In the city that kept shifting and changing.
The flowing crimson Speed Force in the Reverse-Flash's eyes seemed to reflect scenes from the past that ordinary people could never hope to glimpse.
His declaration that Batman had "known before he disappeared" cast a deeper fog of bewilderment over everyone's minds, leaving the assembled superheroes thoroughly at a loss.
"Bruce was able to form a plan in the middle of something that sudden?" Even Superman found this hard to believe. After all, Weeping Angels, being erased by the timeline—these were things that even Batman could hardly have anticipated, and the shifts in the timeline had been instantaneous and all-encompassing.
He didn't think even Bruce could have seen something like this coming in advance.
"Of course."
The corner of the Reverse-Flash's mouth tugged upward in an enigmatic smile, and he offered no direct answer to the question. Some truths were genuinely difficult for non-Speedsters to comprehend.
"Is that so." Only Ian, still dangling from Superman's hand, blinked thoughtfully at those words, something turning over in his mind. He swallowed his last bite of chicken feet and waved his greasy hand around.
"We have to trust Uncle Bruce! He's Batman! Nothing is ever too much for him—even if time itself gets tangled up, he'll find a way to straighten it out for you!"
Ian delivered this with an infectious, speech-like conviction.
Demonstrating the towering status Batman held in his personal regard.
"You just want to become a Speedster. That's what this is about." Clark, in his role as the father figure, had already seen straight through exactly what Ian was calculating internally.
"Heh, not really... it's not that I want to be a Speedster—I just love saving the world." Ian asserted this with the air of someone who had not the slightest guilty conscience, or perhaps whose conscience had simply grown accustomed to this level of abuse.
Not a single ripple.
After saying it, Ian shifted his gaze back to the Reverse-Flash, and something stirred in him—a note of genuine surprise.
The weight of a figure's standing in the world's order... This was a concept touching on the universe's foundational rules, and even Ian had only come to gradually understand it after awakening his System and absorbing vast quantities of forbidden knowledge.
He hadn't expected the Reverse-Flash's earlier phrasing to suggest he had already brushed against the edges of this very essence.
Were Speedsters simply that intelligent? Ian was reluctant to admit it. He preferred to believe that the Speed Force's profound attunement to time naturally guided its users toward glimpses of the mysteries of existence itself.
After all, the Speed Force was one of the DC universe's foundational powers.
"You. Stop talking."
Superman had no desire to let Ian continue rambling on, and so delivered this very unreasonable request to him in a tone of resignation. As a devoted son, Ian naturally wasn't going to refuse something as deeply unreasonable as this from Superman.
After all, he was truly a very devoted son.
"What do we need to do?" In the end it was Flash Barry Allen who stepped forward, pulling the conversation back to reality. He was the only one present who could engage with the Reverse-Flash on equal terms in the domain of speed.
"Yes—we need to get moving. We don't have nearly enough time to waste. And it isn't only me—you're all facing the same predicament I am."
The Reverse-Flash reined in that trace of a smile, his tone growing urgent.
"We need to pick up the pace, Barry. Time waits for no one. Once the dust settles and the timeline fully locks into place, reversing it will be next to impossible."
He extended a hand toward the surrounding cityscape—still warping and flickering like a bad signal, still trying to stabilize into a fixed form—a visible manifestation of the timeline gradually solidifying.
"That said." Barry held the gaze of this long-standing nemesis, his blue eyes filled with distrust. "Thawne—how do we know you're not using us to achieve some scheme of your own? Such as... creating a Speedster who's easier to control? Or using this as an opportunity to siphon more Speed Force."
He glanced toward Ian, who was visibly eager to get started.
"Is that really what you think of me?" The Reverse-Flash let out a short, contemptuous laugh. "Barry—you're like a soldier who came back from a long, brutal war. I can feel very clearly that deep-seated distrust you have for me... and the fear hidden beneath it."
He paused, his gaze sweeping across the vigilant heroes assembled before him, before finally settling on Superman's gaze—burning as the sun itself. "But, as I've already openly stated—in this particular matter, I will genuinely be standing on your side. After all, Superman is right here. I'm not going anywhere. Am I?"
There was a thread of something almost weary in his tone.
"Hm."
Clark stepped forward, his voice calm but radiating a force that left no room for argument. "See that you don't, Thawne. If Ian is harmed in any way during this process, or if any 'unfortunate accident' occurs—it doesn't matter which corner of the timeline you run to. I trust you'll always believe that I will find you."
The weight of that threat, coming from humanity's living god, settled over the room like a mountain.
Beneath his mask, the Reverse-Flash's throat moved involuntarily.
He knew perfectly well that Superman almost certainly wasn't just saying this for effect. After all, having traveled through time and across the multiverse for so many years, the Reverse-Flash had never once encountered a Superman this profoundly abnormal.
The scope of his evolution was simply too vast.
So vast that the Reverse-Flash had almost convinced himself something entirely new had emerged in Superman's development.
"Of course."
In the end, he still couldn't bring himself to talk back to Superman the way he did to the Flash.
"I'm truly so moved!"
Ian, still being held aloft, seized the moment to put on his most touched expression. "Dad! I'm really moved! Genuinely! If you could just let go of my neck and let me stand on my own, I'm sure I could feel even more moved!"
He slipped his personal request in with the sentiment.
Not that anyone paid any attention.
Superman ignored his youngest son's attempt at humor. His arm was immovable as stone.
"Heh."
Wonder Woman Diana's gaze moved back and forth between Ian and the Reverse-Flash.
Her brow furrowed slightly, and something about her expression turned odd. As an Amazon princess—and, moreover, as a woman—her intuition ran far sharper than anyone else present.
Right now, observing the two of them, Wonder Woman Diana had the unsettling feeling that the look of anticipation on Ian's face wasn't solely about becoming a Speedster... somewhere deeper in those eyes, there seemed to lurk something more complex—a kind of gleeful eagerness that could almost be interpreted as hoping the Reverse-Flash would genuinely try to set him up.
If she had observed this kind of expression on anyone else, Diana might have decided she was reading too much into it. But Ian Kent's reputation in her mind was exactly the kind of person capable of feeling exactly that kind of eager anticipation.
That reputation.
Truly as immovable as bedrock.
"Eobard Thawne," Diana suddenly spoke, her voice carrying the gravity and warning of a goddess. "If I were you, I wouldn't be playing games. Because the one you should actually be worried about isn't Superman."
Her words were heavy with implication.
As though she had seen through to something far deeper.
Whether the Reverse-Flash truly took that warning to heart, no one could tell. He only turned his gaze toward the STAR Labs building beside them. "We need the particle accelerator. At the very least, we need to use it to create a relatively stable specialized force-field environment that can amplify and channel the Speed Force."
"I'll handle that," Barry immediately cut in. "I can communicate with the people in the lab..."
He was well aware that the Reverse-Flash still needed to maintain his cover as Harrison Wells, and right now he was playing along, with no intention of exposing the Reverse-Flash's true identity.
It was just as Batman had once told the Flash—a known enemy standing in plain sight wasn't genuinely frightening. What was truly foolish was pushing that enemy back into the shadows.
Not only did the Flash understand this—every member of the Justice League did. Watching the Flash and the Reverse-Flash play out the performance, not even Aquaman stepped forward to blow the Reverse-Flash's cover.
To be fair, the Flash's suggestion wasn't bad either.
However.
"Communicate with them? Even after all these years of growth, your first instinct is still to talk, talk, talk." To everyone's surprise, the Reverse-Flash shook his head and directed a jab straight at the Flash.
"Talking is too slow, Barry. I only have that kind of patience for you. When it comes to everyone else, anyone else... a Speedster should have the proper way of handling problems."
Whether or not this was some kind of genuine confession, it was hard to say.
Ian, for his part, was thoroughly shipping it.
"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!"
His murmured encouragement reached every single person present with perfect clarity. At least from Ian's perspective, the Reverse-Flash was simply being shy—because if he wasn't shy, why would he have run away?
"Whoosh~"
Having concluded his little "confession" to the Flash, the Reverse-Flash erupted in crimson lightning once more, becoming a streak of light that pierced through STAR Labs' reinforced glass exterior wall at a speed beyond the eye to track. His body vibrated in resonance as he passed straight through the solid material and vanished inside.
Phasing through walls was a required skill every Speedster ought to have down cold.
As was running on water, wall-running in defiance of gravity—yes, this was not some Naruto filler arc, but Speedsters genuinely did study these "ninja" fundamentals as mandatory coursework.
"Damn it! We need to keep eyes on him! He loves pulling little tricks! There's a good chance he'll stab us in the back the moment he figures he's past the point of immediate danger!" The Flash cursed under his breath, golden lightning erupting around him, and shot in right behind—clearly having been burned by the Reverse-Flash too many times to afford carelessness.
The Flash gave chase instantly.
Superman, Wonder Woman, and the others didn't hesitate for a second either, each drawing on their own abilities and following them straight into the laboratory.
By the time they got inside, the lab's interior was already in chaos. Several of Barry Allen's close friends had been struck unconscious by the Reverse-Flash, who had blasted through the area at high velocity.
And in the main control hall of the particle accelerator, they were met with a sight that left everyone momentarily speechless.
"You too!" The Reverse-Flash was delivering a clean, precise knife-hand strike to the neck of Dr. Harrison Wells—seated in his wheelchair, wearing an expression of utter "shock"!
This should have been impossible. After all, the Reverse-Flash *was* Dr. Harrison Wells—or at the very least, he had been impersonating the real Harrison Wells at this point in the timeline.
For the sheer spectacle of someone fighting themselves.
Even Ian found himself watching with considerable admiration.
"To keep up the performance, he created a time remnant, giving himself better cover for his surface identity..." The Flash understood almost instantly, and felt a wave of profound exasperation. The other heroes exchanged glances and arrived at the same resigned conclusion.
Their thoughts essentially aligned with Barry's.
The Reverse-Flash was an absolute drama queen.
A performer of truly extraordinary commitment.
"See that? Speedster—speed will always be our greatest advantage." Having staged this little act of "punching himself out," the Reverse-Flash didn't even spare a glance at his own body slumping in the wheelchair. He walked straight toward the massive, complex particle accelerator control console, his hands becoming a blur over the keyboard.
Even as he couldn't resist "lecturing" the Flash, he was simultaneously and rapidly modifying the densely packed parameters on the screen.
"When two streams of the Speed Force from the same source produce powerful resonance between two spacetime points at different temporal coordinates, they form an incredibly subtle cross-temporal connection—the principle is similar to quantum entanglement. This will not only help us precisely locate which era those three children were sent to, but it also gives us the opportunity to exploit a 'loophole' in the rules of the Speed Force to temporarily... create a Speedster capable of running toward the past!"
The Reverse-Flash explained as he worked.
"I'll be completely honest—I understood absolutely nothing he just said, not a single punctuation mark."
Aquaman shrugged, making clear that while he was a king, his academic credentials did not include a degree from any University of Kings, and this kind of thing was frankly beyond his scope.
"Uh..."
The Flash could follow it—he just genuinely couldn't explain it as well as the Reverse-Flash. Several of the superheroes stood absorbed in thought at the Reverse-Flash's explanation.
Even Wonder Woman Diana was pretending to think it through.
"Temporarily?" Only Ian refused to think about it, instead latching immediately onto that critical word. His expression soured at once, and he began to wriggle.
"Why temporarily? I don't want a trial membership! I want a permanent Speed Force subscription!" He looked ready to launch into aggrieved protest, shooting a distinctly displeased look at the Reverse-Flash.
Fortunately, Superman's hand on the back of his neck applied just a little extra pressure, bringing him back into line in an instant. Otherwise, the Reverse-Flash would likely have found himself on the receiving end of Ian's next breath—coercion, inducement, and all the pressure that came with it.
Why inducement? Mainly because this was a villain—naturally a few human rights considerations could be deprioritized. Ian had the soul of a capitalist: cut costs wherever possible. He made a point of not holding his moral bottom line any higher than the law strictly required.
"What exactly do you intend to do?"
After spending a moment running the Reverse-Flash's parameters through his own formidable mind and arriving at nothing conclusive, Superman—who could not afford to show ignorance, not with his super-brain already nagging him to go find the Bat-brain—kept his expression flat and turned to the Reverse-Flash, getting straight to the point.
"I couldn't explain it to you in any reasonable timeframe."
The Reverse-Flash didn't look up.
His gaze stayed fixed on the data scrolling rapidly across the screen.
"All you need to know is that this is a Speedster's game—only Speedsters can play a part in it." At that, he turned his gaze toward the Flash at his side with unmistakable meaning.
"So what you're saying is," Barry sighed and rubbed his temple, "you want me to work with you?"
At this, the Reverse-Flash finally paused his work and turned, giving a definitive nod. "Exactly. The Speed Force Batman preserved in the past originated from you. Which is why only you can achieve the strongest possible resonance and attunement with that Speed Force as it exists in the past, being utilized by Batman right now."
He truly could see into the past.
Though no one understood why, if he had already confirmed the exact temporal coordinates, he didn't simply tell the people present. Perhaps, just as the Flash knew his nemesis—the Reverse-Flash had his own agenda running alongside his survival plan.
"You'd better actually have this under control." The Flash stared at the screen full of parameters complex enough to make his head swim, and gave up trying to follow them. He was, after all, merely a super-genius—not a super-genius who'd received an education from the thirty-first century.
"So what do I need to do?"
The Flash asked directly.
"Don't be nervous."
A smile returned to the Reverse-Flash's face—that familiar blend of warmth and inscrutability. He extended a hand toward the circular accelerator track, which had already begun emitting a deep hum as it warmed up.
"Do what you do best, Barry."
"Run, Barry—run!"
As he said it, the Reverse-Flash restarted the particle accelerator. Deep beneath STAR Labs, in the enormous circular tunnel of the particle accelerator, the deep droning hum rose steadily into a deafening roar.
"HMMMMM!!!"
Inside the restarted machine, tremendous energy was gathering.
The entire space filled with the distinctive smell of ozone and high-voltage electricity.
Then the specially calibrated force field was activated, sealing the tunnel's interior from the outside world and forming an isolated, stable high-energy environment.
It was running perfectly.
It had never been broken the way the Flash always assumed—perhaps the Reverse-Flash had done something to this machine at some point in the past, which was precisely why STAR Labs had never been able to get it working again.
"Good—no problems at all."
The Reverse-Flash stood before the main console.
On the screen, energy flow diagrams were constructing themselves at extraordinary efficiency according to his custom parameters. His crimson gaze stayed locked on the data stream, running calculations.
He had to ensure everything was proceeding in exactly the direction he had calculated.
"My turn." Flash Barry Allen stood at the starting point of the circular track and drew a long, slow breath. He glanced back over his shoulder at his teammates—Superman still held Ian, his expression grave; Wonder Woman gripped the Sword of Hephaestus, ready for anything; Aquaman and Cyborg stood at their own state of alert.
"Barry. Be careful." Diana said quietly.
"Same goes from me."
Aquaman scratched his nose.
"And if that's what everyone means, then I mean it too."
Cyborg, ever the copycat.
"I'll be watching this one closely."
Superman was rather more focused on whether the Reverse-Flash was about to try something.
"Wait for good news from me."
Barry gave a single nod and sent everyone a look that said *trust me.* Despite every ounce of distrust he felt for the Reverse-Flash, right now, this was the only visible hope they had. Golden lightning began blazing from his body, crackling arcs of electricity reflecting against the blue energy swirling through the tunnel.
"Now, Barry! Into the track—push your Speed Force to its absolute limit! Resonate with the past!" The Reverse-Flash's voice came through the communicator.
Carrying a thread of barely restrained excitement.
"Right!"
Without another moment's hesitation, Barry became a bolt of golden lightning and tore into the circular track!
His speed climbed at a rate no previous run had matched, driven by the force field's amplification and his own iron will. The golden Speed Force energy poured from him like something solid, merging with the entire accelerator force field and forming an enormous, ceaselessly rotating golden energy vortex.
At the same moment, on the main console's display, a signal point that had previously been almost impossibly faint—barely detectable at all—suddenly, in the instant Barry began to run, blazed into clarity and held stable.
That was the Speed Force signal from the past—originating from the same source as Barry's.
"Signal locked!" The Reverse-Flash stared at the screen, his voice carrying a note of feverish exhilaration. "Resonance is building! The bridge... is being constructed!"
How could he contain his excitement?
The fact that a temporal passage could be re-established meant the Reverse-Flash still had a chance—a chance to escape this brutal era and return to the thirty-first century he considered civilized.
Hope, reignited.
The Reverse-Flash's mood soared.
He hammered the keyboard at extraordinary speed.
Guiding the two streams of Speed Force—spanning the gulf of time—to draw closer, to intertwine. Past and future, because of these two bolts of lightning born from the same source, produced a wondrous convergence in this single moment.
Simultaneously, in the past—beneath Gotham City, in the Batcave—Bruce Wayne had long since removed his heavily damaged Batsuit and changed into a black tactical uniform suited for research work. Before him stood an enormous machine of complex construction, full of a rough mechanical beauty.
It was connected to the Batcave's main power supply and to several analysis modules. At its core was a focusing chamber constructed from specialized crystal and superconducting materials.
"When I look toward the future, I can only hope the future doesn't burn my eyes." Bruce carefully slid the vial containing its sealed golden lightning into the mounting slot of the focusing chamber. The Speed Force inside the vial seemed to sense something—it began flowing with greater vitality, minute arcs of electricity jumping along the inner surface.
Alfred stood nearby.
He held a restorative drink in hand, but his eyes stayed fixed on Bruce's every movement, his face carrying unmistakable concern.
"Master Bruce—are you certain you wish to proceed? Our understanding of this energy is still extremely limited." Alfred was well aware that Bruce had only just managed to acquire a small sample of this energy from that young man, without even having had time to conduct further experiments or gather more information.
"That's exactly one way to understand it, isn't it?" Bruce's answer was as concise and resolute as ever. He walked to the main console and moved quickly across the combination of physical switches and virtual interfaces.
"The future can be changed—but at the same time, it's also the best means we have right now of investigating the identities of those three children."
Bruce Wayne worked with furious speed.
The complex startup sequence completed one step at a time.
The machine let out a low, charging hum, and the internal energy conduits lit up one by one in blue. Around the focusing chamber, fine spatial distortions began to appear.
As though the very air were trembling slightly.
"Good—no errors, as expected."
The greatest distinction between the DC universe's grand old genius and Marvel's inventive savant was this: the DC universe's grand old genius rarely failed, while Marvel's Tony Stark was most masterful at learning from failure and then producing something better.
Bruce gave one final check of all safety protocols and energy containment fields, drew a deep breath, and pressed the red-marked launch button.
"HMMMMM——!!!"
The machine emitted a hum far lower in pitch than STAR Labs' particle accelerator—and far more viscerally staggering. Tremendous energy was fed into the focusing chamber, stimulating the Speed Force sample held within! The golden lightning in the vial erupted in a sudden blaze, like a sun awakened—blinding golden light filled the entire focusing chamber in an instant!
It flowed through the complex energy circuits and poured into the entire machine! An invisible, dimension-spanning pulse rippled outward silently from the Batcave as its origin point.
In the past and in the future.
At two different points in time—because of Batman's activation and the Flash's running—two streams of the Speed Force from the same source achieved perfect resonance in this single moment.
An invisible bridge, cutting straight through the barrier of time.
The Reverse-Flash, before the future's main console, watched the resonance curve peak on his screen and let an expression of imminent victory cross his face.
And Batman, in the past, stared hard at the strange readings appearing on the machine's display—brow furrowed, as though he had discovered something he hadn't anticipated.
The Reverse-Flash fixed his gaze on the energy curve achieving perfect resonance with the past, the crimson light in his eyes blazing intensely.
He had been about to move in to handle the next step himself—but the moment lightning began to arc around him, he felt the terrible weight of Superman's stare. He had no choice. He snapped his head around and shouted at Superman, who had been directing a death glare directly at him.
"Now! Throw him in! Throw him into the most central region of the Speed Force field!" It wasn't that the Reverse-Flash was incapable of acting himself—it was that he had realized his own movement speed was still slower than Superman's eyes could track.
How was he supposed to personally handle anything here?
Personally handling anything was completely off the table.
If he so much as dared fire up the Speed Force to move a single inch, he was genuinely afraid Superman would slam him directly into the wall.
"No need to throw! No need to throw! I'll climb in myself!"
Before Superman could so much as move.
Ian, still dangling from Superman's grip, erupted with blazing excitement and anticipation—and with that, he forcibly broke free of Superman's hold, which hadn't been applied at full strength, and launched himself forward like a dog slipping off the leash, full of unhinged and absolute determination, willingly diving straight into the raging golden energy vortex at the core of the particle accelerator!
"Ian!"
Superman looked faintly worried.
But he raised his hand—then hesitated and lowered it again.
"This is Ian Kent we're talking about, Clark. Do you genuinely still think of that kid you raised as some delicate porcelain doll? I think your concern is completely unnecessary."
Diana pressed a hand to her forehead, her tone carrying a resigned kind of exasperation as she offered this commentary to Superman. And in all honesty, this woman's mouth did occasionally seem to have a certain prophetic quality.
The moment Ian's figure disappeared into that blinding expanse of golden light.
"NO!!!! DON'T LET HIM IN!!!!!"
A voice rang out from inside the particle accelerator.
There should only have been one person in there—Flash Barry Allen—and yet in that moment, this voice was absolutely, unmistakably not something Barry Allen could ever have produced.
It was a shriek that sounded like the distorted, overlapping voices of countless people—men and women, young and old—saturated with terror, fury, and despair, detonating suddenly from the very core of the particle accelerator.
It was resolute in its refusal.
The sound pierced through the machine's roar, pierced through every physical barrier, and with a tremor that struck straight to the soul, reverberated deep within the eardrums of every single person present.
"The Speed Force... is speaking?!"
It was only the Reverse-Flash who grasped, with sudden, shaken clarity, exactly what had just happened.