"Suit yourself."
Under Kara's disbelieving and disappointed gaze, Joey parted ways with her.
He could understand how she felt. What was happening on this planet was a world war more brutal than any in recorded history—and in the foreseeable future, it would only grow worse.
More than a decade ago, he himself had once been a courier moving through war zones. He didn't even need super senses to know what would happen in a war like this: hatred, slaughter, rape, plunder, death...
Seeing even one such atrocity was enough to keep a person awake all night. What about when thousands were unfolding before your eyes at the same time?
A battlefield was, by nature, the place farthest removed from humanity.
But just as he had said before, none of what was happening now truly mattered.
The Flash, Barry Allen, had long been haunted by his mother's death in his childhood. From within the Speed Force, he traveled back in time and saved her life. That act shattered the entire timeline of the universe, creating the living hell that now existed.
But everything would be corrected once the Flash regained the Speed Force. All the things happening now that were driving Kara to despair—even Kara herself, and the nearly twenty years she had been imprisoned and tortured by humans—would vanish like a game loading a previous save, as if they had never happened or existed.
This universe was only temporary. Everyone in the world was like a raindrop falling into the sea—their joy and sorrow, birth and death, disappearing without the faintest ripple.
---
Wayne Manor welcomed an uninvited guest today.
An ordinary forensic technician from Central City's Crime Lab—Barry Allen. His day job was CSI crime scene investigation; his off-the-books identity was the Flash.
When he woke up, the entire world was no longer the same. Everything he had known had been turned upside down.
Barry's mother was alive. He had seen her just two days ago. He could even recall, vividly, every slice of birthday cake she had cut for him over the years.
History itself had changed, and so had everything in the present.
His lover, Iris West, had married someone else and started a family. Most of his friends from the Justice League either simply didn't exist in this world or had outright become supervillains preparing to destroy it.
Barry couldn't solve the world's problems alone. He had come to find the only familiar superhero who still existed in this world—Batman.
It had taken him five full hours stuck in traffic to drive from Central City to Gotham.
Yes, drive. Because in this world, there was no Flash either. Barry Allen had lost the Speed Force. He was just an ordinary man now.
Stepping into Wayne Manor, Barry was greeted by nothing but decay. Every corner of the estate was covered in cobwebs and dust. Not a single light was on in the night, making the place feel especially unsettling.
Though Bruce Wayne's cold, cavernous mansion had always been eerie enough to serve as a filming location for 'American Horror Story' or 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles,' at least every inch of it had once been meticulously maintained by the butler Alfred.
Not like now. This place looked as if no one had lived here for twenty years.
Using his phone as a flashlight, Barry made his way with practiced familiarity to the hidden switch behind the grandfather clock and entered the Batcave. What greeted him wasn't just the Batsuit—but a large arsenal of heavy firearms.
The Batman of this world had clearly changed. At the very least, the Batman Barry once knew would never use weapons capable of easily taking lives.
Barry was still figuring out how to explain everything to this strange world's Batman. It shouldn't be too difficult—after all, even if Batman had changed like everyone else, his brain should still work just fine...
A pair of red eyes emerged silently from the shadows behind him.
With a loud thud, Barry took a brutal blow to the back and instantly lost his balance. A deep, oppressive voice sounded from behind him:
"Who are you?! How did you get into the Batcave?!"
This world's Batman clearly didn't recognize Barry.
Barry hurried to plead, knowing full well that while Batman didn't kill, his iron fists were no joke. "Bruce, stop! It's me!"
Hearing the name 'Bruce,' Batman visibly froze for a moment. Just as Barry let out a breath of relief and prepared to explain, he was met with even more vicious attacks.
Batman moved like a phantom, closing in and grabbing Barry's hand, twisting and snapping one of his fingers with ruthless efficiency.
"Bruce has been dead for years! I watched him die in my arms!"
Through the searing pain shooting through his hand, Barry finally got a close look at the man before him.
Beneath the mask, half of the exposed face was lined with wrinkles and pale stubble. Looking at the aging Dark Knight, Barry finally understood.
"Oh my God... I get it! The one who died in the alley that night was Bruce Wayne—and you survived. You're Bruce's father—Thomas Wayne!"
Hearing Bruce's name again, Thomas Wayne's eyes burned even redder behind the mask.
"If you dare mention my dead son again, I swear I'll make you feel the greatest pain before you die! Now tell me—how did you find this place?!"
Thomas Wayne was a surgeon. Barry knew he was absolutely capable of carrying out that threat. Not wanting to lose a few more bones, he began explaining everything in detail.
"I have a secret identity too—the Flash. My name is Barry Allen. I'm the fastest man alive..."
Thud!
Thomas Wayne drove a punch straight into Barry's temple, cutting off his nonsense mid-sentence.
"Some fastest man alive. You couldn't even dodge my punch! What you need is a good shock!"
Thomas Wayne felt that Arkham Asylum's management was far too lax. How could they let a lunatic spouting nonsense like this run loose?
"I'm telling the truth! This isn't the normal world I know!"
Barry had been law-abiding his entire life. Getting beaten down by Batman was a first for him—and he had no desire for a second round.
"I can prove it! The ring! Look at my ring!"
Barry's Flash suit was stored inside a small ring through super-compression technology. That alone should prove he wasn't an ordinary man.
The ring activated. From a compartment less than a centimeter wide, an entire suit made of unknown material sprang out. That made the old Bat believe him—at least a little—and he temporarily stopped the interrogation.
But Barry himself froze.
Because what emerged from the ring wasn't his red suit.
It was the yellow suit of the one he hated most—Reverse-Flash.
Barry didn't need to think. This had to be the work of his archenemy—Reverse-Flash.
He had to find him quickly and stop all of this before the deranged world was destroyed in a war between Wonder Woman and Aquaman.
But first, Barry had to become the Flash again. He needed to recreate the accident that had given him his powers.
To be honest, the old Bat still didn't fully believe the madman in front of him. But there was one thing in Barry's rambling that caught his attention.
"I still don't believe you. But you said that in your world, the one who survived was...?"
"Yes. In the normal world, your son—Bruce Wayne—survived. He became Batman."
"Tell me what to do."
---
Barry Allen's powers had come from a freak lightning accident. When he was struck by lightning, a shelf of chemicals had spilled over him. The combined reaction made him the fastest man alive.
"No. I think this will only make you the fastest man to die."
As Batman, Thomas Wayne had no shortage of the chemicals Barry required. And Gotham's heavy cloud cover ensured there was never a shortage of thunderstorms either.
As Thomas prepared the requested chemicals for Barry, he also set up a lightning rod connected directly to him, ensuring the next bolt would strike Barry Allen precisely.
"When I said you needed a shock, that was medical advice. It meant you should be admitted to Arkham for electroshock therapy."
After activating the lightning rod, Thomas fled the rooftop at full speed. With years of medical experience, he was willing to bet that unless a miracle occurred, this lightning strike would kill Barry.
"I didn't mean you should expose yourself to Gotham's storm and get struck to death. Trust me—that's an extremely painful way to die."
"I don't know if this will work. But I have to try."
Barry himself wasn't confident. He didn't know whether this gamble would succeed—but he knew he had to do something.
"Because this world is on the brink."
With a deafening boom, the lightning rod did its job. A bolt of lightning struck Barry Allen. The immense heat from the high voltage ignited him instantly.
Watching the screaming, writhing ball of fire, Thomas snapped out of his daze and lunged forward.
By the time he extinguished the flames, the fool named Barry Allen had stopped breathing.
"No..."
Thomas suddenly realized that everything that had happened tonight might have been nothing more than the delusion of a madman and a now-charred idiot.
His grief over his son had driven him insane like Martha. And in that madness, he had electrocuted an innocent fool to death.
"No..."
Joey had just visited Central City and, with little effort, reclaimed the Kryptonian spacecraft from the Star Lab—along with the Kryptonian battle suit of the House of El.
Now dressed in armor from Krypton, he was carrying the ship toward the Arctic, planning to build his own Fortress of Solitude, when an unusual lightning strike caught his attention.
When he turned his gaze toward it, what he saw was Batman—and in his arms, a charred corpse with no heartbeat.
Barry Allen.
In Joey's original understanding, Barry Allen was supposed to regain his powers with the help of this world's Batman, then use the Speed Force to reshape the entire universe and erase this apocalyptic crisis.
But now everything was different.
Because the Flash was dead.