Rocky Raymond//Book Three\\ COMPLETED

Chapter 2- Paradox

MacKenzie's POV

"We finally get rid of Zoom, and there's another evil Speedster?" Joe asks.

Caitlin runs an x-ray on my arms with a tablet in the cortex as the others talk. I sit on the desk with my legs dangling over the side with her sitting right in front of me. 

"Who is this guy, now?" Wally asks.

"I can help you with that." Caitlin says, putting the tablet she was using down and going over to the computer. "I finally got the results back from the test I ran on the husk that Barry gave me this morning. And it's weird, because there's no traces of dark matter, but there are traces of the Speed Force."

"And that's the husk from this Speedster?" Joe asks.

"Appears so. His name is..." Caitlin says.

"Edward Clariss." Barry says.

"And somehow Barry is exactly right." Caitlin says.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" Iris asks Barry.

"Yeah." Barry says and the two of them go into the hallway.

Caitlin comes back to where I'm sitting on the desk and touches my hand and I wince.

Caitlin turns the tablet around towards me that she used for the x-ray.

"56 hairline fractures all the way up your arms." Caitlin says.

"But why?" I ask.

Caitlin shrugs as an answer and touches my fingers and I wince again as she moves them slightly. I try to bend my fingers like she instructs me, but I'm unable to.

"Ow." I say.

"Sorry." Caitlin says as she moves my fingers some more.

Iris walks back in and Barry doesn't for a few minutes.

"Where's Barry?" Joe asks.

Barry speeds in and sees my arms, looking...kinda nervous... and then walking to the middle of the cortex.

"I need to tell you all something." Barry says. "The truth."

"The truth about what?" Iris asks.

"Okay, um... after Zoom killed my dad, after we defeated him, um... I wasn't in a great space, and I felt like the only way I could fix that was to run back in time and save my mom." Barry says.

"You stopped the Reverse-Flash from killing your mom?" Caitlin asks.

"Yeah." Barry says.

"Wait, so, is she alive?" Wally asks.

"She was. For a few months. I lived with her and my dad." Barry says. "I had a completely different life. I wasn't even The Flash for most of it."

"I don't understand. You created a whole other existence. How is that possible?" Wally asks.

"Okay, um..." Barry says, thinking and then he walks over to the whiteboard. "I'll do the... this is the timeline. This is the point that we exist on it right now. This past point is where my mom was murdered. So when I saved her, I created a new reality. A new timeline. I was living in..."

"A mirror universe." Cisco says.

"It's called a Flashpoint, apparently." Barry says.

"But you decided to leave it. Why?" Iris asks.

"That life started to spin out of control." Barry says. "This guy, Clariss, he was a Speedster there, too. He was known as the Rival. He caused a lot of problems. So, um... I decided to run back in time again and let things happen as they were supposed to, in hopes of... resetting the timeline, but..."