Stronger Than Steel – Part One. Nate finds himself on Earth-38 and is tasked with getting back to his own universe. Thankfully, a familiar face is there to catch him and steer him the right way.
Nate creeps along the darkened hall of the Waverider, a flashlight clutched in his right hand and poised by his shoulder. He peers around a corner, silently cursing at whichever Time Master built this vessel: Why does it have to be so labyrinthine?
No sooner than a second after he stalks around the corner does the demented form of one Sara Lance make her debut.
"Hey, now, let's talk this through rationally," Nate begins, forcing his nerves down with a swallow.
"You think you can stop me?" she speaks but not with the expected voice of the captain. This voice resonates with the very core of Earth itself yet possesses a darkness only the most remote stretch of space can accomplish. It rattles Nate's jaw and jostles his heart, as if one of Ray's half-baked inventions has just shot a beam of electricity straight through him (a long story for another day).
"Awh, come on, like I'm going to!" he says in hopes that maybe she could be deceived. "I'm definitely not going to steel up and knock you out."
Death-Addled Lance takes none of Nate's ad-libbing, not even sparing a second to contemplate the (false) possibility of it being true.
"I know the place for you.–"
"What, jail? Temporal zone? Because I've done that, and I'd prefer not doing that again, maybe?"
"–Far out of the universe."
Oh.
"That is totally NOT 'far out', man."
Before Nate can react, Sara takes something from her back pocket and shoves the pad of her thumb into the central button. A portal blooms into existence behind the historian, thrusting him between a rock and a hard place (the rock being the option to go one-on-one against a demon's vessel, the hard place being the gaping blue circle he spies if he just so much as glances halfway over his shoulder). It spirals menacingly... and there is something oddly tempting about it. He doesn't like the idea of combatting Sara, and he would lose so quickly after just the start, but it is better than being thrown blind across the multiverse. He steps forward, preparing himself. Maybe I can make it passed–, he thinks.
A foot comes out nowhere and slams into his chest. Nate falls into the vortex.