(Earlier)
Just beyond the outskirts of Central City, Iron Heights Penitentiary squatted like a concrete beast against the gray skyline.
It was Central City's answer to the worst of the worst - a maximum-security hellhole built specifically for dangerous criminals and meta-humans, and if you were being honest, most of its residents had earned their cells courtesy of the Flash's rogue's gallery.
The place took up a massive chunk of territory, surrounded by thirty-foot walls topped with electric fencing, guard towers every hundred yards, and enough automated turrets to make a warzone blush.
Every cliché in the prison handbook, thrown together with Central City's special brand of overkill.
RANG, RANG, RANG.
"ATTENTION ALL UNITS. BE ADVISED THAT THERE HAS BEEN A BREACH IN SECURITY. THE INMATES ARE LOOSE AND SO ARE MANY CRIMINALS AND META-HUMANS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
The sirens screamed across the compound, red lights washing over the yard in frantic circles.
Guards scrambled for positions, weapons drawn, shouting into radios that buzzed with static and panic.
Somewhere in the chaos, a riot had already started - inmates pouring out of their cells like ants from a kicked nest, taking advantage of whatever the hell had just happened.
As for how it happened?
That was another cliché entirely.
Someone on the inside had gotten greedy.
Someone on the outside had gotten clever.
And someone, somewhere, had decided that today was a good day to fuck with the natural order of things.
Anyway -
BANG, BANG, BANG.
BOOOOM.
Like a living battering ram forged from rusted iron and raw fury, a hulking figure smashed through the interior wall of Cell Block D.
Concrete exploded outward in a cloud of dust and debris.
Reinforced steel bars bent like wet noodles.
The thing - because at this point, calling it a man felt generous - didn't even slow down.
Guards opened fire.
Bullets sparked and whined off rusted metal skin, leaving nothing but scratches and pockmarks.
Girder barely felt them.
He'd spent months in that goddamn cell, pumped full of suppression drugs, chained with meta-dampeners, treated like an animal.
Now the drugs were wearing off, the chains were broken, and he had so much pent-up rage to share with the world.
"I AM FREE AND THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY I AM GOING BACK!" he roared, the sound like grinding gears and thunder.
He plowed through a squad of guards, bodies flying like ragdolls.
One unlucky bastard tried to stand his ground with a riot shield.
Girder grabbed it, crumpled it into a ball around the screaming man, and threw both thirty yards into a guard tower.
The tower groaned, tilted, and collapsed in a shower of sparks and twisted metal.
More gunfire.
More screaming.
More chaos.
BAAAANG!
Girder lowered his shoulder and hit the outer wall at a full sprint.
The reinforced concrete - two feet thick, laced with meta-resistant alloys - shattered under the impact.
Chunks of debris rained down across the prison yard.
He stumbled through the dust cloud, shook rubble from his shoulders, and threw his head back.
"I AM FREE!"
Tony Woodward - Girder, the Rusted Colossus, the goddamn Battering Ram of Central City - roared his triumph to the heavens.
Eight feet of solid iron muscle, pushing 700 KGs of unstoppable momentum, he didn't even pause to see who followed.
He just ran, each footfall cracking the asphalt, heading straight for the lights of Central City in the distance.
Behind him, the prison burned.
And thanks to the chaos of his escape, more inmates poured through the breach.
Super-villains slipped their collars.
Meta-humans shook off their suppressors.
Iron Heights had become a sieve, and the worst of the worst were spilling out into the world.
********
Inside the prison, in the relative quiet of the south wing, a very different scene played out.
Captain Cold - Leonard Snart, ice in his veins and frost in his heart - had his arms wrapped around a young brunette with long blonde-streaked hair.
She wore the same orange prisoner uniform as everyone else, but on Lisa Snart, even prison garb looked like fashion.
She buried her face in her brother's shoulder, and for just a moment, Leonard Snart looked almost human.
"You're a fucking idiot, you know that?" he murmured against her hair, but his grip was tight enough to bruise.
"Missed you too, Lenny," Lisa whispered back, her voice muffled.
Behind them, Mick Rory - Heatwave, pyromaniac extraordinaire, currently looking distinctly uncomfortable with all the family affection - dragged another prisoner forward by the collar.
This one was male, brown-haired, a few inches shorter than Mick and roughly Lisa's height.
Samuel Scudder, Mirror Master, looked like he'd been through hell and back.
His uniform was torn, his face bruised, and he stumbled as Mick shoved him toward the reunited siblings.
"Found your boyfriend," Mick grunted. "You're welcome, by the way. Little shit tried to hide in the laundry chute."
Snart broke the hug with his sister, and the warmth in his eyes vanished like it had never been there.
He turned to face Lisa and Sam, and for a long moment, the temperature in the corridor seemed to drop ten degrees.
Then -
BONK.
BONK.
"Ow!"
"Fuck, Lenny!"
Snart had rapped them both hard on the skull, one after the other.
Lisa clutched her head. Sam actually stumbled, seeing stars.
"You absolute morons," Snart hissed, his voice low and deadly. "A heist? For fun? Do you have any idea how fucking embarrassing it is to break into Iron Heights because my little sister and her boyfriend decided to play Bonnie and Clyde?"
"It wasn't supposed to go wrong!" Sam protested, rubbing his head. "The Flash wasn't even supposed to be in the city that night!"
"And yet," Snart said, his voice dripping with venom, "here we are. In prison. Needing your big brother and his associate to come bail your incompetent asses out."
Lisa had the decency to look sheepish. "We thought it would be romantic."
"Romantic." Snart stared at her. "Romantic. Lisa, you are twenty-three years old, not some lovesick teenager. And you -" He turned his frigid gaze on Sam. "You convinced my sister to commit felony burglary for a date. If we weren't currently escaping prison, I'd freeze your balls off and shatter them."
Sam wisely said nothing.
The truth was simple.
Lisa and Sam had decided a heist would be exciting.
Thrilling even.
A way to test their skills and their relationship.
They'd targeted a jewelry exchange, timed it perfectly, accounted for security, police response times, everything.
They had not accounted for the Flash and Kid Flash deciding to grab coffee three blocks away.
So now here they were.
And Leonard Snart, who planned everything down to the millisecond, who never left anything to chance, had been forced to improvise a prison break because his sister had a stupid idea and a boyfriend with more mirror tricks than common sense.
"Whole fucking city's distracted by some stupid concert," Mick mentioned, checking his heat gun. "Made getting in easier than it should've been. Security's spread thin."
"Small mercies," Snart muttered.
He pulled his cold gun from its holster, checked the charge, and nodded toward the east corridor. "Move. We leave in thirty seconds, or we leave in body bags."
They moved through the prison like ghosts - well, ghosts with highly illegal weapons and a complete disregard for human life.
Captain Cold froze turrets solid, their barrels shattering when guards tried to fire.
Heatwave melted cell doors and incinerated barricades with gouts of superheated flame.
Weather Wizard - who'd caught up with them near the east wing - summoned localized lightning storms that fried electronics and sent guards scrambling for cover.
During one brief pause in the carnage, Mick glanced at Snart. "You know Girder's loose too, right? Saw him punch through the east wall like it was paper."
"I know," Snart said, his voice flat.
"That psycho's gonna kill half the city if someone doesn't stop him. Even we're not that bad."
Snart's jaw tightened.
He thought of Lisa in that cell.
Thought of the Flash's hands on her as he dragged her in, the speedster's smug face when he dumped her at the police station like she was nothing.
Thought of months of planning, of contacts and bribes and favors called in, all to get his sister back.
"I would burn this entire fucking city to the ground for Lisa," Snart said quietly. "Girder? He's a means to an end. That speedster put his hands on my sister. He deserves whatever's coming."
Mick raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
He'd known Snart long enough to recognize that tone.
There was no arguing with Leonard when he got like this - cold, certain, and utterly ruthless.
A smile, thin and sharp as a razor, appeared on Snart's face. "That fucking speedster deserves what's coming his way. Touch my sister? He'll learn what happens when you piss off the Rogues."
With that, they slipped through the final checkpoint and vanished into the night, leaving Iron Heights behind them in a Song of Ice and Fire.
********
(Now)
Inside Sally's Showcase, the evening air smelled like cotton candy, fried dough, and pure, uncomplicated joy.
Jake hadn't laughed this hard in weeks.
They'd ridden the Roller Coaster three times - Spud screaming like a banshee on the first drop, Trixie cackling with her hands in the air - and the Ferris Wheel once, when the sun was starting to dip below the horizon and the whole park lit up like a carnival dream.
They'd eaten their weight in funnel cakes and caramel apples, played rigged carnival games, and taken roughly two hundred photos that Trixie insisted were "for the memories."
Now they stood at a shooting gallery, neon lights flickering overhead, stuffed animals hanging in rows like colorful prisoners.
Trixie managed a decent score - twelve out of twenty - and walked away with a small keychain.
Spud took one look at the BB guns, wrinkled his nose, and declared it "beneath his intellectual capacity."
"Translation: you suck at shooting," Trixie said.
"I have standards, Trix," Spud replied with exaggerated dignity. "Also yes, I suck at shooting. Moving on."
Then Jake's turn came.
He picked up the rifle, felt its weight, and let his dragon eyes shift just slightly.
The world sharpened - trajectories, wind patterns, the microscopic imperfections in each target.
He squeezed off twenty shots in quick succession, every single one dead center.
The carnival worker stared at the perfect score, then at Jake, then back at the targets. "Uh. Kid. You military or something?"
"Natural talent," Jake said with a grin, accepting the grand prize: a massive teddy bear dyed in the Flash's signature scarlet red.
Haley squealed when he handed it to her, hugging the stuffed bear against her chest. "Thanks, Jake!"
"Anytime, squirt." He ruffled her hair, and she made a face but didn't pull away.
Spud checked his phone and blinked. "Uh, guys? It's about time. The concert's starting in twenty minutes."
Trixie waved a hand. "Relax, Spud. Shaniqua ain't going nowhere. We got time to grab snacks and still get good seats."
"Famous last words," Spud muttered, but he followed as the group wandered deeper into the park.
None of them noticed the small figures flitting through the crowd.
Pixies - faces twisted by fear and sorrow - moved between the legs of carnival-goers, trailing sparkling dust from their wings.
They didn't want to be here.
But Diente's threats saw to that.
They had their orders, and the magical dust spread through the air like invisible perfume, sweet and cloying and utterly inescapable.
Dragons could withstand pixie dust. Their physiology burned through most magical sedatives like water through a sieve.
But a good amount of pixies, working together, concentrating their dust in a small area?
That could trouble even an adult dragon.
And Jake, for all his combat experience, for all the battles he'd survived and the monsters he'd faced, was still fifteen years old.
His dragon form was powerful but young as his magical resistance was still developing.
As for Haley? She was even more vulnerable.
The dust settled over the group like a warm blanket.
Trixie yawned first, her eyes going heavy. "Man, is it just me, or..."
She didn't finish.
Her knees buckled, and Spud caught her - or tried to, before his own eyes rolled back and he folded like a cheap lawn chair.
Jake caught them both, lowering them gently to the ground. His head swam, thoughts coming slow and thick like honey. "What the... guys?"
Haley swayed beside him, clutching the teddy bear. "Jake, I don't... feel good..."
"Y-Yeah, something's wrong," Jake slurred.
He tried to focus, but the world kept tilting.
He felt like someone was singing lullabies directly into his brain, soft and insistent. His motor functions stuttered; his hands felt distant, disconnected. "Stay awake, Haley. Just... stay with me..."
From the corner of the park, Diente watched with predatory delight.
The smug bastard adjusted his cufflinks and began to waltz through the crowd.
The sleeping civilians parted around him like the Red Sea, some snoring mid-step, others collapsed across benches and food carts.
It was perfect.
Clean.
No witnesses, no resistance and certainly no dragon fire to ruin his evening.
The target was in sight.
Haley Long, eight years old, dragon heritage potent enough to power a hundred spells.
And her brother, barely conscious and struggling to stand, couldn't do a damn thing to stop him.
Diente smiled, all teeth, and reached for the girl.
Then -
Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.
The ground shook.
Not the gentle vibration of carnival rides, but something angry.
BOOUM. BANG.
The front gates of Sally's Showcase exploded inward, twisted metal screaming as a hulking figure burst through.
The ticket booth disintegrated. The welcome arch collapsed. A hot dog cart launched thirty feet into the air, raining condiments and sparks across the dazed crowd.
"Sweet Marshmallow Jesus!" Diente yelped, diving sideways as debris whistled past his head.
"FLASH! COME OUT YOU FUCKING COWARD! COME OUT AND FACE ME!"
Girder - eight feet of iron rage - smashed through a game booth, sending stuffed animals and wooden planks flying.
He didn't see the sleeping civilians as people; he saw obstacles, and obstacles existed to be destroyed.
A family of three, unconscious at his feet, went flying as his foot came down. A teenage couple, slumped together on a bench, were crushed beneath a toppled light pole he casually backhanded.
Dead. All of them.
Girder didn't care.
Heck, he didn't even notice.
He was hunting the Flash. The speedster who'd put him in that cell. The hero who'd ruined his life. And if a few hundred civilians got in the way?
Collateral damage.
Girder laughed, a sound like grinding metal, and smashed through another stall.
A cotton candy stand disintegrated in a cloud of pink sugar. He kept moving, following the lights, following the crowds, drawn toward the center of the park like a missile.
And right in his path, barely conscious and struggling to stay upright, stood Jake and his barely conscious group.