"We're back—anyone still not here?"
A gust of wind swept through the conference room as the Flash returned—this time hauling Superman and Wonder Woman along with him at the same blistering pace.
Somewhere along the way, they'd apparently turned it into a quick race.
And it ended with Barry in first place.
Hal, who'd been talked down from storming Gotham earlier, pointed at the one empty seat. "Just one bat left. Still chasing a case. Someone needs to go help him—someone who can make people tell the truth."
Superman's gaze shifted to the woman beside him.
Everyone knew Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth could make anyone speak honestly.
"Diana," Superman said, "go help. Barry said he has something important to tell us—something tied to this situation."
Compared to "a U.S. nuclear sub got sunk and its missiles went missing," Superman was more focused on whatever had Barry so visibly unsettled.
"Victor—open a Boom Tube," Wonder Woman said without hesitation.
Cyborg immediately complied, opening a portal to Gotham.
"I'm coming too!" Barry added—and sprinted straight into the Boom Tube alongside her.
Two minutes later, the three of them were back in the conference room.
In Gotham, it had been almost insultingly efficient: the moment Barry and Diana arrived, they found Batman chasing Scarecrow's goons. Diana snagged them with the Lasso, and after one minute of stammered truth, they gave up Scarecrow's location. Barry needed two seconds to deliver Scarecrow into GCPD custody.
Hal let out a low whistle as they stepped out of the portal. "Look who finally decided to show up—the busiest man alive. Why do you love playing house with clowns so much?"
"Hal," Batman replied flatly, "trust me. You don't want to deal with Joker. Avoid Gotham. Anyone who stays there long enough goes crazy."
Ben didn't pile on with Hal.
Back where Ben came from, there'd always been people saying "Wayne Enterprises is the real evil behind Gotham." Ben's internal response was simple:
Then what's the actual solution? How do you 'save' Gotham?
By any halfway serious accounting, Gotham was stacked with overlapping curses, secret societies, cults, toxic substances, magical contamination—layered debuffs to the ceiling. And Batman still managed to keep its crime rate lower than real-world New York.
That was… honestly ridiculous competence.
"Tch." Hal still looked unimpressed. As a Green Lantern, he prided himself on willpower. There was no way some human criminals were going to "break" him.
"Alright," Cyborg cut in. "Everyone's here. Let's start."
He projected a 3D hologram of the recovered submarine over the table and summarized what they had:
The missing U.S. nuclear sub had been found.
The missiles inside were gone.
The Atlanteans found lying in wait insisted: the U.S. sub fired first.
While the team examined the hologram, Hal looked to Wonder Woman.
"Diana—does Themyscira have records on Atlantis?"
She nodded. As a child, she'd heard stories from her mother.
"In Themysciran accounts, Atlantis was once an ally," Diana explained. "After it sank, its people were saved by magic from their king's trident—magic that transformed them into sea-dwelling beings. After that, Themyscira and Atlantis lost contact."
"So Atlantis is real!" Shazam's eyes lit up with pure adventure-brain excitement. He leaned forward eagerly. "Do you think this turns into Atlantis invading the surface?"
"Guys," Barry said, standing up, voice tense. "It might be worse."
He finally decided to tell them what he'd been sitting on—the thing he'd been afraid to say out loud.
"You remember Ben said that in the original story I'd go back in time and reboot the universe?"
Ben's face snapped into alarm. "Barry—did you go back and kill baby Darkseid?!"
He stopped mid-thought, brow furrowing. "No, that doesn't make sense. If you changed history that hard, we shouldn't even remember fighting Darkseid."
"Uh—no." Barry blinked, then corrected quickly. "I only went back to save my mom. I almost caused the world to end… and then I went back again to stop myself."
Ben's expression hardened with recognition. "I get it. Flashpoint."
Everyone knew the meta-truth: when writers ran out of road or wanted to reset tone and continuity, someone "rebooted the universe."
In Ben 10, the blame gets thrown at cosmic entities.
In DC… it lands on the Flash.
Barry swallowed, the guilt finally coming out in full.
"What I did had consequences. I didn't realize saving my mom would derail the timeline so badly—so badly it could create a completely different universe."
Ever since the last League meeting—ever since Ben mentioned Barry "restarting" reality—Barry had been debating whether to confess.
He could sense he'd changed something… but the timeline had overwritten the details. He couldn't remember exactly what he'd broken, which was why he'd kept delaying.
But the moment Atlantis entered the current case, Barry couldn't risk silence anymore.
"In that universe—Atlantis and Themyscira went to war," Barry said. "And it destroyed the world. After I realized what I'd done, I went back to stop myself and fix it… but I think some changes still carried over."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 80)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 80)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 74)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter20)
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