Love Rewritten

Chapter 23

"Wait, who's Ronnie?" Iris asked.

"Ronnie Raymond, he was the structural engineer of Star Labs, he helped build the particle accelerator and until today we thought he'd died in the explosion." Caitlin said.

"But did you guys ever find his body?" Barry asked.

"No, we had to seal him into the Pipeline in order to try and minimize the damage of the explosion, since he was trying to shut it down." Cisco said, remembering that all too well.

"And when we could find his body after the explosion, we assumed that it had been vaporized." Wells said.

"Well, maybe we should take another look at the Star Labs security footage from the day of the explosion, see if maybe we can piece together what really happened, since not only was Ronnie not vaporized, but he seems to have gotten his own taste of firepower." Iris said.

"On it." Cisco said as he accessed the footage to watch the dark matter sort of carry Ronnie's face into an old man holding some kind of cube.

"Wait, who is that?" Iris asked, seeing Ronnie sort of collide for lack of a better word, with that man.

"Hang on, running facial recognition." Cisco said.

"Professor Martin Stein." Barry said as the name came up.

"Well, now Ronnie's victim makes a bit more sense." Wells said.

"What do you mean?" Caitlin asked.

"Quentin Quale is an old colleague of Martin Stein. It seems as though the explosion fused him and Ronnie together somehow." Wells said.

"I still don't understand." Iris said.

"Yeah you're not the only one." Caitlin said.

"It seems that simple darwinism is at play. The strongest parts of this new organism will be chosen to increase its chances of survival." Wells explained.

"Ronnie's body, Stein's mind. So what you're saying is that even though that's Ronnie's body we're seeing, it's not his mind that's in control." Barry said.

"Exactly. My best guess is that Stein is trying to figure out what's happened to him." Wells said.

"Well we need to find him before someone else does." Caitlin said.

"Iris and I can focus on that. I'll search on the ground, Iris, you in the sky. In the meantime, the three of you need to see if you can figure out a way separate the two of them before they end up hurting someone else." Barry said and the whole team nodded.

"I didn't hear my name in that plan." Kara said as she entered the cortex.

"Hey, I thought you were still in Star City." Barry said as he hugged his girlfriend.

"Yeah, Team Arrow has everything handled there and they promised to call if there are any changes with Alex. Plus, this way, I'll already be in Central City to pick up the cure once it's finished, which means I won't have to fly back here from Star City then fly back to Star City. It's just one trip. How's the cure coming by the way?" Kara asked.

"We're almost done. Just need to run a few more tests on the samples of Alex's blood, since we're definitely seeing mutations in it, but once we can tell that this cure removes those mutations, we'll be good to go." Cisco said.

"Then let's hurry up with this fire guy so you can get back to helping my sister." Kara said and Caitlin and Cisco both understood Kara's tone. She wanted to help her sister.

"Come on, let's go." Barry said as he ran out of the lab, Kara and Iris flying after him.

The Flash already knew exactly where Firestorm was hiding out and he knew Supergirl was following him from above.

"So, where are we going again?" Supergirl asked as she turned her comms on to the private line she, Barry and Cisco had set up so they could talk without the others overhearing about the reality change.

"We're going to where Ronnie and Stein hid out originally when they first fused together as Firestorm. Cisco's already developed a quantum splicer to separate them, we just need to get them to Star Labs." Flash explained.

"Also, I thought that Jax was Professor Stein's other half of Firestorm. Who's this Ronnie?" Supergirl asked.

"Right, I forgot, we didn't tell you about that. Jax was Stein's second partner as Firestorm. Ronnie was who he originally merged with, but he died to save the city after we stopped Thawne. We brought Jax in to stabilize the matrix in Professor Stein. Though hopefully this time, we can keep Ronnie alive." Barry said, already knowing that he'd never travel back to the night his mother died again. He still thought about it even now, but he knew that the risk was far to great, since that decision had nearly gotten Iris killed before.

"Well, it looks like we're getting close. I can see burn marks." Supergirl said as they arrived at the bridge.

"Yep, they should be here, somewhere, we just need to find them." Flash agreed, right as a fireball flew past him and Flash had just enough time to turn around to see another come flying his way, but before he had a chance to duck, his girlfriend landed in front of him and put it out with her freeze breath.

"Professor Stein." Flash shouted as they looked to see Firestorm, looking just as ragged as before, standing in front of them, both hands on fire.

"You know who I am?" the man asked.

"Yeah, we both do. We know what the explosion did to you. We want to help you. If you'll let us." Supergirl said.

"Why should I believe you?" Firestorm asked.

"We want to help you get back to your family." Barry said and he could see Firestorm starting to calm down.

"How would you help us?" Firestorm asked.

"We'll take you back to Star Labs, they're already working on a way to separate you both." Supergirl said and Firestorm nodded.

"Follow us back to Star Labs." Supergirl said as she took off and Firestorm followed her in a manner similar to Phoenix's flight.