt trying to consume her. It was only moments before Caitlin, Cisco and her father emerged from the same doors Barry had just fled from, their expressions mirroring exactly how she felt.

"Iris, where'd Barry go? What happened?" Caitlin asked, her voice more frantic than Iris was used to hearing it. When she finally found her voice, she did not like the way it cracked when she spoke, but she knew no one would judge her for it. Not now.

"He went to go be a damn hero."

Barry was, of course, the first one to arrive on the scene, skidding to a stop in the center of the street. He watched all of the people run for safety as he scanned the area for the threat, fighting back the urge to both throw up and pass out right on the spot; he could do both later, once he was sure everyone was safe. His heart pounded in his chest as he saw the tennis ball-sized pieces of hail that littered the street, the broken glass scattered around from where they had broken car and building windows. There was only one person he knew of that had the power to do that.

"Flash! I was so hoping you'd show up!" The booming voice of Mark Mardon confirmed what he already knew. The weather-controlling meta was floating on a storm cloud about twenty feet off the ground, grinning down at the leather-clad speedster with a malicious smile. Barry gritted his teeth as he looked up at the man, unpleasant memories from his last encounter with him flooding back. So he had been one of the metas freed from Iron Heights. Wonderful. Just what he needed right now.

"Leave these people alone, Mardon!" Barry shouted up at him, his voice still coming out scratchier than he would have liked it to. Mardon smiled wider at this, clearly picking up on it. He chuckled.

"So Shawna wasn't kidding. You are sick."

Barry bristled at the words. Shawna? He was in communication with Shawna? The speedster mentally cursed. She must have been the one who had freed him and the other two metas from Iron Heights. Now that he thought about it, it actually made a lot of sense. She could teleport, for God's sake, and had already freed her boyfriend from prison that one time. Not to mention she had clearly hinted that she wasn't done with him the previous day.

"You know, I'm actually getting really tired of everyone pointing that out," Barry replied, trying for his usual dose of sarcasm despite the way his voice sounded, and despite the fact that he really wasn't into it. "Stand down now! I've beaten you twice before and I'll do it again."

Mardon simply chuckled again. "In your condition, Flash?" he asked teasingly, still hovering above him. At least he wasn't chucking hail at helpless citizens anymore. "Besides, I'm pretty confident with my odds. Four against one hardly is hardly an equal ratio."

The small shred of hope Barry had dwindled incredibly, his pale face showing confusion and, admittedly, a hint of fear. "What -?" he started. He didn't finish voicing his question. A sharp pain exploded in his right shoulder, and he felt a scream of his own flying past his lips. He stumbled, nearly falling over. It took a lot of willpower for him to find the strength to straighten and reach behind him, pulling the object out of his shoulder, which agonizingly throbbed and stung. When he looked at it, he thought for a moment that it was his mind playing a trick on him. A playing card? What the hell? He didn't want to turn his back to Mardon, but he turned anyways, and came face-to-face with a man he had only seen once in a mugshot, and suddenly it clicked: this was Double Down, the meta that Oliver had dealt with not so long ago. The meta with the playing card tattoos he could utilize as weapons. Great. So now two metas were accounted for - but Mardon had said four against one. Where were the other two?

It wasn't long before that question was answered, either, and at this point, Barry might have let out a fluent stream of curses, if his voice didn't sound so rough. Another metahuman he knew all too well was closing in from his left side: Bivolo, his shades off and a chilling smile set on his face. And from the right another figure was approaching, and while Barry recognized the man immediately, he was startled by his presence here. Nathan Bliss had been the ringleader of the Central City Circus for over a year before the whole operation had gone downhill, and he had gone bankrupt. The man had been arrested for attempted armed robbery, and Barry had had absolutely no clue that he was a metahuman, let alone locked in the metahuman wing at Iron Heights. He vowed to find out more about that; if he ever made it out of his current situation, that was. From up above, Mardon continued his smug chuckling.

"Yes, I quite like our odds."As soon as the words left his mouth, as if it were some kind of cue, the four villain surrounding Barry surged as one. Thunder rumbled from the cloud Mardon stood upon, and suddenly Barry was ducking as the weather meta swooped at him, trying to dodge the large chunks of hail that were being dropped down without using much of his speed. At the sound of something whistling through the air, Barry sidestepped a card being thrown from Double Down just in time, backing up - right into Bivolo, who landed a well-thrown punch to the speedster's jaw. Barry yelped, using his speed now to run to the opposite side of the street. He stopped there, panting, nauseated and woozy.

For a moment, time seemed to slow as he took in the scene before him, the pure hell that was breaking loose right in front of his eyes. The people who hadn't managed to evacuate before everything had started were cowering behind various objects and buildings, their faces masks of pure terror. He saw one group of citizens physically fighting with each other, anger radiating off of them in waves, and he knew that Bivolo had somehow gotten to them. Distantly, he heard the sounds of police sirens approaching. He saw Bliss, focusing calmly on him from his position, and had just enough time to wonder what on earth his abilities were before time seemed to jump start again. And suddenly he wasn't looking at Bliss but at his own mother, watching him with warmth and love in her eyes, and his breath hitched in his throat. This wasn't right, she was dead. She was dead, she was gone, she was definitely not supposed to be standing there amidst the chaos looking at him like that -

Distracted as he was by the false image of his mother, Barry never saw Mardon coming. The man dropped down from his storm cloud and tackled him, knocking the wind out of him and leaving him startled and gasping for breath on the ground. His shoulder was agonizingly throbbing again at the action, his head pounding, and with the pressure of something on his back he couldn't get enough air in, couldn't breathe right -

The uneven, ragged breaths he was taking triggered one of his Godforsaken bouts of coughing, sending electricity crackling up and down his body as he lay incapacitated on the ground. There was a yelp as Mardon was shocked, and the pressure on Barry's back disappeared, but the poor speedster barely noticed.

Mardon glared down at the vulnerable hero from his new position standing over him. "Pathetic," he spat, sending a kick flying into hero's side. Barry gasped, his eyes foggy. Mardon had the urge to do more, to just finish the speedster off now, but he reigned in his emotions. What fun would it be to just let him off the hook so easily? Besides, the teleporting girl and her boyfriend, despite being highly annoying, had come up with such a tempting game plan.

"Finish it," he snapped at Bliss. "Shawna and that stupid boy toy of hers are waiting."

Barry didn't have time to even interpret the words properly before his world erupted in a pain worse than anything he had ever experienced before, and he mercifully escaped into unconsciousness.

Iris was not prepared for what she saw when herself and the rest of Team Flash rolled up on the scene in one of the STAR Labs vans. She wasn't sure what she was expecting when they arrived, but it hadn't been this. Even though Barry had only dashed out about ten minutes prior, the fight that had apparently occurred was already clearly over. Broken glass littered the sidewalks and street, along with quite sizeable pieces of hail. Iris swallowed a lump in her throat; she didn't want to think about what that meant. Multiple police cars surrounded the area, and a few officers she recognized were putting up police tape. Others talked to visibly distressed witnesses, and she even saw two doing their best to restrain a small group of people who seemed quite angry. She didn't really want to think about what that meant, either. The worst thing about the scene, however, was that there was no sight of the familiar red-clad figure that should have been easy to spot amidst everything else.

Barry wasn't there.

She was out of the van as soon as it came to a stop, striding towards the cordoned off area with purpose, until she heard her name being called and felt a hand grab her arm, holding her back.

"Iris," her father repeated, and she turned around to face him, seeing Cisco and Caitlin stepping out of the van as well; they all looked just as worried as she felt. "Baby, they're not gonna let you through."

"Dad, I need -" she started, but he shook his head.

"I know," he said. "Let me talk to them. I'll get answers, Iris, I promise." Iris didn't look happy. She wanted to march right through the bright yellow tape, use her honed journalism skills to question and interrogate and figure out exactly what the hell had just gone down. Where the Flash - where Barry was. But as she saw the mass of other reporters swarming the scene, saw the way the police force was keeping them back, she knew her dad was right. Even being his daughter wasn't going to gain her access. She took a shaky breath and nodded; Joe gave her hand a squeeze. She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder: Caitlin, trying to give her some semblance of comfort even when Iris knew she was just as panicked as she was.

"I'll get answers," he repeated. "We're gonna find Barry." He nodded at the three of them before walking towards the scene. But Iris wasn't quite sure who he was trying to convince: them, or himself.

"West!"

As Joe let himself past the police line, he was almost immediately spotted by Captain Singh, who looked surprised but also grateful to see the detective there; after all, Joe was sure the force could use any man available at this point. He strode purposefully over to his boss.

"I thought you were with Allen. Is he alright? Well enough to get down here and maybe analyze some of the evidence? We could really use him," the captain admitted. Joe sucked in a shaky breath at the mention of his son, and it didn't escape Singh's notice.

"Everything alright, Joe?" he asked.

After a moment, Joe was able to put on a tight smile that looked more like a grimace and nodded. "Fine, Captain," he said. "But, ah, no. Barry's still sick, he won't be able to make it down here."

Singh didn't quite look like he bought that everything was fine, but now was no time to push; they had quite the mess to deal with.

"A damn shame," he muttered. "But we really need you, Joe."

"What happened here?" The detective asked urgently. "Where's the Flash?" Singh grimaced at the question.

"According to witnesses, Mark Mardon showed up, started decimating the place," he said. "He was broken out of prison last night, along with Jeremy Tell and Nathan Bliss, both metas. "The Flash showed up to stop him, but he wasn't quite as handy as he usually is, apparently. Witnesses said something seemed off about him. And then Tell, Bliss, and Bivolo showed up…" Singh trailed off.

"And?" Joe prompted, his heart beating faster in his chest.

"And he took quite a beating, from what we've heard," Singh replied, grimacing still. "And they took him, Joe. They just - took the Flash. Everyone's pretty spooked about it. We don't know what their next move will be."

For a moment, Joe stood frozen, not wanting to believe the words that had just come out his boss's mouth. "They took him, Joe," he had said. "They just - took the Flash." And then he was moving, walking away from the scene, from the baffled captain.

"Joe!" he called out. "Joe, we need you on this!"

But Joe didn't stop, not until he was out of the crime scene once again, back to his daughter and Cisco and Caitlin, who were all waiting anxiously.

"We have a problem."

Author's Note: I hope this chapter was satisfying enough with the action/drama. There is more to come, too ;) Until next time!