Caitlin
January 10th, 2019
Austin had said it would be a week max before the team had to head back to the realm. She was right. Five days after the initial confrontation Caitlin found herself being pulled through a breach that appeared in her bedroom. A moment later she was face planting into Austin's house.
"What the?" she exclaimed. She pushed herself up to see Cisco, Austin and Iris all standing over her.
"Sorry about the kidnapping, desperate times and all," Austin said, offering her hand. "We left Ralph and Barry back home again because we have to work fast and I don't have the time for them to get their bearings."
"Any reason I'm the last to know?" Caitlin asks as Austin pulled her to her feet.
"I wanted to see if these two could make Cisco's powers work again," Austin responded, nodding towards Cisco and Iris.
"Clearly a success," Caitlin grumbled.
"You know, we still don't know why we're here," Iris said.
"Oh right," Austin said. "Uh, there have been big power drains in the area, magical and otherwise."
"So what? They're trying to power their magical death machine?" Cisco asked.
"Or something of the ike," Austin shrugged.
"Do we have any idea where they are hiding?" Iris asked.
"Yeah, I have any idea, the power drains have been systematic, I think they are collecting the power in some sort of generator so that once it actually goes off we won't be able to trace them." Cisco's face scrunched up.
"Don't think too hard about it Cisco, it's a different world," Caitlin said.
"Wait, if they are masking it then how do we know where they are?" Iris asked.
"Well, they are alternating between different neighborhoods, random times and random neighborhoods," Austin said. "They've hit almost all of them but a few have been hit twice. That means I think that they are starting over in their list. They have hit exactly one zero times."
"They're trying to avoid their hideout," Caitlin said.
"Exactly," Austin said.
"So what are we waiting for?" Cisco asked.
"A way to infiltrate, I can't exactly lead in the whole force of the castle guards in there," Austin explained.
"Why not? You have evidence that something is up, you don't have to bring us into the conversation," Iris said.
"I'd get a few people at most and we still don't even know the plan, without that I don't really have a leg to stand on," she responded.
"Well, you can't go in and it seems like they are at least aware that I exist," Caitlin said. "We don't know how much they actually know about us but I don't think this is going to be as easy as joining up."
"Yeah, even if they didn't know about any of us I doubt they'd let us in on the top secret mission in time for us to do anything about it," Cisco said. "We are sketchy af."
"Which is why I was thinking more of the breaking and entering kind of infiltration," Austin said. "We just scope out the area and try to figure out where specifically they are hiding. Once we have enough evidence we can either put a stop to it then, if attack is imminent, or I can bring it to the king without dragging you into this."
"So what? We pretend to be door to door salesmen?" Cisco asked.
"Door to door what now?" Austin asked.
"Not important," Caitlin said. "I do think you're onto something, we can each take a section and split up. Cisco, you and Iris should stick together so that his powers will work."
"Yeah, and I have the comms," Austin said, passing the earpieces out. Caitlin stuck hers in her ear and the team moved out. Caitlin took the southwest buildings, Cisco and Iris took southeast and Austin took the rest since she knew the area the best. Caitlin wasn't quite sure what she was looking for. Flickering lights, dips in magic, surges in magic, something. She had on an outfit of Austin's that helped her to blend in and hide her face. She had taken another one of Austin's potions but just to be on the safe side.
She basically wandered around the streets aimlessly, she figured the meeting place would have to be big enough to hold a lot of people but it wouldn't be in a super populated area. Not necessarily broken down but some place where a large mass of people could work on something in secret without raising any eyebrows. She wasn't exactly in the warehouse district, it was mostly residential homes near her but there was a small market nearby, nothing big enough though. She was about to go check some of the bigger houses when her earpiece started screeching feedback.
"Hel- Cai- Aus- Grab them!" came the voices on comms.
"Guys!" Caitlin exclaimed, ducking behind a building.
"Where are you?" Austin asked. "Can you hear us?" No response.
"Cait, I'm going in, we're going to need backup," Austin breathed. Caitlin's heart was pounding in her chest."
"I'll go get Ralph and Barry," she answered. "I should be able to combine my powers with some of our equipment to track them."
"Good, I'll tell you if I find them but we're low on time. Hurry!"
Caitlin quickly grabbed her wand and after a moment she was in STAR labs with a very bewildered Team Flash.
"Isn't that usually Austin's entrance?" Ralph joked.
"They have Iris and Cisco," Caitlin exclaimed. The smile dropped from Ralph's face and the color drained from Barry's. "We have to go. Now!" She grabbed a laptop from the counter and held out her wand quickly grabbed her wrist.. Barry looked her in the eye for a moment, almost hesitant, but his worry for Iris seemed to overtake his nerves and he placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Keep the city safe," Barry said to Joe, the only team member left. "Get someone in here, call the Legends, Jessie. Someone." Before he could even respond, Caitlin had landed them back in the Spellcaster Realm, she took off running. Barry and Ralph followed after. She heard a frustrated grunt.
"Speed is out," he explained.
"Didn't think it would work," she called back. "Hope you can fight." She, unfortunately, looked back while yelling this and literally ran into Austin who had been running towards them. The two girls collapsed but quickly dusted themselves off.
"Sorry, I was heading back to where we started to work backwards," Ausin said. Caitlin had been too. "You get the stuff?" Caitlin held up the laptop, sat down on a nearby bench, or the spellcaster equivalent of one, and opened it up. She pulled up the program to track the earpieces but there was obviously no wifi. She tried a spell. Nothing. Luckily, Austin's worked and soon there were two blips on the screen about three blocks over and two down.
"That's the old Trixie dual building," Austin said. "They were remodeling it to be fit for a potions invention class."
"Well, clearly someone didn't like that idea," Ralph said, he was fairly focused on the goal for someone in an entirely new dimension. Barry, on the other hand, was almost too focused, like the Realm didn't phase him at all. Ralph was glancing around confused but Barry was just staring with a fire in his eyes. Probably the difference between missing your friends and missing your wife. Unfortunately, this meant that Barry was a little too gunhoe and began running without them.
"Wait! You don't know where you are going!" Caitlin called jumping after him.
"He saw the map, he knows," Austin said, passing her. Ralph was trailing behind them. When they arrived at the building it looked deserted. Not run down or anything, it was clearly being redone, but you couldn't really feel anything, even magic.
"I think they cast a black hole spell," Austin whispered.
"A what?" Ralph asked.
"A spell that basically dampens the energy in the area, it's still there but it's physical reaction is sucked away," Caitlin explained.
"Which is why it feels so weird, everything is basically muffled,:" Austin said. There was alight in the upper window of the building.
"You guys saw that too right?" Ralph asked. Then Caitlin felt it. A pulse of magic.
"Uh oh," she heard Austin say.
"What the hell was that?" Ralph asked.
"Someone using a lot of energy and aiot of magic," Austin said, striding forwards.
"We can't just run in there!" Ralph exclaimed but followed behind the others who didn't share the sentiment.
"We don't have a choice," Austin siad. "The time for planning is done. This is happening now."
"We don't even know what THIS is!" Caitlin exclaimed.
"Maybe not but we know it's bad," Austin said. She walked up to the door. Instead of using some fancy magic to work around whatever protection spells they had, she went with the very mortal option of kicking in the door. They clearly weren't expecting that acting because the doors banged open. The team arched in, spellcasters had wands raised. The lights flickered again as spellcasters around the room raised their wands in opposition. Ralph whimpered.
"In the name of King Richard, I order you to vacate the area immediately," Austin exclaimed. No one moved. "Do it or I'll be forced to call in backup."
"And tell them what?" a woman at the back asked, standing up. "That a castle guard dragged mortals into our business. Not very loyal of you. You're not going to call anyone. Advance!" And then there was chaos.