What bad thoughts can Batman have?

Chapter 843: A mere nobody should die for the future of the multiverse (Part )

Ultimate Star.

A world controlled by Brainiac.

The Flash before the crisis, Barry Allen, was running slowly under the dome.

This is Gotham City before the Crisis, shrouded in a dome, and our pre-Crisis Flash has lost his super powers -

Apparently, he was trying to regain his powers by running, but to no avail.

"Huff, huff, huff... Oh my God. The fastest man in the world, the fastest man in the world, my..." Barry Allen panted and answered the pager ringing in his pocket.

Pre-Flashpoint Barry is from before Crisis on Infinite Earths, so we all know that:
He doesn't have a smartphone.

(Note: Because when I was drawing comics, smartphones had not yet been invented)

"Hi, I got a page."

He said this: "Dr. Allen?"

"Hi, the previous Fulton case of illegal imprisonment has come out, and I think you might need to know..."

The Flash got a job as a traceology consultant at the Gotham City Police Department, doing the job he had done before, which was easy.

"I'll be at your place at 10:00," he said.

So Barry began running to work, trying to make the most of the few abilities he still had.

Gotham has always been a crime-ridden city, and the crime rate has skyrocketed since the dome was closed.

But the dome has sealed off time for everyone, and now no one can die, so illegal imprisonment becomes the worst crime.

This doesn't sound fun at all. You can't die, and you can't be disabled, so imagine how uncomfortable it would be to not be able to die.

A knife stabbed into the body, and when it was pulled out, the wound healed as time went back.

But what about pain?

But thankfully, Gotham PD got all the help he could get.

At 10 a.m., the Flash had already changed into his white coat in the medical examiner's office of the Gotham City Police Department.

Now there is no body and the forensic doctor is out of work, but the staff is still there and the name of the office has not changed.

Barry took out a photo of his parents from the cabinet.

I wondered what was happening to Canterlot now, if he still existed. What about my parents?
I wondered silently in my heart, was Gotham quietly moved? Was Central City also trapped under the dome? Or did everything disappear, leaving only Gotham City as an exhibit in a museum?
He was ready to go to work, but he was still very upset.

in the afternoon.

Barry the Flash and pre-Flashpoint Batman Bruce Wayne sit in a cafe.

"We can't just leave it alone and pretend we can go back to the way we were before, this is our life now and that's it.

Yet we waste every little opportunity and moment of pleasure, consoling ourselves that we are only temporarily left behind.”

"Do you really think so?"

"No, yes, sometimes."

Barry said.

The Batman Bruce Wayne in front of him was dressed in a suit and had a gloomy look on his face.

The Flash knew that the other party was also under a lot of pressure.

"That sounds defeatist, and that's not like the Barry I know."

Batman, who was in civilian clothes, answered him.

“Sometimes I have to speak up, and it’s not defeatism, Bruce, pragmatism, maybe.”

The Flash said before the flash: "And I'm not the Barry you once knew. In the park this morning, a girl who was almost 20 years old ran faster than me, and she wasn't even running fast on purpose."

The Flash asked, "Do you think the world is about to end? Can we find a way out?"

“Everybody is working hard for him, in different ways.”

"It's just scale," the Flash said. "How many bad places have we been to over the years, how many huge threats have we faced and dealt with, even when all hope is lost?"

"More than we ever shared with each other," Batman Bruce admitted.

"It's been a year, Bruce, and no change, no progress, not even a clue, we've never been through a situation like this before, ever."

"So this is very unusual, and maybe we are about to face the worst crisis, but it doesn't mean we have to give up."

The Flash and Batman stare at each other.

"I have to get back to work, thanks for talking to me, it was nice to meet you."

"Me too, Barry."

Barry the Flash got up and stood up, then he heard Batman whisper, "Barry?"

"Ok?"

“Maybe this experience is a marathon, not a sprint.”

The Flash didn't reply. He talked to Batman, which eased his anxiety a little, but it didn't help the situation, and he hailed a taxi.

"Traffic is heavy today." But after sitting for a while, he soon noticed something unusual.

For a city that remains almost unchanged, change is the biggest anomaly.

"Something's up in the air, you know? Everybody's on edge," Flash heard the driver say, and he opened his mouth:

"Really? I thought..."

No, this guy is right, the mood on the street is weird today, I just noticed...

He thought so, and then stopped the driver: "Can you pull over for a moment? I need to make a pay call--"

"I'm done with my work... The next place I'm going to is... Ashley Street? Okay."

Then he looked around at the vehicles that were almost stuck in a mess.

He gave the taxi driver the money: "I'd better walk over. No need to give me the change."

"No problem, bro," the driver replied.

About 8 blocks, walking faster, I estimate it will take 10 minutes, and I will...

The Flash Barry's thoughts stopped for a moment.

He raised his head.

"What the hell..." He muttered in a low voice.

Something happened in the sky and he could no longer see the dome.

What happened in heaven?

"The inhabitants of my world..."

At the same time, the Flash and everyone on the street heard a voice. The Flash heard the people around him looking at each other and asking each other loudly.

"What is that sound?"

"Maybe we've been rescued, maybe we're finally getting out of here?"

A sense of fear came over Barry. Unlike his friend Batman... he had already accepted life in the dome.

"Only the city survives... Only the strong survive. Your era has ended, your world has vanished, but I have the power to give a city... a glimmer of the future."

Barry looked up. For a split second, he felt some strength returning to his body.

He wasn't sure.

"Today your cage will become a competition arena, and only one of the two cities will survive this day."

"The defenders of two cities will clash here, and only the strongest heroes will stand." Barry heard the voice, which became louder and louder, reaching everyone's ears:

"Only one has escaped today's judgment, and the rest will be forgotten and embraced by darkness!"

"what does that mean?"

Paris asked as she heard the people around her making a commotion.

Some people looked at the sky above their heads.

"That's not our sky!"

Barry heard someone say.

Everyone was shocked.

Barry heard a father telling his child that everything was going to be okay.

But Barry doesn't have time to think about this, he has to go back to find Bruce, the dome has collapsed, we have a chance!
We have the opportunity to...

Barry ran past the man who had asked the question and heard him say, "Does anyone know what that means?"

He ran past the fleeing men. "Yeah, that's right, man. Run and hide!"

"That's a good thing, right? We can go out now... right?"

He heard someone say this, and at the same time, the golden speed force wrapped around his body.

"Oh my God, he's back." Barry looked at his hands and ran faster and faster.

"He is back!!!"

The golden lightning created a whirlwind that swept across the entire street.

I was Barry Allen, the Flash. Just like that, the Speed ​​Force was back in me, and just like that, I realized how good it felt to be alive again. And I was the fastest man alive.

We need to gather intelligence quickly.

We need to find a favorable observation point, and this is a good observation point.

The Flash climbed to the top of Wayne Tower and looked out over the city center.

"Oh my god, this isn't Earth out there."

Soon Barry saw stretches of barren land outside the city, and another city with tall buildings in the distance.

"There are other cities elsewhere, but Gotham is so peaceful and peaceful that it's a little scary."

The Flash thought.

He tried to find someone to communicate with.

He shouted to the blue sky:
"Hello, who are you? What do you mean by battle? If you want a guard, here's one--"

The Flash kept shouting, and then he heard a voice behind him answering, "Hello."

"Who?"

He turned his head and saw a figure standing behind the gargoyles.

"I think... I'm your match. I think you should join the fight."

Flash heard the figure say.

"I don't want to fight. Who are you?" The Flash asked, letting him get the other's answer: "The dome has just opened. I lost my power for a long time, and I haven't felt the overflowing power in my heart for a long time, but now he is back, and he has recovered just right. And I think...well. I think, I am..."

The Flash finally saw the figure coming out from behind the gargoyle. He was wearing a blue wizard robe and holding a wooden wand.

He is a black man with white eyes without pupils and a beard that covers both sides of his lips and chin...

As he stood in the sunlight of Gotham City, Barry heard his self-proclaimed name:
"I am Superman."

"Who do you say you are?"

"A superman from a parallel universe."

The blue-robed wizard who calls himself Superman... let's call him Wizard Chao.

It was only at this time that the Flash Barry Allen realized that the other person was holding a wand in one hand and a person in the other.

He knew that man, Batman, Bruce Wayne.

"When I entered this city, it seemed that some mechanism was triggered, which attracted this person's attack. Let me think about it, no, let me guess..."

The Master throws the unconscious Batman to the ground.

"Is this the Batman from your urban legend?"

"Yes, how did you..."

"When I came to your city, after I subdued him, I first went to your city's library."

Mage Chao said.

"oh oh."

Barry knew that the other party must have used speed reading to get to know the city.

The two of them looked at each other in silence for a while, and then the Flash spoke first:
"Wait, are we really going to fight?"

"It seems that this is just a man-made battle, arranged by the unknown person who imprisoned our city." Mage Chao answered him.

"And the reward is that the winner's city survives?"

Barry asked.

"That seems to be the basic rule. Isn't it strange that the rule is so simple? The entity that imprisoned us is obviously a highly advanced creature."

Mage Chao said: "He stole cities from different time streams and parallel super-dimensional universes. And he trapped us in a container in the dome like specimens.

It opens and closes these containers as easily as opening or closing a rabbit hutch or bird cage.

So far we have not been able to do anything to escape the container or free everyone.

He is able to strip all imprisoned parahumans of their abilities, and can even restore them with a thought.

It is an entity with extremely advanced capabilities, demonstrating limitless abilities, superior governance, advanced technology, and perhaps even extremely terrifying magic.

Since it is unknown, even someone like me cannot detect it or prove its existence or discern its reality."

Master Chao's speech is very rational and full of wisdom, which is very different from the Superman Barry knows.

And the stronger, more rational and wiser the opponent is... then...

"But he just wants us to fight, doesn't he?"

Barry the Flash said.

"Yes. Would it make you uncomfortable to say that? Having such a powerful ability, and intentionally forcing them to engage in a battle of strength?"

"This joke has been overused in Star Trek." The Flash replied.

"Indeed it is." Mage Chao answered him.

"You talk about people like me. It sounds like you could have just walked away."

"It is true. My brain has now evolved to an accelerated stage and I am intellectualizing at overdrive."

“You are quite modest.”

"This is not a boast, it's just a statement of fact. I want to talk to you directly so that you can understand what I am saying."

The Superman said:

"Nice to meet you. Let me introduce myself. I am Superman, a powerful nobody from Earth 9. Our worlds are adjacent and co-exist in a super-time stream."

"We are being forced to fight, but I am trying to stop it."

(End of this chapter)