So sorry this isn't 'The Cold Factor' or 'Two For The Price Of One', but since I got the DVDs for Christmas, I was able to fill in the last two scenes of this and get it done sooner.
So, in case the title isn't clear, this is a 'Long Way Home' AU version of the episode 'Girls' Night Out', but with Lisa added in the mix. Expect a little tweaking of details, a hefty dose of snark, some more gratuitous Japanese, and a little more fighting.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'The Flash' or DC, or any of their associated characters.
WORD COUNT: 10,365 (on Microsoft Word)
Saturday, November 11th, 2017
Lisa looked up from her phone when she heard the main door buzzer go off. Checking the security monitor, she smiled when she recognised the person standing outside and went to greet their guest and let her in.
"Hey, Felicity!"
"Hi, Lisa." Felicity was grinning back as she maneuvered through the door with balloons in one hand and a bag full of brightly-coloured feathers (most likely feather boas) in the other. "I see you guys finally have a decent security system."
"You mean a security system, period?" Lisa laughed, "Yes, Lenny and I got sick of people just waltzing in and installed it all over the summer, before he and Sara moved to Star."
"Right, he mentioned that at least once. Even offered to do the same for the Arrow Bunker."
That only made Lisa's smile grow. "I bet the look on Queen's face was priceless."
"Actually, he was seriously considering taking him up on that offer, until Sara and Len decided to go back to their time-traveling gig. Dinah's face, on the other hand…"
Lisa giggled. She'd met the new Black Canary in-person only once, and Dinah Drake, a former CCPD cop, had been obviously uncomfortable around the Snarts and Mick, three pardoned criminals who were aware of all the heroes' secret identities. "I can just imagine."
"I mean, seriously, before, I could literally walk in here. You had no security, you had no alarms, you had nothing on your door! I mean, did you ever have something, anything at all?!"
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Cisco once bragged about having souped up security twice. I think he just meant adding more cameras."
"So where is everyone?"
"Uh… Iris and Caitlin haven't come in yet, and Cisco, Barry, and Harry are running tests on the new guy downstairs. C'mon, they'll be glad to see you."
Lisa led the way down to the Speed Lab, where the three scientists were having a discussion over the computers while Dibny stood in front of the ramp, his upper body stretched up onto the track and out of sight.
"Evil killer baby…" Cisco was saying.
"Could happen," Harry was agreeing.
"I don't know," Lisa chimed in, "We may have magic, metas, and time-travel, but I draw the line at evil killer babies. Oh, and guess who's here?" She waved in Felicity's direction, although the boys had already spotted her.
"Felicity!" Barry walked up and hugged his friend. "You came… prepared," he commented, nodding at her bag and balloons.
"Well, yeah, Team Arrow to Team Bride. Very excited for the bachelorette party."
"Yep," Harry sighed, "Getting inebriated with the same gender to celebrate an archaic institution?"
"Priceless," Cisco finished.
Lisa frowned at Harry. "Aren't you the only person in this room who's actually been married?"
"I mean, you only get married once," Felicity defended, "so- Well, actually, pretty much everyone gets divorced these days, fifty-five percent, to be exact." Lisa and Cisco both winced, and Harry started making throat-cutting gestures. "I mean, national statistics-" Felicity finally noticed the signals. "But not- not you and Iris! That would just- That would never happen to you guys, I just…" She trailed off, finally noticing Dibny – well, half of Dibny, anyway. "Who's… feet are those?"
"That's Ralph Dibney," Barry answered.
"The new guy," Lisa added, "How about we go see if we can find the other ladies?" She gently steered a mildly freaked-out Felicity out of the lab.
"Wow," Felicity commented a minute later as they got into the elevator, "That is one freaky superpower."
Lisa sighed. "Yeah, it's like he's practically made of rubber. You can't even punch him, unless you want your fist stuck in his face."
Felicity winced. "That sounds like a 'finding that out the hard way' story. Who found that out the hard way?"
"Barry. They've got a… bad history. Short version: Dibny used to be a cop, planted evidence once when there wasn't enough to nail a suspect, and hates Barry for catching him at it and getting him kicked off the force. And Barry hates him for planting the evidence, because that sort of thing was what had put his dad in jail."
"And how's that working out, now?"
Lisa shrugged. "Well, they're trying not to be so antagonistic around here, but it's more than a little awkward."
The doors opened up on the main floor, and they were greeted by Iris. "Felicity!" she squealed, happily squeezing the blonde in a hug, "When did you get here?!"
"Just a few minutes ago," Felicity answered, "I was just saying hi to the guys downstairs."
"Oh, is Caitlin down there? Her car's in the parking lot."
Lisa shrugged. "She's not in the Speed Lab with the rest of them, and she wasn't here when Felicity arrived. She must have shown up while we were downstairs."
Sure enough, they found Caitlin sitting at the computer in her lab off the Cortex.
"Well, here you are!" Felicity cried, rushing over, "Okay, are you ready for the Ladies' Night to end all Ladies' Nights?"
"And by that," Iris interrupted, "she means a quiet, low-key dinner at a very classy restaurant."
"Yeah. That's exactly what I mean. Super low-key, super quiet. Do you want a pink or a blue feather boa?"
"Ooh, I'll take a blue one," Lisa said, plucking the blue boa right out of Felicity's hands and putting it on. She'd just bought a new teal dress that would go great with it.
"Actually, Iris, if it's okay, I don't think I'm gonna make it tonight," Caitlin told the bride-to-be apologetically, "I'm just not feeling up to it."
"What?" Iris gasped, as Felicity made a sound of sympathy and disappointment, "Are you feeling okay?"
"No, I'm fine, I just… sometimes life catches up with you, you know?"
"That's because you're not wearing the tiara," Felicity said, placing said tiara on Iris's head. "Put on the tiara, and it'll all change."
"Wearing the tiara," Iris confirmed, "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
"Caitlin, please, come on. We work together every day, and we never get to do dinner, just us girls."
Iris was right. She and Lisa had even gone out for drinks and dancing a couple of times (Iris had even looked the other way when Lisa had covered the tab with the wallet of a creep who'd gotten way too handsy), but Caitlin had always declined unless it was a whole-team thing. "You have to come."
"She's right," Felicity insisted, "Just one dinner, pleeeease?"
Caitlin capitulated. "Wouldn't miss it."
The restaurant that Felicity chose was very classy, and not really Lisa's style. Privately, she thought that she was going to have a lot more fun once Sara decided she was going to have her bachelorette party – mainly because Sara had promised to let her plan it. But the food didn't suck, and the blonde said the bill was all on her, so Lisa wasn't going to pass up a free, quality meal.
"So fancy," Cecile commented with a smile as a waiter poured out champagne for each of them
"Yeah," Felicity agreed, raising her glass. "A toast! To the future Mrs. Allen."
"West-Allen," Iris corrected.
"West-Allen. Although your life with Barry may be fast-paced, I hope you guys take the time to enjoy the special moments."
"Aw… Thank you, guys, for coming. It really means a lot."
"Cheers," Cecile said, smiling, as the five ladies clinked their champagne glasses together, "Well, alright, who wants my champagne?" The DA set her flute on the table while the other four drank from theirs (Caitlin downed hers all at once). "The craziest thing I get to do tonight is order two desserts."
"I'll take it," Caitlin volunteered before Lisa could, surprisingly.
"That's right," Felicity commented, "Iris told me you were pregnant. How's that going?"
"Yeah, it's goo- It's good! I mean, it wasn't exactly part of my plan, but… I just could not be happier."
"I know exactly what you mean."
Lisa blinked. "Wait, you're not-"
Felicity blinked back, then shook her head vigorously. "No! No, no, no, I'm not pregnant! God, no! But since I've gotten back together with Oliver, I've been spending a lot of time with his son, William, and we've bonded, a bit. And I really like spending time with him."
"Do I hear wedding bells ringing in your future?" Cecile asked with a knowing smile.
"Oh, no. The last time we did anything that resembled a wedding, Oliver got shot with an arrow, so…"
Then Lisa felt more than heard someone passing by close behind her, only this person stopped and didn't move. Lisa turned around in her seat curiously, and froze when she recognised the man looming over her.
It was Hunk Norvock, a well-known muscle-for-hire who'd been working for a particular crime boss for a while, now. The same particular crime boss who owned a bar that Cisco had mentioned before, when he talked about trying to convince Caitlin to come back last month…
Damn it, she shouldn't have left her Gold Gun at S.T.A.R. Labs.
The other women fell silent as they all noticed him, as well. "Uh… did you girls order a stripper?" Iris asked confusedly, a hint of a smile on her face.
"Why didn't you tell me?!" Felicity demanded, "I would've brought all my singles!"
"No!" Cecile protested. "I-" But she clearly couldn't find the words to defend herself with Norvock staring them down like that.
Felicity took a second look at the guy. "Girl, you into some freaky stuff."
"Amunet wants you," Norvock growled, but he wasn't looking at Lisa.
He was looking at Caitlin.
Shit. Pretty much all of Lisa's suspicions over where Caitlin had been over the summer were confirmed with that one demand.
"Uh… Caitlin?" Iris asked uncertainly while Lisa discreetly reached for her fork, "Do you know him?"
Caitlin's mouth opened and closed, but she seemed too scared to speak.
"You need to come with me," Norvock insisted threateningly.
"Like hell," Lisa growled.
Norvock's real eye flicked down to her, and Lisa saw him blink as he recognised her for the first time since entering.
"We're not going anywhere with you," Caitlin ground out, her voice shaking.
The other girls were really starting to get weirded out, now. "Please tell me that this is just part of his act," Cecile, said.
"If it is, it's taking too long," Felicity commented. Then she started snapping her fingers impatiently at him. "Take it off!"
"Felicity, don't!" Lisa hissed.
Norvock leaned forward, and his false right eye popped out of its socket and landed in Iris's champagne glass. Iris, Felicity, and Cecile all reacted with the appropriate cries of horror and disgust.
"Gross! I meant take off your pants, not your eye!"
Lisa reacted. She shot up out of her seat, her fork in hand, and went to stab Norvock in the empty eye socket before that creepy tentacle popped out. But he was ready for her, and probably had been since he first recognised her. He'd already learned the hard way not to antagonise a Snart (that scar on his forehead was new, but he already had another one in a much more sensitive region, courtesy of Lisa herself).
Quick as a shot, his hand grabbed her wrist in a vice grip, stopping her improvised weapon less than an inch away from its target. "Nice try," he growled, then his disgusting eye tentacle wrapped around her wrist and flung her over the table and across the room with more strength than Norvock had in the rest of his body.
All the breath shot out of Lisa's lungs when she crashed straight into the wall, and she saw stars.
She heard the loud sound of a table crashing to the floor, lots of running feet, and people screaming.
"Stand back, Baby Mama," she heard Felicity say, "We got this."
Lisa shook her head and blinked. She wasn't sure if she wasn't seeing right, because she couldn't be seeing Felicity Smoak trying to take Hunk Norvock down with a chair.
Norvock had basically been ignoring Felicity, as she, Iris, and Cecile were grouped by the bar (where some oblivious patrons were still sitting) while Norvock was advancing on Caitlin, who was backed up against a pillar. Felicity swung the chair like a really awkward baseball bat, and the impact only sent him stumbling forward a few steps. More importantly, however, it pissed him off.
Felicity staggered back as the bar patrons finally got a clue and got the hell out of there, while Iris darted forward, smacking the eye tentacle with a serving tray some staff member had probably dropped. She hit it twice before the tentacle shot out. Iris held up her makeshift weapon as a shield, but she was still shoved back into Felicity, sending both women tumbling to the floor.
With the annoyance out of the way (and Lisa still on the ground with a wicked headache), Norvock turned his attentions back to Caitlin. "Please don't do this," Caitlin begged.
"Didn't have to be this way," Norvock growled at her.
Despite her dizziness, Lisa pushed herself to her feet, but it seemed that she didn't need to. Caitlin's eyes turned icy blue, mist started to pour off her hands, and her hair faded to pale white.
"I was hoping to see you again," Norvock said venomously.
"Really?" Killer Frost snarked as she shrugged off her feather boa, "So I could give you another scar?"
She stepped forward and fired a blast of icy wind that propelled Norvock out the window and ended the fight just like that.
As the other women stared at her in shock, Killer Frost just casually glanced down at herself. "Ugh," she groaned at the sight of her pink sweater and skirt, "I hate pink." Then she reached over, plucked a bottle from a table that was still standing, and took a swig. She sighed in contentment, her breath forming an icy mist.
"Barry's not picking up," Iris fretted as they entered the Cortex, "You girls having better luck?"
"Nothing from Joe," Cecile told her.
"Same," Lisa echoed, frowning at the image of Cisco on her cell phone.
"What the hell just happened?!" Cecile was still freaking out over everything. "Who was that… Medusa Man?!"
"You know that's not a Cisco-approved nickname," Felicity commented.
"Hunk Norvock," Lisa answered, just as Killer Frost cut in:
"Don't worry about who that was." Frost marched straight for Caitlin's lab and made a beeline for a suitcase next to some hanging lab coats in the corner. She glanced down once again at her outfit. "Caitlin's taste in clothes is matched only by her taste in men: both terrible."
"Wait, how are you you?" Iris asked worriedly (for the tenth time since they fled the restaurant).
"I thought Caitlin was cured," Lisa added accusingly.
"Caitlin shouldn't be keeping secrets from her friends," Frost sneered as she unzipped the suitcase, "You are friends, right?"
"Yeah, of course we are," Iris defended, but after a noticeable beat of hesitation.
"Your 'friend' was going out of town tonight," Frost taunted, opening the suitcase and revealing that it was full of clothes.
"What? Why?"
"Because she got herself into something she couldn't handle."
"Amunet Black, right?" Lisa 'guessed'. Frost's sharp blue eyes snapped over to stare at her, and Lisa just crossed her arms defiantly.
"Of the underground market?!" Cecile gasped.
"You don't really think I wouldn't know who Hunk Norvock works for, do you? Cisco mentioned that Caitlin had been bartending at a dive that just happens to be owned by Amunet last summer. I was hoping she was one of the rare extras on staff, the ones she hires when she just needs a position filled at the actual bar, but she doesn't usually send her flunkies to abduct them in public. What did you do for her?"
Frost glared back. "None of your business," she snapped, "Now, if you ladies don't mind, I'm going to find Amunet and kill her." She pulled a black shirt out of the suitcase and started undoing the buttons on the back of Caitlin's sweater.
"And you need a change of clothes for that because- Woah!" Frost had stripped the shirt off right in front of them, also revealing that Caitlin hadn't bothered with a bra that night. Felicity quickly turned around. "Whoa! Okay, apparently somebody doesn't have boundary issues!"
"Uh, okay, girls, can I talk to you in the Cortex?" Iris suggested, herding them out.
Lisa glared at Frost. "This conversation is not over," she warned.
Once the door was shut, the flurry of questions started up.
"Can we take it back for a minute?" Felicity hissed, "Since when did her superpowers make her a supervillain?!"
"She is not a villain, okay?!" Iris insisted.
"I remember being kidnapped by her earlier this year!" Cecile reminded them.
"And I remember her trying to kill Cisco," Lisa added, still angry over that.
"What?!" Felicity gasped.
"Okay, yes," Iris allowed, "But that is because she was being manipulated by Savitar. And in the end, we wouldn't have been able to stop him without her. Look, I know that there is some good in there."
Lisa sighed. "God, you and Barry are perfect for each other. Always seeing the good in everyone."
"Hey, we were right about you and your brother, weren't we?" Iris shot back.
"I get it," Cecile conceded, "Technically, Caitlin is underneath under all of that somewhere, but she is still dangerous!"
"And she is also our friend, okay? I am not just gonna abandon our teammate."
Cecile sighed. "Fine. I'm coming with you."
All three of the other women immediately protested. "No," Iris insisted firmly, "Cecile, you're pregnant."
"And your father will kill me if you get killed at your own bachelorette party!"
"That is some crazy logic," Felicity commented, "Which means I'm in, too!"
"And you three are going to need someone who can actually fight backing you up," Lisa pointed out.
"Oh, great, happy bachelorette," Iris snapped sarcastically.
"What are you all talking about?" Killer Frost asked, exiting Caitlin's lab. She was now dressed in black leather pants and a blue leather jacket, partially unzipped to show the black top from earlier underneath.
"You," Lisa freely admitted, "What else were you expecting?"
Frost shrugged, acknowledging her point. "It's been real, ladies." Then she casually walked out.
"I'm gonna use the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite to track her cold signature," Felicity volunteered as soon as Frost was out of earshot, "Unless you already know where she's headed?" That question was of course directed at Lisa.
Lisa nodded. "I know the way."
"Great," Iris sighed, "And, uh, I'm gonna try and call for backup again."
"And I'm going to try and remember that it's Caitlin under there," Cecile muttered.
Lisa sighed, looking down at her short party dress. "And I'm going to get changed into something more combat-appropriate, because trust me, there will be a fight. Amunet loves killing people who piss her off."
"Speaking of which, who, exactly, is Amunet Black?" Felicity asked, "Going by what you guys have been saying, I'm guessing this chick has a criminal record."
"Yeah," Cecile confirmed, "She's been linked to the metahuman black market, selling stolen technology, but we've never been able to nail her down."
Lisa nodded. "She came onto the scene out of nowhere four years ago, after the Particle Accelerator blew. She can manipulate a specific metal alloy with her mind, and she always carries a bag full of razor sharp pieces of that metal with her. And it's not just stolen technology that she trades in. You name it: drugs, weapons, people… If there's a black market for it in Central City, she's involved somehow. She's also about as cold as it gets; she'd murder a child if someone who loved that child pissed her off, and she wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Lenny and Mick and I sold some of our scores to her, but not for long."
"I sure hope not," Cecile muttered.
"It was a clash of personalities, really. She's not the type to take 'no' for an answer – for anything – and Lenny's not the type to let just anyone stick her hands down his pants – which is rather ironic behaviour on her part, given how much hate she has for men who try to grope her. Apparently she had to deal with a lot of it before she got her powers, and one of the first things she did afterwards was kill the men in question."
Felicity looked worried. "Okay, so she's super-evil, but why does she want Caitlin?"
Lisa bit her lip. "I'm not entirely sure. But remember what Frost said back there? She said that Caitlin had gotten herself involved with something – presumably something to do with Amunet, given where she was working – and couldn't handle it. And now she's back to working with us, instead." She inhaled shakily. "If Amunet considers her a deserter, then Caitlin is in real danger. You don't just walk away from Amunet Black."
The other women – including Iris, who had hung up after once again getting no response from Barry – now looked even more worried. "What was the name of that bar?" Iris asked intently.
"She won't be there. Amunet owns a lot of places, as fronts for her real business. But that one isn't her main base of operations. She's most likely to be at the Blacksmith Club."
Felicity had since sat down at the main computers and started typing away. "Got the address," she announced seconds later.
"Good. Maybe pull up the blueprints while you're at it. If we're going in there, then I want to know all the ways out in case things get messy." She sighed and looked down at her dress again. "Just give me a few minutes to change before we go."
She walked out of the Cortex and went straight to Cisco's workshop. The item she was looking for had just been completed over a week ago, but she hadn't had an opportunity to wear it until now, thanks to the concussion and sprained ankle she got during the whole Hazard fiasco, resulting in her sitting out the whole Dibny/Breacher mess (the latter part of which could have been possibly avoided if she'd been sitting around S.T.A.R. Labs, instead of sitting around at Clarissa Stein's place).
The suit was a Cisco special, as usual. The top half fit like a short, white, long-sleeved dress with a high neck and metallic gold accents. The bottom half consisted of tight pants, also in gold, and flat-soled white boots. It also featured a gold holster for her gun on her right thigh.
She didn't bother with a mask. Her Gold Gun didn't give off as bright a glare as the Cold or Heat Guns, and it wasn't like people wouldn't know who she was once she started using her signature weapon.
Lisa quickly tied her hair back and then went out to join the other women in the Cortex.
Only to very quickly realise that one was missing. "Where's Iris?" she demanded, glaring at Felicity, who was looking very guilty.
"I, uh… She may or may not have asked me to look up the 'Blacksmith Club' while you were getting changed, and then she left without us. I guess she didn't want Killer Frost going in there without backup."
"Dammit!" Lisa cursed, "Was she at least armed? Amunet Black is a dangerous, homicidal maniac, and that's not even taking her meta powers into account!" She sighed in aggravation. "Killer Frost can take care of herself; Iris is the one who needs backup!"
They took Cecile's car to the Blacksmith Club, and started looking for Iris among the patrons on the dance floor. Most of them were in punk attire, and pretty much all of them appeared to be high as a kite. Many of them were taking shots of an oddly luminescent blue liquid out of tiny vials. Lisa frowned; it didn't look like any drug she'd ever heard of, although she and Lenny had always stayed away from that area of the criminal underworld, so she couldn't call herself an expert on that subject.
"Alright, do you think they're gonna be able to tell that we don't exactly fit in here?" Felicity asked.
"Well, it was your idea to wear boas," Lisa commented, although that wasn't actually a problem for her. She'd also grabbed a long, black coat that mostly covered up her suit, so that she wasn't walking into Amunet's club looking like a superhero.
"Have we heard from the guys yet?" Cecile fretted.
"You know we haven't," Lisa told her, admittedly worried about the boys being unreachable, "We're on our own."
A stoned guy stumbled up to them, waving a little baggie with one of those vials, and got right into Felicity's personal space. "How about a little love?" he slurred.
"NO!" Felicity basically yelled, trying to back away from him, "N-n-n-n-no! No! No love!"
"Back off, Moron," Lisa threatened, physically pushing him away. Moron didn't even seem all too bothered by that. He just grinned and waved his product in the next dancer's face.
"Is it just me," Cecile commented, looking around, "or does it seem like everybody here has already bought what that guy is selling?"
"It's not just you," Lisa agreed, "I'm not even sure what it is." She was still scanning the club, and finally spotted a familiar Bride-To-Be Sash disappearing through a door marked 'Employee's Only'. "I see Iris!" she cried.
"Where?!" both Felicity and Cecile asked.
Lisa pointed. "She went through there, and she's going to be in big trouble if she gets caught. Alright, you two stay here." Both looked like they were going to protest, but Lisa cut them off. "I have my comm in. Find a fire alarm, or something. If a fight breaks out, I'll tell you, and you pull it. Hopefully that will help distract them and help get any bystanders out of the way."
She marched off before either woman could argue, slipping through the same door when she was reasonably sure no one was watching. Luckily, there was a narrow, dark, and – most importantly – unoccupied hallway on the other side, instead of an open, well-lit room full of people. Lisa tugged her gun out of its holster and crept along. She found a set of stairs around the corner, and there was Iris, crouching on the steps – hidden by part of the wall – and spying on whoever was beyond it through a large gap from a missing board.
Carefully, Lisa stepped down until she was close enough to grab Iris from behind and cover her mouth. "What did I say about Amunet loving killing people?!" she hissed.
Iris struggled at first, but stopped when she recognised Lisa's voice. Lisa let her go, and the reporter whipped around to face her. "What the hell?!"
"That's my line! What were you thinking!?"
But then both women heard the distinctive sound of someone being hit, and a rather masculine-sounding grunt of pain. Lisa and Iris peered around the corner to see what was going on, Lisa with her trigger finger ready.
There was no question as to who the injured party was. Amunet had a man chained up and kneeling in the centre of the room, each end of his wrist shackles attached to the ceiling. He was barefoot and only wearing a dingy pair of pants, covered in bruises in various stages of healing, and so skinny that Lisa could count his ribs from here.
The man didn't say anything in response to whatever abuse had just been afflicted on him. He just stared up in despair at Amunet, his eyes glowing with- wait. What was up with his eyes? No, it wasn't his eyes precisely, but there was something glowing blue leaking out of them, similar to the drug the people upstairs had been taking.
Amunet, who'd been standing over him, bent down and gently swiped the glowing substance off with one finger, then she held the digit up to her nose and actually inhaled the stuff. She sighed, blissfully.
"His… tears are a drug?" Frost asked. She was standing in front of the chained man, looking surprisingly uncomfortable with the situation. Apart from the two of them and Amunet, only Norvock was in the room, lurking in one corner.
"His tears, my dear," Amunet answered, "are a goldmine. One taste, and Central City… will be hooked."
Privately, Lisa thought Amunet herself was already hooked, given that she'd just taken a sample herself.
"Then why do you need me?"
Amunet blinked at her in obvious disbelief. "Really? Well, if I'm going to be selling something quite valuable, I'm going to need protection."
"That what you've got good old Snake Eye for," Frost retorted, jerking her head dismissively at Norvock.
But Amunet clearly wasn't going to back down. She began walking slowly in a circle around Frost, like a shark circling its prey. "A deal like this… requires… a lady's touch – in your case, strike. And I'll cut you in for ten percent."
Killer Frost shook her head, not taking the deal.
"Fifteen percent! And I'll throw in not killing you right now for your misguided rebellion, and that is only because I've got forgiveness in my kidneys, right?"
"…I think you meant 'heart'," Frost corrected her.
"No, there's no beat-beat in this chest, sister."
Lisa could vouch for that.
But it appeared that Frost had had enough. "As much fun as it is to play 'I'm The Bigger Badass', I'm bored. And like I said, I'm done."
Lisa raised her gun, and silently motioned for Iris to move behind her. This tense mockery of a civil discussion was about to go downhill, very quickly. "Get ready with that distraction," she whispered into her comm, hoping that Felicity and/or Cecile could hear her over the loud music upstairs.
"Do you know what everyone's mistake in business is, hmm?" Amunet asked with false pleasantness, casually strolling over to her bag of metal shrapnel, "Not realising who has the power in the room." She stretched her arm down, pointing at her ammunition, which started quivering in its container in response to her powers.
Killer Frost raised her own arm, icy mist pouring off her hand.
"Woah!" Iris cried, ducking around Lisa and hustling down the stairs.
"What the fuck?!" Lisa cried, hurrying after the insane bachelorette with an apparent death wish, "Are trying to get killed tonight?!"
Amunet looked rather startled at the interruption, but recovered quickly. "Lisa Snart!" she cried with false warmth, "Why, I haven't seen you in ages! You look lovely, by the way!" Iris, however, she looked at in confusion. "Who's this chick?"
Iris smiled weakly. "Uh, this chick is trying to stop a meta fight from destroying your very enchanting club. So, let's put the meta abilities down, okay, ladies?"
Upstairs, they heard the fire alarm go off. While Lisa hadn't expressly told Felicity and Cecile to pull it, she figured that they'd – not incorrectly – taken her loud expletives as the signal to do so. "Let's go," she told Frost, even though her gun was still pointed right between Norvock and Amunet (whomever she shot at would depend entirely on which one moved first).
Their little Mexican standoff continued for several seconds. "Frost!" Iris insisted, "Let's go!"
Reluctantly, Frost put her hand down, and Amunet's bag stopped quivering. The three of them slowly went back up the stairs, Lisa going last and covering the group with her Gold Gun.
"They're not stopping us," Iris noted in disbelief, "Is that good?"
"Doesn't mean anything," Lisa told her, "There's no way this is over."
"You're lucky she didn't kill you, West," Frost declared as the five of them marched back into the Cortex.
"You're lucky I didn't kill you," Lisa growled, still pissed off at Iris's recklessness, "I mean, really, how many times did I tell you that Amunet was dangerous? Why the fuck would you just charge in with no backup?!"
Cecile was pretty ticked off, too. "And don't you remember me saying what would happen if you got killed at your bachelorette party?!"
To her credit, Iris did seem to realise how much danger she'd put herself in. Her hands hadn't stopped shaking since they'd left the club. "I know," she said softly, "I'm so sorry, guys. I don't know what I was thinking." She looked over at Frost. "Just how did you get involved with Amunet Black, anyway?"
"Through Caitlin," Frost casually revealed, "Four months ago, she thought she had everything under control."
"Can't keep a good bad side down for long, am I right?" Felicity joked weakly.
"She felt me becoming much stronger. She found out that Amunet had some… tech that would let her stay in charge. She… got desperate, so she decided to use it. But it came with a price tag."
"Which was…" Lisa prompted, although she already had a pretty good idea.
"Being her muscle."
Cecile looked at Frost in horror. "Did you kill anyone?"
Frost shrugged. "A few people lost their fingers and their toes, but… no. No one died."
Lisa breathed a sigh of relief. Working for Amunet, Frost had probably used her powers against both good people and bad people alike, and Caitlin would have been horrified if her alter ego had killed anyone.
"And how are you here now?" Iris questioned.
"While Caitlin sleeps, I am awake."
"Oh my God!" Felicity gasped, "You're like the Incredible Hulk!" Everyone stared at her in utter disbelief at her inappropriate enthusiasm. "That's- I said it with too much chutzpah. Dialing it back…"
"Look, what are Amunet's plans for the Weeper?" Lisa pressed, having been told on the ride back that that was the name Amunet had given to the man with the narcotic tears, who was apparently another one of the thirteen people on the bus.
Frost shrugged again. "Not my problem."
But Iris wasn't going to let it go at that. "Look, he was on that bus! We helped create him, we need to save him!"
"No, I need to leave and escape Amunet!"
"And you're just gonna run away?!" Cecile cried.
Frost scoffed. "Listen, there's a reason CCPD has not caught her, and that you idiots just realized there's a major crime lord living under your noses for the past three years: she's too powerful. We can't stop her."
And with that closing remark, she stalked out of the room.
Of course, the group she was leaving behind included members of Team Flash plus a founding member of Team Arrow. There was no way they were going to listen to her, even if Lisa was more than a little wary of going up against the likes of Amunet Black.
"Guys, we have a responsibility to the Weeper and to the city," Iris insisted.
"Then what do you suggest we do?" Lisa sighed, resigned to the fact that yes, they would be going ahead with this crazy venture. And that she would have to go along to keep the rest from getting themselves killed.
"We need to rescue him before Amunet does whatever she's planning, okay? I need you and Cecile to put your heads together and pool your information about Amunet. Try and figure out what her plan actually is. Felicity, you need to pull up the blueprint to the club."
"That might not be helpful," Lisa contradicted, "Amunet's too smart to make a big deal in her main base of operations. Especially not now that she knows someone's on to her."
"Besides," Felicity added, "I may have something else." She held up a vial holding a now very familiar glowing blue liquid. "This got dropped when everyone was evacuating. I can analyze it and find out exactly what's in it. Maybe something we can track."
Iris smiled. "That's great, Felicity! I'd ask Caitlin to analyze it, but…"
"But she's not here. I've got this, though. Promise."
"Okay," Iris agreed, "If you finish early, work with these two on the info-gathering. If anyone can find intel that they can't, it's you."
Felicity grinned and saluted. "Overwatch reporting for duty, ready to analyze and hack away!"
"We've got this," Iris insisted, "We're strong women."
"Yeah," Cecile agreed, though maybe with not as much enthusiasm, "Hashtag, feminism."
Iris held her hand out for a fist bump. "Hashtag, feminism," she repeated.
Felicity stuck her fist in, too. "Hashtag, feminism!"
Lisa rolled her eyes. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. "Hashtag, feminism."
The two info-gatherers put their heads together while Iris went to talk Frost out of leaving. Between Lisa's insider info, Cecile's access, and Felicity's hacking skills, they were able to amass quite a bit of detailed information.
"Our best guess is that she's going to sell him," Lisa told Iris once she came back into the room, announcing that Killer Frost had just left the building, "Back at the club, she mentioned something about an upcoming deal – if she was going to be keeping the Weeper and selling the tears personally, I don't think she would have bothered trying to bring Frost back into her ranks. Amunet still needs her for something, otherwise she simply would've had Norvock or one of her other henchmen just take her out."
"But who would she sell it to?"
Lisa shrugged. "There are lots of people and organizations who would pay a lot of money for a drug like this. Add in the fact that they'd pretty much be the sole suppliers, and they'd be willing to pay a lot more. But if you're looking for a specific name, I won't be much help. Lenny and Mick and I were never involved in the drug trade. We were mostly into jewels and antiques."
Cecile, on the other hand, had a better idea of who was involved in that part of the criminal underworld, and listed off a few likely suspects. They looked up as many records as possible, eliminating all the names that were either dead or currently incarcerated, and also checked under known aliases, whether they were known officially or just to Lisa and the rest of the criminal world.
Meanwhile, Iris went to change into something more practical, and Felicity disappeared off to Caitlin's lab – figuring the doctor wouldn't mind if she borrowed her equipment – to do some science, which, she said, was fairly simple. "I may not have a degree in biochemistry or an MD," she said, "but I do know how to stick a sample into a machine and operate said machine."
And, of course, multiple phone calls were placed to the guys. Even Dibny received a few calls, out of pure desperation, but he was, frustratingly, just as unreachable as the others.
The shrill beeping of the alarm interrupted them less than an hour later. Lisa immediately accessed the security program and looked to see where the alarm had been set off. "It's coming from the side door," she reported, pulling up the camera footage. She gasped at what she saw. "It's Caitlin!"
"Frost came back?" Iris asked, now wearing far more sensible black pants, a sweatshirt, and sneakers.
"No, Caitlin has." Lisa frowned. "And it looks like she's hurt!" After determining that there was no one in the immediate vicinity, she then remotely unlocked the side door so that Caitlin could get herself into the building, and locked it behind her once she was through. Once that was done, she joined the mad rush down the hall to meet the doctor.
Caitlin was staggering down the hall, clutching her arm as blood leaked from between her fingers. Her blue jacket was torn and bloody in other places, and she had some cuts and bruising on her face. "CAITLIN!" Iris cried, rushing forward to catch her just as she pitched forward.
"Oh my God, what happened?!" Felicity gasped.
"Amunet Black," Caitlin whimpered, "I woke up, and she was punching me in the face. Cops showed up… I crawled away while she was distracted."
Meanwhile, Lisa tried to examine her wounds. "Some of these need to be stitched up," she insisted.
They half-carried Caitlin to her lab, where Lisa, the one with the most experience in patching up injuries (although Felicity was a close second, given her work with Team Arrow), shooed everyone else out. The worst injury was the gash on Caitlin's right upper arm, complete with one of Amunet's projectiles still lodged inside it. The other cuts would need to be cleaned and stitched up, but wouldn't need anything pulled out of them. Lisa got to work carefully pulling the metal shard out.
"I can do it myself," Caitlin protested weakly.
"I know you can," Lisa replied, not stopping for a moment, "But so can I. I've pulled enough bullets out of Lenny and Mick – and myself, on occasion – to know how."
"…Alright." With her other hand, Caitlin carefully cleaned the blood off her face, instead.
They both worked in silence for several minutes. Lisa had extracted the shrapnel and was stitching up the wound when that silence was finally broken.
"What happened?" Caitlin asked, "The last thing I remember was Norvock attacking us at the restaurant, and the next thing I know, Amunet's metal fist is slamming into my face."
"You don't remember?"
"When she's in control, I don't… remember much of what happens. Did she… I hurt anyone?"
Lisa smirked. "Only that snake-eyed scumbag Norvock, and since I've done that myself before, I sure as hell won't be passing judgement on you for that. But you didn't kill him, if that helps."
A quiet "It does." was her answer, just as Iris entered the room after softly knocking.
"Hey," she said softly, "Everything okay?"
"Mostly," Lisa replied, knotting off her last stitch and pulling it tight, "She still needs some stitches in her face and shoulder, and a couple bandages elsewhere."
"I can help with that," Iris said, "I mean, Lisa, is it okay if I talk with Caitlin for a moment? In private?"
Lisa nodded. "Yep. I guess you know how to do stitches?"
Iris nodded back. "Between First Aid classes and some practice I had last summer, I can handle it."
With that, Lisa wiped her hands off and left the lab, finding herself face-to-face with a worried Felicity and Caitlin right outside the door. "How is she?" Felicity demanded.
"She's got a bunch of cuts and bruises," Lisa reported, "and she doesn't really remember what happened after transforming at the restaurant. But she's fine, otherwise."
The ladies got back to work after that. Felicity did a quick clothing change of her own, and then – since she was just waiting for the med lab machines to finish their analysis – used her hacker skills to check out all the leads Lisa and Cecile couldn't. That included hacking the email records of most of their suspects (Cecile 'conveniently' left the room to change at that point).
Eventually, Iris and Caitlin came back out, and Felicity explained her findings to the group at large. "These tears are more than just water. When ingested, the Dark Matter inside it alters the brain function like that of a psychoactive drug."
"So, it's like, what, an opioid?" Iris asked.
"It's like a love drug," Felicity corrected her, "From tears."
"If this spreads, Central City's going to have a massive drug problem on its hands," Cecile fretted.
"And that's assuming that's all it'll do," Lisa added, "If those tears have Dark Matter in them, is there a chance that they'll create more metas in large enough doses?"
A hissing sound could be heard as the other four women in the room breathed in sharply at that thought.
"That's the last thing we need. If these freaky tears can do something like that, and word gets out, we'll have crime bosses buying huge quantities just to power themselves and their underlings up."
"Okay, so we need to stop Amunet and save the Weeper before that happens," Iris repeated.
Cecile looked over at Caitlin and Lisa. "How do we find her now?"
Caitlin shook her head. "I don't know. She's smart."
"Off the grid," Lisa added.
"Always on the move…"
"Never leaves a trail."
"Okay, what about her powers?" Iris pressed.
Lisa shrugged. "She can only manipulate a specific kind of metal, but I have no idea what."
Luckily, Caitlin had a better idea. "Some kind of alnico alloy."
Iris turned to Felicity. "Do you think you could use our satellites to track it?"
Felicity was already typing away. "You mean run a geological scan of the city for small-scale signatures of aluminum, nickel, and cobalt? Girl, please."
Sure enough, the computer started beeping seconds later. The women all gathered around it to see the results.
"Argh, there are multiple results all over Central City! I should have known; alnico magnets are used for all kinds of things. Microphones, sensors, loudspeakers, electric motors, even cow magnets! Whatever those are!"
"Well, if the Weeper's tears contain Dark Matter, try tracking that."
Lisa caught on to what Iris was saying. "Amunet won't be straying far from the Weeper, and she'll probably have the snake-eye guy there. Three metas, one of them probably emitting traces of Dark Matter through the tears…"
"Then any significant readings of Dark Matter that overlap with traces of the alloy should be…" Felicity muttered to herself as she typed in some more. "Got it!"
"She's headed to Lawrence Hills," Cecile said, "That's- that's all industrial out there. That's steel mills, docks, warehouses…"
"And I think I know the one she'll choose," Lisa stated.
"Okay, we need to go stop her," Iris declared, beginning to lead them out of the Cortex.
Except for Caitlin. "Guys, I can't go with you. If… I lose control, I could become… a liability. I'm sorry, Iris. I can't go."
It was true. While Lisa trusted Caitlin Snow, she did not trust Killer Frost. Not enough to have her fighting at their side.
She expected an argument from Iris, who seemed the most willing to let Frost into their group, but surprisingly, she accepted Caitlin's choice. "You don't have to. We got this."
Lisa was right about which building Amunet would choose for her deal. They parked the S.T.A.R. Labs van two blocks away from the recently-closed steel factory, and Cecile stayed inside to play Overwatch while the other three (Iris and Felicity wielding one of Harry's Earth-2 weapons and a spare Cold Gun prototype, respectively) headed in on foot.
They snuck in just as Amunet and Norvock drove up in a large truck, but they weren't the first to arrive. Four well-dressed men, all of Asian ethnicity, were already there. Lisa recognised one of them, a young man named Seiya, who – rumour had it – had recently risen up the ranks of the local Yakuza and was now the right-hand man of Central City's Shateigashira, the local boss.
Damn. The Yakuza were a wide-reaching international crime syndicate, meaning that the drug could spread far beyond Central City if it got into their hands. And that Amunet was going to get a very handsome payout from it.
(Lisa would admit to herself that she was tempted by the sheer amount of money that would be changing hands here, but even she had standards, and drugs and human trafficking crossed a lot of lines for her.)
Seiya bowed politely as Amunet exited the truck. "Konbanwa," he greeted her.
Amunet was nowhere near as formal. She actually hugged the man, making him stiffen up and his men eye her suspiciously.
"Ladies, what's your status?" Cecile hissed over the comms.
"In position," Lisa breathed back.
Amunet had finally finished hugging Seiya and was now leading him around to the back of the truck, where Norvock was opening up the back hatch. "I think you'll be pleased," she sang.
The Weeper was the only one inside the truck, chained up with his arms spread-eagle.
"This is him?" Seiya asked doubtfully.
"Mm-hmm."
Norvock then punched the man in the stomach, causing him to gasp and cough. Amunet walked up and patted him on the cheek. "Good boy." She brushed a tear off his face – Lisa could just barely see the glow from their hiding place – then she sauntered back over to Seiya. "Sample?" she asked.
Seiya nodded. "Zehi."
Amunet dropped the tear off her finger and into Seiya's open mouth. The man tilted his head back and shuddered in ecstasy. It only lasted a few seconds, but he had a delighted look on his face when he was done. "I'll take him."
"On my count," Lisa murmured, "We move in. I've got Amunet and Norvock; Iris, cover the others. Felicity, you freeze and break the Weeper's chains and get him to the van. Got it?" She paused, hearing the other two's assent. "One… two…"
"Three."
Lisa's blood froze. The voice had come from behind hear, and it was definitely not one of her party. Turning around slowly, she saw two more Yakuza enforcers – and where the hell had been all this time?! – standing behind her, Iris, and Felicity, with guns pointed at their back. Lisa could possibly disarm the one training his weapon on her, but one or both of the other girls would be dead by the time she finished.
"Fuck," she groaned, and lowered her Gold Gun.
The three women were all relieved of their weapons, but thankfully no one thought to check their ears for communicators. Then they were all marched over to where the rest of the action was. Norvock motioned for the ladies' weapons, smirking at Lisa as he was handed her precious Gold Gun.
"I remember you," Amunet commented, looking at Iris, "You are the chick from the bar, hmm?" Then her eyes skittered over to Lisa, who wasn't wearing a coat over her suit this time. "My, my, Lisa, I knew you'd gone over to the Flash's side, but I never expected you to dress up like a hero, as well. Who's your tailor, by the way? You look absolutely smashing!"
"Hey, Amunet!" Caitlin walked in, still looking rather scraped up and wearing her damaged blue jacket. All six Yazuka members quickly turned their guns on her. "This is between you and me. Let my friends go, and I'll come back and work for you."
"Oh, but it- it's too late for that, Caity. Do you know why no one has ever testified against me over the years, hmm? Well, it's because they're not alive to. Sorry." Not sounding sorry in the slightest, she turned and marched back to the van, tossing an order at the gunmen. "Take care of them."
Lisa, Iris, and Felicity were shoved closer to Caitlin, and the men prepared to fire.
Then Caitlin screamed. A torrent of pale blue mist shot out from her mouth and blasted the girls' way. Lisa flinched and braced herself, but didn't feel anything as the attack visibly detoured around her, Iris, and Felicity and threw the armed thugs back, all of them landing on their asses.
Killer Frost stepped out from a rapidly dissipating cloud of mist, and glared at Amunet.
Amunet sneered. "Well, hello, Chilly."
The others ran over to Frost, although Lisa kept her eye on Norvock, who still had her Gold Gun in his hand. No way was she going to let him leave with it. "We gotta get out of here," Iris insisted.
The men got back to their feet, and Amunet reached for her bucket of shrapnel. Most of the metal jumped up and onto her hand, forming a metal gauntlet, which she then pointed at them. "And I thought I wasn't going to be able to kill anyone today," she growled, shooting tiny, deadly projectiles at them.
Killer Frost threw up her right hand and created a dome of solid ice that shielded all four women from the attack. Lisa could hear Amunet shouting at her men to kill them, and her order was immediately followed by the sound of gunfire. The dome stopped the initial barrage, but Lisa could see cracks starting to form in the ice.
"I don't think this is going to hold much longer," Frost predicted.
"Well, this is a steel factory, and you move steel plates with-"
"Magnets!" Felicity finished, "Really, really big magnets!"
Lisa looked up, and even through the dome, she could see the vague shape of a huge magnet hanging from a crane. "Cecile, turn the crane on!"
"What?!" Cecile cried, "How?"
"Uh, it should be in the schematics," Felicity coached, "Just- Just highlight it and turn it on!"
They heard Cecile muttering to herself over the comms. The cracks in their shelter had grown bigger, and it all looked ready to shatter, so Killer Frost used it to her advantage, causing the dome to explode outward and spray their enemies with shards of ice, while knocking them all down at the same time.
Amunet looked really pissed off. "You and I could have been gods," she growled at Frost.
"I used to work with a god," Frost snarled back, "Over it."
Lisa and Iris shouted the order at the same time. "Cecile, NOW!"
The humming overhead was the only warning Amunet got, but she didn't understand the significance until her alnico gauntlet jerked towards the huge, disc-shaped magnet hanging from the ceiling, and each and every bit of shrapnel was ripped off her hand, followed by the Yakuza members' guns.
However, Lisa's Gold Gun was made of different metals, and unfortunately, Norvock still had it in his hand. And there was no way Lisa was going to let that state of affairs continue. While Amunet was still gaping up at the magnet, Lisa darted past her to grab her weapon from Norvock's hands.
He put up a fight, however, lashing out with that goddamn eye tentacle. Lisa dodged it and snapped a kick up and into his jaw, sending him stumbling back. Lisa snatched the Gold Gun up and aimed right at his face. He dodged at the last second, but her blast clipped his right temple, covering his eye socket with a film of gold (or whatever alloy this thing produced) and partially disabling the tentacle. She heard Iris yell something behind her, but didn't let it distract her.
Besides, her attention now needed to be on something else. Seiya, who'd been knocked to the factory floor along with his henchmen, had gotten up and was trying to rush her. Lisa didn't even let him get near her; she aimed a shot at his foot as it hit the floor, encasing it in gold and – due to her timing – sticking it to the concrete. Seiya lurched forward and sort of face-planted onto the floor, a small, ceramic knife flying out of his hands and skittering past Lisa's right boot.
Lisa smirked victoriously. "Nice try, baka."
"Yariman," Seiya spat back at her. Lisa wasn't sure what he said, but she assumed it was an insult, so she kicked him in the face and knocked him out.
She looked over to see how the others were doing, and frowned when she saw Amunet slipping out the door, Norvock hot on her heels. "Shit!" she gasped, "Come on!"
"Wait!" Iris called after her, "Let her go!"
Lisa whirled around to face her. "What?! Are you kidding me?! They're getting away!"
"And we'll get them another day," Iris assured her, "But we stopped this trade from happening, and these guys are all going down for it. I think we can call that a win." She then grabbed up a set of bolt cutters randomly lying around and clipped the chains that attached the Weeper to the interior walls of the truck. "Hold on," she assured him, "It's okay, okay? We're gonna help you."
"Get away from me," the Weeper told her, running out of the factory as soon as he was free.
"You're welcome!" Lisa called at his retreating back, "Ungrateful bastard."
Cecile hurried in. "The police are on their way," she reported, looking around at the various Yakuza members, "At least we have someone for them to arrest."
"We did it, guys," Felicity breathed, "We really did it."
"Actually," Iris corrected her, "It's 'girls'."
Lisa rolled her eyes, but decided not to comment on the fact that what her friend just said sounded like a lame line from a Girl Power episode of a Saturday morning cartoon.
They got out of the steel factory before the police showed up, and returned to a still-empty S.T.A.R. Labs. Cecile took her leave at that point, heading home. Iris got a text from her father, saying that he was also heading home and that the others were coming to the lab, as well.
Iris decided to wait for them at the elevator, but just minutes after their arrival, she walked back into the Cortex with Barry, Cisco, and for some reason Dibny. Barry and Cisco looked rather worse for wear, especially Barry, who had some kind of orange sauce staining his shirt. In comparison, Dibny, at the front of the group, seemed to be pretty good spirits, and his eyes lit up when he spotted Felicity (now that Lisa thought about it, he'd been busy stretching around the track when she'd dropped by the Speed Lab, so this had to be their first meeting).
Lisa glared at him. "Not a word," she threatened.
"Pretty sure nothing could have made tonight any worse," Cisco was saying as he slumped in behind Dibny. Then he spotted Killer Frost and stopped dead in his tracks. And then he sighed heavily. "I'm so tired. I'm so tired. Can we just do this tomorrow, please?"
Barry stared at Frost with a very confused look on his face, but Dibny had a rather different reaction.
"Oh…" he moaned, "Chicks with white hair. Hot!"
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Should I set you up with a couple of pensioners, then?" she snarked. Beside her, Felicity choked at the thought.
"Why is Killer Frost here?" Barry asked, honestly sounding more tired and confused than upset.
"Guys…" Iris began, "She has something that she wants to tell you. And you all should listen."
Before their very eyes, the white leeched from Caitlin's hair, the bruises and cuts on her face – which had been absent upon her most recent transformation – returned, and the blue in her eyes faded back to brown.
"Aw…" Dibny moaned again, this time in disappointment, "It's just Caitlin."
Caitlin had to have been incredibly nervous about this, but she hid it well. "I can explain everything."
And she did just that. She told the guys about how she'd wound up working for Amunet Black, how Killer Frost was still very much a part of her, and how Norvock had attacked them at dinner. By the time she got to the part about the club, however, Cisco grew distracted."
"Hey!" he cried in delight, looking at Lisa as if she'd only just walked in, "You've got the new suit on! How'd it go? Everything work out okay with it?"
Lisa shrugged. In truth, the suit was great. She – thankfully – hadn't needed to test its bullet-stopping capabilities, but it had moved with her without inhibiting her own movements, or catching in any uncomfortable places. But there was something else that they needed to talk about. "It's great, Sweetie. Can we talk?"
Cisco paled. He knew she only called him 'Sweetie' when she was upset about something. He mouthed a desperate 'Help me' to Dibny when he thought Lisa wasn't looking as she dragged him out of the Cortex by the hand.
Once they were far enough down the hall, Lisa whirled around on him. "Why didn't you pick up your phone?!" she demanded, "Why didn't any of you pick up your phones?! We called you, like, dozens of times!"
"Uuuuuummmmmm… It's a long story?"
Lisa folded her arms. "Make it a short one. I've had one hell of a night."
"Uh, okay. Short version is: Dibny showed up at Joe's, dragged us all to a strip club, started a fight, and we all wound up in jail. Except Harry. He bailed us out."
Lisa was not happy with his explanation. At all. "A strip club?"
"See, I knew that was the part you weren't going to like! It was all Dibny's idea, I swear! Blame Dibny! He brought us to the Golden Booty, he started swiping money from people, and he attacked a guy for smashing his 'Number One Customer' picture after he got caught! Joe tried to stop the brawl, but he got knocked out, and I may have slightly miscalculated with that Bachelor Party special I made for Barry, 'cause all he did was cry like a baby over the chicken wings and randomly yell 'I'm the Flaaaaaash!'. So neither of them could stop us from getting arrested. And I wanted no part of it! We would've left sooner, but then Joe got caught up talking to Joanie – don't tell Cecile, but she's been dancing there, Joe was not pleased – and then the fight started, and I already told you how that ended. But I'm really, really sorry that I didn't just turn around and walk out."
Lisa sighed. "I'm too tired to do anything but forgive you. Like I said, I've had a hell of a night."
Cisco pointed back towards the Cortex with his thumb. "And I'm guessing it has something to do with that crime boss Cailtin was telling us about?"
"It has everything to do with her. And a new bus meta, who took off before we even got his real name."
"Aw, that sucks."
Lisa shrugged. "Well, he can't be much worse off than when we found him. Amunet was going to sell the poor bastard to a drug cartel since his metahuman power is producing tears that act like a psychoactive drug. We've got a sample, and we used it to help track him once, so we should be able to find him again."
"Okay, that's good. We can do that tomorrow, though, right?"
"Oh, God, yes."
I seriously doubt that Lisa has never heard of Amunet Black, so it makes sense that she'd help explain things. I can't find the name of the bar Caitlin was working at or the club featured in this episode (it doesn't look like the same one), and while Amunet has not yet been addressed by 'Blacksmith' (her codename from the comics), I went with 'Blacksmith Club' for the latter. The fact that the door to said club has a little blue neon sign shaped like a horseshoe (seen when Killer Frost first enters in this ep) just adds to my point.
Lisa's new suit is similar to her New 52 outfit, except with much more practical coverage. Any skin showing up top on the original is covered in white leather, and in gold on the legs.
I Googled 'alnico alloy', because I found it odd that it only showed up in one location, and wondered if that was even possible. All the examples of the alloy's uses listed in this fic come from the Wikipedia page on alnico. Cow magnets are used to treat hardware disease, which is what can happen when a cow eats a sharp metal object by accident. The magnet can be used to remove said metal.
Translations for the gratuitous Japanese in this fic:
-'Konbanwa': 'Hello.' or 'Good evening.' (While 'Kon'nichiwa' is the more well-known Japanese term for 'Hello', it is not meant to be said in the evening or at night.)
-'Zehi': 'By all means.' (It can also mean 'definitely' or 'really', but the first translation fits the context best.)
-'Baka': 'stupid' or 'idiot'
-'Yariman': 'slut' or 'bimbo'
I used a real English-to-Japanese dictionary for these (except for 'yariman'; that was Google Translate – and), and I took a few classes in Japanese a few years back, so these translations should be accurate. I technically already knew 'baka' and 'Konbanwa', thanks to those classes and nearly a decade of watching Japanese TV shows with subtitles.