Hello everyone. Great to see you all. Hope you're all having a very good day. Hope this makes your day even better. So let's get right to it.

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of The Flash.

Barry awoke to being in a bed at STAR Labs. Bandages covered his torso with red staining them. He felt something attached to his face. It must be some head gear or something.

Barry tried to speak, but only muffled grunts were heard. But Caitlin must have been paying close attention because she turned around to see her husband with her eyes open.

"Barry! You're awake. Thank goodness." She smiled. Barry grunted in confirmation.

"Don't try to talk. Cicada broke your jaw. It's going to take a little while for it to heal. Along with two broken ribs and a whole lot of bruises. You're going to be stuck here for quite awhile."

At Barry's questioning look Caitlin answered what she knew he would ask. "Three prisoners are dead. All metas. A couple more injured but alive. The main concern is the escapees. Lots of criminals, not just metas, escaped in the chaos."

Barry sighed through his nose at that. "I know it's frustrating. Iron Heights was such an obvious target, having the highest concentration of metahumans that we know of. We should have figured Cicada would make a move on it eventually."

Barry softly nodded his head in agreement. They should have known that if Cicada was unable to pick metas off the streets anymore, they would head toward the place they knew housed metas. Not to mention the break-in would allow some of them to escape, making it easier for Cicada to find them again in the city rather than breaking-in to a high security facility for a second time. As it was, Iron Heights would be increasing their security. Barry shot Caitlin another questioning look.

"You want to know who got out?" Barry nodded his head.

"I don't have a full list, but off the top of my head I know Mirror Master and Top escaped. So did Amunet. I think Tar Pit got loose too if you remember him."

Recognition shined in Barry's eyes at the name. A meta composed entirely out of molten tar with a drive for revenge against the people responsible for his 'death'. It had been so long since he'd put any thought towards the man, having been taken care of relatively easily years ago.

This was just like the mess-up they'd had when they were trying to relocate all the metas in the Pipeline when the accelerator had been reactivated, but on a larger scale. There were only 5 at the time, with one of them dying immediately. Another was dead and two had been apprehended again. The only remaining was Rainbow Raider who'd been keeping a low profile all these years.

This was so much worse. There were hundreds of inmates at Iron Heights. People that could take years to find and capture again. Dangerous people that society had hoped to have locked away for the rest of time and would kill again given half the chance, not just metas. And Cicada had let them escape just to get at a few people who were already being punished for their crimes.

"I know, this is really bad." Caitlin commented. Barry loved how Caitlin seemed to be able to know what he was thinking at the moment. "You know, before this you could almost think of Cicada as an anti-hero. Committing the dirty tasks so others wouldn't need to suffer and doing things that people wouldn't due to moral obligations to the law. But now it's clear that Cicada is purely driven by their need for revenge."

Barry made a sound of agreement. More than once he'd heard phone calls at CCPD where people were telling them to leave Cicada alone. About how they didn't mind what Cicada was doing and even supported them. The Flash might stop the metas, but Cicada made sure they wouldn't bother anyone ever again. In short, Cicada made a lot of people feel safer in Central City. And now this break-in, they couldn't even go public with. Not until they caught Cicada because who wants to reveal the fact that Cicada was able to bypass the security in that place? It would create chaos in the media and further discredit CCPD. Sure Barry had fantasized about breaking in and releasing his father and had made elaborate plans on how to exactly accomplish that, but it wasn't like Barry went around telling people all the weak spots in a prison where one might break-in or break-out without being caught.

Once Barry healed up, he would need to take a look to find out exactly how Cicada had managed to get in. Cicada would have been caught if they simply tried to smash through a wall until they got to the meta wing. No, this took planning and an intimate knowledge of the facility.

Which just begged the question; how was Cicada getting their information?

Grace always has trouble sleeping nowadays. Her worries and stress kept her up until the wee hours of the night. Whatever sleep she was granted usually always contained the horrors she'd experienced. This night was no different.

She knew she was dreaming. She'd had this dream so many times already. The last time she'd ever gotten a good night's sleep. The feeling of waking up to an empty house. All was silent. That was unusual. Her parents should have already been making breakfast at this point. Had they not gotten up yet?

Grace walked downstairs to see the entire place was empty. It was strange, but it was winter vacation so Grace didn't think much of it. Her parents were probably just sleeping in. She shrugged to herself and went about to make some toast for breakfast. Pulling out jam and a glass of milk, Grace set to turn on the TV to see if there was anything interesting to watch this morning.

When the TV was on she was greeted with the immediate sight of a news report, detailing an apparent explosion last night in Central City. How had she slept through that?

The explosion had destroyed part of the city, killing hundreds of people and injuring more. Several people were stated to have just flat out vanished. There was even some guy who'd apparently been struck by lightning and was currently in a coma.

Now Grace was starting to get a little worried. "Mom?! Daddy?!" she called out. There was no answer.

Grace picked up the landline and tried calling their cells. They went immediately to voicemail. Grace tried again but there was no change. This time she dialled for the police.

Grace described what was happening, about having woken up and her parents being gone. The person on the end of the line said to stay put and that an officer and CPS would come to pick her up and help her.

When they did, they started to ask her questions. Grace couldn't go into too much detail. She'd been in bed hours before the accelerator had been turned on. She'd simply woken up this morning to have her parents missing and upon seeing the news of what happened last night worried something had happened to them.

The police promised to do what they could to track down her parents, but in the meantime she'd need to go with Child Protective Services until they located her next of kin or her parents showed up. Whichever came first.

Grace wasn't aware of it at the time, but like so many other people, her life was over that night and a new one was beginning. Things would never be the same again.

Just as she was being taken away by those people, Grace had actually woken up from her sleep. It was still dark out but Grace knew she had no chance of going back to sleep now. She looked at her clock on her bed side. Just past 5 in the morning. A little less than three hours of sleep. Good enough. She'd worked on less. Grace just needed some coffee and she'd be good to go. She'd probably stop by Jitters for that.

Grace completed her morning ablutions and left the apartment. Time for school. And if she was lucky, she'd find a meta that she would keep track of and kill at a later time.

Caitlin woke up before Barry did this morning, which wasn't unusual. Most days Caitlin got up before her husband who enjoyed sleeping in a little too much, but she loved watching him sleep. He was adorable, so at peace when asleep. She was glad Barry was able to take comfort in his dreams when his reality sometimes became too much.

Caitlin spent the time alone checking over Barry's injuries. Just like she expected, after a good night's rest, all of Barry's wounds had healed. There might be some lingering soreness, but nothing a little stretching won't get rid of. When Barry first arrived on the bed, Caitlin nearly had herself a heart attack. Stab wounds everywhere. Bruises colouring his skin under the suit. Blood dripped from his mouth like drool with his chin jutting in an awkward direction. One look and Caitlin knew his jaw was broken, if at least dislocated. Caitlin was just glad his stab wounds healed quickly and nothing had been seriously damaged. Just torn skin and loss of blood from those.

Caitlin thanked The Speed Force that Barry hadn't suffered any longer lasting injuries. Barry could be dead right now with just one stab through the heart, but he wasn't and Caitlin was grateful that wasn't the case. Now Barry just needed to wake up so Caitlin could yell at him for his recklessness. What was he thinking, taking on Cicada head on like that? Barry had to have known he wouldn't come out the victor in a straight on fight.

They'd just need to wait for Barry to wake up and tell the full story of what happened last night. That might help to shed some light as to what happened with Cicada.

Caitlin noticed the subtle signs that Barry was beginning to stir. His eyelids flickering, his breathing had changed, and just like that Barry's eyes were wide open. As soon as they did, they winced at the bright light, but Barry started moving through it.

"Here, let me get this off." Caitlin went to unscrew the headgear that was keeping his jaw in place as it was healing last night.

Barry tested out his recovered jaw. It was a little stiff, as expected having been stuck in one position for several hours. "My injuries. How bad were they?" Barry immediately inquired.

Caitlin was slightly confused at his questioning. Barry wasn't usually so concerned about his injuries after they had already healed. She still answered him though. "Not as bad as it could have been. Bruises, broken ribs, stab wounds, and a dislocated jaw. That was the worst one, but you were extremely lucky Cicada didn't manage to hit anything with their blades."

Barry shook his head though. "No, I wasn't lucky, that was on purpose. Cicada wasn't stabbing me wildly, giving into their rage to annihilate everything about metas, Cicada was careful with me. Every stab was deliberate. They would hover the blade and measure exactly where they would stab me. Cicada was holding back."

"If Cicada was holding back, then that means Cicada wasn't trying to kill you. Doesn't that kinda go against what you said about the overkill on the others?"

"If the others were overkill, I was underkill, if that's even a thing. But I have no idea why. I'm a meta just like all the others. Cicada should have been jumping to kill me as quickly as possible, but instead they took the time and care to make sure I would survive from my wounds. Why would they do that? There has to be a reason Cicada wouldn't kill me."

"Well I'm glad they didn't. I would have missed waking up to your face every morning Fleet Feet."

"Don't get me wrong Mrs. Frosty, I'm just so confused right now. Everything seems so contradictory with Cicada. We think one thing, Cicada does the other. I don't know what they're going to do, which makes me powerless to stop them."

"They'll slip up sometime. And when they do, we'll get them. It'll happen eventually, we just need to be patient."

"Dad!" a flash of yellow lightning came into the Cortex. "I heard about what happened last night. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. A couple of cuts and bruises, nothing more. I'm all right now."

Caitlin scoffed. "It was definitely more than a few cuts and bruises. You looked terrible when you came in, nearly sent me to an early grave seeing you like that."

"Well I'm all good now, so there's no need to worry anymore." Barry retorted.

"Don't be an idiot. I'm always going to worry about you. I'm not going to stop you, and I know you won't stop me either, but that doesn't mean we should be adding anything extra to be concerned about."

"Hey," Barry pulled her in for a hug. "I'm right here. And I will be here for as long as you want me to be. I promised you, and I always keep my promises."

"You know it's going to be a great day when you walk into a room and see your two best friends being all mushy together," Cisco said as he walked in.

"I don't want to ruin the moment, but what happened last night? Caitlin said Cicada broke into Iron Heights to get at some of the metas in lockup. What'd you find out?" Cisco asked.

"Cicada didn't kill me. But it wasn't something by chance, it was a choice. Cicada chose not to kill me last night."

Cisco shrugged. "Maybe they have a bigger plan for you? Like with Savitar or Devoe. Both kept you alive when given the chance to end you because they needed you for something in the future."

"I don't think so. At least not with Cicada. I think if given the chance, Cicada definitely would have killed me last night, but Cicada spared me, not because they wanted me for something in the future, but that Cicada is being forced to."

"What are you talking about?" Cisco asked.

"Think about it. Cicada is able to find out things that we, ourselves, have struggles figuring out. The location of Nimbus, when Jansen was going to rob that storage facility, even how to break into Iron Heights without being detected. It all leads to Cicada somehow having an inside man, someone feeding Cicada all this knowledge."

"But I thought you said Cicada was one person?" Ace asked. "First it was that Cicada was a gang, then it's one person, and now it's a gang again? Make up your mind Dad."

"Not a gang. A partner. A silent partner. This partner is the one gathering the information on metas, handing it off to Cicada for them to take care of. Think of the partner as the employer with Cicada as the hitman. Cicada takes care of the job by themselves, but it's the partner directing them in which direction to go."

"Who would be crazy enough to get Cicada as a partner? Cicada is an unstable individual filled with a murderous rage." Cisco asked.

"And it's those things that make Cicada vulnerable to manipulation. The promise of more victims to take out their anger." Joe commented. "Cicada may be the person committing the crimes, but they're victims too."

"So should we be feeling bad about this?"

"No, it's business as usual. We catch Cicada like we would anyone else, it's just the followup that's going to be different. We don't need to worry about that yet though. They still need to be held accountable for what they did."

Joe entered his home after a long day. He put his keys on the side table by the door and went into the kitchen, placing his badge and gun on the counter and getting himself something to drink.

The sound of footsteps approaching put Joe immediately on edge and he went for his gun only for a large glowing jagged knife to be pressed to his throat. The owner of the floating knife stepped out of the darkness to see a familiar cloaked figure wearing a mask. Joe had no idea how Cicada had gotten into his home or why, but at the moment it didn't matter. Joe remained completely still so as to not cause his skin to be cut. Cicada's breathing became heavier and louder the closer they got.

"Let's make a deal." Cicada whispered.

Barry was looking over his crime board at CCPD. He felt like there was just one more piece to this mystery that would crack this case wide open.

His phone began ringing to show it was Joe on the other side. Maybe he wanted to talk about the case or something else. "Hey Joe. Something you need to talk about?"

"Hey Barry. Can you come over to my place? There's something really important I need you to take care of here. How soon can you get here?"

"I'll be there soon. Is there something wrong? You sound a little strange," Barry commented.

"Don't worry about it. Just get here as soon as you can," Joe immediately hung up after that.

That was a little strange, and highly suspicious for Barry. There was something wrong with Joe. Barry immediately called in Caitlin and Cisco. "Hey guys, something is wrong with Joe. He just called me and sounded really weird. I'm headed over there. Be on hand in case I need you here. I'll keep my coms open. Be prepared to move."

Barry took out one of his extra suits out of his locker that he kept at CCPD. He liked to keep one close to him at all times. It would be troublesome if he always had to run to STAR Labs to put on his suit. It wasn't as though Barry could simply wear it under his normal clothing like Kara did. Barry needed the extra protection, so his suit was considerably thicker and would stand out more. And carrying his suit in a bag that he brought everywhere he went would be highly inconvenient. Instead Barry hid extra suits at all the places he normally frequented. CCPD, STAR Labs, even his house had a few suits he'd had Cisco whip up.

Barry hoped he would be able to have a more convenient way of carrying his suit with him. Barry remembered The Reverse Flash and how he had managed to compress his own suit into a tiny ring. It would be much easier to carry around if they were able to recreate that. Oh well, another project for the future.

For now though, Barry needed to get to Joe's house as soon as possible. Barry had multiple scenarios running in his mind at the moment and was immensely worried. This wouldn't be the first time a meta had struck the West household for some reason or another. And it would be just their luck if it turned out to be Cicada waiting for him.

And just like Barry suspected, his speed was cut off the moment he was within range of Joe's house. Fortunately Barry had been expecting it this time and skidded to a halt. After years of moving at incredible speeds and needing to stop at the drop of a dime, even without The Speed Force suffusing his body, Barry's body had developed habits and structures needed to support such movements. And so Barry was able to come to a stop without face planting in the street.

That small relief only made Barry's stomach drop as that confirmed Barry's belief that it was Cicada who was in Joe's house right now. "My speed's gone. Cicada is here. Get here as fast as you can."

A breach popped open beside him with Caitlin coming out with two ice daggers in her hands. "Cisco's going to stay back as our escape. He can breach here, but if he comes along, he can't breach out. " Caitlin explained. "Also aahhh. I never realized these things were so cold." Caitlin grit her teeth at the biting cold from her glacial constructs. Without her powers, she was no longer immune to the freezing temperatures, but she still had her weapons that would hopefully last long enough to distract Cicada.

Slowly they both crept into the house. "Joe? Are you here?" Barry whispered loudly.

The couple continued to move into the house, trying not to make a single sound. As they kept moving they saw Joe on the floor with his phone just out of his hand.

"Joe!" Barry shouted and ran towards him. "Joe, are you okay?" Barry checked him over, feeling for a pulse and was relieved when he felt the steady beating of his heart.

"Cisco, Joe is okay. He's knocked out but he's fine. We don't know where Cicada is though." Caitlin whispered into her com.

"I'll get the police on the way. Hold on a second." Cisco replied before ending communications.

"Cicada can't be too far. Our powers are still gone. Be on the lookout." Barry said.

The two turned their senses on as much as they were able, taking in everything around them. The sound of something whipping through the air alerted their attention just in time to see one of Cicada's daggers spinning through the air right at them.

Caitlin and Barry ducked with the blade passing over their heads. Little scraps of Caitlin's hair fell to the ground though, indicating how close the blade was to chopping their heads off their shoulders.

They both looked to see the blade lodged in the wall before releasing itself and flying to a dark corner of the room. Caitlin threw her two icicles at the shadow, but they shattered in the blink of an eye with one swipe of an arm. There was Cicada who seemed to be mumbling to themselves.

"Shut up. I know they need to be alive. I just knew they would get out of the way. And even if they didn't, I would have stopped it. I just needed to grab their attention."

"Cicada? Is that you?" Caitlin asked.

"Where are they?" Cicada suddenly asked.

"Where are who?"

"The rest of them. All the other metas you've taken into custody. I know they're not all at Iron Heights. Where are the rest of them?"

"Why do you want to know? So you can break them out too?"

"So I can execute them. Any that escape are only prolonging their demise. I'm doing what you refuse to do, and are letting the rest of us suffer for your weakness."

"There's a difference between…" Barry tried to say, but he was getting the distinct feeling that Cicada was no longer paying any attention to them. "Is something the matter?"

There was that sound of heavy breathing, but in the absence of other noises, one could almost make out words. It sounded like Cicada was mumbling.

"Listen," Caitlin tried to get their attention, "we understand how you're feeling. You've lost someone and you're feeling frustrated. You feel alone and abandoned and there's nobody to be held accountable. And now you feel the need to do something about it. But there's another way. Let us help you,"

"I know what I need to do. I don't need your help. Once I finish, everything will be okay. I promise." Both Caitlin and Barry got the feeling this statement wasn't directed at them.

"Who are you talking to?" Barry had to ask.

"Nobody. It's nobody."

"It doesn't seem like nobody. The people you've lost? Are you hearing them right now?" Barry asked again.

Cicada's head seemed to shift back and forth from the duo and to an empty space to the side. "Are you seeing them right now?" Barry asked when noticing the movements of Cicada looking at something that wasn't there.

"I know they're not there. I just need them to go away, and this is the only way I know how. It's my fault this happened to them and I need to make it right!"

"No. No, none of this is your fault. Bad things have happened to you, things some people can't even imagine. And you are so strong to have gone through all of it. But this is not the answer, and you are not responsible for what happened to them." Caitlin tried to calm Cicada down. It was clear what they were dealing with now. A person suffering from the hallucinations of their late loved ones. Whether the loved ones blamed Cicada for their deaths, or whether Cicada was of the belief they were was up in the air, and now driven by the guilt of what happened went on a spree. But they needed to get Cicada to calm down.

"You don't know anything about me. It was all my fault. I'm the reason Uncle Orlin is dead. I killed him!"

A name! That was something. Maybe they were getting to Cicada more than they thought, though it was more likely a slip of the tongue. "I'm sure your uncle doesn't blame you for what happened."

Cicada shook their head. "Stop saying that. You don't know what happened."

"So what happened? Tell us, and maybe we can help. Who are you?" Barry said to them.

Hesitantly, Cicada reached to their face and pulled off the mask and took down their hood to reveal yellow locks of hair flowing from their head. Brushing some away from the face showed a young woman. She looked as though she could be in college. She probably was in college. What really made them look at her though were her eyes. Haunted, filled with grief, regret, shame, guilt. Those weren't the eyes of a college girl. They were the eyes of someone who'd experienced the worst life could throw at one.

"What's your name?" Caitlin asked.

"I'm-" The girl was cut off when sirens in the distance sounded. The girl's eyes widened and then hardened when, turning back to the duo. "You set me up. You were just trying to keep me talking so the cops could arrive."

"No, that's not… I mean we were-" Caitlin was trying to say but was interrupted by the shot of a pistol. With both Barry and Caitlin wrapped up in trying to talk to Cicada, neither of them noticed Joe had woken up and made his way to his gun where he tried to fire a shot.

"No!" Barry shouted. Without his speed, there was no chance of him catching that bullet before it reached Cicada, but it turned out he didn't have anything to worry about because Cicada caught the bullet in the palm of her hand, not even flinching. She dropped it to the ground where it clattered against the floorboards. She pointed a knife at both of them.

"If I ever see either of you again, I don't care what anyone says, you're both dead." Cicada announced and rammed herself against the wall where she made her escape as the police just arrived, but were too late as Cicada disappeared in the dead of night.

"So… Cicada is a girl?" Cisco asked in shock after Barry and Caitlin had recounted what happened in their most recent meeting with Cicada.

"Yes," Caitlin said while Barry was busy drawing Cicada's face from memory. "I know it's shocking, but it was always a possibility."

"An unlikely one. Nearly 85% of all serial killers are male. I think we can be excused if some of us were of the idea that Cicada would also be a man." Julian stated.

"I'm sorry I scared her off. If I didn't we might have caught her tonight." Joe said, ashamed of himself for acting irrationally, but he was somewhat disoriented when waking up and probably suffering from a mild concussion. Upon waking, he saw danger and fired his gun. Caitlin was treating him right now.

"Doesn't matter at the moment, this should help with my search a lot." Cisco said, getting behind his computer. "How should I narrow this down?"

"She was young. Like really young. About the same age as Ace I would say, so late teens to early twenties. In her college years." Barry came back with his sketch. It depicted a cute young woman with long hair.

"As we said before, she suffered a loss during the night of the accelerator and recently this past year. She mentioned an uncle that she felt responsible for. I'd say he's the one she lost recently." Barry said.

"What about during the explosion?" Cisco asked, typing into his computer.

"Given how young she is, probably her parents." Caitlin said.

"What about siblings?" Ace piped up. "Couldn't Cicada have lost siblings in the explosion? Or another close family member or even just friends?"

"I suppose so," Barry allowed, "but parents are much more likely. Cisco?"

"Okay, so parents or just one parent for the first loss, and an uncle for the second. The system is loading and… about 20 names. That's depressing."

"How many of them fit the age parameters?" Julian asked. "How about physical appearance? How many of them are blondes?"

Cisco typed some more and brought the list down. "That's better. We've got 8 names. No, wait. 5 names. Two are in prison and one's dead."

"Can you display their images?" Barry asked.

Cisco did just that and brought all five images of the women he'd found onto the monitor for everyone to see. Caitlin and Barry took a moment to look over each of the women and realized something. "She's not here," they both said.

Ace sighed. They had yet to figure out who Cicada was.

"Okay, let's get rid of the uncle aspect. Let's look at foster records. If Cicada lost her parents that night, she would have been placed in the foster system. Check that. This would be happening sometime in their mid to late teens."

"A lot of those records are going to be sealed though. It's going to take some time to unseal them," Cisco said.

"And that's all under the assumption that it was the parents Cicada lost in the explosion. It could be any other family member or even close friends Cicada lost that night," Ace pointed out.

"Ace, I know there are a lot of possibilities to what actually happened that night, but the emotional response we're seeing indicates that a deep sense of love has been ripped from her. The kind you'd usually see in a parent and child relationship." Barry said. "While I'm not throwing away your ideas, it's just more likely it was her parents she lost. If this turns out to be a dead end, we'll look into your ideas. I promise,"

"Cisco, how long do you think it'll take for you to unseal all those records? 3 weeks?" Caitlin asked.

"I could do it in 2," Cisco announced.

"Make it one," Barry said, telling him to get to work immediately.

So Team Flash has their first glimpse of Cicada. They've seen her face. But they can't put a name to that face because unlike other times, they don't know Cicada personally. And online searches aren't entirely accurate. And Barry is pretty accurate with his drawing, but he only saw her for a minute in the dark and that only narrows it down slightly. They're getting closer, but confirmation will not happen anytime soon.

I think the biggest thing about this chapter, no matter how short, was the flashback we had of Grace from the morning after the particle accelerator. We get to see how things were set into motion for the events of today. I'll be continuing that trend until we get the full story.

Hope that was enjoyable. Tell me what you thought or any questions you might have. I'll do my best to answer them. I'll see you all next week.