❛ chapter nine! ❜

nine | team—lorde

       It's nearly three in the morning. I sit in the kitchen stool, thinking how ironic it is that I'm pressing an icepack to the back of my head with a blood stained t-shirt, blood that oozed out from the deep cut in my face made with a razor sharp ice claw. Killer Frost paid us a visit tonight and she wasn't very nice, you could tell just by looking at me and the half destroyed living room.

       "I'm so sorry, I forgot to wear my necklace after I got out of the shower and headed to bed," Caitlin says as she goes and grabs the kettle from the stove, her own clothes stained with my blood. I shake my head in dismissal, I don't want her to feel worse, "Are you sure you feel fine?"

       "I do. Don't worry okay?" She sighs, giving me a nod before pouring hot water in the mugs in front of us. She slides a mug towards me and she finally sits across from me. The pretty hazel eyed girl just stares at the mug in her hands—which are still shaking—I see how her eyes are brimming with tears now, just to see her like this makes my heart sink. I place the icepack onto the counter and then place my hand on hers, "Caitlin, I feel fine, I'll heal. You don't have to worry about me, okay?"

       "I could've killed you," she utters in a tiny voice, "I don't want to become her, the necklace helps me a lot, but she's there, waiting the right moment to take over. I could have killed you," she repeats, almost to herself.

       "But you didn't," I tell her, squeezing her hand lightly, "I'm very much alive, I'm okay, you're okay," she looks up from her mug, "all we have to do is not to give her the window of opportunity to come out, that's it."

       "You're right," she nods, biting her lower lip as she thinks something to herself. I place the icepack to the back of my head again and start to fiddle with the teabag in the mug. We sip our tea in silence and Caitlin even pulls a box of cookies from a cupboard. She looks into my eyes every now and then and we share small smiles. I can hardly see the woman that just a few minutes ago had me crushed against a wall with cold rage filled eyes as she cut my cheek open.

       We eventually decide to go to bed. With a clean pyjamas, I set a few blankets on Caitlin's room carpeted floor since the sofa where I sleep is covered by broken glass, melting ice and whatnot. I fluff my pillow and throw it to my makeshift bed.

       "Violett, can I ask you a question?" I hear Caitlin say and I turn around to face her, she saunters to the foot of her bed and tilts her head, "I don't get it, she was attacking you, but you didn't fight back, why?" I blink; I could have done it, but that meant hurting her.

       "Because. . .well, because I know that under all that cold you're still in there. I didn't want to hurt someone I care for," I say slowly, feeling my heart pick up when I realize what I've just said, I care for her and I do the same for the rest of the team, I care for all of them and I didn't know that until now. The young woman walks up to me and hugs me tightly, with a sad smile on her lips. I tell her that we don't have to talk about this incident to anyone, that this can be our secret and she agrees. She's been through a lot, not telling the others about this won't do any harm, everything's okay now. My heart stops when I remember the vision I had again, me fighting Killer Frost and once again I secretly pray for it to never happen. I hear her sniff before she breaks the hug, her hands go to my shoulders and she stares into my eyes with such intensity.

       "Promise that the next time you'll fight her," a crease starts to form between my eyebrows, "promise that if I become a threat to my friends you'll stop me, no matter what," she says, her eyes not leaving mine, not even for a second.

       "Wait, w-what—"

       "No matter what, Violett," she stresses, "you'll protect them from me, even if that means killing me, promise me," she adds, begging with her eyes. I don't want to hurt her, I took an oath to protect them, I can't do what she's asking, but I know she won't take a no as an answer. She's waiting for the reply that I cannot get out of my throat that easily.

       "I promise," I manage, she looks relieved now. What she doesn't know is that this promise falls under the promises you can't keep. I try to calm down by thinking we'll probably never get to that point; I can fight her, I can't kill her, though. She's like a friend to me now and I don't want to be the executioner to one of my friends. I can't add her to the list of people I've killed. I just can't.

       "Thank you," she pulls me into another hug and with that we go to our beds. The drowsiness and the need to sleep I felt a moment ago has vanished, all I can think is that she wants me to kill her.

⚪⚪⚪

       The next morning I'm completely healed and we head to the labs. Caitlin is acting like nothing's happened, so I do my best to act as if nothing's happened as well and I focus on not thinking that I'm her backup plan in case something goes wrong with her cold persona.

       For the first time in forever the team is huddled up in the Cortex just chilling, basically. H.R. is at a desk enjoying a freshly made cup of coffee as he reads a book. Barry is teasing Caitlin about the song that is playing softly on the speakers—Summer Nights, I think it's called—she's covering her face and telling him to shut up in her unique sweet way. Cisco and Wally are hunched over a table with my suit on it while I observe them, it's a pretty calm day to be honest.

       "Awesome nanotechnology, friction proof, fire retardant polymer, with nano-liquid circuitry, self-repairing armour, full-spectrum scanning, heater, cooling system, biological sensors, all built in a skintight, mesh-like bodysuit that fits into a two millimetre thick bangle which is not gold or any other metallic alloy we know," Cisco gushes out, only stopping to let out a somewhat goofy laugh as he stares at the suit on the table, his face just inches apart from it.

      "It's Thundrium, the strongest metal on my earth," I say, taking my bangle off and handing it to him, "it looks like gold and that's why it was used to make jewelry, but it's at least a hundred times more resistant to pretty much everything—it's indestructible."

       "Woah, that's so cool," Wally adds, taking the bangle in his hands and then passing it to Cisco.

       "Holy periodic table," he mumbles as he scans the piece of metal in his hands and I chuckle. He finally got to sync my suit's telemetry to their gadgets, so next time I kick someone's ass—or vice versa—they'll know my exact location and my vitals. We hadn't had the chance to finally do it since we've been busy trying to come up with something to change the future. We think we can probably do it by trying to change the headlines from the news report we saw in the future. So, Kid Flash and I have done things that the Flash was supposed to do, like catching that Plunder guy, we're crossing our fingers that this changing the headlines thing will work, "I swear, I'm scared to screw something up."

       "You won't," I say with a light laugh, "and if you do, it self-repairs," I'm amused by the way he holds back a squeal every time I mention some—as he called it—cool feature that my suit has.

       "It's beautifully engineered, the built-in technology is beyond fantastic!" Cisco exclaims as he hooks the suit to a few wires connected to a device, a huge grin on his face.

       "Who made you this suit?" Asks Wally.

       "It was Bart, he was the genius," I decided to refer to my Barry as Bart because sometimes it gets a bit confusing and rather weird to talk about him while his doppelganger—this earth's version—is in the same room, like today. Even though I've told them everything, the subject's still a delicate subject, I'm doing my best not to break down every time the topic comes up, it's all right though, this gotta help move on. Maybe the expression on my face changed a little without myself noticing, because next thing I know it's that Cisco is not grinning at me anymore and Wally looks ashamed as hell by his question. I smile at him to let him know I'm fine and continue talking, "He used to spend a lot of time doing experiments, making gadgets and stuff; he loved science and technology," I say, stepping closer to the table and running my hand on the suit's fabric; a smile crosses my face and look up at the two boys in front of me, "You know, you would've been good friends."

       "I wish I could've met him," Wally says, a grin on his face, "he sounds like a nice and pretty badass guy," Cisco nods in acknowledgment, I feel my heart flutter at their words.

       I continue to watch how Cisco types into a small device and how he adds the silver lightning they gave me at Christmas to my suit and I tell them how I lost the original emblem in a fight a couple of years ago. He's over the moon when I tell him that the suit will synthesize the lightning's material so that it can shrink to fit into the bangle. I grab the iced coffee from the table and drink up, I know I will be needing more than just one of these to stay awake today.

       "You guys listen to super old music," I say as I play with the straw, listening attentively to the song now playing through the speakers, my father would play that song and tell me it was his great grandfather's favourite song, "there were old records at home and that old song was in one of them."

       "What do you mean by old? I mean, we're 90s kids but, you know, 'bring back the 80s'," Cisco says and our eyes fall on Barry—who's joined us at the table, "she says Don't Stop Believing is old," he tells him, a little laugh bubbling in his throat, "what, you come from the future or something?" The brown eyed boy asks with a low chuckle.

       "Technically. We're in 2017 and my earth was destroyed in 2175," I simply say with a playful smug smile and making a slurping sound with my iced coffee, their eyes wide.

       "You're kidding, right?" Wally asks with a nervous laugh.

       "Nope," I say, feeling oddly comfortable talking to them as days go by, "I was born in 2150, one year before World War Ten," Even Caitlin is staring now and I start to worry for some odd reason, "did I say something bad?"

       "No. No, you didn't," Barry blurts out, "it's just. . .that's a bit shocking, also the World War Ten part, we've just had two so. . .wait a minute, if you're from the future, how old are you?" He questions narrowing his eyes.

       "Dude, I can't believe you're actually asked her that," Cisco says, "but, since you don't seem to mind us men asking, you should be twenty nine, right?"

       "That's a bit complicated," I say, scrunching my nose a little, "you see, I don't age? I mean, ever since I became a Guardian, I haven't aged a day, so technically I'm still twenty five," I rub the back of my neck and feel a little on the spot when all their wide eyes staring at me, "and, as long as I'm a Guardian I won't die either."

       "What?" Wally lets out a chuckle.

       "Yeah; let's say I'm injured, badly. I can choose to go to the Speed Force and be healed and live like a Guardian for centuries, or, choose to be free by dying," I explain and they exchange looks with one another.

        "Great, this is just great. So, we have a lady speedster that doesn't age and doesn't die," says Cisco, "you won't tell us you don't sleep and that you suck blood, right?" Caitlin shakes her head at him, "What? It just crossed my mind! Alright, so you'll be twenty five forever? Sorry, my brain's tripping," he squeezes his eyes shut, "okay, if you were born in 2150 that means you are not born 133 years from now so you're still younger than us?"

       "And, that means we're way older than her even if she's twenty five?" Wally says as a question but it somehow it's a statement too and I wonder how this turned into a conversation about how I am younger or older than them and it seems to be getting a little out of control. I would be from the future if this was my earth, but it's not, so I'm not from the future, I guess? I shake my head.

       "Guys, it doesn't matter," I say, shrugging, "we're gonna end up more confused if we continue. I just wanted to say that those old records were amazing and that I wish I had them with me."

       "What happened to them?" Cisco asks as he unhooks the wires from my suit.

       "They're still on my earth, along with more meaningful things," I say with a slight shrug, remembering my dad's jacket, my mom's jewelry box and more stuff, "probably everything's just a bunch of ashes now."

       "Why don't you go and get them back?" Caitlin asks, I know it is as simple as that, but something holds me back, always.

       "Oh, no. I can't go back there," I blurt, shaking my head and fidgeting with my fingers as if they had mentioned the scariest thing ever, "I've—I've always wanted to, though. I just don't seem to gather the courage to do it," there's a brief silence in the Cortex, very brief since the snoring of a very asleep H.R. breaks that silence. I wonder how on earth did he fall asleep, he was drinking coffee.

       "What if someone went with you?" Barry asks, placing his hands on the table, where Cisco is just finishing with my suit; my mind drawing a blank, not able to formulate an answer, "You don't have to go alone."

       "Yeah, we've gone to other earths before to fight some metas, why not going to yours to retrieve those things?" Cisco says with a smile and then looks at Barry, "What do you say man? Allen and Ramon back at it again?" I see how Barry's face lights up with Cisco's words.

       "That—That would be great, Cisco," he says with a grin, "what do you say, Vee?" I bite my lip, I don't know if I can handle seeing my earth turned into ruins again, but then again, I could use this as a way to find peace, close a chapter of my life. Plus, I'm not going on my own this time. It takes me a couple of minutes to make up my mind and say yes at the end.

       "Alrighty, then!" Cisco claps his hands together, "It's official. But by now, behold!" He exclaims, motioning for us to see his handiwork.

       "Man, you only added the lightning on the chest," Wally teases and I bite back a chuckle, the young speedster earns a disapproval look from Cisco, "but you did a great job," he adds with a toothy grin.

       "It looks amazing, thank you Cisco," I say tracing the lightning bolt with my fingers. Moments later Joe and Iris West walk into the Cortex and Barry and Wally suit up for a training session. It's great that he finally accepted to train the boy and that finally everyone accepted his powers. Since we're trying to change the future, Barry decided that Wally will be the one saving Iris from Savitar, firstly because Kid Flash is becoming really fast in a really short time since he got his powers, so now all his training is about getting as fast as he can and as soon as possible.

       Cisco hurries me to get suited up and head to Wally and Barry's location—since they sped off like a minute ago—when he sees me plopped down in a desk chair, biting into a cold burrito I was too lazy to heat up and chatting with Iris about an article she's writing. I do as he says and when my suit comes out of the bangle, I'm surprised by what my eyes see.

       "An upgrade," I mumble to myself, seeing how the bright scarlet has been replaced by a slightly darker hue and how there are painted shadows that make my curves stand out, there's a silver lightning dancing around my hips almost like a belt, which stands out when I tap on the chest insignia, triggering the stealth mode, turning the entire suit black. My mask is no longer black but the same color of my suit and I discover that I can choose to wear the typical domino mask or two types of cowls, one that lets my hair fall behind me in a long ponytail—which is similar to Barry's—and another one that sends a soft electric current through my scalp and lets my hair fall down in wavy and silky locks—which is similar to the one Kid Flash wears. I love it. I smile, after all these years, Bart still alters my life. Suddenly, I feel taller and powerful, ready to fight. Cisco is here, staring and not wrapping around his head that the suit upgrades by itself, but as much as he wants to continue staring, he reminds me I have to meet with the other speedsters.

       "Wally, man, this isn't about winning or losing, okay? This is about training so you can get faster and beat Savitar and save Iris," that's what I hear Barry gushing out when I arrive at an empty street and I make my way slowly towards them from behind.

       "Yeah, which I'm gonna do," Wally says, "but first I'm gonna make you eat my dust, sorry man," I find myself holding back a laugh. I like Wally, he's like teen me, stubborn, confident, sassy and sometimes savage.

       "Okay, you know there is a reason they call me the fastest man alive," Barry cocks his head with a smug grin across his face.

       "Alright, fastest man alive, you're about to see who the fastest woman alive is," I say standing next to him, mirroring the smug smile on his face, my hair falling over my shoulders. He seems shocked and perhaps a little threatened. Kid Flash points out the fact that my suit is different and I have to stop myself from acting like a teenager over new clothes, "Oh, that," I say, hiding my the tremendous excitement within me, "I guess Cisco triggered an upgrade when he added the insignia," I say, looking down at it and biting my lip not able to stifle a giggle.

       "Wow. . ." I hear Barry say under his breath, smiling before touching his earpiece, "Cisco, you good?"

       "Ladies and gentlemen, the Central City speedster 500 is about to begin," I hear his voice flutter in my head, there's a pause and I wait for his instructions as I stretch my arms; I have to admit that I'm a little sore from my little encounter with Killer Frost last night but it'll pass.

       "So, the fastest woman alive?" Barry questions, I could bet my socks he's raising an eyebrow under that mask of his, "We'll see, Fast Track."

       The three of us slam our hands on the concrete, getting on our marks, ready to sprint.

       "Gentlemen—and lady—start your engines," Cisco says and I feel my power tickle all over my body.

       And off we go.

       I'm encouraging Wally all the time and it doesn't take long for him to take the lead. However, I'm here to do what Caitlin and Iris told me to do: show them some girl power. I feel my muscles flexing and stretching as I run, the city around me just a blur of colours. I can feel how my speed increases to the point of being surrounded by more lightning than I'm used to, Barry is running next to me, flashing me a smile, but not even that will make me let him win. I'm pushing myself to the limit and I like it. We reach the finish line, I know it when I see the tall building raising before us. This is the last test for Wally, he's got to phase through it if he wants to win. I'm guessing he didn't since it's only the two of us inside the building.

       "Bye-bye, Flash," I say before ironically flashing away from him, leaving him behind and phasing my way out through the brick wall, speeding over a few puddles before skidding to a halt. There's a huge smile on my face and I even have time to cross my arms over my chest and stand tall as I wait for him. The golden lightning turns the corner and skids to ha halt as well as Wally's lightning down the building. They've got things to discuss about today's performance, do their little debriefing, so I go straight to the point when the not-so-fastest-man-alive lays his eyes on me, "You lost. Better luck the next time."

       "You beat me by a second," he says, shrugging it off. I smile innocently, clasping my hands together behind my back and pacing closer to him, he narrows his green eyes at me.

       "We're speedsters, a second's like ages for us," I hear Wally clearing his throat and I glance at him, a lopsided smile on his lips as he stands with his hands over his hips, I tap Barry's shoulder, "I'll leave you guys now. Nice talk, Wonderboy."

       And I'm gone.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

we have reached the end of part one. how are you liking it so far? yay or nay? a couple of months have gone by since violett arrived to earth one, she's now closer to the team and yet she still tries to keep her distance. i want to point this out and please, please read the rest of the a/n:

a) i know barry+iris are the golden standard, but westallen is not a thing here as i explained on the disclaimer part of this story, they still love each other tho, it's not like barry's gonna let savitar kill her 😅

b) before we move on, i want to clarify something, because I want you to understand everything that will happen from now on, here's a little mapping in the words of VOIDRAEKENSALLENS because she put it in the best way possible: the savitar thing already happened, say is what we saw in season 3 and the speed force and its entities saw what savitar did and decided to send a guardian, violett, to team flash in this continuous loop kind of situation to finally change the outcome, giving them a second chance, and what we are going to see in this story is an alternate version of what we actually saw in season 3, so many of the things you know about this season will change. i hope it makes sense now?

anyway, you can always ask me! dedicated to art-ificially for the lovely comments, ilysm! 💞

now, hold your wigs people and welcome to part two where my ramblings will be hopefully shorter! (sorry, it's just this was important, ok, bye now).