Grace Gibbons


 * For other uses of the name Grace, see Grace.
 * For other uses of Cicada, see Cicada (disambiguation).

"You being in my life makes it better."

- Orlin Dwyer to Grace Gibbons

Grace "Gracie" Gibbons (born 2008) is the daughter of a late unnamed man and a late unnamed woman and the niece of the late Orlin Dwyer. At some point in an erased future, she took up her uncle's mantle as Cicada. She was also nicknamed Cicada II, Cicada 2.0, and She-Cada by Team Flash.

Early life
Grace Gibbons was born in 2008 to an unnamed man and an unnamed woman in Central City.

On May 4, 2017, when she was nine years old, Grace saw her parents being killed in an accident caused by Vickie Bolen but due to the accident being not natural to police assume that it was a meta-human attack, leaving her an orphan. She was subsequently placed in the care of her uncle, Orlin Dwyer, due to him being her next of kin. However, Orlin initially resented being Grace's guardian and kept his distance from her. Struggling with the loss of her parents and her uncle's destructive behavior, Grace became sullen and withdrawn.

Over the next couple weeks, Grace began having outbursts at school, including calling a classmate a "rat bastard", a curse Orlin often used. At the principal's office, Orlin confronted Grace on what she said, but she called her uncle out for being an unfit parent, stating that he didn't have room to talk when all he does is drink and rage at the world.

Following this incident, Orlin decided to start over with Grace and promised to be a better guardian to her. They moved into his cousin Robbie Byrne's old house on May 22, 2017, and began fixing up a dollhouse. The two soon formed a close relationship, with Grace accepting Orlin as her family. Orlin also taught Grace a nursery rhyme about a pelican, but would rarely let her say it due to the word "hell" being in the rhyme.

Coma
A year later, Grace attended the Central City Carnival with her uncle to commemorate the past year. As part of the celebration, Orlin bought Grace three ice creams and gifted her the new doll set she wanted for her dollhouse, much to her delight. Just then, Grace noticed the sky turning purple from the Enlightenment. When the Flash and XS destroyed the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite hurtling towards the city, Grace and Orlin were both hit by debris from the satellite's core, which crashed near them. A piece of the dark matter shrapnel was embedded in Grace's forehead, causing dangerous levels of brain hemorrhaging which rendered her comatose. Orlin immediately brought Grace to Central City Hospital, where she was placed on life support under the care of Dr. Vanessa Ambres.

A few weeks later, Orlin visited a comatose Grace at the hospital. Grace's condition still wasn't improving, much to Dr. Ambres' concern.

Six months later, Team Flash was able to identify Orlin as he visited Grace on Thanksgiving.

When Nora went in her memories, Grace was able to see her. Nora tried to make her pass her portal but it closed, trapping her. They visited her memories and Nora found out that Grace remembers his uncle swearing all metas will die, becoming Cicada. Then her brain defense mechanism created a version of her uncle that aimed to kill Nora. Later Nora appeared in a memory where Grace was eating pancakes with her uncle until Nora told her that this wasn't real, and witnessed her "uncle" getting stabbed by his evil version. Nora then fought him until she knocked him out and told Grace that she can help her uncle, but Grace called Nora a liar. An adult version of herself appeared dressed as Cicada and tried to kill Nora until Barry punched her out. Nora told her parents Grace wasn't coming, and they all escaped from Grace's mind.

It was later revealed that Grace's brain was affected by the dark matter from the shard lodged in her forehead, which could be influencing and affecting her mind.

Grace, still comatose, was taken from Central City Hospital by her future self.

Waking up
Nora West-Allen later used the MAD 2.0 in order to connect to Grace's mind. In her mindscape, Nora tried to convince Grace to take the Meta-human cure so that no more innocent people had to die. Grace then saw two versions of her uncle, one as Cicada and one as Orlin, who protested and encouraged her to take the cure, respectively. Grace eventually decided to take the cure and woke up from her coma. She was promptly given the cure, but the dark matter in her wound on her forehead prevented the cure from working. Suddenly, Grace's future self arrived and fought Nora, The Flash, and Killer Frost. Grace covered her eyes so that she wouldn't have to see what was happening. Eventually, the Flash shot future Grace's Lightning dagger, destroying it. The cure could now work on Grace, and she watched as her future self faded out of existence. David Singh later stated that he was looking for a foster family to take care of Grace.

Continuing her uncle's legacy
At some point after she awoke from her coma, Grace took on the mantle of Cicada to continue her uncle's legacy after he was administered the Meta-human cure. She had killed 152 people, even more than Zoom or the Red Death. Eventually, Grace used the Time Sphere to travel back to March 2019 to rescue Orlin after he took the cure, though she was too late. After a battle with Team Flash, taking them all out, she killed Dr. Ambres and took an unconscious Orlin to a cabin in the woods to be healed.

After attempting to kill the accidental murderer of her parents, Orlin tried to dissuade her from killing The Flash and to give up revenge as he did, but she kills Orlin instead, preferring to be a killer.

Grace would later break into Central City Hospital to take her past, and comatose, self. Grace then traveled to a Tannhauser Industries offsite building to steal a Cryo-Atomizer from Icicle, who was using it to turn his host body's wife into an ice-powered meta-human. Grace blasted the Flash away, then briefly fought Killer Frost. Grace threw her uncle's dagger at Killer Frost, but Thomas Snow threw himself in front of the dagger, killing him. Grace summoned the Cryo-Atomizer to her and flew away and returned to her past self.

Grace then broke into a different Tannhauser offsite to steal Cisco Ramon's prototypes for the Meta-human cure. Grace sought the prototypes, and not the final version, of the cure because they would kill any Meta-humans who took it. Along with the Cryo-Atomizer, she would be able to disperse the cure into the air and instantly kill all metas in Central City. Grace, while implementing the prototypes into the Cryo-Atomizer, recited the nursery rhyme about the pelican that her uncle had taught her. She suddenly heard her uncle's voice reciting it with her, and stopped working on the Cryo-Atomizer. She turned to see her uncle standing next to her, and both finished the nursery rhyme in unison.

Grace later finished implementing the prototypes of the cure into the Cryo-Atomizer, but her uncle told her that killing the metas just in Central City was not enough. Grace assured him that her plan would work. Grace went to Central City University to steal another component so that the cure could be spread to the entire country. While she was leaving, her uncle's dagger sensed the presence of a meta-human. She turned and saw Renee Adler standing with Sherloque Wells. Grace threw her dagger at Renee, but she threw a bench in front of her. As the Flash, XS, and other members of Team Flash arrived, she flew away. Grace then broke into what would become Ollins Laboratories in 2049 to steal a hyper-conduit, the final component to spread the cure throughout the country. Grace left a bomb that would detonate if someone opens the case that the hyper-conduit used to be in. With the Cryo-Atomizer now complete, Grace headed to CCPD and absorbed all of the metas', including Cecille Horton, dark matter.

As the metas ran away, Grace put her uncle's dagger into the Cryo-Atomizer. Joe West fired his gun at her, but Grace used her Kukri Lightning daggers to deflect each bullet. The Flash, Killer Frost, Elongated Man, and Vibe arrived and knocked Grace to the ground. Vibe went to the Cryo-Atomizer to try and breach it to another Earth, and Killer Frost created an ice wall to slow down Grace. When told that she couldn't defeat them without her uncle's dagger, Grace replied that she could, as she didn't have the dagger when she first arrived in 2019. To prove her point, she blasted the Flash away, then fought Killer Frost and Elongated Man, and quickly defeated them. As the Flash recovered, Grace threw him into the ice wall, shattering it. As Grace approached Vibe, he was able to hack into the Cryo-Atomizer to stop it from spreading the cure, thanks to Nora West-Allen's gauntlet, which contained a quantum computer. Enraged that her plan had failed, she screamed and would have attacked Vibe if not for the Flash knocking her into a desk. Vibe removed Grace's uncle's dagger from the Cryo-Atomizer and tossed it to the Flash, who, despite protests from Elongated Man, fired at it with the mirror gun.

Downfall and ceasing to exist
Elongated Man threw himself between the dagger and the mirror gun blast, which allowed Grace to reclaim the dagger and fly back to the cabin. There, she decided to take the Time Sphere and go back to the night of the particle accelerator explosion, and spread the cure as soon as meta-humans were created, thus killing metas seconds after they receive their powers. As she was about to leave, she was confronted by XS, the Flash, and Killer Frost. While she was distracted, Joe West threw an Interdimensional extrapolator at her, teleporting her inside the speedster trap inside S.T.A.R. Labs. Grace remained unfazed, and sent the Lightning dagger around the trap, slowly destabilizing the force field. When it broke, she knocked back Elongated Man, Cisco Ramon, Iris West, and Sherloque Wells. Grace went back to the cabin and fought XS, the Flash, and Killer Frost. After subduing the three, she went to her past self, who had awoken from her coma and had taken the meta-human cure. She then telekinetically summoned XS to her, and was about to stab her with the dagger, but the Flash destroyed it with the mirror gun. After her younger self had taken the cure, she was no longer a meta-human, preventing this future version of Grace to exist. She faded out of existence as her younger self, XS, the Flash, and Killer Frost watched.

Personality
Grace was originally a normal, innocent young girl until witnessing her parents' accidental murder in a meta-human. Bitter at their deaths and forced to live with a guardian who didn't want her, Grace became very angry in general, beginning to act out in an attempt to cope with the pain. However, as Orlin Dwyer began to clean up his act and connect with her, Grace's attitude gradually improved. Ultimately, she came to feel that she was protecting her uncle as much as he was for her.
 * -|As a child=

After falling into a coma, lost in her lingering negative emotions and still overhearing everything Orlin said about meta-humans, Grace fell deeper than ever into anger. Hearing how committed Orlin was to ridding the world of metas "for" her and knowing that metas were fighting him, she became psychotic. Trapped in her painful memories, Grace came to believe like her uncle that all metas are evil and must be destroyed.

Grace is proven to have a decent deductive ability, as seen by her immediate suspicion of Nora West-Allen's claims, eventually leading her to discover Nora was XS. Despite this, she is slightly naive, going with Nora without much need for convincing or trust.

"This Cicada doesn’t care if you’re a meta or not, she’ll kill you if you’re in her way."
 * -|Erased future=

- Cecile Horton about Grace Gibbons

In an erased future, Grace never was woken up and shown the truth. Having been shaped by Orlin's hatred towards metas and the brain damage from the shard in her head, Grace embraced meta racism; as metas were all over the world, she considered them a plague.

As the second Cicada, Grace is more of a monster than her uncle was; unlike Orlin, who refused to kill non-metas and civilians, she would be willing to kill anyone standing in her way without remorse. She even killed her own uncle when he tried getting her to see his warped view was wrong. Even when it was revealed to her that the death of her parents was indeed an accident, Grace didn't care and was willing to kill a kind soccer mom whose powers caused the accident (even going so far to try to kill the woman in front of her own family).

Grace believes murder is the solution to all problems, even metas, when a cure to take away their powers was available; she largely seems to relish in murder or peace.

Her mental instability only worsened from (presumed) guilt over killing Orlin. As a result, she began hallucinating her childhood dream construct of Orlin to talk to.

Former powers

 * Meta-human physiology: When hit in the forehead by a dark matter-infused shard from the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite after the failed Enlightenment, Grace's DNA was altered over time. Due to her coma, it was not until months later that the changes surfaced. In the potential future where Grace became the new Cicada, it was noted that her powers have evolved to become similar to Orlin Dwyer's, but much more potent and versatile.
 * Mental defenses: The dark matter satellite shard that struck Grace created a kind of protection field which amplifies mental defenses, blocking any outside interference with her mind.

Alternate future powers

 * Lightning dagger-bond: With her ability to control dark matter she was able to create a psionic connection to her uncle's lightning dagger. Her connection to the dagger also appears to be stronger than that of her Uncle's. With this connection, she prevents any other person from wielding it and likewise can telekinetically manipulate it as she pleases, able to summon it back to her from great distances. Uniquely, Grace can also lock the dagger onto targets, tracking them regardless of how far or where they go, moving at immense speed. As well as being able to superheat it to cut through a brick wall.
 * Meta-human detection: The dagger can home in on meta-humans, leading Grace to her target, upon which it will glow red when a meta-human is near.
 * Electricity generation: The dagger can also generate red electricity and blasts.
 * Force-field generation: She can shape dark matter into potent force-fields of red energy.
 * Power negation: By striking the ground, Grace can generate an energy field that negates all other meta-human powers. Even if someone regains usage of their powers afterward, there will be a period of time where the powers remain severely weakened and long enough exposure can potentially remove their powers permanently.
 * Superhuman strength: Grace has shown to have intense strength, able to swiftly knock Orlin aside and nearly crushed Caitlin's hand while catching her fist.
 * Enhanced reflexes: While not near Flash's level, Grace has shown to have almost inhuman reflexes, able to quickly react to attacks from Caitlin and even managed to cut her in the arm. Also being able to deflect the combined attacks of Joe and Iris's laser blasts, Cisco's vibe blasts, Killer frost's cold blasts, and Barry's lighting throw. Grace also was able to block all of Joe's gunshots without getting hit.
 * Ergokinesis: Grace can control all dark matter within a close-enough range from her, including from her own body. From her hands, she can unleash energy to grab targets and manipulate them as she pleases.
 * Flight: Grace is capable of flying at breakneck speeds and can even use her energy to levitate herself.

Abilities

 * Comatose-hearing perception: While comatose, Grace was able to hear everything going on around her in her hospital room, including whenever Orlin Dwyer and Dr. Vanessa Ambres were talking.

Alternate future abilities

 * Acrobatics/Free-running: Grace has developed free running skills, able to fall from great heights without injuring herself. She utilized a forward roll to dodge an attack from Killer Frost.
 * Expert hand-to-hand combatant/Martial artist: Grace's vengeful vendetta against all meta-humans lead to her developing a superb fighting form after much training. Because of this, she is extremely skilled in close quarters combat, able to go toe-to-toe against Caitlin Snow and eventually overpower her. Grace's combat skills are proven to be superior to even those of her uncle, Orlin Dwyer. She managed to fight Ralph Dibny and Killer Frost at the same time, eventually outmatching them, and even swiftly defeated Joe West. Grace's fighting style appears to include boxing, kickboxing, karate, and krav maga.
 * Weapons proficiency: Grace has incredible accuracy with improvised weapons; she was able to throw a bottle at Cecille Horton's head to knock her out.
 * Master knife wielder: During her battle against Team Flash, Grace used her daggers to counter every single one of their attacks, even managing to block the Flash's lighting strike before it could hit her.
 * Explosives expert: Grace has demonstrated some level of expertise with plastic explosives.

Alternate future weaknesses

 * Mental instability: As Cicada, Grace's hatred of meta-humans deteriorated her mental state due the dark matter shrapnel trapping her in her mind and gradually causing brain damage. She was shown to be very delusional and detached from reality, willing to kill anyone to satisfy her need for revenge on a pointless cause. Grace went as far as to push away and even murder her uncle when he tried to help her.

Alternate future equipment

 * Cicada mask: As Cicada, Grace wears a mask similar to the one used by her uncle.
 * Kukri Lightning daggers: In the future, as Cicada, Grace wields a pair of kukri knives which she uses in her vendetta.
 * Meta-tech Lightning dagger: During her retrieval of Orlin from Team Flash, Grace obtained her uncle's dagger, claiming it for herself and used it to kill Dr. Ambres, until it was destroyed.

The Flash
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Trivia

 * To date, Grace is one of the youngest meta-humans to be featured in the entire Arrowverse.
 * Grace is the second main antagonist to successfully kill another main antagonist in the Arrowverse, the first being Hunter Zolomon (who killed a time remnant of Eobard Thawne).
 * However, Grace is the first antagonist to do this in the same season of their particular series.
 * Grace is the 40th known version of Cicada in the multiverse. The first 37 were David Hersch from various universes, the 38th was David Hersch from Earth-1 (in the original timeline), and the 39th was Orlin Dwyer.
 * Grace is the first female main antagonist in the Arrowverse outside of alongside Emiko Adachi, who became a main antagonist at the same time as her.
 * Grace's life bears similarities to that of Nora Darhk:
 * As children, both grew up following their respective guardians' (Orlin and Damien Darhk's) warped views.
 * Both became super-villains in the future in a mission to avenge their respective families.
 * Both ended up faced conflict from their guardians, who wanted Grace and Nora to be better than them.
 * Both were redeemed with help from the heroes.
 * Grace is the third main antagonist of to not directly cause the death of a member of Team Flash, being preceded by Clifford DeVoe and Orlin Dwyer.
 * However, DeVoe successfully killed Matthew Kim/Melting Point, a trainee of Team Flash.