Second Chances: Flash

Chapter 11

"Well?" Caitlin asked when the rest of Team Flash came through the breach.

"How do you think it went?" Barry asked as he removed his cowl.

"He got away." Caitlin said, not at all surprised.

"You know how Thawne is. The bastard knows how to get out of trouble. Though this time, he had some help from the negative speed force." Barry said.

"The negative speed force?" Henry asked, reminding his son that he and his wife were still in the room.

"The positive speed force, which is where we draw our speed from, has a counterpart, the negative side, which is literally the exact opposite of it. It draws on hatred and negativity." Barry said.

"Thawne uses the negative speed force to avoid being detected by speedsters." Cisco added.

"That might explain why you could never track the Rival." Tina said and Henry nodded in agreement.

"Wait, the Rival, as in Edward Clarriss?" Barry asked, shocked that another Flashpoint villain still existed.

"You know him?" Henry asked.

"Let's just say that in the old reality, he was a side effect of when I started time traveling." Barry said.

"Barry, what did you do?" Henry asked, knowing the dangers of time travel.

"I went back in time and stopped Thawne from killing mom. What I didn't know at the time was that mom's death is a fixed point." Barry said and Henry sighed.

"Please tell me you fixed it?" Henry asked.

"I did. And the only reason I did it was because I was in an emotional state after watching you die at the hands of another evil speedster called Zoom." Barry said.

"So, I was dead in this old reality." Henry said, shocked.

"Yeah and you also spent 15 years in prison for mom's death, since there was no way to prove your innocence, since you weren't a speedster and there was no JSA in that reality, at least like not the one you were a part of in this one. I grew up as Joe's foster son." Barry said.

"That certainly made him take his time to ask me out." Iris said.

"Really Iris?" Barry asked her.

"Not sorry for that." Iris said.

"Anyways, in the timeline I created when I saved mom from Thawne, Clariss was the main evil speedster, though I wasn't the Flash of that timeline." Barry said.

"I was. That's how I got my speed in the old reality." Wally said.

"Okay, explain?" Tina asked.

"When I restored the timeline, I accidentally created a new threat. Savitar." Barry said and Henry stilled.

"You fought Savitar?" Henry asked.

"It's worse than that." Barry said.

"How could it be worse?" Henry asked.

"In that reality, Barry was Savitar. Or at least a time remnant of him was." Iris said.

"Why would you ever become Savitar?" Henry asked.

"It was a time loop where Savitar killed Iris to drive me down a very dark path to stop him and one of things I'd try to stop him were creating time remnants of myself and Savitar killed all of them but one and then that time remnant was rejected for not being the real me and it basically goes insane." Barry said.

"But you broke the loop?" Henry asked.

"Yeah, one of our friends took Iris's place. That meant that Iris lived and that I'd never create Savitar." Barry said.

"Who?" Tina asked, wondering if this friend had been brought back too.

"It was Harrison Wells." Iris said.

"I thought that Wells was dead?" Henry asked.

"It wasn't the Wells of that Earth, he was dead. It was the Harrison Wells of Earth 19 in the old multiverse." Cisco said, though the death of HR was still a painful topic for him.

"Wait, the multiverse is real?" Tina asked, since she was aware of the theory, but hadn't found any proof of it yet.

"It was, but it was destroyed in Crisis. Long story. And so far we haven't found any traces of a new multiverse existing yet." Barry said.

"More like I haven't had a chance to check yet. I think the fact that my powers exist means that a new multiverse exists, we just haven't figured out how to make contact with other earths yet and honestly, until we get things a bit more settled down on this earth, I'm fine with that." Cisco said.

"I'm sorry, what do your powers have to do with anything?" Tina asked.

"Cisco's powers are tied to the energy that binds the multiverse together. He can manipulate it to do a lot of cool things, including open breaches to other earths." Barry said.

"That power took me a long time to fully master." Cisco said.

"Anyways, I know you can time travel Barry, but what other abilities have you mastered? I mean beyond the ones I taught you." Henry asked, since he'd taught Barry how to run on water, phasing and even lightning throws.

"I've learned to harness my lightning into other forms, like swords and throwing stars, but I've also learned to use what we call flashtime, which is basically how the world looks when I'm running, but I can also bring other people into it and even share my speed with them for a short time and I've also learned that I'm not just limited to traveling through time, I can also run fast enough to travel to other earths, though I'll admit, I kind of prefer to have Cisco open breaches." Barry said.

"Wow, I've never heard of any speedster being able to do things like that." Henry said.

"To be fair, Barry did spend six months stuck in the speed force, which boosted his speed significantly." Iris said.

"Why were you stuck in the speed force?" Henry asked.

"Because the way future me defeated Savitar originally was by building a machine that created a prison in the speed force to hold him, but the catch about the prison is that without an occupant, it goes unstable. With Savitar gone, there was no prisoner and the only way to stabilize the prison was to run into it. It took Cisco six months to find a way to get me out without destroying the world." Barry said.

"Maybe we should find out if Savitar is locked up in there again." Caitlin pointed out.

"Not a bad idea. Besides, I think that Chloe might benefit from a talk with the speed force anyways." Barry said.

"That's not a bad idea." Henry said, since hopefully his former wife might be able to get through to Chloe in a way that neither he or Tina could.

"I'll go get her." Barry said as he headed towards the cell block.