Warped: Running In Time

Episode 14: All-Star Team Up

We were in the middle of stopping crooks. It was like all the crooks of Central City had gone crazy tonight.
Barry dropped a criminal into Joe's cop car.
"Who's this?" Joe asked.
"Indecent exposure, Powell Park," Barry responded.
"That ain't something you should be showing people," Joe murmured.
There were criminals ahead of us, swerving in a car.
"They're getting away, guys," Eddie said.
"They're not getting away, Eddie," I said.
"Let's get these bozos up ahead first, then we'll worry about the idiots at the Shiny Diamond," Joe said.
"Alright," Barry said.
"We're gonna run out of room though," Joe mentioned.
"I'll take care of that," Barry replied.
It certainly felt like Barry was taking over the entire mission. He grabbed Joe, put him in the car ahead of us, in the driver's seat, and replaced the passenger seat in the cop car with the driver of the criminal car, in just a blink of an eye. Then we got to the Shiny Diamond, a jewelry store, and Eddie and Joe charged in, pointing their guns at the criminals. Barry rushed in, and took the guns from the criminals.
"Missing these?" Barry asked, smiling.
"On the ground, on the ground," Eddie and Joe told the criminals.
"It seems like you've been doing all the work lately, why can't you let me help?" I asked.
"I don't need you being put in the way of guns again, like that one time," Barry told me.
"But I wanna help," I grumbled.
I was getting a little ticked off about this. Most of the criminals we had been facing the recent days had guns, and Barry had not been allowing me to help. It was nice of him, but I was getting bored being sidelined. He thought he was all that all because he could phase and I couldn't. I really needed to train my super speed a lot more.

The next morning, I was back at rehearsals, while Barry, Eddie, and Joe were investigating a new crime scene. I couldn't help but feel very left out. Not being able to help was killing me. So I worked my butt off at rehearsal. I helped everywhere I could. I wanted to feel needed. And at rehearsals, I succeeded at that. I did that by helping people remember choreography, leading warm-ups with stretches, teaching music, helping with designing sets, making advertising and banners, even with costume design.
I was just getting into things when Barry came to get me. "Isa, we have to get going."
My eyes narrowed at him. "How about no?"
Barry looked confused. "What do you mean, 'no'?"
"I mean no. I'm not coming." I said going back to drawing on the banners.
"Oh, you're in one of your artistic zones, aren't you?"
"Nope, not that. I'm everywhere, directing others to get stuff done. I'm in every zone."
"Well, you can always finish it tomorrow."
"Why do you need me, anyway? You've been sidelining me this whole time. Why should I go with you if I can't be useful? I look up to you, I wrote a song for you, which has just made it to the top ten streamed. But if I can't be useful, why must I come?"
"Oh come on, don't be like that," Barry came up to me, and hugged me from behind. "That banner looks cool. It looks done."
The banner I was sketching were the two worlds of the show, side by side: the real world and the fairytale world. It showed a drawing of my character, the two sides, in each of their worlds. The princess dress in the fairy tale world, and the comfy clothing of the real world. On the top it said, "Between The Lines", and on the bottom corners, the address of the theatre, and the dates of the show days. In the drawing, the fairytale side was on a hill, and a castle was supposed to be in the background on a cliff, as well as a lake, with mermaids in it, an angel flying, and a unicorn prancing. It also had small drawings of the characters from the show scattered around, with scenes, like the dog trying to kiss the girl, and Prince Oliver falling off the cliff to save the princess. On the real world side, it was the hall of a high school. What was left to draw on that side, were the other characters gossiping and the lockers.
"I still have to sketch the lockers on the real world side, and the castle of the fairytale side, and the characters from the real world side," I said. "Then I have to outline everything in sharpie, and paint the other banners and this one. All of them were sketched out by me."
"I never knew you were such a good drawer," Barry commented, looking at all the banners. A few of the banners were showing the characters in the different forms of what they are and what they would prefer to be, like how the villain is a wizard who wants a PhD. Another was just the logo of the show, a magical book. "How come you never told me?"
"You never asked. I have an entire thick notebook dedicated to drawing. It has sketches of sights, mythical beings, and all sorts of things." I started sketching out the lockers on the side of the banner.
"I promise you can come back to this," Barry said, grabbing my left hand.
I pulled away, and finished drawing the row of lockers. "I feel useful here, like I said."
"But we actually need you," Barry complained.
"You can inform me here."
One of the costume-designers came up to me, and asked me "Should your dress skirt be round or straight?"
"Round, poofy is good, make that for the queen's dress too," I told her. She nodded and continued her work. I looked at Barry. "See? I'm needed."
"Fine. There was an attack in a victims car, and she has a bunch of puncture wounds all over her. They look like bites. Whatever it was, she must've gone into anaphylaxis."
"Do you have pictures?" I asked.
He showed me photos, and it in fact did look like bites, but more like. . .
"Stings," I said. "That looks like insect stings. Like she got swarmed by insects with stingers. It doesn't look like a wasp sting. It looks more like bees. Is that all? If you want to find out more, go to S.T.A.R. Labs. I know it's weird being there right now, but you can't let Wells know we suspect him. Maybe I should mentor you in acting at some point. Now I have to get back to work. I'll see you later."
Barry sighed. "Okay. . . I'll leave you to it."
I continued making the characters in the halls of the high school side, and then began working on the castle on the fairytale side.
After a while of drawing and directing people, I went over to S.T.A.R. Labs, eating a croissant. There, I was met with everyone frowning at me.
"What's going on?" I asked, taking a bite of my croissant.
"Um, why didn't you come when we asked you to?" Cisco asked.
"I had other stuff to do. I only go if I really need to be present. I haven't been needed to be present lately. And I just think it's a waste of time to come over here if I'm not needed present. I was needed present at rehearsals. I'm helping the director put stuff together." I said. "The difference was I was actually needed. Unlike handling crooks when Barry is handling everything. That's not teamwork at all. So, was I right about what happened to the lady?"
"Honeybee venom, you were right," Barry said. "And Isa, like I said, I just don't want you to freeze up when it comes to the guns."
"Then don't make me come!" I retorted, crossing my arms. "Now stop frowning at me like a parent when trying to say that they're not mad, but they're disappointed. It's freaking me out. And let me eat my croissant in peace. Can we get to solving this though?"
"Bees," Cisco was reminded. "Why did it have to be bees? Y'all, I don't do bees. Ain't nobody got time for bees."
"When honeybees sting, their stingers are torn off their abdomen and they die," Dr. Wells said.
'But there were no stingers in the body, no dead bees in the car," Barry said.
"A honeybee can only deposit 0.1 milligrams of apitoxin when it releases its stingers." Caitlin said.
"And yet Mrs. Kang was found with enough venom in her system to kill a herd of elephants." Dr. Wells added. "It appears not only is a metahuman controlling these bees but also increasing their toxicity."
"Bees communicate by releasing pheromones, maybe this metahuman is controlling them through secretion?" Barry theorized.
I nearly choked on my croissant when I heard that. "No. That's not possible. I'm in communication with the natural world. My older brother, Usnavi is an animal expert, studying zoology of all animals. There would be no way to increase a bee's toxicity unless by magic, or injecting bees with their own venom, which would probably kill them. And if a metahuman was in fact doing it through secretion, this meta would have to have an extra gland for that, which means this meta is farting pheromones."
"Why don't you call your brother then," Caitlin suggested. "Maybe he could help us."
"I'm helping you, aren't I?" I asked. "Say, was there any video cameras in the car, or near it, like a dashcam?"
'Yeah, there was," Barry said.
They pulled up the video, and it was quite strange.
"They're not dancing," I commented.
"Dancing?" Caitlin asked. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"All bees dance to communicate what they've found, a pollen source, a possible new home, or a potential threat. Bees only sting when threatened. This dance is the 'Waggle Dance'. They'll wiggle their bottom, and most of the time, other bees in the area will join." I said. "I can try to demonstrate it with my shapeshifting abilities, but small animals are not my strong point, especially insects."
I thought of a honeybee. I thought hard, trying to think of all its features. I squeezed, and all of a sudden, my eye sight was in all different directions. It was like millions of screens of the same picture. I was tiny compared to everyone. I had bug wings. I unsteadily flew to the desk, and began demonstrating what a bee was supposed to do. I couldn't tell where it was at first. Cisco was immediately jumpy.
After only a few seconds though I couldn't hold the form, and transformed back into my human form on the floor. My vision was back to normal.
"That was so weird," I shuddered. "I've never done that before. But you saw that, right? None of the bees did that. If a metahuman was controlling them, and not letting them do the dance, the bees would feel threatened. There would be no more meta. Not only that, those don't look like honeybees. They look more like flies. Along with that, bees aren't that loud, as a collective. And I swear I think I hear gears? What if, have we ever considered that this might not be a meta? It might be something else. The bees could be robots!"
"It's always a meta," Barry shrugged it off.
"I'm calling Usnavi to back me up," I said. "Maybe you'll believe him over me, though I understand and speak the languages of all animals, and he only understands them. Maybe you'll believe him though I've created beings, and understand and speak to them. In fact, I'll even bring a bee in here to translate."
"Anyone want to join me and getting a beekeeper suit?" Cisco asked.
"I'm pretty sure I can outrun a bee," Barry said.
"Just don't run into a lake," a voice behind us said. Felicity was standing at entrance of the cortex. "The bees will wait for you to come up for air, then they'll sting you. Discovery Channel. Turns out there's a lot to discover."
"Felicity, what are you doing here?" Barry asked.
"Can you guys come outside for a second?" Felicity asked.

Outside, Felicity kept looking up, and we didn't really know where to look.
"What exactly are we waiting for, Ms. Smoak?" Dr. Wells asked.
"Up there!" Felicity pointed.
A being in the sky started flying down.
"Is that a bird?" Caitlin asked.
"It's a plane," said Cisco.
Nope. It was a human, unsteadily flying down and landing in front of us, in a suit of some sort of armor. When he landed the concrete cracked in a crater shape around him.
"It's my boyfriend," Felicity said.
Felicity's boyfriend took off his helmet and greeted. "Hi. I'm Ray."
"Man, what the eff is this?" I cried. "Again?"