Legacies: Crisis from 2048

Legacies: Crisis from 2048: An Arrowverse Crossover
==Plot==
The heroes of the Arrowverse have defeated the Dominators and their Earth-X doppelgängers. Now they must unite once again, to help the heroes of 2048 save their world from a terrible threat.
==Transcript==
So before you read this, and as the current seasons of all the DC TV shows have just started, I've made a few assumptions to write this:
1. Arrow, Flash, Supergirl and Legends have all defeated their current season Big Bads (of course)
2. The current couples of WestAllen and Olicity have officially married.
3. Black Siren is no longer on Earth-1, but actually back on Earth-2, after redeeming herself. (At least becoming an anti-hero instead of being a full out villain as she is currently.)
So hope you like it!
Episode 1: A Message from 2048
Star City, 2048
What remained of Star City burned bright in the night. All Connor could hear was the crackling of flames and the roar of Thanagarian ships. He clutched his side, hissing. He had managed to dodge a blast from one of their soldiers' blasters, but it still skimmed his side. Flipping onto his back, he looked beside him. Black Canary was motionless, her skin a mess of black and red.
He activated his comms. Static filled his ear, before it cleared.
"Connor. What's wrong? We lost contact-"
"Dawn. Initiate Flashpoint protocol."
"Okay. Where's Black Canary?"
Connor groaned. He couldn't think about her right now. If he did, he'd break down.
"Down. Do it now."
A Thanagarian ship circled down. Just barely, he could hear the heavy wingbeats of soldiers approaching.
A masked soldier approached him, raising a blaster. He grinned.
"The legendary Green Arrow. I guess I should be honored."
Connor spat blood at his feet.
The blaster hummed to life, glowing blue. Connor stared dead center into its barrel. His shoulders relaxed.
"With you dead, the rest will fall quickly. Then the Earth will truly be ours." The soldier's gray wings flared with pride.
"Then you don't know anything about us. We will never give up."
"We'll see about that."
The blaster hummed louder. Connor looked to Black Canary. Her blue eyes no longer held that mischievous light in them. But he smiled as if she was still here. Still alive.
"See you soon."
And he closed his eyes.
….
Star City, 2018
"Found ten baddies in the warehouse," Felicity announced. She slid over to another computer, typing quickly. "The hostages are in the north end, in what appears to be a freezer."
The team was in the Glades. An enterprising gang had decided to capture loved ones of the City Council, to blackmail them to drop the piece of legislation they wanted to pass, increasing police presence in the Glades, as well as to increase regulations on illegal drugs. All part of the Mayor Queen's plans on cleaning up the city.
"Roger that, Overwatch. Engaging now," the Green Arrow answered.
While Felicity monitored comms in the Bunker, Team Arrow was spread around the perimeter. Wild Dog and Mr. Terrific were on the outermost edge, scanning for guards and anyone that tried to escape. Green Arrow, Spartan and Black Canary formed the inner ring of their offense.
Green Arrow lead at point, while Black Canary and Spartan flanked around him. His fingers flexed around his bow as he drew nearer. The first gang member whirled, raising his gun. Then he struck. With a quick maneuver, his attacker was on the ground, clutching his foot, a small arrowette poking through his boot.
He ducked as another attacked him from behind. His body went into automatic, blood humming as he struck him hard in the jaw, then shot down, knocking his legs from underneath him.
Black Canary's Canary Cry filled the chaos, three men flying into old shipping crates. Green Arrow pressed forward. Reaching for an arrow, he nocked them quickly and let them loose.
"I've found the freezer," Spartan said over the comms. "But the lock is rigged with some sort of explosive. If we open it, it'll take us and the hostages with it."
Mr. Terrific threw one of his T-spheres into the air, whispering a command before directing it away. It zipped through the air, barreling straight for Spartan. He cursed when the small sphere suddenly appeared, beeping cheerfully at him.
"Goddamn it, Terrific. What did I tell you about those things?"
"Sorry. Let me just link the feed to myself and Overwatch."
Terrific pulled out a small portable screen. Wild Dog kept guard, guns raised, as he studied the explosive. Terrific tapped a few commands. A template of the bomb' s design appeared beside the live feed.
"I've established an link from my T-sphere. I think we can hack it."
The team could hear Felicity's furious typing on the comm link. Spartan watched with widening eyes as the countdown accelerated.
"Uh oh. No no no."
"Overwatch!"
"I know! Just wait!"
"Can't really wait, Overwatch! We have ten seconds left!"
The bomb's display stopped its flashing, glowing a steady green. It was disabled. Either way, Green Arrow decided to still be wary. With a grenade arrow, he opened the door. The hostages were inside, curled into defensive positions, their eyes glinting like scared animals in the harsh light.
….
Connor watched as 52 News delivered its latest story; Green Arrow, Black Canary and his team had rescued hostages from the Glades. He looked over to his companion.
"BC, what you got?"
She walked over to him, straightening her glasses, tablet in hand. She pulled up the footage they had recorded of the team's daring rescue.
"We know how they work as a team. We need to see how they fight individually," she gestured to the Green Arrow easily taking care of one of the gang members. "We need to see how they fight no holds barred against a well-trained opponent."
"What about the twins? What have they said?"
"They're still want time to analyze them as well. So does that mean we should fight them individually? How are they going to trust us after that?"
"Don't worry about that. If they can't fight off us, they have no chance against the Thanagarians."
"Okay. Who first?"
They pulled up pictures of the team.
"I'm taking Oliver and Dinah. You take my dad, Rene and Curtis."
"Giving me more work?"
"You know how you love to fight."
She shrugged with a smile, knowing that wasn't truly the reason. "That's true. We'll have to take them at once, and separate them." She tapped her fingers on the bedspread. "Let's plan a robbery," she gave him that mischievous smile.
"Let's suit up."
…..
Now that the hostages were saved, the City Council was able to push their new Glades Protection Act, with approval from the Mayor.
Oliver sighed as he finally sat down in his office. It seemed all he did for the past, he didn't know how many hours, was walk around, and talk to people. First was rescuing the hostages, then drove with William to school, then came here, contacting all the relevant City Council members, and getting ready to push the new bill.
To be honest, his back hurt. And as a man who treated his body like a temple, he didn't like that he seemed to be victim as something as ordinary as back pain. His phone buzzed. He groaned. It was time to pick up his son from school. Pushing himself up, he pulled the door open just to have a small body ram straight into him, papers flying into the air.
"Oh my god! I am so sorry, Mr. Mayor! I am such a klutz."
The girl kneeled down, trying to gather all of her papers. He knelt as well, piling them neatly and handing them back.
"It's quite alright. Everyone has their clumsy days."
She smiled nervously, accepting the papers. She cast her eyes down while she gathered some outlying papers. Oliver narrowed his eyes at her. Something about her seemed familiar.
Her ashy dark blonde-brown hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, and a pair of black-framed glasses was perched crookedly on her nose. She reminded him almost of Felicity, in the way that she dressed anyway. Maybe he was projecting his desire to have a quiet night with his wife onto this oddly familiar stranger.
The girl tapped the papers, giving him an apologetic smile. Her blue eyes twinkled almost mischievously at him. But before he could remark on anything, she scurried away, and disappeared. Before he left, he peeked around the corner, to see if he could find the eerily familiar girl. But she disappeared like a wisp of smoke.
…
Central City, 2018
Dawn smiled as she inhaled the delicious smell of her coffee. Even though it was only 2018, it seemed that Jitters was always the same.
Though they had a less extensive menu. But they had at least the Flash espresso. Though she would have been happier to have a Tornado Twin coffee.
Don glared at her over the rim of his mug. Black coffee, no milk and no sugar. No nonsense, just like Don himself. Whereas Dawn, well she liked a little excitement in her drinks.
"You know we have business to tend to. We need to test Team Flash."
Dawn waved a hand. "And we will, you worry-wart. Just let me enjoy my coffee."
"Do you forget how important our mission is? If they can't fight us-"
"Then they have no chance of fighting the Thanagarians, I know. Believe me, brother, I have not forgotten. I'm just enjoying the fact that the city is intact, and you know, not rubble. Its nice not seeing burned bodies lying the street, or wondering who is dead, or having all the memories of when all of our teammates died, but we went back in time to erase it to save everyone."
Don sighed. "Sorry, Dawn."
Dawn ran a hand through her hair. "It's okay. Its just, this is our last chance. If we can't defeat them with their help, then I don't know what we're going to do. They'll find out that we've been time-traveling."
The hub-bub of Jitters quieted as someone turned up the news. The Flash was running after some Samuroids, causing chaos in the streets. If she knew her history right, this was after the Flash defeated the Thinker, so someone must have gotten a hold of his android designs. Kid Flash was also there, moving cars and pedestrians out of the way.
The twins looked at each other. And were off in an instant, papers flying up in their wake. A handful of coins appeared on the counter as a tip in a whoosh of wind and purple lightning.
Don scaled the buildings on one side, while Dawn took the other. They jumped rooftop to rooftop, pushing hard until they could keep pace with the Flash. The Samuroids aimed explosion after explosion at the fleeing public. Even Wally West wasn't fast enough to move them out of the way.
"We have to help," Dawn said through their comm link. They had changed into their suits on the way there.
"Okay, we'll split up. You monitor and help Kid Flash. I'll take Flash."
"'Kay."
Don zipped off in a streak of gray and purple. Dawn took a deep breath, and ran down the side of the building. The power of the Speed Force sparked in her veins, making her smile. There was no feeling like this in the world.
She moved as many people as possible. Soon enough, her and Wally's speed trails were overlapping and she knew he noticed her presence.
Both speedsters stopped.
Kid Flash stared at her. "Who are you?"
She took a moment, just to stare at him. Uncle Wally, still with that bright gleam in his eyes. Alive. In his young days. They were around the same age now.
She just smiled. Before she could say anything, a Samuroid swooped close, raising its sword. She immediately ran in circles, running until she felt the lightning practically bursting from her. A bolt of purple lightning arced from her. It collided with the android. It fell to the ground, lifeless.
Dawn saluted to Kid Flash. And disappeared with a snap of purple lightning.
Shaking his head, Kid Flash tapped into his comms. "Flash, how you doing with those Samuroids?"
"They're taken care of. A little too easily."
"Yeah. Same here. Well with the help of another speedster. One with purple lightning."
Silence filled the other end. "Let's go back to STAR Labs."
…
STAR Labs.
Barry leaned against the table, leaning over the monitor displays. The news was replaying footage of the attack of Samuroids. He spotted one of the purple and gray streaks, helping Wally clear civilians from the street. He paused it. There was another as well, running alongside him, taking out some of the Samuroids as he chased them out of the city.
"Two speedsters. With purple lightning."
Cisco sucked on his lollipop thoughtfully. "The only speedster that I know of that has purple lightning is the Earth-19 Flash. Gypsy told me about him."
"But there's two of them. Do you think one of them could be him?"
"Well one of them is a girl. Around early twenties," Wally said. "Maybe there's another speedster on Earth-19 that helps him?"
"I'll go contact her," Cisco said, heading to the pipeline.
"So, are we going to try to hunt them down or what? Seems like they're good guys," Wally frowned.
Barry tapped his fingers along the desk. "Either way, we need to find out why they're here. Two speedsters could spell a lot of trouble."
"Maybe even double trouble."
Team Flash whipped around to find two speedsters in gray-silver suits, with purple accents. A lightning crest adorned each of their chests. Neither of them wore cowls, but wore masks.
The female speedster smiled almost sheepishly. She lifted a hand. "Hey. Sorry couldn't help it."
The male speedster gave her a raised eyebrow. He crossed his arms, and gave them a level smirk. First he stared at Wally. Then Iris. Then finally on Barry. Something flickered in his eyes.
"Catch us if you can," he challenged. He disappeared with a whoosh.
The girl winked, giving them a shrug. She disappeared as well.
Barry looked to Wally. Pulling on their cowls, they raced after them.
…
Star City 2018
Oliver put his feet up on the table. His back sighed in relief as the soft cushions cradled the sore area near his tailbone. William was working on homework in his room; he had given him a muffled greeting around a mouthful of food when he had gotten home. Soon after, Felicity also arrived.
"Hey," she murmured, pressing a kiss to his cheek. He pulled her close for a moment, giving her a peck on the lips.
"Hey yourself."
She extracted herself from his arms to quickly stop by the kitchen, grabbing a snack.
"Busy day?"
Felicity groaned. "You have no idea. Meetings all day. I have a feeling the Mayor was the same."
"Oh yes. My back is aching."
Both of their phones beeped. They pulled out their phones.
"A robbery in progress. At a Kord Industries warehouse. Possible metahuman activity."
"Alright, let's go."
Later, the team was mobile. They spread out along the floor.
"Any activity?" Green Arrow asked.
The team confirmed that the floor was clear.
"That's strange. A robbery but there's no one here?" Wild Dog muttered.
"Seems like a setup. Overwatch, have anything on the cameras?"
"Nothing. All I've been doing is watching you go in circles. Wait a minute. I think the cameras have been hacked to repeat the same footage. I'll try to-"
And then she was cut off.
"Overwatch?"
Nothing. Green Arrow then tried to contact the other members of the team. Nothing. Their comms were out.
While the team tried to circle to meet up, Wild Dog muttered curses under his breath. He wanted to punch some faces. This whole robbery just seemed messed up.
"So you're Wild Dog."
Wild Dog looked up, just to be forced to the ground, a lithe small body colliding into him from above. He managed to push her off. He scrambled for his gun. But it wasn't there. He must have lost it in the fall. Shit.
"Looking for this?"
He whirled again, finding his attacker. He tilted his head in almost surprise. It was a girl. She was dressed like a vigilante. A black domino mask framed her blue eyes. She wore a black armoured jacket, with accents of golden yellow around the shoulders and on the front. Knives and small arrowettes were strapped to her legs. A black choker encircled her throat.
She tossed aside the gun.
"So can you fight? Or do you just shoot at whatever moves?"
"Why don't you find out lady?"
She grinned. Wild Dog smirked under his mask. This small thing, he could take her. Just by body size alone.
He attacked.
That grin just widened.
….
Mr. Terrific wandered the aisles. He tried to hack into the system with his T-spheres, but there was some kind of dampener or blocker preventing him. The entire system was down.
Maybe if he stayed in one spot, it would increase the chances that someone would cross his path. So he rested at a corner.
Just as Wild Dog came flying through another aisle, sliding into his feet. He raised his T-spheres, looking for the attacker.
A young woman followed soon after, arms clasped behind her back. She whistled nonchalantly. Mr. Terrific didn't hesitate. He threw the T-spheres.
The girl whistled a sharp note that seemed to drive a pick through Mr. Terrific's brain. The T-spheres sputtered, before falling uselessly to the ground.
"Oh no."
"Sorry, buddy," the girl said. "But I need to see how you fight."
…..
An arrow impaled itself in the shelving just above Black Canary's head. Whirling, she found a familiar green hooded figure standing behind her. But this Green Arrow was different. He was leaner, and taller. Not Oliver.
She geared up to release a Cry. But something invisible seemed to have a stranglehold on her ability. She raised a hand to her throat.
The Green Arrow copycat raised his bow, another arrow poised to fly.
….
Felicity growled in frustration as she typed furiously. She had re-established the camera feed. Seemed that whoever hacked it mimicked her style, although it was a little on the sloppy side.
But on re-establishing the comms, that was proving to be even more frustrating.
So all she could do was watch helplessly, as two vigilantes took on the entire team; a Green Arrow copycat, and perhaps a Black Canary copycat, though the costume was different.
Both Wild Dog and Mr. Terrific were down, tied up or knocked out. The girl that had fought them had handled them with ease, like she was fighting low level street thugs. The copycat Green Arrow was currently fighting Black Canary.
The young woman was currently hunting Spartan. And then there was Green Arrow. He had just found Wild Dog and Mr. Terrific.
She kept on her efforts on re-establishing the comm link. Beknownst to her, on another monitor, two messages flashed in red. One from Team Flash. And the other from Team Legends.
…..
Green Arrow tried the comms again. This time, there was a bit of static but he could hear Felicity's frustrated voice fighting to become push through it.
"Green Arrow, you're being attacked by another Green Arrow and Black Canary. I think."
"What? How is that possible?"
"Felicity is right, Oliver."
He whirled. Behind him was another Green Arrow. But the suit had a few different touches, made for a leaner, taller body.
"What have you done to my team?" he growled.
"Don't worry, we haven't killed anyone. We needed to see your fighting capabilities."
"Why?"
"To make sure you were ready for what's to come."
Before Oliver could ask what was coming, the other Green Arrow attacked. As they exchanged blows, Oliver analyzed his fighting style. Military efficiency, but ready to react. Great fighter, highly skilled, he had to admit.
Their fight traveled along the aisle, until they were in the middle of an intersection. The other Green Arrow grabbed him by the strap of his quiver and shoved him into some shelving. Oliver quickly reacted, kicking him squarely in the chest. Reaching for an arrow, he let it loose. The arrowhead released, tying the other Green Arrow to the shelf.
He aimed another at the copycat.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "Where is your partner?"
A shrill sonic cry filled the air. Spartan nearly slammed into him, flying through the air until landing hard on the floor. A few yards away, was a slight girl, also in vigilante gear. She stared at him for a moment before looking to the other Green Arrow.
"Need to be rescued?"
The cables restraining the other Green Arrow dropped with a tinny rattle. "No thanks. I got this."
"Green Arrow, I just got a message from Team Flash and Team Legends. We need to meet up. Bring the Green Arrow and Black Canary to the Bunker," Felicity's voice suddenly was clear in his ear.
…
Since the future heroes knew who they were, Team Arrow took off their masks. Green Arrow and Black Canary from 2048 also took off their masks.
Both of them looked oddly familiar, like looking at a half-forgotten memory. Oliver did recognize the Black Canary girl though from their encounter in the hallway. It was awkwardly quiet as they all gathered at the table in the corner of the Bunker. Both of the future heroes seemed to be staring at them with sad fascination.
Felicity cleared her throat. "So why are you guys here?"
"We need your help to save the future. And its all your fault," the Green Arrow said.
Episode 2: Legacies of 2018
Earth-38. National City, 2018
Kara marched to James' office, her flats nearly slipping off her feet in her haste to get there. She dropped the papers onto his desk.
"I got it. The evidence to continue the story behind Lord Technologies. They've been stockpiling leftover Daxamite tech, and weaponizing them. I even have a source. Another source."
James studied the folder she had plopped onto his desk. "The pictures are of low quality. You're going to need better proof."
"So the story is a go?"
James leaned back in his chair. "I don't see why not. Get better pictures and perhaps a recorded interview with your source. That should be enough."
Kara grinned. "Yes! I'll go now."
Her phone beeped. She groaned as she pulled it out. It was the DEO. So she rushed out to the elevator. Once she was out of any camera shot, she took her civilian clothes off and took to the skies.
Kara almost took her time circling National City, until she spotted the DEO headquarters among the city's many blue skyscrapers. She swooped down until she landed quickly inside.
Winn and Jonn were waiting for her at the table, the monitors alive with scanning tech with maps of National City.
"What are you looking for?"
"I just received a message from the President. Apparently a ship crashed just a few miles from here. They've covered up the best they could, but whoever was in the pod escaped, presumably heading here. So she needs Supergirl on the case."
Kara crossed her arms. "Do we know anything about the ship?"
They pulled up a picture of it. It was a bit fuzzy. But Kara could make out the intricate wings, the sides of its body painted with stylistic feathers. She recognized it immediately.
"A Thanagarian ship."
"Thanagarian," Winn muttered. "What were those again." He typed a few quick commands. The DEO had quite the lengthy file on them. Including some interdimensional data given to them from the Legends. Two of their previous team members had been exposed to a meteor from there, and had developed the ability to reincarnate. They also had the ability to summon hawk-like wings; therefore named Hawkgirl and Hawkman.
Dr. Stein had even sent the DEO their genetic profiles. Not only on their methylation profiles, but also at the DNA level, their genetic material now contained foreign sequences that matched the DEO's few profiles of a Thanagarian.
"Thanagar, located in the Polaris Galaxy. Their entire planet is pretty much a police state. Humanoid-avian hybrids. Enhanced strength and speed, but not as heightened compared to Kryptonian levels. Enough to give you trouble though. In their star system, they've already established an Empire. Currently at war with the planet Rann."
"I'll go to the bar," Kara said. "If the Thanagarian is looking for someone or something, he'll make contact there first. It's an alien haven after all."
"I don't think you'll need to do that," Winn said. "Just got an alert from Lord Technologies. Someone has broken into the storage warehouse. Someone of the alien variety."
"I'm on it."
…..
Earth-1. Central City. 2018
Team Arrow and Team Flash convened at the STAR Labs warehouse once again.
"Man, this brings back memories," Cisco said, rubbing his hands together. "Kicking alien ass."
Usually Barry would cheerfully agree with him. But he couldn't stop staring at the twin speedsters. He noticed that Iris was as well.
And it wasn't just Team Flash either. Team Arrow came in with two new faces; one tall dark-skinned man and one short girl with a very slender build. He was dressed in a simple t-shirt and jeans, while the girl was in a University of BC hoodie, her dirty blonde hair tied back into a ponytail. She pushed up her glasses as she studied Team Flash.
The future heroes gathered together away from them.
"Did you tell them who you are?" Connor asked the twins.
They shook their heads as they looked back at the two teams. Dawn sighed. "I don't even know if they would believe us. 'Hey we're your future kids and the reason why our future is messed up is because you angered the wrong aliens?'"
"Well, I don't think they're going to remain oblivious. You see the looks they're giving us," BC shrugged. "And its not helping that we can't stop looking either."
Don nodded. "May as well be out with it as soon as possible. There will already be some mistrust. We need to make sure they trust us at least a little, so they can work cohesively with us. Mistrust leads to betrayal. And this is our last chance."
Everyone nodded. They went back to the group.
"We will have to wait to get the Legends and Supergirl," Barry told the future heroes. "Our communications aren't going through, so they must be busy."
"So what is so bad in the future that you guys have to come here?"
The young heroes looked to Black Canary.
"In 2048, the world has been taken over by the Thanagarians. According to some old time logs we had scavenged, they were supposed to invade in 2175, in a timeline where Vandal Savage failed to unite the world under his rule. Since the Legends erased that timeline, the Thanagarian invasion became uncertain. At least until the year 2016, when the Dominators attacked. Earth attracted their attention then. So they watched. Then came the next year, when your doppelgangers from Earth-X attacked. They became aware of the many multiverses that existed on this planet."
BC looked to the twins. They nodded.
"Our Vibe isn't here, but if you would not mind, Cisco, could you see the Tornado Twins' memories?"
Cisco nodded. The Twins let him clasp their hands.
"Now if everyone would link hands, and touch Cisco."
The two teams did just that. All of them sucked a gasp as they were torn from their reality and thrust into a new one. First was one of their failed attempts to raid a Thanagarian supply ship. The past heroes stared with wide eyes as they watched past versions of the future heroes ran past them, as substantial as ghosts.
Thanagarians swooped from on high. They watched as Green Arrow was split clean in half by a lazer blast. Vibe took a blow to the face, dead on impact. Black Canary let loose a Canary Cry so loud that the walls groaned around them. Alarms began to go off. Tears running down her face, she looked to the Twins. And told them to travel back in time.
The vision faded into another attempt. This time to assassinate the highest ranking Thanagarian officers. It ended with Black Canary being executed on live television, and Don losing a leg from blaster fire.
More and more until they reached the most recent attempt. Star City. The city smoldered around them, the sky a haze of smog and flames.
Team Arrow stared, stunned that the city they protected was so completely ravaged.
They stared at Connor, lying beside them, clutching his side. Black Canary was dead beside him. Farther away, the remnants of the team were still fighting.
They caught his words before the Thanagarian soldier shot him.
Flashpoint Protocol.
The vision faded around them as the memories ended. Cisco stumbled away from the Tornado Twins' hands and promptly threw up in a garbage can. Diggle followed suit.
"Why did you show us that?" Oliver asked, his voice gravelly.
BC looked to him gravely. "So you would understand what is at stake. Alone we cannot beat them. But with you, maybe we have a chance."
Cisco coughed, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "Well since we've seen all your grisly deaths, I think we should at least know your names."
There was a pause.
The twins went first. "Don and Dawn West-Allen."
"Connor Hawke."
BC elbowed him, raising her eyebrows. Grimacing, he looked to Diggle. "John Diggle Junior."
Then the future Black Canary, leveling her chin at Oliver. "Dinah Olivia Queen."
"So you're-"
"Yeah. Your kids," Connor said.
John just stared at Connor. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, as his body suddenly went limp. He fell to the ground with a thud.
Dinah Olivia gave them a sheepish grin. "Spoilers?"
…..
Earth-38. National City. 2018
The DEO had told Lord Technologies to discreetly evacuate the warehouse, to not clue in the alien. As Supergirl circled in, she tried to use her X-ray vision. But like she thought, the walls were lined with lead. Maxwell Lord wasn't the trustful type, especially when it came to Kryptonians.
So she ended up wandering through the warehouse. Most of the products seemed to be weapons, all enhanced with alien tech. There was a blaster gun with a Thanagarian power core, a sword with Daxamite sigils, even some Dominator force field generators. She was tempted to burn it all with her heat vision. Maxwell Lord was the type to scavenge anything alien, turn it into something malicious, and use it to profit only himself. And if anything went wrong, he would of course blame the aliens, for they had dumped the tech in the first place.
It was fairly easy for Supergirl to find the scrap heap of Daxamite weapons. It lay in a huge metal container, which was protected by a laser grid. She could hear the electricity powering it humming through the walls. Beside the pile of Daxamite scraps were worktables. They ranged from holding piles of bent metal, to intact weapons. A fully intact blaster staff was completely intact on one of them.
Despite the damning evidence that Lord was actually stockpiling alien tech, there was no alien in sight.
"Are you sure that the alien is here?" she asked through her comms.
"K-Kryptonian!"
Supergirl whirled to find a short and stocky alien, who could only be described as a lizard man. Not the traditional winged Thanagarian. Over his ragged clothes, he had pulled on gauntlets made of a strange gold metal. He also had hooked a chain of it around his scaly waist. He dropped the rest of his stolen goods on the floor before she could tell him to drop them.
"Hey! Why are you stealing?"
"You wouldn't understand, Kryptonian!" he darted towards the blaster staff. She managed to tear it away from him in time, throwing it away from them.
He followed with a punch to the jaw. It took Supergirl by surprise as it crunched into her jaw. It hurt. Like a lot. She spat blood onto the floor.
Both of them stared at each other in surprise. Seeing his advantage, he tried to hit her again, but she easily stopped it, shoving him away. He flew into a shelf, the weapons shaking uncertainly.
She raced towards him in a blur of blue and red, ready to deliver the knockout punch. And stopped dead in her tracks. The lizard alien had withdrawn a familiar green rock, and held it in front of him like a shield. He must have found it in the scrap pile.
Groaning, she fell to the ground. It felt like every single cell of her body was on fire.
Stuffing more scraps into a duffel bag, and strapping a blaster to himself, he looked back at her. He almost was regretful. Though it was hard to read any facial expression on his reptilian face. Still holding the kryptonite, he suddenly took to the air. Withdrawing the blaster, he blew a hole in the warehouse and disappeared into the night.
"Supergirl?"
"It wasn't a Thanagarian," she managed to say. "Some reptilian alien."
"We know. The Thanagarian is here."
….
Central City. 2018. Earth-1
They had to use smelling salts to wake Diggle up. The future heroes shifted awkwardly as their parents' younger selves stared at them.
Oliver and Felicity seemed to be engaged in some kind of insane mental math. Dinah was staring at Dinah Olivia with a confused look, then looking to Oliver. Cisco wore a perplexed expression. He never even imagined having a kid.
"I know this is strange," Don said, "But we need to focus on bigger things. Around this time, Thanagarians have landed on Earth to watch and observe. Measure our weaknesses."
"Well, we could just ask Supergirl to deal with them. On her Earth, aliens are once every Monday kind of thing," Barry pointed out, clearing his throat.
Don and Dawn looked at each other.
"During our time, all of the Kryptonians are dead. They were the first to be killed during the invasion," Dinah Olivia said.
"So they were able to get a hold of kryptonite," Barry murmured to himself. He straightened. "Have you been scanning for their presence on this Earth?"
"Yes, we've kinda hacked your satellite to scan for presence of Nth-metal. Nothing except for two little blips in St. Roch."
"So their first encounter with humans is on another Earth."
Connor Hawke turned to Cisco. "Can you open a breach to Earth-38?"
Cisco gave him an insulted look, as if he had to ask. Pulling on his glasses, he opened a breach.
"We can't all go and leave Earth-1 defenseless. So me, Cisco and –" Barry paused, looking at the 2048 heroes.
Don nodded. "I will go as well. The rest of our team will stay here."
Barry awkwardly agreed. The three of them disappeared with a flash of blue light.
Dawn turned to Team Flash. "I guess let's protect Central City." Purple lightning shimmered off her shoulders excitedly.
…..
Star City. Earth-1. The Bunker.
"You want a rematch?" Dinah Olivia asked.
Rene crossed his arms. "You bet, Stick. You took me by surprise last time. Not going to let that happen again."
Connor, reclining in the corner of the lair, laughed to himself. "Your funeral, dude."
The two headed over to the sparring area. Oliver and Felicity tried not to be too obvious in their spying. Diggle was in the corner, talking in hushed tones to Lyla over the phone. Dinah had gone back to the police station, and Curtis had gone back to Helix Dynamics to check on production of their latest device.
"Want a weapon?" she asked. Dinah Olivia tapped her fingers along the sparring sticks, to a few swords. "Just to make it more interesting."
Rene picked up two sticks. "What about you?"
"I'm good. I'll just use yours."
"You're some cocky, Stick."
She just shrugged. She had her own issues, her own weaknesses. But she knew her strengths. One of them was fighting. After all, she went through all that effort to make sure no one would ever hurt her again. Some hotshot like Rene would not be a challenge.
Rene struck first. She turned and pivoted with his movements, always seeming just out of reach. She didn't even hit him. Dinah Olivia ducked under his swing, tucked her shoulder underneath his arm, and used his momentum to flip him over her back. He landed hard on the mat. She plucked the two sticks from the floor and held them out to him, giving him a deprecating grin.
He reached to grab them, seeming to surrender. Instead of taking them, he grabbed hold of her wrist, yanking her down to the mat. But she was ready for it. She twisted his arm back, wrapping her legs around it. He tapped out.
Both of them popped back. Rene wasn't done. He was competitive like that. Before he could even think about attacking, Dinah Olivia jumped in the air, delivering a roundhouse kick to Rene's jaw.
Rene swore. But then he laughed. "Damn Stick, you got moves."
Dinah Olivia grinned. She didn't bother to tell him that she was holding back. For her to go all out in a fight, the entire Bunker would probably be rubble.
Someone cleared their throat. The pair turned to find Oliver there, with his hands behind his back.
"If you would not mind, Dinah, I would like to spar with you."
Dinah Olivia shrugged. "No need to be too formal, old man. Oh, and just call me Olivia. It'll be less confusing," she said with a cheeky grin. "Let's go."
"You should take that off," he said, gesturing to the bulky hoodie.
She raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"It's not good for fighting. Someone can easily use the hood to choke you."
"You fight in a glorified hoodie every night."
Felicity chuckled in the background. Oliver turned to level a glare at his wife. She held up her hands. "What, that was a good point."
Oliver tossed her twin sticks, which she caught. Both of the heroes sized each other up. They both lunged at the same time.
The hard slaps of the bamboo sticks against each other filled the Bunker. Whenever it seemed like one of them would have an advantage, the other would quickly respond, tilting back the balance of the fight.
Neither of them gave in.
Seizing a small advantage, Olivia struck hard on Oliver's wrists, shocking his fingers to let go of his sticks. Rushing him, she climbed up, wrapping her legs around his neck, and wrenched. Both of them fell to the mat.
But her advantage was taken back when Oliver responded; quickly pulling her into a hold, her arms wrenched back. Olivia laughed, the sound shocking him. It was enough that he loosened his grip just slightly. She slipped out of his grasp like a snake.
"I haven't been given a challenge in a while. That was fun."
"Hey!" Connor called. "What about our sparring sessions?"
"That's vacation," she teased.
She pulled at the neck of her hoodie, trying to force air down to her hot skin. Oliver's eyebrows scrunched together. The hoodie had been hiding a thick jagged red scar at the base of her throat. Like someone had tried to slit her neck open and almost succeeded.
Who had done that?
"So is it okay if we crash here?" Connor asked.
Oliver tilted his head. "You need a place to stay? Where have you been holing up while you planned your little test?"
"Well, Queen, we ran out of money. So we just need food, water, roof. Simple."
Olivia's eyebrows rose. She cleared her throat. "What I think he's trying to say is that if any of you have a spare bed so we could sleep here, that would be fine."
"We do have one here," Oliver said. Though he seemed reluctant to admit it. Like he was harbouring some protective paternal instinct to not let his future daughter sleep on the same mattress as Connor. Even though Connor was actually JJ.
"At least come for dinner at our apartment," Felicity suddenly said. The entire team looked to her.
"What? They look like they haven't had a proper meal in years. No offence."
"None taken," both of them said.
…..
Earth-38. National City. The DEO.
When Kara returned to the DEO, the Thanagarian was waiting for her. He wore a winged shaped helm, and intricate bronze armour. Gray wings rustled at his back with the incoming night breeze.
The Thanagarian raised his chin. "Kryptonian. I was wondering if you eventually arrive."
After being exposed to Kryptonite, and watching that lizard alien fly away with Daxamite tech, Kara didn't feel like putting up with an arrogant jerk like this Thanagarian seemed to be. She rubbed at her jaw. Whatever that lizard had hit her with; it had hurt. But at least it wasn't as effective as Kryptonite, so that was a plus.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
"I thought that Kryptonians were known as very diplomatic," the Thanagarian quipped.
"What's your name?"
"General Hro Talak."
"Well, General, there's no time for diplomacy when an alien with a Thanagarian ship has attacked National City."
"That ship was stolen by a Lizarkon extremist. He does not represent our planet in any way."
"Why is he here then? He stole alien tech."
Talak's eyes sparked with something dark. "Probably to incite chaos on our planet. There is an extremist movement being headed by the Lizarkons on Thanagar, who's only goal to create disorder and chaos. We cannot let him leave with that tech. If it contains Nth-metal-"
"Nth-metal?"
Hro indicated the metal of his breastplate. It was the same bronze-gold colour of the metal gauntlet and chain the Lizarkon had. "The metal we mine on Thanagar. It has tremendous properties. Not only is it unbreakable, but to the wingless, it can allow the user to fly. In the hands of these extremists, it could be a heavy blow to our government. It could consume the entire planet."
"Then we'll stop him General. I promise."
Her and Hro went to the command table. On all the monitors, DEO agents were running scans for the escaped Lizarkon thief. Nothing so far.
"He's desperate for more tech to arm his group. And he won't show up to the warehouse again. It'll be impenetrable after Maxwell Lord learns of the break-in," Kara said.
"So what's the next place that has the most weaponizable tech on this planet?"
Kara didn't say anything out loud. She didn't want to tip off this strange General in case he was getting any smart ideas.
Winn turned to the General. "Actually, if I could some of your Nth-metal, we could try to scan for deposits here. If that is what you think he's mainly going for."
Hro Talak stared at him. Winn leaned back into his chair, as if trying to melt into it. "Sir," he added.
"Very well." He withdrew a simple dagger from his belt and handed it to Winn. He carefully picked it up.
"I'll take it to the lab."
As he passed, Talak grabbed his arm.
"Be careful with it human. Or I'll eviscerate you."
"Got it, scary bird man."
Kara narrowed her eyes at the General. "There's no need to threaten my people, General. We will help you. If you do put them in any kind of danger, then you'll find another problem on your hands."
Hro Talak huffed.
…..
The Waverider. The Temporal Zone.
Sara typed a few commands into the command center. The Time Bureau had given them access to the 2048 files.
Most of them were photos of destroyed cities. Star City was pretty much an outlaw town. Central City was one of the few holdouts with its high walls and forcefields, remnants of its war with ARGUS. The new Justice Society had apparently established their headquarters there. Or what remained of it anyway.
Zari watched the pictures on the holo-table, her dark eyes unreadable. She knew about how ARGUS made metahumans illegal in 2042. She didn't know that in the future, it had escalated.
Close by, was the future Vibe, daughter of Cisco and Gypsy. Mina Ramon. She withdrew a device in her pocket, and activated it. It was a picture of a handful of young people, ranging from late teens to late twenties to thirties.
Sara immediately recognized Connor Hawke, in his Green Arrow gear. Beside him was a short slim girl with dirty blonde hair, and bright blue eyes. She must have been the Black Canary. Then the Tornado Twins. And of course Vibe.
But there were others too. There was a boy with a shock of white hair and icy blue eyes, frowning in a blue winter jacket. A Firestorm. A girl with platinum blonde hair, armed to the teeth with swords and knives, an eyepatch covering her left eye. And someone in the ATOM suit, shrunken down and perched on Firestorm's shoulder.
"There were more of us. But they died fighting the Thanagarians. This was before the Twins or I had full control of our powers, before we could go back and save them."
Mina looked to Sara, who looked ready to protest about something. She rolled her eyes. "I know what you're going to say. We know the full risks of going back in time. We only go back in time a few hours. A day at the most."
She looked to the picture again. "Since their deaths happened nearly a year before, we couldn't save them without possibly changing the timeline too drastically."
"But we've been doing this for years. And more of us are dying every time we try something. So that's why we're here. We are literally out of options. So don't lecture me on the rules of time travel. After all you guys don't follow them." Mina laughed darkly. "You literally broke time once."
Zari snorted. "Well, thanks for bringing the doom and gloom, stormcloud." But the quip seemed half hearted.
Mina shook her head. "Sorry. Just seeing all that," she gestured towards the images on the holo-table, "It's not exactly a great sight to see. I already see it in my dreams all the time."
Sara smiled and placed a hand on the younger girl's shoulder. "I understand being constantly tormented by something dark. But now you're here, and you're doing something about it."
Mina nodded, though her dark eyes still roiled with emotion. She turned off the holo picture of the Justice Society. Juggling it, she left the bridge, and went to her room.
"That girl is a ray of sunshine," Zari commented.
Sara sighed. "It would be hard to be with her ability. She remembers every timeline of their future. Even all the futures where she or her friends dies."
Zari bowed her head, nodding.
Sara turned to the table. "Gideon, how far away are we from 2018?"
"Soon, Captain Lance. We will be there in a few minutes."
…
Star City, 2018.
The two future heroes hesitated at the doorway of Oliver and Felicity's apartment. Oliver saw Olivia reach for JJ's hand. He took it, giving it a squeeze.
Taking a deep breath, they entered together.
Oliver prepared the food, while Felicity procured some drinks. Diggle had a hushed conversation with Connor. Olivia smiled sadly, swirling her drink.
"I know its weird to ask this. But you are my daughter, right?" Felicity asked Olivia as she sat down beside her.
"Yeah. I know what you're thinking, since I'm a metahuman. I am your and Oliver's daughter. But I guess technically Dinah's too."
Felicity waited for her to continue.
"You and Oliver decided to have a surrogate mother have your baby instead of you carrying it. Dinah decided to carry me, since the team is practically family anyway."
"Why would we decide to have a surrogate instead?"
Olivia shifted uncomfortably. She took a gulp of her drink. "Beats me."
That wasn't the truth. The truth was that the shooting that took away the use of Felicity's legs also took something else. Of course the chip ended up allowing her to walk but it couldn't fix the other problem.
Her parents had tried to get pregnant. But Felicity's body couldn't maintain it, and it resulted in a few miscarriages. Finally they decided to have a surrogate mother, through gestational means, by using Felicity's eggs. She didn't know how, but somehow while Aunt Dinah carried her, she had inherited the meta gene from her, and ended up with the exact same ability. Olivia thought it had to do with the exchanging of blood through the placenta; Dinah's blood acting as a transformative agent.
She thought about telling them. But telling them too much about the future could be catastrophic. They already knew too much to be frank. So she kept quiet.
Olivia heard a door open and close. Her ears rang as she saw who came out.
William had emerged from his room. He stopped short, his eyes landing on Olivia. His eyebrows scrunched together.
"Olivia?" Felicity's voice seemed to come through underwater. "Are you okay?"
Connor stopped his conversation with his father to look at William. Realization came over his face, then he looked to Olivia.
"Where's the bathroom?" she asked woodenly.
"Just down that way," Felicity answered. "Is everything alright?"
"I'm okay, Mom," she said woodenly. She stood and went to the bathroom.
Connor followed right after her.
….
Earth-38. National City. The DEO.
Barry, Cisco and Don emerged from the breach portal to be greeted by a wave of guns being pointed at them. They all put their hands up.
"Stand down," Jonn called. He nodded to his agents.
"J'onn. Nice to see you again," Barry said.
"And you as well, Mr. Allen. Mr. Ramon." He looked to Don. "And you are?"
"Don West-Allen sir. Pleasure to meet you."
The two shook hands. "West-Allen." He looked to Barry with a questioning eyebrow raise.
"He's from the future."
"Hmph. We've dealt with future heroes before. But they were from the far future, 31st century. So what can I do you for, Mr. Allen?"
Barry gave him a rundown of how their future kids showed up, with a dire warning of the future; that the Thanagarians invaded the Earth, much of it a smoking ruin. That the Thanagarians began an undercover assault starting in 2018, after watching them for two years.
"A Thanagarian has visited us. But he's here to capture an extremist Lizarkon. Not to stage any invasion."
Don withdrew a small device from underneath the emblem on his suit. He clicked it. A familiar female voice greeted him. Gideon.
"Gideon, show me what you have on the Lizarkons via 2018."
"Certainly, Mr. West-Allen." Pictures began to appear before them. "The Lizarkons were a rebel group, protesting against the totalitarian rule of the Thanagarians. In 2018, an agent attempted to accumulate tech from another planet. The mission was a failure, and the rebel group was soon quashed."
"So they're not extremists."
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Manhunter. Not in this timeline."
"We need to contact Supergirl."
"Where is she?" Barry asked.
"She and the Thanagarian General went after the Lizarkon. He's been tracked to an abandoned L-Corp warehouse. Back when Lex Luthor ran the company."
J'onn gave them the coordinates. Both Don and Barry disappeared in a flash. Cisco cursed under his breath. Making a breach, he leaped into the portal, disappearing with a flash of blue light.
…
Earth-1. Star City. 2018.
Oliver found Connor sitting outside the bathroom door. It was closed. Inside, he could hear Olivia throwing up.
He shifted as he held the glass of water. Connor looked up at him, as if just noticing that he was there.
They shouldn't have said yes to their parents' invitation. They knew there was going to be a chance that William was going to be there.
"Is she okay?" he asked.
Connor sighed. "I don't know. None of us are okay to be honest."
"Do you think its okay if I-"
Connor shrugged. "Give it a shot."
Oliver knocked on the door.
"I told you to go away, JJ," came the weak angry response.
"It's Oliver. Your-" Oliver hesitated. Could he really call himself her father? She wasn't even born yet.
He cleared his throat. "I have some water for you."
Inside, water rushed as she flushed the toilet. "Alright, fine. Be quick."
He pushed open the door. He found Dinah Olivia clutching the toilet. Her bulky hoodie was cast aside, leaving her only in her tanktop. But what startled him were the scars on her back, thick lacerations that ate up her pale skin. There were more on her arms as well.
Through sweaty hair, she peered at him, her blue eyes blazing. She accepted the water he gave her. He sat down across from her, not saying anything.
"I know you're wondering about them," Olivia said. "My scars."
"I understand why you wear such bulky clothes now."
She sighed. "It's a bit of a habit. While I was on the run, the scars would bring questions. So I covered up as much as possible."
Olivia traced the one on her neck. "Especially this one."
Oliver tried to suppress all the questions on his tongue. Who gave them to her? Why did she even have them? Why was she on the run?
He knew she could read it all over his face. She smiled. "That's a story for another time. It's long and involved."
"So how come you got sick?"
"It was seeing William," she answered, almost feeling bile rise in her throat again. "Brought back some memories."
"Is he alive? Dead?" His heart sank like a rock in his chest. He wanted to know the future of his son. What happened to that boy in there years later? Was he a good man? Did he have someone in his life? What did he do for a job, did he have any kids, anything and everything he could know, he wanted to know.
"I don't know," she said numbly.
Through the door, they heard Felicity call for dinner.
"Are you good?" he asked.
Olivia nodded. "Sure. Let's eat."
…..
Earth-38. On the outskirts of National City. 2018.
The Lizarkon panted as he stuffed as many pieces of Nth metal into his bag as he could. He couldn't take as much as he wanted, he still needed to be able to fly out of there.
He still had the piece of green crystal, in case the Kryptonian came back. He also had a few different blasters. He was well equipped to deal with any threat.
He counted the pieces that he had. It would be enough for his people to at least make an Nth metal-alloy to form into weapons. Then they could end this terrible regime. And with the regime, the war with Rann would end. They would end the atrocities that the winged Thanagarians in power committed and planned to commit. A spy in the innermost sect of their government said that they were planning another invasion of another planet. It had drawn their attention, and now they wanted it.
Closing his bag, he secured it tightly to himself. Just as the Kryptonian and a Thanagarian burst through the ceiling.
"It's over, Lizarkon," the Kryptonian called, placing her hands on her waist. "I will not let you take that tech to take more lives."
The Lizarkon hissed. "You don't understand Kryptonian! Whatever this general has told you, its false. I am trying to save my people. Him and his regime have nearly wiped us out!"
"Because you are part of an extremist group intent on chaos."
"No!"
She looked to Talak. He was strangely quiet.
Kara shook her head. "If you don't want to hurt us, then come back with us to the DEO. We can help you there."
The Lizarkon growled in disgust. "The general will kill me before I can tell you anything!"
He took out a small grenade. Engaging it, he threw it at her.
It missed Kara by a long shot. Hissing, it shrunk down on itself, releasing some kind of gas. At first, she wasn't worried at all. Until it crept around her feet, and she realized what it was.
A kryptonite grenade.
She dropped to the ground. Leaving Talak alone with the Lizarkon.
The Thanagarian General withdrew an axe from his belt. Electricity sparked along its blade.
"I'll try to make it painless, Lizarkon filth."
"Don't think so, jerkwad."
He whirled, just to be hit with a vibrational blast. Vibe quickly knelt beside Supergirl. The veins in her face were raised and bright green. Kryptonite poisoning. He had to get her out of there.
Don and Barry showed up soon after. But the Thanagarian was done with interference. He fired an electrical blast at Don, sending him flying. He fell with a heavy thud, smoke rising from his chest. Barry knelt by him, touching his fingers under his jaw. His pulse was barely there, but he was still alive.
"Get her out of here!" The Flash yelled to Vibe. Cisco nodded, opening a breach right on top of him and Kara. They sank into the floor and disappeared with a blue flash of light. He appeared again to retrieve Don.
The Lizarkon took to the air, attempting to make his escape. The Thanagarian flew after him. Growling, Barry began to run in circles, and stopped, throwing lightning into the air. It arced upwards, but missed the Thanagarian by inches.
"What to do, what to do," he muttered over and over to himself. So he ran after them.
The speedster was of little concern to the Lizarkon and Thanagarian. Hro Talak fired bolt after bolt with his axe, trying to gun the other alien down. But the Lizarkon kept swerving and dodging, never flying in a linear, still path.
Barry ran until he passed the two aliens. He needed to give the Lizarkon room to escape. That meant stopping or at least slowing the Thanagarian. Stopping, he waited until they got nearer.
"Come on, come on," he muttered. He ran in circles again, the lightning on his body crackling and glowing with energy. Once it was strong enough, he prepared to throw a bolt once again.
Hro Talak had seen the speedster do this. So he put on a burst of speed, and grabbed the Lizarkon. The two of them collided, the Lizarkon screeching. The gold-red lightning bolt struck the Lizarkon instead. Laughing darkly, the general ripped the belt and gauntlets off the Lizarkon's body and let him drop to the earth.
He fell with a sickening thud.
"Thank you for the assist, speedster," Hro Talak called from above.
He flew off into the distance, leaving the Flash to check on the Lizarkon. The alien had made a small crater with the strength of his fall. Every limb seemed to be bent the wrong way. But the alien was still alive.
He tried to breathe in. But Barry could see the way his chest was caved in, that his rib cage was broken. With the wet rattle in his throat, it had punctured his lungs, drowning him slowly from the inside.
The lizard alien gestured towards the bag. It laid discarded, some of its contents spilled out. The Flash quickly gathered everything and brought it to his side.
"Must.. stop them….Ships…way to de-defeat them…"
"Hey, its okay, save your energy," Barry said. He took his scaly hand.
"S-scared."
"I know. Its okay to be scared."
Barry held the alien until he took his final breath. He bowed his head.
…
Unknown to the heroes, General Hro Talak had circled back to the warehouse. He knew that because of the power of the yellow sun, it gave the Kryptonian her god-like powers. But she had been weakened by something that lizard scum had thrown.
He picked up the grenade. Quickly disassembling it, he found the core, still glowing a bright green.
Talak smiled.
Episode 3: To Stop a War
Earth-1. Central City. The West household. 2018.
Dawn paced back and forth, staring at the interdemensional communicator on the table. She hadn't heard back from Don in hours. Was he okay? Did something go wrong?
"Sweetheart, if you keep pacing, you're going to wear a hole into the floor," Joe told her.
Of all her past family, Joe or Pop as she knew him, seemed the most accepting of her presence.
He was thrilled that he was a grandpa to not only one but two grandchildren. She was grateful for that. Her mom seemed not to know what to think of her, and kept trying to act like it wasn't awkward. Which made things even more awkward. It would be rather strange if a young woman close to your age came up to you and said that you were her daughter, so Dawn tried to be sympathetic.
"Sorry, Pop," she said. "Just worried about Don."
Joe grinned at the affectionate moniker. He liked the sound of that.
He stood up from the couch and placed his hands on her shoulders. Joe gave them a squeeze.
"You pacing here isn't going to help your brother. Try to direct your energy to something you can do in the present. On this Earth."
Dawn sighed, giving him a sad smile. "Thanks, Pop. You always know what to say."
"It's part of the job description, kiddo."
He gave her a quick hug and went to the kitchen. Dawn picked up the device, switching it to its information storage function. She pulled up all the compiled information they had on their timeline. It was only bits and pieces since they were only able to scavenge some from the time drives, and the rest they had cobbled together from their own knowledge.
There were future events like the gathering of all relevant Thanagarian officers that they had tried to assault. Then past events like the first encounter between humans and Thanagarians in 2018, beginning their secret invasion of the planet. Most of the significant future events, had red X's hovering beside their location, indicating a failed attempt.
The few remaining events had been too large to tackle for the remnants of the future Justice Society. Even with two speedsters, the ratio of Thanagarian soldiers to them was still too large to tackle. She still remembered one attack they had planned before, when they were a larger group. Frost had died that day. It had the same amount of soldiers present, maybe even less than these other possible events.
She highlighted one of them. It was in the early days of the public invasion, around 2046. Another significant events that year included the ending of the Uprising era in Star City, as well as the cessation of hostilities between Central City and ARGUS. Both entities had bigger fish to fry than each other, with the Thanagarians coming to play.
After secretly engineering the invasion behind the scenes of Earth's most rich and powerful, the Thanagarians came out of the shadows and made their efforts public. First, they announced their existence across the world, and invited all of the nations to a summit, where they would discuss a beneficial agreement to both planets. For after all, aliens have targeted Earth before, and with the partnership of the Thanagarians, the technologically inept Earthlings would be more prepared to defend themselves in case of another attack.
They gathered in Munich, Germany for the first annual intergalactic peace summit. It was also the last annual intergalactic peace summit. With the world watching, the Thanagarians made their power play. They wrested control of every country's nuclear program, and pointed it at their own location. If they would not submit to Thanagarian rule, they would die with millions of others, and they would take the planet by force with a higher casualty count.
So they agreed.
But to make sure that none of the countries would get any bright ideas about rebelling, they decided to make a statement. They bombed New York City with the US' own nuclear warheads. One of the biggest cities in the world. And it was gone. Just like that.
But if it hadn't been for those people that worked with their new overlords in the shadows, they wouldn't have been able to access their nuclear weapons in the first place. But in order to allow the Thanagarians access, they had to be at each country's nuclear station, while also blocking any of the gathered countries' attempts to regain control. To stop it, they had to go to each nuclear station and stop it. But there were too many of them and too few of the Justice Society.
But now they had the numbers, with their parents. They could stop the bloodshed that was yet to come. They could save their friends.
Don would chastise her for getting ahead of herself. Dawn shook her head. If the mission failed, this would have to be their next best bet. It was prudent to always have a contingency plan.
Man, now she even sounded like Don.
…..
Earth-38. National City. 2018.
"You can't be serious!" J'onn growled.
The President leveled a glare at him, her disapproval at the outburst seeming to radiate through the screen. J'onn bowed his head.
"As much as I would love to investigate this further, we cannot attack on a claim from time-travelers that these aliens will invade the Earth. And any investigation on an official capacity could incite war sooner than what you say."
"But we have evidence!"
J'onn whirled to find one of the time-travelers. Don West-Allen. He leveled his chin at the screen projecting the President's face.
The President gave him a sad look. "Even if you do, I'm afraid I still cannot order any action on only a warning. Your future is one of many possible futures, so it is not a guarantee that this invasion will happen. And I will not mobilize any of our armies based on something that might happen. But I will take your words under advisement, young man."
With that, the President signed off.
"I knew it," Don said. "I knew this wasn't going to work. My dad told me about his attempts to stop a future from happening. It always ends up happening anyway in some shape or form."
"Don't lose hope, son. There is always something we can do," J'onn said.
Don gave him an unconvinced grin.
They both headed over to the med bay. Supergirl was still passed out from Kryptonite exposure, yellow sun radiators humming on full blast. Since it had been airborne, it had gotten into her body faster than normal. And it was taking longer for her to recover.
Alex hovered over her bedside, seeming to fiddle with some of the monitors hooked up to Kara. Winn was on the other side, typing hard and fast on his laptop. Cisco was off in the corner, holding an interdimensional communicator.
"The President won't do anything," Don said as he and J'onn entered the room.
"She can't without causing an intergalactic incident," J'onn added, crossing his arms.
"I haven't been able to track down General Hro Talak either," Winn said, huffing. He ran a hand through his hair.
Barry was leaning in the corner. He was looking down at something in his hand.
"What's that?" Don asked, nodding to it.
"I don't know," his father said. He had taken off his glove, holding a small pearlescent ball. It looked like a pearl but it was too large to be one.
Don picked it up. And nearly dropped it when it shocked him. The small pearl flew from his hand and back to Barry's. It landed back into the same spot in Barry's palm, marked with a strange strawberry red star-shaped mark.
"I guess it's bonded to me somehow," Barry remarked. He looked to J'onn. "Do you know anything about it?"
"Our file on Thanagar and its inhabitants is not as full as other alien profiles. We know next to nothing about the Lizarkons."
The little pearl buzzed in Barry's hand. It suddenly floated up. Veins of blue white light opened and spidered its way over its surface until a hologram appeared. It was of the Lizarkon. But when he spoke it wasn't in English. It was in a halting rasping language. Winn's fingers flew into motion on his keyboard as the alien spoke.
But the translator he pulled up couldn't translate it. It did recognize some elements of it, in the scrappy file the DEO had on Thanagarian language.
"So its an ancient dialect of Thanagar. Specifically spoken by the Lizarkon people. But I can't translate it."
"So we need a Lizarkon to translate it," Alex said.
Winn sighed. "Looks like it."
The pearl stopped glowing, and fell back into Barry's palm. He gave it a squeeze. "The Lizarkon did say something about ships when-"
"So something about ships, perhaps Thanagarian ships. Maybe he was trying to tell you how to defeat the Thanagar fleet," Winn pointed out.
Barry turned to Don. "How important were their ships in the invasion?"
"Very. Even with the Thanagarians threatening the world with our own nuclear weapons, there was still resistance. So they brought their fleet to fight them. They're powerful fast ships, better than anything Earth has ever made. And even if a ship or two went down, there were still the Thanagarian soldiers. If there is some kind of secret that these Lizarkons know to take them down, then we could turn it around."
"You mentioned their soldiers. Wouldn't they keep going even if their ships are gone?"
Don shrugged. "Sure. But don't forget, Thanagarians are raised with a military mindset. They follow a clear chain of command. But once they lose faith in leadership, and the chain becomes weaker, they will start to desert. We tried that by assassinating high-ranking officials in the occupying force, but as you remember, it didn't go so well."
"Well before making any moves, we should at least meet up with the others once Kara is better."
…..
Earth-1. Central City. 2018. STAR Labs Warehouse.
"I brought doughnuts!" Dawn trilled.
"Yes!" Olivia threw an arm around her friend. "Have I ever told you that you're the best?"
"Yes, but I don't mind hearing it more."
They opened the box at the plastic fold out table. The two girls dove in. By the time Connor came up to them, both of the girls' mouths were smeared with dusted sugar.
He rolled his eyes. "You two are unbelievable."
"Want one?" Olivia asked, her words garbled by sugary goodness.
"'Course I want one," he grumbled.
Grinning, she handed him a doughnut. When Olivia's parents came in, she offered some. Oliver refused, but Felicity took one. The rest of Team Flash had brought in another box.
Dinah sat down with the girls, and took a bite. She groaned. "Where did you get these?" she asked.
"Lord Mesa Bakery," Dawn said. "They just opened a location in Central City."
She withdrew another box. Inside was a little cupcake. On its surface was Lord Mesa's signature cartoon, this time of the Flash.
"Aw, its so cute!" Olivia exclaimed.
Just as Dawn was about to take a bite of it, a blur of silver and purple rushed by. The cupcake was gone.
Don took a bite of the cupcake.
"Don!"
Although Dawn was mad that she didn't get to have her cupcake, she was mostly overjoyed just to see Don safe and sound. The siblings shared a smile.
"Save some for me?" a voice called.
Mina entered, still in her Vibe gear. Her goggles were perched on top of her curly black hair. The rest of the Legends were also in their gear, while Team Flash and Arrow were in civilian clothes.
The future Vibe greeted her teammates with a round of hugs before grabbing a doughnut.
After being appropriately fed and caffeinated, the heroes gathered around a large round table. Supergirl, still slightly pale from Kryptonite exposure, started with her story.
"So you're thinking of going to Thanagar?"
Kara nodded. "If these Lizarkons know a way to stop the Thanagarians, then we need to talk advantage of it."
Dawn withdrew her small device, and broadcast their current future timeline. She pointed to the 2046 event.
"If we can warn the world's leaders ahead of time, or stop these Thanagar collaborators, we can stop the invasion from happening." She looked to her teammates. "We can save our friends."
"So we'll divide into three teams," Olivia said. "One to go to Thanagar, one to 2046 and the last in 2018 to protect our cities."
"I'll be going with Kara to Thanagar," Barry said. He pulled out the strange pearl-like object that had bonded to him. "I have a very convincing invitation."
"I'll go with Barry and Kara as well," Don said. He looked to his sister. They shared a slight nod. One of them had to go to protect their father. If something happened to him, well, they wouldn't exist.
So they divided up the teams.
Team Thanagar – Kara, Barry, Don, Cisco with help from J'onn.
Team 2046 – Oliver, Connor, Olivia, Dawn, Team Legends with Felicity as tech support.
Team 2018 – Mina with the rest of Team Flash and Team Arrow, with Curtis acting as the tech support for Team Arrow.
Since in 2046, they needed the most manpower to shut down this nuclear attack, they had the most. But they tried to distribute the number of speedsters and "vibers" among all three, in case anything went wrong. The future heroes also had their multi-purpose devices that could communicate through different times as well as different universes.
"Let's go stop a war," Barry said.
…..
Team Thanagar. Earth-38. National City.
"Excuse me!"
Cisco shoved into the back of the convertible, pressing into Don. The younger speedster grumbled as he tried to shove over. The convertible was not meant for five people. J'onn was driving, with Kara as co-pilot. That left the boys to squeeze into the back.
"You know, just because you shove into me, doesn't mean more space is going to magically appear," Don snapped with irritation.
"Oh, well you don't need to stretch out your legs that much-"
"Well I'm tall, unlike you-"
"Guys!" Barry exclaimed. "Seriously? Am I going to have to split you up?"
Cisco and Don stopped talking.
"Now that that is done, I suggest you all buckle up," J'onn said. He turned the ignition. The baby blue convertible shuddered as it shed its mortal shell, becoming a bright red Martian ship.
"Awwww sweet!" Cisco fan-boyed.
Don's serious demeanor couldn't help but be cracked by Cisco's excitement.
"Let's kick some Thanagarian ass," Don said.
The ship hummed in agreement, and took to the air. In a matter of minutes, Earth was only a small blue globe in the black distance of space.
…..
Team 2046. The Waverider. The Temporal Zone.
Team Legends buckled up in their seats, while the rest of Team 2046 were belted into any spare chair they could find.
"Gideon, prepare to time jump to 2046."
"Yes, Captain Lance."
The shifting colours of the Temporal Zone brightened as the Waverider shot forward. The ship jolted as it burst through the time-space barrier, and into the year 2046.
Sara lifted her harness. "Welcome to 2046."
Connor responded by puking at his feet. Dawn groaned in disgust. Olivia took off her glasses, squinting at her surroundings, then put them back on. Seemed they were feeling the effects of the time-jump.
"Yeah I definitely prefer running back in time," Dawn said. The future heroes all nodded.
After cleaning up, Team 2046 sat around the bridge. Sara had pulled up the files on 2046 the Time Bureau had given them.
"So we have to stop the Thanagarians from obtaining control of the nuclear weapons. From what we know, it happens in two steps. One; a spy inside the UN General Assembly. They signal the other one, who've been stationed at the nuclear station of each country. They switch over access to the Thanagarians, who use it to blackmail the world to its knees," Olivia said.
Sara looked at Olivia up and down, assessing. "We'll have to divide into teams. What were the nuclear stations they took over?"
"The US. Russia. China. The UK. France. There are other countries that have them, but the Thanagarians only bothered with these countries. Probably due to accessibility, as the intel on the other countries' having them is a little spotty. But these countries are confirmed to have them," Olivia said. "So one group will have to blend into the UN General Assembly, and try to find the spies, and neutralize them. Then another will remove the other spy at each nuclear station."
Due to the Legends' propensity for chaos, the more rambunctious of them would be on clearing the guards, instead of dealing with a delicate political matter.
Ray and Mick in France.
Zari and Nate in UK.
Oliver and Olivia in Russia.
Connor and Amaya in China.
Sara and Dawn at Munich.
And after putting in a call with some of their allies, Leo Snart of Earth-X and Constantine were going to take the US.
"Let's suit up," Oliver declared.
….
Team Thanagar. Earth-38. Polaris Galaxy.
Thanagar loomed before them, the planet glowing a soft gold. Once they reached a certain distance from it, J'onn pressed a button. Cisco watched with an open mouth as the wings outside their window flickered out of existence.
"Ohhh, you have to show me the circuitry for this cloaking technology," Cisco said.
"Another time, Mr. Ramon. Now be quiet, we have to pass undetected."
"Uh, about that?" Barry pointed out his window.
Thanagarian ships were quickly approaching. Seems that they already were found out.
"I suggest you all hold onto something," J'onn warned.
"Wait, what-"
J'onn wrenched forward, the ship sharply plunging down. Cisco screamed.
The ship shook, as Thanagar loomed closer and closer. It swerved, then rolled as a bright red blast shot just past them, blowing a piece of space rock into smithereens.
The shards rattled against the hull of the ship as they managed to dodge another blast from the Thanagarians.
Don looked over to Cisco, who was looking slightly green. "Oh god, don't throw up now."
"Uh, don't talk about throwing up, Junior."
A sudden boom that shook the entire ship, its frame groaning in stress, interrupted their arguing. Then there was a pregnant silence. A silence that was supposed to be filled with the thrumming of the ship's engine.
"Oh n-"
The ship dropped.
The heroes watched helplessly as the ship entered the planet's atmosphere, their windows glowing with golden flames. With them so far from the planet, J'onn or Kara couldn't do anything without risking passing out in space. Don and Barry couldn't do anything. And Cisco couldn't open a breach without knowing where they were going. He could just transport them back to another part of airless space. And transporting themselves back to Earth would be too far for Cisco's abilities.
They truly couldn't do anything.
And that was terrifying.
Barry took out the small pearl. "Do something," he muttered.
It lay useless in his palm.
"Come on, come on," he chanted.
One of the ship's tailwings sheared off, ripping off with a harsh squeal.
Thanagar's golden towers came into view as they hurtled towards the ground. One was getting closer and closer. J'onn was yanking at the controls, but it was no use, they were stuck.
The pearl buzzed in Barry's palm. Light began to leak from it.
The heroes closed their eyes. It was too late to do anything, even with their powers. And they didn't even know if Thanagar's atmosphere would be compatible with them. They strapped on the air masks.
The small pearl lifted in the air. It began to hum, glowing brighter and brighter.
Just as they were about to crash, the pearl let out one final burst of blinding white light.
…..
Team 2046.
Munich, Germany.
Sara watched all the world's leaders and their delegations enter the tiered chamber. Dawn was a distance away, also dressed in a black suit, her golden dark brown hair pulled back in a neat bun. They were masquerading as security, with the IDs and fake backgrounds that Gideon had fabricated.
"Anything?" Sara asked through the comms.
"No," Dawn replied. "My scanner for Nth metal isn't picking up anything. Overwatch, are you picking up anything fishy?"
Felicity was back at the Waverider, managing all the missions. In one of the labs, she had three desktop screens around her, as well as her tablet. She had managed to sneak her way into all of the security feeds, although it was harder than her usual hack since these were secret locations.
"Nothing so far. The Thanagarian delegation hasn't arrived either. Keep your eyes peeled, Team A."
…..
Team 2046, Russia. Undisclosed location.
Oliver nocked an arrow into his bow as he and his future daughter sneaked through the underground tunnels. They ducked into doorways to avoid guards patrolling the stark halls, heavily armed and protected with heavy gear.
Olivia pulled out her device, and pulled up the schematics Felicity had sent her.
"We should be close. Two more corridors."
The next corridor had more guards. Oliver let loose a tranquilizer arrow, while Olivia knelt and threw out tranq arrowettes. The guards were down in minutes. Much to Oliver's surprise and somewhat chagrin, he had to admit that he and his daughter worked well together. Though he questioned his future self's decision to allow his daughter to get involved in their very dangerous line of work.
She must have been able to read his thoughts. Olivia looked over and smiled. "We make a good team. Not surprising considering."
"Considering what?"
She gave him a crooked grin, while spinning an arrowette between her fingers. "Spoilers."
"Right."
They turned the next corner. And found it full of guards. They all turned at once to find the masked heroes.
"Oh no," Olivia cursed.
…..
Team 2046. Munich, Germany.
"Sara, I've think I've found one."
Dawn indicated to one man, his fist clutching something large in his jacket pocket. Dawn's local scanner was picking up on Nth metal as they drew closer to him.
"Felicity, can you see who this guy is?"
"Sure thing. Vladimir Tolov, part of the Russian delegation. One of the President's cabinet ministers. I've also picked up a few more on my scanner."
"Okay, I'll draw them away. Dawn, once they're out of the room, you grab them."
"On it, Captain."
They started with the minister from Russia. All it took was a sultry look from Sara, and the minister followed her out. As soon as he exited, Dawn grabbed him and took him to the closet they had chosen, tying him up in a chair. All the Thanagarian spy saw was a whirlwind of purple lightning. Then it was gone, leaving him alone, tied up and gagged. He shifted around, trying to feel if the device was still in his pocket.
He cursed heavily around his gag when he didn't feel the familiar weight of it in his jacket. It didn't matter. Whoever had taken him had only found him.
There were many more spies for the Thanagarians in the assembly.
….
Team 2046. The Waverider.
Felicity was in a constant state of motion, pushing her rolling chair between computer stations. She had already had to take a break as her hands started to cramp up, running hacks and scans and everything else in between. She wouldn't be surprised if she had carpal tunnel.
Rubbing at the cramp in her left hand, she leaned back in her chair.
"Overwatch, France has been neutralized," Ray reported.
"The UK as well," Zari chimed in.
"Ok, that leaves Russia, China and the US," Felicity pondered.
She switched to Team US' feed. "Hey guys, any progress?"
"Be patient, love. Good things come to those who wait, or some crap like that," Constantine grumbled.
"What's he trying to say, is that we're a little busy," Leo amended. Felicity could hear the background noise of Leo's cold gun and gunfire.
"Okay, thanks Leo. Team China, how about you?"
….
China. Undisclosed location.
Alarms shrieked as Connor ducked underneath a guard's swing, punching him in the gut. In one fluid movement, he rose, nocked a flashbang arrow and fired. More guards dropped.
The trumpeting of an elephant filled the corridor as Vixen called her totem's power. A blow from her sent five men flying. Finally the way was clear.
The door leading to the control room was reinforced steel. It took multiple explosive arrows and Vixen's combined strength to wrench it open.
The red flashing of warning lights filled the dark room. A man sat at the controls, the nuclear control systems live and active. Connor immediately recognized him. It was the Chinese Prime Minister's newest advisor, Felix Weber. He apparently was originally from Germany.
He aimed an arrow at him. "Step away from the controls, Mr. Weber."
Felix slowly turned in the chair, completely at ease.
"Ah, the Green Arrow," he simply stated, as if they were talking over coffee. "You are far from Star City."
"Step away from the controls. I won't ask again."
"Alright." He rose, hands up. That's when Vixen saw something blinking a red light in his expensive black jacket.
Calling the power of a bear, Amaya knocked him out with one punch.
"We should take him onto the ship," Amaya remarked. Connor nodded in agreement. He withdrew an inhibitor collar from his gear and placed it around Weber's neck. It was the same model that the Earth-X people used. Cisco had engineered them. Or at least the future him did.
"Let's take him back to the brig."
…
Team 2046. Munich, Germany.
Sara and Dawn were able to find the spies in the assembly. With the use of the Legends' memory flash device, they would just wake up confused in a locked closet, with no signaling device.
By the time they rounded up all of the infiltrators, the Thanagarian delegation arrived. Dawn bristled at the sight of their folded gray wings, adorned in their Nth-metal alloy armour. No weapons were belted at their waists.
"Keep your cool," Sara told her through the comms.
"Why don't you keep your cool around the people that killed your family and friends?" she muttered back. It was the first kind of bitterness or anger from the female speedster Sara had seen. She was typically happy-go-lucky.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"I won't ruin the mission. Too much at stake."
Everyone remained standing in the chamber as the Thanagarians made their way down the aisle. Most of them sat in the front row, leaving only one to ascend to the podium.
The Thanagarian lifted his winged helm, revealing strong masculine features. He was handsome even, if it weren't for the scar that ran down the length of his face.
"My name is General Hro Talak. Thank you for your hospitality. I invited you here to bring a threat to your attention. The planet Rann. We have been at war with them for years. With Earth's woefully archaic technology, you will not be able to defend yourselves against their threat. We already know that Earth has come under numerous attacks."
Silence fell. Finally, someone spoke. The Prime Minister of Canada stood from her seat.
"We thank you for coming such a long way to offer a hand in friendship. But, to be frank, what could Earth offer you?"
Hro Talak paused. He obviously could not tell the humans what they truly wanted. "We would like to station a small garrison here. For your protection, as well as a way to spread out our forces in the case the forces of Rann attack. We also understand you have small deposits of what we call Nth-metal on this planet. It is a valuable metal in Thanagar."
"And how will we know that you won't invade us once you have your garrison?"
Yells of agreement filled the chamber. Dawn and Sara looked to each other. Things were already turning sour.
Hro Talak gritted his teeth. He didn't have time to pander these inept humans. He needed this planet, for the war against Rann. Once they had this planet, the rest of the Polaris Galaxy and any other galaxy would be theirs.
He needed to remind them who was truly in control.
…
Team 2046. Russia. Undisclosed location.
Oliver and Olivia charged as one. Sliding to his knees, Oliver shot arrow after arrow. Olivia then charged in.
With a fierce battle cry, she ran, jumped off the wall, flipping in a whirl of movement. A guard fell hard as her foot collided with his head. Without stopping, she whirled, disarming a guard and flipping him onto his back.
Oliver joined the fray. Guards fell left and right as they fought. In the haze of battle, he heard the snap of bone. He whirled and saw Olivia break a guard's arm, shoving them away. A familiar dark look glinted in his daughter's eyes.
Before he could comment on her excess use of force, more guards rushed in for reinforcements.
"Get behind me and plug your ears," she growled. Oliver did what she said.
Olivia centered herself, closing her eyes. She withdrew a long breath. And screamed.
Her Canary Cry sent all of the guards flying. They piled on top of each other as they fell, knocked completely unconscious.
'There's the door," Oliver pointed out the steel door, painted a matte black. DO NOT ENTER was painted in yellow in Russian.
"Yes, we will enter," Olivia murmured as her father placed explosives on the door's stress points. Their lights changed to red as they discharged. The door groaned, but didn't give way.
"Use your Cry," Oliver said, taking out a few more explosives. "While I detonate these."
Again, the explosives discharged with a puff of dust. At the same time, Olivia let loose her Cry. The metal crunched inwards with a high pitched squeal. It fell with a loud bang.
The person at the controls whirled. Olivia paled underneath her mask. "You."
The man grinned, the red scar running down the side of his face pulling with his facial movements.
"Look at you, all dressed up and ready to go," he mocked. "Although I didn't think you would ever come back from whatever hole you crawled into, the little scared mouse you are."
"I'll show you a scared mouse," she growled, punching him hard in the face. Throwing him down from the chair, she kicked him over and over in the ribs, until he spat blood.
"Stop!" Oliver said, gripping Olivia by the arm. She whirled, lips curled in a snarl.
"Let go of me," she hissed back.
"Not when you are losing your cool on a mission. Do you really want to jeopardize this because of whatever this man did?"
"No."
She turned back to the man on the floor, and calmly placed her heel over his throat. Oliver searched him for a communication device, and found it in his pocket. Olivia pulled out her device, and searched up the man's timeline. It seemed he went MIA in 2046, during the public invasion. He made no significant contributions to the timeline. He was actually assumed dead.
She tucked it back into her gear.
She smiled calmly, as she lifted her heel, kneeling slowly by him. Olivia took off her mask, and helped him sit up.
"Why are you helping the Thanagarians?" she asked, twirling a knife in her hand.
The man's eyes darted up to Oliver. "Our mutual friend Prometheus thought it would be best to help rather than hinder their efforts. By helping them, we get closer to our goal."
"Prometheus?" Oliver asked. "That's impossible. He's dead."
"Not when another takes the mantle, Oliver Queen," he answered. He laughed.
This time, Oliver picked him up and threw him out of the room.
"Who is this new Prometheus?" he demanded.
Olivia pushed past her father and hauled Prometheus' lackey back up. She wanted to kill him out of rage, vengeance, years of being scared, thinking she would be captured again like last time. She rubbed at her scar underneath her choker. She couldn't let her father know the identity of Prometheus. That would disrupt the timeline, no matter what it could do to her fate. But now she had to kill him out of necessity.
"Seems your usefulness has run out," she murmured.
"You wouldn't. You're a hero now, aren't you?"
Olivia couldn't help let out a little laugh, mimicking his laughter from earlier. "No. I am what you and Prometheus made me to be."
She leaned forward into his ear, and let out a high-pitched whistle. He seized in her grip, as blood poured from every orifice. Olivia let him go. The man fell limp to the floor, feet still jerking as his body struggled to hold onto some tether of life. Finally he lay still.
Olivia put on her mask once again. Her father looked at her with heartbroken dismay. She looked over his shoulder to see one guard rising, gun raised.
"No!" she cried.
Pushing past him, Olivia launched herself in front of the Green Arrow. Her body bucked as a bullet found home in her chest.
She fell motionless to the floor.
…
Team 2046. Munich, Germany.
"We would like your cooperation, but we will force it if necessary," Hro Talak announced. "We have control over your nuclear weapons."
"You're bluffing!" someone cried.
More yelling ensued.
"We have disabled all of the devices," Dawn said. "It's over for them."
Hro Talak nodded to one of his delegation. One of them pulled out a communication device, pushing down on one of its triggers. They waited.
And nothing happened.
Dawn shared a bright, teary grin with Sara. They did it. They saved the future.
But then the screen behind Hro Talak switched from a live feed of him, to the station in Russia. The delegation member pressed another trigger, the device letting out a beep.
Sara activated her comms. "Felicity, can you stop it?"
"I can't. They're blocking me! Team Russia, what's wrong?"
Oliver's voice came through their connection, the distance filling his words with static. "Black Canary has been shot. She's losing blood fast. And the nuclear station, it went into some kind of automatic function. It's firing. And I can't check it without leaving her."
Sara and Dawn watched with horror as they watched the Russian missiles take to the skies. They descended onto New York City. With the fuzzy feed, they couldn't see too much. But they could see how one of the biggest cities in the world seemed to disappear in a ball of fire and light.
"Retreat."
….
Earth-38. Thanagar.
When Barry woke up, he found himself upside down, still belted into the spaceship. His ears rung as his vision cleared from the crash. He pulled at the belt until it let him go, releasing him abruptly into the ship's roof. Which hurt. A lot.
Groaning, he quickly shook everyone. J'onn and Don phased out of their restraints, while Kara ripped off the seatbelt. They landed hard on the roof, while Barry helped Cisco with his.
"Don't, don't I got it-" Cisco protested.
"Stop moving! Wait, I think I got i-"
Cisco suddenly dropped, landing with a loud thud.
"A little warning?" he snipped.
Barry shrugged. "I did."
"Uh guys?" Kara called. They followed her voice to the outside of the ship.
They were in some underground network it seemed, with different coloured banners dangling down from a spotlight in the roof.
And Lizarkons, all pointing blasters at them, surrounded them.
They all raised their hands.
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Legacies: Crisis from 2048: An Arrowverse Crossover
By: snow1010 
The heroes of the Arrowverse have defeated the Dominators and their Earth-X doppelgängers. Now they must unite once again, to help the heroes of 2048 save their world from a terrible threat. COMPLETE
Rated: Fiction T - English - Sci-Fi/Fantasy - Chapters: 4 - Words: 32,117 - Reviews: 11 - Favs: 20 - Follows: 19 - Updated: May 5, 2018 - Published: Nov 16, 2017 - Status: Complete - id: 12727636 
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Episode 4: This Starcrossed Hereafter
Team 2046. The Waverider.
Olivia was rushed to the med-bay in her father's arms. He placed her gently on the examination chair, while Gideon scanned her.
"I can stabilize her for now, Mr. Queen, but she needs medical attention that I cannot provide," Gideon told him.
"We'll need Caitlin," he murmured.
Just as he turned to go to the bridge, Connor burst through the doorway, his mask dangling haphazardly around his neck. His eyes immediately landed on Olivia, pale and prone in the chair.
For a second, it seemed that she was all he could see. His vision tunneled.
Through all the various timelines they had went through together, through all the deaths they had witnessed and experienced themselves, Connor thought maybe he would be desensitized to it.
But no. Seeing Dinah Olivia like that, was still a hard blow to the heart. He couldn't breathe.
"What happened?" he growled.
Oliver gave him the rundown, including an encounter with a man with a scar on his face, who seemed to know Olivia and was connected to a new Prometheus, which Oliver seemed in shock about. Or the fact that his seemingly down to earth future daughter had one hell of a dark side, one that even scared the master brooder himself.
Connor didn't say anything. The Prometheus thing was complicated. And as much as Connor wanted to say something, he couldn't without comprising the timeline. Plus it was more of Olivia's story than his.
He still remembered when he had first seen her, in 2046. He had thought she was dead, after she disappeared. But there she was. Saving his life.
But the girl that he knew before, she was not the young woman that came back. There still was her easy going bravado, and her nerdiness about anything science but she was vastly different in other ways.
Thinking about all that woke all the bitter anger and distrust he harboured towards her father. But that was Oliver's future self. Not the 2018 Oliver Queen.
"I'll leave you alone with her," Oliver said quietly, and left the room.
Connor took a stool and pulled it next to Olivia's chair. He took her hand in both of his. Sometimes he didn't realize how small she was. Her personality always made her seem bigger, like she took up more space. At least to him.
"Come on, Tweety bird. You're tougher than this."
He looked up, instead of her pale face. "Gideon, what's her condition?"
"Stable for now, Mr. Diggle. But the bullet needs to be removed by another doctor."
"What is the composition of the bullet? It shouldn't have been able to pierce her suit."
"It is a crude Nth-metal alloy. Enough to pierce the armour around her chest," Gideon supplied.
Rage flared hot underneath his skin. He needed to punch something. Something Thanagarian preferably.
Dawn came into the med bay, face pale. She took one look at Connor's face and jerked her chin towards the exit. "Felix Weber is now conscious in the brig."
"Good. Stay with her for a few minutes."
He stormed out before she could say anything. The returning heroes immediately avoided him just with one look at him. He pushed through to the brig, and opened the door.
Felix Weber stood with one indignant motion, opening his mouth to protest, just to take a direct blow to the teeth. He punched and punched, and when that wasn't enough, he threw the traitor politician across the room.
He stormed out the way he came, closing the door behind him.
….
Team 2046. The Waverider
Oliver sat down beside Felicity as she massaged her hands after a long day behind the desk. He took her hands into his and rubbed them. She sighed in happiness. The blissful expression faded as she studied him.
"What's bothering you?"
"Besides that our future daughter took a bullet for me?"
"I know," she sighed. "I went to visit her, but it's hard to get past Connor. He's very…protective."
"That has not escaped my notice. Not Felix Weber's either."
The former advisor to the Chinese Prime Minister was sporting some wounds from Connor's rage. Though he didn't seem that bothered by it, which seemed odd. The spy seemed very, suspiciously calm.
"What's bothering me is that apparently there's another Prometheus in the future. And that he did something to our daughter. Something that created this darkness inside of her."
He looked to the ceiling. "I always hoped that, with William and with any other children we could have, that they would not be subjected to the terrors that I went through."
"It's called being a parent. We always want to protect our children from anything the world will throw at them."
"You didn't see the look in her eyes when she fought. It's like looking into a mirror. Seeing my monster in her. And seeing her fight too," he shook his head, "You know I think she's better than even me. When I sparred with her, she fought with a mix of styles. I recognized my own. The League of Assassins' style. And others. What would drive our daughter to learn all these fighting styles?"
"Maybe when this is all over, we can talk to her."
He nodded. Of all the things he felt about his future daughter, one feeling stood out the most. Shame. Shame at himself for not protecting her or William, who she said she didn't know whether was dead or alive.
…
The Waverider. 2018.
Mina opened a breach, Dr. Snow following her in. They stepped into the bridge of the Waverider. The future Vibe led her into the med bay, where several of the heroes hovered. The closest of which was Connor, still holding Olivia's hand.
Her heart dropped seeing her friend so prone. But she couldn't afford to wallow. They needed her better for the fight to come.
"Okay, everyone out," she declared. "Doctor is in the house, so give her space."
Everyone did as she said. Oliver and Felicity paused, looking worriedly after their daughter, but following everyone else. Connor was the only one that remained.
"You too Connor."
"I'm staying."
"Don't be a stubborn mule. Let's go," she said, grabbing his arm. He tensed. But did as she said.
She practically had to drag him out of the med bay, with the help of Dawn. When they were a distance away inside the captain's office, the two girls stopped him.
"Saw the damage you put on Weber's pretty face," Dawn said.
"So?"
Mina looked to Dawn. "What kind of damage?"
"Gideon?"
The screen in the office lit up with live feed of the brig. Felix Weber lay down on the floor, his face swollen and beat up.
Mina raised her eyebrows. "Okay."
Dawn turned back towards Connor. "We need to know if you'll be able to separate your feelings about Olivia from the mission."
"My feelings?" Connor said in a clueless tone. "What are you talking about?"
Mina and Dawn shared a look. "You can't actually be serious."
"I honestly don't know what you guys are talking about."
Dawn face-palmed. "We've known you've been in love with her for years now."
"In love?" Connor seemed to pale several shades. "No."
"Why is that so impossible for you to admit?" Dawn asked.
"She's ten years younger than me!"
"That doesn't really matter and you know it."
Connor seemed to shrink on himself, which was strange to see, Mina thought. Such a big tough guy, and the smallest mention of his feelings for his small partner in crime made him get as antsy and frightened as a little mouse.
This time, she spoke up. "JJ, whatever it is, sort it out. You never know when you'll last see someone. You can't wait for the right time, or whenever you feel "ready". Tell her. Before it's too late."
The other future heroes sobered. They knew Mina spoke from experience. She never got to tell the love of her life that she loved him. Frost had died before she could muster the courage to say anything.
"Whatever," Connor muttered with a defeated tone. He walked off.
"Boys," Dawn muttered.
"Yeah."
…
Thanagar. Earth-38.
The Lizarkons chittered and hissed at them, while prodding them forward. They were marched further into the underground network the lizard aliens seemed to call home. And surprisingly, it seemed homey, not the gross wet sewers like the team imagined.
Golden sunlight came in through the grates above ground, giving Don a better glimpse of Thanagar's gold towers. Winged figures regularly dived off balconies and took to the air.
They seemed more agitated at the sight of Kara, in her suit. They pointed at the Kryptonian symbol on her chest, and chattered to themselves. Perhaps they knew of Krypton.
As they were escorted, Don took note of all the turns and twists, committing them to memory. Other members of the Thanagarian lizard people peered from corners to look at them. He spotted one little female Lizarkon, clutching a straw doll in her claws, peering at them with wide yellow slitted eyes. Lumpy scars encircled her wrists.
His stomach dropped as he saw the same repeated scars on more and more Lizarkons. They must have been escaped slaves or prisoners.
While he was taking in his surroundings, Barry and Kara were tensing for a fight. J'onn seemed to be doing the same as him, analyzing everything. And Cisco, well was Cisco. When he wasn't gawking at everything, he was trying badly to communicate with the Lizarkons. All it looked like was a hilarious game of charades. Some of the Lizarkons chuckled at the human's strange movements. Don shook his head.
They paused as they entered a large intersection. More and more Lizarkons pushed past them as they frequented the intersection, which seemed to serve as a small marketplace. Rickety stalls had been installed in any free corner or crevice, charms and strange fruits held out for display.
They were pushed through the crowd, until they came in front of a small tunnel, blocked by an ornate curtain. Past the curtain was a cosy den, little handmade baubles strewn everywhere. Cisco nearly fell on his face by tripping on one, but J'onn caught him by the back of his shirt.
Walking past small cots and a small dinner table, they were finally shoved to their knees in a small study. An elderly Lizarkon's back faced them, his gnarled pale green hands tinkering with another bauble. The guards that escorted them chittered at him in their strange language. The old alien nodded and they left, except for a few that remaining in the shadows.
The old lizard stared at each of them, studying them with a eerily sharp gaze.
"You are from Earth planet, yes?" he asked in rough English.
They stared at him. "How do you know English?" Cisco asked.
"I know many language of different world. Now why here you?"
"Because of this," Barry answered, holding out the pearl. It buzzed and lifted from his palm. Hovering in the air, the same message from the Lizarkon that had come to Earth played once again.
The old lizard watched it with sad eyes. He sighed as it closed and fell back to Barry's waiting hand.
"What does it say?" Don asked.
"It is important information against hawkmen. We have key to defeat, but at cost of my hatchling's life. My Lyketh. He best hope. Knew your language better. Best warrior. How did he-"
Barry cleared his throat. He still felt the death of the little alien on his shoulders.
"General Hro Talak killed him," he answered quietly.
The elder Lizarkon hissed a few curses.
"Why you want information?"
Don answered this time. "I am from my planet's future. Where the Thanagarians have invaded the Earth, and have subjugated humanity to its whim. We want a way to defeat them, and this was one of our best hopes."
"Earth yes. Hawkmen interested in Earth for human blades."
"Human blades?" Cisco asked.
"I think he means human weapons," Don supplied.
Human weapons. Interesting. Don had always thought they had conquered Earth for the same reason any other Earth country had taken another under its banner; because they thought it was their destiny and right to create an empire. It made sense with their government system and mentality.
But human weapons?
A rumble shook the tunnels. A distant bell rang in response.
The old alien jerked, aiming glowing yellow eyes at them.
"You brought hawkmen here."
…
2018. The Waverider.
Sara rubbed her eyes. They weren't getting anywhere with Felix Weber. And it didn't help with Connor hovering over her shoulder during the entire interrogation. His eyebrows were scrunched together in concentrated thought, his eyes somewhere else.
Nate knocked on the door, gesturing towards the bridge. The two followed them out.
"So I did a little checking with one of our friend's interdimensional devices, and cross-referencing with the Time Bureau's documents on the future. Felix Weber's history doesn't check out. Everything about him is fabricated."
He pulled up some documents. "Like none of these documents make sense. As if they didn't know anything about the fake background they were constructing."
"Or the planet," Connor murmured. He straightened. He ran back into the brig, and found Felix Weber smiling calmly at him.
"Are you Thanagarian?" he demanded.
Weber smiled. "Now you are asking the right questions."
"We'll have to confirm through DNA testing of course," a weak voice added.
Connor whirled to find Olivia leaning against the doorway, looking pale as milk. But her blue eyes were bright and lively as usual. A bandage was wrapped around her shoulder, the white cloth stained with a little spot of red. A little smile pulled at her lips as she landed eyes on him.
"I'll get it," he murmured, trying to calm the riotous joy that ran rampant inside of him.
For good measure, he punched the possible Thanagarian in the face as hard as he could. Taking the swab Olivia provided him, he gathered as much blood as he could.
He handed her the swab. "Good to have you back, Tweety bird," he whispered to her.
"Good to be back," she answered. She gave him a one-armed hug, pressing her forehead against his chest. Some part of him relaxed, having her here, in his arms. But another tensed, Dawn's and Mina's words echoing in his head.
"Besides, you would have been lost without me," she joked, giving him a wink.
Olivia rolled her shoulder. It felt pretty much as good as new, but the physical fatigue of the injury still remained. She needed to distract herself, and doing some DNA sample prep was the exact thing she needed. She couldn't think of the look she saw in JJ's eyes when she entered. It would just give her false hope.
So she went to the lab.
Due to the Waverider's future tech, sequencing didn't take as long as present day standards, which was days. All she had to do was prep the sample, and inject it into the sequencer, which was a small black box. It whirred into motion as it analyzed Weber's genetic sequence. She also let it analyze its methylation patterns. Its screen lit with the results.
Felix Weber's profile had more methylation than an ordinary human. It matched the reference sequence of a Thanagarian male.
…
Thanagar. Earth-38. 2018.
Thanagarian soldiers forced their way into the tunnels, blasters glowing bright red. Lizarkons fled into the shadows. Anyone that got in their way was mowed down, whether they were male, female, old or young.
Lizarkon warriors rushed to meet them, lazer staffs poised at the ready. But in comparison to the hawkmen's weaponry, they were severely outmatched.
The Earth heroes rushed to their aid. Kara flew into the first Thanagarian she saw, punching her hard in the gut. She went flying, colliding hard to one of the tunnels' walls. Hovering, she summoned her heat vision, focusing in on the hawkmen's blasters. They exploded in bursts of light, dropping more soldiers.
J'onn was in Martian form, taking some by surprise by grabbing them and phasing them halfway through the walls. Many of them flailed helplessly as they remained stuck. Below Kara, both Barry and his future son were nothing more than blurs of red-gold and purple lightning, darting through the formations marching towards them. Cisco took out anyone that got past them, sending vibrational blasts out from his palms.
Kara flew past the charging group and went to where more soldiers were coming in droves. Taking in a deep breath, she blew her frost breath, freezing a century of hawkmen.
They fought and fought, while the Lizarkon warriors were able to escort the survivors out. They seemed to disappear further into the tunnels. But despite their intervention, too many of the lizard people were dead. Kara knelt by a small lizard girl, still clutching her doll. A blaster had caught her in the stomach. She widened scared yellow eyes at Kara. Her small, clawed hand clutched Kara's with surprising ferocity as she hissed in shaky breaths.
"It's okay," she murmured to her over and over again.
The little Lizarkon clutched her hand tight once more before going limp. Letting out a heavy breath, Kara closed the little lizard's eyes.
Cisco appeared from a breach. "Come on, the rest of them are in another part of the tunnels. They'll need you to bring some of the tunnels down."
Kara nodded and followed him into the breach. They appeared again in a darker, deeper part of the tunnels. The elder Lizarkon was waiting for them, gnarled scaly hands clutching a cane. He pointed a shaking claw at them.
"You, you human blades."
The Thanagarians didn't come for Nth-metal or conquering for the sake of conquering. They came for the metahumans. They wanted to add them to their army to conquer more planets, to unite galaxies under the banner of Thanagar.
…..
The Waverider, 2018
"How are you Thanagarian?" Sara asked. "You have no wings."
Felix Weber smiled primly. "Not all Thanagarians are born with properly grown wings. I was one of those unlucky few, and had to bear the status of wingless on my family."
"Then things turned around once Earth was brought to your attention."
"Precisely. Not as many of your human kin wanted to turn on their own kind. That was when we wingless came in. We assimilated into your world, hid ourselves in the shadows of the most powerful among you."
"And why are you being so cooperative, Felix?"
"My fate was sealed the moment I was captured. Either way, I will die. So I have nothing to lose. Besides I would like to see the great General be knocked down a peg or two."
Sara crossed her arms. "What would make the General call back his forces?"
Felix tilted his head. "I am afraid I do not know. I was never a close confidante of him. What I do know is that he is an ambitious man. He wants to be remembered as the greatest Thanagarian general that has ever lived. If he has quickly secured Earth and its metahumans, the war with Rann will be done in a matter of moments."
"What if you weren't able to do that?"
"Not have the metahumans? I presume that the war would continue to be waged until we were at a stalemate, until thousands are dead, on both sides. Thangarians do not surrender. We win or we die."
"But will he pull out his forces to save their lives, or to allocate resources better?"
"Perhaps. What are you getting at, Captain?"
"Nothing you need to know."
Sara left the brig, possibilities running through her mind. She found Dawn in the hallway, fidelling with her communication device.
"Any luck?"
"Nope. Seems wherever they are, the signal can't get through. Maybe it's just the limits of the device. Probably can't communicate between multiple universes and different planets."
"Well, keep trying. Something will get through eventually."
"Of course, Captain," the female speedster gave her a crooked smile. "So find anything out from dear old Felix?"
"Well thanks to Olivia's testing, we know for sure he's Thanagarian. Apparently, some Thanagarians are born with wacked up wings so they end up cutting them off. Those Thanagarians were sent to Earth to infiltrate the most powerful corners of the world."
Dawn nodded. "That's makes sense. I've always had a hard time believing that so many of our own people willingly turned on us. Anything else?"
"Maybe some clues on how we can get them to leave. But General Hro Talak sounds like the guy that will never give up, even if it kills him."
"Win or die," Dawn murmured.
"Yeah, exactly."
"Everyone's here for battle planning. Except Team Thanagar of course. Mina has already hooked up her device to Gideon."
"Good."
The two joined the others. Everyone was in civilian clothes. Mina was fiddling with the holo-table in the bridge. She brought up the timeline data, and zoomed in on one event, in 2048.
"May as well run us through it, Vibe," Connor said. Olivia nodded approval, leaning against him.
Mina nodded. "Since our operation in 2046 failed, Gideon helped me gather data on if the timeline has been altered. So far it hasn't, or the effect of our changes haven't been cemented quite just yet. So this is our last chance. In 2048."
Images appeared on the holo-table. Central City burned, the walls around it piles of rubble. The Headquarters of the Justice Society, the warehouse that the present heroes had used, was also in ruins.
"First, we'll stop at our headquarters. We have some scrap Nth-metal that Gideon can analyze and replicate. It wasn't enough to reinforce our suits with or anything but with Gideon's system, we can make much more. Then we'll infiltrate this, the Victory party the Thanagarians will hold in Central City. The highest ranking officers will be there, including General Hro Talak."
"Felix has been ever so helpful by providing a list of the General's biggest supporters, as well as officers that want his position," Dawn added. "We are going to destabilize the Thanagarian hierarchy. Once doubts settle in, we'll attack the main warship hovering over Central City. Guns blazing."
"What about reinforcements from the other warships across the continent?" Oliver asked.
Mina pulled up their current knowledge of where the main warships were stationed. There was now only one in the US, now that Central City had fallen. It may have seemed like light security, but each warship contained countless smaller warfighters, as well as soldiers.
"That's why you went back in time as well, wasn't it?" Cisco said. "Central City had been defeated."
Mina nodded. "Central City was the last holdout in the US. Everything else fell to Thanagarian rule."
There was also a warship north in Canada, one in mainland Europe, one in South America and one positioned over Asia.
Olivia cleared her throat. "I have some friends up in Canada. They can help with that warship. And some friends on an island by Europe."
Connor turned to her. "Oh, that island? T-th, it started with a T."
Olivia waved a hand. "Point is, they can help."
"Why couldn't they help us before?" Connor asked.
"Resources. Also you know those pesky checkpoints preventing them from traveling. Besides it was really bad in Canada and in Europe. They were too busy, just as we were too busy to help them. I'll go call them," she said, pulling out her device. She disappeared around the corner.
"It still leaves two ships that could help with reinforcements. That is assuming we don't all die from attacking one ship," Felicity stated.
"I've tried contacting Don," Dawn interjected. "I've sent messages. We can only hope that they come back with some kind of help in time of our attack."
Dawn said this with a hopeful tone. But beneath it was a hint of defeat. She didn't think they'd come back in time. But she was desperate to stage any kind of attack against the Thanagarians. She had to relive the nuclear attack twice. Her hopes on saving their future, saving their friends, were gone.
If she could strike any kind of devastating blow to the invaders, even at the cost of her life, she would do it. She knew the others felt the same.
"Okay, let's prepare for 2048."
…
Thanagar. Earth-38. 2018.
Once the surviving Lizarkons were all accounted for, the old lizard, known as Lizyeth, summoned them to his makeshift office.
"Hawkmen want human blades for war against Rann," Lizyeth said, coughing. "War draining resources. Can't afford more losses."
"Do you think we can ask the people of Rann to help?" Barry asked.
Don shook his head. "No, we've tried that. The Rann people are only fighting because Thanagarians are attacking them. They have very advanced tech, more advanced than Thanagar's, which is why they've been struggling in this war. But at their heart, they are a pacifist civilization. It makes sense that the hawks want the metahumans. Just having a few speedsters could drastically turn the tide, if they knew how to time travel." He whispered the last words to his father.
Barry nodded. "Yeah. Did they try to kidnap you and your sister?"
"You don't even know how many times they tried. But they were ill equipped in the beginning. When they got more tech, it wasn't much use, as me and Dawn had more control over our powers by then. They don't even know about our time travel abilities."
Cisco looked to J'onn. "Do you understand what they're saying?" To his ears, Don and Barry sounded like a tape being rewound, the words coming out so fast they were indiscernible.
J'onn looked to Kara. "You getting any of that?"
"Bits and pieces."
Cisco cleared his throat. "Hey, motor mouths! We can't understand you when you talk like that."
Barry and Don blinked, looking at each other for a second. Goofy grins spread across their faces. It was then where Cisco saw the resemblance between the two. It had been hard to see with Barry's usual cheery nature in contrast with Don's no-nonsense one. Though Cisco liked to think of him as a major downer. His twin seemed more like Barry.
Lizyeth tapped his cane. "My hatchling mentioned ship, yes?"
Barry nodded, rolling the small pearl between his fingers. He held it up. It opened, playing the message once more.
"The message speak of prototype device the Rannians made. Thanagarian warship communicate on same wave. Hook up device to one, cause all ship linked on wave to destroy."
Cisco nodded. "A bomb that tracks all of the ships using the Thanagarian frequency. It destroys all of them. That's amazing."
"Wave connect all. Make attack efficient," the old lizard added.
"Do the hawkmen themselves use it? What would happen if they were using communication devices on the same wavelength?" Cisco asked.
"Could kill hawks. Or zap. Don't know."
"Where is it?"
Lizyeth held out a clawed hand. Barry handed over the pearl. Whispering a few words, a new message appeared in the air. A layout of a base. Two areas were highlighted in red. One was a ship bay. The other was a weapons vault. A script of Lizarkon text ran beside it. The old lizard beamed.
"We know where. And how to get ships and weapon."
…
Team Thanagar. 2018
The base had been where the Lizarkon had worked as a custodian. It seemed that the young lizard alien was attempted to re-construct the Rann device, after spotting it while cleaning. All they needed was Nth metal, which was too tightly guarded. So with one of the Lizarkon Resistance's few hidden ships, they sent him off to Earth, to collect the materials necessary to make the device. With the device, they were supposed to stage an attack on the capital city, by taking out all of their ships.
"The device is in the most secure vault. Lined with Nth metal, it looks like," Cisco said.
"So we'll need someone to get the code to open it," Don crossed his arms.
"We can help," Lizyeth added. "Not all hawkmen bad."
"You've got a mole?" J'onn asked.
"Yes. I go talk to her now."
After much planning, and the old lizard talking to his spy, they set up the attack. The heroes prepped their gear and followed the old lizard, along with his guards through the tunnels. A grate leaked hard blue light above them. They were inside the base.
They all exchanged nods. Kara and J'onn flew out first. Outcries immediately rose at the sight of intruders, the rapport of blasters ringing through the tunnels. Barry followed afterward, running interference. Then Don, followed by Cisco, who took the Lizarkons through a breach.
Don ran through the maze of halls, clearing as many hawk soldiers as he could. One swiped at him with a blaster staff, its blade buzzing slowly with electricity. He ducked easily underneath, his purple lightning crackling around him. He moved the staff a bit more, so the soldier would be thrown off balance. He moved to another, tripping her then another, pushing him into the wall. On and on he went, until he found the vault. It took up the entire wall; a series of gold gears and locks interlocking together in a filigree pattern. A small digital interface was embedded into the largest gear.
Cisco entered the code the spy had given them. The display flashed green in conformation. The gears began to turn, a large clicking filling the base. As soon as the door hissed open, the small group squeezed in, while Don kept look out. The vault itself was full to the brim with alien tech. Cisco almost felt like drooling at the sight of it all. Man, the endless possibilities of what he could do with all of this at his disposal…
The Lizarkons led him through the towering shelves of tech, until they reached the back. The Rannian device was smaller than expected, a small box of silver metal containing a swirling blue core. Small curling horns stretched from its corners.
"It will fit into Thanagarian ship transmitter," Lizyeth hissed in excitement.
"Awesome," Cisco grabbed it, pushing it into a sac. He threw it over his shoulder.
"Hands up!"
The small group turned to find a handful of hawks pointing blasters at them. They raised their hands. Just as the Martian Manhunter rose from below, arms crossed over his chest. Before the hawks could prepare, J'onn took them out with one fell swoop.
"They're calling in reinforcements. If we're making a getaway, we have to make it now."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"Let's move."
…..
2018. The Waverider.
The heroes finalized their plans. They would go back to 2048 Central City, while a handful of heroes would remain in 2018 to protect the past.
As much as it didn't sit well with the future heroes to go to the future with a few less hands, it made sense. Without the past, there was no future. And if the Thanagarians managed to send anyone to the past, they were all doomed.
So Kid Flash nominated himself to remain in the past, along with Mr. Terrific and Wild Dog. Ralph Dibny would also be lending a hand, along with Leo Snart and Constantine. If they had to, Wally would run to the future with reinforcements. Or to save the heroes of the past, while the future heroes would remain in 2048.
Before they would infiltrate the Thanagarians' victory gala, the team would send in a small team to gather the Nth metal scrap metal they had stored in the Headquarters of the Justice Society.
Olivia, Dinah and Oliver took the small time ship, the exterior cloaked from view with cloaking tech. Olivia steered the ship downwards to the war zone that was now Central City.
The tall shield towers that had once protected the city were mere rubble, scorched with blaster fire. The city itself was quiet in the cool morning, smoke faintly drifting off from particularly damaged areas.
Dinah shook her head. Her hometown. Apparently the last spark that humanity had in this future war. Now extinguished.
They circled down to the STAR Labs warehouse, though it looked very different to Dinah and Oliver. The STAR Labs logo had been erased, instead replaced with the shield and eagle symbol of the Justice Society. Like Central City itself, it was covered with black scorch marks. The fountain that had lay before it was now a smattering of sharp rocks.
Olivia landed the small craft in a well-covered bush area, a small distance away from Headquarters. It was a rough landing, the ship tilting on its side before falling squarely on its wheels.
"Sorry," Olivia winced.
Oliver grunted, rubbing the back of his head.
After making sure there were no Thanagarians laying in wait, the three snuck into HQ. Olivia led the way, passing by discarded chairs and exercise equipment. Cracked monitors were scattered about the floor, shards of glass crunching beneath their feet. Olivia put a hand on her chest, her heart dropping at the sight of the wreckage. The Headquarters had been a safe haven, a place of light and laughs even, away from the war they had been fighting.
They reached the back of the former warehouse, and stopped before a pile of boxes. Olivia pushed them out of the way, revealing what looked like a circular fluorescent panel. It hummed to life as the last box was slid aside. A slot in the floor opened, a handprint scanner rising from it. Olivia pressed her palm to it.
"Black Canary. Welcome Dinah Olivia Queen," a cheery voice confirmed.
She gestured towards it. "Now you guys."
Dinah went first, pressing her palm into the reader.
"Black Canary v. 2018. Welcome Dinah Drake."
Oliver followed.
"Green Arrow v. 2018. Welcome Oliver Queen."
The panel glowed a welcoming white gold. The three stood on it, the surface buzzing with power. It grew in strength until it gave one final pulse, its light almost blinding. Oliver felt a tug in his gut, as they were teleported from the main floor to a hidden bunker below.
The space was massive, with a raised dais in the center, outfitted with the latest computer models and monitors. In other corner, there was a sparring area, a spare selection of weapons on display and in another was a lab bench, pipettes and an array of engineering equipment scattered on its surface.
But it was to the extensive display cases that Olivia led them to. Each pane of glass had a projection of their respective hero on it. On one, was a young man with bright white hair in a long blue parka, hand glowing an icy white-blue, glaring at some unseen enemy.
Olivia stopped in front of her case, an image of her as the Black Canary, letting loose a Canary Cry, on the front of the glass pane. She pressed her palm on the cold surface. It pinged in recognition, hissing open.
"Aunt Dinah, there should be some Nth metal in the shelf there," she said absently, looking inside her cabinet.
Dinah nodded, and went off in pursuit of the scraps. Oliver remained at his daughter's side, as she reached inside. She pulled out two items.
One was a set of silver wrist gauntlets, with Nth-metal inlaid in gold filigree patterns at the edges. She slid them on.
The other was a chillingly familiar sword. Oliver immediately recognized the brutal straight edge of the chokuto sword. Prometheus, or Adrian Chase, had used one identical to it. But this one had a strange gold tint to it. Perhaps it was made of Nth metal alloy.
"Told myself I would never use this again," Olivia said. She turned it in her hand, studying it, before expertly twirling it and sheathing it. "Desperate times come for desperate measures I guess."
She closed her display case, and then went to JJ's case. She opened it and grabbed a quiver full of arrows.
"Is this enough?" Dinah asked, gesturing to her sac.
The younger Black Canary nodded. "Yep. Let's go before someone catches us."
….
With the scraps of Nth-metal, Gideon was able to make synthetic copies of false wings, as well as re-purpose the scrap metal to spread it out to as many of the heroes as possible. Now it was time to infiltrate the Victory Ball, so they could obtain the codes into the warship, as well as to sow some chaos into the hawk's ranks.
Dawn, Olivia and Mina got ready inside Sara's room, pilfering through her makeup case. Each of them wore open backed gowns to accommodate the fake wings they would be wearing; Mina in a dark red, Dawn in silver, and Olivia in deep blue. After they were done up, there was just pulling on the wings inside the lab space.
Dawn grunted as she pulled them on, closing the snap that held the straps together under her breasts. She frowned as she studied the Thanagarian symbol on the snap, a black hawk on a red background.
Mina rolled her shoulders. Closing her eyes, she focused her thoughts. She felt the weight on her shoulders shift as the wings unfurled with a smooth movement. Her toes lifted off the ground as the wings held her aloft.
"How'd you do that?" Olivia asked, jumping up and down in her heels.
"Pretty much just focused on flying."
Olivia closed her eyes and did what her friend said. The wings unfurled at her direction, bringing her up into the air. She opened her eyes and grinned at the other girls, who were also tentatively hovering.
"Hey you guys know where the wings are?" a voice called.
Connor barged into the lab, dressed neatly in a black tuxedo. His eyes slowly traveled up until he found the three of them in the air, giggling. But instead of some sarcastic remark, he was quiet, staring at Olivia.
Olivia couldn't read into that look. Shouldn't. But she couldn't ignore the little flutter in her heart at the sight of Connor in that tux. It seemed to emphasize the broadness of his shoulders. And it was nice to see him without the mask.
She willed herself to land, and she did, tittering a bit in her heels. The girls steadied her as they too floated back down.
"We'll go," Mina said, giving Olivia a wink. Dawn protested but the other girl practically dragged her out of the lab. She exchanged a look with Connor.
Olivia pulled out another pair of wings, these much larger and much heavier. "Come and put these on before my arms give out."
Connor hurried over, taking off his jacket. The back of it had been designed to accommodate the wings as well. He slung them on, as Olivia clasped them closed. She straightened his shirt, letting out a breath.
"This is it, huh?" she asked, not looking at him.
Connor clasped her hand, making her look up at him. He squeezed it. "Yeah."
"Do you think we're going to win this time?"
"I don't know. But something about this time feels-"
"Final."
"Yeah."
"Well, I guess if we have to go out, may as well do it fighting with our family at our side."
"As long as you're with me, having my back. Green Arrow and Black Canary always have to stick together."
Olivia's mouth parted as she took in his words. His heart fluttered uneasily. Did she feel the same way that he did? Mina had been right about him. He had been ignoring it for he didn't know how long.
He knew at one point Olivia fostered romantic feelings for him, years ago. He of course didn't feel the same way, with their age difference. But things were different now. And what if it was truly the last time they would be together?
Just as he thought he overstepped, Olivia placed a tentative hand on his cheek, steel blue eyes bright.
"Always," she told him.
"Hey, you guys ready?" Felicity barged into the lab, stopping short as she spotted the pair of them, standing close together.
Both of them shared a look.
Connor nodded. "Yeah we're ready, let's go."
….
Central City. 2048. Flash Museum.
Thanagarians milled about the museum, dressed in Earth formal wear, with pieces of Thanagarian wear mixed in. No one was unarmed, with a variety of weapons belted to their sides or slung over their shoulders.
Mina studied each and every face. She recognized some of the higher ranked officers of the Thanagar force, but many she didn't know at all. Grunt soldiers probably. Which meant they could blend in a little bit easier. Humans bound by shock collars snaked through, holding silver trays laden with champagne.
They followed the flow of people to the foyer, where the Flash statue used to be.
Now it was on the polished marble floor, the statue's face caved in. Dawn gritted her teeth. Everything that her father did, to save this city, and the world, and this was how the Thanagarians acknowledged it. With scorn. If it weren't for her father and the rest of the Justice Society, the Thanagarians wouldn't even have a world to invade and conquer.
Mina placed a hand on her shoulder.
"We'll make them pay for it later, yeah?"
Dawn nodded. "You bet."
Connor, Olivia, Dawn and Mina spread out throughout the floor, and began to insert themselves into conversations. Connor had already drawn quite a few of female as well as male admirers, engulfed in the press of gray wings. Olivia was already targeting one of the officers Weber had said harboured ill will towards General Talak.
"Welcome to the Victory Ball!" Hro Talak swaggered in, tailed by a red-haired hawkwoman dressed in a light pink gown. A mace was belted to her side. "We have conquered the last free city!"
The Thanagarians cheered.
"To celebrate, I brought forth some entertainment. A Rannian prisoner-"
The crowd booed.
"And one of our greatest assets, the metahuman warrior known as Frost!"
Mina's heart seemed to stop. Everything slowed down. The Thanagarians cheered obliviously as the Rannian prisoner was brought forth, bound with a shock collar.
Then he was brought out. Martin Snow. Son of Dr. Caitlin Snow, Killer Frost.
He kept his head down, brown hair glinting gold underneath the light. The white streak by his ear was still there. He lifted his head, brown eyes meeting hers. He stared, stopping. His escort shoved him forward. Mina looked to Dawn.
"We have to do something," Mina said.
"There's too many people. We'd be outnumbered."
"You're a speedster. I can vibe. Then there's Olivia and Connor. All together, we can get Martie out of here," her voice cracked at the mention of his name.
"Olivia and Connor already snagged some unwitting Thanagarians, to get more info about the warship and to sow some dissent. If we're doing this, we're on our own."
….
Thanagar. Earth-38. 2018.
To the outside, the base was quiet. A little too quiet, the lack of wingbeats haunting in the air. If passerby were close enough, they could hear muffled booms and thuds, the ground rumbling with the strength of them.
Then quiet.
The wall of the base blew outward, smoke blasting out of the newly made hole. Blaster fire lit the smoke cobalt as it billowed out. Then a Thanagarian ship emerged, taking to the air.
A few more followed it, all piloted by Lizarkons. Kara hovered while the ships escaped, watching for pursuers. At first there were none. Then a storm of hawkmen emerged from the smoke, gray wings glinting silver in the sunlight.
Summoning her heat vision, she targeted hawk after hawk, only injuring them so they would stop their pursuit. Kara burst forward, catching up to the head ship, piloted by Lizyeth.
"There's more coming!" she yelled. "We need to breach out of here!"
Cisco shook his head, gesturing theatrically with his hands. From what Kara could get out of it, she thought he meant that it was too far for him to breach. Not only to another star system but to another universe as well.
A hard thud attracted Kara's attention. The hawks had reached one of the ships, and were quickly crawling along its body, trying to get to the cockpit. She flew over, grabbed one of them by the breastplate strap and threw them off. The hawk's scream dwindled as his wings caught the wind once again.
Meanwhile, Cisco hovered by Lizyeth as he piloted the fighter ship. Through the window, he could see Kara flying about, punching hawks away from their ship. Their craft groaned as the Kryptonian and two hawk warriors collided into the ship. They struggled in the air before Kara quickly spun, the hawks flying off her.
"Your Kryptonian can't keep this up forever," Lizyeth said. "And we cannot fight off hawks and fighter craft. You must teleport us."
Cisco shook his head. "I don't know if I can do that. If we were closer to Earth maybe."
"We get close to Earth as we can," the old lizard replied, though he didn't sound very confident.
J'onn phased into the ship, landing into a smooth walk. "They've just called reinforcements. They're sending more hawks and fighters. We need to clear Thanagar and fast."
Then he leapt back into the air, phasing through the ship once more.
Meanwhile, Kara had her hands full with the hawks. Somehow during the aerial battle, a few silver feathers had gotten into her hair, ensnared in the tangles that the wind made in her hair.
Besides the hordes of hawks pursuing them, a few fighter ships had mobilized. They were still close to the ground though, but she had no doubt they could catch up to them in no time.
So she headed straight for one of the ships. She grunted as she collided with it, the metal screeching underneath her grip. Kara grinned. Guess their ships weren't made of an Nth metal alloy.
The pilot stared wide-eyed at her while she scrambled up the nose of the ship. Cramming her fingers along the hinge of the cockpit window, she wrenched it open. The pilot immediately took flight.
Keeping hold of the fighter, she spotted another fighter, just emerging from the base. With a fierce scream, she threw the empty ship down. The craft whined pitifully as it fell, before finally landing hard into the base. Explosions immediately followed.
She quickly disabled the other fighter in pursuit, aiming her heat vision at one of its wings. The pilot quickly abandoned the smoking ship, the fighter nose-diving into one of Thanagar's golden towers. Then she caught up with the escapee ships, J'onn defending them from the remaining hawks. They quickly dwindled as the atmosphere became thinner and thinner.
Throwing an arm around Kara, J'onn phased them into Lizyeth's ship. They grinned as they burst out of Thanagar's gravity field and out into space.
But before they could even celebrate, patrolling fighters quickly tracking them down. Lizyeth grumbled into Lizarkon tongue as he wrenched the controls. The ship sharply dove as a volley of blaster shots lit up the star specked blackness.
As Lizyeth yanked the controls back up, righting the ship, a blast hit one of their ships. The frame of the ship seemed to cave into itself, explosions bursting from its inside.
"Barry!" Kara cried. Cisco stared, dark eyes bright.
A crackling filled the ship. "Guys?"
Cisco sighed. "Barry! It's us!"
"Oh thank god."
Their ship shook violently as they were hit with a barrage of blaster fire. Lizyeth's hands flew over the controls, flicking switches and reading displays.
"Can you create a breach, Cisco?"
"I don't know. I would have to be in front of the ship, and I don't know how big it could be."
"Grav-suit," Lizyeth said. He gestured towards the back. "Get on ship."
The heroes turned, walking further down into the ship. They found a series of what appeared to be glass cases, similar to the ones in the Green Arrow's Bunker. At Cisco's touch, the lights inside activated, illuminating what was inside.
The suit was armoured, with heavy boots that had grav-lock soles. It had its own contained oxygen apparatus system, and a belt of repair tools at the waist.
"So dope," Cisco said in awe.
He turned towards the others. "Did I tell you guys I have a fear of being sucked out into space?"
"You will have to overcome this fear, Mr. Ramon," J'onn patted his shoulder. "If anything, I will phase through the ship to pull you back in."
"Slightly reassuring. Get me in this suit before I throw up."
…..
2018. Earth-38.
Hro Talak studied the data he had gathered about the small blue planet. It had two Kryptonian heroes known as Superman and Supergirl, both with god-like abilities. 
But what drew his attention more, were a small fraction of the Earth population known as metahumans. They were very few of them but the powers they boasted were quite intriguing. 
The Thanagarians were not above using mercenaries to help in their wars. But these metahumans were powerful, but still had the inherent human weaknesses. They could be used like tools. It could be helpful in the war against Rann. 
He opened more of the files he managed to scrap off of the DEO's database. One file in particular drew his interest. Multiverse files. He opened them. 
It pulled him out of the DEO's main files, which were dubbed underneath the directory Earth-38. He pulled up the folder on Earth-19. The amount of metahumans were higher than Earth-38's, but interdimensional travel was banned in that dimension after a devastating war. They had the technology to fight another interdimensional threat. 
Then Earth-2 and 3. Again, their technology was sophisticated. Earth-3 had a small metahuman population, as many of them were waning into the later years of their life. Earth-2 had its own problems, with a war currently going on with Atlantis. Hro Talak did not want to engage in the messiness of being a third party in a two-sided war. 
One look at Earth-X told him that that wasn't going to be a viable option either. 
Then he opened the file on Earth-1. He grinned as he watched the projected metahuman population rise. It was the dimension with the most of the metas out of all 53. 
He would bring this to the High Council of Thanagar. And the tide would finally turn on those Rannian scum. 
…
Earth-1. 2048. Central City.
Olivia and Connor left the drunk hawks at the party once they planted the seeds of doubt. Now they progressed to the next phase of the plan. With the information they obtained about the warship from the hawks, they could now board it.
It was just getting on without being detected while they planted some explosives around the structural supports of the ship.
"Where are Mina and Dawn?" Olivia asked, while they slunk around the Flash Museum. The warship was almost directly above it, a hulking black shape in the darkness.
"I don't know. But I messaged the Waverider the entry points and the codes to the warship. Should we wait for them?"
Olivia tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "We'll go back to the Waverider. It's close by. Besides, the longer we stay, the more we risk getting caught. Mina and Dawn are more than well equipped to deal when things go awry."
….
Mina took in a deep breath, as Martin and the prisoner faced off. She moved towards the back, where no one would see her. Dawn had pushed herself to the front, pretending to be an overeager spectator.
Martin summoned his powers, his brown hair fading into white, his skin paling as an icy aura began to gather around his hands. Those warm brown eyes brightened to a cold blue. The streak by his ear turned brown with the change.
Mina and Dawn's eyes met. The two girls nodded.
Dawn acted first. Purple lighting sparking around her body, she shot forward, and grabbed Martin. She grit her teeth as his cold powers sank into her skin, slowing her. With a shake of her head, she shook it off, and vibrated them both. The shock collar dropped at their feet with a clatter. Winking at the shocked Martie Frost, she zipped over to the Rannian prisoner and did the same.
Around her, the Thanagarians had launched into action, their wings unfurling in slow motion, weapons poised to strike. She circled around, subtly moving arms and legs as she went. When she stopped, they all dropped, bodies colliding hard with each other.
Mina opened a breach in the floor, her stomach dropping as she plummeted through the portal. Another opened in the air a few feet away. She dropped out of it, throwing out vibe blasts.
Frost threw out a barrage of icicles, as blaster fire barely missed them.
"Nice to see you again, Vibe," Martie said, as they fought back to back.
"You have no idea," she answered with a grin, throwing out another vibe blast.
Dawn punched another hawk, purple lightning sparking off of her. "Let's go."
Zipping over, the three gathered together as Mina made a breach in the floor. They jumped in, disappearing with a flash of blue light.
They appeared in the Waverider, scaring the crap out of Felicity, who was scanning some data at her makeshift station. She nearly fell out of her chair.
"A little warning next time?"
"Sorry, Felicity," Mina winced.
She pointed to Martie, as his hair faded from white to light brown, his bright blue eyes darkening to brown.
"Who's he?"
"Martin Snow," he said, shaking her hand vigorously.
"Snow?"
"Yep."
She shook her head, rubbing her temples. "Ugh, the future gives me headaches."
Connor and Olivia emerged from the doorway.
"Where have you guys been-"
The two heroes stopped short.
"Martie!" Olivia cried. She launched herself at the skinny young man, him nearly stumbling with the force of it. Connor joined in too, enveloping them both.
"You're alive, how?"
That was what Mina wanted to know. She thought back to the day they lost him, when they attacked a hawk garrison. They were raiding for tech, as well as Nth-metal.
The rapport of blaster fire echoed in the halls. Holes smoldered in the walls from avoided blaster blasts from the Thanagarians. 
Mina panted as she pressed herself against the wall, clutching her shoulder. She had been grazed by one of the hawks' blasts. She tried to ignore the smell of her own flesh burning. Glaring with bleary eyes, she sent out vibe blasts to deter more Thanagarians. 
Martie rushed up to her in Frost form, his eyes glowing intense cobalt. 
"What's wrong?" he asked, his icy voice sending a shiver down her spine. Maybe she was just delirious from the burn. Her eyes swam.
"Blaster burn." 
"Come here." 
He gently placed a finger on the charred flesh, making her hiss in pain. Using his cold powers, he slowly cooled down the tissue, to soothe the inflamed mess of skin. 
"It should be fine for now, but you will need medical attention for it soon," he replied. 
"Then let's get the rest of the Nth-metal and go." 
They tucked themselves into a corner as hawks flew by. In the distance, they could hear Black Canary's Canary Cry, accompanied by the barrage of hawk bodies hitting the floor. 
"Now," Frost jerked his chin towards the smelting station. 
The two of them rushed out, Frost taking point, with Vibe taking the back. They snuck into the smelting station, the door closing silently behind them. 
Pieces of Nth-metal were littered on conveyor belts, moving them slowly towards a melting cauldron, the metal glowing bright orange yellow. Pulling out their bags, they stuffed as many pieces of Nth metal as they could inside. 
Mina tapped her comms. "Guys, we found the smelting station, we're grabbing as much as we can." 
"Well, hurry it up," Ravager grumbled. "I've planted all the explosives around the garrison, and the hawks are just flooding in. I'd like to get out of here in one piece." 
"Keep your pants on, Rose," Dawn snipped. "But she is right, we need to go. Apparently, reinforcements are coming. Headed by Hro Talak." 
"Okay, roger that," Mina answered. She turned to Frost. "Do you think you have enough?" 
"Yes." 
"Not so fast," a male voice interrupted. 
Both of them whirled to find Hro Talak, flanked by two hawk soldiers. The two of them aimed their blasters at Mina first and fired. She was able to dodge the first blast, throwing out vibe blasts in retaliation. But the other caught her in the side, sending her flying. She screamed as her skin burned from the second graze. 
That left Frost facing off against the Thanagarian general. He threw a barrage of icicles at the high-ranking hawk, which the general swatted away with a powerful gust from his wings. One of the soldiers had been hit by one of Mina's vibe blasts, but the other remained unscathed. He quickly trotted over and placed an inhibitor collar around her neck. Her powers quickly fell out of reach. 
All she could do was watch helplessly as Frost battled the general with an ice staff and try to not pass out. 
Then an explosion blew the smelting station's doors in in a flurry of black smoke and flame. A dagger flew from the darkness, impaling itself in Mina's guard's throat. He yanked the small blade out, the dagger clattering to the ground. He choked wetly and dropped to the ground. Hands grasped Mina under her armpits, dragging her out. 
"Try not to be so heavy," Rose grunted. Withdrawing another explosive, she placed it just outside the smelting station. 
"Frost, let's go!" she yelled. 
When the smoke cleared, Martie seemed to turn towards them in slow motion, ice clouds still drifting from his hands. Just as he stepped forward, a blade shot out from his chest, gleaming with blood. 
"No!" Mina screamed. Rose stared, mouth open. 
They watched as his hair faded back to brown. He fell to his knees as Hro Talak stood over him, discarding a short straight blade. The hawk general stalked towards them, silvery wings flaring. His battle-axe sparked with electricity, the blue bolts crackling along the floor. 
"We have to go!" Rose yelled. The dirt clouding her face was streaked with tears. "The explosives will go any minute!" 
Mina sobbed as she threw off her inhibitory collar. Grabbing Rose, she made a quick breach in the floor, and took them through it. They fell into the bridge of their stolen Thanagarian ship, the Javelin. The others paused in their preparation for take-off.
"Where's Frost?" Dawn asked. 
"Gone," Rose replied. "The bombs are going to detonate so we need to move." 
Dawn stared at Mina, who stared at the ground. She couldn't look at anyone. All she could think of was the look on Martie's face when Talak stabbed him in the back. 
The team took off, as the Thanagarian base began to blow into a maelstrom of fire and black smoke. Mina hoped that Talak had died a horrible, ugly and slow death thanks to that explosion. 
"Mina?"
Martie placed a hand on her arm. Big brown eyes stared into hers, filled with concern. She started.
"Will you guys excuse us for a second?" Martie asked.
"Of course."
Everyone made themselves busy as the pair left the room. Finding an empty room, they quickly closed the door.
"Hey," Martie placed his hands on her shoulders. "You can't blame yourself for what happened."
Mina wiped at the tears running down her face. She didn't even know she had been crying.
"I know. But I've-I've missed you so much, Martie."
He took her into a hug. "I missed you too, Mina."
Her heart beat hard in her chest as she leaned into him. She had lived in regret not telling him how she felt for years. Now he was here, in the flesh. It seemed like the universe was telling her to just spit it out. Maybe she wouldn't have this awful feeling in her gut anymore.
She drew away from him, not looking at him for a moment. Taking in a deep breath, she seized him by the shoulders and kissed him. Martie made a sound of surprise before Mina quickly drew away. They stared at each other.
"I'm sorry. It's just I've wanted to do that for years. But when I thought you were gone, I never got to tell you how I feel and I regretted it so much. With us heading into what could be our final battle-"
"Mina?"
"Yeah?" she squeaked. She already prepared herself for his rejection.
A hand cupped her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. A little bit of blue glowed around his pupils before fading.
"For someone that's supposed to be rather smart, you are awfully dim," he said, smiling.
"What-"
He kissed her gently, interrupting her. She didn't speak for a while after that.
…..
Olivia and Dawn tried to hide their smiles as Martie and Mina emerged from the room they occupied, looking a little rumpled but both grinning like idiots. They elbowed each other in excitement.
Connor shook his head. Girls.
Once everyone was in their gear, they went over the plan. Connor and Olivia would be sneaking onto the warship first, while much of the team would be attacking the garrison stationed in the city. Then Mina would help them on the ship, while Dawn would be their speedster on the ground. With that out of the way, reinforcements would be scattered while they took down the ship.
Pulling on her arm guards over her gear, Olivia looked up to the warship looming overhead. Connor pulled at the Nth-metal belt fastened around his waist. They took to the air, rising steadily. The wind whipped at them as they ascended, moisture clinging to their skin. One of the entry points was well illuminated in the darkness of the night sky. Slowing their ascent, they peeked over the edge of the landing point. A guard passed by from inside the warship, but otherwise no other movement.
Connor nodded to Olivia. They pulled themselves onto the walkway and made to sneak inside. The interior of the warship was massive, with multiple floors. Hawks milled about, their silvery wings shining underneath the dim lighting.
"We're in," Olivia murmured to the comms.
"Okay, I have a rough layout of the ship," Felicity replied. Though I don't know how current these are. You'll want to plant explosives around the ship, but make sure to not activate them right away. Make sure to plant the ones' around the ship's reaction core last, and let them go off last. It will either blow a hole in the ship, and it'll crash into the harbor, or-"
"Or what?"
"It'll decimate the entire ship. And the rubble will rain down on the city."
"That's reassuring. So we need to steer the ship towards the harbor."
"Looks like it."
"Send the old manifest to our devices. We'll take it from there. Tell Mina that she needs to be ready to pick up on our location and fast. A lot can go wrong from now and later."
"Sending now."
Connor pulled out his device. The manifest appeared when he activated it. Felicity had gone ahead and marked each place where they needed to place an explosive with a blinking red light. Their locations blinked in a reassuring blue. The reactive core was in the bottom floor of the warship.
"We're going to have to split up. Too much ground to cover separately," Connor said. Olivia nodded in agreement, just as a hawk emerged around the corner.
"Intruder! Stay right there!" he awkwardly cried. A new recruit. Blaster shaking, the weapon discharged, sending off a blue blast. Olivia raised her arms in an X position, her forearms braced against each other. The blast bounced off her gauntlets, and collided with the hawk. He fell to the ground.
"Huh, so that actually works," Olivia commented, looking at her gauntlets. They quickly grabbed the fallen hawk, and tucked him into a supply closet.
"Alright, its clear. See you soon."
Olivia nodded and darted off.
Connor kept to the shadows as he planted the explosives. The warship was lightly staffed it seemed. It must have meant everyone had their hands full down below.
"Does it seem really empty to you?" Olivia asked through the comms.
"Yeah. It's a bit –"
"Scary."
"Yeah."
"How do you think the others are doing?"
"Oh, they should be fine."
Things were not fine. At the garrison, hell was literally breaking loose. Hawks were everywhere.
Thanagarian bodies littered the ground as they forced their way in. Oliver was already running low on his explosive arrows, which seemed to be the best in deterring the aliens. His normal arrows seemed to just annoy them.
While the rest were dealing with the onslaught of hawks, Sara, Dawn and Dinah were at the tarmac, trashing their fighter ships.
"Whatever you're gonna do with the warship, do it fast!" Sara yelled through the comms. "We can't distract them for much longer."
She ducked as one of the ships flew off the tarmac, its metal crumpled and bent around the edges. Black Canary smiled sheepishly as she toned down her sonic cry. "Sorry."
"We've planted the explosives," Connor answered. "All we need to do is-"
"What?"
"Oh my god."
While they were dealing with the hawks, Connor had planted the final explosives on the reactor core. To dodge some guards, he ducked into the closest room he could find.
His mouth dropped open.
In the years preceding and during the Thanagarian occupation, the number of missing people had gone up. Olivia had told him one time that she had dealt with a string of missing person's cases.
As the lights turned on, activated with his presence, his jaw dropped further. He had a feeling he knew where all those missing people went. Because the wall was lined with hibernation pods, all full of people.
"We have a major problem."
…..
Thanagarian space. Polaris Galaxy. Earth-38.
Cisco tried not to hyperventilate as his boots locked to the hull of the ship, the hatch behind him closing. He had to get to the front of the ship, while not getting blasted by any of the Thanagarian fighters. So he moved as fast as he could to the nose of their ship, while fighters drew closer in the distance.
"I'm not going to die in the black void of space. I'm not going to die in the black void of space," he chanted to himself.
He stumbled as the ship took an evasive maneuver to avoid another blast.
"Any time now, Ramon!" Don yelled through the comms.
"Man, you remind me of Harry," he grumbled. "You know its not every day you're asked to freakin' walk on a spaceship, in space, getting shot at!"
"The both of you, could you not?" Barry scolded. "Trying not to die at the present moment?"
Taking a deep breath, he focused in on Central City in Earth-1. Sending out vibe blasts, a breach opened in front of them. It took everything in him to keep focused on maintaining it. His body shook from the strain.
"Hurry! I can't maintain it for long!" Already his speech was becoming slurred.
Cisco felt something pop in his ears. Blood began to run from his nose. The breach shuddered with instability.
"Cisco, you can do this! Just hold on!"
He channeled more strength into the breach, the portal enlarging even further. The taste of metal flooding his mouth.
The ship ploughed forwards into the breach. All Cisco could see was blue light, as the ships disappeared with a wink from the Polaris Galaxy. Then nothing as he passed out.
…..
2048. On the Thanagarian warship.
Olivia stared at the pods. Her face paled. "There's so many. How are we going to get them out in time?"
The thing with their explosives was that they were too good for their job. They were made for a quick rush in and out. If they were left alone for too long once planted, the explosive cores would start to degrade and would go off anyway. They were made specifically for their type of attack, which were usually guerilla tactics.
Olivia ran over to the command module. Prompts in Thanagarian illuminated the holo-screen. She cursed.
"Can you read Thanagarian?" she asked.
"No. I thought if anyone could read it, it would be you."
She shot him a look. Pulling out her device, she entered a few commands. She stuck it onto the side of the module. The Thanagarian glyphs shifted into English. Olivia entered a command, and pressed the red prompt button.
There was a loud hiss as all of the pod doors opened. People began to stumble out of their pods, still dressed in whatever they had been in last. One girl was in a tiger onesie while another boy was in his boxers and a tanktop, with one sock on.
"Everyone remain quiet," Connor said. "We're going to get you out of here."
"Mina, you need to get up here now," Olivia called through the comms.
A second later, a breach appeared in the diffuse darkness, Vibe jumping out of it. She took a step back, as she took in all the people staring at her.
"Oh boy," she murmured, running a hand through her sweaty curls. She quickly clapped.
"Okay, people, I'm going to open a breach and you're going to go through it. It'll take you somewhere safe."
"Where?" someone called.
Vibe placed closed fists on her hips. "Do you want to get off the ship or not?"
She turned and opened a breach. It didn't take long for the captives to run for the portal. Most of them had made it through when the alarms began to go off, a deep-throated whine that rumbled the floor beneath their feet.
"Mina, close the breach. We can't risk them following us," Olivia ordered.
Mina nodded, looking to the few remaining. "Can you handle the rest?"
"I can help as well," one girl piped up. Wearing red sweatpants with yellow stripes along the legs, and a black tank-top, it looked like she had been taken when she was at the gym. She flipped her blonde hair. "I can lift some of the other captives."
Connor looked her up and down. "Really?"
"I'm super-strong and can fly. Don't ask," she answered. Her eyes were drawn towards the gauntlets on Olivia. She crossed her left forearm over her heart. Olivia returned the gesture.
"Between the two of you, you should be able to take the rest," Olivia said.
"I'm not leaving you here on the ship," Connor snapped. "Are you crazy?"
"Don't worry. You and uh-"
"Cassie," the blonde girl supplied.
"You and Cassie have to take the others off the ship. I need to steer the ship over the lake so the explosion will not cause any innocent casualties. We all have a job here."
So they went to the wall, and watched Cassie punch a hole through it, along with some support from some spare explosives from Connor and Olivia's Canary Cry. Connor tethered remaining captives to him, while Cassie linked arms with the other two. Cassie went first, her rescuees screaming as they dropped off into the inky black sky.
Connor turned back as the wind howled, ripping his hood from his head. Olivia nodded back, giving him a reassuring smile. The last thing he saw before diving off the ship was the rush of hawks into the hidden room, Olivia whirling and screaming her sonic cry.
The wind roared in his ears. In the distance, he could see Cassie with her captives, attempting to slow their descent with her ability. He tapped his comms.
"Felicity, can you get a hold of my coordinates?"
"Uh, yes. And you're descending?"
"I need you to get us the location of the nearest skyscraper where we can land," he swerved over towards Cassie, until they were side by side. Focusing, they both slowed their descent when enough distance stretched between them and the warship.
"Okay, I got it. Sending it to you now."
Connor withdrew his device. When activated, he gave him a view of Central City's skyline, along with their location. There was one roof nearby, but it was going to a tight landing.
He looked to Cassie. "Follow me!" he yelled. Cassie nodded as they both headed downwards.
…..
The fight from the garrison had spilled out into the streets, despite the past and future heroes falling back. Buildings were already burning, panicked citizens fleeing as the blaze grew stronger.
From above, the warship was veering towards the harbour. An engine blew out in a black gust of smoke as it rapidly descended.
Oliver drew another arrow, firing it into a charging phalanx of hawks. Feathers and fire flew up as the arrowhead detonated. He ducked as another hawk swooped from above, sword raised to swing. Grabbing the warrior by the arm, he used the hawk woman's momentum to toss her into some of her compatriots.
He studied the destruction around him, just as the warship above them spat out a horde of fighter ships. All headed towards them. He cursed. Seemed they had a reserve force on the destroyer, and the hangar inside must not have been destroyed yet.
"This doesn't look good," he said through the comms.
Dawn appeared beside him in a flash of purple lightning. "It might be best to evacuate you guys. We'll deal with it from here."
"We are not leaving. I'm not just going to abandon my daughter while she crashes that warship! You will all die if we leave now."
"We'll all die if you don't. You guys need to live or else we don't exist. I asked the rest of the group. Olivia wants you to go."
He ground his teeth. "I'm not leaving."
Dawn sighed. "There's that famous Queen stubbornness. But we will force you to leave if necessary."
"Force-"
Both of them jumped to the ground as a fighter ship swooped downwards, blaster fire razing the ground where they just stood.
As Oliver pushed himself up, he watched as the warship fell into the bay, the structure going up in a gust of black smoke and flame.
"Olivia!" he screamed.
Connor and a blonde girl appeared beside them, followed by Mina. They stared at the black smoke in the distance.
The horde of ships descended towards them.
"Mina, get them out of here," Connor yelled. Dawn leaned against him, clutching her side.
The blasters on the fighters glowed with life.
Mina opened a breach. She reached for Oliver.
Just as a massive breach opened in the sky above them, lighting the black-red clouds cobalt blue. Three massive Thanagarian ships appeared. Immediately, they began to fire on the hawk fighters.
"That has to be-"
They watched as a small figure in the distance flew from the Thanagarian ships, shooting out beams of blue light. Heat vision.
"They're back!"
….
Lizyeth shoved the Rannian device into its apparatus. He began to type in the commands to activate it. The human weapons had gone to the fighting below, except for their friend, the one who made breaches. He was passed out on the floor.
The ship groaned as it shook from some impact. He cursed. He jerked his head to his Lizarkon companions to deal with it. But they were quickly dealt with blasterfire.
One of the high-ranking generals pointed a blaster at him.
"Hands up slowly," he growled. His companion tapped her fingers along her mace, the threat clear.
He raised them. In the corner of his eye, the activation process had already started. All he needed to do was stall them.
The lieutenant's blaster hummed as he aimed it at his head. Lizyeth held his breath. Just as his fellow lieutenant hit him hard from behind. He dropped prone, to the floor. The female lieutenant lifted her helm, revealing red hair and blazing green eyes. She smiled.
"You're lucky I was here."
The old lizard dipped his head. "Thank you, Lieutenant Hol."
"Please, Lizyeth. Shayera is fine. Now, let's get the device going."
….
Olivia dropped, Central City growing closer and closer. She had to time it just right, to avoid any hawks or fighter ships. It didn't help either that a wound on her side leaked blood as she descended.
She pressed her arms close to her body, plummeting straight and sure like an arrow. Reaching over to her right sleeve, she pressed a hidden button. Blue fishnet webbing released from her gear, forming wings like a flying squirrel. She banked, descending lower until she could see the fighters in the streets. Then she screamed, her Cry sending her upwards. Circling back, she straightened, opening her arms wide. Her feet collided with a hawk soldier, sending him flying. She landed hard in a crouch.
"Olivia!"
She looked up to find Martie heading towards her, in Frost form. She fell into him, pointing to her wound. He quickly cooled the aggravated burn. She clenched her teeth, hissing slightly.
"Thanks. Lead me to the others."
The past and future heroes had become cornered onto one street, though they were making progress, thanks to the divine intervention that was the arrival of Team Thanagar. But the hawks' numbers were still overwhelming.
Frost helped her most of the way, until they drew the hawks' attention. Taking in a deep breath, she unleashed her cry, sending Thanagarians flying in her wake. She withdrew the sword, the blade glinting gold in the flames. Olivia charged.
But no matter how many hawks fell, there always seemed to be more. Olivia's heart laid heavy in her chest as she slashed at one after the other, blood splashed over her face. The desperate situation they were in, she couldn't afford to hold back. So her blade cut through bone and muscle, feather and skin.
Aunt Dinah unleashed her Cry, sending another soldier flying.
"You okay kid?"
She nodded. Being able to fight side-by-side with her aunt, that was everything. They both turned in concert, their Cries amplifying each other as they blew away more hawks.
Connor fought with his father at his side. Supergirl, Martian Manhunter and Cassie soared above, battling hawks in the sky. The future and past Killer Frosts threw out icicles, while Vibe threw out vibe-blasts, sending hawks into breaches and depositing them straight into hard walls. Oliver and Sara fought in concert. Streaks of purple and red-gold lightning darted along the street, sending aliens flying.
The earth shook, causing the fighting to stop. Everyone watched as a pulse radiated out of one of the large Thanagarian ships.
Thanagarian fighters suddenly plummeted to the ground, crashing in gusts of fire and smoke. Hawks dropped to the ground, clutching their heads, screaming.
Supergirl paused. "The device, its working!"
The Thanagarians watched as their forces dwindled further and further. They dropped their weapons and knelt, utter defeat written on their faces. They had lost hope in their general. Hro Talak surely would have seen through such a ruse by the heroes.
But the hard war waged on this planet was hard on all of them. Many of them just wanted to return home to Thanagar. Why did they have to fight so hard to conquer this planet when they could be in Thanagar, defending their home and families?
Olivia held up her device. A holograph of a girl with bright green hair appeared.
"Liv! The ships! They're crashing! And the hawks, they're surrendering!"
Another holograph appeared, this time with a tall, red-headed woman.
"The hawk warriors are surrendering. We have won this war."
Olivia grinned, tears shining in her eyes. "We have." The visual feed disappeared.
"Olivia!"
She turned to find Connor, his gear burnt on his chest.
"Connor-"
Before she could finish, he reached for her, dipping her low, and kissed her soundly on the mouth. Dawn whistled.
Clutching her to him, Connor straightened. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself."
Olivia gave him a look. "It's about damn time."
Then she kissed him back.
Diggle sidled up to Oliver, keeping an eye on their future children.
"We must have done something right, if those are our kids," he patted his long-time friend on the shoulder.
"I guess so," he murmured. "Though I should probably give Connor the talking to. That is my daughter."
Diggle just shook his head. "If she's with my son, then it should be fine."
Oliver raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, maybe you should give him a talking to."
Much hugging and crying was done as Central City smoldered. Thanagarians marched onto one of the large ships Team Thanagar brought, exhausted and ready to be brought home. The remaining Lizarkon soldiers were only too glad to restrain them to their seats.
A hawk woman guided Lizyeth to the past and future heroes. They tensed, prepared to attack. Lizyeth held up a hand.
"She with me. Hawk spy on our side."
The woman nodded. "Hello. I am Lieutenant Shayera Hol," she winced. "Well, more like just Shayera. I surrendered my military position when I became a spy."
"You know, this is great and all, but where's Hro Talak? He is the general heading the entire invasion."
Shayera sneered. "Probably running for his life, pleading the High Council to save him. Luckily, I was able to send some data to them before Lizyeth detonated the device. He won't be getting help anytime soon."
…..
The great General Hro Talak fled on one of the few fighters left. He didn't care what planet he landed on, as long as he was away from the damned blue planet. He furiously typed in the command to connect to the High Council, while he tended to his wounds.
The High Council appeared on his holograph table, their identities hidden in the shadows of the cloaks they wore.
"High Council, we need reinforcements. The Earth people-"
"We know of the situation, General Talak. One of your lieutenants has informed us. There is some interesting information here."
His stomach twisted. "Who sent you the data?"
"We cannot disclose that, General-"
"Was it Shayera? That bitch is a traitor, allying with the lizard scum!"
"Be that as it may, we as the High Council, have decided to withdraw this initiative of yours. We do not have the resources to waste on a failed invasion."
"All I need is more soldiers and then we'll have the blue planet completely!"
"Desperation does not suit you, General Talak. And another matter. You will come to face the High Council immediately to face your punishment for your crimes."
"Crimes? What crimes?"
"The murder of Lieutenant Katar Hol, for starters. We have already locked onto your ship's coordinates. We have overridden your navigation system. You will come to Thanagar, and face judgement."
Hro Talak punched the table, growling in rage. One day, he would get back at Shayera. One day.
…
2018. Earth-1. Central City.
The past and future heroes gathered in the STAR Labs warehouse, in what would become the HQ of the Justice Society. Champagne was broken out, and food was laid out buffet style on some hastily set tables. Mick had already parked himself in front of the food, taking turns downing some beer and stuffing food into his face. Leo sat with him, leisurely popping grapes into his mouth.
Constantine was busy flirting with the Twins. Dawn was blushing, whereas Don was wide-eyed, like a deer trapped in headlights. Mina, Martie, Cisco and Caitlin were all in the midst of a dance battle, with Barry recording the event, Iris peering over his shoulder. Wally and Ralph clapped their hands to keep the rhythm. Dinah was busy chatting with Sara, while OTA celebrated with some Russian vodka Oliver had somehow produced from his jacket.
Connor and Olivia were chatting with Supergirl and Martian Manhunter. Kara was still getting over looking at her friends' future children. Though she wondered why her future child wasn't here, if she had one. The thought was sobering.
It wasn't hard to believe that Connor was Diggle's son. He was tall and strong just like his dad. But Olivia was slim, and tiny, with a mischievous smile and bright blue eyes framed by black glasses. This was the daughter of Oliver Queen? She wondered how Oliver's grumpiness didn't spread to her.
After much celebration, the future heroes had to head home. There was much to do in 2048. They had to rebuild so much, and find any remaining Thanagarians that meant to do Earth harm.
Dawn and Don hugged their parents.
"Maybe we'll drop by to see you when things are not busy!" Dawn excitedly chattered. Don stood by her side, a hand on his twin's shoulder. He looked to his father. He wasn't sure a visit would be likely. If they prevented the invasion in the past, then the current versions of themselves would no longer exist, once the changes reverberated through the time stream. But he didn't want to say anything. Besides, it wouldn't kill him to think positively for once.
Mina and Martie stood awkwardly across from their future parents. They didn't really get the chance to interact much with this war going on. Cisco tried to break the ice with a couple of his nerdy jokes, but it still remained awkward. Caitlin interrupted and gave the two future heroes hugs. Before they left to make the breach, Caitlin stopped Martie.
"You have my powers right? The ice powers."
"Yes."
"I was wondering if your Frost side manifests as a separate personality, like it does for me."
"Ah," Martie nodded. "For me, no. I'm still me when I'm Frost. Just calmer, a little colder. Though it isn't always like that for you, the split personality."
"What?"
"Oh yeah. Spoilers, sorry. Well, you're supposed to find that out soon anyway so no big deal."
Before she could ask anything more, Martie waved goodbye and disappeared into the breach Mina made. The Tornado Twins followed after.
Hugs were exchanged amongst Team Arrow, future and past. Except Oliver. He only shook Connor's hand. He pulled him close for a moment.
"Treat her well," was all he said. Connor grinned uneasily, the threat clear in his words.
Olivia did not see the interaction. After hugging her mother, she hugged Aunt Dinah. Almost instantly, tears sprung up in her eyes.
"It was really nice to see you again, after so long," she said.
Dinah gave her one of her signature crooked smiles. "I look forward to seeing you again, in the future."
Connor walked past Olivia, giving her a quick peck on the temple before disappearing into the breach.
Olivia faced Oliver last. The two stared at each other.
"Well, it was nice to see your younger self, old man," she joked, though her voice was shaky with unshed tears.
Oliver watched her, his blue eyes bright. Finding out that William was his son was a revelation, and raising him another. But these things didn't happen because he chose it, though he never regretted it. This time, though, he wondered if he was ready to purposely have another child. And seeing Olivia made him think maybe he was.
"I know you're not one for hugs so I'll go-" Olivia said, making to leave. But Oliver caught her into a hug.
"You're my kid, so I guess it's an exception," he murmured into her hair.
She pulled away, giving them a smirk. She walked towards the breach and disappeared with a blue flash of light.
….
A few months later….
Earth-1. Central City. 2018.
Team Flash, Team Arrow and Team Legends converged on the STAR Labs warehouse. Much of the work had already been done, but there were still some finishing touches to be done.
The warehouse's location had been concealed from the media, but the big info-bomb had detonated; this Earth's heroes were forming a team, whenever the world faced an imminent and immediate threat that couldn't be faced alone.
They called it: The Justice Society of America.
Perhaps they were created a time loop by forming the team officially, knowing that they would form it in the future. But the need for a team was clear.
And that came with having a super-bitching HQ, which was how Cisco put it. He was just putting some finishing touches on some of the workstations when he began to wonder. How the future heroes were doing.
He watched as the other members of the newly-minted Justice Society milled about, chatting amicably. So he went to sit down on one of the couches. Taking a deep breath, he focused, and searched for his future daughter's vibe signature.
Familiar blue darkness surrounded him as his mind ventured into the future.
He stood in the periphery as the future heroes all relaxed on couches in the Justice Society HQ. Dawn, Olivia and Cassie had converged on a box of doughnuts, while Martie, Connor and Don were all engaged in an intensive video game battle. Cisco looked to the screen and snorted. They were playing Mario Kart.
The HQ had been cleaned up. One addition though was new. Holographs of their fallen friends were installed, though Cisco quickly looked away. He didn't need to know more about his future than he already did.
Mina carried in a plate of chips and dip, her black curls free. She stopped in her tracks as she spotted Cisco, almost spilling the dip on herself.
Martie immediately picked up on her behaviour, dragging his attention away from the screen. His character drove right off of Rainbow Road with the break in concentration.
"Everything okay?"
She looked briefly to Martie, before looking back to Cisco. She smiled.
"Everything's good."
She walked past him, putting the dip on the table. Don and Connor growled their disapproval as she blocked the screen.
Cisco smiled, pulling himself back into the present.
"Cisco?"
Barry stood in front of him.
"You alright bro? You kind of spaced out."
Cisco stood. He grinned.
"Everything's just fine," he said, patting his friend's shoulder.
"Come on. Everyone wants to celebrate at the table."
The two left the room to go to the mission room.
The symbol of the Justice Society was emblazoned on its surface.
The other members called to them, holding up bottles of beer, champagne and beer.
They grabbed them, holding them aloft.
"Cheers!"
Category:Crossovers