EXPEDITE ▇▇▇▇ VOLUME ONE
━━ ❛ 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒅𝒈𝒆 ❜
chapter no. 005!
UPON SPEEDING INTO THE CORTEX, IT WASN'T THE BRIGHT PURPLE LIGHTNING THAT CAUGHT EVERYBODY'S EYE BUT THE SILKY SMOOTH, WAVY, LONG SCARLET-RED HAIR. The room had gone mute as Piper Lita stood among them, her eyes scanning over every face she saw.
Caitlin Snow was standing beside Cisco Ramon, an intrigued look gleaming in her eyes while the boy to her right gaped at the redhead. Harrison Wells, or Harry, recognized her right away. He hadn't been able to remove her image from his mind. Jay, however, was gone, and for that, Piper was thankful.
A trail of red lightning made its way into the Cortex and stood in front of the three scientists. Barry Allen was a mixture of emotions at the moment—confused, intrigued, and skeptical were the three that he was juggling.
"You..." Harry spoke first, stalking toward the purple speedster. Piper pressed her lips together as people's eyes darted between the two.
"You know her?" Barry asked.
"The night you were with the Snart's, she was there," the Reverse-Flash look-alike pointed at the woman. "I saw her when she came out of the back entrance."
The whole scenario playing out before Piper was overwhelming. She was in the presence of Team Flash, most of it anyway, or what she liked to call the 'beautiful group of people that she cared for a lot even though they didn't have a fucking clue who she was.'
"So, it was you. You stopped the robbery." Barry said, looking over at the speedster opposite of him. Piper nodded, and he shook his head.
Holding up his hand awkwardly, Cisco cleared his throat. "I have a lot of questions."
"I think we all do," Caitlin added.
"And I have a lot of answers," Piper replied.
A grin spread across Cisco's face. "Sassy. I like it."
Barry rolled his eyes and glanced back at her. "Who are you?"
The question seemed quite plain and straightforward, but its answer was not.
"Expedite. I'm a speedster from Earth-Four." Right off the bat, it was clear that everyone was confused— even Harry. "I didn't come through a breach, though, don't worry. The breaches are only connected to Earth-Two. I got here by accident." Piper elaborated, rocking on the backs of her heels.
"You know about the breaches?" Harry asked incredulously.
She shrugged. "I know everything."
Caitlin raised her eyebrows considerably high. "What do you mean by everything?"
"I know everything about all of you. Except you," Piper pointed at Harry. "You're basically just the asshole version of Eobard." Cisco let out a loud laugh. "I know about Reverse-Flash/Eobard Thawne, the Particle Accelerator, the meta-humans, the rest of Team Flash, the singularity, the breaches, Zoom, and a bit about your personal lives."
"Why? Why do you know so much about us?" Barry's eyes narrowed.
"I've been in Central City since the night you met Reverse Flash for the first time. I was there when you talked to him at the stadium. The only reason I followed you is him. On my Earth, we have a man in yellow. He doesn't have a name, but he's the reason why I'm here. Anyway, after watching the two of you fight it out, I decided to keep an eye on you. There was no particular reason why—" You're such a liar. The reason why is because you think he's cute. "—But I wanted to know what was going on in the city, and you seemed to be a good person. That, and you're also a speedster."
Nobody ultimately appeared to buy what she was selling, and she didn't blame them. With all that happened last year, it was natural that they would perceive her as suspicious. As for Harry, he didn't know her, so he had absolutely no reason to believe or trust her.
"So... you've been watching us?" Caitlin asked slowly.
Piper nodded. "I know that's creepy, but I grew quite fond of you all after time. Even though you have no idea who I am, I wanted to keep an eye out for everyone."
"I think I understand where you're coming from," Cisco spoke hesitantly, unsure.
"How can we trust anything you're saying?" Harry stepped forward, his tone accusatory. "How do we know you aren't working for Zoom?"
Piper rolled her eyes and stepped forward, uncrossing her arms. "Zoom wants to be the fastest man alive. He will take every speedster's speed, not just Barry's. I'm dead if he knows I exist and can run faster than he does. As for if you can trust anything I say— that's entirely up to you. You can disregard everything I say or choose to believe me. I don't care."
Yes, you do.
"That's not possible. Zoom is the fastest there is." Harry crossed his arms.
"It is possible, Professor Frink." As she spoke, it seemed she hadn't moved at all, but she had. In a matter of milliseconds, Piper had run to Big Belly Burger, gotten food for the team, and returned. "There's dinner, by the way," she pointed to the stack of food that sat on the elongated desk at the forefront of the room.
"Holy shit..." Cisco mumbled.
"You—" Barry was speechless. All this time, he thought he was the fastest, and then there was Reverse-Flash, Zoom, and now Expedite. Who was genuinely the fastest of them all.
The room filled with a thick silence that held dozens of questions that had not been asked yet.
"I'm convinced," Cisco said earnestly as he dug into one of the bags.
Piper watched as the food was passed around, her eyes trained on Barry for the most part.
"What's your actual name? Other than Expedite," Caitlin wondered, intrigued by the only other girl in the room.
The redhead shifted awkwardly. "Piper. Piper Lita." Pressing on the earpiece she was wearing, she turned it off and removed the black eye mask. Barry had now taken off his mask. There was no point in wearing it; the purple speedster already knew his identity.
"Whoa..." Cisco mumbled, both he and Barry's eyes locked on Piper.
Blinking, she tilted her head. "What?" Piper's pale skin stood out, just as her scarlet-red hair did. Faint freckles adorned her cheeks and nose, while her eyes were a chocolate brown that anyone could melt into. Both Barry and Cisco were speechless, their wide eyes locked on her as they soaked in her presence.
"You're gorgeous," Cisco stated bluntly, and Caitlin slapped his arm.
Piper cleared her throat and pressed her lips together awkwardly, her cheeks turning pink. "Oh, uh, thanks."
Barry remained silent. He was never good with girls, let alone talking to beautiful ones. The speedster thought he only found her attractive in her speedster suit, but boy was he wrong. "How were you there when I was with the Snart's and today at the bank?" Barry asked quickly, wanting to talk to her but not knowing what to say.
"I hacked into your comms and system," Piper answered, playing with her fingers as she spoke.
Cisco's eyes widened as he chewed. "What? When? How?!"
"Your system isn't that hard to hack into, to be perfectly honest with you. I hacked into it months ago." Piper rocked back on her heels again, and Cisco shut his mouth, frowning.
It was quiet as the team tried to think of what questions they wanted to ask next.
"I know who Doctor Light is," Piper blurted, growing tired of being engulfed in awkward silence. All eyes snapped back to her. "She's the Linda Park from Earth-Two. I met her a couple of weeks ago, so I can talk to her to try and get answers if you would like. She might respond better to me than any of you. I'm the doppelgänger of the Piper Lita from Earth-Two, and she knew my counterpart. I can use that to get answers."
"Linda?" Barry was dumbfounded. The doppelgänger of his ex-girlfriend was the woman that was on a mission to kill him?
Piper nodded.
Everyone was deep in thought, trying to decide whether they wanted to let a complete stranger talk to a metahuman that wanted their best friend dead.
Harry shook his head at the offer. "How do we know you won't let her escape?" He didn't trust a single word from Expedite's mouth.
"Linda works for the speedster that wants Barry dead. I wouldn't do something reckless and stupid to risk his safety." The words were out of Piper's mouth before she could stop them.
The scarlet speedster looked back to the woman and eyed her, beguiled by her words and protective behavior toward him. "We'll let you talk to her under one condition," he spoke, and she looked at him. "I come with you."
A deal where I get to spend more time with Barry? Sign me the hell up.
Piper nodded, the corner of her lips tempted to lift upwards. Her chocolate-coated eyes watched as he sped off. Grabbing her mask, she followed, beating him to the corridor where Linda was locked inside the meta-dampening cell. Coming to a stop, she stared at the woman who was glowering at her.
"Expedite." Doctor Light grumbled bitterly, kicking the wall to her left.
"Linda."
"How do you know who I am?"
Purple lightning flowed off Piper's body effortlessly as Barry stood beside her, his arms crossed as he glanced over. The only speedster he knew of that's lightning radiated off them was Reverse-Flash, but he had been using tachyons to enhance his speed. So, what was this speedster using to cause her lightning to radiate? Or was she so fast that it was just natural?
"We met a few weeks ago," the heroine stepped forward, coming into the light so the dark-haired girl could see her. "I took you and your friends' order at The Streetwise Bay." Piper intentionally left out the detail of Linda's friend being Jay Garrick. She wasn't entirely sure if he was Zoom or not, and she wasn't going to throw an accusation like that out into the open. She needed to be careful with what she said before she told anyone.
Linda walked up to the glass door, removing her helmet to get a proper look at the purple figure before her. "Take off your mask," she whispered, and the latter complied, slipping the eyepiece off.
"H-How—I thought you didn't recognize me," Doctor Light stuttered, her eyes wide. "How are you here? I-I thought you were back on Earth-Two..."
Piper frowned. "I'm not your Piper Lita, Linda."
"I-I don't understand." The döppleganger appeared confused as a tear slipped down her cheek.
Barry moved forward a bit, watching the exchange. "I'm from Earth-Four, not Earth-Two." A look of despair crossed Linda's face as her eyes shifted to the side and glazed over with glossy tears.
"Why did Zoom send you here?" Piper asked, getting straight to the point.
Wiping away her tears, Linda composed herself before looking up. "He sent me here to kill the Flash, but I didn't want to."
At the mention of his alias, Barry raised a brow. "But you were fine with the idea of killing anyone else to get away from Zoom." Linda rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. "How was he supposed to know where to find my body after you killed me?" Barry asked, and Piper glanced over at him, watching as his eyes narrowed slightly as he spoke.
"Just let me go. Let me disappear." Linda sighed, and both speedsters shook their heads.
"You would spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, never knowing when Zoom was coming."
Doctor Light pushed herself off the wall she had been leaning on and returned to the door. "Then what's your great idea?"
"How were you supposed to contact him after you killed me?"
Piper turned her eyes back to the dark-haired girl, who sighed. "I was supposed to get something. Something I could only get if you were dead. And then throw it through the breach as proof."
"And then what?"
"Then he'd come for me, confirm the kill, and bring me home. Why do you want to know?" Linda asked exasperatedly, eyeing the man before her.
"Because I want to find him," Barry shrugged.
Her eyes widened. "You really don't."
Piper looked back at the scarlet speedster to see annoyance across his face. "He's going to keep coming for me," his head nodding slightly as he spoke, "he's going to keep kidnapping people like you, forcing them to do what he wants. I have to stop him before more people die."
Linda shook her head. "You can't stop Zoom."
"Yes, I can. I will, but I need your help." Barry responded, and Piper watched carefully as Linda looked between the two, debating what her next move would be. Eventually, she unfolded her arms.
"Your emblem. That's what I'm supposed to throw through the breach as proof."
────
𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙉𝙀𝙓𝙏 𝘿𝘼𝙔. .
AFTER PULLING ON HER JEANS AND WHITE LONG-SLEEVE SHIRT, PIPER LITA SHRUGGED ON HER COAT. Grabbing a hair tie, she pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail before heading out, locking the apartment door behind her. Looking both ways to see if anyone was in sight, she then sped off towards S.T.A.R. Labs, where she promised Team Flash she would meet them early that morning.
The world moved by her in a hazy blur as she raced inside the enormous building, making her way up the stairs and into the Cortex. Coming to a stop, she stood next to one of the TV monitors.
As her eyes traveled around the room, she noticed Joe West leaning against the door frame. "Who are you?" he asked right away, straightening out his posture as he eyed the unknown woman.
Piper awkwardly sent him a wave as Barry stood up from where he was leaning on the railing surrounding several computer screens. "Joe, this is Piper Lita. She's a speedster from Earth-Four," he announced, gesturing to the redhead who was rocking back on her feet.
"Earth-Four? There's more than two?!" Joe asked incredulously, and Piper held back her laughter at the tone of his voice.
Barry nodded, and the detective looked back to the woman with scarlet-red hair. "What's your superhero name? Just about everybody around here has one."
Piper snorted. "Expedite. That's what people know me as from my Earth."
Furrowing his brows, Joe shook his head. "How'd you get here?"
"Uh, it's a really long story. Basically, I was following this other speedster on my Earth— he doesn't have a name, but I refer to him as the man in yellow. While I was chasing him, I ran so fast that I broke through the barrier that separates my world from yours. I've been stuck here since December of last year. Huh, I guess it wasn't really that long." Piper answered, mumbling the last portion to herself.
Joe's eyes widened as he looked at Barry. "The man in yellow? As in the Reverse-Flash?"
The newest speedster quickly shook her head, stepping forward. "There are some similarities between my yellow speedster and yours, but they're different people. None of you, including all the villains here, exist on my Earth, as far as I know. Reverse-Flash solely belongs to your world."
The detective frowned, his mind drowning in all the questions he now had.
"Guys, we can get to know her more later. Right now, we need to come up with a plan to take Zoom down," Barry cleared his throat, wanting to get started as quickly as they could.
"All right, Zoom wants Doctor Light to send him your new emblem." Caitlin started the conversation with a cup of coffee resting in her hands.
"Yes, we need it as bait. If we can get Doctor Light to take my emblem, throw it through the breach, then Zoom will come to collect my body, and we can trap him." Barry responded.
"You know it took a lot of time to make that emblem, right?" Cisco asked, his hands behind his head.
Caitlin suddenly furrowed her brows. "This was the woman who was willing to kill people to escape Zoom, but now she's willing to help us catch him?" she butted in skeptically.
The scarlet speedster shrugged as he ran a hand through his hair. "She knows it's the only way."
Silently agreeing, Piper's eyes locked on Harry, who was making his way to the group. "Before I left Earth-Two, I worked on a serum to dampen Zoom's speed. All we would need is for Ramon to develop a weapon to deliver it."
Cisco rolled his eyes annoyedly, and Caitlin sighed exasperatedly. "Oh, great! That could be this year's cold gun. Maybe another criminal can get it, and then we'd have Sargent Slow!"
Joe glanced at the already irritated doctor.
"I would never let that happen. Sargent Slow is a terrible name," Cisco commented, turning in his chair as Piper snorted.
"Are we forgetting how much more powerful Zoom seems to be?" Caitlin asked, and Harry closed his eyes, rubbing his temples. "I mean, if Barry can catch bullets, what's to say Zoom can't catch whatever you shoot at him?"
The brunette had a point, and everyone knew it.
"Surprise," Harry spoke up, his eyes snapping open. "The element of surprise. All we would do is rig a projectile to fire as Zoom crosses into the breach. He can't stop what he can't see coming."
"That's great." Barry complimented.
"Thanks."
Caitlin huffed and turned to the silent detective, shooting him a pleading look. "Joe, the voice of reason here."
"We need a plan." Joe shrugged. "That's as good as any. As long as he can deliver." The detective nodded at Harry, who turned his body towards him.
"Don't underestimate me, detective," Harry said, walking off as Caitlin turned to Piper, who had been silent the whole time.
"What do you think?" she asked.
The redhead looked up, raising her brows. "Me?" Caitlin nodded, and Piper shrugged, removing her hands from the comfort of her pockets. "The plan is solid. I understand why everyone wants to do it. You want to stop Zoom, and this is your first real plan. Why would you pass up the opportunity? Especially since you have Doctor Light now."
"But?"
"But be careful. You don't know who Zoom is, what he looks like, or what kind of powers he has. All of you could be walking into the arms of something that you can't escape. It never hurts to be cautious." Piper warned, and Barry stared at her, taking in her words. She had a point— just like Caitlin did.
Joe walked to where Cisco and Caitlin were, glancing over at the redhead. "I'd listen to Piper if I were you. She makes a good point." The detective hardly knew a thing about her and didn't trust her yet, but her words held truth to them. He couldn't deny that.
The room was silent for a few minutes; everyone was lost in their own thoughts. "Cisco, Caitlin, can I talk to you both privately?" Joe asked, breaking the silence. The two nodded and followed him out of the room, leaving behind Barry and Piper.
Piper peered over at the cute speedster to see that he was already staring at her. As their eyes locked, her cheeks burned red. "So, you've been watching me since December?" Barry asked, wanting to talk to the beautiful woman in front of him about anything but Zoom.
"Uh, yeah, yeah, I have," she chuckled awkwardly. "I'm sorry if that's super creepy. I saw you with Reverse-Flash, and I was intrigued and wanted to know more about you. Saying that sentence out loud makes me realize how crazy I sound, but I promise I'm not." Barry was chuckling, a smile on his face as he listened to her ramble nervously. "I really suck at this— talking to people. And what makes this even harder is that you're cute."
Did I just—
There was not one moment that Piper Lita had been in where she wanted to disappear and erase every trace of her presence until now.
Barry looked up at her words and raised his brows as her cheeks flamed red. "I just said that out loud, didn't I?" she asked, confirming that she wasn't dreaming.
He nodded, a smile threatening to spread across his face. "You did, but I don't mind."