Rocky Raymond//Book Three\\ COMPLETED

Chapter 17- The Present

MacKenzie's POV

I sit on the desk next to where Caitlin is as I watch HR decorate the cortex for Christmas.

"Holy winter wonderland." Barry says, walking in with Iris.

"Took the words right out of my mouth." Cisco says.

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

"Some traditions are multi-versal." HR says.

"So, um..." Barry starts, turning towards Caitlin. "Any more info on Savitar?"

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

"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 says.

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

"Okay." Barry says.

Cisco starts to walk but then stops. I look at him, confused, and then he starts to walk again, sitting at the computer next to me.

Iris and Barry talk a little.

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

"Mm-hmm." Barry says.

"Legendary artifact with incredible powers, capable of... wait for it..." Cisco trails off.

"Creating metas." Barry says.

"Creating meta-humans." Cisco says.

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

"More importantly... look who wrote this paper." Cisco says, putting the image up on the big screen.

"Julian?" Barry asks.

***

"Cisco, you okay?" I ask him but I get no answer. I'm sitting on my table in our workroom and Cisco is staring into space, frozen in his place.

"Hey, Jay thinks he figured out a way to find the stone." Caitlin says, coming in. She sees Cisco staring and then look at me. I shrug, jumping off my table and walking over to Cisco. "You okay?"

"I don't know." Cisco says. "I keep seeing my brother. Everywhere... here, in the cortex..."

"Well, this is your first Christmas since Dante died." Caitlin says. "Maybe your mind's playing tricks on you."

"Yeah. Probably." Cisco says, I hold his hand as he talks. "There was this one Christmas, big family affair. and Dante and I, you know, we used to fight all the time as kids, but that one Christmas, we didn't fight. We just sat and we talked and we drank a whole bottle of whiskey, and... that whole night, we were laughing. It's... And that one night... that one night, it was like we felt like brothers."

"The last Christmas before my dad died, it snowed and snowed." Caitlin says. "He and I just sat inside, watching old movies while the whole world turned white. It was magical."

"The last Christmas I had with Ronnie and my parents..." I start and I bring my hands up to hold onto Ronnie's necklace. "I had to have been 6 years old. It had been snowing all night and we watched movies, drinking hot chocolate as we sat together around the fireplace. Ronnie held me on his lap and my mom and dad hugged me tight. It was the happiest I'd ever been."