As Jack Kadere stepped out of the car and casually glanced at the shredded tire, he raised an eyebrow—then smirked as he turned to face the group that had ambushed him.
"Alright. Who's paying for that?"
The ragtag team of costumed figures stood in formation, clearly expecting a confrontation. Their weapons were ready, expressions tense—yet Jack looked as if he'd just been inconvenienced by a minor fender bender.
"Pay for what?" Leonard Snart—Captain Cold—asked warily.
"The tire," Jack said matter-of-factly. "You blow it out, you replace it."
The group exchanged uncertain glances.
"Is… is he serious?" Ray Palmer, a.k.a. the Atom, asked in a low voice. "We may have actually damaged his car."
"Is this really the guy we're here for?" Snart added, lowering his Cold Gun slightly.
Rip Hunter, the captain of the Waverider and former Time Master, stepped forward with a tense expression. "We'll handle any damages later. Right now, we need to talk about a threat to the timestream—you."
Jack scanned the team calmly. He looked each of them in the eye before giving a relaxed grin. "Fair enough. I'm actually curious why you're all here... and why now."
"You know who we are?" Sara Lance asked sharply.
Her blonde hair shimmered under the afternoon sun. Clad in a white tactical suit, the infamous White Canary had her silver batons drawn—ready for action at the slightest provocation.
"The infamous assassin of the League of Assassins," Jack began with a teasing smirk. "White Canary herself. Slept with her sister's boyfriend, swings both ways, and somehow made it all look cool."
Sara gave him a dry smile. "Takes one to know one."
Jack chuckled and turned to the others, clearly enjoying himself.
"Ray Palmer—once thought you'd be Superman, but ended up as the Atom. Kind of a downgrade, don't you think?"
Ray blinked. "How do you even know that—"
"Jefferson Jackson, the newer half of Firestorm. The fan-favorite upgrade who made everyone forget the original partner. And Martin Stein—you were a respected scientist. Now you're running around like a cosplaying grandfather trying to relive his college days. You're going to die, you know."
Professor Stein visibly stiffened.
Jack's gaze shifted to Leonard Snart. "Captain Cold. Grew up with an abusive father, became a criminal, then somehow got heroic. Your sister's stunning, by the way. After you're gone—which won't be long—I wouldn't mind keeping her company. Oh, and in at least one timeline? You're totally gay."
Snart didn't flinch, but his grip on the Cold Gun tightened.
"Mick Rory, Heat Wave. An arsonist with a creative streak. You end up writing sci-fi novels in the future. Just don't forget to name-drop me in the acknowledgments."
Heat Wave grunted something unintelligible.
"Hawkman. Hawkgirl. Carter Hall, Kendra Saunders… Honestly, the both of you? Useless. Romantic drama across centuries and still not much help."
The winged duo bristled, but said nothing.
Finally, Jack turned to Rip Hunter. "And you. I actually respect your hustle. You watched your family die and decided to hijack a time ship, recruit a squad of rejects, and sell it all under the flag of 'protecting the timeline.' And somehow... it worked."
Rip's jaw tightened, his face visibly pale.
By now, the Legends' expressions were a mix of confusion, irritation, and outright disbelief.
"You've seen our futures?" Rip asked warily.
Jack shrugged. "Bits and pieces."
Rip exhaled slowly. The original mission was simple: prevent Jack Kadere from interfering with Laurel Lance—stopping a potential timeline where the Birds of Prey would rise early, changing Sara Lance's fate. But this? This felt way more complicated.
Jack clearly knew too much—more than he should have. The only plausible explanation was that he had access to future timelines… or worse, had lived through some of them.
"We have a lot more to talk about," Rip said gravely.
Jack smiled. "Then let's talk. Take me to the Waverider."
The Waverider was an advanced time-traveling vessel powered by ion propulsion. Outfitted with stealth tech, autopilot systems, and onboard diagnostics, it also housed a medical bay, escape pods, and was overseen by a highly sophisticated AI named Gideon. This was the Legends' mobile headquarters, used to patrol the timeline and correct temporal disruptions.
Jack Kadere followed the emotionally tense Legend Team aboard and casually greeted the ship's artificial intelligence.
"Hello, Gideon."
"Hello, Mr. Kadere," came the calm, synthesized voice of Gideon.
Jack grinned, leaning easily against the control console. "Alright then, let's hear it. What kind of temporal mess do you think I've made?"
Rip Hunter glanced at Sara Lance, giving her a nod to explain.
Sara stepped forward. "Because you made my sister Laurel the Black Canary earlier than she was supposed to… and because you formed the Birds of Prey ahead of schedule—with Felicity Smoak and Selina Kyle—it set off a chain of deviations. I wasn't killed by Thea Queen, I was never resurrected in Nanda Parbat, and Laurel wasn't murdered by Damien Darhk."
"There are two timelines in my head now," she continued, voice tight. "Two sets of memories. But one is starting to fade. That means the timeline is stabilizing around the version you created."
"To put it plainly, Jack Kadere, you're changing history."
"And we're here to stop you before that change becomes permanent," Rip Hunter added grimly.
Time, though often seen as fluid, tends to crystallize the longer a change remains unchecked. Once the altered timeline settles in, it replaces the original history altogether. The job of the Legends is to identify these anomalies, trace them to their origin, and correct them before the past—and the future—are rewritten.
And Jack Kadere? He was the anomaly. The ticking disruption that was rewriting the fate of the DC Universe itself. …
....