Author's Note: We've made it to 22.
WE'VE MADE IT TO TWENTY-TWOOOOOO :O :O :O
Lowkey tho I was looking back on past chapters and I had done this list of all the episodes I was most excited about... all of those were done a loooong time ago. It's no wonder I'm getting a little sick of this XD
It may have seemed a little selfish considering the timing, but Caitlin was taking some me-time.
Me-time, for her, included continuing hunting for Frost using the more mental/emotional side of things.
Me-time, for her, included therapy with Dr. Sharon.
As Caitlin sat on the doctor's plushy couch and spilled out what parts of the story she could, she had to wonder how messed up Sharon was beginning to think she and her group of friends were. First with Cisco and Iris, who had probably had to cover up 80% of why their relationship didn't work. Then with Ralph, who needed to be hypnotized. And now her.
"So you think your psychosis made a friend of yours... disappear?" Dr. Sharon confirmed.
"Yeah," Caitlin said. "I mean, she's a... really good friend of mine, almost like a... part of me."
"So your friend, is she... with us here, right now?" Dr. Sharon asked.
Caitlin felt a flush of embarrassment creeping up her neck. "Oh! No, no, I'm not schizophrenic; she's more like... another personality."
"Dissociative identity disorder," Sharon murmured, nodding her head. "That is usually caused by trauma, and from your history, you've had quite a bit."
"Yeah," Caitlin agreed, sighing. "I did see my brother die. Twice. And then my husband almost died. And then he left for 6 months. And then he got put in prison."
"I actually meant childhood trauma," Dr. Sharon elaborated, and Caitlin frowned confusedly. "Dissociative identity disorder only develops at a young age, as a defense mechanism. Tell me about your father."
"My dad?" she asked, shrugged. "He was the best. Loving, supportive... always pushed me to get smarter."
"And how did you feel when he passed?"
Caitlin's chest tightened slightly. "I- he had ALS. He was always hiding his symptoms from us. He never wanted us to see him suffer."
Dr. Sharon tilted her head. "Sometimes when we're young we repress things that scare us-"
"Oh, I'm not repressing anything from my childhood," Caitlin said quickly, shaking her head. "My missing friend just appeared a couple of years ago. It's my adult life that's got me like this..."
She broke off as her phone buzzed. Glancing down at it, Caitlin winced a little. "I'm so sorry; I have to go. Um... do you charge by the hour?"
Dr. Sharon smiled faintly. "For you and your friends? The quarter-hour."
Flash!
"Hey!" Barry greeted as Caitlin walked through the door. "How did it go at Dr. Sharon's?"
Caitlin screwed up her face a little. "Umm... she thinks I have DID. Also, I'm pretty sure that she's under the impression that we are the most traumatized group of young-adults to have ever walked the planet."
"We kind of are," Cisco mumbled from his desk.
Iris shook her head, directing the conversation to what she had called Caitlin in for. "I got a tip about Fallout, but it's been scrambled by Killgore's code," she explained.
"Not anymore," Cisco said. "Consider it unscrambled."
Caitlin peeped over his shoulder to see the message: 'DeVoe coming for Borman'
"Where's Argus keeping Borman? Do we know?" Barry asked anxiously.
"I can't ping Lyla, but I can try Dig," Iris said.
Barry nodded. "I'll just go get him," he decided, before flashing off.
Cisco, Iris and Caitlin looked at each other for under a second before realizing what super-speed plus John Diggle equalled. "Trashcan," Cisco said, and the three of them turned around.
"How about recycling?" Iris suggested, grabbing at the first bin she saw.
"Nah, I'll get it," Cisco cried.
Caitlin grabbed at the grey plastic trashcan in the corner and sent a look at Cisco's can, which was made up of wire and basically covered in holes. "Really?" she asked him incredulously, raising an eyebrow.
"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Cisco muttered, dutifully taking her solid plastic can and exchanging it with his.
Just in time, too. Barry arrived with Diggle. "I'm sorry, man," he winced, and Diggle sent him a murderous look before heaving into the trashcan Cisco held out for him.
Cringing, Iris looked the other way and passed him a water bottle.
"I hate you," Diggle rasped.
"I know," Barry replied, looking chagrined.
"What's this about?"
"Neal Borman, the man with you- with Argus- where are you keeping him?" Barry asked urgently.
Diggle looked around at the group incredulously. "Barry, that's classified information and I'm not the director of Argus-"
"Dig, we don't have time," Barry interrupted. "Please."
Diggle sighed and then relented, and soon was checking into Argus' facility to see if everything was alright.
Everything was... except that "he" had checked in six hours ago. DeVoe had taken on his identity with Ralph's powers and his DNA with Melting Points powers and had successfully broken into Argus.
Now, Fallout had gone completely critical, and they came to the horrifying conclusion that DeVoe would be using him to power the satellite.
They had twelve hours until the enlightenment began.
Flash!
Once Diggle had been dropped back off in Star City, Barry gave rushing in and declared that he'd be going after DeVoe.
"Don't go storming the castle just yet," Cisco cautioned, pulling up some Argus schematics on his screen. "You're looking at motion-activated electric shock plates that Argus installed in the facility."
"70,000 volts," Caitlin told him gravely. "You hit one of those you'll be knocked out for sure."
"So I'll avoid them when I go in," Barry said, not seeming to think it was much of an issue.
"Genius idea, if their placement didn't randomize every could hours."
"So DeVoe will basically be charging his battery for 12 hours, completely protected by Argus' defense," Caitlin concluded. "And then he'll probably just jump into a pocket dimension and get out of there."
Barry was staring seriously at the white board, which was covered with some of Cisco's equations. "What if I don't avoid the plates?" he asked, before spinning around and glancing between his best friend and his wife. "What if I hit them?"
They looked at him blankly.
"I'm serious," Barry pressed. "I mean, if I go into Flashtime, I could use each plate's electric current as a fuel source. Then I'd be fast enough to follow DeVoe into his pocket dimension."
The idea was borderline genius. Caitlin nodded slowly. "You'd get a serious boost," she said.
"Again," Cisco interrupted as Barry grinned over at her. "An excellent idea, if hitting the plates didn't cause an electrical explosion."
"Yeah, but I'd be through the pocket dimension before the blast wave, ready to blow up the satellite on the other side," Barry countered eagerly.
Before Cisco could reply, there was a beep from his computer. "The satellite results came in," he reported, hurrying from Iris' desk to his own. "Oh jeez. We've got... six plates. And six heat signatures above them."
"There are Argus agents still alive in there," Iris realized with growing dread.
Barry's head ducked and all the enthusiasm about his idea drained out of him. "He has hostages."
"You can outrun an electrical explosion... they can't," Cisco said.
Caitlin tilted her head quizzically. "How is he keeping them suspended like that?"
"I think I've got an idea," Barry said grimly.
With all of the different layers to the issue, it took Cisco and Caitlin a little bit to come up with a feasible solution. Once they had, however, they called Barry in. He flashed into Cisco's lab, eyebrows furrowed in concern. "Hey, did you guys send an alert?"
"We did," Caitlin confirmed. "We figured out how to save DeVoe and save the hostages."
The plan was fairly simple. All Barry would have to do is bring Cisco and Caitlin into Flashtime with him. They would have just enough time to freeze the explosive energy from the the plates and vibe the hostages away.
The only hitch to the plan was that they'd need to split up once inside Argus. Barry had never brought people into Flashtime without keeping a hand on them the whole time before, but according to Cisco's calculations it was possible. For Caitlin and Cisco, the challenge would be function in Flashtime, but they were both confident that Barry could teach them.
He didn't seem to find their idea very prospective, but he relented to give it a shot. Caitlin and Cisco high-fived on the way out of the door, figuring that the hard part was over.
They were wrong.
Flash!
Once they'd set up a training course and changed into more functional clothing (which mainly included them all wearing matching STAR Labs sweatshirts), Caitlin started their one second clock and Barry brought them into Flashtime.
A moment later, Caitlin was pulling her hand away from the timer, which was almost completely at a standstill. Cisco grinned. "Oh Flashtime, how I've missed thee."
"Here we go," Barry breathed and Caitlin took a deep breath, readying herself.
"Mmm, that lightning about to hit me?" Cisco asked, looking in concern at the wraps of golden-red lightning spiraling around Barry's arms.
He gave him a look. "You wanted to do this!"
Cisco pulled a face and Barry shut his eyes, slowly pulling his hands off of Cisco and Caitlin's back. A smile spread over Caitlins face as she looked at her own hands in wonder, lightning wrapping around her torso for a moment before it dissolved. "It's working," she murmured.
"Okay, here we go," Barry said, and started forward. "Just remember, when you're moving this fast, it's not about running with your legs. It's about staying calm. Focused. Centered. Otherwise, you're going to fall on your butt at Mach 3."
Cisco stopped his ninja-walking. "Yeah, okay sensei; I'm just opening a breach." He stuck out his hand and his vibe-energy flickered from his fists in jerks.
"You good?" Barry asked.
"It's a little harder than I thought," Cisco admitted. "Maybe if I shift my weight..."
Lightning began to creep up his leg. "You're burning up already?" Barry asked incredulously. "Okay."
"I- I can't move my leg," Cisco said, panic creeping into his voice.
"What?"
"My legs not working."
"Alright, stay calm," Barry ordered. "Remember? Concentrate; you're slowing down."
"I- I can't really concentrate," Cisco replied. "I gotta keep it lose, I gotta keep it moving, I mean, to breach-"
"You gotta stay calm," Barry said again, his voice deliberately steady.
But Cisco kept panicking, kicking at his frozen foot with his other leg while he continued to mutter about moving. He vibe energy flickered some more and Caitlin shot a concerned glance at Barry, who looked frustrated.
"Both my legs are stuck," Cisco breathed after a second. "Both my legs are stuck, I can't- I'm working with two frozen drumsticks here!"
"Okay, just relax..." Caitlin murmured.
"Okay," Cisco sighed as he body began to tilt back. "I'm falling."
In a second, Barry had brought them out of Flashtime as Cisco's body crashed onto the floor on his back.
The timer dropped to 0.
"You okay?" Barry asked with a sigh, extending his hand to help Cisco up.
"Yep," Cisco groaned. "My leg's just asleep, but I'm gonna get this, I'm telling you."
As he began to walk stiffly around the room, Caitlin heard her phone ping. She picked it up and glanced at the screen. "It's Joe and Cecile, do you think I can spare a minute?"
Barry let out a breath, glancing behind him as Cisco continued to hobble the perimeter of the room, and then back at her. "Yeah, I think we could use a break," he said with a sigh.
Flash!
It turned out that, as Cecile got closer to her pregnancy due date, she was starting to inhabit people's minds instead of just read them. In the middle of Caitlin's checkup she got into the brunette's head, and started griping about therapy and the spots on her test tubes. Caitlin was an interesting mix between amused and mortified, and gave Cecile something to stop her brain from leaping into someone else's.
Then, with advice from Cecile that she seemed like she was hiding from something really big (which unnerved Caitlin, though she tried not to show it), it was back to training.
Cisco was successful at opening a little baby breach or, as he called it, his 'breachling', underneath one of the dummies they were using to represent a hostage.
"Okay," Barry said, looking marginally more confident with his team now. He looked over at Caitlin and nodded.
She pressed on the trigger, but the gun just made a couple of noises. "The gun's still not working, just like Killer Frost," she sighed, feeling frustrated.
"We gotta find a way to offset the friction," Barry said.
Apparently, Caitlin was a little too frustrated, because her leg suddenly froze like Cisco's had a moment before. She dropped the gun. "Darn it! My leg's stuck."
"Alright," Barry said soothingly. "Stay calm."
Off-balance, Caitlin started to tilt. Her free heel slid against the floor and a moment later she was flying backward. Time resumed, and Caitlin crashed into the wall. Unbidden, a scene flashed into her mind. There was a bike on the ground, two legs tangled in the holes. "Dad!" a voice cried. "My leg's stuck."
A familiar voice, male, cried out. There was the sound of wheels screeching as they braked, and the fender of a dark car coming closer and closer-
Flash!
Caitlin woke up not long after Cisco and Barry brought her to a gurney. She blinked her eyes open blearily to find Barry sitting beside her, holding her hand and watching her with a deep crease between his eyebrows.
"What happened?" she groaned, the last remnants of her dream or vision or whatever it was starting to fade from her brain.
"Training," Barry replied. "You came out of Flashtime in midair."
"I think you got concussed," Cisco added. "Then again, I'm not the team doctor."
"I don't feel nauseous," Caitlin disagreed, sitting up and getting ready to swing her legs over the side of the bed. "Just hand me some acetaminophen and let's get back to training."
She thought she might be able to get away with a concerned look from her husband, but there was no such luck. "No, hold on," Barry said, stopping her from getting up fully. "We have to talk about what happened."
"What do you mean?" Cisco asked, exchanging glances with Caitlin. "You just lost focus, right?"
"Yeah," Caitlin agreed quickly, and shrugged.
"No," Barry argued, and his eyes bored into hers in a way that gave Caitlin the feeling that he somehow knew what was going on inside her head. "No, I mean, it was like something pulled your focus."
"I'm fine," Caitlin deflected.
He shook his head. "If this were the real thing, you would have died."
Frustration welled in her. He hadn't been like this when Cisco had messed up. "I'm not a liability," she said angrily.
"I know!" Barry cried, letting out a breath. "I am. I'm putting you guys in danger doing this. I mean, I realize you guys wanna help, but I've gotta stop training you."
He got to his feet, stuffing his hands into his pockets, and Cisco looked at him incredulously. "Barry, come on. Those hostages-"
"I'll find another way to save them!" Barry interrupted.
"You have to let us help you," Caitlin pressed. "I mean, after everything DeVoe did to us... to Killer Frost..."
"She's right," Cisco agreed. "We're running out of time. It's worth the risk."
Barry didn't seem to agree. "I'm not training you guys just to get you killed," he said stubbornly. "I'm sorry."
Then he walked out of the room.
Flash!
They gave him some cool-off time before they went in. "You figure it out yet?" Caitlin asked, watching Barry sigh and rub at his face as he sat at Iris' desk.
"No," he admitted. "I could save the hostages, but DeVoe still gets away."
"Actually," Cisco said, coming around side of her and putting hand down on Barry's desk. "I think she meant if you've figured out how come you lost your dang mind."
"Dude," Barry breathed, sending an imploring look at Caitlin. She crossed her arms and leaned against that wall. "I'm sorry, I'm just-"
"You're just trying to keep us safe, I know," Caitlin said. "That's starting to sound pretty familiar."
"You're not ready to use Flashtime!" Barry cried, looking between the two of them. "Not like that."
"We will be ready if you train us," Cisco countered.
"It takes more than 10 hours to learn super speed!" Barry cried, leaning forward. "Okay? You guys could die in there! Then what would I do?"
"And if you don't take us, we'll die anyway!" Cisco cried. "Our brains get wiped, and that's it. That's the end of our world." He shook his head, frustrated.
"No!" Barry yelled, shooting to his feet. "Loosing my best friend and the love of my life and it being my fault? That's the end of my world. You may think it's worth the risk, but I couldn't live with myself."
Caitlin felt her shoulders drop. She understood the fear, but...
"Barry," Cisco murmured. "You can't sideline us because of what happened to him." He raised a finger and pointed to the picture of Ralph they still had up on the whiteboard, where headshots of each of the bus metas were tacked in rows.
Barry shook his head. "Alright," he said, getting to his feet. "I don't need this."
"Look, we all lost somebody, okay?" Cisco said. "But that never gives us an excuse to shut each other out!"
"I said drop it, alright!" Barry cried.
"You think you're the only one who feels bad about Ralph dying?!" Cisco shouted.
This was getting out of hand. "Guys..." Caitlin murmured, trying to get them to calm down.
"Do you know he came to see me at Iron Heights?" Barry asked, striding around the desk so he could stand toe-to-toe with Cisco. He ignored Caitlin, or maybe he just hadn't heard her. "He told me he was afraid. He warned me he wasn't ready. But I pushed him anyway. I said, 'go back out there and do my job.' My burden!"
"We made the bus metas," Cisco said quietly. "We gave Ralph his powers. You wanna talk about burdens? I started this! I shot that bazooka, I opened up the Speed Force! And I didn't do it so you could stand here and tell me you were gonna save the world alone, again!"
All the fight seemed to drain out of Barry. "I know that," he murmured. "And I know we're running out of time and I- I can't do this by myself. But everybody I have tried to teach has end up worse than how I found them!"
"What about Ralph?" Caitlin asked, stepping in. She looked at Barry imploringly, coming up to stand beside Cisco. "What about Killer Frost? Were they worse? You taught Ralph that when his back was against the wall and the world was ending around him he could always make the choice- make the choice to be a hero!" She glanced at Cisco. "We deserve that same choice."
"All we need is someone to show us how," Cisco finished.
Barry let out a long breath and wiped a hand over his face, looking between Cisco and Caitlin. "You guys really wanna do this?"
She smiled at him and raised her left hand, wiggling her ring finger a little. "It's not a burden if we shoulder it together."
Flash!
With Iris off investigating the Marlize angle of the DeVoe issue, Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin had to get to Argus. There was no more time to prepare, which was too bad, considering they hadn't gotten a solid run-through on the practice course yet.
But they were out of time. Fallout was almost at 12,000 rads, and DeVoe would be making his escape soon.
Using one of Cisco's breaches, they appeared inside Argus' grounds. Barry flashed up next to them. "Perimeter's secure," he reported. "Once we're inside, we'll have less than a second. I'll activate the plates, draw their charge-"
"I'll lay the breaches down," Cisco added.
"And I'll protect the Argus agents from the blast using this..." Caitlin finished, looking down at the ice-gauntlet she and Cisco had whipped up while waiting for Barry to come around. "Ice shooter."
She glanced at Cisco. "Ice shooter," he confirmed.
"Do I have to call it an ice shooter?"
"I thought Frostbite sounded good," Barry put in with a shrug.
"Guys," Cisco interrupted. "It solves the friction offset problem by shooting ice, therefore: it's an ice shooter. You call it an ice shooter."
"Relax," Barry told him, but Caitlin could tell he was teasing. Cisco pulled a face.
Behind them, there was a strange, deep noise from the Argus facility. "DeVoe must be shrinking Fallout's chamber," Caitlin theorized worriedly. She felt a sudden burst of nerves, realizing for the first time what Barry had known all along:
If they messed up, which, considering their practice runs, was likely...
They were going to die.
"We can do this," Barry said bracingly. He put a hand on Caitlin's arm. "I love you."
"I love you, too," she replied, before smiling over at Cisco. "And you too, Cisco."
He grinned and punched her lightly in the shoulder. "Okay, love-squad, let's do this thing."
Barry put his hands on Caitlin and Cisco's shoulders and the next moment they were inside Argus. Caitlin glanced down at the swirl of lightning around her midsection, and then Barry let go of her.
They were in Flashtime.
Flash!
Surprisingly enough, their little plan was working. Barry absorbed the charges from the plates, Cisco opened a breachling just above them, and Caitlin made an ice formation just above them.
Then Cisco opened a breach underneath himself and Caitlin and they slipped through, right before Flashtime stopped. Barry had made it through the pocket dimension.
When he came out on the other side, it was to see three satellites, glowing purple and rising into the air. Not stopping for even a breath, Barry shot off and sprinted up the side of a building, pulling the concussion bomb from Amunet out of its special satchel and hurling it at one of the satellites.
It struck its mark, and the whole machine exploded.
Barry ran back down the building and stared at the debris drifting down from the sky. A second later, his triumphant moment was ruined as DeVoe came through a pocket dimension to stand in back of him. "Once upon a time in some remote corner of that universe, there was a star on which clever beasts invented knowing," DeVoe began.
For someone whose genius plan had just been foiled, he didn't look upset. Instead, he stood placidly on the street with his hands folded behind his back, looking at Barry like a regular old professor.
"You're quoting Nietzsche at me," Barry said blankly.
"You destroyed the satellite!" DeVoe replied. "Top marks, Quick Boy. You can destroy a thousand more and you will still march closer to the Enlightenment."
Barry mock-hit himself in the forehead. "I forget what Nietzsche said about wiping minds... I must have skipped philosophy class-"
"Did I teach you nothing this year?!" DeVoe interrupted, his voice a bit more raised. "Has nothing pierced your thick cowl? Think of it! Or rather, don't; you'll just end up hurting yourself, so let me explain. A world enlightened: Within a day, all soldiers will lay down their arms. Every nuclear weapon will be gone within six months. Poverty! Famine! Disease! Eradicated. We will clean up the streets. People will put down they're idiot phones and become curious again! And I will be there to teach them. I, not you, will save this world."
That had been quite the speech, but Barry was ready with his counter argument. "No. You want to control it- you want to take away free will."
"A pittance for humanity to pay to know peace," DeVoe said, waving his hand as if Barry's words were irrelevant.
"But we wouldn't know each other!" Barry cried. "Parents wouldn't remember their kids. Husbands wouldn't remember their wives."
DeVoe pointed at him. "Good. You hit upon precisely the point. The notion is the father of all error. Chemicals in our brains that destruct us- that impede progress! And the most destructive and ridiculous imbalance of all is that thing you feebles call 'love'."
Barry felt a shudder run through his chest. He couldn't imagine living a life where love was seen as destructive or ridiculous.
"I learned this from experience, Mr. Allen," DeVoe declared darkly. "And soon... you won't."
With that, he stepped back through a pocket dimension and left Barry alone on the street.
Flash!
Back outside of Argus, Caitlin stopped Cisco before they could go home. "I need your help," she admitted, feeling a knot growing in her stomach. "Back when we were training I had this... fragment of a memory. I think it's something that I've been repressing for a long time. I don't remember much, just that I was young, and I was terrified."
Cisco put his hands on his hips. "Caitlin, are you sure you want me to vibe you there?" he asked. "I mean, maybe your brain kept this memory under lock and key for a reason."
That was a valid possibility. But Caitlin had tried cram the memory back down and it hadn't worked. This was her only option left. "I need to know what it was," she said. "I can handle it."
Cisco took a breath. "Okay," he agreed after a second. "Then focus on it."
He took a sturdier stance as Caitlin closed her eyes, trying to recall every detail she could about the memory. She felt Cisco's hand land on her shoulder and a second later they were in a vibe.
"Caity!" someone was yelling. "Caity, are you okay? Say something!"
Caitlin, through the blurry blue haze, saw the black truck from earlier, one wheel half-crushing a little kid's pink bicycle. "That's me," Caitlin breathed, staring in shock at the young girl lying on the ground. The male voice yelled at her to stop, but young-Caitlin still scrambled for the rearview mirror that had cracked off of the truck.
What she saw in the mirror made her scream, and Caitlin felt the shockwave of that horror ripple through her.
Her hair was white, her eyes a bright, electric blue.
She was Killer Frost.
Author's Note: Yeahhhh so I ended it like that for shook-factor lol. Just in case anyone forgot, after that scene Barry, Cisco and Caitlin regroup at STAR Labs, DeVoe uses the STAR Labs Satellite to replace the one they destroyed, and the Enlightenment begins.
Fun timessss y'all XD
Okay also I know I'm not including any scenes with dumb-Harry but he is SO FUNNY I'm actually crying XD XD
