Chapter 1

Pilot

An explosion of white light erupted in front of Barry as he watched on in horror. He impulsively began to phase as he slowly looked around in disbelief as the debris from the buildings flew at the speed of sound around him. Barry felt his heart begin to pick up its pace, faster and faster as he quickly turned back to the source of the explosion. Lost for words, all he could let out was-

"No!"

His voice echoed through the distorted waves of time and space around him as time began to slow down, the explosion not yet reaching Barry. A series of tears began to run down his face. He had failed. The team had failed to stop the invasion led by Steppenwolf's forces. Superman, Batman, Diana all dead. They had been defeated.

But Barry didn't accept this fate...

As the blast wound on Barry's leg began to heal, he stared up at the imminent explosion one last time, making its way towards him slowly. Quickly, he switched into his running form, prepared to run into the explosion headed towards him. Barry knew that he could change fate if he just-

"Just gotta go faster than the speed of light, FAR beyond the speed of light. Gotta break the rule Barry and you gotta do it now!"

As lightning began to flicker on Barry's scarlet suit, he took a deep breath in as he sped into the explosion, outrunning time itself as the world rematerialised around him.

"...Make your own future."

His father's words echoed through his mind as he ran faster and faster. The fate of the entire world was in Barry's hands. All he had to do was keep running.

And there was no force on this earth that could stop him…

Central City

Present Day

Barry jumped in his chair as he woke, the brightness of the multiple monitors shining onto his face as he began to shake gently in fear.

Another nightmare. Ever since Barry had reversed time to save the world from the unity of the three Motherboxes, he had been having these nightmares. He always thought that saving the entire world would feel somewhat heroic, but instead it caused Barry to lose track of himself. As that event kept replaying in his head over and over again, Barry was never able to figure out what was worse: the world being destroyed along with everyone in it, or himself being the sole survivor...

Upon returning to reality, Barry quickly glanced at the time on the computer monitor, causing him to quickly jump up from the chair he had fallen asleep in.

"Oh, no, no. I can't be late!"

Barry swiftly gathered all of his things he needed and exited out to the streets of Central City, speed walking his way towards the train station which was in view of Barry's location. He knew he could've just ran there using his 'abilities', but Barry always tried to make an effort to separate his personal life from his super speedster life. As the train arrived on the platform, Barry's speed walk turned into a full sprint as he dashed towards the closing doors. Too late. He hit his hand against the door as the train left the station in a hurry, Barry watching it leave as he slumped his arms down in defeat.

"You couldn't have just waited a SINGLE second? Just one little teeny second!" Barry spoke to himself in a sort of high pitched whisper. Noticing that a few passerby's were looking at him weirdly, he brought back his quick speed walk as he exited the train station, glancing up at the digital clock on the wall.

"That's no good. That'll just make me more late." Barry thought to himself as he glanced around. As much as he didn't like doing this, he couldn't risk being late. Not today. Barry discreetly made his way into a small area hidden from the other citizens as blue lightning began to spark off from his body. After taking a moment to charge up, Barry was gone. Running through the crowded streets of Central City as fast as he could. For the most part, Barry was always usually fashionably late to events in his life but today he just couldn't. Not for his first day at the CCPD Crime Lab.

Without this, how else would he be able to finally prove his father's innocence?