Day 8

They all regrouped in the time ship the next day, which was promptly named "Waverider" by Sara to get past any reference problems. Nobody argued when she took the pilot's chair and turned to address them, face grim.

"As we don't know what we're dealing with, we have to be prepared for anything," she said. "Whatever rivalries, whatever hatred, whatever reservations we have with each other cannot interfere, not anymore. We have two goals: restore the multiverse and defeat the Anti-Monitor, and everyone needs to be prepared to do whatever it takes."

"Whatever it takes," Kate promised.

"We owe it to everyone we lost," Barry said. "And to Oliver."

And with that, the Waverider lifted off and took to the dawn of time.

Breaths were held for the jump into the timestream, and Sara faced the rippling green tunnel with wariness. Nothing seemed off - until the faintest white slice of light cut across the stream before vanishing.

"Anti-matter," Thawne muttered.

"That's not very much," Barry countered. "Certainly not enough to stop us."

"It will get worse," Thawne promised, and the calmness in his voice was the worse part.

Gideon's voice echoed throughout the bridge. "Setting a course for the dawn of time."

At first, everything went fine. The anti-matter clumps were few and far between, looming ominously and nothing more. As if only there to stop them from settling into comfort.

Until Ryan broke the burgeoning conversations with, "It's increasing."

Thawne nodded confirmation, eyes fixed straight ahead. "The closer we get to the dawn of time, the more anti-matter will be present in the time stream. The Anti-Monitor's presence is the catalyst, but whether it will be enough to stop the ship, I don't know."

As if to respond to his statement, the ship gave the barest shudder.

"What was that?" Kate asked warily.

Gideon's voice bore absolutely no panic. "It appears anti-matter is striking the ship."

Again, a thin line of anti-matter streaked towards them, only to dissolve into the aether. The longer they traveled, the more often they struck the ship, and each shudder grew more prevalent every time.

"Sara," Thawne warned. "We need to consider turning back before the ship is damaged."

"Can we make it?" Ryan asked.

Sara, Barry, and Thawne spoke at once, asking: "Gideon?" - before glaring at each other.

"Calculations inconclusive."

"Whatever it takes," Sara repeated, and picked up speed.

The walls of the time stream faded from green to white, consumed by anti-matter, and each attack on the ship grew in strength. Sara found herself dodging them entirely, swinging the ship around.

"Gideon, shields?"

"The ship's shields are useless against anti-matter."

"'Course they are," Sara muttered,

A major blast struck the ship, shaking the bridge around them. The lights flickered on and off, and a red light appeared on the navigation console. Sara was too busy navigating the Waverider around another tendril of light to acknowledge it, and two more red lights appeared when the ship was hit again.

The entire ship shook with the force of a blast, sparks flying and the walls rumbling. The rest of them could do nothing but clench the harnesses that kept them in place as the Waverider surged sideways, the unsteady hum of the engines escalating into a roar.

"There's a pattern to the anti-matter strikes!" Lex yelled over the ruckus.

"I can't-"

"Left!" Ryan screamed.

The ship flew out of control, spinning in dizzying circles. Barry phased through his harness and took over as pilot, using his enhanced reflexes to avoid the anti-matter and stabilize the Waverider. The ship, though, had already been damaged. It was too slow to respond as another blast hit, and he was flung sideways by the impact.

Barry saw with fading vision as a final anti-matter strike tore through the viewing port, splitting the Waverider in half.

. . .

Someone was saying his name.

Barry opened his eyes to find himself still in the ship, albeit with a splitting headache. Sitting up in a daze, he found the ship just as it was when he'd passed out. Anti-matter was splitting the bridge in half, unmoving and dead in the air.

Sara's look of panic was still frozen on her face, the glass shards from the broken window hadn't yet hit the ground, and the Waverider had grown as silent as death.

Thawne stepped back to let him stand up.

"Flashtime," Barry breathed.

Thawne nodded, surveying the bridge with an alarming resignation. "Anti-matter is tearing the ship apart. It's already too late."

"Well, how do we get rid of it?" Barry asked, looking at him expectantly.

Thawne shook his head, turning away. "I don't know."

"What?" Barry exclaimed. "What you mean, you don't know? What are we going to do?"

Silence.

Barry turned to the white anti-matter particles. A huge lightning-like bolt had shattered the glass of the viewing port and sliced right through both Sara's seat and Gideon's drive.

She had been moved to the last empty seat, but anti-matter hovered dangerously close to Lex and Kara. The instant they left flashtime, the entire ship would be broken into pieces and they would all be consumed by anti-matter. As the last ones left, their deaths would truly be the end of all worlds.

"I can't go back in time," Thawne said. "The negative speed force is too far gone-I can barely stay in flashtime as it is. You have to try to travel back and stop this. It's the only option."

Barry nodded. He took off, running circles around the empty corridors, picking up speed with every lap. But he could feel the speed force falter as he ran. Soon, it gave out completely, and he had to grab the last of its energy to keep himself in flashtime.

He promptly crashed into a wall.

He tried again. And again. And again.

"Barry, you can't."

"No," Barry said, stepping back as he shook his head. "No, there has to be a way." He tried again, and barely made it back to the bridge before crashing.

"There's nothing!" Thawne snapped. "There's no time traveling, there's no fixing this! There's nothing we can do to affect anti-matter in any way, never mind get rid of it!"

"The entire multiverse dies the moment we leave flashtime!" Barry yelled. His strength gave out, and he slumped against the wall, sitting down to lean his head in his hands.

"I know," Thawne whispered. "I know. I'm trying to find a solution. But anti-matter dissolves everything it touches. There's nothing that can affect it - speedsters can't even phase through it without dissolving like everything else. Even with all the worlds' resources, there's nothing I can make that could get rid of anti-matter."

Something occurred to Barry. He stood up and walked to the Waverider's viewing port, careful to avoid the glass and anti-matter as he peered into the time stream beyond. "We're in between timelines. If we manage to fall through the walls of the time stream, we'll land in the past and buy ourselves some time."

Thawne stopped beside him. "It's too late. Anti-matter is surrounding it. That might have been a viable option when we first entered the time stream-"

"-when it was still green-" Barry surmised.

"-but not anymore."

"Can we fix the jump ship to travel back? To evacuate everyone to the Vanishing Point?"

"It's a possibility."

They found it torn apart by anti-matter.

Consulting everyone returned nothing. Even Lex was stumped, only circling through useless options before slumping into exhaustion.

An hour later, and there was still nothing.

"What are we missing?" Barry muttered to himself from where he sat against the wall, trying to conserve energy.

"Nothing," Thawne told him. "I've taken stock of everything on the ship. "There's nothing."

"There's a solution somewhere. You always had an answer for everything."

Thawne was back to studying holograms, shifting through information tirelessly, searching for an option. "Not anymore."

"Don't say that. I might start panicking."

He didn't look up. "Really? And I thought you'd get used to facing the end of the world."

"I always had options, then. Things I didn't want to resort to, like time traveling. Now, I'd do anything for that chance."

Thawne scoffed. "Sorry for doubting your "anything". You and your friends always went to such ridiculous lengths to avoid doing anything that could be seen as immoral."

"I'd kill you without a second thought if it meant saving the multiverse."

"That's new."

"Desperate times."

The silence stretched on again, a ticking clock of a reminder that they were running out of time.

. . .

Growing more exhausted by the minute, Barry eventually asked, "What are you doing?"

Thawne was still analyzing the speed force symbols, but Barry didn't know what he was expecting to accomplish.

"I'm reading the timeline-or at least what I can pick up of it."

"And?"

"The gaps are throwing me off, so I'm writing an algorithm that should predict the missing symbols and fill in the gaps. If that works, then I can find out exactly what course of action we take."

"And if there's none?"

"Then the multiverse dies."

"So we hope there's a way out."

Thawne sighed, pausing for the first time that hour. "Barry, I won't finish the algorithm in time."

Barry looked up sharply. "What? Then why are you writing it?"

There was alarming distress in Thawne's voice when he sat down. "Because there's no other option. I don't know what else to do."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Not if you can't read speed force symbols. But you can drop out of flashtime, conserve your energy. I'll bring you back if I run out of time."

"You want me to drop out of flashtime?" Barry asked incredulously. "What, so I can't stop you if you decide to let the world end?"

"Do you really think I want the multiverse to die?" Thawne demanded. "I have people I need to save too, and I don't even know that I can anymore. You being here is wasting energy-only one of us needs to stay in flashtime for the ship to remain intact."

Barry sighed, puzzling it over. "Eobard, you're asking me to trust you with the fate of the entire multiverse."

"I know. But I fail, you'll still have one more chance."

The silence stretched, deafening in the silence of the Waverider. Barry stared at a piece of floating glass as he tried to muster the courage to slip out of flashtime, knowing there was a good chance he'd wake up alone or not at all.

But in the end, he knew what the smarter option was and let go of his speed.

. . .

He woke up to silence.

Thawne had fallen against the wall beside him, barely conscious. "I didn't..."-he took a shuddering breath-"I didn't succeed. You have to-"

He didn't finish before stumbling to the floor. Barry kept a hold of his arm, knowing he was the only one keeping Eobard in flashtime. "Have to what?" he demanded, but it was too late.

Barry found himself standing in the silence of the Waverider, accompanied only by the white glow of the lightning-strike of anti-matter ready to end the world the moment he faltered.

Haunted by a ticking clock and with no idea what to do, Barry could only stumble blindly around the Waverider. Already exhaustion was weighing him down, and the speed force had grown silent.

He had no choice but to attempt to travel through time again, running in agonizing circles all too aware that he was using up too much of the multiverse's time.

Faster, faster, faster.

There's wasn't enough speed force left. Barry could only run with his naive hope that a solution would present itself. That he would have a chance to save the world, floating in the pale light of the time stream.

Nothing.

He collapsed in the bridge, strength and vision fading as his speed force wavered. He held on to his energy, held on to the multiverse until his eyes closed and he started drifting off.

No.

Words echoed around his head, fragments of memories surfacing in his wavering consciousness. His mother's death, STAR Labs exploding, running for the first time. Phasing, time-traveling, seeing Earth 2, Flashpoint...of fearing his own death, predetermined by that article that had shaped so much of his life.

He hadn't died. He hadn't died because another Earth's Flash had stolen his speed and sacrificed himself.

He stole my speed...

Barry's eyes snapped open.

It took all of his effort to sit up, and even more so to stand. Somehow, he managed to get to Eobard, who was still passed out from exhaustion.

Thawne might have been unconscious, but his speed force was not.

In the same way that Earth 90's Flash had stolen his powers, Barry stole Thawne's. Some instinct led him to overpower the negative speed force, to tame it until it was his to command. Lightning flickered around him, burning the edge of his fingertips in a rush of energy that left him breathless and dizzy.

When he stood up and ran, the lightning that flickered around him glowed both yellow and red.

He circled the ship, picking up speed with every lap. Some part of him waited for his powers to falter, but they did not. Not even when he broke the space-time barrier and the hallways of the Waverider faded to the familiar blue of the time stream.

He'd barely run at all before coming upon a barrier of anti-matter. Just in time, he threw himself clear and crashed into the floor of the bridge of five minutes ago.

Eight stares of varying surprise greeted him as he picked himself up. His voice was equally distorted by speed and panic when he yelled, "We have to turn back!"

"Barry?" Sara asked incredulously, half-turned from the pilot's seat.

A small bolt of anti-matter struck the ship, leaving nothing more than a shudder of the ship around them.

"We don't make it!" His powers were slipping. If he didn't get back to his own time, he'd be stuck in the past. "Don't continue on! We don't make it!"

The rest was a blur: running back to his own time, passing out, the Waverider shaking as Sara yelled.

Then nothing.

. . .

Sara had yanked the controls sideways and turned them around, back towards the Vanishing Point. "Someone get Barry off the floor."

Kara lifted her harness to pick him up from where he had passed out, sitting him back in his seat. His head tilted sideways, and he did not wake up.

The anti-matter wouldn't let them go easily. Its strikes weakened over time, but not before the power had flickered out and fuel tank split. They watched the gauge with wary eyes, and Gideon was finally presented with a question she could answer: "Do we have enough fuel reserves to make it back to the Vanishing Point?"

"Not likely. Judging by the leak we will fall short."

"Shut off all non-critical systems." She turned to them grimly. "We have to conserve fuel."

"Nobody's going to talk about what just happened?" Ryan breathed. "There were two Flashes!"

"Later," Thawne said, hands clenched. "We're still not going to make it, are we?"

Sara spoke through gritted teeth, fully focused on piloting the damaged ship. "I don't know."

As it turned out, they came so close.

The ship's engines were flickering out, shaking the ship around them. "We aren't going to make it!" Ryan yelled.

"We have to-" Sara's voice was drowned out by the groan of metal. "-blow the cargo bay door!"

"She's right! The pressure change will give us the momentum we need!"

"None of us can withstand the pressure!" Lex argued.

"I can," Kara said, leaping out of her seat. "Talk me through it over comms."

"Wait!-" Sara's protest came too late.

Kara ran down the steps and into the cargo bay, quickly sealing the door and locking herself in.

Sara was still arguing. "You may have super strength, but the lack of oxygen will kill you!"

"I'll hold my breath," Kara said, determined. "Who else, but me? If we wait too long, the ship will slow down and we'll lose our momentum."

"Kara, don't!"

She pulled the lever.

The door was ripped open by the escaping air, sucking everything out. Kara held on to the wall for her life as the ship lurched forward, dragged backward by the force alone.

Against her will, she took a breath and found no oxygen left for her to breathe. Her fingers slipped as her vision dimmed, and she fell to the floor before blacking out.

Back on the bridge, they were monitoring the air pressure. It had equalized before Kara could be sucked out, but she was still unconscious without oxygen. "We're almost there," Sara muttered. "Come on, Kara!"

No movement from her.

None of them could go in there without facing oxygen deprivation as well, and the airlock was too slow to compensate. They couldn't help her.

Lex's seat was empty.

Just as the Waverider broke free of the time stream and spiraled towards the Vanishing Point, Lex came back sporting his green and purple armor and carrying Kara with him.

"Suit's got an oxygen supply," he reasoned.

"Where did you even-"

"I held the Book of Destiny. Do you really think I'd leave myself defenseless?"

"We're not clear yet," Sara warned as the ship started descending. Without fuel, the Waverider was dead in the air and falling fast. The Vanishing Point's gravity, however unstable, was pulling their ship down at increasingly deadly speeds.

It would have been an unsatisfactory end, for them to die dashed to pieces in a crash landing. Sara braced for impact and found herself standing on solid ground, back at the base they'd made their headquarters as her ship streaked down from the sky.

She turned around in confusion to find all seven of them standing behind her, in similar states of confusion as they watched the Waverider plummet from the safety of the ground of the Vanishing Point.

"You're welcome," Thawne said as the ship exploded behind him.

. . .

They dumped Barry in their salvaged med-bay and went to explore the wreck. Thawne brought them up to speed on what had been erased when Barry traveled back in time, and the story didn't do anything to lift their spirits.

The Waverider had been reduced to a pile of scrap metal. Not even the time drive was intact, and Sara doubted that any of them would've survived had Thawne not gotten them out.

"I suppose I now get to say, "I told you so."

Sara didn't argue as she used her foot to push aside a broken harness.

Ryan, concerned as always, was the first to ask, "What are we going to do?"

Silence greeted his words.

"We can't try again," Thawne said. "The time stream was our only option."

"Could we build something to protect the ship from anti-matter?" Kara asked. "A shield, so that we can make it to the dawn of time?"

"No," Lex said flatly. "Nothing in this place exists that can resist anti-matter."

"Because all matter, regardless of how it's manipulated, will be erased upon contact," Thawne continued. "The speed force has stabilized to some degree, but time travel is still limited for speedsters."

"So there's no way to get to the dawn of time? There's nothing to be done?" Kate asked.

Thawne was the first to shake his head and walk away, leaving them to stand among the ruins of their attempted escape. "Nothing."

It was a sobering thought to hold on to.

End of Day 8