I kept having this nightmare about Zoom. Every night, Harry would come into my room and make sure I was okay. I thought the gesture was sweet, but also very out of character.
"As some of you may well know, I've been deeply embroiled in a secret, one-sided battle with an invisible enemy." Cisco began his epic monologue.
"No. Not the Turtle again." Caitlin groaned.
"What? What is the? Who is the Turtle?" Barry asked.
"It's Cisco's white whale." Caitlin said.
"Half whale, half turtle." Jay said.
"Mmm, no. Do you see what you're doing, Caitlin? Everybody's confused now." Cisco said.
"Get to it." Harry said, holding his hands above his head.
I stared at his arms and bit my lip a little.
"I stumbled upon a few of these cases when we were looking for the Reverse Flash. Robberies that were seemingly committed at high speed. People holding their beloved items, one second those items were gone the next. Tell me what you see." Cisco said, playing a video.
"So he can, what? Stop time?" Caitlin asked.
"Right up my alley." I said, rubbing my hands together.
"No, no, no. Look at the time code. It's still running." Cisco said.
"Yeah, okay. So if he's not stopping time, what is he doing?" Barry asked.
"He's slowing down everything around him." Cisco said, stopping the video.
"Not up my alley." I corrected myself.
"And that is why we call him the Turtle." Cisco said.
"Why have you never mentioned this guy to me before?" Barry asked.
"Oh, I don't know. I think we've just been a little distracted, you know? What with Captain Cold and the Weather Wizard and Gorilla Grodd. Do I need to go on?" Cisco asked.
"Okay, so if we can catch him, figure out how he uses his powers...." Jay suggested.
"Maybe we can show Zoom what life is like in the slow lane." Cisco said.
"How would you even know where to find him?" Harry asked
"Well the robberies in the videos all correspond with police reports. That were dismissed as lost or missing items, instead of thefts." Barry said.
"There were a lot of those a while back." I said.
"The suspects MO being?" Jay asked
"Items of immense personal value." I said.
Barry typed away at his computer, and saw something that wasn't good.
"Oh! It appears that there's a press conference at the CCPD because the Vandervoort diamonds have just been recovered." Caitlin said as I popped out of there.
"...that the famed Vandervoot diamonds have been returned to their rightful owner." Singh said.
"The real gem is the return of my great grandfather's ring. Getting that returned to the family is what's most priceless to me." Said Mr. Vandervoot.
"Gotcha." Barry said, looking down at a guy taking photos of the diamonds.
The guy we thought we had, was the wrong guy. I was mid- time jump when I slowed down. The Turtle grabbed the ring and winked at Barry and I as he walked away.
As soon as the guy left the room, Barry finished running. He ended up across the room. I popped back in.
"The ring is gone. Lock this place down. No one leaves this room. Sweep the precinct." Singh said as I flashed out of there.
"Well, the good news is, whatever the Turtle did, ti only affected temporarily." Caitlin said as we walked back into the Cortex.
"Yo! What was it like? Being in Turtle time?" Cisco asked.
"Yeah, no. It was weird." I said.
"It was like waves of inertness. Like all the energy was suddenly sucked out of my body and then it would return." Barry explained.
"That's because that's exactly what was happening." Harry said.
"Oh." I said.
"He has the ability to transfer all the surrounding kinetic energy into himself." Harry continued.
"Leaving everyone else in a temporary state of potential energy." Jay said.
"That's right." Harry replied.
"So why could we still move?" Barry asked.
"Your speed. Your speed allows you to change positions faster than anyone else." Harry said, walking away.
"So you can convert your stored potential energy to kinetic energy. Anna has all the kinetic energy she needs when moving." Jay explained.
"Excuse me. Where are you going?" I asked, looking at Harry.
"To figure out how to use this against Zoom. You remember Zoom?" he asked me.
"Cisco, please join me. We'll use your idea and take it to new scientific heights and save the world. Yes, I'd love to." Cisco said, with sarcasm dripping in his words.
"Okay! Facial recognition software found us a match from the press conference footage. The Turtle's name is Russell Glosson. He was a small time thief who stopped thieving after the particle accelerator explosion." Caitlin said.
"All right. I'm gonna head to work. Catch Joe up. Let me know if you find out anything else." Barry asked, as he left the Cortex.
I walked down to my room, and flopped onto my bed. Nothing exciting happened for the remainder of the day, so I skipped ahead in time to where things were happening.
"I think we found the next target for our 30-something-metahuman-not-a-ninja Turtle." Cisco said.
"How did that take you?" I asked.
"It just came out of my mouth. Did you see that? That was amazing. Central City Museum is hosting a special black tie event tonight, show casing the Crystal Ball." Cisco said.
"I was invited to talk about it." I said.
"It's a famous painting, apparently, recently recovered from Markovia." Jay explained.
"The painting is on loan to the museum from the Silverberg family. Jacob Silverberg, himself, said, 'The painting's safe return means more to us than all the money in the world.' It's like they're begging the Turtle to rob it." Cisco said.
"Okay, yes. This is a plan. So the Turtle will make his move and we can be there waiting to take him down." Barry said.
"How do you look in a tux?" Caitlin asked.
"Come on. He's 6'2", he's square-jawed and he's jacked. I think he looks fine." Cisco said.
"I'm 6'4"." Jay corrected him.
"Oh, crap." Barry said.
"Problem?" I asked.
"No. No. An opportunity. Maybe. Hold on." Barry said.
He called Patty.
"Yeah, me too. Actually, about that, um... So I know I said let's have dinner, but uh, you've been wanting me to share more. SO I thought that I would share that I love art. Yeah. NO, it's just you know I can't get enough of art." Barry said, causing me to snort.
"Anyway, there's this event at the Central City Museum tonight. They're showing this really famous painting that I've always really loved. And Anna's gonna be there to present about... All right great. I'll see you at 8." Barry smiled.
"7!" we all exclaimed.
" Or 7. I'll see you at 7. Bye." Barry said, hanging up the phone.
"You know, you're a really great superhero, a really great superhero...." Cisco said.
"Thanks. Thank you." Barry said.
"But do you think it's a good idea, when you're fighting crime, to bring a date?" I asked.
"I'm gonna tell Patty that I'm the Flash." Barry said.
Surprise was written across everyone's faces.
"What... Is that a bad idea? What do we think?" Barry asked.
"I will say, she put bullets in King Shark and Harry. So as far as I'm concerned that's Team Flash material to me." Cisco smiled.
"All right. Yes. Thank you Cisco. Yeah. Thank you. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna tell her." Barry said, walking out of the Cortex.
" All right keep you eyes open for the Turtle." Barry said.
"Which is weird to say." I laughed.
We split up, and watched for the Turtle. I was standing in front of the famous painting's room, admiring people as they danced.
"We have eyes on the Turtle." Cisco said. I spun around and saw the Turtle taking the painting off the wall.
"CCPD! Freeze!" Patty exclaimed
In an instant the Turtle was gone. I turned around and saw him holding a gun at Patty. I tried to move in fornt of the Turtle, but I didn't get very far.
"Oh, no. He's much slower." Barry said, above us on the staircase.
"What's this, a trap? I'm slow, not stupid." Turtle said, then slowed down time. He shot at the chandelier above Patty. Barry ran as fast as he could, trying to get to Patty. I tried to move but the Turtle sent more waves out, stopping me. We each tried to get to Patty in time. Barry managed to knock Patty out of the way, and I caught her so she wouldn't hit her head, but the chandelier crashed onto of him.
"Oh, God!" Caitlin exclaimed.
"Okay, I got him. Come on." Jay said as I laid Patty down on the ground.
Back at STAR Labs, Caitlin checked over Barry.
"Your pupils are normal. Your heart rates a little low. But other than that, no concussive symptoms." Caitlin said.
"I really do feel fine. What about Turtle?" Barry asked.
"No sign of him." Harry said to my left.
"Or the painting. He must have gotten away with it in the chaos." Jay said.
"Yeah. Things went a little sideways after your girlfriend decided to go all Lethal Weapon I through IV on Turtle." Cisco said.
"Oh, my God. Patty's gonna think I ditched her. No. I gotta go." Barry said, getting up and going to leave.
"Where are you... Finding Turtle is what's important right now." Harry said.
"Yeah. This is important to me, too." Barry said.
"But we need to see if your speed still works." Cisco said. Barry ran off at super speed.
"I think it still works." Cisco stuttered.
I huffed in amusement.
"We still have to find out how Turtle drained him of it." Harry said as he, Cisco and I walked from the Cortex.
While I was in my room, I was messing around with stuff on my desk, and I knocked the sonic bomb on ground. It clicked on and immediately took away my powers. I cried out in pain for a minute, but soon the noise stopped. I looked up from the ground and saw Harry turning off the sonic bomb.
" Are you okay?" I saw Harry mouth.
" I will be." I responded.
Harry helped me up, and got me to sit on my bed. Cisco stood in my door way. Harry tossed him the bomb and said something to him. Cisco nodded and pocketed the sphere. I thanked Harry, and promised I'd be fine. After Cisco and Harry left, I changed into regular clothes.
"I'm not getting any leads on this guy. It's like he's totally fallen off the grid. You know, any of the stuff he's stolen. I can't find it." Cisco said.
"He keeps them. He keeps them the way a serial killer collects trophies." Harry said.
"He's gotta lot of trophies." I said.
"Which means he needs a lot of space to store it, right? That's where we start. Se if he rented any storage spaces." Joe suggested.
"No, no... I'm not getting anything. Wait a minute. His ex-wife used to be an archivist for antiquities at the Naydel Library before it shut down. And it shut down three months after the accelerator exploded." Cisco said.
"That place is big enough to hold Turtle's stuff?" Joe said.
"Okay." Barry sighed.
"Wait, Barry, we haven't figured out how to neutralize the Turtle's power." Jay said.
"Well, I'm gonna have to power through it." Barry said, taking off.
"Okay, I'm outside the library." Barry said.
"Barry, the only way to save Patty is if you grab her in between each of the Turtle's pulses." Cisco said.
"You'll only have two-tenths of a second to make your moves." Caitlin added.
"I got it." Barry said, as I paced in front of the main console.
Barry saved Patty and threw Turtle into the pipeline.
"Hey Turtle. So you want to know my new definition of irony?" Barry asked.
"Now you are our most prized possession." Barry said. Turtle tried to use his powers but they didn't work. I closed the door, and Barry removed his mask.
"Patty okay?" Caitlin asked.
"Yeah. She is." Barry replied.
Everyone left the pipeline. I went back to my room and crashed.
It'd been a long day. At one point harry walked past my room , then came back a few minutes later.
"What are you doing?" I asked, leaning up to look at him.
He hid something behind his back.
"Nothing." He replied.
"Harry." I warned him.
"Just usual late night pacing. You're normally not up for it." Harry said.
"We'll get Jesse back. I promise." I said.
"I know." Harry replied.
"Goodnight." He said, walking off.
That was strange. I got off my bed and went after him. Except just before I got to Cisco's workroom, someone whistled to me from down the hallway. I passed the workroom, and rounded the corner. At the end of the hallway, stood some man in a trench coat. I froze mid-step, and forgot to breath. The floor under me swayed back and forth, and the hallway seemed to stretch back and forth. For a moment I wondered if Cisco turned the air conditioning down a few degrees, due to the fact I felt like I could see my breath. In a moment, I passed out.