Episode 16 - Flash Fanfiction - Gotham's Gladiators

Chapter 15

The mortician stitched up Astrid's abdomen, to stop the bleeding out. He was prepared to dispose of her body as he knew no other truth than that the body was labelled as deceased. So he removed her detonation chip.

This had been her plan all along. It had taken every ounce of her mind control to manipulate all those around her that she was in fact dead. The mortician had removed her earrings and had not yet restrained her. He had no need to, he was under her compulsion.

She had to compel herself to not feel the pain of her wound, particularly as the man stitched her up. As she had been lying still on the gurney, it had occurred to her, that she had healed quicker than any regular human. Though, not as fast as the Flash, of course.

But now she felt that she had enough strength to carry on with her task. Before she opened her eyes, she scanned the room around her. Judging by the smells, she was in a morgue. The only other mind belonged to the mortician and he was beginning to panic as he was slipping from her compulsion and could see her breathing.

She needed to compel him to let her go. Before she opened her eyes, she spoke. "You will let me out of here. You will give me your master key and forget that you ever saw me. You will continue to believe that I am dead and that you have already disposed of my body."

As she opened her eyes, she watched as the man sighed calmly. She sat up and he gave her the key, just as she had instructed of him. As she climbed from the bed, she saw her earrings resting beside the bed. She took them with her and left the morgue, locking the mortician inside.

As Astrid scanned the hallway, she was relieved to find that she was safe and alone. She put the earrings back in and tried to get a connection to her friends outside of the facility. The connection was dead, so she used her mind link to contact Cisco. He had been mourning over believing that she was dead. 'Cisco. I'm alive! I'm sorry I needed everyone to believe that I was dead. I'm safe, I have a master key and I'm no longer restrained. But to get everyone out of here will not be an easy feat. I'm going to need your help.'

She could hear him curse in Spanish, at the relief that she was alive, but he immediately got in to action. 'Astrid, we tried to send in the authorities when we thought you were killed. It didn't turn out very well. What do you need me to do? Wait did you seriously just Jedi-mind trick the whole lot of us? That is so not cool! You shouldn't be allowed to do that!'

'It worked though didn't it, so give me a break... and turn the connection to my earrings back on! I need you to talk me through where I'm going. I need blue prints... this facility is huge! And I don't want to waste my energy with my mind link.'

"Okay, gotcha!" Cisco said excitedly through his microphone. Astrid could hear the excitement of Diggle and detective Gordon in the background.

"I haven't seen Ollie here, but I saw Barry. And I scanned Caitlin's mind on my way to the morgue. I also need to find Sara, Felicity, Martin and Ronnie!" Astrid said as she waited for him to give her directions.

"Wait, Sara killed you!" Cisco exclaimed.

"Cisco, have you not listened to a word I've said? I needed her to make it seem obvious, but not actually kill me... I sent images to her mind before I carried out my plan... she just proved that she can still be trusted. I will not leave her behind!"

"Can the two of you just stop arguing for five minutes?" Diggle snapped, "Let's just get the mission over with! Astrid, we have the blueprints of the facility right here... you're underground. Follow the hallway until you reach the stairs... we still haven't heard from Oliver yet, but we'll keep searching."

"Did you hear that, Astrid? You got him mad!" Cisco said with a humored tone. But she ignored him and directed her conversation to Diggle. "Okay, Digs. I've reached the stairs... I'll scan the next floor before I go up, just a heads up... I'll be going silent, so no jokes, Cisco!"

"Alright... no more jokes... and no that wasn't a joke..." Cisco said, "I'm hacking into the cameras, now... It shouldn't be a problem for you to sneak through undetected, however if you want to unlock the facility you will need to do that yourself, there's no way of hacking into it remotely... and Astrid, in light of your little Jedi trick earlier... May the force be with you..."

Astrid let off a slight laugh, "Thanks!" she said as she prepared herself to step through the door.

As Barry sat alone in his room, his handler brought him in a tray of what looked like a poor substitute for food. "To keep your energy up!" the man grumbled at him. "You're going to need it! Your first match is tonight!" Barry tried to convince him to let him go free, but he was laughed off and the man left, slamming the door behind him.

Barry ate the food on the tray, hungrily. He needed a plan. There was not an item around that could break the lock to the cuffs. Even if he could get free, he wouldn't be able to break out of the cell. But as he saw the metal of his bed frame, he figured that it was worth a shot. He crawled over to the bed frame and began rubbing his cuffs onto one of the metal legs.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it had most certainly been a while by the time his handler returned. "Speedy! You have two hours to prepare for your match. Be ready!"