Mona and Shakespeare waited quietly behind the door of a backstage storage room. They heard various magic words, blasting noises, and at least one cold gun activation, followed eventually by silence. "I think she's gone," Mona whispered.
Shakespeare scratched his head. "How? What could thy friends have possibly done to defeat the magic of an evil witch?"
"You'd be surprised," she replied. "Come on, we can come out now."
The two of them slipped out of the storage room and headed toward the stage. Mona peeked out through the curtains and spotted Sara and Snart standing together in the groundlings' area. "Guys! Hey!" she exclaimed as she ran out, pulling Shakespeare behind her. "Look who I found!"
The other two Legends turned around at the same time. Sara looked significantly less surprised than Leonard. "Oh, look," she said nonchalantly. "Mona found Shakespeare. I guess it was bound to happen."
Leonard raised an eyebrow. "Does she have a habit of befriending famous people on missions?"
"Kind of. It was Jane Austen last time."
"Huh. Cute."
"I must say," Shakespeare said, speaking up to the group for the first time, "you people appear to be quite strange."
"Thanks," Sara said, flashing a playful smirk before becoming serious again. "That was our old enemy, Tabitha. She'll be back, and when she's here, she'll be looking for something. Something very strange, even stranger than us." She took a step closer to Shakespeare and asked him directly, "If you had to hide something magical somewhere inside this theater, where would you hide it?"
Shakespeare frowned as he processed the question. "I…I would not know. Perhaps beneath the stage? There is a trap door to allow the actors to descend…"
"Already looked there," Leonard interrupted. "Found nothing."
"Begging your pardon," the playwright said, changing the subject, "but who are you people? I have yet to hear a full answer and I think I ought to know to whom I am speaking."
"We're just a bunch of people who want what's best for your show," Sara answered matter-of-factly. "Right now, it looks like we're its best hope until Tabitha's gone. That's all you need to know for now."
Before Shakespeare could protest further, Ray's miniature shape slipped under the main door, flew into the center of the theater, and expanded to full size in front of the group. "Hey, guys!" he said with a friendly wave. "I tried to come in from the top, but there must be some weird winds up there or something because the suit was acting up like crazy and…oh my goodness, that's William Shakespeare!" His eyes widened excitedly. Then, he looked down at his metallic suit. "Well, this is awkward." He looked back up and addressed Shakespeare, "You're probably pretty confused right now, aren't you?"
"Yes, I should say so," the playwright replied, slowly taking in Ray's futuristic suit.
"Don't worry," Ray assured him cheerfully. "That's normal. We'll be out of here soon anyway, sir. By the way, Much Ado About Nothing? Love it!" He turned to Sara and pulled out his temporal energy gun. "So, where's the rift?"
"Somewhere in the theater," Sara answered. "We know because Tabitha was here."
Ray gasped. "Tabitha? Didn't she die? Unless…she's the anachronism?"
Snart pointed at him and nodded. "Bingo."
"And she's using the rift's energy to enhance her powers," Sara explained. "She showed up here, fought us, and got away, but she will be back. Right now, we need to get ready." She turned to Mona and instructed, "Take Shakespeare to find somewhere to hide and stay with him."
Mona frowned. "But I want to help!"
"You can help by keeping the world's most influential playwright from dying before he writes Julius Caesar," Sara replied. "We don't know what other powers Tabitha might have or what kind of damage she can do. If things don't go well for us out here, we'll need Wolfie as a last line of defense. Understand?" Mona nodded. "Good. Go!" Sara pointed at Shakespeare. "You too, buddy."
Shakespeare looked like he was about to argue, but eventually gave up. There was too much going on for him to even know what he was arguing about. He followed Mona away to locate a hiding spot.
Sara turned her attention to Ray and Leonard. "Okay, so now we need a plan."
"Should we barricade the doors?" Ray suggested. "That might keep her out. Or delay her, at least."
"No," Sara said. "She can just use her magic to appear inside. That's what she did the first time. We need to prepare for what she's going to do once she's already here." She turned around and climbed onto the stage. After walking back and forth to take in a full view of the theater, she looked down at her teammates. "Ray," she ordered, "station yourself at the top level of seats. Keep your eyes peeled for Tabitha. You can fly and, as far as we know, she can't, so that puts you at an advantage if she comes after you while you're up there. Snart," she said, turning to the other Legend, "we'll stay on the ground. If we go backstage and each cover one side, we can watch all angles from behind the curtains and spot her before she spots us."
"Unless she shows up backstage," Leonard pointed out.
"Right," Sara agreed. "In that case, we'll have to take her down. I'll send a signal to Ray if that happens, something he will definitely be able to see."
Ray gave her a thumbs up. "Sounds like a plan, Captain!" He shrank down and flew up into the balcony seats.
Leonard followed Sara onto the stage and behind the curtains. "Hey," he said once they were fully backstage, "Sara."
"What?" she asked, barely looking at him while she analyzed the area for the most strategically beneficial location to stand in.
He struggled to put his thoughts into words. He knew she was strong enough to recover quickly and keep fighting, and he knew she'd bounced back from worse experiences before. All the same, after what Tabitha had done, he felt like he needed to make absolutely certain that she was okay. "I just…about what just happened…"
Sara turned around and looked him in the eyes. She understood immediately. "I'm fine, Leonard," she assured him.
"You sure?"
She turned away from him before those earnest, kind, beautiful eyes could suck her in again. "Yes, I'm sure. I've been through worse and, more importantly, we have a job to do. Stay focused and don't dwell on it."
He nodded and moved aside to take his position on the opposite end of the stage. Once he was in place, he sent a sideways glance her direction. She seemed to be acting normally and didn't look too rattled by Tabitha's vision. Still, the recent memory of Sara calling herself a killer with that pained sound in her voice made him furious. No one had the right to make her feel that way. Whenever Tabitha does get here, he thought as he rested his hand over the handle of the cold gun, I am not letting her get away again.
Ray peered over the edge of balcony, scanning the ground floor below him slowly from one side to the other. He didn't see any sign of Tabitha, but he knew she could arrive at any moment, so he continued to look around. Without thinking, he let his eyes drift up to the open roof of the Globe. Between the rays of sunlight streaming down through it, parts of its rim seemed to have a strange tint, almost like a glow. At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but the longer he looked, the more certain he was that he wasn't imagining it. "Hey," he realized, speaking only to himself, "is that the…"
Before he could finish his sentence, a blast of energy hit him in the back. His suit absorbed most of the impact, but he still stumbled against the railing. He spun around to see Tabitha, pointing her staff directly at him. "Dr. Palmer," she sneered. "We meet again."
"Tabitha," he said awkwardly, trying not to anger her more than he had to, "the sixteen hundreds seem to be treating you pretty well. You…uh…seen any good plays lately?"
She remained unphased and took a step closer, glowering threateningly. "You were my Neron's plan to rule this world. You should have remained in Hell." A smug, evil smirk crossed her face. "But at least I have the pleasure of killing you myself."
Ray extended his arm and shot a blast from his arm, throwing Tabitha backward and into the corridor behind the seats before she could take another shot. "That's for killing my best friend!" he exclaimed. Then, he pulled out the temporal energy gun and aimed it high. "I mean, he's okay now, but…never mind. Say goodbye to your power source, Tabitha." He fired a shot toward the opening in the roof.
At the last second, Tabitha reached out her arm and recited a quick spell. Ray's hand jerked out of position, ruining the shot. The gun slipped out of his grip and landed three floors below. By the time he regained control, Tabitha had disappeared. "Oh no!" he exclaimed, staring down at the gun. "Captain! Snart!"
Instantly, Tabitha materialized again on the ground. She picked up the gun. "Ha!" she taunted. "You Legends really thought a silly weapon like this would be enough to stop me? Pathetic, deary. Utterly pathetic."
Ray aimed a shot down at her. She lifted her staff and a thin bolt of golden energy sparked off the edge of the roof's opening, hitting Ray's suit with what felt like a giant electric shock. He ducked down into the seats to recover.
Behind the stage, Sara watched the events that unfolded. She looked up at a nearby rope – no doubt intended to hold a curtain or prop in place – and analyzed its position, then hurriedly climbed up a few feet. She reached under her skirt and pulled out a knife she'd strapped to her leg, then cut the rope free, throwing her weight forward so she swung out over the stage. She let go and landed safely behind Tabitha. She reached for the gun and succeeded in grabbing it, but Tabitha put up a fight. The two of them traded punches and kicks until Tabitha raised her staff to summon another bolt of temporal energy from the rift in the roof. Sara jumped out of the way, landing only a few inches from where it hit the floor. Tabitha pushed her back even farther with a shot of dark energy from her own staff. Sara slid behind the first row of seats to dodge it. Tabitha lifted her staff again to send another attack from the rift.
To the witch's shock, the top of the staff was suddenly covered in a thick layer of ice. Tabitha stopped in her tracks and turned around to face the stage. Leonard Snart stood at the edge of the stage, his cold gun still glowing blue from the shot.
"Ah," Tabitha commented, studying her new attacker. "The new one."
"Not as new as you think," Leonard replied, glaring at her menacingly.
Sara lifted her head over the top of the seats, making eye contact with Leonard for barely a second, then ducked down again. That was all she had to do to send him her message: keep Tabitha distracted. She silently crawled behind the seats, making her way slowly toward the aisle.
Tabitha held her staff in front of her and whispered some magic words, instantly thawing it. She took a step toward Leonard, who remained in position with his gun pointed at her. "I have no quarrel with you, deary," she said. "I'm only after my revenge. You didn't kill Neron or send me to Hell. I'll give you one chance to get yourself out of this mess you've managed to mix yourself up in."
"And if I don't take it?" he asked, adjusting his aim to stay centered on her.
"Then you've made your choice," she replied coldly. "You've chosen the Legends and death."
Leonard smirked. "Been there, done that."
Tabitha raised her eyebrows in surprise. Sara crept out of the seats and nodded at Leonard. He blasted a long, blue stream of cold through the air, sweeping side to side. Tabitha ducked to the ground to avoid being hit, exactly as Sara had hoped. She took advantage of the distraction and ran in, grabbing the temporal energy gun and pulling it away from her.
Leonard stopped shooting to allow Sara to run a few feet away from Tabitha. A miniaturized Ray flew through the air and landed on her shoulder. "The rift," his small voice explained into her ear. "It's the roof. It's hidden by the sunlight. Shoot up and you'll hit it."
Sara prepared to shoot, but Tabitha sent another bolt down from the rift, knocking both Ray and Sara to the ground. The force of the blast sent the temporal energy gun flying across the room. Sara jumped back to her feet immediately. Ray expanded to his full size and followed her to charge toward where the gun had landed. Tabitha did the same and arrived first. Before she could grab it, Sara and Ray reached her. They each grabbed one of her arms, pulling her back as she struggled against them.
In the midst of their fight, Leonard rushed down from the stage, ran in front of them, and picked up the gun in his left hand while his right still clutched the cold gun. He took a few steps back, then looked to Sara for instruction.
She let go of Tabitha's arm and said, "Leonard, it's the roof. The rift is in the roof."
Tabitha swung her staff around and knocked Ray sideways into Sara, causing them both to tumble to the floor. She sent a series of dark blasts directly at Leonard, interspersed with rapid fire slivers of temporal energy raining down from the rift itself. He tried to stand still long enough to take his shot but couldn't do so while dodging her attacks. Quickly, he slid Ray's invention into the holster under his cloak, keeping the cold gun accessible in his hands, and bolted back up to the stage. Turning around for a moment, he shouted at Tabitha, "You want it so bad? Come and get it!" Then, he disappeared behind the curtains.
Tabitha vanished in a puff of smoke. With a crash, the front door of the theater suddenly burst open. Sara and Ray spun around, expecting to see Tabitha making a surprise return to the scene from another angle. Instead, they saw Mick charge through the door, followed closely by Nora, Charlie, Nate, Zari, and John Constantine. They tumbled in as one large mass until they reached Sara and Ray.
"Whew!" Nate exclaimed, catching his breath. "I was worried we were too late."
"Too late for what?" Ray asked.
"Tabitha," he panted. "She's alive. She's the anachronism and she's coming here."
"Oh," Ray replied. "Yeah, we already knew that. We're kind of the middle of a fight with her, actually."
"What?" Nate said, eyes wide with surprise.
Sara clapped her hands to get everyone's attention. "Hey! Legends!" The group turned to her. She pointed at the stage. "Snart's back there and he needs our help! Hurry!" She took off running, climbed up onto the stage, and ran behind the curtains. Mick clenched his fist around his weapon and followed her without a moment's thought. The other Legends exchanged concerned glances, then did the same.
Backstage, Leonard climbed up to the third floor, trying to find the most unexpected location possible. Tabitha reappeared facing him. He pointed the cold gun at her, activating it in preparation to shoot. She returned the gesture by pointing her staff at him. "I gave you a warning," she reminded him.
"Your mistake," he replied. He fired a blast of blue cold at her. To his surprise, she spun her staff in a circle and said a brief incantation, which redirected his shot away from her and into the floorboards, turning a plank icy and brittle. Leonard stepped back to avoid falling through, but now found himself backed into a corner. He shut his eyes for a moment, reminding himself, Sara. She hurt Sara. He opened his eyes and glared at her with intense determination, aiming his cold gun at her once again.
Tabitha smirked amusedly. "You really don't know when to give up, do you, deary?"
"Guess not."
"Well," she replied, "if you're so committed to defending the Legends, I'll deal with you the same way I plan to deal with them." She raised her staff high and pointed a finger at Leonard, reciting a long string of magic words that meant nothing to him. The staff glowed bright and generated sparks of light similar in appearance to the energy of the rift. A thick stream of golden-white light shot out from the top of her staff, down to her hand, and outward in the direction of her finger, landing directly in the center of Leonard's chest.
He expected to see a vision from his past like Sara had. In fact, ever since finding out what she'd seen, he'd been mentally preparing himself for the images he thought might come. He mostly expected to see an illusion of his father, although he knew there were a few other options from his life to choose from. True, he wasn't holding onto Tabitha's staff as Sara had been, but it seemed likely to him that she'd try the same trick in some way or another.
Instead, he was hit with a hot, burning sensation, like a less intense version of what he'd felt at the Oculus. Partly from pain and partly from surprise, he fell back against the wall. The energy of whatever she was doing surged through him. He gritted his teeth and braced himself against the wall, waiting for it to be over.
Tabitha felt a strange jolt as she directed her power at him. A force pushed back against her, as if the same stream of energy was flowing in both directions. She let go in surprise.
"Well, that was…unexpected," she said, stepping back slightly. "A force like that should have killed you."
"Yeah, well," he rasped, still reeling, "I'm pretty hard to kill."
"Or, at the very least," she continued, not acknowledging his comment, "knocked you unconscious very quickly. Either way, absolutely nothing should have returned back to me…" she trailed off, trying to piece together what had happened.
Leonard leaned against the wall for support, still wincing in pain. Sara. She hurt Sara. Fight back for Sara. He reached subtly for his cold gun again, hoping she was too distracted to notice. She almost was, but she caught him just before he could fire. She held out her hand and pinned his arm to the wall with an invisible force. "I think I know what happened here," she declared, seeming a lot more pleased than Leonard wanted her to be. He felt the same force pin the rest of his body against the wall, trapping him. "I really ought to thank you, deary. You've just made my job much more interesting."
Tabitha kept her hand held out to maintain the magical force holding him in place. With her other hand, she raised her staff in the air. She began to recite a long incantation. Sparks and slivers of light started to sputter all around Leonard. He felt something much stronger this time. Something powerful and, though he hated to admit it even to himself, frightening. It felt like she was trying to tear something out from deep inside him. This was much closer to how the Oculus had felt. He didn't know what was going on. He only knew that he couldn't move and was growing weaker by the second. He shut his eyes and tried not to scream…
A stream of fire shot through the room as Mick reached the third floor. Tabitha ceased her incantation and dove for cover. Without her magic pinning him up, Leonard collapsed. Mick ran after the witch with an angry grimace, chasing her as far from Leonard as possible. Sara came at her from the other side, attacking with her batons until she spotted Leonard falling to the ground. She landed one last strike against Tabitha before rushing to the other side of the room, sliding into place to catch him in her arms just before he could hit the floor.
"Leonard!" she exclaimed frantically as she looked over his face. "Leonard, are you okay?" His eyes were closed and, while he didn't look outwardly injured, he wasn't responding to her. "Please," she said softly. "Please be okay. It's too soon. Please be okay."
On the other side, Zari quickly arrived, taking Sara's place. Tabitha held her own against the attacks from Mick's flames on one side and Zari's wind on the other, but it was enough to keep her too busy to get away. John reached the top of the stairs next and joined the fight. He spread his hands, beginning to create a portal to trap Tabitha. The witch acted first and sent a massive blast of dark energy in all directions, knocking all three of her attackers away. She smirked and stepped toward John first.
"Oh, deary," she said, waving her staff threateningly, "you have no idea how long I've wanted to do this."
"I think I can guess," John muttered, returning to his feet. "Give it your best shot, you old bat!"
Tabitha prepared to strike, but Nora reached the third floor first and sent a shot of purple light between her and John. She ran in between them as it cleared and stared Tabitha down. "Not on my watch," she declared.
Charlie and Nate then ascended the stairs and sprinted together to Sara's side. Sara removed her focus from Leonard just long enough to pull the temporal energy gun out of his holster and toss it to Charlie. "Shoot at the sky," she ordered. "The rift is in the roof. She'll be weaker without it." She turned to Nate. "Go with her just in case something goes wrong. Make sure nothing stops the rift from being shut down." The two of them nodded and bolted down the stairs.
Tabitha glanced at the staircase and saw them take off with the gun. She moved slightly to the side as if to chase them, but Ray's full-sized shape suddenly expanded to fill the exit, blocking her from leaving. "Not so fast," Ray said cheerily before adding with a smile at Nora, "You've got this, babe!"
Before Tabitha could disappear, Nora grabbed onto her staff with both hands, still staring her down fiercely.
"Careful, love," John warned as he watched. "Don't let her do you like last time."
"She won't," Nora told him. She started reciting a long spell, speaking each word progressively louder. Tabitha placed her own hands on the staff, beginning a counter spell.
Downstairs, Charlie and Nate reached the ground and looked up at the open roof. "So…just shoot straight up?" Nate suggested. "Seems a little too easy."
"Eh," Charlie said with a shrug. "I'm not complaining." She aimed the weapon and fired.
The golden glowing shot went straight through the roof. As it hit the air over the theater, it suddenly shattered into millions of tiny sparks. A wild gust of wind swept through the building in all directions as the rift vanished.
Unaware of what was happening downstairs, Tabitha pressed her hands over Nora's, trying to summon another vision. She gasped in shock as Nora continued to recite her spell with no sign of distraction or hesitation. Suddenly, Tabitha became aware of her power fading and let go of the staff in a panic. She shouted a very fast incantation and vanished, just half a second before the staff splintered into pieces in Nora's hands.
Nora threw the pieces on the ground and looked all around the room. "No!" she exclaimed in frustration. "She got away."
"By the looks of it," John agreed, "she used up the last of her power to escape before you finished with her."
"Hey," Ray pointed out, walking closer, "look on the bright side: we won!"
"Yeah," Zari said. "The rift is shut down, Tabitha's not a threat anymore, and nobody died."
"Snart!" Mick exclaimed as he noticed Sara still sitting with Leonard. He bolted toward them and knelt down beside his partner. "What happened?" he demanded.
"I don't know," Sara said, still focused completely on Leonard's face. "Tabitha must have done something to him." She leaned a little closer toward him as the rest of the team gradually assembled around them. "Leonard," she said, her voice quivering, "it's Sara. Can you hear me? Please say something."
The team waited in tense silence for a moment. Then, to their relief, Leonard's eyes opened slightly, and he let out a low groan. "Ugh, please don't tell me I got taken out by someone's grandma."
Mick grinned joyfully. "Snart!" He patted him on the shoulder. "What'd you do that for, huh? You trying to scare me?"
"Hardly," Leonard muttered, forcing himself to sit up. He opened his eyes all the way and the room came into focus. He was also aware of someone's arms around him. It didn't take long for him to realize they were Sara's. He turned his head slightly to look at her and started to smile, but it turned into a wince as he remembered how much pain he was in. He sucked in his breath and tilted his head back, resting it against the wall behind him. "Did she get away?" he asked.
Nora crossed her arms and frowned. "She did. She might not have if I'd said that spell faster. It's my fault."
"No, Nora," Sara assured her. "Without your help, she'd still be wreaking havoc. Give yourself some credit." She turned her gaze back to Leonard and asked, "What did she do to you?"
"Not sure," he replied. "Nothing nice, though. I can promise you that." He shifted his posture and groaned as he felt his body ache. Sara laid her hand on his chest to steady him against the wall. He took a deep breath in, then let it out. The pain was starting to fade. As it did, his snarky attitude began to return. He looked around at the eyes staring at him, Mick, and Sara. "Well, what are you looking at?" he drawled. "Shouldn't you guys be erasing Shakespeare's memory or something?"
"Wait," Zari said, holding up her hand. "Hold it. Did you guys meet Shakespeare?"
"He's hiding somewhere in the theater," Ray explained. "We told Mona to guard him just in case."
"Wow," Zari said. "Nate is for sure going to insist on meeting him before we wipe his memory."
"Legends," Sara ordered, her confident captain's tone returning, "we need to do a full sweep of the theater. Make sure nothing got left behind or altered that could affect the show."
Mick rolled his eyes. "Why? We already stopped the witch. Nothing's going to happen to Ma-"
Ray pounced on him and covered his mouth. "The Scottish Play!" he quickly corrected him. He looked up at the ceiling as if speaking to an invisible force above them. "He meant The Scottish Play."
Mick growled from behind Ray's hand. When he finally let go, he muttered, "Next time you pull that move, Haircut, I'll bite you."
Zari raised an eyebrow. "Didn't we just defeat the source of the curse?"
"Better safe than sorry, love," John replied. "I've heard too many stories about this play going awry to assume banishing Tabitha is enough to remove the risk for all eternity."
Sara held up her hand, regaining control of the conversation. "I'll help Mona deal with Shakespeare. Ray and Mick, you two help Snart back to the Waverider. Gideon will know how to take care of him." She turned her head to make eye contact with Snart again. "I mean, is that okay with you?" she asked. "If you're not ready to move yet…"
He tried to smile at her again. This time, he succeeded. "Don't worry about me, Canary," he assured her. "I'll be all right."
"Good," she said. She stood up, then helped Leonard to his feet while Mick helped him on the other side. Once he was steady, Ray switched places with her. As he and Mick helped Leonard to the ship – not without a few snarky remarks directed at Ray – the rest of the team dispersed to sweep the theater. Sara remained in place, a serious, thoughtful expression on her face.
Nora approached her cautiously. "Captain?" she said. "Is everything okay? You seem a little…worried."
"Snart got hurt and the person responsible got away," Sara replied. "Of course I'm worried." She hesitated, then looked directly at Nora. "Also, your boyfriend talked to Ava. She thinks the rifts were caused by time criminals and is sending agents to hunt them down."
"Oh." Nora nodded understandingly. "And, uh, what are you going to do about that?"
Sara thought for a minute. Her eyes rested on the discarded costume crown laying on the floor against the wall and recalled Leonard's earlier words. She glanced in the direction Leonard, Mick, and Ray had gone, then answered, "I'm going to do what's best for the team."
