Tiger Stripes and Lightening Strikes

1: The First

Running faster than the speed of sound was exhilarating. At least, to those who had never done so. Sure, Barry moved so fast he was a blur. Sure, he kicked up fierce winds in his wake. Sure, lightning crackled at his heels, but those sensations faded to the back of his mind. What Barry truly focused on, was the peace that came with running so fast. Everything around him slowed down. The pounding of his feet matched the pace of his heart. Life seemed to still.

Perhaps what soothed Barry's soul the most, was the knowledge he could outpace any bullet, knife or car that came his way. He could save hundreds in seconds. He could do far more than any other cop in the city. The only time this peace was disrupted, was when he encountered another like him. A meta human. A person with superpowers.

Not all meta humans were evil, but those who chose a dark path were far more dangerous than any average criminal. When Barry didn't find them as a hero, he could track their trails with his day job as a CSI.

One such time, he found himself at perhaps one of the most gruesome crime scenes he'd ever attended. It was a warehouse of huge proportion. Huge boxes were stacked, three times the height of Barry. Every noise echoed, and considering it was a room filled with cops, there was a lot of noise.

A sheen of scarlet blood covered the floor and doused the boxes. Bodies lay, completely dismembered and torn into pieces. The stench of metallic blood was thick in the air. Fragments of bone let out the occasional crunch underfoot.

"This... is foul," Joe commented from Barry's side, deep wrinkles cut into his nose. "Even by our standards." Barry grimaced, eyes tracing the officers putting up yellow tape. He thought they ought to tape up the whole building. "Meta human?"

"Definitely," Barry murmured, ducking beneath the tape and pacing over to the remains of a crushed skull. He glared at his reflection in the red blood. "I don't know many creatures that leave prints like that," he pointed to a feline set of paw prints that were double the size of a human's. They were far to large to be any normal cat's either. He squatted down, eyeing it closely. This seemed like a job for team flash.

"This was a storehouse for Dennit," Joe informed Barry. "This warehouse was packed with over the counter drugs, and so far we haven't found a single gram misplaced."

"I suppose we need to focus on motive, then," Barry grumbled, rising to his feet. "It's going to take me a while to document and sample from the whole scene."

"In that case, I'll leave you to it," Joe sighed. "But Bar," he gripped the speedster's shoulder and his face darkened. Barry's stomach dropped. "Your brother is in town." Barry felt his blood run still and curdle in his veins. His eyes narrowed to slits, his upper lip curling.

"Just what I need," he growled lowly.

"Bar," Joe's tone held warning. Barry lifted a hand and silenced him.

"I need to get working," he snapped, walking away from the detective.

*

The cortex was always buzzing with life, wether Cisco was shouting curses in an online game or team Flash were mid battle, there was always something happening. Perhaps the only time of true silence was when they were staring at the images of a crime scene. A crime scene where somebody had lost their life. They were collected around the Cortex's main desk, staring up at the gruesome images projected before them.

"That is-," Cisco stifled a gag.

"You think this was done by a meta?" Caitlin asked, leaning back into her seat. "It looks more like a wild animal attack."

"It was a meta," Barry assured them, displaying the footprints he'd found.

"What are we dealing with? Another animal meta?" Cisco snorted, but a glimmer of poorly concealed excitement shone behind his glassy lenses.