Superflash - Hope and Lost Love

Chapter 33 - The Speed Force

Felicity was trying to take out the various pieces if shrapnel from Barry's armour that was quickly flowing towards his heart.

If it reaches his heart, the teeny tiny chance she has of saving him will be gone.

As Felicity was talking Ray through destroying the shrapnel with his ATOM suit, a bit of lightning cackled on Barry's fingers.

Ray got the last of the shrapnel out, so he exited Barry's bloodstream, when a lightning thunderstorm enveloped Barry.

Felicity screamed at the fact that lightning was dancing all over Barry's body even though his heart wasn't beating.

Kara, Oliver, and Clarkran into the med-bay, and saw the lightnig storm fade away, taking Barry with it.

"What the hell?" Kara muttered.

"Contact Jay Garrick. He has an understanding of the speed-force, almost as much as Barry. He might kniw what the hell happened." Oliver said.

"Jay Garrick?" Clark prompted.

"Zoom let him out a few moths after Barry began his training with the league. He joined or team for a while." Oliver explained. Clark knew who Zoom was, Barry had explained to him and Lois after they cornered him and forced him into telling them about his past.

When Jay Garrick arrived, he explained his thoughts.

"I have two theories. The first theory is that the speed-force, the source of all speedster's powers, is healing him. That makes sense, because he was in a fatal condition and the speed-force is the ideal place for recovery. It can't bring people back from the dead, but it can save people from dying. My other theory, let's all hope this isn't true, is that he died, and the speed-force is taking him to some sort of afterlife." Jay said.

"Rao's light?" Kara asked.

"What's that?" Jay asked.

"Kind of like heaven." Kara explained.

"Well nobody knows. That's the problem, we can only guess." Jay said.

"Oh. So Barry is either healing, or in heaven?" Kara said, speaking everyone's thoughts.

"Heaven or h..." Jay began, as he was cut off by Kara and everyone else in the room glaring at him.

"Barry is going to go to heaven." Kara said.

"Ok. I think this wasn't supposed to happen." Jay said.

"Of course this wasn't supposed to happen!" Clark shouted.

"No, not like that. I'm sensing disturbances in the speed-force. I think it is related to this." Jay said, motioning towards Barry.

"What do you mean disturbances?" Kara asked.

"About an hour before you called, I felt my powers go haywire. Then Barry disappears into the speed-force, something the speed-force doesn't normally do. It doesn't mess with the fabric of reality." Jay said.

"Wait a minute. How do we know he is in the speed-force?" Oliver asked.

"I can feel it. I don't know what it is exactly, but he is in the speed-force right now." Jay said.

"Let's hope he's healing and not..." Kara's voice trailed off.

"How did he die?" Jay asked.

"He just had to be the hero." Clark sighed. "The explosion had negative somethings, and Barry's speed vanished. Then I saw Barry flying around in a suit of armour like he was Iron Man helping deal with the residual damage of the explosion. We then saw him on the ground in a pool of blood. Apparently his suit ran out of power." Clark explained.

"Negative tachyons?" Jay questioned.

"Yeah. You know what they are?" Clark asked.

"They are bad. This was planned by someone who knew a speedster's weakness." Jay said.

---------------

"Hello Barry." The speed-force said as Barry got up in his childhood bed.

"Speed-force?" Barry asked.

"Yes. Like last time, we thought you would be more comfortable in a place you are familiar with. Talking to someone familiar." The speed-force said. It currently took the form of his mom.

"Why am I here?" Barry asked, looking at his hands. There were no scars on them anymore. No marks and bruises inflicted by the league of assassins.

"You were here to heal, but now we need to talk." The speed-force said.

"How are things back home?" Barry asked.

"Home?" The speed-force asked.

"Yes. Home." Barry said.

"What do you refer to when you say home? This house?" The speed-force said, looking around at Barry's childhood home.

"Or this one?" The speed-force asked, changing Barry's surroundings to the West household.

"Or could it be this one?" The speed-force asked, showing Barry Clark and Lois' house.

"Maybe this one?" The speed-force asked, bringing Barry to his current house on Earth 38.

"I-I don't know." Barry said.

"How can you be a hero, a beacon, when you don't even have a reason to live? A place to call home?

"I'm not a hero. People look up to Kara and Clark. Not me. Not anymore, at least." Barry said.

"When you were dying, you accepted death for a few seconds. Why?" The speed-force asked.

"I didn't accept death." Barry denied.

"Don't deny it. Why did you do it?" The speed-force asked.

"Because the people close to me die." Barry said.

"Iris West." The speed-force said.

"She is an example of how the people close to me die." Barry said.

"Is that so? There are many alternate futures we calculate in which you are not given these powers. Iris is shot to death in four different scenarios. Run over by a car in another. Killed by..." The speed-force said, interrupted by Barry.

"Okay! I get it. But people die all the time, speedsters die all the time, why would you save me? This counts as messing with time." Barry said.

"It is actually restoring the timeline. You weren't supposed to die. A great threat is imminent, but you are not to die yet. You are to live the life of a hero, but you mustn't die now. There is a long way to go before you die." The speed-force said.

"When do I die?" Barry asked.

"You will know." The speed-force replied cryptically.

"So what should I do?" Barry asked.

"Understand your feelings." The speed force replied.

"I know, but how?" Barry asked. Truthfully, he had not thought about himself ever since he left Earth-1.

"We will help." The speed-force said, as Barry found himself running with yellow lightning trailing behind him in his original flash suit.