Chapter Text
As the Reverse Flash raised his hand to kill Barry, Cisco instinctively clutched at his own chest. He remembered the horrible sensation of a vibrating hand being plunged into his heart in that other timeline and froze, the memory terrible and all-consuming. He barely heard Reverse Flash ranting about how he was going to kill them all. But then he realised that the buzzing he felt in his chest was something else. It deepened, became almost solid and reassuring, like the hum of a powerful engine or the throb of a bass speaker. The pressure built and built and, without quite understanding what he was doing or why, Cisco raised his hand towards Reverse Flash.
“ I always win, Flash ,” the blur said in his terrifyingly distorted voice, and as he pulled his hand back to deal the final blow, the pressure in Cisco’s chest burst out through his outstretched hand.
“NO!” he yelled, as a wave of energy blasted from his hand and slammed into Reverse Flash. It threw him backwards, away from Barry, and he crashed into the floor amid a storm of red lightning. Reverse Flash recovered quickly, clambering to his feet and lunging at Barry, but he was no longer blurry and was moving at an almost normal speed. Barry dodged his blow easily enough, and Reverse Flash stumbled. His head whipped up and he stared at Cisco.
“What have you done, Cisco? What have you done?!” His voice was normal (although ragged and desperately angry) as well, and Cisco looked down at his still outstretched hand. What had he done? But before either he or Reverse Flash could provide any sort of answer, Barry slammed into Reverse Flash from behind, knocking him out with a powerful blow to the head. It was over.
Or so it seemed at first. Barry disappeared in a flash of lightning, returning the prone form of the Reverse Flash to his cell, where he could be safely imprisoned until they figured out what to do with him. Joe walked over to Cisco, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“You gonna tell me what you did just then?” Cisco was about to respond when he saw something terrifying: the portal, reforming. It was the Singularity. They hadn’t managed to stop it. Now what were they going to do?
Barry flashed alongside them, also looking on in mute horror. Then he snapped into action.
“We have to get back to the Cortex and figure out how to stop that thing!” But he was briefly distracted by an unexpected fourth person in the Pipeline. “Eddie? What are you doing down here?”
“I...”
“Never mind. We have a Singularity to stop. Come on!”