The restaurant in Central City was warm, quiet, and almost painfully normal.
Barry Allen sat across from his mother, the soft hum of conversation and music filling the space between them. Plates of food rested untouched for a moment as he stared down, lost in thought.
His mother was alive.
Right there.
Smiling. Talking. Real.
And yet, his mind refused to settle.
Noah Vale's words lingered like an echo he couldn't shake.
I'll handle it.
Barry's fingers tightened slightly around his utensils.
Could he really trust that?
Because the alternative wasn't simple.
If he gave up now—if he didn't restore the timeline himself—then everything he remembered would disappear. The world he came from, the people he fought beside, the lives he had known…
Gone.
Rewritten.
He would forget all of it.
Bruce. Superman. Everything.
And he would go on living, none the wiser.
A normal man in a normal world.
"Barry?"
He blinked, pulled back to the present.
Nora Allen was watching him with quiet concern.
"You've been somewhere else all night," she said gently. "Something on your mind?"
Barry forced a small smile.
"No. I'm good. Just tired."
He picked up his fork and started eating, a little too quickly.
Nora studied him for a moment, clearly unconvinced—but she didn't press.
Not tonight.
Elsewhere, in the shadows of the same city—
A man stirred.
He pushed himself upright, one hand reaching instinctively to the back of his head.
Then he smiled.
Slow.
Certain.
"Well, Barry," he murmured to himself, "I don't know why things didn't change… but I won't waste a second chance."
Reverse-Flash was back.
And he had no idea how much had already shifted.
What he didn't know—
Was that Barry was already considering giving up the Speed Force entirely.
If Barry let go…
Then the paradox tying them together would collapse.
And with it—
Everything that made Reverse-Flash what he was.
In a matter of days, he might wake up to find himself… ordinary.
No power. No purpose. No memory of what he had been.
Just another face in the crowd.
Outside the restaurant, Noah didn't wait.
Barry had his moment.
That was enough.
The rest—
Was his.
The city lights painted the streets in neon streaks as Noah walked, hands in his pockets, expression calm. People glanced his way, drawn to something they couldn't quite name.
Some reached for their phones.
Tried to capture the moment.
They failed.
Because in the next instant—
Noah bent his knees slightly and launched himself skyward.
The ground cracked beneath his feet as he shot upward like a missile, tearing through the night sky in a blur of motion.
Clouds parted.
Air screamed.
And then—
He turned.
Mid-flight, a sharp ninety-degree shift carried him across continents, his path cutting clean through the atmosphere.
London came into view.
Or what was left of it.
The city was broken.
Buildings reduced to jagged skeletons. Streets torn apart. Smoke rising from the ruins like the breath of something long dead.
This wasn't a war.
It was a massacre stretched over time.
The Amazons had already swept through here.
And this—
This was just one piece of a larger conflict.
Across Europe, the war between Atlantis and Themyscira had turned entire regions into battlegrounds. Tidal waves had swallowed coastlines. Armies clashed across shattered cities.
Millions were already dead.
And it wasn't over.
Noah descended.
A streak of light cutting through the sky.
He landed in the middle of a battlefield.
Gunfire echoed.
What remained of a resistance force fought desperately, their weapons barely slowing the figures advancing toward them.
Amazon warriors.
Faster. Stronger. Relentless.
To them, this wasn't a fight.
It was cleanup.
Nearby, a massive three-headed beast tore through the chaos, its jaws snapping shut around a fleeing soldier. The man didn't even have time to scream before he was ripped apart.
The survivors fired everything they had.
It wasn't enough.
"Damn it! Keep firing!" someone shouted. "Don't let them close in!"
And then—
The air exploded.
A shockwave tore through the battlefield, blasting everyone off their feet. Dust and debris surged outward, swallowing the scene in a choking haze.
"What—what was that?!"
Through the smoke, something moved.
A silhouette.
Standing.
Still.
At the center of it all.
Hope flickered in the eyes of the resistance.
Please… let it not be another enemy…
The dust cleared.
And they saw him.
A man stood atop the body of the beast, one foot pressing it into the ground as it struggled beneath him.
The creature roared, twisting, all three heads snapping upward in rage—
Noah moved.
A single punch.
The impact didn't just stop it.
It erased it.
The massive body ruptured instantly, torn apart into fragments that scattered across the ruined ground.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Absolute.
Noah lowered his hand, his expression unchanged.
"I'm Noah Vale," he said.
His voice carried effortlessly, reaching every ear on the battlefield.
"I'm not here to kill anyone."
A pause.
"This war has gone on long enough."
He glanced across both sides.
"So let's end it."
For a brief moment—
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Then an Amazon warrior stepped forward, sword raised, eyes burning with fury.
"Impossible," she said coldly. "This war ends when Atlantis kneels—or burns. And you—"
Her voice sharpened.
"—you dare to harm one of ours?"
Noah looked at her.
Flat.
Unimpressed.
"Weak," he said.
And then—
He moved his hand.
Not even a full swing.
Just a casual downward motion.
The air split.
A blade of force, massive and invisible, tore forward in an instant.
The Amazon warrior vanished.
Not knocked back.
Not wounded.
Gone.
Erased in the space of a heartbeat.
The attack didn't stop there.
It kept going.
Through the battlefield.
Through the ruins of London.
Through everything in its path.
Buildings collapsed into dust. The ground split open, carving a path that stretched beyond the city, beyond the horizon—
All the way to the ocean.
When it ended—
Europe had been divided.
A scar carved clean across the land.
Silence returned.
This time—
No one mistook it for anything else.