S.T.A.R Labs [Central City]
5 hours until the Enlightenment
Jessie was smirking from his side of the glass in the pipeline as he was face-to-face with Oliver, Barry and Kara.
"Why did DeVoe hire you?" Oliver began, moving from his place beside Barry to be inches away from the glass. God, all he wanted to do was kill him. He caused pain to the people he cared about, he wasn't going to just let that slide.
"What makes you think you'll get any answers from me?" Jessie asked the trio, staring at them all. His gaze lingered on Barry and Kara a lot longer than it did on Oliver.
"In High School," Barry began, stepping forward to stand next to Oliver, "You were a normal human being. Making mistakes, feeling pain, knowing that the future would be the time to remake yourself and persevere through everything, no matter how hard things get. You're not the same person, Jessie. Tell me what he's got on you and I promise that he will pay for everything that he's done"
Kara watched as Jessie faltered for a second before smiling widely, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at them all impatiently. Oliver tensed and stood closer to Barry, not out of fear but because he didn't want Barry to end up getting hurt once more.
"Why does he want to brainwash everyone in the city?" Kara asked this time, her fists clenched.
"Wrong," Jessie commented, "He doesn't want to just brainwash the entire city. No, he's planning something much bigger"
"He's gonna use the Enlightenment to take control of the world," Jessie continued, "And there's nothing you can do to stop him or it. Those pocket dimensions he's been opening up for the past two years are for him to collect all the materials he needs to help him achieve his potential"
"Did you just quote Dalton's description?" Barry asked him humorlessly, although both Jessie and Kara did snort in response, finding it funny.
"Y'know," Kara began, smiling innocently at him, "I was thinking about letting you come back to our Earth and go on trial for everything you've done, but the more I think about it, the more this outcome sounds better for you. If you don't tell us how to stop it, then I'll leave you here, in this cell where your powers don't work, and I will happily allow for you to be brainwashed whilst I will have Barry and Oliver and all of their friends and family back on my Earth as this happens"
"Now that's not very heroic of you," Jessie retorted, "Leaving everyone else to suffer whilst you watch from afar"
They were all in silence for a good 5 minutes before Jessie spoke up once more, and Barry finally felt some hope in his chest.
"The materials he gathered are for him to build satellites, if you take the main one out of the equation the code he's put into the system will be useless and it won't work" Jessie responded, "If you take out the wrong one though, he will connect to another one and the Enlightenment will still go through so make sure you take out the leading one because it takes days to fix the mainframe once it's been destroyed"
Barry nodded and smiled at Jessie, speeding out of the room whilst Oliver and Kara just looked at each other, realising what they had to do now. They had to escort him back to Earth-38 for him to await trial.
Oliver turned around and grabbed the meta-human cuffs behind him, handing them to Kara so she could put them on Jessie. She walked towards the cell and unlocked it, she subdued him and put the cuffs on him, keeping a very tight hold on him as they left the pipeline and went into the Cortex, where Cisco was waiting to take them all home.
Foundry [Star City]
25 minutes later
After much persuasion from both Barry and Kara (right before she left), they had decided to set up their team in the Foundry. Only because one of the Satellites in DeVoe's scheme was stationed to hover above Star City at the time of the Enlightenment. In all honesty, they still had no idea what Satellites were actually involved with the whole thing, they were just hoping and praying that the one they've got their eyes on would be involved and would be the main one, only because they couldn't find any others in the country.
Barry was sitting quietly in the Foundry when Cisco walked in. Once they had located where the first Satellite was, Barry had immediately told them to back off and to allow him to take it down himself, which of course got a chorus of angry words thrown his way but he didn't care, this was his fight and he sure as hell was gonna win it.
"You figured it out yet?" He asked the speedster, walking towards him.
Barry sighed before responding, he kept his gaze on the monitor he was looking at, eyeing the Satellite's course from orbiting the world, "No, I-I hit the generator, I could rip out most of the wires but none of that would matter if it's the wrong Satellite"
"Actually, I meant," Cisco began, stopping in front Barry, "Have you figured out how come you lost your damn mind?"
Barry looked hurt, "Dude.." he sighed and looked at Cisco, "I..I'm sorry.. I'm just-"
"You're just trying to keep us safe, I know," Cisco interrupted him, "It's starting to sound real familiar coming out of your mouth"
Something in Barry seemed to have snapped and he suddenly became very defensive, "I can't let you all do something that is clearly between me and DeVoe. If he wanted you guys involved he would've done something to you, made it personal towards you, he didn't take anything that belongs to you. He took my kid, that makes it my fight"
"It is our fight because we refuse to let you do it alone" Cisco argued to his best friend, getting frustrated with the man.
"Did you not hear the part where I said 'he took my kid'?," Barry almost yelled, "He could kill him if we make one wrong move! Patty is already dead because of him, I can't lose him too!"
"But if you don't let us help he's dead anyway!" Cisco told him, "We'll get brainwashed, including him, and do you really think that DeVoe would care what would happen to him after he's completed his goal? If this does not work, then this is the end of our world, Barry!"
"NO!" Barry yelled at Cisco, "Losing my best friends, my son, and my family and that being MY fault, THAT is the end of my world! You may think it's worth the risk but I couldn't live with myself"
Team Flash and Team Arrow had walked in seconds later, all of them waiting by the sidelines for the argument to stop, or to spiral out of control.
"Barry," Cisco began, his voice low, tears shining in his eyes, "You cannot sideline us, because of what happened to him"
Cisco pointed to the wall behind Barry, a photo of all the people who had died in this was there, and a photo of Hunter from Dalton was in the center of it all, and tears flooded into Barry's eyes.
"Alright," Barry began softly, only so Cisco would hear, "I don't need you to be my therapist"
Barry stood up and began walking towards the door when Cisco started yelling again, "Look, we all lost somebody okay? But that never gives us an excuse to shut each other out!"
"I said drop it, alright?" Barry yelled at Cisco, throwing his arms into the air in frustration.
"YOU THINK YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO FEELS BAD ABOUT HUNTER DYING?" Cisco yelled at him, guilt in his voice.
"Guys," Caitlin said from where she was by the door, near Felicity and Oliver.
"You know he apologised to me in Flashtime," Barry told Cisco, "He told me that he was sorry for everything he had done and I never got the chance to tell him I forgive him. I pushed him out there, I asked him to join us, I gave him that second chance and now he's dead. My burden"
"We made the decision together," Cisco began, "We gave Hunter the choice to join us and he did. You wanna talk about burdens? I made his suit and pushed him out there as well, I didn't care back then if they wanted him dead because I didn't know him but now that I do know him, I regret ever wanting that on him"
Barry looked down, barely holding himself together and everyone could see that, especially Iris. She had tried to get in between the boys but Oliver had grabbed her arm and kept her in place.
"I..I know that," Barry sounded defeated, "and I know that we're running out of time and I.. I can't do this by myself but I can't lose any more people because of this.. I can't have that resting on me.."
Barry stormed out seconds later, Iris following him out of the room as Oliver walked towards Cisco, wanting to know what started the argument.
Barry was in the hallway when Iris approached him, her hand going to his arm to stop him from walking off. He looked at her when he felt a hand on his arm.
"Harry and I have been doing some digging and we found Marliese," She told him, her chest swelling with happiness as she saw a slight smile appear on his face, "She's all the way in London, United Kingdom"
Barry reached into his pocket and pulled something out; it was the extrapolator. He smiled as he handed it to her, his hand going underneath her chin and pulling her towards his lips, kissing her. She leaned into the kiss herself, adding more passion. When they separated, Barry looked at her and pulled her in for a hug, sighing softly. They could use Marliese to go against her husband, but it was whether she would want to or not.
"I love you, Bartholomew Henry Allen" She whispered into his ear, smiling when she heard him mumble something incoherently but she knew what he said. She just knew him that well.
They pulled away seconds later and Iris smiled at him once more before walking back into the room, the extrapolator in her hand.