Chapter 31: The consequences of a Time Boom part 1

[Acnologia's Point of View]

I just realized that I was being passive. My plan was to follow along until the future I foresaw to get back at Klarion and use him but that left my plan vulnerable to be changed by any unknown factor since if the future I foresaw was malleable then I could use it to my advantage as I had planned but that also meant that someone else could have changed it without even knowing it.

If the future was not malleable then what I foresaw could not be changed to begin with. I overlooked that fact because I was eager to get my get back against Klarion but I need to think logically not emotionally. Frankly, it feels like I have been reactive instead of active as of late.

First, I need to ward myself against the being that has been watching me for a while. Thankfully that was not hard to do thanks to Faust possessing the required ingredients for a warding spell, which I knew straight from Nabue, managed to do the trick.

Second, forget the domain, I must get [that] before creating my domain or more precisely my ace in the hole. I will have to find something [that] can be a substitute for Captain Marvel or find a way to safely travel through the multiverse, yeah multiverse is real and Nabue's knowledge confirms it.

I am sure that with Nabue's knowledge as well as Faust's knowledge, I should be able to find a substitute that I use Alchemy upon to gain that. Now onto the good news that brought my mood, along with my pride, right back where it should be .

I managed to solve my Sunshine problem. What was my Sunshine problem? Well for those who do not remember, I was planning on studying Kryptonian physiology to learn how they absorb sunlight and convert it into their power to replicate the process in a way to copy Escanor's Sunshine.

The problem is that although I managed to find a way to replicate the process thanks to Kara but for my Sunshine to match the strength of Escanor's Sunshine, I would need to constantly be sunbathing for centuries since converting sunlight slash heat into magic power required a lot of the former to even result of a small amount of the latter.

Long story short, the method I had at the moment was not efficient but thanks to Faust's pension of collecting power magical items through any means, I was able to get the Bow of Ra from one of his hideout.

For those that do not know, it is one of the most sacred weapons and artifacts of the Bana-Mighdall Amazon tribe, a group of Amazon that used to live on Themyscira but abandoned the Greek Pantheon for some reason I did not bother to learn or care.

Anyway, the Bow of Ra was forged by Nephtys of the Egyptian pantheon for her father figure Ra. The bow harnesses the power of the sun itself to unleash unspeakable destructive power. The Bow usually falls into the hands of the Bana-Mighdall's mightiest of warriors, the Shim'Tar, to oversee its protection and use.

They utilize the Bow to protect Bana-Mighdall and keep it from falling into the wrong hands, bringing unspeakable destruction to the world. Speaking of wrong hands, Faust got his hands on it after tricking them.

He was probably planning on using for some deal or something with a demon but failed to do so. Now you might be wondering why not use it for himself, well there is a reason for that and it is because he could not use it without risking his life.

The Bow shares a special connection with those capable of wielding it. Such a bond they share allows capable users to summon it to them at any time or place. This link even extends beyond death, enabling it to revive a bygone wielder if need be, even if they have been dead for a considerable period of time.

This link also empowers its weapons with abilities far beyond those of a normal Amazon. Amazon being the standard of measurement since they are the ones that often used it. In addition to enhanced strength and durability, they can also channel the bow's energy into blasts projected from their hands.

Also, the bow has a mind of its own. It is extremely picky about its wielders, injuring or killing unworthy candidates. However, those it considers worthy can not only control its power but are protected from it as well. 

However, its a double-edged sword even in such rare cases. For if the user is not strong enough to handle the regalia, they run the risk of being corrupted by it if not killed outright. Victims become mentally unhinged and seek to destroy everything in their path. 

As stated before it is able harnesses power from the very sun and stars themselves in order to aim and discharge a portable solar flare at any designated mark. Almost nothing can withstand its incendiary gaze.

For so much as lining targets up within the aim scope of the weapon users' sights is enough to instantly cause them to spontaneously combust on command. Firing off one of its materialized quivers essentially lobs a chunk of the sun's corona at the enemy.

Flashes incinerate everything within its path essentially splitting all of the target's composite atoms. The link established with the artifact also greatly magnifies their natural physiological capabilities. Making its recipients tougher, faster, and stronger than they normally are on their own.

Now tell me this does not remind you of Sunshine. I held it in my hands and as I expected I was worthy since I did not go insane nor controlled by it. That is what I would have done were it not for the main reason Faust failed to sell the artifact,

Because the bow was meant to be protected specifically by a Shim'Tar, only a Shim'Tar can use the bow. Should a non-Shim'Tar attempt to wield it, they will be burned alive on the spot. The exception to the rule extends to Shim'Tar candidates.

That is why I had my shadow eat it through transmutation, it sound complicated but it allowed me to finally gain [Sunshine]. 

The best part was that thanks to using Alchemy through my shadow while devouring the Bow of Ra, I could now efficiently convert the energy of the sun into magical power thus like [Sunshine], I could grow stronger by the second but unlike it, I would not be relying on the sun rising or setting but on the duration of me harnessing power from the sun and other stars. I could also channel the power that I harness into other objects due using transmutation while acquiring the Bow's abilities.

[Third Person's Point of View]

Batman can be seen in the Batcave interrogating Booster Gold. This had been going on for a couple of days, Batman had restricted Robin from accessing certain parts of the Cave that he was using to house Booster Gold.

After the latter nearly managed to escape with his contingency plans, the Dark Knight took the metaphorical kitten gloves off and proceeded to interrogate Booster Gold in the various ways that he learned in his youth as he traveled to become Batman.

Bruce Wayne had learned not just every method to kill known to man but also every method of torture known to man as well as intimidation which he used to get Booster Gold's true story. Everything he had told Batman before was similar to his true story.

The only difference was that Earth was ruled by Atlantis. Atlanteans were the dominant species on the planet while humans were treated at best as second-class citizens and at worst as lab rats or pets. This had been going on for centuries.

While he was in jail, he joined the human resistance because his family had been killed by Atlanteans and after he was set free from jail, he started doing jobs for the resistance. Over the years, he learned and honed his skills until he was selected for the most important mission of all, to prevent the fall of the Justice League that began the rise of Atlantis.

He used his job as a security officer for the Metropolis Space Museum to steal some artifacts from the museum as well as the security robot Skeets and used Rip Hunter's time machine. These objects were crucial for the Resistance's plan.

The Resistance had long known that during the time of the Justice League one of their founding members, Batman, had the insight to create contingency plans for every member of the League in case they went rogue but those plans were destroyed by another founding member, Aquaman, when he announced himself to the world as Ocean Emperor.

Booster Gold's mission was to infiltrate the Justice League as a buffoon and lay low until Aquaman turned into Ocean Emperor then eliminate him using the element of surprise created through everyone's intended assumption that Booster Gold is a buffoon who screwed up a lot.

The reason he appeared in Batman's cave was to steal and learn about the Ocean Emperor's contingency plan before they got destroyed as well as to fool Batman. The mission's success required and depended on him to fool Batman first and foremost.

That was why he needed to modify his own memories through hypnosis since if his buffoon self managed to trick Batman then it meant that it would be able to trick the others and even Ocean Emperor.

Upon learning this, Batman decided to fully hack into the still-turned-off security robot Skeets to verify if the story that Booster Gold was telling him now was the truth. As he was about to grab the security robot, he heard someone speak from behind him.

"Don't touch that!"

*FZZZ*

Batman quickly turned around and threw a Batarang only for it to miss its target as a laser beam headed his way. Realistically speaking, Batman could not evade it. He might be performing at the peak of human capability but it was still human capabilities and dodging at light speed was not within it.

*Ting*

Still, by the time his Batarang hit the cave wall, the laser beam had not hit him. Now some might question how that was possible and the answer to this question was simply because... Batman was not the target of that laser beam, the true target of the laser beam was none other than Skeets.

Before Batman even manage to move a single muscle, Skeets had been reduced to ashes. By the time Batman's muscle managed to even twitch, he found himself on his chair tied from the tip of his toes up to his neck.

"Master Bruce, can I assume that we have another uninvited guest?"

"..."

"SKEETS!"

By the time everyone realized what was going on, Alfred was sitting next to Bruce though unlike the cape crusader, the butler was not bound by anything. Booster Gold screamed Skeets' name after realizing that the robot had been pulverized.

"Okay, the bindings should buy me five minutes tops which is good since I don't think I will be able to last five minutes before disappearing."

They all turn in the direction of the voice that spoke and see who had destroyed the security robot and tied Batman up. In front of them stood an older-looking Flash whose hero suit was in shambles and wore a few guns. Batman recognize those guns as the Flash's rogue's guns as he was secretly freeing himself.

"Look, I know that you are trying to free yourself, and honestly I just did that so that I would have time to speak before you prevent me from warning you about the crap that's going to happen. Alfred is here so to make sure that the message that I am going to tell you gets through your thick skull."

The older-looking Flash says before looking at Alfred and then speaking to the butler in a pleading tone.

"Alfred, I did not tie you up because I need you to believe what I am about to say. Please just give me five minutes, I promise you I do not mean any harm to you or anyone else."

Alfred looked into the older-looking Flash before nodding as he spoke.

"Very well."

Alfred was a good judge of character, he saw the look of desperation in the older-looking Flash, the same look he had seen Bruce have on many occasions as Batman when he could not save someone and was trying to find a way to make sure that same situation never happened. The older-looking Flash sighed before speaking while pointing at Booster Gold.

"First of all, let me clear the situation, he is not from either your or my future. He is from a parallel world, yeah multiverse theory is real, from what my Batman gathered, Acnologia was supposedly King of Atlantis instead of Orin. He was his world's Aquaman and took over the world."

The older-looking Flash looked at Booster Gold before adding on.

"From what you told us, you were here to prevent that but without your knowledge, someone sent you here, modified your suit so that it covered the fact that you were not just from the future but from another world as well, and put something in Skeets, something very dangerous whose goal was to first acquire the contingency plans for the League."

He turned to look at Batman who was still secretly trying to free himself and by now could have thrown a Batarang but chose to listen at the mention of his contingency plans.

"The plan to use Booster Gold failed so when you plugged it into your Batcomputer, it took over the systems of the Batcave and fled through the internet along with your contingency plans. It took a couple of years before it announced itself as Brainiac and almost destroyed the League but it did something worse, it created a monster."

Batman gritted his teeth as he listened to this though part of him remained skeptical as the older-looking Flash continued.

"It joined the criminal organization that you are currently looking for, they are called the Light. I don't know much about them other than the fact that Lex Luther, Vandal Savage, Orin's brother Orm, and Ra's al Ghul were among the highest-ranking members of the Light."

Batman gave a glare which caused the older-looking Flash to wave his hands as he added.

"Don't even give me that look, we were too busy trying to stop Acnologia to even try catching the rest of the Light, those that we didn't know died before we even figured out the name of their organization.

This brings me to the main reason why I came here, Brainiac for a reason we never figured out, used the contingency plans he stole to earn a place in the Light but he modified your plans for Acnologia, tricking the Light into tricking the U.S. Government into stealing his mother's corpse for the purpose of reviving then controlling him through her..."

The older-looking Flash had a horror-stricken expression on his face, he spoke his next words in a shaking tone.

"... The League did not manage to arrive at the Lazarus Pit in time, by the time we got there Acnologia had already killed her with his own hands and when he saw us, he told us to stay out of his way as he was going to get even."

His body trembled as he continued.

"We didn't listen, fuck to this day I still think we should've listen... and after the third time he told us to stay out of his way, he decided to add us to his shit list. He said that if we were going to try to stop him then we should do it by experiencing what he felt.

At first, he made us kill our loved ones and then revived them using the lives of those that he planned to kill. Then when he ran out of people that he had planned to kill, he used innocent people."

The older-looking Flash dropped to his knees as he recollected about his past with tears streaming down his face then continued.

"In the beginning, we tried to stop him but little by little some of us quit because we couldn't stomach the fact that we had killed all those people through our actions after each failure.

The fact that we did not trust each other due to the contingency plans also did not help, even with the temporary truce it also almost cost us Earth during the invasion of the Dominators on Earth and the other alien invasion of Earth that just kept happening.

After a while, everyone stopped fighting except you but once Alfred told us how Acnologia was punishing you, we couldn't stay still though there was not much we could do since when we finally gave up, Acnologia sealed the powers of those who had any if they did not join his side.

We managed to temporarily allow me to regain a connection to the Speed Force and I used it to travel back in time to warn you. A lot of bad guys are coming to Earth, some due to schemes from the Light others because they wanted to conquer Earth and some for shit and giggles but all of them are powerful and a serious threat to Earth.

The League can't be divided when the Earth is under attack. You have to come clean about the contingency plans or at the very least make sure they can never be stolen by anyone else. I know that you are going to be paranoid, the Batman of my time told me this along with the fact that there is nothing I could say or do to convince you so I should convince Alfred instead.

Now I have about forty seconds left until I am erased from existence for changing the past while not being properly connected to the Speed Force, if you have any questions I can answer to make you believe in me then I am all ears for it."

"What happened to this Brainiac and how did Acnologia managed to beat the League so many times?"

This was the first thing Batman, now freed from any binding, said to the older-looking Flash.

"Acnologia defeated it as for how he managed to beat us, I can't say it. Before you say anything, it's not that I don't want to say it, it is that I can't say anything about the details of certain events. If I try, I start speaking gibberish."

The older-looking Flash answered.

"What might have I said about the conditions Master Bruce was enduring that made those that had left to fight again?"

This time it was Alfred who asked the question and the older-looking Flash seemed reluctant to answer it until Batman spoke.

"If you answer that question then I will believe what you said."

"*Snort* I know that you are lying but at this point, I just want to prevent what happened. Every day... Acnologia would revive your parents and would force you to kill them, every... single... day. He said something about paying an equivalent exchange for the truce.

Listen, I know that you are paranoid about everything but please believe-"

Before he finished his sentence, the older-looking Flash vanished from where he was by fading leaving only a single tear that fell onto the ground. Batman looked at the spot where the older-looking Flash had faded away for a few seconds before walking toward Booster Gold and asking a question in a cold tone.

"Who is Brainiac?"

"I don't-"

*TIN* *TIC* *TIC* *TIC* *TIC* *TIC* *TIC* *TIC* *TIC* *BOOM*

Before Booster Gold managed to finish his sentence, a beeping sound emanated from his body and more specifically his neck. Batman barely had time to jump away while covering his face with his cowl before Booster Gold's head exploded, killing him instantly.

"This situation keeps getting messier as it progresses."

Batman said to which Alfred replied.

"You are telling me, Master Bruce, I am the one that has to clean this mess up. Though out of curiosity of the herculean task, of making you believe in the story as much as I do, that is ahead of me... how much do you believe in the future Flash's story?"

Batman glared at Alfred to which the butler responded with an eyebrow raised that indicated this.

'Oh please Master Bruce, I wiped your butt when you were still wearing diapers. No amount of Bat glaring will ever manage to work on me.'

"His body language indicated that he was speaking the truth, coupled with Booster Gold's head exploding after being specifically asked the question of who Brainiac is further adds credit to his story though I need to investigate the members of the group now known as the Light to know for sure if he is telling the truth.

Only after ascertaining that will I proceed with either telling the League of the contingency plans or not but for now, I will hid them further as well as update Acnologia's threat level. I will also need to investigate Booster Gold's corpse to verify that he is from a parallel universe."

Said Batman as he left to collect the material needed to investigate Booster Gold's body causing Alfred to sigh at the messy work that was ahead of him and he was not talking about cleaning up the blood spatter.

What the Future Flash failed to realize was that by changing the past he changed it more than he intended it. For example, a certain winged hero couple was not on Earth for the reason they had told the League.

Acnologia was close by when Superman touched the Skull of E.N.D. causing him to become a host of the Life Spirit resulting in the former gaining the attention of a six-eyed, red skin and horned demon who watched Acnologia for a while. 

Unknown to Acnologia, Kent Nelson died earlier than he should have though he died in the same scenario that should have happened later on.

A certain young Martian heroine became less timid causing her to clash with a certain young Kryptonian heroine about a certain young Atlantean who had yet to gain his memories of this new timeline.

A certain boy managed to ask certain questions to a Life Spirit while under the influence of an Endless at the right time to be caught on camera. The former Champion of the Wizard found a new love during his interaction with Intergang and decided to change his ways.

A certain former sidekick was cloned when he should have not been in this universe. The time boom caused by Future Flash's action changed various things and only a few people remained unaffected.

Among them was a certain former Batman low-class villain who managed to get a job at LexCorp. This was because Brainiac had anticipated that Lex would hire the man as a way to boost his publicity through hiring a reformed villain who could also be used as a scapegoat if need be.

The reason Brainiac had chosen Charles Brown was because of his insignificance which allowed, according to the calculation of the artificial intelligence, a 97.56846942561317% chance of not being affected by the time boom that could occur... incidentally signaling that his plan A failed.

Thanks to Charles Brown now working at LexCorp, Brainiac was able to construct a simple machine that could detect any changes in the time stream notably, a time boom, which would signal him to proceed with his plan B.

Charles was to continue working for Lex while gathering materials that would be overlooked to prepare for the next phase of Brainiac's plan B which would proceed after one of the deadliest creatures arrives on Earth.

With Brainiac's intellect, it was possible to determine what changes could happen if his plan A failed via means of time travel. He predicted that this would cause an event he had seen through the several universes he had visited. Brainiac knew that the day that creature arrived on Earth was statistically the Day of Superman's Doom.

[AN:

Chapter was longer than I expected so I had to cut it in half else you guys are going to start expecting a 7000~9000 words count per chapter.

I always found it weird that when someone goes back in time to warn people they waste time by doing some TV-inspired drama like having a ten seconds worth of silent stare when you should be telling as much as you can if you are going to disappear... in this case.

That is why, Flash's dialogue seems rushed because he should be plus he is speaking at a fast rate just slow enough to be understood by people like Bruce and Alfred for those who are wondering why the dialogue seems to last than five minutes.

Might sound confusing but that's what happens when someone messes with time. Also, I never understood how intelligent characters like Brainiac never had a plan B to Z with all their intellect allowing them to predict what others could do.

So I figured I would make my Brainiac not dumb, anticipate failure, and act accordingly. This also gives an actual reason why things aren't going to go like the Young Justice canon outside of the author not wanting it to be like that.

Want more? Like Thanos, I want those STONES!!!]