starlaboratories | (no subject)

(no subject)

[Look who comes skidding across the floor on an ice path! Crystal only stops when she bumps pretty bodily against one of the main consoles in the Cortex]

Okay, ice slides are something that's a lot harder than I thought it would be.

[She gets up and gives a small hiss of pain at bumping her head against the console table before looking around. It's a lot emptier than she's used to. The brunette brushes a few curls out of her face and dark eyes take in her surroundings. She looks young, in her mid-20s. She walks around cautiously, her heeled boots clicking on the floor]

Where is everyone?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Caitlin notices the eyes glowing and smiles, watching the ice walls that rise up. That was pretty good even with the lack of real training and she tilts her head back when the snow starts falling around them.]

Not bad.

[There's an obvious smile to the tone in the older woman's voice.]

I can make it go away too!

[She closes her hand into a fist and it all recedes until there's no trace left. Crystal starts rambling]

I think the molecules go right back into the air!

[She can't help but laugh before pulling her daughter back to her.]

Far as I know it does. I've never known it to go anywhere else.

[Though she has noticed something.]

Is it just your eyes that change?

[They return to a normal, honey brown color]

Uh yeah. I was waiting to see if I would go full Frost but it never goes past just my eyes.

[She shrugs]

I don't even have the heat sickness.

[She gives a small smile before shaking her head.]

Where did you hear about heat sickness, Crystal?

[Oh how she wishes this were the STAR Labs back home]

I've done some research for cryokinetics in the past. There were a couple of metas that existed but were undocumented, somehow, until their death. Their exposure to the cold, or permafrost, seemed to absorb any/all means of being able to keep their bodies warm enough to function. Similar to when a human body undergoes frostbite.

[She deftly avoided researching her mom]

I haven't tested it yet but I think, because of dad and Professor Stein's Firestorm Matrix, and because you don't seem to display or show any signs or symptoms of the heat sickness, I don't need to worry about it.

[Caitlin is a doctor, a damn good one, and likes to do her own research a lot of the times. The fact that her daughter does it too causes her to smile a bit. The apple didn't fall that far from the tree.]

I've never had heat sickness. Even if your father wasn't here I'd be able to function just fine. Just as I'm sure you don't have it. The other cryokinetics that were undocumented probably had some other symptom within their bodies, before they became a meta.

Exactly.

[She beams]

And...well, I couldn't find documentation if they also are like um...you and Killer Frost.

[She means the two in one parent that she gets from Caitlin]

[She can't help but give a bit of a laugh before pulling her daughter back to her side.]

They probably don't have to deal with one taking over the other, no. That's probably one of the biggest things that help me.

[She wraps her arms around her middle]

You guys being separate helps? How?

I'm not entirely sure how it helps, but I know it does. There's a connection there. Maybe we siphon off of one another and it just... works.

...is that going to happen to me?

[She looks unsure about it.]

[She seems to think about that for a moment before shaking her head.]

No. I doubt that's going to happen to you.

I should have told you guys. I was scared. I didn’t know how or what was happening.

I understand being scared, Crystal, but we're your parents and you can come tell us anything.

I know.

[it’s no excuse but she had been scared. Scared that they would react somehow. That they would tell her to keep her powers away]

Maybe afraid that you would be afraid that I would be like Her. From before.

No one can be like Frost, sweetheart. Not you or any other cryokinetic. Frost is mine and mine alone.

I don’t know, Mom. All of these cases...

[she shakes her head and lets go]

They’re...it’s like they snapped from who they were before.

All of those cases don't matter.

[Those were undocumented cases and she's done her own research. Especially when she first became Killer Frost.]

No, they didn't. Becoming a meta just did something to them, but it wasn't this. Trust me when I say that I've done my own research. Frost isn't going to be a part of you. Or of anyone else.

[She hopes she's right.]

...were you scared? When it happened?

[Caitlin is pretty sure that she's right when it comes to Frost.]

I was scared out of my mind. I even tried different ways of surpressing her.

Why?

Being a meta threw me off in the beginning. So much that I didn't want anything to do with it.

[She raises her hand, looking at her palm as the cold air rolls off of it.]

But it's so wonderful. Why wouldn't you want to?

[She gives her daughter a small smile]

I was surrounded by metas and I saw the damage that they could do, Crystal. I didn't want to be anything like them.