Hi everyone. You all know the drill. I'll save the important discussion at the bottom.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash.
It was through pure adrenaline that Barry managed to dodge the attack. He'd almost forgotten that his speed was gone and all he had left was his own basic skills.
When that attack didn't work, Cicada turned around and threw one of their knives at Barry. Barry dropped to the ground in order to avoid it and it went sailing over his head.
Barry got back up, but didn't notice that the knife had curved around like a boomerang and was coming back right at him.
Caitlin did notice on the sidelines though and yelled out in a panic. "Flash! Look out!"
Barry turned back around just in time to see the knife coming right at him as it pierced his torso in the region of his gut. Barry was on his back with a blade in his stomach. His breathing grew heavy as the pain of having his flesh torn apart was excruciating without the immediate feeling of his body healing itself with his powers gone.
"No!" Caitlin shouted. She tried to run forward to help but Cisco held her back.
"You can't go in there. Not without a plan. Otherwise you're just going to get needlessly hurt. Or worse, killed."
"I don't care. We have to help him or Cicada is going to kill him."
Cisco looked at the situation, a tiny plan was forming in his head. "Go distract 'em. Get Cicada off of Flash. I'll get him out of there." Cisco ran off to get in a position where Cicada wouldn't be able to see him so Caitlin could implement her part of the plan.
Cicada was standing over Barry now. Cicada's hand was stretched out, hovering over Barry, and with a thought, the blade embedded inside Barry came flying out into their hand. Without anything to block the wound, blood started to seep out of the hole.
Cicada raised both their hands, ready to plunge both blades into Barry. "Stop that!"
Cicada turned around to face where the voice was coming from. Caitlin was trying to stand confidently and not letting her eyes wander to the bloody mess that was her husband. "Get off of him!" Caitlin tried to get her powers to show themselves, focusing on her hands to show even a hint that her powers were still there.
Nothing happened and Cicada leapt into action again, ready to stab her as well. Realizing her powers wouldn't assist her, she had to resort to whatever hand-to-hand combat skills she picked up over the years.
With Cicada charging at her, Caitlin ducked and flipped Cicada over her head. Cicada didn't let that stop them. With one hand, they flipped themselves back to their feet and went for a gut punch.
There was no time to react for Caitlin as she doubled over on the ground. Cicada didn't let her rest and dealt a swift kick that sent Caitlin flying through the air and into a building. Cicada went jumping after her.
Cisco had reached Barry and was dragging him away to a safer distance. Maybe even to get out of Cicada's range so he'd be able to use his powers and breach them both back to STAR Labs so Barry could receive some medical care.
Cisco winced when he saw Caitlin crash into a building. The wall was definitely cracked at the point of impact, but it didn't break so a building wasn't going to be falling on her thankfully.
Cicada had reached her and lifted her into the air from her neck, pinning her against the wall. Cisco couldn't watch as Cicada took one of their blades and stabbed Caitlin's midsection with it. Not enough to kill her, but enough to cause maximum pain. Cisco had to get him and Barry out of here.
Eventually, Cisco started to notice that Barry's wound had stopped bleeding and his skin had started to patch itself up. Their powers must be back.
Cisco tested it out and opened a breach that should take them both back to STAR Labs and jumped through. Sure enough, they were in the Cortex. Cisco set Barry up in a bed and focused back on Caitlin. He had to bring her back.
It seemed like his powers wouldn't work when he himself was in the vicinity of Cicada, but now that he was far enough away, he had full access to his powers.
Cisco opened a breach that would open right behind Caitlin so she would fall back. Fortunately, Caitlin came through the breach and Cisco closed it before anything else could happen.
Cisco rushed forward and checked Caitlin over. She had a few stab wounds, but she was still breathing so she was still alive. He carried her to another bed where he started treating her wounds. Cisco didn't have any professional medical knowledge, so all he could really do was clean the wounds as best he could to make sure they wouldn't get infected, but it seemed Caitlin had her own healing properties as well. Not as good or fast as Barry's, but it would stave off the worst before Caitlin would be able to treat herself.
"Ughh," Barry groaned from his bed.
Cisco rushed over to him. "Hey buddy. How are you doing?"
"I'll be okay," Barry subconsciously reached one hand to his torso when he tried to move but felt a sharp pain. "Where's Caitlin? Is she okay?"
Cisco sighed. "She's alive and she'll be okay, but she's in rough shape. Cicada really took their time with her."
Barry sighed, defeated. "I couldn't stop them. How are we going to stop a meta when we don't have our own meta powers? He took us down so easily. And Nimbus. How did Cicada find him? We've been searching for him for years."
Cisco shrugged helplessly. "Hell if I know man. But we can think about that later. For now, we should be more concerned about recovering from this attack. You're still not fully healed. Caitlin needs to stay for the rest of the night, and I've got my own bruises that need to heal since I don't have super healing like you two."
"So, what did witnesses say?" Barry asked Joe the next day when Joe came to STAR to check up on the trio after their beating from Cicada.
"About what you'd expect. Apparently Kyle Nimbus is a regular at homeless shelters. Of course we know he was hiding out from the people who were after him. Us and what's left of the mob. Nobody there really knew who he was. Apparently it's easy to hide when you're legally dead. Who knew?"
"What about Cicada? Did they mention anything about them? Maybe about the others?" Caitlin asked.
"Just the one you guys fought against." Joe shrugged. "Witnesses claim 'Cicada' sat down at one of the tables. Didn't ask for anything. Just sat there, laying in wait. Waited there for hours before Nimbus showed up and that's when Cicada sprung into action."
"Did we get an autopsy report of the body?"
"Yeah. You can imagine the city wanted to get this wrapped up quickly. A man who was supposed to be dead for 5 years has actually been alive this whole time? Makes it seem like we're incompetent or something." Joe pulled out his notes to read them. "Guy died quickly. Single stab through the heart. Not sure if it was the first, but it was done quickly. The majority of the wounds were done post-mortem."
"How many in total?"
"35. Probably would have been more if CCPD and Vibe hadn't shown up."
"Well that's interesting," Barry commented.
"You picked up on that, huh?"
"Picked up on what?" Cisco asked.
"At what point were the others supposed to get in on this?" Barry stated. "We thought this was supposed to be a group, but there was only one person. A meta, but only one. So either this attack was a solo act or-"
"There was never a group to begin with," Joe finished.
"Wait, I thought you had a bunch of evidence from the first crime scene that pointed to the fact that Cicada was a group?" Cisco asked.
"Yeah, if you were looking at it as if they were normal people. Left and right stab wounds. We all saw Cicada was ambidextrous with one knife for each hand. Different angles of penetration. Cicada apparently has a psychic link to their blades, able to telekinetically control them. The sheer number of stab wounds. Cicada has enhanced strength. That amount of wounds would be easy to inflict." Barry listed off his points. "I think Cicada is one person."
"Seriously? All this is the work of one person?" Cisco asked, pointing to the various pictures of bloody people on their screens.
"The work of one very angry, and probably very depressed, person." Joe said. "Something must have happened recently in this person's life to trigger these events. Most likely, a loved one was taken from them by a metahuman."
"Great. That really narrows it down. We're looking for somebody who's lost someone to a meta." Cisco stated, rolling his eyes.
"It'd have to be recent. Their death probably triggered this spree. Try looking for instances that have happened this past year." Barry suggested.
"I'll try, but it's possible I won't find anything. Not all crimes are reported, and those that do aren't necessarily needed to state whether a meta was involved." Cisco went off.
"Please try. Maybe we'll get lucky."
Cisco scoffed. "Like that ever happens for us,"
A person was pacing in the living room of their apartment, muttering to themselves. "They saw me. What am I going to do? What are they going to do?"
"Relax," a commanding voice said.
The person looked toward the voice. Three people were looking at them, trying to calm them down. "What you need to do is relax. Don't worry about what other people will do. You can't control them. Focus on yourself."
"That's easy for you to say. You've got nothing to worry about. Me on the other hand, I'm the one who's going to have to face the consequences."
"What you're doing is a good thing. You think the others are so high and mighty? They can't see the bigger picture. Always too concerned about themselves, when at its core, all you're doing is the same as them. You're just not afraid to get your hands dirty."
The person sniffed. "I want to believe you, but I know all you're doing is saying what I want to hear. Tell me what I need to hear."
One of the others sighed. "It's going to be hard. There are going to be struggles. There are mistakes on both sides of this, but so long as you stick to your own beliefs, you can never go wrong for yourself."
The person shakily breathed. "I don't know what to do anymore. I keep feeling like the police are going to be knocking at that door at any moment. People are going to think what I did was wrong. But I couldn't help myself. When I saw him…"
"We know. We were there. We saw what happened. It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault." They reached out a hand to try to comfort the person.
The person batted away the hand. "Don't do that. That doesn't make me feel better. You know it doesn't."
"Why not?"
"Because you're all dead!" Grace Gibbons shouted at the image of her deceased parents and uncle. "You're not real. You're just in my head. I need you to leave me alone."
"Then you know what you have to do," her father said, looking to where Grace had placed her blades that were still covered in blood.
"Kill them all. Bring us peace. And then we can finally leave." her mother stated. "Avenge us."
A knock came at the door. "Hey Gibbons! Are you ready to go?"
"Don't trust that guy. He's nothing but trouble." her uncle tried to warn her.
"He helps us. He's asked nothing in return. This way I can help you faster. It'll be okay." Grace replied, moving to open the door. "Hey, I'm good. Are you sure it's okay to go so soon after the last one?"
"It's fine. I've got it taken care of. As long as you do what I say, you don't need to worry about anything. I've got your next target." He handed her a picture of a woman. "Address is on the back as well as when you need to be there to do it. Take her out."
Grace looked at it. The address was a little out of the way, but manageable with her powers. The time was set for tomorrow. "I'll be there."
"Okay, now that we think Cicada is one person, we need to reevaluate our original profile." Barry said. "What we once thought were opportunity kills, it seems either they were on some list, or they're surrogates."
"I think surrogates work better. This much rage, it doesn't lend to much evidence of organized thought. Not beyond finding a meta and then stabbing them to death." Joe said.
"So how did Cicada manage to find Nimbus? We haven't been able to achieve that, and we've been looking for years. Did Cicada just get lucky or something?" Caitlin asked.
"Doubtful. Cicada knew Nimbus was going to be there somehow. We just need to figure out how."
"Hey guys. What did I miss?" Ace came in.
"Ace, perfect. Maybe you can shed some light on this issue. We think Cicada might be just one person. And if this is the work of one person, then these metas might be surrogates for Cicada. Thoughts?" Barry asked.
"Oh," Ace muttered.
"'Oh?' What does that mean?"
"It's… not something I ever imagined. The general consensus back home is that Cicada is multiple people working together."
"But it fits. And if these people are surrogates, that means we should be looking at one of three possibilities." Barry insisted. "The first is that these are actually practice runs. Cicada is building up the courage needed and perfecting their technique before confronting the object of their rage. The second is that for some reason or another, Cicada isn't able to confront the object of their rage. Either that person is already dead or another similar situation and these murders are a way for Cicada to try to kill the actual meta in their mind. The final one is that Cicada has already killed their target, in which case we should be looking for a Victim 0, and these murders are a way to alleviate the guilt they feel and try to justify their original actions."
"Huh. Those are some pretty good theories Dad. Too bad it's just that. Theories."
"Well you're going to be helping us catch Cicada, aren't you?" Caitlin asked.
"Of course I am. It's just that I think there are more possibilities than the ones you're listing. Maybe you need a little more rest. Take a break and look back on the case with fresh eyes." Ace smiled.
"Well, I suppose it is getting pretty late. And I'm still feeling a little sore from our fight with Cicada the other day." Caitlin said.
"Alright. Let's leave this for tonight. We'll keep investigating tomorrow." Barry said.
Grace was waiting in the shrubbery. This was where that guy told her a meta would be coming through. Vanessa Jansen with the ability to compress air and shape them into any form she'd like. A suspected weapons smuggler, but that didn't really matter to Grace. All that mattered was the fact she was a meta.
"Are you sure we should listen to the guy? He provided us with one meta. Doing something nice once doesn't guarantee being trustworthy." her uncle said to her.
"Would you just leave me alone? I'm doing this for you. What does it matter where I get my information from?"
"We're just concerned about you Gracie." her father spoke up. "How does he even know about this stuff? Maybe he's in league with these guys."
"Don't know. Don't care. It doesn't matter. If he betrays me, then I'll just get rid of him. For now, I'm trusting that he's giving me these names for the same reason I want them gone."
"Alright, we can't stop you. But you should be paying more attention. She's here." her mother gestured to another woman. The exact woman in the picture the man gave her.
"Let's get to work," Grace pulled up her hoodie and activated her powers, disabling all other powers in her vicinity for some time. Grace stalked towards the woman and threw one of her blades into the air where it plunged into Jansen's back. In an instant, Grace was upon her repeatedly stabbing the woman with abandon, the blade penetrating the flesh at every and any spot that had yet to be marked. Vanessa Jansen was dead within seconds and Grace had yet to stop.
Barry sighed as he surveyed the scene. "Another day, another body that Cicada drops because I can't stop them."
"We couldn't have known about this," Joe tried to comfort him. "It happened at night. She isn't even supposed to be here. She broke in trying to rob the place blind. So she disabled the security system, meaning we had no reason to suspect anything wrong until the crew found her body the next day."
"How does Cicada know this stuff? Only this person, Vanessa Jansen, knew she would be here. She doesn't work with a crew, nobody else was in on this plan. How does Cicada know about all this?" Barry asked.
"Stalked her? Kept tabs on her so knew she would be here and attacked when they knew Jansen would be at her most vulnerable." Joe suggested.
"Or we're missing something." Barry sighed, going back to examining the crime scene.
"Hello all," Julian came up. "Hope I can be of some assistance."
"Yeah, thanks Julian. Feeling a little frustrated here." Barry sighed.
"Glad to help." Julian took one look at the crime scene and developed an angry expression. "Who tampered with the crime scene?"
"Nobody. The employees found her like that. Saw the body and bolted to call the police. Haven't been back here since. Police cordoned off this area so the only people who have been here are the three of us." Joe said.
"Well somebody did," Julian insisted.
"What are you talking about?" Joe asked.
"No, he's right. The footprints in the blood. They overlap so much. At the first crime scene, I just assumed it was because there were a lot of other people that night. With Nimbus, Cicada had to flee because police got there too soon. But this, look at all this. If I didn't think Cicada was just one guy, I'd still think we're looking for a group."
"Hold on, if there were only two people here at the crime, and one of them is the poor lad lying there in their own blood, then all of these footprints had to come from-" Julian was saying.
"Cicada," Barry finished.
"But why? And how?" Joe asked.
"Well it means that after killing Jansen here, Cicada spent a considerable amount of time just pacing around here. For what reason, I don't know." Julian explained.
"Could Cicada be feeling guilty? Pacing back and forth, having a mental breakdown about what they've done?" Joe asked.
"No, that completely goes against the overkill. If Cicada were to feel guilty, they wouldn't have stabbed her all these extra times before starting to feel the guilt."
"So what was Cicada doing?"
"Cicada spent a lot of time here. But not for the body. Cicada couldn't care less now that Jansen is dead. So Jansen has kicked the bucket. Cicada has let all that aggression out. They're not worried about anyone coming because it's late and the security system has been disabled. What reason do they have to stay here?" Julian asked.
"Pacing back and forth is known as a stress reliever. It's meant to relieve us of some anxiety when feeling overwhelmed." Barry stated.
"So what was Cicada feeling stressed about? They didn't feel regret. If they were worried about someone stumbling upon them, I wouldn't stay at the scene of the crime. I'd get the hell out of here." Joe said.
"So something else was causing Cicada stress. But what?"
Barry couldn't believe the case was running cold. After the initial three murders within the same amount of days, Cicada hadn't popped back up. That was over a week ago. Perhaps there was some significance to the three days, maybe this was Cicada's cooling off period. Or something was forcing Cicada to stay on the down low. Barry would place money on the third option.
A person filled with such rage wouldn't be able to easily keep it in without letting it out. The most likely reason Barry could think of was that Cicada was busy hunting down their next target and the first three were so close because they were convenient. Not to mention Cicada would need some way of sustaining themselves.
The case was consuming Barry. It should have been relatively simple. They'd certainly worked with less. But their searches were too general with nothing to narrow down enough. The only thing connecting the victims was the fact they were all metas, and that didn't narrow down the victim pool either. They didn't even know how Cicada was finding them.
"Are we any closer to finding out who Cicada lost that triggered all this?" Barry asked.
"Still too general. There are lots of things that could have happened. The actual event could have happened years ago and the anniversary of it caused the mental break." Cisco said.
"No, I'm thinking more." Caitlin said. "This reminds me of how I used to be, angry at everything the particle accelerator had taken from me. Obviously it's hard being mad at an inanimate object, so I focused my rage on something that represented what I was angry at."
"Me," Barry said.
"Exactly. But in this case, it's metas. Cisco and Wells kept me grounded in reality. They helped me to work past my frustrations and bitterness. But if I didn't have them, I probably would have just gotten angrier and angrier until I wouldn't be able to hold it in. And with my powers that would have been bad."
"So Cicada's anger has been boiling for some time. Probably starting all the way to the night of the explosion. Building more and more over the years until something recently triggered all of it to come out and now Cicada can't stop."
"So we're looking for someone who's suffered a tragedy recently and during the night of the explosion. That'll cross off some names but it's still a pretty long list." Cisco huffed.
"We've got to start somewhere." Barry shrugged.
"How about age? We all saw Cicada. How old would we say? That would really help narrow things down."
"That's always the hardest to predict. The cloak really left a lot to the imagination. But definitely an adult. Probably no more than 40. But the younger the better. At a younger age, these things are more likely to imprint on them."
"How young should I go?"
"Let's see. The explosion was about 5 years ago. At their youngest, I'd most likely put them in their mid 20s by now." Barry guessed.
"Okay, still a long list. We've really got nothing else?" Cisco asked.
"For now we'll just have to go through them, see if anything jumps out at us." Barry said.
"Could you do it? You could just speed through it in an instant." Cisco asked Barry.
"Actually Barry and I were hoping to spend some time at home. We've been working on this case all week and we're tired." Caitlin said.
"We were?" Barry asked.
"Yes, we were," Caitlin insisted.
"Mrs. Frosty, I really have no idea what-"
"Fleet Feet, we have been staying in STAR Labs all week. I want to go home and spend some time in our bed for once. And if we both go home right now I might just let you join me." Caitlin glared.
"What do you…" realization struck Barry in that instant. "Let's go home,"
"Wait!" Cisco shouted before they left for what he presumed was a good night's rest. "You're going to leave me with these hundreds of files to look through?"
"If you really want some help, ask Ace. He's around here somewhere." Barry said before running himself and his wife out of the building.
"Where is he?" Cisco asked himself, not recalling having seen the time traveler recently.
"This is where you want to go. You go in, all guns blazing, and you're going to get caught. If you want this to work, you need to follow this plan. Do not deviate from the plan."
"How long will I have?"
"If all goes well, you'll have 10 minutes before anyone realizes anything is wrong. Get in, get as many as you can, and get the hell out of there." The man checked his watch. "You need to be there by 11:26. That's when the guards change. I'm counting on you here."
"Don't lead me astray and I won't let you down."
Barry and Caitlin were rushed to their bedroom where Barry unceremoniously threw Caitlin onto the mattress.
Caitlin laughed. "You sure know how to treat a lady,"
Barry growled in lust. "Oh but you're no lady. You're an evil temptress,"
"Oh baby, I never do anything that you're not begging me to do," Caitlin whispered into his ear.
Barry crawled over to her and captured her lips with his. His tongue begged her mouth for entrance, which she granted.
Just as Barry's hand slipped under her shirt his phone started ringing. "Ugh, why now? Why is this happening?"
"Just tell them to go away,"
Barry complied and answered the phone with the full intent of telling whoever it was to never call again. "Hey listen buddy. I don't know who you think you are but- Joe?"
That caught both of the pair's attention. "Slow down there Joe. What's going on? A break-in? Where? Iron Heights? How is that even possible? The metahuman wing? Really?"
Barry looked at Caitlin with a defeated look. "Go," Caitlin sighed.
"I'll be right there Joe," Barry looked apologetic before he sped off.
Caitlin huffed. "The one night. The one night I manage to get my husband away from work and it just pulls him back in the one night I want us to be alone."
When Barry arrived, it was complete pandemonium. Prison guards were running around trying to detain any prisoner escapees. There were a few bodies littering the floor. And in the center of it all was a cloaked figure hovering over a body, repeatedly stabbing it.
Barry's speed cut out mid run. He probably should have expected that, but fortunately he crashed straight into Cicada, pulling them off of the corpse with all the momentum of traveling at hundreds of miles an hour.
They both managed to get back to their feet. Cicada took one look at him and immediately sheathed both of their blades. They got into a stance ready to fight at a moment's notice.
Barry didn't know what to do here. With his powers temporarily disabled, he'd be relying purely on his own skill, which wasn't much. Oliver was the one trained in hand-to-hand combat. Barry had never bothered, not worried at the time of facing the prospect of going into a fight without his speed. Barry had always had the upper hand of being able to react and counter strike against others before his adversary even moved. Now, not only was Barry being forced into close combat, he was going up against someone with enhanced strength and the choice of wielding a weapon whenever they chose.
Barry only had one option. Stall. Keep Cicada occupied long enough for the police to arrive and pin them down. Keep his distance as much as possible.
That option was taken from him when Cicada got close enough to take a swing at him. Barry managed to block it in time but instead got kneed in the gut, taking his breath away.
Barry was still standing, trying to catch his breath but Cicada delivered a roundhouse kick right in Barry's face that left Barry sprawling on the ground. Barry forced himself to push himself off the ground and spit a glob of blood out of his mouth.
Barry's resistance was punished when an interlocking fist crashed into Barry's back. Every attempt at getting back up only resulted in Barry being smashed back into the ground again. Barry thought he heard something snap back there and stopped trying to move.
With their foot, they flipped Barry onto his back. He was too tired to fight back. Cicada took one of the blades from wherever it was sheathed and leaned over him. Barry's breathing quickened. Was this the end? Listening to the heavy breathing of Cicada?
Cicada's dagger hovered over Barry's body for a moment before slowly being pressed into his flesh and then repeating the process. Barry grunted in pain. In Barry's pain-addled mind, he registered it as strange. Cicada should have been jumping to kill him as quickly as possible. Instead they were taking their time with him. Stabbing him deliberately as though each strike were carefully calculated. And never in the chest. All of Barry's wounds were centered around his stomach region.
All of this would come to Barry later though when he wasn't being repeatedly stabbed by a serial killer.
In the distance, Barry could barely make out the sounds of sirens. Back-up had come.
Cicada must have heard them too and paused mid strike. Cicada got up and left and Barry had no idea which direction they were going through the creeping darkness in his vision.
How was that? Did you expect that? To be honest, I thought I'd go a little longer without revealing who Cicada is to the audience but I guess it just wasn't meant to be. Now you all get to see how Team Flash pieces it together with you all knowing who the main villain is.
The way I did Cicada is that it is Grace Gibbons, but I aged her up. She's around 20 years old in my story. All the people around her are her hallucinations of her family members that have died and are compelling her to kill metahumans. As you've probably seen, she doesn't want to kill, but she feels she has to.
If there are anymore questions, so long as they won't spoil anything, feel free to ask me, but I feel I will answer most questions in the future. I'll see you all next week.