Sorry I'm a little late today. I'd completely forgotten it was Friday to be honest. Regardless, here we go. Thanks to my co-authors Brightburn1985 and ThomasMarieAmell2.0.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash

As soon as Barry and Caitlin returned from their honeymoon, they were following up on a lead Caitlin's contacts had gotten. A new telepathic meta had been found and taken hostage. Team Flash was trying to get to him first. Dominic Lanse. Anything to do with mental manipulation was highly sought after.

That's when everything went wrong. They weren't prepared. They didn't anticipate that someone else would be there first. Amunet. A meta smuggler. And just like Frankie Kane, she had a limited control of magnetism.

The team wasn't sure of the limits of her powers, but so far it seemed she was only able to control small pieces of a specific metal that she kept with her at all times. Using them as projectiles and as a shield. Amunet took them by surprise.

Amunet had shot all four of them with her 'bullets', leaving them in a position they weren't able to recover from at the moment.

"You two," Amunet gestured to Frost and Vibe, "the money I could get from the two of you. Central City's Finest reduced to meager auction items. Unfortunately I'll be unable to collect.

"But you," Amunet leaned over the Flash. "He's been looking for you for quite some time. Might put me in favour with the Man."

"No," Cisco weakly protested.

"Shut up," Amunet lightly scolded him before knocking both him and Frost out with a clunk on their head.

"You too, my dear. Can't have you making too much of a mess." Amunet said cheerfully before knocking the Flash and Lanse out like a light.

"We lost Barry!" Cisco exclaimed when both he and Caitlin returned to STAR after coming to.

Everybody turned their heads in the duo's direction. Specifically Caitlin, who had red eyes from crying. There was a somber atmosphere around her. She was absently fiddling with her wedding ring, her gaze fixed on the ground. She silently walked to some secluded area of the building.

"How did this happen?" Joe asked.

"It was supposed to be a simple mission. We'd gotten word about a new meta that had been captured and were trying to rescue him. Word must have spread faster than we hoped because we met with another meta who was trying to do the same. She took us by surprise and pinned us down." Cisco explained. "She left Caitlin and I, but took Barry and the telepath."

"Do you remember what she looked like? I can make a sketch." Julian offered.

"You can?" Cisco said.

"I'm a man of many talents."

Cisco described the woman as best he could. Julian was no professional, but both were satisfied with the end result.

"She seems familiar," Joe mentioned, taking the drawing. "I can run this through the data banks. See if we can find a match."

"Walk me through what happened. What did she talk about? Why did she leave you two there?" Julian asked.

"That woman talked about… making money off of us. But for some reason she said she'd be unable to do so. But when she got to Barry, she mentioned someone had been looking for him. That's when she knocked us out." Cisco said.

"She is a meta trafficker. Probably went to collect Lanse and found the three of you. She realized she would have to take you three to get her prize and she'd be getting a bonus as well." Julian said.

"But that doesn't explain why she left us. Even though she took Barry, she's still letting two witnesses go."

"Let's think about this. Walk through the process." Julian said. "I've come to take the telepath. But when I'm there, I see three heroes in my way. I've got the element of surprise and incapacitate them easily. Now I've got four metas for the price of one. But I only take two, knowing full well I'm leaving behind two witnesses that I would have benefitted from had I taken them as well. Why do I leave them behind?"

"Because she has to." Cisco realized after a moment of silence. "She was by herself. No way she could have carried all four of us away. Lanse was her target. She was taking him either way. The Flash is just too big of a catch to just let go. She mentioned someone else. She must work for the Thinker."

"And why leave you and Caitlin alive? You saw everything. She took your friend and you were at her mercy. Why did she leave you two alive?"

"Because we're more valuable being free and alive than dead. She wants another chance to take us and we wouldn't have been worth anything if we were dead."

"We need to find her. By now, she's probably already shipped Barry off to the Thinker, but she could still tell us where he might be."

"That's not going to be so easy." Joe came back. "We got a possible match. Amunet Black," he showed them a picture on his phone.

"That's her. That's who took Barry." Cisco said.

"CCPD has been trying to pin a location on her for years. She's the head of a meta gang, but is known to travel. Makes finding her not an easy task."

"So what the bloody hell are we going to do now?" Julian asked.

Barry had awoken with a splitting headache. He had absolutely no idea where he was. Trying to move, he found himself in a cylindrical container. Not much room to move. Barry tried to vibrate, but found himself unable. Must be dampeners in the cage.

"Flash. Or should I say Barry Allen? You're finally awake." A man sitting in a chair floated down into his line of view.

Barry tried to struggle, but it was getting him nowhere. "Don't bother. I've already taken precautions that you haven't even thought of yet. Relax. You're going to be here for some time."

"Who are you?" Barry asked.

"Since you asked so nicely, I'll grant you an answer. I'm the Thinker as your friend Cisco calls me. My true name is Clifford Devoe. And let me say that I am extremely disappointed in you. I never expected the simplest things to lead to your downfall."

"Sorry if I didn't live up to my reputation. Why don't you let me go and we can try this again." Barry suggested.

"No, it's too late for that. I just expected better from you, taken down by Amunet. One of my better business partners for sure, but I never thought you incompetent enough to be taken down by her. Her abilities are a mere shadow compared to the power of that young girl your brother created. Frankie Kane." Devoe shook his head and sighed. "Then again Kane wasn't aiming for criminal intent, it was self-defence. Perhaps I should have taken that into account."

"What do you want with me?" Barry asked.

"You know what I want. Or at least, you suspect it. I'm in a sharing mood today. Ask and I will answer."

"You're a crime boss. You locate metas and enslave them. If they fail you, you drain them of their powers and put them in someone new, disposing of the original host."

"All true. Very true. I'm not hearing a question there though."

"Why do you do it?"

"A good question deserves a good response. Let's go back to the beginning. I was an educator, but I always hungered for more. The particle accelerator gave me a gift. You're the fastest man, I'm the fastest brain." Devoe gestured to his head.

"Within moments, the secrets to the universe were open to me. It was wonderful, the clarity I had achieved. You know how they describe God? All powerful and all knowing. I already achieved half of that description."

"So what, you're calling yourself God? I faced a god before and I'm the one still standing." Barry said.

"Your charlatan of a brother. Forget about him. You've never faced someone like me, and if you were to succeed against me, you'll never face another of the likes. I guarantee you. I'm not searching for power. I'm not out for revenge. I'm not greedy. My wife and I both make a stable paycheck. No, I'm doing this for the simplest of reasons. Your brother had the right idea. Satisfaction. The fact is; I'm bored."

"You're bored? That's what all this has been about?" Barry asked.

"Of course. Simple boredom. I'm not your typical villain. I have no master plan. I'm simply a businessman, and you happen to be one of my assets."

"All the metas I faced these past few months? I know they had something to do with you."

"As I've told you, having all the knowledge of the universe and beyond leads to a very boring life. Einstein said 'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.' He had no idea how right he was. At that point, staying alive is just waiting for death. What do you do with the extra time?"

"Not becoming a criminal comes to mind." Barry retorted.

"I tried that. Games, puzzles, it all becomes repetitive. The same thing over and over again. The only thing different is people. People never stay the same, even though society tends to. When you understand things as I do, you see it all. The behaviour, the spark of life. You can't find that in textbooks. I needed that. It's as Mary Shelley said, 'No man seeks evil. He only mistakes it for happiness.'"

"So how'd you get here? To become a meta trafficker?" Barry asked.

"I'm getting to that. I knew there were others like me. People who'd been affected by the explosion. How could there not be? I sought out our brethren, hoping to find something with them. Surely with our powers combined with the unpredictability of human nature, surely there could be something to sate my need for life."

"And you found them." Barry said.

"They were a sorry excuse. Letting the power they'd been given go to their head. They didn't deserve such things, abusing their powers for their own needs. So caught up in their own worlds, their greed, their lust. It was nauseating. And so I decided if they weren't worthy of such power, why should they have them? I developed a way to extract the dark matter in a person's system. Sometimes, I think I see someone who is actually worthy of wielding such power, but the cycle continues and they let themselves be taken by power! 'The belief of supernatural evil is not necessary. Man is already capable of every wickedness.'"

"Joseph Conrad. So that's what this is about. You've given up on humanity. Lost faith in people as a whole."

"Oh I'm sure there are a few hidden gems, but everybody else isn't worth the time they have. They are all trash. People who believe just because they have a tiny bit of power, they can do whatever they wish."

"What about me? You've put a lot of effort and time into me. How do I stack up?"

"You were supposed to be the best distraction I ever had, and for a time you were. Great power, yet you remained true to your beliefs and values. I put so much stock into you. I let all those people with all those powers test you, all for nothing."

"Which ones? How far back have you been planning this?" Barry asked.

"My operations have been functioning for years, setting the pieces. I started playing with you just before you came back."

"Abra Kadabra?" Barry questioned. He was the one Barry had to take down upon his return. And he'd made several mentions of someone after him, resulting in his suicide.

"A failure. But I suppose he did get the wanted results. I picked him up once I realized what he was, a charlatan. Using advanced microchips from the future he calls home to simulate sorcery. I did not anticipate they would make him resistant, that eventually he would break free of my control." Devoe mentioned. "I thought it would be a good idea to use him to bring you back to Central, which he did, but it was purely by chance. In actuality, you did me a favour. If he had managed to escape using your time machine, I wouldn't be able to know where he had gone. I like to keep aware of all my assets."

"Ramsey Deacon?"

"Sleeper agent. Found him on the streets, pathetic, but with so much potential. It didn't take long to plant my programming within him. After that, it was just a matter of what to use his talents on, and he provided us with quite a hefty fortune. A side benefit, but a welcome one."

"Why'd he have to go? He did what you wanted,"

"They knew who he was. He'd been compromised. People can be replaced. There are hundreds being born as we speak, the only thing of value on him was his powers, and you can guess those can be easily removed."

"Becky Sharpe? Was she working for you too?"

"No, and it seems like it's never happening either. She was the most dangerous creature to ever walk the Earth. The ability to control what cannot be taken into account. Defeating her was by pure chance. The gods smiled on you that day, for you know it could have just as easily turned the other way. I know that. You know that."

"What happened to her?" Barry glared. He knew Devoe had something to do with her disappearance.

"I took her for myself. If nothing else, I needed to get her out of my way, lest she jeopardise my entire operations. So far, all my attempts at controlling her, bottling up everything good about her, they've proven unsuccessful. Nothing works on her if she doesn't deem it. Not even when she sleeps. She's somewhere here among all of these others. Most likely, she'll never see the light of day again." Devoe gestured to all the containers that held some unfortunate soul. To think they were just trophies to him.

"Did you lead me to Ralph?" Barry had to ask. Thinking back, it seemed extremely suspicious, the circumstances that led to Barry facing Ralph Dibny once again.

"Of course I orchestrated that. I saw the potential in Mr. Dibny and needed to bring it out. If he proved to be just another below average creature, I would have disposed of him. The fact I let you continue to train him just shows how much I believe Mr. Dibny has to offer, and you could bring that out in him before he becomes another asset of mine."

"I'm not going to let that happen. I won't." Barry shook his head. "I'm not going to let you touch any one of my friends."

"Oh you're friends now. That is honestly surprising. That big heart of yours is going to be your downfall. In fact it was your downfall. You just couldn't let an innocent man suffer, even though he'd been doomed from the start." Devoe smirked, like he knew something of importance that Barry didn't. "By now, Dominic Lanse has already had his brain picked apart. Reading minds, it's a dangerous power, but oh so useful."

"And Mina Chayton?"

Devoe shrugged his shoulders. "What's to say? You already know the story. She was a customer of mine. Ordered something to help her goal. The moment she did, I knew she'd run into you sooner or later. That's why I gave her that little message to send you. You were too slow. It's never any fun when you're playing by yourself. Luckily I've regained what she took. It wasn't easy, but then again I welcome the challenge."

"So all of that, it was just to get my attention? To bring me to you?"

"I've given you a glimpse Mr. Allen. Just a tiny glimpse of the network I've created, expanding far beyond what you could imagine. You are my ultimate prize, the symbol of all metas in the world, so I can't let you go. But now that I have you, I have to go back to the ordinary people."

"You know, Shakespeare said 'Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable.' Why can't you see that people, that society can change? Not for the worse, but to be better, to be the remarkable people you want them to be."

"It is not that I have no wish to see that happen, it is that I know it cannot happen."

"That's crazy. People change. I've seen it."

"'Am I, or the others, crazy?' That is the question Einstein asks himself, Mr. Allen. Where you see progress, I see it as another step they take on the path to hell."

"I'm sorry you see it that way. You need help, and when I get out of here, I am going to stop you, and get you the help you need."

"Please, by all means Mr. Allen. Escape, surprise me! It will be quite a magic trick for you to get out of here. But if anyone can do it, you can. The Flash makes the impossible happen everyday." Devoe mocked him. "If you manage to leave without me knowing, it will be the greatest shock of my life, and I will thank you for giving me the experience again."

"Do you guys have any idea on where Barry might be?" Caitlin asked in a dejected tone.

Cisco sighed heavily. "No," he shook his head.

Caitlin sniffled and lowered her head so they wouldn't see the tears falling from her eyes. "I'm going to lie down again."

Cisco pursed his lips and nodded, watching Caitlin collapse again onto the bed in the medbay facedown.

"I'm running out of ideas. How are we supposed to find Barry? I hate seeing Caitlin like this,"

"Our best bet is finding Amunet, getting her to tell us where he is, or where she dropped him off for the Thinker." Joe said. He was just as worried about his son, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from finding Barry.

"CCPD hasn't been able to find her for years. How are we supposed to do that?" Ralph asked.

"We don't find out where she is," Julian said thoughtfully. "We determine where she is going to be,"

"We set a trap for her?" Cisco asked. "How would we go about this?"

"Hear me out," Julian asked, "we know what she wants. Metas that bring in a profit, for her and her benefactor. We use that. Get a meta to lure her out, then we jump her."

"Could work," Joe shrugged, "but who would we use as bait?"

"Caitlin and I can't do it," Cisco shook his head, "we just ran into her. It'd be too suspicious if we were vulnerable all of a sudden. Not to mention she just took Dominic Lanse and Barry. What's to say she's even on the lookout for more right now? She might be on the DL until things start to cool off."

"Well if we want to find Barry soon, we need to draw her out. That means, getting someone she can't resist. Someone so valuable, that she has to come out of hiding." Joe said.

"Who would generate the most profit?" Julian asked.

There was a moment of silence where everyone was thinking before being interrupted by a feminine voice. "Hypnotick."

Everybody turned to see it was Caitlin who was talking. "What did you say?" Cisco asked.

"You all asked who would be the most valuable metahuman on the black market. Of the ones we have in custody, my money's on Hypnotick."

"It's Mesmerize. I keep telling you guys that, but you don't remember." Cisco shouted.

"We remember, we just don't care." Caitlin glared at him. "The only problem is that he's currently in ARGUS custody along with all the other metas we had in the Pipeline."

"I'll call Lyla. See if she'll cooperate." Cisco went to the other room to make the call.

"And what do we do if she hands him over to us? How do we get that to Amunet?" Julian asked.

"Let me worry about that. I'll put out the word, say Howlett's been released from custody. We set him up in an apartment in the middle of her hunting ground. Amunet won't be able to resist, and when she comes knocking, we'll be there."

Lyla was reluctant, but in the end they managed to convince her to release Howlett for a few days to a safe house where they could constantly monitor Howlett. It also helped that Howlett wasn't an especially dangerous meta that needed to be constantly locked up.

What they didn't expect was resistance from Howlett's end.

"No way I'm doing this. I'm not going to risk going back there to help you people." Howlett said.

"Please, we need you for this. If you do this, we'll actually let you go. Zoom is gone, as long as you don't commit any more crimes, you'll be a free man." Cisco tried to bargain.

"Freedom is overrated. I've got everything I need here. A roof over my head. Three square meals a day. But most of all, protection. I'm not going back out there. Where they could take me and exploit my powers like they did back home." Howlett remained stubbornly in his cell.

Maybe they should have expected this after all. They knew Howlett's past, abducted and sold like a guinea pig for his powers. Passed around for anyone who could shell out the money. Only to be recruited by Zoom and then taken hostage by them. By now, Howlett probably had no idea what freedom was anymore.

"These people, they have the technology to strip someone of their powers." Caitlin tried a different approach. If Howlett was afraid of his freedom due to his paranoia that others would use his powers for themselves, maybe he'd be open to having his own powers gone. The subtle glance confirmed that for her.

"They… do?" Howlett questioned, getting a little intrigued.

"They do. They traffick meta powers, taking metas, stripping them of their powers and placing them in someone else. If you help us, I promise you, when we take them down we can use their technology to take away your powers, and then you can go on to live a normal life."

Howlett contemplated this offer. He'd had his powers for so long, it was difficult to imagine a life without them anymore, but then again all they did was make him a target to be used by others who were sick enough to pay millions for a few moments of experiencing pure bliss. One might actually be able to compare him to a prostitute. He'd made his decision.

"That's a guarantee? I help you, and I get rid of my powers?"

"We promise," Cisco nodded his head.

"Three days." Howlett held up three fingers to emphasize his point. "You get me for three days. After that, I'm back in this cell until you manage to get the device to take my powers. I don't care if nothing happens in those three days. You take away my powers as soon as you're able."

"We'll pick you up tomorrow. We've got to set up the safe house and get word around that you're being released. Thank you for doing this," Caitlin said.

"I'm not doing this for you." Howlett muttered and returned back to his cell. Their conversation was over.

They were already on day 2 and there was still no indication that Amunet was going to make any move to collect Howlett. Caitlin and Cisco were currently staking out the house, seeing if there was any sign of a disturbance.

"You know we're going to find him right?" Cisco asked Caitlin beside him. "We're gonna find Barry, and everything is going to be okay."

"I don't know Cisco," Caitlin sighed, "there's something different about this one. I have this feeling that just won't go away."

"You had a feeling when the Dominators had him and all that happened was he was malnourished. This guy wants Barry alive, he'll keep him alive."

"He doesn't need Barry alive. He just wants his powers. Barry doesn't have to be alive for that to happen."

"Well, Barry is also a pretty public figure, being the owner of STAR Facilities. If this guy wants to remain undercover, he'll need to keep Barry alive, maybe show him off in public to make sure of it."

"Or maybe this was his signal. Going after The Flash makes a pretty big statement. He might take his powers and then kill him, showing off the body like Zoom did. 'Look at what I can do. Stop me if you can.'"

"You can't think so negatively. Glass half full and all that. It's been a few days and we haven't found anything that says Thinker has killed him, he's just keeping Barry captive. No news is good news."

"No news is no news. It just means there's nothing to say." Caitlin cut him off before he could say anything else.

"So that just means we have to operate under the assumption that Barry's still alive. Everything is going to be okay. We're gonna get him back."

"But in what capacity?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is he coming home, or am I just gonna get a corpse back in the morgue?"

Cisco didn't know what to say, so he just kept quiet and looked back out through the window.

"Reporting in. I see some movement on the east side of the house. A dark figure, I can't get a good look at them. Everyone be on alert," The radio sounded.

"Looks like we got her," Cisco opened the door of the car and Caitlin went to do the same.

Slowly, the others congregated to that side of the building as well. There was a shadowy figure that was meticulously approaching the side of the house. Everybody had to lie in wait, they needed probable cause to detain her.

With a wave of the figure's hand, they heard an audible click as the backdoor became unlocked. She reached for the handle and that was all they needed to see.

Caitlin glared and fired several icicles at the figure that got stuck on the door. The figure turned around in surprise and they saw the face of Amunet.

"Oh dear, I do believe I've been set up," Amunet commented.

Caitlin shot forward with the propulsion of her icicle blast. Her fist encased in a solid block of ice as she punched Amunet in the gut. Amunet keeled over in pain, not seeing the attack coming.

Caitlin grabbed her collar and glared at her with the deadliest look she could muster. "Where is he?!"

"Elsa sweetheart, I have no idea who you're talking about."

Caitlin hit her again, smashing her face in. "Don't lie to me! You know exactly what I'm talking about! Talk! Where is he?"

"I know my rights. I'm not telling you anything." Amunet gasped, blood flowing from her nose.

Caitlin heaved in rage. All she could see was red. "You're talking, one way or another." Caitlin bashed her skull again and again. "Even if I have to beat you every waking moment until I get what I want!"

Cisco ran up to her. "Frost! Frost!, let her go. She's down and out. She can't talk to you even if she wanted to. We need her alive if we're going to find him."

In Caitlin's blind fury she hadn't noticed when Amunet had been knocked unconscious. Caitlin's knuckles were bloody from Amunet and her own ripped skin. She subtly used her powers to numb the feeling of pain until she could get it looked at.

She looked on as they were carrying Amunet away. She still wanted to beat her ass to the ground, but Caitlin would have to control herself if she was going to find her husband.

"Well," Howlett came out of the safe house, "looks like I'm done a day early. Don't forget about our deal,"

They had to pry Caitlin off of him so she wouldn't hurt him any further.

So what did you think? I've brought Amunet into the story. I've also given the explanation of Devoe. Everything he's accomplished thus far. I hope you all like how I portrayed him. He's given up on humanity and has decided to exploit that. Caitlin is going to be slowly losing it with Barry abducted. You can see a little bit of that here.

I'll see you all next week. What could Devoe want with Barry now that he has him in his clutches? Who knows.