Authors Notes: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Coronavirus Lockdown! We will be your entertainment for the next fifteen minutes, so step right up!
THE PRESENT…
"Okay, back up a few minutes," Barry said, waving his hands, "who is this 'Hal' you keep mentioning?"
"Hal Jordan," Dig said, "He's the Green Lantern of Earth and the surrounding planets."
"Yes, but what is a Green Lantern?"
"They're an intergalactic police force," Alex explained, "Each member wields a green power ring that allows them to harness their Willpower and use it to create physical constructs from hard light. There are over 7000 GL's in operation, two for each sector. It's quite impressive, really."
"The rings choose their bearers according to a person's ability to overcome fear, and as much as he's a brash idiot, Hal Jordan is the best of the best," Dig finished.
"We'll agree to disagree on that one," Alex muttered.
ARROW: S2EP08 – "TRINITY" (ONE MONTH LATER)
Oliver launched himself over a hover-car, rolling to his feet, bow in hand. He strafed between piles of debris, keeping his eyes fixed on the laser-blasting alien destroying the street all around him.
"Okay, Oliver. Lesson number 5. Alien and Metahuman superpowers always come in seven types. To know how to defeat them, the first thing you need to do is identify them," Saturn Girl's voice echoed through his mind. Her telepathic ability, while dangerous, certainly was useful. Fortunately, Oliver had trained in the art of securing the mind under Ra's Al Ghul, so he knew how to keep his darkest secrets hidden even from her probing powers.
Oliver dodged under a car, drawing a cold-fusion arrow from his quiver and knocking it to the string.
"The first category is the Mental Powers. These powers are always the hardest for non-superpowered people to combat because you have no real defence against it. Mental abilities, generally, can only be fought off by someone else with mental abilities, like me, or by a magician or sorcerer like Constantine or Zatanna."
Oliver slid out from the car and loosed at the alien. The arrow hit its mark, encasing him in a giant block of ice. Liquid Nitrogen. Very helpful.
A slight disturbance in the debris caused Oliver to spin around just in time to dodge the fist of a human-made of solid rock.
"But you can still punch them!" Artemis yelled from across the street, where she was fighting four ninjas.
"She's right. Unless we're dealing with Martians, people with mental powers don't usually have any means of defending themselves from a fist other than standard combat ability. Take me, for example. I'm telepathic and telekinetic, and I've been trained in hand to hand and light weapons, but a skilled fighter will most likely defeat me if I can't disable them beforehand."
"Understood," Oliver grumbled, dodging backwards and firing another arrow. It bounced off the man's skin. He probably should have seen that coming.
"Mental powers come in all shapes and sizes, but variations of telepathy, telekinesis or enhanced intelligence are the most common. Clairvoyants, like Cisco Ramone, are very rare. The most dangerous one is Intuitive Aptitude."
Oliver rolled, dropping his bow and grabbing a broken car door. He flung it right at the rock-man's face, and he stumbled backwards, allowing Oliver to recover his bow and slip back into cover, panting.
This was important. He needed this. With all these superpowers becoming more and more prevalent, he needed to increase his edge if he wanted to stay competitive. He couldn't protect Starling if he couldn't fight these people. This training? It was invaluable. And it made the trip more than worth it.
"The second category is Empathic abilities; people who derive their powers from emotion. This category is by far the rarest naturally occurring power. The various Lantern Cores gain their powers from their rings, so don't count as true wielders."
"I think they're the most dangerous," Artemis said, decking the last ninja before firing an arrow at Oliver's stone-foe. The arrow exploded before hitting its target, releasing a concussive wave that knocked the brute on its ass. Impressive. "With telepaths, at least you know something is off most of the time. You can also protect against them with the right tech. Empaths… they're often much subtler. Manipulating your emotions so delicately you don't even notice what you're doing before it's too late."
"Examples of the few non-lantern emotional powers we've seen are Telempaths, people that can sense and manipulate emotional echoes; Empaths, who can manipulate a person's specific emotions; or people with Affinities – they gain power from other people's emotions."
"You're forgetting one!" Artemis shouted, pouncing on the giant's head and kicking his head into the ground to knock him out.
"No, I'm not. I'm saving it till last. Now, where was I?"
The street exploded with a resounding 'BANG!' and both Oliver and Evelyn went flying in opposite directions.
"Oh, that's right. Physical powers. These powers are the most common to find. Things like super strength, enhanced speed – notice the distinction between enhanced speed and superspeed – flight, regeneration, invulnerability, invisibility or enhanced senses. These types of powers are generally easy to take down because they have weaknesses you can exploit. Someone with superstrength and stone skin, for example, will be susceptible to fast and concussive attacks. The danger comes when you're facing people with full sets of physical powers. Take Kryptonians. All their abilities fall into this category, but because they compound, it makes them ridiculously hard to hurt. Most aliens will have powers from this category."
Oliver rolled to his feet, knocking another arrow. Then he stopped, lowering his bow as a giant monster made of lava rose from the ground, roaring defiance.
"Next up are the Kinetic Abilities. These are the most varied, and you never know just how much their powers cover. Take Hydrokinesis, for example. Can they only control water? Or can they manipulate gaseous H20 and Ice as well? It's a matter of scale."
The monster locked eyes with Oliver, and he cursed, running down the street as heat began to blister his skin, and sweat broke out on his forehead.
"Most Metahumans will have some variation of kinetic based powers. The key to defeating these people is to utilise their opposites. Air vs water? Air wins every time. Fire vs earth? A toss-up depending on skill, but fire vs water? We know how that's going to end before it even begins."
Made sense. Superpowers functioned according to rules. He hadn't thought of it like that before, but when you did, it made perfect clarity. Everything has its laws. Even metahuman and alien abilities. He just had to remember that. Now, how could he apply it to Darhk? Or the Reverse Flash?
Oliver jumped through a window of one of the ruined houses on the street just in time to avoid a giant magma fist as it slammed into the road. He regained his feet quickly and moved back towards the monster, jumping through houses and gardens to stay out of its sight.
"Molecular based powers are the most destructive, and the hardest to fight for even those of us with superpowers. These abilities, things like Life Force Manipulation, Intangibility, Space-time manipulation and the like, have a habit of turning up big bads."
Great.
"What you can do, besides calling a big-gun, is fight fire with fire. If your villain is using space-time manipulation, for example, your best bet is a Speedster, someone who can nullify or at least counter their powers. Life Force based villains usually need to use Death as a power source, so find a way to protect yourself from their effects with a Force that's equally as potent, like Hope or Love. Barring that, stop them from killing people, and their powers suddenly aren't that frightening."
Oliver froze in place inside a living room. That was very interesting. Then he had an idea. He exited the room, sneaking through the debris of another house until he had a line of sight towards the monster. The entire street was on fire, the very air burning, but Oliver's grip was perfectly steady.
"The last category is tech powers. These are going to be more common on ordinary humans, but they usually have to be targeted specifically to disable. Your best bet is some sort of Technology that counters theirs. If you need something fast to temporarily disable, always try an electromagnetic pulse."
The monster turned his way, and Oliver loosed. His arrow flew true, and it slammed into the creature's eye. It screeched in fury as it began to claw at the wound and Oliver targeted the other eye. An arrow from Artemis beat him to it. Her shot exploded, taking a massive chunk of the beast's head with it, and it fell back into the crater that birthed it. Oliver rose to his feet and cracked his back.
"End simulation," Evelyn said from across the street. Slowly, the entire environment disintegrated into holographic blue light, revealing a bunker the size of three football fields constructed entirely from white chrome panels. When Imra had said the Gym was open to them, he'd foolishly believed that involved weights. He should have known better.
Evelyn, Artemis, walked over to him, slinging her bow over her shoulder.
"That was a nice shot," she said, pulling back her hood.
"Likewise." Finally, Saturn Girl herself – wearing the white and red military uniform she'd worn on the Waverider – floated down from the ceiling, purple eyes reflecting off the white floor.
"What's the last category?" he asked, "You said there were seven."
"Master abilities," she said grimly, "Powers that destroy almost anyone who tries to use them. The few who do survive usually end up being the greatest heroes, or the most horrific villains."
Oliver clenched his jaw. He'd been expecting something like that.
"Like what?"
"Reality alteration, Power Manipulation, Situation Adaptation, Time-Space Manipulation, Empathic Mimicry, the Almighty Powers…"
"And Speed Force users," Oliver finished. Both Imra and Evelyn nodded.
"We call them Conduits—people who are tethered to one of the Enigma Forces that govern the laws of the Multiverse. The Speed Force keeps time moving forward, but it lashes out, discharging excess energy. Sometimes it blasts whole universes from existence, and other times it can move solar systems between dimensions, and sometimes… it hits people," Imra said.
On that morbid note, Evelyn led the trio from the Gym. Oliver returned to his room and began writing things down. He needed to think.
New Krypton (what once was the planet Venus)
Barry and Kara held hands as they walked down the main street of Kandor City.
Kara could barely process what she was seeing. The towers, the dress, the people. If she didn't know any better, she would say that she had been transported back to Krypton centuries before the planet died. Before the ash clouds had swallowed the sky. Before the oceans had turned to acid. Before the last birds had died out.
The light that beamed down on the planet was red rather than the yellow of Earth, though that wasn't because of the sun, but rather New Krypton's high carbon-dioxide atmosphere. Barry had to wear a breather at all times to supply enough oxygen. Kara did not. Compared to the Krypton she'd grown up on, this air was perfectly clear – though she'd spent enough time on Earth to understand the difference now. Her senses had been dialled back to normal, but she still had heat vision, invulnerability and flight – her body was still absorbing the sun's yellow light, though it was in shorter supply. The incredible thing was that her strength had decreased significantly. So much so in fact that she didn't have to worry about crushing Barry's hand with hers.
It was just… so much like home that it was nauseating. Kandor had been abducted before Kara had been born, but that didn't matter. The street layouts were almost identical to her home city of Argo, so she could guide Barry through the shopping districts and restaurant strips with ease. And they held hands the whole time. It was like a date almost. Except neither had called it that and for now, Kara was okay with that. Baby steps.
Eventually, once Barry's arms were sufficiently laden with shopping bags, they made their way to the centre of the city, where the Temple of Guilds was located. Kara spent most of the walk teaching Barry about how life on Krypton had been divided into guilds. The Science Guild, the Military Guild etc., and how her travel to Earth had allowed her to escape a predestined role in the Science Guild alongside her father. That had shocked Barry into a sort of silence for a while, unable to understand a life without fundamental choice as a core tenant.
Together, they exited another row of shops and emerged into a giant park filled with Kryptonian flora she'd never thought she'd ever see again. Towering over the rows of cultivated plants was an enormous temple, and flying proudly over the battlements was a flag of deep blue, with a red glyph pride and centre. The House of… El?
"What?" She exclaimed, stupefied. She had forgone her disguise as Kara Danvers today, embracing her Kryptonian heritage. Her hair was long and flowing freely over her shoulders, and she wore a Kryptonian shawl and robe. Barry wore one of the wraps from Earth – in which she could see the resemblance to the Kryptonian fashion if hidden.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
"That shouldn't be flying there. It should be the Kryptonian flag." Two young women walked past her, and she called out to them.
"Excuse me!" She said in Kryptonese – and how nice was it to use that language once more – "Why do they not fly the Kryptonian Flag?"
The couple turned towards her, looks of confusion on their face.
"That is the flag of New Krypton." One of them said, clearly baffled by Kara's question.
"But that's the sigil of the House of El?"
"Exactly. The symbol of Krypton's greatest heroes, why shouldn't that be our flag?" The two women moved on, leaving Kara standing in a sort of stunned silence.
"Come on," Barry beckoned, leading her to a park bench where she could look out over a garden of Miri bushes with their pink and gold flowers.
"How are you holding up?"
"It's all so surreal," she whispered, staring up at the sky and breathing deeply at the heavy air.
"Homesick?"
"No," Kara assured him, "More of a thrill actually. To know that I'm not the last, that my people live on, thrive in the future. It's almost a sense of closure that I didn't know I needed."
Barry fell silent, staring at a pair of birds like hummingbirds flittering between the flowers.
"Do you want to stay?" he asked softly.
Kara started, turning to stare at him. He didn't meet her eyes, but his whole body carried a weight to it, a fear she realised, that made her want to wrap her arms around him.
Did she want to stay? She could live here as an average person. No more worrying about not fitting in, about fighting aliens or her Aunt Astra. She could just be Kara Zor El again.
But she wasn't Kara Zor El. Not really. Not anymore. Kara Zor El was who she'd been born. An alien without a world. But Kara Danvers was who she'd become. A woman who wouldn't let anyone stand in the way of doing what was right, Cat Grant's best ever assistant, Winn and James' friend, Alex's sister. If she chose to stay, she'd be giving all of that up.
The question she needed to ask was, did she want to be Kara Zor El? Or did she want to be Kara Danvers?
It surprised her how easy it was to decide.
"I'm Kara Danvers, Supergirl," she said, "My place is in the 21st Century. On Earth. These people, they don't need Kara Zor El, the orphan of old Krypton. But the people of National City? They need Supergirl. Kara Danvers means so much to so many people. Kara Zor El is just a memory now. It's time I accepted that." Barry smiled softly, finally looking her in the eye. Then he pulled her into a tight embrace, and she leant her head into his neck, breathing him in.
Yes, Kara Danvers meant something. And she wouldn't throw that away. She wouldn't throw her away. She wouldn't throw this away.
Central City, the 25th Century…
"GO!" Both Barry and Eobard rocketed forward, racing down the runway faster than the speed of sound. They kept pace with one another, running laps of the field, making sure to keep their rate constant. The lightning their bodies gave off was identical in shape and hue; each step they took the same distance. And with each movement, that harmonious humming reverberated through the back of Barry's mind.
It was exhilarating.
Barry turned down another runway, Eobard keeping pace beside him.
"Ready?"
Eobard nodded, determination in every fibre of his body as they ran.
"Remember what I taught you. Feel the lightning, the wind, the Speed Force pumping through your veins." He nodded again, and Barry turned his concentration to the upcoming brick wall obscuring their path. He vibrated his body, shifting himself just out of phase, and watched out of the corner of his eye as Eobard tried to do the same. His body fritzed, phasing in and out, stopping and starting… Barry phased through the wall, Eobard slammed into it with a hard 'crack!'. Barry skidded to a stop, then raced back to where Thawne was peeling himself off the wall.
"Ow."
Barry just chuckled.
"Don't worry. You'll get it. You're doing way better than I did. It took me a year to learn the Lightning toss, and you got it in an hour. An hour! Don't beat yourself up," he said, patting the man on the back and helping to pull him away from the wall. It wasn't brick. Not really. It was a special type of rubber substance you could get here in the future that absorbed momentum incredibly well. Barry had already taken a sample so he could test it back at STAR Labs.
Eobard finally got free and rubbed at his face.
"I just want to learn as much as I can before you go home. If I'm going to be the Flash here, I need to know as much as I can so I can uphold your legacy." Therein lay the problem. Eobard genuinely thought Barry was training him to be a superhero. And was he wrong? Barry was teaching him to use his superspeed mainly so he could influence the man. Rub off on him. It seemed to be working at least. Eobard had taken Barry to a bar in the city, and Barry had quizzed his young future enemy about his reasons for running, just as Wells had done to him. Eobard's morality and drive were freakishly similar to Barry's own.
He was obsessed with trying to discover the truth of his mother's murder and proving his father's innocence; just as Barry was. The only difference: The Legion assured him that Thawne's father had a criminal record, and his wife had been admitted to hospital with injuries consistent with strangulation multiple times. Employing Oliver's 'don't trust anyone' ideology, he'd looked into the evidence himself, and found nothing amiss. Eobard's father deserved to be in prison.
The next scary thing was their thoughts on right and wrong. Both Barry and Thawne had a rather no-nonsense idea of justice. You were either guilty, or you weren't. Both Barry and Eobard refused to fabricate evidence or arrest without probable cause – even if the offender was a danger to the public. Watch and investigate sure? But throw someone behind bars? No chance in hell. The law meant too much to both of them to even think of circumventing it.
Finally, Barry was fascinated by the determination he saw in Eobard. A commitment that reminded him… of himself. If he wanted something done, he got it done. No ifs buts or maybes. It was scary, seeing that drive from the outside. He understood a little bit better now what Iris meant when she said that he was hard to talk to when he was focussed, or Joe's insistent checking in on him to ensure he didn't get consumed in his work. It was a rather pointed awakening.
"I don't think my legacy matters as much as you think it does," Barry said. Eobard didn't know who he was, and Barry was long dead, so he couldn't do a facial scan or anything, so he didn't bother hiding his face. That being said, he hadn't told Eobard his name. No sense being utterly stupid after all.
"You need to be your own hero. Your own Flash. Only then can you grow."
Eobard shook his head.
"You really don't understand just how famous you are, do you?" Barry shrugged, and Eobard clapped him on the shoulder.
"Come on. I want to show you something."
Running at superspeed in a roughly patched suit on Barry's part, and a makeshift costume on Eobard's, the other man led Barry to a giant building that looked suspiciously familiar.
"STAR Labs…" he breathed. It was STAR Labs. Just not the STAR Labs he knew. It was the same building, but the entire structure had been repaired and upgraded with the chrome architecture. The mostly abandoned houses and car parks around the building were all gone, replaced by cultivated gardens of vibrant green. And in the centre of the courtyard adjacent to the main entrance was a pedestal—a pedestal featuring a giant golden statue of the Flash mid-run. Emblazoned across the opening doors to STAR, was a giant sign done in a font he didn't recognise, stylised lightning jumping out from it. 'The Flash Museum.'
"My God," Barry whispered. Eobard slapped him on the back, then changed into civilian clothes.
"Want to take a look?"
"Barry," Saturn Girl's voice rippled through his mind, "Kara and Oliver are on site. You're good to go."
Barry nodded dumbly to Eobard and changed his own clothes.
Eobard bought entrance tickets and led him inside as Barry just continued to stare, dumbfounded. The entire facility had been converted into a memorial, or rather a tribute to the Flash. But it wasn't just him. There was mention of at least three other Flashes – though nowhere were their identities exposed thankfully. The hallway where the Time Vault was hidden had been turned into a gallery of different Flash suits. Some of them looked really badass, others not so much. Cisco's laboratory was now called the 'League Archive', and Caitlin's medical wing was the 'Armoury' which held racks of devices and weapons Team Flash had invented over the years. To get access to the Particle Accelerator, you had to wait in a line for over thirty minutes. Once inside, Barry could see why. The Accelerator was divided in half. On the ground was an exhibit about the physics of the explosion, why and how it happened – or rather, how it was supposed to have occurred in this timeline. The roof of the ring? A rollercoaster had been built going around it. A 'Flashcoaster' as a matter of fact. So guests could experience what it would be like to move like the Flash. The only room that retained its original function was the Speed Canon, which had been built into a stable, permanent Breach Portal to somewhere called the 'Watchtower'. There was even a gift shop!
But the room Barry became enraptured by was a room called the 'Rogues Gallery'. It was an exhibit devoted to the Flash's Enemies. He spotted Snart's Cold Gun, Zoom's mask, the Weather Wand, Trickster's costume, and – though he had to suppress a shiver at the sight of it – the Reverse-Flash suit on a mannequin, the Tachyon device strapped to his chest. Then there were the dozens of references he didn't recognise. Villains from his future. The 'Thinking Cap', Savitar's Suit, Killer Frost's costume, and a scary-looking spear with a lightning-bolt at the point.
The entire time he was in the Museum, Eobard made sure he didn't read any of the exhibit signs – "Protect the Timeline Barry!". Of course, he was nowhere near as annoying as Imra, who was in his brain the entire time yelling at him not to know about his own future.
Finally, two hours later, Eobard led a stunned Barry out of the museum.
"Told you so."
Oliver stood in front of an exhibit in the 'Flash Museum'. An exhibition about the 'Flash Family'. Thawne had deliberately not shown Barry this exhibit he guessed, but Oliver had found it. And it just confirmed his suspicions.
There was a large circular screen with a sliding bar, that when moved, rotated between the Team Flash members with public identities.
Cisco was there, as were Caitlin, Stein, Joe and Iris. Harrison Wells appeared several times – supposedly he had numerous alternate versions of himself from Parallel Universes or something? But the names Oliver was really interested in, were Barry Allen, Kara Danvers-Allen, Ellie Allen and Alex Allen.
The database listed Barry as a forensic scientist, police informant and occasional field support. That was it. He was included amongst the original team, but there was no mention of his role as the Flash. Nor was there a photo of him. Kara – Barry's wife – was labelled as a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and informant. No Supergirl, though her connection to Lois Lane, Superman and Supergirl were noted. Finally, there was data on their two daughters.
A cough echoed through the room, and Oliver turned around to see Imra leaning against the door. All the other people in the room stiffened, before walking straight outside.
"Satisfied?" She asked softly.
"You aren't going to tell them?"
"No. And neither are you." Oliver stared into Imra's purple irises, then nodded, and together they left the room.
The next day, Barry stepped into Eobard's lab in Central City PD, whistling to himself.
"This is so much more advanced than anything we had," he said, chuckling softly to himself as he approached Eobard's desk. Kara was in the atrium – because the CCPD had an atrium now – reading a newspaper. Apparently, newspaper magazines made a major come back in the 22nd Century or something. Kara was incredibly fascinated by it. Barry was slightly more intrigued by the fact that the Periodic table had two more columns than it was supposed to. New groups, not periods. That meant there were additional electron valences they hadn't discovered yet and… it was just so fascinating. He'd secreted away a copy to bring back for Caitlin, Cisco and Harry.
"Flash!" Eobard exclaimed, beckoning Barry over to a very advanced and futuristic looking microscope.
"I've been looking into ways to get you back home… and I think I've stumbled upon something incredible." Barry stepped up beside the fellow speedster, and Eobard typed a series of commands into his computer. "Look at this." He moved to the side, and Barry looked into the microscope.
The definition was phenomenal. He could actually see the individual organelles of the cell in such detail… It was literally like a high definition television. But as he watched, he caught sight of what Eobard was looking at. A tiny flicker of golden electricity jumped from a ribosome, discharging throughout the cytoplasm in the cell—the Speed Force.
Barry stepped back and followed Eobard's gestured hand towards a screen.
"Energy cannot be created or destroyed, which means this Speed Force we burn as lightning when we run has to come from somewhere. So I broke down the particulate structure and used the Multiversal Quantum Positioning System STAR Labs developed to search for similar energy formations across the Orrery of Worlds. Look what I found." He tapped a key, and a grid of floating spheres appeared on his map. A space towards the upper edge, like a wall of energy, illuminated.
"Everything points to that energy storm. I think this power you call the Speed Force, and it has to be some sort of reservoir, another dimension perhaps. The way you got here, time travelling. I think you must have run so fast you entered this Speed Force in your time and got spat out in mine. To get you home, all we'll have to do is reopen the gateway you used to get here." He paused then, getting an odd look in his eye.
"Flash… we could travel anywhere, any-when we wanted! We could go back in time, forward in time. Solve problems before they even happen! We could go back and stop the Plutonian Civil War! The Titan Disaster! Hell, we could go back all the way to Mars and save the Green Martians from extinction! Maybe even save Krypton!"
"No!" Barry exclaimed, stepping back in panic. "No. We can't do that. History is precious. Things happen because they need to happen. What right do we have to be judge jury and executioner? We aren't gods. We don't get to go backward or forward in time and rewrite reality on a whim."
Thawne turned on Barry, eyes darkening, jaw clenching.
"We were struck by that lightning Flash. Us. We were chosen for this power. Why shouldn't we use it?"
"We weren't chosen. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time." Barry paused, running a hand through his hair. Damn it! The whole thing was unravelling! "Think of how many lives you could change inadvertently. Think of the greater problems you could cause."
"I'm thinking of the lives I could save!" Thawne said, slamming his fist on the table.
"At what cost?"
"Whatever cost is necessary. If I can save an entire species by sacrificing the lives of a few hundred? A few thousand? I'll do it Flash. Believing otherwise is naïve."
Barry turned on his heel. "Then I'll live in naivety. If even a single life has to be spent to save another, you lose. I won't be party to the murder of millions to save trillions. And if you try it? I will stop you." He stopped at the door, turning to look Thawne in the eye once more. And then he saw it—that burning hate. The gaze Wells had worn at the end. The Reverse-Flash.
"Thank you for your help. I'll return to my time, and then I'll stay there. I suggest you stay here. If you don't, I'll find you."
Then he flashed away, anger bubbling under the surface. He grabbed Kara from her seat and ran through Central City carrying her bridal style as she screamed – though whether it was in amusement or terror, he couldn't tell.
They skidded to a halt on the Command and Control Platform in the Hall of Justice, where Oliver and Saturn Girl were waiting for them.
"Plans bust," Barry said, putting down a heavy breathing Kara, whose face was bright red, "He's going to change the timeline, no matter what I do. We need to take him down the old-fashioned way."
Imra sighed, shaking her head.
"I had a feeling," she said, before turning back to her console.
"Shazam and Artemis took most of the resident team out to Europa half an hour ago. There's been a flood in Atlantic City. Green Lantern took Lightning Lad with her back to Vega…" She began rapidly typing, bring up a list of people with identity tags beside them.
"I guess I can recall the Waverider…"
"No," Oliver said, looking between Barry and Kara. They both nodded. They could do this. "We can handle Thawne. We're better prepared, and we know each other." Imra looked like she wanted to argue, but at a withering look from Oliver, she complied. Muttering under her breath about foolish superheroes, she grabbed a wooden box from the side of the desk.
"I had Brainy make these when you got here. You aren't supposed to get them for a few years yet, but, whatever." She opened the lid and proffered the box to them. Resting inside on velvet cushions were three golden rings – stylised L symbols printed on the front. One had an arrow symbol in the top corners; one had a lightning bolt, one had the S sigil.
"What are these?" Kara asked, picking up hers and holding it to the light.
"It's a Legionnaire Surge Ring. Only forgeable on one planet in the known Universe: Roshar."
Kara eepped, holding the ring as far away from her as she could.
"Is that safe?"
"Reasonably."
"What do they do?" Oliver queried, taking his own ring.
"It's made out of Nth Metal from Thanagar, a substance that absorbs latent Investiture from the environment to exhibit extranormal properties. Wearing the ring grants limited access to the ten fundamental surges that govern the laws of the universe – though you can only use one at a time. They'll allow you to increase or decrease gravity around you to aid in flight or fall, accelerate your body's natural healing, increase your resistance to physical and mental attack, and heighten your sense of awareness. They also cloak while you aren't using or thinking about them. The symbol at the top contains a miniaturised pocket dimension that you can use to store your suits, and, should your identity be at risk of exposure, the ring will automatically activate a perception filter to obscure your face."
Barry whistled and took the final ring, mind flitting to the other piece of jewellery he had in his pocket; stolen from the Flash Museum.
"Impressive," Oliver muttered, sliding his on.
"Oh yeah. But for the love of Trinity, please don't lose them. Each one is worth more than this entire planet, and everything on it."
Ten minutes later, Barry, Kara and Oliver rendezvoused in the main hall, beneath the giant statues of themselves. That would never stop being weird, Kara thought to herself. Barry had – somehow – found an undamaged replica of his suit, and Oliver wore his costume, though he had taken one of Artemis' bows and quivers from the Armoury. He was weighing the bow in his hand when Kara strode out from the guest corridor, flexing and tweaking the bowstring. She was slightly miffed she was the only one who didn't have a new thing of her own, but she'd only just started using this suit. She could wait a bit for an upgrade.
Barry bounced on his feet, stretching his arms over his head, and when he saw Kara, he beckoned her over. Only he didn't smile at her like he usually did. That was a sure-fire sign he was absorbed in his own thoughts. She knew he was bummed by not being able to turn Thawne, but he would get over that. It had been a spur of the moment idea anyway. It didn't matter. They would stop Thawne now, and Barry's mother should be restored to life. Easy.
"Okay, here's the plan I've worked up," Oliver started, but before he could continue, an alarm blared out through the Hall, accompanied by Brainy's voice echoing over the intercom.
"A speed force signature just triggered the Hall's perimeter alarms. Shall I deploy countermeasures?"
"No," Oliver growled, "We fight him here."
"Very well. I shall break out Palmer's stash of 'pop-corn'. Have fun."
The comm shut off, and seconds later, a figure wreathed in golden lightning, appeared in front of the trio—a man wearing a Flash suit almost identical to Barry's own.
"You didn't come here by accident!" Thawne snapped, pulling back his cowl. "I analysed the residue your 'arrival' left behind! You didn't arrive on that street! You only made it look like you did! And now here you are, with Supergirl and the crash damned Green Arrow. Why did you come here?!"
"To save you," Barry said, stepping forward as Kara floated up into the air, arms folded, and Oliver knocked an arrow. "I've seen what you become Thawne. I came here to try and put things right. To save you before you turn into a monster. You can still stop. Right here, right now. If you don't go back through history, leaving destruction in your wake, you can be the greatest Flash of us all."
"NO! You're wrong. We were chosen. I was chosen. It's my destiny… and you can't stop me." Thawne pulled his cowl back up and raced at Barry, right into a blast of Kara's heat vision, sending him shooting backwards. Oliver loosed his arrow, catching Thawne in the side. He howled in pain, but rose straight back to his feet, only to be punched square in the face by Barry's superspeeding fist. He tried to run away from Barry, but Kara used her own speed to dive in front of him, and he slammed into her invulnerable form, crashing into the statue of Hal Jordan. He struggled to his feet again, heavy breathing, and he threw a lightning bolt at Kara. The lightning struck her, but she didn't feel it, and blasted a gale of freeze breath at Thawne in retaliation. Barry whipped by, punching Thawne once, twice, three times, before another arrow slammed into him. It detonated, encasing Thawne's chest in ice, and Barry came to a stop. Oliver stalked over, knelt down, and punched Thawne in the face.
"Here is what's going to happen," Oliver growled, "You're going away. Deep in a cell where you can't destroy any more lives or rewrite history for your own selfish goals."
"NO!" Thawne screamed. He vibrated his molecules, and the ice shattered, blasting everyone back.
"I will save the world!" Thawne pulled himself up and began circling with Barry. "Let's see who really is the Fastest Man Alive, Flash!"
Lightning flared in Thawne's eyes, and he sped away, Barry hot on his heels. They blasted out of the Hall of Justice, vaulting through Central City's bustling streets. The two speedsters were matched in speed, so they had to resort to trick one another or dissolving into fist fighting in vain attempts to lose one another. But neither Speedster could escape the other, because with every step they ran the thumping heartbeat of the Speed Force echoed in their ears, growing more vigorous when they were together.
"Barry!" Kara yelled across the coms, flying through the city towers, using her x-ray vision to follow the blurs of lightning through the streets. On the ground below her, Oliver raced at ground level on a Legion issue 'Lightcycle'. It was like a motorcycle, only built from microtechnology that allowed it to fit in your pocket, had energy pulse canons, and could ride up walls. Also, it looked really cool.
"What's the play, Flash?" Oliver cut Kara off.
"Wait for a window, then use those arrows."
"No! We'll find another way! If you get caught in the blast radius, Barry…" Kara exclaimed, whipping through the towers.
"I won't be. Trust me."
Kara's swallow was audible even over the com system.
"I'll always trust you."
Finally, Barry chased Thawne to the same street he'd 'faux' arrived on a month ago. Neck and neck, they bolted forward, moving faster and faster and faster…
With a deafening 'KRACKOOM!' a spiralling blue portal broke open in the middle of the street, and this time Barry didn't stop as he ran into it. Neither did Thawne.
Central City vanished. Gone were the streets and the sirens and the twinkling starlight. Gone were Oliver and Kara in his ear. All that existed was the tunnel of blue energy Barry and Thawne raced through. And as they ran, windows into time-shifted around them. Barry saw those first few days after he became the Flash, he saw himself being dragged around Central City by Zoom. Glimpses of him and Kara fighting side by side, of a man in a floating chair, and of a great and terrible storm.
With another 'BOOM!' they appeared running across a highway under a sky that definitely wasn't Earth's. For one, Jupiter was hanging in the air above them. They continued racing, Barry falling slightly behind as he tried to take in the epic scenery. Where the hell were they?
The answer soon became apparent, as Barry and Thawne raced into a warzone. Trenches filled with soldiers, hover-tanks cruising along white earth, space-ships in aerial dogfights overhead. Thawne ignored it all, aiming for a structure under a force-field on the far side of the plain.
Enough was enough. Barry lunged for Thawne, colliding with him and sending them both crashing to the dirt, leaving craters. Soldiers surrounded them in seconds as alarms blared and cannon fire filled the air, but Barry and Thawne just squared off against one another. All their focus on the other.
"This is to be one of the bloodiest wars in human history! The Titanian Disaster! Three hundred million people slaughtered!" Thawne screamed. "I can end it all now! With a single fist to a single man!"
"You don't know that! You kill one general? So what? Who is to say you don't make him a martyr? This war could claim billions instead?!"
Thawne faltered slightly, and Barry pushed the advantage. He sped forward, a sonic boom blasting all the soldiers back, and grabbed Thawne by the neck. Then he ran, faster and faster into another swirling time portal.
More windows flashed into existence around them: Barry's mother being murdered, Barry and Kara kissing, Thawne watching his father kill his mother, "We're enemies, rivals, reverses of one another…", a little girl in a pod, drifting through space…
Thawne kicked Barry in the knee, and they both lost their footing. The Speed Force spat them out, and the pair rolled clear along a footpath, eliciting screams in a language Barry couldn't understand but had heard before. He blinked several times and focussed on a red sky, full of ash. Oh, crappers…
Barry rolled onto his chest and pushed himself to his feet. Smoke rolled off Thawne's body, but he was still very much alive. And he had noticed exactly what Barry had.
"The dead planet Krypton," Thawne hissed, "How long until it explodes, taking all but two with it?"
The Kryptonians on the street had stopped screaming and running. Now they just stood astonished, staring at Barry and Thawne in curiosity.
"We could leave a message for the Guild leaders. A simple warning of the fate that awaits them. If you don't, the 3.2 billion inhabitants of this world that are about to die in the worst possible way imaginable. That's on you."
"Say you do save all these people Thawne, then what?" Barry asked, throwing his hands up in the air. They couldn't stay here. Even now, he was struggling to breathe. Surely Thawne was too. Not enough oxygen in the atmosphere.
"They get to live!"
"And what happens to Earth? An Earth without Superman or Supergirl?"
Thawne paused. "There's no way to know," Barry continued, "Brainiac is still going to attack Metropolis, Zod is still going to escape the Phantom Zone. Or what about the other alien invasions that I know are going to happen? And here's another question for you. What happens to Krypton? Does the planet die another even worse way? Do the Kryptonian people become tyrants that spread across the galaxy and murder trillions? You can't know the answer. You could wipe yourself from existence!"
Thawne sprang forward this time, but Barry was ready for him. He dodged his enemy and ran down the street in a blizzard of lightning, Thawne hot on his heels.
This time, when they entered the Speed Force, the windows all showed one thing: disasters. The Particle Accelerator Explosion, Krypton's destruction, the Martian genocide, one after the other. And as Thawne slowed, the horror finally hitting him, Barry pounced.
They emerged back in Central City, only this was the Central City of the present day. Barry's Central City.
"Flash!" Cisco's voice crackled as the coms synched back online. "Whoa! Did you just time-travel!?"
"Not now, Cisco!"
They came to a halt at the waterfront, Thawne staring around at Barry's home in wonder.
"You have to stop running Thawne! We could break the whole timeline!"
"No. I see it now! I was never meant to be the Flash, was I? You didn't come to the future to help me. You came to stop me."
He grabbed the symbol on his chest and ripped it off. Then he twisted it around and slapped it back on. In reverse.
"I'm the Reverse-Flash. Your greatest enemy."
"Oh damn…" Cisco breathed, "It's a fracken origin story!"
"Surrender now Thawne."
"No. No, I know what to do. I may not know who you are, but I know when you were born." Thawne flashed away, and Barry followed suit. They shot back into the Speed Force, and the windows cracked open again, showing images, memories, of the Reverse-Flash. And in the faint distance, Barry could hear a horrific screech.
They shot out of the time portal on the night of the Particle Accelerator Explosion. The clouds had already turned to gold, bolts of lightning already falling throughout the city in slow motion as Barry and Thawne raced up the side of Mercury Labs and soared into the air. Then he heard it… they both heard it. A resounding 'thud, thud, thud,' emanating from the centre of the city. Thawne kicked Barry in the chest, knocking him out of rhythm just long enough for Thawne to hit the side of the building and run away a few seconds before Barry. But Barry knew precisely where he needed to go, and Thawne did not.
He reached Central City PD seconds before Thawne did, and began running around the building, charging the electricity in his veins and creating a wall of lightning. Thawne skidded to a stop outside and screamed in frustration. The lightning bolt fell from the sky, and the beating heart of the Speed Force reached a crescendo… And Barry realised what he needed to do. He broke free from his barrier as the Lightning hit his younger self, and grabbed his trail and threw it straight at Thawne.
The supercharged bolt of lightning hit Thawne right in the chest, blasting him backwards. And even as the electricity was striking him, Barry shoved Thawne through the already weakened Speed Force barrier. Barry chased Thawne into the Speed Force, pushing as much lightning out of his body as possible to draw as much of the Dark Matter from the explosion with him. And as he ran with Thawne back to the 25th Century, he released the Dark Matter behind him, forging a wall within the Speed Force itself to protect those early years from Thawne's direct manipulation. It was an odd feeling, because the Barrier was technically already there, but Barry was creating it at the same time.
Finally, they shot out of the timestream back where they started, Barry let go of Thawne, leaving his body flying through the air in standard time. Then he sped away as fast he could.
Kara barely caught the silver-blue crack in reality as it formed in the middle of the street. Fortunately, Imra and Brainy had arrived on the scene and had set up a perimeter to keep back the people gawking at Supergirl and the Green Arrow, so when it did appear for a fraction of a second, she caught it.
"Now!" She yelled, preparing a punch. Then next thing she knew, golden lightning was flaring around her, and Kara's fist smashed into flesh. Thawne's ribs crunched on her invulnerable fist, and he was thrown backward with an ugly jerk. Straight into the anti-speedster arrow Oliver fired. It slammed into his abdomen, and the villain screamed in anguish and pain as the arrowhead exploded with green energy. The wave washed over the street, but Kara felt nothing from it. Thawne though? He looked like someone having a stroke. Kara stepped over him, eyes blazing with power, as Oliver came up beside her, another arrow at the ready.
Eventually, Thawne's seizing and screaming stopped, and he collapsed, limp, to the bitumen. Unconscious. Oliver lowered his bow, and Kara nodded to him, letting out a long breath of relief. Barry skidded to a halt beside her, and she pulled him into a fierce hug.
"Are you okay?" She whispered into his ear.
"I will be." She let him go, and he grinned at Oliver.
"Alright Flash?" he asked, clearly amused.
"Yeah…" he was cut off by another 'crack!'. Standing over Thawne's body was the zombified Flash. The one in the black suit with the melted face. Kara immediately balled her fists and Oliver raised his bow, but Barry gestured for them to wait.
He stepped forward and stared at the creature.
"What are you?"
"I AM THE BLACK RACER. I AM YOUR DEATH."
Barry looked down at Thawne.
"What are you going to do with him?"
The Racer too looked down at Thawne.
"IT IS NOT HIS TIME TO DIE. BUT HE WILL BE PUNISHED IF HE CONTINUES ON THE PATH OF DESTRUCTION. EVEN A FLASH CANNOT OUTRUN DEATH." The Racer vanished in a flurry of black lightning, and Barry let out a long sigh.
"I think I'm going to have a sleep now," he said with a tired smile. Then his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and Kara sped forward to catch him as he fell. She picked him up bridal style, and ran a finger over his cheek, smiling at him.
Oliver just rolled his eyes.
24 hours later…
"Urgh!" Imra exclaimed, slamming a fist on a console of the Command and Control Centre in the Hall of Justice.
"What is it?" Kara asked, standing in her Kryptonian garb with Oliver, Barry and Artemis – who had returned the previous night with a rather impressive scar over her jawline. Kara had asked about it that morning, and Evelyn had just waved the injury off, saying she'd get her biometrics reconfigured to remove it when she had time.
"It didn't fix the Aberration! Locking up Thawne and creating the Speed Force barrier should have stopped his reign of terror across history, but the alternate timeline he created when he went into the past to kill Barry remains intact!"
Barry pursed his lips, "So my mother is still dead?"
Imra looked back at Barry, face softening.
"I'm so sorry. I thought for sure it would work."
Barry took a deep breath and remembered his own words to Thawne.
"It's okay. We aren't judge, jury and executioner. We don't get to rewrite reality just because we want a differing outcome. The altered timeline… that must be the way the Universe wants history to play out."
Imra nodded, "At the very least, the Legion should be able to deal with the left-over time-quakes now that Thawne can't get inside the 21st Century to kill you all. At least, until he figures out how to bypass it. Regardless, now that the Racer is chasing future Thawne, you shouldn't have to worry about him showing up in the 21st Century again for a while."
"How are you going to deal with the other fractures to history?" Kara asked.
"I've been thinking about putting together a new team of Legionnaires. We're spread a little thin at the moment, so having a team dedicated specifically to protecting time from Thawne or any other time-criminals isn't a bad idea."
"Speaking of time," Oliver said, "We should be getting back to ours." Imra smiled at them.
"Right then. To the Waverider!"
Imra and Brainy led the way to the elevator while Artemis saluted farewell to Oliver, and Kara rushed to Imra's side.
"Um, just a suggestion, can you maybe drop us like say a week after we left. That way hopefully my sister and my boss – both my bosses really, though I'm more scared of Alex, to be honest – will have calmed down a little…"
Back in the 21st Century…
Two days after the Waverider dropped Barry, Oliver and Kara back home, Cisco, Felicity and Caitlin called the trio to STAR Labs.
"What's going on?" Barry asked, flashing into the Cortex where Oliver and Kara were already waiting.
"Firstly," Cisco said, bringing out a glass case, "I looked these babies over like you asked, and I have absolutely no idea how they work." He handed the glass box to Oliver, who opened the lid and withdrew his Legion Ring.
"It was worth a shot," he grumbled, before slipping it back on. He then handed the box to Barry and Kara, who both did the same thing.
"Second, thank you so very much for bringing back some toys from the fracking future for us to play with! The periodic table… my god that was cool…"
"Cisco!" Barry exclaimed as Kara giggled.
"Right, well, onto the main event then. While you guys were… away… I got to work…" Caitlin and Felicity both coughed dramatically, and Cisco rolled his eyes.
"Fine! We got to work, we the three of us…"
"And Winn helped too," Caitlin added cheerfully, clearly enjoying Cisco's fury.
"You just want to suck the enjoyment out of everything you know that?"
"Cisco!" Oliver interrupted, "The point?"
"We built you new suits," he finished dejectedly, leaning down to push a button on the computer. Three wall panels twisted around, revealing three mannequins with three suits on them.
"Wow," Barry breathed, stepping over to the centre one. He recognised it from the Flash Museum. A lighter red, with golden piping like electricity breaking up the solid colouring. The symbol was slightly larger and the boots… the boots were there. Knee-length, tapering at the back to points. Golden yellow to match the lightning bolt symbol.
"Very nice work," Oliver said, inspecting his own suit. It was still green, obviously, but the arm guards and boots were a more solid black. His sleeves were back, and the green gave way to black under the arms and joints. The back of the suit had built-in clips for a quiver, as well as an automated revolution system that could configure and adjust arrowheads on the fly.
"OH. MY. RAO!" Kara squealed, bounding over to hers. The new design was a much lighter blue, and the 'S' shield was a bit bigger, more stylised, and featured a gold background to make the red pop better. The belt was slightly thinner, and the skirt just that little bit longer, so it brushed above her knees. Finally, the biggest difference was the way her cape hung. Instead of flaring out from the back of her collar, this cape hung around her shoulders, almost like a cloak, hanging down to her knees. (If you want to know what Kara's new suit looks like, check out the Supergirl: Rebirth suit. Barry and Oliver's are more closely aligned to their comic selves as well)
"It's gorgeous!" She raced over to Cisco, hugged him, then used her superspeed to change into the new outfit, completely forgetting that Barry could perceive her every movement. He had to blink several times before that flattering image made it far enough through his brain that he could think coherently again.
"Each one has updated sensors and trackers for vitals, and I was able to utilise Ray's micro-cams so we can see what you're doing with better accuracy and efficiency. Oh, and Kara, I was able to line your suit with a layer of lead. Should provide some protection from Kryptonite. Tell your cousin to visit, and I'll see if I can't whip something up for him with my totally unappreciated genius."
"Thank you Cisco," Kara said, spinning around to test the skirt. "And you too Caitlin, Felicity."
"Don't mention it," Cisco said, blushing scarlet and stuttering.
As Barry took over congratulating Cisco, Kara pulled Oliver into the corridor out of earshot. Then she grabbed a lead canister she'd stashed on arrival and handed it to him gently.
"What's this?" He asked, frowning.
"Crack it open, and inside you'll find as much Kryptonite as I was able to smuggle out of the DEO without puking all over the floor." Oliver's eyes widened in alarm.
"What?! Why would you give this to me?"
She swallowed.
"Because we saw what happens when a speedster goes bad. If I ever… If something ever happens to me, I trust you to pull the trigger. Barry won't do it. Clark won't do it. Alex won't do it. I need you to promise me, Olly." Oliver looked her in the eye for several moments, then he nodded in respect and moved back into the room to place the canister with his things before the trip back to Starling City. Kara took a deep breath and made her way out of STAR Labs. Then she took out her phone and called Alex.
"KARA DANVERS SO HELP ME GOD IF YOU EVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT AGAIN WITHOUT TELLING ME!"
Kara winced, holding the phone away from her ear. Yep. She was definitely going to get it. Hanging up on Alex and bracing her legs, she shot into the sky and began the trip back to National City.
THE PRESENT...
"Wow. It's almost like having a real origin story for the Reverse Flash makes his character more compelling," Cisco said, rubbing his chin.
"What?"
"Never mind."
"Cool," Barry eventually said, admiring the ring on his finger, "A magic space ring. I mean the flying is basically worthless for me, but still, cool."
Alex huffed, "You haven't seen a lantern ring yet."
"Okay, let's move on," J'onn suggested. After a round of drinks, everyone agreed, and Cisco took up the narrative once more.
"Well, you all come back to the present, and everything is nice and easy, and we never face anything bad ever again…"
"CISCO!"
"Okay, okay! What's next? Um…" Cisco dragged his finger along the timeline from the crossover dot. Ray jumped in instead.
"Imra recruits Sara, Jax, Professor Stein, Snart, Rory and I for the Legion, and we join the crew of the Waverider with her and Brainy. And so begins our journey through time hunting down the Reverse-Flash after he escaped the Hall of Justice, and fixing the anachronisms he caused on his hunt for the Spear of Destiny to undue the shield around the 21st Century and kill the Black Racer."
"Kara goes up against Myriad at the same time we're on Earth 2," Cisco said, gesturing to him and Barry, "So we missed all of that."
"But to say she was super-pissed when Barry gave up his powers to Zoom, would be the understatement of the century," Alex chirped, throwing a sadistic grin at Barry. Kara punched him in the elbow again, huffing.
"Lost your speed, psychotic demon monster criminal…" She muttered.
"Hey," Cisco pointed out, "You should be nicer to us. If it wasn't for the Kryptonite blocker I built into Kara's new suit, she might have gone on a red-kryptonite fuelled rage across National City. And besides, we did call her once Barry got his powers back."
"Only because you couldn't deal with an entire army of metahumans from Earth 2 on your own," Dig said, rolling his eyes.
"Point," Cisco conceded, and Sara banged her head against the headboard.
THE FLASH: S2EP22 - INVINCIBLE
May 2016
Joe ducked behind his car as a Metahuman with a flaming head threw a fireball at him. Dozens of powered people were pouring out of Zoom's base in CCPD, and the police were not going to be able to hold the perimeter for long.
"Damn it Flash," Captain Singh whispered from his position beside Joe, refreshing his mag, "Now would be a perfect time to show up…"
A sonic boom echoed from down the street, and in a blur of golden lightning, The Flash appeared, skidding to a stop between the police and the Metahuman army.
"Hold your fire!" Singh yelled, then he turned to Joe, and grinned savagely.
"Maybe I have some Metahuman powers of my own?" He said with a laugh. Joe was not in a particular laughing mood, and instead slid his phone back into his pocket – ending the emergency call to Barry.
"I'll give you one chance to go back to your Earth," Barry yelled, vibrating his voice.
"Who's gonna make us Flash!" A man with a floating green skull for a head hissed, though how he spoke Joe wasn't sure. "You're outnumbered."
"Am I?" He asked.
Twin cracks echoed in the sky, and two figures dropped from the cloud layer. Joe and Singh glanced to one another in shock, then peeked out over the car hood. Standing on either side of the Flash, cracks in the pavement beneath their feet, were two people in red capes – a man and a woman.
"So?" Supergirl asked, flaring her hair to remove it from her face, "Who wants to get punched first?"
"I don't know," Flash said, smirking, "why don't you decide Superman?"
"Well," Superman said, floating up into the air, "I find punching the biggest person first is always the best idea." Then he shot forward, grabbed an eight-foot giant made of molten rock in the centre of the crowd, and punched him into the stratosphere.
"See?"
Flash and Supergirl looked to one another with amused expressions.
"If it works," they said, then, in a blur of lightning and a blast of wind, the three superheroes made short work of Zoom's supposed army.
Joe, Singh and the other cops slowly came out of their cover, staring open-mouthed as meta after meta was cuffed with the power dampening gauntlets then left unceremoniously on the concrete. Finally, as the last of them was punching into a wall by Superman; Flash and Supergirl stood on the stairs, and performed an intricate secret-handshake at superspeed, before hugging one another.
"Flash," Superman said, stepping up and slapping Barry on the back, "You'll have to handle this Zoom from here. Darhk's nukes could be in the air any second if Overwatch loses control of Rubicon. We can't risk not being on watch for this… not after Havenrock…"
Barry nodded firmly, "Go. I… I think I know how to deal with Zoom once and for all." Superman nodded in reply, before shooting up into the sky and vanishing.
Seemingly ignorant that they had an audience, Supergirl pulled Barry into a fierce hug which he returned with equal fervour.
"I'm sorry I can't stay, but with the deaths from Havenrock powering him…"
"You have to help Oliver with Darhk, I know."
"I'll try and get back as soon as I can," she said, releasing him.
"Go save the world, Supergirl." She smirked, then, blushing, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Then she too shot into the sky.
Barry finally turned back to his audience. He saluted, and the other cops, even Joe to his own surprise, saluted in turn.
"I'll get Zoom, I promise." Then he sped away.
They all stood, stunned, for a while, until Singh finally came to his senses.
"Let's get these crooks into lock-up. Iron Heights is going to need new cells."
THE PRESENT...
"When Darhk takes control of the world's nukes from Felicity," Dig continued, "Superman and Supergirl flew around the planet-destroying them one by one. Thankfully, Felicity and Curtis managed to find a solution before any more cities were destroyed."
"So, Oliver still kills Darhk and becomes Mayor?" Sara asked.
"Yeah, I still have trouble believing it," Dig chuckled.
"What about Zoom?" Barry asked, voice dangerously low. Everyone stared into their drinks, and Kara wrapped her arm around Barry's waist again, pulling him subtly closer to her. She wasn't sure it would do anything, but she offered what comfort she could.
"Say it. I've already figured it out."
Cisco swallowed, before forging on. "Harry and I use a vibrational device to disable the remaining Earth 2 metas. In revenge, Zoom…" he trailed off, tears building in his own eyes.
"Zoom kills Iris," Barry whispered, whole body breaking into shakes. He punched the table, stood up and stormed away.
"I'll go after him," Kara said, sliding out from the table and following after his retreating form.
The others watched them go in silence until J'onn finally spoke up.
"Forgive me for being insensitive, but I don't understand."
"Iris is Barry's foster-sister, and, in the original timeline, his wife. In the last world, Barry's father was killed by Zoom, and once he's finally defeated, Barry, utterly broken, goes back in time to save his mother from Thawne. In doing so, he creates Flashpoint: a mirage world that screws with everyone. Though, when you think about it, it's a miracle it was as minor as it was. Who knows what might have happened?"
They returned to silence, until eventually, Alex asked the obvious question.
"Um, when are we going to tell those two about the whole…" She stopped, then made a motion with her fingers that had Ray and J'onn cringing, and Cisco and Sara laughing.
"Honestly, I think it's going to be so much funnier to see how long it takes them to figure it out."
Hey guys, so after a conversation with a commenter on Archive, I called up my sister Crystal (who's the Bat-nerd of the Fam) with an idea. For the next three hours, Miracle and I – with Crystal on the phone – rewired Arrow seasons 6-8 and Batwoman season 1 into a new show: The Gotham Knights.
The idea is simple: instead of focussing only on Batwoman (whom no one really knew much about or cared about before the show happened), we widen the playing field to showcase all the Bat-Family – an incredibly rich vault of stories that hasn't really been mined by the television industry for the gold that it is. These are characters that people have cared about and been reading for decades. The potential is endless.
So here is what we came up with. The Gotham Knights would take over the Arrow time slot after season 5 finishes, keeping a darker show in the main line up when the shows return in 2018. That way, you keep an Arrow like show, but stop having to create strange plotlines to justify its longevity. Preferably, it would be TV-MA/MA 15+ but that's a pipe dream.
If anyone wants to take a crack at it, or has any suggestions or inputs, drop us a review or comment. We're very much willing to tinker before we lock stuff in. We hope you enjoy…
THE GOTHAM KNIGHTS
Pilot: Follows the children of Bruce Wayne after Batman vanishes two years ago. But when Bane, the last person to see Batman alive, attacks Gotham City, Burnside resident Barbara Gordon puts out a call to her adoptive family to avenge their father. Gathering a team consisting of police detective Dick Grayson, 17-year-old CEO Tim Drake, single teen-mother Stephanie Brown and silent assassin Cassandra Cain, they set out to take down Bane and save Gotham.
Front half Season 1: Establish the five and their origins with Batman. Batman/Bruce never appears save for a cape or cowl. Alfred appears in the flashbacks, but not in the present. Each member – from ep 3-7 – gets a focus episode.
CROSSOVER: Crisis on Earth-X. The show doesn't crossover officially, but, the Knights Earth-X counterparts do appear. Dick is in a concentration camp (as per his Romani heritage); Babs is paraplegic and is also in a camp. Tim is an SS general (his origin makes him a prime candidate). Cass (who is Chinese) is a resistance fighter. Steph is one of Overgirl's Acolytes (Blonde hair, green eyes, you do the math)
Back half Season 1: Riddler emerges behind the plots, and the team has to relearn how to work together. Tease out each members scars from working with Batman.
Finale Season 1: The team defeats the Riddler in a big heroic typical finale moment at episode 20.
Secret Two-Part Finale (Here is the cool bit.) We figure, announce that there are only 20 episodes of the first season and build everything up as the Riddler being the villain, but when Riddler is defeated, the cold ending reveals the Joker and the fact that there are two extra episodes. The team discovers that the Joker was behind everything in an attempt to bring back Batman. When Batman doesn't return, Joker embarks on attacks against each team-member. Babs is crippled, Tim is framed and loses his company, Cass is abducted and forced to watch the entire thing, Steph's daughter gets kidnaped, and Dick is left holding the pieces. In a climactic battle during which Alfred returns with the Batmobile, Dick kills Joker and Tim and Steph rescue Cass and Layla (Stephanie's kid), but Barbara remains in a coma.
Season 2: Jason Todd returns gunning for Dick in revenge for killing the Joker. Tim is fighting to get his company back, while investigating Jason. Cass has left the team intending to take on all of Gotham's criminals herself to protect her family. Babs is adjusting to life in a wheelchair and figuring out what she adds to the team. Steph has appointed herself Babs' guardian and isn't letting her or Layla out of her sight. And Dick is trying to contend with the pressure of Batman's legacy after his murder of the Joker.
CROSSOVER: Elseworlds. Pull a Framework style episode from Agents of SHIELD. What is each Knights biggest choice? Then reverse it. Meet the Trinity. Oliver might know Tim from CEO stuff. Maggie knows Dick which means Alex knows Dick. Overwatch vs Oracle hacker battle. Sara knows Cass and Tim from the League of Assassins.
Season 3: Damien and Talia Al Ghul come looking for Batman. The Birds of Prey (Black Canary, Batgirl, Black Bat and Supergirl) go up against the Gotham City Sirens (Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Huntress and Enchantress)
Characters (Mains)
Dick Grayson (Nightwing)
o Roles: Leader, charisma, Lead male, Can't Brood. Class Clown. Comedic relief with Steph or surrogate when she isn't around. Very Captain America but with Iron Man's humour.
o Age: 25
o Ship: Babs. Start off as amicable ex's, get back together after mid-season. Starfire old ex? After the Killing Joke, he and Babs become serious, and at the end of season 2, Dick proposes to Babs.
o Goals: Family.
o Scar: Weight of mantle. Parents deaths.
Barbara Gordon (Batgirl season 1/Oracle Season 2 onwards)
o Roles: Eyes in the sky, tech guru, hacker, has the connections. Lead female. Can't Brood. But doesn't joke around. Dry humour. Very driven/dedicated.
o Age: 23/24
o Ship: Dick. Start off as amicable ex's, get back together after mid-season. After the Killing Joke, she and Dick become serious, and at the end of season 2, Dick proposes to her.
o Goals: To be the best
o Scar: Inadequacy/Brother/Early screw-ups. Season 2: Killing Joke.
Cassandra Cain (Orphan season 1 and 2/Black Bat season 3 onwards…)
o Roles: Silent but deadly. Doesn't talk much, but is the rock of the fam. Hides in the shadows. Ultimate Stealth badass.
o Age: 22
o Ship: None (asexual)
o Goals: Protection
o Scar: Forced self-isolation (when your mum's Lady Shiva…)
Jason Todd (Red Hood season 2 onwards)
o Roles: Sarcasm boss and insults, brawn rather than brain, street smarts, black market, likes to kill people – pretending to be trying to reform.
o Age: 21/22
o Ship: Everyone.
o Goals: Vengeance.
o Scar: Death. Betrayal by 'dad'
Tim Drake (Red Robin)
o Roles: Engineer, detective, has money (CEO of Wayne Enterprises), Dry humour. Broods; like a fuck tonne. Perseverance in a bottle.
o Age: 17
o Ship: Complicated. Has a crush on his best friend Steph, but she is more concerned with her daughter.
o Goals: Big picture.
o Scar: League of Assassins. Guilt over causing his parents deaths.
Stephanie Brown (Spoiler season 1 to midseason 2/Batgirl mid-season 2 onwards…)
o Roles: Balls of steel, ultimate comic relief, class clown, audience surrogate, keeps everyone human. Cinnamon Roll. Becomes besties with Supergirl.
o Age: 17
o Ship: Complicated. Focussed on her daughter.
o Goals: Family (specifically, her daughter Layla)
o Scar: Dad was a supervillain (nuff said)
Characters (Recurring)
· Clark Kent/Superman [Regular, researching Batman's disappearance, pops over with pie, Supergirl vector]
· Jennifer Pierce/Lightning [Vector from Black Lightning, friends with Tim]
· Commissioner Gordon [Regular. Babs dad. Duh]
· James Gordon Jr [Babs brother. Duh]
· Roy Harper (Arsenal) [Vector from Arrow, friends with Dick]
· Kate Kane/Batwoman [Shows up for certain episodes, but doesn't like to hang with the Team]
· Sara Lance (Black Canary) [Vector from Arrow, crosses over with Legion of Superheroes] [Represents Tim's past with the League of Assassins
· Nyssa Al Ghul [Same as above]
· Talia and Damian (For season 3 maybe?)
· Luke Fox [African American, tech support when needed]
If anyone wants to take a crack at it, or has any suggestions or inputs, drop us a review or comment. We're very much willing to tinker before we lock stuff in. We hope you enjoy…