Episode 2: The Devil You Know

Part 5:

Nate saw a series of images. He saw Amaya's face, which transformed into something monstrous. He saw a solar eclipse, followed by the Earth cracking. He saw an older man...his father? There was a suit of armor, complete with a green helmet and black eyes. He saw the number 13 repeatedly. Finally, he saw an ominous dark tower. He tried to move towards it, but when he got close he felt excruciating pain.

"Nate? Nate!"

Nate woke with a start. He saw several faces in front of him. Ray, Mick, Ava, Wally, and Jax for some reason. To his side, sitting in the next bed was Zari, who was smiling at him.

"Rise and shine," she said.

"Zari…" Nate tried to sit up, but felt sore. "Agh. What happened?"

Ava said, "The mimic got away after Ray scared it off. The alarm's been deactivated, and we have assessed the damage."

"Twenty nine agents dead," Jax continued. "Two of them were members of the Board of Time."

"The Board of Time?"

"It was a new thing we started while you were all away," Ava said. "It's a board made up of different department heads. Basically, once a week we all meet up to discuss what's going on in each department. My assistant director and our head of training were both killed in the attack."

Ava sighed and sat down. Just then, the door flung open, and David stormed into the room.

"What the hell?" David shouted. "I leave for a few hours, and all of a sudden we're down two board members? The facility's in tatters? And where the hell is Captain Lance?!"

"Ms Lance is...uh, occupied right now." Ava looked nervous, but David ignored her.

"No matter. The point is that today was a disaster, and I will be submitting a report to my superiors in Washington detailing what went down, and how the Legends were responsible-"

"And where were you?" Jax asked, crossing his arms. "The Legends were working on stopping the intruders and getting a message out. What were you doing?"

David turned to face his fury towards Jax. "And who are you?"

"Jefferson Jackson, and last time I checked, I don't answer to you."

"Oh really?" David looked livid. "What kind of authority do you think you have?"

"I'll tell you what kind of authority," Ava interrupted before Jax could retort. "He's my new assistant director!"

Everyone, including Jax, looked at Ava in surprise.

"Your what?!" David shouted. "You can't just-"

"Last time I checked, I'm still the one who runs this agency." Ava looked smug in response to David's disbelief. "Mr. Jackson has more time travel experience than you do, last I checked. There is no one better qualified for the job."

"But-there are regulations-AGH!"

David got so close to Ava his nose was touching hers. Ray and Mick shifted to either side of David in case he tried to attack her.

"You mark my words," he whispered. "Your blatant disregard of my authority will be your downfall. I'll make sure of it."

With that, David stomped out of the room.

"So, that's our new government liaison David Clinton," Ava said to Jax. "I'm afraid you'll get to know him quite well."

"Hold on a second." Jax looked around at the Legends. "Do you really want me to be your new assistant director?"

"Of course," Ava said. "Like I said, you've got a lot of experience with time travel, what with being a founding member of the Legends and all."

"Not to mention you were Sara's second-in-command," Ray chimed in.

Jax looked around, seeing the encouraging faces of his friends. "I don't know, guys. I mean, I'm flattered an all, but I don't want to put myself in danger anymore. I don't want to leave my little girl without her dad."

"You wouldn't be going out in the field," Ava said. "That would be my job. You'd mostly be in charge of the day-to-day operations. It's mostly just yelling at people and making sure this place doesn't burn down."

Everyone was silent for a few seconds, then Jax said, "I'll think on it. I'll get back to you by tomorrow. Right now I've gotta pick Martina up from the sitter."

Jax hugged Ray, gave Nate a pat on the shoulder, and opened a portal using the transporter watch.

"I'm keeping this thing either way," he said to Ava.

"By all means."

Jax left through a portal.

"Wait," Nate finally asked. "Where IS Sara?"

()()()()

Sara gave Siren a Time Bureau watch.

"Do not let them see you with that," Sara said. "That thing will be your only lifeline to us if things go south."

"Got it." Siren took the watch. "Anything else?"

"Only Ava and I know that you're working for us. The others don't know, and they will attack you as if you're one of them."

Siren nodded in approval.

"That's it, I think." Sara gave a piece of paper to Siren. "If you enter this code into your watch, it will send out a distress signal. Whatever the time, wherever you are, we'll come for you, I promise."

"Okay." Siren was getting ready to leave with the watch.

"Wait!" Sara said.

Siren turned around. Sara was about to hug her, but instead grabbed and squeezed Siren's arm.

"Good luck," Sara said.

Siren smiled and said, "Thanks." She smiled the exact same as her Laurel.

Siren created a portal and left. Sara stared at where she left for a few seconds, then headed to Zari's room.

()()()()

Sara sat on Zari's bed alongside Ray. Nate and Wally were sitting on the other bed. Mick was leaning against the wall. Constantine was still at the bar, so they'd have to fill him in later. Ava was addressing the Legends with the door closed.

"What's with all the secrecy?" Sara asked.

Ava opened the door, made sure no one was around, and closed it back up.

"Apparently what happened wasn't just to attack the Bureau," Ava said quietly. "While the fext and the mimic were causing distractions, Mason was apparently searching for something."

"Sounds like him," Zari said. "Even before he turned my family in, he was always keeping secrets. I never knew if he was telling the truth."

"What did he steal?" Ray asked.

"We're still taking inventory," Ava said, "but so far the only things missing are some old scrolls."

"What are the chances those things summon a demon?" This wasn't Sara's first rodeo.

Ava pulled up some specs from her watch. There were some passages that were in Latin, and some in an unrecognizable language.

"Probably pretty high." Ava was scrolling through some of the texts. "Most of the Latin makes no sense without knowledge of the unknown language. The passages we were able to decipher mention something about a solar eclipse. We have no idea if any other scrolls exist."

"Of course," Mick said. "These things are always difficult."

"I'll see if our researchers can figure anything else," she continued. "For now, take some time to rest up. Tomorrow I'll give you guys another assignment. For now, I going to get a drink. God knows I need one."

With that, Ava left the room. Sara followed her out of the room.

"Ava, wait up."

Ava smiled as Sara approached. "Hey. How'd it go with our friend?"

"Pretty good, more or less. That's not what I wanted to talk about, though."

Ava raised an eyebrow. "What's up?"

"Before we went missing," Sara said, "you wanted to ask me about something."

"Oh, yeah." Ava was trying to brush that off. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"No, tell me. I wanna know."

Ava blushed. Sara loved how despite having one of the most important jobs in the world, Ava got all nervous around her. "Well, It's just that, with us being, you know, together for a while, not to mention the fact that I may have let a slightly-reformed supervillain into my apartment, I was thinking maybe-"

"You want to move onto the Waverider with me?"

"I...yes." Ava turned even redder. "It's okay if you don't want to! I was just thinking-"

"Yes," Sara said. "I'd love that."

"That's great!" Ava looked ecstatic."I mean, I'll start moving my stuff. I have to work out a few things before I can officially move."

Ava opened a portal to her apartment. Sara grabbed her hand.

"What?"

"Well, you don't have start moving right away." Sara had a mischievous look in her eye. "We have a lot of...lost time to make up for."

"Ah…" Ava started dragging Sara into her apartment. "Well, I suppose we should be working on that."

The two went through the portal. As the portal closed, one could swear they heard Ava giggle.

()()()()

It was 11:30 at night. Gary only just checked his phone and realized he had forgotten his watch again. Apparently something went down after he went home for the day, and he missed it all. He needed to get back to the Bureau to make sure that everything was okay. With that, Gary was running back to the Bureau in the dead of night.

He rounded the corner and ran straight into two scary looking men. He stumbled backwards and hit the pavement hard. The two men looked menacingly at Gary.

"Well," the first man said. "Look at what we have here."

"Where you going, my friend?" The other said. "Surely nothing good, at this time of night?"

"Please," Gary said. "You can have my money. Just please don't hurt me."

"Where's the fun in that?" The first man pulled out a knife.

Gary backed up, but hit a wall. He covered his face waiting for the blade, but then something strange happened. While his eyes were averted, a large burst of flame hit the strangers. Both of them were mostly okay (minus some burnt clothes), but this caused them to run away.

A figure approached Gary and offered a hand. He took it, and she helped him up.

"Thank you," Gary said.

"Of course." The figure was a young woman, who had a smile on her face despite the fact it was the middle of the night, and she just flung fire at two unsuspecting ne'er-do-wells.

"Oh, crap," Gary checked his phone. "I've got to go, but again, thank you miss…"

"Traci."

"Traci, right!" Gary was half-running while looking back. "Stay safe out here!"

Gary ran off. Traci's phone buzzed, and she looked at it. On top of her phone background of a neon 13 was a message from her father wondering where she was.

"Dammit," she whispered. Traci snapped her fingers and vanished, leaving no trace that she was ever there.

Sorry this one was a bit late. Got caught up in a few things in my personal life. I can't promise an exact time frame, but I would like to get new parts out every other day at least, with a small break in between bigger episodes (so, a small break between the end here and the beginning of Episode 3). Also, given news about characters coming/leaving, I am gonna try to incorporate those new characters coming/leaving as much as I can while still telling the story I wanted to tell. Next episode is going to be a Wally-centric one that will explain why he'll eventually be gone in the near future. As for the others, well, I don't want to spoil too much. Either way, I'm glad you all seem to like what I've made so far. Thank you all for the support, and I'll see you again in a few days with a new episode :)