Having somewhere to go during the day brought a noticeably more positive outlook into Berni's worldview. Iris was ecstatic that Berni had a friend to spend time with and never questioned or tried to get in the way of it, despite how many meals she didn't attend or the one-on-one time she felt they were finally perfecting. EO, on the other hand, always had a "tell me about this Mandi," or a "what do you two get up to in the city with this girl?" Berni knew that trying to trick Eobard Thawne thinking that a young woman showing up in the same costume, with the same powers, with the same code name as his old nemesis into thinking it was someone other than her was an impossibility, but she'd been doing a great job at preventing him from suspecting that she was aware of Eobard's alter ego as well. She knew some day sooner or later he would turn up in that ugly yellow suit for the grand reveal he's been meticulously planning for the decades he'd spent pretending to be a normal guy. Until then, Berni just had to do what every other young woman does when grilled about her social activities by her parental figure: Lie. Poorly.
Berni had to convince Mandi to arrange an Uber to pick her up at her house, drive her around the block to a convenience store, then run to PRIME Labs. Suspicion would be raised at Berni pretending she was walking into the city from their quaint little suburb every day. After arriving, she was into the suit and they were surveying what catastrophes The Flash would be preventing for the day. Things had been quiet since all of the heroes went missing, but the villains began to realize that their absence wasn't a ploy to lull them into a false sense of security. Mandi's research had determined that 3 different super villains were planning different attacks across the country that day. Metallo in Metropolis, Doctor Polaris in Coast City, and Black Mask in Gotham. The Flash was hoping to nip the problems in the bud before any massive damage or, worst of all, casualties. She was happy to help out for her friends in their absences, plus even as Barry she was excited to take on someone else's Rogues gallery. It was the nerd in her, keeping a mental file on every costumed maniac in the metahuman encyclopedia in her head.
First up was Metallo, one of Superman's classic Rogues, used to go by the name John Corben, retired armed forces, worked security for Lex Luthor before a Kryptonite mech suit built by Lex exploded due to a malfunction during a fight with Superman. Turned out that Lex had put Corben in the suit as a test run for the suit he'd eventually use, so a malfunction of some sort was expected. What Lex didn't expect, however, is that Superman would be Superman. He braved the Kryptonite poisoning and did his best to save Corben, his brain survived but not much else. Luthor had Corben declared dead, but he secretly placed that brain into a robotic body powered by a heart made of Kryptonite. He had convinced him that Superman was at fault, the loss of sensation drove him further to madness. Mandi quipped "at least he'll never have to taste coconut again" before Berni was off to stop the metal man.
With Superman gone and Lex taking a leave of absence, Berni had trouble figuring out what Metallo's goal was with this attack. But it soon became apparent that he was finally turning his anger toward the people that did this to him. He was attacking Lex's science division, firing beams of pure Kryptonite through the lab building. When used against someone who isn't a Kryptonian it doesn't have the immediate poisonous effect, but it does contain enough radiation to burn through surfaces and people if fired at a strong enough concentration. Judging by the holes in the building, the concentration was strong enough. When Barry had helped Clark master phasing through solid objects in the old universe, it was as simple as reaching in, grabbing the Kryptonite so it disconnects, then putting it back. His system will reboot and he'll be incapacitated long enough to return him to a holding cell that nullifies his abilities beyond base life support. However, Berni wasn't yet comfortable with her phasing ability to pull out someone's heart and put it back, even if they were threatening the public.
"I'm usually more creative than this." Berni said to Mandi over their comms, drawing a confused head-tilt from Metallo before she sped away. Metallo returned to his distraction before The Flash appeared behind her holding a cinder block lifted from a local construction site and hit him in the back of the head with it at super speed, knocking him out. A PRIME Labs drone with a camera hovered nearby, Mandi asked over the comms for The Flash to pose for a picture with Metallo, which she did before turning Metallo in to his holding cell and speeding off to the West Coast in order to take on one of Hal's old enemies.
Doctor Polaris was Neal Emerson, a man with magnetic powers, the ability to manipulate and move metal with his mind. He kept to himself usually, but had a split personality and that alternate persona was the one that was a super villain. Hal usually said "it's Doctor Polaris, just don't stand in front of anything sharp and knock him out while he's distracted. Barry Allen would always complain to Hal that his power is literally creativity but it was annoying that when it came down to it, he preferred to just hit the lower-level bad guys in the head. But as The Flash saw Doctor Polaris to use his abilities to hover over Coast City, The Flash put herself between him and jagged metal sheet that had been knocked loose from a car he had thrown before she arrived. She slowed her perception at the sound of the creaking metal, about to be pulled through her. She moved out of the way in time and, too quickly for Polaris to perceive, placed a row of cinder blocks from a local construction site atop the piece of metal then moved out of the way. Polaris stopped the metal upon realizing The Flash was gone, but couldn't stop the momentum of the cinder blocks that pelted him, knocking him out of the sky, landing on the ground unconscious.
"You know, if this is what you're going to keep doing we should probably get rid of the lightning bolt on your chest... I'll draw up some Cinder Block designs. Do you want to be The Cinder? Maybe The Block?" She said as the camera drone entered and focused its lens.
"I'm getting used to it again. Just take the picture." The Flash said as she posed with the unconscious Doctor Polaris.
As night fell, The Flash only thought it approritate to save the last job in Gotham for when the sun went down. Black Mask was planning to rob a GCPD transfer of confiscated weapons. With Batman gone, Nightwing busy in Bludhaven, and Catwoman leaning slightly more to the side of bad recently, there was a power vacuum breaking out, Black Mask seemed to be the frontrunner to take over. Black Mask didn't have powers, he was a spoiled kid of a crooked businessman who got a black skull mask melted onto his face and decided to leverage that into a career in shooting people until Batman punches him in the face. But Berni was getting hungry, so she just zipped through, disarmed everyone, put the goons into the back of the GCPD escorts, gave Black Mask a good scare, then did the same for him. Crisis averted. In great time too as she was starving, Mandi had figured out how to prepare calorie-dense meals capable of sustaining a speedster's inhuman metabolism, and by "figure out," she means that Berni had described something she had established long ago in the old universe and presented as theoretical. Mandi was smart, but Berni couldn't spare the time it would take to come up with them from scratch.
The two sat about the lab, Mandi looked over the photos and videos she took throughout the day, claiming that it would be key to continue getting grant money to show that their contributions could do some good instead of just cataloging the bad. Berni chewed on the highly-compressed energy bar. Even for a speedster, they took a while to chew. The large monitor that Mandi was using began to flash red, "Meta Distresss Signal!" Mandi shouted to herself as she opened the alert. "Oh no its out of our jurisdiction."
"So?"
"It's a lot of red tape and-"
"Are people in trouble?"
"You're right. Who cares? It's in a forest near Romania, I can upload the location to your earpiece, it will act as a super speed GPS."
"Got it. Who are we dealing with?"
"It sounds like a werewolf honestly... They say its a creature that is snatching cattle and hunters in the woods." Mandi said, sounding creeped out as Berni put her cowl back on and sped off. "Oh, Berni, could you take the drone? It caught up to you eventually before but I think this might be a little far..."
"I thought we were doing this off the record?"
"Yeah. I guess... I wanna see you fight a werewolf."
"Maybe I'll bring it back with me so you guys can meet in person."
"Don't joke about that."
The Flash arrived in the jungle, realizing that at this point the GPS wouldn't be of any use. She slowed her perception and moved at superspeed throughout the forest searching for any signs, finding several mutilated animals and abandoned hunting kits, eventually she found the exact center of the activity and stood in the open for a few moments before getting the feeling she was being watched. Waiting until the last moment to move, she thought she'd simply evade the target and then she'd know what she was dealing with, but all she felt was a sharp, splitting pain in her calf, she was brought to the ground, and got up just as quickly, only to see a blur circling her. She slowed her perception to see the attacked, it wasn't a werewolf. It was a... Werecheetah? A woman with Cheetah fur and sharpened claws. She moved quickly, not as fast The Flash, but was unpredictable. She'd been practicing at this for a while.
Flash managed to get in a punch but Cheetah was cunning and soon had her from behind, her claws inching ever-closer to Berni's neck.
"Flash? You aren't saying anything. Are you looking for a cinderblock?" Mandi asked. The faint sound to Cheetah's heightened hearing put her on edge. She let go of Flash and began to look around on guard. She began to stand up as she heard fast, heavy footsteps approaching. Was this a pack, was that the alpha? Are there alphas in the cheetah kingdom? Berni prepared for impact when she saw the blur of a blonde woman clad in red, black, and silver sprinting through the forest and shoulder-checking the werecheetah, throwing her against a tree.
"Wonder Woman!" The Flash shouted, she turned to look at Flash, momentarily distracting her and leaving her open for the Cheetah to strike. But she calmly batted away her claw with her gauntlet, the speed and impact causing a small sonic boom. She headbutted the beast in the face, sending her stumbling back, dazed. Wonder Woman then grabbed the lasso attached at her hip and wrapped it around the monster as it wailed in pain.
"What is your name?" She said in a blunt, authoritative voice with an accent that was much closer to an American accent than Flash was used to hearing from Wonder Woman.
"Fl-Flash." She muttered intimidated.
"Not you." She said, turning back to the monster struggling in her lasso. "What is your name!"
"Cheetah!" She squealed through a growl. The monster could talk.
"That's not your name. WHAT. IS. YOUR. NAME." She shouted. The monster cried out. The lasso began to glow and sizzle as if the fur and skin under it were beginning to burn.
"BARBARA!" She hissed. Her eyes looked slightly more human as Wonder Woman loosened the lasso and she ran into the woods.
"She's getting away!" Flash cried. Wonder Woman stopped her with a calm hand on her shoulder.
"There's no stopping her. She's a beast fueled by envy, rage, and dark magic. She'll hide, lick her wounds, and show up elsewhere. I'll find her again."
"How long have you been chasing her?"
"About eight decades." She said, as if that weren't an odd thing to say. "What about you? Why are you here?"
"Well, I'm The Flash and I'm trying to help. I um... Sorry, where I come from, Wonder Woman looks... Different."
"Where do you come from?" She seemed a bit suspicious of Berni, who could blame her though.
"Well, I'm a speedster and speedsters they, once they get fast enough that is, can travel through time or to different universes and... Sorry, does that lasso still make people tell the truth in this timeline?" She asked as she borrowed Wonder Woman's lasso and wrapped it around her wrists before telling her everything. The end of the world, the new Flashpoint, Thawne, the missing heroes. All of it. Wonder Woman simply smiled, she seemed impossible to surprise.
"In your old world you were a man?" She asked.
"Yes! But I was placed into a version of myself that was born a girl, and 10 years later. I know its hard to believe but-"
"I believe you." She assured him before taking the lasso from his wrist and wrapping it around her own. "My name is Princess Stefania of Themyscira. But once, long ago. My name was Steve Trevor."
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