I love all the support you have given me through these books. Here's another update.
3rd Person's POV
"I feel like usually I'd be like Holy Arthur C. Clarke, but it's just so...cute." Chester exclaims as he looks at a weird obelisk at a crime scene.
"Mm, don't let it fool you, it may be collectible size, but this little guy is heavy." Cisco states.
"Two tons?" Chester asks in disbelief. "Boy, that's like, 20 baby elephants, which is also kinda cute."
"I mean, what do you think this thing's made of? And how does a shed just disappear?"
"None of it makes any sense." Chester stops talking as he notices Barry arriving at the scene. He nudges Cisco and they try to keep their friend calm. "Barry, I know this all seems bad, but..."
"Chester, this city's been through hell." Barry interrupts as he opens his CSI get to begin collecting data. "It can't take another emergency. Not now, not this soon."
"We got this, Bar." Cisco assures him. "Don't worry."
"We just started rebuilding." Barry reminds everyone and he shakes his head. "I'm not gonna let anything ear us down again."
"Please tell me you boys found something we can use." Joe asks as he makes his way onto the scene.
"I think I just did." Cisco announces. "It looks like this whole crime scene is infected with serious temporal energy." Cisco furrows his brows. "Like the kind of carbon dated 43 centuries from now." Joe and Barry share a concerned look.
"As in the future?" Chester asks. "Wait, hold on, hold on. It's a thing, like a time capsule? Or maybe like a TARDIS."
"P-Runk." Cisco stops Chester's rambling. "You picked a hell of a day to start your CCPD-consultant internship. Yeah, this is definitely a time traveler." Cisco confirms for him. Chester is laughing out of glee.
"Oh, yes."
"Bar, there's something you need to see." Joe tells Barry as he leads him to the victim. "He's a guy who has a theatrical flair for killing." Joe lifts part of the body bag off the body to show playing cards embedded in the victim.
"Abra Kadabra is back." Barry states.
"Oh great. That explains all the shakin and quaking yesterday." Cisco adds.
"Ooh, time quakes too? Whoa, okay. So what's this Abra dude's deal?" Chester asks.
"Oh, you know, he's just your standard time-traveling, murdering, thieving 64th-century magician who uses embedded nanotech and calls it magic." Cisco explains the complexity that is their current villain.
"Four years ago, the Collector's Agency took him to be executed for his crimes. Somehow he escaped." Barry adds.
"Last time, he was hell-bent on stealing tech to build a time machine." Joe adds. "This time, he goes out of his way to kill an innocent person. Doesn't steal a thing. Now that's a pretty vicious escalation."
"And what's that thing back there got to do with it?" Cisco asks.
"You know, it doesn't matter. Kadabra picked the wrong day to come back." Barry argues.
"I'll put out a BOLO right away." Joe states.
"You wanna help me analyze some of this stuff?" Cisco asks Chester.
"Yeah."
"I'll search the city." Barry says and when his friends are gone he goes back to the victim. He shakes his head knowing that one of their worst villains is back to haunt them. He never forgot what Kadabra said regarding Anna, especially since he witnessed what happened to Anna in the future.
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Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, the team throwing out ideas on how to deal with Kadabra. "We could do a release date order." Cisco suggests.
"Or machete order." Chester adds.
"Prequels after Empire." The two friends laugh. "You're wild man, and I love it."
"Then the Jedi Counsel has spoken." Chester states dramatically.
"It has." Cisco chimes in.
"Getting anything on your scans over there?" Chester asks as Cisco tosses a chip in the air and it misses his mouth completely.
"No." Cisco sits up and tries to compose himself. "I think it might be time for a Jitters run."
"Well, thank God, 'cause Chester P is running on E." Something beeps getting Cisco's attention.
"Holy cappuccino. Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Cisco asks Chester. Chester comes over to see what Cisco is looking at.
"That's the same temporal scan from this morning, only now that's a second one downtown. Which means..."
"That's where Kadabra's headed next." Cisco contacts Barry and together as Flash and Vibe they race to the scene where Kadabra is leaving another one of his obelisks. Barry is able to place cuffs on Kadabra stopping him from wrecking more havoc.
"Flash, I knew it was just a matter of time." Kadabra comments.
"Bad timing for you." Flash replies.
"Yeah, those would be nanotech nullifying cuffs, so no hocus-pocus this time." Vibe informs Kadabra who is struggling to get the cuffs off. "Hey, what's up with all your new toys?" He asks.
"A magician never reveals his secrets." Kadabra replies. "I see you've finally Mecha-Vibe."
"Mecha-Vibe?" Vibe asks in confusion about the new name. "I know he did not just name me." He exclaims in disbelief to Flash.
"Oh, I know more than just your name. I've seen your future." Kadabra states.
"It's over. You've lost." Flash reminds him.
"Have I?" Kadabra fires back. "Seems like you've forgotten the art of misdirection." The nano-dampening cuffs now appear on the Flash. "Ha." Kadabra pulls out his wand. "Oh, shoot." Vibe sends a blast his way but he easily redirects it thus knocking Vibe to the ground. "You know what? I'm doing you a favor by killing you now, Flash. This way you'll never have to face the wrath of the Chronarch. Alas, you can't run forever." He goes to kill Flash but his wand is now frozen solid. He turns to find Frost.
"What's that you were saying the art of misdirection?" Vibe taunts him. Team Flash was able to easily defeat Kadabra and A.R.G.U.S. arrived to take him away. "Look at me. I'm A.R.G.U.S. I'm gonna let two young, handsome devils do all the work while I reap all the benefits, and I'm gonna pick up the obelisks. That doesn't bug you?" Cisco mocks.
"Kadabra's caught. The job's finished." Barry replies. "You really wanna argue over who gets credit?"
"YES!" Cisco exclaims as he tries to cross his arms over his chest but can't due to his blasters getting in the way. "No. I just wanna know what the plan is."
"All right. Knock yourself out. I have a lunch date with Anna and Nora."
"Nora doesn't even eat anything!" Cisco exclaims but Barry already sped away leaving him alone to deal with A.R.G.U.S.
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Anna's POV
"I thought you would be at the lab." Damian comments as he walks into the loft.
"And I thought you would be in class." I fire back.
"There's really no point." I give him a confused look. "We both know school was pointless for me. I learned nothing from it. I taught those teachers more than they did me."
"It was a chance for you to socialize with people your own age. To be normal." I argue.
"Normal is overrated."
"Would you like to be somewhere else?"
"What do you mean?"
"I know coming back from the Mirrorverse is challenging. I want you to have the best shot of life possible and if that means you living somewhere else..."
"Mother..."
"Dick offered you to come live in San Francisco."
"No."
"He's rebuilding the team and he has a spot for you."
"You want to send me away?" Damian sounds hurt.
"No, I would love nothing more than to have you here with me, but I also want what's best for you. Dick has kids your own age who have their own abilities. It would be a fresh star..."
"I'm not leaving my family!" Damian declares. "I just got back and...I'm not leaving you guys ever again." He rushes into my arms and wraps his arms around me hugging me tightly. I hug my son back understanding where he stands.
"I just wanted to give you options. I want nothing more than to have you with me." I make him look at me and I smile. "You know you're almost as tall as me." I comment.
"I'll soon tower over you." Damian smiles at me. I smooth back his hair and marvel at how much he's beginning to look just like Bruce.
"Are you hungry?"
"Always." I place a kiss on the top of his head.
"Let's get Nora and head on out." I suggest.
"Perfect."
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"How much did you miss Big Belly Burger?" I ask Damian regarding him devouring his third burger.
"So much."
"Did you miss my cooking?" I tease him and he shakes his head.
"Mother you are a lot of things but a master in the kitchen is not one of them." I laugh at his comment.
"Yeah, Barry's been trying to get us to take a couples cooking class. I just want to eat whatever Barry makes but he's convinced it will make me a better cook."
"You two should do it. I'll watch Nora." He offers.
"You just got back. You should be doing more than babysitting. You made some friends at school right?" Damian puts his burger down. "You told me about them once and..."
"I lied."
"What? Why?" I ask him in disbelief.
"I'm physically fifteen, but mentally I'm older and wiser than Rapunzel could ever dream of being." I smile hearing him make fun of Cisco. It's something I definitely missed all these months. "It's hard to make friends with kids my own age when no one can relate to me." He shares.
"I know what you mean." I empathize with him. "Your father and Dick were my only friends growing up. I didn't make any friends until I moved to Central City. Caitlin and Cisco were the first real friends I've ever made and that took until my mid-twenties to find them."
"So you're saying I have ten more years before I can have a friend."
"Well, you have friends now." I remind him and he gives me a look. "Cisco is your friend. Chester is terrified of you but you both like playing Dance Revolution." I add.
"Charles does have a lot about him that is inadequate but he does have some decent dance moves." Damian compliments Chester.
"I'm not saying you need to move in with Dick and his team but you met some of them already and they're your age."
"And they're losers." Damian fires back.
"They could relate to you more than the normal kids in Central City." I argue.
"What are you getting at?"
"We could take a trip to visit them and maybe you could connect with them and make some friends. Plenty of teens have online friendships. Plus we still have an extrapolator that will allow you to visit them anytime you want." I explain to him and his face softens.
"You're not just trying to get rid of me?"
"I just want you happy. We all need to have friends who we can bond with and experience life with. I just want to give you that chance if it's something you want."
"I'll think about it." Damian says. I reach out to hold his hand. He looks at me and I place my other on the necklace he gifted me a few years ago.
"You'll always be a part of my heart and soul. I love you so much. I could never dare think of getting rid of you. It would break me. I was broken when I realized you weren't here with me." I share and he squeezes my hand.
"I love you too mother."
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Barry's POV
I guess capturing Kadabra was too easy. I rush to A.R.G.U.S where Kadabra is busy with his obelisk again. I knock him to the ground. "Stand down." I order. "This is your last chance." I warn him.
"Flash being ruthless. I like it." He hits me with a blast from his wand and two metal bands are wrapped around me. "As much as I enjoy the stink of desperation on you, I'm afraid you're too late." I try to get out of the bands but they only get tighter. "You are trapped in a constrictive metallic halo. The more you try to escape, the tighter it gets. So please try to escape. The last time we met, you begged me to find a glimmer of light in myself. Well, I found that light, that hope. And then you stole it from me. Now I'm going to take something from you."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Let me make it crystal clear for you, Flash." Kadabra is getting more upset. "You cannot defeat a man who has lost everything." He aims his wand at the obelisk and they begin to glow.
"What are you doing?" I ask fearful of his answer.
"Creating a masterpiece." He moves the obelisk closer together until a beam comes out of them hitting a sphere. "And now for my last trick. I'm going to make your whole city disappear." Kadabra and his Obelisk disappear along with the metallic halo. I fall to the ground not sure of what to do next. I rush to S.T.A.R. Labs needing to inform the team of what's happening.
"Do we have eyes on Kadabra?" I ask them.
"Uh, yes and no." Chester answers. "He's teleporting all over the city with that obelisk ball thing. I'm scanning it."
"We're picking up readings of antimatter energy. He created an antimatter bomb." Cisco shares.
"That kind of power, it could take out another Earth," Caitlin adds.
"Or another universe."
"What the fuck is happening?!" We all turn to find Anna coming into the lab with Damian pushing Nora in her stroller.
"Was no one going to tell us that Chris Angel wannabe is back?!" Damian exclaims.
"Um, are we about to have Crisis Part Two?" Allegra asks.
"No, no. There's not enough antimatter energy for that, thank the sequel Gods, but...the core is roughly the size of a baseball." Cisco explains like it's no big deal.
"A baseball?" Caitlin asks in disbelief at the calmness of her friend's delivery.
"Barry a trace amount practically took out your leg." Anna reminds me.
"Is it enough to destroy the city?" I ask Cisco worried that my guess is correct.
"I'd say there's exactly enough."
Abra said his last trick was to make the whole city disappear. Destroying Central City must be his plan. But why now?" I ask.
"I don't know, but guys? Every time he teleports, that bomb gains kinetic energy." Chester shares. "I think he's charging it. And if I'm reading this right, this bomb's already at 47%."
"At this rate, it'll be fully charged within the hour." Cisco adds.
"Okay. What do we do?" Allegra asks.
"There's gotta be a way to disarm it, right?" I ask.
"I could use one of my Atlantean plug-ins to analyze the bomb's outer hull, determine its density, see if you can phase through its surface, and...disarm it."
"What the fuck is wrong with your face?" Damian asks Cisco.
"That's not his happy face.
"The bomb is made of the same material as the obelisks. Pure valorium." He shares with us.
"An Nth metal alloy. Not good." Chester comments. "It's impenetrable to anything but the antimatter itself."
"So I disarm it." Anna says.
"No." I shout.
"No? Barry, you heard Cisco and Chester. Antimatter is the only thing that can disarm it and my powers come from antimatter. I can disarm the bomb." She argues.
"You're not going to put yourself in danger."
"And you can?" She fires back. "What's the difference between you disarming a bomb and me?"
"It's too dangerous."
"Barry, she is the only one of us that..."
"She...this isn't safe and..." I try to get Anna to understand my point.
"Barry, we have to stop Kadabra, and I'm pretty sure me defeating the Anti-Monitor while pregnant isn't as dangerous as defusing an antimatter bomb." She argues.
"Even if we can figure out a way to catch Kadabra, his teleportation is completely randomized." Chester states.
"So there's no way to catch him until he stops moving and detonates the bomb." Allegra comments.
"I can teleport to his location the moment we find him." Anna assures everyone. I feel like the world is crumbling around me.
"I should've known Kadabra was up to something when we caught him so easily. He wanted to be in A.R.G.U.S. We helped him get the last piece of that weapon. I just let it happen."
"Barry." Anna comes over to me.
"You don't get it." I shake my head at my wife. "He has antimatter. The most dangerous substance in existence. And now, if we can't find him before it's too late the entire city, millions of lives will be lost. Including our children! All because I got tricked...again."
Would you want some Team Flash crossover with Titans?