Caitlin

January 10th, 2019

"Are you alright?" a voice asked as Caitlin began to blink awake. At some point during the battle her shield had backfired on her, there was a crack and then she went flying into a wall. She blinked her eyes open and tried to push herself up. When she saw who was speaking she fell right back down. Actually, it was more like who the person speaking was standing next to. The guard who had been checking her over was standing not a foot away from Princess Nathalie. Caitlin had seen her lead the charge into the room but was preoccupied with the battle. The shock and awe lasted only a second though as several flavors of panic began to sink in. First and foremost, what the hell just happened? Followed closely by, the Princess is going to lock me up forever. She managed to force a weak nod. This seemed to satisfy the guard and she immediately stood from her crouching position and began storming across the room. Caitlin could hear someone screaming but not in fear, in rage.

Looking around her now, Caitlin could see the machine that had been powered in the corner had been blown to bits. Iris was lying on the floor nearby it, alive but clearly worse for ware. Barry was crouched next to her and Cisco and Ralph were just kind of standing there, being small. Caitlin could see Austin talking to some of the guards while the Princess gave orders to grab the still conscious spellcasters. The screams of rage were coming from the woman who had turned the machine on in the first place.

"No! That's impossible! You'll regret this! We deserve it!" she was screaming.

"Lock her in the dungeon," the princess said simply before walking over to where Iris lay. Caitlin pushed herself up fully and ran over as well.

"And who have we here?" the Princess asked.

"No one important," Austin said, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. The princess eyed the guard.

"And I suppose I'm just supposed to believe you after you've clearly been lying for a long while," she said. "You've clearly known more than you've admitted to in the past."

"I had my reasons."

"None of them good. I'll make sure you will meet with my father for a disciplinary meeting to decide what will be done with you. For now you are relieved of your duties."

"Your majesty-"

"You and your friends need to leave, now. It would be wise to not involve yourself in this farther. It's over."

"We still don't know what they planned to do. There could be others."

"I highly doubt there will be any more strikes and if there are, we will handle it when it gets to that."

"But-"

"No. Austin. Stand down."

Caitlin watched the scene play out in front of her as Austin bowed her head. The princess turned and bumped into Caitlin, she just grunted, gave Caitlin a once over, then proceeded to leave the building.

"I'm sorry," Caitlin said quietly. Austin looked at her.

"This stuff is similar to human technology right?" she asked. Caitlin nodded. "Any chance you can, I don't know,make a copy or something?"

"I'm on it," Cisco said, having been near for the conversation as well, before slipping forward, attempting to be inconspicuous.

"I know what the princess said but I can't just drop this, I need to know," Austin admitted.

"I think you should just listen to her Austin," Barry said, standing up from Iris's side. "It's a miracle none of us are in jail or dead. Maybe let them handle this before you make things worse."

"I get it you're pissed that Iris got hurt," Austin told him. "It was only the blast from the explosion, magic didn't touch her. You know that. I saw what she did. It was her choice to run straight into the thing with a stolen wand." It was true. The scene clearly showed a wand sticking out of the machine dead center of the blast zone. Caitlin was guessing Iris had grabbed it from someone and had just run like hell. She would have been the only one able to make it through the shields.

"Let's just go, all of us," Barry growled, helping Iris up. Cisco walked up behind him and flashed Austin a thumbs up.

"I'll take you guys home," Austin sighed. "I'll gather the stuff I left and make sure everything and everyone is fine and then I'll go. Probably forever." Caitlin knew there was more for her to say but didn't push at the moment. Just held out her hand. Iris pushed herself off the floor, holding her head but looking otherwise uninjured. The team gathered around, held hands and a moment later they were back in STAR labs. Joe, Cecile, Jenna and Wally were all there.

"You're back!" Cecile exclaimed.

"How did it go?" Joe asked.

"We won," Ralph said simply.

"But my ass got canned and now I have to face the music, I just wanted to make sure everything was good here first," Austin added.

"Yeah, and someone better tell me the whole story later because I'm really confused," Wally said.

"Ralph and Barry can, I need to talk to Caitlin Cisco and Iris for a moment," Austin said, motioning for the three to follow her. Barry gave them an uncertain glance but didn't say anything as they left.

"What's going on?" Iris asked as they entered Cisco's lab.

"Are you good Iris? You kind of just ran full force through a lot of magic," Austin asked.

"I feel fine, it can't touch me remember?" Iris said.

"Just wanted to make sure," Austin said. "Cisco, do you have it?"

"If by it you mean a full scan of the machine that blew up then yes," Cisco said, holding up a device.

"Show me," she said. Cisco pulled up the scan on the screen, showing the parts.

"So, this thing was supposed to supercharge a spell but I don't think they can't one," Caitlin said.

"No, it may have been planned to spread the effects of a potion or a charm," Austin said.

"But Iris blew it up before they could right?" Cisco asked.

"I don't know, I felt an energy but I can't say whether it was from the explosion or magic," Austin said. "I don't have much practice with magical essences."

"Yeah, but your essence is naturally calm, wouldn't you be able to detect the difference?" Caitlin asked. "I was kind of unconscious so I didn't really pay much attention."

"What makes you think my essence is calming?" Austin asked. "People say my magic feels like a firecracker." Caitlin looked confused, her hand reached to touch her necklace.

"Yeah but the necklace you gave me has a calming effect," Caitlin said. "I guess it doesn't really matter though."

"What necklace?" Austin asked. Caitlin got a confused look on her face, pulling the chain of her necklace up. Austin looked confused for a moment before briefly melting into something else.

"Right, that, the calming effect was on purpose," Austin said, eyes fluttering away. "But yeah, it doesn't matter. We just need to find out what the plan was in case it did work or they try again."

"What's that blue thing on the scan?" Iris asked. Heads turned. There was a major green power source on the machine but barely visible underneath it was a blue light.

"Is that glass in there?" Cisco asked.

"Did they have a container or something in there?" Iris asked.

"That looks familiar," Caitlin said. "Austin, didn't you say the magic vault was breached? Hat looks an awful lot like magical essence."

"Yeah, I did," Austin said thoughtfully.

"So what were they trying to do?" Cisco asked.

"Oh my Moon goddess!" Austin exclaimed. 'They were trying to build an army!"

"Come again," Caitlin said.

"You see how the green power source has dark patches?" she asked. "That's because whatever concoction was in there was probably dak magic."

"Well, that doesn't sound good," Cisco said.

"No, dark magic is powerful and can do almost anything but at the price of corrupting the user," Austin said.

"So they were mixing the stole family magics with dark magic and trying to transmit it out to them?" Iris asked.

"Which would corrupt them and turn every spellcaster towards their cause," Cisco added.

"Well, obviously that didn't work," Caitlin said.

"Yeah, I guess Iris did blow it up on time," Austin said.

"It's odd though, you'd expect there to be more left over essence in the machine, and there's no way they could possibly have gotten samples of every families magic before the guards found them," Caitlin said.

"They could have just gotten as many as they could," Iris said. "Or maybe they got the ones that included the most people. They could also have been planning multiple runs and this was just the start."

"They seemed pretty convinced that this one spell would doom us though," Cisco said. Through all of this, Austin stayed silent.

"I mean, I guess they could have cherry picked the people they influenced but then we know it didn't work because the royal family would have been the first pick and the princess was fine," Caitlin said.

"Unless she wasn't," Austin said quietly. Heads turned towards her.

"What?" Cisco asked. Austin turned, a look of horror on her face.

"Run," she said, then drew her wand and darted down the hall. The team instantly followed her, confused.

"Austin? What's going on?" Iris asked, as Caitlin drew her wand as well, ready for whatever Austin was worried about. Austin continued to dart down the hall, putting on a new burst of speed as she neared the cortex. As the came towards the doors she began to call a spell.

"Epanmd!" she called. Then, like a snap, as soon as the words left her mouth, perhaps even a millisecond before she finished speaking, a blast came from the room. The next thing Caitlin knew, her wand was flying from her hand and she was hitting a wall. Then nothing.