Flashpoint Mayhem

by TrueHorror88

Another victory for the team, yet someone was unable to celebrate that and chose to make a world-shaking decision. Barry saved his mother from death, changing his past and his present, but it also affected others without him knowing. Seth and his family are just as affected, maybe more. The team faces newer threats, but they're not new to the Lethal Protector. They're threats.

23. Chapter 23: Attack on Central City

Hey Wonderful people from far and wide!

I am definitely back again and I am truly sorry for not being here for so long!

It's been a complete mixed bag of stuff on my end. I've been dealing with a lot of personal stuff weighing on my shoulders, along with depression and some familial stuff also keeping me away from writing.

To say it's been a hard half of year is definitely the understatement of the year so far… But I have come back now, and hopefully, I can live up to more of your expectations and try to write more for you guys…

Now to answer some of your reviews:

Kylo Ren: Update's here Kylo. Sorry for making you wait for so long.

DevilGoblin99: So, so, so sorry for taking so long with the update. Things haven't been easy on my end unfortunately.

guest: Thanks man. Deadpool always finds a way. Take a look at Deadpool and Wolverine.

And now…

Without further ado…

ENJOY!

Chapter 23: Attack on Central City

Caitlin, with a yawn, walks down the stairs of her home. It's been a few days since the rescue team returned from Earth-2 with Harry Wells, and the days that followed their return certainly weren't without their excitement.

Deadpool had not only reached the news headlines, but also every inch of this city in a matter of days. He went everywhere to outrun their team. Once the group found the mutant underground in the abandoned subway stations, where he locked Barry inside of a train cart with toy bombs. Thankfully, when they exploded, they just released a lot of paint on him of various colors.

Cisco complained about getting paint out of the suit for a long time…

While Barry himself complained about getting paint out of everywhere else…

He also gave Seth a run for his money, especially when he had to find Deadpool taking control of an entire airfield and he piloted one of the planes and took off. Thankfully, Seth managed to board the airplane and made his way into the cockpit… He found not Deadpool, but a very special type of doll in the pilot seat. Fortunately, the elemental didn't bring the very intimate doll back home.

And it wasn't the only thing that he did…

Deadpool also found his way into the houses of various team members, having fun in each of them.

She heard that Deadpool, once inside his house, had taken all of Cisco's collectibles and put them into "suggestive" positions and replaced a few of their heads with Barbie doll heads. And he also somehow managed to switch out all of his furniture with something else…

Barry and Iris' loft was riddled with certain toys. Most of the floors were covered with the objects, some of them being stuck via suction cups. Even a pillow the size and length of a body was found in their bedroom, but the covering was not what any of them expected…

They all wondered how Deadpool learned of Eobard Thawne. A question that still remains to this day.

Caitlin shivers, recalling the images and items she found in her house after Wade Wilson's visit here.

"Wonder what the others found in theirs…" She thinks out loud.

"Hey, Cait." Seth says from the couch. "How was your nap?"

"Good. Thanks for asking." She takes a seat on the couch beside him. "You? How'd you… What exactly did you do while I was asleep? Last thing you said was that you're gonna have to do some clean-up."

Seth sighs. "Remember when we found Deadpool manning a window washer platform?" Caitlin nods, recalling how Wade took control of a Bosun's chair. "Well, Wade did some creative drawings with a paint gun on the sides of several buildings."

"Do I even wanna know what he drew?" Caitlin asks as she sits down next to her mate.

"Not unless you wanna rinse your brain with bleach. Trust me, that's what I felt like doing when I saw his paintings." Seth said with a weak chuckle.

"Fantastic." She rubs the back of his hand. "Wade seemed to care about you a lot."

"When I was an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, I ran into Wade a lot and he had found out my history through his own methods." He chuckles. "After that, whenever I ran into him, he showed me how to not always be "on guard." That I can afford to relax every now and then. He taught me how to have fun on the job. Despite his eccentric acts and personality, he is a good guy."

"I got that idea myself." Caitlin says with a smile.

Seth turns to her again. "With everything that Deadpool did when we came home, I never got to ask you. How did you feel about Earth-616?"

"Like I want to visit it again. Speak more with the X-Men and the others there." Caitlin says with a chuckle. "It was an experience unlike anything I've ever seen on this Earth. It makes me wish we had a school like this on our Earth, in our city. A safe haven for metas of all ages to come and learn how to become better, on how to learn how to become part of society while bearing powers."

"Sounds like you were more than just inspired." Seth nods to her throat, where there's a lack of a necklace there. "Necklace is good, but… Doesn't suit you."

"At home, I can handle myself without it. At the team though…" She pulls out the snowflake-shaped power-dampening pendant. "I need to wear this."

"Shame. You look good without it." Seth smiles.

"Why thank you, babe?" She says sarcastically as she leans forward and locks lips with her mate. Seth kisses her back. She pulls back and locks eyes with him next. "Hey, I was thinking, should we maybe look through that case your father gave me."

"Sure." Seth stood up and he watched as Caitlin stood up as well. "Where is it?"

"In the kitchen." Caitlin says.

"What?" Seth asks. Before he could speak further, his phone rings and he pulls it out. He sees it's Barry calling him.

"And we're screwed…." Venom announces grimly.

"Thought you were too quiet." Seth thought back.

"Bet you a bag of tater tots and a box of chocolate that this is the speedster's fault." Venom wagers.

"It's gonna come out of my pocket anyway." Seth replies as he accepts the call. He puts it on speaker and greets the speedster. "Barry, what'd you do this time?"

"Why do you immediately assume I did something? And why is it that your tone suggests you think I did something wrong?" Barry fires back.

"Really want me to go through your entire rap sheet? Not enough time in the world to go through that." Seth chuckles.

"This is serious, Seth." Joe says, jumping into the call beside the metahuman. "We got a call to a place outside the city, it's pretty weird and messy."

"Messy sounds like my department." Seth says with a weak chuckle.

"Send you the place. Get here quick." Barry tells him.

"Right-o." Seth hangs up the call. "Babe, case reviewing is gonna have to wait till I'm back."

"What is it?" Caitlin asks her beloved mate.

"I don't know… But I think something is wrong." Seth says as he feels an eerie feeling washes over him.

X

Horror and surprise is etched onto Seth's face while watching the scene unfold in front of him, Barry Allen and Joe West.

The three of them had arrived at an abandoned part outside the city, where they found nothing short of what are the remains of a battlefield. Rusty ship containers all around them torn into pieces, the remains hurled everywhere. Pierced into the grounds, trees and asphalt. Craters of different sizes are scattered across the field. Not a single area of dirt within their fields of vision is without them. They weren't the only holes to be found. Strange holes from what appears to be like puncture holes are around them. Even holes the size of rhinoceros feet are dug into the surface. Strangely shaped holes around the area, releasing some kind of smoke from them as though they've been exposed to some corrosive element. Black-greenish feather-like blades are scattered over the ground. Wide holes have been dug in various spots, appearing to have been caved in by some invisible force.

But despite all the damage and destruction that is still being surveyed by different members of the Central City police department, that is not what had their attention. What really garnered their attention was the sight of five members of the Sinister Seven being escorted into different police transport vehicles.

Seth couldn't believe it, watching the conscious forms of Mac Gargan and Herman Schultz being put into the back of a transport vehicle. He watches as literal cables are enwrapped around the humongous arms of Aleksei Sytsevich before slowly pulling him into a transporter with a cargo cart the size of a ship container. Unlike the others, Adrian Toomes is hospitalized and is wheeled into an ambulance with a gurney with an oxygen mask over his mouth.

But the only one to be standing is Otto Octavius. Handcuffed and being escorted by two armed police officers. He hasn't said a single word but is still being escorted into an armored police truck.

Seth, along with Joe and Barry are watching him get escorted past them.

But what neither the detective nor the speedster heard was…

"Find me later, Venom… Seth Fury…"

The whisper was recognizable, and Seth immediately swung his head towards the evil mastermind of the Sinister Seven who was put into the armored truck. When he was seated and the cargo door closed behind them, before it did so, Otto kept his eyes on the elemental with an emotionless look.

"He…"

"He knows our identity…"

Question marks appeared over the mutant's head and he was clenching his fists so much his knuckles turned white. Barry walks up to his side. "You okay?"

"Not really, but not bad either. I'm left with more questions." Seth answers. He turns around to face the speedster. "Biggest one being: Who the hell could have done this to Otto and his goons and left most of them barely breathing?"

"Whoever has the balls to tangle with the Sinister Seven." Barry says.

"Not seven. Five." Seth corrects him. "You have noticed that two of them are missing, right?"

"Taskmaster and Rival." Joe jumps in. "So whoever took the rest out didn't take care of their master merc and speedster?"

"Looks like it." Seth walks away, going to a rock with pieces of the ship container stuck inside of it. Crouching down beside it, he pulls out a pair of tweezers and pulls out the container piece. Bringing it up to his eyes, he looks at it with narrowed eyes. "Look at this." He shows the jagged piece to the others.

Barry and Joe look at the piece, seeing the sides of it are scorched black. "It's burnt." The detective says.

"And none of the ones we've seen put into custody so far have fire or electrical powers." Barry says.

"So someone else did this damage…" Seth says with a scoff when realizing who could have done this. "My guess is Phage."

"Griffin did this?" Joe asked him.

"Not of his free will." Seth says. "This is weird though. He can only be controlled by Eliza and her Thunderbolts."

"Think there was infighting between Sinister Seven and Thunderbolts?" Barry questions.

"Possible solution. Two evil groups of power, one not liking the other after getting all they could get out of them." Seth states. "Maybe after all the use Eliza could get out of Octavius, she sicced her and her group on them."

"But still doesn't make sense." Joe admits. "Something else had to be at play here."

"Detective West." Officer Korber called out. "We found something here." She waves the detective, CSI scientist and the civilian consultant over. They follow her, traversing through damaged grounds of all kinds. Burnt, wet, frozen and scorched are just some of the damage they found and walked through.

"Look at this whatchamacallit." The officer gestures to the object they come across, pointing to a tall object.

Seth widens his eyes at the familiar sight of the mechanical device. It was a tall device, one looking like a lightning rod combined with a satellite antenna. It was a tall metal pole, with several metal protrusions at the top of it and mechanical components along the sides of the shaft.

"What the heck is this thing?" Joe questions with utter surprise.

"That's why we called our department's one-man nerd army." The officer gestures to their CSI scientist. "Gotta help out the others, Detective." She says before walking away to join the other officers in examining the crime scene.

"Don't like that name…" Barry says, returning his attention to the tall contraption. "But I do like this thing. Even though I don't know what it is."

"I do." Seth gets Barry and Joe's heads snapping in his direction at his words. "Trust me, I know this thing very well…"

X

(S.T.A.R. Labs, The Cortex)

"It's called a satellite disruptor."

The three of them return to S.T.A.R. Labs, meeting up with the others on the team. Barry, Joe and Seth explained everything they found at the site and also the state of it when they arrived. Each word from their mouths left them in shock.

But it ended when they saw the photos of the device that they had found at the battlegrounds.

Following the declaration of the device's name, Seth continues. "They're able to disrupt any satellites from scanning over the area they're placed on. Basically masks the entire area from surveillance."

"We found six of them in shape. Banged up, but they were still functional." Joe says.

"And the other six completely totaled." Barry adds.

Cisco turns to the elemental. "They do look cool and complex."

Harry looks at Seth after having looked at the photos. "You know what they are, Fury?"

"How do you do that?" Jesse asks after her father.

Seth looks at the ground. "They're Otto Octavius' creations. When he tried to recruit me into the ranks of Sinister Six, he'd arrange for these secret meeting spots for me and him to talk. When he'd give me his sales pitches, he'd have these prepared to make sure our conversations didn't reach anyone except those present."

"How'd he reach out to you?" Caitlin asks.

"Through encrypted messages when I was patrolling…. Leaving behind breadcrumbs the size of Texas for me to follow… Or capture me and talk to me in semi-private situations." Seth states.

"You mean situations where he'd meet you with the rest of the Sinister Six and you duke it out?" H.R. quips while sipping on a cup of coffee.

"You know me too well, H.R." Seth smirks.

From the ceiling, Frankie says. "Can't believe he'd go to such lengths to get a 1-on-1 session with you, Dad."

Ruby, while sitting in the air thanks to her gravity powers, says. "Dad was popular with all kinds of crowds back then. Good and bad."

"Bad wanted Dad a lot, especially when they thought he was stronger than OG Venom." Evelyn says, putting the knowledge she gained from the X-Men to good use.

"Yeah, but…" H.R. goes forward. "These are exactly the same as the ones you remember, S.F.?"

"You really know me too well…" Seth admits with a chuckle. "These are different components than what I've seen before. I know what they are, though."

"So do I." Harrison-2 nods. "They appear to be modified scanners for temperature fluctuations, atmospheric drops and subterranean changes."

"And that means…" Evelyn looked around in confusion, not getting where it's going.

Caitlin taps her daughter's back. "Means that along with the ones your father mentioned that satellite disruptor's designed to not only mask the area from surveillance, but also to make sure not even specific changes... elemental changes aren't noticed."

"Elemental…" Barry widens his eyes. "Then that means…"

"Means that Eliza and her Thunderbolts were here." Seth says with confidence. "And judging from the battlegrounds and the havoc we found, there really was infighting between the two groups."

"But why though?" Barry says, walking closer to the images of the disruptors. "Thought they were working together."

"True, but wasn't that only a temporary alliance?" H.R. asks, rubbing his chin with his drumstick.

Seth raises an eyebrow. "You mean since Eliza got Octavius' help with the symbiotes for her and her Thunderbolts, she decided to turn on her?"

Harrison-19 shrugs unsurely. "Well, Seth… Dogs do tend to bite the hand that feeds them. Can't imagine what a Venom-slash-Scream-sized bite can do."

"Think shark bite. Close enough for a comparison." Seth chuckles hollowly. "But it scares me that Eliza's grown powerful enough to fight and defeat Octavius's band of merry men."

"Must have been lots of people like that on Earth-616." Cisco says with a smile. "Speaking of, is it true you've pissed off a royal prince of a massively powerful nation that is crazy tech-savy?"

Seth looks at those he brought to Earth-616 with an incredulous look. "Which of you guys spilled the beans?" To his utter surprise, all four of his family raised their hands in confession. "Seriously?"

"I'm so coming next trip! I'm gonna fit myself into a suitcase if that's what it takes." Cisco stated adamantly.

"Would that be considered smuggling across the multiverse?" Venom raises a legitimate question.

"No idea…" Seth says vaguely, and he looks at the disruptor photos once more with care and concern.

While he looked sure he was carefully examining the photos, he wasn't careful enough and he could be seen by someone else dear to him.

X

"Doctor Octavius wants to talk to you?" Caitlin asks her mate as she and him walk towards their doorway into the house. Both of them are carrying grocery bags from their latest visit to the local supermarket. "And he knows your identity, too."

"Trust me, both of those are still throwing me a big loop." Seth admits to his beloved mate. "I just don't know how he knows my identity, though. Not like I have a billboard with my alter ego's name on it in the square."

Caitlin faces him with a fake stern look. "Babe, you promised me you'd take that down. It was ugly." The two of them burst into laughter at the bad joke they came up with. Mid-laughter, she stops and questions him seriously. "What if it was Taskmaster? He already knows who you are."

Seth frowns unsurely at that. "Not his style. His secrets are his and his alone. He's a mercenary. He rarely looks for a challenge like he has with me and when he does so, he makes it a challenge for him and himself."

"So he didn't share with the class either. Maybe it was Eliza?" Caitlin thought it over herself. "No, not like her too. Why would she give the name to him anyway?"

"Not out of gratitude for his part in helping her, that's for sure. He's a genius scientist, practically like an Earth-616 Wells." Seth chuckles.

Another look of realization took home on Caitlin's face. "What if that's how he did it?"

Following her train of thought, he asks. "You think he found out on his own?" Hearing his own words, he berated himself. "Yeah, that might be in his wheelhouse. He figured out the location of our operations after all. But…"

"Not like we do much against that, you know." Caitlin says. "Maybe we should have Matt swing by again, beef up S.T.A.R. Labs again." She gets out the keys from her pocket.

"Sure thing, just gotta ship Cisco off to whatever's farthest from here so he doesn't keep turning off whatever installments Matty's made." Seth chuckles.

Putting the key into the hole, Caitlin chuckles. "Think Lian Yu has got some open vacancies."

"Still don't get what that place is." Seth chuckles as his girlfriend opens the door.

"LOOK OUT!"

Tendrils sprouted from Seth's right arm, wrapping around Caitlin and she was pulled away, just in time to avoid….

…A webshot hitting the door…

"What the…" Seth mutters as he examines the web plastered on the door.

"Likewise. Thanks, I guess." Caitlin says as she looks at the same black web on the door. "What is this?" She looks into the living room.

"Sorry!" Evelyn says apologetically, holding up both hands. The young metahuman along with her sisters are standing in front of the S.H.I.E.L.D. suitcase that Nick Fury gave to Caitlin. The suitcase is open. But what catches the parents' eyes is the gun in Evelyn's right hand.

The gun is made with white plating, equipped with a high-tech scope. Along the left side of the barrel is an attachment that can shoot something through its nozzle and on the right side is a wider nozzle, appearing to release something else but of a wider range. At the end of the barrel is not another nozzle for a bullet to fly through, but something that looks like it releases something else.

"First of…" Caitlin puts the bags down. "Honey, put the gun down! Now!" Evelyn puts the gun-like device on the table. "Second of all, why do you have a gun?"

"Third of all, where did you get a gun?" Seth questions as he puts the grocery bags down.

"Grandpa Nick's case for Mom." Ruby gestures to the suitcase.

Frankie shrugs sheepishly. "We couldn't wait any longer and we opened it. Found lots of cool stuff in it."

"Including this gun. Only fires web though for some reason." Evelyn points to the device she has on the table. "And looks really cool."

Seth smiles as he walks to the table. "No way… It's my old stun gun."

"Stun gun?" Ruby asked with surprise. "You used a stun gun?"

"I did have stealth missions, Rubs. Lightning tends to flash and crackle too much, getting unwanted attention back in the day." Seth picks up the gun. "This thing alone releases a powerful shock, knocking down anyone with a single trigger pull. Pete and I worked on this design together, building two of them. They're based on a Symkarian stun gun. Sable gave us two of them, one for me and one for Peter's girlfriend. We modified and customized these things so many times." He takes it in his hand and aims at the extractor hood in the kitchen. "Unlike the one for MJ, mine flashes a big light to blind my foes up-close and personal, jam it into a guard's neck and knock them down, release a sound blast to disorient them and finally…" He pulls the trigger, shooting a black webshot from it which hits the hood in the kitchen. "Shoot web. Courtesy of the web-slinging spider we all know."

"That is so cool." Ruby says. "So Grandpa Nick brought your old toys back and handed them over to Mom."

"Well, you know your mother has a history of getting kidnapped a lot." Seth admits with a small chuckle. "Ow!"

Caitlin removes her hand from his shoulder after giving him a playful punch. "No need to bring up the bad history."

"Ah, cool." Frankie pulls out a wristwatch and dangles it in front of her eyes. "Grandpa included a watch for you, Mom." It looked like a high-tech wristwatch, boasting a modern and minimalist design. It has a square black tinted screen showing the time via bright blue LED lights. "It's cool. Can I have it?"

"Hold a beat, honey." Seth takes the watch out of her hand and examines it. "Yeah, I remember this one. Definitely not suited for you guys or me…" He turns his eyes to his mate. "Definitely something for you, babe." He straps the watch around her wrist. "Just promise me…" Caitlin looks at him. "Make sure you're not pointing this thing at any of us, okay?"

Caitlin chuckles. "It's a watch, babe. Not a doomsday weapon… Right?" She asks unsurely.

"No. Also, my Dad wouldn't give you a 084 wrapped around your wrist." Seth casually says while Ruby rummages through the S.H.I.E.L.D. case.

"Come again?" Caitlin questioned.

"Oh this is cool!" Ruby pulls the object, the object causing a rattling sound and getting the rest of the family to look in her direction. It was a high-tech short handle, similar to a lightsaber handle from Star Wars. There is a handguard on the handle. On the top of it is a blade that is short, sharp, and curved and resembles a sickle. The steel is dark red with bluish energy coursing through the top of the sickle reaching the tip. The other end of the handle is a long black chain that is several feet long, each link pulsating with blue light.

The gravity manipulator releases the chain, letting it fall to the ground and rattling loudly upon collision with the floor.

"This is so, so cool!" Ruby admits with a wide smile.

"My Kinetic Kusarigama?" The elemental says with shock. "Damn, I forgot all about that thing. Dad, you got a fun way of giving gifts to your family."

"Kinetic Kusarigama?" Ruby asked. "It's a Japanese ninja weapon?"

Seth admits. "Well, it's based on a weapon I had to deal with back in Japan for a mission I had with Peter back in the day. Granted, some Hand ninja tried to decapitate me with his weapon, but it did give me some good ideas back then."

"Hand ninjas are more old-school with their weaponry. They wouldn't use something like tech weapons." Ruby answers.

"Right on both. I had a creative phase as an agent and your Uncle Matt and I created this together." Seth says. "This thing was mighty useful."

Watching the energy course through the blade and chain links, Frankie asks. "What does it do?"

"Swing the blade around, all the kinetic energy in the chain is converted into the blade where it releases a powerful shockwave when it hits anything. Powerful enough to tear down a hole in a castle, and yes, it was tested." Seth smirks goofily. "Granted, it's not much for Caitlin."

"More like something for you, Ruby." Caitlin adds.

Ruby's eyes brighten up like Christmas lights. "No way, I can keep this?"

Seth looks at Caitlin for confirmation, seeing as she is the one who received the weapon as a gift. She looks at her daughter. "No using it in the house or on your sisters. You need to train with your father until he approves of field-use. And…" She looks at the blade uncomfortably. "Until you're ready to use it in the field, you're not putting that thing in your body. It stays in the case."

"Yes, yes, and yes!" Ruby widely smiles. "Thank you!" She hugs both of her parents, wrapping her arms around their necks and pulling them close. "Thank you! Thank you!"

"Wow!" Frankie says with mock surprise. "So, Ruby gets a new toy, Mom gets a new watch and a cool taser and we don't get anything? Grandpa Nick needs to make up for this so much."

"Maybe not." Evelyn says, pulling out a quad-copter drone-like device. "A drone. Think I can connect it to my phone?"

"Sure thing, just make sure you don't give that to Cisco. He'd love to tear apart S.H.I.E.L.D. technology." Seth says back, wondering why his father would give a D.W.A.R.F. drone to his girlfriend.

"No, there's more." Frankie pulls out three high-tech disks. "These are cool."

"Taser Disks? Damn, Dad must have raided Nat's arsenal." Seth chuckles. "Keep those, you guys. They can help you guys out a lot in a fight."

"Oh hell yes!" Frankie exclaims louder than before. She gets her family's attention when she pulls out five black credit cards, each one bearing the names of each member of their family. "Grandpa Nick gave us credit cards."

"What?" Seth reaches into the suitcase, pulling out a piece of folded paper which he unfolds and looks at it. He finds and laughs at the message from his father. "Just a little something to show how sorry I am for missing my granddaughters' birthdays and for almost losing my family. Don't make it a habit, enough of an occupational hazard on the job. Don't worry, enough money on each of them to last a lifetime. Also to show much I love you all. Love, Grandpa Nick."

"Seriously, Dad turns into a softie when he gets kids to dote on." Seth laughs to himself. "Give me the cards, I'll see how much he's put into them."

"But first…" Caitlin takes the card with her name on it. "Change, girls. Dinner's on me. Let's go."

"Yes! Big Belly Burger!" Evelyn exclaims, running past her parents.

"Hell no, Wackdonalds!" Frankie shouts, following her sister.

"No way, Chunky Chicken!" Ruby rushes after them.

Seth raises an eye in surprise. "First thing they come up with is fast food. How did our children come to this?"

"May I remind you you're the one who stuffs them with chocolate and tater tots all day long…" Caitlin throws a mock glare at him. He raises his hands in mock defense. "Your dad's gifts are amazing, Seth. Love them all."

"I am happy to hear that." Seth says with a smile. "Bit overkill with the money, but it's for the girls too. I can get onboard with that."

"So weapons are okay?" Caitlin questions with a chuckle.

"And a drone." He reminds her playfully.

"But again, it's much better than the animals Evie shadowports into our house." Caitlin chuckles.

"Oh yeah." Seth laughs. "I'm surprised we haven't heard a bark yet."

BARK

Seth and Caitlin's faces pale in fear when they hear a barking sound coming from upstairs. Both of them looked upwards with surprise on their faces.

"We jinxed ourselves." Caitlin admits.

"Gotta learn to shut my mouth." Seth sighs.

"Not likely to happen in this future." Venom quips.

"I'mma get Mrs. Cushing her dog back." Seth walks hastily towards the staircase. "Evie! That mutt better not have dropped anything up there! If so, you're grounded for a month!" He says as he jumps up the staircase.

Caitlin laughs to herself at his reaction and picks up the note from Nick Fury. She reads the message again in her head, over and over again. "Thanks, Nick. We're gonna invite you over next time. I promise."

X

"These last few days… They've been quite-"

"Let me guess… "Fascinating."" Eliza finishes off her "other's" thoughts, knowing that it was the symbiote's favorite word now.

The last few days… After what happened to the Sinister Seven, she and her Thunderbolts dealt with the aftermath in a very "productive" manner. But it did leave all of them very depleted, exhausted and in pain, forcing them to return to their hideout.

But unlike her, everyone else is so fatigued that they're even struggling to breathe. Griffin is so tired and exhausted; he's fallen completely asleep and lying against a keg. Evelyn is enjoying running water through her hair and over her face to wash out the dirt and grime from her head. Somehow still Joey and Rajeet remain awake on the couch, panting and laughing somehow despite all the ordeals.

Rajeet was the one who laughed the loudest, getting the attention of the lightning-user who was by her computer and tapping away on the keys. "Ellie? Meeting you has been a nonstop crazy adventure, plenty of fighting to be done and blood to spill."

"Really?" Eliza chuckles. "Haven't done much of the last one though lately."

"Day's still young, you know." Rajeet leaned forward on the couch with a groan of pain. Wrapping an arm around his stomach, he says. "But the option of tucking in early does look appealing right now."

"Want me to tuck you in?" Joey tapped his shoulder.

"Not sure that's the mood you want, buddy." Rajeet knocks his hand off his shoulder.

"Hey." Evelyn Sharp enters the room, her hair still slightly wet.

"What's up, Arty?" Eliza greets the young archer from Star City without facing her.

"Stop calling me that." She says back in frustration. "What exactly was the point back there?"

"Whatever are you talking about, young one?" Eliza feigns ignorance, focusing on her work on her computer.

"Don't play dumb with me, Harmon." Eliza snaps at her. "I'm asking why we had to throw Octavius and his posse to that thing like some oversized chew toys."

"Chew toys, huh?" Eliza laughs at that comparison. "Nice way to put it, and not exactly inaccurate. But I'd probably call them… sparring dummies."

"Whatever you wanna call them, they helped you get to where you are right now, Harmon." Eliza scoffs. "Yet, you were okay with throwing them away when they-"

"Sorry to tell you this, kid." Eliza cuts her words short, turning around to face the young archer. "But Octavius used me as much as I used him and his group. Not like we made each other friendship bracelets during our times experimenting on Venom's symbiote mass, creating Scream and all of your symbiotes. I thanked him for his help, then he had something we could use on our side, and I helped make sure it was taken from him."

"Is that what we are to you too?" Evelyn asks with an angry voice. Her clothes began to shift slightly. "Tools for you to dispose of? Thought we were your Thunderbolts and all. You're just gonna get rid of us till we're done doing your work?!"

"If I was you!" Eliza shouted back, making the young archer flinch and stagger back. Calming herself down, she says. "Arty, hadn't I intervened when I did, your little young life would've been cut short by an explosion on an abandoned island. A pointless death." The words dug into her, deeply cutting into her. "But here… With me, you are working with me and I've given you immense power that you didn't think was possible."

"I know that." Evelyn says.

Rajeet, while picking his nose, says. "Not to mention, you get to have your revenge on your meta-double. So why are you complaining so much?"

Evelyn snaps her head in his direction. "And you're okay with her being our puppeteer? Who knows? Maybe that little gauntlet of hers has a kill-switch on it, blowing our heads off if we stray from her vision."

"You've clearly read too many comics." Eliza chuckles, returning to her work on the PC.

"Well, Arty, I was rotting in a cell with other metas, complaining at the top of their lungs like babies whose mommy took their toys away." Rajeet nods to their leader. "Ellie here got me out of there and I got to have a power unlike anything else." He releases cold mist from between his fingers. "I'm going to follow her. Whether that ends with my death or in another cell… Doesn't matter to me. As long as I get to increase the number of kills on my counter."

"And you?" Evelyn asks Joey.

"Sets the right mood. All I need." He answers, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

"And don't bother asking Griffin." Eliza quips without facing her.

"I'm tired of that…" She grits her teeth in anger, her left arm releases symbiote mass and forms into a long barrel-long appendage. Taking aim at her leader, she shoots compressed water into a powerful stream.

But lightning bursts from around her body, firing off towards the water stream in multiple bolts of lightning. Upon collision with the beam of pressurized water, the lightning tore through it immediately and released steam from the collision. When the water was gone, the lightning bolts collided with Evelyn's body and knocked her off the ground.

She was hurled into a barrel with a grunt.

Evelyn opens her eyes slightly, but they snap wide open when she registers pale-white claws in front of her face. The moment she saw them, she pushed her head back. "What?"

"Huh?" To Evelyn's surprise, Eliza spoke with surprise. Her surprise remains when she looks at her white claws. "Thought it would work, or at least get a reaction. Shame." She walks back to her PC. Evelyn stands back up with a scoff. "Evelyn." She looks back at the young archer. "Trust me on this: I won't let you die a pointless death, nor am I gonna let anything happen to you while you're under my wing. Believe in that for now…"

Eliza perks her head up. Her "other" doing the same inside of her mind. "He has returned…"

"Tasky. How'd the search go?" Eliza calls out.

Dropping down from the ceiling, Taskmaster returns to his full height after he landed in a crouching position. "Curious… Lost sight of it."

"Seriously? How?" Eliza wonders with surprise in her voice. "Big ugly thing like that pet and you lose him? Did you lose your edge?"

"You're saying you made progress on your end?" The mercenary questions sarcastically.

Eliza chuckles at the question. While she was talking with her teammates, she was using her PC to search for the big wretched being that they helped back at the abandoned area. But after their part had been done, that thing just disappeared into thin air without any trace of as where it had gone.

X

(Klyntar Cave)

"Keep swinging." Seth instructs Ruby from the platform inside of the Klyntar Cave. He watches his daughter swing her sickle and chain blade around. It was akin to watching her draw a perfect circle with a neon light as she focused on the wall of double-reinforced quebracho. "Remember, I want to see that wall in splinters when you're done with it, Rubs. If not, I'm gonna get that card back from you."

"Yeah, right, Dad!" Ruby exclaims while focusing on swinging her weapon and holding her eyes on the quebracho wall. "That card is not leaving me anytime soon!"

"Cute how you think that." Seth says with a smile.

After an extravagant buffet dinner in the city last night, the Snow-Fury family tucked in with stomachs full of food. The next day they immediately made a beeline to S.T.A.R. Labs so the three children of the family could begin working with their new toys and weapons.

Evelyn was ecstatic with her D.W.A.R.F. drone as she used it to analyze the different components her mother had placed on the ceiling for her. She's been sitting on the ceiling surface and scanning various forensic components with her drone, seeing the immediate results of her scans on her phone which has long since been linked to it.

The young archer was shocked with herself. She didn't think she could have so much fun with a tool used for scanning forensic evidence.

Frankie was having just as much fun with her new weapons as her sisters are having with theirs. Hurling the Taser Disks towards the pillars that've ejected out of the floor. The disks fall to the ground, releasing powerful discharges to electrocute the power-detecting pillars. She smiles when seeing the electrical power used on them displayed on the monitors.

"Nice job, honey." Caitlin tells her ferrokinetic daughter.

"Alright, Ruby! Let it rip!" Seth instructs his daughter with an exlamation.

Ruby digs her feet into the floor, thrusting her arms ahead and swinging her sickle towards the quebracho wall. Her hands are still wrapped around the chain, each link passing through her clenched fists at incredible speed as the energized blade flies toward the wall. When the red blade finally dug into the wall, all the amassed energy within it came out, releasing it all in one big burst…

EXPLOSION

Causing a powerful explosion so powerful that even the double-reinforced quebracho failed to stand against the weapon, blowing it into million pieces and sending the splinters in every possible direction.

As her blade falls to the ground, clattering upon collision with the hard surface, Ruby chuckles and puts a hand over her mouth. "Holy hell, that was so awesome! Give me another wall, Dad! Or better! Steel! Iron! Something!" She fired off her words rapidly, jumping up and down madly in joy.

Seth walks down the stairs. "Calm down, Silver Samurai. You just learnt how to use that thing. Still got a way to go before you can bring that out to the field, you know."

"I know. I know. But it was freaking cool." Ruby smiles. "Grandpa Nick ought to bring us more gifts."

"Trust me, sweetie, last time you're gonna get weapons from good ol' Grandpa Nick." Seth says with a chuckle. He ruffled her hair, making her groan in mock frustration. "How about you guys?"

"Love it!" Evelyn shouts as she appears out of a smog of shadows, landing on her father's shoulders while fiddling with the D.W.A.R.F. drone. "I love this thing."

"Get off your Dad's shoulders, Evie." Caitlin tells her daughter who obliges with a small jump as she gets off his shoulders. "Frankie, you done?" She looks at her ferrokinetic child.

"Absolutely. It was fun." Frankie says.

"Didn't H.R. say he wanted us to come to the Speed Lab after we're done here?" Seth recalls.

"Oh great, what does that man want now? Introduce us to his newest coffee creation?"

"Don't tempt fate…"

X

(Speed Lab)

As surprised one would be, somehow H.R. Wells of Earth-19 didn't have a mug or cup of coffee glued to his hand as he is now busy decorating the Speed Lab with garlands and LED light chains, both of which are dangling with heart-shaped paper ornaments from them. Vibrant colorful decorations are spread around the training area.

"Whoa-ho-ho-ho, nice." H.R. says as he hangs up yet another perfect ornament.

Entering through the backdoor, Harrison Wells of Earth-2 walked into the Speed Lab while brushing his teeth. He comes to a brief stop as he takes in the numerous ornaments around the training area. While walking off the platform, he says. "What…" He looks at H.R. who's standing on a ladder. "Are you doing?"

H.R. looks at his doppelganger with a dramatic gesture to their surroundings. "Ah, I'm decorating! Look at this place! Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" He gets off the ladder.

"You're decorating the Speed Lab?" Harry asks, looking around the training facility.

"Yes, I'm decorating the Speed Lab. You know, 'cause Francisco, you know, he wouldn't let me decorate the Cortex, 'cause I made it look oh-so-jolly for Christmastime, and the Klyntar Cave was a no-go either cause Seth and his fam are busy training it up… And I'm sure those girls would've loved to use me for target practice."

"Join the club." Harry admits under his breath. Gesturing to the ball ornaments around them, Harrison-2 asks. "What are the balls for?"

"Do you know what those are? Lanterns." H.R says. "You know what I always say, "a fella that can't tell the difference between balls and lanterns is in trouble when the lights go out."" Harry groans while brushing his teeth, and Harrison-19 notices his brushing technique. "Ohhh… You go front to back." Harry looks at him blankly. "Toothbrushing. You go front to back? Cause I'm a small circles kind of guy. I wonder how the other Wells brushes his teeth."

"The murderer?" Harry questions blankly.

"I'm fascinated…." H.R. says. "By the subtle differences between us, you know?"

"And the not-so-subtle ones." Harry adds.

"Like what?"

Harry answers. "Like the fact that I'm a genius and you're a moron." He spits into H.R.'s coffee mug, tapping it with his toothbrush before walking away.

"Okay." H.R. says, slightly hurt by his doppelganger ruining a perfectly good cup of coffee. "See you at the party." Shaking his head free of the thoughts, he returns his decorating agenda and finishes up everything in the Speed Lab for the event.

After some time, every member of the team began to enter the training area and take in the new decorations that the Earth-19er had hung up.

"Wow. What a transformation. Again!" Barry says as he admires the ornaments with Iris beside him.

"Wow, indeed." Seth agrees. "Did we miss an event on our calendar?" He asks his mate.

Caitlin shifts her eyes from the ceiling where her daughters are looking around to take in the decorations to her mate before shrugging her shoulders. "Can't say we marked anything down for today. But…" She snakes an arm around his waist. "Does seem pretty nice."

"And romantic." Seth says, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her close.

"So this is H.R.'s contribution to the team? Being Martha Stewart?" Jesse asks while walking with her boyfriend, Wally.

Caitlin intervenes. "Guys, he's just trying to do something nice. And considering our last… "visitor," think we needed it."

"Can we please forget that man?!" Cisco exclaims in frustration and dismay at the reminder. "King Shark would have been a better visitor than Wade Wilson."

Frankie looks down at Cisco. "Haven't fixed the damage yet?"

"What damage? How he ruined my collectibles when he put them in certain positions or when he taped his face onto my posters?" Cisco wanted to continue but he had to remember they are kids.

"Yeah." Wally shivered. "Guy seriously went into our home and carved out Barry's faces from every framed photo in the house. He really holds a grudge against you, Barr."

"I've never even met the guy!" Barry shouts, terrified by the memories.

"Barry, calm down." Iris soothes him. "He's gone. He's not here anymore. We fixed everything he did."

Seth raises an eyebrow. "Did you check under your pillows?" Iris nods. "On your pillows?" Barry nods. "Beside your pillows?" The couple nods together. "Inside your pillows?" This time the couple hesitates. "Oh, boy, you're in for another nasty surprise."

"So we should check every piece of furniture for… Deadpool-ish things?" Iris asks.

"Already did with the city and our house." Seth admits.

"Heads up!" H.R. appears on the platform with a toy bow and arrow, releasing an arrow and it flies into the air. Evelyn looks down at it and shoots out a tendril from her right hand, catching the arrow and pulls it into her hand. "I'm not really good with this kind of thing."

"Leaving the archery to me, would you?" Evelyn says while playing with the toy arrow.

"You know what? That's a good idea. Maybe I got to take some lessons from that guy in the green left suit over there in Star City, what's his name?" H.R. says as he puts down the toy.

"Seriously, there's an excellent archer right here in this very room and he can only think of the one in tights in another city?" Dusk tells her host.

"Again, the man does drink more coffee than water. Probably rotted his brain some time ago." Evelyn thinks back.

"Green Arrow." Barry answers the Earth-19er's question. "Hey, what is all this?"

"Friend's Day!" Harrison-19 announces. "Ba-da!" He twirls around.

"What is that?" Ruby asks as she levitates herself off the ceiling and suspends herself in the air with her powers.

"Like I said, Friend's Day." H.R. repeats.

"Friend's?" Seth asks.

"Oh, it's my Earth's equivalent of Valentine's Day." Harrison-19 elaborates.

"Figured as much with the decorations as they are." Seth says as he taps the nearest lantern. "But what brought this celebration on, Wells?"

"Well, I thought, like, after, you know, our success with the gorillas, that we should, like, celebrate the love." H.R. explains. "Not to mention, we got our favorite multiversal family back again after a vacation to S.F.'s old stomping grounds."

"Yeah, a great trip to Earth-616." Frankie admits with a wide smile.

"Glad to hear that, Frankie." Joe says. He gives Seth a look. "But did you really piss off a royal Prince?"

"T'Challa pissed me off more." Seth counters.

"Was all this necessary?" Joe asks H.R. as he gestures to the decorations.

"Yes, it is, Joe. Speaking of, where is your…" H.R. not-so-discreetly says. "Your lady friend? Cause I would like to-"

"No, you wouldn't like to do anything." Joe cuts him off immediately. "She's at work, which is where I should be going." He starts walking away.

When he's about to walk past Seth, the elemental tells Joe. "Joe, we need to talk later."

"If I have time for it." The detective says without facing the mutant as he continues towards the exit.

Cisco looks at Seth. "What was that about?"

"It's about the Sinister Seven members." Seth says.

"Look what I have, ladies and gentlemen." Harrison-19 gets their attention. "I have your own personal Friend's Day card." He bows in front of Iris. "For you, Ms. West." He hands her a Friend's Day card.

"Thank you, H.R." She says with a smile.

"Captain." Harrison-19 gives a card to the Scarlet Speedster.

"Thanks, H.R." Barry expresses.

"Leader of the ship." H.R. taps his shoulder. "You're so welcome." He moves to the next person.

"Leader of the ship?" Reap mentally asks with a scoff.

"Yeah, if only he knew how many times that moron has almost sunk our ship." Ruby replies.

"Oh, hi, Jesse "So Quick."" H.R. hands the Earth-2 speedster her Friend's Day card. "Yeah, I also made one for your grumpy old dad." He hands her Harry's card too.

"Grumpy might not even cover it." Seth chuckles. Caitlin laughs at his joke.

"Ah, you know what I like?" H.R. walks over to the viber. "Yo' vibe." He hands Cisco the card.

"Thank you." The viber says.

He stands in front of Caitlin. "Caitlin. I got so many cards for you and your daughters. Hope you have a great Friend's Day."

"Why, thank you, H.R." Caitlin says as she accepts the cards. "Rubs, if you will." With mere flicks of her fingers, Ruby pulls the cards with her and her sisters' names out of her mother's hand.

"S.F." H.R. stands in front of the elemental. "Our fearful, powerful, lethal guardian… A token of our friendship, if I may." He bows again, handing out a card to the mutant.

"Friends don't bow to each other, H.R." Seth tells the Earth-19er who stands back up and gives him the card. "Thank you."

"You are so- Oh!" H.R. exclaims. "I forgot the coffee!" He runs out of the training lab.

Everyone began opening their cards, reading them out loud. First one being Jesse. "You have sped into my heart, Jesse Quick."

Hearing the words, Wally looks at Jesse. "Oh, well, I guess that makes two of us."

"Uh, H.R. is nothing like my dad." Jesse admits. "He's so sweet and thoughtful and understanding." An idea of inspiration hit her. "We should tell him."

"Tell your dad about you moving here?" Wally wonders. Jesse nods. "Um, now?"

Jesse shrugs her shoulders. "Yeah, I mean, H.R. said there'd never be a perfect time. Just got to rip the Band-Aid off." Wally nods hesitantly. "Okay, let's do it."

"Okay." Wally nods again and Jesse pulls him with her as they make their way to Harrison-2.

Opening his card, Seth reads the card. "You devour chocolate-covered hearts and protect still-beating hearts in the innocents, Seth Fury." The elemental chuckles. "Well, he is right; I do love Valentine for the cheap chocolate."

"Well, sounds like we're gonna go chocolate shopping soon enough." Caitlin says with a smile. She nudges him. "What did you want to talk about with Joe?"

"Iron Heights ain't equipped to hold the Sinister Seven members." Seth sighs. "Took an entire prison island to keep them at bay, and they've broken out of that island dozens of times."

"You want them transported back to 616?" Caitlin asks. He nods steadfastly. "Think that will be possible?"

"That's why I have to talk to Joe… Hoping he knows that's for the best." Seth says.

"Talk to him. I'm sure he'll understand you have more experience and knowledge on what's needed to hold them." Caitlin tells her mate. She hugs him. "Inside, he's still your friend. Remember what the Professor said."

"I will… Thanks." Seth says back, hugging her back and kisses her cheek.

While they read their cards, Barry says. "H.R. does make a good point."

"Yeah, what's that?" Iris asks.

The speedster elaborates. "It was a really big win for the team, beating Grodd. I mean, we stopped a gorilla attack from happening."

The reporter says with a smile. "Yeah, look at you, changing the future."

"We're all changing the future, one headline at a time." Barry says.

Iris nods. "Look, I don't know, what the future's gonna bring, but I hope every day is with you, which is why I wanted to ask you…" She takes his hands in hers. "Barry Allen, will you be my friend?"

Barry smiles lovingly. "Always." The two of them share a kiss and a hug.

While picking up a donut from the table of pastries, Frankie reads her card. "Your personality is what is truly magnetic about you, Frankie Snow-Fury." She coos after reading her card. "H.R. is really good at these."

"Bet you ten bucks Harry's gonna think he's an idiot." Ruby says with a chuckle. She reads her card while picking up a brownie with a tendril. "Your caring heart has a pull stronger than gravity, Ruby Snow-Fury."

""Caring heart?"" Evelyn laughs to herself. "You sure he's not thinking of another Ruby?" Ruby growls in retaliation. The metahuman reads her card. "Light and darkness runs in your veins, but you are a guiding light to help everyone through a tough storm."

"H.R. really is sweet." Caitlin says, hearing her daughter's Friend's Day cards. "And he does have a way with words."

"Author's skill." Seth taps her card. "What about yours?"

Caitlin opens her card with a smile. "Worry not about the frost on your heart, you bring warmth in ways the sun can't compare, Caitlin Snow."

"He's not alone in that." Seth says, placing his forehead against hers and looking into her eyes. "I can vouch for that. You are nowhere near cold."

"That's not what most of my patients say." Caitlin says back with a smile.

"Well, then you're hot and you're cold." Seth kisses her lips. "And any cold there will thaw out quickly."

"That might be because you bring all the heat." Caitlin rubs her head against his. "So Seth Fury… Wanna be my friend?"

"Try and stop me." Seth kisses her again, the two of them staying in their own little world for as long as their lips remain interlocked.

"Ugh." Cisco lets out as he bits into a donut.

"What is it, Cisco?" Seth asks as he and Caitlin separate from one another, looking at him with their full attention.

"Oh, nothing. But sometimes it seems like everybody else gets to have their love donut." The viber says in slight heartbreak. "Where's my love donut?"

"Just getting the final touches, buddy. Don't worry." The elemental says.

"I hope so." Cisco sighs. Distracting himself, he looks around in search before returning to the couple and asks. "Know where Julian is?"

Caitlin answers. "He's taking care of some family matters in London."

"Sounds like he's settling in nicely, making friends all around." Seth says.

"Yeah, the friend zone. I know it well." Cisco says with another heavy sigh. "Pretty sure I have a permanent residence there. You know, maybe I should just swallow the pill. Maybe my game just ain't strong."

Being the ever comforting friend she is, Caitlin argues. "Your game is so strong." Cisco chuckles. "For what it's worth, I think Lisa Snart was totally into you."

"Mayor Snart's sister and the deputy mayor?" Evelyn thinks.

"Other Earth matters, don't involve them in this place." Dusk says.

"Lisa Snart." Cisco sighs.

"Not that I would actually let you date her." Caitlin states.

"Really think you're one to comment on others' dating choices?" Cisco shoots back, playfully pointing a finger at Seth.

"Ow! You hurt my feelings, Cisco. I thought we were friends." Seth puts his hands over his chest.

"Dial it back a notch, Drama Venom." Caitlin taps his chest. She looks back at the viber. "Cisco, I promise you, there is a beautiful, intelligent woman out there who's gonna challenge you to be your best version of yourself. In fact, she could be right around the corner."

Whether it was by chance or by fate, a breach erupted into being near the talking group and a familiar collector from Earth-19 hopped out of it.

"Looks like someone's prayers were answered." Seth quips.

Unknowingly, a smile graces Cisco's face as he registers the beautiful collector. "Gypsy."

But whatever smile he had on his face was immediately washed away when Gypsy fired off a red vibe blast at the Earth-1 viber, sending him flying into the air where he fell onto the platform.

"Cisco!" Caitlin shouts.

"What the hell, Gypsy?" Seth shouts at her.

The collector snaps her head in the direction of the Scarlet Speedster, thrusting out her hand and fires off a vibe blast at him. He speeds to the side, avoiding the vibrational attack by twisting his body out of the way. He sped away from Iris, concerned that a stray blast might hit her by accident if he remained there. But the second vibe blast from Gypsy that restrained him, pinning him up against the wall.

He didn't remain there long as the collector swung her hand down, forcing the speedster down into the floor.

Gypsy then swings her head, setting her sights on the elemental. She fires off a vibe blast at him. Huge tendrils spout from Seth's lower back, wrapping around his mate before he uses those tendrils to force him off the ground and avoiding the blast. "Cait, double tap the screen and aim at Gypsy."

"What's gonna happen?" Caitlin asks while she's put down.

"Trust me!" Seth uses his massive tendrils to hurl himself towards the female viber. He knocks her down to the floor with him on top of her. Pressing his left forearm against her throat, while his right hand is keeping a tight grip on her left hand and tendrils pins her other limbs to the ground. "Gypsy, what the hell was that about?!"

"…" Gypsy doesn't say anything. Instead she sneers and struggles in his hold.

"What happened to you, Gyps?" Seth asks with concern. Her expression is so different from before. Before she was showing the demeanor of a professional collector, someone who has mastery over dimensional travels…

Now she's showing the demeanor of a rabid animal…

While he is laying in thought, transdimensional energy is converging into Gypsy's palms. Seth finally sees the energy in her hands when the light from it shines over his eyes, garnering his attention. And when his eyes laid upon her fists, it was that very moment when she released the energy in a powerful discharge. The massive energy hurls Seth into the air, thrusting him towards the ceiling.

"Argh!" He grunts in pain upon collision. Before he could fall though, tendrils hold him up and he stands upright on the surface, looking down on the collector who's looking up at him. "Really wanna take this further, Gypsy?" He ignites flames around his tendrils while lightning sparks around his arms and ice forms around his legs. Tendrils points down at her, sharpening tips with adamantium.

Gypsy thrusts out both hands at the same time in his direction.

"Not so fast!" Ruby prevents her, swinging her new weapon's chain towards her. It wrapped around her forearms, preventing her from shooting out any vibe blasts as her focus was disoriented.

"Come on! Come on!" Caitlin presses the black screen on her watch twice. After her final attempt in doing so, the watch splits open and reveals a miniaturized Arc Reactor inside of it. It shines with blue energy and from the sides of the circular device comes a flood of nanites that wraps around her hand, covering it completely.

The nanite swarm formed what was intended, forming what looked like a fingerless high-tech glove with an azure-blue and pale-white color scheme. "Nick, you got some crazy ideas for gifts." Caitlin says when she finally realizes what this thing is.

She looks at Gypsy and thrusts out her right hand, the Arc Reactor shining before the energy converges to her palm and quickly charges up. Once charged, Caitlin fires off a massive ultrasonic blast that travels across the distance between her and the collector, cracking the floor underneath their feet before finally reaching the Earth-19er.

Once the sonic blast hit her, Gypsy was sent flying off into the wall with a grunt. She fell to the ground unconscious.

"Okay, that was cool." Iris admitted.

"Very cool." Caitlin agrees.

"Argh!" Seth shouted as he fell to the ground. "Damn… Forgot how loud that thing was when put to use." He says while holding his ears.

"Seth?" Caitlin looks at her mate before looking at her daughters, who like their father is holding their ears. "Girls, you okay?"

"Peachy." Ruby grunts.

"Okay, I guess." Evelyn says.

"Been better." Frankie weakly laughs.

"So…" Everyone looks to the entrance to the training lab and sees Harry holding his energy rifle and having it trained on Gypsy. "Who the hell is this?"

Boy, was he in for a long story…

X

(Pipeline)

After some time, Gypsy opened her eyes and she found herself inside of a strange cell. It was the first time she was in the S.T.A.R. Labs containment cell.

But still, waking up in this cell left her startled. "Where am I?"

"Morning, sunshine." Seth's voice brought the collector's attention to look through the glass door and she finds him, Cisco, Barry and H.R. Wells on the other side of the cell. "Hope you like your room. Sorry, penthouse suite is taken."

"What the…" Gypsy jumped back up to her feet. "Why am I locked up?"

"You're in a metahuman containment cell, think you can work out the rest from there, right?" Seth sarcastically says.

She tries to fire off a vibe blast to open a breach, but is unable to do so. "Oops." H.R. says as she tries again.

"My powers don't work in here." Gypsy breathes heavily, continuing to try and open a breach.

"Containment cell for metas, Gypsy. Like Seth said." Cisco states. "What happened back there? I thought we were all on the same page." Seth notices confusion on the collector's face. "I spared your life, and you said you'd go back to Earth-19 and tell everyone you killed H.R."

"Don't forget all the coffee she hoarded like a maniac." Venom quipped.

"Another time for that." Seth replies back.

"That's exactly what I did." Gypsy says, turning to face Harrison-19. "I told the council you were dead."

"I don't believe you." H.R. shakes his head.

"I didn't come here to take you back." Gypsy assures him. H.R. looks unconvinced. "I'm telling you."

Seth declares. "She's telling the truth."

Barry looks at him. "She is?" Seth nods. "Then why are you here?" He turns to face the collector.

"I don't know." She admits. Gypsy starts explaining and the men listen carefully. "The last thing I remember, I was on Earth-2… Hunting down another breacher."

"Earth-2?" Seth says.

Barry continues. "Wait. You were just on Earth-2? Where?"

"I got a bad feeling it involves an African jungle…" Seth mutters.

"It does…" Gypsy nods her confirmation. "Where I saw-"

"Let me guess." Cisco turns to glance at his teammates' faces of conflict and frustration. "A gorilla? Super tall? Anger management issues?"

"Grodd must have taken control of her and sent her here to kill us." Barry deduces.

"Her alone against our group of metas and powered beings? Gypsy's strong but our numbers are more than enough against her." Seth says.

"Yeah, not to mention, she's on a different Earth than him, and Grodd's telepathy can't cross dimensions like that." Cisco says with fear in his voice.

Barry then realizes who Grodd is and his upbringing in this very facility. "Grodd said he always thinks ahead, just like the Reverse-Flash. He didn't have you to open a breach, so he used Gypsy instead."

Seth grits his teeth. "That means that fucking ape is here."

"Something tells me he's not alone." Cisco says.

X

(The Cortex)

The entire team was left in dismay and fear when they heard the news of Gorilla Grodd returning to Earth-1 and having brought an army of telepathic gorillas with him. The telepathic primate is back on their grounds and is looking for vengeance, willing to rain it down on every single civilian of their city.

Despite the fate of destruction looming over the city, the team tried to deal as best as they could.

Even now Seth is tending to Caitlin after her first use with the wristwatch and its true functions. "How's your hand, babe?" Seth asks as he takes his mate's right hand, rubbing her hand.

"I'm fine babe. Thankfully, Friday could get it off my wrist." Caitlin says. She groans as she twists her hand around. "Can't imagine how Matt can handle firing off something like that all the time."

"Practice makes perfect as they say." Seth says with a chuckle. "You okay with this?" Caitlin looks into his eyes. "Grodd brought an army this time, Caitlin. He's coming for blood now."

"Yeah… Think we can stop him?" Caitlin asks him.

"I have no idea." Seth admits honestly. "You've seen Grodd fight, his ruthlessness, and then you've seen how he amassed the command of all of Gorilla City. Every one of them is not just a soldier, but a telepathic gorilla with spears, shields and the strength to pummel a tank into dust."

"…And I have to ask again, Seth, do you think we can stop him?" Caitlin has to ask him again.

"…And I honestly have to say again, I do not know, Caitlin." Seth answers honestly. He feels her hands shaking and the rest of her trembling. "But don't worry." He hugs her tightly, pulling her into a comforting embrace. The hug was short as he cups her face and looks into her eyes.

"I promise you, Caitlin… I will not allow a single gorilla to come close to S.T.A.R. Labs. Whatever I have to do, I will protect our home, our family… You." Seth steadfastly says, speaking with adamantium-like assurance that was unlike anything. "I will stop them. I promise you, Caitlin."

"I know, you don't have to promise anything, you always do what you have to do for our family." Caitlin says back, hugging her tightly. "I love you, Seth."

"Love you back, Caitlin." Seth tells her.

"Any sign of Grodd yet?" The Scarlet Speedster questions Cisco and Harry again.

"Not since you asked 30 seconds ago." Cisco tells him.

"Okay, he's a giant gorilla…" Everyone looks at Barry when hearing his voice of frustration. "Who's probably leading an army of giant gorillas. How can you not find him?"

"He's probably figured out a way to scramble our satellites." Cisco said. "We're talking about a genius super-ape here."

"Which is also why we're using satellites and old-school tracking, seeing as my daughters are out there right now tracking him with their eyes and skills." Seth tells the speedster.

"And a master strategist who successfully fooled us on my Earth." Harry adds.

H.R. quips at his doppelganger's words. "Yeah, we Wellses, we don't fool easy, do we, Hard Hat?" He points at his doppelganger from Earth-2 with a gesture of his drumstick.

"Don't call me "Hard Hat."" Harry tells him.

"Aright. S.F." H.R. turns to the mutant. "Think the Venomized Powerpuff Girls can help track down our primate adversaries?"

"First of all, don't call my daughters Powerpuff Girls ever again." Seth tells her.

"Second of all…" Caitlin continues. "Evie can shadowport quicker than Barry and Wally, she can pop around all over the city to try and find Grodd. Ruby, after her training with the mutants of Earth-616, can now feel the gravitational pull of people. Hopefully, that extends to a telepathic gorilla that she's never met before. Frankie's searching too with the best she can do, trying to scout from vantage points and buildings. Hopefully, something pans out."

Barry moves to stand beside Iris at the console, crossing his arms with a serious look. "We have to find him before he hurts somebody else."

"Don't worry, Barry. We will." His girlfriend comforts his troubled mind.

"Every time I think we've beat him, he comes back stronger, smarter and more dangerous." Barry says, hints of frustration and grudge in his voice. "He's evolving…" As though a revelation hit him, he says. "I keep trying to fight him the same way."

She puts a hand on his shoulder, stroking his arm as Iris says. "Okay, guys, look, we just have to come up with a different way to beat him."

"What we need to do is get ahead of him for once." The Scarlet Speedster says, moving around the console again.

"Remember the headlines, Barry." Seth reminds the speedster.

"Fury's correct, you've seen the future. You all have." Harry tells the team. "You know there's an attack. If we just figure out where that attack happens, we can launch a preemptive strike against Grodd."

"Thus stopping the attack before it ever starts…." H.R. says, inspired by his own words.

"Don't put that into your novels." Seth instructs the author from Earth-19.

"Thought never crossed my mind." Harrison-19 smiles, holding a hand up defensively.

"What novels?" Harry asks. Seth brushes off his concerns and the Earth-2 scientist accepts it, thinking he'd receive a headache. "Fine. Fortunately, regarding our situation at hand, we have someone who can foresee future events." He walks over to the viber himself, placing a hand on his left shoulder.

"Before they happen." H.R. adds, placing a hand on his other shoulder.

"Okay, okay!" Cisco shrugs their hands off his shoulders. "There's only one problem. I can only vibe what Barry saw, and a ticker on the side of a bus stop doesn't give us a whole lot of info."

Thinking to herself for a moment, Caitlin walks around the console and suggests. "What if we widen the scope of your vibe? Then you can see more of the future."

"Yes, I can do that." Harry snaps his fingers in realization. "I just need to borrow your vibe gear." He starts moving towards the exit.

"Harry, that's my only pair." Cisco tells him.

"I'll be careful." The Earth-2 scientist assures him.

"It's my only pair." Cisco repeats.

"West…" Harry points at Wally. "Come with me, you have an engineer's mind."

Hesitantly Wally says. "Yeah, sure. Happy to help." He follows the scientist after getting an unsure shrug from his girlfriend who's moving to this Earth to stay with him now after getting permission from her father.

"We're gonna need all the help we can get." Barry looks at Seth. "Can you talk to Joe, see if he can rally CCPD?"

"First of all, are you stupid?" Seth starts off, making the speedster raise an eyebrow in offense. "Joe and I are a bit on the outs, if you haven't forgotten? Second of all, why the hell would you wanna let him and his police force go up against an army of sentient gorillas intent on storming our city? That'd be the definition of "lambs to the slaughter.""

"Seth's right, CCPD can't hold their own against meta-gorillas." Caitlin agrees.

"Yeah…" Iris thinks to herself. "Doesn't mean they couldn't uselaying the heads-up and evacuate the city." She suggests. Seth nods his agreement. "He's gonna love this." She quips, taking her jacket and putting it on before walking out of the exit.

"Yeah." Barry agrees.

"What about Gypsy?" Caitlin asks. "She's a really powerful meta."

Jesse asks. "Yeah, but how do we know she's not a Grodd sleeper agent?"

"She's not. I checked her out." Cisco says.

Seth looks at the viber. "Think you can convince her to join our merry band of heroes for this fight?"

"Bruh, she won't say no to me." He says confidently before walking towards the exit.

"Fun as that might be to watch, I'm gonna go out and give the girls a hand with surveillance. In case they meet any unfriendly meta-gorillas." Seth says as he moves till he's under the skylight. "Call me if anything happens while I'm out and if you spot any gorillas." He receives a wave of nods before leaping out of the skylight.

X

(Pipeline)

"No way." Gypsy says without hesitation when the viber of Earth-1 came to her with his offer. Cisco looks defeated. In her defense, the collector says. "You've got three speedsters, an ice queen, and a guy who vibes almost as well as I do. Not to mention, a family of demons, one of whom is an elemental and the other are metas with their own set of freaky powers."

"Technically, Rubs isn't a meta, she's got a category for herself." Cisco clarifies.

"See… You don't need my help to stop Grodd." Gypsy says.

Cisco counters. "Need I remind you, you're the one who brought Grodd here in the first place."

"Not by choice." Gypsy says in her defense. "I was chasing a fugitive from my world on Earth-2 when Grodd ambushed me and turned me into his damn puppet."

"Okay, so then this is the perfect opportunity for payback, right?" Cisco argues, hoping to convince her to join this fight. "Don't tell me you're gonna run away from this." He challenges her.

"I never run." Gypsy says, offended by his words.

"Then stand and fight with us." Cisco tells her. Gypsy remains still. "We need you."

"You need me?" The collector asks, gesturing to herself. She sighs. "Are you trying to Luke Starkiller me?"

"…God, I'm gonna marry her…" Cisco tells himself with a chuckle as he steps closer to the door. "What if I am? Is that what it's gonna take to get you to stay? Here's a bonus, you get to spend extra time with this face." He points a finger at his face. "And look at this face. Come on. Who doesn't want to get to spend extra time with this guy?"

This got a reaction out of her, making the collector smile slightly and looking away from the male viber. But then something came across her face, a slight of concern and… fear?

Catching this, Cisco asks. "What?"

"The things I saw, when Grodd was in control of my mind, the horrors in that monster's head, I can never un-see them." Gypsy states.

"What horrors?" Cisco questions.

The collector says. "The city in ruins, people in pain, death everywhere. That's what Grodd wants, what he's planning…" Gypsy returns her gaze to the other viber. "I'm sorry, Cisco. This is your fight, not mine." Cisco gives her a saddened look at her fear-struck expression. "Now, if you don't mind, I still have a fugitive to catch, so…"

With a reluctant shake of his shoulders, Cisco says. "Okay. I understand." His words shocked the collector. He walks over to the panel near the ramp and opens her door.

The doors open and the collector walks out of the cell. Walking over to the native viber, she tells him. "Take care of yourself, Cisco."

Cisco holds out her gun. She reaches for it, but he playfully pulls it out of her reach. He smirks, saying. "Admit it. You are so into me."

Neither denying nor confirming his words, she accepts her gun without a word.

But it doesn't sit well with the native viber, whose team have no means of increasing their numbers now.

X

Landing on top of a yellow crane, Venom looks down on the city from the jib. He grits his teeth, hissing in frustration when images of his city lying in ruins show up in his head, images of Gorilla Grodd's entire army descending upon the city like a missile bombardment. The city street might be filled with blood… Fresh red blood running into the drains…

"Don't think about what might happen… Think about what to do now."

Seth scoffs. "Always gotta bring our attention to the situation at hand."

"Future's not here yet. Present is where we are at now, which deserves more of our attention than anything else right now." Venom states to his host.

"Yeah, you're right." Seth cracks his neck. His "other's" senses flares when he feels familiar presences getting closer to him. "They're here."

From the side, swinging through the air, Magenta came into sight. Thrusting out both hands, she shoots two tendrils and they stick to the jib. She pulls on them both, pulling herself through the air and towards the crane, spinning around it and letting go of them while in the air. Gravity does the rest of the work and she lands on it beside her father.

From the other side, another figure runs up the side of a skyscraper almost as tall as the crane. Genysis slides to a stop near the very top of the building before jumping off it. With her gravitational powers, she catapults herself through the air like a bullet. She levitates along the side of the jib before pushing herself to it, rolling on the side of it till she reaches her father and sister.

From ahead of them, a figure appears from out of shadows. She runs along the side of the building she is on, leaping off of it and onto the top of another one. She nears a couple of buildings and shadowports to them, falling between them. Thrusting out her serpentine wings she extends and attaches them to both buildings, pulling them to slingshot her closer towards the crane. With another shadowport, she lands in front of her father and her sisters.

"Good...You're all here." Seth says while the symbiote mass around his form slithers back into his body.

The symbiote around the girls' faces slithers back inside and they look at their father. "Tell us you have some news for us, Dad?" Frankie asked. "Cause the three of us running around the city searching for gorillas ain't getting us anywhere."

"I tried everything… But…" Ruby sighs. "I can't feel the pull of Grodd. I can feel with Dad, Mom, you guys, Miles… Even the others on the team." She sighs. "But my Gravity-Sense doesn't work on Grodd or any of the gorillas."

"Would it even have worked on them to begin with?" Evelyn questions, garnering her sister's attention. "I mean, you know us personally, you've met us, you have a connection with us. But with Grodd and all the Earth-2 gorillas… You only know of them through security footage or by words from Dad and the rest of the Earth-2 rescue team."

Forming up a theory from her sister's words, Ruby gives an annoyed growl. "Great, so my new power is conditional. That's nice."

"It's okay, Ruby. You're doing what you can and you're not stopping. We're gonna find our way to Grodd and his army." Seth confidently says to his child. "Don't give up, any of you, alright?" He tells his daughters. They all nod their heads. "Good. Change of plans. But first…" As he's about to explain, he pulls out three chocolate bars and throws them to his children. "Fuel up, you've been at this too long." He tells them and they oblige.

He explains while they open their chocolate. "From now, we're going in pairs of two. Evie, you're tagging with me. Frankie and Ruby, you're going together." They nod their heads. "Each pair has long-range and close-range combative prowess. You've stuck to tracking in the city, stop that. Grodd is too big to go unnoticed in the city, especially one that has cameras around every inch of it. If he had an army, he would have been noticed a long time ago. Move towards the outskirts of the city, an army doesn't just pop out of thin air. They march into their target's country. There's gotta be a ground, some abandoned place outside the city where they are waiting for Grodd's marching orders."

"What's the plan if we see something?" Ruby asks.

"You turn tail, run the other way and regroup with the others before returning fire." Seth says. "With the exception of Grodd, the rest of the apes don't need their heads separated. Not to mention, we gotta fight with every resource on our side. We fight the army together. Stop them, save people and make sure they don't draw the blood of any innocent here."

"And send them packing." Frankie says. "Good."

"We fight and protect our home." Evelyn stands up, finishing the last piece of her chocolate. "Or die trying."

"Really, you guys love stealing my catchphrases." Seth says. "Alright, finish up." Frankie and Ruby stand up, finishing their food. "We leave the research for the others for now, but if there's any development on the frontlines, we're the vanguard and intercept any threat. Understood?" They nodded their heads, his daughters' bodies enveloped by their symbiotes. "Alright, let's go!" He says when his own body is enveloped by symbiotes before they jump off in two separate directions, each pair is going to explore a possible area.

They traveled through the air like bullets fired from a high-caliber rifle, unseen by many on the streets below them… But not invisible which is why someone else saw them jumping off the crane…

"Fascinating…" Scream tells her host.

Revealing herself from beside a rooftop doorway, Eliza Harmon points her narrowing eyes in the different directions the family went off to. ""Fascinating" is one word for it. I'd go for "curious," though." She raises an eyebrow when her "other" picks up another presence. "You wanna add "spying and following" to your list of skills, Arty?"

Evelyn Sharp, while seated on top of the doorway, says. "Maybe. What are you doing here?"

"Could ask you the same…" Eliza counters.

Jumping off the doorway, Evelyn answers. "Wanted to check out what you were doing. What is it?"

Eliza chuckles. "Well, we got Venom's entire family out there, searching for some reason. And it's suspicious."

"Maybe they're looking for us." Evelyn says. "Figure with what happened with the Six, they might just be searching for us. They probably think we're the responsible party."

"No, that's not it." Eliza shakes her head. "If they were, they wouldn't go to… such vast, big areas. They're going to them alone. We're a small group, Seth and the others would know we'd be sticking to covert areas in the city. They're looking for something else."

"Like what?" Evelyn asks and Eliza shrugs her shoulders. "Want me to find my double and ask her ever so nicely?"

"No, stay away from them. They…" Eliza crosses her arms. "Something is about to come over our city."

"You sound concerned." Evelyn asks in surprise, walking up to her side. "Why?"

"Love the beignets at Jitters." She answers the question jokingly. Raising an eyebrow, she asks. "How's your hacking skills?"

"Non-existent." Evelyn says.

"Let's fix that, shall we?" Eliza says, walking towards the archer and pulling her along.

X

(S.T.A.R. Labs, The Breach Room)

Opening the side door into the Breach Room, Joe rushed into the room in a hurry. "Hey, SWAT's ready to roll whenever y'all are." He comes into the room, standing in front of the platform. "We find Grodd yet?"

With a sigh, the speedster says from the platform computer. "We're about to." He walks down the stairs and towards the viber who's at the center. "Cisco, you ready?"

Caitlin and Harry are working on their separate station while Cisco's seated in a chair with his goggles on. He tells the Earth-2 scientist. "Harry, this thing, if it fries my brain-"

"It's an improvement." Harry throws a quote out.

"Was that Rocky?" Cisco questions.

"Yeah, Burgess Meredith." Harrison-2 quips.

Cisco points a finger at him, laughing out loud with a smile. "Yeah, I'm ready."

Harry states. "Word of warning. Vibing blind, it's like surfing a monster wave. You need to stay above the temporal flow. Otherwise, your consciousness can get sucked under."

Barry, Joe and Caitlin snaps their eyes at the scientist from Earth-2 when hearing that "casual" warning. "And then what happens?" The secret ice metahuman asks.

"I don't know." Harry says with a shrug. "Guess we'll find out."

"Wait." Cisco says but Harry starts up the machine. "What?"

His focus was rediverted when the vibe hit him like a freight train…. An array of flashing lights bursting into his vision like malfunctioning street lamps…

X

To the point where he knew his head would be spinning…

…

Cisco was spiraling through the streets of his city…

…

"Where are you, Ramon? What do you see?" Harry asks…

…

Cisco looks around, stopping when he finds a street sign. "I'm at an intersection. State and Oakhill. I think this is where it goes down."

X

"That's a block away from the bridge." Joe says. "That leads right to the heart of town. If these gorillas get over that bridge-"

"They'll overrun the city in no time." Harry says.

Barry says. "Not if we stop them first."

"Seth's waiting there with SWAT right now…" Caitlin says.

X

At the intersection of State and Oakhill dozens of police vehicles are stationed with officers wearing SWAT gear. In the middle of them is Detective Joe West who's giving the group the final instructions.

"Eyes wide, everybody. Grodd's army could be here any second, all right?"

They nod their heads and step back when they see someone stepping up behind the detective. Seeing their reaction, Joe looks down at the ground and sees a huge shadow come over him. He turns around, coming face to face with Venom with a small sigh.

"What's the deal?" Joe asks him.

Venom stands in front of him. "Speedsters are searching right now. Strange we haven't heard anything yet." He says. Looking at Joe again, he says. "If the gorillas do come within vision-"

"I know, I know, Seth." Joe cuts him off. "Officers in the back, shooting apes with our guns and you guys pummel them in the ring. "

"You know us too well, Detective." Venom says hollowly, noticing the tone in Joe's words.

"Guess I do." Joe says.

"Something else you might know…" Joe gives the mutant his attention. "Iron Heights can't hold the Sinister Seven."

Joe narrows his eyes. "You want them transported to 616?" Seth nods. "I understand and I get it. Lots of 616 folks are some that our city can't handle… Good guy and bad guy." He snidely says despite the mutant's presence in front of him. "I'll look into it, circle back to you after."

"Thank you…" Venom nodded slowly, turning around and walking.

But the detective stops him. "Hey." The elemental stops and looks behind him and sees his old friend walking up to him. "Mind answering something for me?"

"Shoot." Venom looks at him fully.

Unsurely, he asks while scratching his nose sheepishly. "I know this isn't the right time to ask this, at all… But… What's the deal with the girls?" Seth tilts his head in confusion. "Before you and the others went off to rescue Harry in Grodd's nightmare kingdom of apes, Caitlin told me I didn't need to help your girls with food or visit them, so they don't burn down the house. The girls sounded sure of it, too. Why?"

"First time we're hearing it." Seth replies. "We thought you had visited them during our rescue and kept an eye on them."

"I hadn't. Drove by their place a few times, but never walked up their door or anything…" Joe says. "You didn't know about this?"

"Not till now, no." Seth replies. "We'll talk with the girls after all this, if our city's still standing."

"Way to be optimistic." The Flash quips as he, Kid Flash and Jesse Quick walk up to him and Joe.

"There's no sign of them." Kid Flash asks.

Joe walks past the elemental. "You sure this is the right place?" He directs to the older speedster.

"According to Cisco, this is it." Barry answers.

"What about the time? Is this the right time?" Jesse Quick questions.

"We're too early…?" Barry states asks out loud as he and the others look around in search.

But they were quite wrong…

"No, Flash." Joe spoke, garnering the attention of them all. "You and Demon… Are too late…"

"Grodd…" Venom snarls, looking down on the mind-controlled detective with rage in his eyes.

"I remember." Grodd says through Joe. "This human is important to you both. Now…" He unholsters his gun…. Aiming it at the detective's temple. "He's all mine."

"No! Hey, do not hurt him!" Barry screamed.

"Lay a hand on him, hell is gonna be a dream compared to what we will do to you!" Venom snarls infuriated while wondering if he can use any of his powers to get to the firearm before he can even pull the trigger.

"We're the ones you want, right?" Barry gestures to him and Seth.

"I warned you both." Grodd says. "And now, I'm here on First Earth to make good on my promise. And when I'm finished, this city and all the puny humans will die." The telepathic grits the detective's teeth…

But that was not all he did with the detective's body…

With his telepathic commands, Grodd pulls the trigger on Joe's gun. The gunshot is deafening, echoing and hitting all of their ears all at once…

Time slowed to a crawl as Barry screamed out loud. "NOOOOO!" He speeds towards his adoptive father. The bullet travels towards his temple, about to penetrate Joe's head and put an unfortunate end to the favorite father of Central City.

Thankfully, Barry is able to push Joe away from the bullet and into Seth's hand. The bullet falls to the ground as the speedster brushes the bullet into the foundation.

"Joe!" Barry exclaims as the detective closes his eyes. He opens them again with relief in his eyes.

"Are you okay, West?" The elemental asks him.

Joe nods his head, getting out of Seth's huge hand. "I think so." He brushes his temple, seeing blood on it from where the bullet grazed him. He looks over his shoulder. "Thanks."

"Thank us when we find that stupid ape." Seth states with rage in his voice.

"I don't get it." Kid Flash says. "How is attacking Detective Joe West a part of Grodd's plan?"

Venom and Flash look at each other, sharing a look. "It wasn't/ It wasn't." They spoke at the same time, realizing the telepathic meta-gorilla's intentions.

"Then what was it?" Jesse Quick asks.

"A distraction." Barry says with dismay in his voice, realizing that Grodd pulled a fast one over them all.

X

(S.T.A.R. Labs)

Inside of the medbay, Joe was getting patched up by Caitlin. She stitches up the cut on his forehead.

Once finished, Caitlin removes her needles and tweezers and gives him an assuring look. The detective gives a heavy sigh. "That damn gorilla almost got me this time."

"Shouldn't even have a scar." Caitlin assures him as she pulls off gloves.

"Uncle Joe!" Frankie shouts, rushing into the medbay with her sisters behind her. "You okay?"

"We heard you got shot." Ruby says.

"What happened?" Evelyn says next.

"Calm down, guys." Seth tells them, lifting his hands up and telling them to lower their volume. "Grodd took control of Joe and pointed his own gun at him. Barry stopped the bullet, but it did graze him."

"Won't leave a scar." Caitlin assures her daughters.

"I'm fine, girls." Joe smiles as he faces them, watching the relief on their faces. He was glad to see their relief on their faces. "Thanks for the concern though."

Frankie's eyes blaze with magenta light. "Wait till I find that fucking ape, I'll strangle him with his own guts and stomp on his fucking heart!"

"Leave a piece for me…" Evelyn growls.

"Calm down, girls." Seth puts a hand on their shoulders while looking at all three of them. Ruby may not have said anything, but he could see the rage on her face and in her eyes. "Put your anger in a box. Keep the box tightly locked, then break it when you see Grodd's army. Trust me, we're gonna get our chance to get our payback, for sure." His words seemed to have the right effect on his children, all of them calming down. But that did not stop Frankie from hugging Joe tightly.

Seth smiles at that, knowing there's still a bond between his former best friend and his daughters.

"Do you remember anything from when Grodd was controlling you?" Harry asks the detective.

Joe sighs while hugging his niece. "Not really. There's just some… flashes."

"Flashes of what?" Iris asks her father.

"They were, like, these images, places I've never seen before." Joe answers vaguely. He strokes his niece's head as he continues. "It was like I was seeing what I was seeing. I'm okay, honey. Tougher than I look, you know."

"I know, Uncle Joe. Just happy." Frankie says as she unwraps her arms from him.

Cisco, when hearing some familiarity in Joe's words, says. "Gypsy said the same thing." Harry walks forward to the detective with an inspired look on his face. Seeing that, he says. "Uh-oh. Here we go. I know that look. That's the "I have a genius idea" look."

With that exact look on his face, Harry elaborates. "A couple years back on my Earth, there was a neuroscientist that was able to achieve memory recovering using transcranial magnetic simulators on brain-damaged-"

"We use that here but more as a depression treatment." Caitlin cuts in.

"Same on Earth-616." Seth adds. "It's been used a lot in Xavier's School and at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy."

"Well, in this experiment, the neuroscientist focused all the energy on the occipital cortex of the patients, allowing them to achieve almost full memory recollection." Harrison-2 continues.

Iris leans off the table. "So you think the connection Grodd creates in the brains of those he mind-controls goes… both ways?"

"Could be." Harry says.

An idea flashes over Caitlin's mind as she suggests. "Maybe we could use Grodd's memories that he left behind in Joe to figure out what his plan is."

"Give us a peek into the ape's mind for once." Seth smirks.

"We'd just make some TCM simulators." Cisco suggests. "All it takes is some-"

"Magnets." Seth snaps his fingers. "Couple some of them together-"

"Make a helmet out of them." Harry says.

"Hold on." Joe got the scientists' attention. "Y'all want to put a bunch of magnets against my skull to look into the mind of a psychotic, murderous ape?"

Cisco and Harry nod their heads. "Yeah." The Earth-2 scientist says.

"Don't worry, Uncle Joe. None of us are interested in Grodd's search history." Evelyn quips gleefully with a wide smile.

"Sweetheart, try and take after your mother more than your old man, please." Joe tells the young metahuman who shrugs her shoulders in response. "Fine." Cailin rubs his shoulder in comfort.

"We're all gonna be there, Joe. Nothing's gonna happen to you." Seth assures the detective.

"Let's make it happen before Grodd tries to kill somebody else." Barry says. His words had a strange tone to it, leaving all of them with strange and baffled minds. He walked out of the medbay, his girlfriend followed him.

"Girls…" Seth got his children's attention. "Come with me for a bit." He says, walking over to the entrance to the Cortex. Walking through it, his daughters follow him. A tendril shoots out from his back and closes the door behind them as he turns around to face them. "Your Uncle Joe told me something strange."

"Stranger than a psycho ape taking over his mind?" Ruby points at the medbay entrance behind them.

"Guess so…" Seth says with a weak chuckle. "Joe told me you guys have been distant to him." Eyes widened when they heard his question. "Why? Did something happen? Did he say something? Did you guys say something? Wait, did he make another one of his Grandma Esther's recipes?"

"No to all of them…" Frankie tilts her head as she clarifies. "Except for the second one."

"What do you mean?" Seth asks in confusion.

Evelyn sighs. "Dad, you know how Uncle Joe's been towards you. He's been angry with you, saying mean stuff behind your back and even to your face."

"He's angry, guys-"

"We know he's angry, Dad!" Frankie cuts her father off. "We know Uncle Joe is angry with you most of all for keeping the big team secret about Iris from him. But he forgave Barry and the others already… Why not just you?"

"Because honey…" Seth crouches down before Frankie, putting his hands on her shoulders. "I am not like the others on the team. You know this. Before I even joined this team, I was Joe's friend. I helped him and he helped me in ways only a friend can do so. We're both fathers and… Keeping this secret from him, it's what broke our friendship. He didn't do anything wrong, if anyone's to blame it's me."

"Dad, you were trying to protect him from doing something reckless." Ruby says.

Removing his right hand from Frankie's shoulder, he puts it on Ruby's shoulder. "And Ruby, I already told you before, that if anyone kept a secret about something like this about you guys from me, I'd be furious too. With a rage of a thousand blazing suns. I'd do anything to stop it, and I'd hate anyone who keeps it from me. Joe has every right to be angry with me. I ruined our friendship."

"But it was for the right reasons…" Evelyn says.

Removing his left hand from Frankie's shoulder, he puts it on Evelyn's shoulder. "Even the right reasons have a cost, sweetheart. This is the cost of trying to protect your Uncle."

Seth sighs, looking into their eyes. "Your uncle has done so much for our family already, for you guys most of all. Especially while I was on Earth-2. I'd like for you guys to try and not get affected by the strain on our relationship now. However, strained it is, Joe West is family. So try and… Still treat him as such. Please, for my sake."

"We'll try, Dad…" Frankie looks between her sisters. "But we already talked about this… You are our Dad. If we have to choose between you and Uncle Joe… The choice is obvious, Dad."

"Yeah." Ruby says with a nod of agreement.

Evelyn agrees. "You're always gonna be our Dad."

He smiles at their words. "I'm supposed to be scolding and lecturing you, and yet, the three of you manage to find a way for me to love you even more. Must be your mother's influence, no doubt."

"Bit of both parents." Evelyn quips.

"However long Joe may hate me, just remember he's still your uncle." Seth says.

"No promises, Dad." Ruby smirks.

"Ah, God. Come here." He pulls the girls into a warm hug, which they reciprocate. "Love you girls." He looks up, another smile forming on his face when he sees Caitlin standing at the medbay entrance with a smile on her face.

"Love you…" She mouths the words.

"Love you…" He mouths the words back to her.

X

While the Snow-Fury family is having a talk in the Cortex, Iris chases down her boyfriend through the hallways.

"Hey." She calls out to him. "Is everything okay?"

He glances at her but resumes walking as he says. "Just tired of seeing the people I care about be put in harm's way." He admits.

The reporter counters wisely. "Yeah, but like always, we're gonna work together and come up with a plan. We're gonna stop Grodd, Barry."

He rounds a corner and she follows him. Coming to a stop, Barry turns around and faces her fully. "And then what? We just send him back? He's just gonna come here again." He resumes walking and Iris follows. "We have to end this once and for all."

Those words didn't settle well with Iris who says. "Wait. What? You want to kill Grodd?"

Coming to a halt in front of the elevator, he turns around to face her again. "Why not? That's how their society in Gorilla City works, kill or be killed. That's why he wanted me and Seth to kill Malavar and Solovar. And you know what? I should have done my part. I showed too much mercy."

"No, you did what was right, Barry, as you always do." Iris counters him. "That's what makes you a hero."

"Oliver has killed. He's still considered a hero. Seth has killed. People of Central City have gone up against him, but they've accepted him as a hero now." Barry lists off.

"Yeah, and both of them live with the weight of their decisions every single day." Iris walks up to him.

With a slight shake of his head, Barry says. "I think that, sometimes, the only way to stop bad things from happening is to just get rid of what's causing them."

"What is this really about?" Iris asks, feeling like there's more at work here than Grodd's army and his upcoming attack. When she doesn't get any response, she asks. "Grodd or what happens to me?"

Barry admits. "I kill Grodd, his attack never happens, that changes the future, and you live, yeah."

Iris looks at him with concerned eyes as she says. "Your humanity, showing mercy, which is what separates you from everyone else. That's the reason that everyone looks up to you. Don't compromise who you are, ever." She says soothingly, putting a hand over his heart. "Losing what makes the Flash "the Flash," my life isn't worth it if that's the cost to save me."

Barry didn't know what to think now…

If he should kill Grodd once and for all to save Iris' life from a possible death…

Or if he should once again rely on who he is as a hero and show mercy… Possibly giving Grodd another opportunity to strike…

X

(Pipeline)

When this day started, Wally was ecstatic and happy. His girlfriend Jesse Wells is moving to his Earth to stay with him. They had even told her father about this life-changing decision and big step in their relationship. And to his surprise, Harry agreed to it and let his daughter move to another Earth to stay with her boyfriend.

He expected he had to run to the ends of the multiverse in case of a disapproval…

But it did not come.

However his latest conversation with Harry while working on Cisco's device to help with his vibes made his mood take a nose-dive. Harrison told him that he is sick and does not have a lot of time left on this Earth. He is struck with a serious illness. He feels awful about his condition, and that was before he learnt that Jesse was none the wiser about her father's health. And he is to keep it that way for now.

As such, he wanted to be alone for a while and secluded himself to sit in front of the Pipeline gate.

He is not alone for long as Jesse, who's been looking for him, finds him and walks up to him. "Here you are." Thinking that what happened to his father is weighing on him, she tells him. "Hey, you know your dad's gonna be alright." He's silent as he looks at her. "What's wrong?" She sits down in front of him.

Wally looks at her. "Look. I've been thinking, and I… I don't think you should stay here. I think it was a bad idea."

Question marks pop into being over the female speedster's head at that sudden statement. "Wally, you asked me."

"Yeah, and I shouldn't have." Wally says. "I think you should go back to Earth-2. Spend as much time with your dad as you can."

His phrasing confuses her. "Spend as much time with my dad as I can? Wally, what are you talking about?"

"Your dad is sick, Jesse." Wally confesses. Jesse blinks at his words. "He's really sick. He doesn't have much time left."

Jesse asks, almost suspiciously. "Did he tell you that?"

"I'm so sorry." Wally expresses.

"He is… Unbelievable." Jesse says in disbelief, standing up and walking out of the Pipeline.

Now her tone throws him for a look…

X

(Breach Room)

"Girls… Mind stopping with the photos?" Joe tells his nieces when they start taking photos of him while Harry and Cisco are working on the device to access the left-behind memories inside of his head. With the magnets stuck to his head, they couldn't stop taking dozens of photos. "Please?"

"Just one more, Unc." Ruby assures him with one more flash from her phone. "Blackmail material cataloged."

"Use it wisely, would you?" Reap says. "Gotta get some good presents out of this."

Seth looks at his mate who's looking at their daughters. "They're doing good so far."

"Hopefully it lasts…" Caitlin says hopefully.

"Hopefully." Seth nods his head.

Harry while messing with the cables tells the detective. "So all you have to do is concentrate on your memories of Grodd, okay?"

Joe says back. "Yeah, that won't be a problem."

"I would say focus on the good ones, but Grodd's not known for being warm and cuddly." Seth quips.

"Stating the obvious there, Fury." Harry says.

"Well, he was quite friendly before the particle accelerator explosion, when he was simply a gorilla." Caitlin says. "Think you guys would have liked him back then. He was really good with his sign language."

"Mom, careful." Evelyn says. "Words like that is why villains keep napping you."

"You're grounded for 2 days and I'm looking through your room every evening for an entire week." Caitlin fires back.

"Aw." Evelyn coos in disappointment.

"Haha, you're grounded." Frankie chuckles.

"Hey, dead man." Jesse announces her presence with a strut and loud voice as she calls out her father. "Seriously?" Harry faces her. "You told Wally you were dying?"

"Dying?" Caitlin shows concern as she faces him.

"Wait, what you're dying?" Seth asks him next.

"You're dying?" Barry asks, surprised next.

With eyes on him from everyone in the breach room, Harry sheepishly says. "I didn't say I was… I said I didn't know how much time I had left. None of us-"

"What is wrong with you?" Jesse cuts him off. Her tone left every member in the Breach Room shocked and silenced them. "Is there seriously nothing you won't say to get me to stay by your side?"

Harry feigns ignorance. "I don't-"

"Look, whatever." Jesse cuts him short again. "I'm moving here, whether you like it or not."

"Wait, Whiney's moving here?" Ruby said with an almost horrified look on her face. Jesse nods. "And here I thought this Earth would be good."

"Deal with it, like my Dad." Having said her piece, Jesse walks out of the Breach Room.

Harry turns back to Joe. "So all you have to do is concentrate on your memories of Grodd." He continues explaining everything.

"Yup." Joe nods his head.

"We just gonna pretend none of that happened?" Seth questions his mate.

"I guess so." Caitlin answers with a shrug of her shoulders.

"You ready?" Harry asks the viber.

"Waiting on you, dead man." Cisco quips.

Joe asks them. "Hey, if I start to Grodd-out at any point, cut the power off immediately." The magnet straps began to shine and blink as the device started powering up.

Caitlin tells the detective. "Of course." She promises him.

"All right, Joe, you ready?" Harry asks him while Cisco hands him a clipboard with a piece of paper along with a pen.

He sighs heavily. "Yeah."

"All right, then." Harry looks back to the device on the cart behind Joe. "So here we go." He presses the button, starting up the machine.

The machine turns on and Joe looks straight ahead with an emotionless look on his face. Barry waves a hand in front of his face, trying to invoke a reaction but doesn't get any. "Joe?"

It appears he's accessing the telepathic meta-gorilla's memories as he turns his gaze to the paper in his hands. To everyone's surprise Joe West starts drawing with skills that put many artists to shame.

"Wow, didn't know Uncle Joe could draw." Ruby says with shock.

"Well, that's the thing." Cisco says as Joe draws the head and torso of a person. "Anybody can actually draw. It's just that some have more developed visual cortex and manual ability, as your mother knows."

"And the magnets on Joe's head are homing in on that part of his brain and supercharging it." Seth says as Joe finishes drawing, his hands falling down the sides of his body. "He's done. Turn it off." Harry obliges to the elemental's words and Seth picks up the clipboard with the drawing. "Joe's Picasso phase worked out… But new problem."

Barry takes the board and looks at the drawing. "Yeah… We have to figure out who the hell this is."

X

(Klyntar Cave)

The next day…

"Argh!"

With a warcry, Seth drives an adamantium fist into the hexagonal power-measuring machine that is in front of him. When his fist composed of a unique metal from another Earth met the machine of this Earth, a massive clanging sound echoed throughout the training room.

As he expected, his fist caused the metal surface he targeted to cave in.

"And that's another bill from Matt to add to the pile of bills." Seth says as he pulls out his fist.

"Must be the size of a mountain by now."

The mutant chuckles. "Gives the Alps a bad name in comparison." He looks back to see Harrison-2 walking slowly towards him.

Harry looks at the different power-measurers, seeing their states are quite similar to the one that he just punched. "Trying to set a record?"

A tendril spouted from his wrist, wrapping around a water bottle and he pulled it into his hand. Uncapping it, Seth says. "How about instead of making small talk, Wells, you tell me what's on your mind? Unless of course, you already know what the answer is."

"That would work, assuming you know the question." Harry comes to a stop.

Removing the bottle from his mouth, the elemental turns to face the Earth-2 scientist. "You want me to talk to Barry, who is, oh, so frustrated about Grodd who keeps returning to our Earth to attack us. I'm guessing you're here to try and get me to dissuade him to not emancipate Grodd from the realm of the living."

"You don't sound opposed to it." Harry asks. "Despite knowing Barry is thinking of the most idiotic thing he's ever thought of."

"Setting the bar pretty low, aren't you, Wells?" Seth chuckles. He contemplated telling the Earth-2 scientist that they're talking about the same speedster who runs away and changes time at a whim.

"You don't think Iris is right?" Harry asks.

"In comparison to her idiot boyfriend, hell yeah, she's right. But don't ask me to convince said boyfriend, though." Seth chuckles. "You're talking to the wrong person on the team, Wells."

"What do you mean?" Harrison asks.

Seth turns to face the scientist from Earth-2. "More than anyone else on this team… I want to kill Grodd."

Harry looked shocked. "What?"

"Probably don't know this, but Grodd took control… Of me." Seth sneers, clenching his fist around the water bottle. "He took control of me, using my worst, painful memories. He took control of me, made me fight Matt, my best friend and almost killed him. He made me almost kill my daughter… He kidnapped Caitlin. Trust me, for those alone… I wanna kill him, tear him into pieces and I will if I have to."

Harry was shocked to hear that.

Seeing his expression, Seth says. "Harry, I know what you're thinking. You don't think I should be thinking like this, but it's how I became who I am. One who's not consumed by darkness and one who's not shackled by light, I'm one that was taught to use both of them like weapons. Let them both become part of me in a way that allows me to take actions that heroes like Barry aren't able or willing to make. At the end of the day, we take whatever action it takes to protect the innocents and get rid of the nightmares. My Dad, and someone else I respect with all my heart, told me that I'm one of the people who can stand on the line between light and darkness, taking a stance in the gray area that's formed from the normal black and white areas, the good and bad."

"Isn't that an excuse?" Harry asks. "I understand wanting to get back against someone who hurt your children, I'm a father too. I would have killed to save Jesse; I would have killed Zoom." He fires off. "Seth, there's a thousand things I've done that I'm not proud of… Some of them recently. Every time I do one of those things, it makes it easier to do it the next time."

"I get that, sure." Seth walks towards the Earth-2 scientist. "But the term, "fighting fire with fire," has never settled right with me cause I always fought my enemies' darkness with my blaze from both darkness and light. And you may think of it as an excuse, taking the easy route if you will…" He stops in front of the Earth-2er. "But ask yourself this: Think Barry could have stopped Blackfire without killing him?"

"W- How do you know that name?" Harry asks, sweat began to form on his forehead at that name.

"My sabbatical on your Earth, learnt a bit of your home turf while I was there." Seth says. "Reason why you haven't heard of him lately is because of me." He looks into his eyes. "I know you want Barry to keep battling enemies with honor and hope, you see that whenever he's running out there. You get reminded of another way, that there is another way. That way is Barry's way. Not mine. Killing Grodd may not be Barry's, but it may be mine if I have to fight him."

"Don't think saving one life justifies taking another." Harry admits.

"That's how every S.H.I.E.L.D. agent does, Wells. We're the shield against enemies, and that's what I am for this city, for my family. I am the Lethal Protector." Seth says. "I don't mind if my shield reddens, bruises and cracks. I'm not Barry… I'm me." Seth says as he walks past the Earth-2er who is left stunned and speechless.

Harry walked into the Klyntar Cave, hoping to get the elemental's assistance in talking Barry out of his current path. Instead he would have to take care of it himself.

X

(The Cortex)

Walking into the Cortex, Seth immediately hears the computers at work. He sees the team at work, minus Barry and Harry who are probably having a talk in the Speed Lab. The monitors are hard at work, scanning Joe's drawing from Grodd's memories and comparing it to footage and photos on the internet.

He walks up to Caitlin from behind, putting a hand on her right shoulder. "Hey."

Caitlin, putting her left hand over his hand on her shoulder, saying. "Hey. Got the stress out of your system?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure. But did need to punch something." Seth says, rubbing her shoulder. "Where are the girls? Told them to stop searching and come back for a break while back."

"They're on their way." Caitlin says.

"How are you doing?" He asks her.

Caitlin shrugs unsurely. "Been at this for a while, waiting for a hit. But nothing so far."

"What? Our John Doe nowhere to be find?" Seth questions.

H.R. looks at Seth narrowly.

"Yeah. We've put his image through every database and still no result." Caitlin answers.

"Huh." H.R. says to himself.

"What's wrong, H.R.?" Cisco asks.

"Oh-"

"We're back." Evelyn announces when she and her sisters return to the Cortex in a burst of shadows.

"Welcome back, girls. You good?" Seth asks.

"Tired." Ruby declares.

"Really… Really tired." Frankie says.

"Relax and take a break for now, girls." Caitlin tells them.

"Ah-hah." Harrison-19 rubs his chin, looking at Ruby.

Raising an eyebrow, Caitlin asks the author from Earth-19. "H.R., something you want to share with the rest of us?"

"I believe I found something that can help our search for our mystery man." Harrison smiles.

"What? Spill." Cisco snaps his head in his direction.

"Well, I can't take all the credit, it's also thanks to S.F. and Ruby's upbringing." H.R. says, surprising the mutant and his daughter. "Seth, would it be wrong to assume you are from a military upbringing?" He asks, pointing a drumstick at him.

"Not really, no." Seth answers.

"And, your little blonde imp, Ruby, is from a similar upbringing, right?" He asks next, pointing his other drumstick at Ruby.

"She is." Ruby herself answers.

"Well…" Bringing his two drumsticks together in a cross, he points them at the drawing. "How would you describe this fella's hair?"

"Son of a bitch… H.R., you're a genius." Seth admits out loud.

"What?" Joe asks.

"Cisco, you're seeing the same, right?" Caitlin asks him with eyes of realization.

"Absolutely." Cisco nods. "Oh yeah." He presses down on the speakers, turning them on. "Guys, we need you in the Cortex." He tells Harry and Barry over the P.A.

"What's up, Cisco?" Barry asks.

"We've got a behemoth of a problem." Cisco announces and turns off the P.A. system and returns to the scanning. "Friday, babe, tell us you're working too?"

"Always, but don't call me babe." Friday asks.

"Gotta love an AI with a personality." Caitlin states.

"Hey, what is it?" Barry asks as he walks into the Cortex, standing in front of the monitors while Harry stands near the console.

Caitlin states. "So we ran our John Doe image through every database."

"And it was tough." Barry says. "I mean, the guy's a ghost. We've been calling him "Jason Bourne."" He chuckles.

Wally points at Harrison-19. "But then H.R. noticed something."

H.R., having lowered one of his drumsticks, explains. "Well, at first, it was a real brain-twister, but then I remembered something from S.F.'s and Ruby's upbringing and also a quote from a renowned poet from my Earth, Alfread Yankovic."

"Are you talking about Weird Al?" Iris questions.

Harrison-19 looks at the reporter. "Why, cause of the hair?"

Impatiently, Harry states. "Get to the point already, if you have one."

"I can, Hard Hat." H.R. points back to the drawing. "It's his hair."

Seth answers for the Earth-19er. "Standard military cut."

"So, with Friday's help, we ran the image through the Department of Defense database, and, as Cisco would say, "Yahtzee."" Caitlin excitedly says.

"I would say that." Cisco admits, fist-bumping his friend.

Leaning down over her shoulder, Seth says. "I love you more and more every day."

"Feeling's mutual. With you, obviously." Caitlin says, kissing her mate on his lips.

Finally, the program found a match to Joe's drawing from Grodd's memories. "Nice work, H.R." Barry says.

A profile showed up, showing a pale distinguished man with sharp eyes and slightly brown hair in uniform. Walking up to the monitor, Iris reads the profile. "DoD has him listed as Air Force General Matthew McNally." She turns to face the team.

"General Matthew McNally, and I'll give you one guess…" Cisco leans against the console railing. "Just guess what he's in charge of."

With fear and dismay in his eyes, Barry says. "I know you're gonna say military weapons, but I really hope you don't say "military weapons.""

"It's worse, Barr. Nuclear missiles." Joe declares.

Caitlin follows up. "McNally has the highest clearance. He can have a rocket in the air in less than 10 minutes."

"He can literally rain down hellfire on our city in such a short time." Seth clenches his fists. "Are the satellites back to being functional?"

Having read some of the files while standing next to the native viber, Harry says. "We ran a full diagnostic. Any nuclear weapon that's authorized to fire, an alarm will sound."

Frankie gives a heavy sigh. "Sounds good and all, but with our luck-"

ALARM

Much to the young ferrokinetic's dismay and fears, the alarms immediately began blaring.

"I swear, we're cursed!" Magenta screams in her host's head.

"Fuck me in the Alps." Seth mutters under his breath.

"Does it sound like that?" H.R. points upward at the blaring speakers with his drumstick. "That's an alarm."

"Yeah, it's that alarm, H.R." Harry impatiently tells his doppelganger while moving to the console. On the screen the location of the alert was revealed. The alert is showing itself in big bright letters…

"ALERT: NUCLEAR MISSILES"

"Short-range ballistic missiles authorized to fire from Fort Reynolds." Harry announces.

"How much time do we have?" Joe asks the Earth-2 scientist.

"Minutes." Cisco replies.

Caitlin shakes her head in disbelief, utterly left shocked by Grodd's actions. "Grodd, what have you done?"

"Can we stop them from here?" Iris asks the team.

Ruby answers grimly. "If they're anything like 616 military weapons, they gotta be analog."

"She's not wrong." Cisco confirms it. "I mean, they still use floppy disks."

"I'm going after them." Barry says.

"Me too." Seth says.

"Dad!" Evelyn stops the speedster and her father. "Fort Reynolds, I can get us there."

"Really? You've been there?" Seth asks.

"Long story. Trust me." Evelyn asks of them. Without hesitation, Seth holds his hand out. Barry follows next and the younger metahuman grabs their hands.

"Wally, Jesse, girls, stay put." Seth instructs them. "If we can't stop them, Frankie and Ruby, fling those overrated boomsticks into the sun or something. Make sure they just don't touch the ground."

"Wally and Jesse, get everybody to safety, okay?" Barry instructs the speedsters.

"Alright. Hit it, Evie!" Seth tells his daughter.

Closing her eyes and the markings form on her forehead, Evelyn releases onyx shadowy darkness from her entire being and they wrap around her, her father and the speedster. Opening her eyes, she lets the darkness envelop all three of them…

They disappear in a burst of shadows…

X

Behind barbed wire fences, the nuclear missiles are being primed and getting ready to be fired off from the backs of two missile vehicles.

A massive plume of shadows erupted and the three protectors of Central City came out of it. Barry had long-since equipped his suit, and the father and daughter duo immediately enveloped themselves in their symbiotes.

The father and daughter glance at the two missile vehicles, both of them priming their missile launchers on the backs of them. Barry was looking at the ground where he found the unconscious body of Air Force General Matthew McNally.

Eclipse glances at the missile truck. "Holy moly, this thing is scary."

"Guys, we're with the missiles." Seth tells the team back at the Cortex through their comms devices.

"Guys, to access the keypad, remove the panels at the base of the missile vehicles."

The three heroes separated, Barry going to one truck and the Klyntar-hosts going to the other one.

With nothing but brute force, Seth tears off the panel and sees the covering over the keypad. Placing his hand over it, he slides his tendrils under the small gaps around it and pulls it off. He throws it off to the side.

"Flash, you got your keypad available?" Evelyn asks the speedster. Flash gives them a thumbs-up. Pressing her earpiece, she asks her team. "Guys, we got both keypads ready for use. What's next?"

"Good news is, baby, these missiles have a built-in five-digit kill code." Caitlin tells her the bad news.

"What's the code then?" Seth asks.

"Bad news there; we don't know." Cisco asks.

"For real?" Barry shakes his head. "All right, well, then what am I supposed to do?"

"Guessing the usual approach with complete and utter destruction won't work here?" Evelyn asks her father and mother back at the Cortex.

"No go, honey. Nuclear explosions aren't something you guys can handle. Keypad's the only option." Caitlin tells her daughter.

"Snow's right. Both you and Fury have to try every combination, Barry." Harry grimly answers. "It's okay. With this type of launcher, you won't set off the nuke."

"Evie." Evelyn looks at her father. "You still got the drone from your Grandpa's suitcase?" She nods, reaching into her "other's" pocket dimension and retrieves the D.W.A.R.F. drone and her phone which she uses to control it. "Barry will try every combination on that launcher, meanwhile use your drone on this one. It can hack into the keypad, find the combination."

"I don't know how to use it like that, Dad. I used to fly it around mostly." Evelyn says.

"Why do you think Friday's uploaded to all of your phones?" Seth answers.

"Good. Less work for me." Evelyn stands in front of the keypad on their launcher truck. She starts turning on Friday on her phone.

"Guys, simulators are projecting that hundreds of thousands will die." Iris informs the heroes through the comms.

"Yeah, let's hope not." Barry says, his girlfriend's words are not filling him with confidence. He starts typing away at superspeed, going through the numerous combinations.

"Dad, what's your plan?" Evelyn asks as the D.W.A.R.F. drone hovers over the keypad, ejecting two small cables that latch onto the two dials over the keypad and starts hacking into it. Her phone starts showing randomly changing numbers in five-digit combinations.

Jumping back a few feet, Venom snarls. "We're gonna give you guys more time." Thrusting out his arms, he splits them into tendrils that travel towards the two vehicles. They wrap around the joints and the truck and finally around the launchers.

With another loud snarl, he releases pulses of ice through his entire body and lets them travel through his tendrils. Frost begins to spread across the surface of the metal as he releases more and more ice. Some of his tendrils are sliding under the metal panels, spreading the ice throughout the inner wirings.

"Think your dad's tactic will work?" Dusk asks her host.

"I hope so…" Evelyn admits as she looks at her phone screen where the combinations continue to run. "Cause Friday hasn't found the right combo yet."

Both Eclipse and Flash are using their separate means of hacking to run through precisely 90.000 combinations to try and find the right one to stop the missiles from being launched.

"Guys, 6 missiles are locked on targets." Caitlin says from the Cortex.

"Ow!" Barry removes his hand from the keypad. Not from a static shock but from the coldness that comes from Seth's efforts to slow down the machines. "Guys, we need something else. This isn't working." He resumes typing away.

"Keep trying, Flash!" Venom shouts, releasing more tendrils from his body and they pierce through the metal and release ice immediately with the speed of lightning. Instead of frost forming, ice immediately formed around the metal.

"Doubt the others have come up with a plan B back home, guys." Eclipse says as she looks impatiently at her screen, awaiting the result that will put an end to a nuclear missile strike.

"Friday! What's the time? Give it to us!" Venom shouts frantically.

"Fifteen seconds, Boss!" The A.I. responds.

"Guys, I need something! This isn't working! Something else!" Barry shouts.

"Friday, please! Please!" Evelyn shouts at the AI, hoping her shouts would be able to speed along the process somehow, even though she knew better. She glances at her father…

…Her eyes averted at the moment when her screen strangely flickers like static…

"Keep trying, guys. You've just gotta keep trying." Harry tells the heroes.

"Eleven missiles are locked on target." Caitlin informs them with fear in her voice.

"Damn it!" Venom roars, releasing more ice that starts forming around the launchers and the vehicles themselves.

"Destroy them! TEAR TO SCRAP!" Venom demands of his host.

Thankfully…

The two metahumans' efforts paid off thankfully.

By his vehicle, Barry finally typed in the right combination. The combination being, 45127.

By her vehicle, Evelyn finally found the right combination and she typed it in in a hurry. The combination being 72154.

"It worked." Barry sighs in relief when sees the bright green numbers on the keypad screen. "It worked! We did it!"

"Hell yes!" Evelyn screams in joy. "We stopped a nuclear missile strike!"

"Heck yeah…" Seth says, retracting his tendrils and reforming his arms.

"We did it!" Barry exclaims his joy. Swinging his head to the missile truck again, he stops laughing when he sees the state of the truck. "Seth, is it okay to leave them like this?"

"What do you- Holy Canada." The younger metahuman asks when she sees the state of her missile vehicle.

Both of them are almost completely encased in ice from the mutant's elemental prowess. "Ah, should be fine. Ice will thaw out in a few days." He smirks. With a serious look on his face, he looks down on his daughter. "Honey, how do you know about this place?"

"Yeah, pretty weird for a teenager to know the spot for a military base." Barry admits with a short laugh.

Evelyn looks at them. "Oh, on Earth-2, this place isn't far from Central City and this is where all the kids would go and smoke pot or drink beer on the weekends."

"WHAT?!" Venom roars.

X

"What did I just hack into?" Evelyn Sharp asks Eliza. The archer steps away from the computer she's been using.

"Something that was very difficult to hack into." Eliza says while reviewing the code of their target and the code of what their target hacked into. "So they did hack into a nuclear missile launcher." She stopped herself when her eyes widened in realization at the code.

"Wait?" Evelyn turns around, facing the lightning-user. "We hacked and stopped a nuclear missile strike."

"Well, doubt we're gonna be handed medals of honor for it, but yeah, we did." Eliza confirms with a nod. She looks over to the side where Taskmaster is sharpening a knife. "What did we hack into exactly, Tasky?"

Taskmaster stops sharpening his blade, examining the blade as he answers. "Technology from S.H.I.E.L.D. It's not easy to hack into, but somehow you did it." Sheathing his weapon and turning to face her, he adds. "Guess you can count yourself impressed."

Evelyn scoffs. "What was the point in helping them hack into that missile launcher? I don't want to help my doppel-freak."

"Cool it, Arty." Eliza scolds her. "Like it or not, if we hadn't, chances are we'd be facing a sky with sixteen missiles raining down over the city. You may not like it, but you had a hand in helping them and us."

"Whatever." She walks off to the side.

"Stop right there and get Joey and Raj. Get them to fetch Griffin, too." Eliza instructs her.

Stopping in her tracks, Evelyn turns around to face Eliza again. "Why?"

Eliza looks at Taskmaster who gives a reluctant nod of agreement, already knowing what her plan is. "We're gonna take a little walk… Stretch our legs… Shed a little monkey blood, if it comes to it…"

"Fascinating plan, indeed, Eliza…" Scream says with a small giggle.

X

(S.T.A.R. Labs)

Having returned to the facility of S.T.A.R. Labs, the team was hard at work trying to pinpoint the location of Gorilla Grodd and his army with every resource at their disposal.

While they were doing so, Harrison-19 was looking over the D.W.A.R.F. tech from Earth-616 in his hand. "This is some incredible technology your old man brought, S.F."

"Glad to know that H.R. But don't drop that, it's my daughter's." Seth states.

"Hmm…" H.R. puts it down on the console.

Cisco looks up from the screen. "I will look into that thing when this is all done. It's freaking cool."

"Same deal, wreck it, I'm gonna be pissed." Seth states to him. Cisco nods and the elemental looks at his daughters who are looking between the monitors, awaiting a location of the gorillas' marching path. "Girls." They look at their father. "Remember the pairings I mentioned before, that's our form of interception. Stick with it, we're gonna be fine against Grodd's army."

Frankie asks. "And if they split off? Coming from separate directions?"

"We split off. Three speedsters, the four of us in two pairs. We should be fine and ready." Seth states.

The computers start chiming when they find a location. "Found them." Cisco exclaims. "They're right outside the city. Heading for State and Oakhill, fast."

"Doesn't seem like that's all they're doing…" H.R. notes grimly when facing the monitors.

"They're splitting off, marching in from three directions…" Harry says.

"All of them leading into downtown." Iris says.

"Dad, got a plan?" Ruby asks her father.

Thinking to himself, Seth tells his daughters. "Frankie, you and Ruby go to any nearby scrapyards near the first marching path. Bring all the metal you can carry with your powers there. You got five minutes, and that's all. Five minutes, no more. After collecting, get ready to intercept the first battalion. Go!"

Heeding his instructions, Frankie and Ruby jumped through the skylight.

"Evie, you and I are gonna get going too. We're taking the third path. We're gonna go now and get people out of the way." Seth states his plan.

Evelyn nods, grabbing her father's hand. "Let's go!" They disappear in a smog of shadows immediately, leaving the rest of the team alone.

Iris looks at Caitlin. "Not gonna say anything to them?"

"No need. They're gonna come back. To me. Safe and sound." Caitlin says confidently.

"Barry…" Wally gets his mentor's attention. "I know we're speedsters, and we got Seth's fam on our side and everything, but we are still way outnumbered here."

"Yeah, I mean, he's right." Jesse agrees. "How are we gonna take on all those gorillas?"

"We have to." Barry tells them.

Joe walks closer to the console. "As much as I hate these gorillas, especially Grodd, if you or Seth kill him, the other ones might stand down, but you might not be able to come back from this, Barry. You know that, right?"

"Should Seth handle it?" Jesse questions. She didn't want to let the mutant handle it all on his own, but he has done it before. Taking a life to protect others is something that he has done before, unlike her speedster mentor.

"I know." Barry nods his head at Joe. "But there's another way, one that doesn't involve dumping all the blood on Seth's hands. It's not gonna come to that."

"Sure about that?" Harry questions. "Fury seems determined to take care of Grodd himself."

"He's been hurt in ways I haven't, Wells. Think you'd get that." Barry says. He turns to the viber. "Cisco, I'm gonna need your help."

Cisco nods his head.

X

Shadowporting behind a squad car, Evelyn lowers the children in her arms to the ground. "Here you go, Officer."

"Thanks, kid." The officer nods. "Come here, kiddos." The policeman escorts them to another car.

Eclipse turns around and sees her father standing in wait for the gorilla army. Even from where she's standing, she can feel the ground shaking in a manner akin to an earthquake from the gorillas' marching. She shadowports to his side. "They're getting closer."

"They are." Venom answers, tightening his hold on his sword.

In a matter of seconds, the armored gorillas came into sight at the end of the street.

"Civilians are out of harm's way." Eclipse forms arrows and puts them on her bow.

"Good… Remember." Seth looks down at his child, rubbing the back of her head with the back of his finger. "Stay here, attack from a distance. Leave close-range to us."

Eclipse shrugs her shoulders. "No promises."

"Spoken like our daughter." Venom turns his head towards the army.

The army of gorillas soon take notice of the elemental and they start to run towards him. Digging his feet into the asphalt, Venom opens his maw and roars at them. The moment he stopped roaring, he ran towards the army of telepathic gorillas.

When coming close enough to them, massive tendrils eject from his back and slam into the ground, launching him off the asphalt. The gorillas peer into the darkened sky and their vision gets filled with black when Venom slams down within their ranks. A massive dust screen kicked up, spreading over the army of telepathic meta-beasts.

The telepathic gorillas, with their shields, cover their eyes from the dust getting into their optical organs. When the dust finally fades away, their shields are torn away from their eyes when tendrils from within the dust cloud wraps around them and their owners' arms.

With a vicious and mighty warcry, Venom spirals around and hurls the five gorillas he grabbed, sending them flying into the others. Two gorillas raise their spears, running towards the elemental. Turning to face them, Seth clenches the handle of his sword and turns the crystal blade into adamantium.

They hurled their spears at him. Seth looks at them flying through the air with narrowed eyes. But he didn't have to be concerned about them reaching him as four arrows flew past him, all four of them imbued with light and darkness shooting past him.

Two of the arrows met the spears, shattering them into pieces. The two gorillas were shocked by the sight, but they quickly regained their focus when they saw the last two arrows flying towards them. Despite their extreme speed, the telepathic beasts manage to react in time with their shields, deflecting the energy-imbued projectiles and sending them flying to either side.

The arrows punctured the hoods of two separate cars, causing smoke to come out of them.

But it allowed Venom the chance to appear in front of the two gorillas, his body enwrapped in violent lightning. His blazing red eyes glaring into the souls of the two telepathic primates, causing them to flinch. Taking advantage of their hesitation, with a mighty swing from his sword, he strikes their chest plates with his weapon and hurls them off their feet, sending them skipping across the streets before colliding into their fellow gorillas.

Three gorillas roar as they charge towards the elemental. Despite their numbers advantage, Seth remains strong and blocks their incoming fists with the blunt side of his adamantium blade, holding his own against them as they try to push him back. Releasing adamantium tendrils from his sides, he digs them into the ground to anchor himself, keeping himself from moving.

Someone else took advantage of that.

Moving like a shadow with the swiftness of light between her father and the gorillas, Eclipse closes the distance between them. Getting close enough to him, she jumps onto his back and leaps over him and the three gorillas he's holding back.

Opening the ends of three of her wings into mouths, she takes aim at the hacks of the gorillas' helmets. She quickly forms spheres of darkness in them before they shot out like bullets. They hit the backs of their heads, shaking their heads. The gorillas feels the attack on their heads, their skulls shaking madly from the shockwaves.

Venom smirks, using the opportunity his daughter gave him and pushes them back with a powerful swing of his sword. The gorillas are knocked out, landing on their backs.

Standing up in his full height, Venom looks to his left shoulder where his daughter lands on it with a smile behind her mask. "Didn't we tell you to stay behind and fight from a distance?"

"Told you, "No promises."" Evelyn reminds her father. "Besides… We got company."

Seth didn't argue with his child, especially as the ones they knocked out have returned to their feet almost instantaneously to rejoin their comrades' ranks.

Their fight isn't over yet….

Neither are the others…

X

With practiced ease and her gravitational powers aiding her moves, Genysis spun through the air and dodged the updraft of spears from the telepathic gorillas from Earth-2. She crushes the spears that come close to hitting her with her energized Kusarigama, using her chain to vaporize them.

Looking down on the ground, she sees that Magenta has formed a massive barricade from scrap metal from the junkyards they went to. She is standing in an enormous metal ring, making it easier for her to call the metal to her side. Frankie waves her sister down to her side and Ruby catapults herself from mid-air down to the ferrokinetic's side.

Landing beside Magenta, Genysis looks at her sister. "How long have you been standing here?"

"Oh, shut your trap. I had to form all of this." Frankie counters, gesturing to their massive wall.

Ruby's eyes widened, her Gravity-Sense blaring in her head as she felt something flying towards them from the other side of their barricade. "Down!" She pushes her sister down when the suddenly spears pierces through their barrier, their sharp bladed tips protruding through. "Well, they're not the most welcoming bunch."

"We forgot to roll out the red carpet, you know." Magenta says. Clenching her right hand, she calls the metal from behind her towards her and swarming around her arm. The metals came together, forming into a massive harpoon gun. She morphs his left arm into a spiked mace. "Ready to roll out the carpet?"

Taking out her Chakram Blade from her "other's" pocket dimension with the tongue extending from her collar, she tightens her hold on the chain and sickle weapon in her hands. "These rude bastards are just soldiers; we don't need to kill them."

"Got it. Let's go!"

Magenta and Genysis jump over their barricade, using the side of it to jump off towards the gorillas.

Every single one of them roared as the two demons neared them. Three of them stood in front of the other gorillas, uniting their shields to tank the attacks.

Using her gravitational powers to halt herself mid-flight, the gravity manipulator releases another wave of gravity behind her sister and accelerates her velocity through the air. Frankie hurls towards the shielding gorillas like a missile, and when in range of them, she delivers a wide swing with her mace. The force she put into her attack, pushed the three gorillas back and they landed on their backs.

Magenta makes herself a target for the gorillas who hold up their spears, about to throw them towards the metahuman. And they were immediately hurled towards her.

However they never reached her sister as Genysis swings her sickle towards the javelins. She pulls and spins the blade around as fast as she can. She destroys any and all momentum the thrown weapons had as the blade tears them to pieces.

The blade is energized with loads of kinetic energy. She slams the blade down to the ground between gorillas, releasing a powerful shockwave that pushes the telepathic beasts back in separate directions.

Magenta landed between her sister and the other Earth-2 meta-animals, aiming her harpoon gun at the enemies. With a clench of her hand, she fires off a wave of harpoons. Her harpoons fly through the air, tearing the shields off their arms. She jumps towards the gorilla in the middle, jumping into its face and delivers a downward swing with her mace.

Her symbiote weapon hits his head, causing bile and blood to come out of his mouth and knocks him into the air. The armored gorilla falls down to the ground, knocked out from the savage blow. While mid-air, Magenta roars and stretches out her arms, releasing tendrils in dozens of different directions around her. They knock into the gorillas around her, hurling them off the asphalt and sending them into the surfaces around them.

Genysis makes sure they don't get back up, forcing up gravel and asphalt to restrain them from moving. She moves ahead, swinging her arms forward and catapulting a massive gravitational wave towards the gorillas that are in front of them. The ground cracked and tore up as the wave passed through the air. When it finally connects with the gorilla army, tumbling most of them down like bowling pins hit by a bowling ball.

But the ones remaining standing bangs their chests in anger, roaring to prepare for further battling with the demons.

Frankie cracks her neck, standing ready with her weapons and tendrils spouting from her back. "Don't tell me you're done?"

Ruby dug her feet into the ground, holding her Chakram blade and her Kinetic Kusarigama tightly in her hands. "Like hell, we're taking these bastards down!"

The two Snow-Fury daughters jump forward, entering another battle frenzy with the Earth-2 beasts.

X

"Hahaha!" Rajeet Kumar and Joey Rose laugh out loud at the sight unfolding before them from the top of the building they're standing on with Eliza and the rest of the Thunderbolts.

"This is the best!" Joey shouts. "Baby King Kongs swarming the city? Nothing sets the mood more than this!"

Rajeet clenches his fists, curling his fingers with a wide maniacal smile on his face. "Betcha one of these apes is four digits… No, five. Ellie, we're not here to just watch their little marching band, are we?"

"…" Not saying a single word, Eliza looks over the city, seeing the battles taking place in different locations. On one side she can see metal and gravel fly high up into the air. In the middle she can see sparks of yellow lightning flashing and reflecting off the surrounding skyscrapers. On the other side, she can see bursts of different elements shining brightly, ranging from flames, black flames, lightning and a mix between light and darkness.

"They're spread around this area." Taskmaster walks up to her side. "The gorillas are even scaling the buildings. They're trying to get past Flash and Venom."

"Wait." Eliza blinks her eyes. "If they're trying to scale the buildings, trying to get past them. Means they might…" Her eyes widened in a mix of realization and fear. "Oh no."

Evelyn walks up to the lightning-user, carrying Griffin on her back. "What's the problem?"

Eliza takes off her gauntlet from her left arm and throws it towards Taskmaster. "What's the deal?" The mercenary questions as he catches the gauntlet.

"Personal business." She scoffs in response as she walks towards the other end of the roof. "Make sure these guys don't do anything stupid and kill the gorillas! And Sharp, make sure Griffin's not fighting!" She finalizes before leaping off the rooftop, spouting tendrils from her back that pushes her off the surface.

To their surprise, she envelopes her entire body in both symbiote mass and lightning. Once completely enveloped, she releases the lightning in a burst that launches her through the air.

"Seriously, Ellie pulls one new trick out after the other of her hat." Rajeet chuckles at his liberator's actions.

"Forget her." Taskmaster says, moving up to them and looking around. Four gorillas revealed themselves, banging their chests with their weapons.

"Finally…" Rajeet flexes his body, enveloping every inch of his being with green and aqua-blue symbiote mass. Six ice-bladed tipped tendrils shot out of his back, swung around in a frantic manner. Through his nonexistent mouth, he growls and cackles. "Monkey popsicles coming up."

"This is the right mood!" Joey stomps the surface; his entire body being enveloped by the inner dark-bluish miasmic symbiote. Most of his chest and the entirety of his head remains crimson-red. He growls, slamming his adamantium hands together. "Time for a riot…" Riot cackles.

Taskmaster pulls out a black circular shield and his sword handle, pressing the button on it and releases the photogenic blade from the hilt. "Never fought a monkey before."

Evelyn lowers Griffin to the ground. "Gorillas aren't monkeys; they're considered apes." She clarifies as purple symbiote mass erupts around her skin, enveloping every inch of her body. Her hair gets enveloped as well, becoming completely black and lengthens.

The gorilla closest to Lasher who shows a mouthless smile. Without even moving a muscle, one of his ice-bladed tendrils shoots forward and delivers a slash to the meta-gorilla's right knee. The strike to its leg made him groan in pain and he fell to the ground. But the gorilla beast managed to regain his strength and his will to fight, forcing him to stand up again.

But Lasher stopped that, piercing his tendrils into the Earth-2 gorilla's chest, shoulders and thighs. Once again, the meta-beast shouts in pain, falling down to his knees and releasing its hold on the weapons.

"Shut up." Lasher wraps his claws around the gorilla's throat, putting a stop to its cries of pain and tightens its hold on it. "Or better yet…. Freeze…" He slowly sneers, as ice releases from his hand. Ice forms around its neck, traveling up the fur and reaching into its open mouth. The beast's eyes widen when the freezing sensation spreads throughout its entire body, freezing it inside-out.

Finally Rajeet removes his hand from the gorilla's throat. "This was fun…" With another hollow chuckle, he easily snaps off the frozen gorilla's neck and holds the head in his hand. The force he used to tear the head off caused cracks to spread like wildfire across the rest of the frozen gorilla body. The cracks grew too much for the gorilla body, falling into pieces and shattering when meeting the ground.

Despite the fists slamming into his face repeatedly, Riot smiles widely. He faces off against the gorilla with an adamantium body that the telepathic gorilla pummels repeatedly even though his fists begin to crack and the flesh tearing up.

"Done?" Riot sticks out his serpentine tongue. "My turn then." Without any warning, he delivers an adamantium uppercut into the meta-gorilla's chest. Blood came out of the gorilla's mouth and Joey delivered another strike to its jawline, disorienting it with the savage blow.

The telepathic gorilla was pushed back onto its back, its armor unbelievably dented and torn from the many blows it suffered. It tries to return to its full height, but Riot slams his foot down on its chest and keeps it from moving.

"Night-night." Riot says with a smile, interlocking his hands up high over his head and swings them down on the gorilla's head….

SPLAT

Blood and fur scattered in different directions when the hammer-like strike met its goal, putting an end to the gorilla's life.

"Hahaha!" Riot laughs in joy, feeling the blood on his hands and the pieces of gorilla skull sticking to the underside of his hands. He runs off to another direction with Lasher following him, both of them seeing more gorillas not far from them.

The gorilla roars in anger, swinging his arm like a mallet for Taskmaster's head. But the master combatant jumped back, evading the primate's strike and reeling back his black shield. Acting quickly, he poured all of his might into his throw when he hurled the shield towards the telepathic gorilla.

The Earth-2 meta-beast was hit in the head by the shield, knocking him back and making him stagger. The shield descended and Taskmaster grabbed it before it connected with the ground. Quickly holstering it, he quickly shoots towards the gorilla with his sword in his right hand. The gorilla flinches when the skull-masked mercenary is in front of him who delivers a quick diagonal slash across its hairy chest. The energy blade burns through the flesh as it paves its way through the gorilla's body.

Shooting a hook from his gauntlet that attaches to the gorilla's forehead, Taskmaster grabs the rope and yanks the meta-beast down to the mercenary who delivers a strike with his kneecap. His blow knocks out a few teeth, further disorienting the gorilla.

Deciding to put an end to it, Taskmaster delivers his searing hot energized blade through its throat. The combination of all the attacks, pain, as well as the burning blaze in its lungs, made it difficult for the Gorilla City resident to move, much less find the strength to do so. The gorilla looks into Taskmaster's eyes, peering right into them as life faded away from its body and he went limp.

He pulls his sword out of its throat and turns around, glancing in Evelyn's direction as the dead gorilla body falls to the surface behind him.

Both the gorilla's spear and shield were shot out of its hands from Agony's water bullets. The gorilla was disarmed and then turned its angry gaze to the water-user. He runs towards her again, frantically swinging his arms.

Agony, with the skills of a seasoned archer, fires off another series of water bullets at the gorilla's face. The shots damage its eyes, causing it to hold its optical organs in pain as the stinging sensation washes over it. Morphing both of her arms into guns, Evelyn aims at the beast and fires off a beam of condensed water.

The beam hits the gorilla, pushing it on its back. Agony doesn't stop firing, continuing to release it and forcing the meta-beast to the edge of the rooftop before increasing the strength of her attack. With the added force of it, the Gorilla City resident was hurled off the building and sent over the edge.

"Nice fall." Agony says, morphing her arms back into normal and making sure that Griffin is okay.

"Won't kill it." Taskmaster tells her with a scolding tone. "Head or heart. End their life before they end yours."

"Want me to say, "I'm sorry?"" Evelyn scoffs.

Taskmaster says. "Don't be sorry, be better."

As he wanted to speak and scold Evelyn more, he did wonder what the hell was going through Eliza's head for her to disappear.

X

"Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap!" Joan Celia scolded herself frantically as she went to the door. Unlike the other civilians on her street, she did not evacuate in time and was left behind by the others. She remained in her apartment for far too long and ended up being the last person left.

She opens the door and gets out on the staircase on the side of the building. In a hurry, she locks the door behind her and rushes down the stairs, almost tripping in her haste. She reaches the ground and runs along the sidewalk to get to the nearest evac center.

ROAR

But fate had other plans when suddenly a gorilla jumped down and landed in front of her. Its sudden arrival forced the Mercury Labs scientist to fall down on her back. "ARGH!" She screams when seeing the huge meta-beast in front of her.

The beast roars in rage. Fear and terror took control of Joan's actions, making her crawl back in fear.

But she didn't make it far when another gorilla landed behind her, shaking the very asphalt. That very jolt is what made Joan jump back to her feet. She looks ahead and back, finding a gorilla wielding a spear and shield on both sides, each beast causing a new burst of fear inside of her.

She tried to move away from the sidewalk, hoping to outrun them-

But to her worst possible fears. A third and much bigger gorilla with a spear and a sword in its hands appears in her path, putting a stop to her plans of rescue. The bigger gorilla glares at her with pure animal evil in the eyes.

Joan doesn't know what to do now. The first gorilla got her scared enough to fall. The second one scared her to try and make a break for it despite the odds being against her. But the third one is one that truly terrifies her now, practically leaving her paralyzed.

The third gorilla stars her and growls, using its telepathic powers to drill into her mind. "Fall!"

"AAAAAAHHHHH!" Joan holds her head as she screams, her mind immediately getting assaulted by painful images and memories she's never seen before. It wasn't her mind alone getting attacked, it was as though her entire being was getting assaulted by the intrusive, dangerous images.

She didn't know it yet, but those images are the memories of when the big gorilla underwent the array of experiments that turned it into what it is now.

Unknowingly obliging to the gorilla's instructions, Joan falls to her knees and screams at the top of her lungs in unimaginable pain.

Raising its sword high, the gorilla straightens its blade before aiming at the writhing human with a blank look. It swings the blade down!

However, a flash of lightning erupted from the top of the building. It didn't stop there. Like it was living, the lightning bolt shot downwards like a bullet, traveling down the side of the building. Before the blade could connect with Joan's head, the lightning smashed down between the gorillas and the human girl, releasing a powerful discharge that pushed back the meta-gorillas.

The lightning dissipated, revealing Eliza crouched down on a knee and holding an unconscious Joan Celia in her arms. Standing up, she glares at the gorillas. "Wrong move, bastards." She turns around, walks to the street and gently puts her down, making sure she's leaning against the building. "Don't worry, J…" She gently pulls her hair away from her face. "Nothing's gonna happen to you."

She snaps her eyes back to three gorillas again, flashes of raging lightning brimming in her eyes. "Not while I'm here…" She sneers and starts walking away from Joan.

The three meta-beasts flinch when seeing her body ooze symbiote mass. Her clothes shift, morphing her body into something else as the rest of the mass envelops her entire body. She got taller as the mass devoured her body, spreading long jagged white veins across her body throughout the process. Reaching her neck, the miasma envelopes her head in one gulf.

Now her pale-white eyes glare at the gorillas with large white teeth. Her tall stature of red and yellow skin with white veins shocks the meta-beasts, but the massive strands of red and yellow symbiotic hair with deep black streaks in it stand out the most as it has the same length as her body. Her white claws spark with lightning flares.

"Tell us…" Scream points a finger at the gorillas. "Which of you want to die first?" She says with anger in her voice.

One of the gorillas with a shield and spear roars at Scream, running towards her in charge.

"Perfect. A volunteer." She sarcastically quips as she has her eyes settled on her next target. With a swing of her head, she lashes out her hair, and the strands shoot through the air, nearing the armored gorilla.

Despite the gorilla's relentless attempts to sever the symbiote*like hair, its primitive spear proved futile against the formidable mass. The sinewy strands defied all efforts, snaking around the creature's body with an insidious determination. Within moments, the once-mighty gorilla soldier found himself ensnared, its chest, arms and legs succumbing to the relentless advance of the symbiote hair.

The hair constricted with a merciless grip, the bones beneath the skin audibly cracking under the overwhelming force. Collapsing to its knees, the gorilla emitted a guttural scream, its weapons slipping from feeble fingers and clattering to the unforgiving ground. The symbiote user's sinister tendrils forced the meta-beast to meet the flame-shaped eyes residing in her head.

Maintaining unbroken eye contact with the Gorilla City resident, Scream transforms her constraining hair strands into jagged blades. Without a second to spare, Eliza sparks thunderous lightning around her hair strands and pulls them across the beast's body, tearing through the gorilla's flesh and bones with lightning speed in a dance of blood and destruction. The gorilla, robbed of coherent thoughts, was reduced to ribbons, its life essence sprayed across the asphalt in a grotesque display of blood and gore, painting the surroundings in a nightmarish tableau.

Scream didn't show any care about that and she walked ahead, kicking away the big blood-riddled flesh pieces. When she neared the helmet, she kicked it toward the remaining two gorillas.

"Demon!" The other gorilla with a shield and spear telepathically shouts at Scream.

"Close enough." Scream sneers.

The gorilla runs towards her with an enraged growl. It lashes out with its shield.

Scream doesn't move from her spot, stretching out her right hand and blocking the shield strike. The gorilla is left astonished by the single hand stopping its attack. And that moment of hesitation would lead to its downfall.

Eliza prevented any hope of it escaping when she dug her claws through its shield, her blade-like fingertips tearing through it like it was paper. She further enforced her point when the gorilla swung its spear for her head and she used her symbiotic hair strands to not only knock the weapon out of its hand but also break its wrist with a carefully pinpointed strike.

Before the gorilla could even think of screaming, much less act, Scream flattens her hand like a knife and lightning envelops it completely. The lightning sparks erratically, burning off hair from the gorilla's chest. It annoyed the gorilla to turn to her, but Eliza had already made her move-

PIERCE

The bigger gorilla in the back watches with wide eyes as his remaining subordinate's body goes completely limp from Eliza's action. The symbiote hair strands unwrap from the gorilla's body. Without the restraints now, the body fell to asphalt and Eliza's hand slipped out from the chest chassis, completely bloody and disgusting with gore.

"Who's next?" She says with a smirk, locking eyes with the gorilla commander. The last gorilla growls in anger. "What's wrong? Little monkey sad he's all alone? Don't worry, you can join your friends on the ground… In pieces."

Hearing the patronizing tone and words from the symbiote-ensnared human, the gorilla roars in rage and charges toward her. The gorilla jumps off the ground, landing on top of a car. Its immense weight caves in the roof, it does so even more when it leaps off the crushed vehicle and catapults towards the symbiote-bearer.

Scream wraps hair strands around her arms, completely covering them both with tendrils, and crosses them over her chest. The rest of her symbiotic hair strands dug into the asphalt around her, anchoring her to her spot. Spikes shoot out around her hair-enveloped arms, lightning follows and envelops her arms completely.

Getting closer to her, the gorilla gives a horizontal swing with his stone-like sword. The blade collided with her shielding arms, pushing the lightning-user back a bit but her anchoring hair strands kept her standing. The gorilla in rage delivers a thrust into the arms, the spear tip digging into the gaps between the overlapping tendrils.

"Big mistake." Scream smirks as lightning sparks over her form. With a twist of her head, her hair strands wrap around her opponent's head and choke him, keeping him restrained and making him groan in pain. "You're dead…"

The gorilla looks into her eyes which increasingly emits sparks of lightning. The sparks grow so bright till it's the only thing the gorilla can see. The lightning releases bolts, searing his skin and burning off whatever hair meets the bolts.

Scream's smirk disappears as the two of them are completely surrounded in a sphere of bright destructive lightning. The two of them are completely enveloped in the center of the lightning sphere from where large bolts shoot off in dozens of directions. The lightning tore through the ground, causing debris to scatter. Glass was hit, shattering and melting from the intense thunderous element. Bricks broke into pieces, charred black from the powerful burst of lightning.

The gorilla tried to get away from Eliza, but her hold on its weapons was too strong for it to escape. The Gorilla City soldier screams as its entire body is being electrocuted and shocked from every inch of its hairy animalistic body.

From outside the sphere, one could clearly see two figures in the middle of the thunderous orb. But as more lightning was being released and destroying everything around them, anyone on the outside could see the gorilla have a head reeled back with an open mouth, screaming in pain at the top of its lungs.

The discharge was so powerful and loud that not even the gorilla's painful screech could penetrate it…

But the scream didn't last long… A couple minutes later and it diminished as did the lightning sphere…

When completely gone it revealed Scream who uncrossed her arms and tossed the weapons away. She releases her hair from the gorilla's completely charred corpse and watches it fall uncaringly.

"Quite a fascinating display of our superior might against these ridiculous primates."

Without a second thought to her "other's" words, Scream launches herself off the ground and towards her former coworker. When reaching her, she crouches down in front of Joan Celia. The symbiote mass around her face retracted, revealing her head and she directed a look of concern. She raises a hand, retracting her claws and uses the fingers to push hair away from her face.

"… You're okay now, JC, I promise." She assures her unconscious friend. With her symbiotic hair strands stretching out and wrapping around the human's body. Despite her hair strands around her body, Eliza puts her unconscious body in her arms and cradles her. "I won't leave your side… Not until this is over."

She looks around, taking in the current location. Realizing that she is not far from the local hospital, she reforms the symbiote mass around her face and jumps off the ground. She leaps from building to building, reaching the destination where her friend could be treated.

X

(S.T.A.R. Labs)

At S.T.A.R. Labs, everyone was watching the monitors with horror on their faces as they looked between vital signs of the heroes that were out fighting the gorilla army from Earth-2. They're dealing with the enemies on their own and in their own way, but they're also having their own issues with their respective sides.

Seeing a drop in Barry's vital signs, H.R. quips. "Well, that was not the start we're looking for. At least, on Barry's side." Everyone snaps their eyes at the Earth-19er. "Because Seth and the others are doing bette-" Harry stop him, shaking his head fervently to stop him.

"How long do they have to last?" Iris asks.

"Hopefully, not much longer." Caitlin says.

"Boss Lady."

Caitlin and the rest of the team look up at the ceiling. "Friday? What is it? We got a pretty serious situation going on here."

The A.I. says. "Sorry to make the sitch worse then, but we got, like 10 Earth-2 visitors coming out of the water nearby."

"Please, don't tell me it's gorillas and it's just Hard Hat's friends." H.R. pleadingly says, despite knowing the answer.

If the A.I. had eyes and eyebrows, it would have raised them both in a confused gaze, if it could have formed it.

"What friends would he have?" The A.I. quips back.

"Friday!" Caitlin stands up. "Call Evelyn! Have her shadowport over here immediately."

"Got-…"

Hearing her stop mid-sentence, Caitlin shares a look with the rest of the team. "Friday, what's wrong?"

"Something… Else is out there." Friday says ominously.

"Ominous." H.R. couldn't stop himself.

X

And right Friday is…

Nine gorillas from Earth-2, wearing gladiator armor and weapons, soaked from the water of the body of liquid not far from the facility, were standing completely paralyzed in fear and shock from what they're seeing.

In front of them is a massive white demon. One bearing a striking similarity to Venom, the Lethal Protector they saw defeat Malavar in their own home of Gorilla City. But instead of having pitch-black skin, he is completely white. Instead of white veins, there are black veins spread all over his form, pulsating with each ragged breath it's taking. A pitch-black face with black fangs and gleaming red eyes.

In the Vile Destroyer's right hand is the corpse of their gorilla commander that traveled with them. Its neck snapped from the viscous one-handed death grip that Anti-Venom introduced to it when he grabbed hold of its throat.

When he made himself known, he struck like a bolt of lightning from the clear blue skies and easily snapped the gorilla commander's neck before the eyes of his gorilla subordinates, paralyzing them in fear….

More than that, Anti-Venom stood between them and S.T.A.R. Labs…

And his crimson-red eyes pointing at them… While he took his stand…

X

CRASH

Barry was hurled into a taxi car, which he bounced off, landing on the ground with a grunt. The very strike came from the newly appointed king of Gorilla City, Earth-1 meta-beast Gorilla Grodd. Barry and his speedster protegees, Wally and Jesse, are fighting the gorillas on this side and doing the best they can.

Looking up from the ground, Barry widens his eyes in fear when he sees the other speedsters knocked away by powerful swings from gorilla soldiers. They've been fighting for what felt like hours now, and still, they manage to get back on their feet to resume fighting.

Barry has the same intentions, and keeps fighting alongside the others.

"Your city will fall, Flash." Grodd telepathically shouts into the speedster's mind. Barry gets back up, pushing himself to his full height. "There's only one way to end this." Flash looks at the meta-beast. "You kill me. But you won't do that. You're not Venom, you won't draw blood. All you care about is mercy."

Barry nods his head, to the gorilla's surprise. "Yeah, you're right, except Seth and I aren't the only ones that want to stop you."

Grodd thinks nothing more of it as empty words, snarling at the speedster's arrogance.

But his attention is snapped away when the bright light of a breach shines over his face, making it turn towards it. Barry watches with a smile on his face when Cisco and Gypsy come out of it. And they weren't alone to exit the big breach.

Stepping to the sides the vibers made room for the former leader of gorillakind, Solovar to come out when he jumped out of the breach next. The white-furred gorilla roars as he faces his former subordinates and their leader who usurped his throne.

"Solovar." Grodd mentally growls. The gorillas behind their current king stiffen in the presence of their former ruler.

"I challenge you, Grodd!" Solovar declares.

"And you will fall again!" Grodd retorts.

The gorillas rush towards each other with a roar. Grodd meets his former ruler in a grapple, slamming his shield into the other gorilla's stomach to push him back. Solovar remains standing tall, unfazed by the shield strike, and delivers a kick to the Earth-1 meta-beast's stomach and knocks him down on his back.

Grodd looks up and sees Solovar slam his foot down on his chest. The heavy strike makes him lose his spear. With his superior might, Solovar lifts the Earth-1 meta-beast and throws him into the building next to them.

Slamming into the side of the building, Grodd regains his balance and scales the building. Solovar roars and follows him, leaping off of a taxi vehicle. He follows the Earth-1 beast and they both reach the rooftop, where Solovar pounces on Grodd.

They smash through pipes and other contraptions around them and Solovar lands on top of Grodd. Without a moment to lose, the former ruler of Gorilla City delivers a series of strikes with his fist and his shield to Grodd's face, each powerful strike drawing blood.

Finally able to regain his own strength through the throbbing sensation in his entire head, Grodd hurls Solovar off of him with one mighty push. The two are on their backs, but only for a moment before they snap back to their feet and face each other. Roaring in his opponent's face, Grodd swings his spear for Solovar's face.

But Solovar dodges the attack easily and jumps forward, delivering a strike to the Earth-1 meta-beast's face. Grodd retaliates with a series of strikes himself, avoiding incoming ones from his opponent before delivering a kick to knock Solovar back on his back.

Grodd leaps up and lands on Solovar's chest. Solovar pushes him off of him with a thrust from his shield. Solovar pushes him back with a charge, making his Earth-1 opponent trip over a pipe behind him. Returning to his feet, Grodd blocks a spear strike from Solovar.

However, his next strike is what delivered the most pain as Solovar charges him again and delivers a powerful strike with his shield. The powerful attack launched Grodd over the edge and sent him freefalling down the side of the tall building.

From the streets, the speedsters and the gorilla soldiers from Gorilla City watch as Gorilla Grodd falls to the asphalt with a heavy thud, cracking the ground with the massive velocity he gained from the freefall. The fall from so high up left him hurt and bruised, but still conscious.

Seeing that Solovar saw it fitting to roar his triumphant win over the one who took his throne from him.

He jumped off the tall building and landed down beside the Earth-1 telepathic meta-beast. Grodd tries to get back up, but Solovar delivers a kick that turns him on his back. Solovar looks past the speedsters towards the gorillas that were once under his rule. Stepping over Grodd's body, the pale gorilla roars his victory out loud.

Loud enough for his bellowing roar to reach every corner of Central City.

And loud enough for the gorilla soldiers to kneel down to accept their new ruler and leader of Gorilla City.

Looking down at Grodd, Solovar says. "Goodbye, Grodd." He says as he picks up his spear again, intent on sending Gorilla Grodd to the afterlife as he aims it at his chest.

"Stop!" Barry shouts at the pale gorilla leader.

Along with the Scarlet Speedster's words, black tendrils appeared from above their heads and wrapped around the Gorilla City leader's wrist. Solovar and the speedsters turn their gaze up to the building behind them, where they find Venom on the side of it with tendrils sticking out from the back of his hand.

"Easy there, Yeti." Venom quips.

Solovar faces them. "Why do you stop me, Flash? Demon?"

Landing beside the speedster, Venom tells him. "Our city, our rules, Solovar. Besides…" He retracts his tendrils. "You owe us."

"He's right." Barry nods. "Death isn't the way."

Solovar snarls at their words. "He betrayed me." He beats his chest.

"We understand that Solovar." Venom steps forward. "Betrayal hurts. But this stupid thing's origins lie on this Earth. He's from here, so leave him here to us. His prison will be this Earth."

"We promise, we won't let him go back to Gorilla City ever again." Flash adds. "Just spare his life, like we spared yours and your general's."

Solovar thinks it over, echoing the words in his mind as he quickly mulls it over. He faces the heroes and nods his head with a snarl. "Acceptable…" He looks at Venom. "Malavar sends his regards, Demon."

"Tell him, we'll be waiting for a rematch." Seth quips.

With a nod, Solovar demands. "Send us home, all of us."

Venom nods. He turns his head to the vibers-

"Dad!"

He stops when hearing Evelyn's shout coming through his comms. "Eclipse, what is it?"

"S.T.A.R. Labs now! Come quickly!"

Venom looks at Barry who heard everything and nods his head in agreement.

WHOOSH

He sped them both away, leaving the other speedsters with the vibers to handle gorilla transportation.

X

(S.T.A.R. Labs, outside)

WHOOSH

With his unparalleled velocity the Scarlet Speedster and the Lethal Protector arrive at the grisly scene. The two of them are left speechless at the sight…

They weren't the only ones there. Seth's daughters found the area before them. Evelyn holds her mouth, as though she's resisting the urge to throw up. Ruby is doing the opposite, throwing up in the nearby body of water and hurling everything inside of her stomach. Frankie is left just as paralyzed as her father and the speedster.

It was the only thing for them to do as they're looking at the tableau of chaos before their eyes. The scene before them is nothing short of acrid… The air hangs heavy as they survey the devastation that befell the area in front of their headquarters.

Strewn across the battleground were the dismembered lifeless bodies of ten telepathic gorillas from Earth-2. A haunting stillness came over the area, filling the air. Under their feet, the ground bore the stain of their collective struggle.

Blood had long since painted the scene, mixed in with the remains of bone, flesh and fur. As far as everyone could see across the gruesome battlegrounds, each and every lifeless form they can see bears testament to a merciless and ferocious force that is nothing short of a harbinger of destruction. Limbs, organs and core pieces of the telepathic gorillas were scattered across the asphalt.

A sad and sorrowful wind whispers through the desolation, bringing with it the heavy weight of unanswered questions and unnerving terror.

Because whoever this harbinger of destruction is, they're able to do this to gorillas… It means they can do this to anyone.

"What is this?" Venom asks.

"No idea… Ruby's throwing up now-" Evelyn gags. "And so am I!" She shadowports to the body of water, throwing up her dinner, lunch and breakfast in several big portions.

"Who did this?" Barry asks, pulling off his mask. "What did this?"

Seth exhales, the symbiote mass retracting into his body. "I… have no idea."

"May have a clue for that, Dad." Frankie says as she walks over to them.

Barry looks at her, covering his mouth from the powerful odor of blood. "Not throwing up your meals?"

"I've eaten people before. This is gruesome, sure, but not different from what I'm used to." Frankie says.

"Just say you got a strong stomach, honey." Seth turns to her. "What is it?"

The ferrokinetic raises her hand, holding a…

Feather-like blade.

"That…" Seth takes the blade in his hand. "Vulture… But how?"

"He was loaded into the transport cargo and is in a cell in Iron Heights right now." Barry adds.

"So who used that?" Frankie points to the blade in her father's hand. "And did this?" She gestures to the grounds around them.

Seth barely listened to his daughter's words; his mind focused on the blade in his hand. Million miles of questions formed in his head and he couldn't help where they ended, a place where he could possibly get some answers to this situation…

The destination is here in Central City, in Iron Heights….

X

(S.T.A.R. Labs, The Cortex)

"How long is it gonna take to put 100 gorillas through a breach?" H.R. asks the team while they are waiting for the combatants that went out to deal with the telepathic gorillas from Earth-2 to return.

"Considering Seth and his girls probably knocked out several of those monkeys, I'm gonna say a while, H.R." Joe quips.

Iris looks at Caitlin from the corner of her eye and sees a smile slowly forming on the doctor's face. At this single glance, the reporter could easily tell it was a smile of pride.

"Well, sounds like we're gonna be here all night. You know what I ought to do?" Harrison-19 says. "Whip us up some cappuccino-"

WHOOSH

Three blurs of lightning sped into the Cortex, coming to a stop in the middle of the room and revealing the three speedsters and the two vibers. From the skylight, Seth came out of it. On his back, held close with tendrils, are Ruby and Evelyn. Frankie follows her family and lands beside her father.

"Whoa!" H.R. laughs as he takes in their arrival.

"All the gorillas are back on Earth-2." Barry informs the team.

Seth puts down his daughters from his back and he adds. "At least the ones that are still alive."

Ruby gags. "Dad, shut up!" She covers her mouth.

"Calm down! Calm down!" Seth tells her and Evelyn who gags next.

"What happened to them?" Caitlin asks, standing up from her chair in a rush.

"Talk later, bathroom now!" Seth hastily says as he almost pushes the girls out of the door and rushes towards the bathroom.

Frankie smirks. "Finally got something I can say I got and Ruby doesn't."

"First of all, stop acting proud because you're not throwing up like your sisters." Caitlin tells her. Frankie's smirk told her she wasn't gonna stop. "Second of all, why are your sisters throwing up right now?"

"We checked out the new street art in front of S.T.A.R. Labs, gruesome and not to exactly our taste." Frankie smirks still, happy she is not vomiting in the bathroom like her sisters.

Iris asks. "What happened there? Got an alert that gorillas were there and then something else, and then…" She gives an unsure shrug. "Nothing."

"Well, whatever was there… It was a massacre." Frankie holds her left arm, stopping it from shaking when she recalls the area again.

"Massacre…" Caitlin repeats the word in her mind over and over again.

Iris asks. "What about Grodd? Is he…?"

Frankie gives a nod of assurance. "Alive."

"I called Lyla." Barry says. "He's with A.R.G.U.S."

"Good. I don't know about y'all, but I don't ever need to see a super-smart, telepathic gorilla again." Joe admits with a sigh.

Harrison-19 nods his agreement. "I'm with you."

"Not that Grodd didn't have some justification for mistrusting humans." Barry admits.

"Seth could relate to that." Caitlin says with a weak sigh. "Whatever good was in Grodd is gone. As far as I'm concerned, they can throw him in the same cage as King Shark."

"Hmm." Cisco hums intrigued by that suggestion. "I'd pay good money to see that fight."

"Throw my Dad in there, I'd bet my entire college fund." Frankie adds.

"Never gonna happen." Seth announces as he enters the Cortex again, this time alone. Putting a hand on his mate's shoulder, he says. "Girls are lying down for a bit, gonna take them home soon." Caitlin nods with a smile on her face.

"All right, well, if this city doesn't need my help anymore, I'm gonna head back to Earth-19." Gypsy tells the team, walking around the main console.

"Oh, really?" Cisco stops her, walking up to the other viber. "So you did all this for the city, huh? Cause I'm pretty sure there's a different reason you chose to help us."

"That's right…" Gypsy confirms with a nod. "I was the only one who knew where Solovar was." She elaborates.

"Oh, right, yeah. How could I forget?" Cisco feigns. Gypsy hums. "Don't front. You're into me."

Gypsy gives a sigh with a smile on her face, she walks closer to him. "Look, Cisco, I mean, even if I was…" She suddenly cups his head and places a kiss on his lips.

The entire team widens their eyes. Caitlin is doing the same as is Iris. Jesse and Wally gasping with wide expressions on their faces. Frankie rears her head back in shock. Seth….

He is twitching an eyebrow.

Removing her lips from his, Gypsy tells him. "You couldn't handle me." She finishes off by kissing his lips three more times. She finally lets go of him and walks towards the exit. "Bye guys."

"Bye." Iris says.

Caitlin waves goodbyes to her and Seth gives her a slow nod. Cisco, having regained his voice and mind, admits. "I'm marrying that woman. Yeah."

Frankie says. "Cisco Ramon, that woman will devour you whole."

"I feel conflicted." Seth admits.

"Jealous?" Caitlin narrows her eyes.

"No, conflicted. Don't know why, but I am really conflicted right now." Seth admits.

Iris tells her boyfriend. "Okay, since we've thwarted a gorilla invasion, I better get this story in before I lose my job." Barry nods his head. She asks. "You sure you still don't want to look into the future and see what's changed?"

Barry shakes his head. "No. Think I'm done with that."

Iris smiles. "Good."

"I'll see you at home." Barry tells her.

"Okay." His girlfriend says.

"I'll walk out with you. I've got a date with Cecile." Joe says, following his daughter.

"Joe. Barry." Seth gets their attention. "Later, the three of us are taking a little road trip. Be ready." They shared a look before giving a look of agreement to the elemental. "Thanks… Oh yeah, where's Harry?"

X

After a while of resting, bidding Harry farewell after he finally allowed Jesse to stay on this Earth with her boyfriend, Wally West, and Seth had brought his daughters home with Caitlin's help, and after that…

Things left with question marks had to be answered.

Seth, as he asked of them, brought Barry and Joe with him in the car towards Iron Heights.

And as he drove the three of them and passed the prison gates, Seth told them about everything as they were being led downwards to the familiar surroundings of the lower level of the prison by Warden Gregory Wolfe.

The words Seth and Barry told Joe left him shocked and utterly disgusted as they told him of their findings near S.T.A.R. Labs, including the corpses they found as they traversed through the city to pin for the authority to handle.

"Thanks again for this, Warden Wolfe. We got the rest from here." Joe tells the prison warden.

"Sure thing. Still don't get why you wanna visit these maniacs and how come these five are getting transported outta here on the same day they were brought here." The warden replies.

"Trust us, just the one maniac we need to visit." Seth says.

"Not to mention, the city's better off where we're sending them." Joe adds. He turns to Seth. "Right?"

"Absolutely. Don't worry." Seth assures the detective.

"If you say so…" Gregory stops, pointing down the hallway. "You've been here before, you know it. End of the hall, big cell. Your guy's been docile ever since he and his crew were brought in. Talkative, not so much. But who knows, maybe you guys can get him in a chatty mood. Take care, gents." He says, turning around and walking away to leave them there.

Once the warden is out of earshot, Barry asks Seth. "You really think he wants to talk right now?"

"Octavius wanted to talk to me. Me. He asked for me, by name." Seth empathizes. "He wants to talk to us and right now he is the only one who can answer all the questions we have in our minds."

The detective asks. "What makes you think the octopus has got all the answers we're looking for?"

"Super-genius, evil mastermind, leader of the same elderly man who wears the same pigeon PJs known for shedding sharp feathers that we found twice at separate locations, despite the owner and creator already being under lock and key before we found the second one coated in gorilla intestines." Seth rapidly says. "Want me to keep going?"

"Think I got it." Joe nods. "But think we can get it out of him?"

"Hell if I know, guy's a steel trap. Let's try and loosen his bolts." Seth says walking towards the door at the end of the hall.

Barry follows him. quickly getting up to the elementals side. "Seth, I know what you're thinking about." Joe follows behind the powered beings.

"…The headlines." Seth says, knowing it's the same sentence going through the speedster's mind. "Anti-Venom's stains from massacre remains." He recites the headline. "What we saw near S.T.A.R. Labs are exactly that… Remains from a massacre."

"That raises another question, though." Joe garners their attention. "Why the hell would Anti-Venom stop dozens of evil telepathic, mind-controlling monkeys from getting to the base?"

Barry shrugs his shoulders, not having the faintest idea why he would suddenly defend S.T.A.R. Labs from Grodd's minions.

Seth jokes. "Probably wanted to peek at Barry's search history before the computers were broken."

Barry's face goes blank and he loses all colors. "What do you know?"

"Something I can't unsee." Seth says as he is the first one to walk through the cell entrance with Barry and Joe following him. They walk in to meet the prisoner they're looking for; the door closes behind them immediately while they look ahead.

The cell in front of them is much like Jesse James' cell, a large glass-like wall separating them from the criminal mastermind, holding one Otto Octavius. Seth, Joe and Barry are standing in front of the cell, looking through the wall to see the Earth-616 villain.

Sitting on the edge of his bed in the cell, the lamp over Otto's head is the only source of light for him, flickering over his head repeatedly. The man was sitting still, his hands interlocked in a pyramid formation. His head hangs low, but only for a moment before he lifts it up and looks unsurprised to see the three men on the other side of the room.

Otto looked between them, going from Barry to Joe to settling on Seth. "Gentlemen." He greets them dispassionately.

"Cut the fake greeting, Octavius." Seth gets right down to business, walking up to the glass wall. "You know who I am."

Otto straightens his welding goggles. "Not just you, Venom. But also you…" He glances at Barry, his gaze enough to make the speedster flinch suddenly. "Barry Allen. Or do you prefer that ridiculous name the news calls you, The Flash." He says the name with annoyance. "And you, as well, Detective Joseph West."

"How do you know about us?" Joe asks, seeing the surprise on his son's face.

"Do not insult me by thinking my intelligence is limited to the easy discovery of your identities." Otto says to the detective. "My genius is something your collective minds can never hope to scale."

"Enough." Seth says, cutting him off. "I understand you find my team's identities, but what about me? You know about me but my mark on this world isn't that big."

Otto scoffs at that statement. "Diminishing one's mark on a world, especially when your mark is just as large as the Scarlet Speedster's… Interesting, indeed. But to be blunt, Seth… I knew your identity for a long time before my arms even touched the mud of this world."

Seth widens his eyes in surprise. "You- You knew who I was?"

"Covert military operations on young mutants, kidnapped from the one and only home they've ever known, to create the ultimate weapons…" Otto says dispassionately. "Quite an interesting background of yours, my friend."

"I'm both surprised and not surprised you found out about my life, honestly." Seth admits. "Explains why you wanted me on your team."

"Always thought it was meaningless and a worthless job for you to defend the very people who once wanted to use you for their own selfish reasons." Otto scoffs. "You defending them, protecting them is not what you were meant for. A different position of power suits you better." He stands up.

"Glad to have proved you wrong." Seth says.

"But if you knew who we were all this time, why didn't you release it? Tell it to every threat in the city?" Barry questions.

"My reasons." Otto faces Seth, brushing away Barry's question and says. "You're here because of what happened to us, correct?"

"That and we want to know how come we found one of Adrian Toomes' feathers at another spot, far from where he was apprehended." Joe jumps in. "We know he handed off his tech to someone else."

This time Otto laughs out loud, echoing within his cell. "Handed off… Suppose you're not wrong. But it's not in the way you're thinking of, Joseph West. The fate that befell Mr. Toomes, is the same that befell on the rest of my colleagues and myself."

"What do you mean?" Seth questions with narrowed eyes. An eerie feeling crawls over him and his "other," both of them feeling something terrifying.

Otto removes his goggles and says with a slow and heavy sigh…

"Eliza has leveled the playing field…"

X

ROAR

On the side of the tallest building in Central City, a familiar vile being is scaling the skyscraper.

Its arms split into oily white tendrils, attaching to a spot ahead of him, and using them to catapult himself closer to the very top of the tower.

Landing on the tip of it, Anti-Venom snarls over the city that both Venom and Flash are protecting. The Vile Destroyer claws his face with his still blood-stained hands, twisting and turning as he looks over the beautiful city of Earth-1. The scarlet red eyes looking everywhere, trying to find something or someone to aid and stop the torments brewing in its mind.

But when the torments finally stopped, Anti-Venom looked right ahead again and opened its mouth.

ROAR

The roar he releases was so mighty and it causes a change in his body…

Something is coming out…

Around its arms, bubbling out of the surface of its pale-white flesh are familiar green-yellow gauntlets that expand around his forearms. White veins are pulsating around the gauntlets.

From its lower back, shooting out like a serpent is a familiar long green-metal plated extensible tail. At the tip of it is a stinger, leaking green liquid that sears the surface under the table. White veins are pulsating around the green tail.

From the middle of its back, with a powerful flex from Anti-Venom, four familiar long mechanical arms composed of black metal are ejected. Each arm has two sets of four sharp claws, the larger set of them are tipped yellow. White veins are pulsating around the arms.

From the sides of its gauntleted plates, a pair of familiar large black and light-green wings shoots out with a silver trim. Each wing has an array of knife-like feathers along the wings. Along the surface of the wings and the blades themselves are pulsating white veins.

From the top of its head and from his forehead, two long familiar metallic saber-like horns shoot out. They shine with light hits along the surface of the blades. Along the surfaces of them, white veins are pulsating.

Anti-Venom raises his gauntleted and wing-armored arms up, raising his mechanical arms into the sky along with the tail from his back. He looks into the sky, but his eyes go from one new appendage to another one rapidly, as though he's still struggling to accept these new enhancements.

But there was nothing he could do about them… Not anymore…

The Vile Destroyer… Has become complete.

To be continued…

And that's a chapter, peeps!

Once again, I'm truly sorry for taking so long with this chapter. I will try and make more time for the stories but heck, life throws more curveballs than basketballs are thrown in an NBA game.

But for now, after dealing with the aftermath of Deadpool's antics, the team have to deal with the impending threat looming over their city. This threat being the return of Gorilla Grodd, and he was not alone now, bringing with him an entire army from Earth-2 with the intent to bring ruination upon Central City.

He tried numerous acts of destruction, starting with the kidnap of a military general to unleash hellfire with nuclear missiles. The combined efforts of Eclipse, Flash and Venom, as well as the unknowing aid from Evelyn Sharpe, put a halt to that.

When this plan failed, Grodd and his army marched towards the city from numerous directions. The speedsters and symbiote hosts take separate stances to intercept the army.

They weren't the only ones going to defeat the army, the others being Eliza and Thunderbolts who met and dispatched several gorillas gleefully. Eliza went to dispose of some gorillas too, in defense of Joan Celia.

While that happened, S.T.A.R. Labs was about to meet some gorilla interlopers as well, but Anti-Venom stopped that immediately, using things that were unlike anything that it had used before to dispose of the ten gorillas with ease.

With the help of the two vibers, Vibe and Gypsy, who were eager for revenge against the Earth-1 telepathic meta-gorilla, Solovar was brought to Earth-1 and defeated Grodd in a trial by combat. The price being the title of king of Gorilla City.

Winning the trial easily, Solovar retook his title as ruler of Gorilla City and demanded the denizens of his kingdom to return to their origin Earth. As this happened, thanks to the transportational skills of the two vibers, Flash and Venom returned to S.T.A.R. Labs and saw the immense remains of the massacre left behind near their facility.

The remains left them disgusted and in pain…

But also with questions…

These questions lead them to Octavius where they're trying to get answers to why Eliza turned on him and the rest of the Sinister Seven members.

And then came the shocking revelation that Anti-Venom has now adorned himself with the Sinister Seven's weapons.

Once again, so sorry for taking too long with this chapter. Will try to keep them coming with shorter intervals, but…

No promises unfortunately.

Stay tuned and until next time, peeps!