Chapter 166 Flashpoint
Barry Allen stared blankly at the ruins. Although he had successfully saved the world, completely defeated Zoom, and even ensured the safety of Joe and everyone on the team.
Yet for some reason, looking at everything in reality, he felt not a shred of joy from defeating a powerful enemy; instead, a sense of emptiness welled up inside him.
His pain was something no one could understand.
His mother died in the past, and his father had died right before his eyes just a few days ago. Although Zoom had met his retribution, his deceased loved ones would never return.
Watching the struggle in Barry Allen’s eyes, Lucas roughly understood.
As a time traveler, Barry Allen’s state of mind was becoming unbalanced. The internal pain would force him to make a choice tonight: to forcibly change a fixed point in time... and save his mother!!
This action would create a Flashpoint.
Flashpoint is one of the major events that DC fans love to discuss, and it is a relatively famous one at that.
As far as Lucas knew, there were at least three versions of Flashpoint. One was the movie version, where Barry Allen traveled to the past and encountered a dashing Supergirl and Batman’s father.
The villainous boss was Zod, who descended upon Earth.
In Henry-Superman’s world, Zod could be pinned down and beaten by Henry-Superman, but because Supergirl had been imprisoned for years, she hadn’t absorbed enough sunlight, causing her strength to lag behind, and she was killed by Zod in various ways.
The animated version was much the same, only the villainous boss became Professor Zoom, also known as Reverse-Flash.
Only the TV show version differed significantly.
It indirectly introduced the boss of the third season of The Flash TV series, the faster and stronger God of Speed, which was Savitar.
(In reality, Savitar was imprisoned in the Speed Force, and his state was unstable; he would always strike a few times and then run back into the Speed Force to perform spatial jumps, making Barry Allen and the team think he was impossibly fast.)
Of course, Savitar’s normal speed was still faster than Barry Allen’s.
Lucas did not intend to interfere with this part.
Regardless of how the timeline converged, Barry Allen would always defeat the powerful enemy. He only needed to watch this grand drama, pursue Caitlin Snow, get some small benefits for himself, and if any accidents happened, System would cover them anyway.
On the night the final battle ended, to celebrate their survival, everyone held a small celebration party.
At Joe’s house, Cisco Ramon and Joe were drinking beer, while Iris West was on the second floor comforting the dejected Barry Allen.
Lucas held a glass of cola, blowing in the evening breeze outside the door.
Tap, tap, tap!
A soft sound of footsteps came from behind him.
Lucas did not turn around, only slightly tilted his head. Caitlin Snow, wearing a slim-fit trench coat, walked to his side, placed both hands on the cold railing, and looked at the neon skyscrapers of Central City.
"Why aren’t you inside celebrating with them?" Caitlin Snow turned her head, the evening breeze tousling her light blonde hair.
"The joys and sorrows of people are not shared; I only find them noisy!"
Lucas quoted.
Caitlin Snow: "..."
Fine, fine, fine, acting all literary, are we!
I’m a science girl!!
"The drug research needs to be accelerated. You can publish countless papers and achieve fame and success, but I only need the finished product. That’s a fair trade, right?" Lucas said.
Caitlin Snow smoothed her hair, "I did some molecular sequencing this afternoon. It contains a bio-engineering technology I’ve never seen before. In some segments, it even involves the targeted modification of recessive human gene segments!"
"Do you know what this means?"
"This vial of medicine will change the genetic lineage. In the future, there might be countless naturally born Meta-human babies."
Lucas nodded; of course, he knew.
In The Boys Universe, Ryan was a naturally born Meta-human, but he had Compound V at work in his body, rather than direct changes to gene segments.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had his powers wiped out by Kimiko’s chest cannon.
"Honestly, if I can fully grasp the cell stabilization formula inside, just the few papers derived from it would be enough for me to get several Nobel Prize nominations in Biology, or even become a pioneer at the forefront of the field of genetic biology."
Caitlin Snow was a bit excited.
She worked at S.T.A.R. Labs, and her mother had always disliked it, thinking she was wasting her talent.
Now she could finally achieve something!
"Lucas, are you in a hurry to leave?" Caitlin Snow asked suddenly.
"It’s alright."
Lucas said, "It’s not like I’m not coming back. In the future, I have to go to other great worlds. As my transit station, I’ll definitely come back to visit often."
Caitlin Snow breathed a sigh of relief.
"That’s good."
"Also, you could inject Compound V and become a Meta-human; at least your abilities would become controllable!"
Caitlin Snow looked resistant to Lucas’s suggestion, "I just want to be a scientist who shines on her own; I don’t want to be some Meta-human. Having you, Barry Allen, and Cisco Ramon is enough!"
Tsk!
Another human of The Boys type.
Not the slightest interest in super powers.
"It can keep you forever young." Lucas said again.
Caitlin Snow suddenly raised her head, her eyes lighting up.
But soon, she suppressed that impulse.
"Stop tempting me. I will never become a Meta-human!"
"Fine."
Lucas knew what Caitlin Snow was afraid of. She was afraid of becoming Killer Frost, like the Earth-2 doppelgänger of Caitlin Snow, killing without mercy and losing her humanity.
"But... you seem to be very good to us?" Caitlin Snow said casually.
"Do I?"
Lucas raised an eyebrow.
Perhaps because he had killed too much in the first part, he felt a bit of admiration upon seeing a true saint and a truly good person.
Self-righteous do-gooders are everywhere, but true saints are very rare.
A true saint is someone who is genuinely willing to sacrifice themselves for others, not someone who uses moral kidnapping to make others sacrifice.
There is a world of difference between the two.
Another important reason was that he carried a bit of nostalgia from his youth; after all, The Flash TV series was his introduction to American TV shows, and there was a special sentiment attached to it.
However, this would not affect his judgment.
If it’s time to get laid, he still has to.
Can’t stop getting laid!
"You are a good person. Although your methods are occasionally like Green Arrow’s, you are like him; deep down, your heart has never been confused by slaughter and power. You are a true Guardian."
Caitlin Snow said.
Lucas was a bit dazed. Was this the power of talk? He actually felt a positive emotion driving him!
As for why Lucas would not be confused.
That was because most of the people from his world had a clear self-awareness. If they could beat the whole world, they would act like Homelander; if they couldn’t beat some people, they would act like Superman; if they couldn’t beat anyone, they would shrink back and act like normal people.
No one would be as stupid as the villains in Central City or Metropolis to go against The Flash and Superman after gaining superpowers.
"Don’t put too heavy a filter on me. I’m not a purely good person. Every superhero has their own origin story. If you really must trace my origin... it’s probably because I’ve seen the bloodthirstiness of my own race, which made me feel weary and disgusted!"
"Viltrumite?"
"Similar to Supergirl from a parallel Earth, it’s an alien race. But our race is more violent. They colonize planets across the stars, occasionally carry out genocide, and conduct The Great Purge internally!"
Lucas spoke as if he were telling someone else’s story, "We engaged in slaughter for hundreds of years. Billions of people lost half their population in The Great Purge, and then we were attacked by a virus, leaving only a few tens of thousands."
"I led the rest of my people to break away from the Viltrumite Empire and rebuilt the Interstellar Alliance, aiming to support the growth of different weak civilizations."
"The other faction is led by the Regent of Viltrum. With only a few dozen people, they still execute the original violent plan: Conquest, pillaging, slaughter..."
Caitlin Snow’s blood froze as she listened.
"Oh, and let me tell you, every Viltrumite has the ability to traverse the universe with their physical body alone. Due to their Spartan-like growth style, their individual combat ability far exceeds the level of many planets."
Lucas didn’t stop until he had shocked her.
A cold sweat broke out on Caitlin Snow’s back, "Thankfully your people are all in a parallel great world and can’t cross over to parallel Earths, otherwise we would definitely be doomed!"
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