The Final Temptation of Barry Allen
"Madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push." ~The Joker, of the Nolanverse
Barry glared at Thawne with hate in his eyes as Thawne stared right back at him. Barry took a breath getting his emotions back under control with the eerie purple lighting disappearing from his eyes. Thawne's words about how he doesn't owe the Future Flash anything after he left him to die in the Speed Force and abandoned his timeline to be erased stung his heart deeply, especially after he looked up to his alternate future self like a brother…his hero…
Barry stared at Thawne thinking about everything he said and something didn't add up to Barry. Thawne said he needed Barry's help to get home. Yet, earlier he told Barry that if he didn't help him, Thawne would intervene in the battle tomorrow to prevent him from running back in time to try and win the day and make sure Zod won before escaping into another universe or timeline.
If that's the case, and if Thawne can do that, why did he need Barry's help getting home? And why did he need Barry to get faster? Thawne stated his purpose was to destroy and kill Barry Allen across the timelines, so if you hate someone that much why let a version of them live and get the happy ending? Something was wrong here, something wasn't right.
"If your plan is so perfect, why do you need me to get home? You already stated you could escape to any timeline or universe if I didn't help you." Barry pointed out. Thawne just smiled thoughtfully at Barry.
"Like you said If I don't help you, you'll just make sure we lose the battle tomorrow and escape anyway. So either way, I help you, you get home, or I don't Zod wins, we die and you escape to another timeline or universe to wreak havoc on another Barry Allen's life? So, why are you wasting so much time talking to me here in this place? Why not just wipe me off the face of the Earth right now and leave?" Barry demanded in a dark voice.
"And ruin my PS to resistance? No, no, no I'm going to savor this entire day and the peace that it's brought me." Thawne said in a calm, peaceful, and joyous voice. It took everything Barry had to control his rage and the impulse to lash out at Thawne.
"But like I said, I'll give you a chance to save your friends and world, but there is one last thing. I want to hear you say it Barry." Thawne demanded.
Barry just tilted his head wondering what Thawne wanted him to say. It was clearly something he wanted to hear from the Future Flash but would never hear him say it so hearing it from an alternate version of The Flash was the next best thing.
Barry thought for a moment thinking about everything Thawne said and then it hit him what Thawne wanted him to say. Thawne always wanted to beat The Flash, to have his rival admit he has won in their sick little game across time.
"Say it." Thawne snapped his finger at Barry.
"You win Thawne, I can't stop you, I can't stop Zod, I can't save my friends, and I can't save my world. Only you can…" Barry said in a broken and defeated voice.
"Delicious." Thawne said with a slight moan letting out a sigh before grabbing his beer and taking another drink from the cup before sitting it back down.
After a moment of silence Barry realized Thawne was enjoying the moment and wasn't going to tell him anything, nor did Barry want to give him any further satisfaction. Barry slid his chair back and got up to walk away with Thawne eyes flowing his movements.
"You can't walk away from what's about to happen…Barry." Thawne warned Barry. Barry stopped looking over his shoulder at Thawne.
"I know…but I can run towards it." Barry said in a dark tone.
"You want the truth Barry?" Thawne said while smiling evilly. Barry let out a sigh turning to face Thawne who pointed at his seat. Barry lets out a sigh sitting back down.
"How's this, you will go back. You will do everything you can think of to save her. You're even going to create time remnants of yourself but Zod will kill them all. Then on that day, tomorrow afternoon Kara Zor-El, Bruce Wayne, your parents, this world will die, so Krypton can live again and in that moment when Kara Zor-El takes her last breath it will feel like an eternity and it will break you." Thawne said with an evil smile. Barry turned his head away not wanting to remember all the dozen times he tried to run back and save her.
"She is the love of your life Barry. Something no other Barry can say." Thawne giggled thinking how Barry always ended up with Iris West but in this timeline, this Barry's heart fell for a Kryptonain, for Supergirl.
"There will be nothing left but stopping Zod. You'll spend a lifetime relieving that battle. But one day you'll find out how to stop him, but by that time it'll be too late. The Future Flash will decide to go back and reset the timeline and we all know what happened to future you." Thawne smiled evilly.
"The Dark Flash…" Barry mumbled.
"The Dark Flash…" Thawne said amusingly.
Barry flashes back to getting stabbed in the back by his future self, the Dark Flash. He remembers him being erased from existence, then himself dying in the Future Flash's arms knowing there was nothing he could do to stop the Future Flash from running back in time and allowing mom to die.
Barry accepted his fate, but hoped the Future Flash would have ran back a few seconds to save him from dying and talk further with the Dark Flash to see if the three of them couldn't have come up with a solution, but instead the Future Flash abandoned him and ran back in time to reset the timeline knowing it would mean erasing his timeline and him from existence. This memory filled Barry with such rage and anger toward the Future Flash, a rage toward all other versions of himself across time.
"But at that point I have already won because everything you ever loved is gone, including you. Go back to Gotham Barry, enjoy your last night with them. After tomorrow there is nothing for you here. None of you have a future. After all, it's not like you're the REAL Barry Allen." Thawne said with a smile.
Barry hung his head low in silence looking up at the news on the T.V. to see another report on the Mysterious Supergirl who is seen catching a car that had malfunctioning brakes going insanely fast down hill.
Supergirl flies down catching the car before it smashes into a building next to a crowd of people. The Cameraman zooms in on her leaning forward in a heroic pose with the runaway car above her head with the family safe inside. Supergirl gently puts the car on the ground before flying away. Barry smiles, feeling a glimmer of hope and love everytime he sees her. Barry looks back at Thawne.
"The future isn't set, there is still hope." Barry told Thawne.
"Barry, the future is harder to change then you can imagine. The future will happen the way it wants to. Here let me show you." Thawne explains not missing a beat to show how much smarter he is then Barry.
Thawne looked around then got up to go to the bar and got a set of dominos and then came back to the table sitting them up in a row for Barry to see. Barry narrowed his eyes wondering what Thawne was getting at.
"Imagen if you will, each domino is a moment in time leading up to the world's end at the hands of Zod. one moment of time leads to the next as each domino falls leading to the inevitable conclusion of this system of things." Thawne explained knocking the dominos till the last one remains standing.
"Zod's victory and the rebirth of Krypton." Barry stated in a cold emotionless voice. Thawne nods and resets the dominos.
"But the Dark Flash tried to alter certain events in his attempt to fix everything." Thawne explained removing some of the dominos from the row then knocking them over. The last domino turns sideways, almost falling over but doesn't.
"The Dark Flash was close, but Zod's victory still happens and Krypton is reborn with the destruction of this world." Thawne explains. Thawne resets the dominos.
"Now if you change your approach to the final battle and do certain events differently." Thawne explained turning certain dominos sideways then knocking them over with the second to the last domino falling in a different direction with Thawne putting a new domino in front of it.
"New future…" Barry said with his eyes widening.
"New Future." Thawed echoed.
"You can change the future Barry, but you have to becareful which events you alter." Thawne warned.
"What event would you change-"
"I said I would give you a chance, I'm not going to hold your hand Barry. I have already said too much as it is. Infact, I have already told you what you needed to hear. Come tomorrow you will either win and help me get home, or lose everything. If you try to run back in time and take a doover I will stop you and let you see the end of your world and everyone in it before I kill you and take my leave." Thawne laughed.
"Now go Barry, enjoy your last night with them, get some rest, tomorrow, we'll have our war." Thawne said with a smile drinking the last of his beer. Barry just stared at him before getting up walking out the bar running back to Gotham City in a streak of blue lighting.
Barry ran and ran, Thawne's words echoing in the back of his mind, the betrayal of the Future Flash, the failure of the Dark Flash, the end of his world, the death of Batman, but most of all, the death of Supergirl at the hands of Zod.
It all played out in his mind. The paranoia, the fear of failure, time edging ever so close to their destruction, the anxiety, it was all too much for the young Barry. He was driven into madness. Barry screams out in rage at how powerless and hopeless it all seemed. His blue lighting turned purple. Barry runs so hard and so fast he enters the Chronodom.
Barry stops running looking around at the stadium of events towering into the dark skies. He falls to his knees in the sands of time turning it from its lush brown color to dark purple rising up like kinetic sand. Barry sat there, his head hung low with purple lighting flowing from his body. He looked around, there was no damage to the chronobom, or events in the stands of time. No other world's timeline crashing and destroying one another. Everything was as it should be.
Barry could go back and create his own Flashpoint by saving Supergirl when she lands in Russia and bringing her to Batman forewarning them about the Kryptonians. But then he'd just be playing God like the Future Flash.
He could run to the future and see how the fight turns out then run back in the past and change things but that was no different then living in the moment and running back in time taking a doover. It would damage the time stream like before but in a different way as Barry remembers the world's in the space-time-continuum colliding and destroying one another.
Nothing Barry thought of worked, it all seemed hopeless and inevitable. He just wanted to run away from it all and not deal with it. Zod, Thawne, Barry wished they would all go away. Things were perfect the way they are now without them in it. Supergirl was giving hope to the world, Batman was out of retirement, and he was The Flash. They had this world and each other. Barry could spend an eternity in that moment but he knew he couldn't.
Barry took a moment to rest in the Speed Force and collect himself before returning to the flow of time and events. But in the darkness of the chronodom all alone with his rage and pain corrupting his connection to the Speed Force Barry had a single dark thought born from the realization neither Barry Allen the man, nor the Future Flash, nor the Dark Flash could defeat Zod, Thawne, and save the world. He was just a man in pain with extraordinary abilities. But God feels no pain. All he had to do was become one…
In his madness Barry realized a god could save them all and all he had to do was become one. A God of Speed…he could save them…he would save them…Purple lighting sparked and flowed around Barry as he got to his feet opening his eyes revealing his black eyes with the glowing purple lighting iris.
Thawne was right, he wasn't the real Barry Allen, nor was he The Flash, the Future Flash, or the Dark Flash, No! He would be different from the other Barry Allen's across the timelines and universes.
Barry remembered he mastered phasing and speed force abilities years ahead of the Future Flash, and the Dark Flash was far faster and more skilled then both of them. Barry remembered he was fast enough to time travel years before the Future Flash could. He was a prodigy when it came to his abilities, his potential was limitless. He could stay and train in the Speed Force and get to that level. He could become a god. He could recreate himself as a God of Speed and thus his name would be…