15
Team Meeting
Cadence gathered her things together, tossing piles of Barry's residual junk mail into the trash. (How much mail could he have after six months away? Enough so that even a speedster didn't want to go through it). She blew around the kitchen, clearing plates and sticking them in the dishwasher. Then turned back to her son who sat at the breakfast table with Connor, picking at his toast. She rolled her eyes at her son's continuous picky eating habits.
You'd figure an eleven-year-old would be more adventurous with his food, she thought. "Please eat the crust, Brady," she said as she blew around. "It's the healthiest part."
Brady hunched over his plate. Even from where Cadence stood, she could see the corner of his mouth turn up into a smirk. "How does the baking process make the healthy part rise to the surface of dough?" He turned his smirk toward her, eyebrows twitching upwards. "I do go to school, you know."
A sigh escaped Cadence's lips. She placed her hands on her hips, lower jaw moving aside. She looked to Connor, who smiled softly in response. "Has he always been this annoying or am I only just noticing it?"
"He's always been that annoying," Connor remarked.
Brady scowled, plunking his toast back down to his plate. "You haven't known me that long."
"Yeah, but I'm your best friend. So, I have no reason to lie."
Cadence smiled to herself, chuckling quietly at the disgruntled expression that came to her son's face. Then she looked to Connor, who lowered his chin and finished up the last few bites of his own breakfast. Wondered if his sullenness was still from his mother's death or if it were due to seeing Oliver again, hearing their argument. It'd happened the week before, but the residuals of that week were still there. Especially as it made her think of Caitlin more in the last week than she'd allow herself to over the past six months.
Team Flash had practically fallen apart when Barry left. And it didn't help she wanted Caitlin as far away from STAR Labs as possible. It was one of the few things she and Cisco butted heads about when it cropped up again. He was desperate to find her, wanted to have her back since her cold signatures had petered out. Because you made them peter out, Cadence thought.
She could still remember the angry-surprised expression on Killer Frost's face when Cadence attacked her, stabbed the vial in her neck that sapped her powers from her. It was a sense of desperation that drove her forward, to keep Killer Frost from having to make her make the hardest decision she'd have to come to terms with.
How do you kill your best friend?
It was one thing to stare death in the face. She'd done it enough times with Breathtaker holding the power to kill her at a moment's notice. When Savitar made it his life mission to kill her so that Barry would completely crumple. And had seen it, experienced it when Burnout had given up her own life to trick Savitar into thinking she had, indeed, been taken down by the God of speed. The rush of pain that stabbed her body from all sides when she mind-melded with Burnout in her last moments was the most agonizing thing she'd evert felt. (Almost as agonizing as hearing Brady's screams when he thought she was dead. But agonizing enough so that it felt like her powers were going out of control and she was exploding from the inside out).
Inflicting that pain on someone else was a harder decision than anyone could ever imagine. Killing was an intimate act. Getting so close to someone to stab, maim, strangle…kill anyone all together, being that close to see the lifeforce drain from someone was far ore intimate than a lover's kiss could be. Having to do that to someone who was a big part of her life?
It just proved to Cadence, struck her with surprise, really, at how vulnerable she was when it came to people close to her. She'd always been someone who pushed those thoughts aside when conducting business. Had the though tin the back of her mind, of her victims' family, when she was taking someone's life. But the need to survive never allowed her to think of it too much. Until it became too much. Until she found herself at the cemetery, laying flowers on the graves of those that had died, caught up in a senseless war they didn't know they were in.
But for Caitlin to look her in the eye and ask her to kill her if she became Killer Frost?
It was the lesser of two evils, she supposed, forcing her to take the cure. But that was the point. It was forced. By then Caitlin had been working to relieve herself of Killer Frost and Cadence had gone along and forced it upon her. Admitting it to Barry was hard. Admitting it to herself was even harder.
She'd messed up.
And couldn't stand to think of Caitlin confronting her about it. It was hard enough talking to Barry to Barry about what'd happened, about admitting what she'd done. They hadn't truly talked about it, it was something they brought up once then acted like it hadn't happened. It was different with Cisco, obviously. He'd never stopped looking for her and when he found her…
"Mom?" Brady's voice broke her out of her thoughts. He gestured to his wrist, where the housing unit of his suit lay. He tapped the face of it as if it were a watch. "We're going to be late."
"Right, right." Cadence shook her head and brushed her hair back from her face.
She reached out her hands while Brady and Connor got up from the table and moved to her side. She placed her hands on their shoulders and mimed taking a step forward, teleporting. The moment she finished her step, they were in the Cortex of STAR Labs. Brady and Connor immediately went to Leah's side as she sat on the floor of the Cortex, hands folded in her lap, waiting patiently.
Cisco, who'd been lounging at the computer looked up at them, slowly chewing a Twizzler, legs crossed at the ankle, stretched onto the counter in front of him. He held up his hand, mimed looking at a watch. Cadence rolled her eyes once more, suddenly realizing how much influence 'Uncle Cisco' had on her son.
"Is everyone here?" She asked, placing her hands on her hips.
"You're late!" Cisco practically barked.
Cadence ignored him. "Not everyone's here." She closed her eyes, hair blowing back from her face when Barry, Wally, and Jay skidded to a stop in the cortex. "Of course."
Grinning, Jay placed his hand son his knees, leaning over as he fought to catch his breath. Barry and Wally, however, immediately recovered form their speed and immediately started ribbing each other. "I beat you," Wally declared. He pressed his hands to his chest then lifted his fists above his head in victory. "I totally beat you."
"You definitely didn't," Barry replied. "I was in the lead around that last turn. And I phased through the wall before you came even close to touching me."
"No." Wally shook his head. "No way. I totally—"
"—You're late!" Cisco barked again.
Iris rolled her eyes, leaning against the control panel next to him. "Look, everyone's here now. Don't be such a stick in the mud." She then slapped Cisco on the shoulder and gestured toward Jay. "And why don't you give him your seat? It's rude, you know."
"Please." Jay stood, holding out his hand. "Don't give me any special treatment. I'm just glad to see everyone again." He nodded towards the figures that stood around the room. "Team's much bigger now than it was before." His eyes landed on the empty space next to Cisco. "Smaller in some ways," he added.
Cisco cleared his throat, sitting up straight. "Okay! Is everyone finally ready to talk about all this stuff that we found out? Like that there's more than one Speed Force who may or may not be after Barry?"
"After Savitar," Wally pointed out. He motioned to himself then Jay. "We haven't had any problems with anything like this. But it wasn't until Savitar's presence that…" He trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck. Smiled sheepishly. "Well, I don't really know what Savitar's presence is doing."
"Other than making him speak gibberish when he got out of the Speed Force," Joe pointed out. He waved a hand toward Barry. "There's a lot of things I don't understand about all this meta stuff, but even that was something I couldn't wrap my head around."
"Well, allow me to make my mother's spirit happy for a few moments and be the professor that I never was," Cisco said, leaping to his feet.
Iris gave him a funny look. "Your mom isn't dead, Cisco."
"Yes, but her spirit has ways of coming to get me," Cisco reminded her.
Cadence made a low humming sound. "My mom's the same way." She grinned when Brady threw her a disapproving glance, only briefly masked by a half-smile.
"As Jay explained, it seems to be that the Sage Force, the Strength Force, and the Still Force, very much like the Speed Force, are trying to battle for dominance once more and while Barry had been within the Speed Force prison, it affected him more than we'd originally thought," Cisco said, taking up the explanation. He cleared his throat and started to pace. Lifting a finger in his air as he kept going. Putting on a performance. "His mixed-up brain aside, there's going to be more residual affects than we thought would happen."
"Like…?" Leah questioned.
"Like, first and foremost, we were able to become stronger on our own," Cisco continued. He stopped pacing and placed his hands on his hips. He looked to Cadence, Wally, Leah, and Brady as he added, "We all had to step up with our responsibilities of taking care of the city and we've grown stronger as metas because of it. We've managed to defeat everything and anyone that's come our way after numerous trainings and practice sessions." He stopped, pressing a hand to his mouth. "Until now."
"Well, what was different this time?" Connor asked, clasping his hands together.
"The Samuroids," Cadence pointed out. "Wally tried going after him, we tried fighting it, even Black Blade tried. And our brute strength couldn't stop it." She lifted a finger and pointed across the Cortex, where the head of the Samuroid sat on display. A prize for finally defeating a second iteration of an attack. Barry had suggested it once the Samuroid had burst into pieces, saying Cisco could probably use it to determine what it was made of. They had to work hard to take down his armor, finding it impenetrable. If they could figure out the metals used to make the Samuroid, they may be able to figure out who was manufacturing them and sending the robots after them. "Its armor is virtually indestructible and the only way we were finally able to stop it was when we tried something different, threw in a stronger attack."
"So?" Leah asked. Her face scrunched up as she titled her head, blonde hair falling form her brown eyes. "'What does that have to do with anything?"
Cadence had never known Leah to have a rude bone in her body but had the distinct feeling she was annoyed of being left out from Brady's and Connor's adventure of fighting the Samuroid and the other meta they'd come across. "I mean, we faced the Samuroid twice and both times he wanted to take on the Flash. He was harder to beat this time around if someone like Black Blade couldn't take him down, it's only a matter of time until we create something that can."
"Or something's sold that can," Cadence said. She thought for a moment. "I'm sure there's something in the Network that would do it. If they've got their information on us through Amunet's Network, that'd be the least of our problems when it comes to the weapons they can sling through." Her eyebrows twitched upwards. "And believe me when I say you couldn't imagine the sorts of weapons they'd managed to come up with, and how much it's going for."
"So, we've got the potential means of the how the metal is being found," Wally said. He cleared his throat, still pacing. "We just need to find out who's sending them after us. Isn't there some sort of an IP address or serial number on the parts we can follow?"
Cisco lifted an eyebrow. "You think we haven't already thought of that? I mean, I'm a mechanical genius here, you think I wouldn't have thought of running tests to determine the components of the metals and try to trace it back?"
"Well, did you?" Joe asked, point blank.
Cisco's eyes shifted. "Yes!...and I'm still waiting for the results to come back. But in the meantime, there are two more pressing matters we have to deal with. The meta that attacked at the same time as the Samuroid and everything with the Speed Force."
"What's going on with the Speed Force isn't anything we can fix soon," Jay pointed out. "The Speed Force, and all the other forces, are constantly evolving, constantly changing. It could take even a speedster forever to learn everything there is to know about the Speed Force."
"Well, has anyone ever encountered the Still Force?" Wally asked. He folded his arms, licked his lips, eyebrows pinched together in concern. "Or The Sage Force? Maybe it's something we can tap into to stop all this from happening?"
"And turn your brain into soup on the way out?" Iris shot back. She motioned towards Barry. "We could hardly understand him when we came out of the Speed Force, how do we know that the Sage Force wouldn't…completely remove his brain or something?"
"Or it could make him the smartest man alive," Brady pointed out with a cheeky grin. "A big improvement if you ask me."
"Brady!" Cadence snapped. He immediately shut up, slapping his hands over his mouth, eyes growing wide. Barry silently raised a hand and shook his head. A silent gesture to show he didn't take offense ot it. Still, Cadence gave her son a warning look and addressed the room once more. "I think Jay's right, that we can't split our attention on this, and that we need to focus on this new meta. This isn't the first meta we didn't see coming."
"But the question is…" Cisco said mysteriously. "'How did he get his powers? Facial recognition states that he wasn't in Central City at the time of the Particle Accelerator explosion. And…" he sighed heavily. "I tracked the Samuroid movements and, it's clear they're coming from someone who is targeting the Flash. Someone who…somehow…knew Barry was going to come out of the Speed Force that day at that time."
Iris's eyebrows came together. "You think they're connected."
"I do."
"But that doesn't make sense," Joe said. "This guy has meta powers we haven't seen before. A sort of…magic based power—"
"—Or nano technology," Cisco broke in. "That's not really something we've come across before and, honestly,"—he grinned—"I'm really hoping this is it."
Barry ignored Cisco. "So, if these events are connected, if there was another dark matter event, then what was it that made the dark matter event? There hasn't been another explosion, I mean, STAR Labs doesn't look any more destroyed now than it did before."
"Mmm." Brady's face screwed up. "Dark matter is what made my mom and made me," he said slowly. "But my mom was injected with the dark matter and I was there when the Particle Accelerator went off." He started to point around the room. "Cisco got it during the Particle Accelerator explosion and so did Caitlin. Barry was hit by lightning from the explosion of the dark matter. Wally and Jesse got their powers after they were hit with the wave of dark matter when we were trying to stop Zoom. So there's always dark matter around us."
"Nothing as big as the particle accelerator, though," Iris pointed out. "And Velocity-9, but I don't think we have any more of that laying around." Her eyebrow cocked upwards. "Not enough to create any new metas that aren't speedsters anyway."
Jay nodded quietly. He lifted his chin, parted his lips and looked Barry directly in the eye as he said, "Except for Barry coming back…" All eyes turned toward him. "If what you've been telling me is true, a Speed Force portal opened and there's a wave of dark matter that came out along with him."
Cadence immediately turned to Cisco and said, "Go back to the day Barry came out and track it for any dark matter." Cisco nodded and hurried behind the computer. His fingers flew over the keyboard, the incessant clacking breaking the tension through the Cortex.
"Okay," Cisco finally said, motioning toward the large projection on the screen that sat across the Cortex from the computer station. A map of a connection street corner came up, revealing a large mass of…something. Cisco nodded toward it. "That's where it's coming up."
"There's nothing there!" Leah remarked, her noise wrinkling once more.
Brady tilted his head, scratching his neck with the most befuddled expression on his face. "It's not even an intersection."
"But it's where I came out of the speed force…" Barry explained. "Then ran to Ivy City. I remember that part. I could see everything moving around me, but, from my point of view, I was chasing Savitar. I didn't see my surroundings util Brady knocked some sense into me." He paused. "Literally. The Speed Force portal opened, I ran out, there was a wave of dark matter and…" he trailed off.
Joe's eyes widened in surprised. His mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. His gaze bounced off every face in the Cortex, who gaped back at him. "So…we did it? We brought dark matter into Central City?"
"And the more dark matter we brought into Central City, the more metas we may have created," Cisco murmured. He brought his hands up and rubbed hem over his face. "Every time we try to do something right, it goes totally wrong."
"What are we going to do then?" Leah asked. "It's not like we can figure out all of the metas that we created by opening that portal. Do you know how many people are in this city? A lot." She motioned between herself, Brady, and Connor. "We did a report!"
"We're just going to have to do the same things we've always done," Barry remarked, letting out a defeated sigh. He brought up a hand to run over his face in the same way that Cisco had done before. "If any metas come around, we're going to have to capture and rehabilitate them. Make the city safer while we try to figure out what's bringing the Samuroid forward and figure out who's after me."
"Well, we only have about one hundred people who you may have possible ticked off," Cisco said sarcastically. "And that's just by your presence of being a meta alone."
"I think you're forgetting that people are after you too, Vibe boy," Cadence shot back. "None of us are safe. We know what's been going on with the Anti-Meta measures and now that Lex Luthor is using it as his campaign platform…it's just going to make it easier for people who've always been anti-meta to be more open about it than ever before."
"There's always been a lot more taggings over the last six months," Iris agreed. She folded her arms, shaking her head sadly. "There are those trying to clean it up the best they can…but it's moved on to be digital now. You can't go on the internet these days without someone having to say something anti-meta, or making a slur, or just being plain hateful to each other."
"And with this new meta, we can't be too careful," Barry agreed. He looked to Brady, Connor, and Leah and added, "I don't like the idea of them going out into the field now."
"What?!" Brady and Leah cried in unison.
"They might be right," Joe agreed. He nodded towards Wally. "I don't even like the idea of any of you being out in the field right now. Things are getting harder for us at the CCPD and even us as regular people. After what happened with the gorilla attack and the missile…" he trailed off when Cadence and Barry grimaced, looking away. "Tensions are running high right now. There are people who are as grateful for the presence of metas and their powers as there are those who hate it."
"So is it a good thing that there has been a creation of new metas at this time?" Jay asked. He held up his hands when all eyes turned toward him. Accusing, confused, and worried. "I'm asking the simple questions that everyone asks. That anyone would ask. Because you really need to take this into consideration, the anti-meta side isn't as strong on my Earth as it is on yours. We live peacefully for the most part. Do you think the defense for the metas is worth it?"
"Of course," Barry quickly agreed. "It's what we always do. It's what we've always done. We capture, rehabilitate, and let them go."
"And the Pipeline isn't a prison?"
Barry bristled at that. "Not any more than the Speed Force has been. At least we know what'll happen if we put them in the Pipeline! We can watch them, make sure nothing goes wrong. As for everyone out there now…things are as dangerous for us as it is for anyone who's been normal. Lex is trying to pin everyone against metas and…that's not what we need right now. Metas aren't evil, people are evil, and people with powers just make it…" He trailed off.
Cadence watched him, shaking her head. What more was there to say? They were on the same page in that aspect, that metas shouldn't be treated as badly as they were. Like dangers to themselves nd others, when it wasn't metas that were the problem, but what people decided to do with the powers they were given. Just as easily as she was a hero—if she even was that—she could've become a villain. Just as easily as Barry was able to let what happened to his parents fuel him to a life of justice, he could've easily gone the route of Savitar and…
Honestly, she didn't want to think about it. They'd come across too many evil speedsters for her to want to think about it happening to someone who was supposed to be the fastest man alive.
"So we've got two things to worry about right now," she said, taking up the lead once more. Cadence lifted two of her fingers. "Finding the identity of the man who was after Brady and figuring out where the metal from the Samuroids is coming from."
"Identities should be easy," Joe said. He nodded toward the screen presented in front of him. "If facial recognition told us he became a meta after the Particle Accelerator explosion we may be able to use CCPD tools to figure out just who he is."
Cisco snorted. "No offense, Joe, but this facial recognition software is state of the art. The best. Not even Oliver Queen can get something like this, okay? It goes through the police database and everything you can think of. If it can't give us this meta's identity, what makes you think the CCPD will."
"Because we've been working with far less technology than STAR Labs has given us before and we've still managed to catch our man," Joe replied.
"Point taken," Cisco murmured to the light chuckles around the room.
"Wait for me," Barry decided. "I might be able to figure some things out while I go through…" he sucked in a deep breath. "Every case that's been left for me since I left."
Iris raised her eyebrows, amused. "You haven't gone through them since you got back."
"I have!" Barry said defensively. He sniffed. "It just takes a long time. And there's some cases I really didn't want to revisit. Believe me."
"I'll look into where we can get some of that metal," Cadence agreed. "Our first shot is to see if any of it is coming from The Network and I think I've still got some pull in that area." She gave a half shrug. "Even if I don't get a straight answer, it'll at least knock that area off our list of people who still have a bone to pick with us." She refrained from saying the obvious, that she was looking into the Network to see if there was any pull they still had over her.
While Breathtaker used other people to do his dirty work, Amunet Black wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty herself. She came about some of the top items—and people—through her Network herself. A way with words and a penchant for a steely tone made her the 'muscle' of her own organization. But there was a reason she and Breathtaker never attacked each other, and there must be something that's keeping Amunet from putting herself out there. If there's some sort of metal going through the Network, she'll know what it is and want to use some of it herself.
"In the meantime, we should look into getting Jay back home," Cadence said. She nodded to Wally. "Think you can give him some more time to rest before you race him back to Earth-3?"
Jay smiled and tipped his head toward her—a move which would've been with his hat had it been on him. "I may be getting older, but I still heal fast. Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with and you know I'll be here in a Flash." He smiled at his own joke, letting out a quiet sigh to the polite smiles that came his way. "Just thought I'd get that in once to see how it felt."
"And how did it feel?" Joe asked.
"Like one of those 'dad' jokes I keep hearing the kids here talk about."
Cadence smiled. "Iris, keep an ear out for what's going on with Lex and the anti-meta factions. Anything we can know before it happens—any underground meetings, any pushes with the MRA, any bills that or laws that seem similar to be put into place, we'll need to know so we can prepare." She nodded toward Barry. "Maybe make an appearance with Flash and Flare."
Iris nodded. "There hasn't been anything in this city that I haven't been able to sniff out."
"Is this a 'go team' moment?" Cisco asked sarcastically.
"Yeah, I've been getting that vibe, too," Wally added.
Cadence ignored them. "And I hate to say it, but I think Barry's right." She looked to Brady and Leah. "For now, we can't have you go into the field." She kept going before Brady could protest any further than the expression on his face would've let him. "We can't have it where the mounting tensions against metas puts you in even more danger than we're already in. We'll have to adjust your training, but we can't have you go back out there until we find this meta and figure out what he wants with you." She paused. "Or the city collectively decides that meats aren't a threat. Whichever comes first."
Leah lowered her head and nodded.
Brady crossed his arms and turned away.
"I want reports as soon as you hear anything," Cadence said to Team Flash, before turning on her heel to leave the Cortex. She reached for Barry's arm as she, Joe, and Barry moved to the elevator, going to return to the CCPD. "I know Brady's going through the whole teenage thing a bit early, but you really have to stop doing that," She remarked.
Barry looked at her with wide eyes, confused. "Doing what?" He asked.
"Defending everything he does when I try to discipline him," Cadence said. She brushed her hair behind her ears. "I get you're trying to be the good parent in this situation, but if you're going to be his step-dad soon, you're going to have to let him know that he can't get away with treating you like this."
"I know," Barry agreed. "I can handle it."
"I don't mean to brush it off—"
"—I know," Barry interrupted her. Cadence lifted an eyebrow, looked to Joe, who looked away. He spoke quieter. "I get it. Things are hard for him now, and we just benched him. It's probably going to get harder before it gets easier but…I can handle…" he looked like he was having a hard time getting the words out. "Disciplining him if I have to."
"You have to," Cadence insisted.
"I know. And I will." He looked at her silently for a moment. "Do I have to ask you to be careful going to see Amunet?"
"That depends," Cadence replied with a laugh. "Do I have to tell you to be careful seeing Captain Singh?"
"Touche."
