Caitlin
October 14th, 2018
Caitlin shoved her shirt onto her face as soon as the smoke hit her but it didn't stop her from coughing. "Get down! Smoke rises!" Cisco wheezed.
"Not this smoke," Ralph coughed. He was right, the smoke hung around the room like a black fog.
"How is that even possible?" came a muffled reply from Iris.
"We have to get out of here," Barry called hoarsely. Caitlin squeezed her eyes shut, the smoke was starting to burn her eyes. She couldn't do a spell with everyone in the room so her only option was to try to stumble towards the door. She felt someone bump into her and the following grunt revealed it to be Cisco. She heard Iris coughing somewhere in front of her and then a thump and a yelp from Ralph. When she finally stumbled into the hallway it took her a minute to adjust to the light. Her eyes and throat stung. Luckily the smoke didn't seem to be entering the hallway. The rest of the team stumbled out in quick succession, Barry came last, pulling Ralph with him.
"I fell over the railing," Ralph said, his powers apparently allowing him to recover rather quickly as he shows no sign of coughing. Joe cleared his throat a few times and Cisco gagged. All of them were somehow covered in soot.
"What-" Iris breathed, "the hell- was that?"
"I have no idea," Cisco said.
"Aren't you the one that brought it here?" Joe asked.
"Yeah but I didn't exactly welcome the black cloud of doom!" he exclaimed.
"Okay, well whatever it was basically condemned our speed lab, we need to clear this smoke out of here," Iris told the team, finally able to breath. "Barry, can you make a speed vortex to funnel it out?"
"We would need somewhere to put it first, we can't just funnel it into the halls," Barry told her.
"Plus, this doesn't seem like regular smoke, we should be careful," Caitlin insisted.
"Ok, for now we just need to regroup in the cortex and try and find whatever thing it was that did this," Iris agreed.
About ten minutes later the team met back in the cortex after having taking a few minutes separately to recuperate. Iris also donned a face mask to go and get a smoke sample for Caitlin to check out later. Caitlin wasn't too keen in the idea, she had a pretty good idea of what she would find but she agrees anyway. She ran a simple analysis and revealed to the team the basic results.
"All I can figure out is that this is a very dense coal smoke," Caitlin revealed.
"That explains the smell," Cisco commented.
"Okay, why is our speed lab full of coal smoke?" Iris asked.
"We have to find that thing Cisco let out," Joe said.
"Can we stop playing the blame game please?" Cisco asked.
"Woah, guys, we need to focus here," Barry said before Joe could respond.
"Whatever that thing is it doesn't seem friendly, we have to find it fast," Iris said. "Cisco, check the cameras. Caitlin, see if there is anything else that smoke can tell us. Barry and Ralph, go check and see if anything in the speed lab has changed. Dad, see if there have been any reports of similar events to the CCPD. I'll go and check the news and blogosphere and see if there have been any sightings." Everyone nodded and went their separate ways. Caitlin returned to analyzing the black smoke even though she knew there was nothing further she could share without revealing the existence of the Spellcaster Realm. Luckily, she didn't have to pretend to research for long because Barry and Ralph came running back into the cortex. Caitlin wandered out to meet them and Iris looked up from her computer.
"The smoke is starting to fade away," Ralph said, Barry nodded in agreement.
"So it it starting to drift out of the room?" Iris asked.
"No, fading, as in disappearing before our very eyes." Ralph corrected.
"I can't explain it," Barry interjected. "It shouldn't be possible, smoke doesn't just disappear like that. It also shouldn't just hang in the air like it was earlier. I have never seen anything like this."
"It's got to be a meta of some sort," Iris said.
"That's what I was thinking," Barry agreed.
"What kind of meta would do this?" Caitlin asked, trying to lead them in that direction. She hoped that they would find an explanation on their own. She wasn't sure how well the explanation of what a dark phoenix is would go over. The rest of the team present in the room looked like they were deep in thought when a screech echoed through the halls. Then they heard a scream coming in their direction. Cisco flew into the room breathing heavily.
"Guys! I found it!" he called.
"I thought you were checking the cameras!" Iris exclaimed.
"I thought one of them was down, turns out it was just blacked out by the smoke," he told them. As soon as he finished talking the phoenix flew into the room. Cisco and Ralph jumped back and Iris took up a protective stance, Barry backed away slowly, cursing under his breath. For her part, Caitlin just stared at the figure. She wasn't sure what her mortal friends were thinking as they looked at it. It looked pretty much like any old big black bird only this one had smoke coming off of it in waves as it flew. It looked kind of like a giant raven in some aspects only Caitlin knew it was much more than that. Especially when you realized that the bird actually had no body. The part that appeared to be the solid shape was actually densely packed black smoke that would shift from time to time which was the only proof that the form wasn't solid.
"Okay, that's not natural," Iris said.
"What do we do?" Ralph asked quietly, as if he was afraid to spook it. Caitlin didn't blame him. The bird was deadly. At the moment the dark phoenix was just waiting in place in front of them, watching them. Then it let out another screech and started flying around the room.
"I think it's going to drop another smoke bomb!" Cisco called.
"We can't let it escape!" Barry responded as everyone scrambled around the room. Cisco thrust a hand forward and opened a breach right in front of the bird who swerved to avoid it and changed course straight for Cisco. Luckily, this time when he opened the breach the bird flew right in.
"Where did you send it?" Caitlin asked.
"The particle accelerator," he responded. "I don't know how long it will stay there but at least we have some time.
"I'll call my dad and tell him he won't find anything," Iris said and walked out of the room.
"So, is the demon bird going to kill us?" Ralph asked once she left.
"It's not going to kill us Ralph," Barry said confidently. "We just have to figure out how to fight it." Caitlin's wand was burning a hole in her pants. Not literally, though that has happened before.
"Where did this thing even come from?" Iris asked as she re entered the room. "What Earth has this kind of thing?"
"Maybe none of them," Cisco said. Everyone looked at him. "I haven't heard of anything like this before and I know a good bit about other Earth's now, what I don't know a lot about are pocket dimensions."
"So, you think this thing came from a pocket dimension?" Barry asked curiously.
"I think it's possible," Cisco responded.
"Hu. Never thought of that before," Barry said, looking deep in thought.
"Thought about what?" Iris asked confused.
"I mean the idea that there are other worlds in pocket dimensions." he explained. "Devoe's lair was just one type but if Cisco is right than not only are there other Earths and other universes but there are other universes and world within the main ones with things that we couldn't even imagine."
"Wait, I'm sorry, other Earth's?" Ralph asked. "As in other dimensions?" Everyone nodded.
"Is this news to you? You've met people from other Earths before like Harry and Gypsy," Caitlin asked. "And you knew about pocket dimensions already."
"Yeah, I guess I didn't think about it all that much," he responded.
"Wait a second, if we are right and this thing came from a pocket dimension then that means that Cisco successfully opened a breach to one," Iris said.
"Yeah, but I was trying to open a breach to a blank one that I had control over," he said confused. "How did I manage to open a breach to the specific one that the demon bird came from?"
"I have no idea," Barry said.
"Me either," Caitlin added. She was telling the truth this time. Until right now she hadn't even realized that the Spellcaster Realm was in a pocket dimension, she assumed it was in some magical bubble somewhere but the fact that science could explain its existence was mind boggling.
"I had to have had something that drew me to open a breach to the particular location," Cisco said.
"Well, maybe not, Barry accidentally ran to Kara's world for the first time accidentally and that was pretty random," Iris said. "Plus, the original connection to Earth two wasn't exactly planned."
"Even still," Cisco said. "It's odd."
"What's odd?" Joe asked, appearing in the doorway.
"We think this thing came from the pocket dimension that Cisco breached to," Iris told her dad.
"Can you send it back there?" he asked.
"We can try," Caitlin added.
"I don't know, opening it was an accident in the first place," Cisco told them. "Even if I could manage to open a portal to a pocket dimension again there is no guarantee that it is the same one, or if it is, something worse could come out."
"Well, it's either send it back or figure out how to kill a bird made out of smoke," Iris said.
"Well, we could try and electrocute it," Caitlin said. "I know this smoke doesn't seem to be acting like anything normal but electricity would normally help to remove some of the hazards from smoke."
"How can we electrocute it if it doesn't really have a shape," Cisco asked.
"Well, if Barry moves fast enough we could hit it while it is still in bird form so that it would be solid enough to be effected," she replied. "I don't know if it would kill it even then but it might weaken it."
"I think it's worth a shot," Iris said. Barry agreed.
Caitlin hoped that it would work but she had her reservations. Mostly because she knew for a fact that electricity would not kill the bird. She knew that you could kill one temporarily but once it returned to life and reformed it would continue it's attacked with a vengeance. There are spells that transform the dark phoenix to one of fire and therefore making it a pure and gentle creature by nature but those spells were far above her skill level. Their best chance was to try and weaken and capture it so Caitlin could send it home in secret but she couldn't tell them that, they just wanted it gone here, now and before it harmed anyone. She didn't blame them, they were running on borrowed time until that thing came back and a quick plan was all they had time for.
"We have to try and hope it can," Iris said.
"So are we doing this?' Ralph asked. "Because I'm already going to have nightmares about birds, I don't need to worry about being attacked again." Then it came again, the screech. "Oh no," Ralph added.
"Here we go," Iris said.
"Everyone fan out, give Barry room," Joe said. Everyone scattered. Caitlin hid under the desk, watching. Hoping.
"Alright, let's do this," Barry said as the phoenix flew into the room, making a grand circle. Barry started to run and wind up his lightening.
"Come on, come on," Caitlin said under her breath. She had her hand on her wand just in case but hoped she wouldn't have to use it. The bird was clearly thrown off by Barry and flew up backwards upon seeing his movement. When the lightning flew at him it tried to dive away but was hit head on, it made a cry of pain and began to fall to the ground. The lightning colliding with the bird sent it flying backwards and of balance. At the same time it lit the creature on fire. It now looked halfway between a dark and regular phoenix as it was lighting up in patches. Unfortunately for the bird, it wasn't used to being on fire and it's black smoke was turning white where the fire caught causing it to sink lower to the ground. She knew that it was because dark phoenixes were built to run off of the dark coal smoke because they were often associated with dark magic and the white smoke tended to be connected to phoenixes of light magic. The good and bad in the bird were fighting with one another and zapping its power.
Realizing this, Caitlin took a chance. She dashed past the bird into the hallway as her friends called after her. She made it to the closet and threw open the door to retrieve the vacuum. She then used the vacuum tube to point in the direction of the bird, plugged it in and turned it on. Boy did she hope this worked. Barry came flying out of the room followed shortly by Iris as the bird began to squeak. It tried to fly away but parts of the bird began flying towards the vacuum. The fire began to extinguish as it did so and she worried that it would regain its strength too quickly.
"It's working!" Iris called. When the bird finally disappeared into the vacuum she didn't stop it from running, she was afraid it would escape if the forcing holding it there were removed.
"You kind of forgot to mention that part of the plan," Barry told her. The rest of the team had filed into the hallway at this point.
"I didn't mention it before because I thought that it wouldn't work with the bird at full strength but once Barry got a hit on it I knew it wouldn't let us try that twice so I just kind of hoped that it was weak enough," Caitlin explained. It was the truth too, she had no idea if it would even work. She had never tried using mortal means to defeat magical creatures. She hadn't even knows if it was possible.
"Okay, well, what are we going to do with it now?" Joe asked.
"Try to figure out how to send it home," Iris said.
"I still don't know what led me to that particular dimension," Cisco said.
"We need to figure it out quickly, before that thing figures out how to break out of there," Barry told them. Everyone agreed and Cisco and Iris went to review the security footage again to see if there was anything that could tell them who it was that dimension that Cisco connected to. Joe went back to check on Cecile and then Ralph decided that he was going to try and learn more about alternate dimensions. Barry hung back with Caitlin to watch over the bird in the vacuum.
"That was some pretty quick thinking Cait," he said, eyeing her.
"Yeah, well, I figured a smoke bird was still smoke," she said.
"I guess it's a good thing you were brave enough to try it," he said. "You were the only one who never seemed to back down once that thing arrived."
"Well, we have dealt with a lot these past few years, I guess not much phases me anymore," she responded, trying to explain away her response.
"Yeah, but this was certainly a new one," he chuckled.
"It's not every day you have to fight a dark phoenix with a vacuum cleaner?" she laughed in response. As she spoke Barry's head perked up towards her, his eyes questioning.
"Dark phoenix?" he asked. Caitlin froze. This was not good.