❛ chapter five! ❜

five | come together—gary clark jr., junkie xl

       Just when I thought I had seen it all, aliens decide to show up in Central City. Not that I've never seen an alien before, one of my friends was an alien. He was pretty cool and also were his superpowers. However, judging by the quick explanation Cisco gave me through the cellphone, these are not the friendly kind. He was both slightly panic stricken and excited by the fact that aliens crash-landed into this earth. Also, he was a bit cross by the fact that I didn't answer the first seven calls, not because I didn't want to but because I'm still learning how to use this rectangular, huge and heavy—to my taste—device to make calls. We had something similar back on my earth, except they were just a rectangular, see-trough material, much thinner and lighter than this stone I carry around.

       Anyway, he said I have to get to S.T.A.R. Labs and I'm still in Caitlin's bathroom: wrapped in a towel, scissors in hand and a bunch of fresh chopped hair in the sink. I stare at my reflection and decide that if I don't put the scissors down I'll keep chopping my hair and I just needed a trim so that I don't look like a mad woman with split ends.

       When I came to this earth, I thought things would be like they've always been for me on other earths; tense, boring, awkward, where all I had to do was to focus on fulfilling the duty I'd been assigned. This time it's different, these have to be the most selfless, caring, happy and friendly people I've come across in my job. They are good people and they've shown a level of hospitality I didn't know it could exist; clothes, food, a place to stay—Caitlin offered herself for the latter and so I've been staying at her place for the last couple of days; it was her idea. Sometimes I think she needs the company after all the Killer Frost deal happened, maybe something to hold onto or someone to help her keep her ground. I'm not a very open person, it takes a while for me to let people in, somehow the two of us have gotten quite close, even though it's only been a couple of days. I think I might have a friend on this earth.

       I blow dry my hair and even put a little makeup on before dashing to get dressed, after all, I have to look decent before meeting the people that's teamed up to fight against these aliens. I give myself a final look in the mirror and speed my way out of Caitlin's apartment and head for the address Barry gave me in the back of an old and rather wrinkled grocery store recipe he pulled out of his back pocket—I see he likes potato chips and soda a lot, enough to get half a dozen from each. Following his instructions, I end up standing before an old hall hangar with the words S.T.A.R. LABS in bold letters.

       "Oh my god," I hear Caitlin's voice say from inside as she walks up to me and I do the same, "your hair looks. . ." she trails off and I feel a hint of panic growing within me.

       "Is it uneven? Because I tried to cut it as even as I could, does it look bad?" I gush, worried and she smiles whilst shaking her head, her wavy hair bouncing lightly and I find myself wondering why do I care so much how I look today.

       "Not at all! I'm just shocked that you actually cut your own hair and happy you didn't cut a lot," she says, joining her hands together and I notice the bracelets that keep her powers under control around her wrists. I let out a soft chuckle before scanning the hangar, this really brings back a lot of memories, "I would've missed braiding it," she adds, I would have added a witty remark, but I'm caught by nostalgia when my eyes land on a bunch of decrepit parts of a plane piled up in a corner, "hey, are you okay?"

       "Yeah, I'm fine!" I tell her, trying to sound truthful, "I guess, I'm regretting not going to a beauty parlour like you said," she lets out a small laugh and we start to walk towards the multiple screens they've installed in the middle of the hangar. We make our way through a couple of vans to get there while making small talk and stop dead on our tracks when a tall figure runs into us when we turn the corner.

       "Hey, Cait," it's Barry, "do you know where's Cisco? We have to get Kara," I shift my eyes from him to Caitlin and see her shake her head. Barry blows out his cheeks in frustration and then, and only then, he seems to notice me, "Hey, Violett—I didn't recognize you," he leads his hand to the back of his neck, "I mean, I did recognize you, it's just there's a lot of things going on in my mind right now," a soft, nervous chuckle bubbles in his throat, "your hair, it looks—you look great," the rambling boy adds and smiles widely, just like Caitlin is doing, I notice they do that here, they smile quite a lot.

       "Thanks. I thought it was about time to chop a bit," I say. I was stuck in the Speed Force for a long time, so long that my hair grew out all the way from my shoulders to my hips. Barry is still smiling when Caitlin says she should have hidden the scissors from me, her pretty smile growing wider when I tell her it was only an inch of hair what I cut.

       "Do you want to come with us?" Barry asks, "Cisco and I are going to get a friend," I'm twirling a loose thread inside the pocket of my jacket and think that maybe things are going back to normal between them.

       "Yeah, why not?" I shrug, reciprocating the smile on his face.

       Caitlin stays behind with H.R. and Barry and I make our way to the gate on the other side of the hangar. We're halfway there when a slim and elegant woman with eyes that remind me of a deep green forest joins us. Thea Queen, a name as sophisticated as her appearance itself. I like her. She starts a conversation with Barry—to which I can't input a lot since I'm a total outcast here, so I limit myself to praise her clothes, to which she thanks politely, and answer the few questions she shoots at me after that.

       "What is this place?" Thea asks as we step outside.

       "It's this old hall hangar thing that S.T.A.R. Labs owns," Barry explains, "or I guess I own it," I lift an eyebrow as I take a look at the huge place.

       "Well, you should do something with it," Thea tells him. With both hands inside the pockets of my jacket, I walk one or two steps behind them when my eyes meet the landing track before us. The smell of wet concrete as well as wet soil from the grass fields nearby fill my nose. There's also a faint smell of gasoline in the air, all three combined, make me feel like I'm back to one of those days of October where I would fly my jet all morning after a rainy night. I turn my head to the grass field next to us, I can almost see Barry, my Barry standing there and, again, I wish Zoom had killed me instead.

       I meet Felicity and Diggle, both from Star City. The latter not believing his eyes when the Waverider, or flying timeship as he calls it, pops up in the sky. He tells us the reason why he's never done drugs is he was always afraid of seeing weird stuff, I guess things in Star City are very different from here, the old Central is too much for him.

       "Okay, take everybody inside, all right?" Barry orders as he walks closer to Cisco and I follow him, "Tell Oliver I'll be right back."

       "Where are you going?" Asks Thea.

       "Well, since we're fighting aliens, I figured we should get one of our own, right?" He says with a smirk on his lips, before turning his attention to Cisco, who is pressing tiny buttons on what seem to be sunglasses, "You found the right earth?"

       "Tachyon device tracked you on Earth-38 when you met her, so you should find her there."

       "So, you can set this thing to open a breach to a predetermined earth, is that correct?" I ask.

       "That's correct," Cisco says with a playful smile, "did you do something to your hair?"

       "You caught me. Cool shades, by the way," I tell him, pointing at the gadget in his hands and retuning the playful smile, slowly warming up to them and feeling comfortable with them. I hear Barry letting out a small chuckle and the smile on Cisco's face fades, giving way to the mask of stoicism I've gotten used to already.

       "Just so you know, I'm only doing this because we're on a mission. I'm not gonna let my issues with you get in the way of that," Cisco tells him and I look down at my feet; boy was I wrong about these two finally fixing their problems. The wobbly edges of a portal to Earth-38 expand before us and we step into it, walking deeper inside. As I saunter behind the two guys and through the blue wormhole something strange happens, to me at least.

       I feel my eyes going out of focus from my companions and how images flash past us, images that apparently I'm the only one able to see. I see myself suited up, no mask to see the dark expression on my face, I look furious; Caitlin is there too, full Killer Frost and with a sharp icicle forming in her hand. I can see how electricity starts to spark off of my body and how I'm about to run towards her, raising my fist and aiming at her face almost in slow motion. The images keep changing as the fight ensues; finally, I see Killer Frost lying on the ground and I'm the one holding the icicle at her throat this time; blood on my face, wild eyes and rage taking over me. I don't know what happens next, I just know that I walk up to the darkest spot in the room, where the electric blue of Savitar's body is. Even though I can't make any sense of this, my blood turns cold when I hear myself speak: "You're right, we're gods."

       Next thing I know is that the portal to Earth-38 has thrown us into a colourful apartment. I just stand there staring into nothingness as preoccupation and unease creep onto my body. I hear my companions arguing about this being the wrong or the right place, both worried about it while I'm worried about the vision that leaves a nauseating taste of déjà vu within me. Our stay on Earth-38 is quite brief, the girl we're picking up swings the main door open, grocery bags in her arms and I would have to be blind not to recognize that face, not even those glasses work on me. Kara Danvers, none other than Supergirl is greeting us with a toothy smile; I guess some things never change, since I'm staring at the very same person that helped the League when that Darkseid guy showed up. She's just like the Kara from my earth, all smiles, contagious smiles—maybe the reason why I'm not feeling blue at the thought that she doesn't exist on my earth anymore.

       In a blink we're back on Earth-1. I see that everyone has gathered near the control panel in the hangar and that they were probably just waiting for us to show up. We don't have time to stop, we go straight with them to get started. As I walk next to Kara, I see another familiar face among the people that awaits and I feel a little dumbfounded by it and I struggle to hide my giddiness. Barry thanks everyone for coming and introduces me and Kara to everyone, then, everyone introduces themselves to us, one by one. Finally that familiar face has a name again: Oliver Queen.

       I'm desperately trying to memorize everyone's name to the point of not paying attention when Barry briefs the team about the Dominators, I keep mumbling their names and also their codenames under my breath as my eyes scan over their faces: Oliver, Green Arrow. Diggle, Spartan. Thea is Speedy. Sara, White Canary. Jax and Professor Stein are Firestorm. Ray is The Atom and Mick, Heat Wave. I'm really good at learning things, quite fast also, but I'm terrible with names.

       Kara tells us that the Dominators came to her planet before she was even born. They did experiments on a lot of people and killed a lot more, so we can assume that's what they're planning to do with this earth. The short induction ends with Barry becoming the leader—even though Cisco isn't happy with that—and us being sent to gear up for a test run against Supergirl. I find myself feeling bad for Barry, he's too shy to raise his voice and give convincing orders to a group of people this big and he's not good at concealing shame from his face.

       "You'll get used to it," I say to him when I notice that, he sighs quietly, his face brushed with a pink tint, "being a team leader is not easy, it takes practice," he nods, remaining quiet. I'm about to leave when he calls my name and also asks Oliver and Kara to stay. I'm standing right before Oliver Queen, Captain Queen, like we called him back on my earth. He used to train me in the Air Force Academy and he was strict to say the least. He made me do a hundred push ups on gravel when I talked back at him, bleeding palms meant nothing to him, it took days for the pain in my hands to disappear. He was the youngest Capitan around and he was also known to be quite the heartbreaker.

       "Really quick," Barry assures, "I was excited about the three of you guys meeting each other. Oliver was the first person to train me," Kara gasps as if she couldn't believe his words. I don't say too much because I'm still assimilating the fact that three of the people that I lost four years ago are standing next to me—of course it's not them but it's them in some ways.

       "Well, you did a really good job," says Kara with one of her toothy smiles.

       "It's 'cause I didn't hold back. I shot him," Oliver says, a little blunt, I guess he's very similar to his doppelganger, "you can't hold back either."

       "You, shot him?" I dare to ask and his eyes meet mine, I experience the same fear he cast on me the first day of training, I can't help but notice he's got the same mesmerizing blue eyes and the same intimidating glow in them; I bet this is what a prey feels when being hunted.

       "Yes. Two arrows in the back; I gave him a graphic life saving lesson, I'm giving it to you now," he states.

       "Right, no holding back, sir," I say firmly, looking him in the eyes, just like a soldier would to their superior, then I look at Barry with a concoction of fear and disbelief in my eyes.

       "Yeah, he did shoot me," he tells us softly.

       "Ouch," winces Kara, probably imagining two arrows sticking into the brunette's back just like I'm doing, "okay, are you sure about the no holding back part? I just met these people—"

       "These people need to understand this isn't gonna be easy," his gruff voice interrupting the blonde's sentence. I'm at the very brink of salute him and shout yes-sir! at him, however, there's something alluring about him, something appealing and it's not his good looks, maybe his bold attitude, "don't hold back, especially against me," and he leaves, shooting a glance at her and then at me. I don't really know what to say, for this was both shocking and intimidating, I can only observe how he walks away from us and I cross my arms over my chest.

       "He's like that with everyone. He'll warm up to you girls," Barry breaks the silence the blue eyed man left us drowning in.

       "Is it odd that I like him like that?" I feel a sly smile crossing my features. I hear Barry letting out a small chuckle. Oliver Queen from Earth-1 might not be a pilot nor a distinguished captain but he's as unpredictable as his counterpart from my earth, he's got the good looks too; his doppelganger was more of a sniper than an archer, though. This Oliver has a talent with the bow and arrow, I wonder how sharp his aim is compared to mine.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

now violett's met the entire gang! i had a hard time deciding whether include the crossover in my story, for it's kind of difficult to write all those characters and actually include them and give them a voice in the story. i finally decided to do it and divide it in two parts because i feel this is a great opportunity to see violett's character develop as the guardian she is by fighting side to side with our heroes and although they won't have much dialogue they will be mentioned.

i feel like my writing for this chapter was a little sloppy but it's out now and there's no going back, good thing is that things can only get better from here, heheh.

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