**Wayne Manor**
Wayne Manor loomed before them—a structure that should have been imposing and gothic in its grandeur, but instead radiated wrongness. The architecture was the same, the location identical, but something fundamental had shifted. The air felt heavier here, as if reality itself was uncomfortable with this place's existence.
Ethan, Jean, Anna, and Elizabeth walked through the manor's darkened halls, their footsteps echoing in spaces that should have held life and warmth but instead felt abandoned and hollow.
They approached the old grandfather clock—an antique timepiece that, in the world Ethan remembered, concealed the entrance to the legendary Batcave.
A symbol of Bruce Wayne's double life, of wealth used for justice, of technology employed for heroism.
But when they reached it and Ethan activated the hidden mechanism, what lay beyond was nothing like the high-tech headquarters he remembered.
The passage descended into darkness that felt almost oppressive. Stone walls, damp and cold, lined with chains and implements that had no place in a hero's lair.
Anna was the first to voice what they were all thinking, "This looks like something out of a horror movie. Like a serial killer's torture chamber." Her voice echoed uncomfortably in the confined space.
Jean nodded, her telepathy already reaching ahead to identify who was waiting below. "There are two people down there. Barry Allen—the Flash—and..."
She stopped mid-sentence, her face going pale. Her telepathic probe had just brushed against the other consciousness, intending only to identify them. But in that brief contact, she'd seen far more than she'd prepared for.
Images flooded her mind unbidden—a twisted version of history that made her stomach clench.
A young boy lying in an alley, blood pooling around his small body. Bruce Wayne, dead before he could become Batman.
Thomas Wayne, driven by grief and rage, becoming something darker. Not Batman the hero, but Batman the monster.
Martha Wayne's sanity shattering like glass, her grief transforming into madness. Becoming the Joker—not Arthur Fleck or any criminal, but the grieving mother whose world had ended with her son.
Wealth squandered. Empire crumbling before it can grow. A man putting a gun in his wife's mouth because mercy was all he had left to give.
The sheer wrongness of the world he understood—the fundamental perversion of a story that should have ended in hope—hit Jean like a physical blow.
She stopped walking abruptly. Everyone else halted immediately, sensing something was wrong.
Ethan's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts, "Don't read his mind, Jean. Pull back."
Jean withdrew her telepathy instantly. Her hands were shaking. "Ethan... this world is..."
He moved to her without hesitation, wrapping his arms around her in a protective embrace. "It's okay. You're okay. What you saw isn't your burden to carry."
Jean pressed her face against his shoulder, trying to center herself. Her voice was muffled when she spoke, "This world is really fucked up. Fundamentally and cosmically fucked up."
Anna immediately moved closer with concern evident on her face. "What happened? What did you see?"
"I'll explain later," Ethan said firmly, still holding Jean. "Right now, let's just focus on why we're here."
Elizabeth—who had been staying quiet and observant during their journey—stepped forward with genuine worry. "Jean, are you alright? Do you need to rest?"
Jean took a deep breath, drawing on decades of experience dealing with difficult telepathic encounters, and pulled herself together. "I'm fine. Thank you, Elizabeth. Just... saw something I wasn't prepared for."
She stepped back from Ethan's embrace, though she kept one hand linked with his. Her professional composure was returning.
Ethan turned his attention to Elizabeth, his expression becoming more serious. "Elizabeth, I need to warn you about something. When we get down there, I'm going to have to... educate Barry Allen. The Flash. And my methods might be unpleasant to watch."
He paused, choosing his words carefully. "No matter what I do later, please don't be shocked or think poorly of me. What's happening in this world is partially his fault, and he needs to understand the consequences of his actions. I'll explain everything afterward, but for now, I just need you to trust me."
Elizabeth looked confused but nodded seriously. "I understand, Ethan-sama."
Ethan sighed, though there was a hint of fondness in his exasperation. "You don't have to add the 'sama,' I've already told you to stop. You don't use that honorific with Jean and Anna."
Despite the seriousness of their situation, he couldn't deny a small part of him enjoyed it. What otaku wouldn't want to be addressed so respectfully by a beautiful princess? It appealed to his inner anime fan in ways he'd never admit out loud.
Elizabeth smiled—a genuine expression that was still new on her face after centuries of captivity. "They've become close friends to me during these five days since you freed me. We've laughed together, shared meals, talked about our lives. That's friendship."
Her expression shifted to something more serious, her blue eyes meeting his directly. "But you are my savior and the man I respect above all others. I can't address you casually—it goes against everything I was taught about propriety and gratitude in my world. Calling you anything less formal would feel... wrong."
Anna immediately seized the opportunity for teasing. "Aww, Ethan-sama is so respected! How does it feel to have a princess treating you like royalty?"
Ethan tried to maintain dignity but was clearly pleased. "I'll just have to get closer to Elizabeth so she'll feel comfortable dropping the honorific. Though I admit, it does have a nice ring to it..."
Jean, having recovered from her earlier shock, decided to join in the teasing. Her voice took on a deliberately formal tone, "Of course, Ethan-sama. Whatever you desire, Ethan-sama. We live only to serve, Ethan-sama."
Ethan's eyes glinted with mischief. "Actually, I'd very much prefer you calling me that during our night activities. It has potential."
Jean and Anna both paused, their teasing expressions shifting to something more thoughtful and interested. The implications were clear.
Elizabeth, standing nearby, suddenly found the stone walls very interesting to look at as her face turned bright red. Her imagination—freed from centuries of suppression—immediately began conjuring scenarios that made her blush deepen even further.
'What kind of night activities would require honorifics?' she wondered, then immediately tried to stop wondering, which only made her think about it more. 'Oh gods, I need to stop thinking about this. Focus on something else. Anything else.'
Their group reached the bottom of the passage and emerged into what should have been the Batcave.
Instead, they found something that looked like a dungeon from medieval times mixed with a modern torture chamber. The lighting was dim and flickering. The walls were rough stone. And in the center of this nightmarish space...
Batman—but wrong, twisted, dressed in dark Batman suit that looked more military than heroic—was systematically beating a blonde man who was barely defending himself.
The blonde man was covered in bruises and blood, clearly taking a severe beating. But even through the damage, Ethan recognized him instantly.
Barry Allen. The Flash. The man who'd broken the timeline.
They all paused at the entrance. Ethan whistled appreciatively. "Damn. That's quite the beatdown. Mind if I join in?"
Batman's head snapped toward them with predatory speed. Without missing a beat, he drew several bat-shaped throwing knives from his utility belt and hurled them directly at Ethan—not to kill, but to immobilize. Aim for the shoulders, the legs, places that would disable without being lethal.
The knives stopped in mid-air three feet from Ethan's chest, held by invisible force. They hovered for a moment, then clattered harmlessly to the ground.
"Nice try," Ethan commented cheerfully. "But telekinesis is a hell of a defense. You might want to consider that before trying again."
Batman immediately shifted stance, his hands moving beneath his cape—presumably reaching for more equipment. His voice was gravelly and suspicious, "Who are you people? How did you find this place?"
Ethan held up one finger. "Hold that thought, Mr. Wayne. I'll be right with you. But first..." He turned his full attention to the blonde man who was slowly, painfully pulling himself to his feet.
Barry Allen's face was bruised and bloodied, his nose clearly broken. But the moment he saw Ethan, recognition flashed across his features.
"Ethan!" Barry shouted, genuine relief flooding his voice. He stood up straighter despite the pain. "You're here too! Thank god, I thought I was the only one who—"
SLAP!
Ethan's hand moved faster than Barry could track. The slap connected with Barry's cheek with devastating force.
Six teeth flew through the air in a slow-motion arc, accompanied by droplets of blood that caught the dim light like rubies. The impact created a sound that echoed through the stone chamber like a gunshot.
Barry's brain stopped functioning for approximately two seconds. His consciousness flickered, showing him a rapid-fire montage of his life—the world before Flashpoint, his mother died, his father in prison, and then fractured images of this new, wrong reality.
He collapsed to the ground, his synapses struggling to catch up with what had just happened.
Elizabeth covered her mouth with both hands, gasping in shock. Anna and Jean both sighed simultaneously, sharing a look of resigned understanding.
"Here we go again," Anna muttered.
Batman tensed, ready to attack these newcomers who'd just assaulted his... well, not ally, but the person he'd been interrogating.
Ethan walked slowly toward Barry's fallen form, his expression serious. He raised his hand, and green Genesis energy flowed from his palm into Barry's body—healing the injuries, restoring the teeth, mending the damage.
Then, with casual telekinesis, Ethan lifted Barry into the air so they were face-to-face.
"Surprise, Barry Allen," Ethan said, his voice carrying an edge that made even Batman pay closer attention. "Also known as The Flash. Also known as the dumbass who messed with the timeline and created a world that will reach its doom in a few hours."
Barry's eyes widened in shock and confusion. "Wait, you remember? You remember the world before the timeline changed? And why did you—"
SLAP!
This one was even harder. Seven teeth flew out this time, spinning through the air like tiny white projectiles.
"Ethan-sama..." Elizabeth started to speak, her voice distressed.
Jean placed a gentle hand on Elizabeth's shoulder and shook her head.
Anna moved to Elizabeth's other side and spoke quietly, "It's best to let Ethan bitch-slap some sense into him, sugar. Otherwise, Barry's going to do something like this again. And next time might be even worse."
Jean nodded in agreement. Both she and Anna were intimately familiar with the Flash and his tendency to create Flashpoint paradoxes—they'd read about it in DC Comics during their free time in their home universe. Every time the Flash created a Flashpoint, reality itself would shift and change in unpredictable ways.
And judging from the state of this world—from the twisted version of Batman they'd encountered, from what Jean had seen in Thomas Wayne's mind—this Flashpoint was particularly catastrophic.
Barry, healed again by Ethan's Genesis power, now had his seven teeth restored. He was confused, hurt, and increasingly frustrated. His eyes found Jean and Anna, then landed on Elizabeth's distinctive silver hair.
"Do they remember too?" Barry asked, gesturing at the three women. "Are they from the original timeline?"
Batman, who had been silently observing this entire exchange with tactical precision, felt his earlier suspicions solidifying into certainty. What Barry had been saying before—about different worlds, changed timelines, reality being wrong—might actually be true.
These people clearly knew things they shouldn't, possessed powers that defied explanation, and were treating reality shifts as serious matters rather than delusions.
He remained ready to fight or flee, but filed away every piece of information for later analysis.
Ethan sighed deeply while shaking his head with genuine disappointment. "You really don't know anything, do you?"
SLAP!
Eight teeth this time. Anna, who had been counting, couldn't help but be impressed by the escalation.
Barry was healed once again—Ethan seemed determined to make this educational experience as repeatable as necessary. The speedster was now genuinely angry, his earlier confusion giving way to frustrated rage.
"What the hell are you slapping my teeth out for?!" Barry shouted, his voice cracking slightly. "I didn't do this! I have no idea how any of this happened! Why are you blaming me?!"
If Barry didn't know about Ethan's overwhelming power, he probably would have tried to punch back. But even through his anger and confusion, survival instinct kept him from doing something that stupid.
Ethan's expression remained serious, almost disappointed. "Oh, you did this, Mr. Flash. So let me ask you something very carefully: Didn't you change something in the past? Something small? Something you thought wouldn't matter for this universe but for you?"
Barry's eyes widened as realization began to dawn. "No... no, even if I changed my mother's fate, saved her from being murdered, this world couldn't have changed this much! Bruce Wayne dying in that alley happened way before my mother was killed. And from my memories, Superman is missing too—the Kryptonian ship never landed where it should have, or it crashed somewhere else. Those events happened decades before my mother died! Saving her couldn't have affected them!"
Ethan sighed again, the sound filled with a patience that was clearly being tested. "You really don't understand your powers at all, and yet you still mess with them carelessly. Alright, let me help you understand something fundamental."
He gestured as if drawing an invisible river in the air between them. "The flow of time is like a river, Barry. Throw a rock into it, or stir the water just a little—no matter how small the action, it will cause ripples on the surface. Ripples that spread outward, affecting everything they touch."
His voice grew more intense. "But you didn't throw a stone, Barry. You changed the fate of a person. You altered a death that was meant to happen. And that didn't just create ripples—it created a tsunami that affected both the past and the future. That's how this works. That's how you created this world."
Barry's face had gone pale, fear replacing his earlier anger.
Batman's eyes narrowed behind his mask, his analytical mind processing every word. This was making a terrible kind of sense.
Ethan continued relentlessly, "I can understand why you did it. I really can. You wanted your mother back. You have the power to save her, so why shouldn't you? And you know what? You could save her. You have that ability."
He leaned closer, his blue eyes boring into Barry's. "But it comes at the cost of everything. Everyone living in this world, every person who exists here, every life and death and joy and suffering—it's all been twisted because you couldn't accept one woman's death. And if you save your mother in any timeline, no matter how carefully you try to do it, that timeline will develop a worse future. Always. The universe itself will compensate for the change. Including making your mother's life more dangerous."
Barry's anger returned, though now it was tinged with desperation. "How do you know that? How can you possibly know what will happen? I just wanted—"
"Don't raise your voice at me, Barry." Ethan's irises began to glow with blue Genesis light—not threatening, but demonstrating. "You're talking to someone who can manipulate time far more precisely than you ever could. Someone who can see timelines like paths in a garden and walk them at will. Trust me when I say this, I know the cost of timeline manipulation better than you."
Batman's gravelly voice cut through the tension, "You've changed the past too, haven't you?"
Everyone turned to look at Thomas Wayne's version of Batman. Then all eyes shifted back to Ethan.
Jean and Anna already knew this story—Ethan had told them about his previous timeline interventions during their travels. But Barry and Batman were hearing it for the first time.
"Yes," Ethan admitted without shame or hesitation. "I tried to stop someone who was stealing the powers of every hero and villain in a world. My intervention was meant to save lives, to prevent a catastrophe."
He paused, his expression growing more solemn. "And in doing so, I caused an entire timeline—not just a world or a universe, but an entire timeline spanning infinite realities—to vanish. Ceased to exist. Everything and everyone in it, gone."
Batman's expression didn't change visibly, but Ethan could sense the shock beneath the mask. Barry's eyes couldn't possibly get any wider.
"But you saved people before!" Barry protested desperately. "In the war with Atlantis and even in Joker Incident, You messed with time and became a hero! I do it and I'm the villain? That doesn't sound fair!"
Ethan's voice remained calm, which somehow made his words hit harder, "The difference, Barry, is that I understand how terrifying my powers are. That's why I use them carefully, sparingly, and with full knowledge of the consequences."
He held up one finger. "First, I manipulated the present, not the past. I didn't go back and change events that had already happened—I intervened in something that was happening in real-time across multiple realities."
A second finger. "Second, the people I saved? They didn't get a happy ending. Every single one of them will face a horrible death—far worse than what they would have experienced originally. That's the cost. Nothing is free in this universe, Barry. For the extra time they were given, they will pay with extra suffering."
Silence filled the chamber. Even Batman looked disturbed by that revelation.
Ethan continued, his voice carrying the weight of experience: "Everything comes with a cost. Power without understanding is just destruction with extra steps. And time travel? That's the most dangerous power of all because the costs aren't paid by you—they're paid by everyone around you."
Barry was in visible pain now, emotional rather than physical. Tears were forming in his eyes, threatening to spill over. "Just because someone has power doesn't mean they can mess around with it, I get that. I understand that intellectually. But..."
His voice broke. "I'm not a hero because I got the power from the speedforce and I don't act like one. I just..."
Ethan placed a hand on Barry's shoulder—the gesture gentle despite his earlier violence. "I don't know how it feels to lose a mother like you did, Barry. I can't say I truly understand that specific pain. But I do know this, what you're doing isn't the answer."
Barry sobbed openly now, all pretense of strength crumbling. "Why? Why does she have to die? She didn't do anything wrong. She was kind, loving, perfect. She didn't deserve to be murdered in our kitchen while I was just a kid. Why does the universe demand her death?"
Ethan sighed, and for the another time, his voice carried genuine sympathy rather than lecturing. "Because it's a fixed point, Barry. There are certain events in every timeline that are anchors—moments that define the flow of causality itself. Your mother's death is one of them. If you change it, the entire structure of this reality becomes unstable and will eventually collapse. Not might collapse—will collapse."
He squeezed Barry's shoulder. "I'm very sorry to say this, but you need to let your mother go."
Elizabeth, who had been listening to this entire exchange, felt tears welling in her own eyes. She remembered her family—her father the king, her mother the queen, her sisters. All murdered while she watched helplessly from inside her own body, controlled by Querehsha.
The pain of loss never truly faded. It just became something you learned to carry.
Unable to bear the emotional weight of the conversation any longer, Elizabeth turned and quietly walked away from the group, heading back toward the passage that led to the manor above.
Jean immediately noticed and followed, her telepathy picking up on Elizabeth's distress. Anna sighed deeply, watching them go.
"This is so messed up," Anna muttered, though whether she meant the Flashpoint timeline or the situation with Barry's mother or both wasn't entirely clear.
But Ethan's expression had shifted from sympathetic to thoughtful. His eyes took on a calculating look—not cold, but considering possibilities.
'Maybe I can find a way to turn this fixed point into something else,' he thought. 'Some way to preserve it while also achieving a better outcome. But...'
His internal reasoning continued: 'Like I decided long ago, I don't touch canon events or fixed points directly. The risk is too great, the potential for catastrophic failure too high. But what I can do is work around them, find solutions that achieve the spirit of what people want while preserving the structural integrity of the timeline.'
His expression became more hopeful, determined. 'I'll find a way to ensure the best possible ending for everyone involved. I always do.'
Batman's gravelly voice cut through Ethan's thoughts, "Now that the theatrical discipline is complete, perhaps you can answer my questions."
Ethan turned away from Barry, who had stopped crying and was now just staring at the ground in numb defeat. "Yes, Mr. Wayne?"
"How do you remember all of this when everyone else has forgotten?" Batman asked, his tactical mind working through the puzzle. "When Barry claims the entire world has been rewritten, why do you retain memories of the original timeline?"
Barry looked up with sudden hope. "Yes! Now do you believe me?"
Batman's expression remained neutral. "I don't believe it. But I acknowledge the possibility of it being true based on the evidence before me."
Ethan smiled slightly at Batman's careful phrasing—that was Thomas Wayne speaking, not Bruce. The methodology was similar, but the personality was different. "The answer is simple, We—" he gestured at where Anna stood watching "—are outside your timeline's normal flow. When Barry created this Flashpoint, we weren't part of your reality's structure, so we didn't get affected by the changes. We remember the original timeline because we went to our home reality rather than being rewritten along with it."
Batman processed that, filing the information away. "And from your words, I can tell you have the power to manipulate time as well?"
"More precisely and with better understanding than Barry, yes," Ethan confirmed.
"Can you fix this?" Batman asked bluntly.
Ethan looked at Barry, then at Batman, considering his answer carefully. "The question isn't can I fix it. The question is should I fix it. And the answer to that is more complicated than you might like."