The narrative begins with a camera struggling to adjust to the room's lighting, its footage glitching. MJ, overseeing the camera, lets out a sigh of relief upon realizing it's finally operational.
"You're right. It works perfectly," MJ said, turning the camera to show she was in Peter's bedroom. "Now, why do you have this again?"
Peter was tying his shoes, looking over at her with a shrug. "It was something I held onto over the years. Ben loved to record moments of our lives. Always said it was to preserve them for when I got myself a girlfriend."
"Ooh," MJ seemed interested in that, looking over the camera. "So, there's a treasure trove of embarrassing stuff on here?"
"Ha. Like I'd ever trust you with that treasure." Peter chuckled. "No, I hid that stash of videos. On a drive you'll never find."
"He usually hides it in the shoe box under his bed," Teresa confessed from the doorway.
"Hey!" Peter cried in anger. "Whose side are you on?!"
"Her side," Teresa admitted.
"What happened to family first?" Peter asks.
"Slap a ring on her, and she will be family," Teresa dared as she walked off.
"Wow," Peter only scoffed. "Why do I tell her things?"
"So, how is this going to work?" Teresa asks. "You're gonna just follow Pete around today, and hope something goes wrong to send to the Bugle?"
"Well, the junior reporter contest is a big deal," MJ stated as she closed the camera. "If I wanna make it as a reporter, then I gotta start early. I don't wanna work like this and end up taking some coffee orders."
"And what about your secret identity?" Teresa wonders.
"I'll edit out the sightings of your guys' real identities if I manage to catch it," MJ promises. "Power of editing. And your brother is like a natural disaster waiting to happen. Trouble is never far behind him."
"I feel like I should be taking that as an insult," Peter commented.
"More or less," MJ admitted. "So, how is our new guest settling in?"
"You mean Wells-3?" Teresa asks.
"Please call me HR," Peter said sarcastically in HR's voice. "Yeah, I don't know how I feel about the guy. Wells was nice, but maybe this guy is the change the team needs."
"A Wells with a nice attitude would be a good change of pace." MJ agreed. "Let's just hope it works out."
At Star Labs, the HR set the mood with lively music and surprised the team with a spread of donuts and other delicious food. The team is curious about where the funds for the food came from and whether he prepared the food personally.
"Sumptuous day," HR says to them. "Oh, no, on this earth, I believe you say...good morning. And it is, isn't it? I mean..." he starts beating his drumsticks to the music beat. "The music on your earth, well, it strikes a chord, no pun intended. I know PP is your pun man. Please, help yourself. I find a crew works best when it's well fed and well rested."
"Are those coffees for us too?" Wanda asks seeing a tray of coffee.
"Yes indeed, Ms. Allen," HR says bringing the coffee over to them. "I took the liberty of reading through your ledgers last night. A lot of information to absorb, but let's see how I did." He says handing a coffee to Iris. "Skim milk chai latte."
"Oh, thank you," Iris said.
"And an iced americano with two, no, three shots of espresso," HR says and hands it to Wally. "Now, for my fleet of foot friend, you best stick to decaf." He says handing a decaf to Barry. "San Francisco, I have prepared a French roast with a touch of creamer."
"Thank you, I guess," Cisco says taking the coffee.
"You're welcome. And for the magnificent sister to the Flash, a Flash to get your day going." HR said, handing Wanda a mug.
"Aw, thank you," Wanda said with joy.
"You, however, I haven't gotten a feel for," HR said as he looked toward norman.
"Likely because nobody knows or likes or trusts me," Norman stated.
"Do you blame us?" Cisco asks.
"Did you know, on my earth, the coffee crop was wiped out by blight? I mean, that's one more reason to stay on this earth, for the coffee alone." HR states.
"If you stay." Cisco reminds him, since this is a probationary day to see if he works for the team.
"If I stay. Here's what I suggest, a series of team building exercises." HR suggests.
"Yeah, I'm not feeling it," Cisco says. "Our trust isn't something you can build with games. This is something that goes back three years. It's something that's been forged in fire, sometimes literally, so maybe you should just step back and observe, see what we do here, how we operate. Did you get that?"
"Excellent note. I'm gonna run with that." HR promises.
"Has anyone seen Caitlin?" Wally asks.
"Oh, yeah, she said she went out of town for a while and warned me to keep Cisco away from her pizza pockets," Barry says while Cisco is eating said pizza pocket.
Cisco realizes what he's eating and drops it nervously. "It wasn't... labeled."
"Okay, well, I gotta go to work. I'm running late." Barry tells them as Iris and Wally do the same thing.
"Yeah, and I actually gotta run to open my place," Wanda admits.
"Oh, okay, we'll do the team-building exercises another time," HR said. "I'll leave the clues hidden around the facility."
"How do you guys say 'see you later' over there?" Wanda wonders.
"Oh," HR then did what looked like a strange dab. "Until our next communion."
"Alright, see you later," Barry said as they walked off.
"So weird," Iris whispered.
"So, what do you do all day?" HR asks Norman.
"I wait to be useful, and hope to not get shot when I leave," Norman admitted to his daily routine.
Barry made it to work where he was told that the Captain was looking for him. He walked up to the office and knocked.
"Come," Singh tells him.
"Hey, sorry I'm late," Barry said as he entered. "I had to meet somebody and..." he then looked over and saw Julian was in the room.
"You can add tardiness to the list, Captain."
"Allen, it's been brought to my attention that you've been giving yourself unauthorized access to your colleagues' case files," Singh said.
"Excuse me?" Barry asks.
"Along with multiple infractions, repeated absences, disappearing throughout the day, phone call interruptions, guests in the lab," Julian commented. "The list is pretty extensive, Captain."
"I'm sorry, with all due respect, I do my job here." Barry defended. "And I have a brother and sister who are still dealing with the loss of our dad, so I do take a call once in a while or need to rush out. Sure.:
"You do good work here, Allen." Singh agreed. "And I do understand your family situation. Just don't put that in jeopardy by thinking the rules don't apply to you. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." Barry nodded.
Julian scoffed as he stood. "Sorry, Captain, that's it? Sir, I document eight different..."
"Nine." Singh corrected.
"Nine different violations of regulations, and he gets a 15-second talking to?" Julian asked and eyed Barry. "Must be nice."
"We are done here. You can go." Singh said as he took a seat.
"Captain," Julian said as he left.
Barry nodded as he followed Julian. "Were you really just being a tattletale? That's bush league, man."
"You know what? You're right." Julain said sarcastically. "Silly me to think the rules actually apply to the golden boy of CCPD's crime lab."
Julain then marched off while Officed Layla Grant approached Barry. "Hey, Barry, what was that about?"
"Nothing." Barry sighed. "Julian just being..."
"A pain?" Layla asks.
"Yeah," Barry sighed. "How did he get this job here again?"
"Not that many people who understand Metahuman biology." Layla shrugged as she walked off.
Barry sighed as Joe appeared. "That guy is unbelievable."
"You know, I wish you two could be a little less oil and water and a little bit more oil and vinegar," Joe commented. "You guys have been at each other's throats for a year now."
"That's just it," Barry stated. "From my perspective, it's been two weeks."
"So you're saying that before two weeks ago, you weren't Julian's enemy?" Joe wonders.
"I'm saying before two weeks ago, Julian didn't even exist," Barry stated.
"It's because of your Flashpoint," Joe replied.
"I know it's because of my Flashpoint." Barry sighed as his phone rang. "Cisco. Hey, is this important?"
"I don't know; does 30 hits downtown on the meta-human app count?" Cisco asks.
"What are we looking at?" Barry wonders.
"Well, nothing really," Norman commented over the speaker. "It seems like every traffic cam in a ten-block radius suddenly went down, so we're flying blind, and the hits are all over the map."
"All right, well, there's one way to see what's going on. I got to go." Barry said as he flashed off downtown.
"Most of the chatter's coming from the harbor district," Cisco informed Barry. "Down the street from Peter's school."
Barry stopped running just as he saw the kids were already there and helping people. "All right, I'm here. It's a bad scene, man."
"You should be right on top of it, guys. What is it?"
Peter then heard the footsteps and turned around in shock and terror. "It's a... monster?"
A giant creature that almost looked like a skinny Godzilla and an alien-like creature rolled into one and marched down the streets. People were running away in panic and fear as several cars crashed as they tried to escape and crashed into other cars and buses in the process.
"Guys, did you hear that?" Barry asks.
"We talking Yao Ming size or Andre the Giant?" Cisco wonders.
"No, he means an actual monster," Jessica said as she helped people get up and run.
"How does someone even make that?" Cisco asked, slightly eyeing Norman.
"Hey, I created a faulty serum. I don't create Titans." Norman defended himself.
Everyone starts evacuating the streets while crashing into vehicles. One bus accidentally crashes into a light post, jamming the doors.
"Okay, I'll deal with this thing, you get them evacuated," Barry said as he dashed off to chase the monster and help the people in its wake.
Peter ran his way over to a bust of people while Bobby was busy freezing a sparking electrical wire to not harm others. Jessica swung over and grabbed a falling lamppost before it could crush a young girl.
Peter ran to the bus where he saw MJ was working on opening the doors. "MJ, what are you doing here?" He asks her while ripping the doors off with his strength.
"Working on my Bugle story, and last time I checked, a giant roaming monster is a huge scoop." MJ reminded him, helping the people off the bus. "You don't always need super speed or superpowers to help people."
"Okay, just get them out of here, I need to go help the others stop that thing," Peter says and runs up to see Barry looking for it.
"Spider-Man, Iceman, Spider-Woman, eyes in the sky. Can you see it?" Barry asks while the kids are trying to see where it went.
"I've got no eyes," Peter says trying to see where it went.
Bobby shot out an ice slide as he roamed around in confusion. "Where the hell did it go?"
"I don't get it, every metahuman we've encountered has been exactly that, metahuman, so where did this thing come from?" Cisco asks, HR standing behind and muttering his words.
"I don't know where it came from, man. It just vanished. That's all I know, it was gone." Barry states with snapping his fingers.
"And it can't be a black hole," Norman stated. "I killed Ohrnn and his data..." then he noticed the looks on everyone's faces. "You know... when I was... When I was the Green Goblin."
"In my experience, things are always different than they appear," HR says while still walking back and forward around Cisco.
"What?" Bobby asked.
"There must be a reason the darn thing can just disappear like that. Maybe it's got a sorta cloaking mechanism." HR offered.
"Nah, my electrical sensors would have noticed it," Jessica stated. "One of my stranger powers."
"I didn't even sense it with my powers," Peter stated.
"Does that mean this thing came from another dimension?" MJ asks.
"Only if it came from a dimension and wants to hunt me down," Peter stated.
"Wait, what?" Jessica asks.
"I'll explain later," Peter promised.
"Well, right now, I would settle for how do we stop it?" Barry asks.
"How?" Cisco asks.
"I don't know."
"We don't have a magic monster lasso," Cisco responds.
"And we don't have Wonder Woman's phone number," Teresa stated. "And mom didn't leave us a way of contacting her to get that info."
"But, you know what we could do?" HR then stopped himself. "Sorry, here to observe."
"HR, hey, if you have something, say something," Gwen said.
"Alright. On my earth, we have ropes made out of carbon fiber. They are ultralight but strong enough to pull a battleship; we could restrain it with that." HR suggests to them. "Right? What do you think?"
"I like it," Norman admitted. "I'm actually interested in the-"
"No." Everyone said.
Norman raised his hands in defense. "Sorry."
"I think it's worth a shot, we could spin it out down in the workshop," Cisco says.
"Why not just use tiger's webs?" Mj asks, looking at Peter. "Web the creature up?"
"Nah, my webs aren't that strong," Peter stated. "They were meant to restrain people and somewhat strong people. Monsters are out of the question."
"Yes, good!" HR said, batting his drumsticks.
"There was something else, I saw a transformer explode as this thing passed by it," Barry says. "The monster didn't even lay a finger on it. It exploded before it got to it."
"Kinda reminds me of that Hitchcock movie where the extra covers his ears before the gun goes off," Cisco says chuckling at his joke.
"You have Hitchcock on this earth?" HR asks. "'Murder on the Titanic!' 'Who did it?' 'Who cares? We're drowning.'" He says quoting one of the movies. "The beast must emit some kind of electrical pulse. Is there any way I could get a look at the transformer?"
"No, the whole place is a crime scene now with Julian in charge of it," Barry says.
"Oh, great. Put the anti-metahuman enthusiast in command." Peter mumbles.
"Julian." HR sat like he knew him. "Who's that? That's the guy you don't like."
Gwen chuckled as it seemed she was beginning to like HR. But then her head began to feel fuzzy and she had some weird flashes. She saw herself in some sort of outfit. She saw herself climbing skyscrapers with her bare hands. She saw some strange lizard creature and she then snapped out of it.
"Gwen?" Jessica got her attention. "You okay?"
"Yeah, sorry," Gwen said. "Just a little tired. Haven't been sleeping lately. My uncle has been... doing things. I don't know."
"You wanna get some rest here?" Peter asks. "I don't think they'll need us for a moment."
"Sure," Gwen said as she walked off to get some rest.
Cisco was working on the carbon fiber rope HR suggested to them hoping it would work. While he was working, HR was telling stories of his earth.
"So then the Flash, my Flash, we hatched a plan to gather all the remaining metahumans into one place for a final showdown. They called it World War M. It was glorious. It was like that movie where the gladiator was the lead gladiator. What was it called?" HR asks as they're working on the rope.
"Gladiator," Cisco answered.
"Oh, better than what we call it on our Earth. Sweaty Men and that didn't take." HR says. "So, the two forces charge into battle, and when they do-"
"I need to take a five," Cisco said, walking off.
"Yeah, let us take a break," HR said.
"By myself," Cisco called.
"Yeah, you go ahead, I'll keep working on this," HR says. He then took a seat and pulled a device. "So entry AAA:2. Plan is proceeding. Characters are in place. Nobody seems to be the wiser as to why I am here."
Barry and Julian are checking out where the monster came from. He managed to talk Julian into letting him tag along ao to try and be friendly. That and Barry offered Julian the labs.
"What do you got?" Barry asks Julian who just notices his appearance.
"I said get here quick, but that was...quicker than I expected," Julian says in surprise.
"Oh... crazy Uber driver." Barry quickly comes up with a lie.
"Well, the blast pattern and the scoring on the insulation suggest that it was a power surge that blew it out," Julian says, regarding the transformer.
"So it's a coincidence?" Barry questions.
"I highly doubt it. But I'll figure it out." Julian promised as he stood up. "Someone in this city has to do something about these metas."
"What do you mean?" Barry asks, not following. "We have a whole police force working to stop these metas."
"No, you have the Flash, and Spider-Man." Julian corrects him. "And Iceman. And that fire meta."
"Firestar?" Barry saw he didn't care for the correction. "Yeah, thought she was gone."
"So, it's not just bad metas you don't like. It's all metas." Barry says when he realizes something. "It's not just the bad metas you don't like, it's all people with powers."
"I'm just saying because of them, the police department has got lethargic," Julian tells him. "I mean, why do anything at all if the Flash, Spider-Man, and friends are going to save the day every time?" He asks while looking around at the destruction left by the monster encounter. "It's a bit like you with the rule-breaking. A momentary fix, and now you're lazy, sloppy."
"Cool, thanks," Barry said sarcastically. I think they're actually a source of inspiration for the city. They give people hope." Barry informs Julian.
"Yes, well, that's one of many things that we'll have to disagree on, Allen," Julian says when he looks and sees something behind Barry.
"What, you see something?" Barry asks and looks to see a tall building, nothing more.
"A pattern," Julian says. "The creature's movements seemed random at first, but they were contained to a prescribed area. Like the creature was stuck in an invisible fence."
"Traffic cameras were down, right? Maybe it was being watched or controlled by somebody that needed to keep it in visual range the entire time?" Barry questions and sees that there could be something with it.
"Constricting the creature's movements to the line of sight," Julian adds to what he was saying. "That makes sense. Maybe there is a brain in there, after all, Allen."
As they're talking, they hear transformers blowing up and the car alarms blaring. They then see the monster has returned and Julian calls CCPD for backup and pulls out a gun.
"Don't worry, I have four years' training in the military," Julian tells Barry.
"Even still, since when does CSI carry a gun?" Barry asks him.
"Since there were monsters in our city," Julian says as he moves ready to shoot.
As he was opening to take a shot, the monster roars, and more transformers blow. As it did, more wires started exploding and Barry quickly moved Julian before it could reach him.
"Cheers." Julian thanks Barry as they see Spider-Man swinging after the monster followed by Iceman and Spider-Woman.
Gwen effortlessly shot webs and swung around, savoring the feeling of freedom in the open air. She then landed on the roof of the school and tossed her bag in the air. As she effortlessly removed her suit, revealing her normal clothes underneath, she then stood back up. She then caught her bag and stuffed her suit inside. Sighing to try and shake the adrenaline from her system, Gwen opened the door to her school and made her way to her locker.
As she walked down the hallway, Peter had already arrived at his locker. He eagerly pulled out his phone and began to scroll through the pictures he had snapped of Spider-Woman earlier. He studied each photo intently, admiring how he had managed to capture her in action. However, as he was lost in thought, a group of jocks began to play catch in the hallway. One of them noticed Peter's distraction and decided to have some fun by tossing the ball in his direction.
They backed up and pushed Peter into his locker, smacking the glasses off of his face in the process, causing them to crack when they hit the ground. Gwen watched it happen from down the crowded hall, filled with rage as she watched them mess with her friend. She pushed through the crowd and even used a little of her super strength in the process. She made her way over to the jock and pushed him against the lockers across the hall.
"Touch him again, Flash!" Gwen dared the bully.
Peter sighed as he picked up his broken glasses. "Gwen, it's okay. It was just an accident."
"My fist against his jaw - that'll be the accident if he does it again," Gwen dared Flash, who only smirked.
"Geez, Stacy. Sorry to have hurt your boyfriend," Flash said without any remorse before walking away, only infuriating Gwen even more. "She could do a lot better."
Gwen squeezed her fist and was ready to punch him with all her strength. But if she did, she would easily kill him. Not that it wasn't a tempting decision, but she knew she needed to use these powers responsibly. And hurting some bully because he hurt her friend wouldn't be worth it.
"Hey." Peter grabbed her clutched hand and softly caressed her hand. Seemed to work to help relieve some of the tension in her hand. "Are you okay?"
Gwen sighed as she began to calm down. One thing that she had to say about Peter is that she wondered if he had powers. With how easy he could calm her down when she's fuming with anger.
"I'm fine," Gwen assured him. She sighed and began to walk down the halls with Peter to their class. "So, did you hear the latest news?"
"Norman Osborn was found?" Peter took a guess. "Yeah, learned it the other night when working with Dr. Connors."
"You gonna go to his press conference?" Gwen wondered.
"I was a little curious about what happened to him," Peter admitted. "Reports say he escaped from terrorists by himself. I kinda wanna know how."
"Gotta say, I'm wondering the same. I am going too, so I guess I will see you there." Gwen muttered and looked over to a Homecoming poster. "So, Homecoming is this weekend."
"Yeah, trust me, it seems all the guys talk about is who they are bringing," Peter tells her.
"You wanna maybe go by together?" Gwen asked, noticing the look in Peter's eyes and becoming worried. "Oh, I mean like as friends. You know, like together but separately."
"Yeah, that's what I thought you meant," Peter assured with a smile. "I'll meet you outside after school."
"Sounds like a plan," Gwen said with a grin.
"Nothing." Peter scoffed as he, Jessica, and Bobby returned, waking Gwen up.
"It turned a building, and we circled it, coming at it from all sides, and it vanished," Jessica said in anger, tossing her gloves on the table.
"How is that possible?" Wanda asked, making her way to STAR Labs after the transformer to her place blew.
"We don't know," Bobby said with a sigh. He then looked over to Gwen who seemed shaken up by her dream. "You good, Gwen?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Weird dream." Gwen explained as she rubbed her eyes.
Barry returns and sees Cisco is working on locating the creature after finishing the rope. He returned to the cortex and saw everyone else was there. "Oh, hey, great. We might have something. Julian thinks that transformers are the key. Every time that this monster shows up, they blow up."
"The car alarms keep malfunctioning too," Cisco says looking over the data they collected.
"Car alarms, transformers. What is the connection?" HR asks and goes motivational about how they'll solve it. "We'll get there, fellas. We'll get there. We just got to keep trying."
"Maybe someone's pulling power out of the transformers and using it to power the monster," Cisco says.
"Power! That's- you just beat me to it, San Francisco."
"That can't be it, HR," Cisco informed him. "Cause we would have detected a surge in the power grid."
"Not if it was broadcast power or something like a portable Tesla tower," Norman offered.
"He's right," Barry agreed.
"So, PS, where I'm from, on my earth, we call that a problem solved. I'm gonna go on a coffee run, I'll be back." HR says and leaves.
"Okay, now something about him seems off now." MJ is finally realizing about HR. "I mean, he just rephrased what you all just said."
"Thank you!" Cisco states trying to say the exact same thing. "I knew I wasn't crazy."
"He did have the idea for the rope, thought." Wanda offered.
"No, reverse inception. He made you think he had the idea for the rope, but he didn't tell us how to use it." Cisco informs Barry.
"Well, Peter, your Spidey senses saying anything about him?" Bobby asks looking at Peter.
"You know, this is the quietest they've ever been when there's a Wells in the room," Peter says a little surprised and worried about that. He then looked at his sister. "Wanda?"
Wanda was drinking a slushie when she was asked it and shrugged. "What? Do you think I'm some sort of mind reader? Guys, I am a palm reader, not a... telepath. Or literal fortune teller. Just because most of my predictions end up coming true isn't on me..."
"Okay, general opinion, then," Peter said.
"He's hiding something. But not dangerous," Wanda admitted, taking another sip.
"Well, we won't be caught off guard again. To be safe, maybe you should vibe him." Barry tells Cisco.
"It'd be my pleasure," Cisco says and leaves to go find something to vibe.
"Should we follow them?" MJ asks.
"I am not getting mixed up in more Wells drama," Teresa said, walking off. "You guys have fun! I'm enjoying my day off."
Cisco and Barry headed to HR's room as they saw there was no sign of HR. "Where'd he go?"
"I don't care, I don't need him," Cisco stated, looking around.
"Hey, man, we can't go through his stuff," Barry said.
"Im not going through his stuff. What even is the thing?" Cisco asks holding his own recorder when it goes off.
"Now I seem to have won most of the team's trust, except Francisco's," HR says on the recorder when HR enters and sees them.
"Those are my things," HR tells them. "What are you doing?"
"What are you doing?" Cisco asks. "Who are you really? We know you're hiding something."
"You've been burned, by a man with the same face as me. I imagine it's hard to trust after something like that. So play the rest of it." HR tells Cisco, about the recorder.
"I've read his journals, and I found nothing that can tell me why Francisco feels the way he does, but I do hope I can change his opinion of Harrison Wells and the two of us can rebuild that friendship. what a fantastic C-story to within the narrative." HR says before turning it off.
"What narrative?" Barry wonders.
"Narrative. I'm writing a novel." HR says and takes the recorder out of Cisco's hands with a smile on his face. "The Tales Of H.R. Wells."
"Wait, I'm sorry, you're a scientist and a novelist?" Barry asks him.
"Yes," HR confirms for him.
"Wow, that's...perfect," Barry said.
"That's exactly it. I'm a scientist and a novelist; I run Star Labs, and also I'm an author of science-romance." HR explains. "That's my niche. Write what you know. And I thought, what better opportunity than come to another earth and pen yet another best seller about my adventures here?"
"Why didn't you just tell us this in the first place?" Cisco questions him.
"I guess it didn't seem relevant, also I didn't think you guys were gonna rifle through my belongings," HR says and now they're feeling a little guilty. "That's all I have to hide. Do you think you can trust me now, or is that not something you have on this earth, trust?"
"Trust?" Caitlin asks, causing HR to jump seeing they haven't noticed her yet.
"You scared the dickens out of me," HR says as he calms down.
"Trust who?" Caitlin asked worried when their alarms went off.
"It's the monster," Barry says.
"Monster?" Caitlin asks, confused as to what they're talking about.
"Yeah, you missed a lot. I'll explain it to you on the way." Barry promises as he kisses her on the cheek.
"Come on, we need you," Cisco tells HR, willing to give him the chance.
Peter and Barry successfully reached the area and were startled to witness a massive, menacing monster prowling through the streets, triggering explosions as it passed by transformers. The sight of the chaos prompted Bobby and Jessica to quickly make their way over to the scene.
"Okay, so what's the plan?" Barry asks Peter as he's holding the rope.
"How about we do Empire strikes back?" Peter asks and Barry likes it.
"The bigger they are, the harder they fall," Caitlin says through the comms which surprises them all. "Come on, even I've seen Empire." She defends.
Peter looked to Barry. "Never let her go."
"All right, here we go. I always wanted to be a Jedi." Barry says before tying the rope around the monster.
Jessica then prepared to strike as she charged up an electrical charge. "You wanna siphon energy? Siphon mine!"
Jessica watched as her electrical strike while Bobby did the same thing with ice. But the charge of electricity and ice only missed and the monster phased through the powers. Then the powers hit a power source and cause it to glitch.
"It's a hologram." Peter and Barry say at once as they see the monster vanish.
"CCPD sent snipers to kill it." Iris' voice says through the comms.
"That's bad. The bullets will travel through the hologram." Peter states that they need to find it.
"HR, triangulate the signal. We need to disrupt the monster before someone gets hurt." Cisco tells him and he tries using the computers and he's failing.
"This is a different type of computer than what I'm used to." HR tried defending when Cisco finally realized something.
"What?" Wanda asks.
"I knew it. You're a fake." Cisco says which confuses everyone. "This whole time, he's been acting like he can help us, but he can't because he doesn't know how."
"Guys?" Peter's voice came through the comms.
Norman scoffed as he walked over. "Hang on." He then got them a location. "Found it. It's at Second and Fulton. You better hurry."
As soon as they get there, they see the monster and dozens of CCPD cars ready to fire. They see a sniper on the roof and he shoots. Barry slows down time to see where the bullet is heading and grabs it before it can impact a pedestrian.
"Stop firing!" Peter tells them and they see the monster glitching.
"It's a hologram!" Bobby explains and they all lower their weapons and all the civilians are confused as to what happened.
Barry looks around and sees Joe. "Detective West, where's Julian?" Barry asks knowing he must've learned where it came from.
"He was here," Joe says and looks around to see he's vanished.
"Cisco, find out where it came from," Peter begs into his comms.
"Hamilton building, 25th floor. There's more power going there than anywhere else in the building combined." Cisco tells them and Barry speeds off.
"Sight to see all the attacks," Barry nodded as he ran.
Inside the building, Julian finds the man behind it and tells him to stop but he gets up and Julian fires only for Barry to come in at the last second and move him out of the way revealing that it was a kid behind the monster. Barry hands him over to Julian to take it over and starts leaving.
"Hey, Flash," Julian calls out and Barry looks at him. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Barry says while vibrating his voice and speeding off.
Barry and Joe learned that the kid was just sick of feeling powerless against people and wanted others to feel the same way he did. As for HR, they learned everything about him after he finally came clean.
"You were named Entrepreneur of the Decade by Tech Magazine?" Caitlin asks seeing the information HR gave them.
"That's right," HR says.
"Is any of what's on here true?" Cisco wonders.
"All of it," HR tells them.
"How? You can barley turn on a computer." Wanda states.
"There are two parts to every idea. There is the inception and the execution. I provide the former." HR explains.
"So you're the one who comes up with the ideas." Gwen clarifies.
"Yeah, I don't know how to implement them. I'm the idea man." HR says to them.
"So you didn't actually solve the cryptogram that we sent you?" Caitlin asks.
"No, that was my partner at Star labs on my earth. I'm not the face of the company. I'm more of the inspiration behind the company. Then I was exposed. People thought I was something that I wasn't. It all fell apart for me. Then I got your message. My partner brought me the message. I saw he was bringing me an opportunity to come to this earth to write this book." HR explains to them all.
"So many planets in the multiverse, and we happen to pick the one Wells who isn't a scientist." Cisco recaps.
"It sounds like you're a con man," Wally states to him.
"Was I a con man when I showed San Francisco here how to track the beast using alarms? Was I a con man when I showed him how to fashion a rope using carbon fiber?" HR asks back.
"I came up with those ideas," Cisco says.
"You were prompted by my suggestions. That's how ideas work. You need a muse. I can be that." HR tells them.
"What about stopping all the metas on your earth?" Harry asks.
"More of an advisory role for me, but I was there. I remember how it happened. You don't think that's something?" HR asks them. "Let me present you with a scenario. You're confronted with something, a threat never seen before. You don't know how to stop it. Who does? That's value to you. Let me prove my worth." He begs and promises to go home if he doesn't succeed.
"You're lucky we're big on redemption and doing the right thing here," Teresa chuckled. "Any sensible person would throw you back to the pond."
"Yeah, this family isn't big on giving up on people." Wanda agreed
"They're right." Barry agreed. "So you can... stay for a few weeks, prove yourself. But if not... back to your earth."
"A better deal than they have given me," Norman states, getting another look from everyone. "Which I deserve... because I was a psychopathic murderer."
"We are still working on his responses. He does have like two timelines in his head." Harry defended his dad.
Peter sighed as he looked over to his brother. "You just had to mess with time?"
Barry rolled his eyes as he should have seen that coming and walked off.
"So, how did your story come along?" Peter asks MJ.
"You'll have to see it on the Bugle website. If I win." MJ said as she walked off.
"She is gonna be the death of you," Bobby tells Peter.
"Oh, she definitely is." Peter agreed.
Bobby returned home and sighed when he saw Caitlin making dinner. "Oh, hey, I was wondering... where did you go?"
"Why? Did you miss me?" Caitlin asked with a grin.
"A little." Bobby shrugged. "I was a little worried when you just vanished and I need to hear it from Barry."
Caitlin sighed and knew she needed to come clean. "I went to visit my mother. Seeing if we could work through some of our issues. And I think we might be on the road to recovery."
"Really?" Bobby was surprised to hear that.
"Yeah," Caitlin answered.
Bobby nodded. "I get that."
Caitlin then wondered something. "Have you... wanted to talk to your parents? Maybe they have cooled down since-"
"No." Bobby quickly shot that down. "I told them the truth, I didn't hide anything from them, and they threw me out." He scoffed as he looked around the apartment. "This is my home. You are the only family I need."
"And..." Caitlin reminded him.
"Yeah, obviously Peter, Barry, Angelica, Miles, Harry, Gwen, I was just talking at least relatives. If I referenced all my friends, we are gonna be here a while."
Caitlin laughed as she agreed. "You are my family, too, Bobby." She assured him.
Outside of CCPD, Layla walked outside and sighed as she saw nobody was around. She walked down the pathway and felt someone was watching her. She missed the crescent moon-shaped cloak floating over her head and leaping across the rooftops.
Layla drew her gun and looked around. "Show yourself!"
"Wasn't hiding," Marc said, getting Layla to spin around and see him. "What did you find out?"
"It's weird," Layla admitted as she lowered her gun. "Julian is acting... normal."
"Well, I doubt he is advertising the Philosopher Stone," Khonshu stated, which only Marc could hear. "These new Metahumans from a time forgotten are ripping the fabric of our realms. If we don't stop him, he will strike again. And your world will not survive the wrath of Savitar."
"We'll stop him," Marc promised. "Who was his recent metamorphosis?"
"His name... is Miles Warren."
