Cisco

November 25th, 2018

Cisco was used to weird and unexpected things happening but he honestly thought Iris was a goner when the haunter entered the room. Even Barry seemed to freeze. None of them could fight an invisible foe. Except Caitlin he supposed. She was the only one who could do anything. At least that's what he thought. But he saw Caitlin struggle with her wand and he was terrified for a moment. But suddenly, there was a flash of light and there was a woman standing between Iris and the dog. She had short red hair and was wearing what looked like a simple grey page uniform. She also held a slim wand out in front of her. "Conouscisnu!" she yelled. That's when the haunter collapsed. The woman put her wand down and glanced back to Iris. "You okay?" Iris nodded slightly. Cisco heard something small hit the ground and he turned to see Caitlin's wand rolling across the floor while the woman in question backed up, fear in her eyes. That was enough for Cisco to be apprehensive if the stranger and he slowly backed into a battle stance.

"Who are you?" he asked. The woman shifted her line of vision towards Cisco.

"No enemy of yours," she told him. Then her eyes shifted to Caitlin who was looking anywhere except for in the direction of the stranger. A moment later, the woman bent down and picked Caitlin's wand up from where it rested. She looked at it confused for a moment before returning her gaze to the the very confused team.

"You're not going to try and kill us too are you?" Ralph asked. The woman let out a slight chuckle.

"Not quite," she said, the mirth clear in her voice. She suddenly she seemed more approachable but no less intimidating. Then she turned her gaze to her fellow spellcaster. "I think this belongs to you." She held the wand out to Caitlin who eyed it and then her with a guarded expression. "I'm not going to arrest you if that's what you're thinking."

"Arrest her?" Iris asked, finally finding her voice again.

"Right, sorry, I guess I really didn't introduce myself," the woman said. "I'm Austin Witika, level ten master caster and member of the royal guard to the family of Liam."

"So, magical cop, got it," Cisco said.

"What do you mean you're not going to arrest me?" Caitlin asked, stepping forward to gingerly grab her wand.

"I am loyal to my king but that doesn't mean I agree with all of his rules," Austin responded. "You only used magic in self defense and I truest believe your friends can be trusted. I have no reason to believe you to be a threat. But you're lucky, anyone else wouldn't have let you off."

"So what? You just happened to be the only guard to sense her using magic or something?" Ralph asked.

"Sort of," was the response. "I've been on monitor duty since this whole thing started." The room was filled with mostly blank faces.

"Monitor duty is when a guard watches over the equipment capable of sensing magical fingerprints and misuse long distances," Caitlin piped in. "They usually use it to watch the mortal world though it isn't absolute. In the Realm it really only gives a general area for super powerful magic because magic is basically everywhere there. Here there is hardly any."

"Yeah, once I realized that magic was being used here I cast a vision spell to see what was going on," Austin explained.

"And you waited until now to jump in?" Barry asked, his eyes boring into her.

"You guys seemed to have it handled, I figured it was better to stay at my post and not raise suspicion. Plus, I was trying to see if I could find anything about the people Cassandra works with from the monitor station but no luck yet."

"Well, thank you Austin," Caitlin said. "I don't know what would have happened had you not been here."

"Shouldn't you get back to your post?" Barry asked.

"I have a few minutes at least," she responded. "Odds are no one will stop by, I've been doing this guard thing for a while, people trust me to work it alone."

"They clearly shouldn't," Cisco said.

"Yeah, well, they can trust me to act in their best interest, which I am," Austin snarked. "However, I am going to be off monitor duty starting tomorrow, my rotation landed me as a scout. I have a plan to hide Caitlin's magic from the system and my own won't register because I'm a guard but if any of those rebel casters show up and cast spells we might have some trouble."

"Wouldn't that be a good thing?" Iris asked. "Them showing up I mean. They aren't supposed to interfere with our world so wouldn't they get in trouble for it?"

"It's a gray area," Austin replied. "Plus, they would probably realize who Caitlin is and she would get caught in the crosshairs. Her family isn't super popular in the castle guard community. It could work out, but I'm not taking any chances."

"You keep talking like you're working with us," Barry said. "You're not."

"Yes, I am," Austin said. "You guys need me. Caitlin, you are doing great with the powers and knowledge that you have but I have powers, knowledge and connections that you don't. Since I'm going to be on scout duty for a while, I can just slip away, we only have to report if we discover something needing the attention of the guards. By helping you guys I'm basically doing my job. You know, by doing the exact opposite of it and teaming up with mortals to protect mortals but some spellcaster's are technically the enemies here so...I'm counting it."

"You talk a lot," Ralph told her.

"So I've been told," Austin laughed. "Anyway, I have to head back, I'm going to whip up a charm for Caitlin to block her from the grid view. I'll be back tomorrow. Try not to get yourselves killed. And with that Austin was gone..

"Well, that was interesting," Cisco said.

"Are we sure we can trust her?" Ralph asked.

"We can" Barry said quickly. When Cisco age him a weird look he continued. "I mean, she saved Iris's life, I don't think she would do that if her goal was to cause us harm."

"You mean like Wells and Zoloman?" Cisco responded.

"Look, we have been burned before but Caitlin knows the most about this so if she trust's Austin then I'm all in," Iris said. The whole team turned to face the loan caster.

"I think we can trust her," Caitlin said. "She was in the proper uniform, she carried herself the same way as every castle guard I've ever known, she was clearly powerful and she definitely knew what she was talking about. I believe she's a castle guard at least. She is who she says she is. I do think that we can trust her but I'm sure the king thinks that also."

"She's just doing what she thinks is best," Barry said. "I'm sure all of us can relate to that, we work to protect the city but we follow our own rules to some extent. Captain Singh can trust me even if I don't tell him everything. Or anything."

"I say we give her a shot, Barry and I didn't exactly get along before and you knew what I did but you gave me one," Ralph said. "Plus, she's right, we need her."

"So we doing this?" Iris asked, looking at Cisco. He thought it over.

"Yeah, okay, we should give her a shot," Cisco said.

"Agreed," Caitlin chimed in.

"But now onto other business," Iris told them. "I'm sure those casters who are after us will soon realize, if they haven't already, that we took their creatures down. We need to figure out their next move."

"They will probably take some time to plan this next one out," Caitlin said. "Their blitz attacks haven't been working, if they are smart they will probably figure out what will work," Caitlin said. "I just hope they don't realize we have a castle guard helping us. We want the to underestimate us while we figure out what we're working with."

"They will probably come after us themselves next like Cassandra did," Ralph deduced.

"It's likely but probably not yet, I don't think they'd risk sending out a large group together and given what we've proven to be capable of, they aren't just going to send one or two," Caitlin added.

"So we need to use the time that we have to figure out who exactly these people are, we can talk to Austin tomorrow to see if she knows anything that she didn't share," Iris told them. The team nodded. "For now though, it's been a long day. We fought gerblies, trapped Cassandra, learned that magic doesn't affect me, fought a whole bunch of other creatures, I think we've earned a good night's rest. We can fill my dad and Cecile in tomorrow." After that, friends exchanged goodnight's and parted ways. Barry and Iris walked out of the room hand in hand while Caitlin looked to Cisco.

"You breached me here, I don't exactly have a car," she said.

"Say no more," Cisco responded, putting his hand up. Then he opened her a breach and watched her step through. Then he proceeded to do the same for himself. He landed in his apartment a second later and collapsed on his bed. He'd had enough magic for the day. He had no idea how he would deal with Austin tomorrow, he had decided to give her the benefit of the doubt but he didn't have absolute trust. The next few days would be interesting. And they certainly were.