Barry enters the disastrous bedroom, two seconds after being on the couch.
"Cynthia?" He calls, looking around for her. The room is completely destroyed. The windows are smashed out, the bed is overturned, all of the contents of the dresser are scattered over the floor. Strangely, however, the closet doors are open and when Barry looks inside, he sees the clothes are perfectly straight.
Barry hears a high-pitched giggle above him. Instinctively, he looks up, but there is nothing and no one there.
"Cynthia?" He calls again, but there is no answer. He sees movement from the corner of his eye and turns quickly toward the window. There is nothing there. He steps toward it and sees the fire escape. He climbs out the window, being careful to avoid the glass.
"Up here." A voice matching the giggle from before sounds above him.
He climbs up the fire escape, following the sound of the giggles. He reaches the roof, looking around for the source of the chaos downstairs. He sees a bright purple flash above him, and that's when he sees...her.
She smiles, flashing a mouth full of blindingly white teeth down at him from where her legs are wrapped around a bar above his head. The bar is connected to the top of a water tower and she is hanging off of it, facing him, upside down.
"Who are you? Where's Cynthia?" Barry asks, his voice clear and concise, despite the panic in his chest.
"She's around." The strange woman with vibrant violet-magenta hair that hangs around her face replies, flashing her impossibly-white teeth.
"Now, who are you my delicious little cherry?" She leers at him.
"The Flash..." Barry begins hesitantly, not entirely sure how she could be in Central without knowing who he is. His eyes do a quick circuit of the roof, noticing that they were, at least for the moment, alone.
"Oh, I know that silly." Her voice is high-pitched, but has a silk tone to it. An image of her luring sailor men to their deaths on the high seas pops into Barry's head. He lingers on the thought until her high giggle jerks him back to his surroundings and the problem at hand.
"Where is Cynthia?" He growls. She only responds by giggling again, the sound amplifying off of the taller buildings around them.
He is not entertained, however, and he demands a third time, with even more intensity, "Where. Is. She."
The strange woman flips off of her high perch, landing with cat-like grace on her feet. With a long, hollow sigh, she walks over to a table to his left. Barry hadn't noticed the table or the lights set around the roof before, but he does now as she sits down on a chair and gestures for him to join her.
He slowly shakes his head. She turns away from him, putting her back towards Barry. He hears a sad sigh from her.
"Oh Honey, I don't bite." She says as she waves over her shoulder at him to join her. He takes several steps towards the table, disliking having her where he can't see. He goes the long way around, keeping a safe distance from her. When he finally faces her, a blinding, maniac smile breaks across her face. As he looks at her more closely, illuminated by one of the lights, he sees that she is wearing a very-well designed doll-face mask. There are holes for her eyes and her mouth, obviously, but the rest of her face is covered.
Her smile grows more manic until it begins to rival one that he once received from James Jesse. Her hazel-green eyes pierce his blue-green ones and he imagines that she can see straight into his soul.
He breaks the gaze to make another quick scan of the roof in the dying light of dusk. However, the bad lighting makes it almost impossible for him to see more than a couple feet around him. He turns back to face her and she is staring at him, unblinkingly with her head cocked to the side.
"Do you like my candles?" She gestures around them, and his head jerks towards the spots of light. Only now does he realize that they are, indeed, candles. "I thought they might add a...romantic aspect to our evening," she says, and when he meets her gaze, she is smiling again.
"Oh," she giggles, "we haven't officially met yet, have we? Silly me, how could I forget such a thing?" She stands from her seat. "I, my dear cherry, am Pandemonia." She pulls out her short skirt around her and curtsies.
He internally imagines Cisco's reaction to a villain who named herself. Oh the outrage!
"And..." She mutters, her smile turning sour as she waits for him to reply.
"The Flash," he says shortly, not feeling the need to bow.
"I'm Chaos." A gruff voice suddenly sounds from behind Barry as he feels his arms being pinned to his back. He is slightly lifted off the ground, and is unable to react before he is deposited in the chair across from Pandemonia, who takes her seat again.
Chaos's hands, wrapped around his arms, are like steel traps. Barry cannot even move an inch. Pandemonia smiles brightly at his captor, and turns her attention back to her little captive.
"Thank you, Chaos dear." She says and then looks around, as if expecting something else. "Where is Dystopia?"
"Here, Mistress Pandemonia. I was getting more candles." A woman comes into Barry's line of sight, placing more candles on the table and lighting them.
"Is it Tea Time already then?" Pandemonia asks, taking a candle from the new woman.
"Yes, Mistress." The large beast of a man behind Barry replies in a loud, rough voice.
"Tea Time?" Barry asks, hoping they weren't cannibals of some kind. He had yet to come across one in his life, but there was a first time for everything.
However, Barry's fears are slightly unrealistic and exaggerated. He realizes this when Dystopia sets a steaming cup of tea in front of him.
"Sugar? Milk?" She asks him, but he shakes his head no.
"Oh give him some anyway," Pandemonia says, raising her cup of tea to her lips and drinking. Barry sits silently, kicking himself mentally at how stupid he is to have gotten captured by villains AGAIN. He watches as Dystopia adds a few cubes of sugar and a spoonful of milk to his tea. When she is done, Chaos leans down and breathes loudly in his ear.
"Don't even try to escape, or I will snap you like a twig. And not even your healing abilities will help you." With that, the large man lets go of Barry's arms. He then walks into Barry's vision and puts a very large hand on Dystopia's waist. Now that Barry can see them both more clearly, he realizes they too are masked.
What have I gotten myself into?
