the flash and the black widow: truma

the present

Anastasia pov

I sat on the bed, still not being able to understand how I failed Leah and myself like that. I could have been happy, so happy, yet I failed.

"Ana?
Let's go, you have to get up at some point." Caitlin sat next to me.

"Not this point, not yet," I told her.

"Yes, now is the time, get up, and let's go." She dragged me.

◇◇◇

"Holy-- winter wonderland," Barry said as he walked in, good thing he corrected himself since Leah was there.

"Took the words right out of my mouth," Cisco said, scrolling through his phone.

"Well, I guess Earth-19's Christmas is just like ours." Iris smiled.

"Some traditions are multi-versal." HR drank from his bear Santa Cup.

"So, um... Any more info on Savitar?" Barry asked.

"Nope, all we know is that he's a speed god, and you're the only one who can see him," Caitlin answered.

"All right, well, Alchemy is Savitar's high priest and he gets his power from the stone that he uses to create meta, so I was thinking if we can find out what that thing is, maybe we can figure out how to stop him." Barry sighed.

"I want to see if I can dig something up," Cisco said.

"Okay," Barry said, and Iris walked to him

"Hey, uh, I got a dissertation here from Oxford University about the myth of an ancient Hindu weapon called the Brahmastra." Cisco started.

"Mm-hmm." Barry nodded.

"Legendary artifact with incredible powers, capable of... Wait for it..." Cisco said.

"Creating metas." Leah continued.

"Creating meta-humans," Cisco confirmed.

"Guys, that looks just like Alchemy's stone," Caitlin said.

"More importantly... Look who wrote this paper," Cisco added.

"Julian?" Barry asked.

◇◇◇

"What do you think about what Julian was saying?" Barry asked as he walked into the cortex.

"I know that every bad guy we've ever had has pretended to be our best friend while being an evil, murderous bastard, but..." Caitlin started.

"I think if he's lying, he sure believes the hell out of his own lie." Cisco continued her sentence.

"Okay, well, what do we think about this box?" Barry asked.

"It's creepy.
Like, "Indiana Jones" melt your face creepy." Cisco said.

"Have you guys figured out anything about it yet?" Barry asked, isn't he just full of questions today?

"It's nothing," I said

"Mm, it's something," Barry argued.

"No, I mean, the box is literally nothing.
We've run it through every possible test I can think of... MRI, x-ray, mass spectrometer,
the photon shifter.
Not a single reading. Nothing.
It's like the box doesn't even exist." I explained.

◇◇◇

"Are you sure you're okay?" Iris asked

"Still in one piece," Barry answered.

"I don't know what happened," Cisco confessed.

"So now that the box is closed, Savitar's, what, gone for good?" Joe asked.