29


"Are you sure you're up to go again?" Oliver grinned, folding his arms as he watched Barry stare up at the salmon ladder with an incredulous expression on his face. "I heard that you were having some problems staying on your feet lately. I don't want to overdo it."

Reaching up his hands, Barry pressed his hair back off his forehead. Beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks, dripped off his chin. "I'm pretty sure anyone who's trying to figure out the bank of memories between himself, and two doppelgangers would find it difficult to keep their composure." He gestured toward Oliver. "Even you."

Oliver shook his head. "I've had my fair share of things I've had to deal with over here, but doppelgangers are where I draw the line."

"Don't worry about him, Bare," Cisco called from the other side of the bunker, where he and Harry were crowded around the computer terminal. "There's more than enough that we can handle. Oliver's just jealous that we can get more done without using our enemies like a pin cushion." Oliver turned and glared at him. "But what do I know? We're the ones who mess everything up."

With a light roll of his eyes, Oliver turned back to Barry. He pointed with his chin to the salmon ladder. "Alright, go again."

"You know, it's not as hard as you make it look." As if to prove his point, Barry used his speed to race up and down the salmon ladder. Lightning trailed off him and he moved so fast that everyone who was watching him had to rapidly bob their heads up and down to keep up with his movements. Barry dropped to the ground, holding the bar in his hands. "It's not like there needs to be an instruction manual to it."

"Careful, Allen, your ego is showing," Harry remarked.

Barry grinned and turned, handing the pole back to Oliver. Oliver took it and turned to put it back, just in time for Diggle to whip around and start to throw jabs towards Barry's face. Barry quickly backed across the mats on the floor and brought up his own hands to protect himself as Diggle's fist moved rapidly toward him. Oliver stood off to the side, watching the two.

"You use your speed as a crutch," Oliver remarked as he watched Diggle and Barry spar against each other. "You use it to get things done quickly, but not effectively. Like the salmon ladder. You used your speed to ensure I couldn't see your form and how much time you were taking between each ladder rung. You need to rely on all your other instincts to make sure you come out on top. Not just the powers you were given."

All was quiet as Barry and Diggle continue to spar…until a very loud snorting sound filled the air. Oliver took in a deep breath, his chest swelling as he turned to face Ralph. Ralph looked back at Oliver with raised eyebrows, a slightly dopey expression on his face.

"Oh, sorry. It's just that I get really, very bored when I'm getting lectured about something," Ralph remarked. He took his hands out from the pockets of the sweatpants he was wearing and gestured toward Barry. "Kind of like when I have to listen to Rookie over here, try to tell me what it's like to be a good hero." His gaze shifted toward Oliver. "Are you…considered a hero here?"

Oliver clenched his jaw and took a step toward Ralph.

Barry used a quick speed boost to knock Diggle's hand away and turned his gaze to the newest—albeit temporary—member of Team Flash. "Ralph," he snarled through gritted teeth. "Stop!"

"Or what? Robin Hood's going to shoot me with an arrow?"

"It wouldn't be the first time," Oliver murmured. He turned an almost smug smile to Barry, who glared back at him. Diggle chuckled to himself, dropping his arms to his side, giving Barry a light reprieve. Then he cleared his throat. "As I was saying—"

"Hey!" Ralph interrupted. This time Brady laughed quietly when he saw just how perturbed—pissed off—Oliver was getting at Ralph's presence. He turned to address the entire room. "You guys want to see something cool?" He didn't wait for a response before focusing on his powers and started to stretch around the Bunker.

Oliver's eyebrows rose. Diggle folded his arms over his chest, watching with rapt attention—though as the seconds passed, his eyes seemed to grow wider with horror and…amazement. Barry rolled his eyes. Harry and Cisco ignored him. Brady sat in the corner of the practice pads with Connor, legs stretched out before him, knocking his feet together as he waited.

Finally, Ralph stopped stretching, his upper half encircled around the rafters and the beams that supported the bunker. A wide grin spread across his face, waiting for Oliver's and Diggle's reactions to his powers.

"That's kinda cool," Diggle murmured, after finally finding his voice. He brought up a hand to cover his mouth, blinking rapidly. "A little disgusting, but cool."

Oliver shook his head. He brought up his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose then ran his hand down his face. He swung his head around to glare at Barry who simply shrugged in response and lazily waved a hand toward Oliver. Translation: Just ignore him. Oliver gritted his teeth in response.

"Just…" Barry turned back to Oliver. "Look, I get that you're trying to help me train and to get better." "Oliver nodded. But that wasn't the kind of help I was looking for when we came here."

"I know," Oliver agreed. He motioned toward Brady. "I needed to get more training in with him." He paused, glancing at Conner, who sat quietly beside his best friend, pressing his chin in his hands, staring into space. "Kicking your ass is just a bonus."

"Ha ha."

Barry ran a hand through his hair, then rested his hands atop his head. "Okay, look. We came here to see if you guys to help up figure out what was going on with DeVoe. Are you sure we can't find him?" Barry asked. "I mean, we were warned, we had a heads up that someday some guy named DeVoe would be one of my greatest foes."

"Technically, you weren't," Brady commented, sticking his hand in the air as if he were in class. "It was one of your doppelgangers that broke your brain into realizing that DeVoe would be one of your greatest foes."

"Abracadabra mentioned it, too," Conner agreed. Brady nodded.

Cisco sighed heavily. "If the Peanut Gallery is finished," he remarked. Brady and Conner both grinned. Then the mechanical engineer glanced at his best friend as if he were crazy. "Do you know how many people there are in this state with the name DeVoe?"

"No," Barry replied honestly.

"Thousands!" Cisco insisted.

Harry gestured, almost violently, toward the computer system in front of them. He stood in his regular stance, arms folded over his chest and feet shoulder width apart. A power stance to hold any sort of control over everything going on around him. "And we still don't have an age."

"Unless it's the three-month-old William DeVoe," Cisco continued. He squinted, leaning closer to the computer screen as if he was unable to read it. Though had looked at it enough to know that they weren't any closer to figuring things out than they were before. Though it was what prompted Barry to suggest they go to Star City and ask Oliver and the others to help them with their search.

And, as Barry thought, it'd probably be a good idea to have Oliver and Conner to spend some time together. Random visits to Central City and the odd text message and phone call when he wasn't too busy being the Green Arrow wasn't enough to cultivate the relationship. Even Ryder, after Barry had mentioned how Brady was upset of not seeing him too much, had made a better effort to be around. Nevertheless, Barry could see Oliver's struggle with the decision he and Felicity had made.

Running a hand through his hair, Barry said, "I don't think one of my greatest enemies is a baby."

"Evil killer baby…" Cisco murmured.

"It could happen," Harry said. He shrugged and waved an arm. "We've seen a lot of stranger things. Who's to say that an infant couldn't start exhibiting metahuman abilities they inherited from their parents." He shrugged. "Or that a pregnant woman would start to have metahuman abilities due to carrying a meta infant to term."

Barry sucked in a sharp breath through his nose. He hadn't thought about that. "Right…" then he looked over as the opening to the bunker slid open and Felicity walked through. In her hands she clutched a bushel of balloons and a large gift bag, festooned with curled ribbon and tissue paper that stuck out of the top. "Wow," Barry remarked. "You're real prepared."

Felicity's beam nearly took up her whole face as she motioned to the bag and balloons. Cisco and Harry leaned out of the way as she waved the balloons and bag around. "Team Arrow to team Bride." She pushed her glasses up her nose. "Very excited for that bachelorette party."

Brady opened his mouth, ready to say something, but closed his mouth once more when he found Barry staring daggers at him. Brady pressed his lips together and shrugged, leaning back and continued to kick his feet together. If an eleven year old noticed the tension between Cadence and Felicity, then Barry knew it was only a matter of time until things, potentially, went badly with the bachelorette party.

"Yep, getting inebriated with the same gender to celebrate an archaic institution?" Harry asked.

"Priceless," Cisco agreed.

"And you only get married once!" Felicity agreed. Then her smile faded, she turned her gaze to the ceiling, deep in thought. Felicity tapped her finger on her cheek for a few seconds. "Well, actually, most marriages are divorced these days." Oliver and Diggle grimaced while Barry's eyebrows came together. "55 percent to be exact. But that's just statistics."

She then noticed Harry and Cisco both pulling their hands across their throats behind Barry's back. Her eyes widened at her faux pas and she gasped loudly, bringing her hands up to cover her mouth. Ralph, on the other hand, burst out laughing, his voice echoing all around the bunker from the way he twisted and turned. "She got you pegged, Rookie!"

Barry glared at him.

Felicity brought her hand down from her mouth. Stepping forward, she placed her hands on Barry's shoulders, gently drumming her fingers against him. Shook him. "But not…not you and Cadence. That would never happen…I mean…." Her eyes then trailed over to Ralph's lower body, that gently rocked ack and forth as he waited. "Who's that?"

Sighing, Barry pushed the thoughts of any impending divorces out of his head. He gestured toward Ralph with a half-hearted wave. "Ralph Dibny."

"He's…" Felicity walked closer, gazing at him. She reached out and poked at the skin. She jumped, seeing her finger dig right into his skin. "Just a stomach?"

"Stop!" Ralph cried. "That's my bellybutton! That tickles!" Felicity continued to poke him and Ralph let go of the rafter he was holding onto, snapping back into place. Felicity screamed at this sudden appearance and jumped backwards. "Wow, I can stretch even further than I thought!" He lifted his arms and grinned at Felicity. "How'd my stomach look?"

Felicity blinked back at him. "Amazing," she replied, her voice a whispered awe. Over Ralph's shoulder, Oliver glared at his girlfriend. He cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows, looking directly at her. Felicity jumped once more and quickly corrected her. "I mean, your powers are amazing. But what happened—"

"—Bus metas," Brady and Conner said in unison.

"—But how—"

"—We opened a portal," Brady said.

"—And dark matter spilled out," Conner agreed.

"—How'd you open the portal—"

"—We used this quack sphere and—"

"—It's a quark sphere," Cisco interrupted, holding up a hand. "If you can't say it right, then please, try not to butcher the language." Brady stuck out his tongue. Cisco then took up the explanation. "We were trying to take Barry out of the Speed Force and when we did, it opened a portal that allowed a wave of dark matter to rush out and engulf a bus that was nearby. We think everyone who was on that bus has been turned into a metahuman."

"Okay…" Oliver licked his lips, taken in by the rapid explanations. "So you were gone for six months because you were in the Speed Force?" Barry nodded in agreement.

"Why wouldn't it let you out?" Diggle grabbed the towels that had been sitting by the floor and tossed one to Oliver before dabbing at his neck with the other. "You've gone in and out of it before. What made it keep you in there this time?"

"Because I wasn't just in the Speed Force, I was in a Speed Force prison," Barry explained. He squeezed his eyes shut, getting another flash of the life he should've lived through his head once more. The life that should have been Savitar's. "I'll try to keep this short."

"Good luck," Harry snorted.

Barry smiled lightly. "The night my mother died, the night that I saw Thawne kill my mom, I saw myself. I didn't know it at the time, but it was myself that was fighting him that night. Because Thawne had come back to kill me that night, the future version of myself went back to stop him. And because of that, it created the timeline where I met Oliver here in Star City. Had Thawne not gone back in time, I wouldn't have become the Flash until a few years from now rather than being him for about four years."

"What does Savitar have to do with that?" Felicity asked.

"Savitar is that version of me. The original one. Another timeline opened when I went into Flashpoint and that's the timeline we're living in now. But in the Speed Force Prison, I watched Savitar's life as it should have been over and over again. It messed me up when I came out of the prison. And when that happened, I released a wave of dark matter at the same time. The only way I could come out was if they used a quark sphere that held my signatures in it to take its place. That's why the Speed Force hasn't collapsed since I've been gone."

"So what happened to Savitar?" Felicity asked. "He was in there with you…you were watching his life." Barry reached up and gestured toward his temple. Felicity's eyes widened behind her glasses. "You mean he's in your head?"

"Ugh and I thought all of the regular science stuff you try to explain to me was hard to understand," Diggle commented. He gestured toward Ralph with his thumb. "I don't understand that either. But how's he in your head?"

"Because he's me," Barry explained. He paused, scratching at the back of his head. "I mean, he's what I could have become. But because he's traveled through time and there was another timeline that came from that night and me making Flashpoint, he's just become another one of my doppelgangers. When you mind-meld with a doppelganger, you take on their memories and experiences. After a while it's hard to differentiate between the two."

"Barry," Conner pointed out. "You're bleeding."

Reaching up, Barry touched the blood that was starting to drip from his nose. He sighed lightly. The last time that'd happened, it was when Savitar's and Earth-2 Barry's memories had slammed into his brain and his brain had to go into overtime to rework his memories to make them fit. He'd blacked out and woke up a half hour later in the Medical Bay with a strange looking helmet on his head—he thought it was Garrick's repurposed for Caitlin to use as a conductor. Though often they used it to Vibe off of.

As time went on, just speaking about it seemed to do something to trigger at least a nosebleed. He'd gotten used to it then, even finding his nose bleeding if he ran too hard too fast rather than building up to a nice even pace. It was like everything was starting to fall apart the more he worked to figure out who DeVoe was and what he was planning.

And, maybe, that was DeVoe's plan.


Cadence closed the door to the Heat Locker and perched on the bench. She brought her legs up and crossed them so that her feet were resting on either thigh. She took in a deep breath, allowing all the stress to move away from her shoulders and back muscles.

Fully relaxed.

Within seconds, the inside of the Heart Locker was engulfed in flames as she completely let go. Let go of the control she always had to hold to even so something as small as lighting the wick of a candle. The fire brimmed and swirled around the heat locker, increasing in brightness as the seconds pass.

With her eyes closed, Cadence saw none of it but the darkness of her eyes. Slowly, very slowly, the darkness started to take on the light orange-red of the flames that flickered around her. Grew brighter and brighter until she felt herself falling into the light, a contrast to the darkness she'd fallen through before.

Finally, she stopped falling and landed on the platform that looked like stained glass that she'd fallen onto before. The previous time, she'd been on the brink of death, fighting against Breathtaker. This time she was able to control it. Had spent the time that Barry was in the Speed Force figuring out how to tap into the Fire Fall whenever the time came.

Last time, her movements through the darkness that surrounded the Fire Fall were sluggish, this time it was as if the thick waters of darkness were waved away and she could move freely. Almost as if in a dance.

Cadence landed gracefully on the stained glass, landing on her tiptoes before falling to the flats of her feet. Just as it was before, each panel of the stained glass was a single color, coming together to create a rainbow of flames that encircled the platform she stood upon. Each way she turned, the colors would change though continue to hold what appeared to be a fire within each piece of glass itself. A fire that burned alive beneath it. As if the stained glass was alive itself.

Cadence smiled to herself, spinning in a gentle circle to see the flames follow her around as she went. Finally, she tuned her attention into the sound of footsteps that were coming her way. Smiled when she saw Young Cadence walking toward her.

"You wanted to see me?" Young Cadence asked, tilting her head to the side. Her pigtails bobbed at the same time.

"Yes," Cadence replied. "I have a lot of questions."

Young Cadence smiled back. "I have a lot of answers." She looked to the side where a teenaged Cadence seemed to come out of the shadows. "'We both do."

But this Cadence, the teenaged Cadence, wasn't smiling as much as Young Cadence was. She had her arms folded over her chest as she scowled toward Cadence.

Burnout.


A/N: I just realized that we're super close to the Wedding! And Crisis on Earth-X! About time, right? Lol. Anyway, this is probably one of the shortest chapters I've written in any of my Flash stories (other than the prologue for this one) and it's because I'm sooooo tired from the hurricane last night. I barely got any sleep because of the constant tornado warnings and the wind and ugh…I'm just glad to get back to a fic I love so much.

So…what did you think of the appearance of Team Arrow once more? I did say it was going to come again at one point and they've finally come back again!

Hope you enjoyed!

Cheers,

-Riles

Review Replies

Ethan: Mayor Bellows was able to bring out the gun because the way they were positioned, Iris and Cadence were covering it so no one else could see. I really needed to change Mayor Bellows' reason to be sent to prison and being someone who is corrupt/really against metas, was one of the biggest lightbulb moments I've had when I realized that's what would tie it all together. And, as well, make things interesting for when Barry goes to prison.

HotaruKenobi: Wow! I'm so excited to know you've been binge reading Cadence's series. That's such a complement. And a feat! (I wrote a lot). I'm soooo glad you're enjoying it so much. I really do try my hardest to make sure I keep the essence of a season but also twist it so that there are things that aren't obvious that'll happen, and so it can tell an eve better story. Which is why, sometimes, I'll change the order of things that happen to fit my narrative/my OCs inclusions into the world. I'm glad you enjoy the chemistry that Cade and Brady have with Team Flash. Yeah, Brady was a jerk, but you hit the nail on the head. He was hurt, he's a kid and is trying to understand everything, and he's going through puberty. I hope to update a lot more often now than I have previously. Watching Stargirl and re-reading this series (as well as reading your review) has really helped to push me forward again.