The group dragged themselves to the shore.

Wet and exhausted with minds scrambled by witnessing more of the Multiverse than they were prepared to…

But seeing nobody was bleeding from their eyes as their brains leaked through their ears, Revive could consider it a success of some sort.

Still, the Young Heroes were panicking.

Blame - heavier than stones - was being tossed around, and sentiments long thought to be buried, erupted between friends and foes.

There were violent shoves, usually between Jay and Jacinda but Austin, Ruby, and the others were quickly being strung along.

The end wasn’t hard to surmise…

It was a battle waiting to happen…

It was too human-of-a-sight for Revive – he had seen it a thousand times before… humans tossed into a new situation would quickly cling to old delusions to cope.

A new world with untapped resources yet chieftains would rather fight over the same territory than head their separate ways.

Janna was the only person who seemed averse to violence at such a critical moment… and Revive was silently hoping that Chloe wouldn’t turn to violence at this moment.

That would exacerbate the situation.

‘Thankfully, Chloe is weakened…’ He reasoned but ultimately frowned since The Amazon Princess’s worst was more than Captain America’s best.

And with strength at Captain America’s level, everything was possible.

Thankfully, Revive’s presence held all the chaos at bay but The Speedster knew he wouldn’t be able to act as a buffer for too long.

Thus far, he had tried very hard to cultivate an impression of invincibility in the young heroes’ minds but Revive knew his powers would not protect him from everything.

It was one thing to be faster than everyone else but he could only guard against things that could be noticed… and as luck would have it, not many things in the material universe that came for a Speedster tended to be noticeable.

Past, Future, and Present could feel at a particular moment in time and when it came to a Speedster, it was already happening.

Revive had long learned to consider himself a dead man walking… it was just a matter of when Time would allow him to drop dead.

The Speedster scanned the shore with his eyes…

‘I need to convince Barry…’ Revive noted that Tectonic was the secret leader of the group.

As someone who had come close to death in such a profound way – felt more than Vera because he had twin daughters – Barry was in no hurry to engage in conflict.

Revive accurately judged that the group would turn to Barry for any final confirmations but before that, they would turn to Ruby to make sure she was okay with it.

Ruby and Barry balanced each other.

Still, Ruby was a bit too cynical for Revive’s tastes and Barry seemed like the only person who had the smallest inkling of what was happening.

‘Kids who panic when they lose their power…’ The Speedster internally snorted, referring to Jay and the others, though he wasn’t in a much better position.

There was spluttering as water was expelled from the lungs… soon, it became apparent that one person had it more difficult than the others.

Alyssa was broken… arms twisted, legs twisted, and blood flowing from between her lips.

Everyone reacted in a hurry, but none more hurried than Chloe.

“Hold her down!” Revive ordered.

Alyssa couldn’t make it… at least, she wouldn’t have been able to without a Speedster around.

Even then, the number of Speedsters who could use The Speed Force for Speed Healing could be counted on one hand… and that was considering the entire multiverse.

Vera and Chloe hurriedly grabbed Alyssa’s broken body, trying to straighten as much as they could, securing The Manager to the ground.

They almost released Alyssa when a scream that seemed the very definition of excruciating pain ripped from between her bloodied lips.

It was one thing to help a friend but it was another thing to help a friend while causing them infinitely more pain.

Though, the pain would be brief.

“Shshsh…” Revive hushed Alyssa, placing a finger against her lips.

There was a gentleness in his gaze – something Alyssa could see even without her eyes open.

As a Speedster who constantly ran through the universe, Revive had countless hours of practice managing the fear of others and he had long since discovered that humans were simple beings.

All they needed was a single, pure emotion…

Whether calmness, happiness, anger, repulsion, or even hate…

The Speedster’s eyes flickered from one end of the shore to the next, noting the terrified and mentally unstable grimaces amongst the young heroes – he was trying to find who would break first.

Left in such a vulnerable state in such a dynamic situation, The Speedster knew it was best to kill whoever would give signs of turning to the enemy first.

Sadly, killing anyone would turn the others against The Speedster.

Revive had been listening to Chloe since the moment they met in this universe and as cynical as she was, the way she spoke about her former friends told The Speedster that a bond persisted to this day.

‘I wouldn’t want to fight my wife…’

Revive focused his mind, pressed a palm arching with green lightning onto Alyssa’s chest, and channeled what little Speed Force he had managed to recover into her body.

A sizzle…

The smell of cooking flesh…

It was burning her but also healing her… her collapsed lung, her fractured ribs… her broken arms and legs…

Everything was being mended.

Then, Alyssa stilled for a moment – her breathing ceased.

“Stop!” Chloe shoved Revive away, sheer panic overwhelming her sensibilities. “You are killing her.”

Nobody wanted to point out the obvious fact that Alyssa was already dying to an enraged Utopian Daughter… and Chloe wasn’t exactly stable on her best days, much less after crossing multiple dimensions.

Revive flickered with lightning, stepping into a frozen world, and an instant later, he pinned Chloe to the ground.

Unlike the other heroes, there was no need to be gentle with someone so strong, and The Speedster even judged that Chloe loosened her muscles on instinct to avoid harming him.

“You are no good to anyone high!” He shouted, spittle flying in the face of his wife as their heads hovered a couple of inches apart. “You need to take the time to get the drugs out of your system!”

Chloe gritted her teeth, trying to break free from The Speedster’s restraint but with her strength halved and the psychological barrier in her mind, she could not free herself – she didn’t want to free herself!

“REVIVE!”

“Listen to me, woman!” The Speedster growled, using all his strength just to keep Chloe half-heartedly pinned to the ground. “Do you know where we are?” He paused and flickered to Alyssa’s side, continuing the treatment as he announced to all of them. “Do any of you understand where we are?”

From Vera to Kaitlyn…

From Ruby to Janna and Austin…

From Jay to Jacinda, Gabriella, and Jack…

Barry and Chloe…

They all wore confused expressions, glanced around, and then a sort of semi-realization dawned on their faces.

It was troubling to see them so unaware of their circumstances… as if one expected to travel through the multiverse and end up exactly where they began…

“Chloe, look around… the orange skies, the smoke in the distance and you can see further, that means you can see the buildings that have completely collapsed,” The Speedster’s eyes met his wife’s, solemnity radiating from the orange lightning jumping in his pupils. “If you could fly, you could go take a look and tell me what you see – though, that may mean you won’t ever come back… and then I’d have no reason to stick with your friends.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a couple of seconds – the threat echoed between them.

Chloe was not naïve, she understood – Revive was blatantly stating that he was only here because of her and should she act too out of hand, he would lose all reason to help her friends.

‘We need him. He is the only one with Multi-Dimensional experience…’ The Amazon Princess concluded.

The Utopian had educated her about the perils of traveling between alternate dimensions but somehow, Chloe knew they had come further than her father has ever been.

The education would not mean much here…

Her eyes briefly flickered to the subtle bend in Revive’s arms – a break she had caused by overreacting.

It was best not to overreact again.

Chloe felt a bit of the guilt leave her when she noticed the injury was in the process of healing… what was once a break had become a misalignment.

It was by the grace of Revive’s abilities that he could recover from any injury that didn’t cause instant death.

The Amazon Princess relented – her eyes took in the scenery and her mind was slowly brought back to one of the many stories her father told her as a child.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

The stories about the war…

The carnage…

The Speed Force being pumped into Alyssa’s body, accelerated her systems by a factor of a thousand so she healed a thousand times faster.

In the end, due to the severity of her injuries, it took five minutes for her body to figure out how to treat wounds that should have killed her and another five minutes to perform the healing.

The Speedster got paler and paler while Alyssa gradually recovered her color.

Healing with The Speed Force – like all things in life – didn’t come without a cost.

Then, Alyssa’s eyes opened.

UGH

She groaned, touching her body from head to toe, pausing in surprise when she realized that the pain was no longer there.

Limbs were straight… the blood on her lips had caked.

It was as if a decade had passed in five minutes but it left her untouched, only allowing the idea of her body to progress and grow wiser.

“Wha-wha—”

“Alyssa,” Chloe swooped Alyssa into her arms and spun her friend in a twirl that almost broke her body anew. “Fuck, I thought you were dead…”

Alyssa was disoriented. “I w…wa-s…” She slurred, clutching at her head, pushing Chloe away as a clear signal to give her some processing time.

They parted… Revive slumped to the ground.

A second later, Chloe was at his side with a hand on his back… she had moved on instinct but it felt vaguely unnatural as if she hadn’t been the one to do it.

After ensuring The Speedster would not suddenly pass away, Chloe and Alyssa drifted to one side, trapped in a discussion of the mythical world of heroes.

…

Revive refocused on the larger decisions.

“Where the fuck are we?” Austin questioned, twirling to cause a swirl of winds that carried away the surrounding wetness, dust, and grime. “And how long will the weakness last?”

“A couple of hours at best and a couple of days at worst,” Barry replied, demonstrating some knowledge on the matter of Dimensional Travel.

Revive quirked a brow.

Tectonic shrugged. “I have been to other dimensions with The Utopian before…” He stated, helping Gabriella and Jacinda to their feet. “Though, it was always small places… nowhere as large as this.”

“Fuck where we are!” Jacinda growled, tightening her arms around Gabriella. “If any of you guys try to touch Gabby again, I’ll kill you…”

Jay tensed, his fists flickering with flames – he was always ready for a fight.

Luckily, Kaitlyn was immune to the chaos that was Jay… and more than anyone else, she knew how to subdue it when it got out of hand.

“Easy boy…” Kaitlyn grabbed Jay by the fist, causing the flames accumulating to whiz out.

“We need to get Gabriella's help!” Jacinda roared.

Her level of panic told Revive that the criminal would be the first to break.

‘Convenient…’ He thought. ‘A warning death wouldn’t hurt and Gabriella is already dying.’

“Jace, it’s okay…” Gabriella fell to her knees, coughing up a lung full of black blood. “It hurts so much…” She groaned.

“But it has slowed down,” Ruby observed, being the only person who didn’t immediately take a step back when Gabriella puked abyss all over the ground.

Revive – putting the finishing touches on Alyssa’s health - flickered to Gabriella’s side and grabbed her by the neck, raising her head and tilting it backward so her eyes could reflect the sunlight above.

The darkness in her eyes was stagnant.

A hint of white and blue remained in the desperate black.

“Well, there may be a chance for you yet,” The Speedster acknowledged, counting the number of ways this could be used to his advantage. “But it depends on how much pain you can bear…”

“What do you mean?” Jack questioned, latching onto a chance no matter how small.

There would be no way to win with so many heroes around but as long as Revive gave them a way out, it could be used to leverage the heroes to do their jobs of saving everyone.

“We are in the universe of the thing that cursed her,” Revive revealed, carefully setting Gabriella on her feet and running his fingers along her darkened jawline. “And that can be advantageous since the thing that did this to her would never expect us to come for it.”

“But just in case,” He added as an afterthought.

The Speedster took a brief moment to examine everything around – their prints in the sand, the disturbance in the lake’s water, and the smoking trail through the skies.

“Austin, clear our traces from the skies,” He ordered, authority dripping from his tone. “Kaitlyn, erase our traces from the ground and the lake.”

“Barry,” Revive voiced. “After Kaitlyn is done and we have moved on, you need to create a sinkhole beneath this ground. Send the upper layer of the soil to the bottom and vice versa.”

“And why should we listen to you?” Kaitlyn questioned, planning to disagree just for disagreeing sake.

“Just do as he says,” Barry recommended.

Everyone took it as an order.

The cleaning started in earnest…

“His powers work fine,” Jay noted, burning away what traces he could. “He could be setting us up.”

Everyone ignored Jay’s statement, not willing to entertain the thought or perhaps, simply afraid to entertain the thought.

“Skip to the part about a chance?” Jacinda insisted, walking alongside Revive as he cleaned the nearby prints. “You’re saying there is a way to save Gabby?”

Jacinda was not foolish – the safest place to be was at the side of the man who knew how to save Gabriella, though it could also be considered equal parts risky.

Revive shrugged. “If you want to save your girlfriends, you have to kill whatever is going to kill her first…” The Speedster summarized, not caring to explain the matter for the true complication it was.

“You’re erasing our tracks,” Vera voiced, a question in the statement. “Should we be getting out of here?”

“With haste…” Chloe replied.

“Why?”

“Because we are either going to go looking for it,” Revive gestured to Gabriella and her darkening skin, causing everyone to take another step back. “—whatever did that to her is going to come looking for us… I like my chances as the hunter instead of the hunted.”

“What are the chances it leaves us alone and everyone lives their lives happily?” Barry groaned, rubbing the back of his head as a new headache developed. “Or we can give it to Gabriella and avoid a fight altogether?”

“Not very likely…” Revive wore a crooked smile, eyes flashing with a lesson he had learned the hard way. “… you should never make a deal with a god… or angels,” He voiced.

His reply startled everyone because they had come to know that The Speedster meant everything he said… literally.

“Aren’t angels the good guys?” Janna voiced.

The thought lingered on everyone’s mind… it was not relevant to anything but their curiosity.

“Too much of anything is bad,” Revive whispered, eyes turning sharp. “—even if what is in abundance is good. Evil exists because some people just deserve to die… and angels would prevent you from doing that.”

Further tasks were assigned and everybody was working with a precision that made it seem as if they had been a team for decades.

Revive was impressed.

It took a couple of minutes for them to clear the area of all traces and another couple of minutes for everyone to adjust to the right frame of mind.

“Okay, time to find out where we are…” The Speedster explained, gesturing to the mountaintop a couple of miles away. “And I have an inkling that we won’t like it…”

“This way…” Barry started to walk.

He could sense the easiest way path to take – it was a part of his abilities so Revive didn’t raise an argument.

There was no way The Speedster would have a better sense of direction than a hero who could feel the earth’s intentions.

They marched through sparse shrubbery, then thick shrubbery for half an hour.

The mountainous areas were the hardest to climb.

Revive flickered from one end of deep mountainous crevices to the next but he wasn’t the only person with an unfair advantage.

Vera teleported from edge to edge – the only reason she wasn’t already at the top of the mountain was because she was afraid to drift too far from the group.

Janna found her way by utilizing the movement technique The Speedster had taught her the night before – allowing the earth to move through her instead of the other way around.

Austin rode the wind in bursts…

Everyone used their methods so what should have been a two-hour long journey became less than an hour.

“Anything we should avoid?” Ruby lightly questioned, floating above the ground with red constructs of light. “The better prepared we are, the better off all of us are…”

“Never flinch when you see someone die gruesomely,” Revive immediately blurted, almost as if he was afraid they wouldn’t take the lesson to heart. “The moment you flinch, you expose us… in a ruthless multiverse, you can’t always make good decisions, understand?”

“Anything else?” Barry voiced on cue, secretly gesturing to Jay and Jack – a hothead and a cold-head.

“Remember that you will always lose in a battle of decisiveness…” The Speedster voiced after thinking for a couple of seconds. “I advise you to lose early and run… you guys are experts and avoiding damage to your nearby environment so channel those talents into running away…”

Everyone groaned… Chloe especially.

“I wish I wasn’t sober enough that all of this is beginning to make sense,” She complained, slowing her steps to fall to the back of the group. “I tend to stay away from conflict so I should be walking in the back…”

“You can’t…” Ruby intervened, floating in Chloe’s path with an expression of semi-disgust and semi-pleading. “That would put all of us at risk.”

“Why?” Chloe frowned, feeling threatened so her muscles tensed.

“Because you’re our big gun,” Ruby explained, running her fingers through her hair exhaustively. “And your husband makes it sound as if fighting and killing isn’t a choice right now.”

“It isn’t…” Revive shrugged, but mentally added. ‘Killing is always a choice and I would welcome it if I didn’t think you guys would hesitate at the last moment and get yourselves killed instead.’

“My husband?” Chloe scoffed and shrugged, shooting Ruby a side glance. “At this point, he’s mine, yours, and apparently, Janna’s as well…” She mocked. “And you have experienced him before I did…”

“I am sorry… it was one—” Janna hurried to explain, misreading the atmosphere as she started to count her fingers. “It was about twenty times in one night so we can count it as one… I think… the sex wasn’t even that great…”

The break in Ghost Beam’s voice at the end told everyone she was lying.

A barely noticeable blush that crept onto Ruby’s cheeks told the young heroes of the degree to which Janna was lying.

‘It was that amazing?’ Their minds realized in unison.

Chloe directed a deadpan expression at her childhood best friend. “Please,” She mocked. “Tell me again how my husband fucked two of my childhood friends simultaneously?”

“It was great,” Janna shrunk into herself as the whisper left her lips. “He did Ruby more than he did me—” she tried to negate the blow but true to Ghost Beam’s character, her mouth could say nothing but the truth. “—but he did me harder than he did Ruby… and— and— we tried some anal…”

The last bit was weak enough to fade away with the wind but Jay, Austin, and Jack still spluttered.

Even Jacinda and Vera couldn’t help but whistle with impressed expressions.

Everyone gathered had advanced hearing talents.

“Let’s just skip that conversation and consider something a bit more important,” Jacinda announced, gathering everyone’s attention. “We are here because Hutch and Nick are here… then this happened to Gabriella as a result so if you are heroes then this is a rescue mission!”

Everyone slowly nodded.

“Then we need a plan,” Ruby voiced, though what she truly meant to say was something along the lines of ‘everyone pretends to plan something and fails to come up with anything good so we can get out of here as soon as possible…’

“We don’t need a plan…” Barry interrupted, brushing through the last of the tree line and quickly hiking to the rocky peak a couple of meters away. “—what we need to prepare for is war…”

Whatever was beyond the mountainous peak made Barry solemnity increase by a thousand percent. The others darted forward, catching up to Tectonic in a second - there, they saw it.

A world devastated…

The skies became blotches of black and grey.

In the distance, there was an entire city shrouded in dust with massive skyscrapers leaning against each other as if old men and women preparing to topple over into death.

And those were the buildings that didn’t collapse.

Large sections of the city were on fire… and even larger parts were black with feet-thick soot, telling everyone the fires had been burning for quite some time… possibly years, if not more.

Helicopters with Nazi Symbols engraved into the metal darted across the skies, occasionally letting loose electronic cannons on similarly flying demonic monstrosities.

Revive was cheering for the monsters but the others were still shell-shocked, processing the scene presented before them.

Unnatural skies covered the horizon, made thicker by the grey smoke drifting from the large fires.

Chloe, out of everyone, winced because she could hear the screams of slaughter echoing across the city.

Revive turned to regard his wife, instantly knowing he had made a grave mistake by underestimating her heroic heart.

Civilian life hadn’t even crossed his mind because it had been decades since The Speedster felt the need to care about anyone but Chloe.

“Chloe…” The Speedster warned. “Do no—”

“They… they – they are being slaughtered,” The Amazon Princess’ teeth ground so hard it was audible to everyone present. “God! There are children in the building – they are killing them! The buildings are collapsing… the screams are extending underground.”

“You don’t understa—”

The Speedster didn’t even get a chance to complete his pleading… in a blur of movement, the ground shook and cracked and Chloe was a hundred meters away – on the very edge of the mountain.

Then, with a great leap that forced the nearby winds away, The Amazon Princess shot up and into the clouds, disappearing from sight.

A couple of seconds later, Chloe exited the clouds with a whistle as she crashed into the city a dozen miles away.

She could not yet fly in her weakened state, though her leap was enough to take her into the thick of the city’s flames.

“What’s happening?” Janna innocently questioned, watching Chloe disappear behind a leaning skyscraper.

Barry closed his eyes, turning his head away from the city – he knew something the others did not and The Speedster was not surprised.

The Speedster was happy that at least one person in the group would consider their actions before getting everyone else killed.

Sure, people were being slaughtered by Nazis in the cities but in a world filled with Nazis, it was foolish to garner the attention of the homicidal soldiers.

After all, they killed anything that looked different – what was more different than spandex-wearing Young Heroes from another universe?

‘And Nazis don’t take over a planet without strength…’ Revive internally voiced and frowned slightly to contain an internal grimace of epic proportions. ‘No matter the universe, Nazis always had trump cards that would ensure at the very least, mutual destruction…’

“People are dying down there, right?” Ruby voiced, reading between the lines of Chloe’s vague words. “And now we have a runaway Utopian Daughter who is going to expose us…”

“And what consequences could that have?” Jacinda inquired, a calculating glint in her eyes. “We were looking for his God/Demon that cursed Gabriella. Will we meet them here? If we stir up trouble, will we attract his attention faster?”

She was considering striking out on her own… the only thing holding her back was the need for Revive’s help to cure Gabriella.

“We have to go get her,” Barry ordered, using his authority as a Union Member to rouse the others toward a favorable decision. “And we better pray we can get her and get out before we get the attention of something bad…”

“Too late…” The Speedster muttered.

There was a whistle through the skies, a flash of red from the horizon, and next… a loud boom echoed throughout the ruined city below.

Chloe had gotten the attention of something powerful and a couple of seconds later, buildings collapsed, the ground shook, and screams of terror echoed.

A brawl between unnaturally powerful Beings had commenced.