Broken(DC)

Two months had passed since the particle accelerator explosion. This event was shrouded in mystery, and what exactly had happened remained unclear. However, one thing was certain: the explosion occurred due to some internal error, and STAR Labs was forced to shut down all its projects. Fortunately, the building was preserved, though it now stood mostly empty. Only a handful of people remained working there.

After the explosion and the lightning strike that hit Barry Allen, he was brought to STAR Labs despite the objections of his foster father. Eventually, though, his father agreed to accept their help. A month passed before Barry finally regained consciousness after a coma to realize just how drastically his life had changed.

Harrison Wells explained to him that the lightning incident had altered his body, granting him unique abilities. Thus began the days when Barry tried to understand what was happening to him until one day, he moved so fast that he became invisible to the naked eye. A new superhero appeared in the city. People only saw a streak of yellow lightning flashing past crime scenes.

But not everyone was pleased about this. The one who remained deeply dissatisfied was Eobard Thawne, sitting in his secret chamber.

"Time is running out," he said with a malicious voice. "He's getting stronger, but his speed still isn't enough." Approaching a screen, Thawne placed his hand on its surface and whispered softly, "When the sky burns with fire."

"This event will occur in two days," Gideon replied.

"Too little time. I'll have to take extreme measures," Eobard Thawne said with frustration. He understood that when the one he awaited arrived, he would stand no chance against them. Eobard was trapped in this timeline and couldn't escape it without the help of the Flash.

Brian Forman

I can't deny it—this was a painful defeat. After regaining all my powers, there were no enemies left who could pose a threat to me. No, he didn't beat me in battle, but he ensured that I could no longer stand in his way. I failed to prevent the explosion, and that meant I had lost.

My imprisonment here was agonizing. The only thing I clung to was the hope of returning. I nurtured that hope while trapped until I realized one thing: there were no boundaries for me. One day, I managed to move a small distance within the prison, shifting from one part to another.

Gradually, I learned to move even to places my eyes couldn't see, guided only by my fire. One thing became clear—I wasn't in an ordinary place. Several times, strange phantoms tried to attack me, but their attempts were futile. In certain areas, I could hear echoes of voices or incomprehensible sounds. I concluded that I wasn't looking at lightning but rather at something resembling the branches of a tree, appearing and disappearing, each branch carrying an event. Some events were destined to happen; others faded without a trace.

I spent a long time before finding what could take me back—my stream of time.

At first, a small spark appeared in the place I intended to arrive, then a roaring flame began to emerge. With every moment, my strength waned, but I couldn't stop. The lightning grew brighter, trying to destroy me and prevent my escape, but instead, it provided me with the energy I needed to continue. The fire around me surged, consuming everything.

Finally, I began to move. My body was engulfed in streams of flame before being expelled on the other side by a fiery vortex. I found myself in the sky, plummeting down toward the STAR Labs building. Through the stream of souls, I saw my enemy. My body crashed through the roof, landing in the particle accelerator tunnel.

I arrived to witness Harrison Wells holding some kid by the throat and striking him. Apart from them, there were several other people in the room, but I paid them no mind.

"No, this isn't how it's supposed to be," he said coldly, shoving the beaten boy aside like trash. The boy wore a similar suit, only red.

Realizing I needed to act quickly, I ignited flames around them, creating a fiery barrier meant to block his escape.

"I'm furious, and trust me, you're not getting away so easily," I warned.

"We'll see," he replied with a smirk, glancing at Barry's lifeless body on the floor. "I'm not done with you yet, Barry."

Seeing his face, I remembered him. We'd crossed paths before, back when I was in the police archives.

Wells lunged at me with incredible speed, but this time, I could see how he moved. Everything around seemed to slow down. My body moved sluggishly, but now I could clearly see every step he took. He approached me in an instant, stopped, and in that moment, I managed to strike him, throwing him back several meters.

"Impossible," he muttered in shock, then smirked. "Ha-ha-ha! Yes, I should've considered this. I can feel so much Speed Force in you, but it doesn't belong to you."

"You've clearly got something wrong in your head," I replied. He looked deranged, his eyes glowing with madness.

"Yes, that's true," he answered with a bitter smile, as if speaking not to me, but to himself. "I created this reality myself. What a stupid mistake."

Rising to his feet, he launched another attack, but as he reached me, he sped past. A moment later, I heard a woman scream.

He had grabbed a dark-skinned woman by the neck, his hand gripping her throat tightly.

"Iris," Barry whispered from where he lay nearby.

"Step back, or she dies," he said menacingly, tightening his grip on her throat and staring directly at me. On the one hand, I wanted to eliminate him as quickly as possible—he posed a tremendous threat to me and my family. But an innocent life was at stake, and any wrong move could lead to irreversible consequences.

Before I could make a decision, a gunshot rang out. Looking around, I saw a man holding a gun. He was slowly collapsing to the ground, his chest drenched in blood. Why did he do it?

"No!" Harrison cried out. His hand froze, and he released the woman. He began retreating, and then his body started to disappear.

"This isn't over," he said maliciously before his body fully dissolved.

"What is going on here?" I wondered aloud.

"No… Eddie," the woman whispered, rushing to the man lying on the ground and gently stroking his cheeks.

"Damn it, what have you done?" said a dark-skinned man, clutching his head and removing his hat.

The remnants of the fiery barrier that still burned around us vanished at my command. I stood there, confused, unsure of what to do next.

"You're not an enemy, I hope?" Cisco asked from nearby.

"No. Perhaps you've heard of me during the Metropolis incident," I replied. My body began reverting to its normal state, and a mask appeared on my face. "Could you explain what happened after the particle accelerator explosion, and how much time has passed?"

"The particle accelerator explosion? That was two months ago. So, you were there trying to stop the catastrophe?" Cisco said tiredly. "A lot has happened since then."

Suddenly, a black vortex appeared near us, actively consuming everything around it.

"What's going on, Professor? The wormhole's back!" Cisco shouted into his headset.

The rift continued to expand, pulling the surrounding space into its void.

"We need to move, now!" the police officer yelled.

"No, I can't leave him!" Iris replied, not taking her eyes off the man on the ground. I quickly approached her and easily lifted him onto my shoulder.

"Hurry," I said. As soon as we moved to a safe distance, the vortex began to grow rapidly, climbing higher. We barely managed to escape to the street when the black hole pierced the roof of STAR Labs and shot into the sky, sucking everything around it into its grasp and gradually engulfing the city.

"The singularity will continue to grow until it consumes the entire Earth—and even then, it won't stop. It's spinning at such an incredible speed that I have no idea how to stop it," said an elderly man with gray hair, watching the chaos unfold.

"I'll try," Barry said firmly, staring at the vortex.

"Barry, it's generating at least 6.7 tera-electronvolts! It's unstoppable!" the old man shook his head.

"I have no choice," he replied, putting on his mask and vanishing in a flash of lightning.

He was still so young, yet already willing to risk everything to save others. There seemed to be no other way. I didn't know how to stop the vortex either. My body could withstand it, but I couldn't save everyone.

Barry climbed higher and higher, lightning swirling around the vortex. With each moment, its power weakened, and the hole gradually shrank until it finally disappeared—along with him.

"Barry..." the girl standing beside me whispered. Everyone stood in somber silence, unsure of what to expect next. Sirens and cries began echoing through the streets. Yes, the singularity had been stopped, but the destruction was severe. Several city blocks had been almost entirely consumed, and countless debris injured many people.

"Yes," the police officer said, answering a call, "I'm on my way. The city needs me; people are panicking. We need to deal with the aftermath," he said, running off.

"We need to figure out how to bring Barry back," Cisco said quietly, heading back into STAR Labs. The others followed him.

I was left alone, staring at the sky.

Why can't this world ever live in peace? I asked myself.

**************************

I had to return to Central City for a day to figure everything out. As I was about to leave, I encountered a man with the ability to cause explosions. He would touch any object, and it would detonate shortly after. I quickly neutralized him, as well as a few others with superpowers. Due to the chaos caused by the singularity, criminals decided to take risks. I had to run all over the city to bring things under control.

When I returned to STAR Labs, I learned everything that had happened, and it all became clear to me. During the particle accelerator explosion, dark matter engulfed the entire city, granting many people superpowers—including criminals. At first, it seemed manageable, but within a month, meta-humans began appearing everywhere, spreading chaos.

Barry had become a superhero known as the Flash and started protecting the city under the guidance of Harrison Wells, whose true identity concealed a completely different person. That part, I already knew.

Two days before my arrival, Wells forced the Flash into a deal. Barry was supposed to go back in time to save his mother and, in return, help Wells return to his own time. But Barry didn't save her—he came back and destroyed the Reverse-Flash's plans, as Cisco called him. The events that followed were already familiar to me.

There was only one aspect of this story that troubled me: the meta-humans. How widespread was this phenomenon, and was it only Central City's residents who were affected? Perhaps Lex Luthor would be the only one happy about this outcome—he had always wanted such a scenario, for the emergence of meta-humans.

My plans had been derailed by my two-month confinement, but now I felt a renewed drive to act faster. That's why I didn't linger in Central City longer than necessary. I helped contain many meta-humans, and the rest, they would have to handle themselves. If things went south, I'd return to help.

As I soared into the sky, I realized I no longer needed an airplane... to fly. I pondered my visions and the fragments of reality I'd seen throughout my life. It finally dawned on me that they weren't nightmares or dreams—they were other realities, timelines that never came to be. That's why the particle accelerator explosion had tormented me—so many timelines had struck me at once.

As the Reverse-Flash had said, I didn't belong to any one of them, but I was present in all of them.

Right now, the most important thing was to see my family.

****************

Location of the Singularity Opening

The particle accelerator tunnel was severely damaged, as was the epicenter of the explosion. Everything was quiet until a portal with a blue edge, like a tear in the fabric of space, appeared in the air. Yellow and red lightning surged from it. Moments later, the Reverse-Flash emerged, his silhouette vibrating and distorted. But suddenly, his form began to stretch as if being torn apart.

His appearance changed—a red suit with dark crimson lightning replaced his old yellow costume.

[image]

After a few seconds, his body started to distort again, eventually reverting to its original form. Lightning enveloped him, and he vanished in a flash.