Warped: Running In Time (Book 4)

Episode 13: Tricksters

At S.T.A.R. Labs we watched a video taken from the time of the incident, of a guy in a mask.
"Tricked ya," he laughed. "Look who's back. My tricks. My treat. But I'll give you something good. . .to eat. Today's special: a city in ashes. The Trickster proudly welcomes you all. . .to the new. . .disorder."
"Talking in the third person, that's never a good sign," Cisco said, eating a bag of chips. "You're just mad that he named himself," Caitlin said.
"Bro looks like some wannabe emo kid," I spat.
"Actually he didn't name himself," Joe said. "Twenty years ago, Central City was hit by a series of terrorist attacks. One man killed at least ten civilians, two cops. That guy called himself the Trickster."
Cisco looked it up, and chuckled. "Woah, someone was rocking the unitard."
"James Jesse?" Caitlin asked.
"Like Jesse James, only more twisted," Joe said.
"Where is this Mr. Jesse now?" Dr. Wells asked.
"He's serving several life sentences at Iron Heights," Joe said. "He was about the most dangerous thing Central City had ever seen."
"You mean until the particle accelerator blew up," Barry said.
"Um," Dr. Wells began.
"Barry and I will go see this James Jesse at Iron Heights," Joe said. "See if he can give us something that will help us catch his groupie."
"I'll analyze the video and see if I can figure out the source," Cisco said. "And I've got some new learning to do anyway," I opened my Japanese book.
Barry started out of the cortex, with Joe following behind, when Dr. Wells caught him.
"Hey Joe," Dr. Wells said. "Is Barry doing alright? He seems cranky."
"Even the Flash wakes up on the wrong side of the bed some mornings," Joe said. "He's fine."
Then he left the cortex.
"He wasn't that cranky when we went to wake me up this morning, which I didn't need, because I already have an alarm," I grumbled.
"He woke you up this morning?" Caitlin asked. "For what?"
"To tell me that my solo version of 'Poison' reached number one streamed song in all music streaming platforms, the album has become the topped streamed album on all platforms, and I'm the topped streamed artist on all platforms in just several days within their release."
Cisco dropped everything. "What? You mean the new songs from the competition?"
"Yes," I said, turning the page. "Didn't you wonder why I was wearing such covering clothes? I have to cover my face when I'm out on business, because we'll get swarmed with fans. In fact, in the screen area of the city, my music video for 'Poison' was playing."
Caitlin went on her phone and checked it out. "It's true! Isa, why didn't you tell us sooner? How did Barry find out sooner than we did?"
"Because our cover of 'For A Moment' from the competition made it into the top ten," I said, absorbing information from the book. "He was also wearing covering clothes too."
Cisco almost did a spit take. "And you're just so nonchalant about this? This is big for you! We need to go out a celebrate with you soon."
"We have other things to worry about right now," I said. "We can do it later."

The next day, while everyone was on the bomber, I was back on the rehearsals. It had been delayed, sure, but that didn't mean we weren't gonna still put it on. But because nobody was causing any real drama anymore, progress was going well. Everyone was truly fawning over me. I remembered the song "Hard To Be The Bard" from Something Rotten. Shakespeare was right. Being famous was so much more fun and easier than doing the thing that made me famous. But that wouldn't stop me from writing. I enjoyed both. I was getting a lot of money, because so many people were streaming my songs. I was still of course singing at the Tavern, but not as much, since I had more money flowing in from people listening to my songs. This was my passion. I was having a lot of fun doing this. We were taking a lot of time to just put everything we had into the production, so it would truly be magical, and we could get past the scandal that had occurred.
Later, I found out that the old Trickster had sent Joe and Barry to his lair, where they had found that the place was booby-trapped, and his secret stash had been stolen. Then they had to visit the old Trickster. They had found out that the old Trickster, James Jesse, had been keeping a really big bomb in there that was enough to take out the entirety of Central City.
Near the end of rehearsal, during a break, Cisco sent me a link to another vlog that the new Trickster had posted. He also sent it to Barry, who had shown James Jesse the video, who had been saying to it, "No, no, no, take off my mask you fraud. Pretender. Sham", and had broken down about it.