Chapter Text
Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville, Arrowverse, or any of the characters and elements pertaining to the mentioned franchises.
This fic is basically a rewrite of the Arrowverse, but with the inclusion of the TV series Smallville. The point of divergence is during The Flash Season 2 (or Arrow Season 4), with the Tachyon device sending Barry to the Smallville universe instead of Supergirl's Earth. Anything before that still happened the same as in canon. For Smallville, this is five years after the events of the Season 10 finale, so that the timelines of Smallville and Arrowverse could match. For example, if it's 2016 (the year this story takes place) in the Arrowverse, it's also 2016 in Smallville.
Chapter 1
"Okay, you guys, I'm here," Barry Allen announced in his comms. "You got my location?" He was standing in an open grassy area in Keystone City, while Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, and Iris West were in the cortex of S.T.A.R. Labs back in Central City.
"You good? You don't need to, like, stretch or something?" Barry heard Cisco's voice ask.
"No, no, no, I'm good, I'm good," Barry assured his friend.
"Let's take this Tachyon enhancer out for a test drive," Cisco said.
"All right," Barry said, the silver Tachyon device clutched in his hands. He attached it to the white chest emblem on his Flash suit. Almost immediately, the device glowed bright blue, sending a sudden surge of energy flowing through his body. "Ooh, yeah, I feel that."
"That is the Tachyon device powering up the Speed Force in your cells like a quick-charge battery," Caitlin explained. "How do you feel?"
"Different," Barry answered.
"Let's see how long it takes for you to get back here," Cisco said. "On my count. Three, two, one, go!"
Barry super-sped off in a streak of yellow lightning, the powerful gust of wind left behind in his trail causing the 'Welcome to Keystone City' sign to fall down. Indeed, he was moving significantly faster than his usual speed limit, meaning the Tachyon prototype was working as intended so far. He would finally gain the advantage he needed to defeat Zoom, the villainous speedster from Earth-2 who had spent the last several months antagonizing Barry and his friends. To add insult to injury, about two weeks ago, they finally had discovered Zoom's identity and, much to their immense shock and horror, found out that the man beneath the demonic black mask was none other than Jay Garrick, who, not dissimilar to 'Dr. Wells'/Eobard Thawne a year earlier, had convincingly presented himself as a 'helpful ally' to Team Flash while secretly being the very threat they were up against. Then, a few days ago, having grown more determined than ever to stop Zoom for good, Barry had traveled one year into the past to seek Thawne's assistance to increase his speed. While the time travel trip hadn't exactly gone according to plan, what with Thawne figuring out that Barry was from the future and the latter being pursued by a Time Wraith sent by the Speed Force itself, Barry managed to get what he needed, which led to him currently testing out his speed with the Tachyon prototype.
"Guys," Barry announced, "I can go faster!"
"Do it," Cisco encouraged.
Barry increased his speed even more. Then, a bluish-white portal suddenly opened before him and he sped directly through it.
Completely unaware of what had just happened, Barry emerged from the opposite end of the portal and continued moving across the country at speeds incredible even for him. He finally slowed down when he noticed an apartment building on fire. He sped into the burning building and started running in and out of there, evacuating all the residents who were trapped inside.
Clark Kent and Bart Allen were racing each other throughout the world, both of them moving at near-light speed while everything and everyone around them were frozen as if time had stopped. As always, Bart was ahead of Clark. The former was running on solid ground in a streak of yellow lightning, while the latter was flying in a red and blue blur.
"Always too slow, stretch, even with the head start I gave ya!" Bart teased with a smirk.
"I wonder how much of that cockiness of yours would remain if this was a battle rather than a race," Clark pointed out.
"Fair point," Bart said, before producing a slight smirk. "Although you'd have to actually catch me in order to beat me."
As the pair of heroes arrived back in the city limits of Metropolis, they noticed a burning apartment building and wasted no time rushing inside. Upon entering, Clark and Bart discovered that a figure – clad in a dark red leather suit that covered everything but his eyes, nose, and mouth and contained gold trimming – had beaten them to the scene and was rapidly spinning his arms around in an effort to extinguish the flames.
"Whoever you are, I'm sure you can use a couple of extra hands with this," Clark offered, as he and Bart appeared next to Barry.
"No, I'm good, I got this..." Barry trailed off as he noticed the smaller guy dressed in red also started spinning his arms around, while the bigger guy in red and blue started blowing out the flames with his super-breath.
The fire was put out in an instant and Barry turned to the other two heroes, regarding them with a look of curiosity mixed with astonishment.
The smaller guy with light brown hair, whom Barry figured was a speedster, was wearing a red leather suit marked with white trimming. A large white lightning bolt symbol ran diagonally across his torso and, instead of a cowl, a red domino mask concealed his identity.
The bigger guy with dark hair, whose very appearance seemed to bristle with incredible power, was clad in a mostly blue suit containing a long red cape flowing behind his back and a pair of red boots, complete with a red diamond-shaped emblem centered by an 'S' symbol resting on a yellow background on his chest.
"You're... who are you guys?" Barry asked.
"I'm Superman," Clark answered, frowning a bit.
Barry also frowned. "You're who now?"
"Superman," Clark repeated, his frown deepening. "Surely, you've heard of me."
Barry shook his head. "No, I don't think so."
"Dude, have you been living under a rock or something? How do you not know who Superman is?" Bart chimed in. "Everyone knows this big blue Boy Scout! Just like everybody knows me, The Flash, aka the fastest man alive!"
"What?" Barry muttered, taken aback by Bart's comment.
"The question is who are you?" Clark said to Barry. "I'm guessing you're a speedster like my friend here."
"That's right, I am a speedster," Barry nodded. "I'm The Flash."
Bart chuckled. "Sure you are."
"What?" Barry muttered. "No, really, I'm The Flash, the fastest man alive."
"Hey, nobody but me is the fastest man alive!" Bart protested, defensively. "The Flash is my name, which means you gotta come up with your own. You can have Impulse if you like, because I pretty much kicked that name to the curb a few years back."
Barry was puzzled. Where had this new speedster come from? The only other speedster he knew of who was also known as 'The Flash' was Earth-2's Jay Garrick, or so he'd thought. The thought of Jay caused Barry's anger towards the man to flare up again. He still couldn't believe it. The same guy who had taught him how to throw lightning was also the one who had brutally broken his back, publicly humiliated him in front of all of Central City, and left him crippled for days. Was Barry really so blind and gullible that he couldn't see right through Jay's deception? Had he not learned his lesson at all after everything that Wells... Thawne had put him and his friends through the year before? Apparently not. If there was one person on the entire planet who deserved a medal for falling into the same trap twice in a row, it was Bartholomew Henry Allen.
Focusing his mind back on the matter at hand, Barry looked at Bart and said, "No, The Flash, that's me, uh, I'm The... wait, do you guys not know who I am?"
"Can't say that I do, amigo," Bart answered.
"Same here," Clark added. "Even if you're implying that we should know who you are, I'm pretty sure I would've recognized you from newspapers images or TV if I'd seen you before, but I don't. I'm sorry."
"And you're known as The Flash too?" Barry asked Bart.
"Yep," Bart nodded with a smirk. "Fastest man alive!"
"But I thought I was..." Barry began, then paused for a few moments. "I've been The Flash in Central City for almost two years now, ever since I was struck by lightning the night the Particle Accelerator exploded and I got my powers."
"Two years?" Bart repeated. "Dude, I live in Central City and I assure you, I never heard a thing about another guy called The Flash running around and doing the superhero thing like me."
"How long you've been in Central City?" Barry inquired.
"It's going on about seven years now," Bart answered.
"Seven years? So you got your speed the same way I did from the Particle Accelerator two years ago?" Barry asked.
"Dude, I don't have the slightest clue about this Particle Accelerator thing you're talking about," Bart said. "Besides, I've had my speed a lot longer than just two years."
"Okay, but if you're from Central City and you're a speedster like me, how come you don't know anything about the Particle Accelerator or its explosion?" Barry asked. "What about S.T.A.R. Labs?"
"Of course I know S.T.A.R. Labs," Bart answered. "But it's not even in Central City. It's right here in Metropolis."
"Metropolis?" Barry questioned, having never heard of a city by that name before. "Where's that located?"
"You're in Metropolis right now," Clark said. "Metropolis, Kansas, to be exact. It's your first time here I assume?"
"Yeah, it must be," Barry muttered. He pondered for several moments, trying to figure out what was going on. He'd never heard a thing about the red and blue caped hero named 'Superman' or a second scarlet speedster running around in his city protecting people. And what had the latter meant by S.T.A.R. Labs not being in Central City, but located in some city called 'Metropolis'? "Oh, boy," Barry groaned with a sigh, a realization hitting him like a flash of lightning, pun intended. He only hoped he would be wrong. Looking firmly at the other two heroes, he asked, "Do you guys mind waiting here for a sec?"
"What for?" Clark asked.
"I think I'm starting to figure out what's going on here, but I need to know for sure if it's the case," Barry explained. "If it is, I think I'm gonna need you guys' help."
"Sure, we'll wait for you," Clark nodded.
"I'll be right back here in, well, a flash," Barry promised, then sped off in a steak of yellow lightning.
"Based on that lightning trail, his powers definitely come from the Speed Force like yours," Clark said to Bart. "That means you may have some new competition on your hands."
"So do you, stretch," Bart pointed out. "You're not worried about being bumped down to third place in the speed department, are you?"
"What about you?" Clark asked. "Are you worried about losing your status as the fastest person on Earth?"
"I'm pretty sure I can..." Bart suddenly stopped talking as he noticed Barry returning. "Here he comes now."
A moment later, Barry slid to a halt next to Clark and Bart. While Barry was gone, he had checked out Central City and noticed that, while it was located in the exact same spot and had, more or less, the same layout, his city looked quite different from how he knew it, complete with the total absence of the highly recognizable S.T.A.R. Labs building. That confirmed exactly what he had started thinking.
"Okay, guys, I'm back," Barry announced.
"Where did you even go?" Bart wondered.
"Central City," Barry answered, "and confirmed exactly what I was thinking." He pulled off his cowl, revealing his face to Clark and Bart. "My name is Barry Allen, and I am the fastest man alive. Or at least the fastest man alive where I come from. I also think that I am on the wrong Earth. I'm definitely gonna need your help."
Clark and Bart exchanged stunned glances, allowing their minds to process what Barry had just told them.
"Barry Allen?" Clark said, before turning to Bart. "Wasn't that one of the names you saw in your head when you first discovered your speed?"
"Yeah, it was," Bart recalled. "I always suspected this Barry Allen guy, whoever he is, might be related to me somehow."
"Given that I'm from another Earth, I seriously doubt I'm the Barry Allen you're talking about," Barry said.
"You came here from another Earth?" Bart asked, intrigued.
"Oh, yeah," Barry answered. "Multiple Earths are a thing, believe it or not."
"We know," Clark said with a nod, thinking back to his experiences on the Earth where his inter-dimensional doppelganger had been found and raised by Lionel Luthor instead of Jonathan and Martha Kent. "This wouldn't be our first encounter with visitors from another universe."
"So you guys do have experiences with more than one Earth then," Barry said with relief. "That's good."
Bart took off his domino mask. "I'm Bart, by the way. Bart Allen."
Barry blinked. "Bart? As in Bartholomew Allen?"
"The one and only," Bart answered.
"Bartholomew is my full name too, but I've always gone by Barry," the visiting speedster said to his local namesake.
"We should get to the Watchtower, then you can tell us more about yourself and how you ended up in our world," Clark said.
"What's 'the Watchtower'?" Barry asked, curiously.
"So this is your base of operations," Barry noted, looking around in amazement as he followed Clark and Bart into a large high-tech Watchtower headquarters located within a high-rise building in the center of Metropolis. "Awesome."
He noticed a man with medium blonde spiky hair and a woman with lighter blonde neck-length hair sitting together at a desk. The man was reading a newspaper, while the woman was using the computer.
The two of them looked up as they noticed Clark, Bart, and an unfamiliar young man with dark brown hair clad in a dark red suit.
"Hey, guys," the blonde man greeted Clark and Bart before turning to the stranger with them. "Who's your new friend?"
"Uh, I'm Barry," the young man introduced himself to the blonde man and woman. "Barry Allen."
"Barry Allen?" the blonde woman repeated in surprise. She turned to Bart. "Any relation to you, Bart?"
Barry shook his head. "No, I'm not related to Bart. My story is actually quite complicated."
"Your story?" the blonde woman asked, curious.
"Before you get into that, Barry, I'd like you to meet Oliver Queen and his wife Chloe Sullivan," Clark said.
"Chloe Sullivan-Queen," Chloe said with a smile.
Barry's eyes widened in shock and disbelief as he regarded the blonde guy. "You're Oliver Queen?"
"Just as it says on my birth certificate and ID," Oliver answered.
"As in the Green Arrow Oliver Queen?" Barry asked, still looking surprised.
"The only and only," Oliver answered, proudly.
"You seem nothing like the Oliver Queen I know from my Earth," Barry noted.
Oliver frowned. "The Oliver Queen from your Earth?"
"What Barry means is that he's from another world," Clark clarified.
"As in a parallel universe?" Chloe asked, intrigued.
"Yeah," Barry nodded. "Like Bart, my full name is Bartholomew Allen, and I'm a speedster superhero known as The Flash."
"At least you're a lot friendlier than the last inter-dimensional travelers who paid us a few not-so-peaceful visits to this world," Chloe said, thinking of Clark's murderous doppelganger Ultraman and the Lionel Luthor from what she, Clark, Oliver, and the rest of the League referred to as 'Earth-2'. "But if you have the same name as Bart and the same powers as well, I guess that would make you his counterpart."
"Except Bart is from a thousand years in the future," Clark pointed out.
Barry turned to Bart incredulously. "You're from the future?"
"Long story, amigo," Bart answered.
"So I guess you're not really my counterpart then, given that, unlike you, I'm from the present," Barry said. "At least you're not my counterpart directly. But this is the first universe where I encountered another version of someone from my Earth who isn't a doppelganger." He turned to Oliver. "Like you. You look very different from the Oliver Queen I know."
Oliver frowned. "Really?"
"Like you wouldn't believe," Barry said. "Compared to my Oliver, you seem to be quite laid-back, outgoing, and not the type of guy who needs to be constantly told to lighten up."
"What are you saying? That, in your universe, I'm the all-serious, all-brooding Grumpy Pants type?" Ollie asked, jokingly.
Barry chuckled. "Honestly, that is how quite a few people would describe the other Oliver."
"Seriously? I was only exaggerating," Ollie said. "If your Oliver Queen is anything like me, he can't possibly be anywhere near as broody and grumpy as Batman."
"So Batman is real," Barry said, not too surprised by that revelation. "On my Earth, most people think he's a myth to scare criminals in Gotham. But, if he exists as a real vigilante on this Earth, then it's a safe bet that he exist where I come from too."
"He was considered a myth in this world too before we finally met him, so it stands to reason your world's Batman is just as real as ours," Clark pointed out. "Anyway, how did you end up here? Does it have something to do with that device on your chest?"
"Yeah, uh, I've been working on my speed so I could get faster to stop this evil speedster named Zoom that my team and I have been dealing with, and apparently I'm faster than I thought," Barry explained.
"Let me guess, you ran so fast that you accidentally opened a breach between your universe and ours and that's how you ended up here," Chloe deduced.
"Exactly," Barry nodded.
"I've done something like that before, but with time travel," Bart recalled. "I never traveled to other universes before though."
"Same here until today," Barry said. "Time travel is something I've done a few times already, but I never jumped parallel dimensions without meaning to. So, until I can figure this out, I'm... stuck here."
"We're gonna do everything we can to help you get back to your Earth, I promise," Clark assured the speedster.
"Okay, thanks," Barry nodded, smiling optimistically. "Uh, first things first. Food. I have to consume about ten-thousand calories a day."
"Speaking of which, I'm feeling pretty famished too," Bart said. He turned to the other red-clad speedster. "What do you say, Barry? Big Belly Burger? Dude, if you don't have that joint in your universe, you're seriously missing out."
"Actually, I think it's safe to say that Big Belly Burger is the one thing that exists on every Earth," Barry said.
"I can already see the Flashes of two worlds getting along just fine," Chloe said with a chuckle.
"My thoughts exactly," Oliver agreed.
"What about you guys?" Bart said to Oliver and Chloe. "Anyone else down for a little Big Belly?"
"I'm good, Bart," Oliver said.
"Same here," Chloe added. "I already ate not too long ago, and the last thing I want is for a Big Belly Burger to give me a big belly."
"Well, I guess it's just gonna be us three amigos then," Bart said to Barry and Clark. "Last one to arrive is buying, by the way."
With that, the two Flashes and Superman instantly disappeared out of Watchtower base in a trio of blurs. Even if he was destined to be stranded on a different Earth for a while, that didn't mean Barry Allen couldn't have a bit of fun in the meantime and enjoy the company of his new friends/fellow superheroes/potential allies, starting with chowing down on a tasty lunch from what seemed to be Multiverse's favorite burger chain.
Elsewhere in Metropolis, at the site of the former LuthorCorp geothermal facility, several construction workers were on an afternoon shift when a loud rumbling noise, accompanied by what felt like a massive tremor, erupted seemingly out of nowhere, causing the workers to react with alarm.
"What was that?" one of them asked, right before there was another tremor, which was more powerful than the first.
Suddenly, a large, hulking, monstrous creature with menacing dark red eyes, whose rock-hard, gray-skinned body was covered with a number of spiky white bones, burst out of the ground, sending chunks of debris flying through the air in every direction and causing the two bulldozers in the area to flip over. Letting out an angry, ferocious roar, the creature wasted no time attacking the petrified workers, gruesomely tearing their limbs and bodies apart like sheets of paper. After all the bloodied and dismembered workers were dead, the creature let out another vicious roar. Now that he was free after being trapped many miles beneath the Earth's surface for seven long years, it was time for the Kryptonian behemoth, known as Doomsday, to resume his mission – destroy Kal-El, the last son of Krypton, then do the same to all the other puny life forms on the face of the Earth.
Chapter Text
Chapter 2
Clark, Bart, and Barry were sitting at a table outside of Big Belly Burger eating their food. While Clark had simply ordered a medium hamburger combo, Bart and Barry were each enjoying five cheeseburgers, a side of large curly fries, and a large milkshake. The three of them were now dressed in regular clothes, Clark wearing his usual mild-mannered reporter attire, glasses and all.
"What other superheroes exist in your world?" Bart asked the other speedster, after taking a large bite of one of his cheeseburgers.
"Besides me, there's Green Arrow, whose real name is Oliver Queen like the one you know," Barry began. "There's a woman we call Black Canary. There's a guy – well, two guys actually – called Firestorm. There's also The Atom, Vixen, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl. Any of those names sound familiar to you guys?"
"We never heard of a Firestorm or a Vixen, but we do or did have heroes who used the other names you mentioned," Clark said. "Green Arrow, who you've already met at the Watchtower, and Black Canary are members of our team called the Justice League, while Hawkman was killed in action several years ago, Hawkgirl has been deceased since the 1970s, and the hero known as The Atom has been M.I.A. for just as long. Since you obviously haven't heard of me until you arrived here, I assume there isn't anyone with my abilities on your Earth?"
"You mean someone with the ability to fly and move as fast as me and Bart?" Barry asked.
"Well, I'm faster," Bart corrected.
"Besides flight and super-speed, I'm strong enough to lift a locomotive over my head with one finger, my skin and bones are completely invulnerable, I can hear sounds from hundreds of miles away, I can see through all solid objects except lead, and I can blast intense beams of fire from my eyes," Clark told Barry, who regarded the former with amazement.
"You're the first person I've met who has those particular powers," the speedster noted.
Bart turned to Clark. "Maybe there's a chance your planet didn't explode in Barry's universe like it did here? That might explain why he doesn't know anyone like you."
Barry frowned. "What do you mean 'your planet'?"
Clark threw Bart a pointed look before turning to Barry. "I'm not exactly from Earth." Barry grew more curious as Clark continued. "My birth name is Kal-El. I'm from a planet called Krypton, which was millions of light years away. Right before Krypton exploded, my birth parents sent me here to save me."
"So you're saying you're an alien?" Barry asked in awe.
"That's right," Clark nodded. "Kryptonians may look identical to humans, but the difference is how the yellow sun, the source of our powers, affects our bodies."
"Your get your powers from the sun?" Barry said. "That would make you, uh, some sort of walking solar battery."
"That's one way of putting it," Clark nodded.
"Besides you, are there, like, other aliens on this Earth?" Barry asked, astonished that he was having a conversation with an actual alien. Granted, he'd traveled through time and to alternate Earths, as well as fought a giant telepathic gorilla and a half-man, half-shark creature, but finding out that aliens actually existed, even though the one he'd met happened to look exactly like a human, was going to take even him a bit of time to fully wrap his head around.
"We have a few in fact," Clark answered.
"There's a reason we call a guy on our team the Martian Manhunter," Bart added. "I'll give you three guesses to figure out what planet he's from."
"Mars?" Barry answered, before suddenly frowning. "There's life on that planet?"
"There was," Clark answered with a note of sadness. "Our Martian friend, he's the sole survivor of his planet."
"That totally sucks," Barry said, sympathetically.
"There's also Clark's cousin Kara," Bart pointed out. "But she lives in the 31st century. Super-hottie. And we have a guy on our team who is half-Clark and half-human. We call him Superboy."
"And I thought my Earth was trippy," Barry remarked. His expression turning serious, he turned to Clark. "By the way, since you have previous experiences with other Earths, you must know a way I can get back to..."
His sentence was abruptly interrupted as what felt like a tremor, accompanied by a 'boom' sound in the distance, appeared out of nowhere, causing the table in front of Clark, Bart, and Barry, as well all the others outside the restaurant, to shake for a few seconds.
"What was that?" Barry and Bart asked at the same time, just as there was another tremor, along with another 'boom'.
Clark activated his super-hearing, picking up the various sounds of police sirens, gunshots, people screaming in horror, vehicles screeching and crashing, glass shattering, stuff getting smashed, and a ferocious growl that sounded distinctively familiar.
"There's trouble on the other side of Metropolis," Clark told Barry and Bart in alarm before he disappeared from the table in the blink of an eye.
The speedsters exchanged alarmed glances before taking several more bites of their burgers and fries, along with sips of their shakes, and racing off in streaks of yellow lightning.
Flying across the city at nearly full speed to the source of the animalistic growl his hearing had picked up, Superman was at the scene in less than two seconds and widened his eyes at the sight of the all-too-familiar gray-skinned behemoth he thought he had seen the last of seven years ago. "Doomsday," he muttered in a mix of surprise, dread, and anger. Now that he thought about it, he should've realized that being buried deep underground wouldn't had held a monster as powerful as Doomsday permanently and that it would've only been a matter of time before he punched and clawed his way back up to the surface even if it took him some years to do so.
Many people were panicking and practically tripping over each other as they fled in every direction. Multiple cars, trucks, and police cars were heavily smashed and some were flipped over. There was also quite a bit of damage to some of the buildings, signs, and other property in the area. Several dead and dismembered police officers and some civilians were scattered on the ground in pools of blood.
Clark felt a pang of guilt at the sight of the dead bodies of Doomsday's victims, mentally kicking himself for not arriving sooner to save their lives.
Barry and Bart suddenly arrived, clad in their Flash suits.
"What the..." Barry trailed off, his blood running cold at the sight of the Kryptonian beast who was viciously smashing everything in his sight.
"I thought we got rid of this thorny rock giant ages ago!" Bart exclaimed in horror.
Clark suddenly caught a car that Doomsday flung and, to his horror, noticed there was a driver inside who would've gotten seriously injured or killed had he not been there. Clark descended to the ground, gently setting the car down.
"Thanks a lot, Superman," the driver said gratefully, immensely relieved he would live to see another day.
"Get somewhere safe," Clark instructed the man, before focusing his full attention on Doomsday, who unleashed a mighty roar as his menacing dark red eyes set their sights on the last son of Krypton.
"Make sure the civilians are safe! I'll handle Doomsday!" Clark told the Flashes, as the Kryptonian beast charged at him like a giant attack dog.
Bart sped off and started grabbing nearby civilians one-by-one, evacuating them away from the area, while Barry stayed behind, determined to help Clark deal with the monster.
Doomsday joined his fists and brought them down towards Clark's head. Clark caught Doomsday's arms in his hands and the two Kryptonians struggled against each other's strength for several moments as a powerful shockwave erupted around them. Clark unleashed a powerful blast of heat vision that struck Doomsday in the chest and the monster was sent crashing into an overturned semi-truck, which exploded in a massive ball of flames.
"Something tells me this explosion didn't kill that monster or whatever that thing is," Barry said.
"It definitely didn't kill him," Clark stated, knowingly. "Doomsday is at least as strong as I am."
"Doomsday? He's not a meta-human, is he?" Barry asked.
"No, he's Kryptonian like me," Clark answered.
"So he's an alien too," Barry said. "This is gonna be a first. Fighting an alien."
"I thought I buried Doomsday deep enough underground so that it would be impossible for him to ever escape, but I should've known this monster would've escaped eventually," Clark explained.
With another mighty roar, Doomsday stood up within the flames from the explosion, glaring at both Clark and Barry.
"Well, at least you have me here to help you take him down," Barry said.
Clark flew towards Doomsday in a red and blue blur and delivered five powerful blows to the beast's face. He threw a sixth punch, but Doomsday caught Clark's fist and started squeezing it, making Clark grunt in pain. Doomsday punched Clark in the forehead twice, sending the Man of Steel flying dozens of feet and crashing into a brick wall.
"Hey, ugly, over here!" Barry shouted, causing Doomsday to turn in his direction.
Barry sped out of the way as Doomsday hurled a punch at him. He super-sped around the monster to build up electricity. Doomsday hurled several punches at the streak of yellow lightning circling him, but his bony fists were unable make contact with The Flash due to the speedster moving too fast.
Barry flung a bolt of lightning at Doomsday, only for the attack to have no effect on the nigh-invulnerable beast.
"Oh, boy," Barry muttered, noticing that Doomsday hadn't even so much as flinched from his lightning bolt.
Barry jumped out of the way as Doomsday hurled another punch. He aimed his arms at Doomsday and spun them around with all his might, creating a powerful vortex of wind that was only able to slightly slow the beast down.
Clark, blood dripping down the right side of his forehead, flew back over unleashing another blast of heat vision into Doomsday's chest.
"Is there a limit to this monster's strength?" Barry asked, his arms beginning to become exhausted.
"Doomsday was created for the specific purpose of destroying anyone and anything that gets in his way," Clark replied, as he switched to his fists and started throwing one fierce punch after another into Doomsday's face, chest, and abdomen. "When it comes to this particular creature, there's no holding back!"
"Do you think you can handle him alone for a sec? I'm gonna try something," Barry asked, as he stopped rotating his arms.
"Go ahead, I'll be fine," Clark said, as he continued to punch Doomsday with all his strength.
Wasting no time, Barry took off down the road at full speed, almost immediately vanishing in the distance.
Having managed to deliver a total of thirteen consecutive blows to the monster, Clark threw a fourteenth blow using both of his fists, managing to knock Doomsday to the ground.
Clark wrapped his arms firmly around Doomsday's waist as he tried to lift the beast off the ground. However, Doomsday overpowered Clark, picking him up instead and then brutally slamming Clark into the pavement twice. Doomsday grabbed Clark from the ground by the neck and pounded him three times in the abdomen. The beast pulled his fist back, preparing to deliver a fourth blow, when there was a loud whooshing sound signaling Barry's return.
Leaping directly towards Doomsday with the momentum of a run around the entire country and back, Barry hurled what looked like a massive shockwave of lightning at him, striking Doomsday dead on. The attack proved powerful enough to stun Doomsday for a brief moment, allowing Clark to break free from the beast's grip and send Doomsday flying thirty feet back with a kick to Doomsday's abdomen using both legs.
"How'd you learn to do that?" Bart asked Barry, as he sped back over to him and Clark.
"If you never threw lightning before, I could teach you how," Barry offered.
"Cool, but let's make sure this Krypto-monster is taken care of first," Bart said, as Doomsday flung a pickup truck at the three heroes.
The Flashes sped out of the way, while Superman caught the truck before it could hit the ground. Seeing that no one was inside the truck, Clark slammed the vehicle on top of Doomsday, causing it to explode on top of the latter. Recovering almost immediately, Doomsday punched the flaming truck into the air as he got back to his feet.
Bart vibrated his entire body as Doomsday tried to punch him, causing the monster's fist to pass harmlessly through the speedster. Doomsday threw several more punches in vain as Bart continued to vibrate.
Clark lunged forward with a punch to Doomsday's face. Doomsday retaliated by backhanding Clark in the neck and then punching him in the chest, sending Clark crashing through the wall of a building, chunks of debris falling on top of Clark as he fell on the hard marble floor.
Focusing on the Flashes, Doomsday threw several punches at each of them, but Barry and Bart, of course, avoided them effortlessly.
"Too slow!" the two speedsters said at the same time.
Bart sped off and returned a split-second later, he and Barry now each holding an iron rod.
"Good thinking," Barry nodded to the other Flash, having already figured out that simply punching Doomsday wouldn't be a wise idea since the alien creature's strength and durability seemed to surpass even the likes of Grodd and King Shark.
Clark flew back over in a blur, smashing his fist into the side of Doomsday's face and then following that up with an uppercut underneath Doomsday's jaw. Clark threw another punch, only for Doomsday to seize his fist and punch Clark in the forehead with his other hand, knocking him to the ground. Doomsday picked Clark up by his cape and slammed him into the street pavement, ripping the cape in two in the process. Doomsday raised his fists, preparing to attack Clark further, but before he could do so, Barry and Bart were suddenly on him, whacking away with their iron rods.
Stumbling to his feet with a bit of uneasiness as more blood was now running down his face, Clark blasted heat vision directly in Doomsday's face, while Barry and Bart continued to whack the beast rapidly and repeatedly all over his huge rock-hard body.
Doomsday placed his hands on his head as he let out a roar of pain. Even for a nigh-unstoppable beast like himself, getting hit by the Flashes all over his abdomen, chest, back, shoulders, arms, and legs over a hundred times every few seconds, not to mention Kal-El's heat vision in his face, was a bit overwhelming.
After about ten seconds of enduring the rapid and constant blows from the two Flashes, which hurt almost as much as even Kal-El's punches given the large amount of attacks, Doomsday stomped the ground, creating a shockwave that knocked Barry and Bart off their feet. Doomsday then swung his fist, managing to punch Barry square in the chest, sending the speedster flying head-first into the wall of a building and falling to the ground twenty-five feet below.
"Barry!" Bart exclaimed, getting back to his feet as Doomsday took a swing at him.
Clark flew in front of Bart, catching Doomsday's fist with both hands before it could reach the speedster. "Check on Barry and make sure he's okay!" Clark instructed Bart, who nodded and sped over to where Barry was lying on the ground unconscious.
"Barry?" Bart said, concerned for his namesake and fellow Flash. Squatting down, he shook the other speedster in an effort to wake him up. "Barry! Barry!" He sped back over to where Clark continued to battle Doomsday. "He's out cold!"
"Get him to S.T.A.R. Labs!" Clark ordered, in the midst of exchanging blows with Doomsday.
"On it!" Bart said. And a second later, he and the unconscious form of Barry Allen disappeared in a streak of lightning.
Clark dodged a blow from Doomsday's fist and sped behind the beast, punching Doomsday in the back several times. Wrapping his arms as firmly as he could around Doomsday's waist, Clark shot straight up in the air, stopping when he reached several thousand feet, and threw him down, leaving Doomsday to plummet towards a wooded area located a few miles outside of Metropolis as Clark preferred to keep their destructive battle away from populated areas. There was no way in hell he was giving up. He couldn't allow Doomsday to kill any more innocents and destroy the city. No matter how long it took, no matter what it took, even if it meant sacrificing his own life, the thing that Zod and his wife Faora had created to specifically kill Jor-El's son needed to be stopped, this time forever. And Clark knew that simply reburying him ten miles beneath the city wasn't going to be the solution.
Doomsday crash-landed against a tree, turning the trunk into splinters on impact. Clark landed in front of Doomsday as he flew down and raised his fist, only for Doomsday to suddenly seize Clark by the neck again and slam him into one of the other nearby trees, destroying that tree as well. Clark struggled to breathe as Doomsday started choking him. Keeping one hand clutched around Clark's neck, Doomsday smashed two punches into Clark's forehead with his other hand, causing drops of blood to splatter. Clark collapsed to his knees, panting heavily as the most of his face was now covered in blood. Not allowing Clark time to recover, Doomsday kicked him in the chest, sending Clark flying through the woods and slamming into several trees before crash-landing on top of a large rock, breaking it into multiple pieces.
Doomsday leapt into the air and landed right in front of Clark, who was panting heavily from both pain and exhaustion as the battle with the monster who wanted nothing more than to see him dead was starting to wear him down. Doomsday picked Clark up and slammed him into the ground. The beast then stomped Clark five times, causing Clark to spit blood from his mouth as he was on his knees. Doomsday was prevented from stomping Clark a sixth time as a powerful blast of heat vision attacked him from behind.
"I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner, Clark," a dark-haired young man who appeared to be in his late teens or early twenties and bore a strong resemblance to Clark announced. He was dressed in a long-sleeved black shirt marked with red trimming on the arms and the sides along with a red 'S' symbol on the chest, a pair of blue jeans, and red and black sneakers.
The young man flew down and landed next to Clark, who got back to his feet with quite a bit of uneasiness.
"Better late than never, Conner," Clark replied, wiping blood from his face with the back of his hand.
Conner Kent, also known as Superboy, wasted no time throwing punches of his own at Doomsday, managing to get no more than three blows in before Doomsday backhanded Conner in the face, sending him crashing into a tree over a hundred feet away.
Turning to Clark, Doomsday threw a punch at him, but Clark, pushing through the aching pain throughout his body, caught Doomsday's fist with both of his hands and then kicked the monster in the stomach.
"Any ideas on how we get rid of Doomsday permanently?" Conner asked, as he flew back over and punched Doomsday in the face at the same time Clark smashed multiple punches into the monster's chest. "Considering how strong this monster is, we'll probably be fighting him forever if we don't think of something."
"There is one idea," a new voice stated. "Although it is not without a potentially dangerous risk."
"Huh?" Conner said, as he and Clark glanced at the person who had spoken and saw John Jones, in his human form but eyes glowing bright red, hovering several feet away from where they were battling Doomsday, who then managed to punch both Clark and Conner in the face, knocking them to the ground.
"What's the idea?" Clark asked, as he and Conner got right back up and continued to engage Doomsday. Clark attacked the right side of the beast, while Conner did the same on the left side.
"To destroy Doomsday permanently, you must get him directly into the sun," John answered, blasting the Kryptonian beast's back with intense beams of heat from his palms as Doomsday roared in a mix of pain and anger.
"What?!" Clark exclaimed incredulously, not believing what he'd just heard come out of the mouth of his Martian friend. "Get Doomsday into the sun?! John, he's Kryptonian! Wouldn't that only make him more powerful than he already is?!"
"I'm with Clark here!" Conner added, he and Clark not taking their eyes off of Doomsday as they continued throwing one punch after another into his torso. "This monster is already giving us enough trouble without him gaining even more strength!"
"That is the unfortunate implication of carrying out this particular act I'm afraid," John admitted, before suddenly turning intangible as Doomsday whirled around and hurled a vicious punch at the Martian Manhunter. "However, I have proposed the theory that, while the sun will indeed increase Doomsday's strength beyond anything imaginable, the excessive amounts of solar energy will be too much for his body to handle."
"Similar to a light bulb being powered by a nuclear reactor," Clark said, knowingly. "Like when that piece of blue kryptonite destroyed Bizarro years ago."
"Precisely," John answered, turning solid again and smashing a powerful uppercut into Doomsday's face. "What I'm suggesting should cause something similar to happen to Doomsday."
"Should?" Conner said, warily. "That word isn't really helping your theory here, John."
The two Kryptonians and one Martian Manhunter were quiet for a few seconds before Clark broke the silence. "We'll do it," he said, right before receiving a powerful blow to the face from Doomsday. "If it means never having to worry about Doomsday threatening the world again, we'll do it." The Man of Steel was never one to deliberately take a life, but Doomsday wasn't a man. He was a mindless killing machine. Anything that had been human inside the beast died seven years ago. All traces of the man named David Bloome, who himself had proven to not be so innocent when he killed Jimmy and nearly did the same to Chloe, were completely gone.
"Clark, are you out of your mind?!" Conner protested. "Don't tell me you're actually willing the risk the safety of the entire planet based on a theory! If we do this and Doomsday destroys everything and everyone in existence because of it, that will be on us!"
"You're right, Conner, but we don't have much of a choice," Clark insisted. "I know it's a risky move like John said, but we have to try. This could be our one chance to stop Doomsday for good. Are you with me?"
Conner considered it for a few moments. Although he couldn't bring himself to fully agree to John and Clark's insane plan, he knew they were right. After all, their options were very limited. Doomsday wasn't some meta-human they could simply lock up. Doomsday wasn't a standard Kryptonian they could simply subdue with blue, green, or gold kryptonite. Even if they buried him much deeper under the Earth than Clark did seven years ago, Doomsday would just escape again even if him took him years to do so, and the last thing either of them wanted was for the nigh-unstoppable beast to go on more rampages in the future. Therefore, if taking Doomsday up to the very source of Kryptonian's powers was the only way to ensure his destruction, so be it. The world depended on Superman and Superboy to save the day. All Conner could do was pray that John's idea would work and not bite them in the behind. "I'm with you, Clark," he answered. "All the way."
"Let's do it," Clark instructed.
Chapter Text
Chapter 3
Grabbing Doomsday by each arm and restraining him with all their strength, Superman and Superboy wasted no time shooting straight up into the sky, reaching outer space in just under ten seconds, although Doomsday's tremendous strength, along with him struggling to get free from their grips, kept them from flying at full speed. They started moving horizontally through space as they headed directly towards the sun, whatever cuts, bruises, and broken bones Doomsday had inflicted on the two Kryptonians healing rapidly and restoring them to full strength and stamina.
Once the giant sun was fully in view, Clark and Conner counted to three and hurled Doomsday into the center of it with all their strength. Floating side by side, they watched as the beast became engulfed in the sun.
"Prepare to brace yourself," Clark said to Conner. "If John is right, Doomsday is gonna be stronger than he's ever been."
"Remind me again why you guys thought this was a good idea," Conner replied, immense nervousness evident in his voice. His heart was racing a mile per minute in anticipation of Doomsday's impending attack. The only thing that kept him from regretting what they'd just done was the fact that he trusted both Clark and John with his life.
Indeed, a very loud, very angry, and very terrifying roar echoed as a furious Doomsday leapt out of the sun, appearing almost instantly in front of his two opponents. His body was glowing brightly. He punched Conner square in the chest, the force of the blow so powerful that it sent the half-human, half-Kryptonian crash-landing on the surface of moon.
"Conner!" Clark cried out. A moment later, Doomsday's fist connected with his jaw. Before Clark's brain could even fully register the pain in his jaw, the beast delivered another punch, this time getting him in the stomach. The force of the punch sent Clark crashing on the moon too. He landed near where Conner was slowly getting back to his feet.
They had no time to recover as Doomsday appeared before them with a whoosh. Thanks to the sun amplifying his abilities, the beast was now capable of moving faster than light.
"I don't know how much more of this I can take," Conner whined, clutching his chest. "His attacks were tough before, but now it's like he shattered every bone in my chest with that one punch."
"Hang on just a little longer..." Clark said breathlessly, as Doomsday continued to glow brighter and brighter. John was right. Throwing Doomsday into the sun had been a dangerous risk. A risk that he and Conner were now paying for, and one that the entire world, if not the universe, would pay for too if things didn't go according to plan. It was a fifty-fifty chance. Either the excessive solar energy would enhance Doomsday and leave him more powerful than ever, or it would kill him.
Grabbing them by their necks, Doomsday picked Clark and Conner up at the same time and started choking the life out of them. The two Kryptonians dangled as they desperately tried to free themselves, but it was as though Doomsday's rock-hard palms were glued firmly to the skin of their necks.
Just when Clark and Conner were starting to feel convinced that they had screwed up in the worst way possible, their wish finally became true. Bright blinding lights shot out of Doomsday's body, forcing him to release Clark and Conner. The beast clutched the sides of his head screaming in agony.
Rubbing their bruised necks, Clark and Conner got to their feet as they watched what was happening in both amazement and disbelief.
"It's working!" Conner exclaimed.
He and Clark were violently thrown back as Doomsday exploded. They got back up a few seconds later dusting themselves off. Once the smoke cleared, all that was left of their tremendously powerful opponent was a large pile of bones and rocks.
"We did it," Conner said, still not believing what just happened. "He's gone."
Clark stood there in silence feeling a bit conflicted. He didn't want to resort to taking the life of a sentient being, but Doomsday had left him with no other choice. He couldn't allow the beast to keep on killing innocents and wreaking havoc on the world out of pure enjoyment. It had to be done.
Clark and Conner then saw Martian Manhunter, now in his green-skinned form, descending in front of them on the moon's surface.
"It turned out you were right," Clark said, solemnly. "Doomsday exploded just like you said he would."
John slowly walked up to Clark and placed a comforting hand on the Kryptonian's shoulder. "I understand what you're feeling right now, Kal-El. The very fact that you're expressing remorse for ending the life of an utterly vicious monstrosity who was created for the sole purpose of causing death and destruction speaks volumes about the man you truly are."
"Who I am, John, is the man who just made a conscious decision to take a life," Clark said, his expression not changing. "On the one hand, that action goes against everything I suppose to stand for. On the other hand, Doomsday was nothing but an extremely destructive shell, a genetic corruption born of the original Zod and Faora's inability to conceive a natural child. Anything that was once human inside of Doomsday died along with Davis Bloome, leaving only a mindless killing machine that does not think or feel, which is why I would make the same choice again in a heartbeat."
"And no one would hold that choice against you, Kal-El," John said, reassuringly. "Everyone on your adopted planet is now safe from Zod and Faora's creation."
Clark was speechless for a few moments. "Let's go home."
Superman, Superboy, and Martian Manhunter flew away from the moon as they race back down to Earth.
(Metropolis)
Superman landed on the rooftop of the Daily Planet where his wife and co-worker, Lois Lane, was waiting for him.
The moment the brunette intrepid reporter laid eyes on the man she loved more than anyone else in the world, her worried expression was instantly replaced by one of relief and happiness. "Clark," she gushed with a wide smile, wasting no time throwing her arms around his neck in a firm embrace.
Clark wrapped his arms around her waist as they held and kissed each other passionately for several moments.
"I'm so glad you're okay," Lois said, barely managing to hold back tears of joy. "When I heard that it was Doomsday you were up against, considering how your last encounter with that horny-toad-looking killing machine turned out, I was worried he was gonna..."
"Kill me?" Clark finished her sentence.
"Well, he certainly did a number on you, didn't he?" Lois said, noticing all the dried-up blood on Clark's face and torso, as well as the red and blue suit his adoptive mother had made for him in tatters with much of the ruined cape missing. "I don't think I've seen this much blood on you since, well, that night I pulled that blue kryptonite dagger out of your gut after you fell off that skyscraper."
Clark smiled. "Don't worry, Lois, whatever injuries Doomsday inflicted on me are now gone."
Lois also smiled. "Of course they are. Thanks to a certain fiery yellow orb floating in the middle of space."
Clark glanced down at his torn up suit. "It's a good thing my mother thought to make me another suit for my birthday last year. I figured it was only a matter of time before I ruined this one."
"It's just a suit, honey," Lois pointed out. "Clothes can always be replaced. The important thing is I didn't lose you today."
"I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon," Clark said.
"Same here," Lois said. "So, about Doomsday, how did you defeat him? The last that people saw of that monster was you and Superboy taking him up into the sky."
"We did what we had to do in order to defeat him permanently," Clark answered, his expression serious all of a sudden. "John Jones suggested that we get Doomsday into the sun so that the excessive solar energy would be too much for his body to handle, causing him to explode. So that's what Conner and I did. While solar energy did briefly increase Doomsday's strength and speed to unimaginable levels, our plan was ultimately a success."
"Something you don't sound too proud about," Lois noted. "Judging by that look on your face, you're beating yourself up. Typical, Smallville. Look, not that I'm surprised that you would take a trip down the guilt lane for deliberately taking the life of someone even as vicious and evil as Doomsday, but needless to say, there was no other choice. Everyone is safe now because of what you and Conner did, not to mention that not a single prison on Earth would've been capable of holding him, especially given the fact that he managed to escape from being buried ten miles underneath the city."
"I should get going now," Clark said. "A new friend of mine needs my help with something."
"Well, before you go and tend to your superhero business, honey, I'm gonna need a really quick whoosh to our apartment," Lois said, looking down at her purple shirt containing blood stains from when she hugged Clark. "Going back into the Planet like this is not exactly professional. Plus, I assume our apartment is where you were headed next anyway since you need a change of clothes even more badly than I do."
Grabbing Lois into his arms and holding her bridal style, Clark flew off the rooftop in a red and blue blur as he headed to their apartment.
(S.T.A.R. Labs)
Barry opened his eyes groggily as he began to regain consciousness. Quickly coming to his senses, he felt pain not only in his head, which was throbbing, but also some in his chest. The last thing he remembered before waking up was helping this Earth's Flash and Superman fight some huge alien monster with scary red eyes and thorny bones all over his gray body. The monster had punched him in the chest, undoubtedly breaking multiple bones in Barry's body. Then, he had hit his head hard against a building and again when he fell twenty-five feet to the ground, which definitely explained the killer headache. He let out a groan and placed his hand on the back of his head as he sat up in the bed he was in. Instead of his Flash suit, Barry was wearing a light blue shirt and matching pants.
"Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you're finally awake," a middle-aged male doctor wearing glasses and a white coat announced.
Barry turned to the doctor. For a quick moment, he automatically assumed it was Harrison Wells due to the glasses, but then he got a better look at the man and saw that he looked very different and had a brown-ish skin tone. Frowning, he asked "Am I in a hospital? How long was I out?"
"You were unconscious for almost five hours," Clark answered, standing next to the doctor. He was now in his spare Superman suit identical to the one that got ruined during the heated battle with Doomsday. "You're in S.T.A.R. Labs being treated for the injuries you received during our battle with Doomsday."
"I have to say, Doomsday packed a really powerful punch," Barry remarked. "And I thought Grodd and King Shark's hits were pretty tough." He then frowned. "Wait, you guys defeated Doomsday, right?"
"Yes, Doomsday's already been defeated," Clark nodded reassuringly, feelings of conflict still lingering on his mind over the fact that he and Conner had technically taken a life.
"Good," Barry said with relief. "I'm glad everybody's safe." This may not be his Earth, but he wouldn't want it harmed any more than he would want his own. Glancing around the room he was in, Barry added, "So this is S.T.A.R. Labs?"
"To be precise, this is Swann Technology and Research Labs," the doctor said.
"Which was named after its founder, the late Dr. Virgil Swann," Clark added, traces of sadness in his voice as he thought of the man who had helped him learn quite a bit about his Kryptonian origins.
"Mr. Allen, my name is Dr. Emil Hamilton," the doctor introduced himself. "The injuries you received during your encounter with Doomsday left you not only with a concussion, but also a total of seven fractures in your ribs and two more in your left collarbone," Emil explained to Barry. "Normally, injuries of that extent would've taken approximately six to eight weeks to heal. Fortunately for you, because of your connection to the Speed Force, you should be fully healed in an hour."
"Thank God for my speed-healing," Barry muttered. "Comes in handy in these situations." Frowning again, he asked, "Wait, you know about my connection to the Speed Force?"
"Your friend Superman filled me in on who you are and the details of your current situation," Emil answered. "You're The Flash from an alternate Earth, is that correct?"
"Yeah," Barry said.
Clark folded his arms across his chest. "Barry, while you were unconscious, Emil and I were having a discussion about your situation and we think we've figured out a way to get you back to your universe."
"How?" Barry asked, curious.
"Theoretically speaking, you will be capable of breaking the inter-dimensional barrier if you combine your speed with that of Superman and our universe's Flash, in addition to the former propelling you forward with his immense strength, thereby giving you the necessary momentum to open a portal back to your Earth." Emil explained.
"It's up to you if wanna give it a shot," Clark added.
"That doesn't sound like a bad plan," Barry said. Nodding, he added, "I'll do it."
"All right," Clark nodded back. He grabbed Barry's folded up Flash suit along with the Tachyon device from a table and handed them to the speedster. "I believe these are yours."
"Thanks," Barry said.
"You're good to go now, Mr. Allen," Emil said. "Your vitals are excellent. However, before you begin your journey back home, I recommend that..."
Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound with a brief gust of wind and, a moment later, Barry was on his feet, clad in his Flash suit.
"...you wait until your bones are fully healed," Emil finished.
"I'm still in a little pain, doctor, but I'll be fine," Barry said, putting on his cowl. Turning to Clark, he asked, "Where's Bart?"
"He's helping some of the other League members clean up the mess from the destruction our battle with Doomsday left," Clark answered. "We'll get him right now so he could help get you home. The others can manage."
(Smallville)
Superman and the Flashes were standing in the middle of a long empty road with a large cornfield on each side. Clark had specifically chosen that area for them to start their run not only because of its significance to him personally, but also because of his firsthand knowledge that they would have plenty of open space to run at super-speed compared to a very busy city like Metropolis.
"So this is the town you grew up in?" Barry asked Clark, looking around at their rural surroundings.
Clark pointed towards the cornfield on his right. "Over there is where my spaceship landed when I arrived on Earth twenty-seven years ago. Thankfully, I was found by two people who turned out to be the greatest parents I could've ever asked for. You don't have Smallville on your Earth?"
"While the vast majority of cities you guys have here also exist on my Earth, there are quite a few, such as Smallville and Metropolis, that don't," Barry answered. "Unless they do exist, but under completely different names."
"Okay, what's the deal again?" Bart asked.
"You, Clark, and I join forces, literally," Barry answered. "You two combine your speed with my speed. If Clark throw me forward at his fastest, then I might just break the dimensional barrier and get back home."
Bart smirked. "It sounds to me like you're asking for a race, amigo."
"Yeah, I guess," Barry chuckled. "Think you can keep up, Flash?"
"I bet your ass I can, Flash," Bart replied, also chuckled. "The real question is," he glanced at Clark, "can this Man of Steel keep up with us Scarlet Speedsters?"
"Bring it on, Flashes," Clark challenged. Turning to Barry, he extended his hand out and Barry shook it. "If you ever need our help with anything, don't hesitate to come back here and let us know. Although you might wanna make sure coming back doesn't get you stranded first."
"I'll keep that in mind, Clark," Barry nodded, "or Kal-El. I still can't believe you're an alien, which I think is very cool. I'm really gonna miss you guys."
"We're really gonna miss you too," Bart said, as he also shook hands with Barry.
Barry attached the Tachyon device to his chest emblem and put on his cowl. "All right, let's do this."
Bart put on his domino mask as he, Barry, and Clark stood in racing positions.
"On your marks," Barry said.
"Get set," Bart added.
"Go," Clark finished.
Superman and the Flashes immediately shot forward along the road, the former running instead of flying. Rapidly increasing their speed as they ran and ran, yellow electricity surrounded the red blurs of Barry and Bart, while Clark's cape fluttered wildly in the wind.
Earlier than the three superheroes expected, a portal suddenly opened before them. Clark seemed to be the only one who noticed the portal as he abruptly slowed to a halt, while Bart and Barry ran into it.
"Bart, wait!" Clark exclaimed, reaching his arm out towards the portal. But it was too late for him to fly through and retrieve Bart as the portal closed as quickly as it had opened. Letting out a sigh, he muttered, "Okay, that was not what we anticipated would happen. It looks like none of us thought this through properly. One way or another, I'm going to get Bart back."
With a whoosh, he flew up to the sky and quickly disappeared into the distance.
(National City)
It seemed like another ordinary day in the city protected by a certain Girl of Steel when a strange-looking light blue portal opened seemingly out of nowhere in the middle of a busy road as two streaks of yellow lightning shot out at tremendous speed. One of the lightning streaks run up the side of a tall building to catch a young blonde woman who was falling apparently to her death, while the other one suddenly skidded to a halt.
Quickly catching the woman in his arms, Barry ran back down the building and kept on moving faster than what he was used to, not slowing down and stopping until he was in the middle of a grassy landscape with mountains in the distance.
Releasing the woman from his arms, he looked at her in both concern and panic as the front of her shirt was in flames. "You're on fire!" he exclaimed. He reached towards her shirt as he tried to pat out the flames, but quickly drew his hands back due to the heat.
Barry then looked stunned as the woman patted out the flames from her shirt with her bare hands like it was nothing. "You don't seem that bothered by the fact that you're on fire," he said to her.
"I didn't need you to save me," the woman told him.
Barry chuckled. "You just fell from a skyscraper. So if I hadn't been there, you would've gone splat."
"I have to get back to the city,' the woman said.
Before Barry could reply, she flew into the air, leaving her shirt and pants to fall on top of Barry as she changed into a red and blue suit containing a cape that immediately reminded him of Clark.
A whooshing noise sounded behind Barry as Bart appeared. "Barry?" the latter said, looking around in confusion. "Where's Clark?"
"Hang on a sec," Barry said, before racing off after the mysterious flying woman in red and blue, with Bart following him closely behind.
Up in the air, the woman saw the two trails of yellow lightning quickly catching up to her at speeds even greater than her own. She descended and landed on the ground as the Flashes slid to a halt in front of her.
Barry and Bart studied the woman for a few moments, noticing she was wearing what could be considered a female version of Clark's suit, but with a red skirt in place of blue pants.
"Who are you supposed to be?" Bart asked, having never seen the woman before, although he figured she was most likely Kryptonian given the 'S' symbol on her chest, which, unlike the one on Clark's suit, lacked yellow in the background.
"I'm Supergirl," the woman answered, as if it was supposed to be the most obvious thing in the world.
"Supergirl? That's what we called Supes' cousin before upgraded to Superwoman," Bart said. "Are you..."
Supergirl placed her hand to her temple. "Sorry, I was just a little disoriented from the scream." Turning to Barry, she asked, "How did you save me?"
"Well, I... you fell out a window and I caught you and ran you all the way out here, which I did not mean to do, but I've been working on my speed and... guess I'm faster than I thought," Barry explained.
"Yes, but I..." Supergirl stammered, eyeing the two speedsters curiously. "Who are you two?"
"I'm The Flash, but you can call me the 'fastest man alive' if you like," Bart answered with a grin.
"We're both The Flash actually," Barry added. "It's kinda complicated to explain."
Supergirl frowned. "You're both who now?"
"You don't know who I am, do you?" Barry asked, suspecting he still wasn't back in his home universe.
"Should I?" Supergirl asked, still frowning.
"What about the Green Arrow?" Barry decided to ask. As Supergirl shrugged her shoulders, he then asked, "Black Canary?" As Supergirl shrugged again, Barry continued, "Firestorm? Atom? Zoom?"
"What about Aquaman? Cyborg? The Justice League? Or Superman?" Bart threw out names of superheroes from his Earth as well. "You have to know Superman at least. I mean, you're wearing his symbol on your chest."
"Of course I know Superman," Supergirl said. "He's my cousin."
Bart frowned. "Superman is your cousin? I thought he only had one blonde hottie for a cousin."
"He does only have one cousin," Supergirl pointed out. "Me."
Bart laughed. "You may be a super-hot blonde with gorgeous blue eyes just like Kara, but you're definitely not her."
"Or she is Superman's cousin, just not the version of her you know," Barry suggested. "Just like how your Oliver Queen looks different than the one from my world."
Bart frowned. "Wait, are you saying..."
"I don't think we're still on your Earth," Barry said. "And judging by her not seeming to recognize the names of the heroes I mentioned, we're probably not on my Earth either."
"Your Earth?" Supergirl asked, confused.
"It's a long story, but we're from different Earths," Barry explained.
Supergirl's frown deepened. "What? What do you mean you're from different Earths? What... how many other Earths are there other than this one? You know, we're... Earth."
"Like I said, it's a long story," Barry said. "But first..." He pulled off his cowl. "Hey, I'm Barry Allen. And this is..."
"Bart Allen," the other speedster said, extending his hand. "Pleasure to meet you, beautiful."
As Supergirl shook his hand, Bart brought hers to his face and kissed her knuckles, causing Supergirl to frown awkwardly at the speedster.
"Kara Danvers," she introduced herself to the Flashes. "Nice to meet you, Barry Allen and Bart Allen. Are you two brothers or..."
Both Flashes shook their heads. "No, we're not brothers," Barry answered, chuckling a bit. "We're, uh... do you know anywhere we could sit and talk? Bart and I will explain everything to you."
"Sure, follow me," Supergirl said, before taking off in the air with a whoosh as the Flashes sped after her on the ground.
Chapter Text
As indicated by the end of the last chapter, this point of the story will cover some of the events from Supergirl episode 1x18 "Worlds Finest", with Smallville's Flash added.
Chapter 4
(Office room)
"So, both of you are named Bartholomew Allen, you're both The Flash, and you're from different universes?" Kara asked, trying to wrap her head around what Barry and Bart had told her. The three were now dressed in civilian clothes.
"Yeah, I'm from one universe and Bart's from another," Barry said, as he was sitting at a computer. "I know stuff like this isn't easy for most people to understand right away, but you get used to it after a while."
"So you're really another universe version of Kara," Bart said to the woman in question. "I wonder how Supes would react to this if he was here right now."
Just then, the door opened as two men, one a tall, bald-headed African-American man and the other a shorter Caucasian man with dark hair, entered the room looking very concerned.
"Hey, are you all right?" James Olsen asked Kara.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Kara answered. "What happened to Siobhan?"
"Oh, well, after she went, like, all Mariah Carey on you, she just split," Winn Schott answered.
"So Mariah Carey exists on every Earth apparently," Barry remarked.
James turned to Barry and Bart. "Who are you guys?"
"Hey, sorry, I'm Barry Allen," Barry introduced himself. He extended his hand and James shook it.
"And I'm Bart Allen," Bart added, as he shook James' hand too.
"James Olsen," James replied to Barry and Bart.
"And this is Winn," Kara said to the speedsters, pointing to the man in question. Turning to James and Winn, she added, "Uh, you guys," she let out a nervous chuckle, "I'm not quite sure how to tell you this. Well, I do know how to tell you, I just..."
James cleared his throat. "Kara?"
"Yeah, right, sorry," she said, nervously. "Uh, Barry and Bart are each from another universe."
"Cool," Winn replied in amazement, while James frowned. Chuckling in excitement, Winn added, "Whoa, whoa! So the... the theory of the Multiverse, that's..."
"True," Barry finished. "Oh, yeah, big time."
"Yeah, I still can't believe it and I'm from another planet," Kara added.
"Kara is officially the second human-looking alien that I've met today who flies around in a red and blue suit with an 'S' on their chest and hides their identity only with a pair of glasses," Barry said.
"So you guys met Superman today too?" Winn asked.
"Actually, only Barry met Supes today," Bart clarified. "I've known the guy for years."
"But he's not talking about the Superman from this Earth," Barry clarified.
"What do you mean by this 'this Earth'?" James asked, confused.
"Uh..." Barry started, and glanced back at the white board behind him. "Ah, hold on. I've seen someone do this once." He headed over to the board and picked up a marker. "All right, so imagine there are multiple versions of Earth." He drew five circles on the board. "Uh, one where, uh, the Nazis won World War II. One where Kennedy was never assassinated."
"Oh, yeah," Winn raised his hand. "One where all of us are evil."
"Been there, it sucks," Barry said, thinking back to his, Cisco's, and Harry's journey to Earth-2 a few weeks ago, where they had met villainous doppelgangers of Cisco, Caitlin, and Ronnie in the form of Reverb, Killer Frost, and Deathstorm, respectively. "Uh, so all of these Earths occupy the same place in space, but they vibrate at a different frequency so they can't see one another."
"Yeah, yeah, but it's like if you can go fast enough, then it's possible to open, like, a breach, and then travel between worlds," Winn speculated.
"Yeah," Barry nodded.
"But how could you travel that fast?" James asked.
"Well, um..." Barry said with a chuckle.
"Watch this," Bart added, before he and Barry sped out of the room simultaneously in streaks of yellow lightning.
A moment later, the two sped back into the room, and Kara, James, and Winn each had a cone of ice cream in their hands all of a sudden.
"Yes!" Kara gushed with child-like enthusiasm, at the sight of the ice cream in her hand.
"This is for you," Bart said with a flirty smile, as he handed Kara a rose, unaware of James watching the two of them uncomfortably as Kara smiled and sniffed the red flower. "I know roses are a bit of a cliché, but I hope you like it."
"Yeah, so, um, I was struck by lightning the same night a Particle Accelerator exploded and I became a superhero," Barry explained.
"My backstory is a little complicated," Bart added. "I'm originally from the 31st century."
"You're from the future? That's awesome," Winn said.
"Yeah, well, long story short, I was in this accident involving a huge flash of lightning, and the next thing I knew, I woke up over a thousand years in past with no memory of my life from before I got my speed and let's just say I haven't stopped running ever since."
Barry turned to Bart. "You don't remember anything about your life before you got your speed?"
"Only bits and pieces from the first thirteen years of my life," Bart answered. "Most of it is all hazy."
"So you're both superheroes too?" James asked.
"Mmm-hmm," Barry nodded.
"Yep," Bart also nodded.
"That's cool, I guess," James said in an unenthusiastic tone, causing the two speedsters to frown at him.
"Okay, so you guys can just, like, bop back and forth between universes?" Winn asked.
"Uh, no, actually, this happened by accident," Barry said. "When I was on Bart's Earth, he and Superman tried to help me get back to my Earth by combining their speed with mine. But there was a miscalculation in the plan we came up with. A portal opened sooner than we expected. The next thing we know, Bart and I are here."
"And since we haven't seen Big Blue around since it happened, I'm guessing he was left behind on my world," Bart said. "So it looks like we're gonna be kicking it here until we figure this thing out."
"Well, don't worry," Kara said to Barry and Bart, placing her hand on the latter's shoulder. "Don't worry at all because we're gonna help you guys."
"Ow," Bart winced, as Kara squeezed his shoulder a tad-bit too hard for her.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, quickly moving her hand away.
"No, no, it's fine," Bart said, throwing a smile at Kara. "Lucky for me, I heal fast anyway."
"In the meantime, I could really use some food right now," Barry said. "The last meal we had got interrupted, which was hours ago, and we speedsters have to consume about ten-thousand calories a day."
"This speed thing's a killer if we don't reach our daily intake," Bart added.
"Oh, yeah, you two will definitely get along with Kara," Winn said.
"Do you guys like donuts?" Kara asked the speedsters.
"Who doesn't like donuts?" Barry and Bart remarked at the same time, causing Kara and Winn to laugh.
"I know a place," Kara said.
"All right," Barry nodded.
He grabbed his jacket and left the office with Bart and Kara.
Once the three were gone, Winn turned to James with a chuckle.
"What's funny?" James asked.
"I don't know, just, uh, seeing the way you look at Kara when she talks to her cool, new dimension-traveling, superhuman friends," Winn replied, teasingly. "I didn't know your face muscles could make that look."
"Oh, there's... there's no look," James denied.
"Jealously, thy name is Olsen," Winn teased.
(CatCo)
"Just one more thing I've got to get and then we can…" Kara said, as Barry and Bart followed her through the main area.
"Kiera, you're alive," Kara's boss, Cat Grant, announced from her desk.
"Ms. Grant," Kara said eagerly, as she, Barry, and Bart headed over to the woman. James and Winn also entered Cat's office. "Don't worry, I was rescued..."
"Stop stating the obvious," Cat interrupted. "You're in the middle of breaking news and I want you to act like it. And yes, yes, another one of my ex-employees went all revenge-y, but..." She turned her laptop around, showing Kara, Barry, Bart, James, and Winn two images. The first image was of Barry's blur running up the side of the building saving Kara, while the second was of a costumed Bart, whose image was blurry due to him vibrating his entire body, standing on a sidewalk. "There are two new superheroes in National City. This is huge. Direct competition for Supergirl."
"They don't have to be competition," Kara pointed out.
"Would you prefer sidekicks?" Cat suggested.
"No, not sidekicks," Barry answered. "More like equals. Or allies. Even partners, maybe."
"I agree with Barry," Bart added. "Maybe the three of them could be a team. You know, like, a League or something. Not that it matters, since I have a feeling these new guys probably won't be staying in town for long anyway."
As Cat stared at Barry and Bart intently, Barry said, "Speaking was the wrong choice. I see that now."
"All five of you standing there doing nothing, you look like the attractive yet non-threatening racially diverse cast of a CW show," Cat commented, looking specifically at the two Allens. "Who are you?"
"Uh, they're my cousins," Kara lied, stammering a bit.
"My cousins," James and Winn said at the same time.
Barry and Bart glanced at Kara, James, and Winn, and then turned back to Cat.
"No, my name is Barry Allen, and this is..."
"His brother Bart. Bart Allen, ma'am."
"Yeah, Bart and I are brothers, but we're not actually anybody's cousin," Barry said, bending the truth. "Uh, we're just such good friends."
"Yeah, it feels like we're family sometimes," Kara added.
"Uh-huh," Cat nodded, clearly unimpressed. "Well, I need clear pictures of these speedsters. James, that's on you. And, Kiera, there are a lot of people who wanna know what happened. Speak to no one. You're mine. I will let you know when you should reveal this exclusive information. Now, I have to name these heroes. I was thinking about The Whoosh or The Red Streak or The Blur."
"The Blur? I always thought it was kinda lame, no offense to, um, a friend of mine who used to go by that name," Bart said. "Besides, I think The Flash or even Impulse sound a lot cooler."
"I like The Flash too," Barry agreed. "I'm just saying, I think that's a pretty cool superhero name, right?"
"Yeah, maybe one of the speedsters could be The Flash while the other one could be Impulse," Bart said.
"The Flash? Sounds like someone whose only superpower is jumping out of an alley in a trench coat," Cat remarked. "And Impulse just sounds very childish. No, I want mystery, I want intrigue, I want The Blur and The Streak. Boys, be gone. Girl, stay."
Barry, Bart, James, and Winn turned around and left Cat's office, while Kara stayed behind.
(Twenty minutes later)
Barry, Bart, James, and Winn were back in the office room when Kara rushed back in. "I need you guys' help," she announced.
"Anything you need," James replied.
"Yeah, of course," Winn added.
"I was actually talking to Barry and Bart," Kara clarified.
"Yeah," Barry and Bart said at the same time, as they got up from their chairs.
"What can we do for you, amiga?" Bart asked.
"Well, I have this villain," Kara started to explain. "Her name is Livewire."
"Uh-huh," Barry nodded.
"And she's basically like living electricity," Kara continued.
"Cool," Barry said. "We had a rogue like that. We called him Blackout. Doesn't feel relevant all of a sudden."
"Right," Kara said. "So she just broke out of this prison and... and all she wants out of life is to kill Ms. Grant. And with Siobhan still out there, I don't think that I can protect her by myself."
"Okay," Barry said.
"National City needs The Flashes from two worlds," Kara said.
"Oh, Kara, we..." Barry started.
"Sure thing, amiga," Bart agreed, eagerly. "Me, Clark, and the rest of the League faced way worse than some psycho chick with electricity powers. Between the three of us, this will be a piece of cake."
"Great," Kara said, with a smile. "And once they're both back in custody, I promise that we will do everything in our power to get you two back home. What do you say? Partners?"
"Partners," Barry and Bart replied. They each shook Kara's hand.
(D.E.O.)
The Flashes sped throughout the facility in streaks of yellow lightning. They took a quick look around before sliding to a halt in the main area next to where Supergirl and Winn were standing.
"Yo, this place is amazing, all right?" Barry announced enthusiastically, as Kara laughed.
"Hey, a spaceship," Bart said, as he noticed a pod nearby. "I wonder who this baby belongs to."
"That's actually my spaceship," Kara answered.
"Cool," Bart said.
"I love this Earth," Barry said, eyeing the pod in amazement.
"That makes two of us," Bart added.
"Hey, Winn, can I get a picture with this bad boy?" Barry asked, indicating Kara's pod.
Oh, yeah, sure," Winn replied, pulling out his phone.
"Awesome," Barry said, as he leaned against the pod.
"Winn, Winn," Kara called out, as several agents came over pointing their guns.
"That's probably not a good idea, dude," Winn said to Barry.
"All right," the speedster said, stepping away from the pod.
"Agreed," a young woman with dark hair, who was leading the agents, announced. "Who are these masked men? Aliens?"
"Meta-humans," Kara corrected.
"Well, we have protocol for visitors at the D.E.O., Supergirl," the woman reminded the Girl of Steel.
"Guys, it's fine," Kara said, reassuringly. "They're here to help us find Livewire."
"We do need all the help we can get," the brunette said, as the agents behind her lowered their guns. She turned to the Flashes. "So what do I call you two? Speedy? Red Streak?"
"Barry Allen," he replied, as he pulled off his cowl.
"Bart Allen," the shorter speedster added, as he took off his domino mask. Waving at the woman, he added, "Hi."
"Lucy Lane," the brunette introduced herself.
Bart frowned in recognition. "Lucy Lane? As in Lois Lane's little sister?"
"That's right," Lucy answered.
"You look different too," Bart noted.
Lucy frowned at Bart's comment for a moment, but didn't seem to think anything of it. "I hope you two are bringing more to the table than just quick reflexes."
"As it just so happens, catching criminals is both my night and day job," Barry said. "I'm a CSI."
"And I'm just a courier if I'm not a superhero," Bart added. "But if there's one thing I'm not, it's useless."
"Do you guys have a crime lab here, by the way?" Barry asked.
"Yeah," Kara answered. "My sister's lab's right over there."
"Wait, you have a sister?" Barry asked, as he, Bart, and Winn followed Kara. "Where is she at?"
"I wish I knew," Kara replied, with a sigh.
(Fifteen minutes later)
"We found Livewire," Kara announced, as she, Bart, and Winn were gathered around Barry, who was seated working on the computer.
"That's great news," James replied, as he and Lucy came over to the area.
"Actually, it was Barry," Winn said.
"Of course it was," James said, half-heartedly.
"Livewire's ability to absorb the electrical energy in the air surrounding her gave me an idea," Barry explained. "So I wrote an algorithm to monitor variations in meter usage around the city and it all leads to that warehouse."
"An abandoned warehouse? Yep, that's a very original bad guy hang-out even on a different Earth," Bart remarked.
"I'll authorize a drop team," Lucy announced.
"No," Kara said. "No, no, she's too dangerous." Turning to the Flashes, she said, "Let's go."
"All right, yeah," Barry agreed, as he got up. "What's the plan?"
"Catch the bad girl, bring her back here so she can't hurt anyone, eighty-five percent chance of punching," Kara said.
"More like a hundred percent chance of punching if you ask me," Bart corrected.
"Okay, that I get," Barry said. "But, like, what's the plan? Maybe we can overload her somehow?"
"Yeah, what about the Industrial Capacitator you were gonna trap her in last time?" Winn suggested.
Kara shook her head. "No, no, it went bust-o."
"Yeah, well, Dynamic Duo will build you a new one," Winn said, as he and Barry high-fived each other.
"No, if we wait, we lose her," Kara pointed out, a bit impatiently. "If we lose her, God knows what kind of damage she could do or who she could hurt. I defeated her once before. I can do it again." She looked at Barry and Bart. "With you guys' help."
"We're right behind you, blondie," Bart said, as he and Barry started following her out of the facility.
(Warehouse)
Bart was the first to arrive as he slid to a halt, with a red and blue blur descending next to him a two seconds later.
"For the record, I stopped for a bit to give you guys a head start," Bart remarked with a smirk.
"For the record, that didn't count because I wasn't trying to race you," Kara countered, as there was another whoosh.
"Dude, what took you so long? " Bart said to Barry.
"Well, I went around the block to check the perimeter," Barry explained. "So, technically, I let you guys get here before I did."
"Whatever you say, dude," Bart said.
Kara chuckled. "You sure this is the right place?"
"Hope so," Barry replied.
Just then, a loud roar of thunder and a crackling sound erupted as electricity came out of a light bulb and traveled down to the ground, materializing into a woman dressed in dark clothing with pale skin and white hair.
"Long time, cape and skirt," Livewire said to Kara. "Didn't think you could fight me solo, so you brought a couple of dates? How sweet."
"I got this," Barry said, confidently.
He shot forward, sped in circles around Livewire dozens of times to build up electricity, and hurled a lightning bolt at her, which only seemed to boost her abilities.
"Uh-oh," Barry said, realizing his mistake.
"Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have done that?" Bart remarked.
Livewire laughed evilly. "Thanks for the charge." She shot a powerful blast of lightning at Barry, lifting him up in the air and sending him crashing into the wooden railing on the upper level of the warehouse.
"Flash!" Kara exclaimed.
"Barry!" Bart exclaimed at the same time.
Livewire slammed Barry on the ground and turned her electricity on Bart, who sped out of the way to avoid the blast before charging at Livewire in a red blur, knocking her on the ground.
Kara spotted a fire sprinkler on the ceiling and her eyes lit up preparing to unleash heat vision when a loud, high-pitched screeching noise suddenly came over her, causing Kara to groan in pain as she clutched her ears.
"I brought a friend too," Livewire said to Kara, who was staring in concern at the blood on her fingertips from her bleeding ears. "Meet Silver Banshee."
Supergirl and Barry, the latter helped up by Bart, got back to their feet as a female figure, who was dressed in a black outfit with white gloves and boots, entered the warehouse. Her hair was a mix of silver and black and her face was white with black markings almost resembling a skull.
"All my life I thought I was cursed," Silver Banshee said, looking directly at Supergirl. "But now I see I was cursed for the better."
She stepped forward as she stood next to Livewire, who was also back on her feet.
"You don't have to do this," Kara said, attempting to get through to the two female villains. "I wanna help you."
"Funny, she said the same thing to me once," Livewire recalled.
"Here's what I say to that," Silver Banshee retorted, before unleashing her sonic scream, hitting Supergirl dead on and sending her crashing against the wooden wall behind her.
Silver Banshee sauntered towards the Girl of Steel, who stumbled back to her feet. "Once you and Cat Grant are dead, I can finally give that little blonde moppet Kara Danvers the death she deserves."
Bart turned to Barry. "Ready to show these ladies what we're really made of?"
Barry nodded. "Let's do it."
The Flashes sped forward in a pair of blurs, smashing a series of rapid, but powerful, punches into Silver Banshee's face and torso, rendering her unconscious in just a second.
Barry and Bart then turned to Livewire and, before she could react, spun their arms around, creating a powerful vortex of wind that greatly overwhelmed the electricity-based villainess.
"Supergirl, sprinkler!" Barry shouted.
Kara nodded and looked up at the sprinkler. She fired her heat vision at the sprinkler, activating it.
Livewire screamed in agony as the water showered over her, causing her powers to short-circuit as electricity violently surrounded her drenched body.
Barry and Bart moved their elbows up to their face to shield their eyes from the bright scene.
A few moments later, Livewire let out an angry grunt and, the next thing she knew, her entire world went black as Kara punched her in the face with just enough force to render her unconscious.
Supergirl and the Flashes grinned at each other as they exchanged glances. "Nice work, guys," Kara said.
"Thanks to the three of us combining our efforts, we beat them," Barry said.
"Dude, if we could survive Doomsday, who is even stronger than Supes, then wiping the floor with two super-chicks is nothing," Bart pointed out.
"Let's get them to the D.E.O. before they wake up," Kara said.
"Actually, I have another idea in mind," Barry suggested. "One we use on my Earth when it comes to locking up meta-humans the legal way."
Livewire and Silver Banshee are defeated early on in this story, which means Cat Grant is safe this time and don't have to worry about getting kidnapped.
Chapter Text
Chapter 5
(CatCo)
"So, are Siobhan and Leslie locked up at the D.E.O.?" Winn asked Kara.
"Nope," Kara shook her head. "No. Now, thanks to Barry, the National City Police Department has a way to lock up meta-humans."
"Oh," Winn said.
Kara turned to James. "And, like you taught Supergirl, our enemies deserve a fair trial."
"Well, I'm always good for advice," James said.
"Oh, Ms. Grant," Kara called out, as she noticed the blonde woman in question walking over, "I just wanted to let you know that you're safe now and you don't have to worry about Livewire or Siobhan coming after you."
"Oh, I was never worried, Kiera," Cat said. "It's like I told you. I haven't lost faith in Supergirl and I was sure, especially with the help of the speedsters, that she would beat them like she did every other villain she's faced."
"Right," Kara nodded, with a smile. "Oh, and if it's all right with you, our cousins, Barry and, uh..." She glanced back at Winn and James stammering a little, then turned back to Cat. "Barry and Bart are leaving town today and I was gonna see them off after we've had lunch together."
"Okay," Cat said. "Tell the Allen brothers to have a good time zipping around in their red outfits."
Kara widened her eyes in surprise. "Wait, you knew they were The Flash and Impulse?"
"Oh, please," Cat said. "Two brothers show up, two superheroes who just so happen to have the same powers show up. Their insistence on those silly names. And Barry and Bart were so unfailingly charming and nice, even if Bart did seem a little immature, that they had to either be superheroes or Mormons. Kiera, I can spot the extraordinary pretending to be a nobody in my midst just like that." She snapped her fingers in front of Kara's face, causing Kara to flinch. "Now, my eyebrow waxing with Arabella at 9 AM tomorrow morning is not going to book itself. Feel how good it feels to dial."
"I'm on it," Kara said. She let out a sigh of relief, while James and Winn both chuckled. "I'll see you guys later."
"Oh, hey, tell Barry and Bart I hope they make it home," Winn said.
"Yeah, me too," James added, before Kara headed off.
Earth-21
(New York City)
Superman descended on the rooftop of the Empire State Building. A moment later, a beautiful woman with long dark hair appeared several feet in front of him in a flash of bluish-purple light. Her outfit consisted of a long black leather jacket with a white button-down shirt underneath, a black mini-skirt, and a pair of fishnet stockings along with black thigh-high leather boots.
"Thank you for agreeing to meet me, Zatanna," Clark said.
"Anything for you, Blue," Zatanna replied, with a smile. "I heard about your fierce battle with that Kryptonian beast who escaped from where you buried him years ago. I'm glad to see you came out of it unscathed."
"Doomsday won't be a problem for anyone ever again," Clark said.
"So what's the emergency?" Zatanna asked. "Your voice sounded pretty urgent."
"Bart's gone missing," Clark started to explain. "I need you to use your locator spell to find him. And if you can, I'll also need you to open a portal to a parallel Earth."
"A parallel Earth? Interesting," Zatanna said in an intrigued tone, not at all surprised by such a notion.
"Earlier today, we were visited by hero who is known as The Flash just like Bart," Clark explained. "He came here from another universe by accident. When Bart and I attempted to help this other Flash get home, things didn't go according to plan and Bart ended up going through a portal along with him."
"And you need my help to retrieve Bart from this other universe," Zatanna said.
"I'd appreciate it," Clark nodded.
"I'll see what I can do," Zatanna told him.
"Thank you," Clark said.
"No need," Zatanna assured him, with a smile. "After all, what possible reason would I have to refuse my services to the world's greatest hero of all people?"
She grabbed Clark's arm and two disappeared from the rooftop in a flash of violet light.
Earth-38
Barry, Bart, and Kara were sitting on a bench in a park eating donuts from two boxes that each contained a dozen of them.
"Are you okay, amiga? You're doing that thing that people do when they have a lot on their mind," Bart said to Kara.
"I'm fine," Kara replied.
"You sure?" Bart asked, as he finished one donut and grabbed two more from one of the boxes. "You don't seem fine."
"Most of the time when people say they're fine, it's really the opposite," Barry added.
Kara let out a sigh. "Something happened to me a few weeks ago. I was exposed to this substance that made me crazy. I did a lot of horrible things."
"That's rough," Barry said.
"Let me guess, you were high on red kryptonite?" Bart said.
Kara started as she looked at Bart. "How did you know that?"
"I was only guessing to be honest," Bart said. "We have red K on my Earth too. Whenever Supes come in contact with that stuff, he acts way out of character. It basically turns him into a colossal jerk."
"That's exactly what the red kryptonite did to me," Kara said. "It lowered my inhibitions, causing every bad thought I had to come to the surface of my mind. The longer I was exposed to it, the worse my behavior became." She let out another sigh, on the verge of tears. "I scared the whole city. I nearly killed Ms. Grant. Not to mention I nearly did the same to my sister. My sister." At that point, a few tears trickled down her face, at the memory of almost incinerating Alex with her heat vision and would've succeeded had J'onn not stepped in. "When I was helping people as Supergirl, I was... I was so happy. And now that the people don't want me to help them, I feel lost."
"I'm really sorry about what you had to go through," Bart said sympathetically, placing a comforting hand on Kara's back. "The red stuff may have brought out what was kinda already inside of you deep down, but that wasn't you. Not the real you. This is the real you right here."
"No, it was still me," Kara shook her head, tremendous guilt in her voice. "Those hurtful things I said to Alex, she was right when she said there was some truth to my words. The red kryptonite didn't change who I am. It just brought out everything I've kept bottled up all these years."
"Look, just move forward, keep doing your thing, and you'll be fine," Bart said. "I'm sure people will come around and forgive you eventually."
"How can you be so sure?" Kara asked.
"For one thing, people would have to be dumb not to put their trust back into such a super-nice girl like you," Bart said, causing Kara to smile at that.
"Bart's right," Barry added. "Just keep doing your good work and don't worry about what others think. I know what it's like to be in shoes similar to yours. The same thing happened to me last year. I was whammied by this supervillain who induces rage in his victims and I did some things that I weren't proud of."
"Really?" Kara asked.
"Mm-hmm," Barry nodded. "Because of that incident, there were a lot of people who stopped trusting The Flash for a while."
"A while? What finally fixed things?" Kara asked, curious.
"Time," Barry answered. "When you're used to fixing things with brute strength, or in mine and Bart's case, amazing speed, it's hard to accept that there are things out of our control. It's humbling, right?"
"Yep," Kara said.
"And, believe me, when you don't try to force the solution, it'll happen on its own," Barry assured her.
"I'm really sorry you guys are locked out of your worlds," Kara said. "But I'm really glad you two are here."
"Me too," Barry said.
"Ditto," Bart added.
A look of realization then appeared on Barry's face. "Wait, that's just it."
"What?" Bart asked.
"We're not locked out of anything," Barry said. "When I accidentally traveled to your Earth, I did so by simply running fast enough. In that case, in order to get home, we just have to do the same thing."
"Are you sure about that, amigo? That seems a little too easy," Bart said. "And usually when something is too easy, it never goes as planned."
"It takes tremendous concentration, but it could be done if we try," Barry said, confidently. "If we clear our minds of all thoughts while we're running and focus solely on where we want to go like I did last year when I traveled back in time intentionally, we'll reach our specific destinations."
"Well, before we leave, do you think you can teach me that move first?" Bart asked.
"What, the lightning toss?" Barry said.
"Yeah," Bart nodded. "Knowing how to do it could really come in handy next time I'm up against a baddie who's not so easy to put down."
"Sure," Barry agreed. "Let's, uh, suit up. And then we have to find someplace for you to practice and something to use as your target."
Barry and Bart suddenly turned to Kara, who frowned at them. "Why are you guys looking at me?"
"Because, if Supes is invulnerable to lightning, then it stands to reason that the same thing applies to you," Bart pointed out.
Kara nodded. "You're right. Lightning doesn't hurt me unless it comes from Livewire."
"Okay, so do you mind doing the honors and being my practice dummy? Barry's gonna teach me how to throw lightning," Bart said.
Kara thought about it for a moment. "Um, sure. I'll do it, as long as you guys don't refer to me as a practice dummy again."
She, Barry, and Bart raced off in blurs and changed into their superhero suits.
Earth-21
(Watchtower, Metropolis)
Zatanna was sitting on the floor in the center of a glowing pentagram symbol.
"Bartholomew Allen... dnuof eb lliw hsalf eht!" she chanted, as her eyes glowed violet.
After about thirty seconds, the glowing sigil disappeared and Zatanna's eyes returned to normal. She looked up at Clark. "Bart is indeed in another universe. I saw him with who I assumed was the other Flash you mentioned and a woman in blue and red bearing the exact same Kryptonian emblem as yours on her chest."
Clark frowned. "Barry told me there weren't any Kryptonians that he was aware of on his Earth, let alone members of my family. So, unless this woman is someone he just met, he and Bart must be on a completely different Earth, which means Barry still hadn't made it home yet. Are you able to open a portal that will get me directly to Bart's location?"
Zatanna nodded. "I can, but it's gonna take a few minutes." As she started concentrating, she said, "Noitacol S'nella Trab ot latrop nepo!"
Her eyes glowed violet again and energy of the same color appeared around her hands. She waved her hands around as she started doing her work.
Earth-38
Bart sped around in circles as Supergirl was fifteen feet away hovering a few feet off the ground while Barry was standing only a few feet from where his counterpart was in action. The three were in the same grassy landscape where the Flashes had met Supergirl earlier.
Once Bart built up enough electricity, he flung the lightning bolt at Kara, only for the lightning to miss her by several feet as it flew past the left side of her.
"Again," Barry instructed.
"I've been doing this for the last half hour," Bart said, with a sigh. "I'm still not getting it."
"It's because you keep trying to rush it," Barry pointed out. "This is gonna sound ironic given that I'm a speedster talking to another speedster, but you need to slow down. Like the man who taught me this move told me," Barry did his best to ignore the anger that suddenly came rushing up to his mind as he mentioned who he now knew was really Zoom, "let the energy pass over you, then direct it to where you want it to go. I believe in you, Bart."
"All right, I got this," Bart nodded, a look of determination on his face as electricity flickered in his eyes. "I got this," he repeated, before speeding around in circles once more.
A few seconds later, he flung another lightning bolt at Kara, but missed her again, much to his frustration. "Dammit," Bart hissed under his breath.
After two more failed attempts, Bart finally managed to strike Kara as the lightning hit the center of her torso dead on, dazing her for a few moments.
"Yes!" Bart gushed, throwing his arms up in excitement.
"Nice job, Bart!" Kara complimented with a smile, clapping her hands.
"See? It's not that hard, is it?" Barry asked.
"Nope, not at all," Bart shook his head. "I'm gonna do another one for good measure."
"Okay," Barry nodded.
Bart spun around in circles again and hurled another lightning bolt, successfully striking Kara again.
"I'm gonna be practicing this move for the next few days so I could get the full hang of it like you," Bart said to Barry.
"Trust me, it won't take you very long," Barry said. "You learned how to throw lightning quicker than I did."
"Really?" Bart asked.
"Mm-hmm," Barry nodded. "It took me more than an hour to finally hit my target, but you mastered it in half of that time."
Bart laughed. "Well, we did establish that I'm the faster Flash, no offense." He turned to Kara, who floated over and landed her feet on the ground. "Those lightning bolts didn't hurt you, did they? I know you're Kryptonian and all, but I just felt like I had to make sure."
"No, of course they didn't hurt me," Kara replied, reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'm fine. Those lightning bolts didn't so much as tickle."
Bart turned to Barry. "Well, I guess it's time for us to..."
Bart was cut off as he, Barry, and Kara saw a bluish-purple portal suddenly form out of thin air a few feet from where they were standing. A moment later, a tall, well-built handsome man flew out of the portal, which then remained open behind him.
"Supes!" Bart called out in surprise, as the newcomer descended next to him, Barry, and Kara.
Kara stared with a stunned expression at the man, who was clad in a suit nearly identical to her cousin's, but with the blue slightly brighter. "Kal?" she said instinctively, right before she got a look at his face and saw that he looked nothing like who she thought it was.
"If by 'Kal' you mean Kal-El, then yes, that would be me," the man replied to Kara. "But I'm not your Kal-El exactly." He looked at her curiously. "I assume you're Kara Zor-El, also known as Superwoman or Supergirl?"
"My name is pronounced Car-rah on this Earth," Kara corrected, as Clark had said Care-rah. "And it's Supergirl, not Superwoman. At least not yet."
Kara studied her 'cousin' for a few moments. In addition to having a different face, she noticed that this Clark had blue eyes instead of hazel like her cousin. She also noticed he was not only two or three inches taller with a wider jawline and broader shoulders, but his muscular build was noticeably more profound in a way that would definitely make her Clark jealous.
Clark was studying Kara at the same time. While she had the same baby blue eyes and a similarly cute smile, her blonde hair was a few shades darker and her physique was slightly smaller and less well-toned than that of the Kara from his universe. He also noticed that this Kara looked a few years younger, complete with a sweet, shy, and perky demeanor that seemed less confident and experienced than that of the bold and headstrong but kind-hearted blonde that Clark knew as his cousin.
"So you're the Superman from Bart's Earth?" Kara asked, looking at him in disbelief.
"That's right," Clark nodded. "I came here to bring Bart home."
"You look so different from my cousin," Kara said.
"You look quite different from my cousin too," Clark said. "Apparently, not all versions of ourselves have the same face on every Earth."
"How did you find me here, stretch?" Bart asked.
"I didn't," Clark said. "It was Zatanna who found you."
"Oh," Bart said. "Well, I'll be sure to give Z my thanks when we get back."
Clark turned to his 'cousin'. "We should get going now. I wouldn't mind staying and chatting a little longer, but I'd rather not leave our friend holding the portal open longer than necessary."
"It was nice meeting you, Kal… or Kal from another universe," Kara said. Smiling, she threw her arms around her cousin's counterpart.
"It was nice meeting you too, Kara," Clark said back, as they embraced for a few moments. "Take care of yourself."
"You do the same," Kara said, before they let each other go. She also hugged Barry and then Bart. "I'm gonna miss the two of you."
"We're gonna miss you too, Kara Danvers," Barry said. "Or Kara Zor-El, your alien name."
"I would ask you for your phone number so we can keep in touch, but I guess it's too bad I can't call you from another Earth," Bart said to Kara. "Better yet, once I master my Speed Force ability to run back and forth between dimensions, maybe I'll swing by, then you and I could hang out more often."
Kara smiled. "I, uh, I wouldn't mind that."
"I promise you, amiga, this won't be our last encounter," Bart said.
Clark turned to Barry. "Have you figured out a way to get back to your universe yet?"
"I did," Barry nodded, attaching the Tachyon device to his chest. "Um, I realize now that the idea we tried earlier, you throwing me forward at your fastest, wasn't the way to go. If I'm gonna get home successfully, it's something I'll have to do on my own."
"Good luck with that," Clark said in a heartfelt tone. He turned to Kara and nodded goodbye to her. She smiled in response.
"Goodbye, Kara," Bart said with a wave, before he and Clark disappeared into the portal, which closed a moment later.
Kara turned to Barry. "Are you sure you don't need my help to get you home?"
"No, I'm good," Barry said, as he stood in position. "I can do this."
"All right," Kara said. "I'll watch you from a bird's eye view and make sure everything goes okay."
Barry nodded as Kara flew up in the air and hovered several hundred feet.
"Three, two, one," Barry muttered to himself, before racing off in a trail of lightning.
Completely clearing his mind of all thoughts, Barry focused on nothing but his specific destination as he ran, his speed rapidly increasing with every passing moment. He decided to return at roughly the same time he had left. That way, he could spare himself of having to explain to his teammates where he had disappeared to and immediately focus on defeating Zoom once and for all.
After a few seconds of running, the portal opened and Barry ran into it.
Up in the air, Supergirl watched with her microscopic vision as the portal closed after The Flash had disappeared into it. Smiling, she said, "Goodbye, Barry."
With a whoosh, the Girl of Steel took off across the sky in a red and blue blur.
Earth-21
(Watchtower)
Clark and Bart emerged from the other end of the portal.
Seeing that the two heroes were back, Zatanna chanted, "Latrop eht esolc!"
As commanded, the portal vanished.
"Home sweet home," Bart said with relief, looking around. "Not that I didn't have a good time on that other Earth, but those three words never felt truer."
"I wasn't gonna lose you forever, Bart," Clark said. "You're more than just a teammate and a friend to me. You're my family member."
"Right back at ya, stretch," Bart said.
"Just so we're clear, Red, this is your one and only freebie," Zatanna said to Bart. "The next time you're lost in another dimension and require my magic to bring you back, I'm gonna demand something from you in return." After a moment, she smiled. "I'm kidding of course."
"Thanks for bringing me back, Z," Bart said.
"Don't mention it," Zatanna replied. "Take care, boys."
With that, the Mistress of Magic vanished in a flash of violet light, leaving Clark and Bart alone in the Watchtower.
"I could've gotten back here on my own, you know," Bart said. "That was the plan Barry and I came up with before you showed up. We speedsters can cross dimensions at will if we focus good enough. Speaking of Barry, I really hope he made it home all right."
"I hope so too," Clark said. "The best thing for us to do right now is not dwell on what might've happened to Barry and hope he did make it back safely. If we ever happen to find out otherwise, that's when we'll worry about it again."
"I guess you're right," Bart said. "Thinking about it too much could only lead to a headache. Well, not for you since you're the Man of Steel and all, but you get what I mean." With a smirk, he added, "In the meantime, Supes, try and keep up with me if you can!"
Bart shot Clark a wink before racing off in a streak of lightning. Letting out a small laugh, Clark flew after his speedster friend in a red and blue blur.
Earth-1
After exiting the portal, Barry didn't stop for anything as he raced straight to S.T.A.R. Labs and slid to a halt as soon as he set foot in the cortex. Pulling off his cowl, he turned around and recognized the familiar faces of Caitlin Snow, Iris West, and Cisco Ramon.
"I'm back," Barry said with relief. "How did I do?" he asked, acting natural.
"Let's put it this way," Cisco said in amazement. "You just annihilated your old record."
"Yeah, you went four times faster than you have ever been," Caitlin added, also amazed.
"Four times?" Barry said, incredulously. So, it worked. Not only had he made it back to his Earth, but he returned more or less at the same time he left as planned. Telling his friends about the adventures he had on those other two Earths could wait. For the time being, using his Tachyon-enhanced speed to take down Zoom once and for all was at the top of his priorities. Barry Allen... no, The Flash and his team had a job to get done.
I couldn't pass up on a meeting between Melissa Benoist's Supergirl and Tom Welling's Superman. I wish they'd done this in the shows, but thank goodness for this site. Tom Welling is obviously my favorite live-action Superman, with Christopher Reeve a very close second, Brandon Routh third, Henry Cavill fourth, and then Tyler Hoechlin. Let me know what you guys thought of that scene.
The rest of The Flash Season 2 and the first seven episodes of Season 3 will play out the same way. Next chapter will begin this story's version of the "Invasion!" crossover, which obviously takes place months later.
Chapter Text
Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville, Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, or any of the characters and elements pertaining to the mentioned TV shows.
Here is the next chapter, which will begin the "Invasion!" arc of this story. This takes place eight months after the events of the first five chapters, going off the original air dates of the first Supergirl/The Flash crossover (March 2016) and the "Invasion!" crossover (November 2016).
Chapter 6
(Eight months later)
Barry and his team were in the cortex of S.T.A.R. Labs when they received an alert of what appeared to be a meteor descending towards downtown Central City. Donning his Flash suit, Barry raced off in a streak of yellow lightning to investigate. Once the mysterious object crash-landed in Central City Park, he discovered, much to his horror, that it was not a meteor, but a spacecraft from which a few dozen alien creatures came rushing out and running right past him.
After Barry met up with Lyla Michaels the next morning and told her what he saw last night, she agreed to meet him and his team at S.T.A.R. Labs to tell them everything she knew about the situation.
"Aliens?" Cisco muttered in astonishment. "Are they Alien aliens or little green men?"
"Both, sort of," Barry answered.
"Since we learned of them, we've been calling them the Dominators," Lyla started to explain. She handed Barry a piece of paper containing a blurry image of a Dominator roaming around in a wooded area.
"That is not the name of a species that comes in peace," Wally noted.
"No, no, it's very aggressive," H.R. agreed.
"So how long have you guys known about these Dominators?" Iris asked.
"Since the '50s," Lyla answered.
"That was them," Joe said, pointing to the large flat-screen that showed information about the Dominators. "Redmond, Oregon. The government tried to cover it up." As Joe noticed everyone looking at him, he added, "What? I watch Sci-Fi channel."
"In 1951, they appeared under the same sort of circumstances," Lyla continued, as the video screen behind her showed black and white footage of the Dominators attacking soldiers. "A ship crash-landed, little to no communication. We learned they were abducting humans to gather intel about us. They attacked, and hundreds of soldiers lost their lives. Then, for some inexplicable reason, they left. All contact had been lost until three months ago when the DOD received this."
She pressed a button on the remote control in her hand, then a voice recording started playing on the video screen. "We pose no threat, human inhabitants," The chilling voice of a Dominator announced. "Understanding is our purpose. Any action against us, as shown to us in the past, will prompt swift retaliation." At that point, the recording ended.
"So, when we discovered four ships heading towards Earth, we were concerned that it was happening all over again," Lyla stated. "One of them, obviously, landed here."
"Right, because we ain't got enough crazy going on here in Central City," Joe said, sarcastically.
"Do you know what they want?" Caitlin asked.
"They've ignored all attempts to communicate," Lyla said. "But we do know, just like before, that the dropships contain reconnaissance teams sent here to gather more intel about us."
"Looking for our weaknesses," Joe realized.
"We need to do something," Wally said.
"We are," Lyla said. "Nearly every member state in the UN is in talks to coordinate a response. Action is being taken."
"So, wait, you want us to just sit this one out?" Iris asked.
"These things are like World War Z zombies," Barry pointed out. "If they decide to attack, no military can stop them."
"Neither could you," Lyla countered. "Not by yourself anyway. Just let us handle this, for now. I'll be in touch."
She walked out of the cortex.
"So, the plan isn't to just stay still and do nothing, right?" Wally asked, walking up to Barry.
"No," Barry answered.
"Barry, you heard Lyla," Iris said. "You can't do this alone."
"I don't plan to," Barry said.
Barry raced all the way to Star City to get Team Arrow's help in dealing with the looming alien threat, during which he narrowly saved Green Arrow and Spartan from getting shot by Vigilante. After Oliver, Felicity, Diggle, and Thea agreed to participate in the mission, they headed to Central City with Barry and all the heroes gathered at the S.T.A.R. Labs hall hangar.
"What is this place?" Thea asked, as she and Barry walked along the airfield over to where Cisco, Felicity, and Diggle were standing.
"Uh, it's this old hall hangar thing that S.T.A.R. Labs owns," Barry answered. "Or, I guess, I own it."
"Well, you should do something with it," Thea suggested.
"All right, so let me get this right," Diggle said. "Our time-traveling buddies in a flying time ship are supposed to just pop up right here, right?"
"Yeah, this is the time and place I gave them," Felicity answered. "So if they got my message, they should be here..."
As if on cue, up in the sky was a bright flash of light as a jump-ship appeared seemingly out of thin air.
"...right now," Felicity finished, pointing up to the ship as it swooped down and prepared to land.
"You know why I've never done drugs? It's because I was always afraid I'd see weird stuff," Diggle remarked, with a stunned expression.
"Okay, uh, take everybody inside, all right?" Barry instructed. "Tell Oliver I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?" Thea asked.
"Well, since we're fighting aliens, I figured we should get a couple of our own, right?" Barry pointed out. He turned to Cisco. "You found the right Earths?"
"Tachyon device tracked you on Earths 21 and 38 when you met them," Cisco replied. "So you should find each of them on those Earths."
"All right, let's go to Earth-21 first," Barry said.
"Just so you know, I'm only doing this because we're on a mission," Cisco said, sternly. He was upset with Barry, whom he blamed for his brother's death, since it was Barry's creation and later undoing of the Flashpoint timeline that had indirectly caused what happened to Dante. "I'm not gonna let my issues with you get in the way of that."
Barry nodded, as Cisco put on his vibe goggles.
Cisco held out his arm with his hand closed into a fist. His fist started glowing with bright blue energy as a breach began to open. "This might take a few tries," he said to Barry.
Barry grabbed Cisco and sped into the breach.
Earth-21
(Watchtower, Metropolis)
Barry and Cisco emerged from the other end of the breach to find themselves standing in the middle of what the former recognized as the inside of Superman and his team's base of operations.
Cisco took off his goggles. "Cool digs," he said in amazement. "But this better be the right place. Because, if this isn't the right place, someone's about to be real confused."
Just then, the double doors of Watchtower opened and a man with spiky blonde hair dressed in a dark green button-down shirt, black pants, and black dress shoes entered. He paused almost immediately at the sight of two guys standing in the room and glared instinctively at them. "Who the hell are you and how did you get..." He suddenly calmed down as he recognized the face of the taller guy. "Oh, it's you again."
"Yeah, it's me," Barry said. "Barry Allen."
"No worries, I remember who you are," Oliver said, as he walked towards Barry and Cisco. "You're that parallel universe Flash we met last year."
"That's right," Barry nodded. "It took us a couple tries to get here. This is my friend Cisco."
"Well, 'friend' is a loose term," Cisco said to Oliver. "We work together. I'm Cisco."
"Oliver Queen," Oliver introduced himself too, as he and Cisco shook hands.
Cisco widened his eyes in shock. "You're Oliver Queen?!" He chuckled. "That's gotta be a first. A non-doppelganger version of someone we know from our Earth."
"Yeah, Barry mentioned the last time he was here that the me from your world looks different," Oliver said, "which shouldn't surprise me at all considering that I know a few intergalactic powerhouses from different planets and a woman who is literally a human magic wand." He turned to Barry. "Anyway, what brought you back to this corner of the endless Multiverse, huh? I'm sure there's a reason I walked in on you standing around in our superhero headquarters."
"We're here because we're up against an alien invasion and I figured we could use a couple of aliens of our own to help us deal with this threat," Barry explained.
"An alien invasion? Hmm, sounds like a job for Superman," Oliver said. "Let me guess, the Big Blue Boy Scout is who you actually came here for, right?"
"Yeah," Barry nodded. "We would really appreciate it if you could contact him."
"All right," Oliver nodded. "I'll send him his signal now and he should be here in no time." He walked over to his desk, picked up a watch of some sort, and pressed the red button on it. "Meanwhile, I'll start getting my own gear ready. If your world is being threatened by aliens, something tells me you guys can use all the firepower you can get."
"Wait, you wanna come along too?" Barry asked.
"I don't see why not," Oliver said. "It's been a while since I've dealt with a threat that was remotely challenging. Plus, now is my chance to try out my newest compound bow on something a little more powerful than the usual boring street thugs."
"All right, cool, we'll wait for you right here," Barry said, with a small smile as he couldn't wait to see how everyone on his Earth would react to meeting another Oliver Queen. "We could actually use two Oliver Queens for this threat now that I think about it."
"I can't wait to meet this other version of myself and see what he's made of," Oliver said, as he headed up the stairs to the upper level of Watchtower. "Maybe he and I could compare our skills, see which one of us is truly worthy of the Green Arrow title."
"I'd pay a ton of money to see the two of you compete in an arrow shootout," Barry chuckled.
Oliver also let out a chuckle as he took out his Green Arrow gear from a long cabinet and headed into the nearby bathroom to change.
Suddenly, there were two consecutive whooshing sounds as Superman and Superboy flew into Watchtower, stopping in front of Barry and Cisco. The two Kryptonians had just stopped a bank robbery when Clark received the signal coming from Oliver's watch alerting him to Watchtower. Since Conner had been with him, the younger Kryptonian decided to accompany Clark to their headquarters out of curiosity.
"Barry?" Clark said in surprise.
"Hey, Clark," Barry greeted.
"What brings you back to this Earth?" Clark asked. "I'm guessing it's not simply for a social call."
"The reason we're here is because there are these aliens that showed up on our Earth last night and they definitely didn't do so in peace," Barry explained. "If you don't mind, we could really use your help."
"Count me in," Clark agreed, not a moment of hesitation in his voice as his expression suddenly became serious. "If your world is being threatened by hostile aliens, let's give it one to help save it from them."
"Thanks," Barry said, appreciatively.
"No problem," Clark said. Glancing at Cisco, he asked, "Who's your friend?"
"I'm Cisco," Cisco answered before Barry could. "Cisco Ramon."
"I'm Superman," Clark said, as he and Cisco shook hands. "But you can call me Clark." Glancing at Conner, he added, "And this is Conner."
"Conner Kent, also known as Superboy," Conner said to Barry and Cisco. "Who are you guys?"
"Oh, I'm Barry Allen, The Flash from another universe," Barry said. "I don't know if Clark or Bart told you this, but they met me when I was on this Earth last year."
"Clark told me about that," Conner said. "It was the day we fought Doomsday."
"Yeah, it was," Barry recalled.
Just then, Oliver, now clad in his Green Arrow uniform with his compound bow in hand, came out of the bathroom and headed back downstairs. "All right, I'm all geared up and ready to kick some E.T. butt."
"I'll come with you guys and help too," Conner said. "I have nothing else better to do."
"Actually, Conner, I'd prefer that you stay here and handle things here in Metropolis while I'm gone," Clark instructed.
"Why don't we just contact one or two of the other members of the League and have them hold down the fort while you, me, and Oliver help these two guys with their alien problem?" Conner suggested, refusing to take 'no' for an answer and not wanting to pass up on the opportunity to travel to a different universe. "An alien threat on a different Earth sounds like a big deal and better two Kryptonians than one to help out."
"You make a good point," Clark agreed. He headed over to the main computer and typed on the keyboard as he started contacting a member of the Justice League.
It only took a few seconds for Clark to receive a reply from Tess Mercer aka Red Tornado, who informed him that she and either Diana or John Jones could cover for him in Metropolis while he, Superboy, and Green Arrow were away on another Earth. Tess then assured Clark that she would make sure Chloe and Lois knew what their husbands were about to be up to.
With that taken care of, Clark headed back over to the other men. "We're ready," he said to Barry and Cisco.
"All right," Barry nodded, before turning to Cisco. "Now we just need to stop by Earth-38 and get Supergirl."
After putting his goggles back on, Cisco held his arm out and opened a breach.
"That's the portal that's gonna get us to your world?" Oliver asked.
"We call it a breach," Cisco said. "And yes, all you do is walk through it and you're there."
"That easy, huh?" Oliver said.
"That easy," Cisco nodded.
"We're not going to our Earth just yet," Barry said to Oliver. "We still need to grab one more ally and we're good to go."
Clark, Oliver, and Conner followed Barry and Cisco through the breach as they left one universe and entered another.
Earth-38
(Kara Danvers' apartment, National City)
Kara entered her apartment carrying two grocery bags at the same time a breach opened in the middle of the main room. Stopping in her tracks, she watched as five figures jumped out of the breach, which closed behind them after a moment. Standing in the apartment were Barry, her cousin Kal (or rather, that alternate version of him she'd met briefly last year), a young Latino man with shoulder-length hair who took off his goggles, a younger man wearing a long-sleeved black shirt marked with a red House of El symbol on the chest and a pair of blue jeans, and a green-garbed man with spiky blonde hair whom Kara assumed was an archer based on his uniform and the compound bow in his hand.
"Barry? Kal?" Kara called out in surprise.
"Hey," Barry and Clark replied at the same time.
"I knew it! I knew that was you guys!" Kara said with excitement. She closed the door behind her, sat her bags of groceries down next to the table, and headed over to the visitors. "I knew it was you in that weird space..."
She and Barry threw their arms around each other in an embrace. "Sorry, we stopped by their Earth first before we made our way here," Barry said to her. "This is my, uh... my associate, Cisco." He grimaced as he said that. It didn't sit well with Barry referring to Cisco as anything less than a friend.
"Hi, Cisco Ramon," Cisco said politely, as he shook Kara's hand. "I have to say it, this is a nice universe you got here."
"Thank you," Kara said, with a smile. She turned to Clark and hugged him too. "It's good to see you again, Kal. Honestly, I didn't think I'd run into this version of my cousin again."
"It's good to see you again too, Kara," Clark replied, also smiling.
"Kara?" Oliver repeated, turning to Clark. "Wait, this lady is a version of your cousin?"
Clark nodded. "I met her briefly last year when Zatanna and I retrieved Bart from this Earth. From the look of things, this Kara lives in the present rather than the 31st century."
Kara looked a little surprise. "The Kara Zor-El from your Earth lives in the 31st century?"
"She's been living there for several years now," Clark explained.
"That's an interesting difference between me and her," Kara noted. She turned to the young man in the black shirt, noticing his strong facial resemblance to the Clark in front of her. "Who are you? I'm guessing you and this Clark are related somehow."
"We are," Conner introduced himself to her. "Clark is sort of my older brother."
Kara frowned. "Sort of?"
"Long story," Conner said. "I'm Conner Kent. You can also call me Superboy."
"And I'm Oliver Queen, aka Green Arrow," the green-garbed man added, "You haven't heard of me by any chance, have you? Charming and handsome billionaire by day, badass emerald-clad archer by night?"
Kara shook her head. "I don't think so. Sorry."
Barry stepped forward. "Anyway, Kara, do you remember last year when Bart and I helped you out and you promise to do the same for us?"
"What are we up against?" Kara asked immediately, both the tone in her voice and her facial expression showing that was suddenly up for an adventure.
"An alien invasion, believe it or not," Barry simply said. "These aliens who showed up on our Earth call themselves the Dominators. Can I assume you've heard of them?"
"They've invaded my planet Krypton before I was born," Kara said.
"Same with the Krypton in our universe, among many other planets," Clark added. "The Legion also encountered the Dominators on Earth in the future once."
"That's good you guys have intel about the Dominators," Barry said.
Kara spun around several times, creating a gust a wind that briefly blew around the apartment. A moment later, she was clad in her Supergirl suit. "I'm ready."
Earth-1
(S.T.A.R. Labs hall hangar, Central City)
Felicity was taking the attendance of everyone who was present inside the hangar. "Team Arrow is here," she announced, pointing towards Oliver, Diggle, and Thea. "Team Legends is here," Felicity added, pointing towards Sara Lance, Professor Martin Stein, Jax Jackson, Mick Rory, and Ray Palmer.
Felicity approached H.R. and asked, "Is that everyone?"
"I think so?" H.R. answered, uncertain.
"Nate and Amaya are back watching the Waverider," Sara said to Felicity. "The newbies."
Suddenly, a breach opened and everyone watched as Barry, Cisco, a tall well-built man clad in a mostly blue skin-tight suit containing a red 'S' symbol with a yellow background on the chest and a long red cape in the back, a young blonde woman wearing a very similar suit of the same colors but with a red skirt in place of blue pants, a young man dressed in a long-sleeved black shirt marked with the same 'S' symbol on the chest and a pair of blue jeans, and a green-garbed man with spiky blonde hair who appeared to be an archer emerged from it.
"That was pretty cool," Conner said.
"I agree," Kara said, as Barry and Cisco led her, Clark, Conner, and Earth-21 Oliver towards the assembled heroes of this Earth.
"Guys, thanks for coming," Barry announced to the Earth-1 individuals.
"Barry, I thought you were bringing aliens," Earth-1 Oliver said.
"And yeah, we did," Barry said, indicating Clark, Conner, and Kara. "Uh, we brought three."
Conner turned to Barry. "Technically, you brought two and a half since I'm partially human."
Kara frowned at Conner. "You're part-human?"
"It's part of that long story I mentioned," Conner said.
"Everybody, these are my friends Clark Kent, Conner Kent, and Kara Danvers, or as they're known on their Earths, Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl," Barry announced to the Earth-1 individuals.
"Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl? Sounds extremely boastful and unoriginal if you ask me," Thea noted.
Barry shrugged his shoulders and gestured towards the green-clad archer "Also, everybody, meet Oliver Queen from Earth-21, who, just like our Oliver, is also known as the Green Arrow."
Most of the heroes frowned skeptically, dropping their jaws in disbelief.
Thea, in particular, burst out in laughter. "That's very funny, Barry."
"Barry, is that some sort of joke?" Earth-1 Oliver said sternly, not amused at all. "Right now isn't the time for that!"
"I'm not joking," Barry insisted. "Look, I know how difficult this must be for all of you to accept and believe, and I know this guy doesn't look anything like the Oliver we all know, but this guy's name is Oliver Queen. Specifically, he's an Oliver Queen, one who is from another Earth."
"I'm sorry, another Earth?" Diggle repeated, incredulously.
"Yes, Dig, other Earths do exist," Barry nodded. "Superman, Superboy, and this version of Oliver are from one Earth, while Supergirl is from another. As it turned out, not all counterparts throughout the Multiverse are doppelgangers with identical appearances. On some Earths, other versions of ourselves have completely different faces."
"For example, this version of my cousin looks nothing like the Superman on my Earth," Kara added. "And from what I was told, I don't look anything like the Kara Zor-El from his."
"I believe you," Felicity spoke up. "I believe you completely, as weird as all of this is. I mean, given all the other strange things that we've already witnessed over the last few years, the possibility of us encountering an alternate version of somebody we know who looks like an entirely different person on another Earth – in this case Oliver's counterpart apparently – is not really that farfetched if you ask me."
Earth-21 Oliver smiled at the glasses-wearing blonde. "Thanks, blondie. That makes at least one of you who believes I'm me."
"What makes those three so super?" Jax asked, referring to the Kryptonians.
"Is it just me or does Big Blue with the red cape look a little like Haircut?" Mick remarked, causing Ray to frown at him.
Before anyone else could say something, Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl simultaneously levitated in the air. A pair of reddish-orange beams shot out of Clark's eyes as he burned the symbol that was on his, Conner's, and Kara's chests into the ground with his heat vision.
"I'm convinced," Diggle said, taken aback.
"Best team-up ever!" Felicity exclaimed, with child-like enthusiasm.
At first, I considered having Bart participate in the Dominator Invasion instead of Superboy, but I ultimately decided to stick with Superboy as I have specific plans for him later in this story. For visual, the Superman suit that Clark has been wearing throughout the story is the one from the Smallville Season 11 comics. If you've never seen its design before, I advise you to look it up. Superboy is also wearing his Season 11 outfit, while Green Arrow is wearing an up-to-date version of the suit he wore during the series.
For those of you who are not aware, the idea of Tess Mercer being the Smallville universe's Red Tornado is taken from the Season 11 comics, where Tess, months after being stabbed to death by her half-brother Lex Luthor in the Season 10 finale, was resurrected in the form of artificial intelligence hologram and her consciousness was eventually stored into an android body, which bares the exact likeness of her human form except for most of her body being red with a yellow 'T' marked on her torso. I decided to have that be her fate on Earth-21 as well, as I thought it was a pretty compelling way to bring her back.
Chapter Text
Chapter 7
Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl descended back to the ground as most of the other heroes in the hangar stared at them in utter astonishment, while Earth-1 Oliver watched the three warily.
"Now that we've introduced ourselves and demonstrated some of our abilities, it's our turn to learn who you all are," Clark said to the Earth-1 heroes.
"Starting with you," Kara added, pointing to the brown-haired man wearing a dark brown leather jacket.
"Oliver Queen, also known as the Green Arrow," Earth-1 Oliver said.
"Wait, what?" Earth-21 Oliver said in utter disbelief. "You're me from this Earth?"
"I wasn't expecting that," Conner commented as he, Clark, and, to a lesser extent, Kara had stunned looks on their faces.
"This is weird even for us," Clark admitted.
"Barry definitely wasn't kidding about you being so serious," Earth-21 Oliver noted on seeing his Earth-1 counterpart's stern expression. "Even on my worst days, I don't recall having such a grim facial expression."
"The only reason I'm willing to believe you're who Barry said you are is because he's my friend and he vouches for you guys," Earth-1 Oliver stated firmly. "I'll work with the four of you, but that doesn't mean I trust any of you just yet."
Conner and Kara grimaced at Earth-1 Oliver's bluntness, while Clark realized that this Earth's Oliver, much like Bruce, was just one of those people who took longer than most to warm up to others.
"Well, if it's any consolation, I don't trust you either," Earth-21 Oliver said to his Earth-1 counterpart, both men getting the strong feeling that one wasn't going to be buddy-buddy with the other anytime soon, if at all.
Clark, Conner, Kara, and Earth-21 Oliver then turned to the tall black man standing next to Earth-1 Oliver. "And you would be?" Clark asked.
"John Diggle, also known as Spartan," he said. "But you guys can call me Diggle or Dig. Either one is fine." He regarded Earth-21 Oliver with a dumbfounded expression. "Aliens, a flying time ship, and now a second Oliver Queen who doesn't look anything like the one we know? This is officially the weirdest day ever."
"You're preaching to the choir," Thea added, before turning to the alternate Earth visitors. "Thea Queen, Ollie's younger sister, who is also known as Speedy."
Earth-21 Oliver grinned. "So Speedy's my sister in this universe. I wonder what Mia would say about that."
"I'm Ollie's half-sister technically," Thea said. "We have different biological fathers. Is that not the same on your Earth?"
"I'm an only-child actually," Earth-21 Oliver answered, causing Thea to raise an eyebrow. "But I did have a sidekick who, like you, used the codename Speedy for a while until she decided to hang up her leather and retire from crime-fighting. But she isn't related to me. Her name is Mia Dearden."
Thea's eyes widened. "Dearden?"
"You recognize that name?" Earth-21 Oliver asked.
"Are you kidding me? Dearden is my middle name," Thea said. "Are you sure your Speedy isn't related to you?"
"I'm positive as far as I know," Earth-21 Oliver nodded. "The thing is, Mia and I may not share blood, but she sure as hell is the closest thing I've had to a younger sister."
A smile crept on Thea's face. "So I do kinda exist on your Earth then. You know, five years ago, I never would've guessed that my life would ever get this weird. Who would've thought back then that I'd one day meet another version of my brother, let alone one who looks like an entirely different person?"
"If you ask me, I think they might as well drop the word 'weird' from all dictionaries since it seems to have the same meaning as the word 'normal' these days," Earth-21 Oliver remarked.
"I know, right?" Thea chuckled.
Next, the alternate Earth visitors approached the blonde woman who appeared to be in her late twenties. "You would be?" Clark asked.
"Sara Lance, White Canary," the blonde woman answered, eyeing Kara with a smile that could only be describe as flirtatious.
"Sara Lance?" Earth-21 Oliver repeated.
"Any relation to a Dinah Lance by any chance?" Clark asked Sara. "On our Earth, Dinah Lance is the name of one of team members who is known as Black Canary. Given that you have the same last name as Dinah and the word 'Canary' in your codename, there must be a connection between you two."
"There is," Sara said, with a sad sigh. "My sister Laurel, whose first name is actually Dinah, was our Earth's Black Canary until she was brutally murdered last year by a deranged, magic-wielding psychopath," Sara explained, a mixture of anger and sadness evident in her voice.
"Dinah's dead on this Earth?" Conner asked in disbelief.
"If you're referring to my sister and not my mother, whose first name is also Dinah, then yes," Sara said, letting out another sigh.
"I'm so sorry to hear that," Kara said in a sympathetic tone. She couldn't imagine how devastated she herself would be if her own sister Alex was ever killed in cold blood.
Although he knew full well that his Earth's Dinah Laurel Lance was still alive and well, Earth-21 Oliver couldn't help but feel a little saddened upon learning that an alternate version of the woman who had once been his girlfriend for a few months, after he had broken up with Lois and before he had gotten with Chloe, was dead.
"Don't be," Sara said to Kara. "The only person who should be sorry for taking my sister from me is the man who killed her."
Clark, Conner, Kara, and Earth-21 Oliver didn't fail to notice the obvious venom in the ex-assassin's voice.
Moving on, Clark and the other three visitors turned to the young black man standing behind Sara. "What about you?" Clark asked.
"Jefferson Jackson, one-half of the superhero called Firestorm," the young man replied. "People usually call me Jax."
Clark nodded, then pointed to the older man with gray hair and glasses. "And you, sir?"
"Professor Martin Stein, the other half of Firestorm," Stein answered.
After nodding again, Clark pointed to the bald guy who was eating a sandwich. "And what would your name be?"
"Hmm?" Mick looked up at Clark. "Oh, Mick Rory, also known as Heatwave."
Clark then moved on to the man whom he thought somewhat resembled a younger version of Dr. Virgil Swann. "What about you?"
"Uh, Ray Palmer, also known as The Atom," Ray answered.
"We had an Atom on our Earth too," Earth-21 Oliver said. "A long time ago. His name was Al Pratt."
"Al Pratt? Doesn't ring a bell," Ray said. "I don't suppose the name Raymond Palmer is heard of where you guys come from, is it? I mean, if there's an Oliver Queen in your universe, then there's a decent chance a version of me exists there as well."
"I can't say that I've heard of anyone with your name," Earth-21 Oliver said.
"Neither can I," Clark added, while Ray looked a bit disappointed. "Sorry."
Clark, Conner, Kara, and Earth-21 Oliver turned around and headed over to the three women they hadn't yet acknowledged. Clark pointed to the blonde with glasses. "And you would be?"
"Felicity Smoak, also known as Overwatch and a full-time member of Team Arrow," the blonde woman said, smiling and eyeballing the three very attractive men before her.
"I take it you're the tech-genius in the group," Clark said.
"Yes, and I am really good at my job," Felicity said, proudly. She looked at Earth-21 Oliver. "So, the preference to don green leather with a hood while wielding a bow and arrow must be a consistent thing for all the Oliver Jonas Queens across the entire Multiverse. Jonas is still your middle name, right?"
"It is," Earth-21 Oliver nodded.
"I was just asking because, for all I know, that could've been another one of those random differences between you and our Oliver where your middle name is different from his despite sharing the same first and last time and I wanted to be sure, you know, in case I was wrong," Felicity said.
"Right," Earth-21 Oliver nodded with a smile, as he regarded Felicity for a few moments. This woman's perky attitude and fast-paced manner of talking somewhat reminded him of his wife during her younger days, though Felicity seemed to be considerably more excitable and upbeat than Chloe ever was.
He, Clark, Conner, and Kara then turned to the dark-skinned woman standing next to Felicity.
"Iris West, girlfriend of Barry Allen," she introduced herself, also eyeballing Clark, Conner, and Earth-21 Oliver.
Lastly, the visitors turned to the woman with reddish-brown hair who was sitting at the computer. "And you?" Clark asked.
"Dr. Caitlin Snow," she answered.
Nearby, Iris walked up to her boyfriend with a surprised look. "Uh, Barry, so Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow?" she asked.
"Yeah," Barry answered.
"Oh, my God, he just got so much hotter," Iris commented, glancing over at Earth-1 Oliver.
"Oh, my God," Barry muttered, uncomfortably.
"Okay, Cisco, we should probably get started," Earth-1 Oliver stated.
Cisco pressed his tablet and the large flat-screen in front of the assembled heroes displayed the blurry image of a Dominator roaming around in a wooded area.
"Wait," Ray spoke up, causing everyone to look at him. "Since there are two Oliver Queens in the room, how are we gonna address each of them? It will be very confusing if we just called them both 'Oliver'."
"Good point," Barry said. "Maybe one of the Olivers could be 'Ollie' and the other one could just be 'Oliver'." Turning to Earth-1 Oliver, he added, "I'll leave it up to you and him to decide which one will be which."
"I'll be 'Oliver' and he can be 'Ollie'," Earth-1 Oliver stated, glancing at his Earth-21 counterpart.
"I can go with that," Earth-21 Oliver nodded in agreement.
"All right, now that that's settled, I guess I'll get started," Barry said, looking up at the screen. "So, um, these are the Dominators. We don't know much about him."
"I know quite a few things about them," Clark said. "From what I've learned, the Dominators usually prefer to work behind the scenes using other races to do their dirty work for them. And there's the fact that they've traveled to many planets, including mine, and did experiments on just as many people as they've killed." He didn't fail to notice the stern glance that Earth-1 Oliver threw at him, but decided to ignore it. "If the Dominators of this universe are anything like the ones in mine, we have a serious problem on our hands."
"I suppose you're gonna tell us next that these Dominators are also more powerful than locomotives and capable of shooting heat beams out of their eyes like you, Supergirl, and Superboy?" Thea remarked.
"They're incredibly strong, that's for sure, but not quite on the same level as us Kryptonians," Clark said. "And no, they do not have heat vision like we do."
"We should use two of the Supers as stand-ins for training," Oliver instructed.
Ollie turned to his counterpart incredulously. "Two of the Supers? Are you serious?"
"Yes," Oliver answered, bluntly.
"Well, no offense to you and the rest of the merry band in this room, but none of you will stand a snowball's chance in hell against one Kryptonian, let alone two," Ollie pointed out. "Look, man, it's not that I'm against your idea, but don't you think using only one of them for this training instead of two should be more than enough? I take it you haven't seen the half of what our friends of steel are capable of."
"Everyone in this room needs to understand this alien invasion isn't something to be taken lightly," Oliver argued. "If you take your job as a vigilante remotely as seriously as I do, you would understand why this is necessary."
"One thing I am starting to understand are the not-so-subtle differences in our personalities," Ollie remarked, unnerved that there was version of himself who could give even Bruce Wayne a run for his money when it came to being a stern, no-nonsense hard-ass.
Oliver continued to glare at the other man, whose attitude reminded him quite a bit of the way he himself had been before Lian Yu and, for that reason alone, had to resist the urge to deck Ollie in the face. "Not that I know anything about the life you've had on your Earth, but here, my personality is what kept me alive all these years," Oliver retorted. "What I said stands. End of discussion."
"Since when was Robin Hood calling the shots?" Mick pointed out, earning a glare from Oliver.
"What I think Mick is trying to say is it would be nice if we knew who was in charge around here," Jax added.
Ray raised his hand. "Maybe we should take a vote. Choose a leader. Someone we can all trust."
"Well, I trust Oliver," Cisco said, refusing to acknowledge Barry. "He's got my vote."
"What about Clark?" Conner raised his hand. "Maybe he can be our leader?" All eyes turned to Conner. "I know you guys just met him, but if anyone has a ton of experience when it comes to fighting dangerous aliens, it's him."
"I have a ton of experience with fighting dangerous aliens too," Kara pointed out.
"I appreciate that, Conner, but the leader should be someone these people haven't just met," Clark said. "Someone they've known for a while. We're nothing more than guests on this Earth helping out."
"Since Barry put all us together, it should be him," Oliver demanded, nodding to the speedster in question.
"Fair enough," Cisco said, although he didn't agree with the decision.
"Okay," Barry began, "um, cool, all right. Well, I guess as, uh, team leader, first thing to do is, uh, start out by, um..."
"Doing a test run," Oliver muttered.
"Let's do a test run," Barry instructed. "Yeah, let's do a test run, um..."
"Against two of the Supers," Oliver muttered again.
"Against two of the Supers, all right? Test run against two of the Supers," Barry continued.
"Are we just supposed to pretend like we don't hear him?" Sara asked, referring to Oliver not-so-subtly telling Barry what to say.
"So just, uh, suit up, okay? Look alive," Barry said. "We're training to fight aliens by fighting two aliens, so..."
"Do it!" H.R. exclaimed, excitedly.
"...suit up," Barry concluded his sentence.
The assembled heroes headed off to prepare for the mission.
"Oliver, both of you," Barry called out. "Hey, Clark, Kara. Um, really quick."
Oliver, Ollie, Clark, Conner, and Kara turned around and headed back over to Barry.
"I was excited about Oliver meeting you guys," Barry said to the visitors. "Since last year, I've wondered what it would be like if both Olivers were in the same room and now here you guys are." He glanced at Oliver. "Oliver was the first person to train me."
"Really?" Kara asked, with her usual smile.
"Yeah," Barry said.
"Well, you did a really good job," Kara said to Oliver.
"It's because I didn't hold back," Oliver said, bluntly. "I shot him. You guys can't hold back either."
"He did shoot me," Barry said to the visitors. "In the back, with two arrows."
"Ouch," Kara and Conner said at the same time, while Clark was reminded of the time when his Oliver had shot him in the back with the kryptonite dart during the Doomsday/Davis Bloome ordeal.
"So which of you guys are gonna volunteer to be, um, the practice dummy for this test run?" Barry asked the three Kryptonians.
"Not that I prefer being called a 'practice dummy', but I don't mind doing it," Kara said. "It was kinda fun last time when you were teaching Bart how to throw lightning."
"I guess I'll do it too," Conner added.
"All right," Barry nodded. "So it's everybody versus Superboy and Supergirl."
"You two can't hold back during this training," Oliver said to Conner and Kara.
Kara looked at Oliver. "Are you sure about that? We just met these people..."
"These people need to understand this isn't gonna be easy," Oliver pointed out, firmly. "Don't hold back. Not against anyone."
"Yes, sir," Kara said sarcastically, glowering at Oliver's stern tone.
"Seriously, are you trying to get all of us in this room killed?" Ollie remarked to his Earth-1 counterpart.
Oliver turned to his namesake. "You and me, sparring match in five minutes."
The Earth-21 archer grinned. "Is that a challenge I hear from you? If so, bring it on."
"Call it whatever you want, but given that you're a vigilante whom I've never worked with before, I'd like to know how competent your fighting skills are," Oliver said.
Ollie laughed. "Just admit it, Grumpy Pants. You want to see which one of us is the better Green Arrow, don't you? Not that I'm complaining since I'm curious to find that out myself."
"Maybe," Oliver said.
"Wait, you two are actually gonna fight each other?" Barry asked, grinning eagerly. "I have to see that."
"He's the one who's challenging me," Ollie said. "And given that it's not every day I get to compare my skills with those of another version of myself, there's no way I could say no." He turned back to Oliver. "I can't wait to show you what I'm made of, tough guy."
"I can't wait either," Oliver said, eyeing his counterpart in a way that promised to wipe Ollie's smirk clean off his face. He then walked away.
"Green Arrow versus Green Arrow," Conner said, before turning to Ollie. "Looks like you've finally met your match."
"Good luck going up against your counterpart," Barry said to Ollie.
"Hey, if I can take on meta-humans without breaking a sweat, beating another me in a sparring match will just be another walk in the park," Ollie said, confidently.
"Without breaking a sweat?" Clark said, turning to Ollie. "Are you sure about that, Oliver? By now, I've lost count of all the times I had to pull you away from certain death at the hands of our enemies or even simple street thugs."
"Way to go for the vote of confidence, Boy Scout," Ollie said, sarcastically.
"If there's one thing I've learned, speaking as someone who's been on the unpleasant end of training with this Earth's Oliver Queen, it's to never underestimate him," Barry warned.
"Well, since we're pretty much the same person, that also technically means I'm not to be underestimated," Ollie pointed out.
"Fair point," Barry said.
Kara laughed in amusement as she turned to Ollie. "For two people who are more or less the same person, you and the other Oliver are literally like night and day."
"I get the feeling that the other Oliver doesn't like us for some reason," Conner said.
"My thoughts exactly," Kara said.
"It's not that Oliver doesn't like you guys," Barry said, knowingly. "He's like that with everyone. He'll warm up to you guys."
"I wouldn't be surprised if those grumpy me and Batman became drinking buddies on the spot after meeting each other," Ollie remarked.
"There's a vigilante named Batman on my Earth too," Kara said. "My cousin's worked with him a few times. Tons of gadgets, lots of demons, and kinda nuts."
"That's definitely a lot of people's description of the Dark Knight of Gotham," Clark said, before he, Barry, Conner, Kara, and Ollie started walking away.
"Hey," Barry said, as he headed around to the side of the large S.T.A.R. Labs truck where Ray and Cisco were conversing about the former's new Atom exo-suit.
Noticing Barry, Cisco turned to Ray and said, "Uh, listen, I gotta get to work. Felicity's waiting for me, but we'll talk about this later."
Barry watched glumly as Cisco walked off.
"Hey, Barry," Ray greeted.
"Uh, where's Snart?" Barry wondered.
Ray sighed. "Man, I'm sorry, Barry. I forgot that we never told you."
The look on Ray's face was more than enough to give Barry the answer to his question. "What happened?" Barry asked.
"He sacrificed himself," Ray answered. "Saved us all. He died a hero."
"A Legend," Barry said, smiling sadly.
He turned towards the entrance of the hangar to see Iris talking to Wally, who had arrived wanting to help out with his newfound speed, which Iris was against as she told him he was not ready and that he could die if he screwed up. Unable to convince his sister to let him stay, a disappointed Wally sped off in a streak of yellow lightning.
A few minutes later, Barry was approached by Jax and Professor Stein. "Barry, before we start training, there's something you need to hear," Jax said.
"A message that would be better if we could share with you in private," Stein added, glancing pointedly at Clark, Oliver, and Ollie as they were standing nearby.
"Fair enough," Clark nodded.
"We'll step away," Oliver added.
"No, no, it's fine, you three can stay," Barry said.
"No, if this is a private matter that only concerns Barry and not any of us, then it's none of our business," Clark insisted. "I'm stepping away."
"Me too," Ollie added, as he and Clark moved off to the side.
Barry turned to Oliver. "Will you at least stay?"
"If you insist," Oliver nodded.
"All right, but no one else," Stein agreed.
Barry nodded. "Let's make it quick."
He, Oliver, Jax, and Stein entered the S.T.A.R. Labs truck. Sitting down, Stein picked up a device and played the message.
"A war is coming, Captain Hunter," a voice that was distorted but sounded awfully familiar to Barry announced. "And, at some point, you're gonna be called back to Central City to fight it. So you need to know that, while you and your team have been in the temporal zone, I made a choice that affected the timeline. As you know, whenever you alter the past, those changes affect the present and get compounded in the future. When you return, you will be in the new timeline I created, where everyone's past and everyone's future has been affected, including yours. When you come back, don't trust anything or anyone. Not even me."
"Where did you get that from?" Barry asked.
"We found it in a secret room inside the Waverider," Jax answered. "It was sent by you forty years from now."
"Forty years from now?" Oliver repeated, incredulously. "Barry, what the hell does this mean?"
"It means I screwed things up when I changed the past," Barry said, with a guilt-ridden expression.
"What did you do?" Stein asked.
"I went back in time, and I saved my mom," Barry answered. "I created a timeline where she's alive. It's called Flashpoint. I lived in it for a few months... until I realized that I made a big mistake, and I tried to reset the timeline, put things back to how they were supposed to be, but..."
"But I didn't work," Jax guessed.
"No," Barry said.
"Wow, Barry, that's..." Oliver began, at a loss for words as he was stunned, disappointed, and understanding all at the same time.
"So what's changed since you did this?" Stein asked.
"Cisco's brother is dead," Barry answered. "Caitlin has powers. Diggle has a son now instead of a daughter." He looked up at Oliver as he said the last sentence.
Oliver looked surprised. "What? John had a daughter?"
"I didn't just screw up my life, man," Barry said, remorsefully. "I screwed up everybody's lives, and apparently everybody's lives in the future. It felt like, when these aliens got here, that finally something had happened I didn't cause and maybe I could make up for everything I'd done to everybody, but I..."
"I think we should be on the up and up with everybody," Jax suggested. "We gotta tell them."
"We're going up against a bunch of aliens, and you want to tell people that their lives might have been affected by time travel? One sci-fi problem at a time," Oliver insisted, firmly. He turned to Barry. "You made a mistake, Barry. It's part of the job. But we can't deal with it today."
Oliver walked out of the S.T.A.R. Labs truck, Jax following behind him. Barry glanced at Stein, seeing the look of disappointment evident on the older man's face, before walking out as well.
I know the last part of this chapter with Barry and Oliver finding out about the former's future message is not different from canon, but I felt the need to include it since it's a major plot point in this crossover. From now on, in this story and any future stories in this series, Arrow's Green Arrow will be called 'Oliver' while Smallville's Green Arrow will be 'Ollie'.
Chapter Text
Chapter 8
Superboy and Supergirl hovered twenty feet in the air as The Atom, White Canary, Speedy, Spartan, and Mick were giving their all against the two Kryptonians. The Atom fired several energy beams at Supergirl, who was completely unaffected by them, while several arrows from Speedy simply bounced off her body and fell to the ground. Bullets from Spartan's gun and shurikens flung by White Canary bounced off of Superboy's chest, while the flames from Mick's heat gun didn't do anything to him either. Superboy slammed his hands together, albeit not too hard, creating a shockwave that sent White Canary, Speedy, Spartan, and Mick flying several feet back. As they landed on the ground, White Canary, Speedy, and Spartan were dazed, while Mick fell unconscious as he hit his head.
The Atom briefly shrunk down to a few inches as he flew behind Supergirl in a maneuver and reverted back to his normal size in an effort to catch her off-guard. However, Supergirl heard The Atom behind her and grabbed him, tossing The Atom to the ground with just enough force to not break any of Ray's bones or cause any damage to the exo-suit. The Atom landed near the other downed heroes.
"This is way too easy," Conner said.
"If you want, you can join them," Kara suggested.
"Or you can join them and I'll handle this," Conner said.
"It's okay, I got this," Kara assured him.
"Well, you would be stronger than me since I'm half-human, so I guess you could handle it better than I could," Conner said, before descending to the ground.
White Canary, Speedy, Spartan, and The Atom all groaned as they stumbled back to their feet, while Mick seemed to still be out cold.
"They really are badasses," Thea remarked.
"Yeah, it's kinda hot," Sara added, looking up at Supergirl.
Diggle turned to Conner. "Wait, you're on our team now?"
Conner shrugged his shoulders. "Well, we figured you guys could use the advantage."
Suddenly, there was a flash of yellow lightning as Barry sped over in his Flash suit with the cowl down. "Let's go again," he instructed.
Superboy levitated into the air and unleashed his heat vision at Supergirl. Supergirl unleashed her heat vision too, her bright blue beams clashing halfway with Superboy's reddish-orange beams in an effort to overpower the other. Down below, The Flash raced forward and sped in circles to build up electricity. The Atom fired more beams up at Supergirl in vain, while Spartan fired his gun, only for the bullets to get crushed upon slamming square into Supergirl's chest, Mick fired his heat gun which also proved futile, and Speedy fired arrows with explosive tips but the minor explosions did nothing to faze the Girl of Steel. The Flash then hurled a lightning bolt at Supergirl, which did nothing but daze her momentarily.
(Elsewhere in the hangar)
"So what's your story, huh? I know there are other differences between us besides our looks and personalities, such as you having a sister while I've always been an only-child for instance," Ollie said, as he and Oliver, who was also in his Green Arrow suit, were blocking each other's hits with their bows and ducking under each other's kicks in what seemed to be an evenly matched battle. "Your date of birth wouldn't happen to be May 16th 1980 by any chance, would it?"
"Actually, it's May 16th 1985," Oliver replied, ducking under another kick his counterpart threw.
"So you're five years younger than me," Ollie said, a little surprised as he honestly thought he would be the younger one if anything. "Are your parents' names Robert and Laura Queen like mine?"
"My father's name was Robert, but my mother's was Moira," Oliver said, right before managing to kick his counterpart in the stomach, knocking Ollie a few feet back.
"Moira, huh? That's also my wife's mother's name," Ollie noted, throwing a punch that Oliver blocked.
"Your wife?" Oliver asked, incredulously.
"Yeah, I'm married. I take it you're not?"
"No."
"Well, maybe if you weren't such a hardass and had a sense of humor like me, you would've found your match by now," Ollie remarked. "Since you said 'was', I'm guessing your parents are dead too."
"Yes," Oliver answered.
"What happened?" Ollie asked. "Mine were killed in a plane crash when I was nine. Is that different for you?"
"My father sacrificed himself so that I could live and my mother was murdered by a man who was once like a brother to me," Oliver said, grimly.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Ollie said, realizing his counterpart didn't want to get into the details. "What about being shipwrecked on a certain island in the south Pacific and honing your archery skills for two years before you went on to become Green Arrow? Or did you not have an island experience in this world?"
"I was on an island too, but in the North China Sea," Oliver replied. "I was on Lian Yu for the better part of five years."
"Lian Yu? Never heard of it," Ollie said. "Either that or this Lian Yu place doesn't exist in my universe."
"It's Mandarian for 'purgatory'," Oliver said, as he and Ollie tried to kick each other simultaneously causing their boots to clash for a quick moment. The two then backed up a little and took fighting stances again.
"And you were on your island for five years?" Ollie said, as he threw another kick, only for Oliver to easily block the kick before the two switched back to attacking each other with their bows. "Jeez, I was stranded on my island for only two years and let me tell you it was anything but a picnic. Now I see why you never seem to lighten up."
"You lighten up too much," Oliver countered, before striking Ollie in the face twice, first with his bow and then with his elbow, knocking Ollie to the ground. "Not just when it comes to your attitude, but also your fighting skills."
"Don't talk just yet, Grumpy Pants," Ollie said, wiping his face as he got back to his feet. "That was just the first round after all."
"You're very good, I'll give you that," Oliver said. "But there are clearly certain moves that I have and you lack, which means there's room for improvement on your part."
With that, the Green Arrows engaged each other again as their bows clashed fiercely. After a few minutes of dodging and blocking whatever attacks one sent to the other, Ollie managed to kick Oliver in the knee, causing Oliver to stumble over. Ollie then spun around as quickly as he could and delivered a second kick, but Oliver caught Ollie's leg and punched Ollie in the chest knocking him to the ground.
Ollie got back to his feet and he and Oliver wasted no time engaging in another round. Ollie punched Oliver in the face twice and followed up with a spin-kick, which Oliver ducked under and then blocked a punch that Ollie followed up with. Oliver elbowed Ollie in the face, punched him in the chest, grabbed Ollie's arm, and flipped him to the ground.
White Canary, Speedy, Spartan, and Mick were down for the count again as The Flash, The Atom, and Superboy were still engaging Supergirl. Supergirl punched The Atom in the chest, sending him to the ground landing near the other downed heroes. While Supergirl and Superboy exchanged blows in mid-air, The Flash aimed his arms up at the former and spun them around, creating a vortex of wind that was powerful enough to sweep Supergirl around as she almost fell before steadying herself. Taking advantage of the situation, Superboy punched Supergirl in the face and followed up with one to her chest, sending Supergirl crashing to the ground as the concrete was damaged where she landed.
Superboy descended with a grin and landed next to Supergirl, who got back to her feet dusting off her suit. "Sorry about that," Conner said to her.
"It's okay, it's part of the training," Kara replied.
"All right, everyone, let's take five for now before we go another round," Barry instructed.
"Where's Ollie?" Thea asked, as she and the others got back to their feet. "He's the one who put us up to this training in the first place, yet he's not gonna participate in it himself?"
"He and the other Oliver are busy with something right now," Barry said.
"Let me guess, the Ollies are somewhere sparring to see which of them is the better Green Arrow," Sara said, with a chuckle.
"You could say that," Barry nodded, knowingly.
Thea grinned. "No offense to the second Ollie, but my money's on my brother."
Ollie groaned as he fell on his back on the ground, losing the latest round against Oliver. Ollie had multiple small cuts and bruises on his face along with a bloody nose and busted lip, while Oliver merely had two bruises on his face and a slightly busted lip. They had been sparring for a little over an hour now and had gone thirteen rounds against each other, with Oliver winning ten of them while Ollie only won three.
"Okay, as much as I can't stomach saying this or even thinking it, you definitely have the edge in terms of fighting skills," Ollie admitted, getting back to his feet.
"For someone who obviously haven't endured a lot of the same experiences that I have, you aren't that bad yourself," Oliver said.
"But I guarantee you I'd kick your ass in an arrow shootout," Ollie said, confidently.
"We'll save that one for after the Dominators are taken care of," Oliver said.
"Sure thing, I won't forget," Ollie said.
"Neither will I," Oliver said.
The two headed back over to the main area of the hangar, where the other heroes were taking a break from training against Superboy and Supergirl, who both had decided to take turns going up against the non-Kryptonian heroes.
"I take it both of you are done kicking each other's asses?" Thea asked her brother.
"So who won?" Barry asked, although he had a feeling he already knew the answer.
"Who do you think won, Barry?" Oliver said.
"I'm pretty sure you won, Oliver," Sara said, looking at Oliver and Ollie's faces and noticing the latter had more bruises.
"You're right, he did win," Ollie admitted. "I only managed to knock him down three times out of our thirteen rounds."
"You didn't do too bad against my brother," Thea said. "A lot of people don't win any rounds against him at all. What's next? You two gonna compete in an arrow shootout too?"
"Maybe later," Oliver said. "Right now, we join the rest of you and continue training."
(Few minutes later)
"Hey," Cisco said, as he walked to Barry.
"Hey," the latter replied.
"You know what this is?" Cisco asked, showing Barry the device containing Future Barry's message. "This is really you. Like, future you."
"Come on, look..." Barry started in a low voice, but Cisco interrupted him.
"You told them, right?"
"I'm gonna tell them, yeah, when this is finished," Barry whispered.
"When this is finished?" Cisco scoffed. "Even though you're about to lead them through an alien war? Even after Flashpoint?" He then raised his voice in anger. "After everything you've messed up? All the lives you've changed? You still don't think you should tell them?"
"Tell us what?" Sara demanded, catching the end of what Cisco said.
"Uh, Jax and Professor Stein found a message from me in the future saying that, right now, I can't be trusted," Barry explained.
"And why would future you say that?" Sara asked.
"I think because I went back in time and changed the timeline," Barry answered. "And now things here are different than before I left, including some of your lives."
Ollie frowned. "Wait, some of our lives? Whose lives exactly?"
"Cisco, Caitlin, Wally, Dig," Barry answered.
"Me?" Diggle also frowned. "Why? What happened?"
"Hey," Oliver said, turning to Diggle. "Apparently, you had a daughter."
Diggle turned back to Barry. "I had a daughter, Barry?"
Barry nodded. "Baby John was Baby Sara."
A look of disappointment appeared on Diggle's face. "So, wait, you... let me get this straight. You just, uh, you just erased a daughter from my life?"
"Yeah," Barry admitted.
"You can't go back and just change things like that, Barry," Sara said, angrily.
"I know," Barry said.
"You know how hard it is for me to not alter events? To bring my sister back?" Sara continued in the same tone. "But I don't, because I know the implications."
"And all those aberrations we spent the last eight months, traveling through time, trying to correct, you just decided that it was okay for you to create your own?" Ray added.
"We should've told them before," Jax said.
"Guys," Felicity spoke up, receiving a message on her cell phone. "Guys, it's Lyla. The President's been abducted by the Dominators. She needs us now."
"Okay, you guys go, all right? I'm gonna sit this one out," Barry said. "Obviously, you have Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl. They're just as fast as I am. Get the President. We can talk about this later."
All the heroes, except Oliver, prepared to head off. Barry approached Clark and Kara and asked, "You two still trust me, right?"
"I'll always trust you, but it might take more to convince them," Kara answered, glancing back at the other heroes.
"I trust you too, Barry," Clark added. "You made a mistake, one which I'm sure you'll learn from if you haven't already. Believe me, I know firsthand what it's like to have made a mistake very similar to yours."
"You do?" Barry asked.
"Guys, this is... hey!" Oliver called out to the heroes who were leaving. "This is crazy! Everyone is going, including Barry. I... I'm not going without him."
"Then you'll be here, Oliver," Diggle said, not in the mood to work with Barry after discovering what happened.
"Now that I think about it, it would actually be a good idea if some of you stayed behind," Clark suggested, causing the other heroes look at him pointedly.
"What?" Sara asked, incredulously.
"Why should any of us stay behind? The President's been kidnapped," Kara pointed out.
"For backup in case this is a trap," Clark explained. "Knowing these Dominators, that's definitely a possibility. This is merely a rescue mission, not a battle, which the Dominators will undoubtedly be expecting."
"I think it's a good idea," Oliver nodded in agreement.
"You raise a good point, Clark," Ollie said. "I guess I'll stay put."
"Why don't you do the same, Conner?" Clark instructed. "You stay here with Barry and the Olivers. I'll go with everyone else to get the President. That way, if something else that we're not expecting happens while the rest of us are not back yet to help, the three of them," he indicated Barry, Oliver, and Ollie, "could use your help. We need to be prepared for any and all possibilities."
"I guess that makes sense," Conner nodded in understanding. "I'll stay."
"But if you guys need us, we'll be there," Barry said to Clark and Kara, who each responded with a nod.
Clark and Kara headed off with Diggle, Sara, Ray, Jax, and Mick, while Barry, Oliver, Ollie, and Conner stayed behind with Cisco and Felicity.
Turning to Cisco abruptly, Oliver angrily walked up to him and shoved him against the S.T.A.R. Labs truck.
"Oliver!" Felicity gasped, as she, Barry, Ollie, and Conner suddenly watched what was going on.
"Oliver, what the hell is wrong with you?!" Cisco exclaimed, as Oliver glared at him.
"Was that necessary?!" Oliver snarled.
"What?! Making Barry tell everyone the truth about what he's done?! Yes, of course it was necessary! They're our friends and they had every right to know that he screwed up!" Cisco pointed out.
"Not while we're in the middle of an alien invasion!" Oliver growled.
"What were we supposed to do, Oliver?!" Cisco argued. "Just hide the fact that he killed my brother?! Or changed your best friend's daughter into a son?! All because he took it upon himself to change the timeline for his own personal benefit?! That's not what heroes do! We're supposed to be upfront about these things!"
Oliver's glare deepened. "Because of your petty grudge, you put the entire world at risk by compromising everyone's trust in Barry and therefore everyone's focus. If this mission goes south because you couldn't keep your mouth shut about an issue that could've waited until after we took care of the Dominators because everyone is no longer a hundred perfect focused, I want you to take one long look in the mirror at the person whose fault that is!"
Cisco sighed as Oliver turned and walked away from him. While a small part of Cisco knew that Oliver was right, the larger part of him wouldn't at all take back forcing Barry to own up to having changed the timeline. It had to come out.
Ollie turned to Conner. "Not that I disagree with other me's points, but you'd tell me if that's exactly how I look if you ever see me angry, right?"
Conner shrugged his shoulders. "I just know I wouldn't wanna get on his bad side, even if I am half-Kryptonian."
"Speaking from experience, nobody wants to be on Oliver's bad side," Barry said.
(Outside a warehouse building)
Supergirl, White Canary, The Atom, Firestorm, Spartan, Speedy, and Mick arrived at the location where the President was supposedly being held hostage by the Dominators.
"Sure we're in the right place?" Ray asked, a bit uncertain.
Just then, Superman rapidly swooped down from the evening sky and landed on the ground. "This is the last place the President's tracer gave a signal," he announced to the other heroes. "Must be nearby." Staring at the warehouse, Clark activated his x-ray vision and saw a person standing inside the building. "He's in there all right."
"How do you know that?" Mick asked.
"I saw him in the building," Clark answered, causing Mick to frown. "X-ray vision is one of my abilities."
"Mine too," Kara added.
"Oh," Mick said. "You guys can see everyone's bits with those little peepers, huh?"
Clark frowned at Mick's comment, but didn't say anything.
"No, I..." Kara started.
"Ignore him," Sara advised.
"How did you get the name Heatwave?" Kara asked Mick.
"I burned my family alive and I like to light things on fire," Mick answered, bluntly.
"Ah," Kara said. "Well, that's a colorful backstory."
"Well, my shrink thinks so," Mick remarked. "By the way, I'm not gonna call you and your cousin Supergirl and Superman. They're stupid."
"You could call me Kara," Kara suggested.
"And could call me Clark if you want," Clark added. "Or even Kal."
Mick shook his head. "Those won't work either."
"Well, what are you gonna shout if you need our help?" Kara asked.
"I'll call you Skirt," Mick answered, pointing to Kara before turning to Clark. "And you Big Blue."
"Fair enough," Clark nodded.
Thea chuckled in amusement. "Seriously?"
"Seriously," Mick answered. To Clark and Kara, he said, "But I'm not gonna need your help."
The assembled heroes, led by Clark and Kara, entered the warehouse building, looking around cautiously as they walked through the place.
"Look! The President!" Diggle announced, as he spotted the man in question, whose hands were bound in a pair of handcuffs.
"Get me out of here!" the President pleaded, relieved by the heroes' presence.
"Wait a minute, this doesn't feel right," Clark said. "This seems way too easy."
"I was just about to say the same thing," Jax added.
"I agree, Jefferson," Jax heard Professor Stein's voice reply in his head.
Suddenly, they heard an eerie snarling sound.
"Something's coming," Kara warned.
The heroes and the President all looked up. On the upper railing looking down at all of them was a Dominator, who was standing next to a red-glowing, oval-shaped, high-tech device that was clearly not native to Earth.
Thea lifted her bow, aiming an arrow at the Dominator. Also, Ray raised his arm, preparing to fire an energy beam.
"Release the President now!" Clark demanded.
"We knew you would come."
The Dominator's mouth didn't move as he spoke, but his loud, chilling voice echoed in the ears of everyone in the warehouse.
"Did you guys hear that? Because I heard it in my head," Ray remarked.
"Yeah, we heard it," Sara answered.
"Well, if nobody else is freaked out by it, far be it for me to panic," Ray said.
"You don't need to harm him to get whatever it is you want from us," Clark said to the Dominator. "Release him and this won't have to end in a fight."
"He's not who we want," the Dominator replied. He raised his arm, which contained a silver gauntlet, and aimed it at the helpless President. The Dominator fired the gauntlet, emitting a yellowish-green energy beam that headed straight for the President.
In a blur of movement, Clark sped the President out of the way as the energy beam struck the wooden floor instead, creating a small burnt hole.
"It's a trap!" Diggle exclaimed.
The Dominator activated the oval-shaped device, causing a wave of red energy to flow down and envelop all the heroes. Everyone clutched the sides of their heads as they doubled over and groaned in agony. A reddish-white glow appeared on each of their foreheads. Clark and Kara could do nothing but watch in horror as the Dominator fired another beam at the President, disintegrating him on contact.
"Superman, Supergirl, do something!" Mick groaned in pain.
But the two Kryptonians were as helpless and in as much agony as the rest of the heroes.
(S.T.A.R. Labs)
"So this is you guys' S.T.A.R. Labs," Ollie said, as Barry led him, Oliver, and Conner into the time vault. "This place looks a lot different from the research facility that I purchased four years ago and put our very own go-to doctor Emil Hamilton in charge of."
Barry walked up to a console, placed his hand on top of it, and brought up a holographic image of a newspaper article dated April 25th 2024 containing the headline 'FLASH MISSING – VANISHES IN CRISIS'. The name on the byline read Julie Greer, something that disturbed Barry, since prior to him creating Flashpoint, it had been Iris who would write the article in the future. Somehow, in the current timeline, the name had changed to the Julie person.
"'Flash Missing, Vanishes in Crisis'?" Conner read the headline on the holographic newspaper.
"Barry, what is this?" Oliver asked, also looking at the newspaper.
"This is an article from the future," Barry answered.
"Wait, the future?" Ollie asked.
"It's a story about me vanishing," Barry explained. "Used to be written by Iris West-Allen. But now, I don't know. Something's... something's changed with Iris. Something's changed with our future." He sighed. "I didn't think about it, guys. I didn't think about the future. I was so focused on the past, I didn't think about it until now. I changed so much. God, what did I do?"
"Barry, this is a weird-looking newspaper article," Oliver said. "It doesn't mean anything. You need... you need to stop beating yourself up over this."
"I'm sorry, but how can you say that?!" Barry snapped. "I'm responsible for all of this!"
"Maybe, maybe not," Oliver said. "Barry, you made a choice. You wanted to see your parents alive again. Do you honestly know anyone that, if they were in your shoes, wouldn't do the exact same thing? I would do the exact same thing."
"He's right, Bart... I mean, Barry," Ollie agreed with his counterpart. "Like I told Clark once, I'd go to hell and back just to wrap my arms around my folks one more time, even if it's just for a moment."
"Barry, after the Gambit went down, it was me, my father, and a crew member on a life raft," Oliver started to explain. "Lost at sea. Enough food and water for one person maybe. My father took a gun, shot the crew member, told me to survive, and then turned the gun on himself."
"Whoa," Conner gasped in horror.
"So that's what happened," Ollie realized as he shot a look of sympathy at his counterpart.
"He shot himself in the head," Oliver continued, keeping eye contact on Barry. "He sacrificed himself so that I could live. Nothing I could do. No choice. Slade Wilson drove a sword right through my mother's heart in front of my sister and me. I was there. I was helpless on the ground. I was powerless to stop it. No choice. Do you not think that I would give anything to go back and to make things different?"
"You never told me that," Barry said, solemnly.
"Barry, the world isn't different because you changed the timeline," Oliver told him. "Change happens. Tragedy happens. People make choices, and those choices affect everyone else. You're not a God, Barry."
"Nice speech," Ollie complimented his counterpart. "For a moment there, you reminded me of Clark. I guess you're not that bad after all." He paused for a moment. "I know you told me earlier that your father sacrificed his life for you, but I never would've guessed that committing suicide was involved. And you said Slade Wilson killed your mother?"
"I did," Oliver answered. "I'm guessing you know a Slade Wilson on your Earth as well."
"Unfortunately," Ollie answered, with obvious disgust. "The Slade from our Earth may not have been responsible for my mother's death, but he was just as much a real jackass as your Slade apparently is. Not only did he intend to capture and imprison all of us superheroes so he could exploit our abilities, but he managed to turn the world against us once and killed a member of our team while he was at it."
"Not to mention his daughter Rose, who is just as bad as her father was and killed my girlfriend Courtney two years ago," Conner added with a note of sadness.
"The Slade I knew was my best friend once upon a time," Oliver said to his counterpart, reflecting back on the good times he and Slade shared while they were stranded on Lian Yu before the Mirakuru destroyed Slade's sanity. "He taught me how to fight, taught me how to survive, he helped shape me into the man that I am today. He was like a brother to me until something terrible happened, causing Slade to turn into someone that I no longer recognize. He became someone else... he became something else."
"I understand a lot of things are different here, but there's no way in hell I could picture something like that being remotely possible between me and the Slade I'm familiar with," Ollie said. "Based on what you're telling me about your Slade, it sounds to me like he's your Vordigan, the name of the archer who helped me hone my fighting and archery skills. He was somewhat like a father to me at first, but then he started going after people I love in an attempt to get me to kill him to obey a twisted code and so he could prove that my heart is just as dark as his."
Suddenly, a loud rumbling sounded from outside as the building shook for a moment, and Cisco's panic-filled voice came over the intercom.
"Hey, guys, wherever you are right now, we need you."
Barry pressed his hand on the console again, replacing the holographic 2024 newspaper with security footage of what was going on outside of S.T.A.R. Labs. The footage showed all the heroes who had gone off to try and rescue the President running (or flying) around, using their powers and weapons to cause damage to public property. Needless to say, none of them were in their right minds.
"Things just got so much worse," Barry groaned, as he and the other three occupants of the time vault were watching the chaotic footage.
"You can say that again," Ollie added, as he, Oliver, Barry, and Conner exchanged stunned looks.
As much as I like Oliver from Smallville, I think it's pretty obvious that Oliver from Arrow (especially after his Ra's al Ghul training in Season 3) has the edge at least in terms of fighting skills. They're also going to compete in an arrow shootout in here, but that's not going to happen until near the end.
Chapter Text
Chapter 9
(Outside S.T.A.R. Labs)
The Flash, Superboy, and the Green Arrows rushed outside. They stopped in their tracks as Superman, Supergirl, The Atom, Firestorm, White Canary, Spartan, Speedy, and Mick all appeared a few meters before them with cold, emotionless expressions on their faces.
"Guys," Barry called out, not wanting to have to fight his own teammates. "Can we talk about this?"
As if in response, Speedy fired an arrow at Barry, who effortlessly caught it inches from his chest.
"Guess not," Oliver and Ollie both said.
White Canary flung several shurikens at the four heroes, Mick fired his heat gun, and Spartan fired his gun.
Conner leapt in front of Barry and the Olivers, allowing the shurikens and bullets to bounce off his chest and fall to the ground.
"I got Clark, guys!" Conner announced, clenching his fists as he levitated into the air.
Barry grabbed the two Olivers and sped them over to the nearby damaged S.T.A.R. Labs van, which the three hid on the side of.
"What's wrong with them?!" Barry exclaimed.
"I don't know, but we need to find out," Oliver answered.
"And make sure they don't kill us," Ollie added.
Conner flew over to Superman, who was staring the younger Kryptonian down with a look that utterly contrasted Clark's usual demeanor.
"Listen to me, Clark!" Conner pleaded, as they hovered face-to-face with each other. "If you're in there somewhere, then you know that I really don't want to..."
Without warning, Superman rammed into Conner in a blur, sending him flying back and crashing on the ground, which was damaged from the impact. Getting back to his feet, Conner wiped blood away from his bleeding nose, flew back up, and smashed three punches into Superman's face, wincing a bit from the pain he felt in his knuckles due to the Man of Steel being a lot more durable than him.
"Sorry, Clark, but you're leaving me no other choice right now," Conner said.
He tried to punch Superman again, but Superman caught Conner's fist and clenched it, causing the younger man to let out a cry of pain. Superman grabbed Conner by the neck with one hand and threw him down.
Conner crashed into the S.T.A.R. Labs van, destroying it.
"Superboy, are you okay?" Barry asked with concern, as he and the Olivers were standing nearby.
"I'm fine," Conner replied, immediately flying back up to resume taking on Superman.
Clark unleashed his heat vision at Conner, who, in turn, did the same, only for their beams to clash halfway, briefly struggling to overpower the other before Clark's beam pushed back Conner's beam as the latter was thrown back.
Down below, Barry and the Olivers were violently thrown backwards as Supergirl's heat vision struck the ground a few feet in front of them.
Barry raced himself and the Olivers against a wall, hiding from their brainwashed pursuers.
"Okay," Oliver groaned. "You really did it this time, Barry!"
"Seriously?" Barry asked.
"Yeah, seriously," Oliver said.
"And how is any of this Barry's fault exactly?" Ollie asked.
"Well, he comes to Star City, he asks for my help, and then, inevitably, immediately, we end up, up the creek!" Oliver pointed out.
"Yeah, okay, that's fair," Barry said.
"Listen, Grumpy Pants, don't you think, instead of pointing fingers over something none of us had any control over, that we should actually be discussing how to defuse whatever the hell got our friends brainwashed and crazy out here?" Ollie said to Oliver.
Suddenly, a beam of Supergirl's heat vision shot down and struck the wall between Ollie and Oliver, creating a hole in the wall.
"What's that?" Oliver wondered.
"That would be heat vision," Ollie answered. "If I'd known something like this would happen, I would've packed some kryptonite arrows to bring along for the ride."
Barry and the Olivers emerged from the wall they were hiding against, only to stop dead in their tracks at the sight of their pursuers standing or hovering a few meters away from them.
Barry sped forward, knocking out Mick, and ran to the top of the S.T.A.R. Labs building. He looked up to where Superman and Superboy were trading blows, the former getting in many more hits than the latter. While Superman was unharmed and easily shrugged off the punches inflicted on him, Conner had a busted lip, bloody nose, and some cuts and bruises on his face from the former's brutal and powerful blows. Also, Conner was exhibiting some signs of fatigue, while Superman remained relatively at full stamina.
"Come on, Clark, you can fight this!" Barry heard the begging voice of Superboy. "You're literally the strongest person I know! Please, Clark, fight it!"
Barry would give Conner a hand against the brainwashed, twice-as-powerful Superman, but unfortunately, the Scarlet Speedster was tied up in his own battle as The Atom, Firestorm, and Supergirl had followed him up to the roof of S.T.A.R. Labs.
Hovering in the air, The Atom, Firestorm, and Supergirl stared down at Barry, preparing to attack him.
Barry sped around in circles to build up electricity and let out a loud yell as he hurled one lightning bolt at The Atom, one at Firestorm, and another at Supergirl, easily taking the former two heroes out of the equation while Supergirl easily shrugged off the electrical attack.
Supergirl fired her heat vision and the blast missed Barry's feet by less than a foot, though the force of the blast sent Barry flying off the roof, causing him to painfully land on the grass below, mostly unharmed.
Barry then heard a loud thud as Conner landed on the ground a few meters away. The two heroes got back up and turned to each other.
"How are we gonna get Clark and the others back to their normal selves?" Conner wondered.
"Our friends inside are working on it," Barry stated.
Just then, Superman and Supergirl appeared side by side hovering above Barry and Conner. Letting out a sigh, Conner levitated towards Superman and blasted him square in the chest with heat vision, but Superman was unaffected. Barry spun his arms up at Supergirl, who then unleashed her heat vision at him, forcing Barry to speed out of the way.
At the same time The Flash and Superboy were dealing with Supergirl and Superman respectively, the Green Arrows were holding off Speedy, Spartan, and White Canary. Ollie was doing his best to dodge and block Sara's strikes as she fiercely swung her batons at him, while Oliver was engaging Diggle and Speedy.
(S.T.A.R. Labs)
"What is going on?" Joe asked, as he, Wally, and H.R. entered the cortex.
"Barry, Superboy, and both Olivers stayed behind while everyone else went to go save the President, but now everyone else is crazy and going all Kill Bill on the four of them," Cisco explained.
"The Dominators have them under some sort of mind control," Caitlin added.
"They can't hold them off forever," Joe said, concerned.
"I gotta get out there," Wally said, figuring the current moment was as good a time as any to put his newfound Speed Force abilities to use.
"The hell you do," Iris said firmly, disapproving of her brother volunteering his help. It wasn't that she was against his desire to help out. She simply felt he wasn't ready yet, given his inexperience and the fact that it had only been a few days since he gained his speed, and didn't want him to risk getting himself killed. She wanted... no, she needed Wally to understand that fighting the likes of Dr. Alchemy, Savitar, or aliens wasn't something that people could just show up and try without proper training.
"I know they got Superboy on their side, but right now they could use all the help they could get," Wally pointed out. "Especially with Superman and Supergirl against them."
He sped out of the cortex in a flash of yellow lightning.
(Outside)
Barry was constantly speeding from one spot to another as he avoided the heat vision beams that Supergirl shot down at him, while Conner was up in the air still fighting Superman. As Barry heard a whoosh and felt a brief gust of wind behind him, he turned to the side and saw Wally standing next to him.
"Wally!" Barry called out, concerned for the younger man's safety.
"Kid Flash," Wally corrected with a chuckle.
Suddenly, Supergirl swooped down in a blur and punched Wally, sending him flying about thirty feet in the air. Wally was knocked unconscious upon landing head-first against a concrete wall.
"Wally!" Barry cried out, wasting no time speeding to the younger man's side. "Talk to me, Wally." He spoke into his comms. "Guys, Wally's hurt bad, but he's alive."
"Let's get an ETA on overriding the mind control!" Oliver insisted, as he and Ollie were nearby still engaging Speedy, Spartan, and White Canary.
"There's a weird signal coming from the salt mines," Barry heard Cisco's voice announce over the comms.
"Can you jam it?" Barry asked.
"Um, no," Felicity's voice answered.
Barry looked up at the ongoing battle between Conner and Superman as the former was struggling quite a bit against the Man of Steel. Suddenly coming up with an idea, Barry scooped Wally into his arms, raced inside S.T.A.R. Labs, and came back outside alone all within a second. Hearing a whoosh behind him, Barry turned around and saw Supergirl hovering in the air.
"Hey, Supergirl!" Barry called out.
The Girl of Steel turned to him.
"Let's finally see who's faster!" Barry taunted.
Wasting no time, the Scarlet Speedster raced off as the Girl of Steel pursued him immediately. He only hoped that his plan wouldn't backfire somehow. Taking into account most of his past missions, that was always a valid possibility.
After about a minute of Supergirl chasing The Flash throughout Central City, the two arrived at the salt mine warehouse and the chase continued inside. It hadn't been easy for Barry to get Supergirl there, especially since there had been a few instances where he had to evade her heat vision being shot at him. Once he discovered the oval-shaped alien device he figured was responsible for the mind-control of the assembled heroes, Barry stood in front of it as Supergirl appeared thirty feet before him.
As Supergirl headed straight for him at full speed, Barry vibrated his body, causing Supergirl to literally fly through him and obliterate the mind-control device, which exploded in a ball of red energy. The force of the explosion threw Supergirl to the ground.
The Girl of Steel groaned as she stumbled back to his feet. The reddish-white glow vanished from her forehead as her mind returned to normal. Bewildered for a few moments, Supergirl noticed The Flash standing in front of her.
"Barry?" she said with a confused look.
This wasn't the first time Clark and Conner fought each other under circumstances where the mind of one of them had been altered somehow. The last time it happened, Conner had been under the influence of red kryptonite, which stripped away the inhibitions of any Kryptonian who came in contact with it, causing him or her to become highly unpredictable and dangerous to those around them. He remembered Clark confronting him that night when he had been moments away from killing Lois, something that Conner had never really forgiven himself for since he most likely would've succeeded had Clark not shown up in time. Clark had easily overpowered the red kryptonite-infected Conner in battle, which ended with Clark destroying the red K ring, reverting Conner's mind to normal. Since then, Conner had always known he'd never be a match for Clark in a fight. How could he ever be anyway, since Clark was a full Kryptonian, while Conner was a Kryptonian-human hybrid?
That was why the outcome of his fight against the mind-controlled Clark hadn't surprised him. At that very moment, his skinny little neck was at the mercy of a large hand. A hand that belonged to the person he thought would be the last to ever want to hurt (let alone murder) him. It hurt like hell. And Conner wasn't referring to his life being slowly and painfully choked out of him. What hurt was the person behind what was happening to him – Clark Kent, also known as Kal-El, Superman and the big blue Boy Scout, of all people. Granted, Clark's mind had been altered by some rogue alien species known as the Dominators, but that didn't make what Conner was feeling any less painful. Because, either way, if he died tonight, it was going to be by Clark's hands, mind-control or not. Conner was going to get killed by the very guy he'd come to think of as a brother and a father at the same time, not to mention what the tremendous guilt would undoubtedly do to Clark the moment he realized what he had done. Such a thought was worse than the pain of getting stabbed in the gut with a green kryptonite sword.
"Clark, please, snap out of it," Conner begged with the remaining breath he had left. With all his might, he desperately struggled to free his neck from Clark's grip. But no matter how hard he fought, no matter how much strength he exerted, no matter what he did, it was no use.
Hopeless, Conner stared directly into Clark's blue eyes, which stared back at him in a very cold, very emotionless, very un-Clark-like manner. "Come on, Clark… you don't wanna kill me," Conner continued, pleadingly. "Clark, it's me… it's Conner… Conner Kent… your bro... ther… I'm your brother, Clark... Clark..."
Clark paused for a moment, that emotionless look on his face not going anywhere and his grip around Conner's neck remaining strong as ever. Just as it appeared that Clark was about to snap Conner's neck, the former's grip around the latter's neck loosened all of a sudden. Conner watched as the glow on Clark's forehead vanished and, judging by the confused look that appeared on the Man of Steel's face, Conner could tell that Clark was himself again.
"Conner?" Clark said.
Conner sighed in relief. "Clark." Grinning happily, he threw his arms around the bigger Kryptonian. Although confused, Clark didn't hesitate to return the hug. "Thank God, you're back to normal," Conner gushed.
(On the ground)
Ollie was still holding off Sara before she kicked him to the ground, while Oliver was still dealing with Diggle and Thea. Suddenly, the three mind-controlled heroes stopped attacking the emerald archers and stumbled backwards, groaning as the glow on their foreheads disappeared. As their minds were back to normal, Sara, Thea, and Diggle looked around in confusion for a few moments before noticing Oliver and Ollie standing in front of them.
"Looks like the mind control nightmare is finally over," Ollie noted.
"Guys, they're back," Oliver said to Sara, Diggle, and Thea.
(Warehouse)
"What happened?" Kara asked, with a puzzled expression.
"You didn't kill me, so my day's looking up," Barry chuckled, as he walked towards Kara.
"I'm so sorry," Kara said, remorsefully. "I..."
"Hey, you're not the first superhero to be mind-controlled," Barry said, trying to ease her guilt.
After the two descended back to the ground, Clark took a look at the cuts, bruises, and blood on Conner's face and tremendous guilt instantly ruled his brain. "Conner, I'm so sorry. I didn't..."
"Don't worry about it, Clark, you weren't yourself," Conner assured him. "We both know how much of that goes around in these situations. I'll be good as new in no time. Although for a moment, I was worried you were gonna..."
"It's no surprise these Dominators had something up their sleeves," Clark said. "We should've been more careful in that warehouse."
"You know, it turned out to be a good thing Barry, the Olivers, and I didn't come along. Otherwise, we all would've been under that mind-control thing and there probably would've been no one to stop us."
"I'm gonna check the entire city to make sure there aren't any more of those orbs that took over our minds," Clark said, before taking off into the sky.
(Ten minutes later)
Oliver, Ollie, Conner, Diggle, Thea, Sara, Ray, Firestorm, Mick, and Felicity were gathered outside the entrance of S.T.A.R. Labs as Barry appeared in a flash of yellow lightning.
Felicity turned to Mick. "So what was it like being all mind-controlled and stuff?"
"I didn't realize he had a mind to be controlled," Jax remarked, causing several people in the group to grin in amusement.
"Barry, about before," Ray said. "Message or no message, we're with you."
"Thank you," Barry said, appreciatively.
"Where are Superman and Supergirl?" Thea asked.
"Clark is scanning the city to make sure there aren't any more of those devices that mind-controlled you guys," Conner explained.
"Kara's doing the same," Barry added.
"Okay, so now what?" Diggle asked.
"We call Lyla," Oliver instructed. "Tell her these Dominators aren't here peacefully."
"As if that wasn't already obvious," Ollie remarked.
As everyone started heading inside, Sara was suddenly engulfed in a beam of yellow light. The next thing everyone else knew, the white-clad former assassin vanished along with the light.
"Sara!" Oliver shouted in horror, looking up.
Then, the same thing happened to Diggle and Thea.
"Everybody inside! Go!" Barry urged.
Conner, Ollie, Felicity, Mick, and Jax rushed into the S.T.A.R. Labs building. Ray was about to do the same, but unfortunately, he vanished in a beam of yellow light as well.
Lastly, a beam engulfed Oliver. In a great surge of panic, Barry raced towards Oliver at full speed, but by the time Barry reached him, it was already too late. Oliver Jonas Queen, also known as the Green Arrow, the Earth-1 version of the emerald archer, was gone before the horrified eyes of one Bartholomew Henry Allen, also known as The Flash, the fastest man alive.
Chapter Text
Just like in the actual crossover, Oliver, Diggle, Thea, Sara, and Ray have been abducted by the Dominators and are experiencing a shared hallucination of a life where Oliver and Sara never got on the Queen's Gambit. However, the "dream world" scenes will not be included in this story since nothing changes from what we saw in Arrow 5x08.
Chapter 10
Barry was standing in front of the entrance of S.T.A.R. Labs when two red and blue blurs stopped in front of him.
"The entire city as well as the surrounding areas are clear," Clark announced, as he and Kara descended to the ground. "We didn't see any more of those mind-control devices."
"Good," Barry said. "But we have another problem."
"What happened?" Kara asked.
"The Dominators took some of our friends," Barry explained.
"Who?" Clark asked.
"Oliver, Dig, Thea, Sara, and Ray," Barry answered. "Your Oliver is inside with everyone else, while Conner just left to do an aerial search throughout the world for our missing friends."
"I'm gonna help him," Kara said.
"You fly over this half of the world and I'll scour the Eastern Hemisphere," Clark instructed.
"Sounds like a plan," Kara agreed.
"Stay on comms and let us know as soon as you guys find anything," Barry said.
"Of course," Clark nodded, before he and Kara took off in the sky while Barry headed inside.
Barry entered the cortex and approached Cisco and Felicity, who were sitting in front of one of the computer screens, while Caitlin, Stein, Jax, and Ollie were standing near them and Mick was sitting in a corner dozing off.
"Any luck finding our friends?" Barry asked.
"Nothing on the satellites so far," Cisco answered, not making the slightest eye contact with Barry.
"I just texted Curtis a few minutes ago," Felicity informed. "He has every traffic cam from here to Star City looking for them."
"And I just updated Clark and Kara on what happened," Barry said. "They're helping Conner search the rest of the world."
"Why don't you vibe their location?" Caitlin suggested to Cisco.
"I'm gonna need something to vibe off of," Cisco said. He looked at Felicity. "Something personal."
"Sorry, I don't have anything on me that belongs to Oliver or any of our other friends," Felicity said, apologetically.
"I have something," Barry said, before disappearing out of the cortex and returning a half second later with a dented shuriken in his hand. "Maybe this'll help?"
Jax looked at the shuriken. "Wait, is that one of Sara's..."
"Yeah," Barry nodded. "It's better than nothing, right?"
"What are you gonna do with the throwing star?" Ollie wondered.
"Cisco is gonna vibe our missing friends' location," Barry explained.
"Vibe?" Ollie asked, confused.
"What does that even mean?" Jax asked.
"Oh, vibing is this thing I do where I touch something, I can not only see the past, I can see the future, but most importantly, I can see where people are," Cisco explained.
"So you're a meta-human too," Jax realized.
"Yep," Cisco nodded.
"Here you go," Barry said, holding out the shuriken to Cisco.
While a part of Cisco didn't feel like accepting anything from Barry, he realized he couldn't let their differences get in the way of finding Oliver and the others. As Cisco took the shuriken from Barry's hand...
He found himself in what appeared to be the interior of a spaceship with technology far more advanced than anything on Earth. There were bright green lights everywhere. Cisco noticed Oliver, Diggle, Sara, Thea, and Ray, who all had been placed in individual pods. The five abductees were unconscious...
Cisco suddenly came out of his vibe and found himself back in the cortex.
"What did you see?" Caitlin asked.
Cisco put the damaged shuriken down on the desk. "They were in some kind of stasis. Like a ship. It's, uh, a little Alien, a little Star Trek, J.J. Abrams style, and a whole lot of tech."
Felicity suddenly got excited. "You said tech!"
"Yes, I said tech," Cisco said. "It's an alien spaceship, Felicity. These guys aren't amateurs."
Felicity was about to say something else, but Stein beat her to it.
"What Ms. Smoak is suggesting is, if we somehow obtain a piece of the Dominators' technology, perhaps we could download some intel from it, including the location of our friends."
"Yes!" Felicity confirmed.
"Hold on," Barry said, before racing off again and returning a quick moment later with a metallic object that somewhat resembled a thick, foot-long knife blade that had been broken off its handle.
"Try this," Barry said, handing the object to Felicity. "It's a piece of alien tech I pulled off the Dominator ship that crashed here last night."
"What?!" Felicity gasped in both excitement and disbelief as she examined the piece of Dominator tech.
"You think maybe you could hack it?" Barry asked.
"Not that I've ever hacked alien technology before, but if anyone could pull it off, it's me, the greatest hacker alive," Felicity boasted, as she and Cisco got up from their seats. "Oh, my God, I'm really gonna hack alien tech. This is seriously the best day of my life!"
Ollie laughed. "My wife Chloe would love to meet you."
Felicity turned to Ollie in disbelief. "Your wife? Wait, you're married?"
"Chloe and I have been married for over five years now," Ollie said.
"Is she a genius hacker too?" Felicity said.
"She's the best one we've had, believe it or not," Ollie said, proudly.
"Really?" Felicity asked, with a grin. "Well, in that case, I wouldn't mind meeting this Chloe someday and possibly comparing our skills."
(Twenty minutes later, Cisco's workshop)
"What is that?" Caitlin asked Barry, who entered with a small chip in his hand.
"Curtis calls it his '3PO Processor'," Barry explained with some amusement. "I made a brief trip to Star City to get it from him."
"According to Curtis, it is fluent in over six million forms of communication," Felicity said with a grin.
"And it speaks Dominator?" Cisco asked, to be sure.
"Well, he didn't specifically program it for that, but in his defense, none of us knew the Dominators even existed," Felicity explained.
"Let's see if it works," Barry said as he handed the chip to Cisco, who inserted it into the piece of Dominator tech on the table in front of everyone.
The alien tech started pulsing and making electronic sounds as a look of excitement appeared on Felicity's face. After a few seconds, the Dominator tech suddenly grew unstable, beeping and shaking violently.
"No, no, no, no, no!" Felicity, Cisco, and Caitlin exclaimed in horror.
They, along with Barry, Stein, and Jax, recoiled just as the tech exploded. Once the smoke cleared, everyone stood up straight again and stared at the table in disbelief.
"Is everyone all right?" Jax asked.
"What happened?" Clark asked with concern, as he, Ollie, Conner, and Kara entered the workshop. Clark, Conner, and Kara had returned to S.T.A.R. Labs a few minutes ago after having searched the entire Earth thoroughly only to find no sign of those who were missing.
"We made an idiot move, that's what happened," Cisco answered. He tried to grab a small fragment of the exploded tech from the table, but retracted his hand with a yelp due to it being burning hot.
"I believe plugging human technology into an extraterrestrial power source wasn't the brightest idea," Stein added.
"We just need a regulator," Caitlin suggested. "Something that can handle the Dominator tech without overloading."
"Van Horn Industries was working on a prototype for NASA over a year ago," Felicity explained, as she jumped on her laptop and started typing away, reminding Clark and Ollie of Chloe. "There's a chance they perfected it by now." After a moment of looking at the information on the screen, she said, "Oh yeah, they perfected it all right. So much so, somebody's already stolen it. According to SCPD reports, it was a doctor named Laura Washington?"
Jax frowned. "A doctor? That doesn't make any sense."
"It does if she's been artificially augmenting herself with stolen technology, because why would the universe make anything easy?" Felicity pointed out in frustration.
Caitlin looked at the laptop screen. "It says here that the implants give her enhanced strength, stamina, and electricity-based powers."
"Well, that's nothing we can't handle," Barry said, confidently. "Getting our hands on this regulator might be our only opportunity to find Oliver and everyone else."
Suddenly, a beeping noise sounded from Felicity's laptop. "Washington was just spotted five minutes ago outside a warehouse five blocks from Van Horn Industries," she announced. Looking up at Barry, she added, "Which is all the way in Star City."
"I just came from there, but I can get back in no time," Barry pointed out.
"I'll accompany you," Clark offered.
"Sure," Barry nodded in agreement.
"I can come too," Kara offered.
"Sorry, Kara, but Clark and I got this one," Barry said. "The two of us will deal with this Washington lady and get the regulator from her. The rest of you stay here for now."
"Okay," Kara nodded, a little disappointed.
"After you, Barry," Clark said, as the two heroes exchanged glances. "This is your Earth after all."
Putting his cowl on, Barry raced out of S.T.A.R. Labs in a streak of lightning. A moment later, Clark flew after him in a red and blue blur.
(Star City)
The Flash and Superman arrived at the warehouse in just a few seconds. Barry slid to a halt in front of a roll-up door, while Clark descended to the ground next to him. Clark placed one hand underneath the roll-up door and lifted it open. He and Barry entered the facility and walked through it as they started looking around.
"Just out of curiosity – that is, unless you don't feel up to talking about it, which I'll understand – what exactly did you do when you said you changed the timeline?" Clark asked.
Barry took a deep breath, deciding there was no harm in sharing his story with Clark. "Last year, my team and I were dealing with this evil speedster named Zoom."
"Zoom," Clark repeated in recognition. "You mentioned that name to us when you were on our Earth the first time around."
"Yeah," Barry nodded. "Well, uh, Zoom killed my dad right in front of me." He choked up as he said that sentence.
"I'm sorry about your father," Clark apologized, feeling great sympathy for Barry as he thought about the loss of his own father. "The loss of a parent is one of the worst things a person can go through."
Barry nodded in agreement but didn't say anything in response to that, since no amount of words could bring his parents back. Instead, he went on with his story. "Even after we defeated Zoom, I was so broken over what happened to my dad. I wasn't in a great space at all. So I ran back in time to when I was kid and stopped another one of my enemies, the Reverse-Flash, from killing my mom." Barry took another deep breath. "In doing so, I created an alternate timeline where my parents were still alive and I wasn't The Flash. I lived there for a few months until terrible things started happening and I realized that I made a big mistake. I tried to put things back to the way they were before, but while the majority of events from the original timeline were restored, there were still things that were different."
Clark stared at Barry sympathetically for a few moments. The remorseful and self-loathing expression he was seeing on the speedster's face was the same one he had seen on his own in the mirror many times. After letting on a sigh, Clark admitted, "I did the same thing as you once. I changed the timeline by saving the life of someone I loved."
"Really?" Barry asked incredulously, as he and Clark stopped walking and faced each other. "So that's what you meant earlier when you told me you knew what it was like to make a mistake similar to mine."
"Yes," Clark nodded. "A year after I graduated from high school, my girlfriend at the time, Lana Lang, was killed in an automobile accident." He let out a sigh. "I was offered the opportunity to relive the day so that I could save her life. Due to my grief-stricken state, I accepted the opportunity without a moment's hesitation and got the do-over I was promised. I used my knowledge of the previous version of that day's events to make sure I was at the right place at the right time to save Lana, which I did. Unfortunately, my adoptive father died of a heart attack that night instead."
"I'm sorry," Barry apologized, sympathetically.
"Don't be," Clark said. "It was no one else's fault but mine that he died. I learned my lesson from the consequences of altering the timeline for my personal benefit a long time ago, and I have no doubt that you will as well if you haven't already."
"Someone recently told me that making changes to the timeline, even if they're small, is just like breaking a coffee cup," Barry said, recalling the lecture that Jay Garrick had given him a couple of months ago. "No matter how hard you try to fix it, it will never be exactly the same again. You can only live with those changes and move forward."
"Whoever told you that is not wrong," Clark agreed. "Even with the best of intentions, time travel can be highly dangerous. As extraordinary as our abilities may seem to a lot of people, we're anything but Gods."
"I know," Barry nodded, glad that Clark seemed to be as understanding of his mistake of creating Flashpoint as Oliver was. It was unfortunate that Cisco didn't feel the same way. It wasn't that Cisco didn't have one of the most valid reasons to hate him, but that didn't change the fact that losing who was unarguably his closest friend was painful as hell, especially since it seemed unlikely that Cisco would eventually forgive him. Smiling faintly, Barry said, "I'm glad you understand my mistake and why I made it. Of course it helps that you went through the same ordeal."
"The truth is, anyone would've done the same thing in your situation or the situation I was in when I lost Lana," Clark said.
"That's the same thing Oliver told me earlier," Barry said. "The Oliver I know may be rough around the edges, but he's one of the best guys I know that I'm glad to have as a friend."
"If he's anything like my Oliver despite lacking the less serious traits, I have no doubt of that," Clark said. "Anyway, Barry, no one is perfect. Making a mistake once and learning your lesson from it is one thing, but carelessly repeating the mistake over and over despite knowing the consequences would be another."
The two heroes continued walking through the warehouse. Clark activated his super-hearing for a moment and heard the sound of high heels clicking against the pavement. He turned his head in the direction which the sound was coming from and used his x-ray vision to look through the wall. He saw on the other side of the wall a brown-skinned woman with curly hair wearing a metal gauntlet on her left arm and a cybernetic patch over her left eye.
"There," Clark said to Barry, pointing to the wall. "That must be the woman we're looking for in the room behind that wall."
Barry frowned. "How did you... oh, right, x-ray vision."
"Combined with super-hearing," Clark said, with a smirk.
He and Barry both sped over to a door. Clark turned the locked door handle as if it was nothing and opened it. The two of them entered and stopped at the sight of Laura Washington standing across from them.
Laura raised her arm with the gauntlet, aimed it, and fired an electrical blast at Barry and Clark. Clark jumped in front of Barry, allowing the blast to strike the center of his chest as it had no effect on him.
"What do you want?" Laura demanded, keeping her gauntlet aimed at the two heroes.
"You stole something from Van Horn Industries," Barry said, stepping forward to stand right next to Clark.
"You mean this?" Laura asked, showing Barry and Clark a small device that was implanted in her right forearm.
"Yeah, give it to us," Barry demanded.
"Or what?" Laura taunted.
"We're gonna take it from you either way," Barry answered.
"Do what he says and this won't have to escalate into a fight," Clark said to the woman.
"Then there will be a fight," Laura said confidently, as she fired another blast.
Barry sped towards Laura and delivered multiple speed-punches to her torso, dazing the cybernetic woman. Clark then lunged forward and punched Laura in the chest with merely enough force to send her flying into a wall, rendering her unconscious as she fell to the floor.
"Nice job," Barry said.
"Right back at you," Clark said.
The two walked over to Laura's unconscious form. Barry bent down and started working to remove the regulator device from Laura's arm.
(Dominator ship)
Oliver, Diggle, Thea, Sara, and Ray woke up from their shared hallucination world, each letting out a groan as they stepped out of the pods. The five of them were dressed in what resembled gray prison uniforms.
"Where are we?" Sara wondered.
"You all right?" Oliver asked Diggle, who was clutching his side in pain.
"It may not be real, but it still hurts like a son of a bitch," Diggle answered.
"Uh, guys," Ray called out, staring out the window of the ship they were in. "There's something you really need to see."
Oliver, Diggle, Thea, Sara, and Ray stepped forward to see what Ray was looking at. Much to their shock, outside the window was the cold vacuum of outer space.
(S.T.A.R. Labs)
"Any luck with the regulator I took off Cyberwoman?" Barry asked. He and Clark were back in the cortex with Cisco, Felicity, Caitlin, Stein, Jax, Ollie, Conner, Kara, and Mick.
"Cyberwoman? That's a cool name," Kara said.
"I agree, no thanks to Barry," Cisco said, causing Barry to let out a sigh. "The regulator worked, but the translator did not. The only thing we got back from the Dominator tech was soup." He held up Felicity's tablet, showing everyone what was on the screen.
"What?" Felicity asked, taking the tablet from Cisco. "What, no, no, no, no, this..." She paused as she took a look at the tablet. "No, this just looks random."
"It's not," Stein noted. "It's Gematria."
"Huh?" Cisco asked, confused.
"What's Gematria?" Barry added, also confused.
"Gematria is the numerology of…" Stein began.
"…of the Torah," Stein and Felicity finished at the same time, before Felicity asked, "How did I not see that?"
"For those of us who actually had social lives in high school, what the hell are you guys talking about?" Jax asked, confused.
"In Hebrew, each letter possesses a numerical value," Stein explained. "Gematria is the calculation of the numerical equivalence of letters, words, or phrases."
"You mean the Dominators' language is based off the Old Testament?" Caitlin asked.
"Or shares commonalities at least," Stein said.
Just then, the tablet started beeping. "Guys, I'm getting references to five Terran captives here," Felicity announced. "Okay, the signal is coming from…" She suddenly frowned. "That's not possible. Negative 3.127 latitude, negative 23.7987 longitude…"
"That doesn't make any sense," Cisco said.
"Last I checked, geographical coordinates didn't have any negative numbers," Barry added.
"I mean, they do, only when…" Felicity began, but paused as a terrifying realization came to her brain. "Oh, my God, I think I know where they are."
"They're in outer space," Clark said grimly, as everyone else turned to him with horrified expressions.
(Dominator ship, outer space)
After taking cover around a corner as two Dominators walked past, one of them speaking in a foreign language, Oliver, Diggle, Thea, Sara, and Ray continued along a corridor.
"Okay, so how do we find our way out of an alien spacecraft?" Thea asked.
"This way," Ray answered, pointing forward. "Even though it's an alien technology, certain principles of design are universal." He and the others turned down another corridor, only to run right into a horde of Dominators, who noticed them almost immediately. "Or not."
Noticing what appeared to be a large gun sitting on the wall, Oliver grabbed it. Aiming the weapon at the Dominators, he pulled what he assumed was the trigger and a yellowish-orange beam shot out of the gun, knocking several Dominators down. "Ray was right," Oliver announced, firing a few more beams at the aliens, knocking nearly all of them down. "Certain principles of design are universal."
He, Diggle, Thea, Sara, and Ray rushed off in the opposite direction and made their way through the ship until they came across a room where much smaller ships were stored.
"You think you can fly one of these things?" Diggle asked, still clutching his torso.
"I'm hoping that between you, me, Ray, and Sara, someone can fly one of these things," Oliver answered.
The five heroes entered the room and climbed into the nearest ship.
"Okay, now what?" Sara wondered, as she and the others had taken their seats.
"Ray?" Oliver called out, since the man in question was the smartest of them.
"Um, now might be a good time to find the owner's manual," Ray quipped.
After looking around for a few moments, Thea noticed a pad of some sort in front of her and placed her hand on top of it, causing the interior of the ship to light up as it came to life. "And Mom said I wouldn't amount to anything if I didn't go to college," she remarked.
The ship flew out of the mothership and took off through space. However, they were soon pursued by a horde of other ships, who then started shooting laser beams at the ship the heroes were inside of.
"We need to find a way to steer this thing or we're not gonna last very long!" Oliver exclaimed, as several beams hit the ship, causing it to rock around uncontrollably.
Outside, three of the enemy ships positioned themselves as if forming a triangle and a triangle of red energy formed between them.
Suddenly, three blurs appeared out of nowhere as Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl flew towards the three triangular-arranged ships. The three Kryptonians each punched a ship, knocking them out of formation as the three ships were sent flipping and flying through the void of space before exploding.
Across the way, the Waverider appeared above the ship Oliver, Diggle, Thea, Sara, and Ray were in and captured it with a tractor beam. The ship was then taken safely into the Waverider before the time-ship vanished in a flash of light.
Seeing that Oliver and the others were now safe, Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl flew off at high speed as they made their way back to Earth.
(Waverider)
"Oliver, nice clothes, shop at an alien Gap?" Nate quipped, as he started leading Oliver, Diggle, Thea, Sara, and Ray through the time-ship.
"Not funny," Oliver replied, sternly.
"Well, lucky for you guys, the Waverider has a machine that replicates old clothes and weapons," Nate explained. He turned to Thea and shook her hand. "Hi, I'm Nate Heywood."
"Hi, I'm Thea, and this exactly twice as many spaceships as I ever thought I'd be on," Thea replied.
"Well, actually, it's a time-ship," Sara corrected.
"How did you find us?" Oliver asked Nate.
"I didn't," Nate answered. "Your nerd army back on Earth did."
"I'm gonna take Dig to the med-bay, have Gideon fix him up," Sara said to Nate.
"Whoever Gideon is," Diggle said, as Sara led him to the med-bay.
"Get out!" Thea commented, staring in amazement at the Waverider's interior as she, Oliver, Nate, and Ray entered the bridge.
"Thanks for the save," Oliver said to Nate.
"No problem," Nate replied.
"Except for all of our other problems," Ray reminded them.
"Like what, Ray?" Oliver asked.
"After we woke up, I got a look at the tech the Dominators were using to keep us under," Ray explained. "They're using a neuromorphic interface similar to how I manipulate the Atom suit."
"And, wait, what does that mean?" Thea asked.
"I... I think the shared hallucination was to keep our minds occupied while the Dominators..."
"While the Dominators what?" Oliver asked.
"Well, while they probed our subconscious," Ray answered. "I'm guessing looking for intel." As something else occurred to him, he added, "Wait, maybe they didn't choose us at random. Maybe they chose us because we couldn't fight back."
"Because none of you are meta-humans," Nate said in realization, and Ray nodded.
"Bigger question, what intel were they after?" Oliver wondered. "What is their plan?"
"Klic-clac-to-nick-lava-shack-too," Ray said, and the others looked at him in confusion. "It's what one of the Dominators said to another, which sounds like the beginning of a not-so-funny joke, but... Gideon?"
"Translating," the voice of the A.I. replied as her holographic head appeared in the center of the bridge.
"Our lives just keeps getting weirder and weirder," Thea said to her brother.
"The phrase loosely translates to 'We are nearing completion of the weapon'," Gideon explained.
"What weapon?" Nate asked.
"I'm afraid I have no idea, but I'm tracking the Dominator mothership you escaped from. And it appears to be on a direct course for Earth."
Oliver, Thea, Ray, and Nate exchanged uneasy glances. "We need to get back to Central City and put an end to all of this," Oliver said, before turning to Nate. "But first, I need a favor from you."
The reason Cisco and Felicity didn't go to Star City in this version is because, when you think about it, there was nothing there they couldn't do at S.T.A.R. Labs. Obviously, the out-of-universe reason for them going to Star City was to give all the Arrow cast members some screen time since it was the Arrow episode of the crossover.
Also, I know it's been stated a few times on Supergirl that Arrowverse Kryptonians cannot survive in space, but that's not the case in this story. Here, Earth-38 Kryptonians (though still less powerful) can survive in space just like Smallville or even DCEU Kryptonians. Most likely, the reason Kara is unable to do so in canon is due to the CW's budget restraints.
Chapter Text
Chapter 11
(Next morning, S.T.A.R. Labs hangar)
"I can't believe that you guys escaped an alien spaceship," Cisco said excitedly, as he led Oliver, Diggle, Sara, Nate, and Ray into the hangar. "Keywords, alien spaceship. I have questions."
"They can wait," Oliver insisted. He turned to Nate. "Thanks for helping me get my sister home."
"Yeah, man," Nate replied.
"What's our status?" Oliver inquired, as he and the others approached Barry, Clark, Conner, Kara, Ollie, Felicity, and Stein.
"Nothing since the Dominators paid their little visit to mess with our heads," Barry answered.
"Why would they do that?" Nate asked.
"What if they were trying to pit us against each other in order to gain intel about meta-humans?" Ray suggested.
"Man, I wish they would just send us an IM with a questionnaire," Felicity joked.
"Aside from us Kryptonians, meta-humans pose the biggest threat to their invasion," Clark pointed out. "It's no surprise they would wanna get to know their enemies."
"By kidnapping people," Stein added. He turned to those who had been kidnapped. "Perhaps they were searching your minds for potential meta-human vulnerabilities."
"I think it's time we return the favor," Oliver said.
"Wait, you wanna kidnap one of them now?" Ollie asked, knowing what his counterpart was suggesting.
"Ever since we fought off that one ship, they've kind of been in short supply," Barry said.
"Actually, I know where to find one," Nate said. He headed over to one of the computers. "I've been reviewing old army footage of their first encounters with the Dominators. And I think I've pegged the fight to Redmond, Oregon, 1951."
All the heroes in the hangar watched as the screens on the wall showed black and white footage of soldiers combatting Dominators.
"You're suggesting we travel to 1951, abduct a Dominator, and interrogate it to determine their intentions," Stein said.
"They kidnapped us, seems fair," Sara pointed out.
"Time travel," Cisco gushed. "I'm definitely in."
"Okay, hold on there," Barry said to Cisco. "Professor Stein and Caitlin have been talking about a way to take down the Dominators. They could probably use your help."
"Pass," Cisco declined, not hiding his disdain for Barry.
"Yeah, I mean, I'm with him," Felicity said, agreeing with Cisco's time travel choice. "Mostly because I just don't wanna lose my geek cred, but time travel..."
"I could take Amaya and Mick," Nate suggested.
"Do it," Oliver agreed.
"I think I'll tag me and my green leather along on this one too," Ollie said.
"I'll come with you," Conner said with a grin, not wanting to pass up the chance to travel through time, something he had only experienced once before while on a mission in the 25th century with Booster Gold and Blue Beetle.
"Why not?" Ollie nodded in agreement.
"Oliver, Conner, are you sure it's a good idea to go on a time travel mission on another Earth?" Clark asked, concerned for the two of them.
"Don't worry, Clark, we'll be fine," Conner assured him.
"It's not like we can't take care of ourselves, right?" Ollie pointed out.
"All right," Clark nodded. "But be careful."
"Will do, Boy Scout," Ollie promised, before he, Conner, Felicity, and Cisco followed Nate out of the hangar.
"And, uh, the new President called," Barry announced to the remaining heroes, "which would be cool under different circumstances, but she wants to meet with us."
"Let's bring Ray and Sara as backup," Oliver instructed.
"What about me and Clark? We can do backup," Kara offered.
"Kara, Clark, I need to talk to you two for a second," Oliver said, looking at them firmly.
Clark and Kara exchanged glances before following Oliver to the side.
"I think I know what this is about," Clark said. "You don't trust us."
"This is not personal I assure you, but I would like to minimize your involvement in this," Oliver said.
Kara grimaced. "Why? Because we're aliens? We also happen to be your biggest weapons."
"You and Clark are unknown variables in this fight and, like I said, this is not personal," Oliver said.
"Except that's exactly how this feels," Kara said, clearly offended. "Is it not enough that we helped save you and your friends in space last night?"
"As much as I appreciate what you did, that doesn't change the fact that I know next to nothing about you two," Oliver said. "The last time I gave someone I didn't know the benefit of the doubt, everyone paid a high price for it. We lost someone we cared about." At that moment, his mind flashbacked to the night Laurel died in the hospital, which could've been avoided if he and his team had seen through Andy Diggle's deceit sooner. As he then thought of Slade, Oliver added, "And years before that, a man whom I once trusted with my life and called a brother turned into one of my greatest enemies."
"Believe me, I know what that's like," Clark said in an understanding and saddened tone as he thought about Lex, who had been his best friend once upon a time before Lex's descent into darkness caused the two of them to drift apart to the point of becoming each other's worst enemy. "I also had a best friend who was once like a brother to me and later became my enemy."
"Then you understand why I am asking you to please stay here," Oliver said, before walking off.
"I have to say, I definitely prefer the blonde and witty Oliver Queen," Kara said with a sigh, drawing a chuckle from Clark. "He's a lot more fun to talk to."
"This Oliver does have a valid point," Clark said, placing a comforting hand on Kara's shoulder as he noticed the exasperated look on her face. "Given that he doesn't know very much about us or Kryptonians in general, I understand why he would be cautious with us. There were times in the past that I've acted similarly whenever a new hero showed up in either Metropolis or Smallville."
"Well, at least being stuck in here with nothing to do for the time being will allow us to keep each other company," Kara said, producing a smile. She sat down in one of the chairs, while Clark remained standing. "You and I never really had the chance to talk and, you know, compare notes about our lives. So your Krypton was destroyed too."
"It was," Clark answered with a heavy sigh. "When I was a baby, my parents sent me to Earth minutes before Krypton exploded. My ship landed in a town called Smallville, where I was found by..."
"Let me guess, Jonathan and Martha Kent," Kara interrupted, and Clark nodded. "That's exactly what happened to my Kal too. Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Martha found him in a cornfield and raised him as their son. I was sent to Earth at the same time as Kal to protect him, but things didn't go according to plan. Krypton's destruction sent a shockwave that knocked my pod off-course and into a place called the Phantom Zone."
Clark's eyes widened at the familiarity of Kara's last two words. "The Phantom Zone? If your universe's version of that place is anything like the one in mine, I can't imagine you having anything good to say about the time you spent in that hellhole."
"Well, thankfully, I was asleep for the twenty-four years I was in there," Kara said. "Eventually, I made it to Earth like I was supposed to but it turned out that my cousin had already grown up and become Superman. And since time doesn't pass in the Phantom Zone, I was still a thirteen-year-old girl when I arrived. Kal wanted me to have the same safe human-type childhood he had. So he placed me with my adoptive family, the Danvers, scientists who once helped him understand his own super-abilities. Since then, I decided the best thing I could do is fit in. And so I hid who I really was until last year when I saved a plane that my adoptive sister Alex was on, which revealed me to the world. That's when I became Supergirl."
"Interesting," Clark said, smiling faintly as this version of his cousin seemed to have led a contented life despite having lost her entire planet. "A lot of that is very different from what my Kara went through, except for the part where she was also sent to Earth to look after me. Instead of ending up in the Phantom Zone, she made it to Earth directly, but her ship crashed into a reservoir, leaving her in a state of suspended animation for almost two decades until the nearby dam got heavily damaged while I was in a battle with an alien criminal who had escaped from my world's Phantom Zone. When I met Kara, she hadn't aged a day either but she looked around nineteen instead of thirteen. She lived on Earth for a while, but eventually moved to the 31st century to forge her own destiny."
"So because your version of me was already pretty much an adult when she woke up, she was never adopted like I was," Kara said, taking in what Clark had just told her about her counterpart. "What about Superboy? How is he part-human?"
"Conner's backstory is quite complicated, but half of his DNA came from me while the other half came from the human who created him," Clark explained, deciding against revealing that the human half of Conner's DNA, in fact, belonged to Lex.
"Created him?" Kara asked, wondering what Clark meant.
"Conner is a hybrid clone of me and his creator," the male Kryptonian explained. "After a bit of a rough start, he adjusted pretty well to a normal life and, after honing his abilities, went on to become Superboy as well as a member of our team the Justice League."
"That's a catchy name for a superhero team," Kara noted. "And I guess that explains why Conner looks a lot like a teenage you."
"It's no doubt that our Kryptonian genes are much stronger than the genes of humans," Clark said and Kara nodded in agreement. To this day, Clark was grateful that Conner had inherited many more of his personality traits than Lex's villainous ones.
(Waverider)
"This ship is everything," Cisco gushed, as he, Felicity, Nate, Ollie, and Conner were walking through the Waverider.
"I doubt even you would be able to afford to get your hands on a time-traveling ship like this," Conner said to Ollie.
"Not that it would stop me from trying if I really wanted to purchase it," Ollie quipped. "If only Chloe was here to see this."
"What type of propulsion system does it use?" Felicity asked Nate, as she also eyed the Waverider's interior in amazement.
"No idea," Nate answered in a serious tone.
"Oh, my God, that construct on the bow looks like it could be some sort of Time Sphere," Cisco said, eagerly.
"Yeah, no idea," Nate repeated, not in the mood for Cisco and Felicity's geeky behavior.
"To operate a ship of this size, the deep-link nets would have to be..." Felicity started, before Cisco interrupted.
"Oh, my God, you'd have to use, like, a quantum neural chipset..."
"Hey, guys," Nate cut Cisco off in a serious tone. "Guys. Amaya and Rory are waiting for us on the bridge. Can we just keep moving this along?"
"So who are you?" Ollie asked. "We haven't been introduced."
"Oh, I'm Nate Heywood," Nate answered.
"Oliver Queen," Ollie said, as he and Nate shook hands.
Nate frowned. "Oliver Queen?"
"Not exactly the one you know," Ollie said.
"Long story short, he and I are from another universe," Conner said to Nate. "I'm Conner Kent, also known as Superboy."
"Wait, another universe?" Nate said. "As in the Multiverse?"
"The Multiverse is just as real as time travel, believe it or not," Cisco explained. Glancing at Ollie, he added, "And don't even bother asking how this guy looks and acts different from the Oliver we know. That's just how it is."
"Weird," Nate muttered with a glance at the Earth-21 Green Arrow.
As they arrived in the bridge, Cisco, Felicity, Nate, Conner, and Ollie took their seats along with Mick and Amaya Jiwe. With Mick sitting at the controls, the group of heroes made their way to Redmond, Oregon in the year 1951, parking and camouflaging the Waverider in a grassy field.
"Whoa, what a ride," Ollie muttered.
"We made it," Cisco said, incredulously. "This is the '50s."
"Oh, sick," Felicity muttered, before suddenly bending over and vomiting.
"You okay?" Ollie asked her.
"Severe time jumps can cause nausea, temporary deafness..." Nate started to explain. As Felicity tried to speak only for her words to come out as what sounded like gibberish, Nate added, "Linguistic disorientation."
Felicity tried to say something, but her words came out as gibberish again. Panicking, she placed one hand over her mouth while gripping Cisco's arm with her other hand.
Mick pointed to Cisco. "You, clean it up." He then turned to Conner. "And, you, watch the ship and," Mick gestured to Cisco and Felicity, "keep them safe. The rest of us are gonna kidnap an alien."
Conner looked at Mick incredulously. "What? You're telling me to stay on the ship?"
"Yeah, I know I did not just travel through time so we can stay on the ship," Cisco protested.
"Not to mention I'm the strongest here," Conner pointed out.
Mick looked at Felicity, who had a look of disappointment on her face. "Ponytail, you're staying on the ship." He turned to Conner. "And if we need your super-skills, that's when you'll come in."
"Fine," Conner gave in with a sigh, as he sat back down.
Felicity tried to exclaim something in protest to Mick, but her words once again came out as gibberish.
"I'll take that as 'have fun storming the castle'," Nate remarked, before he, Mick, Ollie, and Amaya walked off.
"Oh, for real? You're gonna use Princess Bride against me?" Cisco said in annoyance, as he pointed to himself. "Against me?"
Suddenly, Felicity bent over as she vomited again.
"Whoa," Conner said, as he and Cisco started rubbing Felicity's back.
"We got you, girl," Cisco said.
(Outside)
"Celebrating July 4th early?" Mick asked Nate, who was now clad in his dark blue and red Steel uniform which contained a silver star on the chest.
"Ray made it for me," Nate replied.
"You look like a star-spangled idiot," Mick remarked, and Ollie couldn't help but suppress a chuckle at that.
"You know, I don't get why you decided to bench Superboy," Ollie said to Mick. "You do realize he's our biggest gun on this mission."
"Exactly," Mick said, bluntly. "We can't let super-kid have all the fun and make things too easy for us."
"Not that I don't get what you mean by that speaking as a fellow human who at certain times feel useless around the heavy-hitters, but I'd take too easy over dying any day of the week," Ollie said. "Wouldn't you?"
"We need to find the Army," Amaya said.
Just then, the four heroes heard the sound of an explosion and gunfire erupting in the vicinity. Ollie, Mick, Nate, and Amaya turned towards the sound and saw a large spacecraft hovering over the area where a raging battle between the soldiers and Dominators was taking place.
"I think we already found them," Nate noted, as he and the others stood there for several moments watching as the Dominators were brutally attacking the soldiers who didn't stand a chance against the super-strong aliens.
"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's grab one of the murderous space invaders and get the hell out of here," Ollie said, as he pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it on his compound bow.
"Just waiting for one of the weaker ones in the herd," Mick said, as he was starting to regret ordering Superboy to stay behind on the Waverider.
"I don't think there are any weaker ones," Amaya noted.
"Maybe it was a mistake leaving Superboy behind after all," Nate said.
"Tell me about it," Ollie agreed.
(Waverider)
Cisco was lying down on the floor of the time-ship, while Felicity was sitting in a chair yawning and Conner was pacing back and forth with his arms crossed against his chest. The three of them were bored out of their minds.
"Do you guys have any idea what's going on out there?" Felicity wondered.
"It's a real-life Spielberg movie, and we're stuck in here," Cisco replied, glumly.
"Okay," Felicity said, as she got up and walked towards Cisco. "I think I know what's really bothering you."
"I'm having the worst case of FOMO while everyone else is out there kidnapping an alien?" Cisco remarked.
"You're not the only one," Conner said. "I'm half-alien with the same powerful abilities as Clark, yet I'm stuck in here when I could've gone out there with the others and made the job a hundred times easier."
"No, that's not what I'm talking about," Felicity said to Cisco, as she stood over him. "I think you escaped 2016 to get away from Barry."
"Mm-mmm," Cisco denied, as he stood up. "Excuse me, I escaped 2016 so that I could come see the Waverider, and so that I could time travel."
"And?" Felicity asked, knowing there was more to it than what Cisco had just said.
"And... also, yes, I wanted to get away from Barry," Cisco admitted.
"Ha!" Felicity exclaimed. "You realize that's insane, right? You're holding a grudge against your best friend when the world is potentially gonna end?"
"I'm sorry, 'my best friend'? He only killed my brother," Cisco said, harshly.
"He didn't kill..."
"Okay, you're right, he didn't literally kill my brother," Cisco said in the same harsh tone. "What I mean to say is, he was responsible, okay? He just needed to save his family and in doing that he ended up destroying mine!"
"I know it's not any of my business or anything, but I can't say that I blame Barry for what he did," Conner joined the conversation.
"That's because you're not the one who lost a family member because of Barry's reckless actions!" Cisco snapped.
"You're right, I'm not dealing with what you're going through," Conner said. "What I mean is we all do things we regret, things we wish to take back. Even the best of us." He sighed, thinking back to his horrendous actions from before Clark's DNA had kicked in, especially shooting a kryptonite bullet at his and Clark's adoptive mother Martha Kent in the hopes of killing Clark, memories which had gradually returned to him over time. He also recalled his red kryptonite incident, when he had turned his back on Clark and almost killed Lois. While Conner hadn't been in control of his actions, the heavy guilt he felt would be there for the rest of his life.
"From what I understand, what Barry did is no different from the time Clark saved who was his girlfriend at the time only for his adoptive dad to die in her place," the Kryptonian/human hybrid continued. "Clark still beats himself up over that incident even to this day. And when I lost my girlfriend Courtney two years ago, I wanted more than anything to go back and prevent her death, but Clark convinced me it wasn't a good idea since I could make things worse. Of course, I was angry with him for taking away my only chance to get Court back and didn't talk to him for weeks, but even as I realized that Clark was right, there are still times that I feel very tempted to use a Legion ring and go back to the night she was stabbed to death. Can you honestly tell yourself with a straight face that you wouldn't do what Barry did if you were in his position?"
Cisco sighed as he turned away from Conner and Felicity, allowing the former's words to sink in. After a moment, Cisco said, "I just don't think I'll be able to get past this. I can never forgive Barry for what he did. He went too far and my brother paid for it."
"You don't have to forgive him, but the least you should do is try and see things from his point of view," Conner advised. "Imagine what he must've been feeling when he made the decision to save his parents."
"Yeah, especially since Barry had just lost his dad in a really horrible way and wasn't thinking very rationally," Felicity reminded Cisco, as she and Conner moved closer to him.
"Look, I don't know Barry as well as you do, but from what I've seen of him so far, it's safe to say he's a pretty stand-up guy not unlike Clark, who is the most compassionate person I know," Conner said to Cisco. "People like Clark and Barry are the ones we could easily rely on."
Felicity placed a comforting hand on Cisco's shoulder. "And right now more than ever, we have to be able to rely on our friends."
"I really wish I could right now, Felicity," Cisco said in a sad tone. He turned to Felicity. "But he's not my friend."
Cisco walked away, leaving Felicity and Conner staring after him.
(Outside)
Ollie, Mick, Nate, and Amaya watched as the Dominators were dragging the dead bodies of the soldiers before they were beamed up into the spacecraft above.
"They're taking off," Amaya noted.
"I don't get it," Nate said, confused. "Why are the Dominators attacking us, then just leaving?"
"It's a RIF mission," Amaya said. "Reconnaissance-In-Force."
"Ah, look, a straggler," Mick noted with a smirk, as he and the others saw a lone Dominator grabbing a dead soldier.
"Prepare to get any weapons and superpowers ready, lady and gents," Ollie instructed, as he pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it on his compound bow.
Mick stepped forward, more than eager to hurt the Dominator.
"We need him alive, Mick," Amaya told him.
"I'm just gonna rough him up a bit," Mick said.
"I'll help you with that," Ollie said, lifting his bow and aiming it directly at the Dominator.
Ollie fired the arrow. However, it seemed that the Dominator knew the arrow was coming as the Dominator caught it in its hand. A moment later, the arrow exploded in the Dominator's face, dazing the alien for a few moments.
The four heroes started approaching the Dominator, Mick pulling out his heat gun. "Hey!" Mick shouted, getting the Dominator's attention. Before the Dominator could attack, Mick started torching it with his gun, causing the Dominator to scream in pain. "Squeal, you pig!" Mick shouted.
Ollie fired a cable from his bow, restraining the Dominator, while Nate turned his body into steel for a moment and punched the Dominator in the face, knocking it out cold.
"Nice job, team," Ollie said. He and Nate both kicked the Dominator lightly, making sure it was unconscious.
"Well done," a male voice announced.
Ollie, Mick, Nate, and Amaya turned around to see a man with glasses in a black suit approaching them. The next thing the four heroes noticed, they were surrounded by about a dozen other men who were pointing guns at them.
"Great, this is just what we needed," Ollie said, sarcastically.
"I see that you've managed to catch us a specimen," the glasses-wearing man said to the heroes.
"We didn't do it for you," Ollie said, glaring at the man, who was undoubtedly bad news. "Sorry, Mr. Secret Agent Man, but this E.T. isn't on the market."
"I'm afraid we're gonna have to keep this one," Nate added.
"Who are you?" Amaya asked the man.
"Just a humble civil servant," the man answered, as he pulled out a badge and showed it to the heroes.
"Humble?" Ollie scoffed. "Says the guy who got us surrounded by men pointing guns at us."
"I don't like guys with badges," Mick growled as he lunged towards the man with glasses.
"Easy, Mick," Nate said, holding him back.
"We just wanna ask a few questions," the man assured the heroes.
"You know, if I had dollar for every time I heard that exact sentence only to end up in a not-so-desirable situation, I'd be twice as rich," Ollie quipped. "Okay, obviously that's an exaggeration, but I'm sure you get the point."
"We'd love to answer your questions, but..." Nate started to say to the man.
"We're in a bit of a hurry," Amaya finished.
"And so are we," the man with glasses said with a smug smile.
As the other agents fired tranquilizer darts at the four heroes, Ollie caught the one meant for him, while Mick, Nate, and Amaya were hit with the darts and collapsed to the ground before slipping into unconsciousness. Ollie threw the dart at the agent nearest to him. The agent was struck in the neck before falling to the ground, out cold. Ollie raised his bow and fired two arrows in quick succession, getting two more agents, each in the shoulder, as they fell down too. Ollie fired another arrow, taking down another agent the same way, and was about to fire one more when he was shot in the back of the neck with another dart by an agent behind him.
"Dammit," Ollie groaned in frustration before collapsing. "So much for saving the future." Thinking of the two people he loved more than anything else in the world, he muttered, "Chloe, if I don't happen to make it out of this alive and get back home in one piece, tell our son Roy... Daddy loves him."
Immediately after that, the entire world went black before the emerald archer's eyes.
Chapter Text
Chapter 12
(Waverider)
"Oh, crap, crap, crap! Where do you guys think they're taking them?" Felicity asked in a panicky tone, as she, Cisco, and Conner had just gotten the alert of what happened to the other heroes.
"Those Men In Black types are probably gonna take them to a secret lab and run experiments on them," Cisco answered in an equally panicky tone. "Have you seen Stranger Things?"
"I heard about it, but what does a TV show have to do with any of this?" Conner said.
"Life imitates art, Superboy," Cisco said, as he headed over to a briefcase in the cargo bay. "Either way, we need to rescue them."
"We? No offense, but I'm the only one here with super-strength and super-speed," Conner pointed out.
"He's got a point, Cisco," Felicity said. "You and I are just the tech support."
"No, this is tech support," Cisco said, as he opened the briefcase containing gun blasters inside. Picking up one of the blasters, he added, "Set your phasers to stun." He then turned to Conner. "Take us with you. We're about to have an adventure."
(Secret Government Facility)
"Are you all right?" Amaya asked Ollie, who was the last to come to as the two of them, along with Mick and Nate, were locked inside a room.
"Yeah," Ollie answered, taking in his surroundings. "I'll be even better once we find a way out of Area 51."
"This is why I hate the government," Mick grumbled. He turned to Nate and Amaya. "Can't you two use your powers and get us out of here?"
"Whatever they tranqed us with is screwing with my powers and Amaya's ability to harness the totem," Nate explained.
"Well, that sucks," Ollie said. "See? This is exactly why we should've had Superboy with us." He turned to Mick. "Still think it was a good idea benching the one person who is invulnerable to tranq darts and could've gotten us all away from those evil Men in Black agents in the blink of an eye?"
"You're right, Robin Hood, I screwed up," Mick admitted.
Just then, an inhuman growl attracted their attention and the four heroes turned to see a Dominator strapped to an operating table.
"Hey, he's still alive," Amaya noted, as she took several steps forward. "Although something tells me none of us are gonna be alive for long."
"Wait," Nate said, as he got up from the bench and walked forward to stand next to Amaya. "This is the exact opportunity we've been looking for."
"To get captured?" Mick asked, incredulously.
"No," Nate said. "To talk with one of the Dominators."
"And find out what they want with our planet," Amaya added.
"Well, this is a first," Mick said. "Talking with an alien."
"Maybe it's a first for you, but not so much for me," Ollie said, as he and Mick also stepped forward and stood beside Amaya and Nate.
Nate cleared his throat as he walked up to the restrained Dominator. "Excuse me, Mr. Alien Guy."
In response, the Dominator let out an angry shriek, causing all four heroes to wince from the loud, piercing sound.
(Central City, Present Day)
Barry, Oliver, Sara, and Ray, all of them wearing their full costumes, stood outside waiting for the new President's arrival. There was no one else in sight.
"So where's the President?" Sara wondered.
"She's late," Oliver said.
"Well, you gotta figure she's got a lot on her plate, what with the whole alien invasion thing," Ray pointed out.
"And her predecessor getting killed," Sara added.
Barry turned to Oliver. "Hey, um, what'd you say to Clark and Kara earlier? Kara seemed pretty angry. I didn't know she was capable of being angry."
"We've got movement," Sara warned, as she, Barry, Oliver, and Ray turned around to see three black SUVs and a car of the same color approaching and screeching to a halt around them.
The drivers and passengers climbed out of the vehicles. An old man with glasses climbed out of the back seat of the car and walked up to the heroes. His men were armed with guns.
"I'm sorry," the man apologized in a smug manner. "President couldn't make it."
"Who are you?" Barry asked.
"If I tell you, I'll have to kill you," the man said with an unpleasant smirk, as his men raised their weapons, training them on the four heroes.
(Secret Government Facility, 1951)
"Look, we just wanna know why you attacked our planet," Nate said to the Dominator. "I mean, we're just down here minding our own business, then you guys just drop from the sky and attack us. Why?"
"There has been a recent emergence of meta-humans on your planet," the Dominator answered, his mouth not moving.
"Please tell me I wasn't the only one who just heard that loud, creepy alien voice without his mouth moving," Ollie remarked.
"No, we heard it too," Nate answered.
"Good, just making sure I'm not going loony here," Ollie said.
"Wait, he's talking about the JSA," Amaya said in realization, stepping closer to the Dominator.
Ollie turned to her. "The JSA? That doesn't happen to stand for 'Justice Society of America' by any chance, does it?"
"It does," Amaya answered. "I was a member of the Justice Society of America, a group of covert superheroes who were active during World War II."
"World War II?" Ollie asked in surprise.
"You sound surprised," Amaya noted.
"Well, that's because the Justice Society group I'm familiar with was active during the 1970s last time I checked, not World War II," Ollie said. "Must be another one of those random differences between universes."
"We are here to determine if your kind are a threat," the Dominator said to the heroes.
Suddenly, the doors in the room burst open as several armed agents, as well as the glasses-wearing man from earlier and two men in white coats who were obviously doctors walked in. The armed agents trained their guns on Ollie, Mick, Nate, and Amaya.
"Let's start with him," the glasses-wearing man said, pointing to the Dominator, before turning to the heroes. "The rest of you will have to wait your turn."
(Central City, Present Day)
"Uh, I think we have a misunderstanding," Ray said. "See, we're the good guys. The President invited us here."
"Barry, I think it's time we do something, and fast," Oliver whispered.
As Agent Smith's men opened fire, Barry sped around the area, catching all the bullets before any of them could hit the other heroes and then knocking out all the armed men. Out of nowhere, a bullet struck Ray in the shoulder, but it simply bounced off of his Atom exo-suit.
"Sniper," Oliver noted.
"On it," Barry nodded, before immediately speeding up to where the sniper was and knocking him out.
More armed agents appeared around the heroes. Oliver shot an agent in the shoulder with an arrow, knocking him down, while Sara attacked another agent with her batons before kicking him to the ground and Ray blasted two agents each with an energy beam before switching to his fists and engaging agents in hand-to-hand. An agent shot at Ray only for the bullet to bounce off his suit, and then Ray punched the agent unconscious before engaging another agent and throwing him over one of the trucks. Oliver punched an agent unconscious and then shot another in the leg with an arrow, causing the agent to stumble over in pain. Oliver leapt over the hood of the car and punched the last agent in the face, knocking him out as well.
Barry sped in front of the elderly glasses-wearing man. "We're trying to help you. This is how you thank us?"
"You don't understand," the man said. "The reason the xenomorphs are here..."
"Is because they have a beef with the meta-humans," Sara cut him off. "Tell us something we don't know."
"Like, what exactly have we done to them?" Barry asked.
"Nothing yet," the man answered. "But they see individuals with powers such as yours as a future threat. And frankly, so do I."
(Secret Government Facility, 1951)
Ollie, Mick, Nate, and Amaya were still locked inside the room as they heard the Dominator screaming in pain from another part of the facility. Amaya slammed her hand on the door in frustration, wanting so badly to get out and help the Dominator.
"What do you think they're doing to him?" Nate asked.
"Same thing they're gonna do to us unless we get out of here," Amaya answered.
Suddenly, the sound of gunshots and men screaming as they were thrown against the walls came from right outside the door. A moment later, the door burst open, revealing Superboy standing on the other side with Cisco and Felicity behind him.
"Sorry it took longer than necessary, but we got here as quickly as we could," Conner announced.
"Great, saved by geeks and an super-alien," Mick remarked.
"A super-alien who could've prevented the four of you from getting captured in the first place had you not told me to stay on the ship," Conner pointed out in annoyance. Turning to Ollie, he said, "I found something for you, by the way." He handed Ollie his compound bow and quiver of arrows.
"Thanks a lot, champ," Ollie said with relief, as he took the items from Conner. "Last thing I need is for my gear to be lost sixty years in the past of another Earth."
"We don't wanna leave this in the past either," Cisco said, as he handed Mick his heat gun.
"Ah," Mick gushed happily, looking at his heat gun like it a large bundle of cash he'd just found.
"It's a good thing you guys found those," Nate said to Conner and Cisco. "There's no telling what effect leaving them here would have on the timeline."
"Waverider is ready to take us back to 2016," Cisco said, before he, Conner, Felicity, Ollie, Mick, Nate, and Amaya started heading off just as they heard another loud scream from the Dominator, causing the heroes to stop.
"If we leave him here, they're gonna kill him," Nate said.
"So what? He's an alien," Mick remarked.
"Technically, you're an alien from his perspective when you think about it," Conner pointed out, causing Mick to glare at him.
"Just because they're douches doesn't mean we have to be," Cisco added, also looking at Mick.
"E.T. in there may not be so innocent, but I wouldn't wish what they're probably doing to him on even my worst enemy," Ollie said.
"We gotta send him home," Cisco said.
"How?" Amaya asked.
"Don't we have one of their ships aboard the Waverider?" Cisco asked.
"Yeah, but it's damaged," Nate said.
"I can fix it," Cisco said, just as he and the others heard another loud cry from the Dominator.
"Oh, that doesn't sound good," Felicity said.
"Guys, it's up to us to show the Dominators we're better than this," Cisco said.
"I agree with Cisco," Conner added. "We have to get him out of there."
(Another room in the facility, 1951)
"Fascinating," the glasses-wearing man said, as he and a doctor stood on either side of the Dominator, who was still restrained to the table. "The creature's nervous system is not unlike our own, which means it must be capable of experiencing pain."
"Maybe that's why he's been screaming!" Conner exclaimed angrily, as he burst into the room just before the doctor could stick the Dominator with a syringe.
Conner shot heat vision at the syringe, causing it to shatter in the doctor's hand. In a blur of movement, he tapped the glasses-wearing man on the forehead with his index finger, knocking him out cold, and a split second later, appeared on the other side of the operating table, knocking the doctor out in the same manner.
Amaya, Nate, and Ollie entered the room behind Conner and rushed to the Dominator. "Don't worry, we're gonna get you out of here," Amaya said softly, as Conner quickly ripped off the restraints that were keeping the Dominator bound.
(A few hours later, Waverider)
"Bye," Cisco said, waving goodbye to the repaired Dominator ship as it took off in the night sky. "He didn't even say thank you."
"What is that?" Felicity asked, indicating the alien device that Cisco was holding.
"I think it's a transponder," Cisco answered, as he turned around.
"Where'd you get that?" Felicity asked.
"I may or may not have stolen it from his ship," Cisco admitted.
Felicity took the device from Cisco and looked at it. "What does it do?"
"I think we can use it to communicate with him when we get back," Cisco said.
"Oh, my God, like an alien pen pal," Felicity said.
"Exactly," Cisco said.
"You kids finished?" Mick asked Cisco and Felicity in a bored tone, and the three of them, as well as Conner, Ollie, Nate, and Amaya, took their seats. "Gideon?"
"Yes, Mr. Rory."
"Prepare for, um..." Mick started.
"Time jump," Nate reminded him.
"Time jump," Mick finished.
"Course plotted for Central City, 2016."
With that, the Waverider took off and quickly arrived back in the present.
(Central City, Present Day)
"If you're such BFFs with the Dominators..." Sara began.
"Then why don't you call them off?" Oliver demanded.
"We know you sent them packing once before back in 1951," Ray added.
"That was just a reconnaissance mission," the old man said.
"What brought them back?" Barry asked.
"You did, Mr. Allen," the man answered, causing the other heroes to look stunned.
"He knows who you are," Ray muttered to Barry.
"You threatened the entire universe when you used your powers to upset the normal course of time," the man continued.
"You're talking about Flashpoint?" Ray said in realization. He turned to the man. "How do you even know about..."
"They told us," the man cut him off.
"I made a mistake, okay? I'm not gonna let it happen again," Barry said.
"For the past sixty years, we have enjoyed a truce with your so-called Dominators," the man explained. "You broke the truce."
"What do they want?" Oliver asked.
"I've negotiated a deal with them," Smith explained. "If Mr. Allen surrenders himself, they will leave us in peace." He turned to Barry. "You really wanna save the world? Here's your chance."
Barry looked conflicted, while Oliver, Sara, and Ray exchanged worried glances.
(Waverider)
The time-ship landed in the airfield of the S.T.A.R. Labs hangar. A moment later, the transponder device in Cisco's hand started beeping.
"What's it doing?" Nate asked.
"I don't know, either our food's ready or this guy's trying to call us," Cisco answered, as he and everyone else stood up. "Hey, how do I answer it? I..." He set the transponder down on the console and a hologram of the Dominator appeared.
"It's him," Conner noted. "The same one we saved in 1951."
"He's even uglier than the last time we saw him," Mick remarked.
"If that's even possible," Ollie quipped.
"Sixty-five of your years ago, you saved me from capture," the Dominator said to the heroes.
"Listen, you don't need to thank us," Cisco said.
"Yeah, he does," Mick said. "He can thank us by turning around and heading home."
"Or better yet, calling off his invasion," Ollie added.
"I will show you my gratitude by sparing your lives, but I cannot do the same for Barry Allen," the Dominator stated, causing Cisco, Felicity, Conner, and Ollie to tense. "If your friend does not turn himself in, we will have no choice but to deploy a weapon that will exterminate all meta-humans."
The Dominator's hologram vanished, leaving the six heroes staring in concern and stunned silence.
(Later, S.T.A.R. Labs hangar)
"It's obviously a trap," Clark said, as he, Ollie, Conner, Kara, Sara, Cisco, Ray, and Nate stood together in the hangar. "It's not like the Dominators to be satisfied with getting their hands on only one meta-human."
"Especially considering how threatened they are by them," Ray agreed.
"Yeah, well, if I know Barry, he's gonna wanna be that one meta," Cisco said, worriedly.
"Well, Oliver is trying to talk him out of it," Sara said.
"And if he does, what's the collateral damage of the meta-bomb?" Nate asked.
"Projected casualty count is around two million non-meta-humans," Cisco answered.
"There has to be a way to save Barry and stop the bomb from killing that many people," Kara said in a worried tone.
"We'll come up with a way to succeed at both if we work together," Clark said, with determination. "We've defeated worse many times before."
"Yeah, these zombies from above are nothing compared to Darkseid, Doomsday, or even Zod and his Kandorian super-army," Ollie agreed.
"Or Non and Indigo from my Earth," Kara added. "If I could defeat them, we can definitely do the same to these Dominators."
"Maybe we can negotiate with them somehow," Conner suggested.
"I think that's a good idea," Nate agreed.
"Yeah, I don't know if you two noticed, but our last chat with them didn't go so well," Cisco pointed out.
"Well, what do we got to lose?" Nate asked.
"Look, maybe we should contact them," Sara said.
"And make it fast," Diggle announced, as he and Jax walked into the hangar. "We got incoming."
Cisco got on a computer and checked a map that showed the various sites of the Dominator ships.
"Dominator ships are coming in worldwide," Diggle continued, as everyone looked up at the flat-screen showing the same map Cisco was looking at on the computer.
"Including Central City," Jax added.
"Yeah, but they're not moving or anything," Cisco noted. "They're just sitting there."
"For now," Diggle said.
"So much for the truce Secret Agent Man negotiated," Ray remarked.
"They're attempting to leverage us into turning Barry over to them," Clark said. "We can't let that happen."
Sara turned to Cisco. "Contact the Dominators."
(A few minutes later)
"Looks like your friend's not calling you back," Nate said, as Cisco was using the transponder to try and contact the Dominator, while Nate and Conner stood next to him.
"No, he's not, but I got a plan B," Cisco said.
"What is it?" Conner asked.
Cisco pointed to the transponder he was holding. "If this came from their drop ship, and the drop ship came from the mothership, theoretically, I could use it to vibe myself and one of you up there."
"And if you can't?" Nate asked.
"Then I'd be vibing us into the cold, unforgiving vacuum of space," Cisco answered.
"Let's hope that doesn't happen," Conner said.
"Yeah, let's hope," Cisco agreed. "Okay, one of you take my hand."
"I'll do it," Conner volunteered.
After Cisco took a deep breath, he and Conner took each other's hand and...
They found themselves inside the Dominators' mothership.
"What an unusual gift," the Dominator noted, turning around to face Cisco and Conner. " You appear to be a meta-human as well."
"Yeah, well, I figured you'd cut me some slack seeing as how we saved you back in 1951," Cisco reminded the Dominator. "Remember that?"
"Much has changed on your planet in the last sixty years," t he Dominator pointed out. " The threat of your kind has become imminent."
"Listen, E.T., we're not a threat," Cisco tried to explain. "Metas are protecting this planet."
"Besides, the man who captured and tortured you back in 1951 didn't have superpowers," Conner added. "He was just a regular human."
"But what happens when a man like him inherits abilities like yours?" The Dominator asked. "We have seen it happen on countless other worlds, which is why we must exterminate your kind before the scourge of your planet becomes the scourge of ours."
Suddenly, Cisco and Conner came out of the vibe as they found themselves back in the hangar.
"What happened? Did it work?" Nate asked them.
"It worked all right," Conner answered. "That Dominator is definitely out of his mind."
"What if he's right?" Cisco wondered. "What if, in using our powers to make the world better, we actually end up destroying it?"
"Dude, I get it," Nate said. "Barry screwed up."
"Yeah, so did we, back in 1951," Cisco pointed out.
Nate sighed. "We messed with time when we freed the Dominator."
"Who is now coming to kill us," Cisco added. A guilt-ridden look appeared on his face as a deep realization washed over him. "This whole time I've been mad at Barry. Now I'm the one who messed with time. I just wanted to make things right. I only ended up making them worse." He turned to Conner. "You were right about everything you said earlier. My mistake is no different than the one Barry made."
"Hey, if it makes you feel any better, it wasn't just your mistake," Conner pointed out. "We all made the decision together, although if I have to be completely honest, I can't in good conscious say I regret saving the Dominator. I just don't have it in me to leave anyone suffering like that."
"Yeah, same here," Cisco said, before walking off as he pondered over all the ways he'd treated his best friend horribly during the past week and had to come to terms with the fact that he'd been a hypocrite the entire time.
Chapter Text
Chapter 13
(S.T.A.R. Labs hangar)
"This isn't up for debate," Barry announced to the assembled heroes. "It's not even a close call. I turn myself over to the Dominators, they leave the rest of the world alone. It's simple."
"No, it's not simple," Felicity disagreed.
"Barry, it doesn't matter what you've done," Diggle said. "You can't do this."
"Even if you're their prisoner, the Dominators will not stop what they're doing," Clark added. "They see all meta-humans as a threat, not just you."
"It's been an honor to know all of you," Barry continued. "To fight alongside of you. Now it's up to you to keep our home safe."
Ollie turned to Clark. "His speech sounds a lot like the one you gave us when you planned to leave Earth with the Kandorians. Barry is practically you and Bart rolled into one guy."
Barry turned around and started walking away.
"Barry," Oliver called out, "I'm not letting you leave."
"No offense, Oliver, but you and what army?" Barry asked.
"This one," Kara answered.
Barry turned back around and saw that Clark, Oliver, Ollie, Conner, Kara, Felicity, Nate, Amaya, Mick, Ray, Diggle, and Cisco all had stood up and formed into a group, indicating how much they supported him and would do anything to keep him from sacrificing himself.
"Barry, you didn't bring us to this Earth so we could watch you surrender yourself to the mercy of the Dominators," Clark said. "You brought us here to help you and your fellow heroes defeat and send them back to where they belong. And that is what we're going to do."
"Look at it this way, Barry," Ollie added. "Let's say you hand yourself over to those Walking Dead assholes. Who's to say they will keep their word and not take out a large chunk of the planet's population anyway? If they don't, then turning yourself into a martyr would be pointless, am I right?"
"Listen, Red, I don't like you," Mick then said. "But when you've got a crew, you don't take a hit for the rest."
Barry chuckled. "That's actually pretty inspiring. I mean, up until the point that Mick compared us to a bunch of criminals, but..."
"According to the Dominators, we might as well be," Amaya pointed out.
"And maybe they're right," Nate added. "Maybe we do more harm than good, but this is our chance to find out."
"We're not letting you sacrifice yourself," Cisco said, as he walked up to Barry. "There's no way. I don't care if that's what it means to be a hero. You're not a hero to me. You're my friend."
Barry smiled faintly in response, relieved that Cisco had just address him as a 'friend' for the first time in over a week.
"Yo, guys," Jax announced, as he and Sara walked in. "You know that ship that landed in Central City?"
"It's opening up," Sara informed.
"Here we go," Oliver said.
"Time to get ready," Ollie added.
"I'm reading reports of ships opening all over the world," Felicity announced, as she got up and looked up at the screen that showed a map of the city. "Oh, frak."
"Talk to me," Oliver instructed.
"Something from the Dominator's mothership just broke atmo, and not to get too technical, but it's really, really big and falling to Earth really, really fast," Felicity panicked.
"It's the meta-bomb," Barry said in realization, as he, Oliver, Ollie, and Clark also looked at the screen.
"Why would the uglies drop ships on us if they're just planning on blowing us up?" Felicity wondered.
"Because the ships are here to keep us distracted and preoccupied while they complete their mission with the meta-bomb," Clark answered.
(Waverider)
Cisco and Sara were inside the time-ship as it flew across the sky.
"Too bad because we're gonna stop it," Cisco announced. He turned to Sara with an uncertain look. "We're gonna stop it, right?"
"Let's hope," was all Sara could say.
(S.T.A.R. Labs hangar)
"We have to keep the Dominators at bay," Barry said.
"This might help," Stein announced. Barry, Clark, Oliver, and Ollie turned to the professor, who was holding a small silver device with a red light in the center. "I've mass-produced a small device that, when placed on individual Dominators, will cause indescribable agony."
"Well, they're the ones who started this mess in the first place," Ollie pointed out.
"It's not the nicest invention, but this is war," Stein said, handing the device to Barry, who examined it.
Nice going," Barry complimented.
"The caveat, of course, is that if we activate the weapons before all the devices are placed on the Dominators, they'll know what we're up to," Stein warned.
"Well, we gotta do it fast," Oliver said.
"It's the only way I know how," Barry said, with determination.
"In the meantime, I'm gonna take care of that meta-bomb," Clark stated.
(Waverider)
"Damn, that's big," Cisco noted, as he and Sara stared out the window with horrified expressions at the huge meta-bomb that was descending rapidly towards the ground. "I didn't think it was gonna be so big. What are we gonna do?"
"You got me," Sara said. "I only know how to stab, punch, or skewer things."
"What the..." Cisco exclaimed abruptly, noticing the meta-bomb rapidly moving back up all of a sudden. "Holy frak, it's going back up!"
"What? How is that possible?" Sara asked in shock, looking outside to see what was going on.
"Because of Superman!" Cisco cheered enthusiastically, noticing a red and blue figure underneath the huge bomb. "He's gonna take the bomb back up to space and destroy it there! Oh, my God, he just completed our job for us!"
(Outer Space)
Soaring at high speed, Superman took the meta-bomb higher and higher until he was well away from the Earth. Letting the meta-bomb go, he punched it with only a fraction of his strength, sending the meta-bomb hurtling into the void of space, where it exploded in a massive ball of fire almost as bright as the sun itself as powerful shockwaves erupted.
Displaying a triumphant expression identical to the one he had after pushing Darkseid's planet Apokolips away from his Earth over five years ago, Superman turned around once he was certain the powerful explosion had settled and flew back to Earth in a red and blue blur.
(Back on Earth)
Flash, the Green Arrows, Spartan, Steel, Vixen, and Mick stood on the rooftop of the S.T.A.R. Labs hangar, while Firestorm, Superboy, Supergirl, and The Atom flew in, hovering behind them. Gathered on the opposite side of the rooftop was a horde of Dominators.
A moment later, the assembled heroes and Dominators rushed each other. Superboy and Supergirl fired their heat vision at the aliens, while Firestorm hurled fireballs down at them, The Atom fired energy beams, Mick fired his heat gun, Spartan fired bullets from his gun, the two Green Arrows fired their arrows, Steel started punching the extraterrestrial opponents in his metallic form, Vixen channeled the spirit of an elephant with her totem to enhance her strength and also started engaging the aliens, and The Flash sped around the rooftop planting Stein's nano-weapons on the Dominators.
Ollie nocked three arrows and fired them simultaneously, getting three Dominators each with an arrow.
"How many of these things have you gotten so far?" Ollie asked his counterpart.
"Five, you?" Oliver replied, before shooting another Dominator. "Make that six."
"I got nine," Ollie replied with a grin, right before he shot another three Dominators simultaneously. "Actually, make that twelve. Looks like I'm the better archer here, but we're still doing that shootout competition when this is over."
"Of course we are," Oliver said, as he and his counterpart continued shooting Dominators.
"Fry, you freaks!" Mick shouted, reveling in shooting down Dominators with his heat gun.
"Someone's having a blast during this battle," Ollie quipped, glancing over at Mick.
Suddenly, over twenty or so Dominators were struck down simultaneously by heat vision from both Superboy and Supergirl as well as Firestorm's fireballs.
Spartan fired bullets from his gun at a Dominator who rushed at him. The Dominator easily gained the upper hand, grabbing and throwing Spartan to the ground. Before the Dominator could attack Spartan further, a red and blue blur appeared as Superman, having just returned from taking care of the meta-bomb in space, knocked the Dominator out.
"Are you all right?" Superman asked, descending in front of Spartan and extending his hand.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Spartan replied, taking Superman's hand as he got back to his feet and continued shooting at the Dominators.
Oliver shot a Dominator in the shoulder with an arrow before slugging the alien with his bow. The Dominator overpowered Oliver with its superior strength, knocking him off the rooftop with a punch as the emerald archer fell towards the street below.
"Oh, my God!" Ollie shouted in horror, as he noticed what happened to his counterpart.
Superman swooped down in a blur, caught Oliver, swept back up, and landed safely on the rooftop. After briefly nodding to each other, the two heroes separated, jumping back into the action.
(Inside the hangar)
"Good work planting Professor Stein's nano-weapons, but we've still got Dominators all over the country," Felicity announced, as she stood in front of a computer. "This looks like a job for Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl."
"Thanks, Felicity, I'm not the least bit insulted," Felicity heard Barry's voice respond sarcastically over the comms.
"Uh, sorry, I meant Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, and Flash," Felicity corrected herself. "This is totally a job for all four of you. That's what I meant. Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, and Flash."
(Outside)
Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, and The Flash raced throughout the world at great speed, placing the small nano-weapons on the Dominators, while the rest of the heroes were still engaging the extraterrestrial opponents on the rooftop of the hangar.
"Still waiting on that signal!" Oliver heard Felicity's voice over the comms.
"Do it!" Oliver ordered.
Inside the hangar, Felicity activated the nano-weapons as she pressed the red button on the main device, while the assembled heroes on the rooftop watched while all the Dominators started screaming and writhing in agony.
"It's working," Oliver noted.
"What about the superhero bomb?" Mick wondered.
"Superman already took care of it," Ollie stated.
The Dominators got up and started running off, disappearing in beams of yellow light, while the heroes watched.
"They're retreating," Steel noted, as he transformed his skin to normal.
"It's not just them," Felicity said over the comms. "It's all around the world."
"A bunch of cowards is what they really are," Ollie remarked.
"We did it," Superman said, as he and the others were relieved that the threat was over. "We won."
"It's over," Barry added.
(Evening, S.T.A.R. Labs hangar)
From left to right, Spartan, Mick, White Canary, Vixen, the Green Arrows, Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, Flash, Steel, Firestorm, and The Atom stood on the stage in front of a crowd of people as the new President, Susan Brayden, who was standing at the podium between Earth-21 Green Arrow and Superman, congratulated them for their victory over the Dominators.
"Many responsibilities have fallen to me since the President's passing at the beginning of this crisis," Brayden announced. "Sobering, sad responsibilities. This is not one of them. Today, it is my distinct honor to bestow upon you a small acknowledgement of the great debt that the world owes to you all."
"Is it just me or is she really hot?" Mick asked Sara in a low voice.
"She's hot," the white-clad former assassin agreed, after casting a brief glance at the President.
"Although your brave efforts must remain a secret," President Brayden continued, "know that meta-human or not, masked or not, each and every one of you is a hero."
Everyone from the crowd stood up as they gave their round of applause for the President's speech and the heroes' bravery.
(A little later)
The heroes were enjoying a party as they celebrated their victory. Everyone, including the visitors from other Earths, had changed into civilian clothes.
After Felicity poured them each a glass of champagne, Barry, Clark, Oliver, and Ollie headed off to the side. Felicity then poured Kara a glass of champagne before Kara followed the four men.
"It's like looking into a mirror," Felicity said, as she stared after Kara.
"Hey, you know what's funny? Kara really kind of looks like my cousin," Ray commented. "Also, there's something quite familiar about Clark. I feel like I've seen him somewhere before."
"Hey, hey, guys," Kara said with a smile, as she approached Clark, Barry, Oliver, and Ollie.
"Hey," Barry replied.
"Have either of you ever saved the world before?" Kara asked.
"Mm-hmm, last year," Oliver answered, as he and Barry nodded.
"Too many times to count," Clark added.
"Oh, it doesn't get old, does it?" Kara asked.
"Nope, not at all," Ollie answered.
"It sure beats screwing up the world," Barry said, still not over his guilt for causing Flashpoint.
Clark placed a hand on Barry's shoulder. "This is something all my friends and family members have constantly told me over the years, but I'm gonna tell you the same thing. Don't be too hard on yourself. There's no way you could've known any of this would've happened."
"Clark is right," Kara agreed, looking at Barry. "You're being way too hard on yourself."
"That's what people usually tell me," Oliver said.
"Why am I not surprised?" Ollie remarked.
Kara turned to Oliver. "I'm sure they tell you that for good reason, but... back on my Earth, it's just me and my cousin. Between the two of us, we're more powerful than..."
"Everybody who is not Kryptonian in this room combined," Barry finished.
"No, no, that's the point," Kara said. "That's what you've all proven here. Meta-human or not, superpowers or not, you are Earth's mightiest heroes."
"Um, I owe you and Clark each an apology," Oliver said. "Keeping you two at arm's length was the wrong move and, uh... well, the truth is that this Earth could probably use a Supergirl and a Superman."
"Well, that's funny, because I was just thinking that my Earth could use an Oliver Queen," Kara said.
"Me or him?" Ollie asked, pointing to himself and then to Oliver. "We do have different personalities after all."
"Um, an Oliver Queen who is a perfect mix of both of you would work," Kara replied, with a smile.
Clark turned to Oliver. "You have nothing to apologize for. You were only doing what you felt was necessary. I mean, trust is not something that you suddenly give to a person right away. It has to be earned."
"You both have certainly earned my trust," Oliver said to Clark and Kara.
Kara turned to Clark. "You and my Kal would get along great. You're not that different from him. You just seem a little more... experienced."
"Sounds like a compliment," Clark said, with a faint smile. "You have several things in common with my cousin, although you aren't as intense as she is."
"I can't help but wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing," Kara said, producing another smile.
Cisco came over with two small boxes. "Hey, Clark, Kara, I made each of you something."
"What? Cisco," Kara said eagerly, as she and Clark approached him.
Cisco handed one box to Kara and the other to Clark. Curious, Clark and Kara opened their boxes to reveal a small silver device inside of each. They took the devices out and examined them.
"What is this?" Clark asked.
"Oh, they're inter-dimensional extrapolators," Cisco answered.
"Oh," Kara said, impressed.
"They create small breaches, so you guys can use them to cross over to our universe anytime you need to," Cisco explained.
"Oh, my God, that's amazing," Kara chuckled, excitedly.
"I also included communication functionality, so if you ever need any help, you can always contact the team," Cisco continued.
"Hey, skirt, call me," Mick said to Kara as he walked past, causing her to frown at him.
"Thank you, Cisco," Clark said. "Not that Oliver and I have plans to cross over to any other parts of the Multiverse anytime soon."
Ollie turned to his counterpart. "What do you say, Grumpy Pants? Ready to settle this once and for all? The sooner, the better."
"Suit up," Oliver instructed. "Let's make it quick."
As Oliver and Ollie headed off, Kara turned to Barry, Clark, and Cisco in confusion. "What are they about to do?"
"Oh, it's just a contest, nothing serious," Barry answered, knowingly. "I just hope they don't accidentally shoot each other while they're at it."
"Leave it up to Oliver to compete in an arrow shootout with another Green Arrow," Clark said.
Cisco turned to Barry. "Hey, man, I want to apologize for the way I treated you this past week. I was so angry about Dante that I didn't care to consider the pain you must've been going through after what Zoom did to your father. I'm sorry.
Barry smiled faintly. "I don't blame you for being angry with me, Cisco. You were right. Even if I wasn't responsible for the timeline changes directly, I still caused them. We have great powers, but there are consequences to misusing them, which is a lesson I learned the hard way and one I hope you'll never have to learn. So we're good?"
"Yeah, we're good," Cisco answered, as he and Barry shook hands.
Clark and Kara watched them with smiles on their faces, happy for Barry and Cisco.
The old man with glasses from earlier, followed by two agents, walked into the hangar and was approached by Nate.
"Something tells me you weren't invited here," Nate said.
"Dr. Heywood," the old man replied, casually.
"Don't 'Dr. Heywood' me," Nate said, sternly. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I like parties, and I'm here for the mop up," the old man answered.
"Cover up," Nate said, firmly. "But you can't cover this up."
"Agent Smith," Kara greeted the old man politely, as she and Clark approached him.
"You're the last person we expected to see here," Clark said. "My cousin and I were just having a discussion with the President about you."
"I was telling her on my Earth we have a Department of Extra-Normal Operations which deals specifically with aliens," Kara added. "She thought it was an excellent idea."
"You'll be happy to know that she agreed with the idea of reassigning you to Antarctica," Clark said, causing the old man's smug to be replaced by a look of defeat. "Consider this your lesson in learning to be friendlier to visitors from other planets in the future."
With that, he and Kara walked away.
In a part of the hangar where no one else was around, Oliver and Ollie were back in their Green Arrow suits as they stood thirty feet opposite each other. The arrow shootout was going really well for Ollie, whose arrows had destroyed the tips of most of Oliver's arrows, much to the Earth-1 archer's shock and Earth-21 archer's amusement. Oliver fired three arrows simultaneously, while Ollie fired three of his own in rapid succession, destroying the tips of those arrows as well. Only one arrow left in his quiver, Ollie nocked it on his bow, while Oliver nocked another three arrows on his bow. Oliver fired his three arrows, while Ollie fired his single arrow in such a trajectory that it not only knocked all three of Oliver's arrows off-course but also shattered the tips of two of them.
"Impossible," Oliver said, stunned beyond words as he lowered his bow. "No one is that good."
"I may not have superpowers, but I'm pretty good at impossible when it comes to a bow and arrow," Ollie remarked, also lowering his bow. "So there we have it. Now that we've fought and shot arrows at each other, it looks like you're the Emerald Fighter and I'm the Emerald Archer."
"I guess this makes us even," Oliver admitted in a slightly begrudging tone. "You win this one."
"Least you admit it," Ollie said with a smirk.
The two of them walked towards the pile of Oliver's damaged arrows and Ollie's fully intact ones that were on the ground and started picking them up.
"How did you manage to take down three of my arrows, while shattering the tips of two of them, with only one of yours?" Oliver asked, still in denial. It was a feat even the likes of Yao Fei and Talia al Ghul would be impressed with.
"All about precise timing, my guy," Ollie answered. "It's just as easy as deflecting a bullet fired from a gun."
"Wait, what?" Oliver asked in disbelief.
"I take it that's one you haven't aced with flying colors," Ollie chuckled.
"After what I just saw you do to most of Oliver's arrows, I wouldn't be surprised if you actually deflected a bullet before."
Oliver and Ollie turned to see Barry approaching them.
"Well, it's like riding a bike," Ollie shrugged. "That's how easy it's gotten to me."
"Barry, how much of this shootout did you see?" Oliver asked.
"Enough to know that your counterpart makes you look like a total amateur," Barry teased, only for Oliver to playfully glare at him. He turned to Ollie. "Are you sure you're not a meta-human? That's some serious accuracy you have."
"Not that I know of," Ollie answered. "My talent's all natural as far as I'm concerned."
"Here, let me speed up the process," Barry said, as he briefly sped around the vicinity. A moment later, the ground was completely free of arrows. After that, Barry, Oliver, and Ollie left the area.
So there we have it. Ollie may have lost the hand-to-hand sparring match earlier in the story, but what he lacks in martial arts, he more than makes up for in archery skills. Therefore, out of the two Green Arrows, Oliver from Arrow is the superior fighter while Ollie from Smallville is the superior archer, perfectly balancing each other out.
Also, readers may have noticed that Conner was absent while Clark, Barry, Kara, Oliver, and Ollie were standing and talking during the victory party. The reason for that will be revealed in the next chapter, which will wrap up this fic but not the "Alternate Events" series as there is going to be a sequel that will take place almost a year later.
Chapter Text
Chapter 14
(Night, S.T.A.R. Labs hangar)
"Hold on, you not only took down Oliver's three arrows with only one of yours, but you shattered the tips of two of them while you were at it?" Diggle asked Ollie in utter disbelief, as they, Oliver, Sara, Barry, Clark, Conner, and Kara were the only ones left in the hangar.
"I sure did," Ollie answered with a smirk.
"Wow, even Ra's would be impressed with that level of aim," Sara said in amazement.
"I guess if anyone could beat Oliver at archery, it's Oliver himself," Barry remarked in amusement.
"I'm still the best archer there is on this Earth," Oliver stated.
"Nice loophole, but I'll do you one better," Ollie countered. "I'm the best archer there is in the Multiverse."
"Good comeback," Kara complimented with a grin.
"At least you guys balance each other out with your skills," Barry said, looking at Oliver first and then Ollie. "You're the better fighter, and you're the better archer."
"You have no idea how much I enjoyed rubbing my super-archery skills in his face," Ollie said, drawing chuckles from everyone except Oliver, who simply rolled his eyes. Turning to Oliver, he added, "No hard feelings, man. You may be a rough-around-the-edges Grumpy Pants, but you're a great guy and an even better hero."
"The same could be said about you," Oliver returned the compliment. "Although you can try to be a little more serious sometimes."
"And you should try being a little more laid back," Ollie countered. "Doesn't hurt to lighten up every once in a while." He extended his hand. "Bygones?"
"Bygones," Oliver agreed with a nod, as he and Ollie shook hands.
Barry looked at Clark, Kara, and Ollie. "You guys ready to see if Cisco's gadgets work?"
"Ready," Kara answered, before making eye contact with everyone. "And remember, if you guys ever need me, I'm just a call away."
"Same here," Oliver said.
"You know that goes both ways," Clark added.
Kara nodded and pressed the button on her extrapolator device, causing a breach to open in front of her. She then walked through it and the breach closed a moment later.
"Well, her inter-dimensional-jumping device apparently works," Ollie noted.
"We should start heading back right now too," Clark said.
"You're right," Ollie agreed. "It's been, what, almost two days since we left? Wouldn't wanna keep the wifies waiting any longer for their hubbies."
"I'm gonna ask you one more time, Conner," Clark said, turning to the younger Kryptonian. "Are you sure you wanna stay behind on this Earth and join Sara's time-traveling team?"
Much to their understandable surprise, Conner had revealed to Clark and Ollie that, while he had been chatting with Sara and some of the other Legends during the victory party, they told him about their various time-traveling missions. Suddenly intrigued, Conner had asked the three if it was okay if he could join their team. As the Legends' team leader, Sara had almost immediately agreed, telling Conner "We could actually use someone like you on our team", after which Conner had run his sudden decision not to return home by Clark and Ollie. Sure, Conner was going to miss the two of them, as well as Chloe, Lois, his and Clark's adoptive mother Martha, and the other Justice League members, but he was determined to forge a path of his own, one that didn't involve staying in Clark's shadow for the rest of his life, and what better way to do so than starting a new life in another universe helping a team of other do-gooders, even if they were flawed, protect the timeline.
"I'm positive, Clark," Conner nodded.
"This is a big decision you're making," Clark pointed out, realizing the young man he was proud to call his little brother was sincere about his decision. "You know that."
"I know," Conner said. "But it's one I'm happy to make." He paused for a moment. "Don't get me wrong, being a member of the Justice League these past few years was all well and good, but there was always this part of me that felt like I was always gonna remain in your shadow. And now, with this time-traveling thing on another Earth, I feel like I could try out something new. You know, forge a destiny of my own."
"I'm glad you found something you're really interested in," Clark said. "I'm happy for you."
"But you're gonna miss me," Conner noted, picking up on the obvious traces of sadness in Clark's voice. "Don't worry, Clark, there's no way I could become a stranger to you or the rest of our family."
"Not only will the League miss Superboy, but the world will too since it's now gonna be down one Kryptonian superhero," Ollie stated.
"Well, our universe will still have heroes like you, Clark, Bart, Tess, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Cyborg, Aquaman, Black Canary, and even the Wonder Twins to protect it," Conner pointed out. "Besides, it's not like I can never come back and visit all of you guys."
"That's true," Barry said. "Just remember, whenever you feel like returning to your Earth, don't hesitate to come by S.T.A.R. Labs. I or Cisco can easily arrange that for you."
"Got it," Conner said. He threw his arms around Clark in a warm hug. "Goodbye, Clark."
"Goodbye, Conner," Clark said. "And good luck."
"You too," Conner said. "Don't forget to tell everyone else that I'm okay."
"Of course we will, buddy," Ollie said, as Conner hugged him too.
Clark turned to Sara. "You look after him and make sure he stays safe. Conner may be bulletproof, but he's not invincible."
"Don't worry, I will," Sara promised. "Just like he'll look after me and the rest of our team." She turned to Ollie with a smile and gave him a hug. "Do me a favor and tell your Black Canary her sister from another Earth said hello."
"Will do, Sara," Ollie nodded. "Dinah would be interested in the fact that she has a sister in another universe."
"Just knowing there are other versions of Dinah Laurel Lance who are still alive across the Multiverse will help me sleep a little better from now on," Sara said.
Clark turned to Ollie, holding up the extrapolator. "Let's see if this thing takes us home." He pressed the button on the extrapolator and a breach opened in front of them.
Clark and Ollie jumped into the breach, disappearing to the other side as it closed behind them.
Diggle turned to Oliver. "I still can't believe that was you."
"He wasn't exactly me, John," Oliver pointed out. "The other Oliver may have the same name and a similar backstory which also involves being stranded on an island prior to becoming an emerald-clad vigilante with superior archery skills, but we're as much two different people as you and I are."
"One thing I noticed about the other Ollie is that his attitude is somewhat reminiscent of the way you were prior to the Gambit," Sara commented.
"You could definitely say that," Oliver agreed.
"Speaking of which, do you ever think about what it would be like if the two of us never got on that boat?" Sara asked.
"I don't know if I have to think about it," Oliver answered. "I mean, maybe the Dominators showed us what our lives would have been like."
"I know it was a prison, but in a way..." Sara said.
"In a way, it was a gift," Oliver finished. He and Sara threw their arms around each other in a hug.
"Stay out of trouble," Sara said, patting Oliver's chest.
"Yeah," Oliver said.
Sara walked away from Oliver and approached Barry. "Listen, Barry, about yesterday. I was out of line when I said a few things to you that I shouldn't have. The truth is, until very recently, I was willing to do whatever it took to get my sister back. I tried to kill the past version of the man responsible for her death. It was hypocritical of me to judge you for Flashpoint, especially when my actions weren't any better than yours. For that, I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted," Barry told her. "We all make mistakes. What matters is whether or not we learn not to repeat those mistakes and move forward."
"Right," Sara nodded, as she and Barry smiled at each other. "You stay out of trouble too."
"With the lives we have, that won't be easy," Barry said.
"Come on, Conner, let's get you settled in and prepared for the exciting adventures that awaits you," Sara said.
Conner shook hands with Barry, Oliver, and Diggle before leaving with Sara.
"There they go," Diggle said. "Off to their spaceship, time-traveling as if it's totally normal."
Oliver cleared his throat. "Well, John, it's like you said. Normal sort of went out the window when this one arrived."
Diggle turned to Barry, extending his hand. "I may never understand you, man, but you're one of the best men I know."
"Thanks, Dig," Barry replied, as they shook hands. "So, will you forgive me for what I did?"
"Barry, it's like I keep telling this guy," Diggle said, indicating Oliver. "You have to forgive yourself."
"Yeah," Barry said.
Diggle patted Barry's shoulder. "Good luck." He headed off, leaving Barry and Oliver as the last two standing in the hangar.
"Well, we ought to do this more often," Barry suggested. "Get together, I mean."
"I don't know if the world could take it," Oliver said.
"I meant, like, without the world being threatened," Barry said.
"If the world wasn't being threatened, what would we do?" Oliver asked.
Barry shrugged his shoulders, then he and Oliver headed off as well.
(Waverider)
Conner and Sara were standing opposite the rest of the Legends as everyone was gathered in the bridge. "Everybody, this is Conner Kent, whom all of you have already met and know as Superboy," Sara announced. "He will be joining our team from now on."
"Nice," Ray said, with a smile. "It's gonna come in handy having someone with abilities like yours around."
"So we have an alien on our team now? Great," Mick grumbled, after taking a sip of his beer.
"Be nice, Mick," Amaya said, firmly.
"I am half-human, by the way," Conner reminded Mick.
Sara turned to Conner. "Just ignore most of the stuff he says."
"Welcome to the Legends, Superboy," Nate said.
"Ray, Nate, you two are in charge of showing our new team member around and helping him get settled in," Sara instructed.
With that, everyone started going their separate ways. Conner followed Ray and Nate as the two of them prepared to show him around the Waverider.
Earth-21
(Watchtower Building, Ollie and Chloe's apartment a level below the Justice League's headquarters)
Ollie walked into his home and closed the door behind him. He headed into a dimly lit bedroom, where his and Chloe's four-year-old son, Roy Sullivan-Queen, was sound asleep in a bed.
"Hey there, kiddo," Ollie said softly with a smile, relieved to set eyes on his son again after having spent over a day and a half in a different universe. "I want you to know that Daddy missed you every moment he was away."
He leaned down and planted a gentle kiss on Roy's forehead. He then adjusted Roy's blue Superman blanket, covering his body to make him more comfortable.
"Good night, buddy," Ollie said, before leaving the room.
As he headed towards his and Chloe's room, he stopped at the sight of her standing in the doorway, a look of both relief and happiness on her face.
"Well, it's great to see you made it back from your parallel universe adventure unscathed," Chloe said.
"Chloe," Ollie gushed. He walked towards her and, without saying another word, pulled her into a passionate kiss, which she immediately returned while wrapping her arms around his neck. Letting each other go after several seconds, Ollie stared affectionately into his wife's green eyes. "You have no idea how much I missed you."
"I missed you just as much, honey," Chloe replied, staring into her husband's brown eyes with equal affection. "This time more than usual, considering you were literally in a whole other plane of existence."
"This goes without saying of course, but the thought of coming home to you and Roy is what motivated me to not get killed during our stay on that other Earth," Ollie said.
"Care to share with your lovely wife everything that's happened while you, Clark, and Conner were away?" Chloe asked, curious. "All Tess told me and Lois was that you three were going to deal with a threat in another universe, but nothing beyond that."
"Here's an idea, sweetheart," Ollie said. "How about I tell you all about it while you join me in the shower?"
(Several minutes later)
"All right, Mr. Queen, I'm waiting," Chloe said, she and Ollie in the shower as the steaming hot water rained down on their naked bodies.
"For starters, remember our unexpected visitor Barry Allen?" Ollie asked, standing behind his wife as he scrubbed her hair with his hands.
"You mean that other Flash we met last year? Of course I remember him," Chloe said. "Kinda hard to forget that particular episode of our ongoing superhero adventures that would probably make one hell of a TV series if we were fictional characters in a fictional setting."
"Well, Barry and his friend named Cisco showed up upstairs in our base telling us they need our help," Ollie explained.
"I take it whatever happened on the other side must've been pretty grim for Barry to seek the help of superheroes from a different universe," Chloe said.
"Grim might be the understatement of the century," Ollie commented. "I'm talking a full-on alien invasion here."
"An alien invasion?" Chloe repeated, intrigued. "I don't suppose you're gonna tell me next that the extraterrestrial culprits were evil Kryptonians."
"Actually, the E.T.'s we were up against are called Dominators," Ollie said. "Unlike Kryptonians, they looked like the zombies from the movie World War Z, only even less human-looking. Their evil plan was to wipe out all the meta-humans on that Earth since they considered anyone with special abilities to be a threat, but Clark destroyed the bomb in space before it could claim any lives."
"Clark, always being the one saving the day, isn't he?" Chloe said, with a proud smile. "I'm glad I got my husband back in one piece."
"As always," Ollie added, as he was finished washing his wife's hair. "There, your hair is just like new."
"Now it's my turn to wash your hair," Chloe said.
"Sure thing, hon, no one does it better than you," Ollie told her, as he and his wife switched positions in the shower and Chloe started washing his hair after lathering her hands with shampoo.
Ollie went on to tell his wife more about his experiences on the other Earth, including meeting his stern, no-nonsense counterpart and the two of them comparing their fighting and archery skills, which Chloe was amused by. He also told her about Conner's decision to stay behind and join a team of time-travelers led by the sister of Dinah's deceased counterpart, much to Chloe's surprise.
(Clark and Lois' apartment)
Clark entered his and Lois' apartment. Almost immediately, he saw her sitting on the couch typing an article on her laptop. Lois was wearing nothing but a blue T-shirt containing a Superman logo on the chest. She widened her eyes at the sight of her husband.
"Smallville, you're back!" Lois gushed in a mix of surprise, relief, and happiness. She wasted no time setting her laptop aside, leaping off the couch, rushing to Clark, and throwing her arms around his neck in an embrace.
Clark wrapped his own arms around Lois' waist and the 'Clois couple', as Chloe had dubbed them, engaged in a very passionate lip-lock that lasted for a good ten seconds before they stopped kissing and stared directly into each other's eyes.
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss my favorite intergalactic super-stud while he was away in a parallel universe for the last day and a half, but the thought of knowing you'd pull through like you always do is what kept me from seriously worrying," Lois said, with a smile. "I'm glad to have you back, honey."
"I'm glad to be back, especially with you," Clark replied, grinning happily as it felt great to once again have the woman he loved more than life itself and would do anything for back in his arms. Plus, he could hear her heartbeat again, the most beautiful sound ever, the one thing he focused his super-hearing on twenty-four-seven so that he would always know where Lois was no matter how far from her he was in the world, which was how he had managed to save her in the nick of time from certain death countless times. As they let each other go, Clark asked, "How were things here in Metropolis during my absence?"
"Other than that pyro-bitch Volcana showing up and causing a little trouble, nothing too newsworthy," Lois answered. "Tess, Diana, and Impulse quickly extinguished her activities before she could do too much fire damage."
"Bart hasn't been Impulse in years, Lois," Clark reminded her. "In case you've forgotten, he's The Flash."
"Of course I haven't forgot, Smallville," Lois said. "But given Bart's impulsiveness and child-like nature, his original nickname fits him way more than the current one. Last I checked, isn't that the reason Ollie and the others in the JL gang called him Impulse in the first place?"
"Bart may still have his moments of immaturity every now and then, but he's definitely come a long way in the last twelve years we've known him," Clark stated. "But enough about Bart for now." He spun around for a moment, causing Lois' dark brown hair to briefly fly up. A moment later, he was back in his Superman suit. "Anyway, Ms. Lane, why don't I take you for trip in the sky and I'll tell you everything you should know about what I've been through these last couple of days?"
"Deal, Superman," Lois grinned eagerly. "Just let me get dressed and then we're good to go."
After Lois had thrown on some jeans, a purple leather jacket, and dark brown boots, Clark held her bridal style as he took off across the star-covered night sky, soaring high above the proud city of Metropolis.
"Okay, Smallville, you can spill the beans now," Lois said.
"Remember that other Flash who showed up eight months ago right before Doomsday escaped and wreaked havoc on Metropolis a second time?" Clark asked.
"The one you said was from a parallel Earth?" Lois said
"That one," Clark nodded. "After Conner and I stopped the bank robbery yesterday, I received a signal from Oliver's watch. Conner and I headed to Watchtower, where we encountered that version of The Flash and a friend of his. They needed our help because their Earth was being threatened by an alien species known as the Dominators."
"The 'Dominators'?" Lois scoffed. "Seriously? What the hell kind of alien race would name themselves that? Sounds boastful."
"They're certainly not the friendly variety of aliens," Clark said. "Oliver, Conner, and I traveled to the other Earth and helped the heroes there deal with the Dominators. Once they were defeated, only Oliver and I returned home, while Conner decided to stay behind and join this team of time-travelers who dedicate themselves to protecting the timeline."
"Wait, Conner didn't come back with you and Ollie?" Lois asked in surprise. "He stayed there on what I should probably call 'Earth-3'? You know, since 'Earth-2' would be the universe where that evil, murderous, Luthor version of you came from and 'Earth-1' would be our universe. I suppose I can't blame the kid since it's obvious he's been feeling pretty lonely since Stargirl was murdered in cold blood by General Slade Wilson's little spawn."
"He made his decision, Lois, and I could tell from Conner's voice that he really wanted to join that team," Clark said. "Who am I to stop him from doing what he wanted? Maybe this is what he was meant for all along. I can take care of the farm myself since he's no longer gonna be living there."
"Well, let's hope his new parallel Earth playmates treat the new kid on the block fairly," Lois said, with a note of concern for the young man she'd come to think of as a little brother. "Because if they don't, then they should know that this Earth's Lois Lane and Clark Kent will not hesitate to dimension-hop over there and give each of them missing teeth or a bloody nose."
"I'm sure Conner will be fine," Clark said, chuckling at his wife's remark. "And it's not like we can't ever visit him to see how he's doing and vice versa." He pulled out the extrapolator device and showed it to Lois.
"What's that?" she asked.
"It's an inter-dimensional extrapolator," Clark explained. "We can use it to contact the other world's Flash and his team if we ever need their help with anything or even return to that Earth. But for the time being, the only Earth I'm interested in being on is the one where I get to spend some quality time with you."
"Not a bad plan, Smallville," Lois remarked.
Clark paused in the air, he and Lois hovering approximately six thousand feet above the ground as she held onto his neck. Due to the many 'flight trips' that her husband had taken her on ever since he fully mastered his flying ability over five years ago, Lois had long ago gotten used to being so high up in the air without being inside an aircraft. As they engaged in another deep lip-lock, a shooting star appeared across the night sky, possibly as a symbolization of the passionate love Clark Kent and Lois Lane felt for one another.
Nine years in the future
(Stryker's Island Penitentiary, 2025)
Alexander 'Lex' Luthor was in his cell, sitting on the bed while reading a book when he heard a whooshing sound accompanied by a gust of wind. Turning to the bars, Lex saw a mostly yellow and black humanoid figure with bright red glowing eyes standing on the other side of them. The figure's body appeared to be vibrating as Lex wondered if the figure was a meta-human, an alien, or even a ghost of some sort.
"Lex Luthor," the figure called out in a deep, distorted voice resembling that of a demon straight out of Hell itself.
Closing the book and setting it down, Lex stood up and inched towards the cell door. It was no surprise to him that the figure knew his name. After all, who hadn't heard of Lex Luthor, founder and owner of LexCorp and former President of the United States? After a lot of hard work and much arm-twisting, he had been elected in 2020 and served in office until he had been impeached in 2023 after Superman and the other so-called 'heroes' exposed his crimes and true intentions to the public, leading to Lex's fall from grace that had resulted in him spending the last two years locked in a maximum security prison with no hope of escaping, at least not yet.
"Who or what the hell are you?" Lex demanded, more out of curiosity than wariness. If the billionaire was the least bit intimidated by the yellow figure, he didn't show it.
"A friend," the yellow figure answered in that same demonic voice. "I have a proposition for you, Lex. You might want to take a few steps back."
Not taking his eyes off the mysterious yellow figure, Lex stepped back a few feet and watched with widened eyes as the figure effortlessly walked through the bars. A moment later, the bright red glow in the figure's eyes disappeared as its body stopped vibrating. Now Lex could see it was clearly a man in a yellow and black leather suit containing a round black emblem with a red lightning bolt on the chest.
"You're a speedster," Lex said in realization.
"Correct," the yellow-clad man confirmed in what Lex figured was his normal voice. "Now let me properly introduce myself." He pulled off his cowl, revealing the face of a middle-aged handsome man with blonde hair. "My name is Eobard Thawne. Where I come from, some call me the Reverse-Flash."
"Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash? Can't say I've had the pleasure," Lex said.
"You don't know me, but I know all about the man you are," Thawne said. "Or the man you were, former President Lex Luthor, greatest enemy of Superman."
"Hold it right there!"
Thawne turned around and saw a prison guard on the other side pointing a gun. In a streak of red lightning, Thawne sped through the cell and phased his hand through the guard's chest, killing him. After watching the guard's body drop to the floor in front of him, Thawne sped right back into Lex's cell.
"Now where was I?" he continued. "Oh, do you believe in second chances, Lex? I am offering you the opportunity to reverse the misfortunes Superman and his Justice League brought upon you. With my help, you can have everything you've ever wanted."
"Really?" Lex asked, skeptical and hopeful at the same time. "In my experience, Mr. Thawne, nothing comes without a price. What's the catch and why should I trust you?"
"The catch is, you help me and few others I've gathered take down a team of time-travelers dedicated to putting a stop to our objective," Thawne explained. "One member who recently joined the Legends, as they're calling themselves, is one of yours from this Earth. The half-human, half-Kryptonian known as..."
"Superboy," Lex finished, as he remembered Superman's half-Kryptonian protégé who hadn't been seen in years.
"Yes," Thawne confirmed. "Superboy joined the Legends almost nine years ago on your end, which is why he disappeared back in 2016. As for your second question, this isn't about trust. What matters is we will be working towards a mutual goal – reshaping reality to our liking, literally."
"And how exactly do you plan on accomplishing that?" Lex asked, still not sure whether or not he trusted Thawne.
"Come with me and I'll tell you everything you need to know about our mission," Thawne promised.
Lex thought about it for a few moments. On one hand, he didn't trust Thawne. On the other hand, Thawne was apparently not only his ticket out of prison, but his opportunity to reverse the damage Superman and the other 'heroes' had done to his life.
Looking Thawne firmly in the eyes, Lex said, "All right, I'll bite. If there's the slightest chance that what you're promising is true, I'll work with you." He extended his hand and Thawne shook it. "But let's get one thing straight. This isn't the beginning of a friendship nor do I trust you. This is strictly business." With a smug smile, Lex added, "And if Superboy will be one of our problems as you claimed, I'm gonna need to grab a few things first and foremost."
"Of course," Thawne said in understanding, before grabbing Lex and speeding out of the prison in a streak of red lightning.
Vanishing Point
A flash of red lightning, accompanied by a whoosh, appeared out of nowhere as the Reverse-Flash and a figure garbed in a green and purple suit of armor with a bright reddish-orange light on the chest appeared in the former's base of operations.
"Where did you run off to this time, Eobard?" Damien Darhk asked in a clearly annoyed tone.
Thawne pulled off his cowl, while the head of the green and purple armor retracted, revealing Lex inside it.
"So these are your friends," Lex said to Thawne.
"Partners," Thawne corrected.
"Who is this?" Malcolm Merlyn demanded, looking at the bald man in armor warily.
"Malcolm, Damien, I'd like you two to meet Lex Luthor, a billionaire and former President of the United States where he comes from," Thawne said. "Lex, this is Malcolm Merlyn and Damien Darhk."
"It's my understanding that either of you have not heard of me, considering that, according to Thawne, there isn't a version of me who exists on your Earth," Lex said, as he stepped forward towards Malcolm and Damien.
"What do you mean our Earth?" Damien asked.
"He means the Multiverse, Damien, which is just as real as time travel," Thawne clarified. "I pulled Lex from his Earth of origin in the year 2025 and brought him here to help us obtain the Spear of Destiny. He also provided us with the means to take down the Legends' newest and most powerful member."
"With this," Lex added, holding out a lead box and opening it to reveal a chunky green rock inside.
Damien looked at it curiously. "A rock?"
"How exactly is that fancy green rock gonna help us take down Superboy?" Malcolm wondered.
"This little rock holds much more value than you two assume," Thawne pointed out.
"It's called Kryptonite," Lex explained. "A radioactive mineral that is extremely poisonous to Superboy, Superman, and any other Kryptonian who is powered by our yellow sun. All you have to do is simply put it within close proximity to Superboy and you have the immediate upper hand."
"Wonderful," Damien said, impressed. "So Superboy isn't as invincible as he seems."
"Every man has a weakness, no matter how superhuman he may be," Lex stated, as he closed the lead box. "Mr. Thawne has offered me the chance at a clean slate. A chance to undo all the misfortunes brought upon my life due to the so-called 'heroes' of my Earth. What better way to start anew than having the ability to reshape reality as you see fit at your disposal?" With another smug smile, he added, "Once we get our hands on this artifact, I'm going to be the hero of the story for a change."
"Welcome to the team, Mr. Luthor," Damien said, already starting to like Lex.
That wraps up this fic, though the series is far from over. So, Superboy has joined the Legends, while Smallville Lex Luthor has been recruited into the Arrowverse's Legion of Doom by the Reverse-Flash. Therefore, both Conner and Lex will participate on opposing sides in the remainder of DC's Legends of Tomorrow Season 2.
Those who have watched the Smallville series finale remember in the flash-forward that Lex was elected President in 2018. Here, I changed it to 2020 so that the election years could line up with real life. Also, even though this story takes place in November 2016, Clark and Lois are already married here, as opposed to canon where they didn't officially get married until 2018.
Spikerose11235 on Chapter 3 Fri 02 May 2025 06:38PM UTC
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cer1992 on Chapter 3 Fri 02 May 2025 06:50PM UTC
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themightyshoobs on Chapter 8 Fri 02 Jun 2023 03:51AM UTC
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cer1992 on Chapter 8 Fri 02 Jun 2023 04:46AM UTC
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Sayman on Chapter 14 Sat 24 Aug 2024 09:47AM UTC
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cer1992 on Chapter 14 Mon 26 Aug 2024 03:52AM UTC
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chelanxar on Chapter 14 Wed 14 May 2025 12:45PM UTC
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