| Infinity Island – September 23
Steel met flesh in the shadows of Ra's al Ghul's stronghold. The Justice League cut through the labyrinthine corridors like a scalpel. Batman led, every strike efficient, every step calculated. Green Arrow's shafts flew silent and true, dropping assassins before they knew intruders had breached the compound. Black Canary moved like water, her hands and feet dismantling opponents faster than her voice ever needed to.
And then there was the Flash.
Batman caught glimpses of him between bursts of chaos: a red streak disarming squads and nanite enhanced soliders in seconds. Guards raised rifles only to find their weapons dismantled, magazines stacked neatly on the floor, and themselves sprawled unconscious.
Yet Batman noticed the restraint. Barry Allen was fast—fast enough to vanish from human sight—but he wasn't going all out. He never did unless the crisis demanded it. That wasn't just caution. It was survival.
Flash could tap into levels of the Speed Force that made him trillions of times faster than light. But each step deeper wasn't just acceleration—it was giving more of himself to the Force. Prolonged immersion meant surrendering his mind. His humanity.
The Speed Force was a current. Barry was the swimmer. Drift too far, and the current swallowed you. To live a normal life, he kept close to shore, dipping only when necessary. Otherwise every second would stretch into eons of thought. A prison of endless time no human could endure.
So here, on Infinity Island, Barry struck a balance: too fast for assassins, but slow enough to stay tethered.
"Hallway clear," he said, appearing at Batman's side for half a heartbeat before vanishing again.
They pressed deeper. The fortress was a blend of ancient stone and modern steel. Hand-carved murals told of Ra's centuries of conquest, while biometric locks guarded the chambers. A fitting metaphor for the man—tradition bound to ruthless adaptation.
The League of Shadows was not a small cabal but a vast network:
The Elite – A handful of master assassins and lieutenants loyal to Ra's, including Talia al Ghul, Lady Shiva, the Sensei, and sometimes Merlyn or Bronze Tiger. Rarely more than a dozen.
The Cadre – Top-tier operatives, masters of martial arts and espionage, numbering in the hundreds. Some possessing the improved version of the nanites used on Silver Swan.
The Foot Soldiers – Thousands of recruits and fighters serving as guards, spies, and shock troops. Individually unimpressive, together overwhelming.
On the island tonight: a few Elite, a dozen Cadre, and about a hundred foot soldiers. Enough to make a stand.
They reached the central chamber, a wide, candlelit hall lined with assassins. At its heart stood Ra's al Ghul, calm, as if awaiting them.
"Batman," Ra's said smoothly, his hands clasped behind his back. "You honor me with your persistence."
"Cut the theatrics," Batman said, already analyzing the angles, the exits, the shadows. "This ends tonight."
Ra's smiled faintly, raising a hand. At once, the assassins surged forward. The chamber erupted into violence.
Black Canary unleashed a sonic scream, the shockwave scattering half a dozen Shadows. Green Arrow fired arrow after arrow, each shaft ricocheting off stone or embedding itself into an assassin's armor with surgical precision. Batman moved like a phantom, dismantling opponents with brutal efficiency, countering blades, redirecting momentum, dropping them one by one.
Flash blurred around the room, dismantling the outer ring of Shadows before they even crossed the chamber's threshold. In his wake, bodies crumpled, weapons clattered, and silence followed like an afterthought. Barry's restraint was still evident—non-lethal, always—but devastating.
Within seconds, the tide had turned. The Justice League had Ra's al Ghul boxed in.
And then—
Batman felt it. A disturbance. Something wrong. His instincts screamed at him an instant before it happened. He moved to intercept—
—but was struck by a force he hadn't seen coming. A thunderclap of kinetic energy hurled him across the chamber, slamming him into the stone wall. The impact rattled his armor, drove the breath from his lungs.
"Batman!" Canary cried out, but she was cut short as the same unseen force struck her down, then pivoted to Green Arrow, sending him crashing to the floor. Both lay unconscious before they knew what hit them.
Only Flash had avoided the assault, skidding to a halt, eyes darting as he searched for the source.
And then he saw it.
A blur of yellow.
"Reverse-Flash?" Barry breathed, disbelief etched across his face.
The figure slowed, resolving into a man clad in a yellow costume eerily similar to Eobard Thawne's, but different in its details—sharper lines, an aura of barely restrained fury. His eyes glowed faintly, a pale whitish-blue.
"No," the man said, his voice cold. "How you know that name is interesting. Your memories of the Flashpoint should have already disappeared. My mentor is dead at your hand. But before his end, he broke me out of Iron Heights and dragged me into the twenty-fifth century. We planned to work together against you and your legacy. Too bad he couldn't outrun his fate."
Barry's pulse quickened. "Who are you?"
The man smiled, a predator's grin. "You'll know me in time. During Wally West's era, I am his scourge. But for you? I'll make an introduction. I am Zoom."
And with that, he vanished into motion.
The chamber exploded into chaos as red and yellow blurs collided. The very air vibrated with their combat, each strike a thunderclap, each movement a distortion of space and time. Batman, groaning against the wall, could only track flashes of color as the two Speedsters tore through the hall, overturning tables, scattering torches, shattering stone.
Ra's al Ghul, opportunist to the core, began to retreat, slipping toward a concealed passage amid the distraction. Batman staggered to his feet, determination blazing in his eyes. He would not allow Ra's to escape.
But before he could act, Flash's body slammed into him, a crimson blur redirected by a devastating strike. They crashed into the wall together, the breath knocked out of both men.
Zoom appeared above them, his hand encased in fiery rock-like energy, glowing with unnatural intensity. He loomed over Batman, expression unreadable but filled with cruel intent.
"We have use for Ra's al Ghul," Zoom said evenly. "So it's not his time yet. Nor is it yours, Bruce Wayne. You still have your uses."
Batman's eyes narrowed. He readied himself to counter, to fight, no matter the odds.
But then Zoom's gaze flared with whitish-blue light, and Batman felt it—the intrusion, invasive and cold, slithering past his defenses. The mental barriers he had built through years of training in Tibetan monasteries, through endless discipline, through sheer will—they cracked under the onslaught.
His knees buckled. His vision swam. The last thing he saw was Zoom's face, blurred and terrible, as darkness pulled him under.
"Sleep, detective," Zoom whispered. "Your war isn't over. But tonight, you lose."