Nora West-Allen


 * For other uses of the name "Nora", see Nora (disambiguation).

"Schway!"

- Nora West-Allen

Nora West-Allen, nicknamed XS, is a meta-human speedster time traveler, as well as the daughter of Barry Allen and Iris West-Allen from the future.

Early life
Nora West-Allen was born to Barry Allen and Iris West-Allen sometime between 2018 and 2024, and was named in honor of her late paternal grandmother, Nora Allen.

In 2024, Barry disappeared after a battle with Reverse-Flash and never returned, leaving Nora to be raised solely by her mother. As she grew up, Nora was given the nickname "XS" by Iris due to the former's tendency to do things in excess. Sometime after Barry's disappearance, Iris secretly had a power-dampening chip implanted in Nora to keep her inherited powers hidden for unknown reasons. As a result, Nora grew up unaware of her meta-human abilities.

While Nora didn't remember her father, she nonetheless idolized Barry. Nora often visited the Flash Museum, where she studied her father's adventures. In 2032, when she was a child, Nora visited the Hall of Villains in the museum for the first time. One of the villains mentioned was Cicada, a meta-human serial killer who both Team Flash and their allies failed to capture. Upon learning this, Nora grew very terrified of Cicada, even more so than any other villain in the Flash Museum.

Nora graduated from Central City University with a 5.6 GPA and became a forensic scientist.

At some point in her adulthood, Nora found out through an unknown individual about the power-dampening chip her mother implanted in her. As a result, Nora grew estranged from her mother, feeling that Iris took away her choice to be a hero like her father. After learning she was a speedster, Nora began to learn to hone her powers using Barry's experiences. She became known as the "Fastest Woman Alive", a homage to her missing father.

Visit to the past
Six months later, Nora time-traveled 30 years into the past to late 2017. She awkwardly greeted her father at his wedding to her mother. Nora informed him that she felt the wedding would be "one for the ages". Barry asked if they knew each other, to which Nora quickly replied that they didn't and that she was no one special. Before walking away, Nora told Barry to make sure to say "I do".

Nora reappeared sometime later in CC Jitters, after the defeat of the Trickster and Prank, and excitedly paid for Ralph Dibny and Cisco Ramon's drinks whilst babbling intellectually about helping others, much to their confusion. Afterward, Nora wrote in a journal, using the same symbols that Barry used when he returned from the Speed Force.

Nora later returned to Jitters to meet Harrison Wells and Caitlin Snow, unbeknownst to them. She knocked her drink over near them on purpose and immediately apologized. Caitlin reassured Nora that it was fine before she and Harry left.

Nora later appeared as a delivery girl at Barry and Iris' apartment where her Papa Joe West and Mama Cecille Horton were having their baby shower. She told Cecille that the baby was due in 21 days and gave her and Joe a diaper bag, claiming it was a gift from "someone who cares". After giving them the gift, Nora spotted her mother and disappeared. She then ran away at super-speed.

As her father went to destroy the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite controlled by Clifford DeVoe during the Enlightenment, Nora altered the original timeline and helped him, allowing it to be properly destroyed. After helping her father, Nora saved Spencer Young from falling debris. Spencer tried to ask for a selfie, but Nora sped off. The next day, Nora went to the West house, where she introduced herself to Team Flash, revealed she was Barry and Iris' daughter from the future and claimed she made a mistake.

Nora recognized the team members before stating that her mistake was helping to destroy the satellite, which somehow kept her from going fast enough to open a time portal and that they were the only ones who could help her. She was brought to S.T.A.R. Labs where she ran in the speed lab before stopping and having and awkwardly starting to talk about the future to her parents right before they stop her. Caitlin then takes a sample of Nora's blood while Cisco puts a device on her to test her connection to the Speed Force and she continues to run in the speed lab. Nora then runs to the Central City Police Department to see what her father was up to. Noticing how behind he was on his CSI work, she offered to help him look at the cases. Although he was doubtful, she begins to work much to his annoyance. The case leads Barry to bring up ice cream which causes Nora to start describing the ice cream made at Happy Harbor in Rhode Island and both noted that it's their favorite dessert before Barry tells her to not mess with the timeline. A radio then alerts them of a meta-human attack and Nora goes to Cisco's apartment and grabbed the original Flash suit for Barry to wear. She tries to tag along but is told to stay. Nora runs after him anyway with the intention to watch and excitedly sees Gridlock but ends up distracting Barry and he is sent flying into the air. Nora runs after him where he lands in some water and she expresses she's sorry. They return to S.T.A.R. Labs and Nora believes her parents to be mad at her and begs Iris to not say disappointed. When Caitlin asked how she knew who Gridlock was, Nora talks about the Flash Museum which listed all the fights the Flash had and that she studied all of it. Nora then went with Iris to Jitters with the former commenting on how much cooler Barry's lightning bolt is than Lightning Lad's and wondering when he'll be back. Iris told her not to worry and that in the meantime, she's gonna try to get to know her daughter. Iris began asking questions about Nora and their family with Nora revealing she's a CSI and that they don't spend a lot of family time. Nora then asked if Cisco and Caitlin needed help and they both returned to S.T.A.R. Labs where she was excitedly commenting on wearing the tachyon prototype Barry used to meet Supergirl.

Personality
"It looks like it's a gift from someone who wanted you both to know how special you are. Someone who understands that time is precious and right now is all we've got. Relatively speaking."

- Nora West-Allen to Cecille Horton and Joe West

Like her father, Barry Allen, Nora is a brilliant forensic scientist with an aptitude for science and is a bubbly, excitable and enthusiastic young woman. She highly idolizes her father and aspires to be just like him.

Nora was deeply impacted by Barry's absence throughout her life and struggles with the idea of going back to her time period, where he is not there. She even hindered Team Flash's efforts to send her back home by using negative tachyons so she could spend more time with her dad. Having a lot in common with her father, Nora is a notorious daddy's girl.

However, Nora grew to have bitter hatred towards her mother, Iris West, upon finding out that Iris placed a power-dampening chip inside her so she couldn't use her speed, leaving her feeling angered and betrayed. Nora retained her frostiness towards her mother when meeting her in the past (despite the fact that past Iris didn't make that decision yet); she didn't want to let Iris see her at Jenna West's baby shower, was not receptive when her mother tried to bond with her at CC Jitters and didn't hug Iris as she did with Barry when being sent back to her own time. Nora even frequently subtly insulted Iris' blog and lack of cooking skills, hinting she doesn't even have any respect for her mother anymore. Nora's anger towards her mother also also blinds her to reason, as she refused to believe Iris' warnings that Spencer Young, was dangerous, which turned out to be true.

Despite the troublesome relationship she has with her mother and the non-existent relationship she has with her (missing) father, Nora is shown to have close familial ties to each member of her family, including Team Flash. She appears especially close to Cecille, her grandfather Joe, and her uncle Wally.

Nora is either lesbian, bisexual or pansexual. This is shown when she expressed an attraction towards Spencer and even flirted with her.

Powers

 * Speed Force connection/Meta-human physiology: Nora possesses a natural connection to the Speed Force, giving her the powers of incredible speed and superhuman reflexes. While she stated she isn't as experienced as her father Barry, and can only learn so much from her mother Iris and the Flash Museum.
 * Electrokinesis: Unlike other speedsters, Nora can produce both yellow and purple electricity from her body, commonly seen when running.
 * Bodily vibration: Like most speedsters, Nora can vibrate her body for various effects.
 * Intangibility: By vibrating her molecules at the natural frequency of air, Nora can physically pass through solid matter. Whilst only having learned this when she met with her father in the past, with the help of her father and uncle, she vibrated an entire airplane and all of its passengers to keep it from crashing.
 * Superhuman durability: Nora possesses inhuman resilience, most commonly seen from being unaffected by momentum build-up. She can take attacks and exertion, even survive impacts that would easily kill normal humans.
 * Superhuman speed: Nora can move at such vast speeds, indeterminable to the naked eye.
 * Superhuman agility: Nora has demonstrated flawless coordination, equilibrium and dexterity. She can change direction with immediate sharp turns without sliding or losing balance and instantly stop running on the spot.
 * Superhuman reflexes: Nora’s reaction time is augmented to superhuman levels, allowing her to react to danger and events far faster than normal humans.
 * Superhuman momentum: Nora can generate great amounts of physical force through kinetic energy, simulating superhuman strength, even in a stationary position. Even little exertions from this build-up can generate a tremendous amount of force, able to knock a person out.
 * Time travel: Nora's speed can breach the temporal barriers, letting her enter different points in time, like how she traveled back in time to see her parents. She also possesses the ability to somehow reverse time temporarily around her while remaining unaffected, e.g. when she stopped Barry from destroying the satellite alone, and when she caught up with Barry easily by getting him to inadvertently run backwards.
 * Superhuman stamina: Nora can handle the stresses of extreme racing without noticeable distress, letting her function much longer than normal humans unhindered.

Abilities

 * Genius-level intellect: Like her father, Barry Allen, Nora is very intelligent, having graduated from college with a 5.6 GPA. From a young age, Nora was a keen-minded individual, displaying a natural understanding and quick capacity to learn. Like her father Barry, Nora is a highly skilled forensics examiner. From a single glance of the crime scene, she can quickly determine much of the events that transpired.
 * Bilingual: In addition to English, Nora knows the mysterious language that Barry learned when he was trapped in the Speed Force for six months.

Weaknesses

 * Negative tachyons: Nora used a device pumping negative tachyons into her system, which would slow her down and allow her to pretend like she is unable to travel back to her proper point in the timeline.
 * Power-dampening tech: Nora has stated that, in the future, presumably sometime shortly after Barry's disappearance in the Crisis of 2024, Iris had a power-dampening chip surgically implanted into Nora's body. As a result, Nora's meta-human powers were suppressed all her life, and only learned about them approximately six months before she'd introduced herself to her parents, meaning she'd have only discovered them shortly before she showed up at her parents' wedding.

Equipment

 * XS suit: Nora wears a protective suit as XS, to hide her identity when fighting crime. It was designed by Cisco Ramon for her mother, Iris, when she had Barry's powers transferred but was passed down to Nora when she started her life as a superhero.

The Flash
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Season 5
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Trivia

 * Nora is a fan of the computer game Oregon Trail.
 * Like her father, Nora's favorite dessert is two scoops of cookie dough ice cream with extra sprinkles from the Mason Family Ice Cream Shop in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island.
 * Nora has a liking for coffee from CC Jitters because in her era, a cup of coffee costs $43.
 * Nora has double piercings in her right ear and triple piercings in her left ear.
 * Nora is unique in that she is the only known speedster to have dual-colored lightning.
 * The first reference to Nora's existence came in the shape of two quotes referenced by Barry and Cisco in the season 4 premiere, . The first was when Barry came out of the Speed Force and was mumbling "Nora shouldn't be here". The second was when Cisco unscrambled the Speed Force code and unveiled the phrase "This house is bitchin'", which was coined by Nora.
 * Nora is the ninth character in the Arrowverse to have an episode named after her in a civilian sense in some way, after Alex Danvers, Felicity Smoak, Harrison Wells, Harry Wells, Iris West, Oliver Queen, Sara Lance and Zari Tomaz.
 * Nora is also the fourth character in the Arrowverse to have an episode title be solely her name, after Alex, Sara, and Zari.
 * Nora is the first female LGBT character on, not counting the irregular appearances of Sara Lance.
 * Despite being from 2049, Nora doesn't appear to have any restrictions placed on her vigilante activities by A.R.G.U.S.'s anti-meta-human act, indicating that Zari's future didn't come to pass, doesn't exist in her timeline or for some unexplained reason, Nora is not affected by it.
 * It could also be because Nora didn't know she was a speedster until adulthood, explaining why Iris was keeping Nora from finding out that she (Nora) had powers until she could figure out how to use them.

Behind the scenes

 * Nora can be seen as a composite character or various characters from the comics:
 * In the main DC comics continuity, Nora Allen of the Justice League: Legacy alternate timeline was similarly a time-traveling metahuman speedster, who was a daughter of Barry Allen and Green Lantern Jessica Cruz.
 * Barry and Iris' daughter in the original timeline, Dawn Allen, is also a speedster and a meta-human from the future.
 * XS is a speedster and superhero in the 30th Century, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes and the daughter of Dawn Allen and granddaughter of Barry and Iris. Her real name is Jenni, which on the show seems to be instead re-purposed for Joe West's second daughter.
 * Nora's personality and motivation for time travel on the show is also similar to that of Impulse, the cousin of XS in the comics who journeyed to the time when Wally West was the Flash to join him as a superhero.
 * However, Nora's motivation is more in line with the Young Justice counterpart of Impulse who traveled back in time to prevent the Flash from going missing/dying prematurely which led to a bad future. Also, both secretly sabotage their supposed return to their own time preferring to stay in the past for various reasons.
 * Nora's catchphrase, "Schway", was first invented in the animated series Batman Beyond and was used by Terry McGinnis, a teenager from the future.
 * Nora is the first The Flash main character that debuted in Supergirl.